Horton -v- Great Southern Energy [2001] NSWADT 111

CITATION: Horton -v- Great Southern Energy [2001] NSWADT 111 DIVISION: General Division APPLICANT PARTIES: Derek Horton RESPONDENT Great Southern Energy FILE NUMBER: 003367; 003372 HEARING DATES: 09/04/2001 SUBMISSIONS CLOSED: 04/09/2001 DATE OF DECISION: 06/29/2001

BEFORE: O'Connor K - DCJ (President) APPLICATION: access to documents - right of review - Freedom of Information Act - access to documents - right of review MATTER FOR DECISION: Principal matter LEGISLATION CITED : Freedom of Information Act 1989 CASES CITED: APPLICANT REPRESENTATION: In person RESPONDENT V Sharma, barrister ORDERS: 1. Decision under review affirmed.

1 This application for review arises from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the applicant to the respondent agency. The applicant contends that the documents supplied to him by the agency in response to his request were not true copies of the documents to which the request related. The rights of 'access applicants' to seek review of determinations by agencies are set in Div 2 of Part 5 (ss 52B-58) of the Freedom of Information Act 1989 (the FOI Act).

2 There is no provision dealing with the kind of objection made by the applicant in this case. Placed within the framework of the FOI Act, what the applicant is alleging, as I see it, is that the agency's determination was illusory. The real position as he sees it is that there was no proper response. So the situation, on his view, is one where there has been no effective response to the request, giving rise to a deemed refusal (s 24(2) FOI Act).