Brown Peter: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Brown Peter: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16662] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I do not think I will take my full 10-minute call because I do not think that will be necessary. The Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill has been well explained to the House. 
I say to the member who has resumed her seat Sandra Goudie that she has just given the impression to anybody who might be listening to this debate that access to the registers through the registrar-general’s office is totally denied. She knows that that is untrue. She has given the impression that there is a steel casket around the information held by the office. That is absolutely untrue and she should have made the true position clear. 
Sandra Goudie knows that the bill came back to the House unchanged. The Government Administration Committee was made up of equal numbers of Labour and National members. New Zealand First had no influence there. But it was amended in this House. She knows that an access register will be set up so that people can go and get information held by the office. Those people’s details will be recorded so that other people can find out who has asked for information concerning themselves. It is quite simple. 
Historians came before us and voiced concerns about the bill as it was presented as did genealogists adoptees and people who represent adoptees. The select committee listened to them. National members ignored them but the Minister took their concerns on board and produced a rather lengthy Supplementary Order Paper. We have debated that in this House and it has in very large measure addressed all of those questions. The historians genealogists adoptees and people who represent adoptees whom I have spoken to are happy in very large measure with the new bill and the access arrangements. 
If members needed anybody to give them an example of why things need to be tightened up they had Sandra Goudie. Sandra Goudie engaged somebody to go and get information from the registrar-general’s office and he or she did that with complete ease. Sandra Goudie illustrated to the select committee that the system needs to be tightened up but now she has stood in the House to oppose the tightening-up that the bill will do. That just does not make sense. National members stand there and say they are all for democracy and all for being caring New Zealanders but they give the opposite impression. 
This bill has been modified extensively by the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper since it came back to the House. That has improved it no end and it has made it a very workable bill. 
I want to conclude with one little change which New Zealand First steered through. The National Party would not support us even on this. The word used on copies of death certificates—not on actual death certificates which talk about a burial a cremation or what have you but on copies—is “disposal”. That is insensitive and unacceptable. An elderly lady pointed this out to me. It was unrelated to the bill but it just happened that the bill was at the select committee at that particular time. I raised it at the select committee with the officials. They took it on board as did the Labour Government and it has been corrected in the bill. I think that proves that by listening to New Zealanders members can make minor changes that are of some significance. I am quite delighted by that little change because it shows clearly that some MPs in this House are prepared to listen to ordinary New Zealanders and their concerns. 
I do not think there is much more to say on the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. It is a bill that addresses an issue. It tightens up the births deaths and marriages registers but it does so in an acceptable enlightened manner. Personally I am pleased with the way it has done that. New Zealand First supports this bill.