Dyson Ruth: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dyson Ruth: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 08 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:240. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 Can I say first of all that it is a pleasure for me to speak on the first reading of the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill. I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the member who has just resumed her seat Dr Jackie Blue and welcome her back to the House but more particularly to acknowledge her courage towards the end of last year in speaking out about her personal involvement with domestic violence. I think that is a leadership role that is very seldom played by women members of Parliament. It is not an easy thing to do. You do not need to do it—one does not need to do it; you clearly could not do it Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. But I just want to acknowledge and thank Dr Jackie Blue for that bit of work.  
Having said that I think the contribution that Dr Blue made omitted to reference any of the concerns that we may have whether because of reality or perception and the subsequent downsides that are possible in this bill. And in my view her proposal that it needs to be fast-tracked should be viewed with some concern because the devil is in the detail of this legislation.  
My colleague Charles Chauvel has already clearly outlined that in his contribution at the primary part of this debate. The new member for New Zealand First Denis O’Rourke in just a matter of days here has already found some issues of concern in the detail not in the principle. In fact if you read the explanatory note it is motherhood and apple pie. Well that is not the way that legislation works particularly when it is legislation that often impacts on people’s perception of what happens to information particularly information that is gathered by Government departments and the potential harm that could be done. Jan Logie’s contribution earlier on raised similar concerns.  
I do not agree that we should therefore say: “Well we shouldn’t do this. We don’t want to improve information sharing.” Of course we do but the concerns need to be considered and robustly addressed. Privacy protection but most of all ensuring that when information is shared it can do no harm to individuals should be the most important criteria and I am not sure that that contribution has been made strongly enough throughout the debate. So I would urge the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the genuine concerns that people have and not say: “Well that won’t happen.” but say: “How can we ensure beyond doubt that it won’t happen?” because it is not the intention of this legislation to do any harm. 
 This bill has been around in one form or another for a long time. Originally it came out of the Law Commission’s review of the privacy legislation and the privacy legislation certainly needed that sort of comprehensive review. The original Act was from 1993. That is a long time ago. It was before many of the tools that we currently use without even giving them a moment’s thought when we gather and share information. It was before the widespread use of emails before we used the internet as we do now and certainly before social media and before Smartphones. So the original privacy legislation was written long before we had many of the things that we need to consider and cover.  
The Law Commission started this comprehensive review in October 2006 and finished it only last year. It had a lot on and it did a big job. So you know it appropriately and understandably took them that length of time. The Law Commission’s report back was to the then Minister the Hon Simon Power who is now the chief executive of Westpac Private Bank and I congratulate him on that new role but also on the considerable amount of work he did on this legislation.  
The Law Commission made a number of recommendations to the Hon Simon Power. It said that the Privacy Commissioner’s powers needed to be augmented that the Privacy Commissioner needed specifically a new power to issue compliance notices and where there was a good reason for it to require—not just request but require—an audit of an agency’s information-handling process. That is quite a big extension of the Privacy Commissioner’s powers.  
The Law Commission recommended a streamlining of the complaints process under the legislation so that the Privacy Commissioner would have the ability to make binding decisions on people’s complaints where those complaints were about access to their own personal information and it made another significant recommendation about agencies being required to notify people when personal information about them which was held by an agency was lost or compromised. At the moment there is no requirement to do that. So if we had computer hacking if somebody’s emails had been hacked into and personal information held by an agency was lost or compromised as a result of that or some other action then the agency would be required to notify that person.  
They are big issues. They were strong and clear recommendations from the Law Commission and when I look through the legislation I cannot find them. I would really like to know why. I would like to know why both the Hon Simon Power and the Hon Judith Collins looked—presumably carefully—at the Law Commission report and said: “This is a comprehensive review that they’ve done over 5 years. They’ve made all these recommendations some of which focus on the protection end of the information-sharing spectrum and others focus on the information-sharing end of the spectrum but we just need to go ahead with these two recommendations.”  
Well I do not understand that. And I think the select committee will be very keen to know why when you get not just a little bitsy look at it but a comprehensive review by an independent organisation like the Law Commission we just pick the bits that make the information sharing easier and do not address the issues that protect people’s privacy do not have a streamlined complaints process and do not have a requirement for the agency to tell people if their information held has been compromised or lost. Why do we not do that? I do not think it makes sense and I am really disappointed in both Ministers in that regard.  
I think it is going to be a very interesting debate. As my colleague Charles Chauvel has already noted Labour will be supporting this bill’s referral to the select committee. That is our usual practice. We usually oppose bills going to a select committee if we are strongly opposed to the principle of that legislation if it just does not fit in with any values that we can share. But if we think the bill has got some merit and can be improved or it does not go far enough or it has some deficiencies we will certainly want it to progress to a select committee so we can have the benefit of hearing perhaps from the Law Commission what it thinks of its comprehensive report being short-changed in this way and little bits of it being taken out. It will be very interesting to hear the commission’s view on that. 
I would also be very interested in hearing from the practitioners who work closely with families who are dysfunctional and abuse their children. In respect of the information that is gathered by various agencies about those families and vulnerable children what is the best way to ensure not that the information is shared but that something is done about the information once it is shared? That was the very point that my colleague Jacinda Ardern was making in relation to the green paper. It is all very well having lots and lots of discussion about things but I actually recall the Minister herself Judith Collins saying when she was in Opposition that it is really important that something be done about it and I have not seen any of that action yet.  
The other concerns I have are in relation to the points that Jan Logie made that we may have young or vulnerable people people who desperately need access to support of some sort or other generally through a Government department or agency. They might need access to the health system they might need access to income support they might need access to some sort of social service or support Housing New Zealand Corporation support—any number of types of support services—and they might be too afraid to approach that agency for support because of a fear justified or otherwise about personal information being shared. We cannot have that as an acceptable situation in New Zealand.  
I just want to conclude by saying the idea that is in the explanatory note that this is going to lead to better smarter services nobody could argue with. It is motherhood and apple pie. Our primary concern must be for the privacy and support of individual New Zealanders.