Ref: DOIA 2324-2757
6 August 2024
Andrew Riddell
Email
: [FYI request #27203 email]
Tēnā koe Andrew Riddel
Thank you for your email of 10 June 2024 to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (the
Ministry), requesting the following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
On 6 April 2021 the Building Performance and Engineering section of the Ministry of Business,
Innovation & Employment released a consultation document titled 'Consultation document -
Building Code update 2021'.
This document included proposals to change the building insulation requirements for housing
and small buildings (Proposal 1 Energy Efficiency for Housing and Small Buildings).
Please provide copies of all direct or indirect correspondence and communications between the
Prime Minister or the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Building Performance
and Engineering section of the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment relating the
energy efficiency proposal for housing and small buildings during the period from 6 April 2021 to
29 November 2021, inclusive.
Note that correspondence and communications would include emails, meeting
agendas/minutes/file notes, and notes of phone calls as well as letters and briefing reports.
On 9 July 2024, we wrote to you to extend the timeframe for response to your request until 6 August
2024.
Please find attached the emails within the scope of your request. Some information about other
projects has been marked as out of scope, and where large documents have contained only a brief
reference to the subject matter, only the relevant pages have been provided. Some information has
been withheld under section 9(2)(a) of the Act: to protect personal privacy.
Please note that to conduct this search, we used the date and email parameters you provided and
searched the keywords “H1” and “energy efficiency”. The emails attached in response to your request
are from the “H1” search, as the “energy efficiency” search provided too many results to manually sort
through.
Please note that MBIE is the steward the building regulatory system, so MBIE’s Chief Executive is
responsible for decisions relating to the building code and as such, the Department of Prime Minister
and Cabinet is not necessarily included and no emails were found including the Prime Minister with
either search term. We also conducted a manual search of relevant documents sent to the Minister and
none were sent to the Prime Minister or the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet by MBIE.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of the Ministry’s decision in
accordance with section 28(3) of the Act. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
David Hall
General Manager Building System Performance
Building System Performance
2
