Ombudsman opens inquiry into PM’s office over climate case records
Tuesday, 26 May 2026
The Ombudsman has launched an investigation into the prime minister’s office over its handling of information requests linked to the Smith v Fonterra climate litigation.
The information watchdog confirmed an investigator has been assigned to the case and an inquiry is now under way.
The Post revealed on Sunday that a briefing document that contained a specific, two-sentence amendment to the country's climate laws was not included in Official Information Act responses and only surfaced through High Court disclosure.
The document was prepared on behalf of the defendants in Smith v Fonterra and Ors, a landmark case where climate change activist Mike Smith is suing several companies including the dairy giant, Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and Genesis Energy for climate damage.
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It was printed it out and hand-delivered to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s office by lobbyists from the dairy giant and Z Energy in mid-2024.
“We can confirm we have received a complaint,” a spokesperson for the Office of the Ombudsman confirmed. “An investigator has been assigned to the case, and an investigation is now underway. The Ombudsman is required by law to conduct his enquiries in private, so we can’t make any further comment at this stage.”
John Allen is the Chief Ombudsman.
It’s understood the watchdog has already contacted Luxon’s office to seek information as a first step in the investigation.
The complaint was made by the the Environmental Law Initiative which sought information from Luxon’s office in March 2025 about meetings, discussions or conversations regarding the case, and any proposed legislative or regulatory response.
The briefing note and records of meetings in June and July 2024 were not included in the response to the request from ELI. A similar OIA request by Lawyers for Climate Action NZ did not return the same material.
The document only came to light through the High Court's discovery process.
Smith has also made a complaint to Chief Archivist Anahera Morehu about alleged breaches of public records laws. The Post has contacted Morehu for comment.
“These matters are highly concerning,” he wrote to Morehu. “If not for my own litigation, it would never have become known that the defendants wrote the legislation Minister Goldsmith announced and handed to a representative of the prime minister in an unrecorded meeting.
“The defendants, and others in their industries, stand to gain hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars from this legislation, while the rest of New Zealand will lose far, far more. The fact that this has all been kept hidden goes to the heart of a functioning democracy.”
On Sunday, a spokesperson for Luxon said the office has no file trail of the interaction.
“We have been made aware of these meetings and briefing notes via the media and have no record of either on file,” he said. “Stakeholders on all sides of issues request to meet with staff but Cabinet makes its own decisions and did so on this issue to ensure businesses have legal clarity and certainty.”
The corporate blueprint explicitly proposed adding a new section to the Climate Change Response Act (CCRA).
The text was designed to retroactively strip New Zealanders of their right to bring common-law climate claims in equity or tort, effectively killing Smith's active Supreme Court-sanctioned trial before it could be heard.
On May 12, Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith announced that the Government would progress a law change matching that exact framework.
On Tuesday, the New Zealand Bar Association warned the law change risks undermining core rule-of-law principles.
“If enacted this legislation will prevent a case that is before the courts from being heard and decided,” president Paul David KC said in a statement.
David said the trend of using the legislative power of Parliament “with retrospective effect on existing rights and claims” is “disturbing”.
“It is an important part of our system that the laws made by Parliament are forward-looking with retrospective legislation reserved only for exceptional circumstances.
“This principle of law-making provides for certainty for everyone to order their affairs and act on existing law.
“The principle also respects the role of the courts in deciding cases on the meaning of laws and under the common law of New Zealand.”
Asked to respond, Attorney-General Chris Bishop said he had not seen David’s comments but disagreed that there was a growing trend of retrospective laws.