Data and Statistics Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Data and Statistics Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Data and Statistics Bill be now read a third time.

I’m told that global sharemarkets value data more highly than physical assets, and that is because good data is critical to good decision-making. I think that’s no less true in governing a country and making decisions on behalf of citizens. Good data is critical to good decision-making. Alongside that, I think it’s critical that we have modern, fit for purpose legislation that builds on and reinforces strong ethical decision-making frameworks, clear accountabilities, and the proud independence of the Government Statistician in the production of robust statistics. I think these things are critical for good decision-making in Governments and also for holding Government decision makers to account. Of course, the data that’s produced in Government is also used by business, by citizens, by academia, and by others.

It is a real privilege to be ushering the Data and Statistics Bill through its third and final reading today. Not many statistics Ministers through New Zealand’s history have had this opportunity and privilege of passing legislation. In fact, the current Statistics Act that we will be replacing dates back to 1975 and the third Labour Government; the Hon Mick Connelly was the Labour Cabinet Minister in this role—not quite 50 years ago. I can tell you, I wasn’t very old at that point in time!

This Data and Statistics Bill has been carefully crafted. As I mentioned during the committee of the whole House, early decisions were taken when the Hon Craig Foss was the Minister of Statistics, before the development of the legislation was supported by the careful stewardship of the Hon James Shaw.

New Zealanders rightly expect our national statistical agency, Stats New Zealand, to be a credible source of data and statistics about issues facing New Zealand. Stats New Zealand is a trusted guardian of personal and commercially sensitive information. In the last few decades, national data and statistics systems have faced challenges arising from rapidly changing technologies, requiring relevant systems to evolve at an equally rapid pace. The Data and Statistics Bill is a legislative response to a changing situation, building a resilient and reliable data and statistics system. Government’s collection, stewardship, and use of data is shaped by consideration for the people, communities, environments, and organisations the data is from, about, and for.

The new Data and Statistics Bill ensures the flexibility to draw upon sources of data other than surveys, creating efficient and sustainable data-collection processes. These will be better equipped to withstand disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This more efficient system will reduce the burden on people to manually provide data for statistics, without compromising data and statistics quality.

For the first time in New Zealand’s history, our statistics legislation recognises the relationship between Māori and the Crown, and the Government’s obligation to work with Māori to ensure that data and statistics meet the needs of Māori, iwi, and hapū. Closing data gaps, and improving data quality, will ensure we make the right decisions to improve outcomes for these groups and that they can make decisions themselves which empower their people. We want this approach to empower Māori, iwi, and hapū to make decisions that will benefit their communities. The bill supports work already under way such as developing a Māori data governance model. This model will mutually benefit Māori and Government agencies by realising Māori data aspirations through effective iwi-Māori participation in the data and statistics system, and supporting Government policy development that is informed by Te Ao Māori insights and innovations. At this point, I do want to pay respect to my colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri for her strong and important leadership in this area.

Good data and statistics sit at the heart of democracy. The public interest is served by good data and statistics. As I’ve said, good data and statistics are essential for good decision-making, and so too are good data and statistics important to holding decision makers to account.

Before drawing to a close, I want to emphasise again that all data collected by Stats New Zealand will continue to be appropriately safeguarded. The interests of the people and organisations represented in or by the data used for statistics and research will be protected by appropriate privacy, confidentiality, security, and transparency settings.

With that top of mind, I do want to thank members from across the House for their participation in the debates on the Data and Statistics Bill. Analysis of the bill has tested the provisions, and a range of thoughtful submissions have resulted in legislation that has been approved, of which, I believe, this House can be immensely proud. Thanks to all of these efforts, we can be confident that when the Data and Statistics Act comes into force on 1 September 2022, it will deliver a robust, future-focused data and statistics system and will shape our systems better into the future. It is a pleasure, as I close, to deliver this bill for its final reading in what is, as the Hon Darren Hughes used to be fond of saying—and I suspect every statistics Minister before him—as the Minister of the only portfolio that counts, the statistics portfolio, it’s my pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, it is the only one that counts, although the Minister of Finance might have a different view on that, the Minister of Revenue might have a very different view on that, and, given the amount of money being racked up on climate change, the Minister for Climate Change Issues might also beg to differ.

The Minister was probably about 18 months old when Mick Connelly, in this Chamber, debated the merits of what became the Statistics Act. I’d like to be able to tell members that, as a nine-year-old, I had my ear tightly pressed against the transistor radio, listening to every word that was being debated late at night, but I can’t. Generally—

💬 Andrew Bayly: You would have been a sick puppy if you had.

Well, I listened to plenty, just not this one, sad to say, Mr Bayly. But, despite the ubiquitous nature of statistics and the statistics legislation, this is an important bill which National will support at third reading, as it has throughout the process—but with caveats.

I think we certainly support the overall goal that the Minister laid out: high-quality data and statistics that enable the Crown to gather information that’s so important for the decisions that we need to make about health, education, police, fire, and so on—the deployment of resources, the understanding of need that is in just about every walk of life. We support the goal of data being collected and stored in a way that maintains the privacy of the individuals and the organisations that give up that information. That is of absolute paramount importance. And we support strong engagement with iwi Māori under the Crown’s Treaty obligations to view information as a taonga, and to engage meaningfully with iwi on the importance of keeping it secure and using it well. I hope we do those things; I hope this bill, when passed, does all three of those things, and it may well do. But there were a number of very learned people in groups who have expressed concern that it won’t do all it sets out to do, and it may do some things that it shouldn’t do.

We kicked around a lot of those concerns in the Governance and Administration Committee, and we had a good old chinwag about it in the committee of the whole House last week. I want to commend the Minister for the way in which he engaged with that. You know, it has been 47 years since we updated the Statistics Act, and it was necessary and appropriate that we did give it a good airing. While we didn’t get the sort of changes that I think might have improved the legislation, the Minister has, in his engagement with the committee, put on record, I think, enough assurance from his perspective that will, at least at the start, alleviate some of those concerns. So I thank him for that. I think that’s a really important part of the legislation-making process. But it also gives a measure, I think, of where we can monitor the extent to which we’re able to protect and use data meaningfully. And where we fall short of that, if there is a legislative reason for that, I can give this House an assurance that the future National Government will make improvements to it and we won’t wait 47 years to do so.

Those areas that we heard a lot about, in terms of concern—and it came, actually, down to the fundamental purpose of what we were doing, and that was obviously the gathering of statistics. But the issue of research became something of almost a philosophical irritant. I think there is still—within the legislation when it’s passed—a disconnect between the purpose as set out in Part 1 and what is actually said further in the bill, at what will become section 22. That’s OK. I don’t think, in substance, at the start, at least, that’s going to be a particular problem. But I do worry that there could be research creep, or data-gathering creep for the purposes of research, the like of which we’re not actually sure, but let’s just collect it in case we might need it in the future. I think that is a potential problem. And the manner of the collection of data in the future’s going to be a really, really interesting one to watch.

Administrative data is the term used for the collection of information through other sources that are not the traditional source. I’ve heard the Minister say that that was how we used to do it in the past, and that’s where we’re kind of heading. I don’t agree that we will ever get to a point, as the chief statistician has told the select committee, where we would not need censuses. I actually think that’s not a goal that we should set, because the snapshot that we get from the widespread stopping and reflecting on where we are, who we are, how we identify, what we earn, how we earn it, where we live, who we live with—all of those sorts of things, I don’t think the richness of that data can be got only from administrative data, and I think, in the context of the legislative framework we set, it will be very interesting to see whether or not we get to that point. I don’t think we should; I don’t think we will. Actually, censuses have been taken for over 2,000 years—I know that from my elementary biblical studies—and I think they’ll continue to do so for a long time yet.

On that point, the collection of that data and the ability to do that reflects something of a split personality, almost, in the public. We protect our privacy fiercely on one level, and yet we live our lives on social media, an open source, on another. That makes it quite easy, as the Minister has said, in terms of corporate organisations seeing the value of that data in the same ways that they would any other assets—it’s data they don’t have to pay for. And that old saying of “If you think the product is free, you are the product”—not you, Mr Speaker. But that’s the kind of really unusual situation we have between our desire for privacy and our living life in the open.

Delegation powers was a discussion that we had and a concern that was expressed by a lot of people. I’ll be watching this area with interest because there was a lot of concern—but I don’t think a lot of it was justified—about the degree to which the chief statistician should be able to delegate powers. Actually, he has that power now anyway. And the examples that I think it was the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties came up with, with Police and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, I don’t think is a concern that I would have, but I’m going to keep a weather eye on it.

The last thing I think that this bill does, of course, is it gives effect to Census 2023, but now with a condition. That is that the chief statistician, on his own initiative, can delay Census 2023 to 2024. I think he will. He won’t make it completely independently from Cabinet, but I don’t think he should be making that decision at all. I think the Minister should make that decision according to criteria that isn’t difficult to set out, and I tried to put it into the bill, but there has to be a public engagement on why that should happen. Here’s my prediction: we won’t have a Census 2023, because I don’t think the Government is prepared to take that risk. It was a debacle in 2018. I think Stats New Zealand is still shell-shocked by what went on in 2018, and they’re going to kick the can down the road, past election 2023, so that at that very crucial time, when we realise what a complete pig’s ear the Government’s made of Census 2023, it’ll be in the election season. That’s a risk that I don’t think this Government is prepared to take.

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Put a decent box of Peregrine on that.

So there we are—well, he’s preparing the Cabinet paper, he’s admitted to the House that there is a go/no-go decision, we’ll see. I’ve laid it out. I’m not on a ministerial salary, so it’s not going to be a big bet. But that’s my bet, anyway.

But, look, it’s a very important piece of legislation. It’s so important that the good people of Tauranga have come all the way to Wellington to listen to the third reading. I’m sure that’s why they’re in the gallery!

💬 Hon Member: It’s all for you.

It’s all—that’s right. But I should just finish by wishing my friend and colleague Sam Uffindell all the best for his maiden speech, and commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Data and Statistics Bill. I do want to begin by thanking the officials and my fellow members on the Governance and Administration Committee for the considerable work that went into consideration of this bill. It isn’t often that a committee considers an entire rewrite of such an important bill that is fundamental to how society works, and the work that was done to improve this bill and make it even better was significant. I also want to thank submitters who took the time to come to select committee and who helped the committee to improve this bill—your contribution was incredibly valuable.

In this short contribution, I just want to note some specific protections that have been put in place to ensure that the privacy of New Zealanders is protected, and that the Government Statistician continues to operate both independently but also with the appropriate checks and balances that are required when holding data on New Zealanders. One particular piece is around the delegations—which the previous speaker, Michael Woodhouse, noted—of the Statistician. We heard during select committee from the Privacy Commissioner around some of the important things that we should do in order to ensure that the delegation powers were used appropriately by the Statistician. One of the things we inserted was a clause requiring the Statistician to publish information about that delegation. And we also just note in the committee report that the Statistician is motivated to take care when considering delegations because ultimately, as the Government Statistician, they are still responsible for decisions made when they delegate those functions.

The other point I just want to touch on briefly is around accessing data for research, which, as Michael Woodhouse also noted, came up significantly in the committee stage of the bill. There are a number of protections that are here in this bill that safeguard the process around accessing data for research. There’s a whole host in here around ensuring that that research is in the public interest and that the right type of people are appropriate in order to access that research. And so I’m confident that through the process, through select committee, we have actually put enough robustness into the bill to ensure that the use of data for research will be appropriate.

My final comment I just want to make is the importance of honouring the Treaty of Waitangi and the perspectives of Māori within this bill. It is exciting to have a Data and Statistics Bill that appropriately notes the role that iwi Māori play in the collection of data and the use of that data for their people. So I want to congratulate the Minister on this important piece of work. It’s a milestone today as we pass this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be talking on the Data and Statistics Bill third reading, and I’m very conscious about time because we’ve got a very important maiden speech due very shortly.

I just want to start out by—the issue is that the Minister stated right at the outset when he introduced this bill today by saying that he understood that on the stock markets, most of the value of companies comes down to data. I find that statement rather troubling because here we are: we’ve got a Minister of commerce who also is responsible for this bill. The reason he gave as to the value placed on data is actually not correct. He is correct in the sense that data is important, but the reason why so much value is ascribed to businesses is actually because of intellectual property. I find it troubling that the Minister can’t differentiate that issue when introducing a bill of this importance.

Anyway, this bill is—as my good colleague the Hon Michael Woodhouse noted, we’re going to support it. But we have had caveats with this bill. I think the important thing is we want to make sure there’s a better collection, publication, and analysis of data that is actually obtained and to produce good quality statistics for use in New Zealand, not only by the Government but by other people.

It’s important that we get this because when National was in power, the importance of social investment was such a crucial issue in terms of our decision making, making sure that our interventions—our initiatives that we were putting in place—were actually directed at the right outcomes, at the right groups to achieve those outcomes. Without data, and good quality data, you cannot achieve that, and that’s why this bill is so important.

Of course, we’ve seen some issues with that over time and, unfortunately, a lack of focus on social investment by the current Government, which I think is a real shame—an absolute shame. Because otherwise, you do not have a context, you do not have a framework in terms of the Cabinet or the Minister being able to determine where should we be putting our money, where should we be putting our effort? But of course we don’t hear that from our Government, because this Government just wants to spend lots of money and talk about what it’s doing without any outcomes.

Anyway, getting back to the bill. The Minister of Statistics will continue to have responsibility for specifying the data and statistical priorities, and that is important. Of course, it is the role of the Statistician to actually put in place the procedures and methodologies for collecting that data. We have no issue with that and, of course, what this bill does is seek to put in place a new framework.

One of the important things—and I don’t think anyone really picked up previously—is that there is a multi-year data and statistical programme designed, which has been embedded into this bill. So there is a framework and there’s a period so people know what’s going to go forward in terms of the work that Stats New Zealand does, which is a good thing because it’s going to prioritise data collection and the production of official statistics.

Part 3 was the bit that was pretty interesting. First of all, there’s the mandatory requirement and it firms up the relationship or the requirement on Government agencies to provide information to the Statistician, and that is correct. That is appropriate; we want to make sure that the Stats New Zealand CEO has the ability through his department to be able to go and get the right sort of information, and we think that is good. That obligation to provide data for official statistics will apply whenever a mandatory data request is made, unless other legislation expressly prevents provision of this data.

Now, the bit that was contentious is the bit of this Statistician being authorised, or being able to authorise other agencies, to collect data on behalf of Stats New Zealand and to produce official statistics. Of course, quite rightly so, we had a number of people highlight this issue. It is a fundamentally important issue to make sure that if we are delegating—and that was the first question: whether in fact the Statistician should be allowed to do that. Some would argue they’ve had that power for some period of time, but it is important that the constraints around that—the appropriateness of that—is properly captured in the bill.

My good colleague Michael Woodhouse introduced a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that ensured that anyone who has delegated power must comply with Part 5 of the bill. That’s a very important thing.

Look, I think I’m going to give way because I want to make sure that Mr Sam Uffindell gets his opportunity, but the last thing was the research. We want to make sure that anyone—

💬 SPEAKER: Five minutes.

Oh, I’ve got more time. Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s very appropriate. So the use of data for research was, again, a significant issue that was traversed quite widely in the committee of the whole House stage, because, of course, what is the purpose of data? It is for the collection of data, principally for Government decision-making. But the role and the use of data for research, and who uses that data was a primary concern to many people—and we’ve had many submissions on it, but it also occupied a lot of the time during the committee of the whole House.

We want to make sure that it is appropriate—again, my good colleague put up some very good SOPs on that matter. It was important; I think we traversed the issue quite comprehensively during that process.

The last thing is the census, and of course the Hon Michael Woodhouse was right. The last census was an absolute shocker—a shocker. To have the Minister not being clear whether, in fact, we’re going to have another census on the due date in 2023 or—and he’s kept his options open—whether in fact, he might delay it until 2024. Wow. That is unbelievable.

We should have a census every five years. That is something that everyone in New Zealand knows occurs. It shouldn’t be something that comes out of the blue. This should be a Minister who should be saying, “This is what we’re going to do, make sure it happens and don’t muck it up. Don’t muck it up.” Of course, that’s not what we’ve heard from the Minister—not what we’ve heard from the Minister. It is wrong; we need a Minister that is very clear about the priorities. We need a Government that’s clear about the priorities, and that’s not what we’re seeing from this Minister, nor this Government. Get it right.

I think we’re getting pretty close to the time. Therefore, what I’ll do is, in accordance with a determination of the Business Committee, call Sam Uffindell to make his maiden statement.

Debate interrupted.