The agency or Minister dealing with a request may refuse to grant access to documents in accordance with the request, without having caused the processing of the request to have been undertaken, if the agency or Minister is satisfied that the work involved in processing the request -

(a) in the case of an agency - would substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations...

1. Section 25A(1) of the Act, which mirrors the Commonwealth equivalent, was introduced in 1993, after the Act had been in force for about a decade. The mischief the provision was introduced to address was referred to by the Attorney-General in her second reading speech, as follows:

Voluminous requests have caused serious problems for the administration of freedom of information since its inception. Evidence given to the Legal and Constitutional Committee in its 38th report to Parliament suggested that although the number of voluminous requests was relatively small it nevertheless caused severe disruption to agencies. At present there is no provision in the Act to refuse to process a request on the grounds that it would unreasonably and substantially divert the agency's resources.

The Bill permits agencies to refuse to process a request where to do so would unreasonably and substantially divert the resources of an agency.

That provision is similar to the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act. Applicants will be given the opportunity to relodge their request in a form that will remove the ground for refusal. There is also a right to complain to the Ombudsman where the request is refused on those grounds.

Most agencies could produce numerous examples of applicants who abuse the spirit of the FOI Act by making requests the extent and scope of which unreasonably divert their resources. For example, one applicant lodged a request relating to a mining group which involved over 2000 documents in some 250 files.[2]

1. The commentary upon the intent and application of section 25A(1) of the Act has been summarised in the written submissions relied upon by Victoria Police in this proceeding ('Victoria Police submissions'), which I will not repeat here. However, in short, the requirements of section 25A(1) are not easily satisfied, and will only be met in a clear case.[3] However, as noted in the Victoria Police submissions:

... the section is a clear expression by Parliament of the desire to qualify the legislative scheme by permitting agencies to refuse access in the circumstances that the necessary work to process a request would "substantially and unreasonably divert the resources of the agency from its other operations".

1. In the reasons, the evidence, and in the Victoria Police submissions, Victoria Police went to some lengths to support its contention that processing the request would lead to a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the resources of Victoria Police from its other operations.
2. In response, Mr Draper contended that:

(a) the approach taken by Victoria Police to the request flies in the face of the object of, and the principles underpinning the Act, and the guidance provided by agencies such as the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner ('OVIC');

(b) the work required to be undertaken to process the request is unnecessary to comply with the Act, but rather is for the sole benefit of Victoria Police;

(c) in any event, it would not be necessary for the FOI Unit to communicate separately with each of the 66 individuals referred to in the spreadsheets, as a broadcast email would be sufficient;

(d) the estimate provided by Mr Davey of the hours required to process the request falls well short of the benchmarks established by other tribunal decisions; and

(e) Victoria Police failed to comply with section 25A(6) of the Act.

The evidence and other material before the Tribunal

1. The parties prepared an agreed tribunal book, which contained the following documents:

(a) an amended section 49 statement prepared by Victoria Police on 25 November 2024, which in turn included, among other things, the request, the reasons, and correspondence between Mr Draper and the FOI Unit between 18 April 2023 and 2 May 2024;

(b) a witness statement prepared by Mr Robin Davey, the manager of the FOI Unit. Mr Davey's evidence will be referred to in further detail later in these reasons;

(c) the Victoria Police submissions;

(d) Mr Draper's outline of submissions dated 18 November 2025; and

(e) a number of documents put forward by Mr Draper for inclusion in the tribunal book, including:

1. an extract from the Freedom of Information Guidelines prepared by OVIC in June 2025;
2. a report prepared by OVIC on 1 September 2021 titled "Impediments to timely FOI and Information Release";
3. an undated email from the Assistant Commissioner of OVIC to Mr Draper headed "Findings made against Victoria Police under section 61(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic);
4. a witness statement of Inspector Craig Matters of the FOI Unit filed in proceeding Z283/2023; and
5. a report by the Victorian Auditor-General's Office prepared in September 2022 titled "The effectiveness of Victoria Police's staff allocation.

1. It was not necessary for the purpose of this proceeding to review in detail or refer to the documents produced by Mr Draper save for his submissions and the witness statement of Inspector Matters, and the attachments to that statement.
2. Also included in the Tribunal Book was a large bundle of authorities produced by the solicitors for Victoria Police, running to some 883 pages. In the interests of expedition, I have confined my review of the authorities to those expressly referred to in the parties' written submissions.
3. As noted above, Victoria Police relied upon a witness statement signed by Robin Peter Davey, the manager of the FOI Unit, on 20 October 2025. Mr Davey deposed, in summary, as follows:

(a) as to his professional history and extensive experience in the freedom of information domain within the FOI Unit and other public and private sector entities;

(b) as to three other requests made by Mr Draper to the FOI Unit (the request being the third request) and their outcome and/or progress;

(c) the request, the correspondence between the parties regarding the request, and the issue and progress of this proceeding; and

(d) he described the work done to date by the FOI Unit in response to the request, and described the scope of work required to be done to process and respond to the request.

1. As for the scope of work required to address the request, Mr Davey deposed as follows:

To obtain a reasonable estimate of the work involved in processing the fourth request a preliminary LEAP audit was generated which produced 3 spreadsheets containing 1,102 total entries. It reflects all employees who have accessed the LEAP database record for the application during the period stated the fourth request. Employees include both Police (i.e. sworn) members of Victoria Police and other public servants employed by Victoria Police. This is because in addition to Police officers accessing the LEAP database, that database is regularly accessed by public servants performing purely administrative tasks such as entering information or updating records. The majority of information entered on LEAP on behalf of Police Officers is done by administrative staff. Therefore, each time an administrative staff member updates a LEAP entry, a record is made indicating who accessed the record.

The FOI Unit of Victoria Police comprises eight assessors who have the required seniority and expertise to assess LEAP audit results for release. That involves each record being examined and appropriate consultation being undertaken with the members who accessed the LEAP record. A separate inquiry must be made with each member who accessed the records, and resultant feedback taken into account in determining whether or not it is appropriate to release information to the applicant. That is a very time consuming task as not only are individual emails and spreadsheets produced, but frequently the process results in follow-up conversations with members as well. This is required as we are enquiring with each member whether we would be undermining an investigation by letting the applicant know that a particular member looked them up on LEAP at a particular time and date. This is something that must be done individually to protect not just the secrecy of any investigation but also the privacy of the applicant.

1. Mr Davey also provided the following estimate of the work required to process the request, and the consequent cost to the FOI Unit:

Determining whether the information for each accessed LEAP record can be released to the applicant would require an experienced assessor to examine the LEAP audit results. Based on my experience, it would take approximately 25 minutes to examine a record and consult with each individual person who accessed the LEAP record.

There are 66 unique individuals who have accessed one or more of the 1,102 entries on the LEAP record. If this is multiplied by the number of minutes per person to be consulted, it is estimated that it would take approximately 27 hours or almost four work days for the consultation process to be properly conducted, assuming an FOI Unit assessor allocated to the matter dealt only with the applicant's FOI request and no other work.

If the assessor spent 3 hours per workday on the applicant's FOI request, and the remaining time on other duties, that means it would take that person approximately 9 workdays (i.e. almost 2 weeks) to process the FOI request.

The workload of the FOI Unit of Victoria Police is very substantial, and the processing of the request would take considerable time, to process the request would negatively impact on the ability for the FOI Unit to progress current workloads. At the time of making this statement, there are almost 4,500 active requests being dealt with by Victoria Police, over 3,600 of which are overdue.

In addition to the impact on the FOI Unit, the processing of the FOI request would impact on the work of the 66 individuals who would need to be consulted.

With there being 66 individuals to be contacted about their LEAP checks, this impacts on the Officer in Charge, Supervisor, and the individuals contacted in chasing up and replying to email queries. Something which will involve going back through diaries, daybooks or notes to recall why the checks were carried out. In addition, the Officer in Charge and Sergeant to whom the member reports have to oversee the request is carried out and replied to within the timeframes required.

Ignoring for present purposes the staff time and cost as it relates to the individuals who may have accessed the LEAP record, and just taking into account the time of the FOI assessor in processing the request, assuming the assessor was of a level of VPS4 seniority at the mid-point of the salary range (at a rate of $52.63 per hour), is expected that it would create an internal cost to Victoria Police of over $1,447 in salary/wages to process the request and over $1,867 if you include direct oncosts.

Of course, the total cost would be considerably more taking into account the internal cost for other staff time, and for the time involved in seeking legal or other internal advice, making a decision, and drafting, filing and serving an appropriate notice of decision with a proper statement of reasons for decision.

1. Under the heading "Impact that processing would have on the other operations of the agency", Mr Davey provided an overview of the current resources of the FOI Unit, the demands upon the resources of the FOI Unit, the ability of the FOI Unit to finalise FOI requests within the applicable statutory timeframes, the number of unfilled vacancies within the FOI Unit, and the measures that the FOI Unit has taken to address its current backlog and its ongoing inability to meet its statutory timeframes. The statistics referred to in this section of Mr Davey's witness statement were updated by Mr Davey during the course of his oral evidence at the hearing of the proceeding, which in general terms shows a modest improvement in the resources available to, and the performance of, the FOI Unit over recent months.
2. Mr Davey's witness statement concluded as follows:

In my view that processing this request as it stands would, given the current circumstances and the aims of the FOI Division, cause substantial and unreasonable diversion of the FOI Division's resources from its other operations. In addition allocating resources to process this request would be grossly unfair to other applicants who are patiently waiting for us to process their requests.

1. At the hearing, Mr Davey gave evidence that the time required to process the request would probably be in excess of double the amount of 27 hours referred to in his witness statement, after taking into account the time required to be devoted to the task by other Victoria Police personnel. He explained why it was necessary for the assessor(s) to contact the personnel who had made the inquiries of and entries into the LEAP database individually, rather than via a broadcast email.
2. Mr Davey gave the following evidence about the additional steps required to process the request:

There's a lot of other work involved outside of the FOI division. So, we consult with each of the 66 informants. They then have to remember why they looked up Mr Draper in LEAP at the time, and that could be five or six years ago in terms of this request. So, they'll have to find their running sheets or their diaries or their notebooks, or whatever they need to refresh their memory about what happened some time ago. It may have involved a brief of evidence, in which case they would then involve the station clerk in trying to identify which brief of evidence it was, what it was about, why the look-up in LEAP happened.

It's likely, given the time involved, that some of the members that we want to consult with are no longer employed with Victoria Police or are no longer at the same location, and therefore don't have easy access to the information they require. The time might also lead to the fact that they would have to go to either local or archives located at Laverton to identify the relevant documents they need to refresh their memories about the LEAP involvement.

1. Mr Davey agreed that the amount of additional work required to process the request would be highly dependent on how many entries in the spreadsheets would be the subject of claims for exemptions, and is therefore difficult to estimate with any precision now.
2. The reliability of Mr Davey's evidence was largely undisturbed by cross-examination, and I accept his evidence on all salient matters.

1. The relevant legal principles concerning the proper construction and application of section 25A of the Act were comprehensively and accurately summarised in the Victoria Police submissions, and I do not understand those principles to be in dispute.
2. As observed in the Victoria Police submissions (omitting footnotes):

The reference to "processing" involves each step which the FOI Act anticipates could be taken by an agency after receipt of a valid request before making a final decision including:

(a) estimating any access charges that might be payable for the purposes of determining whether a deposit is payable under s 22 before any search is undertaken;

(b) conducting a thorough and diligent search as required by the FOI Act;

(c) identifying, locating or collating the documents within the filing system of the agency falling within the request;

(d) examining the documents;

(e) consulting with any person or body in relation to the request (internally and externally);

(f) deciding whether to grant, refuse or defer access to documents to which the request relates, or to grant access to edited copies of such documents (where partial access is sought under s 25(c));

(g) making a copy, or an edited copy, of the documents or extracting them from the computer system if that would be required under s 19; and

(h) notifying any decision on the request (including to the FOI applicant and to any third parties who may have review rights); further

(i) if a decision could not be made and provided to the applicant as part of the request within 30 days without substantially and unreasonably diverting the resources of an agency, s 25A(1) is properly relied upon.

1. The Victoria Police submissions refer to what principles can be derived from the authorities regarding "resources" for the purposes of section 25A(1), as follows (omitting footnotes):

(a) It means those resources of the agency reasonably required to deal with the request consistent with attendance to other priorities.

(b) It cannot mean the whole of the resources of a large agency (like a Department of State) as that would make s 25A(1) meaningless. But it is about the capacity of the agency overall to process the request (which is not necessarily limited to the capacity of the FOI unit of the agency).

(c) It must be the resources which the agency had at the time the request was lodged or as at the date of the hearing.

(d) It cannot mean the resources that an agency might be able to obtain, even if it was by filling established (and vacant) positions. It is not about any other resources which an agency may be able to afford or get on board by, for example, engaging consultants or temporary staff.

(e) An agency is not required to expend funds on the purchase of additional equipment to fulfill a freedom of information request.

1. The Victoria Police submissions then went on to discuss what is required of an agency in the position of the FOI Unit when assessing what resources would be required to process the request, noting that:

[e]stimates are more likely to be considered reasonable where they have been formulated with care and after consideration is given to the statutory requirements under the [Act], and... are based upon practical experience and expertise.

1. The Victoria Police submissions noted that the relevant resources include "... the resources of its internal FOI area and areas of the agency responsible for responding to a request for access".
2. Victoria Police submitted as follows (omitting footnotes):

Other factors that may be relevant to estimating the resources required to process a request can include:

(a) the number, type and volume of documents (or potential documents) falling within the request;

(b) the time period to which the application relates;

(c) the form in which the documents are kept;

(d) the ease or difficulty with which the specific documents can be identified and assessed -

(e) "...regard must be had to the work potentially involved in scrutinising all the material page by page and possibly line by line, to decide whether other sections of the Act require claims of exemption to be made under a variety of heads and whether decisions could be made to protect the exemptions and give partial access";

(f) the complexity of the request and its subject matter so that only a limited number of people can help identify relevant documents;

(g) there might be limited people who know much about the subject matter of the documents to be able to provide input into the decision making process and determination of whether an exemption applies or not; and

(h) the need to take legal advice and/or consult with third parties.

1. Further, section 25A(3) of the Act provide as follows:

The agency or Minister is not to have regard to any maximum amount, specified in regulations, payable as a charge for processing a request of that kind.

1. The Victoria Police submissions referred to further relevant observations in the authorities, as follows (omitting footnotes):

(a) 'other operations' means '...everything else that an agency does including dealing with the particular request being considered';

(b) the word 'substantial' means 'real and of substance and not insubstantial or nominal';

(c) what is substantial is relative to the resources and other operations of an agency and must be determined on a case-by-case basis; and

(d) when assessing whether a request would cause a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the resources of an agency, an agency is not required to specify exactly how much time and energy would be spent processing the request.

1. The Victoria Police submissions then went on to say as follows (omitting footnotes):

Factors which could be regarded in determining whether the diversion of resources would be substantial include:

(a) the nature and size of the agency:

(b) "whether the request is a reasonably manageable one giving due, but not conclusive, regard to the size of the agency and the extent of its resources usually available for dealing with FOI applications."

(c) the level of funding received or allocated to handling FOI requests

(d) the number of other FOI request[s] that the agency has and is processing or dealing with

(e) whether there are any upward or downward trends in the number of requests being received by the agency

(f) the number of employees who can assist in the processing the request and their other functions or responsibilities

(g) the number of staff with the necessary knowledge to make an informed judgement about the granting of access

(h) whether it would be necessary to redeploy staff, recruit or train staff, or expend substantial sums of money, to accommodate a request for access

(i) the amount of officer time and the salary cost where computerised records are involved, the need to engage the services of staff having expertise in the retrieval of such records where the officer who created them may no longer be available or unable to retrieve them.

1. If it is determined that the diversion of resources required to process the request would be substantial, the next step is to determine whether that diversion would be unreasonable. Again, what is unreasonable must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Further, determining what is unreasonable requires balancing the policy considerations underpinning the enactment of section 25A(1) of the Act and the objectives of the Act as a whole.
2. Victoria Police submitted that some of the considerations or circumstances that may be relevant include the following (omitting footnotes):

(a) whether the terms of the request offer a sufficiently precise description to permit the agency, as a practical matter, to locate the documents sought within a reasonable time and with the exercise of reasonable effort;

(b) whether diverting staff members from existing tasks would cause other work to fall behind;

(c) even if bountiful resources exist, that does not mean that they can be used without the application of proper and prudent business principles by processing a particular request for access where that would be an example of poor business practice and not the sort of decision a prudent executive, mindful of their corporate responsibilities and mindful that they are dealing public moneys, would take;

(d) the extent to which information about the subject matter dealt with in the request was already public knowledge;

(e) the public interest in the disclosure of documents relating to the subject matter of the request;

(f) whether the request is a reasonably manageable one, giving due but not conclusive, regard to the size of the agency and the extent of its resources usually available for dealing with FOI applications;

(g) the extent to which the agency has addressed the applicant's concerns about the subject matter outside the FOI Act;

(h) if the evidence is (or supports a conclusion) that the agency has deliberately failed to properly resource the FOI function so that its statutory duty was subverted, it is arguable that a substantial diversion of resources would be reasonable;

(i) if the applicant did not, when given the opportunity, constructively participate in the consultation process with a view to narrowing the request, that is relevant in determining whether processing would be unreasonable; ie whether the applicant has taken a co-operative approach in redrawing the boundaries of the application;

(j) statutory timelines are relevant - ie the obligation to make a decision and communicate it to the applicant within the statutory timeframes;

(k) the agency's estimate as to the number of documents affected by the request, and by extension the number of pages and the amount of officer time, and the salary cost;

(l) the reasonableness or otherwise of the agency's initial assessment. Estimates will more likely be reasonable where:

(m) "they have been formulated with care and after consideration was given to the statutory requirements of the FOI Act and practical experience and expertise."

(n) the degree of certainty that can be attached to the estimate that is made as to documents affected and hours to be consumed;

(o) whether there is a real possibility that processing time may exceed to some degree the estimate first made;

(p) the extent to which the applicant is a repeat applicant to the agency in respect of applications of the same kind or a repeat applicant across government in respect of applications of the same kind, and the extent to which the present application may have been met by those previous applications; and

(q) any relationship between the applicant and the agency including consideration of the applicant's identity, their activities and any difficulties they may have had with the agency.

1. When considering the current application, and in particular, the question of whether processing the request would be an unreasonable diversion of the resources of the FOI Unit, I have had regard to the considerations referred to in the paragraph above, where relevant. However, one must be cautious to avoid treating a list of potentially relevant considerations as being akin to a prescribed "checklist" which must guide a decision-maker. Doing so runs the risk of imposing an impermissible gloss upon the language of the statute, which necessarily imposes a case-by-case factual inquiry.
2. Further, I have some doubt as to whether the conduct of a particular applicant, or the relationship between an applicant and the agency to which a request is made, is particularly relevant to the question of whether processing or responding to a particular request would amount to an unreasonable diversion of the resources of an agency. The focus of the test in section 25A(1) of the Act is the impact of the request upon the resources of an agency, not the character and conduct of an applicant. Indeed, focusing upon the conduct of the applicant may run the risk of falling foul of section 25A(4) of the Act, which provides that:

In deciding whether to refuse, under subsection (1), to grant access to documents, an agency or Minister must not have regard to -

(a) any reasons that the person who requests access gives for requesting access; or

(b) the agency's or Minister's belief as to what are his or her reasons for requesting access.

1. Finally, I share the doubts expressed by Judge Harbison in McIntosh v Victoria Police (General)[4] as to whether the public interest in the documents sought being produced is relevant to the test under section 25A(1) of the Act. Given that the point was not fully argued before me, I will go no further than to express doubt, but in a decision quashing a determination of Victoria Police to refuse to process an application relying upon section 25A(1) of the Act, her Honour declined to take public interest considerations into account by reason of the terms of section 25A(4) of the Act.[5]

1. In summary, I have reached the following conclusions on the issues arising from the evidence and submissions in this proceeding:

(a) Victoria Police has complied with its obligations under section 25A(6) of the Act;

(b) when estimating the time and resources required to respond to a request, it is permissible for an agency to take into account the time and effort required to examine whether part or all of the documents sought by the request may be, or ought to be, exempt from disclosure;

(c) the Act expressly prohibits Victoria Police from having regard to any access charge which might be levied upon an applicant when determining the impact upon its resources for the purposes of section 25A(1), and, in any event, even if it were permissible to do so, the terms of section 22(1)(e) of the Act provides that the costs of the FOI Unit processing the request would not generally be recoverable from Mr Draper;[6]

(d) as I largely accept the evidence of Mr Davey, I accept that responding to the request would be a substantial imposition on the resources of the FOI Unit, but not necessarily the operations of Victoria Police as a whole;

(e) as each request should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, a decision-maker (including the Tribunal standing in the shoes of a decision-maker) should exercise caution when imposing an inflexible yardstick to identify whether responding to a request would involve a substantial and unreasonable diversion from the resources of an agency;

(f) that said, there may be circumstances where it is reasonable for an agency to apply some type of quantitative guideline for determining whether complying with the request would be an unreasonable diversion of the resources of an agency, such as where that agency routinely processes a number of requests of a similar nature. That is not the case here, given Mr Davey's evidence that requests of the current kind are not common;

(g) further, while it would usually be patently unreasonable for an agency such as the FOI Unit to be required to devote most or all of its presently available resources in order to comply with the request within the statutory timeframe, again, that is not the case here; and

(h) while I accept it would be somewhat burdensome in the short term for the FOI Unit to process the request, doing so would not amount to an unreasonable diversion from the resources of the FOI Unit or the resources of Victoria Police generally.

1. Turning first to the issue of whether Victoria Police has complied with section 25A(6) of the Act, I accept Victoria Police's submissions to the effect that it has done so, both in substance and in form. Mr Draper complained that the FOI Unit did not provide him with the information he required to make a revision to the terms of the request which might been acceptable to Victoria Police. However, I accept that responding to Mr Draper's request for information during the consultation process would have run the risk of disclosing otherwise exempt information, and accordingly, Victoria Police has complied with section 25A(6) of the Act.
2. Turning now to the substantive issue in this proceeding, being the question of whether responding to the request would involve an unreasonable diversion of the resources of Victoria Police generally, or the FOI Unit in particular, as earlier indicated, I accept the evidence of Mr Davey regarding what resources will be required to process the request. I reject Mr Draper's submission to the effect that the work to be done is largely for the benefit of Victoria Police and is therefore not necessary. Rather, I agree with Victoria Police's submission to the effect that the language of section 21(2)(a) of the Act, which refers to "consultation being required" under the provisions of the Act which enumerate various exemptions, supports the proposition that the Act imposes a positive obligation to withhold exempt documents. Put another way, the exemption provisions within the Act do not confer upon an agency a right to withhold exempt documents. Rather, the Act provides that a party has no right of access to exempt documents, and acknowledges that agencies may need to or will be required to consult in order to identify exempt documents, hence the modification of the statutory timeframe to an agency to do so.
3. Turning now to the estimate of the work required to make the necessary enquiries and to consider the outcome of those enquiries, I accept that at this stage Victoria Police is only able to, and is only required to, provide a considered but preliminary estimate of the time required to process the request. I accept Mr Davey's evidence that an experienced assessor would be required to conduct this exercise, which involves issues of some degree of sensitivity.
4. Further, given that I also accept Mr Davey's evidence that those sensitivities also require that the 66 individuals referred to in the spreadsheets be contacted individually, I have no reason to doubt Mr Davey's estimate of the approximate number of hours which would be spent on the consultation process by an assessor, being 27 hours. Further, given that I also accept the explanation given by Mr Davey regarding the additional activities that would be required to process the request, including the preparation of any reasons for refusing access on the grounds of an exemption required by section 27 of the Act, I accept that the total time required to process the request may be more than double the amount of 27 hours.
5. For the purposes of the current analysis, I am prepared to accept that approximately 60 hours would be required to process the request, with approximately 40 hours required to be spent by an expert assessor, and 20 hours by others within the FOI Unit, including, I assume, Mr Davey himself. I also accept that the 66 identified individuals within Victoria Police, and possibly some other personnel, will be required to spend some time participating in the consultation process, although that would vary from person to person, and would be difficult to estimate with any degree of precision at this stage.
6. Accordingly, I accept that of the eight specialist assessors currently employed within the FOI Unit, one assessor would be required to work approximately a full week, spread over a four-week period, to process the request within the applicable statutory timeframe. Further, additional FOI Unit and other Victoria Police personnel would be required to spend some time, in some cases some hours, responding to enquiries and otherwise processing the request. Accordingly, the resource commitment required to process the request could not be described as trivial, and indeed I am prepared to accept that, in the context of the resourcing of the FOI Unit, the resources required are substantial. However, the real question in this proceeding is whether in all the circumstances it is unreasonable for Victoria Police to commit the time and resources required to process the request.
7. In my view, it would not be unreasonable for Victoria Police to be required to process the request. Eight full-time assessors working for a four-week period represents 32 working weeks, such that processing the request amounts will consume approximately three percent of the assessor resources of the FOI Unit. While I would not be prepared to specify a percentage of the capacity of the FOI Unit which would have to be consumed by any particular request in order for the resources to be diverted to be considered unreasonable, common-sense suggests that it would need to be in excess of three percent.
8. I do accept that additional work will be required to be done by others within the FOI Unit and Victoria Police to process the request. Of course, the extent of that work will depend upon whether the consultation process identifies parts of the spreadsheet that are required to be redacted in order to mask exempt information. However, on the assumption that at least part of the spreadsheet will contain exempt, or potentially exempt information, then I accept that others within the FOI Unit will be required to review and consider the request, and possibly obtain and consider legal advice regarding the request and possible exemptions.
9. However, given the nature of the request and the exemptions likely to apply, it is difficult to see how these tasks will impose a great burden on the workload of those other than the assessor(s) assigned to process the request. It does not seem to me that to require a manager or an internal lawyer to spend an hour or two reviewing and considering a report of an assessor about any potential exemptions would amount to an undue diversion of the resources of Victoria Police generally or the FOI Unit in particular.
10. Mr Davey's evidence was to the effect that while applications of the kind made by Mr Draper are not common, they are not novel either. Accordingly, while the work required to process the request is laborious and time-consuming, it is not overly complex, nor would it require unduly detailed analysis. The spreadsheets themselves have been retrieved: the work required is to interrogate the entries in the spreadsheet. Realistically, only two types of exemptions would need to be considered, being the exemption for law enforcement documents under section 31 of the Act, and the exemption for documents affecting personal privacy under section 33 of the Act.
11. As for other personnel within Victoria Police, while processing the request would require some time commitment over and above their ordinary duties, one would not expect the requirement to be excessive, particularly given that the request covers a relatively recent period. While for a sworn police officer the task of checking their diaries, logbooks and notes will be a distraction from their operational duties, one might expect that such a task would be only one distraction among many in a typical day. And one might expect that the burden would be less for administrative staff or specialist personnel such as internal lawyers.
12. Further, it is relevant that, as observed by Mr Draper in his submissions, upholding the decision to refuse the request in accordance with section 25A(1) of the Act would be a rather artificial exercise. To explain further, the request covers a period of approximately three years and four months (forty months), and the spreadsheet generated in response to the request contains 1,102 entries, each of which needs to be interrogated individually, after consulting 66 people. However, if Mr Draper were to submit a series of requests covering periods of say, six to nine months each, then based upon the FOI Unit's own yardstick, the addressing each request would not unreasonably divert the resources of the FOI Unit. Ultimately the requests, if made, would need to be processed, albeit over a longer period of time. The work would still need to be done.
13. Turning now to the specific submissions advanced by Victoria Police in opposition to Mr Draper's application, I make the following observations:

(a) Victoria Police concedes that the request is sufficiently precise, and that it would not be difficult to locate the documents concerned;

(b) I accept that processing the request would amount to a substantial diversion of the resources of the FOI Unit, but not a substantial diversion of the resources from the law enforcement operations of Victoria Police, for the reasons already explained;

(c) I accept that the FOI Unit has a significant backlog of work, and that processing the request would draw upon the resources which would otherwise be devoted to addressing that backlog. However, somewhat ironically in the circumstances, given the size of the backlog and the current length of the delays referred to by Mr Davey in his evidence, processing the request is unlikely to have a material impact upon those backlogs and delays in proportional terms;

(d) I accept that the information sought by the request would not be in the public domain. However, presumably that is why Mr Draper has made the request;

(e) I understand that there is no specific public interest in requiring Victoria Police to process the request, if that is in fact a relevant consideration. However, there is also no basis for concluding, even if it was permissible to do so, that Mr Draper is a less deserving applicant than, say, an applicant seeking information from Victoria Police to assist them to pursue a compensation claim in relation to a traffic accident, which can also be described as a purely personal interest;

(f) it is not necessary for present purposes to comment one way or another upon the question of whether the FOI Unit is adequately resourced, and I decline any invitation to do so;

(g) while the tone of Mr Draper's correspondence with the FOI Unit (and his submissions to this Tribunal) is on occasion unnecessarily combative and accusatory, I think it is going too far to say that Mr Draper did not participate constructively in the consultation process. The better characterisation of what occurred during the consultation process is that Mr Draper made a genuine attempt to seek information to assist him to consider whether or how to narrow the request, which the FOI Unit reasonably refused to supply, leading to an impasse; and

(h) while processing the request would divert the resources of the FOI Unit from addressing its backlog and reducing delays in processing requests, I repeat my earlier observation that processing the request would not disproportionately increase the backlog, given its current size.

1. As for the period of time reasonably required by the FOI Unit to process the request, I would be amenable to framing my orders in such a way as to address Victoria Police's concerns in that regard.
2. Further, while I have observed that the inquiry under section 25A(1) of the Act is very fact-specific, and there is limited assistance to be gained from the facts and circumstances considered in other decisions, I will briefly address the facts and circumstances which were the subject of the findings made by the Tribunal with respect to the first request.[7] In that proceeding, Inspector Craig Matters gave evidence regarding the resources required to process the first request in substantially the same format as was provided by Mr Daveys in this proceeding. The table below provides a comparison of the resources estimated to be required to process the request and the first request.

1. While a Senior Member held that processing the first request would amount to a substantial and unreasonable diversion of the resources of Victoria Police, the information in the in the table above shows that the resources required to process the request, even if the higher estimate of 60 hours is used, is substantially less than the resources required to process the first request.
2. That said, my conclusion that in this instance, processing the request will not cause an unreasonable diversion from the resources of Victoria Police, should not be taken as establishing a benchmark as to what level of resource commitment should be considered to be reasonable or unreasonable. I repeat my earlier observation that what might be considered to be unreasonable needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, depending upon the nature and scope of the request, and the resources available to an agency at any particular time and the other demands upon those resources. These will almost certainly change over time, as will the technological aids which might be available to an agency to process and otherwise respond to requests.
3. I shall hear further from the parties on the form of orders required to give effect to these reasons.

[1] The first request was the subject of a proceeding in the Tribunal, where a senior member upheld the decision of Victoria Police to refuse the first request, relying upon section 25A(1) of the Act (see Draper v Victoria Police (Review and Regulation) [2023] VCAT 114). The second request, which was said by Victoria Police and the Information Commissioner to be a repeated request under section 24A of the Act, is the subject of another proceeding in the Tribunal. The fourth request, which is in similar terms to the request, but covers the period between 2010 and 2019, is also the subject of another proceeding in the Tribunal.

[2] Victoria, Parliamentary Debates, Legislative Assembly, 7 May 1993, 1738 (Jan Wade, Attorney-General, Minister for Fair Trading, and Minister responsible for Women's Affairs).

[3] Chief Commissioner of Police v Mcintosh [2010] VSC 439 [32] (Emerton J).

[4] [2008] VCAT 916.

[6] Section 22(1)(e) of the Act provides that a charge shall not be made for the time spent by an agency in examining a document to determine whether it contains exempt matter, or in deleting exempt matter from a document.

[7] Draper v Victoria Police (Review and Regulation) [2023] VCAT 114.