Rurawhe Adrian: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRurawhe Adrian: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7258. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): Ā tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. He tino hōnore tēnei kia tū ake ki te whakahoki i ngā kōrero ki te Whare e tū ake nei ā ki a koutou e tuku kōrero ai mō tēnei take. Tēnei ahau e tuku mihi atu ana ki a koutou.[Thank you indeed Mr Deputy Speaker. This is really a great honour to rise and to respond to the contributions to this House standing here and to acknowledge you who have contributed to this matter; my acclamations to you collectively.]I just really wanted to start off in Te Reo Māori to bring some decorum back to the proceedings because I think that some of the contributions that I have heard are so far off the mark. Let me start with the first contribution from Sarah Dowie. I mentioned in my earlier contribution a report by the Law Commission called The Public’s Right to Know: Review of the Official Information Legislation. If that member does not like this bill she is going to really be annoyed—seriously annoyed—by this report because not only does it bring a responsibility around the Official Information Act; it broadens it quite a bit. That is what the Law Commission is saying and it goes a lot further than my bill. My bill is just a tiny little change to make sure that the parliamentary under-secretaries are subject to the Official Information Act.I read out some of the clauses and the purposes of the principal Act and I would say to the House that it is incredibly important to refer back to the purpose of this particular legislation which was passed in 1982—33 years ago—and has endured. I would like to say that my bill I believe enhances and respects the purposes of the principal Act.We also heard that one of the reasons why members are not supporting this bill is that Labour did not do it when we were the Government. Well let me tell you that I think we have had three or four Governments in that time period of 33 years and any one of those Governments could have done it. I draw this distinction between the Clark Labour Government and the National Government. I stand to be corrected but I am not aware of the extent of issues around the Official Information Act during the Clark Government that we now have under the Key-led National Government. That is just not right. Only yesterday as I said there was a decision by the court around the behaviour or the findings against the—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come back to the bill. You will be on tricky ground.ADRIAN RURAWHE: It is relevant to the principal Act and I stand here in response to the kōrero that was given on this. My comments are related exactly to what members in this House have said.I want to acknowledge the Green Party and the New Zealand First Party for their support on this bill.I will just say one more thing in terms of one of the arguments around the cost. What is the cost of open and transparent government? That is a question that we should be answering and for a member to stand up in this House and to say that that is one of the reasons why he is not going to vote for it is very sad. It is part of the woeful sad performance of the National-led Government on issues around official information.I stand here before you to say that this is not a vindictive bill. This is not about targeting one person; this is about making better law for this country and as I said before making better public policy.Nō reira tēnei ahau e tuku mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou katoa. [And so I commend you all; well done and my appreciation to us all.]