Kedgley Sue: Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill — Instruction to Committee Second Reading Instruction to Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill — Instruction to Committee Second Reading Instruction to Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:19799] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to address the Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill rather than the various Supplementary Order Papers that are floating around. 
I would like to draw Parliament’s attention to the fact that the basic purpose of this bill is to remove the obligation on chief executives to make material available free of charge on the Internet. Basically that is the purpose of this legislation—to remove the obligation to have important material like building regulations freely available on the Internet and to allow various Government departments to charge for what was freely available information. So let us be under no illusion about the purpose of this legislation. It will allow Government departments to charge for information that is fundamentally important; legislation such as building codes—material that should be freely available for example to builders around New Zealand. Now instead of being able to look it up on the Internet they will have to pay for it. This seems to be extraordinarily unwise. 
The Green Party can acknowledge that a certain amount of information if it is international may have copyright issues. Building Act provisions are all basically New Zealand provisions and I question why we are allowing Government departments to charge for what is basic information on building codes etc. The leaky building syndrome showed us that builders and developers around New Zealand were flouting the regulations ignoring the regulations. Surely one of the lessons of that would be to make as much information—certainly all the building codes and regulations—freely available for any builder or developer in New Zealand to access easily on the Internet so that he or she would not be able to argue that somehow he or she had not understood the regulations and had built inadequate buildings. But this legislation basically states that instead of having information freely available on the Internet it can now be charged for. 
As I said in my first reading speech I have seen this in operation with Food Standards Australia New Zealand. A lot of information about food codes is now not available on the Internet instead one has to pay for them or fly to Wellington to Xerox them. One of the provisions of this bill is that some of the information will no longer even be available on the Internet but will be available only in Wellington. So builders and developers around New Zealand will have to fly to Wellington to access important regulations and legislation that they need to know in order to comply with the various building codes. They will be available for inspection only in Wellington. What is the point of that? Will builders around New Zealand fly to Wellington—[ 
Interruption 
] Yes some of it will be available in the regions. The United Future member is rather defensively saying that that is not true but these are the provisions that I understand are available in this bill. It will enable a chief executive to say “No that is not available freely. No you can get that information only if you fly to Wellington go to the office and pay to Xerox the information.” This is silly legislation. It goes against the whole lesson of the leaky building syndrome that we must make sure every builder in New Zealand is fully informed and up to date with all of the building regulations. Now instead of being able to sit and look at them on the Internet they will have to pay for them or fly to Wellington. Guess what! Many of them will not do so. They are not prepared to do that. 
Not only that; the bill is setting a precedent that other Government departments too like the Ministry of Health will now be able to charge for information instead of having that information freely available on the Internet. This is basically a freedom of information issue. The Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill looks very technical and boring. Most people would say how incredibly tedious and would not even read it or give it the time of day. They would not realise that it is setting a precedent to undermine freedom of information in the guise of addressing copyright issues that really only pertain to international regulations. In the guise of that it is removing freedom of access to important information such as basic building standards building codes and so forth and setting up as the New Zealand First speaker said barriers to access to information. That is absolutely true. Now we will have to pay for information that should be freely available and we are setting a precedent so that this can be done by the Ministry of Health the building code and various other parts. 
The Government will now earn another bit of revenue charging for information that should be freely available. For that reason the Green Party will be opposing this bill.