complained to the Ombudsman<\/a> after it sought information in March 2025 about meetings, discussions or conversations regarding the case and any proposed legislative or regulatory response.<\/p>\nMatt Hall, the group’s research and legal director, said it received “only limited material” in response.<\/p>\n
ELI said it appeared the Prime Minister’s office withheld a document that now showed direct lobbying of PMO staff by the defendants in the Smith case.<\/p>\n
The document only came to light due to “discovery obligations” on the various corporate defendants, the group said.<\/p>\n
At the time, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he only became aware of the document through the media, and he’s publicly acknowledged the information had not been released in the OIA response to Hall.<\/p>\n
In a parliamentary written question from Labour leader Chris Hipkins, released to RNZ on Monday, Luxon was asked whether his former staffer had any involvement in answering ELI’s OIA request.<\/p>\n
Luxon said his staffer, the chief policy advisor at the time, provided “information relevant to the request” he’d received.<\/p>\n
At the time, that information did not include the briefing document now at the centre of two formal investigations, one by the Ombudsman and one by the Department of Internal Affairs.<\/p>\n
In response to an earlier written parliamentary question from Labour’s Deborah Russell, released publicly on Friday, Luxon said his office had “no record” of receiving the 2024 briefing note “nor do we have any record of any meetings the former staff member may have had”.<\/p>\n
“I am advised there is no record of the briefing note been passed on to any other minister, ministerial office, staff member or officials.”<\/p>\n
Hipkins told RNZ it “absolutely stinks”.<\/p>\n
“When key lobbying material is hidden from the OIA process and only emerges through legal proceedings, people are right to ask what Luxon’s office was trying to hide.”<\/p>\n
Luxon has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone The senior Beehive staffer who failed to disclose a crucial document from lobbyists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272992,"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-478708","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\/478708","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=478708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}