Thursday, January 2, 2014

What documents are you entitled to from DAFF?

As applicants for fishing rights, regardless of whether you are successful or not, you are entitled to the following documents in order to prepare an administrative appeal under the MLRA or to prepare an urgent court application:

1. A letter addressed to you, the applicant, informing you of the actual reasons for the decision on your application. 

2. A copy of your scoresheet and all other evaluation records used to score your application.

3. Copies of the scoresheets and evaluation sheets for every other applicant in that fishery - both right holder and new entrant applicants.

4. The General Published Reasons, which are largely meaningless documents as they do not specify any reasoning or policies underpinning the decisions. 

5. Complete lists of successful applicants, together with the names and registration numbers of their nominated fishing vessels and crew allocations. 

In addition, you may request access to any database created and used by the department for the purposes of this rights allocation process via the Promotion of Access to Information Act. The Department can only deny you access to the actual applications of third party applicants where these applications contain information that is ordinarily prohibited from being accessed under the Promotion of Access to Information Act. Typically, this information will include financial statements of private companies and close corporations, wage and salary bills, fishing plans, details about customers and other sensitive trade and commercial data. 

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