Penk Chris; Hipkins ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I thank Minister Hipkins for his introductory remarks. I think that to be upfront about the extent of ambition in relation to this bill and acknowledging that further work that is required and that we should all give thought to is helpful actually at this point. He's noted the complexity of the private sector environment as being somewhat of a different beast from that of the public sector and so it's appropriate that we consider the legislation in that context.My questions in relation to Part 1 are pretty minimal but actually I think reasonably important definitional questions and it goes to of course the interpretation section. So my question in the first instance is just around that definition of an international agency". So we've got there the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force all of which have got acronyms which you know are very well familiar to those who inhabit this place in this world.But in addition to DPMC and so on I wonder if the Minister could explain whether any thought's been given to including for the same purpose other external-facing Government agencies. And I'm thinking of the Customs Service potentially the Coast Guard—and in a way that's analogous to the New Zealand Defence Force—and also those who are performing functions that are equivalent; I suppose you might call them constabulary functions as opposed to military functions. So not the Defence Force therefore but those exercising powers under the Maritime Powers Act as it will soon be for example. In this House—and the Minister will be well aware because he wears a different hat as the Leader of the House so he'd be well across the different legislation even outside his own portfolio areas considerable as they are. So he'll be aware of the fact that this House is in the process of passing the Maritime Powers Bill and in that there are a number of enforcement officers who would have functions and executive authority actually that's quite analogous to those of the international relations agencies as listed and as defined within Part 1.So that was one of only two questions I've got in that space. I'll just pause to see if there's any indication from the Minister whether he's minded to answer that and if there's none I'll proceed to my second question which is also definitional—excuse me definitional. It's been a long night the life of a whip under Omicron. To paraphrase Blackadder I feel like a pelican: everywhere I look there's a bill in front of me.But anyway we've got a definition too of "officer of Parliament" and there we've got the handful of officers of Parliament as they currently exist in the public sector architecture of this nation. So we've got the ombudsman—or ombudsmen various I suppose; "an Ombudsman" not necessarily the ombudsman; obviously various kinds thereof—"the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment or the Controller and Auditor-General". I wonder if the Minister has given thought to perhaps a definition that would allow any officers of Parliament that may be added in the future. And I know there's been a proposal—and again the Minister wearing other hats will be aware that there might be for example an independent commissioner for Parliament or maybe by another name. And if that person were to be appointed and given the status of an officer of Parliament then it seems to me that the same extent of application of this legislation should apply to that person as well. I'm conscious of the problems of "Henry VIII" legislation so I wouldn't suggest that the legislation the primary legislation should say something like "Ombudsmen Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and other officers who might be appointed from time to time". But perhaps there could be some legislation or some mechanism that points to the fact that there might be new officers of Parliament added in due course.Those were my only questions in relation to that. So at that I will resume my seat and look forward to any contribution and explanation the Minister may have on those points.Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister for the Public Service): Very briefly if the member refers to page 18 of the bill he'll see that the reason that we have distinguished between international relations agencies and other agencies is that there are some specific provisions that relate to information—for example where it might affect New Zealand's international relations with other countries. So the other agencies that the member referred to are not included within that definition because an agency such as Customs etc. would be treated under the provisions of the bill as any other agency would. But there are some specific provisions related to those international relations matters as there is under the Official Information Act for example where we do treat some of that information slightly differently.He'll also see through the bill that there are some references to security- and intelligence-related information; again because there can often be good reasons why there's a need to treat some of that information differently and hence there are different definitions involved with those.And unfortunately because I was looking that up I didn't quite get the last part of the member's question which is around the ombudsman and officers of Parliament. But again if I'm recalling correctly from my half-listening those agencies again—the reason for excluding officers of Parliament of course is that there are again different processes that are in place around those.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the Minister's amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 131 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Part 1 as amended agreed to."