People in New Zealand can request government information (official information) and can expect it to be made available unless there is a good reason to withhold it.
The Official Information Act 1982 (or OIA) enables citizens, permanent residents, visitors to New Zealand, and body corporates registered or with a place of business in New Zealand, to make a request for official information held by government agencies, including DPMC.
Making a request
Your request should be as clear as you can possibly make it.
You can contact us in a number of ways to request information:
Post your request
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
PO Box 55
Wellington 6140
Email us
Fill in our online form
We would like:
- your name
- contact address (email or postal)
- details of the information you want.
We may ask you for more details.
Tips for requesting information
How long will it take?
We will acknowledge your request and are required by law to give you our decision on your request as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after we receive your request.
If your request is urgent, please let us know and we will assess your request for urgency. See more information about requesting urgency below.
If we need more time to make our decision on your request, for example if you are requesting a lot of information, we will let you know and give you an idea of how long it will take. You can complain to the Office of the Ombudsman if you’re not happy with our decision to extend the time.
Further guidance on how we will respond to your request
How do I request urgency?
You can ask for a request to be treated as urgent. If you do this, you must give the reason/s for seeking the information urgently.
Our decision to give urgency to a request will be based on whether it is needed for a time sensitive matter such as a consultation, decision-making process, judiciary proceeding, criminal or civil investigation.
We will take into consideration:
- the level of resourcing required by DPMC to process the request; and
- the impact on DPMC operations of diverting resources to process the request with urgency.
When a decision has been made about processing the request with urgency, we will let you know this decision and provide an indicative timeframe for response.
If you ask for your request to be treated as urgent but don’t give the reason/s, we will contact you to clarify. We will ask you to respond within 5 working days to this request for clarification.
If the reasons do not meet the criteria or no information is provided within the specified timeframe, we will:
- make and communicate the decision on the request as soon as reasonably practicable and no later than 20 working days after the day on which the request was received; and
- release any official information without undue delay.
What does it cost?
Requesting official information is free, though we can charge a reasonable amount if it will take a lot of work to supply the information requested or to cover the costs for an urgent request.
Find out more in our guidance on how we will respond. You can complain to the Office of the Ombudsman about our decision to charge.
What if I’m not satisfied?
You may wish to contact us in the first instance to see if we can resolve the issue.
You can make a complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman if you:
- have concerns regarding the decision we made on your request
- were unhappy about the way your request was treated or processed.
These concerns can relate to the withholding of information, extending the timeframe to respond to you, any charges for providing the information you have requested, delays in providing you with a decision or the information, or your request being transferred.
The Office of the Ombudsman can investigate and review our decision and may make a recommendation to us if it is considered appropriate.