Thank you for reaching out to the Far North District Council.

We have received your message. A member of our customer service team will
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You can also find what you are looking for by visiting our website:
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Kind regards
Ask Us Customer Services Team
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This is an automated reply
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Kia ora Joshua,

 

Thank you for reaching out to the Far North District Council.

 

Your request has been forwarded to our Legal Services Department to action
and respond. Should you need to follow up on this matter, please use
reference number RFS- 4267943

 

If your matter is urgent, you can contact our Contact Centre at 0800 920
029, which operates 24 hours a day.

 

Nga mihi,
Zara 

Ask Us Customer Services Team

 

Joshua Riley

By email only: [1][FOI #32210 email]

 

RFS 4267943 - Privacy Act Request – Candidate Joshua Riley and affiliated
political party Sovereign

 

Dear Mr Riley

 

I refer to your request dated 3 September 2025 made under the Local
Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) for all
information and communications created between 1 July 2025 and 3 September
2025 regarding your involvement as a candidate in the 2025 Far North
District Council election and your affiliated political party Sovereign.

 

Because your request is for information relating to yourself, in other
words personal information, we have processed your request as a privacy
request under the Privacy Act 2020 rather than as a LGOIMA request.  We
note that to undertake a comprehensive search of all potential records
held by all council staff and elected members that refer to you, your
candidacy, and your affiliated political party Sovereign, would involve a
resource intensive manual search exercise which we would be unlikely to be
in a position to complete prior to the end of the current election.

 

Rather than seeking to extend the deadline for responding to your request,
in the interests of responding in a timely manner, we asked all staff
regularly dealing with matters relating to the conduct of the current
council election, including election complaints, elections administration,
signage and responses to official information requests, to review all of
their email correspondence between 1 July 2025 and 3 September 2025 for
any references to you, your candidacy and your affiliated political party
Sovereign.  The relevant staff included the Chief Executive, the CE’s
Executive Assistant, staff in the Elections Team, staff in the Legal
Services and LGOIMA teams, the Manager of Democracy Services, the Manager
of Compliance, the Monitoring Team and the Manager of Communications and
Engagement.

 

None of the staff in question were able to locate any correspondence or
other information that references to you, your candidacy, and your
affiliated political party Sovereign, other than in the context of the
contact details/ candidate details provided by you to Council as an
election candidate.  This includes your email address which contains the
words sovereign.  No substantive references to you, your candidacy and
your affiliated political party Sovereign were located during these
searches.

 

If having reviewed our response, you have additional specific searches
that you would like us to undertake in relation to specific staff and/or
elected members please feel free to follow up with us and we will
endeavour to deal with your additional request(s) as expeditiously as
possible.

 

 

Nga mihi

Privacy and LGOIMA Team   
 
 
 
Te Kaunihera o Te Hiku o te Ika  |  Far North District Council
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References

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1. mailto:[FOI #32210 email]
2. https://www.fndc.govt.nz/home
3. https://www.facebook.com/FarNorthDistric...
4. https://www.facebook.com/FarNorthDistric...
5. https://nz.linkedin.com/company/far-nort...
6. https://nz.linkedin.com/company/far-nort...
7. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRbGkKa...
8. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRbGkKa...
9. https://www.instagram.com/farnorth_dc/

Joshua Riley

By email only to: [1][FOI #32210 email]

 

 

Tçnâ koe Mr Riley,

 

Privacy Act request: RFS 4272359 – Follow-up request of Council's response
to RFS 4267943

 

 

Thank you for your follow-up request to the Far North District Council
(‘Council’), received on 3 October 2025, further refining your research
for the personal information relating to yourself and your “Sovereign”
affiliation.

 

Your request is being considered in accordance with the provisions of the
Privacy Act 2020. A response will be provided to you as soon as reasonably
practicable, and no later than 20 working days after the day on which the
request was received.

 

Please quote our reference RFS 4272359 for any further enquiries in
relation to this follow-up request.

 

Thank you for your enquiry.

 

 

Privacy and LGOIMA Team

 

Te Kaunihera o Te Hiku o te Ika  |  Far North District Council

 

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[FOI #32210 email]

Tena koe Mr Riley,

Privacy Act request: RFS 4272359 - Follow-up request of Council's response to RFS 4267943

I apologise for any confusion caused by my earlier standardised acknowledgement email. We have assigned a new RFS reference number to your clarifying request primarily for record keeping purposes. We will of course be seeking to respond to your follow-up request as soon as possible and are conducting further searches using the following search terms:
* Joshua AND sovereign
* Riley and Sovereign
* Joshua Riley and Sovereign
* Josh and Sovereign
* [email address] and sovereign

However, in the meantime it would be helpful if you could provide us with any additional information on the email trail that you understand may exist to assist us in pinpointing that correspondence.

Kind regards

Privacy and LGOIMA Team

-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua Riley <[FOI #32210 email]>
Sent: Wednesday, 8 October 2025 2:17 pm
To: Lea Zhao <[email address]>
Subject: Re: Privacy Act request RFS 4272359 - RE follow-up request of Council's response to RFS 4267943

CAUTION: This email originated from outside Far North District Council.
Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognise the sender and know the content is safe.

Dear Lea Zhao,

I am writing to challenge the decision to log this as a new request (RFS 4272359) with a new 20-working-day timeframe.

My follow-up email was not a new request for information - it was a necessary clarification of my original request (RFS 4267943) after your initial search was acknowledged to be of a limited and incomplete scope.

As this is a continuation of the original request, I ask that it be processed under the original timeframe.

Please confirm how you intend to proceed.

Sincerely,

Joshua Riley

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

Joshua Riley

By email only to: [1][FOI #32210 email]

Tçnâ koe Mr Riley,

Privacy Act request: RFS 4272359 - Follow-up request of Council's response to RFS 4267943

Thank you for your follow-up request to the Far North District Council ('Council'), received on 3 October 2025, further refining your research for the personal information relating to yourself and your "Sovereign"
affiliation.

Your request is being considered in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 2020. A response will be provided to you as soon as reasonably practicable, and no later than 20 working days after the day on which the request was received.

Please quote our reference RFS 4272359 for any further enquiries in relation to this follow-up request.

Thank you for your enquiry.

Privacy and LGOIMA Team

Te Kaunihera o Te Hiku o te Ika | Far North District Council

References

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1. mailto:[FOI #32210 email]

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