Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): One of the most important features of our New Zealand Public Service is its lack of corruption. I think every New Zealander on all sides of the House is tremendously proud of the reputation that our New Zealand Public Service has. We do not have the patronage that you see in the US where half the Public Service—certainly the senior levels—change with changes of Government. Equally we are ranked very very well—in fact National is very proud that when we left Government in 2017 New Zealand was ranked as the least corrupt country in the world. If we look at the history of that this Parliament should be very proud of the Public Service Act 1912 that introduced a provision that has survived five generations of law changes around tough provisions in respect of anybody trying to procure some advantage from a public servant.We were interested at the select committee stage in quite detailed law that was in that 1912 Act that provided for it. I notice in Supplementary Order Paper 549 that the Minister in the chair the Hon Chris Hipkins is intending to amend that historic clause. Now in my interpretation—and I say to the Minister that I only saw the specific word changes that you're proposing a day ago only read it yesterday; that's when we had these hundreds of amendments referred to us. But you significantly in clause 4(6) are amending the wording of that historic provision; that is the existing provision makes it an offence to solicit or attempt to influence any Public Service leader and a provision in that provides immunity if it is for good-faith or omissions.Now we've had this new word added to that historic provision. I looked at some of the court cases and the danger when you amend a piece of law that's been around for such a long time is that the case law that is established where a behaviour with the Public Service is inappropriate and so sometimes in my view there should be a high threshold for us changing laws that actually have very good basis. So I would like an explanation from the Minister on clause 4(6) as to why he is changing the definition of an offence for attempting to solicit to influence a Public Service leader. My interpretation—and I don't claim particular expertise—is that the addition of the words lowers the bar. It will make it more difficult to get a prosecution as a consequence of the amendments in clause 4(6). I'd like to know from the Minister why we are lowering the bar around that very historic protection that it is a criminal offence to solicit or attempt to inappropriately influence a member of the Public Service. There may be a perfectly good explanation for it but I say that given the huge importance of protecting the integrity of our public sector the huge importance of making plain that trying to inappropriately solicit or attempt to influence the Public Service is something that we should have robust law about. When the Governance and Administration Committee considered this clause it did not include the conditioning word. I'd like to know from the Minister why it is that we are at this late stage of the process under urgency amending this core definition that sits at the heart of making sure that our public servants act properly and at the heart of making it plain that any person trying to influence the Public Service in a way that would undermine New Zealand's reputation for the integrity and transparency of our Public Service—why is it that the Government is changing that provision?