Another outrageous abuse of the OIA

Two weeks ago the Ombudsman released his final opinion on the Prime Minister's unlawful hiding of information around his corrupt climate impunity law, and he was not impressed. As a followup, The Post filed another OIA with the Prime Minister, seeking correspondence between the PM, his "forgetful" adviser, and the Department of Internal Affairs (which hosts Ministerial Services and his his nominal employer). But the regime clearly wants to bury this information, because they have extended the request for 64 working days:

However, it was not until last week when branch performance director Penny Langley wrote back to extend the statutory timeframe by 64 working days.

Langley said “the consultations necessary to make a decision” meant DIA could not reasonably respond within the original deadline.

The extension, dated July 3, means the request is not due to be answered until October 7.

...which means that when they are inevitably late, or announce that a decision has been made but release will happen later, there will be no time to force release before the November 7 election.

This is an outrageous abuse of the OIA. It is also prima facie unlawful. The OIA is clear: extensions must be "for a reasonable period of time having regard to the circumstances". what's "reasonable"? The Ombudsman is equally clear:

Where Parliament has specifically mandated third party consultation on OIA requests, those parties have been required to respond ‘within 10 working days’. In its review of the official information legislation, the Law Commission suggested a minimum 5 working days’ notice. From this, it can be inferred that 5–10 working days would generally be regarded as a reasonable period of time within which to provide comment.

While the Ombudsman notes that more or less time might be appropriate depending on the circumstances, it is difficult to imagine circumstances which would justify 64 working days, and those which can be imagined - the person simply being unavailable for a protracted period of time - would also make it perfectly reasonable for the agency to simply make the decision itself without consulting at all.

DIA of course refuses to provide any justification for its decision, which in itself seems to be a violation of s23 OIA, and invites the natural suspicion that there is none (or rather, none which would withstand public scrutiny).

The Post has no doubt complained to the Ombudsman already about this, but for the rest of us its a reminder of how extensions are routinely abused, and how you should immediately complain about them. And if you're not sure about what to say, I have specific guidance for extension complaints here.