van de Molen Tim; Little AndrewTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. Look I'm interested in picking up on the Minister's comments there because one of the key things that stands out for me is that there is already from the people I talk to and from the feedback I get a strong level of confidence that our defence personnel operate in a very professional manner and are well regarded both domestically and internationally and his comments that the intent of this bill is to give further confidence. I'm wondering why if that is the case he has taken away two aspects within his Supplementary Order Paper that were put forward by the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—one of those effectively taking away the Minister's ability to certify certain information as being ineligible to be disclosed bearing in mind that the Official Information Act (OIA) already has the ability to refuse to release certain information based on some of those security parameters or privacy or any number of other considerations. Under the OIA why does that clause need to be back in specifically? But also to the Green member Golriz Ghahraman's point—around the perception as well when we are moving away from a public session to a private session. And surely if the intent is to improve the perception or the overall integrity of this defence personnel then those would be two facets that would enhance that. And so I'm interested in why he's looking to revert back to the original bill in that case—as I say particularly given the OIA capacity to allow for some of that information. I also wanted to touch—oh perhaps I'll let him address those first.Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Defence): Thank you Madam Chair. I thank the member for his questions and I acknowledge and agree with them entirely that the reputation of New Zealand Defence Force personnel around the world is of the quality of our personnel and what they bring to the role of the roles they play—as I say whether in combat whether in peacekeeping whether in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations. The member will be well aware of the stories someone like me would get told of the efforts that NZDF personnel go to engage with the communities of which they become a part because they know that their security is tied up in the knowledge and understanding of the communities of which they're a part. And I think we can more confidently say we stand apart in the world in the ability of our NZDF personnel to do that. So I acknowledge the member's contribution in that respect.On the two questions the member raises one is about the Minister's power to certify effectively the non-disclosure of information. That is subject to qualifications. As the member will know in the reinstated provision in the bill it is not just a blanket the Minister can certify"; the Minister can only do that—I'm looking at clause 36(5) that sets out the conditions on which "The Minister may certify that protected material should not be disclosed". And principally the reason for that is that much of the information that the NZDF will be dealing with—and certainly the inspector-general in any inquiry—will be classified information and a fair quantity of it will come from overseas partners and information shared between our partners particularly in the military or national security context is typically subject to conditions about preserving the confidentiality of it. And in order for the inspector-general to get on and do their job—and sometimes it will be appropriate for the inquiries to be conducted reasonably expeditiously—then it's important that the protections around certain information can be provided and the Minister's power to certificate in that respect achieves that.In relation to the second point the member touches on which is whether or not the inquiry should be in public or private the member will be aware that the original bill specified they should be in private. As a consequence of the submissions to the select committee and representations by members on the committee I have taken the view that there should be a default position which is that inquiries are conducted in private much for the reasons about the nature and quality of the information that the inspector-general will have to deal with but with a discretion to open the inquiry up to the public. And if members think back to the way the Operation Burnham inquiry the royal commission of inquiry was conducted the first part of that was conducted in private because there was a lot of classified information and it took a long time for information that could be declassified to be declassified or presented in an unclassified way. But that inquiry went on for many many months and so there was time to do that. There may not—in fact there is highly unlikely to be time to do that in the sort of inquiries that the inspector-general may be called upon to make and therefore it makes sense for the expeditious nature of inquiries for them to default to being private with the discretion to go public as needed."