Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Madam Chair. Just a question around clause 56(5) in which agencies that are authorised by the Statistician to provide access to data need to publish information about who is accessing the data held by the public sector agency for research in accordance with that section what data is being accessed the purposes for which the data is being accessed how the data is being accessed and any characteristics of the data being accessed or limitations that may affect the quality of any research using the data. Subclause (6) then goes on to say that information required to be published about those above mentioned matters may be published in summary form. The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties has raised a point here saying that If access to granular data is good enough for the public sector disclosure of granular information about that access and what has been done with it is an entirely justifiable quid pro quo" and I'd be interested in the Minister's response to that point. A second point—if I could ask the Minister—is around clause 52 and that is the additional considerations if overseas persons are seeking access to data. I note that a number of protective measures have been put in this clause in terms of the need to take into account the laws that apply in the relevant jurisdiction the relationship between Statistics New Zealand and the overseas person and any means available to the Statistician to ensure that the overseas person complies with any conditions imposed. However I also note that anyone overseas will not be subject to New Zealand law and in particular will not be subject to the Privacy Act. So I would ask the Minister how people can be assured that if information is made available to people overseas their data can be protected despite anyone overseas accessing that data not being subject to New Zealand's laws.Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Statistics): Look the bill provides for information to be published in summary form as the member notes and the reality is that it would be inappropriate or impractical to publish detailed information. I've give some examples. Well let me phrase it differently: if these could not be in summary form which would still need to involve providing meaningful information—the summary form is not a "get out of jail free" cursory; it has to be a meaningful summary. But if they couldn't be published in summary form it would not be clear as to whether the law required researchers to publish every set of results generated all their notes and drafts that they produced over the course of their work—researchers to publish technical details of every method of analysis they applied even if these are well known to the statistical community already. It would potentially require the Government Statistician to publish every detail of security and process setting in place regarding embargoed access to official statistics; potentially require the Government Statistician to publish every detail relating to the fields of data within data sets being accessed for research the contents of CVs supplied by researchers the contents of all documents they provided when describing their research project for example previous theses or reports relevant to the project; and potentially require the Government Statistician to publish every detail of process and security in place regarding research access. You can kind of go on from there and see that it would be quite impractical and potentially come into conflict with all kinds of other requirements particularly for example somebody coming from another jurisdiction where there was confidence that they could use the data securely and safely and had a good reputation as a researcher but may have other laws applying to them in another jurisdiction that would then have to be worked through as well. So it's a practical expectation. But to the member's point I think that it's important to say for the record that the summary form must be a meaningful summary form so that meaningful information is available to the public."