‘Stinks to high heaven’: Hipkins suggests PM’s office deliberately withheld missing lobbyist memo

Wednesday, 1 July 2026

Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the Prime Minister’s Office appears to have “deliberately and concertedly” withheld information about a lobbyist memo from the public, following a damning report from the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman has released a report into the failure of the Prime Minister’s Office to release a written briefing its chief policy adviser had received ahead of a controversial law change.

His report reveals that the adviser - who received the briefing note in hard copy and to his personal email address - was personally consulted on the request for information, but did not provide it.

The Ombudsman does not make a finding of deliberate withholding however.

He has referred the matter to the chief archivist and says it is “surprising” that the adviser does not recall the meetings in which the document was handed over.

Read more:

• Climate activist Mike Smith takes Govt to court over bid to halt landmark lawsuit

• Ombudsman opens inquiry into PM’s office over climate case records

• Government to hear bill to block climate change tort claims under urgency

The law change, which banned the public from using the tort system to seek redress from companies for climate change in the courts, came in response to the Smith v Fonterra case.

It emerged in the High Court that both Z Energy and Fonterra - companies involved in the case - had provided a hard copy briefing document to the prime minister’s chief policy adviser, Matt Burgess, with suggestions for a potential law change. It later emerged that this document had also been emailed to Burgess’ personal email account.

This document had not been identified when activists made Official Information Act (OIA) requests concerning the law-change, and this decision was taken to the Ombudsman who oversees the Act.

In the decision released on Wednesday, Chief Ombudsman John Allen found that the document should have been released under the OIA and seriously criticises the process by which it was missed.

The Prime Minister’s Office submitted to the Ombudsman that the staff handling the OIA request did not know about the document’s existence when handling it, as it had not been saved on the IT systems of the office.

That was despite Burgess - the adviser who received the document - being consulted on the OIA request, and providing some other documents.

Burgess told the Ombudsman he could not recall the meetings in question or the OIA request.

He said the role was “a high-workload and high-pressure environment that involves managing very large volumes of information, received in written and oral form, and in both hard and soft copy. He advised that his recollection is limited due to the events in question occurring between 13 and 24 months prior to the date of this opinion”.

“He does not recall the OIA request but as far as he can recall, he engaged with the request in good faith and provided the documents he was able to locate. He advises that there was no deliberate decision to exclude the documents at issue from the OIA request.”

The Ombudsman was somewhat sceptical of this submission.

“While I did not find any evidence that contradicts this advice and I appreciate that the Chief Policy Adviser role has a high-workload, I do find it surprising that that the former Chief Policy Adviser had no recollection of what was done with the information in the briefings, given they related to a prominent issue, were provided by high profile companies, and the wording for the suggested legislative change in the briefing note was ultimately reflected in the proposed changes to the Climate Change Response Act 2002,” he wrote.

“These appear to have been documents of significance to informing the legislative process that followed. Identifying what happened with the hardcopy briefings goes beyond the mandate of my investigation under the OIA, but these are points that I will be raising as part of a referral to the Chief Archivist.”

He was also concerned with Burgess’ submission that it was “well documented” that issues with ministerial IT systems meant the use of personal email addresses was widespread.

“The possibility of widespread use of personal email addresses to receive official information is particularly concerning to me. Receiving official information in this way significantly raises the risk of it not being identified in response to OIA requests, as was the case here.”

The Prime Minister’s Office told the Ombudsman it had to rely on its staff members who received documents to file them correctly.

“Like in every organisation in the public sector, this office depends on individual staff members who receive documents, to ensure that they are filed and retained appropriately as part of the public record. The handling of the briefing note does not meet the standards expected of staff in this or any ministerial office and we are treating it with the seriousness it deserves.”

The Ombudsman added that offices had to rely on staff, but said this matter highlighted the importance of staffers being reminded of their obligations under the Public Records Act.

“Failing to do so, as occurred here, undermines public confidence in the Official Information Act.”

The Prime Minister’s Office accepted the Ombudsman’s decision and apologised for the failure.

The Environmental Law Initiative, which made the OIA request and complaint, said the bill should be pulled in response.

Hipkins: Stinks to high heaven

Hipkins said he had read the report and the situation “stinks to high heaven”.

“The Prime Minister's office received this information from corporate lobbyists. They seem to have gone to great lengths to prevent that information making its way into the public domain, even though people have been repeatedly asking for it,” Hipkins said.

“[The findings] confirm what we suspected all along, that there was a deliberate and concerted effort by the Prime Minister's office to not release this information when they were legally obliged to release it.”

The Ombudsman’s report does not make a finding of deliberate withholding of information, although it does express surprise at the staffer in question not recalling the document.

Luxon said it was a “fair report” and he “fully embraced” all the recommendations.

“As I said at the time, didn't meet our high expectations and standards. That's why we've made sure that every staff were as fully aware of their obligations,” Luxon said.

Asked if he found the account of Burgess credible, Luxon replied: “He no longer works for us and hasn't for some time.”

He disagreed with the notion - shared by Burgess in the report - that there was widespread use of personal emails in ministerial offices.

“I've not seen widespread evidence of people using their personal email accounts. My staff are well aware of their obligations, and again, that has been reinforced. So, no, I disagree with that.“

The Government has maintained that it would have made the law change without the briefing document and it had no influence upon it.

Burgess told The Post he had read the report and no further comment to make.