O'Rourke DenisDENIS O'ROURKE (NZ First): Listening to Mr Seymour justifying why he is going to vote for this bill seemed to me a little bit like listening to a turkey voting for a midwinter Christmas because it just did not make sense. In fact his whole argument was weird and it did not at all explain his flip-flops in originally opposing the bill and now supporting it.And by the way he talked about whether people wanted to find out where other MPs went without mentioning that one of the things they might want to find out would be why one particular MP on one occasion stayed far too long at the Back Bencher when he should have been in the House. Maybe they would want to find that out but I cannot believe that many people would want to find out where MPs generally go to have a beer or whatever. That seems to be not a good argument to justify his position but that is what he based his argument on so that is his right—and fine—but I think I will get on to something more important which is this: why New Zealand First actually is not going to support this bill which we do think is a little bit of a gimmick.I understand why—to be fair to the proposer of the bill—the bill is being proposed. Ostensibly it is because it would make parliamentary under-secretaries fully accountable under the Official Information Act (OIA) and on the face of it there is of course nothing wrong with that but that is not really what this bill is about. I suspect it is actually driven by a desire to see that David Seymour as a parliamentary under-secretary for charter schools and for regulatory reform can be challenged under the Official Information Act and possibly—perhaps a little bit uncharitably but possibly—for political reasons. To put it in a nutshell I doubt whether this bill would have been proposed if Mr Seymour had not been a parliamentary under-secretary.So why are we going to vote against it then? I want to say first of all that I listened closely to what David Seymour has had to say in his various weird speeches on this subject. He started off of course by originally opposing it. He said that the bill was inconsequential in every practical sense" given that all of his actions as parliamentary under-secretary would be copied to his supervising Minister and an OIA request would be better used to discover those decisions from the Minister direct. We totally agree. We cannot understand why anyone would waste an OIA request on David Seymour when they could get the information from a much better source—in particular the Minister. So what is the point of doing an OIA request to David Seymour or indeed other parliamentary under-secretaries? There is not any so what therefore is the point of this bill? Answer—not a hell of a lot. Not a hell of a lot. In Mr Seymour's original first reading speech he said that the Official Information Act was there to "keep tabs on what the executive was doing" apparently believing that he was not a part of the executive and that therefore this bill would mean that "We have not abandoned that principle." He strangely saw himself as not part of the Government executive because he was just a lowly parliamentary under-secretary—and again I totally agree. But now he seems to have woken up to the fact that actually he did join the Government in an executive position so he now supports the bill—and good for him because he accepts that he should be part of that transparency process. But as I have said anyone actually wanting information would be better to go direct to the Minister.What the bill actually does is to redefine the term "Minister of the Crown" to include parliamentary under-secretaries—a very weird definition I would have to say of the term "Minister of the Crown". It is a very weird definition and when I think of that definition applying to David Seymour I shudder—surely he cannot be a Minister of the Crown after a few months in Parliament? I mean I can barely sleep at night considering that possibility. So for that reason New Zealand First sought no amendment to the bill because we think it is appropriate just to oppose it at this stage. It cannot possibly achieve anything useful. The better source of official information would be the actual Minister responsible not a parliamentary under-secretary because of some weird definition that it is included in the term "Minister of the Crown".Finally I want to say this: it is a shame that this bill concentrates on such a low priority when you consider all of the issues that there are around official information. Furthermore that legislation does need attention but this is not the attention that it needs. Government agencies and local government too often do not genuinely comply with requests for official information and flout the obvious intention of the Act to provide information to the public whenever it is possible for them to do so. Instead they tend to take the opposite tack which is to withhold information as much as they possibly can and to make it as hard as possible for people to get that information. That is the reality and that is the reform that this bill really needs.In addition to that the Ombudsman needs more power to order the release of information and there should be sanctions on agencies and local government alike if they do not provide information in the way that is intended under the legislation. Indeed we need to build a much better culture in both Government agencies and local government so that they see their role as being public service which includes providing information to the public unless there is a genuine reason for not doing so. I fear that on far too many occasions the reasons given are not genuine are obstructive and are often excessively delayed. The Ombudsman does not have the power to do much about that. Those are the sorts of reforms that this legislation needs; not this silly little bill looking at the most minor possible issue which will make little or no progress towards a better official information regime in this country.We are voting—opposing the bill—against it in protest that so much time and effort is being put into this when it could be put to much better use to make genuine and much needed reforms of the Official Information Act. This bill is not needed. It will achieve nothing. It is really about David Seymour. It would not have been proposed at all if he had not been an under-secretary. We do not agree with the Labour Party on this; it should not have done this. This is a waste of time and effort it is most inappropriate and we will be voting against it."