Fenton Darien: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships  Registration Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Fenton Darien: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships  Registration Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15562] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the second reading of the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. As the deputy chair of the Government Administration Committee I am pleased that Labour was able to reach a suitable accommodation with other parties during the select committee process although I regret to say that does not include the members of the National Party. 
This bill was a genuine effort by Labour to place appropriate limits on public access to the statutory registers maintained by the registrar-general because those registers contain personal information about almost every New Zealand citizen and some of the information is particularly sensitive. The purpose of the bill was also to update and enhance the previous law by taking into account the changing nature of relationships in New Zealand today. 
Interestingly despite the outcry we saw in some quarters in New Zealand about the bill restricting completely open access to the registers held by the Government many other countries including all of the Australian states and territories 10 of the 13 Canadian provinces and territories and the great majority of the states of the USA have imposed restrictions on access to their births deaths and marriages registers. It is not true to say that access is currently unlimited in New Zealand. Some of the information held by the registrar-general has always been inaccessible to the public and some has been accessible only in limited ways. For example there is no open access to the original birth certificates of adoptees and sexual reassignees or to information linked to protected identities and illegitimacy notations on birth entries. During the first reading stage I talked about my own experience of that last example. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the speaker but the barrage of noise from the people who are not speaking is actually quite rude to the person who is speaking. Can they just desist from that. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. A large amount of personal information is also held outside the registers particularly information contained in source documents and those are not normally accessible to the public. 
As the Minister has said the births and deaths registers in New Zealand date back to 1848 and when they were created little thought was given to the privacy risks. But that is perhaps because the risks were low. One of the interesting things we learnt at the select committee is that when births were originally registered in churches in England it was done around the collection of taxes. The issue was not so much about keeping a public record. As the Minister also said the registers were usually in paper form not easily available and often held in one central location. Technological developments of course have altered that quite radically and as the Privacy Commissioner said in her submission which I listened to very carefully personal information has become a valuable commodity to be bought sold combined sorted profiled and mined which means that the opportunities for the misuse of information held on public registers have multiplied. 
Given the lack of scrutiny of what are essentially disclosures of personal information and given the threat and reality of identity theft the original bill was aimed at restricting the access of strangers to information about any person on the register that could then be used in a way that ultimately causes harm to that person. I believe that Parliament would be failing in its duty if it did not recognise the threat of identity fraud and neglected to recognise the potential for the widespread abuse of personal information. Overseas trends and in some cases trends in New Zealand have given sufficient cause for alarm for the Government to take action. It is true that personal information can be obtained from many sources for fraudulent use but the intent of this bill was to make it more difficult for fraudsters to obtain information from the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages and to use that information for illegal purposes.  
The challenge was for this legislation to preserve the benefits of the public registers including easy access for those who require it in the public interest while minimising the risk to individuals. I believe that we have struck an appropriate balance with the amendments proposed by the Minister in his Supplementary Order Papers.  
During the select committee process genuine concerns emerged from submitters such as genealogists historians and journalists about the consequences of restricting access to registry information. We in Labour took those submissions seriously and we worked with other parties like the Greens to find that important balance. I recall that during the first reading debate one of National’s objections to the bill from those esteemed parliamentarians over there was that the public would no longer have ready access to information on the Births Deaths and Marriages register. I am here tonight to tell those members that I have very good news: the select committee process enabled genealogists historians and the media to put forward their views and be heard along with other organisations that had concerns about further restricting access to those records. In true MMP style and with the collaborative effort of parties other than National we have dealt with the issue of access to information which is in the Supplementary Order Paper while at the same time ensuring that there is a degree of greater protection for people’s personal records.  
But what did National do? The National members had the chance to be part of the process of finding a solution to the concerns they expressed in the first reading debate but instead they chose to persist in their blind opposition to the bill regardless of the changes proposed by the Minister and worked through by Labour the Greens United Future and New Zealand First. That is their call but no one should have any illusions about it. National’s opposition to this bill must be seen as pure political spite.  
The process of working with other parties particularly the Greens was a very good experience for me of what is possible under MMP. I want to thank the member Keith Locke for his practical and collegial approach to finding solutions to what we all felt were genuine concerns. I also want to thank the Minister Rick Barker who was absolutely open and solutions-driven on the concerns we were presented with at the select committee. Unfortunately because the committee could not reach agreement the key changes to the bill will be presented by way of a Supplementary Order Paper and we have already heard some whingeing about that from members on the other side of the House. However the Supplementary Order Paper will address concerns raised in most public submissions that the proposed access provisions would unduly restrict the ability of genealogists historians and other researchers to access information about other people.  
The Supplementary Order Paper retains the current ability of any member of the public to access any named person’s registered information but applicants for certificates printouts copies of documents and the inspection of records will be required to present reasonable identification. That adds a meaningful step and ensures that those who may seek to access registry information for fraudulent purposes will think twice before doing so. In addition an access register will be created so that people can apply to find out who has accessed their records if they so wish. This adds another layer of protection so that if a person is unfortunate enough to have his or her personal information acquired and then used fraudulently that person can at least find out who accessed that information.  
In some circumstances a person may request that his or her records not be disclosed to the public for a certain period of time. We had a lot of discussion in the select committee about examples of that. I am sure that we can all think of horrific situations where people may not want to have details made available to the public and that proposition seemed to be fair enough. The grounds for non-disclosure directions will be prescribed by regulations but a review of the operation of these new access provisions will take place 5 years after their commencement.  
Those amendments are a very good balance between protecting personal information from those who wish to obtain and abuse that information and maintaining freedom of information and the right of public access.  
I am pleased to support this bill. I thank the members of the parties who are supporting the bill at the second reading. Again I thank them for their collaboration and I look forward to the bill progressing to its next stage.