Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Madam Deputy Speaker it's a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of this Privacy Bill. It's always a pleasure to rise after the Hon Maggie Barry because anyone who does always sounds very very good.Hon Maggie Barry: Try harder.DARROCH BALL: There's the reaction I was after—there's the reaction I was after. Apparently as Maggie Barry said Amy Adams has been working very very hard on this bill for the last six years and couldn't get it through to this House. You know it's—Hon Maggie Barry: That's because we were busy with other stuff.DARROCH BALL: Well I was going to say it surprised me but it doesn't surprise me that after six months all of a sudden the National Party decides to figure everything out. They've got all the answers to crime because now crime's an issue; they've got all the answers to youth crime because now youth crime's an issue—it wasn't for the last nine years. They've got a solution to all the prison number problems too because that wasn't a problem over the last nine years and now they've got a solution to the Privacy Act. Now they've got a solution to the Privacy Act that they said they'd been working very hard on for the last six years. Well perhaps the Hon Amy Adams was working hard or perhaps she was hardly working—I don't know.Chris Bishop: Urgh!DARROCH BALL: Did you like that one Mr Bishop?Look I'd like to thank the current Minister Andrew Little for bringing this piece of legislation through to the House finally. His speech was quite detailed in its outline of the process and the intent of what this bill is trying to achieve and the common-sense reasons why.I'd just like to reiterate a few key points on why New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. As has already been stated the Privacy Bill repeals and replaces the Privacy Act of 1993 which was 25 years ago and it brings into play some of the recommendations by the Law Commission in 2011 when it reviewed the Act. As has been mentioned 25 years is a very very long time for this Act not to have been overhauled in any significant way and just the developments in the technology that everybody uses whether they be individuals or organisations have been absolutely comprehensive and phenomenal in their exponential move. Twenty-five years ago—I don't think that anyone had a cellphone in 1993. We certainly didn't use the internet on the regular basis that we do now we didn't have any smart phones and the organisations worked in a completely different way in regard to dealing with people's information whether they're banks or whether they be other organisations and institutions.The use of that data too is the most important thing I think. If we don't have the laws and the regulations that can govern how what for and why people can share or use other people's information—individual private citizens' information—then those private citizens would be less likely to freely give up that information and trust organisations with their information and personal information at that.This bill sets out to modernise the privacy legislation within New Zealand and I think importantly too it sets out to align New Zealand's privacy legislation with other legislation overseas. It's good that we're getting there now—it's a little bit of a catch-up—but it's better late than never. It details and regulates the collection use and disclosure of information about individuals and gives the Privacy Commissioner adequate tools to mitigate the privacy risks.One of the two main things that needs to be addressed in any piece of legislation is detailing what is the what" of the bill—so what is it trying to achieve?—and the "why". There are a number of changes but the key changes in the legislation—there are six of them. The first is that it will deal with mandatory reporting of privacy breaches. Obviously privacy breaches that are unauthorised or accidental and that pose a risk of harm to people must be notified to the Privacy Commissioner and to the affected individuals. It seems like a basic thing but it has been identified by the Privacy Commissioner and needs to be addressed.The second is compliance notices. The commissioner importantly with a great deal of common sense will be able to issue compliance notices that require an agency to do something or not do something in regard to the privacy law and is able to enforce compliance notices and hear appeals as well. The third is strengthening cross-border data flow protections—that is one of the important things in the globalisation of technology communication and data sharing—and the bill also clarifies the application of our law when a New Zealand agency operates overseas in a different jurisdiction.The fourth: it introduces new criminal offences. It will be an offence to mislead an agency in a way that affects someone else's information and to knowingly destroy documents containing personal information where a request has been made for it. The next is the commissioner making binding decisions on access requests. This reform will enable the commissioner to make decisions on complaints relating to access to information rather than the Human Rights Review Tribunal. And the last key change will be strengthening the Privacy Commissioner's information-gathering power. The commissioner's existing investigation power—Barbara Kuriger: Very good reading.DARROCH BALL: —is strengthened by allowing—well if that member wants to know why I'm reading quite obviously the member hasn't been listening. There are six key changes that this legislation is incurring and I'll be very impressed if that member stands up next and can say it off the top of her head. It's very important that this House and the public can understand why New Zealand First is supporting this bill and these are six of the key changes. I was on the last one—member interrupted me and I'll carry on. The commissioner's existing investigation power is strengthened by allowing him or her to shorten the time frame within which an agency must comply and by increasing the penalty for non-compliance.So that's the "what"—that's the intent of what this bill is trying to achieve and what the changes are. The second most important is the "why" and the justification. Like I mentioned before it's very important in today's technological age that private individuals and private citizens have a lot of trust in all of the organisations that they work with. All those organisations are very key to the running of the modern world today. Whether they be banking or other institutions online is being used more and more and that data needs to be protected and there need to be updated laws to be able to back that up. The cost of not dealing with the legislation both on an individual and on an organisational level will obviously be that loss of trust the loss of dignity and doubts when any organisation is dealing with sensitive information.So although it's a very simple bill and it's not the most exciting Christopher Finlayson did mention that it was a very very important bill and I do agree with him on that. I think that the most important stage in this whole process as has been mentioned by I think all of the speakers so far is the select committee stage. I do encourage all who are interested in keeping their private information very private to come through and to submit on that and especially the larger organisations as well so we can have a very thorough select committee stage and we can iron out any of the kinks that there are and make sure that it is very workable moving forward into the future. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill."