Borrows Chester: Privacy Amendment Bill Tax Administration Amendment Bill Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Privacy Amendment Bill Tax Administration Amendment Bill Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 21 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8108. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Acting Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Privacy Amendment Bill the Tax Administration Amendment Bill and the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. The aims of the Privacy Amendment Bill the Tax Administration Amendment Bill and the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Bill are to facilitate better public services and improve the way personal information is collected stored and used to help people. The bills balance the need for better information-sharing with the need to protect individual privacy. 
The Privacy Amendment Bill does two things— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: “Pri-vicy” or “pry-vacy” which? 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: —choose—but basically it is fairly basic. The Privacy Amendment Bill does two things. Firstly it removes the need for a serious threat to public health or safety or to the life or health of an individual to be imminent. The Privacy Act’s information privacy principles will be amended to allow agencies to share information at an earlier stage in these cases. 
Secondly the bill sets out in the Privacy Act a process for drawing up information-sharing agreements that can be approved by Orders in Council. The Orders in Council enable the agreements to be used to share information outside of the Privacy Act’s information privacy principles for specified public purposes. One party to an approved information-sharing agreement must be a Government department. Private sector agencies can also be parties to an agreement provided they are delivering a public service. Agreements will remove existing barriers to information flow and clarify when information can be shared. 
I acknowledge the important contribution made to the bill by submitters the Law Commission and the Privacy Commissioner. The bill has the support of the “Pry-vacy” Commissioner and the “Pri-vacy” Commissioner! The commissioner noted in her submission to the Justice and Electoral Committee that the bill is a fine balance between providing flexibility and ensuring that privacy considerations are given due weight. The Justice and Electoral Committee made some excellent suggestions to improve the bill. These were taken up by this House during the Committee of the whole House stage and the bill emerged from the Committee reordered and easier to navigate. It is also clearer. 
Among other things the bill now requires that the approved information-sharing agreements specify their purpose with due particularity. The bill also clarifies that the costs to be considered by a Minister in a cost-benefit analysis are broader than pure financial costs. Costs must be outweighed by benefits before a Minister can recommend that an information-sharing agreement be approved. The operation of approved information-sharing agreements will be supported by the Ministry of Justice and the Privacy Commissioner. The Ministry of Justice is developing guidance material to assist in drawing up effective and efficient approved information-sharing agreements. The Privacy Commissioner will have an important oversight and advice role in ensuring that approved information-sharing agreements function as intended. 
I will mention Supplementary Order Paper 172 from Denis O’Rourke which proposed that the bill require the Children’s Commissioner to be consulted on every information-sharing agreement. The Government did not support this Supplementary Order Paper. The bill does allow the Children’s Commissioner to be consulted over an information-sharing agreement where the interests of children are relevant. I have instructed my officials to be clear in the guidance material that parties to the agreement should consider whether it is desirable to consult with the Children’s Commissioner. 
The Tax Administration Amendment Bill will amend the Tax Administration Act so that the Inland Revenue Department can share information with other Public Service providers more effectively and efficiently. 
The Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill will allow the Department of Internal Affairs to use information-sharing agreements to share births deaths marriages and relationship information. This enables a recommendation of the person A ministerial inquiry to be implemented. Teachers whose history of offending has been hidden by changes to their names will be able to be picked up. 
These bills will improve public services and unblock the flow of vital information. At the same time they will give due weight to individual privacy and there is a range of protections and safeguards to ensure that the balance is maintained in the use of information. I commend these bills to the House.