New Zealand’s Official Information Act 1982 (OAI) looks good on paper – but how is it working out in practice? This article summarises the author’s examination of hundreds of OIA requests and responses, and his interviews with people who frequently make requests and officials who have to process them. The article begins with an outline of the content of the OIA. Frustrations reported by requesters and officials are then summarised. In the analysis of requests and responses, it is found that the bulk of requests are processed on time and met with minimal or no deletions. Much useful information is released. However, the author also finds considerable evidence of questionable practices by officials and Ministers, including delays, apparently improper invocation of exceptions, and failures to explicitly address public interest considerations and provide information to requesters about review rights. This article is a truncated version of a longer paper published by the New Zealand Centre for Public Law at Victoria University of Wellington (Occasional Paper 17, November 2005), available at http://www.law.vuw.ac.nz/vuw/content/display_content.cfm?school=law&id=470
or by contacting the author at steven.price@vuw.ac.nz or the New Zealand Centre for Public Law at law-centres@vuw.ac.nz .