{"id":472504,"date":"2026-06-11T19:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/472504\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T19:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:24:10","slug":"the-toothless-official-information-law-keeping-us-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/472504\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘toothless’ official information law keeping us in the dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chief<\/p>\n

\nFormer chief ombudsman Sir Peter Boshier
\nPhoto: Getty Images\n<\/p>\n

A former chief ombudsman says many agencies are ‘making a mountain out of a molehill’ in their responses – or lack of response – to Official Information Act requests, and it’s time the Act sees reform<\/p>\n

Former chief ombudsman Sir Peter Boshier has revealed he threatened to go to the Solicitor-General to prosecute Te Whatu Ora after it repeatedly failed to respond to requests under the Official Information Act.<\/p>\n

It was the only time in nearly 10 years in the role that he made the ultimatum.<\/p>\n

“The staff were getting increasingly concerned about the non-response of Te Whatu Ora<\/a> and that’s the only time I had to engage with the chief executive to say, ‘unless your agency complies I’m going to ask the Solicitor-General to prosecute you’,” Boshier tells The Detail, in Friday’s podcast about the Official Information Act.<\/p>\n

As chief ombudsman from December 2015 to March 2025, Boshier handled more than 14,000 OIA complaints and 37 proactive investigations into the official information practices of central government agencies.<\/p>\n

He says he was at the end of his tether with the national health service because of non-compliance after it delayed its responses, then failed to provide material.<\/p>\n

When Te Whatu Ora finally said it would supply the information, it didn’t.<\/p>\n

“That for me was the lowest point,” Boshier says.<\/p>\n

“This is, at the end of the day, people wanting information about loved ones, either deceased or alive, and this is the accountability and the ability to participate in decision-making that the Act’s all about. It’s wrong that I couldn’t help those people achieve information that they were entitled to.”<\/p>\n

\"No<\/p>\n

\nThere have been renewed calls to reform the Official Information Act after a new report spells out the growing annual cost.
\nPhoto: VNP \/ Daniela Maoate-Cox\n<\/p>\n

Boshier says the case highlights some failings of the Act because there are no consequences or penalties for non-compliance.<\/p>\n

He is speaking to The Detail about renewed calls for the Official Information Act to be reformed after a new report estimates the annual cost of responding to OIA requests has grown by nearly 300 percent over the past decade, to more than $180 million.<\/p>\n

The report by the consultancy firm TBL suggests the costs of responding to OIA requests had increased from $46.7m in the 2015\/16 financial year to $183.6m in 2024\/25 – a 293 percent rise – and are forecast to grow to $342m in 2030\/31.<\/p>\n

Critics say the $180m estimate, if correct, amounts to just 0.25 percent of annual public spending and fear scrutiny of it will lead to less transparency in government departments.<\/p>\n

There had been a 394 percent growth in the number of requests across the same period, with police accounting for up to 47 percent of all requests received.<\/p>\n

However, as earlier reported in Newsroom, both the TBL report and the Ombudsman’s office noted the spike came after a 2018\/19 change in police reporting processes that included counting media enquiries as OIA requests.<\/p>\n

In his report to Parliament last year when he left his role, Boshier says he had tried to “plead with agencies to get a system running which eased the supply of information”.<\/p>\n

“But many were multi-layered in the way they applied it, many took a simple request as meaning an in-depth OIA request in which the full 20 days was used. I felt a number of agencies – not all, there were some notable exceptions who performed well – but many were making a mountain out of a molehill.”<\/p>\n

He also called for a tweaking of the Act to tackle the proliferation of requests “so that you couldn’t just ask for anything you wanted to at any time, and as often as you wanted to”.<\/p>\n

Call for penalties for breaches<\/p>\n

\"26082022.<\/p>\n

\nAndrea Vance
\nPhoto: Robyn Edie\n<\/p>\n

Stuff investigative journalist Andrea Vance wants independent resourcing of the OIA so that government agencies have separate teams dealing with requests.<\/p>\n

She also wants to see penalties for breaches of the Act.<\/p>\n

“There are no consequences for breaching the OIA, for not releasing information, for holding back information until it’s politically convenient to release it,” she says, pointing out that breaches for every other law carry penalties.<\/p>\n

“The OIA is so important – at a time when trust in democracy is being eroded, it’s really, really important that we have transparency in our government, our politics and our public service.”<\/p>\n

Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook<\/a> or following us on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former chief ombudsman Sir Peter Boshier Photo: Getty Images A former chief ombudsman says many agencies are ‘making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-472504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}