Some information may be available to you without an FOI request.

For example, documents containing your personal information or documents already publicly available.  

For this reason, we encourage you to speak to the Reef Authority’s FOI Contact Officer on (07) 4750 0700 about the information you are seeking before making an FOI request to us.

We also encourage you to check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme and FOI Disclosure Log to see if what you are seeking is already available.

Your request must:

• be in writing
• state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
• provide information about the document(s) you wish to access so that we can process your request
• provide an address for reply

You can send your request:

By post: FOI Contact Officer
c/- Legal Services
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
PO Box 1379, Townsville, QLD, 4810

By email: foi@gbrmpa.gov.au

Proof of authority required for a third party to act

If you are making an FOI request on behalf of another person, you need to provide a specific written authority from that person to send copies of documents to you or allow you to inspect copies of documents containing information about the other person. 

If you require assistance with your request, please contact the FOI Contact Officer by email.

There is no application fee for an FOI request. There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents containing only personal information about you.

Processing charges may apply to other requests.

• The most common charges are: 
• Search and retrieval (time we spend searching for or retrieving a document): $15.00 per hour 
• Decision making: time we spend in deciding to grant or refuse a request, including examining documents, consulting with other parties, and making deletions: $20.00 per hour
• Photocopying: $0.10c per page 
• Transcript: preparing a transcript from a sound recording, shorthand or similar medium - $4.40 per page per transcript
• Inspection: supervision by an agency officer of your inspection of documents of hearing or viewing an audio or visual recording at our premises: $6.25 per half hour (or part thereof)
• Delivery: posting or delivering a copy of a document at your request: cost of postage or delivery

If the request incurs a charge, we will send you a written estimate of the estimated cost.

Where the estimated charge is between $20.00 and $100.00, we may ask you to pay a deposit of $20.00, or where the estimated charge exceeds $100.00, we may ask you to pay a 25 percent deposit before we process your request.

You may request the charge to be waived or reduced. If you do make such a request, you should provide an explanation of your reasons.

You may be requested to provide evidence based on your explanation.

• What you can expect from us:

• you will be notified within 14 days of receipt of your request

• you will be provided with an estimate of the charges that will apply

• our decision will be given within 30 days unless that time has been extended. If a document contains information about a third party, we will need to consult them and this may result in an extension of the time to give you our decision by another 30 days

• we may also seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex

If you disagree with our decision

When a decision has been made about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision, your review and appeal rights.

• You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed:
• if we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access
• if we impose a charge
• if we refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

If a third party disagrees with our decision to give you documents that contains information about them, the third party can also ask for our decision to be reviewed.

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review.

An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency.

We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified if you are an affected third party).

The Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision.

The Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances.

More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website.

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner who may investigate our actions.

More information is available on the OAIC’s website at www.oaic.gov.au

The Commonwealth Ombudsman can also investigate complaints about our actions.

However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.

If you require further information, please contact our FOI Contact Officer on (07) 4750 0700 or by email.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (the Reef Authority) is required by the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) to publish a disclosure log on its website.  The disclosure log lists information that has been released in response to an FOI request.  The disclosure log requirement does not apply to:

• personal information about any person if publication of that information would be unreasonable
• information about the business, commercial, financial or professional affairs of any person if publication of that information would be unreasonable
• other information covered by a determination made by the Australian Information Commissioner if publication of that information would be unreasonable
• any information it is not reasonably practicable to publish because of the extent of modifications needed to be made to remove the information listed above.

The Information Commissioner's determination covers:

• information in a document that was an exempt document at the time access was given to the applicant
• information in a document that the agency or minister would have decided was exempt at the time access was given to the applicant, if the request was made by someone other than the applicant.

The information described in this disclosure log has been released by the Reef Authority under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and is available for public access.  

To access documents listed in the FOI disclosure log, write to us:

Please ensure you include the FOI reference number in your request. A charge may be imposed for the costs incurred by the Reef Authority in copying or reproducing the information or sending it to you.

There will be no charge for the time spent by the Reef Authority in processing the original FOI request that led to this information being made available.

You will be notified if any charge is payable and you will be required to pay the charge before the information is provided.

Information referred to in the Reef Authority's disclosure log will generally be removed after 2 years, unless the information has enduring public value.  For information later than two years, please contact us at foi@gbrmpa.gov.au.

Freedom of Information Disclosure Log
 

• FOI reference number: 24/229
• Date of access: 8 October 2024
• FOI request: Documents related to discussions or meetings with the Woppaburra People regarding the Darumbal TUMRA boundaries or documents indicating the Woppaburra People’s consent or approval to the current Darumbal boundaries submitted to the Reef Authority by the Darumbal People Aboriginal Corporation in July 2021 or otherwise obtained by the Reef Authority since July 2021 but prior to the accreditation of the Darumbal TUMRA.

• FOI reference number: 24/228
• Date of access: 13 August 2024
• FOI request: Documents dated between 1 June 2023 and 5 February 2024 which are internal correspondence relating to changes to the substantive content in drafts of the Reef Authority’s Position Statement on Climate Change or drafts of the Reef Authority’s Position Statement on Climate Change sent for the purpose of consultation, approval or briefing the Reef Authority Board.

• FOI reference number: 24/227
• Date of access: 20 June 2024
• FOI request: Correspondence between the Reef Authority, AIMS and CSIRO relating to the Reef Snapshot: Summer 2023-2024 and containing the phrases ‘degree heating weeks’, ‘bleaching’ and ‘mass bleaching’ between 9 February 2024 and 17 April 2024.

• FOI reference number: 24/226
• Date of access: 24 April 2024
• FOI request: Risk assessments undertaken by the Reef Authority and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) used to evaluate the granting of permit G23/48371.1 issued on 2 May 2023.

• FOI reference number: 24/225
• Date of access: 23 February 2024
• FOI request: Various documents in the period of 1 July to 31 December 2023 directed at all staff, all SES (or equivalent) staff or executive leadership group/senior leadership group about either the Royal Commission on the Robo-debt Scheme (‘the Royal Commission’), or the government response to the Royal Commission.

• FOI reference number: 22/218
• Date of access: 25 July 2022
• FOI request: Documents (including briefings) between the Reef Authority and the Minister for the Environment or the Minister’s Office relating to the release of the Reef Summer Snapshot for 2021- 22 between 1 April 2022 and 11 May 2022
• Information published in the disclosure log: Internal and external correspondence and Ministerial Submission (brief)

• FOI reference number: 23/223
• Date of access: 6 April 2023
• FOI request: Requesting access to the Reef Authority's 2023 February Supplementary Budget Estimates finalised briefing pack

• FOI reference number: 23/220
• Date of access: 3 April 2023
• FOI request: Documents relating to the Reef Authority's engagement of a third party in relation to an accommodation project between June 2021 until the engagement ceased

• FOI reference number: 23/219
• Date of access: 31 March 2023
• FOI request: Documents relating to the Reef Authority's engagement of a third party in relation to an accommodation project between October 2019 until the engagement ceased

• FOI reference number: 23/222
• Date of access: 14 February 2023
• FOI request: Documents relating to complaints about various Reef HQ procurement processes

Please use the link here to access the Information Publication Scheme.