Urgent call to improve access to official information - Māori researchers
Friday, 19 March 2021
Māori researchers are calling for urgent change to improve access to official information, after their research project revealed inconsistent and slow responses to information requests.
In a paper published in Victoria University journal Policy Quarterly, four Māori health researchers set out their experience trying to get information about Māori living with disabilities, for a Waitangi Tribunal inquiry.
The researchers concluded the application of the Official Information Act appeared to be “against the spirit of information availability and democratic accountability”.
The paper called for the Government to “urgently make the changes required to deliver on a modern approach to official information that ensures equitable, high-performing and truly democratic public administration”.
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Health and disability research consultant Gabrielle Baker (Ngāpuhi), who co-ordinated the project’s OIA requests, said their experience showed the frustrating inconsistencies in how agencies dealt with the OIA.
The researchers sent information requests to 33 Crown agencies. Less than one third gave complete answers within 20 days. One requested an extension to answer one question. One asked for their responses to be kept confidential. One simply failed to respond.
“Every single one dealt with it differently,” Baker said. “There were multiple different processes, different levels of understanding and different responses to the same question.
“This is about transparency and our democratic rights, to be able to access information. And that’s not something that everyone has equally at the moment. To me that says change is needed.”
In September 2019, Justice Ministry officials recommended a review of the Official Information Act. Investigating the Tiriti o Waitangi implications of the act was one of nine suggested grounds for reform.
“There may be barriers particular to Māori being able to access information,” officials said.
While the Justice Ministry's advice did not call for a complete overhaul, Baker said their experience showed a substantial review – not just tweaking – was needed.
Public sector consultant Deb Te Kawa (Ngāti Porou), who is completing a PhD on free and frank advice in the public service, said she avoided using the OIA as she was unlikely to get the information she needed within a reasonable timeframe.
“The OIA to me just doesn't feel fit for purpose…It's difficult to access, the information quality is poor when you finally get it and these grounds for refusal don't make sense.”
Access to official information was critical to trust, good governance and countering misinformation, and to the Government’s role as a Tiriti o Waitangi partner, Te Kawa said. Instead, the Policy Quarterly paper appeared to show agencies gaming the act.
“You can't have informed consent, you can't have our trust and confidence, if you don't let us see the information.”
However, the barriers to information access for Māori were much broader than the OIA, Te Kawa said. The researchers found some information about disability, broken down by ethnicity, was not even being collected.
“It’s not enough fixing the OIA…Do we fix the door we’re going through, or what’s on the other side?” Te Kawa said.
Little told Stuff in July 2020 that the government would rewrite the OIA. However, new Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said any review was likely to be “later in this parliamentary term”.
Documents obtained by Stuff showed the OIA review project was not in the Justice Ministry’s 2021-2023 policy programme and had been parked in a “holding pen” until the ministry’s overstretched policy team could find time to consider it.