SHOW CAUSE NOTICE FOI

Mr Kingsley Joy

FOI Coordinator

Department of Local Government and Communities

GPO Box R1250

PERTH WA 6844

Your Ref. 27-15;E1506304

27 March 2015

By email to foi@dlgc.wa.gov.au  

Dear Mr Joy,

Freedom of Information Act 1992—Application for Internal Review

I refer to my letter of 13 March 2015, requesting an internal review, and to your email communication dated 20 March 2015.

Conflict of Interest

Director-General Matthews has missed the main point of my objection to the involvement of Mr Jolly in the management of my application.  Leaving aside any other cause for objection, it is precisely because he was the executive director ‘in charge of the business function that the records being sought relate to’ that I object to his involvement.  Not only does he have ‘intimate knowledge’ of the process that is the subject of my application, it appears that he was intimately involved in organizing and managing the process that led to the suspension of the Shire of York Council.

Mr Jolly signed off on Mr Morris’s briefing note E1441453 to Minister Simpson, as indeed did Ms Matthews.  For my money, that gives them both a prima facie conflict of interest.  It is widely believed in York that those who authorized the so-called probity audit into the operations of our Shire Council had personal reasons for doing so, and for having the Council suspended, that bore no relation to the accusations laid in the ‘show cause’ notice at the door of Shire President Reid.

I share that belief.  However, in fairness to Mr Jolly, if he will give me his solemn, unqualified assurance that he played no part at any point or level in the suspension process, including but not limited to the drafting and serving of the ‘show cause’ notice and the monitoring that preceded it, I shall withdraw my objection to his having conduct of my application.

 Otherwise, I shall take up the matter with the FOI Commissioner.

Internal Review

In my letter of application dated 12 January 2015, I listed with some precision 16 categories of documents I wished to obtain.  Your department reduced the number of categories to seven, ostensibly for ease of reference.  I now realize that I was a fool to accept that re-classification.  It has obscured and confused the scope and purpose of my application, as I believe it was intended to do.

I had expected that if I were denied access to any document, I would be given a clear, unambiguous statement of the reasons for denial.  Instead, I have received very broad denials of access that only serve to convince me that your department is determined to bury the truth as deep as the spade will go.

I ask Ms Delany to begin her review by examining my letter of 12 January 2015 and comparing the department’s response to my application with the first 13 categories of document therein nominated.  (I intend to encompass categories 14 and 15 in a later application.) For each of those 13 categories, I would like a clear, definitive explanation as to why most of the documents requested, in particular Mr Morris’s notes, have been excluded from consideration.

For the present, I would like Ms Delany to review all items listed on your document headed ‘Freedom of Information Application Document Schedule – Legal Advice’.  Those items are not satisfactorily identified.  It is not clear why they fall under the rubric of legal professional privilege. They are not even dated. That will not do.

As well, I ask her to review items 3, 4, 7 and 9 listed on the document headed ‘Freedom of Information Application Document Schedule – Suspension’.

I was provided (I suspect accidentally) with David Morris’s briefing note to the minister (E1441453).  In that note, Mr Morris states: ‘The full background to this matter is set out in Briefing Notes E1437502 and E1437589’. 

I would like copies of those two briefing notes, or a full and cogent explanation as to why I am to be denied access to them.  It is pointless just citing as justification a section of the Act.  I want to know exactly why the department thinks a document falls within the scope of the section cited.

I would also like the ‘matrix’ to which Mr Morris’s briefing note refers in the section headed ‘Current Situation’.

Finally, Mr Morris’s briefing note contained a reference to and extract from Cr Pat Hooper’s so-called ‘minority report’.  That information was redacted, but with a little ingenuity I was able to rescue it from oblivion.  I should like a copy of that ‘report’.  There is no point in denying me access to it, because it is now common knowledge in York that Cr Hooper wrote it, and it might be in Cr Hooper’s interest for the people of York to know why he turned against their manifest wishes to collude with Mr Morris.

Yours sincerely,

James Plumridge

(Dr) James V Plumridge