Hit & Run - Police + NZTA uncooperative
Inside a public carpark, my stationary unoccupied vehicle was backed into with clear & noticeable force which caused significant damage to my vehicle. The driver proceeded to leave the scene and drive off immediately (extremely frustrating because the collision occurred directly in front of the main entrance to my workplace where I was physically located at that exact time, just 10 meters away inside the building). In terms of liability I have full and irrefutable evidence with clear CCTV and screenshots of: the collision and impact itself, the number plate of the vehicle which caused the damage, as well as clear imagery of both driver and passenger while they were walking to and from their vehicle prior to the accident. An important and unfortunate note to my situation is the fact that I do not have any form of insurance in place currently for my vehicle (I completely understand why insurance is so beneficial and important so I don't need a separate lecture on this please lol, I just genuinely cannot comfortably afford this right now)
So in this case I felt like I was obviously forced to go to NZTA to complete their MR31 application to request the registered owners details so that I can contact them to request that they cover and pay for my repair costs which I already have a written quote for, totalling to $520. NZTA came back to me and outright refused and rejected my request stating that my situation somehow doesn't fit into their criteria... I understand they somewhat recently changed and raised their standard / level for applications like this which seems to have made rules a lot stricter and therefore much more difficult to get these applications approved and actioned.
I've of course filed a police report separately and had some back and forth communication with a constable but the police were initially extremely confused to hear that I was not granted the release of this information from NZTA. Then the constable followed up by saying the police would never in this case be the ones to release the owners details directly to me and I should go back to NZTA. So I follow that advice and once again go back to NZTA who proceed to say that the police know all this information and NZTA can't help me and I need to go back to the police... The most recent communication that I've had with the constable has been a note that while they have explicitly said they will not give me the registered persons details they have still said that if I wish I can complete an OIA request to attempt to get these details but even then they said that the owners details could be blacked out and blocked in the copy of the report / case file.
The constable said that this will likely turn into a civil dispute and end up going to the DT and I should contact community law from here but they also mentioned that this is a tricky situation because the registered owner of the vehicle is a female in Auckland and this incident occurred in Christchurch where I live and work so they said that I would never be able to get them to come down here for court proceedings and they don't know if it's worth it for me to go all the way there just for a case like this. They did have a side note where they mentioned that while the plate does come back to and match the correct vehicle and make of the car but the plate could still have been swapped or duplicated and therefore inaccurate (?) since it says the owner is apparently residing in Auckland.
I've gone to multiple different community law establishments to seek advice and next best steps but they have all said they're completely stumped and confused themselves why the police recommend me to go to them while I have zero personal details of the registered owner (which they won't provide) and all I have to go off is the number plate which NZTA and the police seemingly won't use to help me obtain said details...
What can I realistically do in this case and what would be the best steps to take from here? Do I even have any more options to exhaust at this point?