Freedom of Information in the ACT: How to Request Government Records

In the Australian Capital Territory, the Freedom of Information Act 2016 gives every person an enforceable right to government information, with no application fee, no internal review step and a 30-working-day decision deadline.

The ACT is one of nine separate freedom of information regimes across Australia, alongside the Commonwealth and every other state and territory, covered in our Australia Freedom of Information hub. This page covers how the Freedom of Information Act 2016 works in the ACT: who it reaches, how to apply, current fees, deadlines and what to do if you are refused.

The Act and Who It Covers

The current law is the Freedom of Information Act 2016 (A2016-55). Section 6 sets out the Act's objects: providing a right of access unless disclosure would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest, recognising public access as important to representative democracy, increasing government accountability, and ensuring personal information the Territory holds is accurate, complete, up to date and not misleading. Section 7(1) states the operative right directly: "every person has an enforceable right to obtain access under this Act to government information," and section 7(2) extends this to information that predates the Act.

Section 9 goes further than most equivalent provisions elsewhere in Australia: "It is the intention of the Legislative Assembly that this Act be administered with a pro-disclosure bias and discretions given under it be exercised as far as possible in favour of disclosing government information." That framing sits in the statute itself, not just in commissioner guidance.

Section 15 defines "agency" broadly: an administrative unit, a statutory office-holder and their staff, a territory authority, a territory instrumentality, a territory-owned corporation, the Office of the Legislative Assembly, an officer of the Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Magistrates Court, the Coroner's Court, ACAT, a board of inquiry, a judicial commission and a royal commission. Courts and the Assembly's own office are formally agencies, but the exemption structure below does the real gatekeeping around parliamentary privilege and judicial functions.

Three specific matters are carved out to other Acts rather than being exemptions within FOI itself: the donor register under the Assisted Reproductive Technology Act 2024 (section 11A); health records, which run under the separate Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997 (section 12); and Territory Records Act 2002 material already accessible under that Act's own Part 3, along with "accessible executive records" (section 13). These are alternative access tracks, not exclusions from disclosure altogether.

Informal Release

Section 8 lets an agency release government information to a person in response to an informal request, subject only to any other law prohibiting disclosure. The Act does not stage informal release, open-access publication and formal applications into a numbered sequence the way some other jurisdictions do; Part 4 covers the mandatory open-access category, Part 5 covers the formal application, and section 8's informal release sits on its own in Part 2. In practice, the same three broad options exist: open-access information already published, an informal request, and a formal application.

How to Make an Access Application

Section 30 sets out what an application needs, and it is a leaner checklist than in some other jurisdictions: there is no fee requirement and no requirement that the application be in writing. An application must:

• go to the agency or Minister responsible for the information;
• include enough detail for the agency or Minister to identify the government information sought; and
• include an email or postal address for notices.

If the application is for personal information about the applicant, evidence of identity is required, along with evidence of authorisation if an agent is acting on the applicant's behalf. An applicant may also include a statement of their views on the public interest in disclosure. If an application does not meet these requirements, section 31 requires the agency to give the applicant reasonable time, at least 3 months, to fix it before the agency can decline to deal with it further. Under section 32, the agency must give written notice of the day it received the application and the date a decision is due, within 10 working days of receipt.

Fees and Charges

The ACT's fee model is structurally different from jurisdictions that charge by the hour. There is no application fee anywhere in section 30's checklist, and section 104(2)(b) explicitly prohibits a fee that varies by the time spent searching, retrieving or deciding an application, which rules out an hourly processing charge under this Act entirely. This is confirmed independently by the current subordinate instrument, the Freedom of Information (Fees) Determination 2018 (DI2018-197), whose fee schedule contains no application or lodgement fee line at all.

Section 107 requires a fee waiver where the information was previously public but no longer is, where there is a special public benefit, where the applicant holds a concession card with a material connection to the information, for a not-for-profit organisation's own activities, and for an MLA. Section 106 lets an agency give a written fee estimate before proceeding and pause the application until the applicant confirms.

How Long a Decision Takes

The decision deadline is 30 working days from receipt (section 40(1)). This is a genuinely different figure from the 20 working days that governs the personal-information amendment decision and the Ombudsman and ACAT review-application windows elsewhere in the same Act, so the two are easy to conflate.

Section 40(2) extends the 30-day clock, without the fixed cap some other jurisdictions apply, for: third-party consultation (15 working days), time the applicant takes to respond to a clarification request, a further consultation period under section 46, time the applicant takes to confirm or vary after a fee estimate, time the agency takes to decide a fee-waiver application, and any Christmas shutdown days between 27 and 31 December. Section 41 allows a further extension by agreement, up to a total of 12 months with the applicant's consent (actual or deemed after 7 working days of non-objection), or up to 24 months if the agency is dealing with the application progressively; the agency cannot ask for more time if it would push the total past 24 months.

If a decision is not made in time, section 39 treats that as a deemed refusal. Any fee is refunded, and the agency must give the Ombudsman written notice that the deadline was missed. Section 39(4) adds an accountability step not found in most other Australian FOI regimes: that missed-deadline notice must be tabled in the Legislative Assembly within 6 sitting days after the matter, including any review, is finally resolved, unless the Ombudsman granted an extension or the application was personal-information-only.

What You Cannot Get

Section 16 defines information as "contrary to the public interest" if it is listed in Schedule 1, where no balancing is required, or if disclosure would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest under the section 17 test. Schedule 1's 16 clauses include contempt of court, the Assembly or a tribunal, and breach of parliamentary privilege (clause 1.1); a court or tribunal's own information, unless it is administrative in nature (clause 1.1A, the Act's judicial-function carve-out); integrity commission matters (clause 1.1B); legal professional privilege (clause 1.2); Cabinet information (clause 1.6); and national, Territory or state security and law enforcement information (clauses 1.13 and 1.14).

Section 16(2)-(3) carves back part of that conclusive list: Schedule 1 information, other than integrity-commission or legal-professional-privilege material specifically, is not treated as contrary to the public interest if disclosing it would reveal corruption, an offence by a public official, or that a law-enforcement investigation exceeded its legal limits.

The section 17 public interest test itself weighs factors favouring disclosure against factors favouring nondisclosure and defaults to disclosure unless, on balance, it would be contrary to the public interest. Section 17(2) lists factors an agency must never weigh: government embarrassment or loss of confidence, risk of misinterpretation, the seniority of the document's author, risk of "confusion or unnecessary debate," inhibiting frank public-service advice, or, with narrow exceptions, the applicant's own identity or motive.

If You Are Refused: The Review Ladder

The ACT has no internal agency review step at all. A refused applicant goes directly to the Ombudsman, and only an Ombudsman decision can then be taken further, to ACAT.

The Ombudsman must decide within 30 working days after any informal resolution attempt concludes, or from receipt if no such attempt was made, with a further 30 working days available if that is not enough (section 82(3)). An FOI review before ACAT is constituted by 3 members, including at least one presidential member, a heavier panel than a routine ACAT matter. ACAT can also direct an agency to conduct further searches if it appears not everything within scope was identified.

Correcting Your Own Information

Unlike jurisdictions where this right sits in a separate privacy law, the ACT builds record correction directly into the FOI Act, in Part 6. Under section 59, a person with access to government information containing their own personal information that is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading may request an amendment in writing, stating the claimed defect and the amendment sought. Section 61 requires the agency to amend the record if that threshold is actually met, not merely to consider amending it, and the agency must give the person a chance to respond before refusing. The agency has 20 working days to decide (section 62), and must notify the outcome and give reasons for any refusal (section 63). No fee applies to an amendment request.

Proactive Disclosure

Part 4 sets out a longer, more itemised open-access category than in some other jurisdictions, including an agency's disclosure log, its advisory boards and committees and their reports, and ministerial briefs at least 5 years old. For a Minister specifically, it includes the disclosure log, travel and hospitality expenses, and a copy of the Minister's diary of Territory-related meetings from 1 January 2018 onward.

The disclosure log requirement in section 28 goes further than some equivalents elsewhere: it must include details for every access application the agency deals with, not only ones the agency judges of interest to the public, including the information released, fees paid or waived, time spent, and any Ombudsman or ACAT outcome, added within 3 to 10 working days of the decision notice. Personal-information applications and applicant business-affairs information are excluded where publication would be unreasonable. Section 29 also lets an agency publish a standing undertaking to make certain categories of information available, becoming open-access information once undertaken.

What This Act Is Not For

The FOI Act is a general information-access law, not the route to every kind of government record. A court's own information is contrary to the public interest to disclose unless it is administrative in nature, so use Court Records in the ACT for an actual court file, not an FOI application. Health records held by the Territory run under the separate Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997, not this Act; see Medical Records in the ACT for that process. A land title search runs through the Territory's own land title register, not FOI; see Property Records in the ACT. And a police check for employment or other screening purposes goes through the channel described in Background Checks in Australia, not an FOI request. FOI and the Territory's privacy framework also overlap for personal information generally; see Australia Data Privacy Laws for the wider picture.