12 May 2026

Follow this, there is no accountability to what the MPI does, Treasurys answer to this is we don’t administer other offices.

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Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]

Subject: Request for information and review – public funding, accountability, and MPI enforcement record-keeping

WITHOUT PREJUDICE AS TO ALL RIGHTS

Dear Treasury,

I write further to the Ministry for Primary Industries response dated 11 May 2026, references OIA26-0298 and OIA26-0307, concerning requests for information about seized-property accounting, enforcement authority, inventories, chain of custody, destruction/disposal decisions, and the outcome of property taken in relation to Simon Stott and/or Seacures Limited.

MPI has declined the requests under section 18(h) of the Official Information Act 1982, characterising them as frivolous or vexatious. That response is deeply concerning. The requests did not merely seek repetition of prior disclosure. They sought identification of the records MPI relies upon to account for property it has seized, handled, destroyed, disposed of, or otherwise controlled.

This raises a wider public finance and accountability question for Treasury: how is MPI funded for enforcement activity if it cannot, or will not, identify the basic records that account for seized property and enforcement decision-making?

This is not a request for Treasury to determine the criminal matter. It is a request for Treasury to identify what oversight, assurance, funding conditions, performance expectations, audit obligations, and risk controls apply to publicly funded enforcement functions where property is seized or destroyed.

Information requested from Treasury

Please provide, under the Official Information Act 1982, the following information for the period 1 January 2020 to the present, unless otherwise stated:

1. Any Treasury-held documents, briefings, budget papers, appropriation material, performance material, estimates material, or Vote-related documents concerning MPI enforcement funding, compliance funding, prosecution funding, or biosecurity/food/product enforcement functions.

2. Any documents identifying the accountability, performance, audit, risk, or assurance measures applying to MPI enforcement functions where property is seized, detained, tested, destroyed, disposed of, or otherwise controlled.

3. Any Treasury-held advice, review, briefing, or correspondence concerning whether MPI enforcement functions are subject to independent audit, external assurance, financial accountability, or value-for-money review.

4. Any documents identifying the statutory or administrative controls expected of MPI when public funding is used for enforcement activities that interfere with property, businesses, products, samples, records, or assets.

5. Any Treasury-held documents concerning legal risk, compensation risk, contingent liability, claims risk, or fiscal risk arising from MPI enforcement activity, prosecutions, seizure activity, or destruction/disposal of property.

6. Any documents showing whether Treasury has assessed MPI’s enforcement record-keeping, disclosure performance, seized-property accounting systems, or prosecution-related fiscal risk.

7. Any documents identifying whether Treasury expects MPI to maintain complete inventories, custody records, destruction records, disposal records, and financial accounting records for seized property.

8. Any correspondence or advice between Treasury and MPI, or between Treasury and any Minister, concerning MPI enforcement accountability, litigation risk, prosecution risk, or complaints about MPI enforcement conduct.

9. Any current policy, guidance, Cabinet material, budget bid, estimate, performance measure, or appropriation document that explains why MPI continues to receive public funding for enforcement activity and what conditions or accountability controls attach to that funding.

Specific concern

The concern is that MPI appears to treat disclosure, OIA accountability, and enforcement record-keeping as separate silos. That is not acceptable where public money funds coercive enforcement powers. If MPI seizes or destroys property, the Crown should be able to produce, or at least identify, the record trail showing authority, inventory, handling, decision-making, disposal, and outcome by item.

If Treasury does not hold the requested information, please confirm whether Treasury has any oversight role at all in relation to the fiscal, accountability, audit, and risk-control framework for MPI enforcement functions. If Treasury’s position is that it has no such role, please identify the agency or Minister responsible for ensuring that public funding for MPI enforcement is tied to auditable accountability controls.

Request for urgency / public interest

I request that Treasury treat this as a matter of public importance. The issue is not simply a private dispute. It concerns public funding, public enforcement powers, property interference, destruction/disposal of goods, prosecution-linked disclosure, and whether a publicly funded enforcement agency can be required to account for what it has done.

Please provide the information electronically. If any part of this request is considered broad, please assist to refine it before relying on any refusal ground.

Yours faithfully,

Simon Stott / Seacures Limited