Australia, Aug. 23 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on July 23:

1.This is an application for administrative review under s 55 of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW) (the PPIPA) lodged by EHG (the applicant) with respect to a decision made by the Hon Yasmin Catley (the Minister) to disclose his name to the Hon Cameron Murphy AM MLC (the Member). The applicant alleges that the Minister's decision contravened s 18 of the PPIPA by disclosing his personal information.

2. The Privacy Commissioner did not appear or participate in the matter.

Background

3. On 17 July 2024, the Minister decided to refuse the applicant's application for an ex-gratia payment. The Minister's decision was informed by a report of the NSW Police General Counsel dated 4 April 2023. On 17 December 2024, the Minister declined a request by the applicant for a review of that decision.

4. However, on 18 December 2024, the applicant sent an email to the Minister's office requesting an internal review under s 53 of the PPIPA, on the following grounds:

You were, however, very happy to discuss my personal information with The Honourable Cameron Murphy, telling him that "I am not going to reward bad behaviour."

You can therefore take this correspondence as an application for a review of conduct under s 53 of the (PPIPA), as you have breached my privacy by unlawfully disclosing my personal information.

5. On 28 February 2025, the Minister gave the applicant notice of her internal review decision, which found, relevantly:

(a) Sometime in 2023 or 2024, the Minister and the Member had a conversation regarding the applicant's ex-gratia payment request, following the Member receiving an inquiry from a third party about the ex-gratia payment request.

(b) The conversation between the Minister and the Member included personal information about the applicant, being the fact of his request for ex-gratia payment.

(c) There was no "disclosure" of the applicant's personal information, contrary to s 18 of the (PPIPA), because:

(i) the personal information was already known to the Member, given the Member raised the personal information with the Minister; and

(ii) the disclosure was directly related to the purposes for which the applicant's personal information was collected (see PPIP Act, s 18(1)(a)).

6. On 17 March 2025, the applicant lodged the current application for administrative review with the Tribunal. He sought a review of the decision dated 28 February 2025, on the basis that he disagreed with the Minister's findings and decision.

Hearing dispensed with

7. During a case conference on 14 April 2025, the parties consented to a hearing of the respondent's application that the Tribunal lacks jurisdiction to determine the matter be dispensed with. Senior Member Higgins determined that the Tribunal was satisfied that this application could be adequately determined on the papers after 27 May 2025, by considering any written submissions or material lodged with or provided to the Tribunal.

Jurisdiction of the Tribunal

8. It is necessary to determine whether the Minister's conduct in her capacity as a Minister of the Crown is conduct of a "public sector agency" for the purposes of the PPIPA. If the answer to this question is yes, the decision is reviewable under Part 5 of the PPIPA, but if the answer is no, the decision is not reviewable and the Tribunal lacks jurisdiction to determine the current application.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1982ba0e2636bb04118168a9)

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