Peters Winston: Social Security (Entitlement Cards) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Peters Winston: Social Security (Entitlement Cards) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:639;Page:9139] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Could we just get a few things sorted out before we go any further in this debate. I think the 540000 New Zealanders who are retired or soon to be retired deserve to hear the truth. We need to dispose of some of the misinformation so wantonly put out there. For a start where did that member Keith Locke get the idea that this was to be related to information-sharing with the United States or any other country? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: He didn’t say that. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: He did say it. That is one of the things he said in that speech. That is not—[ 
Interruption 
] I ask members to check  
Hansard 
 or do us and me a favour—listen to their colleagues debating in the Chamber. He most certainly referred to sharing information with the United States. [ 
Interruption 
] Excuse me—I ask the member to sit down and not to do that again. It is unbelievable Madam Chair that while I am on my feet that member who has been here for a while gets up and starts to behave like that. I say it is not pertinent it is not relevant and it has not been introduced or thought about at all. The fact that he related passports to this issue is an attempt to scaremonger amongst the elderly otherwise why would he have raised it? 
The second thing is that nobody is being microchipped. Nobody is being microchipped. [ 
Interruption 
] Madam Chair if he does that again would you get him out of this Chamber because he cannot do that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member cannot rise and speak like that. If the member wants to rise for a point of order that is different. However he cannot rise and just join in the debate. Please desist. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Nobody is being microchipped and those who say that are wantonly spreading misinformation “sadly with malice” to quote the head of the Law Commission. 
Could I just say that photos on the card are optional. That is how far we are prepared to go to ensure that there is no process that the elderly will not be happy with. The Law Society will be has been and will continue to be consulted as will the Privacy Commissioner. As we indicated to her from the very start we intended to go through this process always in consultation with her office to ensure that a very important facility for the elderly was not made use of because the process may have been defective. 
I want to make sure that the State Services Commission is consulted as well. And I am happy for the parties in this Parliament to be consulted as well. But if anyone thinks that we should stand around and wait whilst the service industries of this country are as we speak—and I am talking months now not years—availing themselves of this technology then surely that person does not intend to be part of the modern environment of politics or commercial services for that matter. 
I want to say that in the  
New Zealand Herald  
today there was a front-page report. I want to say this to the  
New Zealand Herald  
reporter. For a reporter to call the Minister and leave a message on his cellphone after 6 p.m. the day before that reporter intends to publish an article in a paper that is available on the streets of Auckland at 5 a.m. the next morning is not professional it is not being responsible it is not designed to elicit information but rather to try to make out that the journalist has professionally consulted all parties. That is nonsense. I know when that reporter called and it is simply not good enough. But most important to repeat a series of statements that are misinformation—disingenuously so and worse than that demonstrably false and known to be so by some of the participants—is not good enough. 
I want to make it very clear that we will not be deterred because some members rather than help the elderly have acted differently as has been their wont to do—not just lately but over many many years—and believe that they will get away with it. If they think they are going to win on that basis then they will be found out to be wrong. I have spent more time in my career being concerned about privacy issues than that member ever has. I have been more concerned to disclose and put sunlight on certain issues that have never had sunlight on them than that member and his whole party ever has been. So I regard this as a personal slight as does my party and I am not going to proceed on the basis that that member should trust me but rather that the process is one that can be trusted.