Bureaucrats 1 Public 0

The Government had a nice little plan for its Departments to co-operate and share information on released child sex offenders. An excellent idea which is hard to argue against.

However the bureaucracy had other ideas.

Despite Justice Ministry advice that privacy laws did not prevent information exchange, some agencies refused to accept the advice and would not co-operate. Why on earth did they not seek guidance from the Privacy Commissioner reather than just refuse to take part.

And three of the Departments claimed their computer systems would not allow them to record information unless they had previous contact with the individual. Come on – it wouldn’t be that hard to do a work-around.