Parker David: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 24 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1890. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): By my reckoning there are 33 Acts that are amended here. I think you might have had poor advice from your ministry that there were 34 because there are only 33 parts to the bill Mr Bridges.Alastair Scott: Start again.Hon DAVID PARKER: That is right. It might not be the most interesting piece of legislation but I would have hoped that the Associate Minister of Justice would at least know the number of Acts that he was amending through this legislation. This bill splits into 33 parts upon its passage because it amends each of those 33 Acts—not 34.Hon Simon Bridges: You need to get out more.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well the difference between 33 and 34 is probably a wee bit more important on this side of the House than it is on that.In terms of the amendments to the legislation that are recommended by the Government Administration Committee I endorse its caution in respect of some changes that were being made to these Acts particularly the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act both of which had amendments that went further than was probably appropriate for a statutes amendment bill. As the Minister has correctly pointed out the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) is an omnibus bill. The reason that we do not generally have omnibus bills in this House is that they can traverse a wide area of information and buried in the middle of them can be something significant. Submitters who might be interested in one piece of legislation will not through the general notification that goes to members of the public from Parliament be alerted to the fact that there is a change in the law that could be significant to them. The public therefore does not have the ability to raise the issue the fourth estate does not get over the top of what might be a significant issue and this Parliament could therefore in a pre-emptory way make an unwise change to legislation.For that reason omnibus legislation is frowned upon but there is one exception and that is through a statutes amendment bill where Parliament agrees that there are technical amendments that are needed to lots of little pieces of legislation. It is generally in the nature of housekeeping sometimes it will be a drafting error and other times there will be a non-controversial thing that has arisen just through changing circumstances over time. All parties in the House are canvassed as to whether they think that the items are non-contentious. If any one party at any stage in the proceeding says: “Look we’ve changed our mind. We think there is something controversial here.” then the custom is—and indeed it might be a Standing Orders requirement I think rather than a custom—that that provision has to be taken out of the bill so that we truly are left with non-contentious matters. That is where we have got to here. The reason that the provisions that were recommended for amendment by the select committee are coming out is for that reason.The committee did not think it was wise to introduce into the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act a definition of “legal professional privilege”. One of the reasons that the committee has come to that view is that upon reflection—and I suspect it may have had a submission from someone to this effect at the select committee but I was not sitting on it. Effectively the select committee is saying that the definition could be interpreted in a way that restricts legal professional privilege to only circumstances where court proceedings are in train or contemplated which is but a subset of legal professional privilege which perhaps should apply more broadly to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. Therefore the introduction of a narrower definition than the wider definition of “legal professional privilege” might have had the opposite effect to that which was intended. So by defining it more narrowly it might have been overriding a wider legal professional privilege that already applied. So I can see the logic in that and I think that it is wise to pull that out of the Act.Similarly I think that the amendments that are made in respect of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act are appropriate. In respect of that issue the committee said the update to the legislation—which as the Minister said was recommended by the Law Commission I think as a consequence of changing practices over time—is uncontroversial but the introduction of a discretion if you like for the local authorities to say in respect of an oral request for information that it should be particularised in writing was too general and could have been used by local government to obstruct people getting information in even the most mundane of cases. So if someone was coming in with an inquiry and the authorities said: “No we are not going to give that to you today.” and the person then stood on their right to get what was public information and said: “I am making a request under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.” someone who was being obstructive in the local government office could say: “Put that in writing.” even though there is no need to put it in writing. So the committee as I understand it has made some amendments to limit the discretion of the local authorities to always be able to say that routinely and that seems pretty sensible as well.The other Acts that are amended are listed in the bill. I do not propose to go through all 33 of them in detail. With those comments I record that the Labour Party is happy to support the second reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4).