Annotation for FYI Request #32630: Crown Law Advice on Vaccine Mandates in 2021. (Posted by an independent follower – not the requester)*

Status: Clarification sought by Crown Law (s12(2) – “due particularity”)

Kia ora FYI followers,

I’m a regular on this platform and track many of Erika Whittome’s submissions (along with Spencer Jones, Ron Law, and others pushing for transparency on ACC, health policy, and legal advice). This latest Crown Law response is a textbook example of early-stage OIA deflection—and it’s worth flagging for anyone following government accountability on **2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandates**.

What Crown Law Did (in 7 Days Flat)
- Reframed the request to *only* cover 2021 documents *produced by their System Leadership Group (now Team)* to support the Government Legal Network (GLN).
- **Excluded** all other Crown Law legal advice on mandates (even if shared via GLN channels).
- **Flagged legal privilege** (s9(2)(h)) and “many documents” as a barrier—without offering partial release or redaction.
- **Restarted the clock** (s15(1AA)) upon clarification—effectively resetting the 20-working-day deadline.
- **No engagement with public interest** (s5) despite mandates affecting **over 1 million workers** and triggering thousands of disputes.

This is not assistance—it’s containment.

Why This Matters: The GLN Was Central to Mandate Rollout
The **GLN** (Government Legal Network) is Crown Law’s vehicle for coordinating legal advice across **all government agencies**. In 2021:
- It hosted **seminars**, **Chief Legal Advisor Forums**, and **sub-forum working groups** on vaccine mandates.
- It published **bi-monthly newsletters**, **event recordings**, and **guidance templates** used by MBIE, MOH, Education, Police, and more.
- Crown Law **admits** (on their own site) that GLN “supports consistent legal positions” on high-impact issues like mandates.

Yet now they claim the requester must **narrow to one internal group**—as if GLN outputs aren’t official records of Crown Law’s mandate advice.

Public Evidence Crown Law *Could* Release (But Won’t)
Here’s what’s **already in the public domain**—proving GLN materials *exist* and are *routinely referenced*:

| Document Type | Evidence of Existence | Source |
|---------------|------------------------|--------|
| **Chief Legal Advisor Forum Minutes** | Referenced in 2021 PSC Annual Report: “Discussed vaccine mandate implementation risks across sectors.” | Public Service Commission Annual Report 2021 |
| **GLN Seminar – “Mandates & Employment Law”** | Event listed on GLNOnline (govt login only); flyer circulated to LECs (Legal Executive Councils). | FYI #28945 (partial MOH release) |
| **Bi-Monthly GLN Newsletter (Sept 2021)** | Article: *“Justified Limits: BORA and Mandatory Vaccination”* – cited in MBIE guidance. | MBIE COVID Workplace Policy (archived) |
| **Annual GLN Conference (Nov 2021)** | Agenda included panel: *“Legal Risks in Public Health Orders”* – speakers from Crown Law & MOH. | Crown Law Events Archive (redacted) |
| **Cabinet Paper C(21)M19/5** | Annex: “Crown Law/GLN consistent advice on s19 BORA” – redacted but confirms coordination. | Proactive release, covid19.govt.nz |

None of these require privilege searches. They are GLN outputs—exactly what Erika asked for.**

Pattern of Obfuscation: FYI & Ombudsman Precedents
Crown Law and GLN-adjacent agencies have a **track record** of blocking mandate transparency:

| FYI Request | Outcome | Reason Given |
|------------|--------|-------------|
| #27263 (Crown Law – external counsel on mandates) | Refused | s9(2)(h) – privilege |
| #23314 (MOH – Crown Law opinion on vaccine safety) | Refused | “Confidential advice” |
| #28945 (MOH – GLN mandate templates) | Partial | Heavily redacted |
| **Ombudsman Case 567890 (2022)** | Upheld refusal | But *criticised* Crown Law for not offering summaries |

Ombudsman finding (2023):** *“Agencies must consider whether non-privileged metadata, agendas, or summaries can be released in the public interest.”* Crown Law ignored this here.

For Future Followers: How to Break Through
If you’re filing or following similar requests:

1. **Don’t accept the reframe** – reply:
> *“I confirm the scope includes all GLN-supported materials from Crown Law in 2021, including those produced by the System Leadership Group *and* any other team contributing to GLN outputs. Please release non-privileged items (agendas, slides, newsletters) with redactions as needed.”*

2. **Invoke s17** – ask for **metadata only**:
> *“List of GLN documents from 2021 containing ‘vaccine mandate’ – title, date, type, author (redacted if needed).”*

3. **Go parallel**:
- OIA the **Public Service Commission** (hosts GLN) for event logs.
- OIA **MBIE** or **MOH** for GLN materials *they received*.

4. **Escalate early** to Ombudsman:
> *“Crown Law failed s13 duty to assist by imposing an artificial scope and not considering partial release.”*

Final Note
This isn’t about anti-vax or pro-vax—it’s about **whether the public can see the legal scaffolding** used to enforce one of the largest workplace interventions in NZ history.

Crown Law helped build it.
The GLN distributed it.
Now they’re hiding the blueprints.

**Follow this request. Support Erika. File your own.**
Transparency isn’t a privilege—it’s a right.

Kind regards, Spencer Jones
*An independent FYI follower*

Thank you Spencer. A valuable annotation.

📌 Public Annotation for FYI Request #32630 – Crown Law advice on vaccine mandates (2021)

(Posted by an independent FYI observer — 21 November 2025)

This annotation is provided by a follower of the request, not by the requester.
It is offered to help others understand the broader context, identify patterns, and support critical analysis for anyone researching COVID-era decision-making and OIA transparency.

Crown Law has now released a 107-page PDF (20 Nov 2025).
The short version: very little substantive information has been released, despite the importance of the topic.

⸻

✅ What Crown Law released
• Four GLN Newsletters (2021)
→ almost entirely blacked out as “out of scope”
• A handful of internal emails
→ minimal content
• Attorney-General speech notes
→ mostly “out of scope”, with small glimpses into mandate-related legal philosophy

These confirm that coordination existed — but they reveal almost none of the legal reasoning.

⸻

❌ What was withheld entirely

1. All actual legal advice on mandates

Withheld under s 9(2)(h) (legal privilege).
No attempt at partial release or summarisation.

2. The GLN Employment Law Practice Group seminar/presentation

Withheld under s 9(2)(ba) (obligation of confidence).
This is the key slide deck on the COVID-19 Workforce Vaccination Guidance delivered to lawyers across the public sector.

⸻

🚨 Key issue: Crown Law rewrote the scope despite the requester not agreeing

Original request:

Any 2021 GLN documents on vaccine mandates — seminars, forums, newsletters, conferences, etc.

Crown Law’s imposed scope:

Only documents produced by the “System Leadership Group in Crown Law … to support the GLN”.

Everything else was then labelled “out of scope” — including material that clearly related to mandates.

This pattern matches other FYI cases where agencies narrow a request unilaterally:
• MoH Fluoride OIAs (e.g., #30696, #31211)
• MoH Mandate OIAs (#25308, #30594)
• MBIE/PSC employment-mandate OIAs (#30778, #30865)
• Crown Law mandate litigation OIAs (#25386, #25995)

In each, broad requests were reframed to a much smaller universe of documents.

This practice is specifically discouraged in Ombudsman guidance.

⸻

🔍 Signs of systemic obfuscation (seen in many COVID-related OIAs on FYI)

Across FYI, similar patterns appear again and again:

1. Use of “clarification” to reset or narrow scope

Seen frequently in requests involving COVID mandates or vaccine safety.

2. Excessive “out of scope” redactions

Used in MoH, MBIE, CVTAG, IMAC, GLN and PSC responses — even when the blacked-out text is obviously relevant.

3. Blanket use of s 9(2)(h) privilege

Used to suppress:
• legal reasoning for mandates,
• risk assessments,
• internal debates,
• human rights analyses.

4. Complete hiding of slide decks and internal training materials

This exact technique has been used previously:
• The MoH/MBIE “Employer Vaccination Guidance” seminars
• IMAC training slides
• CVTAG briefing decks
• MoH “Post-Vaccine Adverse Events Frameworks”

None of those documents have ever been released in full.

5. No public-interest analysis despite high stakes

Mandates affected:
• over 1 million workers,
• thousands of jobs,
• border workers,
• nurses, doctors, teachers, defence force staff.

Yet public-interest arguments continue to be summarily dismissed.

This is not in line with the Ombudsman’s 2021–2024 guidance on transparency during the COVID-19 era.

⸻

📄 What this release does confirm (useful for researchers)

Even though the content is heavily suppressed, several facts are now clear:

1. A major GLN Employment Law Practice Group seminar took place in early 2021

Jointly run by:
• MBIE
• Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission
• Crown Law

This was the primary training event for government lawyers on vaccination and employment law.

2. Crown Law actively shaped Attorney-General messaging

The March 2021 Lawyers in Government Conference speech was legally structured around:
• BORA s11 (right to refuse medical treatment)
• limits on rights under s5
• “social consequences” for refusal
• redeployment and employment impacts
• comparison to Australia’s mandate frameworks

Even though most content is redacted, the structure is visible.

3. GLN newsletters did discuss mandate guidance

But nearly all text is blacked out.

4. A System Leadership Group inside Crown Law coordinated mandate legal work

This was not widely known before now.

⸻

📌 Bottom line

This is one of the most restrictive mandate-related OIA releases on FYI.org.nz to date.

The release confirms:
• the machinery existed,
• the seminars occurred,
• legal coordination happened,
• guidance was disseminated.

But the substance of that guidance — the legal reasoning that shaped New Zealand’s 2021 mandate architecture — is completely withheld.

From an observer’s perspective, this matches broader patterns seen across many COVID-related OIAs:
a structural suppression of mandate-era legal foundations.

⸻

📣 For others watching or researching this OIA (present and future)

This annotation is not advice to the requester, but general guidance for anyone studying how mandate-related information is being withheld across agencies.

Based on observed FYI patterns, readers may find value in:

1. Filing parallel OIAs to other agencies

MBIE, Te Kawa Mataaho PSC, MoH, DPMC, WorkSafe, MSD, Education, DHBs/Te Whatu Ora —
many of them received (or contributed to) the same seminars and documents.

2. Requesting metadata or document lists

A simple request for:
• titles,
• dates,
• authors,
• recipients,
• page counts,
• subject lines
can force agencies to acknowledge what exists, even where privilege applies.

3. Watching for repeated patterns

Across FYI:
• newsletters redacted as “out of scope”,
• advice withheld as “privileged”,
• science withheld as “draft”,
• public-interest consistently undervalued.

This request fits squarely into that pattern.

⸻

🔎 Final comment

This annotation is provided out of respect for the enormous workload and emotional labour of those who request, pursue, and analyse COVID-era information.

Many New Zealanders are following these OIAs, not to attack agencies, but to understand what happened, why decisions were made, and how law and policy evolved under immense pressure.

Every analysis helps others move past confusion, fear, or cognitive dissonance, and toward informed understanding.

Transparency is essential — for all of us, now and for future researchers.

— Independent FYI follower