New Zealand Acts

OFFICIAL INFORMATION AMENDMENT ACT 2003 - SECT 3

3 New sections 18A and 18B inserted

The principal Act is amended by inserting, after section 18 , the following sections:

18A Requests involving substantial collation or research

1 In deciding whether to refuse a request under section 18(f) , the Department, Minister of the Crown, or organisation must consider whether doing either or both of the following would enable the request to be granted:

a) fixing a charge under section 15 :

b) extending the time limit under section 15A .

2 For the purposes of refusing a request under section 18(f) , the Department, Minister of the Crown, or organisation may treat as a single request 2 or more requests from the same person—

a) that are about the same subject matter or about similar subject matters; and

b) that are received simultaneously or in short succession.

18B Duty to consider consulting person if request likely to be refused under section 18(e) or (f)

If a request is likely to be refused under section 18(e) or (f) , the Department, Minister of the Crown, or organisation must, before that request is refused, consider whether consulting with the person who made the request would assist that person to make the request in a form that would remove the reason for the refusal.