Office of the Leader of the Opposition and Treasury Department (310145)

Application number:
310145
Decision date:
Wednesday, Jul 07, 2010

Office of the Leader of the Opposition and Treasury Department
(310145, 7 July 2010)

 

Section 40, Schedule 3, section 2(1)(a) Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld)

 

The applicant sought access to all draft versions of a flyer in relation to the Queensland assets sale produced by the Treasury Department (Department) and material used to produce it.  The Department decided to refuse to deal with the application pursuant to section 40 of the Right to Information Act 2009 (Qld) (RTI Act), on the basis that all of the documents to which the application relates are comprised of exempt information being documents brought into existence for the consideration of Cabinet under schedule 3, section 2(1)(a) of the RTI Act.  This decision was affirmed by the Department on internal review and the applicant subsequently sought external review of the Internal Review Decision by the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC).

 

In reviewing the Internal Review Decision the Information Commissioner identified that the Department would only be entitled to refuse to deal with the application under section 40 of the RTI Act, if the documents sought by the applicant are part of a class of documents which were brought into existence for the consideration of Cabinet under schedule 3, section 2(1)(a) of the RTI Act and no exceptions apply.  To determine this, a copy of the relevant Cabinet Budget Review committee (CBRC) submission was obtained and considered.  The Department submitted that the flyer sought by the applicant was part of an advertising campaign which, due to its cost required endorsement by the CBRC in accordance with the Queensland Government Advertising Guidelines produced by the Department of Premier.  The Information Commissioner agreed from reading the CBRC decision that the flyer was part of a campaign that required CBRC approval from its inception.

 

In response to the applicant’s submissions and for the purposes of determining whether the information in issue was brought into existence for the consideration of Cabinet, the Information Commissioner confirmed the following:

 

·          schedule 3, section 2 of the RTI Act does not require a document to be created for the sole or core purpose of needing Cabinet consideration – therefore whilst the flyer and other material were created to inform the public, they were also created for consideration by Cabinet

·          because the estimated costing of the advertising campaign was realised prior to the production of the flyer, the Department was bound from that point to obtain Cabinet approval

·          any draft documents, whilst not being attachments to the CBRC submission were also brought into existence for the consideration of Cabinet in accordance with the requirements of the Advertising Guidelines and Cabinet Handbook and are exempt information under schedule 3, section 2(3)(g) of the RTI Act

·          no exceptions to the application of schedule 3, section 2(1)(a) of the RTI Act apply.

 

In affirming the decision under review, the Information Commissioner decided that the Department was entitled to refuse to deal with the application pursuant to section 40 of the RTI Act on the basis that the information in issue was brought into existence for the consideration of Cabinet under schedule 3, section 2(1)(a) of the RTI Act.