Thursday, November 30, 2017



The Minister for Open Government again

How bad is Labour's Minister of "Open Government"? This bad:

Brett Hudson: Does she stand by her 29 November refusal to answer an Official Information Act (OIA) request made on 20 November, which sought a list of all reports, briefings, memos, or aide-mémoire that she had received since being sworn in as Associate Minister of State Services, on the basis that the request did not meet the requirement to be "specified with due particularity" as per section 12(2) of the Official Information Act?

Hon CHRIS HIPKINS: Yes.


Ignore that its Hipkins answering on her behalf, and focus on that OIA request. It specifies the information it is seeking and the timeframe it is being sought over. It is immediately clear to any reader what information is being sought. To refuse it as lacking "due particularity" is utterly baseless and unlawful, and I expect the Ombudsman will tell her that in due course. That would be bad from any government Minister, but Curran is the Minister of Open Government. And it is clear from her reported response to this request that "open government" is not something she believes in or practices. Instead, she is undermining it in her own office, right from day one.

Seeing this, and her previous behaviour, I have no confidence in this Minister to actually open up government or produce anything useful in her portfolio. And if this is how their Minister is goign to act, the government might as well remove the portfolio entirely, because its clearly a complete waste of our time.