Dyson Ruth: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dyson Ruth: Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:7935. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I was enjoying that contribution from the Hon Trevor Mallard so much that I was actually hoping that he would take a second call. I am very disappointed that he did not take the opportunity to have a second call in this debate. I share his concern that the Minister whose name is attached to this bill is not able to answer the questions in the Committee. Frankly the Minister who is in the chair would have done a far better job. This bill the Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill is the sort of bill that a Government produces when it is in lots of bother and actually over the last 12 months it has been in lots of bother most recently with its disgraceful treatment of Canterbury schools of our communities and of our principals and teachers. And of course today we see the shonky deal between John Key and the Skycity convention centre exposed by the Deputy Auditor-General’s report. The reason I say this is the sort of bill that the Government would quickly put together to try to take the heat off other more troublesome aspects is that it is only a tiny little part of the job. 
We know that this area actually requires a comprehensive approach rather than just cherry-picking the little bits that are easy. It is nowhere more obvious than the difficulty that the Government has been in—in fact over the last 4 years not just over the last year—in terms of privacy breaches. There are no examples that make it more obvious than if you introduce legislation to enable information sharing; you need to do it in a comprehensive and systematic way. The Law Society made a submission on this bill as did others that said that this was a very shallow approach and that it would have been far better to do that sort of comprehensive approach. 
We have actually had the Law Commission look into this very area and it said that this needed a comprehensive systematic approach to the issue of information sharing. It is a huge responsibility of Government. It is actually a massive responsibility of individual Ministers. The Hon Dr Nick Smith will know that a lot of information comes over the desk of a Minister and as Ministers you have to take it very seriously never to use that never to breach the privilege that you have as part of the responsibility of being a Minister. That is why this issue is so important. People write to Ministers and Government departments and agencies give Ministers advice that exposes personal details about people on the understanding that that information will never ever be shared inappropriately. 
Tragically we have seen that privilege of ministerial responsibility breached. It was breached by Paula Bennett in a way that I thought was disgraceful. It has never ever been seen in our country before. Two women on the domestic purposes benefit criticised Paula Bennett John Key and the Government because the Minister’s decision was to scrap the training incentive allowance. That Minister herself had the advantage of going to university as a sole mother because of the training incentive allowance. I think it is a fantastic thing that we give particularly women who have the responsibility of bringing up a child additional State support so that they can have a better life and future for themselves and their children. The training incentive allowance was taken off for university courses from domestic purposes beneficiaries. So these two women on the DPB criticised the Minister for that decision. They said they wanted to go to university get a degree and therefore have a better future for themselves and their families. What did the Minister do? She said: “Look we were desperately short of money. We’d just given a whole lot of tax cuts to wealthy people so we had to claw back the money from somewhere and who better to get it off than women on the DPB?”. I can imagine her saying that. Instead of engaging as a responsible Minister in a rational debate the Minister gave to the media—not behind closed doors but openly—personal private details about those women. And the media published it. I think that is a disgrace. It is an absolute breach of the responsibility that goes with the privilege of being a Minister—a privilege that very few people in our country have—and being entrusted with such personal details. 
I guess I have some anxiety about this legislation because it has been introduced as a method of making access to services and support from Government departments and agencies more efficient and more effective and who could argue with that? Anyone in this House would stand up and say they want the most efficient most effective public services—of course every single member believes in that. But this legislation to allow more sharing of information that may contain private personal details of individuals is being brought to this House in an environment where it is frankly impossible to trust Ministers of the Crown with that information. So it is very hard for us to have confidence that rigour has been applied to this legislation within a frame of knowing that that privacy should be respected. 
Of course we have had some pretty horrific examples of where existing provisions in relation to privacy have not enabled individuals to have that respect maintained. We have had thousands of people being sent the wrong ACC files. I am sure the Minister in the chair the Minister of Conservation is well aware of that. There is nothing more frustrating as a Minister than to read on the front page of the paper that your department has sent a whole lot of files to the wrong person. But ACC has done it over and over again. It does not seem to learn anything from it. 
In Canterbury I have had examples of the Earthquake Commission doing exactly the same thing. I had a constituent who came to me and said: “I’ve made a complaint to EQC. I’ve asked for my file. I’ve asked for my scope of works. I’ve asked for the assessment of my house and haven’t got it so I’ve complained.” I said: “Well I’m happy to help you get that information if I can but your complaint will go along a separate path. I won’t be doing anything in that regard.” So I asked what had happened to this man’s file and I was advised it had been sent out that very day—an extraordinary coincidence of course. What I found out though was that it was not his file that was sent to him; it was someone else’s file. So he rang me and he said: “Well I’ve just got somebody else’s file. Should I take it down the road and give it to them—they have clearly asked for it—or should I sent it back?”. I told him I thought he should put it in an envelope and send it back because he did not know whether that man actually wanted it. I then rang the Earthquake Commission and said it had sent him the wrong information and that I wanted him to get his own file promptly. This is not sharing between departments; this is the incompetence of one agency. The commission replied in writing that it had sent him a file—it turned out it was the wrong one—it had closed his request and that if he wanted his own file he would have to start all over again and make another request. That is absolute nonsense. That is the sort of incompetence that is driven by the lack of concern compassion and attention to detail that Ministers in the current Cabinet are demonstrating. 
And of course the biggest blunder of all—and it involves large numbers of breaches of privacy—is Novopay. I bet Steven Joyce wishes he had never heard that word. Craig Foss I am sure is delighted to have the responsibility for Novopay handed over to the “Minister for Everything” the Hon Steven Joyce. We know that many teachers and support staff around the country have had the private details of other teachers and support staff sent to them in error. 
So what we are seeing in the current system regardless of this legislation are breaches of privacy either through incompetence or deliberate malice as was the case in the example I used earlier of the Hon Paula Bennett deliberately disclosing private information. So as we go through the remaining parts of this legislation—I think there are three parts in all—I hope that the Committee can be given more confidence than I currently have that this bill if passed will not make the current situation worse. This has to be done as a means of ensuring that people get better service that Government departments and agencies are able to share information appropriately for the betterment of the client—the New Zealand citizen—and that at all times their personal privacy will be respected.