Dear Department of Labour,

On the 12th of April I requested from you under the Official Information Act various information related to plans to deal with "boat people." On the 29th of June I received a response (visible at http://fyi.org.nz/request/plans_for_boat...) that gave the names of various documents containing plans for dealing with mass arrivals by sea. I now have a follow up Official Information Act request.

First: I want to thank you for dealing my with my request, I underestimated how many documents would be caught by my request, and I want to thank you in working to attempt to answer my request. Looking at how many documents were captured, I would hate to think how much background information would exist.

Second: the purpose of this follow up request is to request some documents which the titles were given of in my original request. I wish to request:
a) the Refugee Quota Branch, detention manual (document no. 10 in the response to me)
b) the draft MOU between DoL and various agencies to support open immigration detention in the event of a mass arrival (no 11)
c) the report entitled "Mass Arrival of Illegal Immigrants: Compliance Operations Branch Response Plan" (no 3)

Feel free to contact me if you wish me to clarify my request.

Yours faithfully,

Joshua Grainger

Dear Sandy Tuhou,

Thank you very much for your reply. I have a few follow up requests and questions:

First: can I please request a breakdown for the three documents I requested which withholding provisions apply to each? This is because I wish to complain to the Ombudsmen, and knowing which provisions apply to each document makes it easier.

Second : It was pointed out to me that some reasons for withholding where rather peculiar: none of the material in question seems to be "advice" (operations manuals and MOUs can't be), it deals with relationships with government bodies rather than commercial enterprises so it can't be commercial, and there's no obvious impact on privacy apart from the names of any officials mentioned (which of course can be redacted). I was wondering if you could expand on the reasons why these particular declining provisons were applied: this would help in informing my complaint to the Ombudsmen, so I can respond to the reasons why it was declined.

Finally, please can I request under the Official Information Act all documents related to my request, including *all* emails, draft responses, and other such correspondence. I recognize that this request may take the longest, and so if this request is holding up responses to my other points, can the answer to this be dealt with in a seperate email?

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Grainger

Dear OIA GEMS,

I would just like to check on the status of my follow up request (acknowledged in letter file no 12/03955), which was received on the 30th of June. According to the Ombudsmen's calculator the deadline for responding to this request passed on the 27th of August, and I have not received any response. Can you please advise me when I will be receiving one?

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Grainger

Dear OIA GEMS,

Apologies for the confusion Chris. In my follow up I asked three questions. One and two were answered by your recent reply, but I have not yet received the answer to question 3 ("all documents related to my request (num 12/03399), including *all* emails, draft responses, and other such correspondence"). This third request was lodged as a new OIA request and acknowledged in letter letter file no 12/03955.

Apologies if you're not the right person to send this to: all I can see when replying using the FYI website is either the main contact email for the Department of Labour, Sandy Tuhou's email, or the OIA GEMS email. I figured OIA GEMS was the right email to send this to. (along with this I cannot see or change the subject line of the email reply)

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Grainger