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 any official, employee or contractor of the Ministry of Education, 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.

I'm writing with information to assist the search on my request concerning communications with B416.

To be clear at the outset: this is not an amendment or refinement of my request, and I don't ask that it be treated as one. It is simply information that should help ensure the search captures what is already within scope.

B416 is not the only name this group operates under. 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.

This matters practically. The aide-mémoire provided to the Prime Minister on 17 April 2025 — released by DPMC and published at https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/f... — was sent under the name Children's Online Safety Society, not B416. A search confined to the term “B416” would not have found it. Since my request covers “any other director, officer, employee, member, representative or agent of B416,” and B416 is a campaign of that society, correspondence under the society's name is correspondence from the same body and is already within scope.

I would therefore be grateful if your searches could include the following terms:

– “B416”, “Before 16”, “Before16”, “Before16 Charitable Trust”, and “Children's Online Safety Society”;
– Cecilia Robinson, Anna Mowbray, Anna Curzon, Blair Knight, Malindi MacLean, and Nicole Green (chief executive);
– Dr Samantha Marsh and Dr Maneesh Deva, named publicly as part of the wider team; and
– Holly Brooker, credited as the source of Appendix 3 to the aide-mémoire, in connection with “Makes Sense”.

I note the society is also described as including a 13-member expert panel and a youth advisory group; if your searches identify other individuals corresponding on the group's behalf under any of these names, I ask that they be treated as within scope.

I appreciate your assistance, and I'm happy to clarify anything further in writing.

Thank you for your response of 21 July 2026 (GEMS-48841).

I don't think it answers my request, and I ask the Ministry to complete its response.

My request was one of five separate requests to five separate holders, and I asked each to answer for the information it holds rather than pointing to another agency. Your letter explains that responsibility for the online-safety policy workstream sits with the Department of Internal Affairs, and that you have not transferred my request because I have also asked DIA directly. But it does not tell me whether the Ministry of Education searched its own records, or what that search found.

The two are not the same. That DIA leads the policy work does not mean the Ministry of Education holds no information within scope. My request is not limited to the policy workstream; it seeks any communications between the Ministry (its officials, employees or contractors) and B416 or the named individuals. A group lobbying to shape this policy may well have approached the Minister of Education or her office directly — Hon Erica Stanford leads this work and is the Minister of Education — quite separately from the officials-level workstream that sits with DIA. Any such correspondence would be the Ministry's to answer, not DIA's.

I therefore ask the Ministry to:

1. Search its own records — including the office of the Minister of Education, and its officials who have worked on or been consulted about this matter — for communications within scope of my request; and

2. Make and communicate a decision on that information under the Act: release what it holds, or, if it genuinely holds nothing within scope, say so by way of a decision under section 18(e), rather than referring me to DIA.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not asking the Ministry to answer for DIA's holdings, and I am content for DIA to answer for its own. I am asking the Ministry to answer for what it holds.

My clarification of 20 July, about the names this group operates under (including the Children's Online Safety Society and the Before16 Charitable Trust), applies to the Ministry's own search, and I ask that it be applied accordingly.

I'd be grateful for the Ministry's decision on its own holdings within the statutory timeframe. If the Ministry maintains that it need not search or decide because DIA leads the policy, I will seek an Ombudsman review.