Dear Radio New Zealand Limited,

On May 8th 2023 you responded to an OIA request made by David Farrar and publicly available on the FYI website. In it you indicated that you were withholding the information sought, in part, under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA to protect (among other matters) “the tikanga of RNZ and its kaimahi”.

Section 9(2)(a) of the OIA is quite specific in allowing information to be withheld to protect the privacy of natural persons. RNZ is not a natural person, and tikanga is nowhere mentioned in the OIA as a withholding ground.

Accordingly, please provide any information that you have to support your position that “to protect the tikanga of RNZ and its kaimahi” is a valid ground for withholding information under the OIA. Please also provide any information you have (including but not limited to internal emails, instant messages, or text messages) in which the appropriateness of the protection of the “tikanga of RNZ and its kaimahi” being deployed as a ground for withholding information was discussed.

Additionally, section 9(1) of the Act provides that information may be withheld unless “in the circumstances of the particular case, the withholding of that information is outweighed by other considerations which render it desirable, in the public interest, to make that information available”. Given that the circumstances of this particular case were of exceptional public interest at the time, please provide any information you have concerning the assessment that you undertook as to whether the withholding of the requested information was outweighed by other considerations which would have rendered it desirable, in the public interest, to make the information available.

Yours faithfully,

R S Grant

Dear FormalComplaints,

Please could you advise me of the status of this OIA request, as the latest date for a response permitted by the law was yesterday.

Yours sincerely,

R S Grant

Dear George Bignell,

Thank you for your response, although I note that you made no attempt to provide the information I requested. While the Chief Ombudsman’s decision is interesting, I was already familiar with it and it was not what I asked for. The fact that you believe that the “issues” in my letter have been well canvassed does not absolve you from the obligation to either provide the information that I asked for, or refuse to provide under some valid ground.

This response doesn’t surprise me, however, and it is consistent with your refusal of earlier requests on the basis of “protecting the tikanga of RNZ”, a basis which is comprehensively dismissed in the Obudsman’s decision. It is unfortunate that RNZ does not seem to have learnt anything from this incident in terms of its obligations to comply with the OIA.

Yours sincerely,

R S Grant