Communications between the Ministry & media on Covid mis/disinfo
Al made this Official Information request to Ministry of Health
The request was partially successful.
From: Al
Hi everyone,
I hope this OIA is correctly going to you and not Te What Ora - I made the call to send it to the Ministry as it refers to 2021 and early 2022.
I'd like to request any email communications or meetings (and details if meetings happened that may have been captured such as agenda, follow up and any transcripts if it was a Teams meeting) between the Ministry of Health communications teams and/or teams association with the Covid vaccination program, on the subject of mis or disinformation around Covid and Covid vaccines.
To support the scope I'd like to request the above for the time frame between 1st of June 2021to the 1st of February 2022 with media organisations, Stuff and NZ Herald.
Thank you for your help,
Al Johnson
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Al
Thank you for your request for official information received on 16 May
2023 for:
I'd like to request any email communications or meetings (and details if
meetings happened that may have been captured such as agenda, follow up
and any transcripts if it was a Teams meeting) between the Ministry of
Health communications teams and/or teams association with the Covid
vaccination program, on the subject of mis or disinformation around Covid
and Covid vaccines.
To support the scope I'd like to request the above for the time frame
between 1st of June 2021to the 1st of February 2022 with media
organisations, Stuff and NZ Herald.
The Ministry's reference number for your request is: H2023025401.
As required under the Official Information Act 1982, the Ministry will
endeavour to respond to your request no later than [1]20 working days
after the day your request was received.
If we are unable to respond to your request within this time frame, we
will notify you of an extension of that time frame.
If you have any queries related to this request, please do not hesitate to
get in touch.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
show quoted sections
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Al
Thank you for your request for official information received on 16
May 2023 for:
“I'd like to request any email communications or meetings (and details if
meetings happened that may have been captured such as agenda, follow up
and any transcripts if it was a Teams meeting) between the Ministry of
Health communications teams and/or teams association with the Covid
vaccination program, on the subject of mis or disinformation around Covid
and Covid vaccines.
To support the scope I'd like to request the above for the time frame
between 1st of June 2021to the 1st of February 2022 with media
organisations, Stuff and NZ Herald.
I'd like to request any email communications or meetings (and details if
meetings happened that may have been captured such as agenda, follow up
and any transcripts if it was a Teams meeting) between the Ministry of
Health communications teams and/or teams association with the Covid
vaccination program, on the subject of mis or disinformation around Covid
and Covid vaccines.
To support the scope I'd like to request the above for the time frame
between 1st of June 2021to the 1st of February 2022 with media
organisations, Stuff and NZ Herald.”
We are contacting you in accordance with section 18B of the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act) as your request, as it is currently worded,
is for a very large volume of information. Your request may be refused
under section 18(f) of the Act as the information requested cannot be made
available without substantial collation or research.
Your request would require collating hundreds of documents. A significant
portion of these are emails, which also require individual assessment of
each piece of correspondence to discern its contents. This would place an
unreasonable degree of strain on the teams responsible and would interfere
with the day-to-day workings of the Ministry. As you may be aware, as part
of the Health and Disability Reforms, the National Immunisation Programme
and many of the COVID-19 functions transferred from Manatû Hauora to Te
Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand on 1 July 2022. This means we also need to
consult with Te Whatu Ora to find further information in scope of the
request that no longer sits within the functions of the Ministry.
Therefore, we suggest you limit your request to correspondence between
senior members of the media teams within Manatû Hauora and the National
Immunisation Programme within a shorter time period.
Please respond by 26 May 2023 so that we can consider your refinement in
our response to your request.
Please note, under section 15 of the Official Information Act 1982, any
clarification or amendments made to a request within seven days after the
date it is received, that request may be treated as a new request and the
time limit for the response restarts.
Under section 28(3) of the Act you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
review any decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be
contacted by email at: [email address] or by calling 0800 802
602.
Ngâ mihi
OIA Services Team
Manatû Hauora | Ministry of Health
M[1]inistry of Health information releases
U[2]nite against COVID-19
show quoted sections
References
Visible links
1. https://www.health.govt.nz/about-ministr...
2. https://covid19.govt.nz/
From: Al
Hi all,
Despite my best attempts to limit the scope to a specific timeframe, with specific organisations and on a specific topic you've suggested further I limit the request to correspondence between
senior members of the media teams within Manatû Hauora and the National
Immunisation Programme within a shorter time period.
I think the request is well constrained as it is. How would we both have confidence that senior media team members are the only ones who have contact with those organisations during the specified time period on the specified topic?
Thank you for your help,
Al
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Al
Thank you for your email. Your request, as it is currently worded, is for
a very large volume of information and would require searching through
over 100 email inboxes for the information within scope. This would place
an unreasonable degree of strain on the teams responsible and would
interfere with the day-to-day workings of the Ministry.
As you have been advised, your request may be refused under section
18(f) of the Act as the information requested cannot be made available
without substantial collation or research. We suggest you
limit your request to correspondence between senior members of the media
teams within Manatû Hauora and the National Immunisation Programme within
a shorter time period.
Please respond by 29 May 2023 so that we can
consider your refinement in our response to your request.
Under section 28(3) of the Act you have the right to ask the Ombudsman
to review any decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may
be contacted by email at: [email address] or by calling 0800 802 602.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
Manatū Hauora | Ministry of Health
M[1]inistry of Health information releases
U[2]nite against COVID-19
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Al <[FOI #22821 email]>
Sent: Wednesday, 24 May 2023 12:45
To: OIA Requests <[email address]>
Subject: Re: Refinement of your request for information, ref: H2023925401
Hi all,
Despite my best attempts to limit the scope to a specific timeframe, with
specific organisations and on a specific topic you've suggested further I
limit the request to correspondence between
senior members of the media teams within Manatû Hauora and the National
Immunisation Programme within a shorter time period.
I think the request is well constrained as it is. How would we both have
confidence that senior media team members are the only ones who have
contact with those organisations during the specified time period on the
specified topic?
Thank you for your help,
Al
show quoted sections
From: Al
Hi everyone,
In response to working on the scope you proposed:
We suggest you limit your request to correspondence between senior members of the media
teams within Manatû Hauora and the National Immunisation Programme within
a shorter time period.
I asked:
How would we both have confidence that senior media team members are the only ones who have
contact with those organisations during the specified time period on the
specified topic?
You have refused to answer the question I had in response to your suggestion to limit the scope and you simply copied and pasted your original response back to me.
It's disappointing you can't answer that question but a quick look through press releases issued showed media advisors and senior advisors are involved.
On that basis I don't think its unreasonable to limit the scope to all media advisors within the Ministry and Immunisation program communications teams. Again the scope is time constrained, on a particular topic and only asked for communications with 2 organisations.
This is not an unreasonable request.
Yours sincerely,
Al
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Al
Please find attached a letter regarding your request for information. If
you wish to discuss any aspect of your request with us, including this
decision, please feel free to contact the OIA Services Team on
[email address].
Under section 28(3) of the Act you have the right to ask the Ombudsman to
review any decisions made under this request. The Ombudsman may be
contacted by email at: [email address] or by calling 0800 802
602.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
show quoted sections
From: Al
Hi everyone,
I made this OIA request (ref: H2023025401) because a previous OIA request to DPMC showed a meeting between Stuff and DPMC and Ministry of Health and Medsafe communications teams on the subject of Covid vaccine mis/disinformation in June 2021, and a follow up meeting between only the government teams followed it. Here is the link:
https://fyi.org.nz/request/21354-informa...
However in your response to me you said that no meetings were held between teams on this topic with either Stuff or NZ Herald.
You said:
"I have interpreted this as referring to meetings between the Manatū Hauora Communications Team, the teams in the COVID-19 Vaccine Programme, and media organisations Stuff and the NZ Herald between 1 June 2021 to 1 February 2022"
And:
"I can confirm that there is no record of any meetings held between Manatū Hauora and these groups regarding mis- and dis-information"
I request a review of this response and the roles of people who were involved in that meeting with Stuff in June 2021 and what area they worked for (Ministry of Health or Covid-19 comms or Medsafe as per the original DPMC OIA ).
I also request any further meetings or email communications with Stuff pertaining to this meeting or on the subject of Covid related mis/disinformation.
Thank you,
Al Johnson
From: OIA Requests
Kia ora Al
Thank you for your request for official information. The reference number
for your request is: H2023030292
As required under the Official Information Act 1982, Manatū Hauora will
endeavour to respond to your request no later than 20 working days after
the day your request was received. If you'd like to calculate the
timeframe, you can use the Ombudsman's online calculator
here: [1]http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/
If you have any queries related to this request, please do not hesitate to
get in touch.
Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
M[2]inistry of Health information releases
U[3]nite against COVID-19
show quoted sections
References
Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/
2. https://www.health.govt.nz/about-ministr...
3. https://covid19.govt.nz/
From: OIA Requests
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Kia ora Al
Please find attached a letter regarding your request for information
Ngā mihi
OIA Services Team
Manatū Hauora | Ministry of Health
M[1]inistry of Health information releases
U[2]nite against COVID-19
show quoted sections
References
Visible links
1. https://www.health.govt.nz/about-ministr...
2. https://covid19.govt.nz/
Things to do with this request
- Add an annotation (to help the requester or others)
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