Dear Ministry of Social Development,

On July 1, Finance Minister Bill English announced that the unemployed would face drug testing in order to receive benefits ("English confirms drug tests for job seekers", TVNZ, 1 July 2012). I would like to request the following information under the Official Information Act 1982:

* all documents (including advice, briefings, aides memoire, cabinet papers, emails, notes etc) relating to this policy. I am particularly interested in information about the cost of the policy, and on complaince with the Bill of Rights Act.

I would prefer to receive an electronic response. Queries about this request will be automatically forwarded to me by the fyi.org.nz website.

With regards to s12 of the OIA, I am an NZ citizen and in NZ.

Yours faithfully,

Alex Harris

Dear Ministry of Social Development,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Social Development's handling of my FOI request 'Advice on drug-testing jobseekers'.

You have refused the request on the basis of s9(2)(f)(iv), which protects the constitutional convention which protects, for the time being, the confidentiality of advice tendered by Ministers of the Crown and officials. As the Ombudsman's practice guidelines make clear, this section applies only to _advice_. It does not apply to factual information (for example, any information on the problem the policy seeks to address e.g. how many beneficiaries are drug addicts anyway?). As the Ombudsman makes clear,

"Advice that is purely factual in nature or comprises bare options, as opposed to opinions offered or recommendations made as to future action, can often be disclosed without pre-empting the ability of Ministers or Cabinet to deliberate on the advice received"

So, I'm asking that you review the material and release this sort of information.

Secondly, the provision applies only until a decision has been reached. I'm seeking your assurance that Cabinet has made no decisions on this. If not, then I'd like you to release those portions of advice relating to the decisions Cabinet has made.

Finally, given the admitted public interest in this issue, I'm wondering whether you would proactively release this material the moment a decision has been made by Cabinet. Doing so would likely save you the hassle of dealing with future requests form interested parties (of whom I imagine you must have quite a few).

I'm looking forward to your response.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://fyi.org.nz/request/advice_on_drug...

Yours faithfully,

Alex Harris

Dear Tanya Howlett,

Its been two weeks and I haven't had an acknowledgement of my request for reconsideration. Do I need to escalate this to the Ombudsman?

Yours sincerely,

Alex Harris