We’ve received a contribution about restricted public access to New Zealand’s cadastral system. It’s is included below, unedited.

Free, public access to the authoritative cadastre of New Zealand has finally been thwarted by the close-down (in February 2009) of the few remaining public access points for viewing it.

There is only one authoritative national cadastre. The cadastre underpins, well, everything … and in a word … fundamental ‘rights’. Meshblocks hang on it, jurisdiction boundaries are framed by it, property boundaries of course (!). But it also provides a rich tapestry of the extent of past land use and settlment … it contributes much to our records, and culture and heritage. People have reasons to view the cadastre for private research and study, or to participate in democratic process.

The authoritative cadastre (the only one to trust) is also the spatial index to over a million survey records (official survey plan images). The publicly accessible cadastre (until Feb this year) enabled any citizen to browse the authoritative cadastre … exactly the same version that land professionals transact with … which makes it the only view to trust, and to be confident that if what you’re looking for isn’t there, then it doesn’t exist … it’s not in the official public register.

Why are citizens now denied direct viewing? Why are citizens being encouraged to access outdated, incomplete ‘copies’ (none are exact copies) of the official national cadastre?

Restore simple access to the real thing … so we’re all ’singing from the same songbook’. The public needs to participate with the original, indefeasible view of the cadastre of New Zealand.

Quick update on Auckland City Council LGOIMA status.

Any progress with Auckland City outside the Office of the Ombudsmen complaints process seems to be thwarted due to the “Supercity” excuse: major decisions, such as on GIS data licensing and pricing, are on hold until the new city structure is in place by the end of 2010.

Practically speaking, that means major decisions are on hold until mid 2011, after the newly appointed staff settle into their restructured roles.

A long long time ago, a LGOIMA request was filed for some Auckland City GIS data. Their reply included outrageous pricing for one out-of-date dataset, which seemed to contradict the spirit, if not the letter, of LGOIMA.

That request was not pursued due to significant restructuring of the Auckland City geospatial teams over the last few months.

Some new developments have given me renewed energy to follow up on the original request:

• Auckland City has just appointed a new Customer Manager for Geospatial
• Northland Regional Council has begun the process of releasing GIS data under a CC-Attrib license - NRC on Koordinates
• Whangarei District Council is testing the same CC-Attrib release process - WDC on Koordinates

Expect an update on the Auckland City angle by the end of the week.

A recipient of one of our earlier OIA requests told me last week that their team found it useful to run through the internal procedures necessary to supply geospatial data to an external recipient. Before the OIA request, their responses to geospatial data requests had been non-standardised.

Now they’re in a position to treat all requests for geospatial data as an OIA request and push them through a pre-planned response process involving appropriate management sign-off.

We made a request of the Department of Internal Affairs for the “names and addresses of the pubs and clubs in New Zealand for which a class 4 venue licence has been issued (ie the pubs and clubs that host gaming machines).” They do have an online listing facility but it would be a lengthy exercise to extract the full data from here.

http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Casino-and-Non-Casino-Gaming-Funding-For-Community-Groups?OpenDocument&ExpandView

The DIA replied within 2 days pointing me to a PDF on the website that contained that information.
http://www.dia.govt.nz/Pubforms.nsf/URL/ListofVenue_31%20March%202009.pdf/$file/ListofVenue_31%20March%202009.pdf 

The DIA website has massive amounts of content and I’m still not sure if or where that file is linked to on the site.  As anyone who has tried will know extracting tabular information from a PDF is an exercise in frustration so I asked if the data was available in a simple text, html or xml format.

The DIA promptly sent through an excel spreadsheet of the data which I have published online here. Gambling List of NZ Venues March 2009

Apparently that document is not available on the DIA website but I was told that it could be requested at any time.

So… 4 stars for the DIA.

They were extremely responsive and very open with their data, I can only wish that they shared friendly file formats and linked adequately from their website.

The Office of the Ombudsmen has requested the Fire Service produce a report on their refusal of the OIA request for NZ suburb dataset.

The Ombudsman directed their request to the NZFS CEO, which is presumedly standard practice (anyone want to comment?).

The letter I received from the Office is embedded below, for those curious about procedures surrounding the OIA.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

An interesting press release from the Office of the Ombudsmen, Dec 2008:

“While in some cases this was clearly a misunderstanding of their obligations, there is also a regrettable tendency to game the system and delay responses until the complainants’ interest in the matter had passed,” she says.

Must be a fairly common practice for the Office of the Ombudsmen to bother seek media coverage over it.

DoC has come through with a DVD containing a shapefile of their track network for New Zealand: DoC Tracks (May 2009).

Via the grapevine, it seems DoC went above and beyond the call of duty to create a new shapefile to fulfil the OIA request. Strictly speaking, the OIA only covers information and data already in existence. Collating data into one file is more effort than expected, though they did give prior warning that fulfilment of the OIA request would be delayed a few weeks.

So thanks go to the Department of Conservation for their excellent service.

Of the four original OIA requests for geospatial data, only the NZ Fire Service refused. That matter is now in the hands of the Office of the Ombudsmen.

Although this blog is focused on Official Information Act requests this post is an example of working with a private sector organisation to share their data. The OIA obviously does not apply but it is interesting how easy it can be.

I contacted the Mainstreet Wanganui Marketing Manager Louise Martin about putting their database of local businesses, as currently listed on their website, onto Zenbu as a way to grow the number of channels where those businesses can be found. The emailed reply was instant and so very refreshing:

Of course we would like our members to have a broader search-base. How would we proceed from here?

Ah the joy of working with smart people.

Louise did have some follow-up questions,

Will our members be contacted or chased up for advertising contracts?

No. Zenbu does not have any “premium listings” or other such advertising to offer.  Zenbu does not list emails, faxes or postal addresses as these are primarily Business-To-Business (bulk advertising) mediums. We simply list the address, phone, website & hours – the Consumer-To-Business contact channels.

There was also a momentary concern that the copyright to the members contact details belongs to the members themselves and maybe individual permission would be requested. Actually the publisher, Mainstreet Wanganui, owns the information which is completely factual and available to anybody walking down the street. It was quickly agreed that adding the information to Zenbu would be positive for all involved and 295 entries submitted (of which only 123 were already in Zenbu).

We’ve worked with a number of business associations to ensure all their members are added to Zenbu, Remuera Business Association, Parnell Mainstreet, Newmarket Business Association, Mangere Bridge Village to name a few. There have also been a few organisations who just wouldn’t talk to us at all and thought that the information should only be available on their website, which is unfortunate and rather sad. We’re always interested to hear from progressive organisations with geographical or industry vertical members who see the value in making it as easy as possible for consumers to find them or their (paying) members.

If you’re contacting private organisations about sharing their data try to cover off the obvious possible objections and make sure it really is win-win for everybody.

Time for an update, now that the Ministry of Education and DoC* have accepted their respective OIA requests.

So of the four original OIA requests:

• Ministry of Health – for District Health Boards. OIA request fulfilled. View District Health Boards boundaries.
• Ministry of Education – for School Zones. OIA request fulfilled. View NZ School Zones.
• Department of Conservation – for New Zealand walking tracks. OIA request accepted, but with a time extension; data to be delivered in May.
• NZ Fire Service – for NZ Suburbs. OIA request denied. A complaint has been sent to the Office of the Ombudsmen. Read the official NZFS response.

* The Department of Conservation recently responded that it will take them longer than 20 working days to deliver their New Zealand walking tracks dataset, but they’re aiming for fulfilment by end May.