Freedom of Information Applications
Last Updated: 28 February 2006
This page provides information about applications made by EFA under Federal and State Freedom of Information ("FOI") Acts for various documents. More detail concerning each application and the outcome is available on the separate pages about each application.
- FOI Request to Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, December 2005
- The purpose of this FOI application was to obtain copies of the written submissions that were made to the Attorney-General's Fair Use Review of copyright law. Within weeks of EFA's application being lodged, the Department decided to publish the submissions on-line.
- FOI Request to OFLC and ABA, April 2003
- The purpose of this FOI application was to obtain a copy of an agreement between the OFLC and ABA regarding "protocols" for making information about Internet content classification decisions available in the OFLC's online database, which the agencies had been claiming existed for over two years. In response to the FOI applications, the OFLC and the ABA advised that no such document exists. They also advised that the OFLC will be "seeking to clarify" the OFLC Director's evidence of November 2002 to a Senate Estimates Committee on this matter.
- FOI Request on OFLC, February 2002
- This FOI application successfully sought information about Internet content submitted by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) to the Office of Film and Literature Classification that was classified PG, M or MA15+, and why the ABA spends taxpayer funds on classification of PG content, given the supposedly wide boundary between PG content and content that is prohibited online under the law the ABA administers.
- FOI Request on ABA, February 2000
- The purpose of this request was to obtain details of sites that have been subject of a complaint to the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) under the Broadcasting Services Act amendments which came into force on 1st January 2000.
- FOI Request on Queensland Dept of Equity and Fair Trading (includes Qld censorship office), September 1999
- The purpose of this FOI application was to obtain information about the basis for Queensland Government censorship policy regarding publications, following a media release issued by the Queensland Censorship Minister in September 1999.
- The Walsh Report, 1997-99
- This application sought to obtain a copy of the Walsh Report, a review of cryptography policy that was suppressed by the Australian government. A censored version was eventually obtained, and the censored material eventually came to light in amusing circumstances.
