Right to Information No.: RTI202324-049

Right to Information Reference: RTI202324-049

Date of Decision:          20 October 2023

Information Requested

An application made pursuant to the Right to Information Act 2009 (‘the Act’), received the Department of Health (“the public authority”) on 27 July 2023 and accepted on 27 July 2023.

The applicant, pursuant to s15(4)(a) of the Act, agreed to grant an extension on the application for assessed disclosure.

The information requested:

Within the last 12 months, any ministerial advice or minute provided to the Minister for Health in relation to unpaid placements for midwives in their first year of training.

Application Fee

The prescribed application fee was waived in accordance with:

…

s16(2)(b) (the applicant is a Member of Parliament acting in connection with his or her official duty).

Decision 

My decision is to disclose 18 pages of information in full.

Statement of Reasons

Section 27 Internal Briefing Information of a Minister

Section 27 provides:

Internal briefing information of a Minister

(1) Information is exempt information if it consists of –

(a) an opinion, advice or a recommendation prepared by an officer of a public authority or a Minister; or

(b) a record of consultations or deliberations between officers of public authorities and Ministers –

in the course of, or for the purpose of, providing a Minister with a briefing in connection with the official business of a public authority, a Minister or the Government and in connection with the Minister's parliamentary duty.

(2) Subsection (1) ceases to apply after the end of the period of 10 years commencing on the date of the creation of the information referred to in that subsection.

(3) Subsection (1) does not include information solely because it –

(a) was submitted to a Minister for the purposes of a briefing; or

(b) is proposed to be submitted to a Minister for the purposes of a briefing –

if the information was not brought into existence for submission to a Minister for the purposes of a briefing.

(4) Subsection (1) does not include purely factual information unless its disclosure would reveal the nature or content of the opinion, advice, recommendation, consultation or deliberations of the briefing.

(5) Nothing in this section prevents a Minister from voluntarily disclosing information that is otherwise exempt information.

This section provides that information that is internal briefing information of a Minister in connection with official business or parliamentary duties, for instance opinions, advice or recommendations prepared for Ministers or consultations or deliberations between Officers and Ministers is exempt information for the first 10 years of its existence. It does not include purely factual information unless disclosure would disclose opinions, advice, recommendations, consultations or deliberations of a Minister that has not been officially published, nor does it stop a Minister from voluntarily disclosing information that is otherwise exempt information.

I am satisfied the briefings provide an opinion, advice and recommendations prepared by an officer of a public authority, being the public authority. The requirements of s27(l)(a) are met.

I am also satisfied that this information has been prepared in the course of, or for the purpose of, providing the Minister for Health with a briefing in connection with the official business of the public authority and the Minister, and is also in connection with the Minister's parliamentary duty. This information meets the requirements of s27(l). 

I am satisfied that as the remaining information is not more than 10 years old the requirements of s27(2) are not met. In terms of s27(3), I am satisfied that the information was brought into existence for submission to a Minister for the purposes of a briefing to that Minister and hence the requirements of s27(3) are not met. Thus, neither provision prevents s27(1) from applying here.

Section 27(4) provides purely factual information is not exempt under s27(1). As to the meaning of purely factual information, I refer to Re Waterford and the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia (No 1),[1] where the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) observed that the word purely has the sense of simply or merely and that the material must be factual in fairly unambiguous terms.

Further, for purely factual information not to be exempt, it must be capable of standing alone as such. The material must not be so closely linked or intertwined with the deliberative process so as to form part of it.[2] This means that even though a documents contents may be in part factual, this intertwining may lead to the document as a whole being covered by the ministerial briefing exemption.

In terms of s27(4) I note the briefings contain factual information, but I consider it is inextricably linked to the other information, such that its disclosure would reveal the nature or content of the opinion, advice or recommendations.

It is for these reasons I find the information to be exempt.

Public Interest

Section 27 is not subject to the s33 public interest test.

Schedule of Documents 

RIF          Released in Full

PE           Partially Exempt

FE           Fully Exempt

OOS       Out of Scope