New Zealand’s Official Information Act (OIA) was groundbreaking when it became law in 1982. It replaced a presumption of official secrecy with a presumption that government information should be available unless there is good reason to withhold it - the principle of availability.
More than four decades later, that fundamental principle remains sound. But there is substantial evidence that the system built around it is under increasing strain.
Transparency International New Zealand’s new Green Paper: Reforming the Official Information Act 1982 brings together more than a decade of research and reviews and asks what needs to change.
A system under pressure
Some of the numbers are striking. The number of OIA requests completed across the public service increased from 40,273 in 2015/16 to 158,862 in 2024/25 – an increase of 394%.
Over the same period, the estimated inflation-adjusted cost of responding to requests rose from about $46.7 million to $183.6 million a year. On current trends, that could reach approximately $342 million by 2030/31.
But cost and workload are only part of the problem. Evidence reviewed in the Green Paper points to chronic delays, with the statutory 20-working-day limit too often treated as a target rather than a maximum. It also identifies concerns about defensive attitudes towards disclosure, inadequate record-keeping, ministerial involvement in agency responses, limited enforcement powers and gaps in the Act’s coverage.
Of particular concern from a transparency perspective is evidence of officials avoiding creating written records because those records might later be requested. A delayed record can eventually be released; a record that was never created cannot.
Reform without weakening the right to know
The challenge is to make the system more workable without making official information harder to obtain.
Greater proactive release is one means to reduce delay - making useful government information publicly available without requiring someone to make an OIA request in the first place. Better self-service systems and modern information management could also reduce large volumes of routine requests whilst improving public access.
Other options for reform include modernising and rewriting the 44-year-old legislation; creating an independent oversight function; strengthening the Ombudsman’s powers and resources; introducing penalties for deliberate interference or non-compliance; clarifying the OIA obligations of private contractors delivering publicly funded services; and establishing clearer rules around ministerial involvement in OIA decisions.
TINZ has not yet adopted positions on these options. The Green Paper is intended to start the discussion, not conclude it.
TINZ is also holding discussions with experts and stakeholders. That discussion and submissions on the paper will then contribute to a final TINZ report with specific recommendations for reform.
Read the Green Paper: Reforming the Official Information Act 1982. If you have comments, please direct them to admin@transparency.org.nz by the end of September 2026
