OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT 1982 REQUEST

Epidemic Notice: verification records, legal review and October 2022 transition

Follow-up to released material H2026086129

To: Official Information Act Team, Manatū Hauora – Ministry of Health

Subject: Primary evidence and verification supporting the Epidemic Preparedness (COVID-19) Notice 2020 and renewals

Dear OIA Team,

Thank you for releasing the material identified as H2026086129. The released papers are useful because they record the statutory decision-making framework, the successive renewal process, the acknowledged significance of the powers enabled by the Epidemic Notice, and the later October 2022 conclusion that the statutory threshold was no longer met. This request seeks the underlying verification record for those conclusions. It does not seek a further narrative summary of what officials decided.

For the avoidance of doubt, where a requested record does not exist, please state that expressly. Where a record exists but is withheld, please identify the record by date, author, recipient, title or subject, and the statutory withholding ground relied upon.

1. Primary evidence supporting the statutory threshold

1. For the original March 2020 Epidemic Notice and each subsequent renewal, provide the primary records relied upon to support the proposition that the effects of the outbreak were likely to disrupt, or continue to disrupt, essential governmental and business activity in New Zealand significantly.

2. This includes datasets, modelling outputs, epidemiological analyses, economic or operational assessments, agency returns, risk matrices, dashboards, memoranda, briefing attachments, and any source material used to support the statutory threshold.

3. Please identify which material was treated as primary evidence, which material was secondary advice or synthesis, and which factual propositions were independently checked before being placed before the Director-General, relevant Ministers, and Prime Minister.

2. Verification, validation and quality-assurance records

4. All records showing how the accuracy, completeness, provenance and limitations of data or modelling used for an Epidemic Notice decision were checked or validated.

5. All peer review, internal review, external review, sign-off, quality assurance, validation or verification records relating to the evidence relied upon.

6. Any records identifying material assumptions, uncertainty ranges, sensitivity analyses, data limitations, contrary findings, failed assumptions, corrections, revisions or material changes in methodology.

7. Any policy, protocol, checklist or standard in force at the time prescribing how evidence was to be verified before being relied upon for an Epidemic Notice recommendation or renewal.

3. Review records and contrary advice

8. All records of the ongoing review of whether the Epidemic Notice remained justified, including review schedules, review notes, internal memoranda, meeting records and decision logs.

9. All records setting out scientific, legal, economic, operational or public-health advice that materially questioned, qualified or disagreed with continuation of the Epidemic Notice or any renewal.

10. All records showing how contrary or qualifying advice was considered, resolved or escalated before a renewal decision.

11. All records recording any change in the evidential threshold, methodology or criteria used between March 2020 and October 2022.

4. Crown Law and Solicitor-General review trail

The released material records that Crown Law advised on the continuing legal basis and proportionality of the Epidemic Notice, and that the Solicitor-General reported to the Attorney-General regarding special and coercive powers. Without seeking privileged legal advice where a lawful basis for withholding applies, please provide:

12. A schedule or index of all Crown Law opinions, memoranda, emails, reports, briefings or other advice concerning the legal basis, proportionality, necessity, review, renewal or expiry of the Epidemic Notice, identifying at least the date, author, recipient, title/subject and whether the document is being released or withheld.

13. The factual instructions, factual assumptions, datasets, briefing material and non-privileged supporting records supplied to Crown Law for the purpose of obtaining that advice.

14. A schedule or index of reports made by the Solicitor-General to the Attorney-General concerning the legal instruments, special powers or coercive powers associated with the Epidemic Notice, on the same metadata basis.

15. Any non-privileged record showing what factual material was used to assess whether the continued exercise of such powers remained necessary, reasonable and proportionate.

5. September–October 2022: the decisive transition

The October 2022 review is particularly important because the released papers record that the Epidemic Notice had last been renewed on 12 September 2022 for only five weeks, and that by October the expected significant disruption had not eventuated. Please provide the complete evidential package for that transition, including:

16. Health Report HR20221306 and every attachment or annex relied upon for the 12 September 2022 five-week renewal.

17. The complete Public Health Risk Assessment dated 3 October 2022 and all underlying data, working papers, analytical tables, assumptions, meeting notes and drafts used to produce it.

18. All agency feedback sought or received for the September and October reviews, including the questions put to each agency, the responses received, any non-response, and any summary or coding of those responses.

19. The record supporting the stated 8.5% increase in transmission, the source of that figure, its calculation, and any validation or review of it.

20. The records supporting the conclusion that the expected significant disruption to essential governmental and business activity had not eventuated.

21. All material supplied to DPMC and Cabinet for the 17 October 2022 consideration referred to in the released briefing.

22. The separate DPMC advice concerning section 8(c) of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020, or, if held by another agency, please transfer that part of this request accordingly.

6. Decision and sign-off audit trail

23. For each Epidemic Notice and renewal, provide the final signed decision page, execution copy, Gazette version, date and time of signature, date and time of publication, and date presented to Parliament.

24. Provide any records explaining a blank, missing, later-added or otherwise incomplete date or signature field in the copies released under H2026086129.

25. Provide any document register, workflow log, ministerial office record or electronic metadata showing when each recommendation was received, considered, approved, signed and returned.

7. Form of response requested

• Please provide records in their original electronic form where reasonably practicable, including spreadsheets in native spreadsheet format and documents with searchable text.

• Please preserve document names, dates and metadata. If records are redacted, please identify the OIA provision relied upon for each category of redaction.

• If any part is considered too broad, please contact me before refusing it so the request can be refined without losing the central evidential question: what was checked, by whom, and where is the record?

• Please do not substitute a general explanation, website link or narrative account where the request asks for the underlying record.

Central evidential question

What primary evidence was relied upon, who verified it, what review was undertaken, and where is the contemporaneous record demonstrating that verification?

Yours faithfully,

Tracy Lynch

NOT A LAWYER

For public-interest accountability and records verification purposes