Andersen Ginny; Rurawhe AdrianPROTECTION OF JOURNALISTS' SOURCES BILLFirst ReadingGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South) on behalf of Louisa Wall: I move That the Protection of Journalists' Sources Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.It is a privilege to stand again in this House tonight and to be able to bring the Protection of Journalists' Sources Bill to the House for its consideration at this first reading and to do this on behalf of my colleague and friend Louisa Wall. I know that she has worked tirelessly on both developing the bill itself as well as building some support for it and the bill being here today really is a testimony to her dedication and passion to make New Zealand a better place and a clear commitment on this issue in terms of the integrity of the fourth estate being protected. It's sad that Louisa isn't able to be here due to our current levels within New Zealand due to COVID-19. Can I just say that Louisa Wall may well go down in parliamentary history as one of the luckiest MPs ever with the members' ballot. She's been blessed with many bills and this is just one of them. I'll do my best Lou to channel you tonight.I also know that she engaged with some experts in order to understand the issues that are at the heart of this bill. Included in those were John Edwards and Gavin Ellis and she would like to thank them for their input to where this bill has got today.In bringing this bill to the House today also gratitude needs to be given—the former member and my former caucus colleague the Hon Clare Curran has also had a key role in this bill being developed and reaching this current stage. She in fact developed the first draft of this bill when she was an MP in consultation with a number of experts on the topic on our country's civil society. I do remember too being on the Justice Committee with Clare when this issue arose during the inquiry to the last general election.At its core this bill speaks to liberal democratic—Hon Simon Bridges: Oh we were going to support it!GINNY ANDERSEN: —pay attention—recognised in the international law as a key principle underpinning press freedom. Journalists rely on source protection to gather and reveal information in the public interest from confidential sources. These sources may require to be anonymous and that is important—so meaning that they can be protected from physical economic or professional reprisals in response to their revelations. On the fourth estate to function effectively and to play out its role how it needs to it is vital that our laws protect journalistic privilege to censure to make sure that our press have the ability to function and to report freely without being impeded—also sometimes critically without the fear of or the threat of reprisal.An important area of this law specifically is how it functions in the case of police. When a journalist's premises or property are subject to a police search protecting the identity of those sources must be a primary concern. As it stands although New Zealand law currently references the importance of respecting journalistic privilege in the case of police searches it contains a gap as to how this important protection is actually guaranteed. Although the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 identifies the existence of journalistic privilege with particular reference to the protections laid out in the Evidence Act 2006 it contains no clear description as to the processes that should be followed when this issue of privilege arises.This was a clear problem in the case of the police's search of journalist Nicky Hager's home and property in 2014 and this particular instance is the underlying driver of this bill in its design. According to the Independent Police Conduct Authority report on this situation police policy at the time did not adequately set out the procedure officers needed to follow when applying for a search warrant or executing a search in relation to potentially privileged material. This combined with the lack of experience at the time in such matters on the part of those officers involved and the lack of legislative clarity to cause an unwitting neglect of duty" as quoted. The specific purpose of this bill is to clarify and strengthen this area of our law to make sure that this scenario does not happen again. This bill clearly addresses the existing gap in the law and the specific issues highlighted within the Hager case by reinforcing the Evidence Act and the Search and Surveillance Act in recognition of journalists' duty to protect their sources from disclosure.In the core of this bill are changes to the Search and Surveillance Act. As I've already mentioned this bill was first developed by the Hon Clare Curran and this section has largely been inherited from her previous work. The amendments in this part of the bill enshrine in law specific protections that will help ensure that journalistic privilege is upheld when police seek to use the powers contained within the Search and Surveillance Act to conduct searches or to obtain production orders. Broadly speaking the changes addressed here are in three core issues that arose during the Hager case and they were based on the former honourable member's engagement with some of those involved including Mr Hager himself as well as the legal and academic minds of those such as Steven Price Felix Geiringer Bruce Gray QC and also Dr Peter Thompson.For example the changes will address the issues of disclosure for the judge or issuing officer when there is a target of a search warrant or production orders who is actually a journalist. The bill does this by clarifying that police must identify as part of their applications if they believe they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person is targeted as a journalist. Responding to one of the key issues in the Hager case this removes any potential lack of clarity from the situation and also it ensures the right to have this privilege protected by the courts when an application is made or enshrined in law. Additionally the bill's amendments outline that there are some additional steps that must be taken when dealing with journalistic privilege in the case of search warrants or production orders. This means that in future cases officers dealing with someone they think is a journalist have some clear guidance to follow as the minimum things that they need to do in order to protect journalistic privilege. This will help prevent scenarios such as those that arose in the Hager case from happening again. These changes were put into the bill more recently after the Hon Clare Curran passed the bill on to Louisa Wall and are intended to address the issues that have arisen as the definition of "journalist" for the purposes of evidence and police services.In sum this bill deals with issues that go right to the heart of the role of the media and journalism in our liberal democratic society. As I've outlined it is vitally important that our laws adequately protect journalistic privilege to ensure that journalists especially investigative journalists can do their jobs. I am very pleased that this bill has the opportunity to be considered not only by this House but also by the Justice Committee. I know that this bill touches on some technical elements of the operation of law enforcement in New Zealand and I look forward to hearing from the relevant departments and the public at select committee in regards to any improvements that can be made on this bill. On behalf of my parliamentary colleague and my dear friend Louisa Wall I commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to."