Equality Australia sits at the centre of a growing tension between advocacy, public funding and accountability: while it campaigns on laws that cut directly across women’s sex‑based protections and rights, including female‑only spaces, and supports access to contentious gender‑affirming treatments for children, key institutions have moved to endorse and protect its work from scrutiny.
Courts and regulators have already ruled that Equality Australia is not a public benevolent institution, yet it now enjoys vice‑regal patronage – and the Albanese government has moved to grant it bespoke deductible gift recipient (DGR) status despite those rulings. When we asked through freedom of information (FOI) how the Governor‑General’s office applied its own Patronage Policy to Equality Australia, the response was consistent: no documents would be disclosed.
This is the story of how the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor‑General (OOSGG) and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) have kept Equality Australia’s patronage shielded from scrutiny. It is also the story of how we encountered a concerning pattern: that all documents generated under the Office’s Patronage Policy are treated as outside the FOI Act on the basis that they relate to the Governor‑General’s substantive functions, and that none are administrative in nature. The full OOSGG and OAIC FOI papertrail appears at the end of this post.
‘Nothing to see here’: the Office of the Official Secretary of the Governor‑General
We lodged our first FOI request in late February 2025, shortly after Equality Australia announced the Governor-General’s patronage. In our request, we did not seek the Governor‑General’s personal deliberations, private letters or any formal advice given in her vice-regal capacity. Instead, we asked for administrative documents held by the OOSGG about the decision to grant patronage to Equality Australia: internal briefings and correspondence, any reputational risk assessments, records of the “particular care – and additional consultation” required by the Patronage Policy, and any analysis of how Equality Australia’s advocacy sat with that policy.
Ongoing requirements
Patronages are required to update the Office on any change to Conditions 1-4.Patronages should provide the Office advance notice of any incidents likely to draw significant adverse attention. Particular care – and additional consultation – is required where a patronage seeks to involve the Governor-General in activity that could be construed as fundraising, advocacy or any activity that could be considered beyond the publicly accepted role of the Governor-General.
On 18 March 2025, the Deputy Official Secretary refused our request in full (FOI2025021). He pointed to section 6A of the FOI Act and the High Court’s interpretation of that provision in Kline v Official Secretary to the Governor-General, a 2013 case concerning the honours system. In that case, the Court held that documents connected with the Governor-General’s substantive functions fall outside the Act. From the terms of our request, he said, any documents (“if they exist”) would concern the Governor‑General’s substantive functions, not administrative matters, so the office was “not open” to give us access at all. No schedule of documents, no partial release, not even confirmation of what, if anything, had been found.
We sought internal review. In a detailed request, we pointed out that the OOSGG’s own Patronage Policy is an internal policy of the Office, that it sets out structured procedures for receiving, triaging and documenting patronage applications, managing reputational risk and consulting where reputational issues might arise. Implementing that policy was essentially administrative and did not engage the Governor General’s substantive functions.
We were struck, too, by the qualification “if they exist”. Whether documents exist cannot be beside the point: it is only by identifying and examining them that the Office can determine whether they are administrative for the purposes of section 6A. The suggestion that this question could be resolved without that step only reinforced our concern that no such assessment had been undertaken.
We argued that section 6A requires a document‑by‑document assessment, not a blanket category refusal, and that Kline, which concerned honours recommendations tied to section 61 of the Constitution, does not support treating all patronage‑related documents as automatically excluded from public access.
On 30 April 2025, the Official Secretary to the Governor General affirmed the refusal. He said searches are conducted for all FOI requests, but that where any documents relate to the Governor‑General’s substantive functions the Office treats them as outside the FOI Act and does not even disclose whether such documents exist, stating that, “confirming the existence of documents may in and of itself constitute an inappropriate release of information”. He also invoked Kline and a narrow reading of “matters of an administrative nature”, insisting that patronages are part of the Governor‑General’s substantive community role, and that any documents relating to those functions are therefore outside the FOI Act. In other words, the very existence of a publicly funded Office with a published policy was treated as irrelevant; everything was reclassified as untouchable ‘substance’: the Office has effectively erased the administrative/substantive distinction that section 6A is supposed to preserve.
Adverse attention, advocacy and administrative records
By this time, matters concerning Equality Australia had become a matter of public record, and had attracted ‘significant adverse attention’. We wanted to understand how Equality Australia was meeting its ongoing obligations under the policy to provide “notice of any incident likely to draw adverse attention … that could be construed as …advocacy or any activity beyond the publicly accepted role of the Governor-General”. We reasoned that record-keeping of material provided to the Office by a third party such as Equality Australia and any records created by the Office itself in monitoring, recording or filing such matters, are, on any ordinary understanding, administrative.
With that in mind, we made a further request focused on those administrative processes.
Our second FOI request, lodged on 15 August 2025, deliberately avoided the decision to grant patronage and focused only on the back-end: the ‘Ongoing requirements’ section of the Patronage Policy. We asked for administrative documents – including but not limited to emails and file notes – relating to Equality Australia’s compliance with those requirements, including any reports or discussion of its arrangements with Thorne Harbour Health to secure tax‑deductible donations, its intervention in Tickle v Giggle and its 2025 federal election voting guide.
Again, we received the same formula. On 11 September 2025, the Acting Deputy Official Secretary refused our second FOI in full (FOI2025062) under section 6A. From the terms of the request, she said, no documents (“if they exist”) would relate to matters of an administrative nature. The Office’s position was that all work performed to support ongoing patronages – including receiving notifications and file‑noting them – relates to the Governor‑General’s substantive powers and functions, and is therefore excluded from the FOI Act.
We again requested an internal review. This time, our internal review request for our second FOI set out concrete examples that a reasonable observer would recognise as administrative: receiving and filing notifications, acknowledging emails, filing reports, monitoring media, preparing Senate Estimates briefs, corresponding with other agencies and drafting media lines. None of this involves the Governor‑General personally exercising a substantive power; it concerns only the apparatus that supports her. Yet when the refusal decision on the second internal review arrived on 11 November 2025, the Office repeated that all of this was non‑administrative and therefore outside the scope of the FOI Act.
Taken together, our two FOI requests and their internal reviews suggest that the OOSGG now treats almost nothing it does around Equality Australia’s patronage as administrative and thus subject to the FOI Act, and everything as an exercise of the Governor-General’s substantive powers.
“Lacking in substance”: the FOI watchdog won’t engage
FOI law anticipates this kind of over‑reach. That is why the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) exists: to review agency decisions and ensure that exemptions and special provisions such as section 6A are applied properly. So we asked the OAIC to review our first FOI rejection, IR‑FOI2025021.
On 29 June 2025, we requested a review by the Information Commissioner. We asked the Commissioner to confirm that a document search had been conducted, to obtain a list of documents located, to determine document‑by‑document which ones fall within scope of the FOI Act under section 6A, and to order release of any in‑scope documents. This was not a fishing exercise: it was a request for the independent umpire to test whether the OOSGG’s blanket exclusion of patronage documents was lawful.
The OAIC replied (MR25/01208) on 19 November 2025 with an ‘Intention to recommend that an Information Commissioner review not be undertaken’ under section 54W(a)(i) of the FOI Act. In effect, it signalled that it was minded to refuse to conduct the review on the ground that our application was “lacking in substance”. The OAIC’s letter framed the issue as whether the requested documents relate to “matters of an administrative nature”, rehearsed the FOI Guidelines’ summary of Kline, and concluded that documents about “the decision to accept the role of patron for Equality Australia” fall within the Governor‑General’s substantive functions and are therefore outside the Act.
We were invited to provide further reasons. On 2 December 2025 we did. Our submission pointed to the OOSGG’s disclosure log, which shows that the Office has historically treated a wide range of vice‑regal records as administrative and FOI‑able: documents concerning election writs and referendum timing, arrangements for swearing‑in of ministries, program and calendar matters, and communications about engagements. If documents about matters such as election writs and referendums have been treated as administrative, it is difficult to see why documents concerning the less constitutionally sensitive area of community patronage should be treated as too substantive even to be considered under FOI.
We argued that this inconsistency meant there is a genuine question about how far the Kline decision should extend to patronage matters at all, a question that plainly warranted proper review. Kline concerned the honours system, which the High Court treated as closely connected to executive power under section 61 of the Constitution. By contrast, the patronage policy rests on an internal administrative framework of the Office. We asked the OAIC to examine whether it was lawful and consistent with the objects of the FOI Act to treat all patronage‑related documents as non‑administrative when the same Office had released material about election writs and referendums.
Just three days after receiving our further submissions, on 5 December 2025, the OAIC delivered its final answer. As a delegate of the Information Commissioner, the Assistant Director decided under section 54W(a)(i) not to undertake the review, on the basis that our application was “lacking in substance”. The decision repeated that the FOI Act has a restricted application to the OOSGG, cited Kline’s formulation of “management and administration of office resources”, and characterised our request as seeking documents about the Governor‑General’s substantive community‑engagement function.
The file was closed.
In effect, the independent watchdog accepted the OOSGG’s interpretation of section 6A and decided not to undertake the merits review we had asked for. Of course, we could challenge the OAIC’s decision in the AAT and beyond, but as a small organisation of volunteer women we lack the resources to do so. We remain convinced, however, that Australians are entitled to know how the Office of the Governor-General administers its Patronage Policy, including how it considers external representations and manages the reputational risks that policy is designed to address.
And where, in all of this, is the Governor-General?
Whether, or to what extent, the Office advised the Governor-General that patronage of Equality Australia was likely to draw adverse attention, or could be construed as beyond the publicly accepted role of the Governor-General, the decision to accept and maintain that patronage is ultimately an exercise of the Governor General’s own authority.
How does this sit within Australia’s system of government? The Governor-General is unelected yet exercises significant formal powers. The legitimacy of the role depends, in no small part, on a strict expectation that the office remains above political contest and does not engage in advocacy.
That expectation is difficult to reconcile with the Governor General’s continued patronage of an organisation that has set itself in opposition to women’s sex-based protections and rights, including the rights of lesbians to organise and associate, and that advocates for access to puberty blockers for children in a highly contested and rapidly evolving area of medicine.
In these circumstances, it is incumbent on the Governor-General either to reconsider this patronage or to explain to the Australian people why it is appropriate.
OOSGG and OAIC papertrail
- AAWAA’s FOI request to OOSGG re GG’s patronage of Equality Australia
- OOSGG’s refusal of AAWAA’s FOI request re GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (FOI2025021)
- AAWAA’s request for internal review of FOI refusal re GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (FOI2025021)
- OOSGG’s refusal outcome of internal review re GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (IR-FOI2025021)
- AAWAA’s FOI request to OOSGG re Administration of GG’s patronage of Equality Australia
- OOSGG’s refusal of AAWAA’s FOI request re Administration of GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (FOI2025062)
- AAWAA’s request for internal review of FOI refusal re Administration of GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (FOI2025062)
- OOSGG’s refusal outcome of internal review re Administration of GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (IR-FOI2025062)
- AAWAA’s request to OAIC re OOSGG’s FOI refusals re GG’s patronage of Equality Australia
- OAIC’s notice of intention to AAWAA to not conduct a review of the OOSGG’s refusal (MR25/01208)
- AAWAA’s further reasons to the OAIC for requesting review of OOSGG refusal (MR25/01208)
- OAIC’s decision not to undertake a review of OOSGG’s refusals of AAWAA’s FOI request re GG’s patronage of Equality Australia (MR25/01208)
