8 October 2021
45 Pipitea Street, Wellington 6011
Phone +64 4 495 7200
dia.govt.nz
S Rasool
fyi-request-16572-
[email address]
Dear S Rasool
OIA request 21/22 0208 Request for information relating to the Lottery Grants Board
Thank you for your Official Information Act (Act) request received by the Department of Internal
Affairs (Department) on 30 August 2021.
You requested –
•
Dear New Zealand Lottery Grants Board,
Please confirm the revenue generated by Lotto NZ for each year from 1987 till date. Also,
list the revenue exclusive of GST in one column and GST separately in the other column.
To ensure we were providing you with relevant information, you were asked in an email of 23
September 2021 to clarify whether you were seeking information relating to Lotto New Zealand
(Lotto NZ) or Lottery Grants Board (LGB). This was because both entities were referenced in
your request, as quoted above.
As explained in our email,
Lotto NZ exists to provide safe gaming that allows New Zealanders to
play and win, while contributing money back to New Zealand communities. Under the Gambling
Act 2003, all profits from playing Lotto are used to benefit New Zealand communities. The New
Zealand Lotteries Commission runs the Lottery, and the
New Zealand LGB distributes its profits.
As we were yet to receive clarification from you, our initial response on 28 September provided
that should your request be in relation to Lotto NZ revenue, we must refuse your request
pursuant to section 18(g)(i) of the Act; the information requested is not held by the department
or venture or Minister of the Crown or organisation and the person dealing with the request has
no grounds for believing that the information is held by another department (for itself and for a
departmental agency hosted by it or an interdepartmental executive board serviced by it) or
interdepartmental venture or Minister of the Crown or organisation, or by a local authority.
I note that we have since realised that Lotto NZ is subject to the Official Information Act 1982
and refusing under section 18(g)(i) was therefore incorrect, so would like to apologise for this
error. I do note however, that we would not have sought transfer of your request to Lotto NZ in
this instance regardless, as we were yet to receive clarification if it was in fact their information
that you were seeking.
You were also advised that if your request was in relation to
LGB revenue, there is no GST
component to the Lotto NZ profits allocated to the LGB. This is because the GST is added when
the grant is awarded to an organisation who is GST registered. We also noted that GST in these
Instances is not deducted from the allocation, and that the full allocation is awarded as a grant
and not used to pay any GST amounts. The portion of your request relating to the yearly GST
amount, and revenue exclusive of GST, was therefore refused pursuant to section 18(e) of the
Act; that the document alleged to contain the information requested does not exist.
We explained that all of Lotto NZ’s
profits are allocated to the LGB, and are considered to be the
LGB’s revenue, and advised that the Department did not hold the amounts allocated to the LGB
from Lotto NZ prior to 1997. The portion of your request relating to a yearly breakdown of the
Lottery Grants Board’s revenue prior to 1997 was therefore also refused under section 18(e) of
the Act; that the document alleged to contain the information requested does not exist or,
despite reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found.
In response to the portion of your request relating to the LGB’s yearly revenue from 1997 to
date, we advised that pursuant to section 15(1)(b) of the Act, the Department decided to
provide you with the information. However, we were still working to prepare the information
for release and would provide it as soon as practicable. We anticipated having the requested
information to you no later than 8 October 2021.
After preparing the information for release, we discovered that the Department does in fact
hold LGB revenue dating back to 1989.
Please now find a table showing the annual revenue for LGB since from 1989 to 2020 attached
alongside this letter.
I note that in 1989 the financial year ended 30 March. This means that the financial year ending
30 June 1990 was for 15 months.
I also note that the revenue for the financial year ending 30 June 2021 has not been confirmed
yet but will be made available at end of November her
e; https://www.beehive.govt.nz/. The
portion of your request for LGB revenue for this year is therefore be refused pursuant to section
18(d) of the Act; the information requested is or will soon be publicly available.
As this information may be of interest to other members of the public, the Department has
decided to proactively release a copy of this response on the DIA website. All requestor data,
including your name and contact details, will be removed prior to release. The released
response will be made available here:
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Official-Information-Act-
Requests-2.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Julia Taylor
Manager Operational Policy and Official Correspondence
Service Delivery and Operations
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