Environment Victoria Inc v Department of Primary Industries (General)

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

03/02/2012

LITIGATION TYPE

Access to Justice, Constitutional and Human Rights / State Accountability

SUBJECT MATTER

Transparency and disclosure, Transparency and disclosure

REVIEW TYPE

Merits review

SUMMARY

The applicant, Environment Victoria Inc., sort to view various documents in relation to the granting of licenses to mine brown coal, reductions to the premium solar feed-in tariff, and changes to planning controls in relation to wind farms, from the Minister for Primary Industry, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth). The Minister relied on an exception to the Act, in relation to Cabinet Documents. The case centred on the disclosure of 4 documents. After examining the public benefit of the knowledge contained within those documents, the Tribunal found that the applicant could look at one document in full, and parts of a second document, with the more substantial amount of the documents being covered by the exception.

CASE DOCUMENTS

Environment Victoria Inc v Department of Primary Industries (General) [2013] VCAT 39