42. Why isn’t the TGA disclosing all FOI requests that have been granted (and not granted) to the disclosure log? I have been emailed a large number of FOIs that the TGA has not published. Why is the TGA hiding these disclosures?

Question Number: 165
PDR Number: SQ22-000534
Date Submitted: 21/11/2022
Department or Body: Department of Health

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) provides public access to information which has been released in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, subject to relevant exceptions, as required under section 11C of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act).
• The TGA provides this information through its FOI disclosure log on the TGA website (www.tga.gov.au).
• Exceptions to this requirement are principally personal information, or information about the business, commercial, financial or professional affairs of a person, that it would be unreasonable to publish.
• As a result, there may be some differences between the information published on the disclosure log and the information provided to the FOI applicant in relation to their request.
• Section 11C of the FOI Act only requires the publication of information released to an FOI applicant, subject to the exceptions noted above. It does not require publication of requests or decisions on requests (e.g. it does not require the publication of decisions to refuse access to an FOI applicant).
• The TGA FOI disclosure log is regularly updated, in accordance with the requirement in subsection 11C(6) of the FOI Act to do so within 10 working days of having provided access to the FOI applicant. Within those 10 working days, there may be some brief delays between the making of a decision to grant access to an FOI applicant and the updating of the disclosure log.