Hudson Brett: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7255. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): I rise in opposition to the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill. Some people have tried to talk a lot about the Official Information Act itself but I would rather focus on the specifics of this bill—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: How refreshing.BRETT HUDSON: —because it seeks to do some very specific things. It does not seek to amend the entire Official Information Act. I refer back to what the sponsoring member Adrian Rurawhe raised because he made points about what he said the bill would achieve and the problems that he articulated it would address.The points I will make are threefold. First of all when he speaks to what it will achieve quite frankly he is flat-out wrong. Secondly he talks about the problems—he spent over half his speech articulating the problems that the bill was to address. His bill will not—cannot—address the problems he raised. Thirdly it is simply unnecessary because the mechanisms exist today to get the information that the Opposition members might want from a parliamentary under-secretary.First of all let us look at why what it would do is quite frankly wrong. Mr Rurawhe said to us that this would provide greater scrutiny and accountability of the executive. It is going to give greater accountability of the executive except for one small but rather substantial and important issue and that is that parliamentary under-secretaries are not members of the Executive Council. This bill does nothing—nothing at all—to address accountability of the executive. What it does is it undermines the distinction between the executive and Parliament. That is what they are looking to do. That is what that member is looking to do—he is looking to undermine the distinction between the Executive Council and these members of Parliament.Secondly Adrian spent more than half of his speech talking about the issue of Ministers delaying responses to Official Information Act requests  clocks being reset and information being difficult to get hold of. Well we on this side actually dispute that. We are not accepting his proposition that that is a real issue. Even if we were to be charitable for just a moment and permit that possibility there is nothing in this bill to ensure that by simply extending the processes as they exist today to include parliamentary under-secretaries it is going to address a single point of the problems he articulated. This bill does nothing to actually address what the sponsoring member raised.The third point is that the bill is unnecessary. As Mr Seymour pointed out himself parliamentary under-secretaries are not decision makers. They take all of their powers and all of their activities from the Minister whom they are responsible to. If members opposite wish to scrutinise the work of the ministry or the work that the parliamentary under-secretary may have been delegated they can do so through questions to the Minister whom the parliamentary under-secretary is responsible to. So the bill does not do what the member says it will. It will not fix the problems the member actually addressed and it is unnecessary in the first place.What is more it is actually another Labour flip-flop. As we know on this side in 2002 Helen Clark used the very process and the very situation we have when she appointed two parliamentary under-secretaries neither of whom were subject to questioning through the Official Information Act. Dover Samuels was one; you may remember him. He had a little hotel incident. So here we have the Labour Party flip-flopping from the Cabinet Manual under Helen Clark and just a few days ago it turned its back on her when she talked about the need for the New Zealand Government to be part of free-trade agreements to improve prosperity for New Zealanders. I will tell you what this Labour caucus compared with the previous Labour Government is just a series of flip-flops—more flip-flops than a busy beach in summertime.David Seymour: Dad joke.BRETT HUDSON: It is a dad joke—thank you very much. But I think that this gives us an opportunity. Given that we have got a bill that does not do what it says it will—it is not going to fix the problem—we should question the motives of what this bill is about. I heard Ms Dyson saying throughout Ms Dowie’s speech: “What are you protecting him from?”. I think that is a very clear reference. As Mr Mitchell said this bill is not about Official Information Act scrutiny of parliamentary under-secretaries; it is about trying to attack Mr Seymour. I will tell you what these Opposition members do not learn much. They are very slow learners. I am not here to sit in judgment on Mr Seymour but very clearly if they think they can win by attacking Mr Seymour in this House they have got another think coming. I oppose this bill and I call upon all members on this side to oppose it. Thank you.