Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill

I move, That the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill be now read a second time. The aim of this bill is to facilitate Better Public Services and improve the way personal information is collected, stored, and used to help people. The bill adequately balances the need for better information-sharing with the need to protect privacy. Medical professionals, social workers, police, civil defence, and many other key service providers will be assisted to share information to help protect the lives and well-being of vulnerable people. The bill adds to the existing methods that public service providers have to provide information. Agencies will be able to decide what information they need and enter into information-sharing agreements to get it. This will address existing barriers to information flow for the delivery of public services and clarify information-sharing rules.

The bill does two things. Firstly, it removes the need for a threat to public health or safety, or to the life or health of an individual to be imminent. The privacy principles will be amended to allow agencies to share information at an earlier stage in cases where there is a serious threat to public health or safety or to the life or health of an individual. That difference between a serious threat and an imminent threat can be crucial, particularly when we are dealing with vulnerable people. It makes no sense for an agency to keep information about a serious threat secret simply because that threat is not imminent. Secondly, the bill sets out a process for drawing up information-sharing agreements to be approved by Orders in Council. The Orders in Council will enable information to be shared in information-sharing agreements outside of the information privacy principles for specified public purposes. Private sector agencies can become parties to information-sharing agreements and share information in the course of delivering public services. This will ensure the existing barriers to information flow can be easily removed and unclear information rules can be swiftly clarified.

The Justice and Electoral Committee has considered the bill. I thank the committee and officials and commend them for their efforts. The committee has suggested some sensible changes to the bill and the Government has adopted all of these. The committee received 20 written submissions and heard five oral submissions. Almost all submitters supported the bill in whole or in part. Half of the submitters considered that the bill adequately balances the need for better information-sharing with the need to protect privacy. Some submitters were concerned that the bill may erode personal privacy or allow too much information sharing. The committee acted on these concerns and made changes to the bill.

The first change clarifies that an agency wishing to share information when there may be a serious threat to health or safety must consider the likelihood of the threat occurring, its severity, and when the threat will occur. The second change clarifies which agencies can use information-sharing agreements to share information. This includes clarifying the provisions that allow agencies to join an information-sharing agreement after it is approved. The third clarifies that a lead agency must make the most up-to-date version of an approved information-sharing agreement publicly available.

The bill has also been reordered to make it clearer and easier to navigate. The committee also made technical changes that will better achieve the bill’s policy intent. I would like to acknowledge the input of the Law Commission and the Privacy Commissioner into this bill. The policy foundations that the bill rests upon have proven to be solid. The Law Commission can take much of the credit for this, as the concept of the information-sharing agreement came from its briefing paper. The Privacy Commissioner has also played a valuable support role, providing expertise and ensuring that privacy is adequately protected.

At the appropriate time I intend to table a Government Supplementary Order Paper to make three further amendments. The Supplementary Order Paper will build on the changes made by the Justice and Electoral Committee, which was previously chaired by my colleague Mr Tim Macindoe. The first amendment allows the New Zealand Transport Agency to be a lead agency. The New Zealand Transport Agency holds a significant amount of information and should be able to lead the development of information-sharing agreements. The second amendment will allow the Department of Internal Affairs to use information-sharing agreements to share births, deaths, marriage, and relationship information. This amendment enables a recommendation of the “Person A” ministerial inquiry to be implemented. Teachers whose history of offending has been hidden or who have changed their names will be able to be picked up. The final amendment will remove any doubt that improved information-sharing agreements can be used to deliver public services, whether those services are established by Government policy or by law.

It is intended that the bill will be divided at the Committee of the whole House stage. One bill will amend the Privacy Act. The other bill will amend the Tax Administration Act so that the Inland Revenue Department can share information with other Public Service providers more effectively and efficiently. The bill has the support of the Privacy Commissioner. As the commissioner noted in her submission, the bill is a “fine balance between providing … flexibility … and ensuring that privacy considerations are given due weight.” I commend this bill to the House.

I too rise to speak in the second reading of the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill, a bill that had its first reading 1 year and 4 days ago. It was reported back from the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I serve on, 6 months later on 8 June 2012. In fact, our select committee, ably chaired by my colleague across the House Tim Macindoe—well, at that time. Unfortunately, he has not been able to see the bill’s conclusion, and he probably felt that he would have seen it traverse its full passage through the House, given how prompt we were in actually reporting back within the time frame set by the Minister of Justice when it had its first reading just over a year ago. So the question that I have got is why the bill has taken so long to come up the Order Paper, given the degree of urgency that was expressed in the first reading contribution from the Minister herself. In fact, she spoke at some length about the need to progress this element of the Law Commission review on privacy legislation, rather than await the detailed analysis of that report and all of the recommendations that would flow from that. So I sort of thought that maybe I would give it a go, because she did not mention it in her contribution, and I guess I did not expect her to.

But maybe the Government does not want privacy, or matters of information sharing particularly, to be debated in Parliament, and I am not surprised that this debate is occurring at half past 8 on a Tuesday evening. I suspect that has something to do with the Government’s not wanting to have a debate around these matters. I just thought of a few cases that I thought I might address. How about ACC? I think ACC would be a really, really good example. The particular ACC example that I was going to use was Michelle Boag. Michelle Boag made this statement—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, I remember her. Former president of the National Party.

Michelle Boag, as a former president, as my colleague points out, of the National Party, stated this, and I just think this is a very helpful contribution to this debate: “When you can’t send a communication to a Government minister without fearing that the privacy of that communication is going to be breached, that’s very, very dangerous.” To which Minister do you think Michelle Boag—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Anne Tolley?

—ex-president of the National Party, was referring when she said: “When you can’t send a communication to a Government minister without fearing that the privacy of that communication is going to breached, that’s very, very dangerous.”? Whom was she talking about?

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Paula Bennett?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Tony Ryall?

No, it was not Paula Bennett and it was not Tony Ryall. It was not Anne Tolley. Have we got any advances on those particular Ministers? It was Judith Collins. I have to actually declare the fact that she was, in fact, referring to Judith Collins. Michelle Boag was very clear about whom she was referring to.

Then there is another set of particular organisations, or another Minister, who might not like to have the question of privacy breaches and information sharing brought up in this House. Let me consider the role of one Paula Bennett in releasing the private details of two women receiving a benefit after they spoke out against cuts to the training incentive allowance, a benefit that she herself benefited from when she herself was in that situation. She was so concerned that these women were daring to suggest that they were finding it difficult to get through tertiary education without the benefit of the training incentive allowance, which the Minister for Social Development got the benefit of, that she in fact decided that that gave her the right to expose all of their private information about what benefits they were receiving through the State system, through Work and Income.

Of course, the privacy complaints system upheld that this was a breach of the individuals’ privacy, but, as Paula Bennett herself said in response to that, “I do not accept that view.” That was what she said: “I do not accept that view.” Then she was asked the question as to whether she would rule out releasing other people’s information. What do you think the Minister said in response to that? “Well, depending on the circumstances, yeah, I’d make a call on what I did at the time. I’m four years in the job now, I’d make another look at it and make a decision based on what the recommendations are and the rules are around privacy.” [Interruption] She is just absolutely unclear about it, and I think that is why we are debating this bill over 6 months—6 months—after it was reported back from the select committee. They wanted to sort of shuffle it out of the way and try to get it through without any particular focus being brought to bear.

And, of course, we had the blogger Keith Ng, who discovered that there was a little problem in Work and Income, again with some problems that we had in that particular area. And, of course, well, there is Novopay. Shall we mention Novopay as well? The breaches of privacy with Novopay are actually legendary. They actually outweigh a number of the other—[Interruption] They actually set new, very low standards, Ms Dyson, I think it would be. They have sunk to new levels of incompetence with the Novopay system.

But the point is that I think that this Government has been rather unfortunate in trying to actually put to one side a piece of legislation that, yes, we have put up a minority report on, but we are supporting through the House because, as the Minister quite rightly said, there were 20 submissions, 18 of the submissions supported the bill in part or full, and, of course, the Privacy Commissioner supports the bill as well. So we are supporting the bill through the House. But I think that if the Government was actually sincere about the urgency with which it wanted to attend to this particular matter, rather than dealing with the entire Law Commission report, which is what it told this House, then we would have had this dealt with before the end of last year.

I just want to put on record our minority view with the reporting back of this bill: “Labour believes in an effective and efficient public sector.”—we agree that that is an important motivation in terms of this legislation—“The swift sharing of information between public sector agencies, accompanied by appropriate safeguards, is an important component of this. But”—and I think this is the important “but”—“this bill takes a piecemeal approach to dealing with information sharing, and may not stand the claims that have been made as to the need for it.” I think the fact that we have had it delayed for 6 months shows that that was an accurate assessment of our position. “In particular, it is unlikely to do much to enhance the protection of vulnerable children.”—and, again, that was something that was brought up by the Minister in her original speech in the House when she introduced the bill 12 months and 4 days ago.

“We agree with the New Zealand Law Society, and with other submitters, that there are better approaches than simply enacting some cherry-picked aspects of the Law Commission’s review of privacy law. A standalone statute dealing with the welfare of vulnerable children when they are most at risk is a preferable approach. We would have preferred to see a standalone statute for the protection of at-risk children, accompanied by the complete enactment of the recommendations arising out of the Law Commission’s review of the Privacy Act.” I have to say that that stand-alone statute concept was actually supported by the Children’s Commissioner, so it does have quite widespread support throughout the sector.

“This would have ensured that our privacy legislation—now nearly two decades old—is up to date with technological developments, changing social mores, and the barriers to ensuring safety of the most vulnerable in society. A comprehensive rewrite of the Act on the basis of all of the Law Commission’s work is essential. In particular, we are concerned that some of the Law Commission’s key suggestions, such as those regarding the Privacy Commissioner’s power to investigate and enforce, may not be taken up by the government. Given the ever-widening powers of agencies to share information, let alone the implications of new technologies, it is important that the Commissioner’s role allows her to ensure compliance with up-to-date legislation. We will support the bill because we do not think it is likely to actively cause harm. However, we think there are alternative approaches that could have done much good.” I believe that that really sums up the Opposition’s position, which is why we will support this bill through its remaining stages.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the second reading of the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill, and to hear the Minister, the Hon Judith Collins, speaking so eloquently in the opening segment of this debate was a joy to behold for us all. But having heard the member who has just resumed her seat, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, one would be hard-pressed to consider that, in fact, the Labour Party was at all supporting this very good piece of legislation. It was only in the very last few minutes, or few seconds indeed, of her presentation that we actually garnered an understanding of the Labour Party’s support for this good legislation. It probably pays to remember that of the 20 submissions that were received by the Justice and Electoral Committee, 18 were in support, in full or in part, including that of the Privacy Commissioner, which supported it fully.

The bill, rightly, aims to improve the rules around the collection, storage, and use of personal information. It is a tricky area. It is an area where Governments have to balance carefully and responsibly the rights of individual citizens against the need of the State and of the society we live in to ensure that vulnerable people are protected. So often over the years we have heard that our 20-year-old privacy laws have, in fact, acted as a barrier to prevent the free flow of information that in many cases could have, and would have, prevented evil from being done in our society, had that information been flowing more freely. This omnibus bill seeks to remedy that, and I think, from what I can see in my reading of the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee, that that fragile balance has been very neatly met in a careful and considered way by the committee.

The bill has been some years in the making and it stems from the work of the Law Commission. It is an area where technology is changing quickly, and that just means that as a Parliament and as a House we need to be even more careful about our obligations and our rights. The committee, of course, chaired so ably by my colleague Tim Macindoe, the member for Hamilton West, has made a number of recommendations, and included in those are changes that would clarify in the bill that “serious threat” has to consider all three aspects of likelihood, severity, and timing. There is a new section to specify who could be parties to an information-sharing agreement and the guidelines that might be put in place around such an agreement.

The bill, I think, is a good piece of work. It shows that the select committee process is working well, and notwithstanding the minority opinion of the Labour Party, I am looking forward to progressing this bill through the House. I stand tonight proudly in support of it and commend it to the House.

It is a pleasure to talk on this bill, the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill. It has been a long tradition in this country during the summer months for many of us to head into the fruit-growing areas of New Zealand and get a summer job picking fruit. Many of us no doubt have done that during our earlier lives. Fruit picking in reality means picking the good ones and leaving the not-so-good ones behind. It also involves picking the fruit that you can reach. If you have brought your ladder with you, then you can get to the top of the tree and get the fruit. But if you have not brought your ladder, or if you cannot be bothered climbing up it, then it is the low-hanging fruit essentially that you end up picking.

Cherry-picking is an expression that is apt for this bill—really apt for this bill—and, indeed, I would say, for the attitude of this Government generally to privacy issues and what it describes as openness and transparency. There are a few titbits. I mean, there are plenty of other analogies you could use around crumbs and titbits and that sort of thing, but I have gone with the fruit-picking and the cherry-picking analogy today because ultimately it has also been described by my colleague Lianne Dalziel as the piecemeal approach—do a little bit and claim that you have done a lot—which really sums up this Government, actually, around information sharing, around privacy protection, and certainly around openness and transparency. It is time to put this Government on notice around those issues that it will be challenged and held accountable on secrecy, withholding information, doing backroom deals, and insincerity, which is probably one of the worst things that this Government is guilty of.

This bill, as Lianne Dalziel pointed out, does take a piecemeal approach to dealing with information sharing. It does not stand up to the claims, and may not stand up to the claims, that have been made as to the need for it. I know that she talked quite at length about doing something to enhance the protection of vulnerable children. On this issue we agree with the New Zealand Law Society, and with a number of other submitters, that there are better approaches than simply enacting some of those cherry-picked approaches to the Law Commission’s review of privacy law. We say that a comprehensive review of the legislation, on the basis of all of the Law Commission’s work, is essential. Unfortunately, that is not what we are seeing here today. We question this Government’s veracity and we challenge it on the hypocrisy of its rhetoric and its actions on all of these issues.

Openness and transparency have the power, they truly have the power, to transform government. If we had those before us today, then they would be something to be celebrating. But unfortunately that is not the case. They can strengthen people’s trust in Government and encourage greater public participation in decision making. Participative democracy is one of the things that across the House, no matter what party we are part of, we should all be aspiring to. But, unfortunately, what we see on the other side is window dressing and cherry-picking, and picking out the things, the low-hanging fruit, that are going to give some returns and give the appearance of doing something, but, actually, openness and transparency are the very last things that they are actually meant to be delivering.

Labour, on the other hand, and the Greens by their very nature demonstrate commitment to greater openness and transparency. I did not see a policy coming from that side of the House on open government at the last election, and I doubt that we will see one this time. That is about providing citizens with mechanisms so that they can feel confident that there are ways that they can truly participate in policy development and Government decision-making. That is what is really important, and that is what this bill should really be standing for, but, unfortunately, again it is ultimately about cherry-picking. It is about picking the eyes out of a substantive Law Commission report and providing something to the House that really does not address any big issues at all.

Alongside this bill goes the recent discussion around the Law Commission’s report on the Official Information Act. I would just like to refer to some of the statements that were made by the Minister of Justice around this that I really believe can be seriously challenged. She said—and it was just very recently—that New Zealand has an open Parliament by international standards, and that Parliament currently makes a great deal of information available. She also said that the Government is committed to openness and transparency, streamlining processes, and reducing red tape for agencies, businesses, and individuals.

Well, let me refer you to a report that was tabled in this House only today by the Commerce Committee, which was the financial review of the Ministry of Economic Development, etc., etc., otherwise known as “Mobie”, in which there was a Labour Party minority view that said: “Labour members consider that in respect of the ministry’s response to written questions, its performance in the hearings, and in Official Information Act requests on related issues, there has been an unfortunate pattern of denial of legitimate information to members of Parliament and the Commerce Committee by this ministry. In addition, Labour members of the committee have been denied timely and accurate information in response to written parliamentary questions and Official Information Act requests by the ministry and Minister on the issues covered by the committee’s questions. On this occasion the Commerce Committee felt the need to recall the ministry”—to recall the ministry—“for a special hearing”, which is most unheard-of, “to require full and frank responses to written select committee questions. While further information has been provided prior and subsequent to the second hearing, Labour members remain very concerned by the difficulty of requiring information that should have been readily provided to the committee in the first instance. Labour members do not wish to see a repeat of this process in next year’s hearing.” Let me say that if there was not an issue, they would not have been recalled—

💬 Katrina Shanks: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like the Labour member to add the National view after what was—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No, no. That is not a point of order.

So the relevance of this to the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill ultimately goes back to the point around cherry-picking—cherry-picking the points that it thinks are going to get a bit of attention, and make everybody think that it is doing something, but ultimately, behind the scenes, it is not. If this was not a significant issue, then that chief executive and his ministry would not have been recalled for a second hearing in that select committee.

Contrary to this and conversely, democracy and public confidence rely utterly on citizens knowing what Government is doing and why, being able to take part in decision making, and being able to get access to information. One of the most important things the Government could be doing right now so that citizens could be feeling confident is proactively releasing information. Labour policy is to establish as a default practice Ministers and Government agencies releasing all Cabinet papers and other relevant papers on to a dedicated website in line with the Official Information Act once a decision is announced by the Government. If this Government wants the trust of its citizens, that would be a good start.

I rise today to speak to the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill. This is the fourth piece of legislation with significant privacy aspects that I have spoken on over just the last year and a bit. Again, sadly, I find the need to express the Green Party’s opposition. We have an opposition, it seems, to the fundamental direction of this Government in relation to our shared privacy rights.

I think it is also salient to remember that over just the same period of time, which feels so fast to me—just over a year—the Government has had to deal with multiple major privacy breaches within Government departments: the Inland Revenue Department, ACC, Work and Income, justice, immigration, and, of course, Novopay. Privacy is the issue of the day. In a lot of the annual round-ups for 2012, privacy was at the top of the list of items of importance for this country.

So what is this Government’s response to what I think could fairly be said to be a crisis of systems? It is a systemic crisis in relation to the protection of people’s information. Well, we have been given this piece of legislation, which actually seeks to extend the sharing of information with no further assurance of protection of people’s information. That, to the Green Party, is anathema. It is a massive lost opportunity.

We absolutely acknowledge the need to update our privacy laws and ensure a clear process for protecting people’s information. It is a concern to us—probably more than a concern—to hear that the current law is not being consistently or logically implemented, and that is something we do believe needs action. We certainly support anything to fix those problems, but sadly this piece of legislation does not give us the confidence that rights are at the centre of this Government’s approach, or even that this piece of legislation will solve, or go anywhere near solving, the problems that exist from the perspective of a citizen. For us they should be at the heart of any changes to privacy legislation.

People require a sense of security if they are to feel comfortable within their society, and one important facet of security is the capacity to control information about oneself. Therefore the principles of privacy, as a means of controlling that information, are vital contributors to an individual’s sense of security. So it is a fundamentally important human right.

In my first reading speech I referred to a pregnant woman on the DPB who was escaping a violent relationship, who had recently just told her community organisation that she was working with that she was considering hiding her pregnancy because she was scared that if the Housing New Zealand Corporation or the health system found out about her pregnancy they would tell Work and Income and she would experience incentives to find work more quickly than she could actually cope with.

I listened to the submissions that were made on this bill. I heard the support—qualified and unqualified—for this bill. I listened to that information and their views from the perspective of this woman. Was what they were saying—would this Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill help this woman have confidence in disclosing and getting the help she needed to be safe? I did not find that assurance. For me the experience of this woman and others like her need to be at the heart of our policy making.

A Labour colleague Lianne Dalziel also mentioned the lost opportunity that seems to have been missed from not picking up a stand-alone child welfare statute that could have gone some way to actually consciously, front-on, looking at those issues. I think that is a shame. I hope that the Government may consider in the future actually looking at a piece of legislation in that light. I believe as a society we need to confront those issues and their interaction with privacy legislation.

A nuanced message of responsible information-sharing, as we are hearing from the Government, will not be heard by our most vulnerable people. The drive to hide information can dramatically increase people’s isolation. We have a duty to protect our most vulnerable, and they for me are at the heart of what we need to consider when we are looking at this legislation.

This bill will increase the amount of information sharing that Government agencies can undertake in order to accomplish this goal of Better Public Services. For me that is about front. Actually what we need our privacy legislation to do is to enable our citizens to access services and get the help they need and to be safe. It is not about the delivery of Government services. That is completely secondary to what should be the focus of this bill, which is our citizens.

Although another stated goal is to ensure that privacy remains highly protected, increased information-sharing between Government departments actually means the individual enjoys less control over their personal information. That is what this bill does. Because of the centrality of public service to this bill, the individual’s relationship with the State becomes pivotal. As we have heard from that list of Government departments that have actively breached people’s privacy, that relationship is not in good shape at the moment. We need to be focusing on how we can increase people’s confidence rather than extend provisions that potentially undermine that confidence.

Technology is often touted as a reason for privacy laws to be updated, and with good reason. I absolutely support that. We are in a changing world and our legislation needs to change with it, but this bill does not relate to technology and rather it seeks a readjustment of the core privacy principles that impact on the rights of the individual vis-à-vis the State.

One particularly concerning element is the empowering of the executive to create information-sharing agreements by regulation. This could result in agreements that are not in keeping with the principles of the Privacy Act, and by extension gives the public less reason to be confident in the integrity of that legislation. Scrutiny of the agreements is also a potential issue because copies will be made available only on the internet, which some people do not have access to, or in the head office of lead agencies, which imposes its own set of access issues for those not in the vicinity. Moreover, the decision not to carry over section 96T in new Part 9A, inserted by clause 8, has serious implications because it increases the likelihood that information will be passed to agencies not envisioned in the original agreement.

Diluting the requirements for when private sector agencies can participate in the information sharing might contribute to a misplaced sense of certainty on the part of the agencies, but it does not contribute to a sense of certainty for the individual on how their information is to be disseminated and used responsibly. If you do not know whom the information is going to be shared with, are you going to want to share it at all?

The Law Commission’s landmark report on privacy law in Aotearoa New Zealand made two key recommendations for empowering the Privacy Commissioner to protect against the sorts of breaches that are happening. The first of these was that the commissioner should be able to issue compliance notices. The second was the power to require an audit of an agency’s practices and systems for handling private information. These would have brought the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner’s powers in line with the majority of comparable overseas bodies charged with the protection of privacy. This would have really addressed a lot of our citizens’ concerns, but tragically these measures are not included in this legislation. For us that is a fundamental problem, which means we cannot support this bill. We want legislation that has citizens’ needs and human rights at the heart of it, and we regret that this bill does not.

It is an honour to take a call on this Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill this evening. The previous member, Jan Logie, spoke about the need to meet the needs of our citizens, their cares, and their concerns. We hear a lot about the breaches of privacy, but what we do not hear a lot about is the benefits. There are thousands, literally thousands, who have benefited from the sharing of information that is so needed to meet the very needs that she has talked about.

The Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill is about supporting Better Public Services by providing a new mechanism to share personal information more effectively and with more certainty. The key word here in the message, I suppose, is about balancing—balancing people’s rights to privacy with the need to protect vulnerable New Zealanders. That is very much at the heart of this Government in wanting to ensure this.

It is really important that as we began to hear some of the submissions—you would have heard that there were 20 submissions, and 18 were in full support—some of the comments that were coming out were that there were a number of supporters who were absolutely clearly in support of the current safeguards that the bill contains. In fact, even the Privacy Commissioner noted that the safeguards were mutually supporting and that none of them should be reduced.

Information sharing enables agencies to work together to examine and understand customer needs as a whole. This can lead to significant service benefits for individuals. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with information sharing that need to be carefully managed. These risks can include failures of security, duplication of inaccurate information, and the use of information in ways not anticipated by the subject of the data.

We consider that the protections in this bill strike a workable balance. The protections are not too onerous for agencies that wish to have information-sharing agreements, and ensure strong and practical privacy safeguards so people can be certain that the Government is acting as a trustworthy steward of their information. Trust is important too. Again as the Privacy Commissioner noted in her submission, “The framework in the Bill provides a package of safeguards, which are practical, and mutually supporting. The Bill currently represents a fine balance between providing the flexibility agencies are requesting, and ensuring that privacy considerations are given due weight.”

Finally, on the privacy safeguards in the bill, when drawing up information-sharing agreements agencies must consult with the Privacy Commissioner. The commissioner may provide a report to the relevant Minister on any related privacy issues before agreements are approved. The Minister must take the report into account before agreements are finalised. The Minister must be satisfied that the agreement does not unreasonably invade the privacy of individuals and contains adequate safeguards to protect privacy before it can be approved by an Order in Council. I commend this bill in its second reading to the House.

New Zealand First does support the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill, and it supports the changes made by the Justice and Electoral Committee. But we do have some concerns still about the protection of personal privacy. Having said that, though, we do consider that this bill has done just sufficient about that for us to be able to continue to support it. I have a Supplementary Order Paper to propose at the appropriate time concerning consultation requirements in new section 96L(1)(a).

In general New Zealand First accepts the need for a statutory regime for the sharing of information between Government and non-Government agencies that are authorised. It is needed to provide certainty for agencies to lawfully share information about individuals, to protect the privacy of those individuals, and to define the role of the Privacy Commissioner.

New Zealand First agrees that the prohibition in the Privacy Act as it now is is too restrictive. It requires the existence of a serious and imminent threat before an agency can share information. Part 1 of this bill replaces the definition of “serious and imminent threat” with just “serious threat”, but the Justice and Electoral Committee’s amendments will make it clear that all three of the specified aspects of “serious threat” must be present before such a threat will exist for the purposes of the amended Act. The agency must now reasonably believe that the threat is a serious threat based on “the likelihood of the threat being realised … the severity of the consequences if the threat is realised; and … the time at which the threat may be realised”. Thus, the circumstances allowing information sharing remain restricted, but any threat need not be imminent, so a proper balance between the need for privacy protection on the one hand and the need for agencies to share information has been achieved.

There are many circumstances where such sharing is beneficial to the community, and the proper use of information within the Public Service to make it more effective is in the public interest. This will include the sharing of taxation information by amendment to the Tax Administration Act 1994. At present there are only ad hoc agreements by the Inland Revenue Department for this. This amendment will bring that situation up to date by coverage under the Act as amended by these new provisions.

Another important amendment in the bill is the new provision for information-sharing agreements in new Part 9A, inserted by clause 8. It provides a mechanism for the approval of information-sharing agreements between agencies, which can be non-governmental private sector agencies, local authorities, Government departments, or parts of any of them, but not overseas agencies, and a Government department must be one of the parties or part of one. The lead agency must be a Government department.

The agreements must be specific about the purpose of information sharing, and require due particularity about the purpose. The agreements must specify safeguards for the protection of personal information, provide for complaints to a Government department, identify which agencies will be eligible for getting the information, and be provided for approval by Order in Council. Any exemptions must also be approved in that way. There are specified requirements for what an Order in Council must state.

But an important section is the new section 96K(2), which provides that only the necessary information can be shared and no more, the agreement must not unreasonably impinge on the privacy of an individual, and the benefits must outweigh both the financial and other costs of it. Another important section is new section 96L, which requires consultation by participating agencies with the Privacy Commissioner and any person or organisation representing a class of persons affected, and anyone else the agency thinks should be consulted.

But there is a glaring omission, and that is that the Children’s Commissioner is not specified. It may come under one of the four provisions I mentioned, but it really needs to be specifically stated. The Children’s Commissioner did make submissions on the bill, and said: “I would also expect that my Office would be party to any consultation process under s96L regarding information sharing arrangements that affect the rights and interests of children, pursuant to my statutory role to monitor the application of UNCROC by departments of state under s12(1)(f) of the Children’s Commissioner Act 2003.” I will, therefore, propose a Supplementary Order Paper at the appropriate time that will insert the Children’s Commissioner as a fifth and mandatory consultee. The interests of children are a significant issue that must be well provided for, because they cannot be expected to provide for their own interests.

The role of the Privacy Commissioner is a vital part of these new proposals to ensure protection of the privacy of individuals. New section 96M provides for the right of the commissioner to report to the Minister on approved information-sharing agreements, and the commissioner may publish the report. New section 96OC empowers the commissioner to require regular reporting by the lead agency, and new section 96P empowers the commissioner to review an approved agreement after 12 months and at any time thereafter.

Under new section 96Q there may be a report to the Minister if an agreement is not operating properly or is impinging on individual privacy. The commissioner may recommend amendment or cancellation. New Zealand First especially approves of new section 96R, which requires the Minister to present a copy of the commissioner’s report to the House within 5 days or as soon as possible, and the Minister must report to the House with a response to the commissioner’s concerns.

I also note with approval the requirements of section 96N, which requires the giving of notice to anyone against whom any adverse action is to be taken as a result of the information sharing under the Act. The individual can then dispute any information and can take action to show cause why no such action should be taken, because of inaccurate information.

New Zealand First, therefore, supports the bill because it believes it has achieved a proper balance between information sharing and personal privacy. I note the Labour Party will also support the bill, but it has said that the bill would do little for the protection of vulnerable children, so I trust it will support my Supplementary Order Paper. I also note that the Greens will not support the bill without enforcement provisions, which the Labour Party also wishes to see. I doubt, however, whether those provisions are really required. I think the bill, as it is, is, in fact, adequate to protect personal privacy, for all of the reasons I have canvassed, and if that does not prove to be the case, then a future Government can add these additional powers if they are then shown to be needed. In the meantime I believe this bill, as it is, should pass.

I am very pleased to take a short call on the second reading of the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill. One of the priorities of this Government is to improve the way public service areas are delivered and to find newer, smarter ways of doing things, and this bill will certainly assist in this objective.

We have heard that the vast majority of the 20 submissions—18, in fact—express support for the bill in part or in full. Indeed, we have also heard and we know that the Privacy Commissioner supports this bill. Importantly, there are a number of privacy safeguards that have also been inserted into this bill. It also responds to the Law Commission’s review in this particular area. We know there have been tragedies that could have been averted if information had been shared between agencies, and because information was siloed, this was not the case.

This bill will allow agencies to share information, ensuring agencies can see the full picture, not just part of the picture. We know this will assist front-line staff enormously. I am sure this bill will be welcomed by our agencies. The Justice and Electoral Committee has recommended some changes, which will be debated in the Committee stage. I commend this bill to the House.

I am very pleased to rise and take a call on the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill. In the relationship between the citizen and the State the protections that the citizen has from intrusions by the State are absolutely fundamental. These are principles that go back to the Magna Carta. They are fundamental to the sort of liberal democracy that we have and that we celebrate here today.

When the Privacy Act was put together—its genesis started with the fourth Labour Government—it reflected some foresight about the direction that the processes of Government might take. Data was able to be stored in significant volumes and in new forms—electronically and so on. So the Privacy Act has played a very important role in providing protections to citizens who must surrender their personal information to the State and, for that matter, conversely, helping the State to function effectively and appropriately as well. So we should not, when we are considering upgrades and updating to legislation as important as the Privacy Act, take lightly the principles enunciated in it and the protections that they afford every citizen.

Although Labour will support this bill and is supportive of reviews—comprehensive reviews—and the redrafting of legislation like the Privacy Act, we nevertheless have some reservations that relate to the fact that the changes that are proposed for this bill are piecemeal. They are cherry-picked changes to the bill that give the appearance of suiting one or two purposes, but, in fact, could be used for others.

The bill effectively relaxes the protections that are afforded by the existing Act and its privacy principles, or at least its personal information principles. The relaxation of those protections and of those rules is justified by what are described as Better Public Services—a mantra that we have heard frequently in the last 5 years, and I am still waiting to see what exactly the better Public Service is that we are meant to have. Certainly a rapidly de-staffed one, but I am not quite sure where the better Public Service is.

It is also justified by an expressed need to deal with public health, or public safety, or the life or health of an individual. There is already an exception in terms of the application of the existing information privacy principles relating to public safety and prosecuting the need for public security and, indeed, an individual’s health or safety. This bill relaxes the protections by changing the description or the proviso that goes with it. Whereas at the moment the threat to public safety or public health, or the threat to an individual’s health or safety, must be imminent, under the changes that would be brought about by this bill the threat need no longer be imminent, and, in fact, a new set of words are used: “There must be an assessment”. In the interests of public safety there must be an assessment of the likelihood of threat. There must be an assessment of the severity of the consequences if the threat is realised, and, indeed, an assessment of the time, or potential time, of the threat. These are all much more weaselly words, to use a term. These are weasel words—

💬 Mike Sabin: Weaselly?

—and therefore they are more weaselly than the previous words, or more weaselly than other words that are frequently used. It is a bit like Better Public Services. They are just as weaselly as those words, if not more so. We can conceive of—

💬 Hon Annette King: How is it faster or better, though?

Faster, better—that is what they said. That is what they said about Superman, was it not? Faster—faster and better. But anyway, if I could draw the House’s attention back to the matters that you and I are most concerned with, and that is that this bill here relaxes very important protections when it comes to the relationship between the citizen and the State.

We can all conceive of situations in which it is appropriate and desirable for information held by one State agency to be disclosed to another, and the classic situation is for the protection of children or a vulnerable child. Indeed, one of the biggest complaints we have sometimes of the regime we presently have for disclosure of threats or endangerment to children is that agencies are reluctant to breach privacy principles. It is not just for children but also for patients in hospitals and particularly mental health patients. So you can see that there is a justification for having an exception to this sort of protection, not only for children but for other vulnerable people as well.

The classic Neil Pugmire situation, which, of course, led to the Protected Disclosures Act, which is really what this is about in privacy terms—this bill relaxes those protections as well. We do not want a repeat—well, of course, we want plenty of Neil Pugmires—of the situation he found himself in, which was common at the time, where people were reluctant to disclose information to hospitals, even when the safety of individuals and, indeed, the public as a whole was threatened.

Notwithstanding those justifiable exceptions and the examples I have given, it is also possible to see how the relaxing of these protections can be abused. This is, as I articulated before, a much more opaque test. It is about carrying out an assessment of possibilities and probabilities. So when the words affording protection are more conditional, are more contingent, are more opaque, and are more difficult to define, then the interests of citizens are themselves under threat.

We have seen already how there is a lack of respect by this Government, and the departments under its control, as it has conducted itself. We have seen how it has gone in the last year or so. We have heard tonight already about what happened with the Inland Revenue Department. The details of thousands of taxpayers were wrongfully disclosed. We have seen in ACC that there have been mistakes in terms of the management of personal information in ACC. I always favour cock-up over conspiracy, when it comes to many of these things, but one thing that we know was not a cock-up and was utterly deliberate was the disclosure of the personal information entailed in an email from a woman called Michelle Boag who wrote to the Minister and then found the contents of that message circulated to the public at large. That was a nasty and insidious thing, and it is the sort of thing that currently would simply not be permissible under the Privacy Act, but may well be inveigled through the more opaque test that must now apply.

One thing that is absolutely crucial, when it comes to matters like privacy and the protections that we give it, is good enforcement, and this is another issue that I want to draw the House’s attention to. Even with the present Privacy Act we are dependent on a robust, a strong, and an independent Office of the Privacy Commissioner to make sure that the law is upheld. How disappointing it is that nearly a year on—would you believe that it is nearly a year since the Bronwyn Pullar issue rose to public prominence? A week or two later that information that was provided to the Minister in charge of ACC under the usual confidentiality arrangements was then disclosed. A year on, the Privacy Commissioner has been investigating, but we are still none the wiser about what was behind that breach of privacy by this Minister—ironically and coincidentally the Minister in charge of this piece of legislation, and the Minister in charge of the Privacy Commissioner’s office. We have no word on the progress of that investigation and on what has happened in that regard.

This draws attention to the very point I started off with, and that is the crucial importance of legislation like this in the relationship between the citizen and the State. We should not devalue it. We should not undermine it. We should pay very close attention to the sorts of changes in this legislation to make sure that our rights are not abused and that citizens continue to be protected and are entitled to continue to respect the State and the way in which the State conducts it affairs.

It is my pleasure to take a short call on this Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill tonight. It is going to be short because I will be speaking to the other stages of this bill later on, in the next couple of days.

It was disappointing to hear the Opposition in this debate. It was hard to tell, actually, whether it was for or against this bill. There was Lianne Dalziel in particular—personal attacks on the Ministers Judith Collins and Paula Bennett. Actually, I think this bill is a bit bigger than personal attacks on Ministers. We had Clare Curran talking about picking berries or cherries somewhere on her holidays. Actually, this bill is more—

💬 Andrew Little: Which one is it—berries or cherries? Come on.

And Andrew Little, who has just now sat down—I wonder whether he has actually read the bill—quoted some bits out of his notes, which did not really make a lot of sense, I have got to say.

This bill is actually a very, very important bill for many families and vulnerable people in New Zealand. For me this is about allowing agencies, NGOs, and Government departments to be able to share more information with each other. Of course they can currently, but the current legislation is unclear and there is a lot of misunderstanding around it. This gives the legislation more clarity. It also allows agencies to have an earlier intervention than they had before, and that is really important.

I want to briefly share one story. I spoke to somebody in the weekend, a child psychologist, and she said to me that she does a lot of home visits around New Zealand, especially in rural New Zealand, where she does all her work. I asked her whether she knew the other agencies that were meeting the families and the children. She said: “Yes, I always ask the families ‘Who’s been to see you, and what services are you getting?’, so we can have a collaborative approach.” I asked her what were the answers, and she said: “Well, I see them and I say that, and some of them know who’s been up their driveway and who hasn’t, and others go ‘Well, we had a nurse but we don’t know where she came from and we don’t know really what she’s doing.’ ”

I think if we want to have a good wraparound service for our families and our vulnerable families then we have to allow that information to be shared with those professionals. This legislation does have safeguards in it to protect those families in the information sharing. The select committee made a big recommendation, actually, for a new section, which was taken up by the Minister of Justice and the Government.

It is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House. I look forward to debating it further in the future.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I understand that the next call is a split call.

You understand correctly, Mr Speaker, and thank you for allowing me the pleasure of speaking in this debate. Could I make it clear to National Party members, who seem a bit puzzled, judging by the contribution made by the member who has just resumed her seat, Katrina Shanks, that Labour is supporting this legislation, the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill, and we have said that consistently throughout our contribution to this part of the debate.

The member mentioned the fact that it would be very puzzling if anybody was opposed to the intention of the bill, which is to get more data sharing from ACC, Work and Income, and other, private agencies. I thought “I wonder where she’s been for the last little while.”, because there has been a lot of data sharing from ACC and Work and Income particularly, and, actually, it was not appropriate data sharing. It was data sharing of private information of people who had no idea that their personal files were going to be sent to entirely the wrong person. So there is a degree of anxiety. There is a lack of trust in the integrity of the systems that this legislation is proposing to expand to allow for better data sharing. That is the first point I want to make.

The other point is even more serious, in that we have had a Minister who has actually deliberately and in a considered way openly released the private information of Work and Income clients. I think that is an abuse of the privilege that Ministers have. Ministers get all sorts of information across their desks, as all the Ministers in the Government would know. A Minister, a Work and Income Minister, Paula Bennett, heard criticism of her attack on the training incentive allowance, which had previously allowed particularly women on the domestic purposes benefit to go to university, get a degree, and have a much better chance of a stronger career with better income in the future—the training incentive allowance was the support for those women on the DPB. Paula Bennett herself had benefited from it. She scrapped it. When some women complained about that, she released their private details to the media, and saw no problem with that.

That is an example of why there has been considerable caution expressed and acted on by the Justice and Electoral Committee, because of abuses and breaches of privacy considerations in the past. We heard from the Green Party member Jan Logie that her party’s concerns are so great that it is unable to support the bill. I know that it supports the intent of this bill, which is to give better responses from Government agencies where a number of agencies are dealing with one person or one family.

In the short time I have remaining the other concern that I want to address is one of disappointment in the Minister of Justice, in whose name this bill is standing before the House. That is because her reputation in the past has been that she is quite rigorous and takes a particularly broad perspective on issues, to make sure that every detail is considered and attended to, but this is actually a piecemeal approach to a comprehensive problem, and I am disappointed that the Minister chose to take that.

We have a Law Commission report. We know that we have issues in New Zealand with vulnerable children. The Law Commission proposed a comprehensive stand-alone piece of legislation to deal with that issue. This legislation that we are considering falls short of the mark.

I know that the select committee worked very hard on this, and I want to commend Tim Macindoe as the chair of that committee. I am sorry he is no longer in that position, because he came to be very well regarded by the other members of the select committee. I have not served on that committee myself, but that is certainly the reputation that he has got.

I know that with a bill like this you have to weigh up the benefits that can be gained from one agency being able to access information quickly and in a secure way about a person with whom it is dealing. We know that the Housing New Zealand Corporation might have information, as might ACC, Work and Income, and the health system, let alone other, non-government organisations. The theory behind the legislation is sound. It does not address the problem that Minister Judith Collins paraded before the public. It does not address the issues with vulnerable children. It is a piecemeal approach. But it is a step in the right direction and, as such, we will be supporting it.

It has been interesting listening to this debate on the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill tonight. How often the word “balance” has popped up. The Minister of Justice in her opening remarks referred to the balance she believes has been achieved in this bill, and that has been reiterated by a number of other speakers from the Government side. It is interesting to note that the word “balance” actually pops up quite routinely in this Government’s rhetoric. It insists, for example, on talking about balancing the environment and the economy, which generally means a little more environmental degradation for a little bit of an influx, a short-term cash-flow hit, which really is not a balance at all.

We talk a lot about balancing the needs and the requirements and the legitimate claims of the State against the rights of the individual. It is interesting that by observation we can see that this Government actually does not value very highly the right of the individual to their privacy. The evidence of this is in the Government’s response to what has been referred to inelegantly but accurately as cock-ups over recent times: ACC, the Inland Revenue Department, and the various failures to protect information that people and organisations in good faith have submitted to some public agency.

There has been a distinct failure. Accidents can happen. Things can go wrong, but we judge the Government by its response. Almost uniformly its response has been defensive, to suggest that the Government, the State, has some overwhelming right compared with that of the private citizen. And that is quite peculiar, really, coming from a Government that professes to favour small rather than large government and that has been heard to utter the words “nanny State” about former Governments in this country, and not in a good way. We saw it with the search and surveillance legislation, where, yes, there was some value in changing the law then, in order to acknowledge new technologies and new challenges, but, overwhelmingly, it took away the rights of individuals to privacy. And this bill, unfortunately, swings far too far on that pendulum once again.

The point has been made that the Labour Party is supporting this bill, but marginally. It was a line call for them, clearly. The Labour Party has some serious concerns about it. The policy intent of this bill is not bad. It is one we could have supported and would have liked to support. We do see that initiatives like Whānau Ora and the logic of it—a provision of social services through multiple agencies to ensure the well-being of whānau and of communities—make perfect sense, that Government agencies could reasonably want to exchange information.

But this bill fails to put in place the necessary protections. It does not sufficiently protect the rights of the individual or the reasonable expectations of individuals and, indeed, organisations that information submitted to Government agencies will be secure, will be safe, and will be protected. Even the Government’s presentation, the purpose of this bill, the rather amorphous reference to Better Public Services and to facilitating public service, is not a really compelling statement or a compelling argument. It does not really engage or give us any real confidence that this is what it wants to do. The point has been made. We had a very robust report from the Law Commission, which looked at a whole range of issues and led us to think that there might be an attempt made to get a comprehensive statement, a set of privacy legislation and regulations fit for use in the 21st century. This bill, rather unfortunately, simply meddles around the margin. It fiddles with one or two points.

A couple of very easy improvements to this bill could have been to give the Privacy Commissioner some teeth. There is a requirement for consultation with the commissioner, but no obligation to do anything more than have regard to it. There is an opportunity—and it is a good thing—for the recommendations to be tabled in the House, but it is very easy to imagine the Government of the day doing something unpopular, doing something that degraded the right of the individual to their privacy, and taking the political hit in the short term in order to impose its will on the community and on the individual. There could have been some quite robust protections, even in this rather short bill. The Greens unfortunately cannot support it and will not. Kia ora.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak in support of this second reading of the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill and to acknowledge the Minister of Justice for her role as someone who is entirely in tune with the public of New Zealand, who is entirely in tune with the justice sector across all spheres, and who understands the appropriate balance that is expected of this House in terms of the legislation that we are working on now and into the future. While working as a police officer I can tell you now that the difficulties, the lack of understanding, and sometimes the hiding behind the Privacy Act as it currently stands have actually cost the lives of some New Zealand citizens. This is a piece of legislation that I believe is well overdue updating, and this bill sets about updating that regime and many of the failures that I believe need addressing and will be addressed.

Importantly, the safeguards that are being introduced—and members right across this House have actually touched on those—are about achieving that balance that is required. But it is a balance that is very important to understand in terms of the way in which the scales of justice can tilt, because when we do not get that balance right, not only does it cost the lives of New Zealand citizens and destroy lives in this country, but also it does not serve the interests of law-abiding citizens in this country one little bit. And let us not forget, despite what we hear from the watermelon patch, this legislation is about law-abiding citizens and protecting law-abiding citizens who go about their lives not asking to be victims of crime, but doing it in a measured and balanced manner. I have absolutely no hesitation in supporting this bill to the House.

Amendments recommended by the Justice and Electoral Committee by majority agreed to.