Section 53A — Freedom of Information Act 1982: What is an access refusal decision?

An access refusal decision is any of the following decisions: (a) a decision refusing to give access to a document in accordance with a request; (b) a decision giving access to a document but not giving, in accordance with the request, access to all documents to which the request relates; (c) a decision purporting to give, in accordance with a request, access to all documents to which the request relates, but not actually giving that access; (d) a decision to defer the provision of access to a document (other than a document covered by paragraph 21(1)(d) (Parliament should be informed of contents)); (e) a decision under section 29 relating to imposition of a charge or the amount of a charge; (f) a decision to give access to a document to a qualified person under subsection 47F(5); (g) a decision refusing to amend a record of personal information in accordance with an application made under section 48; (h) a decision refusing to annotate a record of personal information in accordance with an application made under section 48. Note: If a decision is not made on a request under section 15 within the time required by that section, a decision is taken to have been made to refuse to give access to a document in accordance with the request (see section 15AC).