Penk Chris; Sepuloni CarmelCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I'm grateful to have a further call mostly because the Minister didn't provide what I thought was a very satisfactory answer to the committee of the whole House. I pointed out that the duty to act independently in clause 16A says that the Minister of the Crown can't direct the monitor to stop carrying out an activity. And the Minister said Well don't worry because the Minister's still responsible for making sure that the monitor carries out their duties in accordance with the legislation." Well that's utterly at odds with what it says here. They can't stop them carrying out an activity. And the only test within this clause is that the monitor considers it necessary to enable them to perform or exercise their functions. So if the monitor however wrongheadedly thinks that it's OK to do a certain thing even though that's not consistent with the legislation the Minister would have us believe that because it's not consistent with the legislation the Minister can intervene. But in fact the very words within clause 16A—the new ones that she wants to insert via the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP)—don't allow that. So that's the first thing.The second thing is that in relation to clause 19—and it's to do with the arrangements with hapū iwi and Māori organisations—we hear about the development of arrangements with hapū iwi and Māori organisations for the purposes of providing opportunities etc. and sharing information under this Act and then we see in subclause (2) that nothing in that is to limit or affect any legislation that applies to the sharing of information. So can the Minister explain the relationship of that provision to the Privacy Act—to the provisions in the Privacy Act the information privacy principles that talk about for example data needing to be used only for the purpose for which it's collected? Does that override this or not? Because this bill and more particularly the SOP at clause 19 within Part 2 says that nothing in that particular clause is going to affect legislation that applies to the sharing of information—the Privacy Act of course chief among them.And then my final point is in relation to reports and reviews. I see that the monitor must prepare at least once every three years a state of the Oranga Tamariki system report. And three years seems an awful long time to wait for a report on a new regime in a highly contentious public policy area. I've acknowledged openly I'm not the most knowledgeable in this House on the particular matters but I think when it comes to procedure and process and accountability and again with that point about independence meaning that it's all the more important that a report be provided for the public to be able to pore over—and heaven forbid Opposition politicians have a go at being able to hold this Government agency to account along with the fourth estate and so on. And yet we may have to wait up to three years before the first such report is needing to be produced and that seems to me to be far too little accountability.Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Minister for Social Development and Employment): Firstly I just want to revisit the point that I thought we'd covered but I'm happy to go back to it with regards to independence. Interestingly that member is probably the only one on that side of the House and every other political party that's questioning whether it's too independent. Every other party including his own party is pointing out lack of independence. However the point is that the Minister can't stop the monitor doing what is set out in legislation. The Minister can ensure the monitor is doing what they were required to do in legislation. And if they did act outside of that or they didn't fulfil their obligations then they would be acting unlawfully and so the Minister would certainly have some influence there as the Minister responsible for the monitor.The member asked around the Privacy Act. It is certainly consistent with the Privacy Act. In some ways what I've been advised is that clause 48 of this part is even more strict than what would potentially be required from the Privacy Act and that was done deliberately because of the fact that we are specifically talking about children and young people in this instance. Also just going back to the code of ethics question there is a legal requirement regarding the code of ethics: a requirement on the monitor to comply with the code firstly when exercising power of entry; secondly when collecting information from children; and thirdly when accessing children from caregivers. So those things are taken into consideration."