Dear Correspondent  

 

Thank you for contacting Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Racing.  

 

The Deputy Prime Minister considers all correspondence important and
appreciates you taking the time to write.   

 

Please note that since the Deputy Prime Minister receives a large amount
of correspondence, it is not always possible to personally reply to all
emails. 

 

The following guidelines apply: 

 

·         Invitations and requests to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister
will be processed as soon as possible and a staff member will be in
contact with you in due course. 

·         Media queries will be responded to by a staff member. 

·         Requests for official information will be managed in accordance
with provisions of the Official Information Act 1982, which may include
transfer to a more relevant Minister or agency. 

·         If your email falls outside of the Deputy Prime Minister's
portfolio responsibilities, expresses a personal view, or is copied to
multiple Members of Parliament, then your opinion will be noted and your
correspondence may be transferred to another office, or there may be no
further response to you. 

·         If your correspondence is to the Minister as the Member of
Parliament or Party Leader of New Zealand First, this may be referred to
the New Zealand First Leader’s office. 

 

(If your invitation or meeting request is accepted - please note
information about meetings related to the Ministers’ portfolios will be
proactively released (this does not include personal or constituency
matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time
(start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with,
and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with the Minister on behalf of
an organisation, the name of the organisation will be released. If you are
a senior staff member at an organisation, or meet with the Minister in
your personal capacity, your name may also be released. The location of
the meeting will be released, unless it is a private residence. The
proactive release will be consistent with the provisions in the Official
Information Act, including privacy considerations. Under the Privacy Act
1993 you have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we
hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is
wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it
corrected, or are concerned about the release of your information in the
meeting disclosure, please contact the sender. You can read more about the
proactive release policy at
[1]https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas... ) 

 

(Please note that this acknowledgement is an automatically generated
email.) 

 

Regards 

 

The Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters

References

Visible links
1. https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...

Dear Aaron W,

 

I acknowledge receipt of your Official Information Act (OIA) request dated
2 May 2025, in which you requested the following:

 

“Please provide all documents relating to responding to this request:
[1]https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fyi....

 

This request is intended to cover all commissioning, discussion about
response, etc. This would also include information which is known to an
agency but has not yet been written down (so discussions between office
staff). Please provide a record of all discussions relating to this
request.

 

              I am interested in why this took 20 days to respond to and
to decide that this information wasn’t held as a Minister.”

 

We received your request on 2 May 2025. We will endeavour to respond to
your request as soon as possible and in any event no later than 30 May
2025, being 20 working days after the day your request was received. If we
are unable to respond to your request by then, we will notify you of an
extension of that timeframe.

 

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact our office. 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 taken into
account.

 

Kind Regards,

Private Secretary

 

Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters
Deputy Prime Minister

Minister of Foreign Affairs |

Minister for Racing |

Minister for Rail

Private Bag 18041, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/fyi.o...

Dear Aaron W,

 

Please find attached a response to your OIA Request.

 

Kind Regards

 

Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters
Deputy Prime Minister

Minister of Foreign Affairs |

Minister for Racing |

Minister for Rail

Private Bag 18041, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

 

 

Dear Correspondent  

 

Thank you for contacting Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Racing.  

 

The Deputy Prime Minister considers all correspondence important and
appreciates you taking the time to write.   

 

Please note that since the Deputy Prime Minister receives a large amount
of correspondence, it is not always possible to personally reply to all
emails. 

 

The following guidelines apply: 

 

·         Invitations and requests to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister
will be processed as soon as possible and a staff member will be in
contact with you in due course. 

·         Media queries will be responded to by a staff member. 

·         Requests for official information will be managed in accordance
with provisions of the Official Information Act 1982, which may include
transfer to a more relevant Minister or agency. 

·         If your email falls outside of the Deputy Prime Minister's
portfolio responsibilities, expresses a personal view, or is copied to
multiple Members of Parliament, then your opinion will be noted and your
correspondence may be transferred to another office, or there may be no
further response to you. 

·         If your correspondence is to the Minister as the Member of
Parliament or Party Leader of New Zealand First, this may be referred to
the New Zealand First Leader’s office. 

 

(If your invitation or meeting request is accepted - please note
information about meetings related to the Ministers’ portfolios will be
proactively released (this does not include personal or constituency
matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time
(start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with,
and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with the Minister on behalf of
an organisation, the name of the organisation will be released. If you are
a senior staff member at an organisation, or meet with the Minister in
your personal capacity, your name may also be released. The location of
the meeting will be released, unless it is a private residence. The
proactive release will be consistent with the provisions in the Official
Information Act, including privacy considerations. Under the Privacy Act
1993 you have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we
hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is
wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it
corrected, or are concerned about the release of your information in the
meeting disclosure, please contact the sender. You can read more about the
proactive release policy at
[1]https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas... ) 

 

(Please note that this acknowledgement is an automatically generated
email.) 

 

Regards 

 

The Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters

References

Visible links
1. https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...

Dear Aaron W,

As previously stated in our response letter to you on the 30th May.

"We aim to respond to all requests within the statutory timeframe of 20 working days. As such, our Office responded to your request within these timeframes in
accordance with the Act. This includes a manual search of multiple email addresses and across multiple staff to identify any official information within the scope of the request.
In the case of your previous OIA, there was a verbal request for staff to search for material within scope. After this search, we determined that nothing was in scope
and therefore, it was refused in accordance with the Act."

Kind Regards,
Private Secretary

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron W <[FOI #30878 email]>
Sent: Tuesday, 3 June 2025 8:20 PM
To: Winston Peters (MIN) <[email address]>
Subject: Re: OIA Response: Aaron W

Dear Winston Peters (MIN),

Thank you for the reply. This doesn't answer my request.

You've noted: In the case of your previous OIA, there was a verbal request for staff to search for material within scope.

My specific request asked for "information which is known to an agency but has not yet been written down (so discussions between office staff)". You have noted a discussion occurred but did note when this occurred, with who, and what parameters were provided to undertake a search. This should have been disclosed. This is very relevant as it clearly impacts on whether or not the office has met its obligations to respond 'as soon as practicable' as outlined in the legislation. For example, if the discussions took place on day 1, but the response was provided on day 20,there is likely a breach in responding.

You have also noted how you determined no material in scope, but did not include how you determined that this was held by the Minister in his personal capacity (which appears to be a common pattern as it relates to this Office when it comes to controversial topics). Please outline how this determination was made.

I also note that this now makes two requests (which were both refused as the information did not exist) that took 20 days to respond to.

I look forward to receiving the balance of the information requested as soon as practicable - particularly as this request is now overdue.

Yours sincerely,

Aaron W

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

Dear Aaron W,

 

Please find attached a response to your OIA Request.

 

Kind Regards

 

Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters
Deputy Prime Minister

Minister of Foreign Affairs |

Minister for Racing |

Minister for Rail

Private Bag 18041, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #30878 email]

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

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

hide quoted sections

Dear Correspondent  

 

Thank you for contacting Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Racing.  

 

The Deputy Prime Minister considers all correspondence important and
appreciates you taking the time to write.   

 

Please note that since the Deputy Prime Minister receives a large amount
of correspondence, it is not always possible to personally reply to all
emails. 

 

The following guidelines apply: 

 

·         Invitations and requests to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister
will be processed as soon as possible and a staff member will be in
contact with you in due course. 

·         Media queries will be responded to by a staff member. 

·         Requests for official information will be managed in accordance
with provisions of the Official Information Act 1982, which may include
transfer to a more relevant Minister or agency. 

·         If your email falls outside of the Deputy Prime Minister's
portfolio responsibilities, expresses a personal view, or is copied to
multiple Members of Parliament, then your opinion will be noted and your
correspondence may be transferred to another office, or there may be no
further response to you. 

·         If your correspondence is to the Minister as the Member of
Parliament or Party Leader of New Zealand First, this may be referred to
the New Zealand First Leader’s office. 

 

(If your invitation or meeting request is accepted - please note
information about meetings related to the Ministers’ portfolios will be
proactively released (this does not include personal or constituency
matters). For each meeting in scope, the summary would list: date, time
(start and finish), brief description, location, who the meeting was with,
and the portfolio. If you attend a meeting with the Minister on behalf of
an organisation, the name of the organisation will be released. If you are
a senior staff member at an organisation, or meet with the Minister in
your personal capacity, your name may also be released. The location of
the meeting will be released, unless it is a private residence. The
proactive release will be consistent with the provisions in the Official
Information Act, including privacy considerations. Under the Privacy Act
1993 you have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we
hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is
wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it
corrected, or are concerned about the release of your information in the
meeting disclosure, please contact the sender. You can read more about the
proactive release policy at
[1]https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas... ) 

 

(Please note that this acknowledgement is an automatically generated
email.) 

 

Regards 

 

The Office of Rt Hon Winston Peters

References

Visible links
1. https://www.dia.govt.nz/Proactive-Releas...