Ardern Jacinda: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — Second Reading 
Ardern Jacinda: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13706] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. I acknowledge first of all the work that the Associate Minister of Justice has done on this bill taking over from the good work of a Labour Minister. I believe it was Clayton Cosgrove who had this bill under his jurisdiction prior to the last election. I also acknowledge the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister has indicated will be introduced which relates to the timing of the enactment of this legislation shifting the date from 1 December 2010 to 1 April 2011. 
The Government has a tricky balancing act on its hands. Quite a bit of substantive work is left to be done by the new regulatory body that will exist such as work on the code and certain other matters. As the Minister pointed out the Government also has the balancing act of the Rugby World Cup. So I wish all those involved in the work on this bill the very best of luck. I will flag some concerns that Labour has about the residual work that will be carried out by those individuals some of which I am not sure they will be able to remedy. From our perspective the process particularly in relation to clause 66 has been wrong. I will spend a bit of time on that issue. 
I agree with the Minister that this area is in need of an overhaul. We have the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act 1974 but obviously things are a bit different in New Zealand now. The range of work that security guards undertake—and not just security guards but also those who consider themselves to be working in security such as bodyguards crowd controllers and those who have private security businesses—means that it is a very different industry now. 
This legislation had a range of competing demands on it. First and foremost it is interesting to consider that those who monitor our doors at evening establishments are in many ways—as we heard from the hospitality industry—the first enforcers of alcohol legislation. Businesses can lose their liquor licences based on whether those individuals carry out their jobs properly. Yet we do not have a particularly comprehensive regime for those individuals. We have seen for instance the case of a bouncer whose restraint of an individual led to that individual’s death which is one of the more high-profile reasons behind this new legislation. 
There is a range of new competing demands on the roles that these individuals play. We can see the expansion of this industry in the fact that currently we have about 9000 people under the current regime. With this new licensing regime and its extension we are looking at about 18000 people coming within its ambit—and rightly so. This area relates to one of the more significant things that we will see changed as a consequence of this bill. Under the Private Investigators and Security Guards Act—and I think this will surprise some members of the public—individuals are not required to carry out mandatory training. That is something I think that was ripe for review. 
So what are the bill’s three main provisions? We have no problem with—and in fact we wholeheartedly support—a significant part of this bill. The introduction of the comprehensive licensing requirements which include police checks—I understand that one of my colleagues will speak on that later—will be extended to cover a wider range of people engaged in security-related activities: crowd controllers bouncers bodyguards and private security staff guarding people in their legal custody. I think it is right that that regime be extended. It will as I have already mentioned take in a considerably larger number of workers. 
Private security staff will be required for the first time in New Zealand to undertake training if their job is guarding property or persons or keeping order. Again crowd control as we heard during the select committee process is a growing area of business. Often requirements for health and safety reasons mean that when a big contract is going out for an event crowd control is part of that. Some concern was expressed that not all of the companies operating in that realm were doing so professionally and there was enthusiasm from the industry to bring in a regime like this in order to even the playing field and prevent those who are acting responsibly from being undercut. The training provisions will be significant and will add in a positive sense to the way the industry is currently working. There is time to work with the industry I hope in developing the training regime that will ultimately sit around the industry. Those who are most successful in the industry are those who have had a huge part in building it; they are the ones who know its needs and know its requirements. 
As the Associate Minister of Justice has already mentioned there will be a dedicated enforcement body the complaints investigation and prosecutions unit which not only will ensure compliance but will have a range of other responsibilities. It is only right and makes sense that if we have extensive regulations governing the way that those who work in the electricity sector are regulated then those working in an area like this should have a regulatory body also. They have constant interface with the public in often fragile and delicate situations 
I will talk about the significant concern that both Labour and the Greens shared during the consideration of this bill. I acknowledge that concerns about clause 66 were raised most often by the industry itself. Just for the sake of clarity for the House clause 66 restricted the taking and using of photographs and other recordings by a private investigator or a private investigator’s employee and the making or using of other recordings without the subject’s written consent. Of course the argument made to us by the industry was that the bar was higher for it than it was for the public. Basically investigators argued that if members of the public wanted to take a photo of an individual then currently they could but investigators had a much tighter regime sitting around them. My response to that was: “For good reason.” Private investigators’ income is derived and generated by particular jobs where they pursue individuals for whatever reason that they have been employed to do so and those reasons are many and varied. There is good reason why there should be protections around the way that the industry operates when it comes to an individual’s privacy. But we had quite a lengthy discussion on clause 66 which is too much of a blanket clause. We asked whether it was overly prescriptive and overly harsh in terms of the way that an investigator does his or her job. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee considered this clause in the most appropriate way it could. It was aware that the Law Commission was reviewing the law of privacy so committee members asked rightly so for the Law Commission to update the committee on the progress of that review. The commentary on the bill notes that the Law Commission said that although in its view clause 66 was too restrictive it did not believe that it should be repealed until legislation had been enacted that provided some kind of protection against intrusive surveillance. A discussion in the select committee about timing followed this in terms of whether it would cause too much disruption to the industry if we were to keep clause 66 in place and then come back and review it at a later date whether we should hold back the legislation altogether until we had resolved this issue whether we should repeal clause 66 on the condition of the establishment of a code—which is essentially what we have here—or whether the select committee members themselves should try to draft a replacement clause. I note that in that discussion the advisers took a view like the view of the Law Commission. Their view was that clause 66 needed to be reformed but they advised against proceeding with the options discussed by the committee and instead suggested that waiting for the result of the Law Commission’s work would provide the best advice. 
Ultimately Labour and the Greens were not in favour of clause 66 being removed and replaced with a regulation-making power. From my recollection there was not enough certainty for us in that resolution. I do not believe that enough leadership was shown in determining the direction that the Government wanted to see privacy legislation going in and my fear is that there will not be enough coherence between what we will ultimately have as a consequence of this repeal and what the Law Commission will produce as a result of its review. I look forward to discussing clause 66 at greater length in the Committee stage because it remains a concern for me in particular.