Hipkins Chris: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:14023] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the Minister of Internal Affairs the Hon Nathan Guy in this House. That is something I tend to be doing quite a lot lately. I understand that the Minister dreams about making speeches in Parliament; in fact he has been known to wake up and find that he actually is because he sets the House alight when he comes down here and speaks to us! 
I am very happy to take this call on the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Bill. Just to— 
Chris Tremain 
: That was cutting! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Was it? Oh it was meant in good humour. 
There are three main changes to the current Private Investigators and Security Guards Act contained in this bill. It is a good bill which was introduced by my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove during the tenure of the previous Labour Government. It is another of the many things we did to give the new Government an easy ride when it first came in. It had all this legislation that the previous Labour Government had introduced for it to pass and to make it look good but all the hard work was done before National took office. 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: It took 7 years Chris. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Well these things are ongoing. We were a very busy and productive Labour Government. 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: How old were you 7 years ago? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I have to do the maths; I would have been 25. 
The bill does three main things. It introduces licensing requirements including police checks for criminal convictions to an extended range of people carrying out security-related activities including crowd controllers bouncers bodyguards private security staff and those guarding people in legal custody. I will talk a little bit more about some of those in a minute. 
Private security staff will be required for the first time in New Zealand to undertake training if their job is guarding property guarding persons or keeping order amongst groups of people. Essentially training will be required if the nature of the work is such that there is a significant risk of physical violence occurring. The details of the training will be made explicit via an Order in Council. As the Minister just pointed out a dedicated enforcement body the complaints investigation and prosecution unit will be created to ensure compliance with the new legislation and there will be heavier penalties for offending. 
I would like to run through briefly who will be covered by this legislation. Security consultants will be covered by it. That means anybody who sells or attempts to sell a device of any kind such as security cameras burglar alarms and so forth. Anybody who wishes to advise the owner or occupier of a premise on the desirability of having any such equipment installed on their premise will be covered. 
The bill covers those working in secure document destruction. We had an interesting debate on that in the Committee stage. My friend Simon Bridges pointed out that secure document destruction could prevent material getting into the hands of Nicky Hager if it were done by appropriately licenced and trained people except as I pointed out in the Committee stage if Mr English were not covered by this legislation which he is not then there are no guarantees that those documents would not still have found their way into Mr Hager’s hands somehow. I understand that the police are still continuing to try to find out what happened there. Obviously Mr English is very very good at covering his tracks. 
The bill covers property guards who look after not only commercial premises but also private premises and so forth. I raised a question about the people who monitor security cameras. I asked particularly about whether the bill would cover the likes of community patrols which assist the police in monitoring security cameras. I did not get an answer during the Committee stage of the debate unfortunately. 
The bill also covers crowd controllers. I thought the definition of a crowd controller was quite interesting. It includes anybody who is in the business of screening entry into a place keeping order in a place or removing a person from a place. I wondered whether Mr Brownlee might be covered by the legislation because I understand that is the role he performs at National Party conferences. He screens entry into the conferences keeps order in the conferences and he removes people from the conferences. When people cause a disturbance he throws them down the stairs. I wondered whether this definition would cover the likes of Mr Brownlee given his history as a crowd controller at National Party conferences. 
The bill covers personal security guards who are people involved in the guarding of a specific person or persons. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Well that’s still what he was doing. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That could well be Mr Brownlee as well although I do not know exactly who he was guarding. 
Those people are all covered by this legislation which introduces a licensing regime and a training regime for them. I think that we would all agree in this House—and I suspect that we will all agree and all vote in favour of this very good legislation which was introduced by the previous Labour Government—that ensuring that the people who work in those types of jobs are appropriately trained qualified and registered is a very worthwhile thing to do. That would have been one of the motivations behind the previous Labour Government introducing this legislation. 
I will recap a little bit about why it is important that we revisit this legislation. The current Private Investigators and Security Guards Act 1974 is outdated. It does not reflect the changing role and expectations of the security industry in New Zealand today. Technology has changed hugely in that period of time. It is longer than I have been around for I am afraid to say— 
Shane Ardern 
: Most of your front bench was here in Parliament then. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: There were a few; there were one or two. Things have changed dramatically since then. The advent of modern technology particularly digital technology has changed the role of many of those things. I imagine that private security cameras monitored remotely would not have been very common in 1974 but in these days they are quite common. 
Chester Borrows 
: It was all black and white in them days. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It was all black and white in those days—well that is right. In fact it was in the 1980s that I got my first black and white television. We used to watch  
The Dukes of Hazzard  
back on the old black and white TV. 
Things have moved on since 1974. It is time that the law is updated. Private security personnel perform a very valuable and responsible role in the community but risks are associated with the type of work that they do. In particular where somebody is put in a situation where they could become violent we want to make sure that private security personnel are appropriately trained for that situation. Standards of practice and conduct vary widely at the moment amongst private security businesses and their staff. This poses risks to their clients the public and of course to the security personnel themselves. Those risks include risk to physical safety and the security of property. In the case of private investigators there are big risks to privacy. Clearly this bill addresses that matter and that is a good thing. Improvements are needed to ensure that security staff who are not currently required to be licensed are covered. 
With regard to bouncers I mentioned before the example of Mr Brownlee. He would not be covered by the existing law and I am not sure whether he will be covered by this law either. But perhaps he should be given the very valuable role he performs as a front-line bouncer at National Party conferences. The current Act does not require the mandatory training of security staff and I think that Mr Brownlee could probably use training in a number of other areas as well as in his role as the National Party’s bouncer. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Like Leader of the House. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: He could possibly use it in his role as Leader of the House and then he would not have to extend the deadline for pieces of legislation to be enacted. But that is an issue for next week; I am sure that we will come back to that again next week. 
To come back to the issue at hand I say that without proper training staff could be exposed to potentially violent situations. That is something they need to be aware of. It is almost unavoidable for those working in the security industry particularly for those working as bouncers in the hospitality industry. I think is very important to make sure they are trained and know how to deal with that appropriately. Better enforcement and heavier penalties are needed to deter offending including the problem of businesses and staff operating in the industry without being licensed when they should be. This bill introduces new penalties new fines and so forth. I think that is a very valuable thing. 
Overall I think this is a good bill. As I said it was introduced by the previous Labour Government. It was one of the many pieces of legislation that was introduced by the previous Labour Government to make this Government look good. I commend the Justice and Electoral Committee which was involved in hearing the submissions on the legislation. I particularly compliment the chair of the select committee Mr Chester Borrows. It is always a pleasure when I have the opportunity to serve on that select committee. Overall this is a good bill and I commend it to the House.