Te Titriti / The Treaty Exhibition at Te Papa

Tessa made this Official Information request to Ministry for Culture and Heritage

The request was successful.

From: Tessa

Dear Ministry for Culture and Heritage,

Under the official information act I request any and all communications written (including but not limited to emails, briefings, memos, texts, WhatsApp or signal messages, etc) or verbal communications between the Minister’s Office and the Ministry regarding the Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa / Museum of New Zealand, between todays date and 9 December 2023.

Yours faithfully,
Tessa K

Link to this

From: OIA
Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Kia ora

Acknowledging your request. By way of explanation, this will be a difficult request to respond and may require substantial collation and research. This is not because of the amount of material that is relevant to your request, but the actions the Ministry would need to undertake to find that material and the large amount of material it would need to search through. In our experience requests that ask for all information (such as this one) use significant time and resource.

In relation to your specific request and the emphasis on 'communications' is difficult to scope for a couple of reasons:

- Staff do not communicate in a uniform manner. Staff may have discussed the incident you refer to in a variety of ways. This could include "Te Papa", "protest", " Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi" or a combination of all these words. Many of these words and phrases are part of our day to day operations (for example, the Ministry monitors Te Papa as an Autonomous Crown Entity so there would be many emails about Te Papa that do not discuss the incident you refer to but would come up in an IT search. This would then require a manual review.).

- Anecdotally, there would be a large amount of administrative material within scope of your request (any example would be: discussions between the Ministry and the Offices asking about timeframes or deadlines for advice about the protest, or confirming receipt of any advice). The way that you have worded your request means that this would be captured, but would likely be of little value to understanding the issue. There would be no way that the Ministry could exclude this from its search process without manually reviewing it, which is a time consuming and labour intensive process.

- Finally, updates are often provided to Ministers in an omnibus fashion. That is, Ministerial offices may ask for advice on many matters and these are provided all at once. Advice is not necessarily titled in a way that means it can be found easily. This means that a wider search of advice provided to the Minister would need to be undertaken to ascertain whether it relates to your request or not.

It should also be noted that Te Papa (which is subject to the OIA in its own right) has proactively released documents and responses to OIA requests on its website in relation to the incident you refer to. These can be viewed here: https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/about/what-we...

With the above in mind, and noting that the request as it currently stands would require a lot of resource to locate and collate any relevant material could you please consider refining your request?

While you are under no obligation to do, if you can provide a bit more detail about what you are specifically looking for or the reasons for the request then we can provide you with advice about how to frame and structure your request.

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible to continue work on your request.

Ngā mihi

Te Pae Hāpai Minita | Ministerial Services
Manatū Taonga | Ministry for Culture & Heritage
Ki te puāwai te ahurea, Ka ora te iwi
Culture is thriving, The people are well
Public Trust Building, 131 Lambton Quay, Wellington
PO Box 5364, Wellington 6140 | Ph +64 4 499 4229

-----Original Message-----
From: Tessa <[FOI #26085 email]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2024 8:57 PM
To: OIA <[email address]>
Subject: CM: Official Information request - Te Titriti / The Treaty Exhibition at Te Papa

Dear Ministry for Culture and Heritage,

Under the official information act I request any and all communications written (including but not limited to emails, briefings, memos, texts, WhatsApp or signal messages, etc) or verbal communications between the Minister’s Office and the Ministry regarding the Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa / Museum of New Zealand, between todays date and 9 December 2023.

Yours faithfully,
Tessa K

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #26085 email]

Is [Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email] the wrong address for Official Information requests to Ministry for Culture and Heritage? If so, please contact us using this form:
https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA page.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

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From: Tessa

Kia ora,

I’m happy to refine my request to cover only email correspondence between the Minister’s Office and the Ministry regarding the Te Papa exhibition and the protest activity relating to it.

Hopefully confining it to one medium is sufficient as to make the request manageable?

Yours sincerely,

Tessa

Link to this

From: OIA
Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Kia ora Tessa,

 

I refer to your request under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA),
which was clarified on 19 March 2024 to seek the following:

 

Email correspondence between the Minister’s Office and the Ministry
regarding the [‘Signs of a Nation’] Te Papa exhibition and the protest
activity relating to it between 9 December 2023 and 13 March 2024

 

The OIA requires that we advise you of our decision on your request no
later than 20 working days after the day we received your request.
Unfortunately, it will not be possible to meet that time limit and we are
therefore writing to notify you of an extension of the time to make our
decision.

 

This extension is necessary because consultations necessary to make a
decision on your request are such that a proper response cannot reasonably
be made within the original time limit.

 

You can expect to receive a response to your request by Monday 29 April
2024.

 

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
[1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or free phone 0800 802 602.

 

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact Ministerial Services
at [2][Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email].  If any additional factors come to light which are
relevant to your request, please do not hesitate to contact us so that
these can be considered.

Ngā mihi
Te Pae Hāpai Minita  |  Ministerial Services
Manatū Taonga | Ministry for Culture & Heritage
Ki te puāwai te ahurea, Ka ora te iwi
Culture is thriving, The people are well 
Public Trust Building, 131 Lambton Quay, Wellington
PO Box 5364, Wellington 6140 | Ph +64 4 499 4229

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tessa <[FOI #26085 email]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2024 5:28 PM
To: OIA <[Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email]>
Subject: RE: CM: Official Information request - Te Titriti / The Treaty
Exhibition at Te Papa

 

Kia ora,

 

I’m happy to refine my request to cover only email correspondence between
the Minister’s Office and the Ministry regarding the Te Papa exhibition
and the protest activity relating to it.

 

Hopefully confining it to one medium is sufficient as to make the request
manageable?

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Tessa

 

-----Original Message-----

 

Kia ora

 

Acknowledging your request. By way of explanation, this will be a
difficult request to respond and may require substantial collation and
research. This is not because of the amount of material that is relevant
to your request, but the actions the Ministry would need to undertake to
find that material and the large amount of material it would need to
search through. In our experience requests that ask for all information
(such as this one) use significant time and resource.

 

In relation to your specific request and the emphasis on 'communications'
is difficult to scope for a couple of reasons:

 

- Staff do not communicate in a uniform manner. Staff may have discussed
the incident you refer to in a variety of ways. This could include "Te
Papa", "protest", " Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi" or a
combination of all these words. Many of these words and phrases are part
of our day to day operations (for example, the Ministry monitors Te Papa
as an Autonomous Crown Entity so there would be many emails about Te Papa
that do not discuss the incident you refer to but would come up in an IT
search. This would then require a manual review.).

 

- Anecdotally, there would be a large amount of administrative material
within scope of your request (any example would be: discussions between
the Ministry and the Offices asking about timeframes or deadlines for
advice about the protest, or confirming receipt of any advice). The way
that you have worded your request means that this would be captured, but
would likely be of little value to understanding the issue. There would be
no way that the Ministry could exclude this from its search process
without manually reviewing it, which is a time consuming and labour
intensive process.

 

- Finally, updates are often provided to Ministers in an omnibus fashion.
That is, Ministerial offices may ask for advice on many matters and these
are provided all at once. Advice is not necessarily titled in a way that
means it can be found easily. This means that a wider search of advice
provided to the Minister would need to be undertaken to ascertain whether
it relates to your request or not.

 

It should also be noted that Te Papa (which is subject to the OIA in its
own right) has proactively released documents and responses to OIA
requests on its website in relation to the incident you refer to. These
can be viewed here:
[3]https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/about/what-we...

 

With the above in mind, and noting that the request as it currently stands
would require a lot of resource to locate and collate any relevant
material could you please consider refining your request?

 

While you are under no obligation to do, if you can provide a bit more
detail about what you are specifically looking for or the reasons for the
request then we can provide you with advice about how to frame and
structure your request.

 

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible to continue work
on your request.

 

Ngā mihi

 

Te Pae Hāpai Minita | Ministerial Services Manatū Taonga | Ministry for
Culture & Heritage Ki te puāwai te ahurea, Ka ora te iwi Culture is
thriving, The people are well Public Trust Building, 131 Lambton Quay,
Wellington PO Box 5364, Wellington 6140 | Ph +64 4 499 4229

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:

[4][FOI #26085 email]

 

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on
the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:

[5]https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

 

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please
ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA
page.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/
2. mailto:[Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email]
3. https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/about/what-we...
4. mailto:[FOI #26085 email]
5. https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

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Link to this

From: OIA
Ministry for Culture and Heritage


Attachment DOIA24 037 Tessa K response letter.pdf
98K Download View as HTML

Attachment 1.All Email Correspondence Redacted.pdf
5.0M Download View as HTML

Attachment 2.Combined ACH Reports in scope Excerpts Redacted.pdf
646K Download View as HTML


Kia ora Tessa,

 

Please find attached our response to your Official Information Act request
of 13 March 2024.

 

Ngā mihi,

India
Te Pae Hāpai Minita  |  Ministerial Services
Manatū Taonga | Ministry for Culture & Heritage
Ki te puāwai te ahurea, Ka ora te iwi
Culture is thriving, The people are well 
Public Trust Building, 131 Lambton Quay, Wellington
PO Box 5364, Wellington 6140 | Ph +64 4 499 4229

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tessa <[1][FOI #26085 email]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2024 8:57 PM
To: OIA <[2][Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email]>
Subject: Official Information request - Te Titriti / The Treaty Exhibition
at Te Papa

 

Dear Ministry for Culture and Heritage,

 

Under the official information act I request any and all communications
written (including but not limited to emails, briefings, memos, texts,
WhatsApp or signal messages, etc) or verbal communications between the
Minister’s Office and the Ministry regarding the Te Tiriti o Waitangi /
The Treaty of Waitangi exhibition at Te Papa Tongarewa / Museum of New
Zealand, between todays date and 9 December 2023.

 

Yours faithfully,

Tessa K

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This is an Official Information request made via the FYI website.

 

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:

[3][FOI #26085 email]

 

Is [4][Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email] the wrong address for Official Information requests
to Ministry for Culture and Heritage? If so, please contact us using this
form:

[5]https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...

 

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on
the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:

[6]https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

 

If you find this service useful as an Official Information officer, please
ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's OIA or LGOIMA
page.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[FOI #26085 email]
2. mailto:[Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email]
3. mailto:[FOI #26085 email]
4. mailto:[Ministry for Culture and Heritage request email]
5. https://fyi.org.nz/change_request/new?bo...
6. https://fyi.org.nz/help/officers

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Link to this

From: Tessa

Dear OIA,

Thank you very much for this - this is exactly what I was after.

Yours sincerely,

Tessa

Link to this

Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Ministry for Culture and Heritage only: