Overview

• Attorney-General Michelle Rowland introduced legislation to add a mandatory application fee for federal FOI requests, ban anonymous applications, and tighten rules on deliberative material, cabinet confidentiality and relevance.
• The fee is expected to be set in line with states at roughly $30–$60 per request, with an exemption for people seeking their own personal information.
• The government cites more than one million public service hours spent on FOI in 2023–24 and highlights high-volume or abusive requests as the driver for reform.
• Ministers have suggested bot-driven and potentially foreign-linked requests are straining the system, though Rowland’s office provided no concrete examples when asked by media.
• The legislation will be examined by the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee, as the Coalition and Greens condemn the proposal as a 'transparency' or 'truth' tax and transparency advocates warn it will chill public-interest access.