15.
from the Office of the Official Secretary. The possibilities of giving offence to failed nominees, defamation, or political controversy in the administration of the General Division of the Order are all avoided by the confidentiality of the selection process, which culminates in public announcement, in due course, of appointments and awards in the Order. The Office supports the Council and the Governor-General in completing the selection process.
40 However, the task of statutory construction here is not resolved by asking whether any particular document relates to processes and activities "supporting" the role of the Governor-General, because documents answering that description fall within both the exclusion, and the exception, in s 6A(1).
41 The "non-application" of the FOI Act to requests for access to documents of the Official Secretary, as stated in s 6A(1), inevitably refers to a class of documents relating to matters which are not "of an administrative nature". In conformity with the exclusion of the Governor-General from the operation of the FOI Act, those documents relate to the discharge of the Governor-General's substantive powers and functions. By contrast, the exception of a class of document which relates to "matters of an administrative nature" connotes documents which concern the management and administration of office resources, examples of which were given above[1]. This is a common enough connotation of the epithet "administrative"[2]. The Full Court apprehended this distinction in s 6A(1) correctly, referring to the latter class of documents as relating to the office "apparatus" which supported the exercise of the Governor-General's substantive powers and functions.
42 The preceding construction of s 6A(1) governs its operation and application in relation to the range of diverse powers and functions of the Governor-General in respect of which the Official Secretary may be called upon to provide assistance and support. The limited construction adopted by the Full Court of the class of documents relating to "matters of an administrative nature" is appropriate because s 6A(1) must apply equally to powers and functions whose exercise is of the greatest sensitivity, requiring high levels of confidentiality, as it must apply to powers and functions of lesser sensitivity. The correctness of the construction of s 6A(1) adopted by the Full Court is illustrated by the specific case of its application in relation to the Order. In that application it strikes a balance between the public interest in maintaining an Australian system of
