Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009

An agency must provide advice and assistance to a person who requests or proposes to request access to government information, for the purpose of assisting the person to access, or seek access to, information that is or may be made publicly available.

An agency must provide the following specific advice and assistance to a person who requests access to government information—

advice as to whether or not the information is publicly available from the agency and (if it is) how the information can be accessed,

advice on how to make an access application for the information if the information is not publicly available from the agency but appears likely to be held by the agency,

if the information appears unlikely to be held by the agency but appears likely to relate to the functions of some other agency, the contact details of the other agency,

the contact details of the Information Commissioner and advice on the availability of and how to access any information published by the Information Commissioner that it appears may be relevant to the person’s request.

An agency is only required to provide advice and assistance under this section that it would be reasonable to expect the agency to provide.