RNZ issued gag order by Attorney-General over education story

The court-ordered injunction follows RNZ approaching the office of Education Minister Erica Stanford on Wednesday afternoon for comment after seeing a document titled 'Report: Budget 25 Initiative Themes'. Photo / RNZ

By John Gerristen of RNZ

The Attorney-General has been granted an emergency injunction by the High Court to block RNZ from publishing a story it says would damage the Government’s ability to engage in collective bargaining.

The gag order prohibits RNZ from reporting the contents of a confidential education pre-Budget report, which court documents filed by the Attorney-General’s office said contained “commercially sensitive information that would prejudice the Government’s ability to engage effectively in collective bargaining”.

The court-ordered injunction follows RNZ approaching the office of Education Minister Erica Stanford on Wednesday afternoon for comment after seeing a document titled “Report: Budget 25 Initiative Themes”.

The minister’s office responded by warning RNZ not to publish any of the details contained in the paper.

“I’m putting you on notice that you have sighted improperly released Budget-sensitive information,” a spokesperson for the minister said. “It is not in the public interest to be released. Can you please confirm that information will not be published at this time? Can you please come back to me immediately.”

Emails contained in court documents show that, minutes later, the minister’s office contacted Solicitor-General Una Jagose KC, who is the chief executive of Crown Law, and legal action commenced to have RNZ restrained from using any information in the document it had seen.

At 4pm on Wednesday, Justice Dale La Hood heard an urgent application from the Attorney-General and granted an interim injunction without notice preventing publication.

“The defendants are restrained from publishing or disseminating themselves or by their agents any information contained in the ‘Report: Budget 25 Initiative Themes’,” he ordered.

“For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in these orders restrains in any way any journalist from reporting on the Budget once delivered.”

The Attorney-General’s office had applied for the injunction on the grounds that “the report is confidential and Budget-sensitive and contains commercially sensitive information that would prejudice the Government’s ability to engage effectively in collective bargaining”.

“The defendants are aware that report was prepared for Budget purposes and are on notice of its confidential nature. It can only have come into the defendants’ hands through a breach of confidence by a person(s) unknown to the plaintiff (breach of confidence).

“The defendants are aware the information is confidential and that the plaintiff has asserted a right of confidentiality in the information.

“Publication or dissemination of the report or information in it will further breach confidence. The dissemination that has already occurred has breached the plaintiff’s rights of confidence in respect of the information, and any further publication will involve further such breaches.”

The Attorney-General also applied for an order that RNZ “return and deliver up the report held by or on behalf of the defendants”.

The report was the fourth in an unprecedented series of Budget-related education documents seen by RNZ in the past five weeks that have come via three different channels.

-RNZ