If you made an application under the GIPA Act, the correct calculation of time is important if you do not want to be out of time for the internal review or the review by IPC or NCAT. To calculate the deadlines, it is necessary to understand the concept of “working days” used in the GIPA Act.
Government Information (Public Access) 2009 (NSW) sets a few deadlines for the applicants wishing to have a decision of the primary decision-maker reviewed. It does so in its sections 83, 90 and 101 by reference either to “20 working days” or to “40 working days”. Anyone taking their application seriously must pay close attention to the time frames provided in the GIPA Act. Otherwise they risk being late and having their application rejected.
What are “working days”?
Clause 1 of Schedule 4 of the GIPA Act defines “working days” as days other than Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays and “any day during the period declared by the Premier as the Christmas closedown period”. The period of 20 or 40 working days during which you can apply for internal, IPC or NCAT review starts running from the day of “notice of decision”. This means that the day of notice of decision is not included in the calculation of time.
Not too sure how that works in practice?
Then read on for some examples.
“20 working days” deadlines
There are two “20 working day” deadlines in the GIPA Act. First, the applicant has 20 working days from the notice of decision to apply for internal review. Second, the applicant has 20 working days from the notice of the IPC review to seek review by the NCAT.
internal review Example
Let’s say the day of notice of decision from “your” agency is 4 March 2022 and you think it is a good idea to apply for the review by another officer of the original agency. In other words: do you feel like you want to relieve yourself of another 40.00 Australian dollars and get the “internal review”? Good. Now you need to calculate your 20 working days to get the deadline for your application right.
You start by excluding from your calculations Friday, 4 March 2022. You also exclude all Saturdays and Sundays. This way you arrive at 1 April 2022, which is a Friday. Then, you go back to check if there were any public holidays during that period. As there were none, you do not exclude any additional days. Hence, the last day for you to make your application for the internal review is Friday, 1 April 2022.
“20 working days” – ipc to ncat example
Let’s say now assume that you asked NSW IPC for its review and that you were notified of the completion of the Information Commissioner’s review on 15 September 2021. As you are not too impressed with its results, you wish to apply for the review by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. What is the first thing you need to do? You need to calculate how much time you have to appy. In this case, again, you must first exclude Saturdays and Sundays. You also should exclude the public holidays as you go. In this case you exclude Labour Day, that is 4 October 2021. In this way you arrive at 14 October 2021. This is your last day to apply for the NCAT review.
“40 working days”
The applicants wishing to apply for the IPC review or NCAT review have 40 working days to do so. The only exception is if the applicant wants to seek the NCAT review after having been notified of the completion of the IPC review. In the latter scenario, the applicant has only 20 working days to apply to NCAT.
“40 working days” – primary decision to ipc review
Let’s now say “your” agency gave you notice of decision within the meaning of s 101 of the GIPA Act on 3 March 2022. The last day for you to make your application to IPC will be 3 May 2022. This is because all Saturdays and Sundays are not included in the calculations. Also you have to exclude from your calculations Good Friday, Easter Monday as well as the ANZAC Day.
“40 working days” – primary decision to NCAT review
Let’s now say you prefer to cut to the chase. You do not want to any internal review. You do not want to apply to IPC. You simply wish to take it to NCAT straight way and the day you got the notice is 16 August 2022. In this scenario the last day for you to make your application is 12 October 2022. This is because in addition to skipping all Saturdays and Sundays, you also have to skip Labour Day, which meant 3 October 2022 was a public holiday.
FINE PRINT
We hope that you now feel more confident with the calculation of time for the purposes of the GIPA Act. But remember: a mere ability to calculate the working days is not enough. Much can depend on whether your application was actually made within time. This is influenced by factors such as timely delivery by post or courier and perhaps even by the date with which the NCAT’s registry actually seals your application.
Obviously, if you file your application over the counter and get the receipt for payment, there should be no problems. But what if you entrust your application to the post?
Yes, we also feel a bit iffy about it.
This is why FORCIN recommends that you in good time to account for all the unexpected complications that may arise. Remain cautious – who knows, perhaps your application seeks something someone would prefer to stay undisclosed.
