National and ACT call on Ardern to release Groundswell NZ briefing notes – Stuff.co.nz

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will not release briefing notes she has about Groundswell NZ.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is refusing to release briefing notes on farmer protest group Groundswell NZ, and her opposition is asking why, and what is she hiding.

Last week the Office of the Ombudsman advised Stuff that Prime Minister Jacinda Arderns office overlooked briefing notes relating to Groundswell NZ, when preparing an Official Information Act response.

Stuff then approached the PMs office for the briefing notes but was told the documents referred to are not ones that get released. It then added there was a longstanding practice covering successive National Party and Labour Prime Ministers is that media advice and briefing notes from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Policy Advisory Group are provided to the Prime Minister of the day in confidence and are not released under the OIA.

Stuff has now lodged a complaint to the Ombudsman because we believe the briefing notes should be released because they are of public interest.

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The Prime Minister to date has declined to meet with Groundswell NZ leaders despite the leaders organising two massive protests countrywide and delivering thousands of letters to Parliament from farmers who are asking for some unworkable regulations to be reviewed relating to the ute tax, and some freshwater, indigenous biodiversity and climate change regulations.

Groundswell NZ has made it clear it is not an anti-climate change group.

It might appear Arderns approach is to perhaps ignore the group in the hopes it will go away but Groundswell NZ represents thousands of New Zealanders in the rural sector who do not understand why she wont engage with them.

National Party agriculture spokesperson Barbara Kruiger said Arderns actions were appalling.

Robert Kitchin/Stuff

National Party agriculture spokesperson Barbara Kuriger is calling on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to release briefing notes she has about Groundswell NZ. (File photo)

I wonder what theyre hiding? Sometimes in these situations you might get a heavily redacted release with lots of black pages but in this case shes not even doing that and thats even more disappointing.

I just think about the fact that she said she was going to lead the most transparent Government in the world and here we have a situation where she wont release a briefing about some farmers who have been completely open about what they stand for. To be quite frank, its not on.

She said National would release the briefing documents if it was in Government.

ACT agriculture spokesperson Mark Cameron said: Why is the Prime Minister holding herself to a standard set by National? She promised to be better than that, the most transparent government ever, in fact. This is just politics as usual. New Zealanders are tired of the spin. Lets see what the advice says, otherwise this will be yet another example of the Prime Minister showing contempt to the rural sector.

Stuff first sent the OIA request in July to the Prime Minister asking for all documents, emails, briefing notes, correspondence relating to Groundswell NZ.

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National and ACT call on Ardern to release Groundswell NZ briefing notes - Stuff.co.nz