SpeechDr JIAN YANG (National): I rise to speak briefly on the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill. As previous speakers have mentioned New Zealand has a good reputation in many areas and to be clean and the least corrupt in the world is one of the good reputations that New Zealand has of course along with what we call clean green New Zealand. So it's important for us to have a good system to protect whistleblowers to make sure that New Zealand will stay corruption-free and the Protected Disclosures Act itself is now outdated. It's 20 years old. Therefore it is time for us to have more protection for whistleblowers and this bill indeed has the intention to make sure that whistleblowers have access to protection and are able to make any particular contact with authorities to report any particular serious wrongdoings. So this bill itself has two main categories. One is to give whistleblowers greater certainty and protection and secondly to expand the scope of serious wrongdoing. So for that reason the bill itself indeed is trying to define the meaning of serious wrongdoing and it is very important for us to have a clear definition. So this bill itself has this particular intention to do that. I think it is a good move a good attempt. Therefore for that reason I think the committee should have a chance to go through this. Also this bill actually enables whistleblowers to report serious wrongdoings directly to the authorities concerned at any time. So this is important again because firstly you know the definition and secondly you have the access. You have a channel to report directly to concerned agencies straight away at any time. So this is another intention of this bill and the bill of course as I said tries to protect the whistleblowers and has specific definitions and specific procedures. Even if whistleblowers make some mistakes they can still be protected so long as they're not wilfully doing this and so long as the whistleblowers are not intentionally damaging the reputation of a particular company or a particular organisation.Also this bill itself attempts to clarify the internal procedures. I think it's very important that all organisations have a proper process in terms of dealing with these whistleblower issues. This bill itself will clarify all the step-by-step processes and it has a chart—I think it's very clear.At the same time of course we need to have some kind of balance because there could be some people there who may be unhappy with his or her organisation or company and therefore might take some advantage and take some revenge. Therefore it's important for us to protect the reputation of a particular company or a particular organisation from the damage such kinds of people may cause. So it is a balancing issue and I believe the committee will be able to go through all these details and come up with good procedures good process and we will have the chance to listen to people listen to submitters and also to listen to officials and get the fine line there. But in the end we want to make sure that we have a good system there to protect whistleblowers at the same time as we have good systems there to protect our organisations and our businesses or companies. So the committee will work in this area and we look forward to having this particular chance to listen to various views and to improve the bill and make it much better when the bill comes back to the House. Thanks.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.The House adjourned at 12.45 p.m. (Wednesday)