Dalziel Lianne: Insolvency Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Insolvency Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:655;Page:5072] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 The problem is that the Minister of Justice Simon Power has not addressed the question I asked him. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: That’s quite unusual! 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is unusual for that Minister; he is usually pretty good. But on this occasion I feel somewhat let down. The reason that I feel somewhat let down— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Not angry just disappointed. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: —and disappointed—is that it is the second time this week— 
Hon Simon Power 
: The second time? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well no last week was the one I felt really disappointed about. The reason I am a little bit concerned about the Minister’s failure to address the question is that we asked the officials where the second set of amendments had come from—the ones relating to the period of time that information on bankrupts stays on the public register. The amendments came from an article that was in the paper. It was entitled “Vanishing bankrupts spark call for change” and was published in the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 1 December 2008. 
It seems that a number of options were presented to the Minister for him to look at. The officials set out a series of options. Option one was to permanently retain information on bankrupts for 7 years for both no-asset procedures and summary instalment orders. Option two was to permanently retain information on bankrupts on all three registers. Option three was to retain information for 7 years on all three registers. Option four was to retain information for 7 years on bankruptcy and no-asset procedures and to retain the status quo for summary instalment orders which is 3 or 5 years depending on the length of the summary instalment order agreement. Option five was to provide for the public registers to be searchable for individuals who have entered any of the three personal insolvency processes on two or more occasions. Option six was to provide for the public registers to be searchable for individuals who have entered the no-asset procedure and then bankruptcy or bankruptcy on two or more occasions. 
Then the report states that after a brief analysis of the above options officials’ preliminary recommendations subject to further discussions with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner were to adopt options four and six above as they would address to a greater extent the problem that was identified in the  
New Zealand Herald  
article. That is not how laws ought to be changed. 
Officials also recommended that the Minister seek policy decisions on all of the proposed amendments to the Insolvency Act in February 2009. That is 2 months over Christmas after an article appeared in the  
New Zealand Herald 
. I am sorry but the process is bad. I cannot say that it is a good process. 
When Labour was in Government we had an entire discussion document on insolvency law reform which led to the Insolvency Act that we have in place today. I know that we made mistakes and that the bulk of this bill corrects major mistakes in the drafting and implementation of the Act that were not picked up. I appreciate the fact that the Minister has to use the time of the House in order to address those problems. But I still think we are entitled to an explanation as to why an entirely truncated consultation process did not involve any of the credit agencies or the community-orientated services like citizens advice budget advice and all of those services that work with people on the ground. 
The problem is that the consultation with the Privacy Commissioner identified serious concerns about making significant changes like this amendment bill proposes when she herself is about to enter into a process of reviewing the code of practice that deals with how long the credit agencies can keep this information on their record. We could end up with the bizarre situation where the public record and the private record as it were of the credit agencies are contradictory to each other—not just a misfit but absolutely contradictory to each other. 
That is what I was asking the question about. Why was this provision tacked on to this bill? It is not fair that this issue did not get the thorough consideration it would have had with the normal 6 months in the select committee calling for submissions and having some proper debate about it. In fact it was a truncated process because of the other stuff in the bill not because of this particular provision. 
So tonight in the Committee I underline my disappointment and the Minister was certainly on notice that I would raise this issue as I did in the second reading of the bill. I would appreciate an answer to my question.