Hipkins Chris: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — Second Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13710] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am happy to take a fairly brief call on the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. I did not have the opportunity to sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee for the entirety of the hearings on this bill. I was a fill-in member for some of the deliberation on the bill and— 
Hone Harawira 
: You were great. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Sorry what was that? 
Hone Harawira 
: You were fab. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I missed that altogether; it probably was not worth hearing anyway. I acknowledge the member who spoke before me Chester Borrows for the way that generally speaking he chairs the Justice and Electoral Committee. He does that on a pretty sound basis and members from all sides have the chance to ask their questions and have their say. However I will pick up one or two points that he mentioned particularly with regard to clause 66. 
Clause 66 gives private investigators the ability to use photographs recording devices and so on without any form of control of the way that they can use those devices. Mr Borrows’ argument was that providing they are registered private security investigators it is not a problem. Actually we are giving them greater powers than New Zealand police currently have. New Zealand police do not have the powers that are being conferred on private investigators in this bill. I think we should take a moment to reflect upon that and it is probably one of the reasons why it would be more prudent to wait and see what the Law Commission has to say about the matter before we push it through in this legislation. 
I was open to some of the arguments put forward in the brief period of time that I sat on the select committee about why the current law needed to be changed in this area. We asked whether it was right that I as a private individual could take photographs and make recordings in a way that a private investigator could not. Private investigators were much much more constrained in what they could do than average private citizens. I understand that some of the constraints on them may be unnecessary but I think that going the whole way and removing any constraint on them in respect of the way they can use cameras and recording devices is going too far in the absence of a more coherent and perhaps deeper consideration of issues of privacy that the Law Commission is currently looking into. I think we would be wise to maybe slow down a little bit on that and give those issues some more thought. 
The aim of this bill is to reform the law relating to private security personnel. In particular the bill aims to prevent certain people from either running businesses or working in various roles within the industry. Labour certainly supports that because some people should not be working in the industry. The bill ensures that participants in the industry have a minimum level of appropriate training. Most people at home would be surprised to learn that one does not need any form of training at the moment to be a private investigator. Most New Zealanders would think that some form of training should be required. 
The bill will require industry participants to comply with appropriate rules of conduct and I think that New Zealanders would agree with that. It would be fair to say that across the board New Zealanders will generally be pretty suspicious of the idea of having lots of private investigators running around the place; I know that I certainly am. However it is a reality it is happening and we need to make sure that we have a law that reflects that and places constraints on what they can do. The legislation prescribes penalties for offences and it allows for the effective administration of laws that are coming into place. 
This bill was introduced by the previous Labour Government to ensure that suitable checks and balances were placed on the private security industry which has been broadening its scope in recent years. 
The law in this area has been largely unchanged since it was passed in 1974. Obviously there has been massive technological change since that time. Neither cellphones would have been in the mix nor laptop computers in the way we use them now nor digital cameras. A whole lot of technology out there now we could not have even imagined. In 1974 I could not have imagined future technology because I was not even born then and no doubt the House could not have imagined it when it passed in 1974 the current laws so it is probably well past time that the laws in this area were updated. [ 
Interruption 
] I missed that. 
Simon Bridges 
: The moment’s gone; I don’t want it recorded in  
Hansard 
. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I am sure that happens to the member quite a bit. The bill was prompted partly by the death in 2005 of a Blenheim gentleman who was restrained by a bouncer. After that tragic incident the coroner recommended that the laws regarding private security personnel be reviewed and changed. This bill has had a gestation period since 2005 and it has been reasonably slow-moving in this term of Parliament. As I said it was introduced by the previous Labour Government. It was sent to the select committee by National when it took office but it has been sitting at the select committee for 11 months so I think it is probably past high time that this bill was put through. 
I come back to clause 66. I think it is really important that this House always balances a person’s right to privacy with allowing private investigators to carry out their work which can of course include investigating criminal and fraud cases. We are not sure that the bill gets that balance right. As I said before there should be some controls on private investigators who use digital devices such as cameras voice recorders and so on. I do not think they should have carte blanche to use those devices in any way that they see fit which is effectively what this bill allows them to do. 
The bill ensures that private security personnel have appropriate levels of training. It allows the licensing authority to weed out people who have serious criminal convictions and that is something I am very supportive of and most New Zealanders at home would be very supportive of. The idea that we could have a whole bunch of private eyes who have criminal records running around the place is not something that New Zealanders would be very keen on. I think it is good that the bill is dealing with that particular issue. As an example of that it would very inappropriate for somebody with violent criminal convictions who is working in the private security industry to be dealing with potentially violent situations. The fact that this bill allows for them to be removed from the sector is a very good thing. 
The bill extends the licensing requirements and introduces mandatory training for private security staff. This measure brings New Zealand into line with comparable countries like the UK and Australia and it is something that we support. It is estimated that around 18000 people will be licensed under this new legislation which is nearly double the number under the current Act. That is quite a lot of people when we are a country of just over 4 million people. I cannot remember the exact current figure; it is 4.3 million or something like that. To have 18000 people working in this industry signifies that it is quite a large industry. While in Government Labour made an effort to keep costs down for people working in this sector by requiring relicensing only every 5 years rather than every year. I think that that was a very positive move. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee recommended that changes to the licensing scheme be introduced sooner than planned so that they are in place for next year’s Rugby World Cup. I note the comments the Minister made in his introductory remarks about the new date for the regime to come into force being April next year. 
To sum up Labour supports the bill. It was introduced by the previous Labour Government and we are voting for it. Our concern primarily rests on clause 66 regarding the use of electronic devices such as cameras and recording devices. There will now be no constraints or controls on the way they are used by the private investigating industry. We do not think that that is right. We think it tilts the balance away from privacy too much. The law as it stands now needs to be updated but we are very concerned that this bill is going too far in that regard. However on balance we think that most of the changes in the bill are worthy and need to be put through so we will be voting in favour of the bill. Thanks very much.