Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill

The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some very brief introductions to the committee stage of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill, and can I thank parties across the House for the constructive way that they have approached this legislation.

The existing Protected Disclosures Act has served New Zealand well, but I think there is an acknowledgment that it isn’t accessible, it isn’t well understood, and it hasn’t been as widely used as we might have anticipated over the last 20 years. So this bill is designed to, basically, pick up the easy, or the easier, amendments that we can make to that legislation, in order to make it more accessible, in order to make it clearer, in order to have the Act functioning in the way that it was intended by Parliament back in 2000, when it was first put in place.

It does throw up a number of more complex issues, including some big issues around how the private sector should factor into a protection of whistleblowers regime that are not the subject of this bill. Further work, I think, is justified in those areas, and there are some amendments that have been raised by the Green Party, for example, that highlight some wider issues which I do think, in due course, Parliament should give some attention to. But I think that we need to do some fuller policy work around those. We need to do some fuller consultation around those before we as legislators make further decisions on those.

So this set of amendments that’s before the committee now is really about making the legislation more accessible and more usable. In due course, I think that there is an opportunity to go further, but I think that we should do that in the fullness of time, once a proper process has happened around some of those wider changes that could be possible.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thank Minister Hipkins for his introductory remarks. I think that to be upfront about the extent of ambition in relation to this bill, and acknowledging that further work that is required and that we should all give thought to, is helpful, actually, at this point. He’s noted the complexity of the private sector environment as being somewhat of a different beast from that of the public sector, and so it’s appropriate that we consider the legislation in that context.

My questions in relation to Part 1 are pretty minimal, but, actually, I think reasonably important definitional questions, and it goes to, of course, the interpretation section. So my question in the first instance is just around that definition of an “international agency”. So we’ve got there the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Defence, and the New Zealand Defence Force, all of which have got acronyms, which, you know, are very well familiar to those who inhabit this place in this world.

But, in addition to DPMC and so on, I wonder if the Minister could explain whether any thought’s been given to including, for the same purpose, other external-facing Government agencies. And I’m thinking of the Customs Service, potentially the Coast Guard—and in a way, that’s analogous to the New Zealand Defence Force—and also those who are performing functions that are equivalent; I suppose you might call them constabulary functions, as opposed to military functions. So not the Defence Force, therefore, but those exercising powers under the Maritime Powers Act, as it will soon be, for example. In this House—and the Minister will be well aware because he wears a different hat as the Leader of the House, so he’d be well across the different legislation, even outside his own portfolio areas, considerable as they are. So he’ll be aware of the fact that this House is in the process of passing the Maritime Powers Bill, and in that there are a number of enforcement officers who would have functions and executive authority, actually, that’s quite analogous to those of the international relations agencies as listed and as defined within Part 1.

So that was one of only two questions I’ve got in that space. I’ll just pause to see if there’s any indication from the Minister whether he’s minded to answer that, and if there’s none, I’ll proceed to my second question, which is also definitional—excuse me, definitional. It’s been a long night, the life of a whip under Omicron. To paraphrase Blackadder, I feel like a pelican: everywhere I look, there’s a bill in front of me.

But anyway, we’ve got a definition, too, of “officer of Parliament”, and there we’ve got the handful of officers of Parliament as they currently exist in the public sector architecture of this nation. So we’ve got the ombudsman—or ombudsmen, various, I suppose; “an Ombudsman”, not necessarily the ombudsman; obviously various kinds thereof—“the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, or the Controller and Auditor-General”. I wonder if the Minister has given thought to perhaps a definition that would allow any officers of Parliament that may be added in the future. And I know there’s been a proposal—and, again, the Minister wearing other hats will be aware that there might be, for example, an independent commissioner for Parliament, or maybe by another name. And if that person were to be appointed and given the status of an officer of Parliament, then it seems to me that the same extent of application of this legislation should apply to that person as well. I’m conscious of the problems of “Henry VIII” legislation, so I wouldn’t suggest that the legislation, the primary legislation, should say something like “Ombudsmen, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and other officers who might be appointed from time to time”. But perhaps there could be some legislation or some mechanism that points to the fact that there might be new officers of Parliament added in due course.

Those were my only questions in relation to that. So, at that, I will resume my seat and look forward to any contribution and explanation the Minister may have on those points.

Very briefly, if the member refers to page 18 of the bill, he’ll see that the reason that we have distinguished between international relations agencies and other agencies is that there are some specific provisions that relate to information—for example, where it might affect New Zealand’s international relations with other countries. So the other agencies that the member referred to are not included within that definition because an agency such as Customs, etc., would be treated under the provisions of the bill as any other agency would. But there are some specific provisions related to those international relations matters, as there is under the Official Information Act, for example, where we do treat some of that information slightly differently.

He’ll also see through the bill that there are some references to security- and intelligence-related information; again, because there can often be good reasons why there’s a need to treat some of that information differently, and hence there are different definitions involved with those.

And, unfortunately, because I was looking that up, I didn’t quite get the last part of the member’s question, which is around the ombudsman and officers of Parliament. But, again, if I’m recalling correctly from my half-listening, those agencies, again—the reason for excluding officers of Parliament, of course, is that there are, again, different processes that are in place around those.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 131 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Key concepts and what to do