Originally Posted by
reubee
Is there a 40 year rule? I know other Commonwealth countries have historically had a 30 year rule but could not find what NZ's equivalent was if there was one.
I think there are degrees. Things thought to be very controversial are marked not to be released for 30 years (usually cabinet minutes, etc.) and others for 7 or 14 years. It's a cop out. If the country is in a dire threat of invasion or the like then yes, probably best to keep cabinet discussions secret at the time just in case the enemy find out. But for everything else it's a load of crap and a cop out, designed for no other reason than to shield those in power from any chance of recrimination until they're nearly dead.
Trouble is, they are effectively doing it with everything now. When a menu is declared 'classified' due to national security, that's just taking the p-ss. They then raid employees and journalists who dare to leak and then report (respectively) government largess or out and out corruption. Witness K and Bernard are in court probably as we speak, someone in ACT recently released was charged, tried and jailed in secrecy and what do we have for the Minister and Department Head who allegedly illegally ordered the bugging of the offices... nothing, tidy little stint as a consultant with the company that benefited and a lifelong obscene government superannuation pension. What's worse, the reason Witness K had to go to the media was because he got repeatedly blocked from having his disgust (and that of allegedly much of the ADF and ASIS) aired because the person in charge of deciding whether to have an inquiry was the same one that was in charge when the bugging was ordered.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist but this is getting beyond a joke. We will probably find out all sorts of stuff in decades to come that would have had the government of today with their figurative heads on a pike but then, that's really the point isn't it.
I have no doubt it's the same in NZ and there is much more to be revealed.