Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009

The obligation of an agency to provide access to government information in response to an access application is limited to information held by the agency when the application is received.

An agency must undertake such reasonable searches as may be necessary to find any of the government information applied for that was held by the agency when the application was received. The agency’s searches must be conducted using the most efficient means reasonably available to the agency.

The obligation of an agency to undertake reasonable searches extends to searches using any resources reasonably available to the agency including resources that facilitate the retrieval of information stored electronically.

An agency is not required to search for information in records held by the agency in an electronic backup system unless a record containing the information has been lost to the agency as a result of having been destroyed, transferred, or otherwise dealt with, in contravention of the State Records Act 1998 or contrary to the agency’s established record management procedures.

An agency is not required to undertake any search for information that would require an unreasonable and substantial diversion of the agency’s resources.