The Home Affairs boss was censured by his minister Peter Dutton in June, after Mr Pezzullo phoned Senator Patrick in relation to comments he had made about the departmental secretary in the media.

Senator Patrick claimed Mr Pezzullo had tried to intimidate him, and while Mr Dutton backed his secretary, said the call was inappropriate.

Following the controversy over the call, Senator Patrick sent a request to the department under freedom of information laws, asking for communications from Mr Pezzullo regarding freedom of the press, balancing national security safeguards with press freedom safeguards and media reporting regarding national security.

While the request was acknowledged, no further response, including a time extension request, was received by the Centre Alliance senator, who has now requested a review by the Information Commissioner.

On Wednesday night Senator Patrick said he made the request "out of fairness" because Mr Pezzullo had taken umbrage at his claim he didn't support media scrutiny.

After making the request to the Commission for review, the department responded, explaining they were dealing with a high number of requests and pointing the senator to public documents.

Senator Patrick said this wasn't good enough, and the department should be complying with the access laws.

"Mr Pezzullo has no right to not comply with our Freedom of Information law. He has no right to decide which laws he obeys and which laws he ignores," he said.

"On the face of it Home Affairs doesn't like media scrutiny, nor does it like the transparency of FOI."