Grounds for "health and safety" for your vaccination assessment tool
Erika Whittome made this Official Information request to Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
The request was partially successful.
From: Erika Whittome
Dear Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment,
I refer to your website from 29th of Dec 2021 which used to say the following:
Vaccination assessment tool
If your business or workplace isn’t covered by a government mandate for COVID-19 vaccination, you can choose to do a risk assessment to see if you can require work to be carried out by vaccinated workers, on health and safety grounds.
(from http://web.archive.org/web/2021122910064... )
Would you please share the minutes, emails and any correspondence and policy documents for the decision to publish the above saying that a business or workplace may require work to be "carried out by vaccinated workers, on health and safety grounds."
Please include any legal discussions and legal advice, and also refer to the specific sections of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 as the basis for this statement.
Yours faithfully,
Erika Whittome
From: Ministerial Services
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
Ref: 2324-0413
Kia ora Erika Whittome,
On behalf of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment I
acknowledge your email of 24 August 2023 requesting under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act), the following:
“Dear Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment, I refer to your
website from 29th of Dec 2021 which used to say the following:
Vaccination assessment tool
If your business or workplace isn’t covered by a government mandate for
COVID-19 vaccination, you can choose to do a risk assessment to see if you
can require work to be carried out by vaccinated workers, on health and
safety grounds.
(from
https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
)
Would you please share the minutes, emails and any correspondence and
policy documents for the decision to publish the above saying that a
business or workplace may require work to be "carried out by vaccinated
workers, on health and safety grounds."
Please include any legal discussions and legal advice, and also refer to
the specific sections of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 as the
basis for this statement.”
We will endeavour to respond to your request as soon as possible, and no
later than 21 September 2023, being 20 working days after the day your
request was received. If we are unable to respond to your request by then,
we will notify you of an extension of that timeframe. If you have any
enquiries regarding your request feel free to contact us via email to
[1][MBIE request email].
Nâku noa, nâ
Ministerial Services
Corporate Services, Finance & Enablement
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
15 Stout Street, Wellington 6011 | PO Box 1473 Wellington 6140
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[MBIE request email]
From: *OIA
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
Tēnā koe Erika,
Thank you for your OIA request, received on 24 August 2023 to the Ministry
of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
Please find attached an extension letter from MBIE.
Ngā mihi,
Workplace Relations and Safety Policy Branch
Labour, Science and Enterprise Group
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE)
[1]Description: cid:image001.jpg@01CE732A.1A2F9630
References
Visible links
From: *OIA
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
Dear Erika
Please find attached the response to your OIA request.
Ngā mihi
Ministerial Services
Engagement, Communications and Ministerial Services
Email: [1][email address]
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
15 Stout Street, Wellington, PO Box 1473, Wellington 6140
[2]www.mbie.govt.nz
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.mbie.govt.nz/
From: Erika Whittome
Dear *OIA,
You have shared a "marked up reply" document containing some email headers, however it is heavily redacted and it contains no minutes, correspondence and policy documents for the decision to make the statement in my request. Would you kindly share the minutes, emails and any correspondence and policy documents for the decision for your vaccination assessment tool advice.
Yours sincerely,
Erika Whittome
From: Erika Whittome
Dear *OIA,
I have now submitted a complain to the Ombudsman about this .
Yours sincerely,
Erika Whittome
From: *OIA
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
Kia ora Erika,
Thanks for your follow-up email about the OIA response. We have provided
some information below which hopefully provides more clarity about our
approach.
The approach we took to this response was to include the emails that led
up to the approval of the wording that you requested, including those from
people who have now left MBIE. We looked for emails, documents,
correspondence, and minutes which were related to the wording set out in
your request leading up to the time the sentence was published on the
bus.govt.nz website. We deduced that the relevant time period was December
2021, so have included emails and documents from this month.
As you are aware, some of what we have provided to you has been marked as
legally privileged or out of scope. The out of scope sections of the
response relate to other content e.g., how the vaccination assessment tool
works, process-related issues like how the website content will be
published.
I hope this explanation is helpful.
Ngā mihi,
Charlotte de Feijter
Team leader, Employment Relations policy
MBIE
Ministerial Services
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
15 Stout Street, Wellington 6011 | PO Box 1473, Wellington 6140
[1]http://mbieintranet/assets/MBIE-visual-i...
References
Visible links
Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
- Download a zip file of all correspondence