CARNEGIE CLEAN ENERGY —
FOI REQUEST — REDACTION
1442. Hon PETER COLLIER to
the Minister for Regional Development:
I
refer to the minister's decision to redact the final paragraph of page
1 of document 29 in FOI application 64-09596 received by the office of
the Leader of the Opposition on 25 February 2019. I also refer to the ruling of
the Information Commissioner to overturn the minister's decision to
redact the paragraph, which revealed the text of the paragraph as —
Seeking an independent assessment,
DPIRD commissioned a Financial Viability Assessment (Report) on Carnegie, which
rated its financial position to be 'unsatisfactory' and scored
it 1.6 out of a possible 10 (Attachment 1).
(1) Why did the
minister redact the final paragraph of page 1 of document 29 in the FOI
document?
(2) Will the minister now table
attachment 1 referred to in the paragraph; and, if not, why not?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
(1) It is
important to note that the member's question refers to two separate FOI
applications, made at different times, by different applicants, and with
different scopes. However, in relation to FOI application 64-09596 made by the office of the Leader of the
Opposition, the paragraph was redacted on the basis that it would reveal information about the commercial
and financial affairs of Carnegie Clean Energy. Following the external review by the Information
Commissioner of a similar FOI application, Carnegie Clean Energy was
consulted on the release of this paragraph and did not respond.
(2) The report is
clearly commercial in nature to Carnegie Clean Energy and is marked strictly
confidential and commercial-in-confidence.