Dalziel Lianne: Insolvency Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Insolvency Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:655;Page:5069] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 We did not get a lot of submissions on this part in the sense that we received only 11 submissions in total—so there were not a lot. But it is great to have the opportunity to have the Minister in the chair Mr Power now ready willing and able to answer some questions about— 
Charles Chauvel 
: He didn’t on the last one. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I know he did not answer questions on the last bill and I am terribly sorry that I missed that failure to take a call on the question. But that does not matter. 
On this particular issue there is a concern which I have raised on more than one occasion and I would like the Minster to respond to it. It is the fact that every single provision in this part was related to specific concerns that had been raised with the Minister in respect of concerns around insolvent gifts limits on recovery and issues around the no-asset procedure. However absolutely no such concern was raised directly with the Minister in relation to the changes to the length of time a person is on the public register. In fact that concern was noted I think for the Minister after it arose in an article in a newspaper. That is why we actually ended up with the feeling that because we had the bill at the Commerce Committee for a very short period of time it may have resulted in so few people making submissions. Also it was a relatively small technical bill. There was no problem with the vast bulk of it at all except for this one issue that had been tacked on yet that was the one that raised the most significant concerns about the difference between the no-asset procedure and bankruptcy. 
In fact the concern raised was that the way that the no-asset procedure was designed was to ensure that it was less punitive and less of a concern to people than a bankruptcy would be and that was in order to give them that one-off chance in life to get back on their feet. The concern was that the length of time on the public register was actually part of the total package and significantly increasing the total time to 4 years after the date of discharge was quite a substantial increase. The concern we had when we looked carefully at the regulatory impact statement was that the Privacy Commissioner was not very happy about the proposal at all. 
We were left again with the situation where this seemed to be a bit of an add-on to the legislation and it had not been through the same level of scrutiny as other bills that amended provisions relating to the privacy legislation—that it had not been through the same procedure which one would expect. The Privacy Commissioner has continued to hold concerns about the changes to these provisions and the fact that they are being implemented alongside the rest of the bill which we are more than happy to see go through under a relatively quick process. We are very happy about the whole process for everything else but we ask ourselves again and again why this provision was added on and what benefit there is in undertaking such a significant change without adequate consultation. 
The other matter is that I know that more than one of the submitters asked if we are going to do that why we do not use the no-asset procedure as an opportunity to do some work with people who have been caught out in the situation and ensure that as they come out of the no-asset procedure they are given access to good budget control mechanisms so they do not get themselves into that situation again. Obviously they cannot use a no-asset procedure again. But again this legislation recognises that multiple insolvencies go on and the best thing we could be doing is assisting people so that they do not get back into this situation. 
The no-asset procedure is a relatively new piece of legislation and I would have thought it would be appropriate to review its operation in a considered way. It would be helpful if the Minister could respond to that question about why that change was added on.