Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I am very pleased to take this call on the second reading of this, my member’s bill. I am very pleased that since the first reading, we have come a long way. I want to acknowledge the work of the Government Administration Committee, chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson. As a former member of that committee, I know that it is one of the hardest-working committees in Parliament. I want to acknowledge all of the members for their openness about this bill.

This bill is about openness and transparency in this Parliament. It provides for parliamentary under-secretaries to be responsible for answering Official Information Act requests. I said in the first reading that it was an anomaly that we have this current situation where a parliamentary under-secretary, although being a member of the executive, is not required to answer Official Information Act requests. We, fortunately, passed the first reading, and the bill was sent to the Government Administration Committee.

We received a total of five submissions on the bill. All five were in support of this bill. Because there are only five, I am going to read them out: the New Zealand Law Society, the New Zealand Law Commission, Brent Jackson, Malcolm Harbrow, and Terra Dumont. One of the things that three of these submitters pointed out was that parliamentary under-secretaries are, in fact, part of the executive. They are not part of the Executive Council, but they are none the less part of the executive. Two of the submitters quite clearly pointed out that the role of parliamentary under-secretaries is created under the statutes Act. Under that particular Act, it makes parliamentary under-secretaries part of that executive. That was pointed out by these submitters.

Part of the discussion, as well, was around what I call the slippery-slope theory that was promulgated in the first reading by some members. There have been claims that information held as an MP may be captured in this bill; that is quite clearly incorrect. The Ministry of Justice, in its report, pointed out that very fact—that, in fact, it is work that we do as members of Parliament that is not captured by this bill. Under the Official Information Act, work done by members as members of Parliament is quite separate to the work that those members who are part of the executive do. It also pointed out that a request to the Minister does not assume that the Minister has the information that the parliamentary under-secretary has. It pointed out that there was no requirement for the Minister to request that information from the parliamentary under-secretary, nor to create official information. That is the basis of that anomaly.

I also acknowledge the Government members who in the first reading voted against this bill but who through the select committee process, in having access to all of the information from the submitters—in particular, the Law Society and the Law Commission as well as the report from the Ministry of Justice—addressed every single one of those issues that was raised in the first reading. I think it is important to acknowledge that the weight of that evidence clearly influenced the members who had voted against it in the first reading, to the point that the report that has come back to the House is a report that is supported by all of the committee. I want to acknowledge those members for that. I think it shows how members, through the select committee process, can bring back a better bill and ask the hard questions, certainly, but in this instance they have clearly come to the understanding that this is a good bill.

The recommendation from the Ministry of Justice is that the bill is entirely consistent with the Official Information Act and that it should be passed by Parliament. I acknowledge the things that have been said by the member from the ACT Party—I think it would be silly not to. I think that despite the way that it was expressed, the issue is that any party that stands up for open and transparent Government should support this bill. That is the only question that should be asked, not whether someone thinks it is particularly about that person. In this instance, there is only one parliamentary under-secretary, so I can understand why one might think that.

In the interests of good legislation, I am pleased to hear—I could be incorrect, but I understand—that this bill is going to be supported by all parties in the House. I welcome that. I do not want to prolong my contribution on this. I am sure other members of the House will have a lot to add. Just one more thing: there is an amendment, too, that was agreed to by the select committee. It does make the bill clearer. There is only one clause in this amendment bill. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. Let me just give you a bit of the background as to why that is. This bill is completely pointless, and it also blurs, in quite a damaging way, the constitutional lines within New Zealand’s arrangements. None the less, I have decided to support it because I have far better things to do than waste my time persuading my colleagues to vote against a bill that will make no material difference to the operation of this Government or this House but that none the less does waste an enormous amount of the Labour Party’s time. If you doubt that, let me help you with some of the research it might have done if only it had been the Labour Party of old, and we will come to that a little bit later.

This is an education report, dated 22 January 2015, responding to a request for official information on partnership schools kura hourua, which says “Mr David Seymour will receive official information on Partnership Schools” and that he will also receive and sign out Official Information Act (OIA) requests. You may think that this is some sort of secret, but, like many of the documents I am going to show you tonight, it is publicly available, and I would love—actually, I seek leave to table this document, which is widely available on the internet.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will not be putting that leave.

Oh, Mr Deputy Speaker, I cannot even table this document, because it is on the freaking internet!

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just in case there is any doubt, I am not putting that leave. I take it the member is now continuing with his speech and is not contesting my ruling on that particular matter.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would never contest your ruling.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good.

I cannot table this document in Parliament because it is on the internet, but it has none the less escaped the Labour Party.

We have been very clear about the process and, actually, I have already been signing out OIA requests according to a document that has been available on the internet for at least a year. Not everybody missed this fact, because not only have I been able to sign out Official Information Act requests but also I have been doing it, including to one Ben Cunliffe, researcher in the office of the Leader of the Opposition: “Dear Mr Cunliffe, thank you for your email. You asked for, I have considered, and here are the documents. [signed] D. B. Seymour.”—i.e., me. So there is an actual OIA request that the Labour Party has already made to my office that we released and I signed out.

But it gets better. It is not only the Labour Party that has figured that out; Andrew Little should have told these members that. Here is an Official Information Act request from “Te Green Party o Aotearoa”, which I also signed out and which it has received. So I am already signing out these OIA requests. Then we thought: “Actually, I’m committed to open and transparent Government.” So we started proactively releasing documents that pertain to my portfolios, and here they are. The documents—I will not try to table these, Mr Deputy Speaker, because—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good.

—they are widely available on the internet, thank you. This is the amount of official information under my portfolio that I have already released. I would stack all of it up, but if I were to do that I might not be able to see you, Mr Deputy Speaker, over the pile of documents. So, QED, this bill is completely unnecessary. There is no public interest in my having the OIA applied to me because we are already highly transparent, already releasing documents proactively, and already responding to OIA requests, but the Labour Party members could not quite figure that out, or maybe Andrew Little’s office did not tell them.

There is actually a more serious matter to this bill, which is that the Official Information Act was set up to ensure that the executive of Government—those with actual official information and decision-making powers—could be held to account by the public. It will not surprise you that every document I have that contains official information is copied to the Minister of Education or the Minister for Regulatory Reform, depending upon the portfolio that it pertains to. I do not hold any official information exclusively that the public would gain access to. That is why this is an entirely futile bill, which none the less breaches the line between executive responsibility on the one hand and the rest of Parliament and civil society on the other.

Some people would say that Adrian Rurawhe and this bill are a waste of space, but I actually think this is quite useful, because once upon a time the Labour Party was a grand, public policy - oriented, reforming party. There was a period in Labour’s history when in 6 short years it introduced the Constitution Act, the State-Owned Enterprises Act, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act, the Education Act, the State Sector Act, the Public Finance Act, and so it went on—a party that had bold plans and good ideas for New Zealand and that actually shaped this country in a way that no Government, Labour or National, has sought to change in the 26 years since. Ruth Dyson can remember this because she was there for much of it, even if she did not understand all of it. Today we see a Labour Party so diminished that it is reduced to introducing members’ bills that will have no material effect on the way New Zealand functions whatsoever. What a tragic day for the Labour Party, for this Parliament, and for New Zealand.

To borrow a phrase from that hallowed period in the Labour’s history, I have been thinking. I have been thinking, if we are prepared to breach the basic line between the executive, with official information and the decision-making power, then why would we not be prepared to breach it a bit further? There are actually many groups in the political arena in which the public has a great interest in what information they have, in whom they talk to, and in what meetings they have. These are all things that are of great interest to the public.

I would say that in the eyes of the public there is not a big difference between members of the executive and members of the Opposition. If the Leader of the Opposition has access to a Crown car, then I think there might actually be some interest in being able to make him subject to the OIA. But what about all MPs? Who do they talk to? Who is influencing them? They have decision-making power in this Parliament. Now that we have breached the difference between the executive and Parliament, why not go the whole way? But why stop there? What about you, Mr Deputy Speaker? You have influence in this House.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not bring me into this debate.

OK, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will not bring you into this debate, but the point is made. What about the members of parliamentary press gallery? They can set the agenda. They can influence public opinion. Who influences them, and should they not be subject to the Official Information Act?

So I have been thinking, now that the Labour Party has pointlessly breached the division between the executive with official information and the decision-making power, I think we may just—how does it go—be hung for a sheep as a lamb. In the Committee stage of this bill—which I am looking forward to because I am voting for the second reading—I am looking forward to putting up a number of amendments to make this bill apply to a wide range of people in Wellington. If the Labour Party thinks there is a point in applying it to parliamentary under-secretaries, then why not parliamentary private secretaries, why not Leaders of the Opposition, why not members of Parliament, why not the parliamentary press gallery, which, after all, has access to space in the gallery—why do we not just burn the whole thing down?

I am supporting this bill because it is going to be a lot of fun. It is going to show us what a silly and diminished little force Adrian Rurawhe and the Labour Party are and how those members quibble over such tiny matters when they used to be such a grand, reforming party. I am going to enjoy every ounce of the remaining debate on this bill. It is a pity that the Labour Party is wasting the House’s time, but it is a wonderful thing that it is wasting its own time because if it got serious again, it might actually do some real damage.

I support this bill wholeheartedly. Thank you very much.

Well, that was 10 minutes of my life I will never get back again. Good grief! Talk about wasting the time of Parliament. What an example that member has set for us all.

I want to, first of all, commend Chris Hipkins, and I do it with the greatest respect to Adrian Rurawhe, but this was his idea. Chris Hipkins put this bill in as his member’s bill some time ago, and, actually, you can link the time of his lodging of this bill as a member’s bill with the commencement of the release of information from Mr Seymour’s office. There is a direct parallel, and it does not take anyone too much time to figure out what the relationship is. Adrian Rurawhe then took over that bill, and, with the luck that a number of members have had, it was suddenly drawn. I think there is more chance of winning Lotto, actually, than there is of getting your member’s bill drawn from the ballot, although I have recently had success in that area as well.

Adrian Rurawhe then brought the bill to the Government Administration Committee, which gave it a lot of good consideration. I want to commend the other members of that committee, including the then deputy chair—Sarah Dowie, who was ripped from our committee and taken somewhere else, and replaced very well by Paul Foster-Bell—Mark Mitchell, and Brett Hudson. Adrian Rurawhe himself was on that committee, and, again, he was ripped away from us to go on to another committee. He was replaced by Kris Faafoi—again, very well. Mojo Mathers is the Green Party member on our committee.

As has been mentioned, we had only five submissions on this bill, but when one of them is from the Law Commission and another one is from the New Zealand Law Society, you tend to think that you are getting some quality advice. They certainly supported the bill. They went to quite a lot of effort to explain to us why they thought it was constitutionally appropriate, and I think that was a concern that some members of the committee had at the outset. I do not know whether it has dawned on the member David Seymour, who resumed his seat just prior to me taking a call, but, actually, this is not about him. The whole world does not revolve around the current MP for Epsom, and thank goodness for that. This bill is about having openness and transparency in Government.

There have previously been parliamentary under-secretaries, and I think there will be others in the future—

💬 David Seymour: Why didn’t Labour change the law then?

That is a very good question—a very good question. If you had used your time more wisely, Mr Seymour, you may well have asked it during your speech, but you did not, so you have missed out. You will have to wait for the Committee stage.

This bill is about openness and transparency. I do not imagine that many members of the House would argue against that. I think that in New Zealand we pride ourselves on having that sort of accountability, of being open and transparent. Certainly, the National members of our committee, who originally did not support the bill, were persuaded by the weight of the submissions, I am sure. At least the National whip has got the honesty to laugh about that. It is often a concern of mine, actually, that the select committees have lost the independence that they used to have. They used to be much more independent and less beholden to the Minister, but that is not the case any more, and I think our Parliament is the worse off for it.

So the purpose of this bill is not about Mr Seymour; it is about any parliamentary under-secretary, to make sure that they can have the same accountability as other Ministers do. As I said, in the view of the Law Society and the Law Commission, that is consistent with the intention of the Official Information Act requests. I do not know what happened in the process of our deliberation up to this point where the bill has come to the second reading with just one minor amendment, but I am very pleased that not only is the National Party able to give the bill its support but the member who described the bill as being particularly silly and a waste of time is now going to put his name on the public record in support of it. I think that is a very good thing.

There should not be any accountability that as members of Parliament we are afraid of. We understand the propriety of protecting our constituents’ private business—of ensuring that when people come to us for help that they do that entirely confident that their details would never be released. That is not the purpose of legislation such as this. This bill is to ensure that when decisions are made against which a lot of taxpayers’ money is attached, the public have the right to scrutinise them, often triggered by a member of Parliament.

I think this is a very good step forward. It is a real celebration tonight that this is the second Labour bill in a row that is getting a lot of support across the House. It is not often in recent years that we have had that, but I look forward to it continuing for many years to come. Thank you.

The Government members on this side will be supporting the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill. It is a pleasure to take a call in the second reading debate. Can I congratulate the member Adrian Rurawhe. Having the good fortune to get a bill drawn from the ballot is one thing, but can I also observe the careful and, I think, very practical and pragmatic way he has approached this.

I have come into the process only part-way through, having joined the Government Administration Committee, which is ably chaired by Ms Dyson. I joined the committee only halfway through the process of considering this bill, but I have to congratulate the member on the positive approach he has taken, even though initially we did disagree on whether this bill was necessary and also on some of the substantive points that it raises. We still have some concerns as to the necessity for it, and I think that has actually been well illustrated by our colleague Mr Seymour and his tabling of the Official Information Act (OIA) requests that he has already dealt with using the existing system, which makes parliamentary under-secretaries “OIA-able” via the Ministers from whom they hold their delegations in their relevant portfolio areas. I think that point has been well illustrated.

I still have a few lingering concerns, particularly around the constitutional issue that is raised when you talk about deeming a parliamentary under-secretary of State to be, for the purposes of the OIA, a Minister. The Cabinet Manual is quite clear. We did hear a wide range of advice on this, not only from the Law Commission President, Sir Grant Hammond, in a personal capacity but also from departmental advisers. The constitutional implications of deeming an under-secretary to be a Minister are of concern to me and, I think, to other members. It is very clear in the Cabinet Manual that they are not, and were never intended to be, a Minister.

They certainly do not enjoy any of the other support, I suppose, that Ministers get. A parliamentary under-secretary, for instance, does not have access to the VIP Transport Service, the Crown limos that have already been referenced in this debate.

💬 Hon Judith Collins: Unlike the Leader of the Opposition.

Unlike, as Minister Collins points out, the Leader of the Opposition. But also I think the argument that this presents a potential slippery slope is a valid one, and it is one that we had to mull over at some length. If one does make a parliamentary under-secretary who was never intended to be subject to the OIA—and we actually sought advice on this. Historical research was conducted by the Ministry of Justice advisers, and they were not able to find any suggestion whatsoever that it was originally intended to apply to parliamentary under-secretaries. This may well have been a very conscious decision made by the forward-thinking—I think—drafters of the Official Information Act 1982, which, it should be observed, was one of the world’s first freedom of information pieces of legislation. It was promulgated under Robert Muldoon’s Government, and that was roughly at the same time as the Australians went through theirs but was a good 18 years ahead of the British example of bringing in their Freedom of Information Act, which did not happen until the time of the Tony Blair Labour Government.

The OIA drafters, when they originally put this together, did not intend it to apply to parliamentary under-secretaries, so this is not an omission that has been corrected. It was specifically provided for that parliamentary under-secretaries could be subject to the Official Information Act via the delegating Minister. Therefore, there is a concern that this does present somewhat of a slippery slope. If we can add in parliamentary under-secretaries, what about parliamentary private secretaries? They are certainly not members of the executive. They carry out some very useful responsibilities on behalf of their delegating Minister. They may represent the Minister at functions, for instance. They may give speeches on behalf of the Minister. Will that be the next step? Will we make parliamentary private secretaries subject to the Official Information Act?

💬 David Seymour: Why not?

I know that Mr Seymour, I presume facetiously, is mooting that as a possibility. We actually take quite seriously on this side of the House the protection that is provided to members of Parliament when they go about their work and not being able to be subject to the OIA on, for instance, which constituents they may have met and when and what briefing they may have sought from other agencies to enable them to undertake work on behalf of constituents.

The privacy of a constituent is very, very important. They may not raise a sensitive issue if they are having a conflict with, perhaps, a Government department, or a local council, as we often get here in Wellington under the current mayor, at least. That may well change, hopefully, later in the year when we have our local body elections. I see a number of complaints about our local body here. Would a constituent feel comfortable raising those with a member of Parliament if they felt that it may be subject to the OIA and either used as a political point, a debating point, by the Opposition, or aired through the media using our OIA mechanism? Of course they would not.

Similarly, we have dealings with businesses. I assist a number of businesses with issues ranging from visa applications to, again, dealing with the local council, and for reasons of commercial sensitivity, not only with their competitors—but also these might be issues that are private to that company and it simply may not want them aired. So for these reasons I think the slippery slope concern is a very valid one, and I would be concerned, as I think other members on this side of the House would be, should we start adding other categories to the OIA that were certainly never suggested and were not the intention of the original drafters.

I believe that public confidence in government decision-making is very important. It is a wonderful thing that we have an environment in New Zealand where the public can access the full gamut of official information, having been on the other side of this picture as an official wielding the black pen and deleting withheld information—redacting information from an Official Information Act request for reasons of national security, protecting our economic interests, saving our friends and allies from embarrassment, perhaps protecting personal information, or it may well have been legal advice that was legally privileged. For all assorted reasons of good governance and the protection of the privacy of individual citizens, there are grounds for withholding information. Also, I think that the wider picture that we need to take into account is to whom the OIA applies and why that should be the case.

I think we will be joining Mr Seymour and voting for this bill to see it get through to the Committee stage. It will be very interesting to see what amendments members may have to table on this. But, you know, we do take it very seriously.

There was a discussion with the Office of the Ombudsmen and the Cabinet Office because there are wider constitutional issues at stake. The interesting thing was that we were advised that this approach was utterly consistent with the one taken by a former Prime Minister—Helen Clark, actually—following the 2002 election when she appointed two parliamentary under-secretaries, double trouble, whereas currently under this Government, there is only one parliamentary under-secretary of State.

I thought we were actually taking a very reasoned approach. It was consistent with the approach taken by Helen Clark, who, hopefully, is the next Secretary-General of the United Nations, and was a former Labour Prime Minister back in the day when the Labour Party held Government and was able to present a generally more coherent political argument, I think. So we are taking a consistent approach.

Having said that, we will see this through because this is a Government that believes strongly in transparency, in good Government, and in those elements of governance that allow the public to scrutinise and hold us to account. On this side of the House we have got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I am sure that should OIA requests flow into Mr Seymour’s office, there will be absolutely nothing of any concern to any member of the public, although there may be a significant amount of officials’ time devoted to servicing those requests. Let us bear in mind that there will be a compliance cost to this piece of legislation. Thank you.

E Te Māngai o Te Whare, tēnā koe. I am pleased to take a call in support of the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill, and I am very pleased that the Government members have changed the position that they had on the first reading and are now supporting the bill. It looks as if unanimity has broken out in the House. We in the Green Party are supporting this bill because citizens need to be able to trust the Government they elect. The Official Information Act is a critical check on the powers of the executive and how Ministers, Associate Ministers, and—when this bill passes—parliamentary under-secretaries exercise the powers that Parliament has given them under the law.

The Official Information Act, when it was passed in 1982, was a landmark piece of legislation because it was going against the prevailing ethos of the time, which was about official secrets. Its major purpose is to progressively increase the availability of official information so that the people of New Zealand can participate more effectively in both the making of law and policy, and the administration of that law and policy. It also promotes the accountability of Ministers and officials. So it was really surprising in the first reading that Government members were opposing Adrian Rurawhe’s bill with the extension to parliamentary under-secretaries.

We have seen in the submissions that the Government Administration Committee received universal support for the bill. As the Law Commission said in its submission: “The principle at stake is simple: Parliamentary Under-Secretaries perform a role that would otherwise be performed by a Minister of the Crown, and should therefore be subject to the same obligations of open and transparent government as Ministers, established under the [Official Information Act].”

Parliamentary under-secretaries are members of the executive, although some disputed that in the first reading. Their appointment is authorised by the Constitution Act and they can exercise the powers and functions that Ministers delegate to them, subject to certain constraints. The Cabinet Manual recognises that they are part of the executive and are bound by the principle of collective responsibility in the same way that other members of the executive are.

Mr Foster-Bell said that the National Government believed in having transparent and open Government, and I would agree with my colleague Denis O’Rourke that you could have fooled us. We hope that National’s change of heart on this bill will also lead to a change of heart in how it actually applies the Official Information Act, because we have seen under that Act major delays in the release of information by Ministers, large redactions, and a huge increase in complaints to the Office of the Ombudsmen in terms of requests to investigate the failure to release information and in terms of the delays. In 2014-15 the Office of the Ombudsmen received more than 12,000 complaints, and that was the second highest in its 33-year history. There were over 6,000 complaints in the first 6 months of 2015-16. So we would like to see that same change that Government members have taken on the bill then applied to the actual application of the Act.

This is only a small step to increasing the accountability of the executive, and the hallmark of this Government has actually been to significantly increase the powers of Ministers. It has given Ministers much greater power to override local democracy. In the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill it can tell councils what provisions can be included in their plans, and what cannot, and it can potentially pull provisions from those plans. These are things that former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer has called a constitutional outrage.

We have seen under this Government regional democracy not restored in Canterbury, and the health board in Otago and Southland still has Minister-appointed commissioners, so this Government has increased ministerial power rather than reduced it. This bill is a tiny step to actually making the powers of the executive slightly more accountable and more transparent. We congratulate the member on his bill and the Government Administration Committee on its consideration of the bill and the major effort it has made in ensuring that submitters were able to persuade Government members to change their stance on the bill.

But I would say that I look forward to the presiding officer ruling out of scope a number of the amendments that Mr Seymour is planning to bring in relation to ridiculous things such as bringing the parliamentary press gallery within the scope of the bill. It highlights ACT’s lack of understanding of how our constitution works and how the Official Information Act works. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to take a call on this, the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge the chair and the other members of the Government Administration Committee who worked on this bill.

National voted against the bill—we did vote against the bill at the first reading—because we felt that there is an important distinction that is drawn between the executive, which is subject to the Official Information Act (OIA), and Parliament, which is not. I will come back to that point a little later in my speech.

The work of the parliamentary under-secretaries can be sought through the Minister they are responsible to. Having gone through the select committee process, however, which was thorough, and after hearing the submissions, it was apparent to us that the public would like more accountability and transparency around the parliamentary under-secretaries in Government, and we felt that this bill did achieve that. Therefore, we decided that we would support the bill.

I did want to address one comment that was made by the chair of the committee, and it was directed at David Seymour. I know that in the first reading I referred to this bill as the “Pick on David Seymour Bill” because I felt that it was politically motivated and that it was directed at a member of Parliament and the leader of the ACT Party, David Seymour. But tonight we have been told by the Opposition that this is not the case—that it is not about David; it is about parliamentary under-secretaries.

There are two things that I want to raise that would contradict that. The first is the statement made by the member sponsoring the bill, Adrian Rurawhe, and I want to acknowledge the member, who is in the House tonight. This is what he said: “My bill is a direct challenge to the anomaly in how parliamentary under-secretaries are treated with respect to the OIA. Parliamentary under-secretaries exercise delegated authority from ministers in specific policy areas, but they are not subject to the Official Information Act 1982. There is no reason for this to be the case. Under-secretaries are undertaking work as part of the executive branch of Government and they must be accountable to the public in the same manner as the rest of the executive.”

That statement I accept and I support 100 percent, and if it had been left there, then I could also accept the argument that this was not directed at David Seymour or even at a policy that he has been the sponsor of—that is, our charter schools. That is a policy that the Opposition and Labour are against. But the member sponsoring this bill went on to say this—and I know that Mr Cunliffe is speaking after me and maybe he can address this for us. The member went on to say: “After the last election, ACT Party leader David Seymour was appointed an under-secretary to the Minister of Education with responsibilities for charter schools.” So now he has introduced David Seymour into the debate. Now he has introduced the charter schools policy into the debate, which would be in direct contradiction to what the select committee chair just got up and said—that it was not about David Seymour.

The member went on to say: “He is also the under-secretary to the Minister for Regulatory Reform. Charter schools were excluded from the OIA when they were set up, an arrangement the Chief Ombudsman said may be unconstitutional.”—that is fair enough, raising that point; I accept that—“It is therefore vitally important that those with oversight responsibility for these schools, such as Mr Seymour, are subject to proper democratic accountability. National and David Seymour may claim that they have already accounted for this with respect to Mr Seymour’s delegated responsibilities; if so, why do they have such a problem supporting a bill that seeks to correct the anomaly in legislation?”

The point that I would make is that although we have decided to support the bill, I still feel strongly that this was a bill that was directed at David Seymour and that it was directed at the charter schools policy, which, as we have seen, has actually been very successful. I would invite the speaker from the Labour Party who is following me, Mr Cunliffe—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: He’s not following you, Mark.

Well—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I’ve never followed you, Mark. I’ve never been able to follow you.

That is true. That is very true, David, but you did seem very excited and very interested in this debate, so maybe you will get the chance—I would have liked to have heard you on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That would have been interesting, your position on the TPP, because we thought you might have been a free trader. Maybe I got that wrong.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: However, we are not talking about that just now.

Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. The other thing that I wanted to mention about this bill is that I want to come back to the first point that I made around the distinction between the executive and Parliament, because most of us in this House pride ourselves on the fact that our primary role, or one of our primary roles, is serving the communities that elect us to represent them. A big part of that is that all of us will sit down and we will have a constituent clinic where a constituent is able to come into our office and they often share personal information, and we are often the last port of call in terms of being able to help them to remove some of the stress that they are under. It is really important that they are able to come in with confidence and know that the sensitive and personal information that they share with us is protected and is going to be treated confidentially.

One thing that I did speak about in my first reading speech, and I did use a military term—and certainly our New Zealand Defence Force people would have known what I was talking about when I said “mission creep”. Effectively, what that means is that you start off with one idea and then gradually it starts to change and transform. I think the danger around this bill, to a certain extent, is that now that it is before the House—and I think the leader of the ACT Party alluded to this—where do we start and where do we stop? Maybe we could see some Supplementary Order Papers come in asking, or at least challenging, as to why, say, the leaders of Opposition parties are not also subjected to the same level of transparency. Government should be, without a doubt, and we accept that, and I am proud of the fact that this Government is extremely transparent and continues to move and look for ways to be even more transparent. There is one thing that is very, very true in politics, and it is that the thing that will get you is the attempt to make a cover up on something. The minute that happens—

💬 Richard Prosser: Transparency and lack of opacity aren’t the same things.

I hear New Zealand First members laughing. I do not know whether they have got experience of that, but they seem to be supporting the comment.

Anyway, I am very happy and very pleased to have been able to take a call on this, the second reading, and I just highlight the fact that we in the National Party will be supporting the bill. Thank you.

New Zealand First supported this bill at the first reading to go to the Government Administration Committee because it seemed to us to be a pretty common-sense sort of a bill—that parliamentary under-secretaries should be subject to Official Information Act (OIA) requests for information in the same way that Ministers are.

At that time, of course, David Seymour opposed the bill, and we in New Zealand First were pretty comforted by that because, of course, he always gets things wrong, so by supporting it we thought we must be getting it right. He said the bill was “inconsequential in every practical sense” given that his decisions as Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Education responsible for charter schools and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister for Regulatory Reform would be copied to the Minister, and so an OIA request would better discover those decisions direct from the Minister and not from him. That was his reasoning.

But, strangely, he also said that the Official Information Act was there to “keep tabs on what the executive was [doing]” and that this bill means that “We’ve now abandoned that principle”, apparently because he does not see that a parliamentary under-secretary is part of executive Government. Well, hello? If he does not understand that he has joined the Government in an executive position, then there can be little hope that he will actually do anything useful in that position either, and, therefore, there could be no useful official information he would possess that could then be obtainable under the Official Information Act.

He also said: “All [the bill] does is attempt to attack me, and while I am a little bit flattered, I cannot support the bill.” In fact, he has been more flattened by the bill than flattered by it because he also said that the bill was “silly”. Yet he now announces that he will support this “silly” bill, so what does that make him? The answer, I think, is self-evident by self-definition.

But this has led to a rethink by New Zealand First, because if Mr Seymour now supports the bill, we are worried about our initial support for it. After thinking it through, we can no longer support the bill, and we now feel strongly that we must oppose it.

There are two good reasons for that. The first one is that the bill is actually completely unnecessary, and the appointment of a wet behind the ears, first-term MP as a parliamentary under-secretary actually shows that. He is not even well-named as Mr Seymour for the position when he clearly sees less than most, as far as his responsibilities are concerned. So what possible use could he be in regulatory reform, which he clearly has got no actual experience of whatsoever, and what possible use could he be supervising the obviously failed charter school programme? Therefore, what possible useful information could be obtainable from him on any of these areas that cannot be got from actually reliable sources?

In fact, I am unreliably informed that an OIA request already made of him for all information in his diary concerning his duties performed so far was returned with this result. Yes, it is a blank sheet of paper, and that is about as useful as information from Mr Seymour could ever be.

Secondly, there would be many other problems in getting useful information from Mr Seymour because even if he did have any useful information, which we doubt, it is very unlikely that such an inexperienced parliamentary under-secretary would understand it enough to make any worthwhile comment on it. Then there is a question of how long getting the information would take—possibly as long as it would take to get the Parliamentary Library to get the answer for him because he would not know what the answer would be. That, of course, actually makes him redundant, and it would clearly be much better to go to a reliable source to get the information one might want on the subject that Mr Seymour is the parliamentary under-secretary in respect of.

In fact, the only thing I can see that Mr Seymour and ACT have achieved so far is the disappearance of the last red telephone boxes in New Zealand’s streets. Many think that that was because of increased mobile telephone use, but the truth is that the primary use of telephone boxes was to provide accommodation for ACT Party meetings. But with ACT parliamentary representation now provided by Mr Seymour, even that requirement has now dwindled to zero.

Finally, what the bill does do is it redefines the term “Minister of the Crown” to include parliamentary under-secretaries. We in New Zealand First cannot actually bear the thought of having David Seymour as a genuine Minister of the Crown. Clearly the crowd he once met with in telephone boxes around the country does not think so either, because it does not do that any more. So for that reason, amongst all the others, New Zealand First can no longer vote for a bill doomed by what it cannot possibly achieve, which is obtaining useful official information from Parliamentary Under-Secretary Seymour.

I am sure the member could not have been more eloquent if he had read his speech.

It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill. One of the things we hear quite often as first-term MPs is the value of the select committee process: an opportunity to reflect, to listen to submissions, to reconsider one’s position, and just occasionally—just occasionally—to change it. This is the position we find ourselves on this side in, in this, the second reading of this bill.

We had grave concerns at the introduction of this bill that it was not necessarily actually going to meet the objectives set out, but particularly that it would blur some constitutional distinctions, some roles within Parliament, and that it could be a slippery slope to other things. But hearing the submissions and the advice from officials, and discussing it as members of the Government Administration Committee, I think we all reached a position that the interests of transparency of this Government, in this instance at least, trump the potential—because it is by no means absolutely certain—that by permitting this bill to pass we will destroy the constitutional separations between roles. So the interests of serving transparency in Government and transparency to the public would outweigh the potential that we could in some way blur those distinctions.

The distinctions are real. It has been mentioned by several speakers this evening that in the first reading of this bill a number of members in this House made incorrect references to “the executive”, and I will put my hand up. On review of the Hansard I am one of those. But there is a very, very clear distinction. In fact, two members tonight, one from the Greens and one from New Zealand First, failed to acknowledge that and possibly failed to understand that. In the executive there exists the executive and there exists the Executive Council. The Executive Council is the group that advises the Governor-General. It is the Executive Council that has the Governor-General execute Orders in Council—those actions of government outside of the Acts that Parliament passes. All Ministers are members of the Executive Council. They are also members of the executive. The only members of the executive who are not members of the Executive Council are parliamentary under-secretaries. This distinction has existed in this country since at least the early 1980s.

Among the submitters who appeared before the committee was the Law Commission, represented by the Hon Justice Sir Grant Hammond. Many of them, and particularly that submission, made the point that they felt that including the parliamentary under-secretaries was within the spirit of the Official Information Act (OIA) and that it would provide that level of accountability and insight over the actions of the executive. They also pointed out, actually, that members in this House had made that incorrect distinction in the first reading. They had talked about parliamentary under-secretaries not being members of the executive, when they are, but they are not members of the Executive Council. What we should have said, myself included, in the first reading was that the distinction was the Executive Council, not the executive.

What they had not considered, when they did look at saying “Well, actually this fits within the spirit of the OIA.”, was why Parliament had originally made that distinction and what Parliament had intended, and what members of Parliament had spoken about in terms of that distinction between being a member of the Executive Council, a Minister, and therefore very clearly, because of the language of the Official Information Act, subject to it—what the distinction is between that group and members of the executive who are not members of the Executive Council and who have never been, up until perhaps the third reading of this bill, subject to the Official Information Act.

Another thing that I think we would all agree on is that Parliament does things for a purpose and also, under consideration, when it does not do things it does not do those things for a purpose. So I asked officials to look back at the Hansard and at various public commentaries around the time, not only on the passing of the Official Information Act but also in the years subsequent to it in the 1980s, because the parliamentary under-secretary role was well used in that period, particularly in the period of the Lange Government. In fact, two members of this Parliament, the Hon Annette King and the Hon Peter Dunne, were both parliamentary under-secretaries in the 1980s, and therefore neither of them were subject to the Official Information Act in the discharge of those roles. Interestingly, wind the clock a few years forward and now both of them are going to be in favour of the role that they once held now being subject to an Act that it was not subject to when they held those roles.

So I asked them to have a look at the record of Hansard and other public commentaries to say what comment has ever come out in that period that gave some measure that Parliament thought: “Oops, we’ve made a mistake. We have these parliamentary under-secretaries. They are not captured by this Act. Oops, perhaps we should either change it or at least reflect on the fact that what we have done doesn’t include them.” They found the sum total of zero utterances to show any sign at all that in the parliaments in the 1980s—including the Parliament that actually created the Act, but also subsequent parliaments as well—members of Parliament considered that somehow they had got it wrong. Somehow this Act passed that was to give greater transparency and insight into what the Government was doing and share that with the public, and there was no sign at all that those parliaments thought that they had got it wrong.

From that we can deduce, quite simply, that the Official Information Act was never intended to apply to members outside the Executive Council. It was never the spirit of the Act to include parliamentary under-secretaries. So we now find ourselves in a position where we are considering doing that, but I think it is important in the reflection on it that we actually look at what we are really doing here. What we are looking to do is not to say that it has ever been in the spirit of the Official Information Act to include parliamentary under-secretaries; what we are saying is that with the desire of the public and in the interests of transparency today, we are choosing to evolve the Act and its intent and its scope of coverage beyond what had been intended up to this point. So we can do so in the knowledge that we are evolving a piece of legislation and we are providing greater transparency to the public.

We will include people like David Seymour within the ambit of questions under the OIA. That will give greater and more ample opportunity for the public to seek answers—answers that we hold, quite frankly, could be sought anyway, because, as has been covered again, parliamentary under-secretaries receive their delegations from Ministers and they are responsible to those Ministers for the discharge of their duties. We did ask during the course of hearing submissions whether, semantically, you could say that because the Minister does not hold the information, they can answer that they do not have it and cannot answer it. A question I asked the officials was: “Well, OK, are there any grounds on which the parliamentary under-secretary could refuse to give it to the Minister if the Minister asked because they have had an OIA request?”. The answer to that is, very clearly, no. So the point that had been made in both the first reading and even tonight that the information could still be sought through the responsible Minister is indeed the case, but we are going to take a principled position tonight and through the remaining readings of this bill.

In the interests of transparency, we could continue to argue the point that there is a distinction between not only the Executive Council and the executive but the executive and Parliament. To include parliamentary under-secretaries just helps to blur the distinctions under our constitution sufficiently that we could find ourselves in a short period of time or a few years starting to have these things apply to other roles outside the executive, as well as the Executive Council. But, in the interests of serving democracy and serving transparency today, and doing so in a manner that is quick and easy, we have sought to support the officials’ advice that we simply redefine what a Minister includes under Mr Rurawhe’s bill. That will mean that a parliamentary under-secretary of this Parliament and any others will be captured. The Official Information Act will, therefore, then apply to that role. The public can feel secure that we are taking steps as a Parliament to give that greater transparency, and we will be supporting this bill from this point.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Labour Party—Chris Hipkins.

This is quite possibly, and quite probably, the least transparent Government that New Zealand has had since the passage of the Official Information Act in the early 1980s. It does not comply with that legislation, it treats parliamentary questions and processes with contempt—regularly avoiding answering parliamentary questions at all—and it is no wonder that New Zealanders do not have much trust in the mechanisms of Government any more when the current Government pays so little heed to them. This piece of legislation is a very welcome development, and I congratulate my colleague Adrian Rurawhe on bringing this bill to the House.

Brett Hudson, the previous speaker, asked what has changed in the last few years, from when we previously had parliamentary under-secretaries to now. Well, what has changed is that the Government has placed a parliamentary under-secretary in charge of a policy area where it has exempted the organisations receiving large sums of Government money from the Official Information Act. So the charter schools that David Seymour is responsible for the oversight of in his role as parliamentary under-secretary do not have to comply with the Official Information Act. That is what has changed. This is the only time in the history of the parliamentary under-secretary role that it has been placed in charge of a policy area that is exempt from the Official Information Act—so that is what has changed, that is why this legislation is necessary, and that is why I think it is great that this bill is going through the House.

Under the law as it exists today, partnership schools, or charter schools—whatever you wish to call them—can communicate with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Education, David Seymour, and none of those communications is covered by the Official Information Act, because they are not communicating with the ministry, nor are they communicating with the Minister. Therefore, those communications are not covered. But they are communicating with the Government, because the person in the Government who has that role is a parliamentary under-secretary. So it does create an anomaly that means that information about how significant amounts of Government money are being spent is being withheld from the public. This bill gets around that, and it means that those communications will be covered by the Official Information Act, and that is nothing to be afraid of unless the parliamentary under-secretary has something to be embarrassed about in those communications. And I certainly hope he does not, because, after all, the Government has said that the organisations in question—the charter schools—are supposed to be more transparent and more accountable than any others within the education system, and yet, under the current law, that is not the case.

This bill here does not overturn the exemption from the Official Information Act that partnership schools, or charter schools, currently enjoy. I think that is a bill that Parliament maybe should consider in the future. In fact, I would go much wider and consider that many, many entities that receive millions of dollars in Government subsidies should be subject to the Official Information Act, because one of the big things that is eroding the coverage of the Official Information Act at the moment is the constant contracting out of Government services, including everything from policy development right the way down to service delivery. It is being contracted out to businesses, and those businesses that are receiving Government funding to do the core business of Government are not subject to the Official Information Act. I think that is something that Parliament should address at some future point, because I think that that circumvents the original intention of the Official Information Act, which is that citizens should have the ability to scrutinise the actions of their executive. They should have the ability to scrutinise where public money is being spent, and, at the moment, many, many things since the passage of the Official Information Act in 1981 have certainly limited the ability of citizens to do that.

So this is one small step, but it is a very welcome one because it means that a member of the Government who, at the moment, can operate completely in secret is being brought to account in the same way that the rest of the Government is. I am glad that the National Party and the Act Party have finally seen the light and have seen that, actually, a little bit more transparency would be a welcome thing. I hope they embrace that spirit much more widely and start actually living up to their responsibilities to operate in a much more transparent manner. They are not above the law, they are not above scrutiny, and they should start acting a lot more like that so that the New Zealand public can judge them on their record and not judge them based on how much information they are hiding from the public, which seems to be the modus operandi of this current Government.

A 5-minute call on behalf of the Māori Party—Marama Fox.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. I was watching from the comfort of my spacious office—which I am happy for anybody to make an Official Information Act (OIA) request to come and have a look at—when the lovely, young Mr Seymour stood to deliver his speech. I thought: “This is great. What frivolity and jest is going on here in the House tonight! I must come down and take part in this.” I was tempted, of course, to join in the David Seymour roast and throw out a number of instances of why we would not want to make an OIA request about the inner thinking of what is the ACT Party. I was tempted, of course, to jump on the bandwagon of the “mock David Seymour” competition that seems to be going on in the House, until I sat and listened to that. I thought: “Well, hold on now, I am almost tempted to back the young man up.”

Let us have a look—why would we support this legislation? Well, as with all other pieces of legislation, we put it against the values of the party. No. 1: manaakitanga—the act of upholding someone’s mana. So why would we want to see what a parliamentary under-secretary is doing? Well, to ensure that, in the carrying out of his duties, he is continuing to uphold the mana of not just himself, the party and Parliament but also the people whom he represents.

No. 2: kaitiakitanga—the caring for. He is responsible for caring for the education of the students in charter schools—something that we have supported because, actually, when you look around the education system, though it is on the improve, a number of Māori and Pasifika students have not been well cared for in our education system. Again, I would like to see what is going on in our charter schools to ensure that we could make sure those students were being cared for.

And No. 3: rangatiratanga—rangatiratanga, or self-determination; the right for Māori, non-Māori, and anyone else on the whenua to assert their own pathways to success. Here is a model of education that many Māori organisations, iwi, and trusts across the country have decided is the option for them in their schooling choices—asserting their rangatiratanga.

And again, I think: “OK, we can support this piece of legislation to ensure that we can see and understand that those values are being upheld.” And then I think back to the lovely Mr Seymour’s speech. I think he has had OIA requests made of him already. He does not have to respond, but he has out of the goodness of his own heart. He has already provided the information requested, despite this legislation having not gone through. And then the lovely Mr Seymour has decided, again out of the goodness—[Interruption] yes, he is lovely sometimes—of his heart to proactively provide the information to the House and to the public, for the public good, so that people know what is going on.

So I ask myself: is the legislation actually needed? If I think about the proactive examples that the lovely Mr Seymour has provided to us tonight, I would think: “No, actually, we do not need it.” But that means that any parliamentary under-secretary, now and into the future, is going to need to be as lovely as the young Mr Seymour. I only need to look around the House at all the people who want to take a swipe at him, and I think I am not sure that that is the case of all of us here, though we would like it to be. I cannot be sure that that would be the case into our future.

In fact, for Māori, we would like to see these things written into legislation, because sometimes the Minister is great and, in their goodwill and good faith, they will work proactively with Māori for Treaty settlements and such, but at other times it just depends on how they feel on the day. So I am going to go with legislation over good luck and the ad hoc, and we are happy to support this legislation. Kia ora.

I am pleased to take a call on the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill in its second reading.

I want to acknowledge the member Adrian Rurawhe for his work in bringing this to the House. I think it was noted earlier by another member that getting one’s member’s bill drawn is quite something in and of itself. To have it then actually begin to progress through the House, particularly past its first reading, is of note as well. Can I thank the Government Administration Committee for its work on this. I do so for two reasons: first and foremost, I do not actually sit on the committee, but I have found the work that its members have done and the discussions that have been generated through that very helpful in being able to inform my own view. And I think a number of those members have spoken tonight and have discussed how, via the select committee process and, particularly, through listening to the submissions, they have changed their minds somewhat.

I am happy to go on record that I am uncomfortable with this bill. I am comfortable enough to, along with the party, vote for it tonight at this second reading, but I will elucidate the reasons for my discomfort a little bit more. I think, first and foremost, we have to understand the role of a parliamentary under-secretary. It has been part of the Westminster System for a while. It is explicitly acknowledged and written up in our Cabinet Manual—sorry, it is in the Cabinet Manual, but it is also within the Constitution Act 1986—and, without belabouring the point for the House, section 8 of that Act makes it very clear that the Governor-General can appoint a parliamentary under-secretary with the advice of the Prime Minister.

I think this becomes quite important because there has been a lot of discussion tonight around the constitutional manifestation, shall we say, of a parliamentary under-secretary. Are they part of the executive? Well, as I would understand it, yes, in so far as they hold a delegation from a Minister. But, vitally important—vitally important—is that a parliamentary under-secretary is not part of the Executive Council.

I need to draw that out a little bit, and my colleague Brett Hudson had done so a little bit earlier. The parliamentary under-secretary that is a power authority is, ultimately, as I said, delegated from a Minister. It is the Minister in some ways—if I wanted to put it in very simple terms—giving part of their responsibility over, in this case, to another member of Parliament. That is quite distinctly different, though, from sitting on the Executive Council. A parliamentary under-secretary does not sit on the council, and the council in turn is that body of MPs who have become Ministers of the Crown who advise the Governor-General. I am not going to bore the House—primarily because most of them have sat on the committee—as to why that is constitutionally important, but it does begin to raise questions about why this bill is ultimately necessary. I might leave that point there for now.

The second point—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Very good point.

Look, I think it is a good point, again, on the constitutional reality. It will come back to the whole mission creep that Mark Mitchell talked about, but I just think it is important to note that the OIA, the Official Information Act, has been specifically directed at Ministers, and primarily—if not actually up until this bill—exclusively to those who sit on the Executive Council, in order, rightly and properly, that the executive can be held to account. Granted—I must say as an aside—that there is part of me that often wonders just how effective the OIA is. Granted, I have not sat in Opposition yet, so I will defer my thoughts somewhat. But I do see the enormous amount of work and effort that goes into generating paperwork; I am not really sure at times how useful that is, and in some other ways just how much time, effort, and money is spent, particularly by civil servants, generating this. But, as I said, I reserve my judgment: I have not applied it completely and fully.

Importantly as well, as the member for Epsom, David Seymour, was indicating tonight—and we do understand this—his work as a parliamentary under-secretary is already, in effect, covered by the OIA. We know this for two reasons: the first reason is that it is actually very clear that any person is able to approach the Minister who has handed over that delegation to a parliamentary under-secretary and ask for the relevant information. I think that makes absolute perfect sense. Again, you do not want Ministers beholden to the OIA, handing over responsibilities to a parliamentary under-secretary—or anyone, for that matter—in order to escape the purposes of the OIA. We can see that you can already seek this information, so you begin to wonder what the point of this bill is—it is somewhat redundant. The second reason came through very clearly, and by the great illustration, shall we say, by David Seymour when he gave his presentation of just how much paperwork he was already providing. There is nothing that is being hidden here currently, and I think that is important to stress.

The other element, and it is little bit theoretical—I am no lawyer and I am a little bit nervous to raise this with lawyers in the Chamber—is that one of the basic precepts of the law that I have understood over time is that it should never really be designed to address a particular individual. Instead, laws should be designed to address particular behaviours, and most of the time that is what we do in our laws. I am sure an argument can be constructed that this bill is aiming at a behaviour—and we have heard a lot about open and transparent Government—but I cannot help but feel, and I think it is evidenced rather strongly, that this is a bill whose genesis has come about to target a particular member. Others have referenced previous debate points where it has been noted strongly that it has been focused on David Seymour—in fact, even the previous speaker, Marama Fox, alluded to it—and that is a concern.

We have had it too, even with Chris Hipkins, who spoke around—slightly more eloquently, I have to say, or with a rather refreshed angle about—the whole “we want to get more information on partnership schools, and we haven’t been able to do that directly so we’ve got to go through a person.” It is, I think, a slightly cleverer argument, but one that still does not stack up. This is not the appropriate way to try to seek information on an entity.

💬 Chris Hipkins: Through the OIA.

No, it is not about going through the OIA. But the whole idea that “we couldn’t go directly to the organisation, or we weren’t happy with dealing with the Minister, so now we have to target an individual”, I do not think is all that helpful.

💬 Chris Hipkins: Who is acting on behalf of the Minister.

Exactly. Of course, you can already go to the Minister, too, and receive that information—which I think completely highlights the point that this has become a bill focused on the individual rather than a particular behaviour, and, therefore, is breaking a pretty basic precept of law. Again, for those legally interested, the whole bills of attainders years ago were a good illustration of just how these things were misused. It also came up in one of the talks that if an entity gets Government money, then it should, somehow, automatically be a focus of the OIA. Having worked in the likes of the Ministry of Social Development and so forth, where a number of NGOs and groups, charities and otherwise, get Government money, I am not quite sure we want to go in that direction.

I think that brings me—conscious of the bell, Mr Assistant Speaker—to that whole slippery slope and mission creep. We have breached a constitutional line here; it has been very clear to date. We have breached a line here. [Interruption] Yes, that is right. We have breached a line, and I do wonder where it ends.

I actually hope that the Supplementary Order Papers that David Seymour has proposed are discussed—not that I necessarily think they should go through—but I think they do begin to illustrate the point that if the OIA is just about open and transparent behaviour, if it is about people of influence, then it actually applies to just about everyone. Why should it not apply to the Leader of the Opposition? Why should it not apply to MPs? I do have concerns, when I think how, in recent weeks, the names of New Zealanders have been drawn and pushed through this House—without good merit, but, again, information has been sought, grabbed, and misused. I think we have seen that far too often, actually: where knowledge about people’s activities becomes an excuse, particularly for Opposition parties, to have a crack at those people, often without good reason. I do not think that is particularly helpful for open or transparent government.

I, again, reluctantly vote for this bill. I do acknowledge the intentions, I do acknowledge the hard and good work of the Government Administration Committee, and I do acknowledge the conversations, particularly those that my colleagues from the National Government who have been on the select committee have had. So I will vote in the second reading, but I am interested in the further processes as they come forward. Thank you very much.

I have listened very carefully to all of the National Government members speaking on this bill tonight—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: That’s very courageous—very courageous.

It was a very courageous thing to do, but, yes, I have listened very carefully, and I do not think anyone is in any doubt that every one of them is extremely uncomfortable about voting for this bill. They have trotted out a whole range of reasons why, and I am going to address all of those reasons.

The member Paul Foster-Bell said in his speech that he strongly believes in open Government, “but …”, and then went on to give a whole lot of reasons why he did not like this bill, and was followed up by all the other speakers. The “listening carefully” was about their support for the bill at this reading, and, certainly, we were left in no doubt with the ACT member, who told us that he was going to put up a whole lot of Supplementary Order Papers at the Committee stage that would be about opening up the Official Information Act (OIA) to all and sundry, including yourself, Mr Assistant Speaker—not bringing you into the debate.

So either they are serious about open and transparent Government, and are swallowing a bit of a dead rat with this bill—and there are some good reasons for them to do that—or they are playing games. They are playing silly games, and their so-called support for open and transparent Government—they are doing that at the behest of the silly David Seymour. Paul Foster-Bell also said that the Government—[Interruption] Apologies to my colleagues, but Paul Foster-Bell, who did make a worthy contribution, made the claim that the Government has nothing to be ashamed of in regard to open and transparent government. It is true that the National Government did sign up to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in December last year—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Ratified.

Ratified. It was a strong step in a direction. And in 2014 New Zealand accepted an invitation to join the Open Government Partnership, which brings with it a requirement to demonstrate how the Government will implement transparency, accountability, technology, innovation, and civil society participation in Government—all very worthy.

It might interest the members in the House tonight and the public listening at home that New Zealand has formally been warned in just the last few months—formally been warned—for its lateness in meeting its obligations under that Open Government Partnership. One of the parts that we signed up to was a recommendation on parliamentary transparency, which relates directly to this bill. But that formal warning is directly relevant—directly relevant—because we are not fulfilling our obligations under that.

Therefore, the action of the National Government tonight in swallowing a dead rat—hopefully, that is what it is doing—and voting for this bill at the second reading is because it realises that in this environment, when the eyes of many in the world are on New Zealand at the moment, and it is whether or not we are a tax haven and just how much our commitment is to anti-corruption measures and to transparency measures, this is an opportunity for the Government to show that it has a commitment to openness, a real commitment to openness and transparency. Certainly, I hope that is what this is about and that it is not about playing a silly game with the silly David Seymour, who has really shown very little brains tonight in his speech in the House.

Certainly, if the Government had voted against the bill at the second reading it would have been going against the advice of the Ministry of Justice, which was very clear, and the Government Administration Committee. They said that the bill was consistent with the purposes of the OIA and with the constitutional position of parliamentary under-secretaries as part of the executive with the ability to exercise delegated ministerial power. This was backed up by the Law Commission and the Law Society, both august organisations whose recommendations should be listened to. Certainly, this Government has not always listened to their recommendations when it comes to legislation, but tonight it appears as if it has.

My third point is that this bill is very clear, and the analysis is very clear, about the distinction between the executive and the rest of Parliament—very, very clear. It is a very simple bill. It makes a very simple change to correct an important anomaly, and I do want to commend my colleague Adrian Rurawhe for bringing this before Parliament tonight. There is no hint in this bill that that line should be blurred. There is no slippery slope. This is an anomaly, it is a clear anomaly, and it makes an important and simple distinction between the role of an under-secretary and the role that they play, and how that should be accountable to public scrutiny and accountable under the OIA. Of course, the Ministry of Justice agrees with that, as do other submitters. There is no muddying of the waters with this so-called “slippery slope” argument that the National members seem to be buying into tonight. This is not about the road to ordinary members of Parliament becoming accountable under the OIA. This is not about the Speaker’s office becoming accountable under the OIA; this is about the under-secretaries, who are part of the executive, even if they are not members of the Executive Council, and that is quite simple and that is an important principle.

This is important for the future. It is a small but important piece of legislation. What David Seymour has done tonight has actually started a trend—a positive trend from our perspective on this side of the House—because he has begun proactively releasing information before the law requires him to. We support that. This was part of our policy in 2011 and 2014 for the proactive release of information under our open government policy. Of course, the Government had no open Government policy. The proactive release of information is an important trend. If we could see other National Ministers starting that trend and continuing that trend, that would be a good and positive thing. So what David Seymour has started is a very significant change in keeping with the principle of keeping the bastards honest, and we support that.

What we do need to do is to cement this under a small legislative change. This bill is not about David Seymour, as much and all as he would like it to be about him; it is about the role that he currently plays as a parliamentary under-secretary. It is not about his ego in any way, but it is important. I think that what it is doing tonight is showing a pathway, and with the Government’s support it will actually cement that pathway towards true openness and accountability, and towards the release of more information and the accountability of another member of the executive who currently is not accountable.

Kia ora, e Te Mana Whakawā. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This is a fairly unusual experience—in that this is the first time that I can remember, in my 7½ years as a member of the House—where the Government, having opposed a bill at its first reading, is now supporting it as its second reading. I want to traverse some of the arguments as to why that might have come to pass.

I think we need to reflect on some aspects of the history of the bill. One is that, as my good friends on the Government Administration Committee have said to me, there were only five submissions received on the bill, which would suggest to me that there is a very low level of public interest in this particular measure. Nevertheless, I do not want to be dismissive of that, because, of the five submissions that were received, all were in favour of the bill being passed. Two came from quite august bodies of which this House always takes note and listens to with respect—i.e., the Law Commission and the Law Society. And, of course, it is also notable that in its report to the House, following its careful consideration of the submissions, the Government Administration Committee has advised that it had unanimous support that the bill should proceed.

Taking that into account, I have to say that I was very disappointed tonight that the member in charge of the bill, Adrian Rurawhe, gave us very little of his personal reasons for supporting it and, in particular, the purpose of the bill. In fact, I am not sure that he actually mentioned anything about the purpose of the bill whatsoever. Essentially, what he confined himself to in his relatively brief speech were questions of process. I would have expected to hear some compelling arguments in favour of the bill from the member. For that reason, I want to put a few questions to him that he might give some thought to as he moves on to the next stage. It appears that the bill will pass tonight and so, as he prepares for the Committee stage of the bill, I would like him to give some thought to a few questions.

Nevertheless, I do congratulate him, as others have done, on having had his bill adopted, if not unanimously—it looked for a while as if it might have been unanimous, but, of course, the New Zealand First Party hates to be agreeable, so it now looks as if it will just be adopted comprehensively. But that is a very rare thing for any member putting forward a member’s bill, and particularly an Opposition member, so I do congratulate Mr Rurawhe on that particular fact. Of course, the only current parliamentary under-secretary is Mr Seymour, and he gave his warm endorsement to the measure before describing it as, effectively, completely pointless—I think that was his description.

In an effort to educate myself as to the purpose of the bill—because I had not had much of that from the member in charge of it, and I was not sure, after listening to Mr Seymour, that I was much better educated—I decided to try to bring an independent analysis to Mr Seymour’s less than generous assessment of the bill by turning to what you might know as the parliamentary bible—otherwise known as David McGee’s Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand. It is always a wise place to start if one wants to understand a little bit more about parliamentary procedure and constitutional provisions. But I have to say that, despite the impressively comprehensive and scholarly tome that McGee’s text undoubtedly is, references to parliamentary under-secretaries in McGee are relatively few and far between. He notes that “A Parliamentary Under-Secretary may answer a question on behalf of a Minister in the Minister’s absence. Otherwise, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary cannot perform functions conferred by the Standing Orders on a Minister, such as taking charge of a Government bill.”

💬 Kris Faafoi: What happened to the questions?

They are coming, Mr Faafoi. Thank you so much; it is lovely to know that you are listening.

On page 331 of the third edition—and I would just like to read from this particular passage—McGee notes, about private member’s bills: “A Parliamentary Under-Secretary may introduce a Member’s bill.” That led me to ask: in that capacity, will an under-secretary now face scrutiny that other members who are introducing a bill will not? That is a matter that I would recommend the member sponsoring the bill give some thought to, as he approaches the Committee stage. Later, McGee notes, on page 533, that “A Minister (or a Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister whose measure is under discussion) who quotes from a document relating to public affairs must table that document if requested to do so by any member.” So, of course, there are a few degrees of accountability in that.

But at page 558—if, Mr Assistant Speaker, you would just allow me to read a slightly longer passage from McGee; and I might need to put my glasses on—he notes: “a question cannot be addressed to a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in his or her own right as if the under-secretary were a Minister. Questions to Ministers must be addressed to Ministers of the Crown (including now an Associate Minister). A Parliamentary Under-Secretary may answer a question on behalf of a Minister, but can have a question addressed to himself or herself personally as a non-Minister only in respect of parliamentary proceedings of which the under-secretary has charge (for example, as the chairperson of the select committee), not in respect of the wider range of responsibilities for which Ministers are answerable. Thus, a question to a Parliamentary Under-Secretary relating to a statement the under-secretary had made was not allowed”—in 1977—“even though the statement was made in respect of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary’s official departmental duties.”

There is clearly an essential difference between the two roles, and I ask the sponsor of the bill—

💬 Grant Robertson: Why isn’t this man in Cabinet? Or, at the very least, an under-secretary?

Moving right along, Mr Robertson, thank you. I ask the sponsor of this measure, as he prepares again for the Committee stage of the bill, whether the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill, which we are considering tonight in his name, will have the effect of changing that constitutional distinction and perhaps force David McGee out of his well-earned retirement in order to update or indeed write a fresh edition of his parliamentary masterpiece?

As Ruth Dyson, the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee, argued, this bill should not be about David Seymour. Ms Dyson told us that it clearly is not. But I have to say that although the member for Epsom seems to delight in the thought that it might be—and the select committee’s report to the House after its consideration of the bill, although little more than a page in length, is nevertheless about three times the length of the bill itself—one cannot escape the conclusion, as my good friend the learned and distinguished member for Rodney noted earlier, that this really would appear to be the “Pick on David Seymour Bill”. Given its incredible brevity, one would also have to wonder whether it is not a case of much ado about nothing.

I listened with interest to the contributions of previous speakers, and I thank them, particularly those MPs who are members of the committee, their officials, and those who submitted on the bill, for their careful consideration of it. All speakers have noted that transparency and accountability are important features of good government. There is no argument about that, of course. If this bill will enhance that outcome, then it is perhaps a good thing and we can support it. Indeed, the National Government has decided tonight that it will support it at its second reading, but I join Mr Mitchell in questioning the sponsor’s real motives for introducing it. Is it really just an attack on David Seymour? Because—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: He never raised that at the select committee. He’s got more manners.

As Ms Dyson is interjecting so effusively at the moment, she might want to reflect on the contribution of her colleague, the member for Rimutaka, because in his diatribe about partnership schools—and, of course, we hear that quite frequently from Mr Hipkins whenever he is speaking in the House—you would have to say that he lent credibility to the view that this is the “Pick on David Seymour Bill”. Really, given that that came from my opposite number in the whips’ desk across the House, I am left thinking that it probably is the real motive.

But I do not want to attack Mr Hipkins. It would be churlish to do so, because I would like to congratulate him on the double dose of happy tidings that we have heard recently. I gather there is both an engagement plus a baby to come, and that is wonderful news. I do feel that all members of the House would want to celebrate that with him.

So let me end as I started: initially, the National Government members did not support this bill, because we believed, and we still believe, that there are strong mechanisms to keep the Government to account without having to go down this particular path. Although parliamentary under-secretaries are not members of the Executive Council, they do perform an important constitutional role, with powers and responsibilities delegated from the responsible Minister. Any official information relating to their work as a parliamentary under-secretary can be sought from the Minister to whom they are responsible.

This bill may help to ensure transparency across government. It is clear that the public wants that accountability, and no one wants to hold that back, particularly from those who perform public functions. As a Government that has always championed accountability and transparency in government, the National Government has taken steps over the last 8 years to try to ensure that Ministers and Government agencies are accountable to the public. So although I am not entirely convinced that this is going to be a vital constitutional innovation, I, along with my colleagues—particularly as you are giving me the message that I should conclude these remarks, Mr Assistant Speaker—will support this bill at the second reading.