Price and Gatton Shire Council

Price and Gatton Shire Council
(2001 L0044, 30 June 2003) 

The respondent directed its staff to research a number of matters about which the applicant had lodged a complaint.  The applicant then applied for access under the FOI Act to all documents located by the respondent as a result of that research.  The respondent gave the applicant access to a number of documents relating to the matters complained of, but the applicant contended that there must be further documents, known to the respondent's Chief Executive Officer, which the applicant described as "dirt" files containing information improperly obtained and adverse to the applicant.  (Similar claims by the applicant in a previous review involving the respondent had not been substantiated.) 

AC Barker found that there were no reasonable grounds for believing that the applicant had not been provided with all documents which had been located by the respondent's officers in the course of their research into the applicant's complaints, and that the searches and inquiries conducted by the respondent to locate any additional documents responsive to the terms of the applicant's FOI access application had been reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.