Foster-Bell Paul: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionFoster-Bell Paul: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11849. Text is subject to correction.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I thank the member David Seymour for yielding briefly as I take another contribution in this Committee stage debate. I have actually got a couple of questions for the honourable member Mr Rurawhe because as we commenced this Committee stage debate on this interesting if short piece of legislation Mr Rurawhe did not make a contribution. We have had a few questions already. I would like to add a couple to that. The clause that I do not have a question on is the “principal Act” as laid out in clause 3. That is very clear. I understand that entirely and I think that if a member does not understand what the meaning of that clause is they probably should not be in this place because it is very straightforward.Clause 1 is the title clause. I actually would like to ask why the member chose to call it the “Official Information (Parliamentary Under-secretaries)”—plural—“Amendment Bill” because of course there is currently only one parliamentary under-secretary and one might feel that it is somewhat targeted upon the only current parliamentary under-secretary. So I would just be interested in an assurance from Mr Rurawhe that this is actually a high-minded point of principle and not simply targeting the only current under-secretary of State. I would like to know the answer to that question.The second question Mr Rurawhe is around the commencement clause clause 2 which says that this Act comes into force the day after it receives the Royal assent. I would like to know from Mr Rurawhe whether he had in mind when devising this clause the retrospectivity of the Official Information Act. It is inherently something that is designed to allow transparency on information that has been accumulated generated and stored over a long period of time. We have heard from the member Mr Seymour the only current parliamentary under-secretary under this National Government that he has put in place a very proactive approach to responding to Official Information Act requests or in fact proactively releasing information before the requests are even made in so far as his education portfolio is concerned. I am not quite so sure whether he has that proactive measure in place on his arguably less controversial portfolio of regulatory reform.If this bill comes into force immediately on the day after the Royal assent without any period to allow it to be bedded in what kind of compliance burden might this place on the smaller office of a parliamentary under-secretary vis-à-vis a larger office of a Minister be it a Cabinet Minister a Minister outside Cabinet an Associate Minister or even a Minister of State although there is no one who holds that sinecure obviously under this hard-working National-led Government. So the question there really is whether a day after the Royal assent is sufficient given that over the course of 18 months or so that the member has been a parliamentary under-secretary a vast amount of information may have been generated accumulated held stored and processed by his office. He might have received for all we know many thousands of pieces of correspondence in the field of regulatory reform because there are many letters written by admirers of this Government I am sure and of the wonderful policies that have been implemented to make life easier for small-business owners cutting through the red tape. I am sure he gets thousands of congratulatory cards on a daily basis from businesses up and down the country be they in Clutha-Southland or Dunedin North—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! There is nothing in the debating phase that prevents members being ironic but they still have to be relevant.David Seymour: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. How do you know he is being ironic?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Paul Foster-Bell.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: My point here and the relevance to this particular clause is I am concerned—and I hope Mr Rurawhe will respond to this—that there could be a vast array of information generated in this modern highly automated technical age in which we live held by Mr Seymour’s office that does not fall under the category that he has explained as being proactively released. Therefore has the member proposing the bill considered the impact that that might place on a relatively low-resourced office when you compare it with the offices of other Ministers—that there would be a burden being placed on staff or perhaps public servants. What is the cost to the taxpayer that that might bring? So I would like some answers from the member if possible.