Right to Information Act 2009

This section applies if—

a person purports to make an access application for a document to an agency or

the application does not comply with all relevant application requirements.

The agency or Minister must make reasonable efforts to contact the person within 15 business days after the purported application is received and inform the person how the application does not comply with a relevant application requirement.

An agency or Minister must not refuse to deal with an access application because it does not comply with all relevant application requirements without first giving the applicant a reasonable opportunity to consult with a view to making any changes or doing any other thing necessary to make the application in a form complying with all relevant application requirements.

The applicant is taken to have made an access application under this Act if and when the application is made in a form complying with all relevant application requirements.

Subsection (4) does not limit section 32.

If, after giving the opportunity mentioned in subsection (3) and any consultation, an agency or Minister decides the application does not comply with all relevant application requirements, the agency or Minister must, within 10 business days after making the decision, give the applicant prescribed written notice of the decision.

The agency or Minister must provide advice and help, to the extent it would be reasonable to expect the agency or Minister to do so, to help the applicant to make an access application in a form complying with all relevant application requirements.

In this section—