Rurawhe Adrian: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionRurawhe Adrian: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11850. Text is subject to correction.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru):Tēnā koe e Te Kaiwhakahaere o te rā tēnā tātou katoa.[Thank you Mr Chair of today’s proceedings and acknowledgments to us all.]I would like to try to answer or to address some of the questions that have been raised by members. I have been listening very carefully to them and I would like to if I can try to join some of them together because I think some of them are relevant to each other.So first of all about intent—it is very easy for us to look through our 2016 lenses and try to predict what the 1982 intent was. The information from the Ministry of Justice seems to say that there was no intent around parliamentary under-secretaries whatsoever and what ended up in the Act was the intent. The issue for me is what is our intent in line with information that has come to this House and to members of Parliament—for example the document that members have referred to—and the public’s right to know. Surely the intent of this Parliament tonight is what we should be talking about. Quite clearly so far all of the submitters have agreed with this bill and the Ministry of Justice has recommended that it be supported into legislation and that is quite clear. So I think it is this Parliament’s intent that is what counts to do with this bill.The issue around capturing a member of Parliament’s work through this bill is quite clearly also addressed by the Ministry of Justice. The Law Society said that any risk of capturing parliamentary information is mitigated by the withholding grounds contained in the Official Information Act. That is never ever going to be captured under my member’s bill and so members can rest assured that that will not be an issue or it ought not to be an issue.The title of the bill Mr Foster-Bell clearly reflects what this bill is about. My understanding is that the title of the bill should be relevant to what is in the bill. It could not be more relevant. What it is not relevant to is anything else that someone might want to add to it. That would change the whole nature of the bill. So I think that the title of the bill is absolutely correct.Retrospective issues—a good question and I have thought about that. I take Mr Seymour’s word. He has stated to the Committee that he has already provided that information so what additional compliance burden will be on him? Well according to his own answer or his own information to the Committee it would be nothing because he is already doing that. He is already by his own statements in the House providing that information and I think that is fine. Before that I am not sure. I am not sure what one can do through this bill to address say former parliamentary under-secretaries. I am not sure. I suppose you could try making an application to the Hon Annette King perhaps or to Peter Dunne. I am not sure that they hold that information. It is probably in the archives anyway so I do not see that as an issue at all. I have thought carefully about that and I do not think that is really an issue.Mr Seymour has quite rightly said as I acknowledge that he has told this Committee that he has already provided information through the Official Information Act—and that is fine. He says that will make no material difference. What it will make a material difference to is the future and the obligation for future parliamentary under-secretaries to be compliant with this bill when it becomes an Act. That is quite clear.The question around why it is so narrow—well it is narrow in the respect that it does what the title says it is going to do. I would make a distinction—I would make a distinction—to what has been tabled like this: this bill makes a change to the definition of who along with Ministers is liable to Official Information Act requests. What it does not do as has been proposed by Mr Seymour’s Supplementary Order Paper 181 is add new agencies into schedule 1 of the Official Information Act. It does not do that. The other difference of course is that those clauses have not been scrutinised by a select committee and they have not been subject to public submissions. I think that would be a mistake.