Goff Phil: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 27 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8992. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 When Jonathan Coleman got to his feet I thought he was going to get up and apologise for the appalling failures in the two portfolios that he is responsible for in this House. [ 
Interruption 
] The first portfolio Mr Coleman is defence. You know in 12 short months you have achieved the lowest morale ever in the New Zealand Defence Force on record in its own surveys and the loss of 1000 skilled experienced and qualified service personnel from the armed forces to the extent that we have got to get Aussie sailors to put our new ships to sea out from Devonport in his electorate. He would know that—he would know that. And we have seen the worst ever attrition rate in the Defence Force at over 21 percent. 
But I want to talk about his other failures—his failures in the area of being State services Minister. Last Friday we saw the biggest ever release of confidential information—the biggest ever breach of privacy in the history of this country. Ninety-eight thousand people in Christchurch had confidential information about their property and repairs released by the Earthquake Commission—98000 people who would dearly love each of them to have the information about their own property because the Earthquake Commission will not give them information about their own property. This was a massive breach of confidentiality. 
And it was not the first; in fact it was the seventh such breach in the last year. Let us look at the track record: at the Accident Compensation Corporation 6700 files were released to Bronwyn Pullar; at the Inland Revenue Department 6300 pieces of personal information about tax records were released; and at Work and Income 7000 documents were released including documents highly confidential and highly personal about children in care. Then there is Novopay. To add insult to injury not only is it not paying people but also it is releasing information about their pay to people who should not get it. 
John Key stood up in this House yesterday and said there is no systemic problem. You know “Planet Key” is an odd place where you can get a comment like that—seven major breaches literally tens of thousands of people having their confidential information released and John Key says “no systemic problem”. Well that is not what the Privacy Commissioner is saying. She described last year—this is in a press statement—as the year of the data breach. That is what the Privacy Commissioner said. This year already there have been 10 times as many releases of confidential documents as there were in the whole of last year. I want to know what this Government is doing about it. Why is no action being taken to protect private information about individuals? 
Colmar Brunton did a poll and it found that two-thirds of New Zealanders did not trust their information to be kept confidential by Government agencies. This Government is responsible for that but this Government is pretending not to be accountable and is not accountable. Why is that? It is because Ministers themselves have been complicit with the release of personal information. Paula Bennett misused her ministerial powers to release information taken from the personal files of two beneficiaries who had had the temerity to criticise her policies. Beware New Zealanders this is a Government with Ministers who will delve into personal files and release them publicly. And when she was censured by the Human Rights Commission about that she said she disagreed with its view and she would not rule out doing it again. 
Then we have got Judith Collins. ACC released wrongly 6700 files and then Judith Collins’ office released the name—not released but leaked the name—of the person it had sent them to wrongly Bronwyn Pullar. When Bronwyn Pullar got in an advocate by the name of Michelle Boag president of the Labour Party to speak on her behalf the emails that Michelle Boag sent to the Minister were also leaked. Do you know what she said—and I shall finish with this— 
Maggie Barry 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I do not believe that Michelle Boag is the leader of the Labour Party. The National Party— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And I am sure it was a slip of the tongue. But it is debatable; it is not a valid point of order. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I shall finish my last sentence. This is what Michelle Boag the former president of the National Party said: “When you can’t send a communication to a Government minister without fearing that the privacy of that communication is going to be breached that’s very very dangerous.” That is the quote. That is what she said about her own party.