Rurawhe Adrian: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRurawhe Adrian: Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11291. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): I move That the Official Information (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I am very pleased to take this call on the second reading of this my member’s bill. I am very pleased that since the first reading we have come a long way. I want to acknowledge the work of the Government Administration Committee chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson. As a former member of that committee I know that it is one of the hardest-working committees in Parliament. I want to acknowledge all of the members for their openness about this bill.This bill is about openness and transparency in this Parliament. It provides for parliamentary under-secretaries to be responsible for answering Official Information Act requests. I said in the first reading that it was an anomaly that we have this current situation where a parliamentary under-secretary although being a member of the executive is not required to answer Official Information Act requests. We fortunately passed the first reading and the bill was sent to the Government Administration Committee.We received a total of five submissions on the bill. All five were in support of this bill. Because there are only five I am going to read them out: the New Zealand Law Society the New Zealand Law Commission Brent Jackson Malcolm Harbrow and Terra Dumont. One of the things that three of these submitters pointed out was that parliamentary under-secretaries are in fact part of the executive. They are not part of the Executive Council but they are none the less part of the executive. Two of the submitters quite clearly pointed out that the role of parliamentary under-secretaries is created under the statutes Act. Under that particular Act it makes parliamentary under-secretaries part of that executive. That was pointed out by these submitters.Part of the discussion as well was around what I call the slippery-slope theory that was promulgated in the first reading by some members. There have been claims that information held as an MP may be captured in this bill; that is quite clearly incorrect. The Ministry of Justice in its report pointed out that very fact—that in fact it is work that we do as members of Parliament that is not captured by this bill. Under the Official Information Act work done by members as members of Parliament is quite separate to the work that those members who are part of the executive do. It also pointed out that a request to the Minister does not assume that the Minister has the information that the parliamentary under-secretary has. It pointed out that there was no requirement for the Minister to request that information from the parliamentary under-secretary nor to create official information. That is the basis of that anomaly.I also acknowledge the Government members who in the first reading voted against this bill but who through the select committee process in having access to all of the information from the submitters—in particular the Law Society and the Law Commission as well as the report from the Ministry of Justice—addressed every single one of those issues that was raised in the first reading. I think it is important to acknowledge that the weight of that evidence clearly influenced the members who had voted against it in the first reading to the point that the report that has come back to the House is a report that is supported by all of the committee. I want to acknowledge those members for that. I think it shows how members through the select committee process can bring back a better bill and ask the hard questions certainly but in this instance they have clearly come to the understanding that this is a good bill.The recommendation from the Ministry of Justice is that the bill is entirely consistent with the Official Information Act and that it should be passed by Parliament. I acknowledge the things that have been said by the member from the ACT Party—I think it would be silly not to. I think that despite the way that it was expressed the issue is that any party that stands up for open and transparent Government should support this bill. That is the only question that should be asked not whether someone thinks it is particularly about that person. In this instance there is only one parliamentary under-secretary so I can understand why one might think that.In the interests of good legislation I am pleased to hear—I could be incorrect but I understand—that this bill is going to be supported by all parties in the House. I welcome that. I do not want to prolong my contribution on this. I am sure other members of the House will have a lot to add. Just one morething: there is an amendment too that was agreed to by the select committee. It does make the bill clearer. There is only one clause in this amendment bill. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.