Details on the criminal status of the IRD
Gold made this Official Information request to David Seymour
Response to this request is delayed. By law, David Seymour should normally have responded promptly and by (details and exceptions)
From: Gold
Tēnā koe David Seymour,
On The Platform you explicitly claim that the IRD is a criminal organization. As a Member of Parliament, as a Minister of the Crown, claiming that an entire Government Department is "criminal" is a serious accusation and I can't imagine this being said, in public, without some solid evidence.
c.f. https://youtu.be/2HBJ4bQD1lU?si=8cJwQ0qt...
I request all correspondence, or any other materials, that demonstrate this to be a true claim.
Ngā mihi,
Gold
From: David Seymour (MIN)
David Seymour
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From: David Seymour (MIN)
David Seymour
Dear Gold
Thank you for your email in which you submitted an Official Information
Act request as follows:
On The Platform you explicitly claim that the IRD is a criminal
organization. As a Member of Parliament, as a Minister of the Crown,
claiming that an entire Government Department is "criminal" is a serious
accusation and I can't imagine this being said, in public, without some
solid evidence.
c.f.
[1]https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://yout...
I request all correspondence, or any other materials, that demonstrate
this to be a true claim.
We received your request on Thursday 19 December 2024. We will endeavour
to respond to your request as soon as possible and in any event no later
than Monday10 February 2025, 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.
We advise that the due date for your request has taken into account the
summer holiday period (25 December 2024 to 15 January 2025). Please refer
to this guide for an explanation of the [2]statutory obligations under the
Official Information Act 1982.
Kind regards,
Office of Hon David Seymour
[3]A pink and Deputy Prime Minister (from 31 May 2025)
white emblem
with two women Minister for Regulation
holding flags Associate Minister of Education
Description
automatically Associate Minister of Justice
generated
Associate Minister of Finance
Associate Minister of Health
7.6 Executive Wing, Parliament Buildings, Wellington
show quoted sections
From: David Seymour (MIN)
David Seymour
Dear Gold
Thank you for your email of 19 December 2024, requesting the following
information:
“On The Platform you explicitly claim that the IRD is a criminal
organization. As a Member of Parliament, as a Minister of the Crown,
claiming that an entire Government Department is "criminal" is a serious
accusation and I can't imagine this being said, in public, without some
solid evidence.
c.f.
[1]https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://yout...
I request all correspondence, or any other materials, that demonstrate
this to be a true claim.”
We have considered your request under the Official Information Act 1982
(the Act).
Your request is refused under section 18(e) of the OIA as the comments
were made as ACT Party Leader. The Act Party is not subject to the
Official Information Act.
Under section 28(3) of the Act, you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
review any decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be
contacted by email at: [email address] or by calling 0800 802
602.
Kind regards,
Office of Hon David Seymour
[2]A pink and Deputy Prime Minister (from 31 May 2025)
white emblem
with two women Minister for Regulation
holding flags Associate Minister of Education
Description
automatically Associate Minister of Justice
generated
Associate Minister of Finance
Associate Minister of Health
7.6 Executive Wing, Parliament Buildings, Wellington
DSOIA366
show quoted sections
From: Gold
Tēnā koe David Seymour (MIN),
I've reviewed the entire segment that you appeared in when you made the claim.
You were not introduced in any manner that makes it clear that you were there as the Leader of the ACT Party. The closest thing that you were introduced as was "an MP".
While you did address some questions about the ACT Party, you did also addressed many other non-ACT related topics.
It would not be unreasonable for anyone watching this to believe you were speaking as any of the titles you hold. Without this clear indication or introduction I do not think claiming you were speaking *only* as Leader of the ACT Party is a valid reason to refuse this request.
However, the explicit refusal given was :
"Your request is refused under section 18(e) of the OIA as the comments
were made as ACT Party Leader."
Section 18(e) reads thus:
"18 Refusal of requests
A request made in accordance with section 12 may be refused only for 1 or more of the following reasons, namely:
(e) that the document alleged to contain the information requested does not exist or, despite reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found:"
For now, I'll ignore the fact that the reason given (section 18(e) "can't find, or don't have, the info") makes no sense in the context of the secondary qualifier (the comments were made as ACT Party Leader and I can't be OIA'd in that capacity). I reserve the right to pass this to the Ombudsman, if this ends up going that way.
So given there was no clear indicator in that clip that you were speaking as Leader of the ACT Party, and were explicitly introduced as "an MP", and at 3:52[1] you even raised your role in the Ministry for Regulation, I again ask that you provide the correspondence requested. I would point out that as "an MP" you wear many hats and this request should include all of those as well.
Ngā mihi,
Gold
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