International Access to Information Day 2026

The icon you see is an initiative of the Information Commissioners across Australia to make it easy for the community to seek access to government documents. We encourage agencies to adopt this uniform icon on their websites to help the community navigate where to go to find assistance in seeking documents. 

This afternoon I would like to give you an overview of our new identity and office and provide you with recently released statistics on FOI in WA. I will also take you through some of the key changes to FOI practice at the OIC WA and provide my top four reasons why FOI matters and your roles matter. 

In February this year we launched our new identity. We have the same name as the previous office, but now have a dual mandate – privacy and FOI - so it was important for our new office to launch our new identity.  

There are other state based FOI regulators in Australia and around the world with similar names, so our new identity clearly needed to show we are the regulator in WA. Our tag line describes the outcomes we are focused on fostering in the sector through privacy and FOI – namely trust and accountability. 

My new office commenced operations on 1 July 2025. The new office has three statutory roles, appointed by the Governor and all report to Parliament, namely myself and my two Deputies. Nineteen staff were transferred across from the previous office. My new office has expanded functions across both privacy and FOI. 

Whilst WA is the last state in Australia to implement privacy requirements – the Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 (WA) is the most advanced privacy law in Australia. The broad definition of personal information in the PRIS Act applies to the FOI Act.  

I moved from the east coast of Australia to take up the new role of Information Commissioner and CEO on 28 July 2025. I am now 14 months into the role. The Attorney General announced the appointment of my new deputies earlier this year – Nina Skewes my Privacy Deputy who commenced on 27 January and Patrick Ky my Information Access Deputy who commenced on 23 February. 

Our Annual Report was released in 2 parts on 16 September. So, this is hot off the press. The first part relates to my office and the second part relates to FOI statistics across the state received from you. 

There were over 26,000 valid access applications received across WA in 2025-26 – a 22.9% increase compared with the previous year. Agencies with the most applications include: 

• Health-related agencies – 51.4% 

• WA Police – 18.6% 

• Department of Justice – 5.3% 

Most applications resulted in full access (63.9%) and edited access (19%). Access was refused in full in 10% of applications. 

In the small number of matters where documents are withheld from the community or redacted, the most commonly relied upon exception is that the document contains someone else’s personal information (69%). The next most common exception is if the document is released it would negatively impact the effectiveness of law enforcement or endanger property or persons (8.5%). Finally, documents if released would reveal trade secrets, or jeopardise commercial and business information (5.3%). I should note sometimes more than one exemption is relied on to withhold documents or apply redaction. 

A key focus of my office has been to reduce the amount of time to resolve matters – our most common complaint from members of the public is we are too slow. 

So, I am really pleased to say our median age of matters is down from 276 days at 1 July 2025 to 209 days at 30 June 2026. That is a 24% reduction. This is despite a 73% increase in the number of valid external review applications my office received in 2025-26 compared to the previous year. 

We have made a number of changes to our FOI practices within the OIC WA to address our FOI backlog. Our new queue management policy was released in January and updated in July. We restructured the external review team into two streams – priority and legacy teams. Our priority cohorts team works on matters identified as a priority through our queue management policy. We also had a broader organisational restructure – we have a new shared services team responsible for formal conciliation conferences, appeals and enquiries and a business services shared services team. These teams support the FOI and privacy teams. 

Patrick and I also work with our FOI regulator counterparts across Australia and New Zealand to understand their operations and learn from one another. 

We have also made a number of operational improvements, including a significant reduction in use of postal correspondence. Start up letters are restructured to support early resolution where possible and our decisions are in plain English. If I don’t understand a decision it does not go out the door. We need members of the public to understand our decisions. 

We also have an external review application form which we launched on 30 June in conjunction with our new privacy complaint form. 70% of applicants are now using the external review application form. We encourage agencies to include the link to it in all decision letters.  We also include FOI tips in our monthly e-newsletter, so please subscribe to it. 

Why FOI matters. 73% of those surveyed in WA consider that accountability is the key reason why agencies should release information. This was outlined in the October 2025 Information Access – Community Study Report – which the Information Commissioners across Australia participated in. It is also one of the key objects of the FOI Act. Another key object of the FOI Act is enabling the public to participate more effectively in governing the State. 

Second, FOI is a good diagnostic tool. It helps agencies understand how good their data governance and information management practices are. If it is hard to find documents, then you are likely to have a broader data governance issue. 

The theme of this year’s International Access to Information Week is Upholding Information Integrity in the Digital Age: The Role of Access to Information in Addressing Information Disorder. FOI plays a vital role in countering misinformation. Access to reliable and trustworthy information has never been more important, particularly as the level of AI slop circulates across online platforms. Accurate information supports informed decision-making, strengthens public confidence in institutions, and enables meaningful participation in democracy. 

And finally, the skills you develop as an FOI officer are invaluable: 

• You learn to understand the whole agency you work in, not just one part of it 

• You learn to manage conflict and deal with people from all walks of life 

• You learn how to scope and target real needs and negotiate 

• And you make decisions 

Before I hand over to Patrick Ky, I would like to thank the FOI team and business service teams in particular for ensuring our event today runs smoothly. 

It is the first time we have run an external event in this room with the new video conferencing capability. 

I hope you enjoy the afternoon and the networking afterwards. Myself and the FOI team are keen to hear your perspectives. 

I would now like to handover to Patrick who will speak about trends in FOI in WA and why we are seeing such a high number of external review applications. 

Thank you. 

Annelies Moens 

Information Commissioner