Penk ChrisPart 3 Protections CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): We move now to Part 3 which is the debate on clauses 16 to 22 which are the protections. The question is that Part 3 stand part.CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you Madam Chair. Just a brief one again for me on this part please. So Part 3 is protections and one of them is confidentiality. I just think it's worth at least a brief discussion in terms of the obligation of confidentiality. So for those who aren't familiar with the structure of the legislation it's probably worth pointing out that a protected disclosure or an act or practice that is subject to the whistleblowing legislation might be made and the recipient of that information defined as the receiver—funnily enough—would have an obligation then to do certain things but one of them would be to keep confidential the identity of the discloser. Of course if we think about the context of such a disclosure being made it might be that the whistleblower—let's call that person as such—would be exposing themselves to some risk and of course as the Minister has pointed out that's kind of the whole point which is that someone might go out on a limb so to speak to bring to light some unsavoury practice and so forth.So where it's possible the identity of the discloser is to be kept confidential of that receiver of the information but there are some exceptions. It's worth noting I think that of course the discloser might consent to be identified and there might be other situations. There might be reasonable grounds to think that it's needed for the effective investigation of the disclosure and there's not much point of course of making a disclosure if nothing can be done with it. So it might be that all roads will lead to Rome in terms of understanding who it is that's blown the whistle and this is a bit of a quid pro quo of course for the fact of protecting the person who's made the disclosure.But the one point that I did want the Minister's guidance on is in new subclause (3A) in clause 16A. It says that After releasing identifying information for a reason described in subsection (2)(c)"—those are the ones I've been describing as best I can but in summary—"the receiver must inform the discloser." So my question was really just as to timing because it seems to me it might actually be helpful for the receiver of the information to advise the discloser before they released that identifying information. At least if there are circumstances where that could be done safely and without jeopardising the investigation then that might be more helpful than simply telling them after the fact and if there's sort of blowback in any kind of legal or real-world way that affects the discloser and perhaps their family and so forth then I think it would be good if they were to have advance warning of that if at all possible. It might not be practicable of course in all circumstances but it seems to me that that would be at least a helpful thing for the law to provide.I should just acknowledge before resuming my seat that as indicated by this being an underlined addition I suspect this was added by the select committee so it's not the Minister's responsibility in that sense. But of course if he's putting his name to the bill he'll probably have some view on that timing issue that I've raised. If he's prepared to share it again as always I'd be grateful for that interaction such as we've enjoyed so far this evening."