Curran Clare: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to MembersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members[Sitting date: 06 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12320. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South)to theMember in charge of the Privacy (Giving Privacy Commissioner Necessary Tools) Amendment Bill: Is it her intention to proceed with the first reading of the Privacy (Giving Privacy Commissioner Necessary Tools) Amendment Bill; if so why?SUE MORONEY (Member in charge of the Privacy (Giving Privacy Commissioner Necessary Tools) Amendment Bill):Yes. The first reading of my bill that gives more power to the Privacy Commissioner to fix privacy breaches becomes more urgent every day. The bill was initially drafted as a response to the systematicprivacy breaches that have been happening frequently under this Government. From ACC to EQC the Earthquake Commission and now the GCSB the Government Communications Security Bureau and just about every acronym in between it is obvious that this Government is playing fast and loose with New Zealanders’ privacy. Who can forget the privacy breach that saw the ACC sending the private information of 6748 people some of them with sensitive claims to BronwynPullar and then the leak—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption ] Order! Wrap up the answer please.SUE MORONEY: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I probably should have said at the outset that this answer will—Mr SPEAKER: Order!SUE MORONEY: —be a little long because of the number—Mr SPEAKER: I am sorry it will not be a little long. Wrap up the answer concisely.SUE MORONEY: My bill aims to address these and many other breaches—the many other breaches that I could have talked about—by giving the Privacy Commissioner the power to investigate such breaches without having to first receive a complaint. Further my bill would give the commissioner the right to require agencies to implement her recommendations once an investigation has been completed. Both of these law changes were recommended by the Law Commission when it considered our privacy laws.Clare Curran: Has the member seen reports of support for the first reading of her bill to give the Privacy Commissioner more power to deal with privacy breaches; if so what were they?SUE MORONEY: Yes associate professor in commercial law at the University of AucklandGehanGunasekara wrote an opinion piece in theNew Zealand Heraldon 20 May saying that this bill is a step in the right direction. I have also seen a report from a year earlier that appears to support a bill enacting the Law Commission’s recommendations on privacy issues. This was on 2 May 2012 when Minister of Justice Judith Collins opened Privacy Awareness Week by promising to replace the Privacy Act with a new Act. She promised to have a bill ready—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just complete the answer.SUE MORONEY: —for introduction in the first half of 2013. Well we are into August 2013 now. There is no sign of Judith Collins’ bill but I look forward to her support of my bill which was introduced into Parliament in May 2013. I seek leave of the House to put forward the copy of Judith Collins’ speech to Privacy Awareness Week on 2 May 2012.Mr SPEAKER: It is probably available on the website but to short-circuit things leave is sought to table that speech. Is there any objection? There is. OK. Leave is so denied.