Dear New Zealand Transport Agency,

I note that in OIA 10175 in June 2022 that four sections of Attachment 1 were redacted under 9(2)(g)(i) of the OIA (Free and frank opinions).

On reading the remainder of the memo (dated 18/2/22) it seems unlikely that the subject matter of four redacted sections would qualify under the Ombudsman's interpretation of free and frank opinions. (https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/reso...).

Therefore - as a matter of urgency - please can you review that memo and, if the redactions are not consistent with the OIA, release the full Memo.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Young

Dear Official Correspondence,
Many thanks for your prompt reply on this matter and your partial removing of material previously redacted under the 'free and frank' clause (s 9(2)(g)(i)) of the OIA. Reading the now unredacted parts it is clear that there was no justified reason under the original OIA to redact them.

In particular the wording 'This memo however doesn’t cover operational and reputational risk nor the legal or ITS requirement. Safety at the tie-ins at either end of the bridge are not covered in this memo.' is highly relevant to the original OIA request. It's redaction will inevitably be viewed as an attempt to protect your organisation's reputation by avoiding the disclosure of relevant but material that you may consider to be unhelpful.

The redaction of 'Herculean effort' whilst being amusing also clearly fails the s 9(2)(g)(i) threshold (as defined by the Ombudsman) as this clause is primarily used to protect the ability of future discussions not being constrained. In this case it appears to be an attempt to remove some words that may have embarrassed the writer or your organisation - neither of these are permissible reasons to retract under that section of the OIA.

This leaves the wording about the height of the barriers still redacted - a key safety matter requested under the original OIA. I therefore request that you review this redaction again to confirm that it does meet the Ombudsman's threshold for s 9(2)(g)(i) and is not another attempt to avoid the release of words that you'd prefer would have written differently, or not at all.

The final redaction '2' in 'Key Items excluded from the assessment' still remains. As the original OIA request related to your safety assessment I am struggling to see how the redaction of this sentence relating to what the safety assessment covered can fall under s 9(2)(g)(i) (free and frank) of the OIA so I am again (under urgency) requesting that it be reviewed and the redaction removed and the whole memo released in an unredacted form.

I thank you for you attention.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Young