Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers

Economic Programme—Policies and Results

1. KATRINA SHANKS (National) to the Minister of Finance: How is the Government’s economic programme helping New Zealand families by increasing savings, keeping interest rates low and minimising cost of living pressures?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Mr Speaker—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has not even opened his mouth yet.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would just irritate them, anyway. The Government is focusing strongly on building a more competitive economy, with a wide range of policies designed to assist businesses to make the decision to invest further and employ more people, therefore creating more jobs and higher incomes. We are also focusing on stable monetary policy, and on getting Government back to surplus on a moderate fiscal adjustment. We believe these are the best ways to help increase national savings, take pressure off inflation and interest rates, and ensure that future generations of New Zealanders are not saddled with excessive debt.

Katrina Shanks: What results has he seen of progress in the Government’s programme to build a more competitive economy?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: We have seen good, steady results, although, of course, not as strong or as quickly as we would wish. Despite the ongoing economic problems around many parts of the world, our economy grew by 2.6 percent in the year to June—better than most developed economies—the cost of living increased by just 0.8 percent in the year to September, and the annual increase in the food price index has been 0.3 percent in the last 12 months. Our responsible fiscal policy is helping take pressure off interest rates—a family with a $200,000 mortgage is paying $200 a week less than 4 years ago—and household savings are positive for the first time in more than a decade.

Katrina Shanks: What reports has he received on the current global economic situation and its likely impact on New Zealand?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Treasury’s latest monthly Economic Indicators indicates that world growth has been below expectations in the past year or two. The IMF warns that not only is the outlook for the global economy weaker but the downside risks are greater than before. Just last week the European Commission said that the eurozone will virtually grind to a halt next year and Germany will come close to recession. New Zealand is not immune from these forces.

Katrina Shanks: What reports has he received on alternative economic approaches that would leave New Zealanders worse off by pushing up their cost of living and their interest rates?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have seen reports on policies that would do just that. They would involve printing money, tinkering with monetary policy in the misguided belief that there is some kind of magic solution in changing monetary policy, borrowing and spending more for expensive Government programmes, imposing more taxes on New Zealand businesses, and opposing every single policy that would create new jobs. That is Labour and Green policy.

Hon David Parker: Which of the recent economic statistics does he regard as best reflecting his success as Minister of Finance: the highest public debt in New Zealand history, the worst growth record of any New Zealand Government since GDP records started, the highest unemployment seen this century, or a world-leading current account deficit?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: None of those, because on “Planet Labour” the worst recession in two generations never happened, and that is what caused those figures.

Hon David Parker: Could he advise the House whether rising unemployment, falling business confidence, falling exports, and a rising balance of payments deficit represent a healthy, growing economy; if so, what would an unhealthy economy look like?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: None of those things reflects an unhealthy economy. What they reflect is New Zealand businesses and households adapting to some of the most difficult economic conditions in a generation. The Labour Party might think New Zealand businesses and households have failed. We do not. We believe they are doing the best they possibly can in the difficult circumstances in which they find themselves.

Unemployment and Industry Training—Statistics

2. DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements on jobs and employment?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes, and, in particular, I stand by my statement that printing money, allowing more inflation in the economy, putting a capital gains tax on every business in New Zealand, and the other irresponsible policies of the Opposition would cost a huge number of jobs.

David Shearer: Does he stand by his statement “Our plan is working” when according to the household labour force survey, the standard internationally recognised measure of employment, there are now 70,000 more people unemployed than when he took office?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes. There are a few things I would point out. Firstly, it is good to see the Labour Party in Parliament now claiming the household labour force survey is the statistic to watch, because for months that has not been the one it has chosen to use. Secondly, I would simply just make the point that the household labour force survey is by definition a very broad definition of who is unemployed. It could be somebody who is in education and is looking for a job. Interestingly enough, the last time the unemployment rate was at 7.3 percent in this country, in 1999, 150,000 were on the unemployment benefit. Today that number is under 50,000. Given the conditions, that is not too bad.

David Shearer: In light of his last answer, which statement does he stand by: that the household labour force survey is “Just that, a survey that bumps around quite a lot. It is notoriously volatile.”, or his statement that the household labour force survey is the standard internationally recognised measure of employment?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Both. It is the standard recognised and it does bounce around quite a lot, as does the support for David Shearer at the moment.

David Shearer: Does he stand by his statement: “I don’t think we should change course. I think we’re on the right track.”, and how much higher does unemployment need to go before he changes his policies?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I definitely think we are on the right track. We grew at 1.6 percent for the first half of this year. As the Minister of Finance has said, this is a Government that has had to endure the worst global financial crisis in two generations and pay for the Christchurch earthquake. The question of what track we are on when it comes to jobs is “Who is going to be the leader of the Labour Party?”.

David Shearer: Why was he “surprised” at the recent unemployment figures given that unemployment has been rising every quarter since December 2011?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I was surprised because the consensus of economists including Treasury was that there would be a fall in those. I was surprised because the numbers we see on the unemployment benefit have actually been reducing. I was surprised because the view of the Reserve Bank is that Auckland has been pretty strong—as we are seeing with the housing market starting to move—and that is the area that according to the household labour force survey is demonstrating the highest increase in unemployment.

David Shearer: Has the number of people enrolled in Modern Apprenticeships increased or decreased since he became Prime Minister?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have that exact number to hand, but what I can say is the Government has been committing huge resources in the area of training, particularly in Christchurch.

Michael Woodhouse: What reports has he seen of comments in support of certain jobs in New Zealand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have seen the rather startling and, I think, very direct statement from Grant Robertson about the leadership coup this weekend: “I am backing David 100 percent.” The question is : “Which David?”. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I apologise to the member. A point of order has been called and it shall be heard in silence.

Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have previously—and particularly on Government questions from Government members—indicated that they are not an appropriate vehicle by which to have political attacks across the House. I can go on to explain why that was an incorrect and totally false one, but you would sit me down.

Mr SPEAKER: Indeed I would—indeed I would. The member makes a perfectly reasonable point that it is not reasonable to use questions from members’ own parties, or from the governing party’s own support parties or support, to attack other members of the House. The question on the face of it was an acceptable question: what reports has the Prime Minister seen—

Hon Trevor Mallard: You knew where it was going.

Mr SPEAKER: And it is true that—members should not interject—it is not hard to probably pick where it is going, but the dilemma is one cannot stop it just because one thinks it might go there. At least it was mercifully brief. Had the Prime Minister gone on I would have certainly sat him down as I did previously when he started to—[Interruption] Order! When he started to criticise Opposition parties’ policy previously I sat him down. As much as I would like to try to get it right all the time, it is very difficult when members do it very rapidly.

White Paper for Vulnerable Children—Measures Targeting Child Abusers

3. TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) to the Minister for Social Development: What announcements have been made as part of the Government’s White Paper for Vulnerable Children to take stronger action against child abusers?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): The Government is introducing a range of tough new measures targeting child abusers. The new initiatives are aimed at protecting children from offenders who present a high risk of continuing to hurt and abuse children. These measures include limiting guardianship rights for abusive parents, introducing child abuse prevention orders, and the tracking of high-risk offenders.

Tim Macindoe: Why is the Government making changes to limit guardianship rights for abusive parents?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: This decision the Government has taken has not been made lightly. As the National Party, we trust families to know what is right for their children, but we know that, unfortunately, there are some people who are doing incomprehensible damage to some. For example, one of the children in the State’s care, who was removed at birth and is now 5 years old, is in his third foster home, not because of Child, Youth and Family, not because of the placement, but because of the continued harassment and abuse by the boy’s parents. This change will ensure that children who require a safe fresh start can get it without that sort of harassment.

Tim Macindoe: What legislative changes will be made to limit guardianship rights?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: Legislative changes will limit the guardianship rights of parents who present an ongoing, serious risk to their children. The Family Court would be able to make a determination, if it is necessary and in the child’s best interests, to limit a parent’s power to disrupt the child’s life on guardianship decisions such as medical procedures, school enrolment, and travelling overseas.

Jacinda Ardern: What initiatives are contained in her white paper to tackle child sexual abuse specifically, in light of Australia—which already carries out screening—instigating a royal commission into this issue, and the fact that substantiated cases in New Zealand have increased by roughly 50 percent on her watch?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: There are a range of initiatives that are going on that I think are addressing those historical abuse claims. For example, we have the Confidential Listening and Assistance Service, headed by Judge Henwood, which is making a difference for those people. This Government has actually addressed historical abuse claims at a rate far higher than any previous administration. We shall continue to do that; we put in another $14 million in the last Budget. We are already discussing what will happen in the next Budget for that. We take it seriously. We are addressing them, we are not trying to hide them, and I do not think there is quite the need that we have seen in Australia.

Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was specifically around initiatives contained in the white paper—

Mr SPEAKER: Indeed, the member’s question was—

Jacinda Ardern: —and the Minister did not address that question.

Mr SPEAKER: Yes, if the Minister could. That is exactly what the question asked: what initiatives are contained in the Government’s white paper to deal with those issues?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I think what I pointed out was that there are a range of initiatives that are already happening, so they are not specified particularly in the white paper.

Kyoto Protocol, Second Commitment Period—Implications of Withdrawal on “Clean, Green” Brand

4. GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement “What we do environmentally matters a great deal, but we also want jobs and we also want to make sure we’re not prioritising that over everything else. I think we’ve got that balance about right”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.

Grant Robertson: When Cabinet made the decision for New Zealand to withdraw from the next commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, what advice did it receive on the possible impact of such a decision on New Zealand’s international reputation and “clean, green” brand?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Government received a wide range of advice on the overall issue of the implication of going down the convention track. What it is fair to say is that if New Zealand was in the firm binding commitment period for the second commitment period, when 85 percent of global emissions are not covered by that, in the view of the Government that would have quite an implication.

Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The question was about what advice the Government had received about the impact on New Zealand’s reputation. It is a very direct question and the Minister did not answer that. He said: “We’ve received a broad range of advice.”

Mr SPEAKER: I accept the member’s point. If the Prime Minister could cover—because the question focused exactly on that issue. The Prime Minister, in answer, said that the Government had received a range of advice, but the question asked was on New Zealand’s international reputation in respect of our “clean, green” image. If the right honourable Prime Minister could answer that.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There was a wide range of advice. I cannot remember the specific advice in relation to the reputation.

Mr SPEAKER: I thank the Prime Minister.

Grant Robertson: Does he accept that New Zealand’s “clean, green” brand is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to our economy, in sectors such as the primary industry and tourism; if not, what is the latest estimate of its value?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There is no doubt that New Zealand’s “clean, green” image has a very positive impact on the country, and I think this Government is maintaining that. It is why we are putting so much money into water quality. That is why we have been emphasising renewable energy. That is why we have been bringing out national policy statements. There is a wide range of things that we have been doing, but signing up New Zealand to a binding second commitment period when 85 percent of world emissions are not included, including countries like the United States, Canada, Russia, China, and India, does not, in my opinion, make any sense whatsoever.

Grant Robertson: Is he aware of studies that show that a 5 percent drop in New Zealand’s reputation for its “clean, green” image could cost the economy more than 22,000 jobs, an annual direct loss of $455 million in primary products sales, and a $155 million loss in international tourism, and why is he prepared to do this much damage to the New Zealand economy?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No, and we are not.

Grant Robertson: Why is he prepared to sacrifice thousands of jobs in the forestry sector by abandoning the Kyoto Protocol commitment and—as Brian Fallow, from the New Zealand Herald, has put it—putting the emissions trading scheme into “an induced coma”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is quite wrong. If there is to be—

Grant Robertson: I’m not wrong.

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, you are, actually, in this particular instance. We are not abandoning Kyoto; New Zealand is going to have a firm and binding commitment, which we will announce next year. We are going down the convention track, which covers 85 percent of emissions. What we are not prepared to do is sign up to a binding second commitment period, just in the same way that that member is not prepared to bind himself to a commitment period of another year of David Shearer.

Grant Robertson: How is Geoff Thompson, a member of the Government’s own climate change review panel, wrong when he says that the Government’s inaction on climate change will see “our international reputation eroded … our trade reputation, our clean green image undermined,”?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For a start-off, with the greatest respect to Geoff Thompson, he does not have all of the information that the Government has. Secondly, the Government is running an emissions trading scheme, the Government is going to come out with a binding target next year, and the Government is going to follow the UN convention track that the vast, overwhelming bulk of countries are going to. But if Grant Robertson wants to tell every New Zealand consumer and business that they have to pay more, and in the same breath get up and say that he is worried about jobs in New Zealand, then he should go out on the campaign trail when he is the leader in a few weeks’ time and say that.

Mr SPEAKER: Question No. 5, Jonathan Young. [Interruption] Order! [Interruption] Order! I think we will probably score that about one all, and we will cease these interjections.

Oil and Gas Exploration—Consultation on Proposed Areas for 2013 Block Offer

5. JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What recent announcement has been made about Block Offer 2013?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Energy and Resources): The Government’s annual block offer process is an important part of developing our natural resources, and that is why I welcomed the announcement last week from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that it has released for consultation with relevant iwi and councils the proposed areas for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration, as part of Block Offer 2013. Feedback received will inform final decisions about the make-up of the block offer. The tender is planned to commence in April next year. Furthermore, I hope to be in a position to award exploration permits to successful bidders for the 2012 block offer in December.

Jonathan Young: Has the Minister seen any reports on the value of the oil and gas sector to the local and national economy?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: Yes, I have a seen a number. One report from the ministry shows that the country is set to earn more than $3 billion in royalties from oil and gas fields already in production. If exploration increases as we hope it will, or working so it will, $12.7 billion to New Zealand could be the collection. That is a lot of money for schools and hospitals and roads. I have also seen further reports of how the oil and gas industry currently supports about 7,700 indirect and direct jobs. It is clear that the oil and gas sector is a very important part of our economy. It has worked well alongside dairy farming and tourism in Taranaki. We believe it can expand to other regions, and that would be a good thing.

Mike Sabin: What reports has he seen on the response to the release of the Block Offer 2013 consultation?

Hon PHIL HEATLEY: I have seen a number of reports. I was delighted to see the support from the other side of the House, actually, on this important initiative, and I welcome the comments by the Hon Shane Jones. Mr Jones recently reported: “Let the information be uncovered first. It may be that the area is commercially barren, not unlike the minds conceiving that Green [Party] rhetoric.”, and “Let these decisions be made in a rational fashion, not this kneejerk emotionalism that … comes … from the Green Party.” This Government is committed to oil and gas exploration, and we thank Shane Jones for that support.

Question No. 6 to Minister

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): This question was lodged to the Prime Minister, and I seek the leave of the House to have it transferred back to the Prime Minister.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Unemployment—Current Rate and Relation to Economic Policy

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): My question is to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment and asks: was the Prime Minister—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That kind of interjection is unacceptable.

6. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: Was the Prime Minister correct when he said on 12 October 2012 that “our unemployment rate’s not rising”; if so, why?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment): Yes; because the best advice the Prime Minister had at that time from Treasury, backed up by most private sector economists, was that the unemployment rate was likely to decrease. That was the basis on which he made that comment. Other statistics also back up his comment, particularly the number of people on unemployment benefits, which has dropped from 55,700 to 50,400 over the year to September. That is a number of around 5,300. It is also interesting to note that despite the fact the population of New Zealand has grown between 1999 and now, from 3.8 million to 4.4 million, the number of people on the unemployment benefit is around 100,000 fewer than in 1999, despite apparently having an unemployment rate that is the same, according to the household labour force survey.

Dr Russel Norman: Given that Statistics New Zealand shows that unemployment has risen in every quarter since December 2011, is it not simply a matter of fact that the Prime Minister was incorrect when he said that the unemployment rate is not rising, because, in fact, it was rising and it has continued to rise?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No, because although it has risen in the household labour force survey, it has in fact dropped in what is a measure that is very important to New Zealand, and that is the number of people on the unemployment benefit, which is a measure of those people who need the support of the State because they are unemployed. The point I would make to the member is that, over the last year, it has dropped by around 5,300, and it is much, much lower than it was at the time of similar household labour force survey figures back in 1999—around 100,000.

Dr Russel Norman: I seek leave to table a paper—[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order.

Dr Russel Norman: It is not like people going to Australia.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member should not do that.

Dr Russel Norman: I seek leave to table a paper from the Parliamentary Library, showing that unemployment has risen for four consecutive quarters.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no—

Hon Anne Tolley: What is the document?

Mr SPEAKER: The document is from the Parliamentary Library—a document recording unemployment figures. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Dr Russel Norman: In light of the fact that this Government is now overseeing the highest unemployment that we have seen this century, does he now concede that the Government’s economic policies have failed to produce lower unemployment in New Zealand?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No. I would refer the member to my previous answer, to both the primary question and the supplementary question, in relation to unemployment benefits. But I also point out to the member that, again, I think he is in danger of ignoring what has been going on in the wider world in relation to two matters in particular. First is the global financial crisis, which is ongoing, and I note this week there have been further issues in Europe in terms of a revision down of growth forecasts, and, of course, the US fiscal cliff issue is continuing, and we do actually live in the world. Also, there is the other challenge, which, of course, has been the Christchurch earthquake. Now that the rebuild is building up, we are seeing a drop in unemployment in Christchurch, but, actually, it has been difficult for New Zealand to grow over that period, because of the challenges of its second-largest city being very dramatically affected by the earthquakes.

Dr Russel Norman: Looking at the relative position of New Zealand in relation to the rest of the OECD, is it not a sign of economic failure by this Government when unemployment has grown more than one and a half times faster in New Zealand compared with the average of the OECD over the last 4 years?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No. I mean, I am sure the member is going to hold the graph in as many ways as he can, but the reality is New Zealand has actually an unemployment rate lower than the average across the OECD. It is better than that of many countries we compare ourselves with: for example, the United States; for example, the UK; and, for example, countries like Denmark, and Poland, and France, and Hungary, and Italy. It is interesting that the member raises the issue of Australia. Because we in New Zealand have a much higher participation rate than Australia, even though we have a higher unemployment rate we actually have a higher employment rate than Australia, as well—about 2 percent higher in New Zealand than in Australia.

Hon Trevor Mallard: 1 hour a week! 1 hour a week.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Stop making it up, Mr Mallard. We actually have a higher employment rate than Australia. Read it and weep, Trevor.

Dr Russel Norman: I seek leave to table a paper prepared by the Parliamentary Library, showing that New Zealand’s unemployment has grown at one and a half times the OECD average over the last 4 years.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Dr Russel Norman: What analysis has he done as to why his economic plan has resulted in New Zealand now having one of the fastest-growing rates of unemployment in the OECD, according to the relative statistics produced by the OECD?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member has obviously not listened to my previous answers. Let me just re-cover them for him. Firstly, it is not apparent that that is necessarily the case, particularly because of the declining number of people on the unemployment benefit in New Zealand, which includes a drop of around 5,000 over the last 12 months.

Jacinda Ardern: It has doubled. It has doubled.

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It has dropped over the last 12 months. You can keep saying that as often as you like, but it has dropped. It is also because New Zealand has been working through—as the rest of the world has—the challenges of the global financial crisis, and, in addition to that, in the case of this country, the Canterbury earthquakes. And New Zealanders actually understand those challenges.

Dr Russel Norman: As one of the chief authors of National’s now failed economic plan, what changes is he recommending to that plan in light of the fact that we now have record unemployment figures—the highest this century—and that our unemployment is growing faster than the OECD average?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The member will be pleased to note there will be no changes but we will be working even harder on opportunities to remove the barriers and delays for companies seeking to invest and grow jobs. There is a range of areas where the member could lend his moral support: oil and gas exploration, the expansion of intensive agriculture, the development of aquaculture, supporting our film industry, encouraging foreign investment, and progressing an International Convention Centre in Auckland. These are all things the Greens oppose, and all things that, particularly in relation to the International Convention Centre, they have sought to stop, which is the reason right now for 1,000 fewer jobs in this country than there would have been at this time.

Dr Russel Norman: Does he accept that his Government’s policy of backing winners of the “dig it, drill it, mine it” variety has now failed in the light of historically high unemployment figures after 4 years of Government, and is it not time to reconsider the green economic opportunities like those identified by the group of leading New Zealand business people in the Pure Advantage group?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This Government is guilty only of backing people who are prepared to invest their own money and not the printed money variety that the Greens advocate, which would send this country down the toilet.

Dr Russel Norman: I seek leave to table the report from the Pure Advantage group called New Zealand’s Position in the Green Race, from May 2012.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Job Creation and Unemployment—Statistics and Reports

7. Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement in September 2010 that “there is no doubt that unemployment has peaked”?

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes, I do stand by that statement.

Grant Robertson: Really?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes, I do. Although the household labour force survey measure of unemployment has remained higher than anyone would have liked, the number of people actually receiving an unemployment benefit did peak in 2010. Currently, 50,000 people are receiving the unemployment benefit, which is 13,000 lower than in September 2010.

Hon David Parker: How does the third consecutive quarterly increase in the unemployed, to 175,000 New Zealanders, a 12.4 percent increase in just a year, show that the economy is in good health?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: The figures on the household labour force survey reflect the weakening of the economy over recent months, and that is now widely seen as driven significantly by the state of the world economy. However, the number of people on an unemployment benefit has continued to drop. I will repeat what I have said to the member before. Currently there are under 50,000 people receiving the unemployment benefit, which is 13,000 lower than in September 2010. But both of these measures of unemployment indicate that it is hard for people to find jobs when they lose jobs. That is why we need to focus even more strongly on supporting businesses to hire more people.

Hon David Parker: Why did he not advise the Prime Minister that unemployment was on the rise, given that ANZ National Bank and Business and Economic Research had both predicted it would rise to 7 percent?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I am always discussing these matters with the Prime Minister, but I do not think that even ANZ or Labour’s favourite forecaster, Business and Economic Research, forecasted that the household labour force survey would show a large increase in unemployment in Auckland at the same time as the number of people on a benefit in Auckland continues to drop. Nevertheless, the economy is weaker than we would want to see it, and I hope that the Labour Party will support the Government’s efforts to get behind businesses to help make it easier for them to create more jobs and pay higher incomes.

Hon David Parker: Does he stand by his acknowledgment that National promised that if it was elected there would be 170,000 more jobs?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes.

Andrew Williams: Was the Prime Minister correct to say to media last week that “we’ve grown 57,000 jobs in the last 12-18 months.”, given that the Minister of Finance then told 3 News’ Duncan Garner on Friday that the number of new jobs created in the past 2 years is, in fact, 26,000?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, I would need to verify just what the member is quoting from, but there is no doubt that there have been fewer new jobs created than was expected. I think that is pretty clear. For people out in the market, it is pretty tough trying to find a job. I would hope that that party will also get behind the Government’s efforts to assist businesses and to make it easier for them to hire more people, because that is actually where new jobs come from.

Andrew Williams: I seek leave to table a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library that contains a quote from the Prime Minister stating that 57,000 new jobs have been created in the last 12 to 18 months.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Andrew Williams: I also seek leave to table a document prepared by the Parliamentary Library that contains a quote from the Minister of Finance stating that only 26,000 jobs have been created in the past 2 years, contradicting Mr Key’s claims.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. Just before I call the honourable member, it just seems odd to me to have documents prepared by the Parliamentary Library that allegedly contain just one statement. That sees somewhat odd, but, anyhow, it is up to the House whether it—

Andrew Williams: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just to clarify, these were media things that were then confirmed by the Parliamentary Library and parliamentary research—parliamentary research. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! That was probably the very issue I was trying to get at. We have managed to get rid of seeking leave to table press clippings and that kind of thing. Dressing them up as reports from the Parliamentary Library will not do in the future.

Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: What is the unemployment rate for Pacific Island people in the latest household labour force survey, and does he agree that this is an appalling figure?

Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think it is around the 15 percent mark, and it is an appalling figure. That is why the Government is focusing very strongly, particularly for young Pasifika people, on attainment in secondary school—that is, getting more students through National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2. The Minister of Education is visiting schools and discussing with them how to get particular numbers, such as 17 or 25 more, of Pasifika students through level 2. We have then put in place a wider series of options and pathways for those students who choose not to go to university and want to find their way into the kind of training they need for further employment. We believe we are making significant progress in assisting precisely that group to increase its employment rate.

Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My question was actually asking what the unemployment rate is, and I did not hear the unemployment rate in the answer.

Mr SPEAKER: No, no. Order! I apologise to the member, because what is unfair is where a member from the back of the House is asking a question and there is too much interjection from members from a party that was not involved in the asking of the question. It is very hard for the member to hear. The Minister actually, from memory, said “15 percent” and he agreed that it was appalling, which is exactly what the member asked, so I believe her question was answered. But I do ask members to be more reasonable when a member from another party is asking questions.

Emissions Trading Scheme and Kyoto Protocol—Potential Restrictions on Units and Withdrawal from Second Commitment Period

8. TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: What steps is he taking to ensure the environmental integrity of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme?

Hon TIM GROSER (Minister for Climate Change Issues): If we expect our households and our businesses to pay for the costs of an emissions trading scheme, it is extremely important that they know it is achieving the effects intended. So today I have announced that I will begin very short consultations on the environmental integrity of certain types of units for which there are legitimate reasons for concern, and I am sure that when we finally announce our decisions in a couple of weeks’ time, that will help restore confidence in the scheme’s trading units.

Todd McClay: What impact will banning these international units have on the liquidity of the New Zealand emissions trading scheme?

Hon TIM GROSER: Well, given that—from memory—some 230 million units have been traded during the first commitment period, and about one-third of them are, indeed, these particular units, it may have some impact on liquidity. It may somewhat raise the average price in our register, but I think that is a price worth paying to maintain the environmental integrity.

Todd McClay: How does banning these particular units align with policies of other developed countries?

Hon TIM GROSER: It will put us in the same space as the European Union, which will—my understanding is—ban these units from 1 January 2013.

Charles Chauvel: What advice have he or his colleagues received about the likely effect of last Thursday’s decision to quit the Kyoto Protocol on support amongst developing countries for New Zealand’s intended bid for a seat on the Security Council?

Hon TIM GROSER: I have received no such advice and I would be very surprised if I did receive such advice. They are completely unrelated matters.

Charles Chauvel: I seek leave to table a letter dated 8 November from the chair of the Least Developed Countries Group at the UN climate change negotiations to President Obama stressing the importance of the second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. [Interruption] Order! Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.

Charles Chauvel: Does the Minister agree with his predecessor, Nick Smith, who said on climate policy on 15 September last year: “Australia is particularly significant given the extent that our economies are integrated. … the two schemes will be closely aligned ...”; if so, what logical explanation can there be for last Thursday’s decision to quit the Kyoto Protocol the same day that Australia affirmed its commitment to that protocol?

Hon TIM GROSER: The member is mistaken. We are not quitting the Kyoto Protocol. We are fulfilling our obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The reason why it is no longer possible is that the Australian Government—the member can surely remember this—has changed its domestic policy completely from having an emissions trading scheme to having a carbon tax. Therefore, it is actually impossible for us to align with Australia, at least until 2015, when it may move towards an emissions trading scheme.

Welfare Reforms—Availability of Jobs, Migration, and Unemployment Rate

9. JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by her statement that “the Government is taking an active, work-based approach” to her welfare reforms?

Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): Yes, because unlike the previous Government that left people to languish on benefits long-term, and actually moved people around benefits—on to the sickness benefit and on to the invalids benefit—to get those unemployment benefit numbers down, this National-led Government is taking an active work-based approach.

Jacinda Ardern: Given that there were fewer people on the benefit under Labour without her punitive changes to social security, how can she justify her crusade to push people off Government support when unemployment is at its highest level this century?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I know that on “Planet Labour” there was no economic recession. I know that on “Planet Labour” we have not actually seen some of the toughest times worldwide. What we have seen is, actually, New Zealanders being remarkably resilient. What we have seen, for example, is 21,328 young people aged between 18 and 24 leave the unemployment benefit last year. That is compared with only 8,090 in 2008. An increase of 164 percent of young people went into work last year compared with 2008.

Jacinda Ardern: Can she confirm that since June 2009, 18,180 people have stopped receiving a benefit because they left New Zealand to try their luck somewhere where they are not even eligible for Government support rather than to have their plight ignored by this Government?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I do not have that particular number, but I did ask that question before I came into the House today. In the year to October, 3 percent of working-age people left a benefit to go overseas, and in 2008, 2 percent left. So we have actually seen just a 1 percent increase in the last 4 years.

Jacinda Ardern: On what basis does she believe that “There are jobs out there for people who are stepping out,”, given that unemployment is at its highest level this century, or did she literally mean stepping out of the country?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: If the member had listened to the answer to the previous question she would have heard that, actually, it is only 3 percent to October this year who have left in that time. But let me give the member an example. The Warehouse Group has 300 full-time and part-time jobs, across three stores, available between October and January. Brightwater Engineers Ltd is looking for 40 staff at the moment. Mitre 10 is opening a store in Rotorua, and it wants 50 permanent—[Interruption] Well, the member asked where the jobs are, and I am giving her an example. Forty staff are required for the new Bunnings warehouse in New Plymouth. Taylor Preston meatworks has got 160 jobs that are opening in October. A New World store that is opening in Paraparaumu—

Mr SPEAKER: Order!

Hon PAULA BENNETT: I am sorry, Mr Speaker. It is a long—

Mr SPEAKER: I think the Minister has made her point.

Jacinda Ardern: If there are jobs out there freely available, why have unemployment benefit numbers doubled on her watch?

Hon PAULA BENNETT: No one is saying they are freely available; they are the member’s own words. What I am saying is that it is tough out there, but there are jobs and people will get one only if they are looking. So people need to be actively looking to be able to take up the opportunities that are out there. It is as simple as that.

District Health Boards—2012 Community Pharmacy Services Agreement

10. BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) to the Minister of Health: Is he satisfied that District Health Boards have done enough to promote understanding of the Pharmacy Services Agreement?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Acting Minister of Health): From the latest advice I have received, I am satisfied that district health boards are generally on track with implementing the new agreement, which has the support of the Pharmacy Guild and most pharmacists. The new agreement is a complex project, transitioning 947 pharmacies to a more patient-centred service arrangement. This is the biggest change to our pharmacy services in over 50 years, and with the complexity of the change there have been a small number of businesses that have raised issues.

Barbara Stewart: What feedback has he received on the agreement from individual community pharmacy owners?

Hon JO GOODHEW: It is very difficult for me to answer that in terms of the individual feedback that the Minister has had. However, I am aware that what has been set in place for individual pharmacies that have concerns is that each of the district health boards has appointed a portfolio manager, who will liaise with the pharmacies that have any queries or questions. There have been workshops throughout the country—some 30 workshops—on long-term conditions, and they have been resoundingly endorsed by the pharmacists appearing at those workshops in large numbers. So what I can say is that feedback to the Minister, and certainly to the sector, has meant that there have been lots of ways in which the pharmacists can work through the issues over this 3-year transition period.

Barbara Stewart: As audit issues emerge, is there the ability to respond quickly enough to ensure that the district health board funds are not used inappropriately?

Hon JO GOODHEW: I have not been advised of any audit issues. I have been advised, nevertheless, that there certainly are issues that are being worked through regarding how this will transition and how it will roll out. I do want to reassure the member again that, in fact, there is a good process in place to work through the issues as they arise. I would encourage her to bring any audit issues to the attention of the Minister, if they have not been brought to the attention of the portfolio managers in the district health boards.

Barbara Stewart: When will he institute a review via the DHB Shared Services as to how the agreement is actually working so as to close the loopholes—the many loopholes—that have been identified by pharmacists; if he will not, why not?

Hon JO GOODHEW: I think it would be premature to talk about a review when we are talking about a 3-year process that is unequivocally changing the way pharmacy funding is delivered to a much more patient-centred focus than ever before. Over 3 years the issues that are raised will be worked through. It is this Government’s belief that this is a much better way to look after the pharmacy needs of patients—working together with general practice, with pharmacists, and with the patients. Three years for transition is a long time. Maybe a review at the end of that? I guess that will be the time when we should ask the Minister.

Hepatitis C—Assessment and Support Scheme

11. Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) to the Minister of Health: What is the Government doing to promote awareness and support those with hepatitis C?

Hon JO GOODHEW (Acting Minister of Health): The Government is investing $5.2 million in a new scheme to assess and support people with hepatitis C in the Bay of Plenty and in Wellington. This is yet another preventative health initiative. The scheme will help support the 50,000 New Zealanders who have hepatitis C. It will comprise community-based assessment and support to address what is a major health burden. It has received wide support from the health service and will be run in association with the New Zealand Hepatitis Foundation.

Dr Jackie Blue: How will the scheme work?

Hon JO GOODHEW: The Capital and Coast District Health Board, the Hutt Valley District Health Board, and the Wairarapa District Health Board will employ hepatitis C nurses in community clinics, who will use a liver ultrasound to check for signs of hepatitis C. Nurses will be able to refer those who require it for further treatment or assessment. The scheme will be evaluated in 2014, and it is intended that a national programme will be rolled out between 2015 and 2020.

Kyoto Protocol, Second Commitment Period—Implications of Withdrawal

12. Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: Has he received any advice on the impact on New Zealand trade resulting from his decision not to sign up to the Second Commitment Period under the Kyoto Protocol; if so, what was it?

Hon TIM GROSER (Minister for Climate Change Issues): No. As the Minister for Climate Change Issues I have not received any advice, but I have taken the precaution of asking the Minister of Trade—this is a politically seamless Government—and the Minister of Trade assures me that although he has received a torrent of speculation on this matter, not a single piece of evidence exists to support this political fantasy.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Having the Minister explore his eternal circular logic between his ministerial brains, does he agree with his Prime Minister, John Key, who once said: “New Zealand must take credible steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or risk becoming a trading pariah.”, and does his action risk making us that pariah?

Hon TIM GROSER: I absolutely agree with the Prime Minister. I am not quite sure of the context of the remarks, but, as it is stated, I absolutely agree. I think it is very important that the House recognises the enormous progress New Zealand has made in being the most carbon-efficient agricultural country in the world, which is why the Daily Mail, focusing on this lovely picture of a Romney sheep and its spring lamb, has urged the British middle class to descend like the proverbial wolf on the fold to consume it, in order to save the planet.

Mr SPEAKER: Dr Kennedy Graham. [Interruption] Order! I want to hear Dr Kennedy Graham. [Interruption] Order! I must say to both sides, please, I want to hear Dr Kennedy Graham’s question.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Returning to a serious plane of analysis, how many jobs and trade opportunities could be created from investing the $1 billion taxpayers’ subsidy for pollution under the emissions trading scheme in research and development investment and other job-rich initiatives?

Hon TIM GROSER: I have no idea what set of statistics the member has in mind. What I know is that we could certainly destroy a great number of jobs if we loaded costs on to households and businesses in the naive belief that somehow this would make a large material difference to this issue.

Dr Kennedy Graham: Can the Minister explain to the House why the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, issued a statement congratulating Australia’s Prime Minister on her leadership in signing up to a second commitment period but remained silent on New Zealand’s decision not to do so?

Hon TIM GROSER: No, I have not been in touch recently with the Secretary-General.

Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! A point of order has been called.

Dr Kennedy Graham: The question is not answered. It was not whether he has been in touch; it was whether he can explain the Secretary-General’s silence.

Mr SPEAKER: I think, in fairness, the Minister said that he cannot because he has not been in touch with the Secretary-General, and, I guess, to understand what the Secretary-General is on about, he probably would have had to be. I mean, that is one possible—it is not an unreasonable answer.

Dr Kennedy Graham: I seek leave to table some documents that will help the Minister. One is the press release from the United Nations, dated 10 November, explaining the Secretary-General’s congratulations to Australia on its decision.

Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection.

Dr Kennedy Graham: A Radio New Zealand release—

Mr SPEAKER: No, no; not local press releases.

Dr Kennedy Graham: A press release from the Sustainability Council—

Mr SPEAKER: No.

Dr Kennedy Graham: A press release—

Mr SPEAKER: No. The member does have further supplementary questions, though, should he wish to use them. I beg your pardon; no, he does not. I beg your pardon, my counting is wrong.

Urgent Debates Declined

Kyoto Protocol, Second Commitment Period—Withdrawal

Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have received a letter from Grant Robertson seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the decision of the Government not to sign up to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. The release of the Government’s decision is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The test for whether a particular case requires the immediate attention of the House, though, is a high one. The business of the House should not be set aside just because a ministerial announcement has been made, even though it may be important. There must be an element of urgency for the matter to take precedence over other business. As the authentication for the application notes, further decisions are required. Cabinet will set a formal target for New Zealand’s future emissions track through to 2020 once the final rules on crucial technical issues, including access to international carbon markets, are known. I do not think I would be justified in giving priority to this particular decision over other business of the House today. The application is therefore declined.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether I could ask you to investigate whether or not the confidentiality and security of your decisions as to rulings on these matters has in any way been compromised. The reason I ask that, and I am doing it sincerely, is that almost the moment you got up, Mr Speaker, the responsible Minister, the Minister for Climate Change Issues, left the Chamber—well before you gave your decision. I think all of us who expect that these matters will be awaited in terms of your rulings ought to stay in the Chamber and wait for those rulings when it is a matter that concerns their portfolio, unless they have by some means come to prior knowledge of those rulings. I would hate that to have been the case here.

Mr SPEAKER: I can assure the honourable member I have been in touch with no one—no member of this House or any staff member of any member of this House—in respect of this application. Well, I cannot speak for any—but I would be very surprised if anyone in my office had. I understand the member’s concern, but I can absolutely assure him that I certainly have not, and I would not think any member of my office has.

Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Deputy Leader of the House): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. On behalf of the member who left the House, he left before you had even enunciated what the letter was about, so he would have had no idea as to what was going to be put before you.

Mr SPEAKER: I think the matter has been raised, and it is genuinely raised. I think it is a fair point, and I just want to give the member an assurance that I—I have not checked it out, and I will do so because I think the member raises an important point.

Bills

Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments relating to Queen’s Counsel

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): Part 1 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill contains particular clauses that the Opposition takes objection to. Part 1 is the part of the legislation that will restore the archaic title of Queen’s Counsel. But, actually, worse than that, it will do two other things that we particularly object to. I can see that there are members on the other side with whom I have discussed this matter, and I hope that they will make a contribution in this debate and that we will hear from the Minister in the chair, the Hon Amy Adams, as well.

The view has been put to me, including by members opposite, that going back to the title of Queen’s Counsel is something that honours our traditions, that the move to sever the title and to replace it with the title Senior Counsel was something that was done by the previous Labour Government without a mandate, that it disrespected those traditions, and that therefore we should be supporting this move. What I want to say is that I am unconvinced, but I do understand the point.

Here are our objections to going back to the old title. First of all, it is archaic. Secondly, we are in the middle of a constitutional review—the Māori Party concluded an agreement with the National Party some time ago; I think it was after the 2008 election—and that review is to look at our constitution and questions like whether or not we should have Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel, what the place of the Treaty should be in our constitutional arrangements, whether we should eventually become a republic, what the status of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act ought to be—all these matters.

I can see that Dr Sharples is in the Chamber. I hope he is going to take a call during the debate on this legislation. I have put the question to him and to his staff, as well as to Peter Dunne, the self-professed republican over there who chaired the last constitutional review that we had in this country. Mr Dunne came up with all sorts of brave recommendations and told his electorate of Ōhariu that he was a confirmed republican and wanted to see New Zealand take the inevitable step toward becoming a republic and severing our ties with the Crown. Perhaps today he is off to a dinner party or some other sort of social event with the Prince of Wales, because it seems to me there is no consistency of principle amongst those people.

Dr Sharples, you cannot support this legislation and be acting in good faith about participating in a constitutional review. This legislation is pre-emptive of that exercise. Mr Dunne, you cannot tell people that you are a republican on the one hand and support this legislation restoring a royal title, a rank conferred by royalty, to lawyers in New Zealand on the other. As was famously said by the Prime Minister in the House a week or two ago, there is a word for that sort of positioning, and it starts with “h”, and it is hypocrisy.

Let us just assume that the National Party and its allies have the numbers to go back to the title Queen’s Counsel. That is democracy, and if that is the case, members on this side will accept that. What I am keen to do is have the argument across the Chamber about the other matters that are dealt with in Part 1, because, let us face it, titles matter. What we call things matters in the end because symbolism matters, but, actually, it is the reality of practice that matters even more.

That is why I have put an amendment on the Table today that would make a couple of changes to this legislation. These changes would leave the title Queen’s Counsel in place. They would not disturb Chris Finlayson’s ardent desire, and his electoral promise of 2008 to the legal profession, to restore the title Queen’s Counsel. I know that he has probably applied already to Judith Collins as the Minister of Justice for his own application for the title of Queen’s Counsel to be processed before he leaves Parliament at the next election, so that he can go out and practise with that title, which he was denied when he applied for it in the ordinary course when he was a barrister, on the basis that he had juniored in too many cases rather than having been senior counsel, which is the required experience for this sort of title to be conferred.

Here is what my amendment does. It says, first of all, that this legislation is wrong to say that it will restrict the award of the title Queen’s Counsel to barristers in practice. Just a little history lesson here: what the original legislation did was it expanded out the way in which this title could be awarded. It replaced the title Queen’s Counsel with Senior Counsel and it said that instead of this archaic, old rule that only barristers sole, who are a tiny fraction of our legal profession, could be awarded the title Queen’s Counsel, or Senior Counsel, basically everybody practising in the profession would be entitled to the rank if they merited it.

This bill will go back to restricting the title to just barristers, although it has weaselly words in section 119C, in clause 6, that say never mind all that. The royal prerogative is saved. So a lawyer who is a particular favourite of the Government and is not actually a barrister practising at the Bar can still get the title. So it is a kind of “We Want to Have the Best of Both Worlds Bill”. What I have done is actually try to get the bill to recognise that reality by, in my amendment, omitting paragraph (b) of clause 4, to recognise the reality that this bill does not really restrict the status to barristers at all, despite Mr Finlayson’s promises to the Law Society. But the real nub of my amendment relates to the changes in section 119C, in clause 6.

The best thing that Labour did, apart from abolishing the archaic title of QC and opening up the status to all lawyers of merit practising, whether they be in firms, at the Bar, in local government, in government practice, or what have you, was having an open appointments procedure. One of the problems that we have in the law in New Zealand is that people who are not lawyers feel locked out. They do not understand how lawyers come to be appointed judges or how they come to exercise the many privileges that they do in practice, and often it is quite difficult to progress a complaint against a practising lawyer because of all the procedures and the rules that need to be followed. It is very difficult to understand how somebody becomes a judge. It is very difficult to lodge a complaint against a judge.

I see my friend Jackie Blue over there, who has taken a great interest in the judicial complaints procedure, and rightly so, because that was another way of opening this whole thing up and demystifying it—something that I am very proud of the last Labour Government for doing, even though it was opposed by the National Party at the time.

So my amendment is another measure in that vein. What it says is that we will keep an open appointments procedure so that we can encourage women, minorities, and all the diversity that we are finally seeing coming through the legal profession, and so that we can see openly whether or not those members of the profession are being blocked from getting this ultimate accolade that we award to lawyers in this country—the title QC, which is now being restored by the National Government.

The way I do it is this. I say that the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Senior Counsel and Queen’s Counsel) Regulations 2008, which are the procedural rules made under the Act to govern applications for being made either a QC or an SC, and the rules that are made under regulation 5 of those regulations by the Solicitor-General will remain in force, notwithstanding the passage of this amendment, and, obviously, with necessary amendments, until a further Act of Parliament varies those rules. So if we do get rid of the title SC and retain just QC, or if Parliament does retain the restriction so that barristers will normally be the only people who are qualified to apply to be Queen’s Counsel, then we will still have an open appointment process.

I would really just ask members opposite to consider this amendment if they consider nothing else that I have said in this debate. What is wrong with openness? What is wrong with saying to the public, look, how you become a Queen’s Counsel should be a matter for openness in a free and democratic society. It should not be shrouded in secrecy. It should not be something that the Attorney-General and the Chief Justice get together about in some room somewhere and discuss without a bit of sunshine being shone on the process, in the way that we shine it now pretty much everywhere else in our society except, ironically, on the doings of lawyers. So what I am saying is I would ask members to consider this amendment on its merits. There is no harm in doing this.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I am happy to follow Mr Chauvel in the debate in the Committee stage on this bill, the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. I have listened carefully to his view on the matters that Labour has consistently argued are, in its view, the most objectionable.

I just want to make the point that, in fact, although that is the Labour Party position, it is very much out of touch with both the judiciary and the legal profession, and, I would suggest, the public at large. It is worth remembering that Labour abolished New Zealanders’ right of appeal to the Privy Council, it abolished the awarding of traditional royal honours such as knighthoods, and it abolished the practice of appointing a small number of barristers each year to the rank of Queen’s Counsel. In doing so, it described such initiatives and practices as anachronistic, and Mr Chauvel has just used the word “archaic” again. And, reading from Labour’s minority report, they represent “the bland comforts of the past”. As I say, we have heard more on that theme in the last few moments from Mr Chauvel.

But it is worth noting that the previous Government made each of those changes without a mandate from New Zealanders. One has to wonder why, if the previous Government was so convinced that these institutions had lost their relevance and appeal in contemporary New Zealand society, it was not prepared to test that view by consulting the people. The restoration of the rank of knighthoods and dames by the current Government has certainly been well received, and there is pretty clear evidence from the legal profession that the restoration of the title Queen’s Counsel is desirable, given that Labour’s creation of the title Senior Counsel in 2008 has devalued the role, found little public support or even understanding, and fails to reflect the nature and status of a role that is hugely important within the legal profession.

This change in this part of the bill is about much more than the restoration of a title and status—important as those outcomes are to those who value our inherited traditions from Westminster as much as those other aspects of our blended culture that make New Zealand special and unique. The changes outlined in Part 1 of this bill are designed to protect the essential independence of the Inner Bar. I think that is a matter that Mr Chauvel was not really dealing with. As has been noted, Mr Chauvel, by the Minister and other Government speakers at earlier stages in this debate, the looser rules for eligibility as Senior Counsel, which were introduced by that previous Government, threaten to dilute the independence of our most senior advocates.

Queen’s Counsel should be able to advise and represent both law firms and clients who engage them fearlessly and independently without the potential conflicts and pressures of working in a partnership or an incorporated firm. That is why Part 1 of the bill provides that eligibility to be appointed as Queen’s Counsel will be restricted in most cases to barristers sole, rather than lawyers in partnerships or firms, but the bill does preserve the royal prerogative—and Mr Chauvel was quite disparaging about this—to appoint lawyers other than barristers sole as Queen’s Counsel where that recognises exceptional legal practice. That, of course, is consistent with a very long-established practice, highly recognised and respected within the profession and within the public as a whole, and, I would suggest to Mr Chauvel, something that many, many decades of tradition and practice bear out as being of value. The Opposition may think otherwise, but this would be the case as reflected widely within the profession.

So we are restoring something that is about much more than just titles, about much more than just history; it is about gravitas and the ability within the profession to strike a correct balance. So, with those comments, I am very happy to support Part 1, and I look forward to seeing this come to pass.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): Mr Chairman, thank you very much. I presume your emphasis on the word “Honourable” in calling me talks about the fact that we keep certain titles for ourselves in this Parliament beyond our holding the particular rank that might be attributed to them.

I think the comments that we have heard from the Government member who has just resumed his seat, Tim Macindoe, really do sum up the difference between National and Labour very, very clearly. Although the words that came out of his mouth talked about threatening to dilute independence, I actually heard preserving exclusivity, I heard preserving privilege, and I heard preserving the capacity to charge whatever they like for the advice, because, of course, that is the reality of the QC ranking when it is restricted simply to members of the Bar.

I think the framing of this issue as one around independence actually does not stack up when one looks at the nature of the advice that somebody would be seeking. I thought the transfer from the concept of Queen’s Counsel and our tie with the past to the concept of Senior Counsel actually talked about the capacity for somebody to provide advice at a very senior level, and that really does not depend on their being taken from purely the Bar. Why they would have to remove themselves from the legal firm where they are associated in order to become Queen’s Counsel, I believe, represents one of the problems of the past, and does not actually bring forward all of the people whom one would want to have available to provide that very senior level of advice. The Senior Counsel concept did seem to me to resolve some of those problems.

As my colleague Charles Chauvel has stated, under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill only New Zealand, the UK, and a handful of tiny former colonies will retain the rank of Queen’s Counsel. When the member was running through the litany of changes that Labour had brought about in this area, I was saying: “Well, yes, that is great. That is fantastic. We got rid of appeal to the Privy Council.” How many countries in the world have retained the right of appeal to the Privy Council? I think there is about three or four left in the world that have retained it, beyond the UK.

Andrew Little: Bahamas is one.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Bahamas might be one. But the point that I am making is that—

Tim Macindoe: Major constitutional change. You didn’t go to the people.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: It was a constitutional change. The point that I am making is that these were positive changes and a break with the past, and I think the sooner that we do actually talk about the serious issues in relation to whether this country should become a republic, the better. I think a lot of people are starting to ask that question. Why are we not going out to the public with a positive position in order to engage the public in this most fundamental of reforms?

I believe that going back to Queen’s Counsel now creates a worse problem than existed before it was changed, because it means that there is going to be a to-ing and fro-ing. Every time there is a change of Government, we are going to take it forward, and if National becomes the Government, it is going to take it back. I do not believe that that is actually in the interest of developing our own, independent status as a nation. I believe that it is really important that we do try to see our way forward into the future.

The thing that I was concerned about, and that my colleague seems to have addressed in his amendment to add section 119C(3), is the question of the appointment process itself. The appointment process, of course, once it goes back to the way that it was before, naturally shuts it down. I think the member Tim Macindoe himself said that it creates, you know, confusion in the public—that the public have no idea, that they know what a QC is but they do not know what a Senior Counsel is. I think that is nonsense. I think the person on the street has no idea what a QC is compared with any lawyer, either, other than that a QC charges a humungous amount of money and you might as well have one on your side if you are being sued for defamation by somebody who has got one representing them on the other side.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Judith!

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Well, I presume that certain Ministers do actually use QCs in order to support themselves, whether they are defending themselves against a potential defamation, or whether they are promoting the idea that some comments might be regarded as defamatory when I think they are the only people in the country who would think that. But that is by the by. There is a significant element of exclusivity and privilege, I think, associated with this whole question of Queen’s Counsel.

There are a number of counsel at the moment who do not actually want to go back to the old way of doing this. They do not want to go back to the old definition of Queen’s Counsel, or King’s Counsel as it will be, I think, some time in the future.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: In Gerry’s case, KFC.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I do not think I will repeat that, Mr Cosgrove, but thank you for your amusing interjection. I think it will find itself now recorded in Hansard without my having to repeat it.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The clansman.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: If you think of any more, I am happy to call upon the—

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: The big chief of the highland games.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I do not think we will talk about the clansman, because that is probably a bit unfair.

But, leaving that aside, the point I am making is that what the honourable member Charles Chauvel is attempting to do is to make sure that with the amendment that, obviously, the Government is going to push through—with our maintaining our opposition throughout—we do not wholly do away with the question of preserving the openness in the appointment process. I think that my colleague makes the point that whether the appointment is statutory or a prerogative process, our requiring the existing open procedure required by regulations and guidelines to continue to be followed, with necessary modifications, really does state for the public that the process that was put in place by our Government will be the one that will still prevail. I believe that that is a small amendment that we can make to an otherwise unfortunate change that the National Government wants to put upon us.

I do think there ought to be better debate around these sorts of issues, as well, because when one looks at where New Zealand stands in the world, and whether these issues are going to be truly debated, I do not think I heard anything from the Government side as to why we should restrict the appointment of Queen’s Counsel to the Bar. I think that if the Government truly believes that that is in the best interests of ensuring that our Queen’s Counsel are broadly representative of the legal profession as a whole—which, of course, has changed over the years since I was admitted to the Bar. I think it certainly has changed in terms of the greater number of women, obviously, who have been admitted to the Bar. But, again, when you look at different elements of the profession, women are still underrepresented. When we look at barristers sole, we find that it is a male-dominated element of the profession.

By pushing back to Queen’s Counsel, or reverting to Queen’s Counsel, and moving away from the concept of seniority, I think we do a great disservice to those who will be looking for the quality of representation that one would expect from Queen’s Counsel. I think it is a retrograde step and I do believe that we are in danger of seeing important constitutional issues becoming this political football—pro, anti, pro, anti. When National is in Government it gets reverted back to the way it was; when we are in Government it gets promoted to the way it should be. I think we have got to really seriously think about whether the legal profession would want to see that continue to happen. I do not believe that it is in the interests of the quality of the work that we are all saying we are seeking to achieve to have this to and fro arrangement.

I believe that our Government very firmly stood for making sure that we could stand alone as an independent nation. We did not have to have the final right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, comprising mostly British judges and sitting away on the other side of the world, in London. We did not need to have the award of knighthoods and other honours of English origin, and, of course, that annual practice of appointing a small number—

JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I would like to rise to take just a very quick call on Part 1 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill, to go through some of its constituent parts, and to restate the Green Party’s opposition to this bill. It is clause 4 that sets out the main purpose of Part 1, which is itself really the main purpose of this part of the bill. It tells us that the bill seeks to amend the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act to reinstate the title of Queen’s Counsel and to restrict eligibility to that title to barristers sole. I have to agree with the Hon Lianne Dalziel and Mr Charles Chauvel, who spoke earlier on this. It is a very retrograde act. It is a move to reinstate an anachronistic title that seems to limit New Zealand’s independence and send us back half a century, at least, to the days when we were solely reliant on the British Crown for validation, which is a bit embarrassing, frankly.

Although one could imagine different practical considerations around the procedure for appointments, as set out in the provisions of new section 118 in clause 6, we have not really heard a sound, practical argument for the title of Queen’s Counsel itself to make a comeback, and one really has to ask oneself, is this the single biggest priority in the justice area that this Government should be dedicating time to? It seems that New Zealand is facing all sorts of challenges, and yet what the Government comes up with is returning this anachronistic title—a throwback to the monarchy. It just seems a little bit irrelevant, and, frankly, I think that the New Zealand public could expect a little bit better from this Government than simply dedicating time to a small group of privileged, high-paid—an exclusive group of lawyers who for some reason are going to be given this title, Queen’s Counsel, which simply is not moving us forward in the direction of an independent New Zealand, one that is not so focused on these ancient hierarchies.

There is simply no call to amend sections 118 and 119 in the principal Act, and, although the Law Society submission pointed out that there was an original lack of clamour for the change in the first place, it was a policy decision, one that came from a proud assertion of New Zealand as independent and willing to embrace a future where we no longer rely on Britain for authentication. It was not a particularly radical policy in the first place, but I think that it was important and symbolic. Similarly, clause 6, in amending sections 118 and 119 to bring back the title of Queen’s Counsel, is light on clamour but strong on symbolic policy. I accept that the Government members probably feel strongly about this, but I doubt that the public of New Zealand really sees this as a priority, and I think that it is a bit unfortunate that we are taking up time in the House for this legislative ping-pong game between the poles of independence and a return to the monarchy.

I would also just add one other point, which is that I appreciate the endeavour that Mr Chauvel has made to open up the process of appointment and make it less exclusive and more transparent, and for that reason, although the Green Party is not supporting the bill, we will be supporting the amendment put forward by Mr Chauvel. I thank him for his contribution to this, because I think it is a positive contribution in what is otherwise a pretty sad, pathetic, old sort of bill that is taking up our time.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I think this bill should be retitled the “Lawyers and Conveyancers (Elitist Purposes) Bill”, because—

Tim Macindoe: We’re not on the title, Denis.

DENIS O’ROURKE: We are not on the title? But, nevertheless, that should be what its title is because that is what it is. It takes us back to when Queen’s Counsel were appointed by a mysterious, non-transparent process, with all the suspicion of inappropriate influences and political influence that that involves. New Zealand First therefore opposes this legislation. It is not good for the legal profession in practice or for its reputation. It is not good for the community or its understanding of the profession. It is about the National Party’s philosophy and ideology, where it appears that elitism and cronyism are celebrated.

What it is about most is going back to the past instead of moving to the future. New Zealand will be moving backwards with this legislation when all comparable jurisdictions have moved on with a more modern and relevant approach to the issue of acknowledging senior practitioners, and I refer especially to Canada and the Australian states, or most of them. In fact, I question whether it is actually really even necessary to award either Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel titles in this country, because in these days it is generally accepted that markets should be free of discriminatory and anti-competitive rules imposed by Governments. National, I would think, usually supports that sort of approach, so why the aberration in this case? National has simply got it wrong, and it has got it wrong for all the wrong reasons. It is wedded to the past and it is not future-oriented.

However, if we are to persist with the ranking of legal practitioners in this way, rather than to rely on reputation and the market, then it is important to define those members of the profession who have achieved a level of experience and competence in an area of expertise that should be officially acknowledged on a fair and transparent basis. The current legislation goes a long way to achieve this and should not be repealed. Therefore, to assist in the operation of the legal system, the current legislation should be maintained and this bill should not be passed. The acknowledgment of highly regarded and experienced practitioners with special expertise should not be about status or reward or cronyism in the way that it has too often been in the past, and it should not be seen in the same way as the award of knighthoods and honours are generally seen. New Zealand is no longer—since 1947—a British colony, with all of its traditions and peculiarities. It should not simply allow commercial advantage by one practitioner over another, as this bill would do. Our system must be fit for our needs and be relevant, useful, and fair in the selection process, and it must be transparent.

The bill, as presented, does not appear to be designed to achieve any of those things. It appears to be designed to perpetuate elitism as distinct from “meritism”, by which I mean the recognition of a status well earned instead of one simply awarded in the manner of some sort of an honour, or, worse still, some sort of a favour. Under Part 1, the term Queen’s Counsel returns again to replace Senior Counsel, and I think that is unwise. Contrary to what Mr Macindoe said, I think the public can more readily understand the term Senior Counsel, but usually do not understand the term Queen’s Counsel. I think that “understandability”, for the public, is an important issue, and it relates to the reputation of the profession. People tend to think that the term Queen’s Counsel still means a senior barrister who has the function of supporting the Attorney-General, as it once was. That is far from the situation these days. The term Senior Counsel is more descriptive and does not have the connotations of some overhang from the old English legal system and our colonial past.

New Zealand not only needs a thoroughly modern legal system, it needs to be seen as such. None of this is assisted by the term Queen’s Counsel, and Senior Counsel is clearly better; nor does the assertion that somehow the reversion to Queen’s Counsel will enhance the independence of the profession. If independence means independence from the Crown—in New Zealand meaning, effectively, independence from the Government—then this bill is more likely to do the opposite by restoring the old system under which the scope for political and other influences is actually worse. Concerning eligibility, it is not clear to me why only barristers sole are favoured to be eligible. Others should not be excluded if they practise in law firms, whether incorporated or not, as is allowed in comparable jurisdictions, and others should not be excluded if they are barristers and solicitors. The position relating to that is so different from what it is in the UK that that comparison does not bear scrutiny.

The strangest section is new section 118A(2), in clause 6, which appears to override the other sections and reinstate a general royal prerogative. That seems to me to have no substantive reason for such a leap backwards. Why should there be a need in this day and age for such a general provision? The royal prerogative in New Zealand really means Government prerogative, and that is not appropriate. It brings in all the old problems of unfairness, discrimination, anti-competitive behaviour, and the scope for cronyism and bad process that will be entrenched by this bill. It is, therefore, thoroughly objectionable, and will actually need to be repealed if it is now passed. The need for transparency has also not been achieved in this bill and that is what modern best practice requires. We ask these days in all other professions for people to have transparent processes. Why, then, would we reinstate the exact opposite with regard to Senior Counsel in this country?

New Zealand First, therefore, objects to the entire concept of this retrograde bill. It is misconceived and is a step back to the bad old ways. It is a barrier to the development of a modern legal system. It is devoid of proper processes. It is unnecessarily restrictive. It is based on discrimination for no good reason. The object should be to define senior practitioners in specialist areas so that the public and other members of the profession are assisted in knowing to whom they may best go for specialist services. If that is not the objective, then there is no reason at all for either Queen’s Counsel or Senior Counsel, for that matter.

Anyway, however you look at this bill, it is a thoroughly bad bill. It will create bad law and should not be passed. Indeed, if it is passed, then it will be incumbent upon some future Government to return back in the future and repeal it.

Dr JACKIE BLUE (National): I am pleased to speak to the Committee stage of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. I was not part of the select committee that listened to the submissions, the Justice and Electoral Committee. In fact, I think there were about six submissions, and the select committee listened to the debate—the pros and the cons. Essentially, Part 1 restores the title of Queen’s Counsel. That seems to be one that has been welcomed by the profession. I took the time to go to the Bar Association’s submission. It summarises, and quite clearly states, that “The Bar Association supports the intentions of this bill because it restores the historical status of the rank of Queen’s Counsel in New Zealand.” The interesting thing is that the New Zealand Law Society made the comment that the changes were largely policy-based, in that the revert back to Senior Counsel had been policy-based and ideological, and not a response to any call for pressing change. That was very interesting, I thought.

I think it is important that the select committee did listen. It listened very carefully to the debate—the pros and the cons. Part 1 specifies in new sections 118 to 119C the reinstatement to Queen’s Counsel, which certainly does provide a recognition of seniority, of a certain standing of practice in this country. It also allows for independence of that practitioner. I think that new sections 118 to 119C specify quite clearly the position of a barrister sole, the eligibility criteria, and so forth. I think this is not a retrograde step. This is one that is going to restore the profession’s standing in the eyes of the public, and that can only be a good thing. Thank you.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is a great pleasure to take a call on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. What is very clear is that for the sake of a robust democracy and for the sake of the rule of law in a democratic country like ours, having a high-standard, high-standing professional Bar is absolutely crucial. Having a body of advocates who can take cases, whether in the criminal jurisdiction, the civil, or any other, and represent people fearlessly and without favour before Her Majesty’s judges—and before anybody else, if they so wish—is absolutely crucial to ensuring that people’s statutory and common law rights are observed and respected, and that justice is able to be administered properly and fearlessly. So in that context, and with the amount of law that we have—statute law and common law—having a legal profession that is well led, and that has men and women of standing, substance, and intellectual capacity, is very important. Having a means by which we recognise those who are excellent performers and top performers in the profession not only gives confidence to those who are dependent on their advocacy and their services but also is important—it is absolutely crucial—to the administration of good justice in the country. So this bill touches upon a very important aspect.

I agree with my colleagues who have participated in the debate so far that most members of the public would not know what the distinguishing features or factors are between a QC and any other member of the legal profession. When people get into trouble, or get into conflict or a dispute, they want someone who will represent them. They are not particularly fussed about the letters after their name—except, of course, when the invoice arrives. Then, of course, it does become very important.

I want to say that we have been very well served in this country not just by the legal profession at large but also by the senior advocates within it. We have tended to recognise those senior and outstanding advocates—those who engage in excellent advocacy in the court—by conferring on them this title, which was once upon a time QC, King’s Counsel before that, and, more, recently, SC, Senior Counsel.

In my experience I have come up against and I have dealt with many excellent holders of the QC title. I think of people like Kit Toogood, who was outstanding in the employment field and who is now on the bench. I think of someone like Simon Lockhart, to whom I juniored in my first ever jury trial, who was most influential in education, and people like George Barton QC, who brought great intellect to the field. I think of women like Kristy McDonald and Denise Bates. More recently, I think of Harry Waalkens, who cross-examined me at length on behalf of Air New Zealand once. Two days later we settled the case on terms favourable to the union. I think of David Goddard, and, I must say, more recently an outstanding QC, in my view, Nigel Hampton, who represented the Amalgamated Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union and the miners in the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, and who is now representing one of the victims of the Christchurch earthquake and the collapse of the CTV Building. He is a most compassionate humanitarian in his advocacy and in his work, and in his community work too. And then, of course, there is Paul East, who is a friend to all of us. But one of the QCs whom I have come across and whom I appeared opposite, but whom I expect to have contact with very soon, is, of course, Julian Miles. He is a very good performer in the court, and a very good advocate. We will see how he goes, of course, in proceedings in which I am involved, along with my colleague Trevor Mallard and, indeed, a well-known Cabinet Minister.

But, outstanding as all these representatives are, as outstanding as all these counsel are, one of the great virtues of the reforms that the last Labour Government led was that they allowed those who had won the respect of the profession and the right to have the title conferred on them of Senior Counsel to be drawn from a much wider berth. I think that was the good thing about it. The truth is that there are outstanding advocates who are not members of the so-called independent Bar. The two points I make about that are that, firstly, I know, because I have dealt with them in the employment field, members of the so-called independent Bar are embedded, to use a military term, in the commercial companies on whose behalf they are acting. They have a letterhead that suggests an independent chambers, but when you look closely at the address and when you meet them, they are actually at the commercial premises and the head office of the company for whom they are acting. That is one side of the independent Bar.

The other is that law firms themselves, certainly in their senior ranks and the senior partners of law firms, produce some, frankly, top performers. I think of people like Jack Hodder, who is a great constitutionalist, a great public lawyer, and a great partner of a law firm. Then I think of people like Mai Chen as well, who, similarly, is a partner of a law firm, but it would be hard to describe her as anything other than totally independent and fearless, on whichever side of the fence or the argument that she is advocating. So there is simply no call, there is no logic to the argument, that reinstating the rank of QC is about preserving the independence of the rank or elevating the independent Bar. It will not do that, because the independent Bar stands apart, we know who the top performers are, and they can be recognised irrespective of where they are in the profession. So it will be disappointing to take that backwards step.

Then, of course, the other rationale for this change is that we want to restore in name, at least, the links to the Crown or to the monarch. Well, we have been moving gradually away from that in so many other respects, and, much as we respect the role that the monarch plays in our constitution, the truth is that we have been increasingly independent as a nation—a genuine dominion, as we aspired to be at the beginning of last century, but genuinely independent, and it is disappointing that by reinstating the title QC we are taking that backward step. Notwithstanding that part of it, there is no question that there are important ways in which we can recognise those who are at the top of the profession and those who are excellent advocates without having to confer on them some mythical link to the Crown.

All those QCs, those respectable men and women whom I adumbrated just now, are people I have met, none of whom were representing the Crown when I worked with them, appeared opposite them, or did whatever. They were acting either in commercial or in public good capacities, and so they should—so good advocates should. That rank was conferred on those senior practitioners who had displayed an ability to argue both sides of difficult arguments, who had shown a willingness and an ability to take on what were often unpopular cases and put up with the public opprobrium that went with them, and because they could demonstrate how well they could perform in the profession—then they were conferred that title. Well, the only thing that the title gives now, really, is a marketing advantage, and, of course, the privilege that goes with being able to invoice at a much greater rate. I know a QC who today invoices at the rate of $14,000 a day. That is what QC-ship confers on someone, and it simply should not be that.

Let us recognise the top performers in our profession, recognising how important that is, but we do not need to do what this bill provides for. It is a backward step. Let us embrace modernity, let us move forward, and, for the profession that has modernised itself so much, let us continue with what we have and recognise all top performers, not with an anachronistic title but with a title that represents modern New Zealand.

SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a privilege to rise and speak to the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. I have a question at the outset of my contribution to this debate, and my question to the Government is simply this: is this the brighter future? Is this what National members meant when they campaigned on that slogan of a brighter future—taking us backwards with archaic references to privilege? That is what this bill, in fact, does, and I am proud to stand up and say that Labour opposes this bill. We oppose being dragged backwards to an area of privilege and archaic protection. That is all I can see in this bill, and I do not think it represents at all that idea that the Government was trying to convince the country of, which I think it is finding it harder and harder to maintain these days, which was that somehow it had a vision of this modern, this new future, a vision going forward when, in fact, here it is, once again, bringing in—and wasting the time of this Parliament with—a piece of legislation that actually takes us backwards.

It takes us backwards in a direction that I know that the Labour Party does not stand for. It takes us back into an area of snobbery—that is the best word I can use to describe this, actually. It uses Parliament’s time to change back to an old title, and I have yet to hear any Government member give us the evil that we are trying to fix here. What is the wrong that this bill is trying to fix? I have not heard one example yet from a Government member opposite about what the problem is—the practical problem, the really practical problem that everyday New Zealanders come across that is going to be fixed by changing the title Senior Counsel back to Queen’s Counsel. What is it, what is the evil, what is the wrong, what is the problem that this is trying to fix, because I cannot see it.

It was interesting to see that one of the few Government members who has taken a call on this bill was Tim Macindoe from Hamilton. I am really surprised to hear Tim Macindoe get up and make an impassioned speech on this. I do not think that this is what the people of Hamilton West sent him down to Parliament week after week to do—to get up and argue for privilege, as this bill does, and for snobbery, and for $40,000 a day, because we heard from my colleague Andrew Little that this title of Queen’s Counsel apparently allows people to charge up to $40,000 a day for ordinary New Zealanders to use their services if they have this title after their name. Well, that is not the vision that I have for the future of this country. But it is now showing quite a trend from this Government, because just a few weeks ago it was protecting privilege by spending taxpayer money to bail out Wanganui Collegiate School. It was doing that just days after it had cut funding for special education schools—close down special education schools, but put taxpayer money into protecting privilege through taxpayer money to keep Wanganui Collegiate School going. This bill reflects exactly that same situation, that same snobbery that comes from the National benches opposite.

And here we are in the lead-up to the final weeks before Parliament rises before Christmas. What is it in the justice portfolio that the Government thinks is most important to spend its time on? Well, today it is changing a title. It is changing a title for legal representation, and in changing that title it is spending time—taking up Parliament’s time—to do something that is unnecessary. If we kept the title as Senior Counsel, there is a particular part of this bill that we would not even need any longer. The title Senior Counsel does not actually reflect gender, and—this is unusual for me—I am going to argue here that we are doing a disservice by reflecting gender in this piece of legislation. By changing back from Senior Counsel, which does not have any gender connotation to it, to Queen’s Counsel, we have to draft up, and spend this country’s money on actually changing, a part of this law, because if suddenly we did not have a queen but we had a king, we would have to have a new section. We have to have a provision in here to take account of that change in gender of a ruler in a distant land.

LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora, Mr Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute in the Committee stage of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. This is a constitutional issue, and I actually do want to reiterate what my colleague Charles Chauvel said earlier in terms of this debate, because when you look at the history that started for us in 2002—yes, when we were in Government—there was a decision by Cabinet at that point in time to not only rename Queen’s Counsel but also look at the eligibility of that very privileged and special role within our society. So for us it was about creating the opportunity for all litigators, not just barristers sole, to have the opportunity to represent what is the highest office, I believe, for the legal profession. And why did we do that? I think we did that, actually, as a deliberate attempt to try to carve out for ourselves our own national identity as an independent country in a world where we have to recognise, and we will always recognise, that we were colonised by the British, and that we are part of the Commonwealth. It was actually starting to forge some of our own national identity. Within the framework of that debate and discussion, we decided that this was an area that we needed to reform. So we did create the title of Senior Counsel and we did change it from Queen’s Counsel, and I think we should remember that.

When I looked back at some of the debates—for example, those that occurred in 2005, when the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act came into force—it was very interesting to note that the Law Society, at that point in time, actually agreed with the change. It agreed with the fact that we should be enabling all of the people within the legal profession to have the opportunity. So the two primary drivers when we drove the change were about renaming it but also about the eligibility. It was a move towards New Zealand’s independence, as has been spoken about previously.

We did follow the UK and we followed Australia, and it is interesting when we look at other Commonwealth countries—for example, we have Senior Advocates in India, we have Senior Counsel in South Africa, and we have President’s Counsel in Sri Lanka. What we started to undertake was something that a lot of other Commonwealth countries had started to undertake, which was to actually look at what this role represented, or what this role was empowered to do, within the context of New Zealand being an independent sovereign nation. I guess that within modern democratic societies, and in a society such as ours, those are some of the challenges that we will face in the future. We do have to recognise in this discussion that we do have a constitutional reform process under way.

So when we look at the retrograde aspect of this particular piece of legislation, you do have to wonder where the motivation came from to put this piece of legislation through the House. It seems that it was initiated by the Attorney-General, the Hon Christopher Finlayson, in June 2009. So there was a commitment by the Government to do that, but I am not really sure why it would do that within the context of us as a country having these big discussions about the constitution of our country—the place of the Treaty of Waitangi, for example. What sort of a State do we want to create for our children of the future? It does seem to be a little bit at odds that we would be discussing a bill such as this within the context of that discussion.

I was in the House when the Oaths and Declarations (Upholding the Treaty of Waitangi) Amendment Bill was debated last week. It seemed that that was the primary rationale for National members not supporting the honourable Te Ururoa Flavell’s bill—it was because we were in the middle of a constitutional review. So they decided we should wait for that constitutional review to take place to then allow, for example, us as members of Parliament to decide, when we swear an oath, whether to also swear to uphold the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. So that was a really interesting, I guess, principle to make a decision on, and it seems that that principle is completely transferable within the context of our discussions around this bill.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): It has been interesting to hear the various contributions in this debate on Part 1 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill. I would like to begin by just acknowledging the Green member Julie Anne Genter and thanking her for her party’s expression of support for my amendment.

Just to pick up some of the points that have been made in the debate to date, the first speaker for the Government side talked about why this legislation is important from the point of view of restoring the independence of the senior Bar. But we have never really heard how that is to be brought about by this legislation. We have never really heard how the legislation creating the status of Senior Counsel and permitting lawyers who practise in firms in New Zealand, and others, to be appointed to senior status threatens the independence of the Bar.

Here is the point. All lawyers in New Zealand, be they barristers, or barristers and solicitors, or solicitors only, are subject to the same set of ethical obligations. The bar is set high on those standards. It does not matter whether one is practising at the Bar solely or in a firm. The same rules about conflicts of interest apply. The same rules about whether one is required to disclose a matter to a client apply. So this old-fashioned contention that somehow restoring QCs in the way that this bill would do preserves or enhances or restores the independence of the most senior of our lawyers by restricting the appointment to barristers only has never been proved.

There has never even been an explanation of that point from the Government and its sponsors. It is wrong. I suspect that the reason it has been advanced is that it is easier than saying “Well, we want this because it’s a nice way to preserve our monopoly.” That is really all that restricting appointment to the rank of QC to senior barristers will do. It will, as my colleague Lianne Dalziel said, from the moment of appointment enable them to charge a lot more because they have been recognised in this way.

The amendment that I have put forward does something important. It preserves the independent appointments procedure that currently exists for Senior Counsel. We accept that the Government has the numbers to do this—to put QCs back into the system—but we are asking whether or not Government members would at least consider with an open mind the benefits of keeping a bit of sunshine on the process.

Jackie Blue and Katrina Shanks and others will be interested in this little anecdote that I am about to relate. Recently a friend of mine joined chambers. He is a barrister. He is a good barrister; he is in good chambers. It was a nice thing to be able to go and celebrate with him. A number of other lawyers came up to me during the course of the evening and said to me “We’re really concerned about two aspects of this legislation. First of all, the restriction of the rank to barristers rather than to include practitioners in a firm, and we’re worried about going back to an old murky procedure—the old boy network.”

Guess what gender these lawyers were? They were my female colleagues. They said these things for this reason. It is much easier as a woman practising in the law to practise in a firm, partly because if you have ambitions to have a child, firms tend to have provisions around parental leave and around flexibility of work conditions if people want to try to combine family life with practising in a firm.

The Bar does not have that, and here is why. If you are going to be at the Bar you have to be what we would call in ordinary parlance an independent contractor. You cannot be employed by anybody. You cannot be in a partnership. You cannot form a safety net or pool your risk. You have to be on your own in terms of employment status. That is why we have had so few senior women in the profession reaching the utmost heights of SC or QC-dom, even though for probably 10 or 15 years now fully 50 percent of the graduates from our law schools have been women. It is really, really hard.

So to restrict the status to barristers sole and to go back to some murky appointments procedure where nobody really knows how you become a barrister—just that it has something to do with being on good terms with the Attorney-General, or the Solicitor-General, or the president of the Law Society, or a senior judge—is going to inevitably have the effect that fewer women are going to get appointed to the status. We are going to have less diversity at the top end of our legal profession.

All I am saying to members opposite is that if you think those are bad ideas, then you can let Chris Finlayson have the victory of going back to the title of QC. If you believe that that is a good thing you can have it, but by adopting my amendment, what you could also do is preserve the openness of the appointment procedures that we now have. You could actually help keep a bit of diversity in the senior levels of the Bar, rather than going back to the bad old days of the old boy network, which will inevitably happen if the legislation passes in its current form. And do not take my word for it; take the word of the people who came up to me recently at the event that I have described to you and listen to the fears that they expressed.

Dr Blue said: “Well, you know, this isn’t a bad thing, because the Bar Association asked for it.” With respect, Dr Blue, that is a bit like senior specialists in a particular medical profession saying “We would quite like not to have to be subject to a particular disciplinary regime, because it restricts our independence and our ability to apply best practice in our particular field.”

Of course, the union, the professional association representing a particular group of people, is going to want what is best for that group of people. That is its job. That is what it is doing when it puts that sort of submission forward. It does not mean it is in the public interest. It does not mean that the association is thinking about how best to preserve diversity at the most senior levels of our profession. It does not mean that it is thinking about how we ensure that the best public confidence exists in our senior lawyers by ensuring that they are appointed openly to a particular status and that they are appointed from as wide a background in the profession as possible, rather than restricting them to the Bar, where, just by economics, only a certain type of practitioner in New Zealand to date, in general, has been able to flourish. That is really all I am asking members in the Committee to think about. As I say, I thank one party in particular for having taken on board this idea. I hope others will consider it with an open mind.

Finally, I would just like to try to make a bit of an appeal to logic. We have talked about how the bill will generally revert to a system where only barristers can be made Queen’s Counsel. And yet there is a provision in section 119—119C, I think it is—in clause 6, that says that none of all that really matters because the royal prerogative as to the appointment of Queen’s Counsel is preserved by this legislation. That is the provision under which Paul East had himself appointed Queen’s Counsel before he went off to argue the French atmospheric testing case in the world court.

Presumably, that is the clause upon which will be relied to make Mr Finlayson a Queen’s Counsel, because under the statutory procedure he is not practising as a barrister. He is a member of this House, and he is excluded, as far as I can see, by the provisions of the bill. So even under this legislation the Government has got a “Well, we can do whatever we like.” clause. To me, that undermines the logic of the position that Mr Macindoe took earlier—that somehow this legislation is vital to restoring the independence of the senior Bar.

Well, that cannot be if the Government is still going to have an out clause allowing it to invoke the royal prerogative at any time, which means that the Attorney-General can go off and see the Governor-General at any stage and say “Sir, I advise you to appoint the following people to the rank.”, whether or not they are solicitors, whether or not they are working at a senior level in local government, whether or not they are the chief legal adviser in a particular Government entity, and whether or not they are a sitting MP. That is the flaw of this bill, and it is why I am trying to get some better sense into it.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 136 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to Part 1 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Charles Chauvel to Part 1 be agreed to:

to delete clause 4(b);

to replace the title of section 119C in clause 6 with “Royal prerogative power and appointments under section 119 unaffected, except as provided for by this section”; and

to insert after section 119C(2) in clause 6:

(3) When a candidate is to be considered for appointment to the office of Queen’s Counsel, whether under the royal prerogative or otherwise, the requirements of the Lawyers and Conveyancers’ Act (Lawyers: Senior Counsel and Queen’s Counsel) Regulations 2008, and any guidelines issued under regulation 5 of those regulations, shall continue in effect, with necessary modifications, until amended, replaced or revoked by a further Act of Parliament.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Noes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendments not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That Part 1 as amended be agreed.

Ayes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments relating to other matters

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): When the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act was originally passed, it made one or two significant changes to the way in which the legal profession was run in New Zealand. First of all, it recognised and conferred particular recognition on a class of practitioners who were not lawyers but who were registered conveyancers—people who had gained some expertise in the art of conveying property and in satisfying the legal requirements in New Zealand that would be required in such circumstances. The policy background here was to introduce some competition into the system so that the virtual monopoly that had been enjoyed by lawyers previously on this important type of work might be interrupted and prices might come down.

The lawyers and conveyancers legislation went further. It allowed law firms and firms of conveyancers to do something that had not been permitted previously. Previously there had been a requirement that these entities operate only as partnerships and that they not be able to limit their collective liabilities. Basically, every act or deed done by one of these firms would be something that would result in liability for every partner in the firm and would not be able to be contracted out of. The legislation allowed for the incorporation of these entities. It sought to preserve the liability regime that I have described, but, basically, looked at ways to make them more bankable, for want of a better way of describing it.

There are a couple of sensible machinery amendments in Part 2 of this legislation that are consequent on those changes. They relate to the position of the estates, the wills, and the trusts of those who have become involved in conveyancing law firms that are incorporated as a trustee of a trust in which each beneficiary is a relative of one or more of the trustees and each trustee is a conveyancing practitioner, in the case of the registered practitioners, or is a lawyer actively involved in the provision of the body corporate of regulated services. They are sensible changes. There are also changes to the disciplinary regime that applies to lawyers. Applications for a review by the legal complaints review officer of a particular decision or action of a standards committee will have to be lodged within a 30-day working period commencing on the day after a copy or notice of the decision or action is brought to the applicant’s attention. We have always said that we support these amendments. They are sensible. It is just a shame that, although we will be voting for this part, because of the provisions that are contained in Part 1 to which we take strong exception, we will be voting against the bill as a whole.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 136 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 3

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): I foreshadowed in my earlier contributions that I thought this bill, the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill, probably would merit some different titling than the one that it has managed to end up with. First of all, this bill is clearly part of the Minister of Justice’s charm offensive with certain parts of the legal profession, part of her attempt to soften her image as the crusher of cars and the enactor of “three strikes” legislation. I would like to propose that we consider another title for this legislation. Perhaps it is the “Softening of Crusher’s Image with the Senior Bar Bill”, because, clearly, that is going to be one of the potential effects of the legislation.

As Dr Blue said, the Bar Association really wants this legislation to be passed. Well, of course it does, because it means that it will remedy the drought that has occurred for 5 years because Chris Finlayson has refused to appoint any Senior Counsel under the existing legislation. So what has happened to our profession? It has had no senior appointments made, while all the Australian states and territories have had Senior Counsel appointments made in them every year. We should remember, as we think about perhaps another alternative title for this bill, the “Luck of the Australians Bill”, that all those Senior Counsel appointed in Australian states and territories are entitled to practise in New Zealand. What the Attorney-General has done, by failing to make the appointments that he is entitled to make under the legislation for the last 4 or 5 years in New Zealand, is he has put those Australian Senior Counsel at a massive competitive advantage against the leaders of our profession, who have had to sit around waiting for action to be taken around what status or rank would be accorded to senior New Zealand lawyers.

While they have waited without any sort of title or rank being conferred upon them, guess what has happened to those Australian lawyers? Well, as a result of the Canterbury earthquake, they have been the ones whom the big insurance companies have commissioned to write the major opinions on liability over the earthquake, they are the ones who have been looked to to give opinions on whether or not litigation should occur, and they have been the ones who have sat there thinking “Mmm, I wonder whether it’s worth going and litigating this case or that case in the New Zealand Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court?”, as they are entitled to do. So that could well be another alternative title.

Of course, yet another title could be the “Chris Finlayson (I’m Going to See Myself Appointed a QC Come Hook or By Crook) Bill”, because it seems to me that that is a motivation that we cannot ignore here. We know that the Attorney-General was very sad when Michael Cullen took advice, and then acted on it, that he could not really in good faith give him the appointment of QC at the time, because he really did not qualify. So here we see a tradition in the National Party being fulfilled. I mentioned earlier that Paul East had himself appointed as a QC in the 1990s when he was the Attorney-General. At least in that case Paul East was heading the Government legal team. He had John McGrath, the Solicitor-General at the time, as his junior in the litigation team in the International Court of Justice, which was designed to seek to prevent France from resuming underground nuclear testing at Mururoa, and it was thought that it was appropriate that the New Zealand legal team should be headed by the most senior rank of lawyer available.

Clearly, when the Solicitor-General, himself a Queen’s Counsel, was going to be the junior in the case, the Attorney-General, who outranks the Solicitor-General in the order of precedence, could hardly appear without some sort of rank clothing him. So it is understandable how Mr East came to have himself appointed as a QC in those circumstances. It remains to be seen whether Mr Finlayson’s lust for status will be clothed in similarly respectable garb, or whether it will simply end up being a more naked grab for such status. But these are all titles that would be equally apt for this legislation, because they do describe the reality of the situation.

Given what I said earlier about what the effect of this bill will be, another fair title for it would be the “Let’s Keep Diversity Out of the Senior Ranks of our Legal Profession Bill”, because that, undoubtedly, will be the effect of this legislation. I said earlier that for a long time now women graduates from our law schools have been, I think, over 50 percent of the out-take every year. Yet survey after survey of the profession shows that very, very few women manage to get to the absolute top of the Bar. We do have a few, and they are outstanding. It is wonderful to be able to acknowledge that and to work with those people, as my colleague Andrew Little pointed out. I say that without any hint, I hope, of sounding patronising. They are amongst the best lawyers in the country.

But there are fewer of them, and there is a reason for that, and it is the reason that I explained earlier. It is much harder to have to work as an independent contractor than it is to be able to pool one’s risk, if one wants to have a family and work. And requiring appointments to be made from the Bar only does exactly that. It says to those who want to found a family or who want to do something else with their life, other than just work every hour God gave, that if they want to do that then they can, but they have got to find a way to pay for it themselves. So saying that you cannot be a QC if you want to be in a firm or you want to find some other way to support yourself, even though you might be the most brilliant legal practitioner this country has ever produced, is what this bill will do. It will inevitably have an effect on lessening the diversity at the most senior levels of our Bar. That, to me, is one of the most lamentable things about this retrograde step that this Parliament is taking today.

But perhaps the best way that we could describe this legislation, given the voting down of my amendment earlier—and I thank the other parties who supported it, including New Zealand First and the Mana Party; I have already acknowledged the Greens and, of course, my Labour colleagues—and the saddest thing about getting rid of the transparency that currently exists in the appointment process for, now, Senior Counsel, soon to be Queen’s Counsel, is this: nobody really knows how QCs become QCs. It is a murky process. It is a process where whom you know matters much more than who you are. I want to relate one story about this, but before I do I am going to propose that a better title for this legislation would be the “It’s Not What You Know But Who You Know Bill”, because that is what we are doing here.

I have a friend who is a very, very able lawyer. He practises at the Bar in Auckland, or he did until a couple of years ago when he retired. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have made a very fine Senior Counsel or QC, and a friend of mine who sits in the High Court agrees. That judge took up this man’s cause at the time of the last appointments round for Queen’s Counsel, and was told that because this candidate was not well known to the judges who sit around in the common room in the High Court in Auckland, really, he needed to get a bit better known, put his name about, maybe get a bit more active in the Auckland District Law Society, perhaps join the golf club and play a bit more golf with the lawyers concerned. Well, this is the reality of what we are condemning a lot of our practitioners to. We are saying “Look, the National Party thinks the old boys’ network works best.” It wants to see more of its own appointed to the most senior ranks of our lawyers, and it has gone about this by ensuring that we are voting down the retention of an appropriately transparent process.

In every other area of our society we are being transparent, and yet in the one area that causes the most grief and the most mystery to ordinary New Zealanders—how do you get a lawyer that you are concerned about disciplined or held to account; how do you get a judge in that situation held to account—we are going backwards. We are saying in order to become the most respected and senior type of lawyer in this country, well, it is going back to hocus pocus, and that is the saddest thing about this legislation.

ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): Again I express my disappointment that at a time when the country, we like to think, is rapidly modernising, when in every sphere of the labour market we are looking to diversity, and we are looking to inclusive means to grow and nurture and develop the relevant workforce, this bill, the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill, takes us backwards. It takes us back to an age of privilege, to exclusivity, to focusing not on those who may be the best legal minds but on those who have the right connections and can persuade the right people at the right time in order to achieve the right appointment.

This bill might be better titled the “Lawyers and Conveyancers Return to Exclusive Privilege Bill” or the “Lawyers and Conveyancers Return to Inexplicable and Undeserved Exclusivity Bill”, because that is what is happening with this bill. The legal profession is very important, and those who practise at its most senior levels, those who are most experienced, are those whom we need to retain, because—let us face it—many lawyers, many senior practitioners, suffer the same temptations and are often offered the same blandishments as those in other walks of life. The prospect of early retirement, of spending one’s twilight years on the golden sandy shores of various beaches of the nation—those sorts of things—is very tempting, and yet they are people who have much to offer in the practice of law and in the prosecution of the very important role that they play in the courts of this land.

Yet, this bill says that we are now going to go back to a time when a small number of people, a small coterie—the Attorney-General and those who are close to the figures of the establishment and the Government of the day—will select those who have chosen to go to what is, I think, now incorrectly named the Independent Bar because the independence, at least in some cases, is open to question. Those who are in the Independent Bar will qualify whereas those who are senior practitioners and excellent advocates in other parts of the profession will not qualify, and that is such a bad step.

At a time when the legal profession is reorganising itself into a more coherent organisation, offering up better oversight and greater discipline amongst the profession and setting ever higher standards, this legislation will take us back to an age and an era that did not promote and encourage that. It promoted the rubbing of the right shoulders—that is to say shoulder to shoulder, not the massaging approach that might otherwise have been suggested by that turn of phrase.

Those in the gentlemen’s clubs of the nation, who knew each other well and could speak highly of each other—often with the correct accent, nurtured by King’s College or even Christ’s College and those elite schools of the nation—could well find themselves as candidates to be a QC if they had those contacts and those connections. Because of the exclusivity of the nature of the appointment, it gave them a market advantage. That is what it was often seen as—as a marketing advantage—and they could charge a higher fee. Well, that is not what we want to see in the senior ranks of any profession much less the legal profession.

That is why we need to know, if we are going to see true development and the application and the prosecution of the rule of law in our courts, that in our courts of justice and our tribunals the people who are operating at the most senior ranks represent the diversity that we are seeing in so many other spheres in New Zealand. That is why it is important, if we are going to have this bill—and it looks like there is an inevitability about it—that it properly reflects what is happening. But this bill represents a retrograde step, a backward step. It is not embracing modernity and the modern approach we would expect in a modern profession in a modern country that is seeking to fight its way and find its way through the world.

For that reason we will oppose this bill, disappointingly and grudgingly as that may be, because it will not improve the profession or those who operate within it or, most important, those who aspire to its senior ranks and to be the senior practitioners of tomorrow.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I wish to participate in this part of the debate on the title and commencement clauses of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill that we have in front of us. I participated in the debate on Part 1 of the bill, and I made a couple of points that I would like to reiterate in the sense that where this legislation has its commencement date does in fact relate to the specific proposals in respect of the title of Queen’s Counsel.

I think that the disappointment that we have expressed on this side of the Chamber actually relates to the fact that the date that the legislation itself is due to come into force is, presumably by way of Supplementary Order Paper 136, updated from 1 July 2010, which was the date that it was intended to take effect when this bill was actually originally referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. It has obviously been at the select committee for some time, as Supplementary Order Paper 136 now has the bill coming into effect on 3 December 2012.

I thought this was quite interesting, because when the legislation was originally—in actual fact, I think it is the clause by clause analysis of the bill that is incorrect. Oh, no, no—Part 1 was always due to come into force on 1 July 2010, but clause 2 in Supplementary Order Paper 136 requires that we replace 1 July 2011 with 3 December 2012. I am just wondering whereabouts one can replace the words “1 July 2011” if they do not appear in the legislation. I wonder whether that is correct or incorrect.

Charles Chauvel: The Minister in the chair will know.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: The Minister in the chair, the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, perhaps could get some advice from her officials and perhaps respond to us, because the way that it reads at the moment in the commencement clause is that it says in clause 2 that “Part 1 comes into force on 1 July 2010.” That has not been amended at the select committee. The Minister of Justice’s Supplementary Order Paper 136 says in clause 2: “In clause 2(1), replace “1 July 2011” (line 5 on page 2)…”. Well, line 5 on page 2 says “Part 1 comes into force on 1 July 2010.” on the copy I have got, so maybe I have lost something. Maybe I have got the original copy—oh, yes, I have got the original copy. It has been updated since it was referred back from the select committee, so it has obviously been at the select committee for a long time. Obviously my colleague—my very honourable colleague Charles Chauvel—has handed me an old copy of the bill and not the reported-back version from the select committee, because I see that it is in the name of—

Charles Chauvel: Nathan Guy.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: —Nathan Guy, who is presumably not the Minister who is taking this through now, is he? Is it back in the name of the Minister or—

Louise Upston: Are you on the right bill?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Hmm? Do we know whose name the bill is in?

Charles Chauvel: Collins is moving the Supplementary Order Paper.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: It is back with the Minister of Justice, so it has been diverted back to her.

But, anyway, the question that obviously the select committee had to deal with at such a—oh, yes, here we go. Now we have got the copy of the bill that was reported back from the select committee. It says “Part 1 comes into force on …”, and “1 July 2010” has been struck out and replaced with “1 July 2011”, and now this is being replaced by Supplementary Order Paper 136 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins with “3 December 2012”. That, of course, is not very far away, and no doubt that is why we are seeing this bill passed into law through Parliament at this stage.

The bill is, though, I guess, a particular shame and disappointment to this side of the Chamber. We think that in modernising the way our legal system operates, we could create a distance from our traditional past in the UK. Seeing the previous position of Senior Counsel being replaced with the reinstated position of Queen’s Counsel is, I think, a retrograde step. I think it is very disappointing that Parliament is having to deal with this in this way.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Clause 1 agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 136 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins to clause 2 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Amendment agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 3 be agreed to.

Ayes 64

New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Noes 57

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Electronic Identity Verification Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): We seem to have got to this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, with extraordinary speed this afternoon. I was actually thinking that we might not get to this bill until after the dinner break, but I am delighted that we have.

This is a bill that I was very pleased to have at our select committee, the Government Administration Committee, and one that, although it did not provoke a lot of debate and discussion in terms of the number of submissions we had, was certainly of great interest. It posed to our committee the tension that people have—perhaps not so much the younger generation; you know, people of the age of my colleague Kris Faafoi would not be as concerned as perhaps older people of my generation and even older than me—that is, the anxiety that some people feel about the use of their personal identity in an electronic form. That really was at the heart of our discussions. That tension exists because there is that anxiety, but at the same time the use of electronic procedures for people to access information—to have data or information shared for people to gain information for themselves, which may be dependent on them providing their personal identification—has huge advantages.

The balancing trick, if you like, for our committee was to consider that anxiety: that the improper use of people’s identity information—identity fraud, as we are very familiar with in this House—that the possible abuse of people’s identification, or that, by giving their personal information, some other individual being able to access information about them or others by using it could be possible. This is quite a big deal. It is an important thing. We know, for example, that there are a very large number of scams where people’s credit cards are used inappropriately—about 2,000 each day—where there is credit card fraud or identify theft, or some spam, some virus, that is given, and people have not been asked.

Of course, we have had very recent examples raised in this House of privacy breaches. We have seen a large number in Government departments, and, actually, I think we should consider ourselves fortunate that the committee considered this bill prior to the most recent major breaches of Work and Income through its kiosks, where just a regular person off the street, more or less, was able to gain access to totally inappropriate information without doing anything illegally. I think that the committee may have had a large number more submissions had it been considering this legislation at the time that the Work and Income kiosk fiasco was being undertaken.

Dr David Clark: 6,300 people affected in the IRD breach.

Hon RUTH DYSON: My colleague Dr David Clark from Dunedin North has just told me there were 6,300 people identified in an Inland Revenue Department breach. So, as I say, the fact that our committee considered this bill some time ago, and it is now just getting to this Committee stage, is hugely advantageous, I think, because otherwise we may have been considering it in quite a different environment.

The principles that are outlined in Part 1 of this bill were agreed to. This had cross-party agreement. They were not difficult issues. We wanted to make sure that people were not obliged to give out their personal details in order to access information, but we knew that, as people became more confident with the system, it would certainly evolve. We had also the absolute understanding of what information was able to be shared between different agencies, obviously not for a different purpose than a person who gave that authority agreed to. Also there are other matters that people might not have considered, such as the principle of people being able to access their own history: what has their own history been used for in terms of this electronic identity credential?

There was no debate or division at all in the committee about the principles that were set up. What we were primarily concerned about was the issues I referred to earlier—that tension that exists between people electronically giving authority to access information or to share information, against the advantages that are clearly of most benefit to the Government departments and agencies in terms of convenience, in terms of lower transaction costs, but also just in terms of basic efficiency. But, actually, it is hugely advantageous to the person themselves. We all know that as things like phone banking and internet banking have evolved, no matter how much we said we actually really like the face-to-face exchanges, it is also—although face-to-face exchanges are really pleasant—very convenient for people to be able to have electronic access to a wide number of services.

I omitted earlier in this debate to acknowledge the Minister. Minister Chris Tremain is responsible for this legislation, and I just want to put on the record a note of acknowledgment to him for guiding it through to this Committee stage. I also want to acknowledge that the bill was introduced by his predecessor, the Hon Nathan Guy, and during previous discussions on this bill both have been very helpful in terms of listening to members who have spoken. I also want to acknowledge the members of the Government Administration Committee. I think over the coming weeks we will look back on this legislation with a considerable amount of fondness, because it received only a couple of submissions. To my recollection there were only 12—was it? I thought it was nine, perhaps 12. It was not very many, anyway, compared with legislation that is before our committee at the moment. The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill is likely to exceed 12 submitters on that particular legislation, I would imagine, as we hear that bill.

I know that we have amendments later on in this debate, but I do not think there are any Supplementary Order Papers that cover any of Part 1. I hope that is the case, because I am about to conclude my contribution. I might have to take another call if there is an amendment to Part 1. But I will just conclude by saying that Labour is very pleased to support this bill. I note that the way we have dealt with it—and I hope the Minister in the chair, the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, is able to answer any questions that are posed to her during the Committee stage of the bill—and considered it at the committee, and made a large number of amendments that I understand have got the support of the House, should give the rest of the House confidence that the bill can progress without further amendments other than that outlined in Supplementary Order Paper 128. Thank you.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): First of all, I would like to congratulate the House and wish it a happy Diwali. Today is the actual day of Diwali, which we also celebrated last week in Parliament. The Sikhs celebrate today’s date as Bandi Chhor Divas, so I wish all the Indians all over New Zealand a happy Diwali.

I would like to acknowledge the chair of the Government Administration Committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson, and other members of the committee who have worked during the select committee process. The purpose of this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, as we have shared in the second reading, is to simplify and enhance service to ordinary New Zealanders. The bill will endeavour to do so by simplifying the interaction that an individual has with Government agencies.

The bill seeks to ensure that participating agencies achieve a higher degree of confidence in the individual’s identity. This confidence is to be achieved by providing New Zealanders with the option of verifying their identity electronically. The bill provides the necessary legislative parameters for the igovt Electronic Identity Verification Service, which provides easier and more secure access to online Government services.

Once fully implemented, the service will be able to be used by all New Zealanders for a wide range of online transactions offered by the Government and private sector agencies. Using igovt will allow people to avoid repeatedly having to provide physical documents to multiple agencies in order to use online services. Currently, for these kinds of interactions agencies usually require people to provide several documents as evidence of their identity, but the bill ensures that the process is much easier while still having appropriate control and a safeguard. The Government is committed to providing people with the facilities for this modern age, and I hope this bill will be a step further. Thank you.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I want to thank members opposite and the members of the Green Party who were involved in the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, and to compliment the Hon Ruth Dyson on her chairing of the Government Administration Committee. I think this bill and a measure that will follow are bills where there was a considerable amount of agreement amongst members as to the direction. Where there were changes that we wanted to make to the legislation, there was, I think, good consideration taken of the suggestions, and the committee ended up with the sort of unanimity that can be had if people listen to evidence, consider submissions, make some changes, and act in a way that is designed to get sustainable legislation, rather than things that are highly politicised and likely to change.

The igovt identity verification service has been in place for a couple of years now, for people wanting to authenticate their identity in their interactions with the Department of Internal Affairs in respect of the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry. But it has been something that has been very limited. What this bill does is allow the service to expand in its availability to all members of the public, and allow more agencies to use this service to identify the clients. What it does, effectively, is reduce the hassle of people having to submit documents over and over again. I might say, having recently dealt with the Department of Internal Affairs on the question of a passport renewal, that the changes that have occurred in recent years around the simplification, and not having to provide the same documentation again and again on renewal, is something that I think is real progress, if it can be continued—and if we go back to what is effectively an old-fashioned notion about the indivisibility of Government. The Crown is not meant to be divisible. You deal with the Crown. I think the way that we have developed over the last 20, 30, or 50 years has been that we have been dealing with ministries and departments in their own separate silos, and in quite different ways, and with different standards, rather than dealing with the Crown as a whole. My view is that what this bill does is allow for individuals to deal with the Crown as a whole, and I think that is something that is very useful.

I think it is fair to say that since this bill was introduced there have been some questions around the security of information held by the Crown. I am not absolutely certain that this bill would have had a clean run through the select committee process if it had been introduced 3 months or 6 months later than it was. I think that at that stage there might have been quite a lot more debate around it. But my view is that the principles that are involved in it, and the legislation itself, are OK. But I think that what has happened since—and I am sure there will be further discussion as we go through the Committee stage—will mean there will be more focus on security and proper arrangements around the legislation, and on the examples of the multiple ACC leaks, both the ones that, hopefully, might be viewed as careless, out of the ACC, and those that appear to have been deliberate, which have come from sources yet to be finally established. But I think what we are focusing on at the moment is a Crown with a series of departments and other Crown entities where there are some real questions around the security of personal information. As we head into an electronic identity verification service, people will want to know that their information is not going to be accidentally disclosed through this sort of system.

It is not as if ACC has been the only case, and it is not as if Judith Collins has been the only Minister in charge of the sorts of breaches that have occurred. There have been some in the Inland Revenue Department that I regard very seriously. I think the idea that one’s information is held by the Inland Revenue Department and that it is sacrosanct is something that is very important, as it is, frankly, with Work and Income. The fact that there have been, through the various portals, the availability of, and the fact of, massive breaches is something that we will have to consider as we work our way through the legislation. Then, of course, more recently there has been the Novopay breach that became apparent over the last 4 or 5 days—the fact that a lot of personal information of individuals has been made available. I think all of those things slowly reduce people’s trust in the ability of the Crown as a whole to hold information securely. A system like this, which is a voluntary system, is going to depend on people trusting the Crown to hold the information.

I think my colleagues know that some of my views on this information are somewhat different, and I do not necessarily have strong views, as others do, in this area, in that I think there are a lot of things that would be simpler. I think a small microchip in an earring could be something that would be quite useful for people carrying their information around and sharing it with Government departments. It would mean that you could have a consistent approach and the information could be updated, and, through that—well, Mr Chairperson Tisch, I think that as a rural member you would be aware of the advantages of eartagging and the electronic systems that are available.

I might say that in my electorate the Times-7 group has some very good systems. They are somewhat questionable as to their privacy, but they use it for conference systems that show where at a particular conference individuals are. People wear a tag, either a badge or something on a lanyard around their neck, and as they go through particular doors it shows that they are at this particular seminar or that seminar. I think, unfortunately, it has shown on a number of—[Interruption] No, it is not quite the same as the badges that we carry, because one does not have to swipe these ones; one just passes through a door and one’s identity is recorded. But unfortunately for some people recently at a real estate conference in Auckland it recorded not only the fact that they went in but the fact that they went out, and on occasions people’s long absences were noted, and sometimes grouped, and that I think led to some questions of privacy, and lack thereof.

I am sure that we are not heading towards that sort of system with this, but what I hope, and it might take 5 or 10 years, and a development of trust in the Government and its ability to hold information securely, and to respect people’s privacy—[Interruption] Well, a change of Government, obviously. There has got to be a change of Government before that happens, and a building of trust. But I hope that eventually this sort of system becomes more or less universal, and that we do have standard systems that people are all prepared to be part of. I hope that in that way we have a simpler system, and we do not end up with multiple systems, with some people bringing their paper—

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I will comment only briefly on Part 1 of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. I note that it is intended to regulate the operation of the Electronic Identity Verification Service to give individuals using the internet the option of using a secure channel to verify their identities and to access services from approved Government and non-Government agencies.

I myself, like, I guess, thousands—probably tens of thousands—of New Zealanders, use the igovt service. I find that it is a service that is secure, very efficient, very usable, and a good means of doing business on the internet, which, of course, does need to be secure and also needs to protect the privacy of individuals. That is the sort of service that we need in the country to be extended to other agencies, and that is, in fact, what the bill does and intends to do. It is, therefore, one that New Zealand First enthusiastically supports. It is the way of the world these days, and it is what is expected of the Government by the public.

The provisions of the bill will expand the service to all members of the public and will allow more agencies to use the service to identify their clients. As I have already indicated, I think privacy is an extremely important aspect of this, and one that I believe, with the safeguards that have been provided in the bill, is well catered for in the way that this bill has been put together. The Privacy Commissioner also, of course, has an appropriate role.

Later I will have some comments to make on some aspects of that—in particular, some comments to make later about penalties, but that can wait until, I think, Part 3 of the bill. For the time being I wish to record New Zealand First’s overall support for the bill—indeed, enthusiastic support for the bill—which is one that will be applauded by most members of the public, especially those who use the internet a lot.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I would like to take a call in the Committee stage of this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. Part 1 is talking about the principles that lie behind this bill, and it is important to take a minute to think about what they are. They are about security of information, they are about privacy of individuals’ information, and they are also about having confidence in the system.

As we have discussed in this House a number of times, Labour supports this bill, and we support the intent behind it. It is not a majorly controversial bill, but what is controversial is the adequacy of information management systems in Government agencies—whether the public thinks that those systems are secure, whether individuals’ information is actually kept private, and whether there is public confidence in the system. I put to you today in this Committee that I do not think we can have any confidence right now that, right across the Government agencies, there are adequate systems in place to ensure that those principles are being upheld.

The bill actually talks about secure channels of information for individuals using the internet, it talks about accessing services from approved agencies, and it talks about containing minimal personal information. I think in the current context all of those phrases should be ringing warning bells. I think one of my colleagues actually tweeted today in relation to the Government’s management of the economy and jobs and described it as an omnishambles, which I thought was a very apt term. But I thought it was just as apt, if not more apt, in relation to this issue, which is essentially about the adequacy and the security of individuals’—of citizens’—private information in Government agencies and how that is being accessed.

That is what this bill is about, so I think, in terms of providing a recipe for confidence in the ability of the Government to deliver a secure verification service of any kind, that today that is a bit of a joke. I wonder how the Government members can sit across there with straight faces and debate this bill while they have got enormous holes in IT systems—across at least four of their main agencies—that concern the privacy of New Zealanders’ information. I would also say that I think the confidence of the public in these systems has been shaken, if not lost.

In defence of the bill, this service has been in place since December 2009—so it is not as if it is a completely new service that is being introduced—so that people can authenticate their identities and their interactions with the Department of Internal Affairs, but in a very limited capacity. This bill is going to expand the availability of that service to all members of the public and allow more agencies to use the service to identify their clients, and I think that is where the warning bells should currently be ringing until—until—it can be demonstrated that the public of New Zealand can be reassured that this system is going to provide the security that is required. That is why Labour introduced a member’s bill into the ballot last week titled the Electronic Data Safety Bill, which goes to the very heart of this issue.

I know that other colleagues are going to reference some of the other agencies that have been affected, but recently, as we all know, a member of the public was able to download more than 7,000 documents from the Ministry of Social Development’s network through the Work and Income self-service kiosks. Those documents included very sensitive information, such as medical invoices about children in the care of Child, Youth and Family, personal information about people receiving benefits, the names of people being investigated for benefit fraud, the name of a person who had committed suicide, and pay rates for individual contractors employed by the Ministry of Social Development. Those things are very serious. Previous breaches have occurred in other agencies. We know they have occurred in the Inland Revenue Department, we know they have occurred in ACC, and we know they are occurring currently in the Novopay system through the Ministry of Education. Previous breaches in other agencies have highlighted the need for a systematic inquiry into the adequacy of information management systems in all Government agencies, which is what this bill seeks to address.

So by all means let us put this bill through the House, but, before we do that, let us have a bit of a look at the adequacy of information management systems across all Government agencies so that the people of New Zealand can be reassured. Let us put in place and make sure that there is an adequate system for information management across all Government agencies, that they have robust protocols, that they are resourced adequately with the correct level of skills, and that that management system has a governance that transcends the individual agencies, and then let us look at bringing this particular bill through the House.

I would say that the big issue for us to be discussing right now is the culture. This is a culture issue around privacy and security in the Government agencies. It is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that that culture is the right culture to ensure that the privacy and security of information can be assured. That is what needs to be changed within the public sector if we are going to stop these sorts of things happening.

Just going back to the Ministry of Social Development kiosk debacle, the thing is that we know that the report showed that the issue was known about back in 2009 and that people were reminded a number of times about it. The report that was commissioned was good, but we need to be assured that the ministry is actually going to take note of all the recommendations that have been made and of all the security-related issues that have been identified. The issues that were identified in 2009 were paid lip-service to, essentially. They still pressed ahead with the kiosks. They called the network issues an acceptable risk. But if there was proper IT governance and accountability, it just simply would not have happened. That accountability and governance need to happen at the highest possible levels. The project should not have progressed until it had been signed off by somebody senior who was an accountable professional and who could make damn sure there was a proper elevation structure in place that did not proceed with those issues unresolved. That is what the problem is.

If we are looking at introducing and widening another system, which is what we are debating today, then where is the accountability on it, and where is the accountability on the other side of the House around all of these issues at the highest possible level, not just in one agency but across all of those agencies? It has been put to me by the industry that as with every other profession and vocation, there is professional accountability. It is imperative that the Government is involved in ensuring that there is a minimum level of experience, education, and ethics for senior professionals who are in a position to sign off major projects, and then holds them professionally accountable for those standards in the same way as in every other field.

I would like to put it to you today that although this bill is supported by Labour, it is raising warning bells again around another system that is being put in place without the appropriate measures behind the system that is being widened. In at least four major agencies across this Government there are serious systemic problems, and they need to be addressed.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): It is a pleasure and, indeed, a privilege to stand and speak in favour of this particular bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. I too would like to acknowledge the chairmanship of Ruth Dyson and the contribution by, actually, all members of the Government Administration Committee. It is a neat little select committee, the Government Administration Committee. It is small. It allows for a lot of consideration and a lot of good debate. We have an interesting blend of experience. A bill like this one, in spite of the last two speakers’ contributions, is basically not really a partisan bill. It allows for open consideration. Indeed, that was the way it was handled. It was a pleasure to handle. It was particularly good to receive the carefully considered responses of officials to the points we raised, and there were a number of issues that were taken into account. So from that point of view, as I said, it has been a pleasure to be involved with this bill.

I have been listening carefully to the contributions that have been given so far, and I think there were some take-home points brought up by the Hon Trevor Mallard, who said that there is anxiety over electronic sharing. That was something that we very carefully considered in considering this bill. Listening to the last speaker, Clare Curran, she went to some extent to express her concern. Indeed, I was put in mind to some extent of H G Wells’ The First Men in the Moon and the concern about Selenites and central control. I was reminded of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s novel of the horrors of our future, and, indeed, of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. In the film of it, they had Orson Welles smoking and shrieking out: “We live in an age of anxiety. We are the victims of our own technological strengths. We are the victims of future shock.” I can remember when Future Shock came out. It gave people a little bit of concern. Life did not actually turn out that way, though. Life did not turn out that way.

Although I think the criticism that has been expressed by the previous speakers of things that have gone wrong is fair, let us remember that it is always important to view systems with great care, and with great recognition of human error, technological deficiencies, and unforeseen vulnerabilities. This is what happens when you introduce new systems. The development of trust is something that will come only, in my view, with experience. I do not make light of the seriousness of the technological errors that have occurred and have been referred to today, but it does, let us remember, take an exception to prove the rule. It is not as if the problems that have occurred have been ignored. They have been and are being attended to, and were taken very seriously.

So with this particular bill, what does it do? Let us look at Part 1. Basically, the bill contributes to the Government’s reforms to achieve better public services—in particular, result 10 of the Better Public Services programme, which is that “New Zealanders can complete their transactions with the Government easily in a digital environment.” I remember being approached by a constituent in Motueka, who said that I could repeat his story. It is the story of his son, who is in his 20s. His son has an incurable condition, and it requires him to liaise frequently with up to six or eight Government departments. He consistently has to produce fresh identification information in hard copy—original documents, and all that sort of thing—on a very frequent basis. It is tedious. It just emphasises to the family again that he has this difficulty in which he is not going to get improvement. One of the consistent questions that he is asked is whether his condition has improved. He has a condition that will not improve. And so I think back to him, when I see that invalids who repeatedly need to supply information will be able to do so electronically using this identification system. I think of all the times when, as a rural-based JP, we had people come fair distances for me to verify copies of identification. All these things will be far better dealt with. The other parts of the debate—

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is always a pleasure to follow Mr Auchinvole. As he started with a pop culture and film reference, I would like to do the same and remind everyone of that movie in the early 2000s Enemy of the State. It is a good movie, where Will Smith, a simple US lawyer, had his identity stolen. Although that was a beaten-up Hollywood story, there is serious concern—

Andrew Little: I thought it was a documentary!

KRIS FAAFOI: —it was not a documentary, it was a Hollywood film—out in the community and tension in the community. As my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson mentioned, now we are living in a much increased digital age, people are very concerned about the worry of identity theft. We have all received those emails from the ASB bank, or whatever bank you may be a customer of, asking for your details. We know to just delete them, but unfortunately there are some people out there who do respond to them, and find themselves having their bank accounts cleaned out.

I want to just reiterate also at the beginning a theme that a number of my colleagues have mentioned, and that is that the journey of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill would have been much different if it had happened in the context of recent events around the security of information at a number of Government departments. They have been mentioned and I will revisit them later. I would imagine that if this bill had gone through the select committee process in that context, there would have been a lot more opposition and scrutiny of the details of this bill—

Andrew Little: A lot more evidence.

KRIS FAAFOI: —a lot more evidence, and a lot more submissions than just the 12 that the Government Administration Committee received. Kudos to the select committee. Apparently it worked well to ensure that this legislation was improved, and it has arrived, as Mr Auchinvole mentioned in a non-partisan fashion, before Parliament in a much better state than when it arrived at the first reading.

Ruth Dyson did say that there was some tension between the digital age and concern around privacy, but I think there is also a fair bit of concern in the community around the digital age and frustration amongst the public at having to repeatedly physically offer up documentation around their identity. I know we have all probably had people in our electorate offices who are sick and tired of having to repeatedly supply that, whether it be their address, their birth certificate, or their marriage certificate. As Trevor Mallard mentioned, this is something that is being rolled out to make sure that we can improve efficiency, relieve some frustration in the community, and streamline the process when we are dealing with the likes of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the Department of Internal Affairs.

I want to point to the bill and to Part 1, clause 3(1)—the purpose clause—“The purpose of this Act is to facilitate secure interactions (particularly online interactions) between individuals on the one hand and participating agencies on the other.” I just want to focus in on those two words “secure interactions”, and take stock of the recent events that have happened with the Ministry of Social Development and the kiosks that Keith Ng accessed. He managed to download from those kiosks 7,000 documents, which were publicly available to anyone who walked into a Work and Income office around the country. For this igovt system to work, our public need absolute confidence that their basic details are going to be held securely within the departments concerned. Although Mr Auchinvole did have a bit of a gibe, I think it is absolutely appropriate for the Opposition to point out that the Government should take stock of what happened in those instances and look very closely as to the security of the information that is concerned here.

When we have got a large ministry like the Ministry of Social Development having publicly available kiosks where 7,000 documents can be accessed by anyone off the street—and we are talking about the names of people who have committed suicide, invoices, medical records—you have to start questioning the capability of the Government to manage information within our Public Service. That is a fair question to ask—absolutely fair. And you put that in the context of other ministries that have come out and absolutely and utterly—and rightly so—confessed that they have had privacy breaches as well. I understand that the Ministry of Justice came to the fore and said: “Look, we’ve had a potential breach as well.” My colleague Dr David Clark has talked about the 6,300 individuals affected by a privacy breach in the Inland Revenue Department.

I think it is absolutely appropriate in the context of this bill, which we support and hope that the Government can bring in and get right, that we ask the questions as the Opposition to make sure that the security of this information is going to be appropriate. There is, as I said, massive concern out there in the community about the privacy of personal information and about identity theft. I think that the confidence of the public has been shaken by those misgivings about the Ministry of Social Development, and I think they are disappointed that this could happen to such a large extent. The nature of the information that was let out through those kiosks and the sheer number of documents that have been accessed really did shake the confidence of the public in the ability of the Government to protect this basic information.

This legislation is a sign of the times. We are going to have more and more of this type of information as we are well and truly into the digital age. As our lives change to have more online transactions, we are going to have more and more legislation in this House to govern those transactions and how we interact online, so we need to get these kinds of things right. That is why we in this Chamber, although we are standing in support of this bill, need to make sure that we ask the appropriate questions so that the public out there who are going to be interacting with the Department of Internal Affairs, and important departments like Births, Deaths and Marriages and Passports, have absolute confidence that their information is being securely looked after.

Identity theft is a major worry. We actually had a member of a former Parliament in here who many, many years ago committed what I believe was a case of identity theft. Identity theft is not new, but I think it is due to the fact that we are living in an age where information can be much more easily accessed online that it is becoming much more pervasive in our community. That is why I think this bill is certainly apt.

The ability to opt out of the system is important, because although I think about 86 percent of New Zealanders are doing something online, not everyone is confident that they want to put all their details—whether they be bank account details, birth details, or anything like that—online. So we need to make sure that there is the option, the ability for those who are not confident to transact on the internet to opt out and to be able to do things more traditionally—more old-school, as you might say—to ensure that their needs can be looked after in an age when much more is going to be done online.

We also need to think about those people who, because of their financial ability, cannot transact online. I know that there are certainly a lot of families in my community in the electorate of Mana who do not have the ability to have internet accessibility, who do not have a computer at home. We are hoping that we can make that much more accessible for them, but until then they do not have the ability to transact online with the likes of the Department of Internal Affairs, so we need to make sure that the ability is still there for them to do what they have traditionally done—some may find that frustrating—and be able to interact offline with the Department of Internal Affairs.

Also, as my colleague Ruth Dyson said as aged-care spokesperson for the Labour Party, there are a lot of older people in New Zealand who, although they may be proficient online, and they may be able to do some simple things online, would not be confident to be able to do the likes of the transactions with the Department of Internal Affairs that we are talking about here. So we need to make sure that they have the ability to do that.

Just to conclude, we do support this bill. We are very concerned in the context of recent events around the privacy breaches that have happened under this Government’s watch with Work and Income and with the Accident Compensation Corporation. One that I have not mentioned is the Ministry of Education and Novopay, which is obviously a big concern. Those members over there will know that they have got teachers in their electorates who are very upset about privacy breaches and also their inability to get paid. So in that context we hope that the Government does take heed of the warnings that this party has made in terms of making sure they get the security of information right and making sure they do that properly.

TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Electronic identity verification

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now come to the debate on Part 2 and schedule 1.

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): Part 2 of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill contains the majority of the actual implementation of this particular measure, so I am very pleased to speak to Part 2 of this bill, because my concern, which I hope the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Energy and Resources, will be able to address, is around the ability of the Government to implement this measure. The Inland Revenue Department computer system is something that has caused great public concern in recent times. There have been 32 reported breaches in the calendar year between September 2011 and September 2012. For over 600 people the breach was considered severe enough for them to be contacted and followed up by the Minister for Social Development. In those breaches, 6,300 people actually had their private details released, and it is not clear yet why the Inland Revenue Department did not think it worth following them up, why it should be that people should not be told that their privacy has been breached as a result of ineffective security systems, as a result of errors in the department, and so on.

I want to say that Labour will support this bill, because we support the principles behind it, as were enunciated in Part 1, but in Part 2 the real question is: can this be enacted? Can these measures be enacted? In the Inland Revenue Department’s case, we have a 20-year-old system. It is needing, according to Mr Key, a billion dollars spent on it in order to upgrade it, to replace it, and to bring it up to scratch. Mr English is on record as saying that $700 million of the asset-sales money will be spent on the system. Mr Dunne is on the record as saying “Don’t ask me any questions. Those decisions are going to be taken as a result of the Budget process.”—effectively saying “Nothing to see here.” I have serious concerns, because this is a department under incredible stress, and we are seeing bills now coming through the House that take backward steps. The Government says “We are implementing this in principle.”, and then later on has to follow up with legislation that says “Actually, we’ve realised we can’t implement these changes and we now have to change the goalposts. We have to move the goalposts to a place where we can put the ball through.” That raises a serious question about whether we should be considering this legislation now, or whether it is actually premature, given that it may not be able to be implemented in the way that is intended.

I am deeply concerned about the breaches at the Inland Revenue Department, and also those at ACC, at Work and Income, and at Novopay. I have certainly heard whispers around my electorate of other Novopay breaches that have yet to be publicly alerted, so it is not over yet. I am sure there will be more breaches coming to light. When I became aware of the Inland Revenue Department breaches, I did a quick calculation and realised that if the current rate of breaches continues, in a little over a decade it will be one in 20 New Zealanders who have had their privacy breached by the Government—if the current rate of breaches continues. That is outrageous. It is absolutely outrageous if one in 20 New Zealanders has to put up with their private details being breached by Government systems that are inadequate, that are not up to the task, and that do not take seriously the trust that New Zealand citizens put in them.

David Bennett: Come on, David, sit down. You know you’re telling rubbish.

Dr DAVID CLARK: Mr Bennett, on the other side of the House there, is uncomfortable with these facts and figures and is wanting to put that on record. He should come across the floor and join a party where Davids can get ahead. I know his heart is in the right place, but these are serious, serious issues that we are raising.

These are serious issues, where four out of every thousand Kiwis have had their private details breached in the last 12 months, and where one in 20 will have their private details breached if this is not addressed in the next decade, and we see a Government that has no plan. In the case of the Inland Revenue Department, the Government is yet to outline a plan. John Key said in February this year that it would cost a billion dollars to upgrade the Inland Revenue Department computer system. Now, 9 months on, we do not have a single plan in place. We do not have a credible timetable outlined. We have no idea how the Government is going to make sure those systems are secure. Now in front of us is a piece of legislation that talks about the electronic identity verification that should be in place. We know that this is a good idea. There is no doubt that having electronic identity verification in place is a good idea, but can the Government actually deliver on it? That is the question that I am asking.

The Inland Revenue Department, to cite some further examples, failed to return 70,000 phone calls in the 2 weeks prior to the last GST filing period.

Hon Ruth Dyson: What? How many?

Dr DAVID CLARK: 70,000 phone calls.

Hon Ruth Dyson: A year?

Dr DAVID CLARK: That was in 2 weeks. That was in 2 weeks, I say to my colleague, prior to last year’s GST return period.

There are over a million unprocessed returns in that department, and we have $7 billion in outstanding debt—$7 billion at the Inland Revenue Department in outstanding debt. It is little wonder that it has had a 33 percent turnover rate in the call centre in Wellington that handles many of these complaints. Those at the coalface are feeling the pinch because we have a Government that has not stepped up to the plate, and that is not addressing the concerns raised by a computer system that was put in place in 1992. That is 10 years prior to Facebook, that is prior to Google, and that is prior to the internet as many of us know it. There are even members of Parliament who were not born then, I think—oh no, I might be getting a bit premature there. But this system is nearly as old as some members of Parliament. We have had a 4 percent drop in the tax take under the watch of this Government, so there are serious, serious issues in that department. This bill would say that that department has to put in place a system that implements a system of electronic identification. I am not convinced at all that this department will be able to do it.

We also know that the Inland Revenue Department does not and cannot, currently—and the Minister in the chair can correct me if I am wrong on this—reset passwords. It cannot even reset passwords electronically. If you have got a department that is struggling with issues as simple as that, in terms of its computer system—John Key refers to it as a pig of a system, a pig of a system. Those words are from the Prime Minister’s own mouth. Nine months on we do not have any idea how the Government is going to address that system.

We have a bill with more aspiration in it, but we see no progress. How can the confidence of the New Zealand taxpayers be restored? It is being shot to pieces—shot to pieces—by the breaches this Government is making: ACC breaches, Inland Revenue Department breaches, Work and Income breaches, and now Novopay breaches. What we are seeing is a pattern. What we are seeing is a clear pattern. We have some talk about how these things are going to be addressed, then often we have a retraction, but we do not have any credible plan outlined as to how these problems are going to be addressed. New Zealand taxpayers give over their private details in good faith—in good faith—and good on them, because people do need to pay their fair share of tax. They do need to sign up for the various Government services that are available. But they are getting nervous because of the inaction of this Government. So although Labour will support this bill, because it supports the principles in it, we hold very, very deep concerns about the Government’s ability to implement these changes.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I would like to make just a very brief call on behalf of the Green Party to offer our support for this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, as well, in the Committee stage, and actually to raise our voice to share some of the concerns that have been raised by our Labour colleagues. Our reasons for supporting the bill are primarily about easing citizens’ engagement with the State through a variety of different agencies. We know there is a need to ease that engagement. All too often people are being required to bring information again and again and again, and are being sent away from appointments, which may have taken them some time to get, because they do not have the required information. It is our deep hope that this bill will go some way to alleviating this problem. That is the reason for our support.

We also, though, do have concerns around privacy issues—clearly. We have heard of a number of Government departments recently—ACC, the Inland Revenue Department, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education with Novopay, and Work and Income—that have all had very significant privacy breaches. We are interested and we expect to hear that possibly other departments have also had privacy breaches. We are seeing at the same time coming through this House a range of bills and amendments to other existing legislation that seek to change basic legislative arrangements for, and protections of, people’s privacy. It makes sense that we do that as technology develops, but it is also incredibly important that we take the duty of care to ensure that it does not undermine people’s confidence and ability to place their trust in the State. We have no choice on many occasions but to engage with the State. It is essential that we can trust that our information is kept secure in that process. Sadly, at the moment we cannot necessarily have that trust. That is a very worrying situation.

We see that there are many reasons for these breaches of privacy that have happened. My colleagues have mentioned the culture within some of the Government departments that does not prioritise privacy. We hope this bill will actually help to put it high up the agenda, as we hope the breaches will, as well. Another reason that has been mentioned for some of the breaches of privacy is a lack of expertise in terms of information technology within the departments, and the fact that a lot of the systems that have been set up in-house were set up in another time. We hope and trust that the Department of Internal Affairs and every other department that does engage in this process will ensure they have the appropriate information and communications technology expertise to ensure that privacy is protected in this process.

The digital divide is another aspect that I would like to just mention. I hope this bill is also a stimulus for each department to consider how it can provide the same ease of access for people who do not have access to online technology: older people, people on low incomes, people who have English as another language—all of those groups. If we provide a service only online, we will get a lower-quality service from our Government. I do not believe that is good enough, and I think that this bill could be a spur to consider what assistance we could put in place to help those people get that information online, so that they too can get the benefits of this bill. So I hope to see those policy initiatives come out of this bill.

On that note, again I will mention the Green Party’s support for this bill, which is a bill of its time, and we are pleased to support it in that context.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Mr Chairman, I know you had a lot of choices to make. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak on Part 2 of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. As I said in my contribution on Part 1, the public need absolute confidence in the security of the information for the igovt system to be expanded out beyond what it has operated under since 2009. As a number of speakers have said already in the debate on Part 2, there is a certain amount of unease with the public—and I think that is probably being a bit kind, actually—about the ability of a number of Government departments to securely hold private information, given the recent events. At the risk of mentioning these ad nauseam, we have already spoken about the privacy breach in Work and Income—

Chris Auchinvole: Ad nauseam.

KRIS FAAFOI: —thank you, Mr Auchinvole—with the kiosks there. We have talked about the privacy breaches with Bronwyn Pullar, with the Accident Compensation Corporation. We have spoken about the thousands of people who were affected by the Inland Revenue Department breaches. We have talked about the Novopay transgressions, with some of the personal details of teachers from schools—

Louise Upston: Are you talking about the specific part? Because that would be kind of useful.

KRIS FAAFOI: I will get to it—I will get to it. Just hold on. Taihoa—taihoa. Patience—patience. What I would like to talk about, in terms of Part 2, is clauses 20A through to 21B, and they are about access—access—and who is allowed to access the information that we are going to be talking about expanding within the realms of the Department of Internal Affairs and the likes of Births, Deaths and Marriages and Passports. Clause 20A, in relation to access, says “Access to core identity information and status information. An individual may access—(a) the core identity information contained in the individual’s electronic identity credential: (b) information about the status of the individual’s electronic identity credential.” That sets out, in clause 20A, in terms of one aspect, access to this information.

But who is going to monitor that? That is one question I would like to have answered from the Minister in the chair, the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector. Also, who is responsible in the Government about giving assurances, given the context of what has happened recently about the security of that information and exactly who can access that information? As I have said before, we have had a number of instances and they have really rocked the confidence of the public in the ability of this Government to hold private information. In Part 2, clauses 20A through to 21B do talk about who can access this information. I want to hear from the Minister in the chair about who is going to give the assurances that this is going to be monitored, and who is going to give the assurances as to how there will be any punishment if the provisions within clause 20A to clause 21B are not adhered to.

There is a massive amount of public concern about, you know, the likes of Work and Income, the likes of ACC, and the likes of the Ministry of Education around their ability to hold private information. So we think it is only fair that we are asking these questions of the Minister in the chair in respect of access—who can access this information—and about the assurances this Government can give in the context of recent times, because there is a serious lack of confidence, and that lack of confidence is probably well founded, given what has happened in the last 3 or 4 months.

In terms of Novopay—that is a new one that has come out. There are a number of teachers whose personal information has been sent to an incorrect school, and the media reports suggest that that gave administrators at one school the ability to access or to manipulate the finances, or the pay, of that particular individual. That is quite shocking, given that this is a secondary issue with Novopay; it is not the primary issue with Novopay. The primary issue with Novopay, as we know, was the complete inability for it to meet its purpose of paying teachers on time and correctly. So that latest issue with the Novopay system is just another instance of where a Government department has really not met the mark, and you have got to ask the question around governance and whether there is enough monitoring being done.

I know there has been an inquiry into the leaks of information at Work and Income. We on this side of the Chamber hope that it is actually acted on, because it is a very serious case when you have one individual who can access 7,000 files of information of the likes of invoices, medical records, and information about children and where they are staying under protection orders. That kind of information being publicly available to any Joe Bloggs who can walk into the reception of Work and Income would shock most people, and has shocked most people. Therefore, there is subsequent concern around the ability of the Government to assure New Zealanders that it can be trusted with private information.

We have had instances of Ministers quite liberally throwing around private information, and that is shocking in itself in a political way, but when you get instances of the average Kiwi who has done nothing and is in a very—what is the word I am looking for—vulnerable position, and they have had their information—

David Bennett: It’s called David Shearer—vulnerable position.

KRIS FAAFOI: Oh, I am glad you find it funny, Mr Bennett. Kiwis who are in a vulnerable position, who have had family members who have committed suicide or are in protection situations—for their information to be freely available on those kiosks is a concern. That is why we are asking some serious questions, and I hope that the Minister in the chair does take the opportunity to answer these questions. Who is going to access this information? Who is going to monitor the access to this information? And what is going to be done if this information is either incorrectly accessed or dispersed to people who should not have that information? That is, I think, given the bipartisan way in which the Government Administration Committee worked on this bill, a fair enough question to ask given the times.

Also, I have just one more point on the access. There will also be provisions, in clause 20B, about access to photos, which is in this digital age very important, because if you have a legitimate or seemingly legitimate image of someone or something, it lends legitimacy to someone on a social media site. So there are very tight restrictions about who can access photos that are held within this realm. Obviously, if we are dealing with the likes of Passports, you do not want those photos floating around too widely or to be accessed by the incorrect people, because then it makes much easier the work of people who target the security of passports, and we know that in recent years there have been a number of instances where that has certainly happened. So to have some clarity around that within clause 20B, “Access to photograph”, in Part 2 is very good, and we hope that maybe the Minister in the chair could also clarify for us what the provisions might be in terms of assurances for the security of photos as well—

Hon Ruth Dyson: I think, a new provision.

KRIS FAAFOI: It is a new provision? Was it inserted by the select committee? It looks like it, and Ruth Dyson, the chair of the select committee, would know. But maybe, just to reiterate, the Minister in the chair could assure us around the security of those images, because, as I say, images in this digital era are very, very important. They lend legitimacy, especially to official transactions, and when we are talking, as I have mentioned before, about the likes of transactions with Passports, or with Births, Deaths and Marriages—I think it would probably be only in the case of Passports, though—the security and the good reputation of the New Zealand passport could be seriously at risk if we do not have tight controls over who can access the images that are held within the system that the Department of Internal Affairs has.

I want to just reiterate that we are supporting this bill, but I have asked a number of questions of the Minister in the chair, and I hope that at some stage during the debate on Part 2 of this bill the Minister in the chair will be able to elaborate on some of the questions that I have put to her concerning access to this information under Part 2.

Part 2 agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Part 3 Miscellaneous provisions

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak on Part 3 of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. This is one of two bills that the Committee will be considering during the course of the evening relating to very similar activities.

I want to just draw your attention to the fact that over the dinner break—there are always interesting conversations, are there not, that occur over the dinner break—this evening there were several conversations happening at the table that I was at. My friend and colleague Kris Faafoi was talking about his children, and referred to one of them by his nickname, Freddie. At the other side of the table Annette King, who was listening, misunderstood the conversation, thinking we were talking about Freddie Mercury, and started talking about how fabulous Queen was. Then somebody else at another part of the table thought we were talking about the royal visit. It actually was quite confusing. I can see that the Minister in the chair, the Minister for the Environment, is very intrigued by it. It brought us to the point of saying how important clarity of identification is, which is actually the very point of this legislation—to ensure that—

Hon Amy Adams: It’s a long way round.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Well, you know, elaboration can sometimes be of assistance. I look forward to my neighbour from Canterbury the Hon Amy Adams taking a call. I am sure she will make a fine contribution in this debate.

I had the pleasure of chairing the Government Administration Committee. As the Committee will notice, in Part 3, “Miscellaneous provisions”—sometimes when you get to miscellaneous provisions you think “Well, there’s not a lot left in this bill.”—there are a few quite significant amendments that have been made by the select committee. Perhaps more important, and I will speak on this in a later call, Supplementary Order Paper 128, which is the only Supplementary Order Paper that I have yet seen tabled in the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon Chris Tremain, who has not yet taken a call—I am sure the Hon Amy Adams, who is standing in for him in the meantime, will do a fine job—actually amends this part of the bill.

In clause 54, which is the first clause in this part, the select committee removed the entire original drafting and replaced it. It is pretty important to note the specificity of that, given that the clause is dealing with the Official Information Act. We obviously had concerns about information obtained under the Official Information Act, and we wanted to make sure that the relevant sections that are described in clause 54 are, in fact, adhered to, and to ensure that there is clarity in the relationship between this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, and the Official Information Act. The select committee clarified in paragraph (a) that “sections 20A to 21A are given precedence by section 52(3)(a) and (b)” of the Official Information Act. Paragraph (b) of the new clause 54 states that “section 39(3)(b)(i) incorporates by reference provisions” of the Official Information Act. Paragraph (c) of the new clause 54 says that “section 48(2) extends the application” of the Official Information Act. That was quite a significant change. As I said, often when you get to miscellaneous provisions in a bill you think they are not going to arouse much of a debate, but we did have a lot of discussion about this clause at the select committee, and, as I say, the Minister’s only Supplementary Order Paper is referenced through this part.

Likewise, with regard to the next clause, clause 55, we replaced subclauses (1) and (2), to ensure that the relationship was really clear between this current bill—soon to be an Act, I hope—and the privacy legislation. Of course, we had a lot of discussion about the privacy legislation. It was discussed much more than the Official Information Act. There have been a lot of concerns expressed in the House about use and abuse, or potential abuse, of the privacy legislation. I remember that the Minister for Social Development some time ago was attacked—well, her policy was attacked—in the paper by two women who were on the domestic purposes benefit who had been in receipt of the training incentive allowance and were undertaking university qualifications. That is a jolly fine thing for anyone to aspire to, but particularly women who are trying to raise a child on their own. For them to be able to take that additional leap is a big thing, and we as a Parliament and as a society should support it. They dared to criticise the Minister’s policy to reduce the application of the training incentive allowance so that it did not cover the very qualifications that they were going for.

At that time Paula Bennett released their private details. It was not a leak. She was very open about the fact that she had released their private details. But what was of concern to me and, I know, many others was whether it was actually a breach of the particular women’s privacy when those details were released—whether it had application under the Privacy Act. So a proceeding was taken under the human rights legislation. Paula Bennett wrote to that office about this issue and said “I acknowledge that you consider that I was wrong to do so and that this resulted in a breach of Ms Fuller’s privacy. As you also know, I don’t accept that view.” So you can see in that example of actions in relation to one’s individual privacy that people have very different views about what is acceptable and what is not.

In a previous contribution prior to the dinner adjournment I heard my colleague Dr David Clark from Dunedin North talk about breaches of privacy through mistakes made by staff, often because of electronic transfer of information. With the Inland Revenue Department mistakes, thousands and thousands of New Zealanders have had their personal information transferred electronically to the wrong person by the Inland Revenue Department. In the last year the Inland Revenue Department has sent the personal information of 6,300 people to the wrong people. That is a huge number of people. When we are talking about people under this legislation giving authority for their information to be accessed by that department or by other departments, to perhaps be shared, these are the sorts of concerns that we have to be really aware of. We as a Parliament have to be very rigorous to ensure that the concerns that have been expressed in relation to Work and Income breaches—not only when the Minister so boldly defied the Office of Human Rights Proceedings deliberation but also, of course, more recently with the Work and Income kiosk shambles, where despite repeated warnings Work and Income continued to leave vulnerable people at risk of having their personal information accessed—are addressed. The incidents I have just referred to in terms of the Inland Revenue Department and its releasing personal information are the issues that have to be paramount in our consideration as we work through Part 3 of this legislation.

The final point I want to make is in relation to offences and penalties. It is really clear that our select committee, from its consideration, considered that there should be no tolerance of breaches of the provisions here. Of course, if people are a little anxious about an electronic transfer system but see a conviction made under it and some appropriate penalties dealt out, then their confidence in the system will increase. I would prefer that there were no breaches of access to identification, at all, but if there are, whether they are by accident or done willingly, then we must certainly have appropriate provisions. Clauses 56 through to 61 cover those offences, and there were very few alterations that the select committee made to them.

The next section of Part 3 deals with liability, and once again you will see that the select committee made some significant changes. They were more technical than policy-driven in that area. Subclause (1) under clause 61, “Protection from liability”, has been replaced, but that was not a significant policy area at all. The remaining clauses of Part 3 deal with regulations.

I look forward, as I said, to the Minister in the chair making a contribution to this debate. There has been a bit of work that the select committee undertook. First of all, we were a bit puzzled about why we had two bills with such similar names that appeared, on the face of it, to do quite—

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): As I have already said, New Zealand First supports the Electronic Identity Verification Bill overall. There are some aspects in Part 3, however, that I do wish to comment upon. First of all, relating to unauthorised hacking, deleting, and altering of information in respect of clause 56(3), New Zealand First does approve of the penalty increases there, for individuals being up to $250,000 or 10 years’ imprisonment, and for organisations being up to $1 million. The point here is that these are significant penalties, and they need to be significant, because we need a very strong deterrent for these sorts of activities these days. One could list many and various instances when very severe cases of hacking and altering of information has occurred in many areas, both in the public and private sectors. The point, however, is that significant penalties are very important, so that is supported.

However, when I look at clause 58(1)(a), relating to unauthorised access, I said in an earlier speech that I thought it would be wise to add an offence of attempting to access, after the place where the word “access” is used in the clause, and also to expand it to define what would constitute an attempt. I find it a little bit difficult to know whether access needs to be a successful access, or a complete accessing of information, or whether some sort of an attempt to do so would itself be a sufficient offence for the purposes of the bill. I would have liked to see some amendment of that particular clause to cover that kind of issue. Of course, it is not too late to do that. Perhaps the Government could have a look at it. Similarly, the same thing arises in clause 58(3), where again the words “attempts to use” are specified. Again, we could add something about “attempts” in that section too. I think it is very important indeed that the bill should specifically cover attempts, so that we know what is meant by access and we know what is meant by an attempted access.

Moving on, when I look at penalties I think the Government should also reconsider clause 58(4), concerning accessing of information and using information, because I think that we need higher penalties than are specified there. I think they should go up, in respect of an individual, from 2 years’ imprisonment or a $50,000 maximum fine to up to 5 years’ imprisonment or a $200,000 fine. For corporations I think it would be appropriate for the penalty to be raised from $200,000, which for many corporations is not a huge sum of money, to at least $500,000 for the illegal accessing and using of information. I think that we need to understand that the possibility of commercial gain from some of these illegal activities is quite large, especially for corporations. We need strong penalties to deter that sort of behaviour. Organisations that hack information would be doing so for commercial gain, and they cannot be imprisoned, so we need to have very high financial penalties. That is what we in New Zealand First would like to see. There might also be other possible penalties such as deregistering a company, but, at the very least, much higher financial penalties are warranted.

In respect of the regulating powers, New Zealand First agrees with new clause 65A, concerning regulations to prescribe the length of time that electronic identity credentials, photographs, records of usage history, status information, and technical codes are retained after their cancellation, revocation, or expiry. We also approve in particular of the requirement for the regulations for these purposes to be subject first to consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. I think that is very appropriate indeed. New Zealand First also approves of allowing a different duration to be set in regulations for electronic identity credentials issued to children under 14 years of age, because, of course, children’s appearances change dramatically as they age and generally they hold fewer identity documents, which can limit the effectiveness of biometric checks on them. With those reservations and some of those suggestions, which we think would improve the bill, New Zealand First would be very happy to support all parts of it.

Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): I am going to take just a brief call on Part 3 of the Electronic Identify Verification Bill to address the points raised by the New Zealand First member Denis O’Rourke in his last contribution. Mr O’Rourke expressed some concern that there was no provision making it an offence to attempt to carry out those particular actions listed in clauses 56, 58, and others. I just wanted to reassure the member that the reason there is not a specific provision making it an offence to attempt those actions is that it is an offence under section 72(1) of the Crimes Act, and the way legislation is drafted is that we have it in the Crimes Act rather than repeating it in every piece of legislation. That is a fairly standard approach to drafting. The point was considered, and I can assure him that it is, in fact, an offence to attempt to carry out any of those activities that he talked about.

The other point that I thought I would just briefly address is his concern around increasing the penalties, and just assure him that the reason the penalties sit where they are is to ensure that they are at an appropriate alignment with similar offences in other legislation. As he will understand, that is a core part of good drafting. In this case they have been lined up with a number of similar offences, such as, for example, the use of electoral information for a commercial purpose under the Electoral Act. In order to maintain proportionality with similar related offences, they have been set at that level. I hope that clears that up for the member.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much, Mr Chair, for offering me the chance to speak to Part 3 of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. As I said in my contributions in Part 1 and Part 2, it is absolutely fundamental that, if we are going to roll out this Igovt system and expand it out through what is already existing, the public need to have 100 percent confidence in the security and the monitoring and also the consequences if the laws—as they stand, or as they are proposed—are transgressed. There are grounds for serious concern within the public because of the number of recent glitches in the security of private information that we have seen in a number of Government departments. Of course, there has been most recently Novopay, where the private details—[Interruption] Yes, “No pay”, I should say. There have been instances when the private details of teachers have been forwarded on to schools where they do not work. There was a case with ACC where the details of over 6,000 individuals were sent to one individual. There has been the case of the Inland Revenue Department and 7,000 individuals affected there, and then, of course, we had the Ministry of Social Development and the cases of the kiosks where one individual was able to access quite a lot of sensitive information. I do want to talk about that in respect of Part 1 and Part 2, and especially around access, and then the provisions in clauses 56 to 60, I believe, which cover the penalties if someone is found to improperly access information that is held within this realm.

During Part 2 I did ask the Minister in the chair for some assurances, given the concerns that would be out there in the public at the moment around security, about whether or not the Government departments involved in this legislation have done enough to assure the New Zealand public and the Minister that the information involved is safe. I also asked the Minister in the chair what level of monitoring is going to be carried out, given the fact that, I believe, in the case of the Ministry of Social Development there were some flags raised about 6 months—or a year, I think it may have been—before the issue was highlighted in the media. Nothing was done, publicly at least, from the time that that was raised privately until the issue was raised by citizen journalist Keith Ng. I think if it is still possible to get a reply from the Minister in the chair, the Minister for the Environment, about the level of monitoring, that would be good.

I mentioned Keith Ng, and I also want to ask the Minister in the chair whether there was any talk or any possibility—because Part 3 sets out the offences of accessing the information and the penalties—that in the case of Keith Ng there might be some kind of protection for people who, like a blogger or a citizen journalist, are accessing this information because they believe there is a potential gap in security. They might believe that the only way for them to find out whether or not there is a gap in security is to do what Keith Ng did, which was to go into that Work and Income office and access the information to see whether he could access it. But from my reading of the bill as it stands there does not seem to be any protection for anyone who, with good intentions and no malice, goes in to access this kind of information.

That is just something I want to throw out there, because, given the nature of the area we are talking about—and we are talking about digital storage—the expertise for these kinds of things, as we have seen in the last couple of months, to try to test it, or hack the information, does not necessarily rest within the Government departments. They could not find the security gaps or the security lapses that had existed for some time. It took someone external to test the system to see whether there were some gaps. So we have got a case where there may be a third party who comes in, who may have a little bit of knowledge about a potential threat to the security of the system, and who does what Keith Ng has done, which was to go in, access that information, and, with no malice, actually go to the authorities and to the media about a potential security lapse. I am just wondering whether the Minister in the chair could elaborate as to whether, because of the nature of this—and I am no technology guru—the expertise in this area might not lie within the Government departments. It might lie with those who are more technically advanced than those within the department. If they do test it and find a lapse in security, I ask whether or not there will be some protection within the law as it stands now to protect that person, because they have actually done the public a good service by highlighting the issue of a security lapse. Hopefully, as the Minister in the chair has taken one call to answer a question from Denis O’Rourke, it would be good if I could potentially get a reply to that question.

There are some penalties, both monetary and also in terms of imprisonment, that are contained within clauses 56 to 60. If someone commits an offence that is set out in clause 56, they are liable for a term of imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, a fine not exceeding $250,000, or, if it is an organisation, a fine not exceeding $1 million. I think Denis O’Rourke talked about the level of penalties within clause 58(4), and he was answered by the Minister, but I have, since that time, had a chat to my colleague, the chair of the Government Administration Committee, Ruth Dyson. She said that during the select committee process, which was some time ago, I understand, the level of punishment and the penalties that are contained within the bill were debated, and the members of the select committee thought that it was appropriate to have the level of punishment as it is set in the bill as it stands. Also, clause 58 looks at an issue that I highlighted in the debate on Part 2, which was around access. It relates to offences relating to improper access to the information that is held on the service database. That also carries penalties of imprisonment for an individual of a term not exceeding 2 years, a fine not exceeding $50,000, or, for an organisation, a fine not exceeding $200,000. So I guess that does answer some of the questions that I posed in the debate on Part 2 around the monitoring, and what kinds of penalties would be carried out if someone was found to be improperly accessing the database.

In terms of improper access, there is serious concern. Again, I just want to highlight the concerns that there will be out in the community about the level of security around private information. It is a serious concern. It is a real concern. As many people have pointed out, the journey of this bill might have been slightly different if it had happened in the context of recent events. I think there would have been much more scrutiny around the protections that the Department of Internal Affairs and other agencies could offer around the security of information, given we have had a series of serious blunders, I guess you could call them, around the security of private information from the Government in the last year or two. So I just want to reiterate that public confidence is absolutely essential to making sure that the Igovt roll-out and expansion beyond what is already in place is a success. There is concern amongst the community because of the glitches at Work and Income, ACC, the Inland Revenue Department, and the Ministry of Education with security of private information recently.

I would like the Minister in the chair to potentially answer some of the questions that have been posed. I just remind the Minister in the chair about, maybe, that one issue of the likes of citizen journalists or bloggers who may expose glitches in this system, having some protection from prosecution—[Interruption] Yes, whistleblowers. If they do highlight glitches in the current system, I ask whether or not they potentially have any protection—if they, with no malice, do highlight some shortcomings of the current system.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): It is, as always, a pleasure to debate these matters with Kris Faafoi, whom we have just heard from. I am not sure what he had for dinner, but I really feel he is arguing against himself, and I think there are serious consequences to what is being suggested. On the one hand he is castigating the Government for having identified problems with some of the computer systems and saying that it is unforgivable, it should never have happened, there was insufficient testing, and it must never be allowed to happen again, but on the other hand he is suggesting seriously—because he is a serious person—that if a hacker goes in, as long as they can say “Oh no, it was for non-malicious reasons.”, they should be forgiven and not prosecuted. I cannot follow the logic. If people breach security, they breach security, and for someone in this Committee to stand up and say that that is fine leaves me somewhat amazed. I am sure on reflection he would not expect the Minister to say: “Yes, on the one hand it was dreadful that we had those security breaches, but, no, as long as they can say it was without malice and it was just to highlight a problem, that’s OK.”

I had the experience of losing my company identification to a well-established company that handled information, bank details, and everything else. It sold its files. It sold its files to American interests, and American interests then had the liberty to phone you up and ask you about your business. They already knew all about it. They had everything there. “We’ve got your file right on our desk. We feel that you should buy these shares.”, and so on and so forth. There was no protection against that company doing that. There was no protection.

I would like to reassure the Committee, in the light of Kris Faafoi’s statements, that the Government Administration Committee certainly considered this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, very, very seriously. Indeed, the officials went away and did remedial work—extra work, extra research. I think they worked extremely diligently, and I do not doubt that the chair of the committee, who is sitting beside Kris Faafoi, will bear that out. They worked very, very hard, and we took this very seriously. I would hate for anyone to think that this committee was slipshod in its processes, because we were not.

Let us have a look. We talked about the level of fines. Let us just see what they are, what we have lifted them to. It was previously imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or a fine not exceeding $250,000. The prison term continues not to exceed 10 years and the fine continues not to exceed $250,000—or both—but if an organisation gets involved, then it is a fine not exceeding a million smackers. That starts to erode the profits they might receive from selling information that they could gain. So it becomes quite a risky operation. But I would not be at all surprised, because this is valuable information, if an organisation, a shonky one, was prepared to give it a go—have a go—and see whether it works. If it does, fine. Pocket the profits. If it does not, they may say that they were doing it for non-malicious purposes to show there was a breach in the system. Under Kris Faafoi, they are forgiven because they have shown the Government there was an error. Sorry, it does not wash. I feel that we should distance ourselves from that sort of peculiar, slipshod logic.

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I did not realise that the member who has just resumed his seat, Chris Auchinvole, was going to do so so rapidly. I want to begin by just endorsing his comments. I did refer earlier to the Minister of Internal Affairs and the members of the Government Administration Committee, and the officials, and I want to just reinforce that point. Some people would look at this bill, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, and say: “Well, hmm?”. Perhaps they would not get very excited about it. I suppose it is not a bill that you would get really excited about, but that does not mean it is not important, and it certainly does not mean that you should not apply a lot of rigour to it and ensure that the anxiety that we referred to earlier is considered seriously and dealt with, even if we do not think it is entirely appropriate to do legislative amendments or frame legislation on terms of unwarranted anxiety. But we want a system where people’s confidence will grow. We want the benefits of electronic identification to be given to Government departments, agencies, and individuals, but we also want people who are using the system to have their confidence grow because of the rigidity of the system, the rigour of the system, so that we are not likely to get the sorts of breaches that we have been talking about earlier in the debate. Also, if there is some breach, appropriate penalties should be dished out to those who breach it.

I want to refer now to clause 61, which is the only clause in the bill that has an amendment from the Hon Chris Tremain. It really draws further on the comments that my colleague Kris Faafoi was making in relation to Keith Ng, who is the—what was the term he used?

Kris Faafoi: “Citizen journalist”.

Hon RUTH DYSON: Citizen journalist. There you are; that is an interesting term. He is a blogger. He is a person who has strongly and competently held views and expresses them through social media and other outlets. I want to correct the deputy chair of the Government Administration Committee. The kiosk system was not hacked. There was no hacking involved. It did not involve anything that bordered on anything illegal. The system was used in the manner it was intended to be used, but it delivered a whole lot of information that should not have been delivered to the people who were accessing it. So they did not hack into the system; they just accessed it and kept putting in the details that they were asked to put in, and they suddenly got a whole lot of information that breached other people’s privacy.

The point that Kris Faafoi was making is that if you read clause 61—it is talking about protection from liability—subclause (1) says: “Subsections (1A) and (1B) apply to an act done or omitted—(a) by the chief executive or an employee or agent of the department; and (b) in the course of—(i) performing functions or duties or exercising powers under this Act; or (ii) purporting to perform functions or duties or exercise powers under this Act.”, and subclause (1A) says: “Neither the chief executive nor the employee or agent is under any criminal liability for the act.” The point that Kris Faafoi was making was to ask whether this has any bearing on the example that he used, where Keith Ng went into a legitimate public space of Work and Income and, without any hacking or otherwise unauthorised or illegal actions or engagement with the Work and Income computer system, was able to access a whole lot of information that was personal and private to other people and should not have been shared. But he was not accessing it illegally; he was just following due process, as I understand it. There does not seem to be anything in this clause at all to respond to that situation.

I think the question that Kris Faafoi raised with the Minister in the chair, the Hon Amy Adams, is worthy of some consideration. The select committee did not consider it, and that was for a very simple reason: that incident had not occurred, it had not happened, and it was not in the public domain. We did not know about it until after the select committee had deliberated on it. As Chris Auchinvole alluded to, given the serious attention that we gave to what appears to be quite an innocent and small bill, I know that our select committee would have given it further consideration in terms of the protection from liability that should be accorded to Mr Ng.

KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you, Mr Chair, for allowing me to participate in this debate on Part 3 of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. This part deals with very important issues, where we have defined what sort of penalties are in place if somebody plays with the information held within the system. We just heard from my good friend Chris Auchinvole about his personal experience of how his information was sold to an overseas company. This part defines that if an individual or a corporate sells or plays with the information that is being held, they will get severe penalties. As multiple Government agencies exchange information, it is critical to ensure that the fundamentals of this proposal are absolutely right.

My colleagues and I in the Government Administration Committee have considered the bill and have suggested amendments to the bill that we believe will enhance the legislation. Members of the committee have recommended the application of higher penalties to organisations. The present version of the bill has suggested penalties for individuals and organisations that misuse the services. However, the committee considered that the penalties currently being applied to the individuals, as well as to organisations, are unlikely to restrict organisations from misusing the services. So, for instance, if an organisation hacks into the service database, the maximum penalty is a fine. The view of the committee is that it is unlikely to stop organisations with malicious intentions.

The Government Administration Committee has recommended the imposition of fines that are likely to have severe financial repercussions on those organisations and that could deter them from misuse, and says that these should be applied. The committee also recommended that a specific time period be inserted into the legislation that prescribes the length of time electronic identity credentials, photographs, records of usage history, status information, and technical codes are retained after their cancellation, revocation, or expiry of data.

Before I conclude, I would like to thank the officials for their help during the select committee process. I hope this will be a bill that will help to safeguard the database we have in electronic form.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, which is a very timely piece of legislation for many reasons. Members have gone over the current events that make this a piece of legislation that we need to think about very carefully.

One of the things that struck me as I have sat here listening to the speeches in the Chamber tonight is that a number of members of this House went to a cross-party forum this evening. This was for a number of our small and medium sized enterprises and high-tech companies, and people were talking about working with the Government and how it is that they could add to the weightless economy. It dawned on me that there is no more weighty responsibility for the Government than when it is dealing with people’s private information. This is really what this bill gets to the heart of. I think that Part 3 of this bill has some incredibly important points to make in terms of how it is that this piece of legislation interacts with the very legislation that protects our rights in this country. Specifically, I am referring to the Official Information Act and the Privacy Act.

Some very interesting points have been drawn out as we have gone through this debate tonight, and I would like to address a couple of those as we go through the bill. This is important, as a number of my colleagues have noted in this debate. Kris Faafoi, who is getting quoted a lot in this debate tonight, finished his speech—

Hon Annette King: Name-dropper.

Dr MEGAN WOODS: I am being a name-dropper. Kris Faafoi finished his speech by saying that it is absolutely imperative that individuals have confidence when the Government is dealing with private information. I think many of us have instances of constituents in increasing numbers coming to visit us and sharing their anxiety at the personal information that the Government has stored about them and what might come about because of that.

But Labour is supporting this bill, and, as I said, I want to address some of the points in the debate. I specifically want to pick up on what Ruth Dyson talked about in terms of clause 61 of this bill and the point that was brought up in Chris Auchinvole’s speech in response to Kris Faafoi. [Interruption] There is another name—Annette King!

In terms of Government responsibility, and the allegation that when someone is just carrying out their normal duties, and there is no malice involved, and they come across information, we need to recognise it for what it is—this bill, in clause 61, does. The example of Keith Ng has been used and it is a good one, because putting a USB stick into a computer is not hacking. Keith Ng was merely using the portal in the way it was designed, and clause 61 does cover this.

This brings to mind some other breaches that we have had in terms of people’s personal information. If you receive by email from a Government department the details of a whole lot of people’s personal information, as happened in the case of ACC, is the person receiving that email going to be liable? Well, no—clause 61 actually covers that off, because there is no malice intended.

But what if you are a teacher, or you are a principal, or you are an administrator at a school and you receive from the Ministry of Education, because of the breakdown of the Novopay system, personal information and bank account details of teachers from another school? That has been happening with the Novopay system, so is it something people could be liable for? That is why clause 61 of this bill is incredibly important—it does cover that off. It does cover off this protection from liability.

I think these are things that we have to be very mindful of, because we are dealing with a technology and we are in an era when technology is being employed to move around massive amounts of data. So we do need to empower chief executives to protect people from liability when things go wrong, through no fault of their own, and when it is someone else’s problem.

But when we look at some other provisions of this bill—and there are some incredibly important ones under this part—and we look at the relationship with the Official Information Act, we see some really important interfaces here between these two pieces of legislation. What we see is that we have the Government having the responsibility to deal with it. We see reporting to the Privacy Commissioner being an incredibly important protection that people will be given under this legislation. So this is a bill that Labour is happy to support.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 128 in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain to clause 61 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.

Bills

Identity Information Confirmation Bill

In Committee

Part 1 Preliminary provisions

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It would have given me great pleasure to say that the Identity Information Confirmation Bill, like the previous bill that we have been discussing, has been through the Government Administration Committee recently and that I was pleased to support its progress back through the Committee, but, actually, that is not the case. The Identity Information Confirmation Bill was actually referred to the select committee on 19 October 2010—2010. That was over 2 years ago. The closing date for submissions was 1 December 2010. The committee received and considered 13 submissions, and heard three. It received, I am sure, extremely competent advice from the Department of Internal Affairs. Now, 2 years and 1 month later, we get this bill back. What has the Minister of Internal Affairs been doing in that time, I wonder?

There does not appear to be much wrong with the bill. There do not appear to be any further changes from the select committee. The select committee made some very good changes, actually—entire sections were rewritten. I have to say that the commentary on the bill is very clear, as well. But, to be frank, there is not much to it, Minister, and I am not quite sure why it has taken the Government such a long time to get it to this final stage. Perhaps it does not consider identity information confirmation important, but I do.

We did have some departure from our total agreement with this bill, but not to the point where we decided to vote against any particular provision. I just want to draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that during the debate at the select committee the Labour members would have preferred to delete clause 18 from the bill. Again, this is quite similar to the comments that we have just been making about the previous legislation in regard to the protection from liability of various individuals. In this case Subpart 4 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill says “There is no cause of action against the Crown, or a Minister of the Crown, or the responsible officials, or a delegate of the responsible officials, or an employee or a contractor of the department, to recover damages for any loss or damage that is due directly or indirectly to the use of the confirmation service for an identity information check.” We were a little concerned that this was really absolving the Crown, the Ministers, and any departmental officials who were involved from any responsibility, and that is not always a good thing. Sometimes it is important to say that it is better for an event to be owned up to, to be claimed, and then to move on from that. But in this case it is just absolving them of all liability.

So Labour members expressed their concern about that at the time, but we had advice, through a formal submission from the Legislation Advisory Committee. That committee persuaded us, actually, that this was a good provision to have in, and that our objections were outweighed by the arguments that it put to the select committee. That was our only major concern in relation to this legislation, in terms of the specifics of it.

It is, again, a pretty straightforward bill. It is quite similar in title but not in content to the bill that we have previously progressed. We have just progressed the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. This is the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. But what this bill does is ensure that there is a service that allows agencies to confirm an identity that has been provided to them by an individual. So if somebody says that this is my identity, then there is a service that allows for confirmation of that identity.

I had not really reflected on how many alterations a person might go through during their life in terms of what is on their birth certificate, and what their common name in use might be but that is not, therefore, in the documentation that they might otherwise be able to provide to prove that person’s identity. So if you are born with the name of Kris Faafoi—seeing as everyone is dropping that name tonight—but you decide that you might prefer to be called Freddy Faafoi for some reason, then your birth certificate still says Kris but all your rates demands, your power bills, your phone bills, whatever, are all in the name that you use most, Freddy. So quite common situations can actually cause quite a lot of difficulty.

I think that the officials, from my reading of the deliberations, not only went to the most common areas where this could be problematic but they also looked at the areas that might be more unusual, and ensured that this is a robust piece of legislation that will provide access to that service of verification for people regardless—

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I would like to join with the chair of the Government Administration Committee in commending this Identity Information Confirmation Bill. It has been under consideration and thought for some considerable time, and, no, I do not have an explanation for that, but I am not the Minister.

The bill is a useful bill, and it is an adjunct in many ways to the bill that we had been discussing earlier in the evening. The point that the Hon Ruth Dyson made I would just like to refer to, because the Opposition members of the select committee did oppose the clause in the bill—clause 18, I think it is—that protects the Crown, Ministers, and officials from liability as a result of this service unless they acted in bad faith, in which case there is no protection for them; or if they were grossly negligent, there is no protection for them. But this clause has been retained on the basis that the service is provided on an opt-in basis and contains numerous protections for the members of the public. It was an interesting one to debate, and what I particularly like about select committees, especially with the officials that we had in this particular case, was that they were quite comfortable about giving us examples of when this service could be used.

The bill helps combat identity fraud by preventing the use of fake identities and extends the use of a web-based data validation service to public and private sector agencies on a strictly need-to-know basis. It allows agencies to check whether the identity information presented by a customer is consistent with that held by the Department of Internal Affairs through citizenship registers, the passport database, and the various registers of the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry office. As the Hon Ruth Dyson has just said, there are many occasions when small identity changes occur. But it did make me reflect back on my own experience of having my bankcards nicked, and—

Kris Faafoi: You’ve had a bad run, haven’t you?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: I have, I have. Well, I have lived a full life, Mr Faafoi. A full life, protected from nothing—protected from nothing. But when I had these cards stolen, I somewhat naively told the police that they would be of little use to the person who had stolen them because I had already reported them as stolen, so they would be invalid. They gazed at the sky, they rolled their eyes, and they said “We’ll see you in about a month. The cards will already have been sold, and they will already be being used.” And it was I think about 6 weeks later that I started getting final demands for payment of accounts. The accounts had been opened using my cards as an identity—

Kris Faafoi: That’s your story anyway.

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: —and I am sticking with it—in shops that I had never ever been near.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Which of the member’s identities? Which of the member’s identities?

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: I am beginning to wonder whether I should have embarked on this line, but it is very, very important, because we take things like security of identity as a given, whereas it is not. It is not like that at all. It is not a nice, honest life out there, and, no matter how naive I may be, there are people who want to do you ill.

This bill will help ensure compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009, and that requires banks and other financial institutions to undertake more comprehensive know-your-customer checks. It is an important tool in preventing identity fraud and reducing compliance costs.

There will be many other aspects of this bill, which is a nice tidy little bill. It will be very effective—I am pretty sure it will. Again, the officials applied themselves, I think assiduously, in ensuring that the questions diligently raised by members of the Government Administration Committee were answered to the fullest extent—they were assiduous and diligent. I would hate anyone to think that this committee, under Ruth Dyson’s chairmanship, was in any way—

Hon Annette King: Impeccable!

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: It was, thank you for that. It was certainly not in any way casual about its approach. Although I can appreciate Opposition members saying “Oh, it would be different if it came up now.”, I am not completely sure that it would because I am not sure how much more diligent we could have been than we were. I will leave it at that because there will be other aspects of this bill that will come up under Part 2 that I will wish to speak on. Thank you.

CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I would like to say in the Committee stage on this bill, the Identity Information Confirmation Bill, that the first thing to do is to agree with the member opposite me about identity fraud and how important it is that we address that issue, particularly in the digital environment. It is a growing issue. It will continue to be an issue, and we have to have measures in place to deal with it. That is why, having not sat on the Government Administration Committee and listened to all the submissions but having read some of them and having thought about the issue, I certainly acknowledge the importance of it and the fact that we have to keep abreast of fraud, in whichever manifestation it appears. We have heard that the Privacy Commissioner was satisfied with the legal safeguards and the controls in this bill.

We know that it is a serious and growing problem, and I am sure a number of speakers have said how many millions of dollars it costs the country as every year about 2,000 New Zealanders are affected by online scams. No doubt if I asked people to put up their hands and say whether they had been scammed or they knew somebody who had been, probably most people would in one way or another, even if it is by having your Twitter account hacked by clicking on one of those connections that takes you to a rather unsightly, you know, unseemly image. That then means that all of your followers—[Interruption]

Hon Trevor Mallard: Some of them are sightly but unseemly.

CLARE CURRAN: I guess it depends on which perspective you come from. All of your followers then get a message from you saying that they are being hacked and people are looking at or saying terrible things about them online, etc. Although there is a growing awareness amongst the population about these scams, including the scams that come from people purporting to be banks, etc., and people are becoming more careful, I think, about what they do click on online, there is still always going to be a percentage of people who are terribly affected by these sorts of practices. So I think it is really important that we acknowledge the importance of the issue.

When I spoke about this bill in its second reading, I said there were two things that we needed to take into account. One is the prevention, as I have just said, of identity fraud. The other is balanced with the ability of people to go about their business without feeling under surveillance, which I know is one of the issues raised by the Greens as being an important thing, and that is something we need to take into account, as well. Also, we have to be mindful, as I said in my speech on the previous bill, of the systems management that is occurring around the Government agencies’ use of information and communications technology, and the security of that. I suppose that is what I want to go to here. I think it is absolutely critical that there is a robustness across Government systems, and I am pleased to see that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology is in the chair, because there is no doubt that security of information, the privacy of individuals’ information, and confidence in the system used to manage those systems is absolutely paramount.

I made the comment in the debate on the previous piece of legislation that went through this Committee, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, that in order for us to be confident about that, we have to know that we can trust the agencies that are interacting with citizens out there. I think, actually, that that has been compromised in recent weeks. I think that there are four major agencies in our Government that have been compromised. We have heard the issues around that. In order to address that, I actually introduced a member’s bill last week called the Electronic Data Safety Bill, which is around ensuring that there is a systematic inquiry into breaches in agencies around privacy so that the adequacy of information management can be trusted. This is what it comes down to: can the citizens of New Zealand trust the systems that are in place that are managing information, including their private information, and that can make that information public to people that it should not be made public to?

What I am saying is that before we pass pieces of legislation like this that are worthy and important, because identity fraud is important, we should actually have a good look at the adequacy of those information systems, that we do that through an inquiry, and we then ensure that we put in place systematic information management across Government, which includes a governance system that is not just agency based, so that that management system transcends the individual agencies, and then we look at these pieces of legislation that are coming before the House.

I have sought industry views around this, which is why I am pleased to see the Minister in the chair. I am being told that what we need is something more than what we have got. This is ultimately about public confidence. It is about confidence in the security of the information and the security of the systems that we have got, which will be restored only when the public can see that the ministries and the departments are working together and bending over backwards to ensure that that data is secure. Mistakes happen. There is no doubt that mistakes happen. In any development of any new system, etc., of course there are going to be mistakes. But on the kind of scale that we have seen—in the last few weeks particularly—it is just not on. The mistakes are systemic, and they are not just in one ministry or one department; they are across a number of agencies.

I am being told that we know that this is an issue, that this does need to be addressed at a different level. That might involve setting up a new part within, for instance, the Department of Internal Affairs, with—and I think it is important to say this—some sort of dotted line to the Privacy Commissioner. This is about privacy and people feeling that their information is secure. This new part would look after the rule-setting for Government agencies and public information, have the power to advise and require certain things before any system is launched, and investigate and test post any launch. I think it is important to note that the private sector has quite a lot of experience in these things. I think that the Government and the agencies affected should be looking outwards right now as to what experience they can draw on to bring in that experience and see what can be done about this issue, before we put these pieces of legislation to the House. Ultimately, they are about providing new systems, or extending systems that are small and making them bigger. It is about the privacy of New Zealand citizens’ information. That information and the trust that that information is not going to be abused and misused is really important. I would hope that the Committee recognises that.

I would like to see that future developments around how these sorts of developments are rolled out do ensure that there are provisions around security of personal data and that they are put to the top—put to the top. They are not at the bottom and they are not in the middle; they are at the top of the requirements list. There should be penalties around them not being carried out. I am not talking necessarily about penalties to individual companies. I am talking about accountability at the highest level—about the governance level, which is at the political level as well. That is where it should reside, and that is what we should be talking about today in the Committee, rather than about introducing yet another piece of legislation that is piecemeal and that is not part of a wider plan around the security of our information.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you for the chance to speak to Part 1 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. It is a bill that has a similar title to the previous bill discussed in the Committee, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, but it sets out to do something vastly different. It sets out to combat identity theft. The crime of identity theft is not a new one, but I guess that in the digital age, when we have much easier access and faster access to information, the prevalence of identity theft is increasing.

Some research said that there is an average of around 2,000 New Zealanders affected by online scams, identity theft, credit card fraud, and viruses each day. We have already heard from one member from across the Chamber, Mr Chris Auchinvole, about his personal experience when his bankcards were swiped. Unfortunately for him, being a victim of crime, the perpetrators sought to max out his credit card. He said on the record that he was the recipient of many final demands for the fun that the criminals had with his credit card. But it is a serious issue. In 2008-09 there were some statistics to show that there were more than 7,000 incidents of fraud and false pretences using bankcards. In 2009 the police identified 900 cases of identity fraud here in New Zealand, but they thought that that was just a fraction of what was going on but not being detected. That was some 3 years ago.

I think it was my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson, the able chair of the Government Administration Committee, who said that these people are trying to use common situations to steal identities. That is what this is really all about. It is about the use of things like passports or other documentation that contains the basic details of an individual to steal an identity and make use of that person’s assets or their potential.

I think for the confidence of the New Zealand public, which my colleague Clare Curran has mentioned earlier—

Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise to my colleague, but I think this bill was in the name of Nathan Guy.

Hon Members: No.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Well, the copy that is on the Table of the House is in his name.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No, it is in the name of Chris Tremain. That is on your Order Paper.

KRIS FAAFOI: Trying to pick up where I left, it is inherent for the confidence of the people of New Zealand around documents like passports, like birth certificates, like death certificates, and like marriage certificates that we do have a credible database around them and confidence in that information. I guess this bill, which we have just learnt is in the name of the Hon Chris Tremain, is before this Committee because the validation of that information is very important. I guess this bill opens up for private organisations such as banks, if someone were to come in—if, say, Trevor Mallard came in to open up a new bank account and used a passport as his identifying documentation, then the bank could ask Mr Mallard whether it was OK to check with the Department of Internal Affairs as to the validity of his documentation. If he said yes and it all checked out, then I am sure the bank would quite obligingly help Mr Mallard open up a bank account. But if it did and it found that there was some irregularities, then it could pick up an instance, potentially, of identity fraud where someone was trying to steal the identity of Trevor Mallard—as strange as that may seem. But it has been pointed out by Mr Auchinvole, I think, also that the individual has to consent for the validation of this information, and I guess you would not rate your chances if your bank said “Well, can we check this information.” and the individual said no. I think the bank would pretty much turn round and say “Well, you can try somebody else, son.”

In terms of passports, I think the confidence in those documents is very important, and if people do turn up to—as an example—a bank with a passport, we need to make sure that they are 100 percent secure, and that we have confidence around that document. We have had, in my memory in the last maybe 6 or 7 years, a couple of instances where a few foreign nationals—I should say—actually got hold of New Zealand passports in a scurrilous manner. So, in order to try to combat identity theft and fraud, this bill seeks to allow agencies and private organisations such as banks to be able to verify the particulars that are offered up by individuals.

Just going back to Part 1 and clause 4, which is the purpose clause—if you will just allow me to read that—it states: “The purpose of this Act is to facilitate the use of an electronic service that allows agencies to confirm identity information about individuals so as to—(a) contribute to the prevention of crime …”—we have talked about that—“and (b) ensure that agencies can use and, if necessary, record confirmed identity information.” I think that maybe we should potentially look at making an amendment here to clause 4(b) and make it read “ensure that agencies can use and, if necessary, securely record confirmed identity information.”, because we have seen in recent months some concern amongst the public about the security of information that a number of Government agencies have. Again, to list the number of the instances, we have got the Work and Income kiosks where one individual, citizen journalist Keith Ng, was able to access some very delicate information—7,000 files of the likes of medical records—

Hon Trevor Mallard: He could have used it for identity.

KRIS FAAFOI: —yes, he could have it for identity—information around the fostering of children, and invoices for contractors. Some pretty serious information was available to a private citizen publicly in the reception of a Work and Income office. We have also heard of the email that went to Bronwyn Pullar, which contained information—[Interruption] I am sorry. I will carry on. That information pertained to 6,478 individuals, and that is a lot of individuals to be contained in one email and was a serious breach of privacy. We have also heard recently in the last week around some irregularities with the privacy information around Novopay. Again, this is a secondary issue for Novopay. The primary issue was the fact that people were not getting paid, and then the secondary issue comes through with the fact that some staff members’ information was being given to schools where they were not working. Obviously, that is a serious concern, and hopefully we can get some information around that. Then Dr David Clark has pointed out on a number of occasions that the private information of around 6,300 individuals was incorrectly released by the Inland Revenue Department. So I did just want to point back to clause 4 to say that maybe we should have a look at changing clause 4(b) to “ensure that agencies can use and, if necessary, securely record confirmed identity information.”

But we do support this bill. We support the effort to try to combat identity fraud. As I say, 2,000 people a day in New Zealand are the victims of some kind of scam or identity theft, and in this day and age, the digital age, where information is much more freely available, the prospect of identity theft is much, much higher. It has happened in the past. We have had one recent example in the last 2 or 3 years where someone who sat not too far away from us took the identity of a dead baby—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Is it David Garrett?

KRIS FAAFOI: David Garrett. So that goes to show that although identity theft is not a new crime, it is much more prevalent now because of the ease with which the information is transferred via the internet, so that identity theft is much more of an issue.

I do just want to point again to Mr Chris Auchinvole, our own victim of identity theft, as someone who had his credit card stolen. Was it recently, Mr Auchinvole?

Chris Auchinvole: No.

KRIS FAAFOI: It was some time ago, so I am sure things may have got worse. We have within this Chamber a prime example of what can happen if people get hold of your private information and things go haywire.

We do support this bill. We believe that it does take some good measures, but, again, we do have some concerns around the security of information.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I want to start off by thanking Ruth Dyson for the work that she did chairing the Government Administration Committee and by saying again that it was a committee that worked well as a group. Gareth Hughes made, I think, some significant contributions on the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and I look forward to his contribution in the Committee. Both Mr Auchinvole and Mr Bakshi were also, I think, part of a team that treated this on a pretty much non-partisan basis. But, unlike the bill that we were discussing earlier in the day, and without going back on to the bill, the Minister who was in charge of this bill when it was introduced just did not do his work properly.

Nathan Guy, who was the Minister in charge of the bill, gave us a bill where on every substantive clause, from clause 5 through to clause 16, we had to amend the bill and, in fact, we had to add some extra clauses in, in order to get it into the sort of shape that is acceptable. I know that the Minister is a relatively new Minister, but to introduce legislation to the House that is so badly inept that the whole substance of it—every clause that had any substantive effect—had to be amended is, in fact, something that is of major concern.

So you can start at clause 5, “Interpretation”—not that it is that substantive. To be fair, clause 6, which is within this part and which states: “This Act binds the Crown.”, managed to make it through unamended, and I congratulate Nathan Guy on getting that particular clause right. It is just a pity that he did not work as hard on the following clauses to make sure that they were accurate. Maybe he was just putting a challenge there for the select committee. Maybe what the Minister was doing was playing some sort of game with Mr Bakshi and Mr Auchinvole, to see whether they could find all the mistakes that he had made in the bill that was drafted and that he had introduced to the House. But I want to say to him that it is a bit of a waste of the time of the Parliament to introduce a bill that is so badly drafted and in such a bad form as he did.

The purpose of the bill is to provide a consent-based service to allow both private and public sector agencies to check identity information. It extends the use of the data validation service to public and private sector agencies, but it is very much on a need-to-know basis. There are also the intermediaries, which we will get on to. I think they are just referred to in this part, but in the next part the intermediaries are a much more important part of the bill—the major change in the bill is the intermediaries. They are in the interpretation clause and we had to put them in there, but their substantive role is outlined much more later on in the bill.

The bill allows checking whether the identity information provided by a customer is consistent with that held by the Department of Internal Affairs through the citizenship registers, the passport database, and the various registers of the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry office. For the purpose of this bill, there is a key official, and that is the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages. That is a person on whom there is quite a lot of focus and, I think, is the person—yes, we have identified that person in the definition of “Registrar-General” in clause 5 of the legislation.

We are supporting the bill, as is obvious, because it does give Government agencies and the private sector an ability to use identity information in the fight against fraud. I think all of us know that there is a lot of identity fraud around. I do not think there would be a member of this House who is not invited 10 or 20 times a day—it might have something to do with the quality of the spam filters that we have got—to supply information that would be used for fraudulent purposes.

The Privacy Commissioner was satisfied that the legal arrangements and controls in this bill are adequate, but what we did do was a beefing-up of the responsibilities of the registrar-general and the intermediaries to work with the Privacy Commissioner on each of the contractual arrangements. We are concerned, as with the previous legislation, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, about the security of private information. Frankly, I do trust the registrar-general and his team more than I do Novopay—or Paula Bennett, for that matter—with private information, but I think the lessons that we have had recently indicate that we should be eternally vigilant against people who break into systems, and against people who have systems that leave doors open for people to go into. That is why it is important to have a good person in that position of registrar-general as part of the team, and for the Privacy Commissioner, whose role is indicated in clause 5, to be actively involved in the area.

My colleague Kris Faafoi referred to the case of David Garrett. It was one that was an old case, it was a suppressed case, and he was someone who used the methodology that was outlined in The Day of the Jackal as a method of developing an identity. What we are told is that that sort of approach was quite common in the older days before there was a quality of electronic records and the ability to go back and trace. And what—

Louise Upston: Back in your days, Trevor.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: Well, back in my day, although—

Hon Ruth Dyson: Better days.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: I think Ruth Dyson might—no, probably not all other members of the House will remember the case of Malcolm Douglas. Malcolm Douglas was a short-term MP in this House, who was replaced in the Hunua electorate by—

Hon Ruth Dyson: The Hon Winston Peters.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD: —the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who at the time was not even the Hon Winston Peters. But Mr Douglas was replaced when Winston Peters was first an MP. The electoral petition from the time was based on Mr Douglas voting gravestones. Effectively, the register of voters in the Hunua electorate was boosted by a number of people who had died. Some of them were put on the roll, and others had died and had never come off the roll, but by miracles these people were voting. As a result of that, Mr Douglas, who shared the approach to life of that family, was in the end no longer a member of Parliament. The point that I am making, or trying to make, is that I hope that over time we can work through these systems and make sure that as well as having a good identity arrangement for checking, it is extended to the electoral roll and, in fact, to the quality of the information on the electoral roll—the fact that people go on to the roll and, hopefully, stay on the roll, even if their addresses change. It could work there.

These cases are modern, as well. There is a case that I will not go into in any depth, because it is one where the woman is still waiting for sentencing, but she is a woman who has been found guilty of more than 20 charges relating to opening fake TradeMe accounts, gathering people’s Inland Revenue Department information, trying to access their bank accounts, and using other people’s credit cards. This is the sort of thing where we hope this legislation will make a difference. It will mean that that sort of fraud is harder to do in this particular case. Of course, the systems eventually work, but the fact that she had more than 20 charges—and I understand that they were representative charges, which means that there were quite a lot more—is an indication that our current systems are not working as well as they should.

The last case that I want to mention of this sort is the case of Te Rito Henry Miki. He was a sex offender who was employed in multiple schools as a result of changing his identity, changing his name—apparently legally, by deed poll—but not having continuity of record, which was very important in stopping this sort of offending.

I think it is important that we focus on who uses this register. I, for one, hope that the Teachers Council is an organisation that uses it and properly establishes information that tracks individuals, especially if they use changes in name in an attempt to avoid something that is bad in their past or, in some cases, to organise charges to be made in a different name from the one that they are normally known by. That, I think, is something that is quite dangerous, and, again, I think this legislation could help.

The other criticism that I make is that although this bill is going through unanimously now, I think, it is one that has taken some time. At the beginning of this legislation, the urgency of it was impressed on us, and that was quite some time ago. The select committee worked expeditiously on it—very thoroughly, as we can see from the number of changes that had to be made to the legislation—but then it just hung around on the Order Paper for an extraordinarily long time for a bill that is getting unanimous support from the House. I want to say in conclusion that I hope, with the other recent failures that had been identified in the management of the security of private information, that if there needs to be a legislative response to them, it does not take the Government nearly as long as it did in this particular case. Thank you.

Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I would like to take a call on this bill, the Identity Information Confirmation Bill, as a number of colleagues have, because it is an incredibly important bill that we are considering here tonight. It is one that does seek to get the right balance between the public’s right to know certain information about people and the right to privacy. As Trevor Mallard has just spelt out in an excellent speech—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Eloquent.

Dr MEGAN WOODS: —it was a very eloquent and excellent speech—this is a piece of legislation that has been worked on very hard at the Government Administration Committee consideration, largely in a cross-party way to make sure that we have the best piece of legislation. But it has taken a long time to get to this Committee. I think the time we are considering this is very timely, as it was with the previous legislation, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill, which we were just debating in this Chamber.

The issue of identity fraud and the issue of how it is that the Government or the State deals with people’s identity information are issues that are of prime concern to people. We have had people, not surprisingly, referring to the instances where this House itself has become implicated in issues of identity fraud—talking about David Garrett and his kind of Day of the Jackal textbook case of identity fraud. I think one of the things that this legislation is seeking to grapple with is not only the kinds of identity fraud that have always been able to happen, but how it is that this changes in the technological context in which we live. So added to The Day of the Jackal, if we are going to look for movie inspiration, I guess there is also The Net, a movie—and Clare Curran touched on some of these issues—about the way in which we are extra vulnerable around our information and our identity security in this technological age in the time of the internet. The purpose of this bill is to provide a consent-based service to allow both private and public sector agencies to check that information. The Identity Information Confirmation Bill extends the use of the data validation service to public and private sector agencies on a strictly need-to-know basis. I think it is incredibly important that this is on a need-to-know basis, because we do have to have these provisions there.

We all know that this is something that people are incredibly anxious about. We have people coming into our electorate offices and constituents talking to us regularly about their anxieties around the security of their data—who can access it, how it is going to be used, and, if they speak out, whether their information will be released by the Government as a way to silence them. What we saw is that an Australian security products company called Fellowes recently did a survey, as it does—it is into its sixth year now on these surveys—around how people feel around this issue, and it has found that 40 percent of New Zealanders are concerned about the threat of identity fraud. So this is certainly something that must be addressed.

A number of members have shared personal stories where they have been a victim of identity fraud or things that have happened in this House throughout time in terms of identity fraud, but I would just like to add a personal note there. As someone who has spent more time than is probably natural, or healthy even, in archives looking through the records of births, deaths, and marriages as a historian, I can speak about the amount of information that you can glean and piece together about a person and their life from that information. It is a tool of historians all over the world where such information is held. When you are a young postgrad historian learning the historical method, one of the first tools that you first learn to use is how it is that you piece together inordinate amounts of information from the sources about an individual. So I can speak from personal experience about the need to put these protections around this information, and to make sure that there is a need-to-use and a need-to-know basis, before people can just go in and access this information that is incredibly telling. Just as a footnote there, you will never get an historian talking about the use of Births, Deaths and Marriages records without talking about the $26 fee that it costs to access this information, and what it might do to the quality of historical scholarship in this country if there is not an exemption for research purposes.

Labour is supporting this bill because it is an important piece of the arsenal against identity fraud. We have seen over the last few months, and, actually, from this Government, which has a record of being incredibly sloppy with New Zealanders’ information, the litany of where people’s personal information has been leaked, or it has simply dribbled out of a Government agency, or where a citizen journalist has been able to walk up to a kiosk, put in a USB stick and download huge amounts of information about individuals that they should never have, or whether it be the bank account details and personal information of hundreds of the nation’s teachers being leaked through yet another one of the glitches with the Novopay system—or, as Ruth Dyson likes to call it, the “No pay” system—of the Ministry of Education. We are seeing it with ACC, we are seeing the obvious problems with Work and Income around security of data, and of course we have also seen that with the Inland Revenue Department. My colleague David Clark has spoken at length about some of the problems in terms of the department and what it has done around the breach in respect of the personal information of 6,300 people, where we have had the wrong information being sent. In the most serious case with the Inland Revenue Department 638 people had details like their addresses and tax numbers released, making them incredibly vulnerable to identity fraud. So although security companies such as Fellowes and the police will issue all kinds of advice to people about what they should do with their mail, what they should do with documents that contain their personal address and a lot of personal information—like shredding it and getting rid of it—this is all well and good, but if you cannot trust the information that the Government is holding about you, then the whole issue of your identity security continues to be a risk.

Labour will support this bill. It was pleased to have a positive input into this legislation and to be able to contribute to a lot of the changes that needed to be made to whip this legislation into shape, as Trevor Mallard has described it. We are pleased to be part of actually making sure that the 40 percent of New Zealanders who do feel anxiety about the security of their personal details might be able to take some comfort that this will not be something that will cause them this level of anxiety, and they will have confidence that the Government does have their personal information and its security at its heart, because it needs to. Thank you.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Provisions relating to confirmation service and miscellaneous matters

Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Part 2 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. As you correctly pointed out, it starts at clause 7 and goes through to clause 20. I just want to begin by expressing a little bit of disappointment in the response that the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Immigration, gave to my colleague Trevor Mallard, when he described the significant amount of change that was necessary to make this bill suitable for bringing back to the House. I was going to take a call on Part 1, but we suddenly seemed to have been voting, so I will just briefly refer to the fact that a critical part of Part 1 needed amendment, and that was the definition of “agency”. A big part of this bill is about ensuring that agencies are able to confirm identity, but the very definition of “agency” needed to be changed by the Government Administration Committee, because the bill that the Minister introduced did not include “intermediary”, and that was an obvious problem that the select committee alerted the officials to. The officials, quite properly, drew up very impressive revised definitions of both “agency” and then a new definition of “intermediary”, which, again, is described in Part 1. So two critical parts of making this bill work right—the definition of “agency”, you know, a sort of 101 of how this bill is going to work—needed to be corrected before the bill could come back to the House.

In Part 2, the part we are up to now, of course, we now have to look at the insertions consistently throughout of “intermediary”, which was omitted in the Minister’s first attempt at the bill, but then we have other quite substantial amendments as well throughout this part, including the exceptions, which are outlined on page 8. So again there were substantial deletions and rewriting by the committee. Then we get to clause 11, where the entire clause, which is a page and a half long, is deleted and replaced with appropriate wording that actually goes for—if I could just count—one, two, three, nearly four full pages of revised text. We are talking about a bill that is only 18 pages long and goes to clause 20 and then on to the schedule. This is not a big bill, yet five pages in this bill are total rewrites. That is over a quarter of the bill was rewritten. When my colleague Trevor Mallard referred to this pretty flawed, not great attempt at a bill that the Minister in the chair, the Hon Nathan Guy, had introduced, the Minister pooh-poohed it. He brushed him off. He dismissed his concerns, basically calling himself a pretty good Minister and saying that he had done a jolly fine job. Well, the evidence is before the Committee as we speak. I am very pleased that the Government Administration Committee and the officials did such a lot of work to make not a great bill but one where the intention was clearly supported by Labour into something that was fit to be returned to the House.

Obviously, clause 13 is another area that has had a complete rewrite. That is in relation to requirements of the Privacy Commissioner. If you are talking about people having confidence in a system, where an agency is able to use that service to confirm identity information that has been provided to it, then having a clear definition of “agency” is pretty fundamental. There cannot be anything more fundamental than that. Then, if you are talking about relationships and responsibilities, I would have thought—and I think that most members of the Committee would think—that the requirements of consultation with the Privacy Commissioner would be another fundamental. This is the second part of the bill that has had to be substantially rewritten.

Why do we think these issues are important? Well, I will tell the Committee why, from my perspective, we think they are important. It is because so many things have been going wrong with our departmental systems.

Mr Chairman—I thought you were going to push the buzzer there, and I was just anticipating. [Bell rung] Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The Hon Ruth Dyson.

Hon RUTH DYSON: That was a taunting little act, Mr Chairman—done in the best humour, I know, and actually on the grounds of accuracy, I am sure.

Some are systems that are in-house, like the shambles that we have seen at the kiosks at Work and Income, where a regular punter went in, did not hack into the system, just used it as it was intended, and the next minute was provided with copious amounts of information that nobody wanted him to have. Work and Income had been alerted to this security concern and, for some reason, did not seem to think that it was appropriate to tell its Minister, the Minister for Social Development. Maybe its Minister would not have been interested in such a potential security breach, but, in my view, that is the sort of activity that the Committee should be extremely concerned about not just because it was not hacking—it was just using the system as intended—but because it exposed some of the most vulnerable members of our community to potential abuse.

There was a breach of their privacy. Fortunately, the person who breached the security—quite legitimately, as I understand it—did not use that information for any purpose that could have done any harm. Thank goodness for that. What if it had been someone who had malicious intent and knew how to operate the kiosk? The kiosk was set up so that Work and Income clients—people who are receiving a benefit or people who are going there for information and support—can look up things like information about jobs. It was never intended to pass over information about children in foster care, their medication, their personal addresses where they are living, or other information that potentially is very damaging.

We have also had some discussion about the total shambles that Hekia Parata has—in a pretty intelligent move, actually—pushed on entirely to her Associate Minister of Education the Hon Craig Foss. I guess the temptation to pass on this sort of shambles to your associate is pretty strong, especially when you are in such a lot of difficulty. In my home town of Christchurch the Minister came into town and said she was going to close and merge a lot of our schools, and now people are wondering what on earth that is all about, because there is no logic to it and there is no intention to have better educational outcomes. It is all a bit of a frustration and stress inducer, actually.

But what the Minister Hekia Parata has pushed on to her Associate Minister is responsibility for Novopay. First of all, the problems with Novopay were pretty straightforward—immensely frustrating for teachers. Some of them just did not get paid. Then we found out that some of them had got paid, even though they had left teaching some time ago. Well, pleasant though it might be to get a big dollop of money in your bank account when you are not working for the person who has paid you that money, you have also got to pay it back. You feel pretty uncomfortable that you have taken something that does not belong to you. It is an additional hassle and stress for people who, frankly, do not need it.

But now we have found out that it is not just teachers not getting paid, or people who are no longer teachers getting paid, but that some schools are getting access to information—private details—about teachers who are not at their school. I noticed the Associate Minister’s comments about that. He said that every issue was being taken seriously. Well, that is jolly fine, but, actually, what we would like is the system fixed so that we do not have this ongoing problem for teachers, who are now going through their exam period, thinking about the Christmas break, and not knowing at all what their financial situation is going to be, because of this totally incompetent pay system. Having the Associate Minister say “Oh, we’re taking all these issues seriously.” does not actually cut the mustard, frankly.

It is not good enough. It is like the quality of this bill when it was first introduced. The Marshall Laing Primary School associate principal said that it would have been easy under the current Novopay system to divert money from a teacher’s bank account, through the breach in the system. How do teachers around the country feel about that? I do not think they would be very satisfied with it at all. This is just the latest in a series of very important and serious breaches, where people’s individual privacy has been threatened and where people have been sent the wrong information by Government departments. I do not think, frankly, that the Government is getting on top of this at all.

JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and, firstly, to say that the Green Party would really like to be able to support this bill. If—hope against hope—we get support for our Supplementary Order Paper 148, then we will happily support this bill.

We do recognise that identity fraud is a significant issue, causes much stress and hardship within our society, and is something that is deserving of proactive legislation to redress. However, I guess for us it is a matter of balancing harms, and we have a concern that although this bill as it is currently framed talks about fraud—a lot—it also opens up a system for employers to provide pressure on people to have to provide information that they are currently protected from having to provide.

The Human Rights Act 1993 protects job applicants from discrimination on certain grounds. Employers should in the process of employing somebody ask only questions that relate to the requirements of the job and how qualified the candidate is for that job. We have recognised that there are very common grounds that people are discriminated on. It may be their date of birth, nationality, sex, gender identity, pregnancy, marital status, religious belief, colour, race, disability, age, political opinions, etc.

We have the Human Rights Act to protect people against that discrimination, because we know that it exists. My real concern is that this bill is going to open people up to having to disclose information that will trigger that discrimination, whereas at the moment they are protected from having to give it. As an example, when I apply for jobs I never put my date of birth on my CV. I know that age is a basis of discrimination and that for people over the age of 40 it is much harder to get a job. I never provide that information to give that in. And I know that in this country people have been advised to change their name, to Anglicise their name, to be able to get interviews. My concern is that this bill will open up that process and will give employers that information without having to ask for it directly, and they will therefore not be open to a challenge for a breach of the Human Rights Act.

I will give some examples of that to prove my case around, in particular, age discrimination and the discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. The Human Rights Commission has done a report, A fair go for all?, looking at some of the racism in employment practices. Within that they gave an example of a 22-year-old job seeker who had moved to New Zealand from Syria. He was told that he should change his name to something more Kiwi to be able to get an interview. Another example was an Auckland-based civil engineer applying for a graduate position within an architectural business in my home town of Invercargill. The hiring manager asked for more details around who he was, trying to determine his ethnicity—asking for a photograph, his country of origin, and how long he had lived in New Zealand. When the applicant asked why he was asking for that information he was told that, well, unfortunately, any southern New Zealand client would possibly think twice about dealing with anyone with a Middle Eastern name.

With this bill the employer is not even going to have to say that. They are going to ask for that information because it is about verifying their identity, whereas in this situation the person said “Why are you asking for this information?” and then was told, and got a clear indication of discrimination. That is not going to happen under this legislation, potentially, which is a very real concern.

Another basis of discrimination in this country is around age, and research that was done in 2006 through the Auckland University—

Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Immigration): I wish to take a call on Part 2 of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. It is interesting listening to the debate in the Committee tonight. I would like to make a few comments. First of all, I think it is important to realise that Part 2 is a very important part. I acknowledge the contribution that the chair of the Government Administration Committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson, made before. I acknowledge that the select committee did a lot of work on this bill, and I thank it on behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs for that. Importantly, Part 2—

Hon Trevor Mallard: Who introduced the bill?

Hon NATHAN GUY: I did introduce the bill.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Very poorly drafted. Not the member’s best work.

Hon NATHAN GUY: I acknowledge, Mr Mallard, the good work of the select committee and the bill that we now have in front of us.

Importantly, Part 2 looks at the provisions relating to the confirmation service and miscellaneous matters—and I will come to Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 148 in a moment. It also talks about how to use the confirmation service, in clause 9. It talks about the parties to the confirmation agreement, in clause 10; that is an important part. It also talks about, in clause 11, the general requirements for the form and content of the confirmation agreement, and it follows right through to the terms and conditions of that agreement, and, importantly, under clauses 13 and 14, the safeguards that the Privacy Commissioner has over this particular piece of legislation.

If I refer now to the member’s Supplementary Order Paper—Jan Logie’s one, which is Supplementary Order Paper 148—I think it is, first of all, worthwhile mentioning that there are legitimate reasons why employers may need to confirm the identity information of a potential employee. There are no current provisions, as I understand it, in the Citizenship Act 1977 or the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 for the employer to verify the citizenship status of potential employees. This bill allows employers to verify that a potential employee is a New Zealand citizen. That is an important part of this bill, and to read Supplementary Order Paper 148 from Jan Logie and to hear her comments that this part opens up a system to provide pressure on the employee, I do not agree. I also do not agree with her comments that it is going to trigger discrimination, because, ultimately, the individual has to consent. If I can find that part to try to reassure the member, it is covered under clause 8(1)(a): “the individual has consented (in written or electronic form) to the check before it is carried out ...”—

Denis O’Rourke: What about pressure to consent?

Hon NATHAN GUY: —and it goes on to, I believe, clarify that the individual will not be pressured, because they have to consent to it.

So the Government does not support the Greens’ Supplementary Order Paper 148, because that is an important part that is included in the bill to allow the employer to clarify the status of the employee.

Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): It is not very often that I agree with the Hon Nathan Guy, but I think in respect of the amendment in the name of Jan Logie I do take that position. I think it is fair to say that the operative part of this Identity Information Confirmation Bill was after two types of problems. One was people who take people’s identity for the purpose of getting money, and the other was the sort of person who takes someone’s identity often for even more nefarious purposes than that. I referred earlier to the case of Te Rito Henry Miki, who has appeared before the courts as a result of shifting from school to school and changing his identity as he went. I, as a former Minister of Education, had a lot to do with the Teachers Council as it was set up, and saw reports on absolutely awful cases of abuse—absolutely awful cases of abuse. What made it worse in some cases was that the individual, when they were close to being caught, used what are legal methods of deed poll and other arrangements to change their name, to move on in identity, and then they repeated their offences. That is something that this particular character did, and my hope is that having a proper identity verification service will stop an individual doing that, because it will supply a continuity of record of an individual’s name.

I accept that that will result in some prejudice against some individuals getting jobs because of their previous records, but my view is that when it comes to areas such as education and health, there is the trust that we put in people and the risks that we face with people who are not who they say they are—and we have had recent cases of medical practitioners who have pretended to be other people, and students who have pretended to be other people, and have had access to things that they should not have access to. This will not be the total solution, but a major part of the purpose is to have the continuity of identification of the individuals.

I understand what the member is saying. She is concerned that by giving an age it means that it will result in prejudice against someone because of their age. Well, if that is the case it is already and quite separately an offence—you are not allowed to do that—but at the moment date of birth, along with name, is actually a pretty good unique identifier. It is a way of checking that people are who they say they are and having that continuity.

Although I have got sympathy for the views of the member and I share her concerns at misuse, especially, of age information if it results in prejudice against the old or the young, because it can happen both ways—especially in these days when you have, you know, 2,000 people applying for five jobs and it can be used as a screening method like that—and that is a danger. But I also say that for a lot of jobs it is important to identify the individual and to verify them. Therefore, we will not be supporting that amendment.

As we indicated before, this part of the bill has had substantial amendment. The introduction of the intermediaries is something that was particularly important, and it has reshaped the bill as we worked through, but it is a piece of legislation, with all of that work, that we now support. In fact, we support it so much that we have agreed that the third reading be part of the extended sittings that we are looking forward to in December, to ensure that we can get the bill through and get it operative as soon as possible in the new year.

DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First supports the Identity Information Confirmation Bill to help attack identity fraud and ensure that only identity confirmation information is supplied and only to approved agencies. Identity information means information about a person’s full name, gender, date of birth, place of birth, and other recorded information—for example, a passport photograph—and the status of the recorded information. The service can be used by an intermediary who is a party to a confirmation agreement with the responsible officials.

The purpose of Part 2 is “to allow an agency or intermediary to check whether an individual’s identity information is consistent with any recorded information.” That in itself limits the scope of the confirmation service, but I am glad to see that there are many other safeguards. In clause 8 there is a list of conditions for using the confirmation service, which most particularly, of course, require the individual to consent, whether in writing or electronically, and that is an important basis of the protections provided to the individual under this bill. It requires the agency or intermediary applying to give an assurance that the consent has been obtained and, of course, that it has also entered into the required confirmation agreement. There is also the ability for an individual to consent on a one-off basis or an ongoing basis, and to withdraw that consent, as well. We think those are all very important safeguards in the bill for the individual.

We also approve, of course, of clause 9(4), which states: “The confirmation service must not, at any stage, supply to the agency or intermediary any recorded information about the individual who is the subject of the search.” So it really is only confirmation information that is provided, and it is important that it be limited in that way. Clause 9, of course, provides a bit of an exemption in respect of, obviously, people who have died or where there has been a name change, or where the status of recorded information has changed as well, and those are necessary exemptions.

Clause 10 gives a long list of requirements in respect of the responsible officials, requiring a need to be demonstrated by an intermediary before they can enter into an agreement, and also they must have policies and practices in respect of the security of information and relating to the privacy of individuals. We think those are particularly appropriate and important ways of limiting the scope of the bill to make sure that it is focused only on what it is intended to achieve.

Clauses 11, 11A, and 11B contain very comprehensive provisions concerning what must be in a confirmation agreement and, in addition, how those agreements are to be used. I note the addition of new clause 11A, concerning how the agency must obtain an individual’s consent and how he or she may withdraw that consent. I also acknowledge the very important role of the Privacy Commissioner.

New Zealand First believes that the protection of the individual forms an important part of this bill, while at the same time it provides an efficient and valuable service for agencies and intermediaries to obtain confirmation information. So for those reasons New Zealand First is happy to support the bill.

I did finally want to comment on Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 148 to exclude the use of the service for employment processes. That should be supported, as well. Like Jan Logie, I agree that it is very important that we should do all we can to stop age discrimination and similar forms of discrimination. We think it is a serious problem. We think that it is often underestimated in this House. I think that Trevor Mallard and some other speakers have underestimated it, and I would really ask the question, in relation to that, of what harm it would do to pass that Supplementary Order Paper and have that provision. I think it is harmless, and I think it would make a contribution. I do understand that—

JAN LOGIE (Green): I would now like just to take this chance to address some of the responses to our Supplementary Order Paper 148, where the Minister in the chair justified this and said it could not be used, in effect, to hide discrimination because it was optional and people would have the ability to opt out of it. My concern is that discrimination happens primarily to marginalised groups. Marginalised groups are the least likely to be able to stand up and step out of what is seen as the standard pathway, because of the fear of discrimination on the basis of doing just that. On that basis, I really do not believe that the opt-out clause in this bill is going to protect those people.

We have also heard from my colleague Trevor Mallard saying “Well, it is an offence already. Discrimination is an offence already. This is not going to make a difference.” Well, my point is that employers currently have to ask questions to find out that information, and you can use those questions as evidence in taking a case of discrimination. This bill will mean those employers will not have to ask those questions, and you will have no evidence that you have been discriminated against.

I would just like to draw the Committee’s attention to how prevalent age discrimination is. The research from 2006 from the Auckland business group at the university showed that 25-year-old workers were six to 12 times more likely to be short-listed for a low-demand position than a 55-year-old-plus worker. That is six to 12 times. This is a really significant issue in our society, and this bill has the potential to hide that discrimination. I do not think that is good enough.

When Mr Mallard also said—taking an issue that is incredibly dear to my heart, protecting victims of sexual abuse—“Well, we have had this evidence of a school teacher going from school to school and changing identity.”, I am not going to say that that is not an issue. I do not believe this legislation is the appropriate response to that issue. What this legislation does is take away a kind of simple way of carrying on abuse when nobody has taken any action. The appropriate response to sexual abuse being done by teachers in schools is to act on that abuse and to take that to the courts, not to set up an alternative system that is going to undermine people’s human rights and rights to privacy. This bill does not protect fundamental human rights, and I believe that the older people in New Zealand and people born outside of New Zealand deserve our care and our protection in the employment market.

KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I thank the Hon Nathan Guy for taking a call earlier in the debate on this bill, the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. He was very noble to the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson. He said that the committee had done a lot of work on the bill, and good work was being done by the select committee. It was cool because that committee fixed the bill. It actually made a raft of changes within this bill and absolutely improved the bill. Mr Guy should be thankful for the fact that the select committee looked through the bill and made a number of significant changes to it.

I did want to talk to Part 2, specifically clause 9(8), which gives an example. It states: “For the purposes of subsections (6) and (7), identity information may be treated as consistent with recorded information despite any variation between them because of pronunciation or punctuation.” It gives an example here within the bill. I just want to give a personal example. On my driver’s licence my surname is spelt F-a-’-a-f-o-i. But because of the trouble that the apostrophe has caused our family, we decided, when we are using it on a daily basis, to get rid of the apostrophe. On my passport it has the apostrophe, and when we have booked tickets to go overseas, the ticket agent has removed the apostrophe. So we have actually had instances where we have turned up to check in for the flight and they have said: “No, you can’t check in. Your passport says one thing and your ticket says another.” That was just because there was an apostrophe within the official document and the ticket has not had an apostrophe. That has been an issue for us, so it is good to see that a practical implication of this bill in clause 9(8) is going to give a little bit of leeway for the likes of accents and hyphenations. The Faafoi family—the Fa’afoi family—will be very, very happy about that.

I also wanted to talk about clause 7, which is around the introduction of intermediaries. We think that, as I said before when I was commenting on the good work done by the Government Administration Committee, this is a very good improvement, because the intermediaries will offer greater convenience and reduce compliance costs for those involved. During this debate I did ask Ruth Dyson whether or not maybe members of Parliament could be considered as intermediaries, because from time to time we do have people who come into our electorate offices so that we can act as witnesses and confirm their documentation. That may have some implications for members of Parliament in terms of acting as intermediaries, as has been pointed out throughout debate on Part 2 of this bill.

I also wanted to have a quick look at clause 17, which pertains to the Privacy Commissioner and the fact that they may require periodic reports on the operation of this confirmation system. The clause is very short and I will read it out for you: “The Privacy Commissioner may, at intervals not shorter than 12 months, require the responsible officials to provide the Privacy Commissioner with a report on the operation of the confirmation service.”

I do just want to go back to Part 1 of the bill and to clause 4, “Purpose”. Clause 4(b) states that we should “ensure that agencies can use and, if necessary, record confirmed identity information.” I think we should also have a look at inserting a word there or taking some action to make it “securely record confirmed identity information”, because, as we have seen in recent months, there has been a number of privacy breaches within a number of Government agencies, which have caused great concern to members of the public. Firstly, there was the privacy breach at Work and Income, where citizen journalist Keith Ng was able to access a kiosk that was freely available to any member of the public. He strolled into one of these offices, got out a USB stick, and pretty much helped himself to 7,000 documents of very sensitive information pertaining to suicide cases, to medical records, to invoices for contractors, and the like. I think most New Zealanders were aghast at the level of information that he was able to get his hands on at a publicly available kiosk in a Work and Income office. I think clause 17, giving the Privacy Commissioner the ability to ask for a report, certainly would help in monitoring those kinds of privacy breaches that we have seen in the likes of Work and Income.

Unfortunately, Work and Income is not the only instance of a privacy breach that clause 17 may be useful for in the future. We have also had the account of the Inland Revenue Department. I may stand corrected, and I may hear it from behind me, but I believe 6,300 individuals have been affected in the last year by breaches of privacy by the Inland Revenue Department. This is a department that does not like it when taxpayers get things wrong. The fact that in the last 12 months 6,300 individuals have been affected by privacy breaches is not a good look. If the Inland Revenue Department were to be part of this at some stage in the future, to help verify identification, I think the fact that clause 17 would be there to allow the Privacy Commissioner to proactively look at any breaches of privacy would be a good thing.

Unfortunately, it does not stop there. We have also got the case of the Accident Compensation Corporation, which I believe gave the details of 6,748 individuals to one member of the public, who went public in a big way and obviously caused a whole heap of ructions on the other side of the House. That is, again, another Government agency that is dealing with very sensitive information. It managed to release a lot of information of nearly 7,000 individuals in one email. So clause 17, which would allow the Privacy Commissioner to look into that whenever he or she wanted to, is a good part of what is contained in this bill.

Unfortunately, that is not where it ends. We have also got the Ministry of Education, with Novopay, and the fact that a number of teachers have had their private details or their pay details released to schools that they do not work at, as another breach of privacy. Of course, this is of much concern to the public. Clause 17, within this bill, would obviously give the Privacy Commissioner some leeway to proactively look into those privacy breaches.

We are painting a bit of a picture here that there is serious concern in the public about the level of security around information and the trust that the public have in Government departments, and whether they can be trusted with the security of this information. The current state of affairs, I think, if we were to ask members of the public, is that there is serious concern. But I think that a provision like clause 17 in Part 2 of this bill would ease some of those fears—the fact that the Privacy Commissioner could proactively look at any potential breaches or actual breaches of privacy within the realm of this bill.

Privacy is very important, and, of course, it is the confidence of the New Zealand public in Government agencies to hold private information secure that gives us a level of confidence in their ability to do their basic functions. I think it is fair to say that in the last year or so we have seen, in a number of instances, cases where the confidence of the New Zealand public has been pretty much rocked by what has gone on. I think probably the worst case that we have seen in the last 12 months is that of Work and Income, where that information was so easily accessed.

We are supporting this bill. I would like to thank whoever drafted clause 9(8), as that has eased the pain that I have felt for many years over a single apostrophe in our name. I also thank the Government Administration Committee for doing a lot of work to tidy up this bill from the state in which it arrived into the Parliament.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 148 in the name of Jan Logie to clause 8 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 23

Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1.

Noes 98

New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.

Amendment not agreed to.

Part 2 agreed to.

Schedule agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.

Bills

Legislation Bill

In Committee

Debate resumed from 6 November.

Part 3 Subordinate legislation: Disallowable instruments and incorporation of material by reference (continued)

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 127 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to clause 48 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 3 as amended agreed to.

Part 4 Parliamentary Counsel Office

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 127 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to Part 4 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 4 as amended agreed to.

Schedule

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to the proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 127 in his name to the schedule be agreed to:

in the item relating to the Telecommunications Act 2001, replace “69N” with “69N(6)”.

Amendment to the amendment agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 127 in the name of the Hon Christopher Finlayson to the schedule, and the following amendment in his name to the schedule, be agreed to:

in the item relating to new section 76D of the Customs and Excise Act 1996, replace “1 July 2011” with “the date on which section 72(2) of the Legislation Act 2012 comes into force”.

Amendments as amended and amendment agreed to.

Schedule as amended agreed to.

Clauses 1 and 2

Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): It is important that Labour does speak on this final part of the Committee stage, because we want to put on record our support for the Legislation Bill, and also the fact that there has been a significant amount of work that has gone into this bill to make sure that although it is a technical and, some would say—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.

House resumed.

The Chairperson reported the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill with amendment, the Electronic Identity Verification Bill with amendment, the Identity Information Confirmation Bill without amendment, and progress on the Legislation Bill.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.