Before exposing his moral indignation about the Taxpayers’ Union using false names to file Official Information Act requests, Radio New Zealand’s Guyon Espiner should have consulted the publisher of No Right Turn.
This blog and the Taxpayers Union are poles apart, ideologically.
But political commentator Malcolm Harbrow – who blogs under the nom-de-plume
is an indefatigable champion of the public’s right to request information from public agencies under the OIA and a stern critic of agencies which fail to meet their legal obligations to provide the information requested.He was astonished by the thrust of an article, published by the New Zealand Herald under the byline of one David Fisher and beguilingly headed How right-wing lobby group NZ Taxpayers’ Union used false identities to make OIA request – and how it got caught.
This article was the prompt for Espiner, on Morning Report today, grilling Taxpayers Union chief executive Jordan Williams about the use of pseudonyms.