Dear Correspondent  

 

Thank you for contacting Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Racing.  

 

The Deputy Prime Minister considers all correspondence important and
appreciates you taking the time to write.   

 

Please note that since the Deputy Prime Minister receives a large amount
of correspondence, it is not always possible to personally reply to all
emails. 

 

The following guidelines apply: 

 

·         Invitations and requests to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister
will be processed as soon as possible and a staff member will be in
contact with you in due course. 

·         Media queries will be responded to by a staff member. 

·         Requests for official information will be managed in accordance
with provisions of the Official Information Act 1982, which may include
transfer to a more relevant Minister or agency. 

·         If your email falls outside of the Deputy Prime Minister's
portfolio responsibilities, expresses a personal view, or is copied to
multiple Members of Parliament, then your opinion will be noted and your
correspondence may be transferred to another office, or there may be no
further response to you. 

·         If your correspondence is to the Minister as the Member of
Parliament or Party Leader of New Zealand First, this may be referred to
the New Zealand First Leader’s office. 

 

(If your invitation or meeting request is accepted - please note
information about meetings related to the Ministers’ portfolios will be
proactively released (this does not include personal or constituency
matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time
(start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with,
and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with the Minister on behalf of
an organisation, the name of the organisation will be released. If you are
a senior staff member at an organisation, or meet with the Minister in
your personal capacity, your name may also be released. The location of
the meeting will be released, unless it is a private residence. The
proactive release will be consistent with the provisions in the Official
Information Act, including privacy considerations. Under the Privacy Act
1993 you have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we
hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is
wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it
corrected, or are concerned about the release of your information in the
meeting disclosure, please contact the sender. You can read more about the
proactive release policy at
[1]https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas... ) 

 

(Please note that this acknowledgement is an automatically generated
email.) 

 

Regards 

 

The Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

Visible links
1. https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...

Dear Andrew Riddell,

 

I acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act (OIA) request dated
27 June 2024, in which you requested the following:

 

“ I now request all communications relating to the processing of this
request, including the assessment of the request and the preparation of
your responses to this information request. For the purposes of this
request 'communications' includes emails, letters, internal
correspondence, briefings, file notes, records of phone calls and/or
conversations, personal recollections and so on.”

 

We received your request on 27 June 2024. We will endeavour to respond to
your request as soon as possible and in any event no later than 26 July
2024, 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 queries, please feel free to contact our office. If any
additional factors come to light which are relevant to your request,
please do not hesitate top contact us so that these can be taken into
account.

 

Kind Regards

Private Secretary

 

 

Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters
Deputy Prime Minister

Minister of Foreign Affairs |

Minister for Racing |

Private Bag 18041, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Correspondent  

 

Thank you for contacting Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Racing.  

 

The Deputy Prime Minister considers all correspondence important and
appreciates you taking the time to write.   

 

Please note that since the Deputy Prime Minister receives a large amount
of correspondence, it is not always possible to personally reply to all
emails. 

 

The following guidelines apply: 

 

·         Invitations and requests to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister
will be processed as soon as possible and a staff member will be in
contact with you in due course. 

·         Media queries will be responded to by a staff member. 

·         Requests for official information will be managed in accordance
with provisions of the Official Information Act 1982, which may include
transfer to a more relevant Minister or agency. 

·         If your email falls outside of the Deputy Prime Minister's
portfolio responsibilities, expresses a personal view, or is copied to
multiple Members of Parliament, then your opinion will be noted and your
correspondence may be transferred to another office, or there may be no
further response to you. 

·         If your correspondence is to the Minister as the Member of
Parliament or Party Leader of New Zealand First, this may be referred to
the New Zealand First Leader’s office. 

 

(If your invitation or meeting request is accepted - please note
information about meetings related to the Ministers’ portfolios will be
proactively released (this does not include personal or constituency
matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time
(start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with,
and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with the Minister on behalf of
an organisation, the name of the organisation will be released. If you are
a senior staff member at an organisation, or meet with the Minister in
your personal capacity, your name may also be released. The location of
the meeting will be released, unless it is a private residence. The
proactive release will be consistent with the provisions in the Official
Information Act, including privacy considerations. Under the Privacy Act
1993 you have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we
hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is
wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it
corrected, or are concerned about the release of your information in the
meeting disclosure, please contact the sender. You can read more about the
proactive release policy at
[1]https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas... ) 

 

(Please note that this acknowledgement is an automatically generated
email.) 

 

Regards 

 

The Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

Visible links
1. https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...

Dear Andrew Riddell,

Thank you for your email of 27 June 2024 in which you requested the following under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA):

"all communications relating to the processing of this request, including the assessment of the request and the preparation of your responses to this information request."

For context, this Office sent our response to your OIA request on July 26, 2024, and again on September 19, 2024, to the email address provided. We have liaised with the Ombudsman, and we don't know why it hasn't appeared in your FYI profile.

Some information is withheld under the following sections of the OIA:

9(2)(a): to protect individuals’ privacy;
9(2)(g)(i): to protect the free and frank expression of opinions by departments;
and,
9(2)(g)(ii): to protect officers and employees from improper pressure or
harassment.

Draft documents are withheld in full under the following section 9(2)(g)(i) of the OIA, to protect the free and frank expression of opinions by departments.

Where the information has been withheld under section 9 of the OIA, no public interest in releasing the information has been identified that would override the reasons for withholding it.

Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Winston Peters
Minister of Foreign Affairs