Schoeman v Department of Attorney General and Justice [2011] NSWADT 308

Administrative Decisions Tribunal New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Schoeman v Department of Attorney General and Justice [2011] NSWADT 308 Hearing dates: On the papers Decision date: 23 December 2011 Jurisdiction: General Division Before: Judicial Member N Isenberg Decision: The respondent to pay the applicant's costs as agreed, or in default of agreement, as assessed. Catchwords: costs Legislation Cited: Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 Category: Costs Parties: Fiona Schoeman (Applicant) Department of Attorney General and Justice (Respondent) Representation: Norton Rose (Applicant) Crown Solicitor (Respondent) File Number(s): 113021

reasons for decision

Background 1On 1 November 2010 the applicant alleged an application under the (repealed) Freedom of Information 1989 . She requested access to: 1) full and complete report by Graham Evans dated approx. May 2008: and 2) the two (2) documents above were provided by Graham Evans, Director, Corporate HR Solutions, level 8 34 Hunter Street Sydney New South Wales 2000 regarding an investigation he conducted during December 2007 to May 2008 on a NSW Attorney General's Department corruption matter involving Brendan Thomas and Rosa Massara. 2A determination was made under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (GIPA Act) and the applicant was provided with the entire document with material claimed to exempt deleted. 3Dissatisfied with this response, the applicant sought review by this Tribunal. In response, the respondent, in its submissions of 11 July 2011, wrote that it proposed to release the body of the document without any reductions ('the full report'). There were however a number of missing attachments to the full report. 4The matter came before me for Planning Meetings, preparatory to listing the matter for hearing. In July 2011 the parties informed me that the matter had been settled other than as to costs and, after some delay, 'short minutes of order' dated 21 October 2011 were filed. 5When it was foreshadowed at the Planning Meetings that the matter had been settled I encouraged the parties to give further consideration to the costs issue and adjourned so that they could make submissions as to costs in the event that no agreement could be reached. It is apparent that the parties have, regrettably, preferred to adopt that cumbersome and expensive course rather than negotiate further on the limited issue of costs. 6Therefore the only issue to be decided is as to costs.