Under the Official Information Act 1982, I request the following:

All communications — including but not limited to emails, text/SMS messages, instant
or direct messages on any platform (including but not limited to Signal, WhatsApp,
Messenger and iMessage), letters, briefings, aide-mémoire, meeting invitations, calendar
entries, meeting notes, minutes and file notes — sent to, sent by, or copying DPMC,
on the one hand, and any of the following on the other hand:

• B416 (including the B416 campaign/organisation);
• Cecilia Robinson;
• Anna Mowbray;
• Anna Curzon;
• Blair Knight;
• Malindi MacLean;
• any other director, officer, employee, member, representative or agent of B416;
• the author and the presenter of the aide-mémoire provided to the Prime Minister
on or about 17 April 2025 concerning restricting social media access for under-16s.

Period: 1 January 2025 to the date this request is processed.

For the avoidance of doubt, this request specifically includes:
1. communications held on personal devices or personal accounts that relate to official
business (consistent with the Ombudsman's guidance that the medium does not determine
whether information is "official information");
2. the aide-mémoire of on or about 17 April 2025, together with any drafts, attachments
and related correspondence;
3. internal communications among Ministers, ministerial staff and/or officials that
forward, discuss or respond to any communication from or about B416 or its members;
4. records of telephone calls or meetings (including calendar entries and notes)
involving any of the above parties.

These are five separate requests to five separate holders (the Office of the Prime Minister, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Hon Erica Stanford, the Ministry of Education, and the Department of Internal Affairs), each of which holds distinct information. I ask that this request be answered on the basis of the information held by the agency/office to which it is addressed, and
not consolidated with, or transferred wholesale to, another agency for a single combined
response. I accept that section 14 may require transferring specific information that is
held by, or more closely connected to, another agency; where that occurs, please notify
me which information has been transferred, to whom, and the basis for it, and answer the
remainder yourself.

I anticipate that s9(2)(a) may be considered. I note that it is subject to the
public-interest test in s9(1). These are communications between Ministers/officials and
an organised group lobbying to shape legislation — a matter in which the public interest
in disclosure is high — and the individuals concerned have advocated publicly on this
issue, including a public launch event with the Prime Minister, so any privacy interest
is limited. Comparable material has already been released under the OIA. Where any
genuinely personal detail (for example, a private phone number) is present, I ask that
it be redacted rather than used to withhold entire communications. On balance, I consider
that the public interest favours release.

If any part of this request is refused, please cite the specific section of the Act
relied on and release the balance. If you consider the request too large or insufficiently
particular, please contact me to refine it (rather than declining under section 18(f)).

I would appreciate a response in electronic form within the statutory 20 working days.

Please contact me if any aspect needs clarification.

Thank you for your letter and for consulting under section 18B. I'm happy to clarify, and to refine where it genuinely helps, and I think we can resolve this without engaging section 18(f). My responses are below.

Scope is already defined by correspondent
The request is confined to communications between DPMC and a specific, finite set of correspondents - B416 and the named individuals. A search by those names over the period is a bounded exercise, and because B416 is a single-issue group, subject and correspondent largely coincide. I'm content for the search to be conducted by those names. I don't think a subject-matter limit is necessary to make the request manageable; but if it assists your review, you may treat as in scope any communication that concerns, refers to, or arises from B416's advocacy or the proposal to age-restrict social media for under-16s.

Emails and formal documents
I'm content for the bulk of the search to proceed as you propose - emails sent to or received by DPMC, and formal advice, briefings, aides-mémoire, correspondence and other documents recorded in DPMC systems - searched by the names below. As you note, those are searchable, so this part shouldn't raise section 18(f).

Text messages, instant messages and call records
I don't accept that these should fall away. My request expressly covered communications held on personal devices or accounts that relate to official business, consistent with the Ombudsman's guidance that the medium does not determine whether something is official information. “Not centrally searchable” is not the same as “not held” - it means the records sit with individuals rather than in a central system. Records of exactly this kind - texts and messages between government and B416 on this very topic - have already been released under the OIA and reported by the NZ Herald in November 2025, so the category is both real and producible.

Rather than a central sweep, I'm content to narrow this element to a targeted search: please ask the specific DPMC staff who worked on the under-16 social media policy to check their work and personal devices/accounts for texts, instant messages or call records, within the period, with B416 or the named individuals. A search of a defined set of custodians for named correspondents is manageable and should not engage section 18(f).

Please don't transfer this element to the Office of the Prime Minister
As my request sets out, I have made separate requests to the Office of the Prime Minister and three other holders, and asked each to answer for what it holds rather than consolidating. So please don't transfer the text/message element wholesale to the Office of the Prime Minister - I have that covered directly. I'm asking DPMC only for what DPMC and its officials hold. Section 14 should be used only for specific items genuinely more closely connected to another agency, with notice to me of what was transferred and why, as I requested.

Clarification 1 - B416 and its representatives
The individuals I named are Cecilia Robinson, Anna Mowbray, Anna Curzon, Blair Knight and Malindi MacLean. By “any other director, officer, employee, member, representative or agent of B416” I mean any person communicating in that capacity - in practice, any communication from a b416.co.nz address, or sent or signed on B416's behalf. To assist your search, that plainly includes B416's chief executive, Nicole Green; please add her as a named search term, and treat any other person corresponding on B416's behalf as within scope.

Clarification 2 - the author and presenter of the 17 April 2025 aide-mémoire
I'm not in a position to name them; identifying who prepared and presented that advice is part of what the request seeks to establish. The document is sufficiently identified by its date (on or about 17 April 2025), its recipient (the Prime Minister) and its subject (restricting social media access for under-16s). I ask DPMC to locate the aide-mémoire - together with its drafts, attachments and related correspondence, as my request specified - and to identify its author and the person who presented it.

Timeframe
This is clarification and refinement in response to your own section 18B consultation, so I ask that the original timeframe be treated as continuing to run rather than restarting. If you nonetheless treat the refined request as made today, please confirm that and tell me the new due date.

I'm happy to keep refining in writing if anything else would help.

Thank you for your decision of 20 July 2026 (OIA-2025/26-0849), and for identifying the meeting of 6 May 2025.

I'm writing to ask DPMC to reconsider one aspect of that decision. This is not an amendment or a new request — it concerns the adequacy of the search underlying the section 18(e) refusal, within the scope already agreed.

1. The search appears not to have covered the name under which this group approached government

Your decision records that searches did not identify any additional communications between DPMC and “B416, or individuals representing B416.” I understand those searches to have been run on the name B416 and the individuals I listed.

B416 is not the only name this group uses. As reported by the NZ Herald, the wider initiative operates under the name the Children's Online Safety Society, with B416 as a focused campaign within it; the registered entity is the Before16 Charitable Trust, registered in January 2025. My request covers “any other director, officer, employee, member, representative or agent of B416,” and correspondence under the society's name is correspondence from the same body — so it is already within scope.

This is not a theoretical point. DPMC's own published release, OIA-2024/25-0888, shows that the aide-mémoire provided to the Prime Minister on 17 April 2025 was sent under the name Children's Online Safety Society, not B416. A search confined to “B416” would not have found it.

I ask that the searches be re-run for the same period (1 January 2025 to 23 June 2026) using: “Children's Online Safety Society”, “Before 16”, “Before16”, and “Before16 Charitable Trust”, together with Nicole Green, Dr Samantha Marsh, Dr Maneesh Deva, and Holly Brooker (in connection with “Makes Sense”), in addition to the names already searched.

2. The 6 May 2025 meeting — the qualifier “formal”

Your decision states that DPMC “does not hold any formal records” of that meeting. My request, and your own interpretation of it, expressly covered meeting invitations, calendar entries, meeting notes and file notes — not only formal records. Please confirm whether DPMC holds:

(a) any calendar entry or meeting invitation for that meeting, including in the calendar of the attending Policy Advisory Group advisor;
(b) any notes of any kind taken at or after the meeting, whether or not filed;
(c) any correspondence arranging the meeting, confirming attendance, or following up afterwards; and
(d) if none of the above is held, how the meeting was identified for the purposes of answering my request.

3. Communications DPMC holds involving a named individual

DPMC's published release OIA-2024/25-0888 shows that on 18 April 2025 the Prime Minister's Office forwarded to DPMC officials an email chain containing correspondence from Cecilia Robinson dated 17 April 2025, and that a DPMC advisor replied within that chain on 21 April 2025. Cecilia Robinson is a named individual in my request, the correspondence falls within the period, and DPMC holds it. Please confirm whether that chain was considered within scope of my request and, if it was excluded, on what basis.

I would be grateful for DPMC's response on these points within 10 working days. If the section 18(e) refusal is maintained without the searches being re-run on the names above, I will seek an Ombudsman review of that decision on the basis that it rests on a search that did not cover the name under which this group corresponded with government.