Official Information Act

To request information from our organisation, please:

Email hnzOIA@health.govt.nz
or...
visit ombudsman.parliament.nz

To help us identify what information you are looking for, try to make your request as clear and specific as you can.

If we do not understand your request, we contact you to clarify what information you want to receive.

Remember to include your name and contact address so that we can respond to you.

If you wish to request personal information we hold about you, see your patient rights and privacy.

We will acknowledge your request upon receipt.

We will give you a decision about your request as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after we receive it.

If we need more time to make our decision - for example, if your request is very large or requires consultation - we will let you know and tell you when you can expect our decision.

You can complain to the Office of the Ombudsman if you are not happy with our decision to extend the time.

Requesting information is free.

However, we can charge a reasonable amount if it will take a lot of work to supply the information to you.

If we intend to charge you, we will inform you in advance and ask if you would like to continue with your request.

You can complain to the Office of the Ombudsman if you are not happy with our decision to charge you.

When we receive your request, we will find all the information you have asked for and review it carefully. We may need to consult others in order to make a decision on your request.

We will provide you with the information you requested unless there is a good reason not to. The reasons for withholding information are specified in the legislation.

They apply when release would harm a protected interest such as the maintenance of the law, personal privacy, confidentiality or commercial information.

Some reasons for withholding are subject to a ‘public interest test’, where as part of our decision on your request we will consider whether there are public interest considerations that mean we should release the information.

If we withhold information from you, we will tell you which part of the OIA applies.

You have the right to complain to the Office of the Ombudsman about our decision to withhold information.

In the interests of transparency, we publish some OIA responses.

We also proactively release information that may be requested under the OIA where we consider it to be of public interest.

These are listed below.

Before making an OIA request, it may be useful to view information that is already on our website - we regularly publish useful information online.

• Publications and documents

For more information about the Act and OIA requests, visit:

• Ombudsman Guide – Making official information requests: a guide for requestors
• Official Information Act 1982
• Privacy Act 2020
• Charging guidelines for official information requests