O'Rourke Denis: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2177. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I would like to begin by acknowledging Ruth Dyson’s superb speech on this bill. It was actually given in two parts—first at the last time that the bill was discussed a few days ago actually; and secondly tonight. Her review of this fascinating bill was so comprehensive that it does mean that I will now be able to make a much shorter speech than I otherwise would have so I want to acknowledge her superb contribution. It is true that on the previous occasion I did try to elbow my way in in front of her but I am glad that I did not because now as I have said I can make a shorter speech and that will be perfectly fine having regard to the comprehensive nature of her contribution.I do want to say that New Zealand First will support the bill and the recommendations of the Government Administration Committee. The committee has in fact done a really good job in scrutinising this very large bill which makes amendments to over 30 Acts of Parliament. It is not the sort of thing you would like to take to bed to read but it is nevertheless an important bill in its own right. I do think that the select committee has done very well and the only comments I want to make tonight are in relation to some of the recommendations that the Government Administration Committee has made. I am glad to see actually that the first recommendation concerned the removal of clauses 49(1) and 51 amending the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and clauses 70 and 71 amending the Official Information Act 1982. Those amendments were not appropriate for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill and in fact it is good to see that that is not being proceeded with.One amendment concerned a definition of “legal professional privilege” from the Evidence Act 2006. That could be interpreted to restrict legal professional privilegeto only circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated. That was not the intention of this particular piece of legislation either so it is good to see that that is gone. Another would amend the grounds for providing a good reason for withholding legal professional privilege and again that is not suitable for a statutes amendment bill. So I do not know how those all got into this piece of legislation in the first place. They should not have been there and the committee is right to recommend their exclusion or amendment.There is one important area that I do want to comment on and that does concern Official Information Act requests. These are very important to a large number of members of the public and I would have to say that far too many requests for official information are not properly dealt with by the agencies or the local authorities that deal with them. This is an area that probably needs a lot more attention than it is getting here but some sensible amendments are being made that we can support.The amendments to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act would allow applications for official information to be made orally. It is important that that be possible for people who are not used to dealing with written requests and formalities of that kind and there are plenty of people in that position. So it is very important that those people should be comfortable in being able to make oral applications for official information and they should be able to get it on that basis. The tension of course is that if people make oral applications they may not be as clear or as comprehensive as perhaps they should be if the applications were done formally in writing. So there is a bit of tension there between the need for people to have that right to make oral applications and for them to be clear enough to be acted upon by the agency or the local authority concerned.However it is open to abuse by such agencies and local authorities being obstructive if they can say: “Well you have to put this in writing. Oral isn’t good enough. It isn’t clear enough.” So there is a bit of a risk there. The committee amendment is very sensible because what it says is that they can make such a request conditional allowing the request only if the local authority is able to properly say that it is reasonably necessary for the purpose of clarifying the request that it be then made in writing. I think that is a pretty satisfactory balance between that tension I spoke of between the right of an applicant to be able to make an oral application and the need for it to be clear enough to be acted upon. So if it is a condition and if it is necessary then the local authority or agency can then say: “In these circumstances you need to make a written request.” I think it is a pretty good balance being reached there and New Zealand First can support those amendments for that reason.It is an important area of the law. We should not underestimate the importance of Official Information Act requests from members of the public because they need to have good access to information and far too many local authorities and some agencies do make it far too difficult. They are more likely to be obstructive than helpful and that is not good enough. As I have said this is an area that I think does need further looking into and change in the future. But as far as these changes are concerned New Zealand First can support them as part of a statutes amendment bill.Finally the only other comment I wanted to make does relate to the minor amendments to the Local Electoral Act and the Local Government Act 2002. They are only technical in content and it appears that they were unintentionally omitted. They relate to the time frame for completing pre-election processes for general elections and the sensible change is that they will now be applied to all elections and polls not just general elections. That is something that in itself is not a very big matter. But one of the things I have noticed in some of the legislation we have been dealing with over the last few years is that there is not a very good comparison between local government election legislation and general election legislation. There is no reason for the differences between that legislation and a bit more work like this does need to be done to make sure that they both operate in the same sort of way. It is just not sensible that local elections and general elections should have different rules. I think it is pretty sensible that we have consistency so I am glad to see that we are at least making a little bit of progress with this amendment. We need to do a lot more for them.All of the changes otherwise—other than those I have mentioned—in this very large bill are very sensible so New Zealand First will have the greatest pleasure in supporting it at this stage and further.