Freedom of information

The Freedom of Information Act 1982(Opens in a new tab/window) (the FOI Act) gives members of the public a right to access copies of documents, other than exempt documents, that we hold.

You can ask to see any document that we hold. The National Health Funding Body can refuse access to some or part of those documents that have an exemption under the FOI Act.

Exempt documents can include information relating to:

• national security documents containing material obtained in confidence
• material that is commercial-in-confidence or
• other matters as set out in the FOI Act.
   

How to make a request

Your request must:

• be in writing
• state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
• provide sufficient information about the document(s) to allow us to process your request and
• provide an address for reply.

You can send your request:

By Post - 

The FOI Officer
National Health Funding Body
PO Box 1252, 
Canberra ACT 2601

By Email - 

nhfb.enquiries@nhfb.gov.au

If you wish to use a third party to make a request on your behalf, you need to provide written authority to allow us to send copies of documents to you, care of that person, or to allow that person to inspect copies of documents containing information about you.

If access is granted to the documents under the FOI Act, you will be provided with either a copy of the document(s) or the opportunity to inspect them at our Canberra office.

Fees and charges

There are no processing charges for requests to access documents containing only personal information about you. However, processing charges may apply to other requests.

A charge may be imposed to reimburse the NHFB for the cost incurred in copying or reproducing the information sought or for sending the documentation to you. There will be no charge for the time spent by the NHFB in processing your FOI request. You will be notified if any charge is payable before the information is provided.

You can ask for the charge to be waived or reduced for reasons such as financial hardship, or on the grounds of public interest. If you do so, you should explain your reasons and you may need to provide some evidence.

What you can expect from us

We will advise you within 14 days that we have received your request, and if charges are to be applied to your request, and the estimated cost of these charges.  We will give you our decision within 30 days unless that time is extended. If a document contains information about a third party, or your request covers documents which concerns relation between the Commonwealth, States and territories our decision time may be extended. We may seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex.

Unless the information is personal or is about the commercial, financial or professional affairs of a person and publication would be ‘unreasonable’, any information provided to you in response to your request will be listed in the disclosure log and published on our website.

Your right to appeal our decision

When we have made a decision about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.

You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed:

• If we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access;
• If we impose a charge; or
• If we refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

A third party, who disagrees with our decision to give you documents containing information about them, can also ask for our decision about that information to be reviewed.

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified if you are an affected third party). The Australian Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Australian Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. 

More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner(Opens in a new tab/window) website.

Information Publication Scheme (IPS)

Australian Government agencies which are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 1988(Opens in a new tab/window) (FOI Act) are required to publish a range of information on their websites as part of an IPS. This includes:

• organisational structure
• functions including decision making 
• statutory appointments
• annual reports
• details of policy consultation arrangements
• contact details of FOI officers 
• information routinely released from FOI requests – Disclosure Log 
• information that the agency routinely provides to Parliament 
• the agency's operational information 

The IPS is intended to form the basis for a more open and transparent culture across government with agencies encouraged to take a proactive approach to publishing the information they hold, and to consider what they should be publishing over and above what they are obliged to publish. 

A copy of our Agency Plan is available for download here:

This plan outlines the processes we follow and the steps involved in managing our information and making it available online.

Feedback about our IPS Agency Plan is welcome.  Please contact the FOI Officer at nhfb.enquiries@nhfb.gov.au

Search our Publications here.

Access to NHFB publications such as the Portfolio Budget Statements, Annual Reports and Corporate Plans are also available through the Australian Government Transparency Portal(Opens in a new tab/window).

Freedom of Information Disclosure Log

The NHFB’s Disclosure Log is a list of documents disclosed in response to Freedom of Information requests. The NHFB is required to publish a list of documents obtained under Freedom of Information within 10 working days of the applicant receiving the documents.

There are certain exceptions for publishing documents. These are:

• personal information or information about the business, commercial, financial or professional affairs of any person if publication would be unreasonable;
• information determined by the Australian Information Commissioner not to be disclosed; or
• information that cannot reasonably practicably be published because of required deletions to the document.

The NHFBs Disclosure Log details the names and descriptions of documents that NHFB or the Administrator has released under the Freedom of Information Act 1988(Opens in a new tab/window).

If you wish to obtain copies of documents listed in the NHFB Disclosure Log, please email: nhfb.enquiries@nhfb.gov.au