The Government's nuclear agency is charging $7,000 to release as few as two pages about its secret deal with the Argentine company INVAP under the Freedom of Information Act.

Greenpeace and the Herald have each been sent bills of about $7,000 with offers to release only 22 and two pages respectively of more than 1,000 available from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the agency responsible for the Lucas Heights reactor and its proposed replacement.

The Herald in August asked for "documents relating to the criteria on which the successful tenderer for the replacement research reactor was chosen and any documents or correspondence between the Minister, Senator Minchin, and ANSTO, on the criteria". It was told this month that the request involved 1,350 pages, and 1,348 would not be available. To have the FOI processed would cost $7099.78. The bill says "exempted pages" - which the Herald will not be allowed to see - involved 224 hours and 40 minutes of labour for the department, and cost $4,493.33.  Examining "relevant pages for decision making", at five minutes per page, cost $2,250.

Greenpeace had asked ANSTO for "documents relating to the tender process for the construction of a replacement research reactor and the contract arising therefrom". The organisation was asked for $6,809.25 and told that 1,300 pages were involved. ANSTO said two pages could be released "with deletions", and a further 20 that were not exempt.

A reader in law at the Australian National University who has specialised in FOI, Mr Peter Bayne, said yesterday that amendments to the Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act by the former Labor government had led to a new billing system which allowed for decision-making charges, and put the act at odds with State FOI laws.

"At the time the ALP amended the charges regime, it was widely perceived this was an attempt to discourage applications," he said. "It's unfortunate the Commonwealth act does contain a regime for imposing charges which allows agencies to charge for the time they need to make up their mind as to whether [the material is] exempt. Most FOI laws in Australia do not allow agencies to do that. The reason is the ability to do that is an opportunity to run up very high charges [which are] very difficult to review before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In other words it (the Federal charge) places the applicant in an impossible position. They end up with a very big bill and no real way of challenging the decision to impose [the charge]."

Last night, the FOI co-ordinator for ANSTO, Mr Steven McIntosh, said that even though it already knew it was prepared to give the Herald only two pages, it had asked for $7,099.78 because it was using a standard government "per page" charge.

He said the contract Greenpeace had requested was "commercial-in-confidence" and could not be released. "Even though we make one decision about the contract, we have to count 1,800 pages for the purpose of making the charge."