Mallard Trevor: Electronic Identity Verification Bill Identity Information Confirmation Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Electronic Identity Verification Bill Identity Information Confirmation Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7387. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 The Labour Party is supporting these bills the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and I think we will be supporting them with a little more enthusiasm than the Minister for Courts Chester Borrows who has just spoken in favour of them. Some of us have thought about this issue before we came to the House. I have got a bit of advice for the Minister who is a relatively new Minister and that is it always pays to look beyond page 1 when you are handed someone else’s speech. In that way you can work out whether there are any words you do not know or if anything is not clear. What was absolutely clear was that the honourable Minister in delivering that speech had not looked past page 1 before he started delivering it. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Oh don’t be unkind. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well no I am being generous to him. If the Minister had looked beyond page 1 and delivered the speech like that it would be very serious. 
Maggie Barry 
: Oh faux gravitas has choked you has it Trevor? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Unlike the member opposite I have not had as much to drink over dinner tonight as she has—as she has. 
Maggie Barry 
: Maybe you should. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well if drinking turned me into a person like Maggie Barry I would certainly not take it up. I would certainly not take it up because she is the evidence of the problem. She is the evidence of the problem when that sort of thing occurs. 
These bills really come at the same issue from different perspectives. The Electronic Identity Verification Bill is an opt-in scheme whereby people can get into the system get in there once and stay in there and give permission for different agencies to use the authentication system in order to know whom the agencies are dealing with. I think that over a period of time more and more people will want to get involved this way although I must say it is a matter of trust as far as Government agencies are concerned and we have had quite a few problems with trust of Government and Government agencies in this area. One just says ACC and Judith Collins. We say Work and Income and Paula Bennett. We say Novopay and Novopay and Novopay and Paula Bennett and Judith Collins. What we have is breach after breach after breach after breach of privacy on the part of Ministers and of Government departments. I say that those people are going to have to clean up their act and they are going to have to clean up their agencies or there will not be a chance of people willingly going into the system because they know that Ministers will spray their private details around into the public—spray their details around into the public—in a way that is just not acceptable. 
I agree with the comments that I presume were drafted by officials for Chris Tremain the Minister in charge of the legislation around the work of the Government Administration Committee. I want to acknowledge both Mr Bakshi and Mr Auchinvole for the work that they did do but I think what people will generally agree on is that in the select committee on these bills it did not really matter which party you were coming from. You know we had different perspectives on some of the details and different angles on occasions—and I do want to acknowledge the work that Gareth Hughes did; he did a good job in this particular area—and we mainly came to agreement. I also want to acknowledge the Government’s flexibility in making changes to make the legislation work more carefully when evidence was produced in the select committee. As far as the punishment regimes were concerned I acknowledge its willingness to shift from something that was for multi-fraud on the part of a company a bit of a slap with a wet bus ticket to something that might at least be a ruler across the hand rather than a wet bus ticket. So there has been some change in this particular area. There have been some powers granted to the Privacy Commissioner who will be able to proactively require reports about the operation of the service although I must say that having the Privacy Commissioner being able to ask for a report or even asking for a report and getting a report that is available appears to be a different thing these days. I will say no more about that. 
Going now to the Identity Information Confirmation Bill what this does is allow both public and private sector agencies to check identity information. It is my expectation that it will be used pretty extensively not only by a number of Government agencies but also eventually by banks and similar organisations. I think there will be a standardisation of the identity verification services. It allows agencies to check whether the identity information presented by a customer is consistent with what is held by the Department of Internal Affairs through its registers: the citizenship register the passports database and the various registers of the Births Deaths and Marriages registry office—although I think probably it would be unlikely that many people would want their identity information confirmed through the deaths register. I think if they are doing that it might be an indication of an issue for the person and a possible fraud. Although if it was like— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Unless they’re David Garrett. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: David Garrett. I was going to get on to David Garrett the ACT member and I understand a very close friend of a number of people opposite including the one with three names whom I have forgotten—Jami-Lee Ross. I have got it. He is a very close friend of Jami-Lee Ross Mr Garrett. I understand that Mr Garrett actually gave Mr Ross’ mother advice on his name. You know he got it off a headstone or three—got it off a headstone or three—and I think that is—[ 
Interruption 
] Well the members opposite defended him for so long. The members opposite defended David Garrett for quite a long period of time and I just want to say this. They seem to say that there is not much of an issue—not much of an issue they said. This was a guy who stole the identity of a dead baby. He stole the identity of a dead baby and the National Party members defended him. 
I am pleased that since that time they have confessed their sins. They have confessed their sins and said “We have got to have a system that is better and we will not allow that sort of thing to occur in the future.” and they have been involved in this legislation weak as it was when it was introduced. But with the work of a number of people it has got a lot stronger—again especially Mr Auchinvole. I want to acknowledge the fact that he put a bit of backbone into the Ministers. Mr Auchinvole in particular was very clear. He gave us examples of frauds with his own credit card. The member had been slightly loose with his details and they were being used on a basis that was absolutely inappropriate. He shared that with us and I think a number of us—most of us many of us—have been involved in things that have looked dodgy. It is slightly harder to do now although I am informed that every day in New Zealand there are about 2000 cases of online or related identity fraud. Credit card fraud people using the—I suppose we are not allowed to talk too much. Oh it is not before the court is it? But there are questions about a member of Parliament and whether he used the cash card in the appropriate way or not. If that is proven then that would be a very serious matter. 
But there are privacy breaches all over the place. In 2011 probably because of the lax leadership of “Paula Benefit”—Bennett sorry; that is the Wainuiomata name. I have been in Wainuiomata too long this week. “Paula Benefit” is what she is known as over there. Paula Bennett’s leadership led to a breach of privacy—a massive breach of privacy. She put a beneficiary’s details into the public. The Work and Income staff thought it was all right to do the same and 10 of them were so bad last year that they had to get the sack. In 2011 10 people from Work and Income followed Paula Bennett’s leadership and they got the sack when actually she should have.