25.
seconded to the Governor-General's staff from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet[1].
70 The identity of the language used in s 6A of the FOI Act and the language used in ss 5 and 6 of the FOI Act suggests that the same distinction was being drawn in 1984 to govern inclusion within the scope of the FOI Act of documents in the possession of the Official Secretary as had earlier been drawn to govern inclusion within the scope of the FOI Act of documents in the possession of a court or industrial body.
Construction
71 The Full Court of the Federal Court, in the decision under appeal, held the distinction drawn by s 6A of the FOI Act to be between "substantive powers and functions" and the "apparatus" supporting the exercise or performance of those substantive powers and functions[2].
72 The legislative history compels the conclusion that that is not only a correct distillation of the distinction drawn by s 6A of the FOI Act, but also a correct distillation of the distinction drawn by ss 5 and 6 of the FOI Act. Bienstein v Family Court of Australia[3], which reached a different conclusion in relation to s 5 of the FOI Act, was wrongly decided.
73 Sections 5, 6 and 6A of the FOI Act draw a dichotomy between documents which relate to "administrative matters" and those which do not. The word "administrative" is used in each of those sections in the primary sense of "[p]ertaining to, or dealing with, the conduct or management of affairs"[4].
74 The relevant affairs, or "matters", to which each of ss 5, 6 and 6A of the FOI Act refers, are distinct from, but incidental to, the exercise or performance of substantive powers or functions in the sense of providing logistical support (or infrastructure or physical necessities or resources or platform) for the exercise or performance of those substantive powers or functions to be able to occur.
75 The distinction sought to be drawn by the appellant between documents which "relate to administrative tasks … to support or assist the exercise of …
