NRT: More OIA skullduggery from National

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, September 1st, 2014 - 8 comments
Categories: accountability, Judith Collins, Politics - Tags: , , , ,

no-right-turn-256Reposted from No Right Turn.

Another day, and more evidence the National government is manipulating the OIA process:

Judith Collins’ office processed an Official Information Act request in just two days to release an email embarrassing then Serious Fraud Office head Adam Feeley in 2011.

[…]

On October 17 Collins disclosed Feeley had emailed her an apology, but she expected him to travel to Wellington to deliver it in person.

An OIA request by the National Business Review for the email was processed and the email released the following day.

The problem here isn’t that someone got their response within two days – its that other people didn’t. The law requires that requests be answered “as soon as reasonably practicable” (and in any case within 20 working days), but its increasingly clear that what is “reasonably practicable” varies significantly depending on whether you are a critic or ally of the government, and indeed on whether a Minister wants to deniably smear their own staff while being protected from legal consequences.

Meanwhile, OIAs seeking information which might be damaging to the electoral chances of the government are inexplicably delayed…

Which makes that upcoming Ombudsman’s investigation even more urgent, and even more necessary. Ministers should not be manipulating the process like this, and those that do should be named, shamed, and sacked.

8 comments on “NRT: More OIA skullduggery from National ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Tracey 1
    1 September 2014 at 3:12 pm

    Have had my own problems getting the factual basis for English’s crowing about how nats policies have lowered teen mothers on benefits.

    http://thestandard.org.nz/guest-post-tracey-blinglish-single-handedly-reduces-teenage-pregnancies/#comment-877463

    Turns out they have been running a dating/marriage service.

  2. karol 2
    1 September 2014 at 4:17 pm

    And David Fisher has apparently received some more emails from Rawshark that shows Collins and Slater communicating about the release of an OIA re the Goff briefing in 2011 re the Israeli backpackers.

    The Herald now has information purporting to be social media conversations and emails between Ms Collins and the blogger Cameron Slater.
    […]
    Among the information, which was said to be hacked from Slater’s computer, is an apparent discussion about the political demise of former Labour leader Phil Goff.

    The conversation appears to show Slater and Collins discussing Mr Goff’s departure from Parliament in the context of an expected Official Information Act response just days before the unusually swift release of an intelligence briefing to the blogger from the SIS.

    • Tracey 2.1
      1 September 2014 at 4:22 pm

      Unfortunately parliamentary services cant be OIA

      It would be cool to find out the average time for release of SIS related OIAs and Cameron Slaters average time

    • Tracey 2.2
      1 September 2014 at 4:24 pm

      I hope david fisher sent them to the prime ministers office because otherwise we just cant trust them.

  3. disturbed 3
    1 September 2014 at 9:02 pm

    Yesterday DC was calling for a royal commission.

    Today Key is minimal damage control. Narrow ToR Gov’t Q+A

    Can’t we have opposition now rush in a case for Royal Commission with wide ToR “in the public interests of fear of Civic corruption” and crime Act under Section 116 & 105 as Penny Bright has just laid charges against Collins today?
    Penny Bright 13

    1 September 2014 at 8:27 pm

    FYI today I have emailed the Auckland District Commander, Michael Clement, making a formal complaint to Police against former Minister of Justice Judith Collins for alleged violations of s. 116 and s. 105 of the NZ Crimes Act 1961.

    The evidence upon which I am relying to support this complaint is the same evidence upon which Prime Minister John Key was purportedly relying to remove Judith Collins from her Ministerial responsibilities.

    Penny Bright

  4. greywarbler 4
    2 September 2014 at 10:20 am

    Another thing that seekers of information under the OIA notice apparently, is that when the information is released, it isn’t just released to them. So a journalist trying to get background on an interesting topic and build a story on it will have important background material disseminated to them and to other journalists, spiking the novelty of their own original effort and alerting others to the possibility of a story.

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