Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to schedule 2, part 4, division 1, which amends section 15AD(1) of the act, it introduces subjective criteria like intimidation or harm for rejecting FOI requests. The Australian Lawyers Alliance warns this undermines procedural fairness. My question to the minister is this: how does the government plan to ensure procedural fairness when agencies can now reject requests based on subjective criteria like intimidation or harm or, even worse, those that 'are likely' to have that effect? In what circumstances and how would it be determined that an application was an abuse of process? Attorney, this opens the door to abuse and arbitrary decision-making. I urge the Attorney to clarify and constrain these powers.

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