Dyson Ruth: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11294. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Well that was 10 minutes of my life I will never get back again. Good grief! Talk about wasting the time of Parliament. What an example that member has set for us all.I want to first of all commend Chris Hipkins and I do it with the greatest respect to Adrian Rurawhe but this was his idea. Chris Hipkins put this bill in as his member’s bill some time ago and actually you can link the time of his lodging of this bill as a member’s bill with the commencement of the release of information from Mr Seymour’s office. There is a direct parallel and it does not take anyone too much time to figure out what the relationship is. Adrian Rurawhe then took over that bill and with the luck that a number of members have had it was suddenly drawn. I think there is more chance of winning Lotto actually than there is of getting your member’s bill drawn from the ballot although I have recently had success in that area as well.Adrian Rurawhe then brought the bill to the Government Administration Committee which gave it a lot of good consideration. I want to commend the other members of that committee including the then deputy chair—Sarah Dowie who was ripped from our committee and taken somewhere else and replaced very well by Paul Foster-Bell—Mark Mitchell and Brett Hudson. Adrian Rurawhe himself was on that committee and again he was ripped away from us to go on to another committee. He was replaced by Kris Faafoi—again very well. Mojo Mathers is the Green Party member on our committee.As has been mentioned we had only five submissions on this bill but when one of them is from the Law Commission and another one is from the New Zealand Law Society you tend to think that you are getting some quality advice. They certainly supported the bill. They went to quite a lot of effort to explain to us why they thought it was constitutionally appropriate and I think that was a concern that some members of the committee had at the outset. I do not know whether it has dawned on the member David Seymour who resumed his seat just prior to me taking a call but actually this is not about him. The whole world does not revolve around the current MP for Epsom and thank goodness for that. This bill is about having openness and transparency in Government.There have previously been parliamentary under-secretaries and I think there will be others in the future—David Seymour: Why didn’t Labour change the law then?Hon RUTH DYSON: That is a very good question—a very good question. If you had used your time more wisely Mr Seymour you may well have asked it during your speech but you did not so you have missed out. You will have to wait for the Committee stage.This bill is about openness and transparency. I do not imagine that many members of the House would argue against that. I think that in New Zealand we pride ourselves on having that sort of accountability of being open and transparent. Certainly the National members of our committee who originally did not support the bill were persuaded by the weight of the submissions I am sure. At least the National whip has got the honesty to laugh about that. It is often a concern of mine actually that the select committees have lost the independence that they used to have. They used to be much more independent and less beholden to the Minister but that is not the case any more and I think our Parliament is the worse off for it.So the purpose of this bill is not about Mr Seymour; it is about any parliamentary under-secretary to make sure that they can have the same accountability as other Ministers do. As I said in the view of the Law Society and the Law Commission that is consistent with the intention of the Official Information Act requests. I do not know what happened in the process of our deliberation up to this point where the bill has come to the second reading with just one minor amendment but I am very pleased that not only is the National Party able to give the bill its support but the member who described the bill as being particularly silly and a waste of time is now going to put his name on the public record in support of it. I think that is a very good thing.There should not be any accountability that as members of Parliament we are afraid of. We understand the propriety of protecting our constituents’ private business—of ensuring that when people come to us for help that they do that entirely confident that their details would never be released. That is not the purpose of legislation such as this. This bill is to ensure that when decisions are made against which a lot of taxpayers’ money is attached the public have the right to scrutinise them often triggered by a member of Parliament.I think this is a very good step forward. It is a real celebration tonight that this is the second Labour bill in a row that is getting a lot of support across the House. It is not often in recent years that we have had that but I look forward to it continuing for many years to come. Thank you.