Penk Chris; Rurawhe AdrianCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to—I wasn't perhaps as keen as the member opposite Jo Luxton to get up and take my call ahead of time but I can at least do so now that I have the opportunity in the fading of the light of the House sitting week. The Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill as the previous contributor has noted is one that has almost been concluded in terms of this reading a number of times now that the House has sat so it's a pleasure to be able to help bring it home so to speak even before we head home. The discussion in previous stages of the bill in obviously its various readings—and also I recall quite an interesting I think and helpful if I may say committee of the whole House stage. I do so with all due modesty as I think I recall that I was one of those who was willing and able to make a few contributions. I do acknowledge that the Minister at the time was engaging seriously in that discussion and so I think that having followed a parliamentary process where of course all the usual boxes are ticked we did also I think do ourselves a service as a committee of the whole House and now the House proper of giving it some pretty thorough scrutiny. That's important and it's in an area of course for all legislation but particularly so where there's an opportunity for people to exercise rights and responsibilities in the face of possible wrongdoing. I note of course that the regime is intended to provide protection of whistleblowers as indeed the name of the bill suggests in that part of the description in brackets which is so helpful to have a general kind of understanding of it and of course as a learned member made the point at a previous stage—it may have been me—it's not only the whistleblowers who are being protected important as such protection for such people may be but it is also of course the protection of the systems of which they are a part. It's the protection of the rule of law to some extent but it's also a protection of members of the public who would otherwise suffer harm or potential harm at the hands of the individual or organisation on whom the whistle is being blown. So it is that the bill has a number of mechanisms to promote that kind of accountability to provide that further protection and it does so by clarifying the threshold at which such whistleblowing can take place and more importantly the protections that are then unlocked or provided when the whistle is blown. We have some specific reference to serious risk to the health or safety of an individual and I think it's pretty clear from that that Parliament intends that there's a threshold that is not trivial but that there is something serious—to use that word again—that is at play such that we would want to say as a society that we're going to enable someone to blow the whistle and to cause potentially distress and harm to the reputation of others. Of course we do that because we say that there's an overall benefit in having such a regime. We say that the interests of society at large and the whistleblower in particular in such cases outweigh the rights of those who might be accused of wrongdoing and of course the reason that we need such laws is because it's not always the case that when whistleblowing takes place the wrongdoing is able actually to be proved. So other aspects of the legal system whether it be contractual perhaps in an employment context particularly; or it might be in relation to individual reputation so that defamation laws potentially are engaged; or privacy laws of course—all these complex issues can interact such that we have need for someone who in good faith and not using whistleblowing as a means to cast aspersions unfairly or in bad faith uses these provisions to highlight what they consider to be wrongdoing in the service of preventing serious risk to the health or safety of an individual. So I do want to say in my remaining time that I think that the bill has had a good canvassing at its various stages. National has been clear that we do support it. We commend the Government for continuing this work. We acknowledge that some further work may be needed and the Greens have made that point. We look forward to potentially continuing that further discussion but of course after this bill has passed as it will surely soon be in the next sitting week. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday 10 May 2022. Mauri ora. Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 4.56 p.m.