Dear Andrew Little,

This is a request for information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the OIA). Under section 12(3) of the OIA I request that you process my request urgently. My reason for urgency is that I need the information requested below in order to make a submission on the Privacy Bill, the closing date for which is 24 May 2018. In deciding whether or not to accord urgency to my request, I trust the Ministry will attach appropriate weight to the section 4(a)(i) purpose of the OIA, to enable people to effectively participate in the making of laws - particularly since this relates to the human rights of individuals.

In the Law Commission's 2011 Report R123 (Stage Four of its review of the Privacy Act) (http://lawcom.govt.nz/our-projects/privacy), the Law Commission recommended (recommendation R37, page 132) that "The Ombudsmen should be deleted from the list of entities excluded from the definition of “agency”.

The previous government's response to the Law Commission report was that it would consider this matter further.

However, the definition of 'agency' in clause 6(b)(ix) of the current Privacy Bill still excludes the Ombudsman.

Please provide (as electronic attachments to your response to this request, as per s. 16 of the OIA) the following information:

(a) All briefings, submissions, advice, emails, memoranda, aide memoire, speaking notes, notes of meetings, handwritten notes made by officials or yourself, or other recorded information held by the Ministry, that includes any consideration of Law Commission recommendation R37 on deleting the Ombudsman from the list of entities excluded from the definition of 'agency'; and

(b) Copies of all correspondence and notes of meetings (handwritten or typed up) that relate to this issue, that you have held with:
(i) The Ombudsman or any of his employees or representatives
(ii) The Privacy Commissioner or any of his employees or representatives
(iii) Any other third party; and

(c) Copies of all papers taken by you to Cabinet or Cabinet Committee that include consideration of which entities should be exempt from the definition of 'agency'

If you decide that any part of the OIA provides a ground for withholding information when you respond to this request, please could you - as per section 19(a) of the OIA - provide details of the reasons in support of those grounds, including the public interest factors considered by the you under section 9(1).

In the event that the you decide that there is reason under the OIA to withhold some information in full, please provide me with a list of all the documents it has determined fall within the scope of my request.

Yours faithfully,

Andrew Ecclestone