Foster-Bell Paul: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11295. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): The Government members on this side will be supporting the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill. It is a pleasure to take a call in the second reading debate. Can I congratulate the member Adrian Rurawhe. Having the good fortune to get a bill drawn from the ballot is one thing but can I also observe the careful and I think very practical and pragmatic way he has approached this.I have come into the process only part-way through having joined the Government Administration Committee which is ably chaired by Ms Dyson. I joined the committee only halfway through the process of considering this bill but I have to congratulate the member on the positive approach he has taken even though initially we did disagree on whether this bill was necessary and also on some of the substantive points that it raises. We still have some concerns as to the necessity for it and I think that has actually been well illustrated by our colleague Mr Seymour and his tabling of the Official Information Act (OIA) requests that he has already dealt with using the existing system which makes parliamentary under-secretaries “OIA-able” via the Ministers from whom they hold their delegations in their relevant portfolio areas. I think that point has been well illustrated.I still have a few lingering concerns particularly around the constitutional issue that is raised when you talk about deeming a parliamentary under-secretary of State to be for the purposes of the OIA a Minister. The Cabinet Manual is quite clear. We did hear a wide range of advice on this not only from the Law Commission President Sir Grant Hammond in a personal capacity but also from departmental advisers. The constitutional implications of deeming an under-secretary to be a Minister are of concern to me and I think to other members. It is very clear in the Cabinet Manual that they are not and were never intended to be a Minister.They certainly do not enjoy any of the othersupport I suppose that Ministers get. A parliamentary under-secretary for instance does not have access to the VIP Transport Service the Crown limos that have already been referenced in this debate.Hon Judith Collins: Unlike the Leader of the Opposition.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Unlike as Minister Collins points out the Leader of the Opposition. But also I think the argument that this presents a potential slippery slope is a valid one and it is one that we had to mull over at some length. If one does make a parliamentary under-secretary who was never intended to be subject to the OIA—and we actually sought advice on this. Historical research was conducted by the Ministry of Justice advisers and they were not able to find any suggestion whatsoever that it was originally intended to apply to parliamentary under-secretaries. This may well have been a very conscious decision made by the forward-thinking—I think—drafters of the Official Information Act 1982 which it should be observed was one of the world’s first freedom of information pieces of legislation. It was promulgated under Robert Muldoon’s Government and that was roughly at the same time as the Australians went through theirs but was a good 18 years ahead of the British example of bringing in their Freedom of Information Act which did not happen until the time of the Tony Blair Labour Government.The OIA drafters when they originally put this together did not intend it to apply to parliamentary under-secretaries so this is not an omission that has been corrected. It was specifically provided for that parliamentary under-secretaries could be subject to the Official Information Act via the delegating Minister. Therefore there is a concern that this does present somewhat of a slippery slope. If we can add in parliamentary under-secretaries what about parliamentary private secretaries? They are certainly not members of the executive. They carry out some very useful responsibilities on behalf of their delegating Minister. They may represent the Minister at functions for instance. They may give speeches on behalf of the Minister. Will that be the next step? Will we make parliamentary private secretaries subject to the Official Information Act?David Seymour: Why not?PAUL FOSTER-BELL: I know that Mr Seymour I presume facetiously is mooting that as a possibility. We actually take quite seriously on this side of the House the protection that is provided to members of Parliament when they go about their work and not being able to be subject to the OIA on for instance which constituents they may have met and when and what briefing they may have sought from other agencies to enable them to undertake work on behalf of constituents.The privacy of a constituent is very very important. They may not raise a sensitive issue if they are having a conflict with perhaps a Government department or a local council as we often get here in Wellington under the current mayor at least. That may well change hopefully later in the year when we have our local body elections. I see a number of complaints about our local body here. Would a constituent feel comfortable raising those with a member of Parliament if they felt that it may be subject to the OIA and either used as a political point a debating point by the Opposition or aired through the media using our OIA mechanism? Of course they would not.Similarly we have dealings with businesses. I assist a number of businesses with issues ranging from visa applications to again dealing with the local council and for reasons of commercial sensitivity not only with their competitors—but also these might be issues that are private to that company and it simply may not want them aired. So for these reasons I think the slippery slope concern is a very valid one and I would be concerned as I think other members on this side of the House would be should we start adding other categories to the OIA that were certainly never suggested and were not the intention of the original drafters.I believe that public confidence in government decision-making is very important. It is a wonderful thing that we have an environment in New Zealand where the public can access the full gamut of official information having been on the other side of this picture as an official wielding the black pen and deleting withheld information—redacting information from an Official Information Act request for reasons of national security protecting our economic interests saving our friends and allies from embarrassment perhaps protecting personal information or it may well have been legal advice that was legally privileged. For all assorted reasons of good governance and the protection of the privacy of individual citizens there are grounds for withholding information. Also I think that the wider picture that we need to take into account is to whom the OIA applies and why that should be the case.I think we will be joining Mr Seymour and voting for this bill to see it get through to the Committee stage. It will be very interesting to see what amendments members may have to table on this. But you know we do take it very seriously.There was a discussion with the Office of the Ombudsmen and the Cabinet Office because there are wider constitutional issues at stake. The interesting thing was that we were advised that this approach was utterly consistent with the one taken by a former Prime Minister—Helen Clark actually—following the 2002 election when she appointed two parliamentary under-secretaries double trouble whereas currently under this Government there is only one parliamentary under-secretary of State.I thought we were actually taking a very reasoned approach. It was consistent with the approach taken by Helen Clark who hopefully is the next Secretary-General of the United Nations and was a former Labour Prime Minister back in the day when the Labour Party held Government and was able to present a generally more coherent political argument I think. So we are taking a consistent approach.Having said that we will see this through because this is a Government that believes strongly in transparency in good Government and in those elements of governance that allow the public to scrutinise and hold us to account. On this side of the House we have got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I am sure that should OIA requests flow into Mr Seymour’s office there will be absolutely nothing of any concern to any member of the public although there may be a significant amount of officials’ time devoted to servicing those requests. Let us bear in mind that there will be a compliance cost to this piece of legislation. Thank you.