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:7247. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): I move That the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. This bill is about upholding the intent of the principal Act the Official Information Act 1982. I want to refer to the purposes of the Official Information Act. The purposes section talks about “the principle of the Executive Government’s responsibility to Parliament—” it talks about increasing “the availability of official information” it talks about enabling “more effective participation in the making and administration of laws and policies;” and it talks about promoting “the accountability of Ministers of the Crown and officials—”.There is an anomaly within this Act though. The anomaly is that it does not include parliamentary under-secretaries. Parliamentary under-secretaries are not subject to this Act and my bill seeks to fix that anomaly. My bill seeks to fix that by amending section 2 “Interpretation” of the principal Act by inserting “ ‘Minister of the Crown’ means a Minister Associate Minister or Parliamentary Under-Secretary”. I have done this because the Official Information Act is one of the few mechanisms of democratic accountability in New Zealand to give taxpayers and voters the confidence that decisions made on their behalf are right and proper.We have some grave concerns about the way in which the Government has operated under this Act. Only a year ago the Prime Minister John Key admitted that the Government sometimes delays releasing official information right up to the deadline if it is in its best interests for it to do so. At the time the Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem made it quite clear that the Government is not allowed to delay right up to the 20-day deadline for political purposes. The Government’s record on transparency has been woeful. Just yesterday the High Court ruled that the Minister of Trade Tim Groser acted unlawfully when responding to an official information request.I mention these in the context that there seems to be a culture within this Government of either avoiding or just not responding appropriately and in a timely fashion to Official Information Act requests and therein lies the reason for this bill. We in Labour are committed to having open and transparent Government which is why this bill is now before the House. The bill aims to fix this anomaly and to maintain the high standards of transparency that taxpayers demand of their Government.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.ADRIAN RURAWHE: Before the dinner break I was talking about my amendment bill of course. Just to recap there has been a review by the Law Commission which made 137 recommendations—quite wide-sweeping ones. I want to also mention if I did not before the dinner break that the Chief Ombudsman has started a review of the Official Information Act as well. I understand that that will be due out before the end of the year. As I was saying the Government’s record on transparency has been quite woeful. Just yesterday we had the High Court ruling that Minister of Trade Groser acted unlawfully when responding to an official information request.I think that goes to the nub of my bill. This is about open and transparent Government. Any party in this House that believes in having open and transparent Government ought not to have any problem with my bill. I think there will probably be some parties that do but I want to talk about one of the drivers for having this bill in the first place. Last year the Government appointed a parliamentary under-secretary and some of our members on this side of the House have been rather frustrated at not being able to make official information requests to the parliamentary under-secretary who has responsibility for charter schools but also as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister for Regulatory Reform.Charter schools were excluded from the Official Information Act when they were set up. That arrangement according to the Chief Ombudsman may very well be unconstitutional. I suspect that in the Chief Ombudsman’s report at the end of this year—I am hoping we will get a more substantive position from the Chief Ombudsman. It is therefore vitally important that those with oversight responsibilities for these schools such as the parliamentary under-secretary should be subject to proper and democratic accountability. National and the ACT Party may claim that they have already accounted for this in respect of those delegated responsibilities but I would say that if so they should have no problem supporting this bill which seeks to correct the anomaly in the legislation.Can I read out a couple of quotes and this one is from David Seymour’s maiden speech when he said: “public policy should be measured only by results.” If I was thinking about the results of applications for official information regarding charter schools then this public policy has been a dismal failure. I would love to hear members opposite address that issue. If that is true if someone can make that kind of statement about public policy and then not support this particular bill which goes to enhance that public policy then there is something drastically wrong. I would say that what is wrong is that that particular member is not upholding what he said when he came into this House. Here is another quote from Mr Seymour about another bill that he wants to put into the members’ bills ballot. Yesterday I believe he made the statement: “In my view it is politically morally legally and in terms of public policy the right thing to do.”I say to this House that this is the right thing to do. Open and transparent Government should never be subject to not being able to access that kind of information and I highly recommend the Law Commission’s report The Public’s Right to Know: Review of the Official Information Legislation.I would suggest to Mr David Seymour that he go and read this. I suggest that everyone does. It makes as I said before 137 recommendations on this very issue. This is something that the Government of this day should address. I think that to be fair these could have been corrected earlier but I refer to my earlier comments around the way that this Government has handled official information requests and I believe that it has escalated it to a position where this bill is sorely needed.Ā nō reira tēnei te mihi ake ki te Whare nei. [And so I truly acknowledge this House.] I look forward to everyone’s contributions actually. Nō reira tēnā tātou katoa.