Courts are struggling with AI and deep fakes, worried about manufactured evidence undermining justice. But here's a different kind of trust problem: The Treasury, the agency controlling New Zealand's $150 billion annual budget, answers exactly zero Official Information Act requests successfully.

Not "rarely answers." Not "takes a long time to answer." Zero percent success rate. (Source: FYI.org.nz (OIA tracker), oia-agency-transparency)

You'd think the spy agencies would be worst. You'd be wrong. The GCSB answers 40% of OIA requests successfully. The NZSIS, admittedly, matches Treasury at zero. But the agency deciding where your tax dollars go? Less transparent than the people listening to your phone calls.

The gap between New Zealand's most and least transparent agencies is 48 percentage points. Inland Revenue sits at the top with a 48% success rate. They're the ones who can see your bank account, track your income, audit your expenses. And they're more willing to answer questions than the Ministry of Social Development (0%), MBIE (0%), or The Treasury (0%).

Think about what that means. The agency collecting your taxes is more transparent than the agencies spending them.

Police answer 36% of requests. The Ministry of Defence answers 36%. Even the Ministry of Health, which spent two years making pandemic decisions that shut down the country, answers 24% successfully. The Ministry of Justice, responsible for the court system now worried about AI fakery, also answers 24%.

Then you get to the agencies New Zealanders interact with constantly. ACC, which decides whether your injury claim gets approved? 16% success rate. Oranga Tamariki, which can remove children from families? 8%. Kāinga Ora, the state housing landlord? 4%.

Auckland Council and Wellington City Council both sit at 4%. But here's the thing: at least they're on the list. Many agencies simply refuse to engage with FYI.org.nz, the site that tracks these requests, at all.

The courts are right to worry about fake evidence. But they should also worry about real information you can't access. When the agencies making decisions about your money, your housing, your benefits, and your children refuse to answer questions, that's not a transparency problem. That's a trust problem.

And unlike an AI deep fake, you can verify this yourself. Every refused request, every delayed response, every "out of scope" rejection is visible on FYI.org.nz. The Treasury's zero percent success rate isn't manufactured. It's documented.

You can fake video now. You can fake audio. You can probably fake a ministerial press release if you tried hard enough. But you can't fake transparency. Either you answer the question or you don't. The Treasury doesn't.