Speaker’s Rulings — Written Questions—Availability of Material Referred to in Answers

Yesterday Chris Hipkins asked that I consider the adequacy of some replies to written questions. The particular issue raised with me was whether a Minister would meet the requirements of accountability of the House in answering a question by referring a member to another source of the information requested. Ministers have a responsibility to the House, and through the House to the country, to account for the public offices they hold. Questions are an important element of this accountability, and Ministers should provide informative answers to them, where doing so is consistent with the public interest.

Requests under the Official Information Act 1982 may be refused if the information requested is or will soon be publicly available. A question to such a Minister is not a request under the Act and should not be treated as such. While that Act may provide some guidance when replies to questions are being prepared, it does not exempt Ministers from their accountability to the House through the question procedures. The House has established its own rules for replies to questions, and its entitlement to information exceeds that under the Act. A Minister may answer a question by referring a member to information that is already publicly available. That may be the appropriate response where a significant amount of information is requested. However, if a Minister chooses to reply by directing a member to information already available, he or she must do so with some particularity. It is not acceptable to simply state that the information has already been released or that it was provided to a select committee. Rather, the Minister should provide a sufficiently detailed answer to enable the member to directly locate the information.

If the information requested cannot be easily found, then the Minister should provide it in the reply to the written question. That will ensure that the Ministers meet their responsibility to be accountable to the House.

The Leader of the House also invited me to consider the related matter of the nature of written questions to Ministers. Members may ask any number of written questions, and with that ability comes a requirement to ask questions responsibly. Vague or very broad questions make it difficult for a Minister to meet accountability requirements and are less likely to receive an informative answer. I will circulate a copy of this ruling to all Ministers today.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am just seeking a little bit of clarification on your ruling—not questioning your ruling. The question, it seems to me, is: who determines what is readily available in the public arena? The point I made yesterday was that when the questions go in for either estimates or appropriations, that information is available in the public arena, but is it considered to be readily available? It takes an awful lot of work on the part of Ministers’ offices to go through and be particularly specific, in many cases. I would have thought it reasonable that there should be an equal amount of work done by those who are seeking the answer in the first place.

The Leader of the House makes an interesting point. This issue also arises in relation to another ruling that you have made around the tabling of documents, where you have indicated that if documents are publicly available, then leave should not be sought to table them, and the onus is on the member seeking leave to table them to establish whether they are publicly available. This involves a similar amount of work, in some cases, to the amount of work that the Leader of the House is referring to in providing answers indicating that information is already publicly available. I think that the same principle should apply. If a Minister is going to indicate that information is publicly available, they need to actually do the work to ascertain that, in fact, it is publicly available and to give, as your ruling has indicated, a much more specific indication of where that information can be obtained.

I think that is exactly what I have just read out to members. If it is a reference to information that is publicly available, I expect the Minister in the answer to direct that member to where that information is easily obtainable, and that must be done with some particularity.

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

A fresh point of order? Ron Mark—a fresh point of order.

Thank you for your ruling. It is an issue that has vexed us for a little while now. Can I bring to your attention and ask for you to further deliberate on—and if you require some specific documentary evidence, we are quite happy to provide that for you—the new trend of Ministers refusing to provide information or reports under the Official Information Act, stating that they will be releasing those reports soon, and then not releasing those reports for some 6 to 8 weeks.

I do not think the mechanism of asking a question has ever been available for any member to beat some of the genuine concerns that there will be that require some documents that will become public to remain confidential for an extended period of time. [Interruption]

No, I do not need any further assistance on the matter. We are taking too much time here. If a Minister answers by saying the information will be available readily or shortly, I expect it to be available readily or shortly, and not delayed for 6 or 8 weeks. I would invite the member, if there are such occasions like that, to actually come and see me and mention them specifically to me. It is probably a better way forward than raising them as points of order in the House.