Victorian Current Acts Victorian Current Acts(1) Subject to this Act, the Authority or a self-insurer must, at the request of a person who has made a claim for compensation, give that person in accordance with this section any information held by the Authority or self-insurer which is relevant to the claim for compensation.
(2) The Authority, a self-insurer or an employer must, at the request of a person who has made a claim for compensation, give that person any information received from a provider to that person of a medical service or hospital service, being information regarding that service and relevant to the claim.
(3) The Authority, a self-insurer or an employer must take all reasonable steps, as soon as is practicable but in any case not later than 28 days of the request being received, to give to the person making the request—
(a) a notice of the reasons for its decision; and
(b) if the decision is to provide all or part of the information requested under subsection (1) or (2), that information.
(4) The Authority or self-insurer may refuse to provide the information requested under subsection (1) if the Authority or self-insurer is satisfied that—
(a) subject to subsection (5), the information is exempt information; or
(b) there are no reasonable grounds for requesting information—
(i) which is the same as information which has been given to the person making the request under this or any other Act in the period of 12 months before the request; or
(ii) to which access has previously been refused under this or any other Act.
(5) If—
(a) the Authority or self-insurer decides not to grant a request for information on the ground that some of the information is exempt information; and
(b) it is practicable for the Authority or self‑insurer to give a copy of the information with deletions of the exempt information; and
(c) it appears from the request or subsequent indications from the person making the request, that the person would wish to have access to information with those deletions—
the Authority or self-insurer must provide that information.
(6) If the Authority, a self-insurer or an employer believes on reasonable grounds that the information requested under subsection (1) or (2) includes information which is exempt information because it is health information which would pose a serious threat to the life or health of the person if the information were to be given to that person—
(a) the Authority, a self-insurer or an employer must not give access to that health information; and
(b) the procedure set out in Division 3 of Part 5 of the Health Records Act 2001 applies as if the refusal of access were a refusal under section 26 of that Act.
(7) The failure by the Authority, a self-insurer or an employer to comply with this section is to be taken to be a dispute to which Divisions 1 and 2 of Part 6 apply.
(8) In this section, "exempt information" means information of a kind which, if it were contained in a document requested under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 , would make that document an exempt document because section 30, 31, 32, 33 or 35 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 would apply.
Division 2—Principles and guides