Website designer
Rich Seager (Account suspended) made this Official Information request to Michael Wood
The request was refused by Michael Wood.
From: Rich Seager (Account suspended)
Dear Michael Wood,
I have a very simple request;
Who designed your website?
Thanks.
Yours faithfully,
Rich Seager
Michael Wood
Tēnā koe, Talofa lava. Thank you for your email.
While I consider all correspondence to be important, and all messages are
carefully read and considered, it is not always possible to personally
reply to all. As such, I have put the following guidelines in place:
* Invitations and meeting requests will be processed as soon as possible
and a staff member will be in contact with you in due course
* All media queries will be responded to by a staff member
* If your correspondence is to me as the Member of Parliament for Mt
Roskill, it will be referred to my electorate office
* If your email falls outside of my portfolio responsibilities,
expresses a personal view, or is copied to multiple Members of
Parliament, then your views will be noted and your correspondence may
be transferred to another office, or there may be no further action
taken.
Thank you for the taking the time to write.
Nga mihi,
Michael Wood MP
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From: Rich Seager (Account suspended)
Dear Michael Wood,
It's an FOI request Michael made via fyi.org.nz
20 working days will be up on 16th August. The latest that I should expect a response would be on the 19th August. But really this should be very easy for you to answer, so I'm hoping that you will respond a lot sooner than that.
Yours faithfully,
Rich Seager
From: Brendan McBryde
Michael Wood
Kia ora Mr Seager – thank you for reaching out with this request.
Unfortunately we will be unable to provide this information to you in this
instance for two reasons. The first is that Michael is not covered by the
OIA because he is not a Government Minister, and the second is that
information about a party political website would not in any case be
covered by the OIA.
Best,
Brendan
Brendan McBryde | Office Manager | Labour Whips’ Office
P (04) 817 9110 | [1][email address]
-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Seager
[[2]mailto:[FOI #10777 email]]
Sent: Saturday, 27 July 2019 10:05 PM
To: Michael Wood <[3][Michael Wood request email]>
Subject: Re: Official Information request - Website designer
Dear Michael Wood,
It's an FOI request Michael made via fyi.org.nz
20 working days will be up on 16th August. The latest that I should expect
a response would be on the 19th August. But really this should be very
easy for you to answer, so I'm hoping that you will respond a lot sooner
than that.
Yours faithfully,
Rich Seager
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From: Rich Seager (Account suspended)
Hi Brendan McBryde,
the fact that he is not a government minister does not preclude him being subject to the OIA. As the newly installed government whip it could be debated that he is subject to the Act. But it's not clear and I don't feel like going to find precedent. He could also be subject to the Act from former roles. But once again it's not worth the effort for such a simple request.
It was a simple request.
Yours sincerely,
Rich Seager
Rich Seager (Account suspended) left an annotation ()
Thanks Mark but I already have had a look at the Act (as well as the Ombudsmen Act (1975) and advice given to MPs on the topic.
I think that it could be argued that as the Government whip that he is subject to the OIA. But it would likely involve going off to legal resources for the next few days to find some precedent to follow, locally or in the UK (where I think the Government whip is subject official information requests) or to Canada, Australia or the United States and then arguing that in court to force the issue. Hardly worth it for such a request.
Also Section 1 of the OIA states that;
official information—
(a) means any information held by—
(i) a department; or
(ii) a Minister of the Crown in his official capacity; or
(iii) an organisation; and
And there is an obligation on the person subject to the request in Section 2 (14) to pass along that request to another entity if they themselves do not hold the information.
Interpretation is just that, interpretation. Yours no more valid than mine, and the reverse, until decided on in court.
Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
- Download a zip file of all correspondence
Offensive? Unsuitable?
Requests for personal information and vexatious requests are not considered valid requests for Official Information (read more).
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To New Zealand Post Limited by Rich Seager (Account suspended)
Mark Hanna left an annotation ()
"the fact that he is not a government minister does not preclude him being subject to the OIA"
This is not correct.
Members of Parliament are not subject to the OIA unless they are a Minister of the Crown. You might want to read the definition of "official information" laid out in section 2 of the OIA: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/publi...
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