18 March 2025
Kate Allen
[FYI request #29722 email]
Ref: PMO OIA 304-2024-25
Dear Kate,
Official Information Act request: Regulatory Standards Bill
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) request, received on 20 February
2025. You requested:
“Can you please provide the following information:
1. What you knew about the proposed Regulatory Standards Bill at the time of
making the Coalition Agreement.
2. Copies of all briefings and other material provided to you about the
Regulatory Standards Bill at or before making the Coalition Agreement.
3. Copies of all briefings and other material provided to you about the
Regulatory Standards Bill after making the Coalition Agreement.
4. Copies of all correspondence (by any means) between you and David
Seymour about the Regulatory Standards Bill.
5. Copies of all correspondence between your staff or office and David
Seymour‘s staff or office about the Regulatory Standards Bil .”
I note that you originally made this request via the FYI.org.nz website on 13 January 2025.
As per our acknowledgment of your request on 20 February 2025, this office did not receive
your original request.
Parts 1 and 2
Parts 1 and 2 of your request relate to the time following the general election, during which
negotiations were underway to form a government. The Prime Minister took office on 27
November 2023. Any information held prior to this date was not in his capacity as a Minister
of the Crown, is not deemed to be official information, and is therefore not subject to the Act.
This includes information relating to the negotiation of Coalition Agreements, which were
signed on 24 November 2023.
Accordingly, Parts 1 and 2 of your request are not requests for official information. You may
however be interested in the details of the Coalition Agreement between the National and
ACT Parties, which is available at:
www.act.org.nz/coalition_agreement_means_lower_cost_of_life_safer_streets_stronger_de
mocracy
Responses to the remaining parts of your request are provided below.
3.
Copies of all briefings and other material provided to you about the
Regulatory Standards Bill after making the Coalition Agreement.
Briefing material from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) relating to
progress reports for the Government’s Quarterly Plan includes some information relevant to
this part of your request. These progress reports, including the information relating to the
Regulatory Standards Bill, are publicly available on the DPMC website at:
www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications/proactive-release-str-24-sub-0015-governments-quarterly-
plan-progress-reports-quarter-4. To the extent your request is for the relevant information in these reports, it is refused under
section 18(d) of the Act on the basis that the requested information is already publicly
available.
Also identified as relevant to Part 3 of your request are some briefings provided by the
DPMC’s Policy Advisory Group to the Prime Minister. These briefings are provided to the
Prime Minister in confidence to support him in his role as leader of the Government and chair
of Cabinet. These briefings are withheld in their entirety under the following sections of the
Act:
• section 9(2)(f)(ii), to maintain collective and individual ministerial responsibility
• section 9(2)(f)(iv), to maintain the confidentiality of advice tendered by or to Ministers
and officials
• section 9(2)(g)(i), to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free
and frank expression of opinion
• section 9(2)(h), to maintain legal professional privilege.
In making my decision, I have considered the public interest considerations in section 9(1) of
the Act. No public interest has been identified that would be sufficient to outweigh the
reasons for withholding that information.
4.
Copies of all correspondence (by any means) between you and David
Seymour about the Regulatory Standards Bill.
No relevant correspondence between the Prime Minister and the Minister for Regulation,
Hon David Seymour, has been identified. This part of your request is refused under section
18(e) of the Act as the requested information does not exist.
5.
Copies of all correspondence between your staff or office and David
Seymour’s staff or office about the Regulatory Standards Bill.”
An email with attachments from the Office of the Minister for Regulation has been identified
as relevant to this part of your request. I believe that your request, insofar as it relates to this
email correspondence, is more closely connected to the functions of the Minister for
Regulation, Hon David Seymour. Accordingly, I have decided to transfer this part of your
request, as it relates to this correspondence, to the Minister for Regulation under section
14(b)(ii) of the Act. As the ten working day timeframe for transferring this part of your request
has already passed, I have extended this, under section 15(A) of the Act, by 10 working days
to enable the partial transfer. This extension is required because of the consultation that was
needed to make a decision on this part of your request.
The Minister for Regulation has the usual time limits from receipt of this transfer to make a
decision on your request.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review my decision under
section 28(3) of the Act.
Yours sincerely
Cameron Burrows
Chief of Staff
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