O'Rourke Denis: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7944. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 In my first speech to this debate on Part 1 of the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill I said I thought there was a glaring omission and that is in proposed new section 96L which requires consultation by participating agencies with the Privacy Commissioner any person or organisation representing a class of persons affected and anyone else the agencies think should be consulted. But the Children’s Commissioner has not been specified. Although it comes under the second of those three categories I mentioned—relating to any person or organisation representing a class of persons affected—I believe that the Children’s Commissioner should be specifically included in the section. I note that the Children’s Commissioner did make a submission and said this: “I would also expect that my Office would be party to any consultation process under s96L regarding information sharing agreements that affect the rights and interests of children …” Why then has that not been done? It seems to me to be not only a harmless addition but one that may be of some considerable value. 
I have therefore prepared Supplementary Order Paper 172 which would insert the Children’s Commissioner as a mandatory consultee. I would ask that all parties in the Committee consider that. I do so because I think the interests of children is a significant issue that must be very well provided for because of course they cannot be expected to look after their own interests and they need special treatment in this way. Minister Collins has told me by letter that she considers that where the interests of children are relevant new section 96L already provides for participating agencies to consult “any person or organisation that the agencies consider represents the interests of the classes of individuals whose personal information will be shared under the proposed agreement;”. For that reason she said that National would be unlikely to support my Supplementary Order Paper. 
But I think her reasoning is flawed. The part of new section 96L that I read out refers to “any person or organisation that the agencies consider represents …” a class of persons. The point is that this effectively means that the agencies will decide whether there is a need to consult the Children’s Commissioner. Most agencies are not equipped to make that assessment and are not likely to consult when it is in fact advisable to do so. My Supplementary Order Paper makes it mandatory for the Children’s Commissioner to be consulted and the Children’s Commissioner can then decide whether a response is needed. That seems to me to be the way it should be—that the Children’s Commissioner decides whether in fact consultation is worthwhile not some agency that may well not really know what it is doing. 
I do not think that would be a very great imposition on agencies. After all all they need to do in the first instance is to write a letter to the Children’s Commissioner to ask whether consultation would be appropriate in a particular case. The commissioner can then decide and not the agency or agencies concerned. So I do not see any reason why the Supplementary Order Paper should not be adopted. It is not only harmless; it is likely to be of considerable value. The Government should think again about that small but important issue. So I call on the Government to adopt Supplementary Order Paper 172 for those reasons. 
I would say that I have heard speeches from Opposition members today saying that they do regard the functions of the commissioner and the protection of personal privacy to be important. If that is true they will have no hesitation in supporting this Supplementary Order Paper. If they do not support it then I will no longer consider that their assertions about the protection of personal privacy especially in that very important area of the protection of children’s privacy are things that they really in fact hold dear. So this will be the test. This will be the test of whether in fact they are interested in those issues or whether they just want to drive this bill through because they are more interested in public agencies being allowed to do what they like.