Australian Capital Territory · FOI Act 2016

The push model, taken seriously — and no fees to hide behind

For ACT directorates, agencies, and territory authorities — AccessPoint runs 20-working-day access decisions with no application fee, supports the open access information scheme, and covers Territory Privacy Principles and health records.

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Australia — ACT at a glance

Decision deadline
20 working days, extendable where the Act allows
Fees
No application fee and no processing charges
Model
Push model — an open access information scheme with proactive publication
Test
A public interest test with a presumption in favour of disclosure
Review
Ombudsman review, then ACAT
Languages
English

Built for Australia — ACT

One platform for the whole access-and-privacy mandate, pre-configured for this regime and running in your own Microsoft 365 tenant.

The open access information scheme

The ACT expects information to be published proactively, with applications as the exception. Track what has been published under the scheme, when, and by whom, so the proactive duty is managed rather than aspirational.

20 working days, no fees

Computed on receipt over the ACT public-holiday calendar. With no application fee or processing charges to negotiate, the deadline is the only lever — which makes tracking it the whole discipline.

The public interest test

The ACT Act presumes disclosure and requires factors favouring and against to be weighed. AccessPoint records both sides against the specific information, in the form an Ombudsman review reads.

Decisions with reasons

Grounds are applied to specific passages and carried onto the redaction and into the notice of decision, rather than asserted across a document.

Privacy and health records

Run Territory Privacy Principles matters and Health Records Act access and privacy on the same platform as FOI, with one audit ledger across all three.

In your own tenant

Information, applications, and audit history stay inside your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant — no third-party cloud and no vendor access.

No fee, no filter

The ACT removed the price of asking. That is a service-design decision, not just a policy one.

Application fees and processing charges do more than recover cost — they suppress and shape demand, and they give an agency a negotiating step partway through a difficult request. The ACT removed both. Anyone may apply, at no cost, and the agency has twenty working days regardless of how broad the request turns out to be. The practical effect is that ACT agencies cannot manage volume at the door; they can only manage it through how well the work runs — early scoping conversations with applicants, genuine use of the open access scheme so information is already published, and a queue where nothing sits unassigned. Those are exactly the levers a case platform provides, which is why fee-free jurisdictions tend to feel the absence of one soonest.

The clock is the lever No fees to negotiate — only how well the work runs.
Publish first Open access publication reduces what must be applied for.
Nothing unassigned Every application owned from the day it arrives.

Configured out of the box

Installing the au-act jurisdiction pack seeds your tenant with everything this regime needs — a starting point you can adjust, not a lock-in.

Related guide: FOI Workflow Quick Check
  • The ACT FOI Act 2016 as the legal-authority spine, with the Information Privacy Act 2014 alongside
  • The 20-working-day decision clock with ACT public holidays and the Act's extensions
  • A fee-free configuration matching the ACT model
  • Open access information scheme publication tracking
  • A structured public interest test recording factors favouring and against disclosure
  • Ombudsman review and ACAT tracking with grounds and outcomes
  • Territory Privacy Principles handling and privacy complaints
  • Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997 access and privacy on the same platform

Australia — ACT Questions

Does the ACT really charge nothing for FOI?
The FOI Act 2016 operates without an application fee or processing charges, which is unusual among Australian jurisdictions. It removes cost as a barrier for applicants and, from the agency side, removes charging as a way of managing scope — so timeliness rests entirely on how well the process runs.

What is the open access information scheme?
The push-model element of the ACT Act: agencies are expected to publish defined categories of government information proactively, so that far less needs to be applied for. AccessPoint tracks what has been published, when, and under which category, so the obligation is managed as a register rather than an intention.

Who reviews an ACT access decision?
The ACT Ombudsman conducts Ombudsman review and may make a binding decision, with further appeal available to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. AccessPoint tracks each stage with its filing window, correspondence, and outcome against the originating application.

Where does the information reside?
Entirely within your own Microsoft 365 and Azure tenant, in the Australian region you choose. Applications, documents, redactions, and audit history never leave your control — no third-party cloud and no cross-border data transfers.

Run ACT FOI in Your Own Tenant

Try AccessPoint free for 30 days, configured for the Australian Capital Territory. No credit card required.

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