The Chief Ombudsman will formally investigate claims that Ministry of Education staff tried to keep their dealings with Education Minister Erica Stanford’s office out of reach of the Official Information Act, the law that lets New Zealanders ask for information held by government.
Chief Ombudsman John Allen met Secretary for Education Ellen MacGregor-Reid and Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche on Friday morning, RNZ reported. Afterwards he said, “It would not be appropriate to talk about the details of our discussion other than to say I have advised Ms MacGregor-Reid that I will be conducting a formal investigation into the allegations.”
“I aim to complete my investigation as soon as possible but speed will not be at the expense of thoroughness,” Allen said.
The investigation caps a week in which the ministry’s handling of the school curriculum rewrite became one of the sharper political stories of the campaign, about six weeks out from the general election.
It began with a leaked video. RNZ reported on 22 September that the footage showed senior ministry official Dr Catherine Law telling staff not to put information shared with the minister’s office in writing, and reminding them it was “OIA-able”. Law was seconded from her job as principal of Avonside Girls’ High School in Christchurch to lead work on the secondary school curriculum.
“What we do not need is anything in response in writing that shows that this stuff has gone backwards and forwards between them and us,” she said in the video.
The next morning the person who leaked the video told RNZ it was not a one-off. The ministry insider said staff were told not to write things down about six or seven times a year, and that the video was one of the most brazen examples. The same person alleged staff were repeatedly told, verbally and never in writing, to remove MΔori terms from draft curriculums. On Thursday more whistleblowers came forward, including one who said a manager told ministry note-takers to stop recording criticism of the curriculum at a meeting of about 60 teachers. None of these claims has been tested, and that is now the Ombudsman’s job.
On Wednesday Allen had asked for an urgent meeting with the ministry’s chief executive. “I have significant concerns about these allegations,” he said in a statement from his office. “Public trust and confidence in the Ministry and the OIA would be undermined if they were found to be true.”
Stanford has denied any wrongdoing by her or her office. “We take our obligations extremely seriously, and as I said, this is a matter for the Secretary of Education and her staff,” she told reporters earlier in the week. “My political staff and I have not seen the documents that she was talking about.”
In a later statement she said, “All of the processes we have followed comply with the OIA, there has been no attempts to circumvent the OIA.” She also rejected the claim that MΔori content had been cut, saying the insider’s account showed they were ideologically driven.
MacGregor-Reid went on RNZ’s Morning Report on Friday before her meeting with Allen. She told host John Campbell she was “not happy” about the video. “What she said was wrong, she should not have said it. And my expectation is that everyone within the Ministry of Education should be meeting the obligations under the Official Information Act, including that staff member.”
“I cannot explain what Dr Law was thinking, but what I can tell you is I have commissioned a review to ascertain whether there is a wider problem,” she said. She added that to the best of her knowledge no directive had been given to avoid writing things down to escape the OIA, and that she would give the Ombudsman the ministry’s record on information requests.
The week also brought an internal review of the ministry’s curriculum division, commissioned by MacGregor-Reid, which reported allegations of favouritism, unprofessional workplace behaviour and a fear of speaking up.
The political fight is about more than one meeting. The primary teachers’ union NZEI said the video reinforced two years of concern in the sector about how secretly the new curriculum documents have been written. Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Chris Abercrombie told RNZ, “If there’s anything in this country that should be done publicly, it’s our national curriculum.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins, a former education minister, called any attempt to get around the law “inexcusable”. “Ultimately, ministers sign off the curriculum so there’s there’s nothing that should be secret here,” he said.
There is a legal point in all this that is easy to miss. Not writing something down does not put it beyond the OIA. In a statement to RNZ this week the Ombudsman’s office said official information includes what officials know even if it is only held in their heads. “Information that hasn’t been recorded can still be requested and, if necessary, the Ombudsman can require it to be written down to advance any investigation.”
That point matters for a separate row running alongside this one. RNZ reported on Friday that Stanford’s office had told Paraparaumu College teacher Bevan Holloway it held no documents about what curriculum changes were discussed in meetings in February 2025. Holloway argues the Act covers what people remember, not just what is on paper.
The Ombudsman is an independent officer of Parliament, not part of the Government, and his findings are not binding in the way a court ruling is. But a formal finding that a ministry deliberately kept records off the books would be a serious mark against a public service that is supposed to be politically neutral and open to scrutiny. Allen has not given a date for his report, and it may not land before voters head to the polls.
For voters, the question is how much weight to give open government against everything else on the ballot. If you are still weighing up where the parties stand, you can use our voting tool to see which party best matches your views.
Should ministries be required to record every instruction that comes from a minister’s office, or would that slow down the business of government? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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