Dear Te Urewera Board,

DOC advised on 10 December 2021 that they transferred part of my OIA request to your agency. Please view the correspondence here:

https://fyi.org.nz/request/17741-te-urew...

To date, I have not received a response from your agency. Could you please provide me with a response?

Please get in touch with DOC if you have further questions about this request and the parts transferred.

Yours faithfully,

Marc Smith

For the attention of: Rereata Rogers, Te Urewera Board Administrator

Your response fulfils in no way your obligations under the Official Information Act (the Act).

1. Regarding the first item of my request, you have referred me to section 16(1)(a) of the Act. This section does not give you a blank right to choose in which way you want to make the information available. Section 16(2) of the Act stipulates that an organisation must make the information available in the way preferred by the person requesting it unless doing so would impair efficient administration, be contrary to any legal duty or prejudice any withholding ground.

Providing me with copies of the meeting agendas and meeting minutes that I requested would neither impair efficient administration nor be contrary to any legal duty nor prejudice a withholding ground.

I hereby expressly request electronic copies of the said meeting minutes and meeting agendas, which you must provide and upload to FYI.org.nz without further delay. In addition, it hardly needs mentioning that your offer to 'inspect' the documents on-site is not covered by section 16(1)(a) of the Act as inspecting the papers is far from being a 'reasonable opportunity', given that Taneatua is hundreds of kilometres away from my place of residence. Your offer to inspect the documents on-site is unreasonable and an attempt to deprive me of my rights under the Act. It is an attempt to undermine the rule of law.

2. Regarding the second item of my request (numbered as '3.'), you stated that there is no information relating to the Te Urewera Board denying DOC staff access into Te Urewera to do maintenance work, as such denial allegedly never happened. I remind you of the Stuff article that I quoted in my original request, in which Stuff stated: "Sources have told Stuff that Tūhoe haven’t been letting DOC staff into the area to do maintenance work, preferring to have their young people upskilled to do it."

In addition, Stuff noted that Tamati Kruger, the chairman of the Te Urewera Board, confirms this is true.

Your statement in your response to me clearly contradicts Stuff's information. I will leave it to you and Stuff to discuss who is in the wrong.

3. Regarding the third item of my request (numbered as '4'), you have referred to the Te Urewera Act but have not specified under which provision of this Act you claim to be entitled to close Te Urewera to the public, allegedly for 'health reasons'. This Act clearly states under section 5(2) that 'all persons performing functions and exercising powers under this Act must act so that the public has freedom of entry and access to Te Urewera'. In closing Te Urewera to the public, you have grossly violated this purpose.

The Te Urewera Act also states that restrictions can be issued to achieve the purpose of this Act, or for public safety. However, your restriction of access was not covered by any of the purposes of the Te Urewera Act. It appears that you refer to 'public safety' in closing Te Urewera over COVID-19 concerns. Such concerns do not justify the closure of the entire area of Te Urewera under 'public safety'. For safety concerns due to COVID-19 and to stop the spread, it would have been sufficient to close inhabited places/settlements within Te Urewera, which only applies to a very small part of Te Urewera. Closing Te Urewera as a whole is an administrative overreach and not even remotely covered by the principles and purposes of the Te Urewera Act. To members of the public, it appears you have chosen to abuse the powers given to you under the Te Urewera Act by using irrelevant health reasons as a pretext. I find this highly concerning. The Te Urewera Act expressly states that the public shall have access to Te Urewera, but you have decided to turn this purpose of the Act into its opposite.

Further, I request the following under the Official Information Act, and I expect a response within 20 working days from today:

1. How is it possible that your response to my request is dated 13 July 2022 but was only uploaded on 31 August 2022? What information does the Te Urewera Board hold that justifies this delay, e.g. emails? I request a digital copy of this information.

2. How is it possible that DOC transferred my request to the Te Urewera Board on 10 December 2021, and it took the Board nearly nine months to respond? What information does the Te Urewera Board hold that justifies this delay? I request a digital copy of this information. You have caused a clear and obvious breach of the Official Information Act, and have neither acknowledged the delay nor apologised.

I also reiterate my request to be provided with the digital copies of the meeting agendas and meeting minutes that I have requested above. For this part of the request, you do not have 20 working days. This information is due without further delay.

It is needless to say, should I not receive a complete response from you under the Act, I will engage the Office of the Ombudsman once again. Further, I will ask DOC to continue their investigation into your unlawful conduct of closing Te Urewera.

Marc Smith

For the attention of: Rereata Rogers, Te Urewera Board Administrator

Regarding question 1 of my request:
I have expressly advised the Office of the Ombudsman that I will not provide my email address for you to send me the documentation requested. I am not required under the Official Information Act to provide you with any personal email address as you can upload the information requested to FYI.org.nz, which is the website where I made my request. Under section 16(2) of the OIA, the information shall be made available in the way preferred by the person requesting it. You have already uploaded a PDF response and can upload the remaining documents in the same way (PDF format). Should you not upload the remaining documents without further delay, I will engage the Office of the Ombudsman again.

Regarding question 2 of my request:
You reiterated that you believe DOC staff were not denied access to Te Urewera though according to Stuff, Tamati Kruger confirmed that this happened. As stated earlier, I will leave it to you to discuss this with Stuff. Essentially, you are asserting Stuff got it wrong.

Regarding question 3 of my request:
Section 11 of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 does not give the Te Urewera Board any rights. As specified in subsection 1, only the Minister can make orders under this section. No Minister in New Zealand has closed Te Urewera to the public during or because of COVID-19. The Te Urewera Board has done this of their own volition without authorisation. You have again not provided me with the correct legal basis for closing Te Urewera to the public. Should you not provide me with the legal basis without further delay, I will engage the Office of the Ombudsman again.

Further, you have not at all responded to my Official Information request made to you on 2 September 2022 which you can view here: https://fyi.org.nz/request/19095-te-urew.... I copy this request in here again and expect a response without further delay.

1. How is it possible that your response to my request is dated 13 July 2022 but was only uploaded on 31 August 2022? What information does the Te Urewera Board hold that justifies this delay, e.g. emails? I request a digital copy of this information.

2. How is it possible that DOC transferred my request to the Te Urewera Board on 10 December 2021, and it took the Board nearly nine months to respond? What information does the Te Urewera Board hold that justifies this delay? I request a digital copy of this information. You have caused a clear and obvious breach of the Official Information Act, and have neither acknowledged the delay nor apologised.

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I note that it has now taken the Te Urewera Board 14 months to respond to my original request, and the request is still open. I have still not received an apology from the Te Urewera Board for breaching the Official Information Act in such an obvious way.

Marc Smith