Education Ministry Whistleblowers Offer Evidence to Ombudsman's OIA Investigation

4 October 2026

Staff inside the Ministry of Education say they want to give evidence to the Chief Ombudsman's investigation into claims that officials tried to keep information away from the public.

RNZ reports that several current and former ministry insiders contacted it in the past week. They say a leaked video showing a manager telling staff not to put certain things in writing was not a one-off.

The ministry has not commented on their claims. The Education Minister has denied any attempt to get around the Official Information Act.

How this started

The row began on 22 September, when the NZ Herald published a leaked video from a ministry meeting.

In it, Dr Catherine Law, a Christchurch principal seconded to lead work on the secondary school curriculum, told staff not to record in writing that changes were being made in response to feedback from Education Minister Erica Stanford's office. She reminded them that such material was "OIA-able".

The Official Information Act, or OIA, gives New Zealanders the right to request information held by government agencies. That includes emails, notes and documents about how decisions are made. If something is never written down, it is much harder for the public, journalists or MPs to find out what happened.

Chief Ombudsman John Allen said he had "significant concerns". On 25 September, after meeting Secretary for Education Ellen MacGregor-Reid and Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche, he announced a formal investigation.

What the whistleblowers are saying

The insiders who spoke to RNZ have not been named, and their claims have not been independently tested. Their main allegations are:

• managers regularly told staff not to write things down
• critical questions were moved into face-to-face meetings, apparently to avoid a written response
• staff felt they had to go along with government demands or risk their jobs
• an Australian consultancy, Learning First, had a larger role in writing the new curriculums than the ministry has acknowledged

"We have been told many times not to write things down," one insider told RNZ.

Some described the workplace as toxic. A report published last week also found staff in the ministry's curriculum division were unhappy about favouritism, workplace behaviour and how public sector values were being applied.

What the ministry and minister say

The ministry says the comments in the video did not meet its expectations for transparency, record-keeping or OIA compliance. MacGregor-Reid has commissioned her own review.

On Learning First, the ministry says it is responsible for all final content and decisions. It says external advisers contribute specialist knowledge, and that Learning First helped identify relevant international curriculum material while the ministry wrote the curriculum itself.

Stanford has said there were no attempts to get around the OIA and that the processes followed complied with the Act.

Timeline

Date	Development
22 September	Herald publishes leaked video
23 September	Chief Ombudsman seeks urgent meeting with Education Secretary
24 September	Further whistleblower claims reported
25 September	Formal Ombudsman investigation announced
This week	Ministry formally notified; whistleblowers offer to give evidence

Why whistleblowers can go to the Ombudsman

This part has had little attention, but it matters for anyone inside the ministry thinking about speaking up.

Under the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Act 2022, public servants who report serious wrongdoing do not have to go through their own managers first. They can go directly to an "appropriate authority", and the Ombudsman is one.

Staff who make a protected disclosure in good faith are protected from retaliation, such as being disadvantaged at work. Their identity must also be kept confidential as far as practicable.

That makes the Ombudsman's investigation a safer route for insiders than speaking anonymously to the media, and it means their claims can be tested properly.

Why it matters beyond the ministry

The new curriculum decides what every child in New Zealand is taught. Parents and teachers are entitled to know who shaped it, and how much the Minister's office influenced the final version.

Ministers' offices giving feedback to officials is normal, and nothing about it is improper. The issue is whether that feedback was deliberately kept off the record.

There is also a common misunderstanding about the OIA. Ombudsman guidance has long treated information known to officials, even if it was never written down, as official information. Not writing something down does not take it outside the Act. It just makes it harder to find.

What remains unclear

The scope of the Ombudsman's investigation has not been released. He has made no findings about Law or anyone else.

It is not yet known how many whistleblowers will give evidence, whether their claims will be backed by documents, or how far up the ministry any instructions went.

What happens next

Allen says he aims to finish as soon as possible, but "speed will not be at the expense of thoroughness". That means findings may not arrive before the 7 November election.

The investigation is now about more than one meeting. It will test whether a practice of keeping things off the record took hold inside the ministry responsible for the national curriculum, and whether anyone above that meeting knew.

Sources: RNZ, NZ Herald, Office of the Ombudsman, Ministry of Education and Office of the Education Minister.

Source credit: RNZ first reported the whistleblowers' approach. The NZ Herald first published the leaked video.