Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill

These are clauses on the title, the commencement, and the principal Act being amended. There will be one debate and three votes.

I rise once again to support National’s decision to vote against this legislation. In speaking to the title, we could call the bill a number of things, but I would call it the “Death of our Democracy by a Thousand Cuts and This is Just Another Slice Bill”. It absolutely is so. Openness and transparency is a fundamental principle of democracy, and that is being denied in this bill.

I ask what is driving it. Earlier I mentioned Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who expressed some serious concerns about this legislation. Just for the benefit of members on the other side of the Chamber, I say that he had serious concerns about this legislation, and I will tell members why. The reason was that the access provisions proposed in the bill will not only affect birth, deaths, and marriages registers but also may have other implications for wider registers. With regard to this we can probably bear in mind the driver for this measure, which is partly the view of the Privacy Commissioner, whose new concept of access to information is called privacy pollution.

The other concern expressed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer was that there is no evidence of how much identity fraud in New Zealand is made by access to births, deaths, and marriages records. Indeed, the information required for identity theft can be obtained from many other sources. He is absolutely right. I said previously that the KPMG report on identity fraud made no linkage between access to the births, deaths, and marriages information in the registers. Sir Geoffrey said also that no figures are available as to how many people, if any, have expressed concern about the current availability of information on the births, deaths, and marriages register. The officials had a great deal of difficulty dredging up the half a dozen that might have existed. We are one of the most open societies in the world, and I think it is to our shame that we are starting to shut down on that openness.

As I have said before, there are two aspects of this legislation that in our view are absolutely unnecessary. All of the submitters who opposed this bill were absolutely right in that this bill is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. This is about, essentially, two things. The bill in its current form—the Minister is still putting through Supplementary Order Papers—is denying people that ready and free access to the information on the registers. They should have been able to have free access, and they should still be able to have it. They should be able to get printouts or photocopies of information.

The other problem we tried to bring to the Government’s attention was the fact that anyone can go to the registrar’s office and get an authorised document without providing any form of identification. For some reason, the registrar’s office produces authorised documentation to people who go there just wanting a bit of information. How dumb is that? I cannot understand how those officials could make that connection between providing an authorised document without the person having any form of identification whatsoever.

Identification is required for a driver’s licence, for a gun licence, and for a whole raft of other licences. If people want an authorised document, they should be required to provide some form of identification. I am sure that that could have been done through any other process than legislation. As I have said before, and as the Government seems to ignore completely, one of the first principles of legislation is to identify the problem—define clearly what the problem is that we are trying to fix.

Sir Geoffrey acknowledged that the linkage to identity fraud was essentially dropped, and that the driver was this thing about privacy pollution coming out of the Privacy Commissioner. We should be very, very clear in the first instance what the problem is and define it very, very clearly.

The second thing that the legislative guidelines ask is whether there is some other way that this could be addressed without having to introduce yet another piece of legislation. I feel that this could have been done by a simple requirement through regulations that some form of identification be required if someone wants an authorised document—not if someone wants any other information—and free and ready access to all of that information. But no, this is the sledgehammer to crack a nut.

I want to respond to members and sum up the situation we have now. Firstly, I come back to Sandra Goudie’s point. She says that there is no point to this legislation, that it is unnecessary, and that identity theft is not an issue. I go back to the several examples I gave earlier in the discussion. Her caucus colleague David Bennett, the member of Parliament for Hamilton East, wrote to say that he had been approached by a constituent who was concerned that his brother had been able to obtain a copy of his, Andrew’s, birth certificate by simply filling in a form and paying the fee. The brother was therefore able to obtain a driver’s licence in Andrew’s name. That is what he said had occurred. That is identity theft. Sandra Goudie herself, in a parliamentary written question, asked how the birth certificate of a dead New Zealand girl was obtained by Laurelyn Smith. Again, Laurelyn Smith used that information for fraudulent purposes. Another high-profile case I alluded to was that of the people who used the registers to get information to steal identities and then fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports for Israelis.

The fact is that the information had to be given by law. That is what it required. If anybody turned up, the law required the registry staff to give that person a certificate—an authorised duplicate. There was no other option. The staff could not just change the requirement by their own wish or will; I could not change it by regulation. That was the law, so we had to change the law. We have taken up, by coincidence, the suggestion of John Hayes, who was here earlier. He asked why the people who turned up should not have to identify themselves. Sandra Goudie said the same thing. I say to Sandra Goudie and to John Hayes that that is exactly what the legislation now requires. If people are going to turn up and get a certificate, they have to produce some form of identification.

But I come back to the point that Sandra Goudie has missed. The certificate is not of value in itself. It is the information on it that is of value, such as the name of the person, the date of his or her birth, and the names of his or her parents. From that, someone can start to track back. When that person has the information, he or she then has the ability to steal an identity. It is not the certificate itself that is of value; it is the information that is on it. We require people to give that information to the State, and therefore the State has an obligation to do its utmost to protect the information. That is why, in the future, people will have completely open access to the registers. Nothing will be closed off to them. There will be no limitation on family searches for family members, or on anything like that—none whatsoever. But when people turn up to seek the information, they will have to identify themselves as to who they are and identify the information that they are taking.

If someone wants to access my record, he or she will be able to do that. But when that person does that, his or her name and details will be taken. Sometime later, if I find that that person has been up to mischief and has been doing things with my name, then I will be able to go to the registrar and ask about who has been there. If it happens to be the Hon Mark Burton, I will be able to go to him and ask him what he has done with my information, because I will know he has had access to it. That is the purpose of the provision. We will then be able to track the mischief. It is simple. So we will do as John Hayes suggested. If people want a driver’s licence or a gun licence, then they have to prove who they are. It will be the same in respect of the register.

The other good thing about this legislation is that it will enhance the capability of researchers to get information. At the moment if someone wants to get information from the births, deaths, and marriages register, he or she has to identify the individual names. Because all the information will now be on a computer data sheet, people will be able to do group searches in areas where they could not before. The research ability will be enhanced significantly by this legislation. [Interruption] I want to assure the member who interjects that he is absolutely wrong on that; he has been misadvised.

💬 Sandra Goudie: He’s not wrong. You can’t read.

I say to Sandra Goudie and the Committee that we have good legislation. Members have agreed, I think, to a very good compromise: a balance between open access and ensuring as best we can the protection of the identities of New Zealanders who are on that register from theft and exploitation.

There has been a good process on this bill, and I commend the House for that. I recommend to other members on the National side of the Chamber that they read the legislation now and think about their concerns. With the Supplementary Order Papers, I am sure they will find that all of their concerns have been assuaged. This will be good and enduring legislation.