1 On 5 August 2005, I made an order striking out this application. The Mornington Peninsula Shire Council has now asked that I provide written reasons for that order.

2 On 5 April 2005, Mr Gordon requested Council to provide access, under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the FOI Act), to certain documents.

3 On 7 April 2005, the Council responded and required payment of a fee to process the request. Following further correspondence between the parties, on 15 April 2005 Mr Gordon was advised that Council would not waive the fee, and would not process the application until payment of the fee was received.

4 There was further correspondence between the parties and on 10 June 2005, the Tribunal received from Mr Gordon an "application for an F.O.I. Hearing".

5 In his application, he indicated he wished to apply for a waiver of all costs; and set out the grounds on which he relied, to support his request.

6 His application was listed for a Directions Hearing in the usual way. It was at that Directions Hearing on 5 August 2005 that I made the order striking out the application.

7 In its s 49 statement, which is the statement a respondent needs to provide about the decision under review, the Council submitted that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear the matter because Mr Gordon had not made a "valid request under the Act". It set out its reasons for that submission. I agreed with the Council's submissions and made the order.

8 As I explained to Mr Gordon during the Directions Hearing, the Tribunal does not have unlimited jurisdiction to deal with every decision that is made. It only has jurisdiction if the legislation specifically gives the Tribunal the power to review a matter.

9 Under s 50 of the FOI Act, an applicant, such as Mr Gordon, may apply to the Tribunal for review of -

(a) a decision refusing to grant access to a document in accordance with a request.

10 Thus, the Tribunal has jurisdiction to review a decision where there is a refusal to grant access in accordance with a request. However, the FOI Act specifically defines "request" in s 5 to mean-

11 Under s 17(1) of the FOI Act a person who wishes to obtain access to a document is required to make a request in writing for access.

12 Section 17(2A) says that a request must be accompanied by a fee, and s 17(2B) permits waiver or reduction of that fee.

13 Whilst Mr Gordon's request was in writing, it was not accompanied by the fee and the Council had not waived or reduced that fee and indeed, as I understand it, has refused to do so. Because s17 requires a request to be in writing and accompanied by the fee unless the fee is reduced or waived, which was not the case here, I was satisfied that there had not been a request in the form required by the FOI Act. In those circumstances, there has been no valid request that the Tribunal has power to review. There is no legislative authority for the Tribunal to review the decision Council has made refusing to waive or reduce the fee. That is not a decision that the Tribunal has any power to review, no matter how aggrieved Mr Gordon may feel. For those reasons, I made the order striking out the application.

14 One final note, the fee which is to accompany a request is not to be confused with charges for access to documents set out in s 22 of the FOI Act.