Freedom of Information (FOI)

1. Acknowledgement

This page has been adapted from a similar document published on the website of the Australian Government Department of Education, accessed on 11 July 2025, and has been modified. ACARA acknowledges the Department of Education as the source of this document.

2.Object

The object of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) is to give the Australian community access to information held by the Commonwealth. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is subject to the FOI Act.

The FOI Act aims to achieve this objective by:

3. Right of access under the FOI Act

The FOI Act gives you (any person) the right to:

• access copies of documents (except exempt and conditionally exempt documents) we hold
• ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading
• seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.

You can ask for access to any document we hold. We can refuse access to some documents, or parts of documents, that are exempt. This may include documents that:

• contain an unreasonable disclosure of personal or business information 
• contain material obtained in confidence or regarding Commonwealth–State agreements 
• are subject to legal professional privilege 
• are internal working documents and are not in the public’s interest. 

4. Access to school records

ACARA is not responsible for the day-to-day administration and management of schools, and does not hold school records relating to students or teachers. If you wish to access such records, please contact the relevant state or territory education department.  

5. Access to NAP reports and tests

ACARA works with a wide range of partners to oversee the delivery of the National Assessment Program (NAP).

Test administration authorities (TAAs) are the government departments or agencies responsible for the implementation and administration of the NAPLAN tests in their state or territory. If you wish to access student test records, results or written responses, please contact the school the student attended at the time of the test. If required, the school can make a request on behalf of the parent/carer to the relevant state or territory TAA.

You can access past NAPLAN test papers and answers from 2008 to 2016.

ACARA does not provide access to past NAPLAN tests after 2016 as these are used for the continued development and improvement of the NAP and its related projects. This position is supported by a 2015 decision of the then Acting Information Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim.

6. Access to My School data

ACARA collects, analyses and reports statistical and related information about schools and outcomes of schooling, as required by the Education Ministers Meeting under ACARA’s Charter.

Some of this data is publicly available for download under the My School Terms of Use. Other data may be accessed via an application process, subject to eligibility criteria. For further information, please see the ACARA Data Access Program.  

7. Access to the Australian Curriculum

ACARA develops the Australian Curriculum in consultation with teachers, education sectors and the community.

The Australian Curriculum is implemented in schools according to the timelines and approaches determined by their state and territory education and curriculum authorities. Please contact the relevant authority in your state or territory for further information about the implementation of the Australian Curriculum.

For further information about the Australian Curriculum, please refer to the Australian Curriculum website.  

8. How to make a Freedom of Information application

To be valid, applications for access to documents must:

• be in writing
• state that the application is made under the FOI Act
• provide enough information concerning the documents sought as is reasonably necessary to enable a responsible officer of ACARA to identify them
• give details of how notices may be sent to the Applicant (for example, an email or postal address).

Applications to ACARA may be sent to ACARA in one of the following ways:

• by submitting an online enquiry (choose ''Freedom of Information'' as the type of enquiry)
• by mail to:

FOI Coordinator 
Level 13, Tower B 
280 Elizabeth Street  
Sydney NSW 2000 

9. Charges

Under section 8 of the Freedom of Information (Charges) Regulations 2019 (Charges Regulations), an agency has the discretion whether or not to impose a charge for the staff time and resources expended in processing an FOI request.

There is no application fee for making an FOI request with ACARA.

There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents containing only personal information about you. However, processing charges may apply to other requests. The most common charges are:

 
10. What happens after your application is submitted?

• An FOI officer at ACARA will determine the validity of your application. 
  • If your application is not valid, an FOI officer will provide assistance with how to comply with the formal requirements under the FOI Act to be valid. 
• An FOI officer at ACARA will deal with your valid application in accordance with the requirements under the FOI Act.
• We will acknowledge receipt of your valid FOI request within 14 calendar days.
• If you are liable to pay a processing charge we will send you an assessment of the charge as soon as practicable.
• When we have made a decision on access about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.

We will give you a decision within 30 calendar days unless that time has been extended. The time may be extended if:

• the documents you have sought access to relate to or contain information about a third party. If a document contains a third party’s information, we must consult with them. The processing time is extended by 30 calendar days for this consultation process to occur
• you agree to an extension. We may write to you and ask to extend the processing time by up to 30 calendar days
• your request is complex, and the Australian Information Commissioner (Information Commissioner) agrees to an extension.  

11. If you disagree with our decision

You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed:

• decisions where we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or we defer giving you access
• decisions where we impose a charge
• decisions where we refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

A third party that disagrees with our decision to give you documents that contain information about them can also ask for our decision to be reviewed.

12. Internal review

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. The request must be received by us within 30 calendar days of the original decision and an internal review will be conducted by another ACARA FOI decision-maker. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 calendar days of receiving your request.

13. Information Commissioner review

You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 calendar days of the date of decision (or 30 calendar days after you are notified if you are an affected third party). The Australian Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website.

14. Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Commonwealth Ombudsman who handles complaints about the processing of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

15. More information

If you require more information, please contact a member of the FOI Team by submitting an online enquiry (choose ''Freedom of Information'' as the type of enquiry). Certain documents that we have released under the FOI Act can be obtained at our FOI disclosure log.

 
Last updated: August 2025