Dear The Treasury,

This request is made under the Official Information Act 1982.

I request a detailed breakdown of allocations and expenditures from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund.

Specifically, please provide:

• a list of all programmes funded through the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund
• the total amount allocated to each programme
• the government agency responsible for administering each programme
• a brief description of the purpose of each expenditure.

Where possible, please provide this information in spreadsheet or tabular form.

Yours faithfully,

John Armstrong

Dear Ministerial Services Inbox [TSY],

I have viewed the attachments in your response which are publicly available. There is zero transparency for the taxpayer's money you are spending. If a taxpayer requests information they are referred to multiple reasons of refusal for the information (as per copied text below), taken from: https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/defau...

Information Withheld Some parts of this information release would not be appropriate to release and, if requested, would be withheld under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act). Where this is the case, the relevant sections of the Act that would apply have been identified. Where information has been withheld, no public interest has been identified that would outweigh the reasons for withholding it. Key to sections of the Act under which information may have been withheld: [1] [2] [4] [11] [23] [25] [26] [27] 6(a) - to avoid prejudice to the security or defence of New Zealand or the international relations of the government 6(b)(i) - to avoid prejudice the entrusting of information to the Government of New Zealand on a basis of confidence by the Government of any other country or any agency of such a Government 6(c) - to avoid prejudice to the maintenance of the law, including the prevention, investigation, and detection of offences, and the right to a fair trial 6(e)(vi) - to prevent serious damage to the economy of New Zealand by disclosing prematurely decisions to change or continue government economic or financial policies relating to the entering into of overseas trade agreements 9(2)(a) - to protect the privacy of natural persons, including deceased people 9(2)(b)(ii) - to protect the commercial position of the person who supplied the information 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 compelled 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)(ba)(ii) - to protect information which is subject to an obligation of confidence or which any person has been or could be compelled to provide under the authority of any enactment, where the making available of the information would be likely otherwise to damage the public interest [29] 9(2)(d) - to avoid prejudice to the substantial economic interests of New Zealand [31] [33] [34] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] 9(2)(f)(ii) - to maintain the current constitutional conventions protecting collective and individual ministerial responsibility 9(2)(f)(iv) - to maintain the current constitutional conventions protecting the confidentiality of advice tendered by ministers and officials 9(2)(g)(i) - to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank expression of opinions 9(2)(h) - to maintain legal professional privilege 9(2)(i) - to enable the Crown to carry out commercial activities without disadvantage or prejudice 9(2)(j) - to enable the Crown to negotiate without disadvantage or prejudice 9(2)(k) - to prevent the disclosure of official information for improper gain or improper advantage not in scope 18(c)(i) - that the making available of the information requested would be contrary to the provisions of a specified enactment 18(d) - information is already publicly available or will be publicly available soon.

Yours sincerely,

John Armstrong