OIA364 Eric Ferguson Response Letter.pdf

19 September 2025

Eric Ferguson
[FYI request #31623 email]
OIA364

Dear Eric

Thank you for your email dated 17 July 2025 requesting, under the Official Information Act 1982 (the
Act), the following information:

1.  All information held by you or your office from 1 January 2024 to the present relating to
Turoa Ski Field, excluding correspondence from members of the public.

Specifically, I request:
•  Advice, briefings, and reports provided to you or your office by government
departments, agencies, or officials;
•  Internal communications within your office or between your office and other
Ministers, Members of Parliament, or government officials;
•  Emails, memos, meeting notes, or any correspondence with other Ministers, MPs, or
officials regarding Turoa or Pure Turoa Ltd;
•  Any diary entries or meeting records relating to Turoa, Mt Ruapehu ski fields, or
Pure Turoa Ltd.

On 5 August 2025, I wrote to you asking you to narrow your request for all communications, emails
or correspondence as the information requested was too broad to process and could not be made
available without substantial collation or research. On 11 August 2025, you responded with the
following:

I do not agree that my original request is unreasonably broad, particularly given that the scope
is clearly defined by:
   •       Subject matter: Tūroa Ski Field, Tūroa, and/or Pure Tūroa Ltd
   •      Timeframe: 1 January 2024 to 17 July 2025
   •      Exclusions: correspondence from members of the public

I note that section 18(f) of the Act allows refusal only where the information cannot be made
available without substantial col ation or research, but section 18B also requires that, before
refusing, you must consider whether consulting with me to refine the request could make it
manageable.

While I am open to refining where genuinely necessary, I am concerned that excluding “internal
communications, emails or correspondence” would risk omitting relevant and substantive
records of ministerial decision-making, particularly where these may not be captured in formal
briefings or advice.

To assist you in meeting the request while maintaining completeness, I am prepared to amend it
as follows:
1.  Retain the original timeframe (1 January 2024 – 17 July 2025) and subject matter (Tūroa Ski
Field, Tūroa, and/or Pure Tūroa Ltd).
2.  For internal communications, emails, memos, meeting notes, and correspondence, please
limit the search to:
•  Communications involving you, your office staff, or other Ministers/MPs/officers
where the subject line, meeting title, or main topic refers directly or indirectly to
Tūroa, Tūroa, Pure Tūroa Ltd, or their funding, sale, or operational arrangements.
3.   For advice, briefings, and reports provided to you or your office by government departments,
agencies, or officials, there is no need to refine this, because you wil  have efficient and
effective filing systems for this.
4.  For any diary entries or meeting records relating to Turoa, Mt Ruapehu ski fields, or Pure
Turoa Ltd, there is no need to refine this as it is a simple check if the diary and meeting
records.

On 14 August 2025, I wrote to you explaining that I was extending the time available to answer your
request, and that a response would be sent to you no later than 19 September 2025. The reason for
the extension was that consultations necessary to make a decision on your request were such that a
proper response could not reasonably be made within the original time limit. Your request
necessitated a search through a large quantity of information and meeting the original time limit
would unreasonably interfere with our operations.

Advice, briefings, and reports relating to Tūroa Ski Field, and meeting records and meeting notes
relating to Tūroa, Mt Ruapehu ski fields, or Pure Turoa Ltd:

Please find below a list of the documentation relevant to parts one and four of your original request.
Where material is being released to you, items are attached.

#
Date
Item
Description/Title
Decision
Advice, brieﬁngs, and reports
1
17/01/2024  Weekly
2324-1579 Kānoa – Regional Development
report
Weekly Report to 17 January 2024
Released
2
24/01/2024  Weekly
2324-1580 Kānoa – Regional Development
report
Weekly Report to 24 January 2024
Released
2324-1760 Meeting memo - Joint Ministers
Released
3
26/01/2024  Brieﬁng
Meeting on Ruapehu Alpine
with
Lifts and Mt Ruapehu
redactions
Released
4
31/01/2024  Meeting
Meeting memo - RAL slide deck - Preliminary
slides
commercial options
with
redactions
Meeting memo - Summary of Pure Turoa
Released
5
31/01/2024  Summary
document  Holdings Limited (PTL) deal with the Crown as of  with
31 January 2024
redactions
6
7/02/2024
Weekly
2324-1582 Kānoa – Regional Development
report
Weekly Report to 7 February 2024
Released

#
Date
Item
Description/Title
Decision
7
14/02/2024  Weekly
2324-1909 Kānoa – Regional Development
report
Weekly Report to 14 February 2024
Released
Decisions on the Future of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts
8
1/03/2024
Cabinet
Refused –
paper
Limited In Liquidation and Receivership - Post
March 2024
18(d)
CAB-24-0070.01 Minute Decisions on the Future
9
11/03/2024  Cabinet
of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts Limited In Liquidation
Refused –
minute
and Receivership – Post March 2024 CAB-24-
18(d)
0070.01 Minute
REQ-0015539 Kānoa – Regional Economic
Released
10
18/06/2025  Weekly
report
Development & Investment Unit Weekly Report  with
to 18 June 2025
redactions
Withheld in
full -
9(2)(b)(ii)
11
8/07/2025
Brieﬁng
[TITLE WITHHELD IN FULL]
9(2)(ba)(i)
9(2)(f)(iv)
9(2)(i)
9(2)(j)
Withheld in
full -
REQ-0016666 Kānoa – Regional Economic
9(2)(b)(ii)
12
9/07/2025
Weekly
report
Development & Investment Unit Weekly Report  9(2)(ba)(i)
to 9 July 2025
9(2)(f)(iv)
9(2)(i)
9(2)(j)
Meeting records and meeting notes
Withheld in
13
26/06/2024  Email
RE: Regional Development Oﬃcials Actions -
25.06.2024
full -
9(2)(h)
14
29/04/2025  Email
Regional Development Oﬃcials 28/04/2025 -
Actions
Released
15
15/07/2025  Email
Regional Development Oﬃcials Actions -
14/07/2025
Released
Withheld in
full -
9(2)(a)
16
29/07/2025  Email
Regional Development Oﬃcials Actions -
9(2)(b)(ii)
28.07.2025
9(2)(ba)(i)
9(2)(f)(iv)
9(2)(i)
9(2)(j)

Please note I have provided you with only the extracts from the Kānoa – Regional Economic
Development & Investment Unit Weekly Reports, rather than the whole documents, as this is the
information relevant to your request. These extracts have been provided in a separate document.

Please note some information is being withheld under the fol owing sections of the Act:
•  9(2)(a), to protect the privacy of natural persons, including that of deceased natural persons;
•  9(2)(b)(ii), to protect information where the making available of the information would be
likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who
is the subject of the information;
•  9(2)(ba)(i), to protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence or which
any person has been or could be compel ed to provide under the authority of any enactment,
where the making available of the information would be likely to prejudice the supply of
similar information, or information from the same source, and it is in the public interest that
such information should continue to be supplied;
•  9(2)(f)(iv), to maintain the constitutional conventions for the time being which protect the
confidentiality of advice tendered by Ministers of the Crown and officials;
•  9(2)(g)(i), to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank
expression of opinions by or between or to Ministers of the Crown or members of an
organisation or officers and employees of any public service agency or organisation in the
course of their duty;
•  9(2)(h), to maintain legal professional privilege; and
•  9(2)(j), to enable a Minister of the Crown or any public service agency or organisation holding
the information to carry on, without prejudice or disadvantage, negotiations (including
commercial and industrial negotiations).

I do not consider that the withholding of this information is outweighed by public interest
considerations in making the information available.

Additional y, I am refusing documents 8 and 9 under section 18(d) of the Act, as the information
requested is or will soon be publicly available. These documents can be found on the Ministry of
Business, Innovation, and Employment’s (MBIE’s) Document Library: www.mbie.govt.nz/document-
library/search?keywords=Ruapehu+Alpine+Lifts+Limited&df=&dt=&sort=desc.
Please note there is also information on MBIE’s Document Library regarding Tūroa ski field, which
you may find helpful. This material predates Cabinet’s agreement on 11 March 2024 to provide
$3.05 mil ion to Pure Tūroa Limited (PTL) to support the purchase of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts Limited’s
(In Liquidation and Receivership) (RAL) Tūroa ski field assets.
Communications and emails with Ministers, Member of Parliament or government officials
Please note that I am refusing parts two and three of your original request under section 18(f) of the
Act, as the information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or
research.

Before making this decision, I took into account section 18B of the Act which requires me to consider
whether consulting with you to refine the request could make it manageable. In my email of 5
August 2025, I mentioned there is difficulty involved in meeting these parts of your request and
invited you amend the scope by reducing the timeframe or amending to al  communications, emails
or correspondence relating to official advice/briefings.

I explained that there would be difficulty involved as any mention of Tūroa Ski Field, Tūroa or Pure
Tūroa Ltd would be intertwined within the three different decision-making processes: the sale of

Tūroa ski field, bidding/sale Whakapapa ski field, and providing additional support for RAL’s
operations.

I note that you amended your request to communications and emails “where the subject line,
meeting title, or main topic refers directly or indirectly to Tūroa, Tūroa, Pure Tūroa Ltd, or their
funding, sale, or operational arrangements”. However, this did not narrow down the scope as this
would still require staff to read and review the information to decide if it was in scope or not.

As the MBIE provide operational support for the sale of RAL, their Records and Library Services team
conducted a records search to identify the number of items in scope of parts two and three of your
request. The search identified the following number of items, which would all require assessment to
determine if they were within scope. It is calculated that it takes five minutes to process each
document and email, meaning assessment of this material would take 1,077 and 282 hours
respectively.

Please note I expect this number to increase as the total numbers below are records that MBIE
holds, and may not include emails from other Ministers, Members of Parliament, my office or
government officials from other agencies.

Search name
Number of emails
Emails between @parliament.govt.nz and al MBIE staff:
Tūroa Ski Field
1,157
Tūroa
4,982
Pure Tūroa
4,050
Pure Tūroa Ltd
1,011
PTL
1,728
Total
12,928
Emails between @parliament.govt.nz and 12 MBIE staff:
Tūroa Ski Field
430
Tūroa
1,025
Pure Tūroa
1,099
Pure Tūroa Ltd
282
PTL
550
Total
3,386

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 www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.

Yours sincerely

Hon Shane Jones
Minister for Regional Development