Official Information Act 1982

Official Information Act 1982
New Zealand Parliament
An Act to make official information more freely available, to provide for proper access by each person to official information relating to that person, to protect official information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the preservation of personal privacy, to establish procedures for the achievement of those purposes, and to repeal the Official Secrets Act 1951
Date of Royal Assent	17 December 1982
Date commenced	1 July 1983
Administered by	Minister of Justice
Introduced by	Jim McLay
Amendments
None
Related legislation
Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987
Status: Current legislation

The Official Information Act 1982 is a New Zealand law which replaced the Official Secrets Act of 1951 which made the release of information held by Government agencies an offence. The Official Information Act takes the opposite approach and is designed to promote access to information held by various Government agencies. Its guiding principle is that information should be made available unless a good reason exists under the Act for withholding it.

Requests to Government Departments or State agencies for information are supposed to be answered within 20 working days. If an agency declines to provide the information, it must provide a reason and advise the requester that they have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate whether or not that decision is justified under the provisions of the Act.

Prior to 1982, reflecting New Zealand's colonial heritage, there was a perception that official information belonged to “the Queen and her advisers”. This perception was codified in the Official Secrets Act and earlier pieces of legislation, whereby official information was kept secret unless a particular decision was made to release it. In the latter half of the twentieth century, increased concern for human rights internationally favoured more open government and the introduction of greater control over state agencies. Freedom of information legislation was passed in many countries around the world as attitudes to government and the administration of public power began to change.

In New Zealand, pressure began to grow for similar legislation and for the requirement for secrecy to be overturned. This process was assisted by the courts which made landmark decisions requiring more control over the exercise of political power. In 1962, this change of mindset manifested in the Parliamentary Commissioner (Ombudsman) Act which was an important first step towards the creation of more open government. It gave the Ombudsmen wide rights of access to departmental files and established that failure by a state agency to give reasons for any decision to refuse information as one of the grounds on which an Ombudsman could intervene. Also in 1962, a Royal Commission of Inquiry was held into the State Services in New Zealand. The Commission stated: "Government administration is the public’s business, and the people are entitled to know more than they do of what is being done, and why". In 1964 the State Services Commission adopted this approach and directed that the underlying principle for Government agencies would be that information should be withheld only if there was a good reason for doing so.

In 1982 these ideas were codified by the passing into law of the Official Information Act by the National Government. The Prime Minister at the time was Rob Muldoon, who according to Privacy Commissioner, Marie Shroff, was "a strong believer in the battler, the little man, the ordinary citizen and his or her rights".

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