Hudson Brett: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11302. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise in support of the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill. One of the things we hear quite often as first-term MPs is the value of the select committee process: an opportunity to reflect to listen to submissions to reconsider one’s position and just occasionally—just occasionally—to change it. This is the position we find ourselves on this side in in this the second reading of this bill.We had grave concerns at the introduction of this bill that it was not necessarily actually going to meet the objectives set out but particularly that it would blur some constitutional distinctions some roles within Parliament and that it could be a slippery slope to other things. But hearing the submissions and the advice from officials and discussing it as members of the Government Administration Committee I think we all reached a position that the interests of transparency of this Government in this instance at least trump the potential—because it is by no means absolutely certain—that by permitting this bill to pass we will destroy the constitutional separations between roles. So the interests of serving transparency in Government and transparency to the public would outweigh the potential that we could in some way blur those distinctions.The distinctions are real. It has been mentioned by several speakers this evening that in the first reading of this bill a number of members in this House made incorrect references to “the executive” and I will put my hand up. On review of the Hansard I am one of those. But there is a very very clear distinction. In fact two members tonight one from the Greens and one from New Zealand First failed to acknowledge that and possibly failed to understand that. In the executive there exists the executive and there exists the Executive Council. The Executive Council is the group that advises the Governor-General. It is the Executive Council that has the Governor-General execute Orders in Council—those actions of government outside of the Acts that Parliament passes. All Ministers are members of the Executive Council. They are also members of the executive. The only members of the executive who are not members of the Executive Council are parliamentary under-secretaries. This distinction has existed in this country since at least the early 1980s.Among the submitters who appeared before the committee was the Law Commission represented by the Hon Justice Sir Grant Hammond. Many of them and particularly that submission made the point that they felt that including the parliamentary under-secretaries was within the spirit of the Official Information Act (OIA) and that it would provide that level of accountability and insight over the actions of the executive. They also pointed out actually that members in this House had made that incorrect distinction in the first reading. They had talked about parliamentary under-secretaries not being members of the executive when they are but they are not members of the Executive Council. What we should have said myself included in the first reading was that the distinction was the Executive Council not the executive.What they had not considered when they did look at saying “Well actually this fits within the spirit of the OIA.” was why Parliament had originally made that distinction and what Parliament had intended and what members of Parliament had spoken about in terms of that distinction between being a member of the Executive Council a Minister and therefore very clearly because of the language of the Official Information Act subject to it—what the distinction is between that group and members of the executive who are not members of the Executive Council and who have never been up until perhaps the third reading of this bill subject to the Official Information Act.Another thing that I think we would all agree on is that Parliament does things for a purpose and also under consideration when it does not do things it does not do those things for a purpose. So I asked officials to look back at the Hansard and at various public commentaries around the time not only on the passing of the Official Information Act but also in the years subsequent to it in the 1980s because the parliamentary under-secretary role was well used in that period particularly in the period of the Lange Government. In fact two members of this Parliament the Hon Annette King and the Hon Peter Dunne were both parliamentary under-secretaries in the 1980s and therefore neither of them were subject to the Official Information Act in the discharge of those roles. Interestingly wind the clock a few years forward and now both of them are going to be in favour of the role that they once held now being subject to an Act that it was not subject to when they held those roles.So I asked them to have a look at the record of Hansard and other public commentaries to say what comment has ever come out in that period that gave some measure that Parliament thought: “Oops we’ve made a mistake. We have these parliamentary under-secretaries. They are not captured by this Act. Oops perhaps we should either change it or at least reflect on the fact that what we have done doesn’t include them.” They found the sum total of zero utterances to show any sign at all that in the parliaments in the 1980s—including the Parliament that actually created the Act but also subsequent parliaments as well—members of Parliament considered that somehow they had got it wrong. Somehow this Act passed that was to give greater transparency and insight into what the Government was doing and share that with the public and there was no sign at all that those parliaments thought that they had got it wrong.From that we can deduce quite simply that the Official Information Act was never intended to apply to members outside the Executive Council. It was never the spirit of the Act to include parliamentary under-secretaries. So we now find ourselves in a position where we are considering doing that but I think it is important in the reflection on it that we actually look at what we are really doing here. What we are looking to do is not to say that it has ever been in the spirit of the Official Information Act to include parliamentary under-secretaries; what we are saying is that with the desire of the public and in the interests of transparency today we are choosing to evolve the Act and its intent and its scope of coverage beyond what had been intended up to this point. So we can do so in the knowledge that we are evolving a piece of legislation and we are providing greater transparency to the public.We will include people like David Seymour within the ambit of questions under the OIA. That will give greater and more ample opportunity for the public to seek answers—answers that we hold quite frankly could be sought anyway because as has been covered again parliamentary under-secretaries receive their delegations from Ministers and they are responsible to those Ministers for the discharge of their duties. We did ask during the course of hearing submissions whether semantically you could say that because the Minister does not hold the information they can answer that they do not have it and cannot answer it. A question I asked the officials was: “Well OK are there any grounds on which the parliamentary under-secretary could refuse to give it to the Minister if the Minister asked because they have had an OIA request?”. The answer to that is very clearly no. So the point that had been made in both the first reading and even tonight that the information could still be sought through the responsible Minister is indeed the case but we are going to take a principled position tonight and through the remaining readings of this bill.In the interests of transparency we could continue to argue the point that there is a distinction between not only the Executive Council and the executive but the executive and Parliament. To include parliamentary under-secretaries just helps to blur the distinctions under our constitution sufficiently that we could find ourselves in a short period of time or a few years starting to have these things apply to other roles outside the executive as well as the Executive Council. But in the interests of serving democracy and serving transparency today and doing so in a manner that is quick and easy we have sought to support the officials’ advice that we simply redefine what a Minister includes under Mr Rurawhe’s bill. That will mean that a parliamentary under-secretary of this Parliament and any others will be captured. The Official Information Act will therefore then apply to that role. The public can feel secure that we are taking steps as a Parliament to give that greater transparency and we will be supporting this bill from this point.