Smith DamienDAMIEN SMITH (ACT): Mr Speaker the fact that you're also on the committee means you're a statistically very important to this bill and it is a very important bill to get right. It's one of I think Dr Clark's most important jobs this and the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act. And I rise on behalf of ACT to talk about the power that's been vested in the Government Statistician post this introduction. It is a bill to replace something that is 46 years old and statistically itself is requiring an update. I like the Australian approach that they took. It takes a more robust approach with their recent Data Availability and Transparency Act and I think it places limits on data sharing across the different domains of Government. It is a better solution and that is what the ACT Party always seeks to find in public policy around the world. It better articulates the principles and checks and balances that one would expect in this area. Sharing Government data is a very important issue for the people of New Zealand. Indeed the law itself although needing a refresh the direction of travel the Ministers and the officials want to take is in the right direction. This bill is not a BMW Government limo; it's a solid Toyota Corolla probably needing a few rip-outs of its engine and side doors to just get it finally right. But left to mature as a public sector tool it could be very useful. So we also believe that there should be a review undertaken of this after three years. And we believe that overcoming cultural resistance for all the 5.127 million New Zealanders is vitally important to get right from being a born child with a birth certificate through to someone who's got spina bifida and wants to have their files shared with them. So there is a question mark over the costs of bringing these systems together. I don't see anywhere a cost-benefit analysis which the ACT Party would like to ask the Minister in the next section on: what is the Government Statistician going to need to make this happen? What is the IT spend that's needed to integrate this? Maybe we'll hear this in the Budget on Thursday but I suspect it's a significant amount of money to bring researchers and statisticians into a place where they can actually with permission from the public match up data that is relevant. The other aspect is we've looked at the timeliness of reporting. Nothing must stop as an example in the business world the Performance of Manufacturing Index and Performance of Services Index statistics coming through in a timely fashion. We've heard that 76 percent of our GDP gets reported by Statistics New Zealand and we've seen with the Auditor-General's workload with regard to COVID that once something big hits then the statistics bundle can just fall out or people can start to get overworked in departments or stressed. That's a worldwide benchmark and it affects our credit rating as a country. If you look at health Mr Mooney did discuss in his electorate the need for quality statistics around the DHBs and beds. As we've seen in the last iteration we haven't managed post-pandemic to get that right and it's causing us problems now actually costing what should be savings in the healthcare system. If you look at 50000 women across New Zealand who are now waiting with breast cancer scares to get a mammogram or to get access to drugs from Pharmac or an integration of all that health it's a very serious piece of data collection which has failed. So we need to take an approach that if somebody is the Government Statistician they really need to modernise their approaches to collecting data for the good of the nation and for something that even though it's digital needs to provide quality outputs. The one area that I am disturbed about is just the punishments and the punishment in this for individuals has quadrupled with a fine of $2000 for failing a census return. But it removes the duty of the Statistician the Government Statistician to provide you with a census form. So if you're disabled and you fail to complete this form or digitally you can't get online or you've got mental and physical issues actually being able to complete this you are going to get fined $2000. Now ultimately that's not the New Zealand way it's not the Kiwi way and I'd like the advisers to have a look at that punishment regime. Fifteen grand for organisations that's a different story but as individuals we don't expect to get punished for data release and also not being able to do something. Fortunately we have a social contract with individuals and with regards to the census that needs to be as transparent as possible. Just to finish on a lighter note we all remember the code in the census that tracked the Jedi population. On this side of the House we are the carriers of light and 1 percent of the population was recorded as being Jedi. So I hope the Statistician still keeps his sense of humour when he's working.Over the process here if we're going to ask people to tell us once and then it gets integrated across various Government departments I think the cost of that system hasn't been thought out. I stand to be corrected by the committee and the Minister. Even though this is a statistics bill I think it is one of the most important Acts that David Clark will ever do. He'll be judged by it and he'll be judged by how this sticks around the area and we need better data to make better decisions as a Government. Now is the time to actually define what it is we're going to be doing in some schedule that manages the workload costs it out and also gives us confidence that we've not just got a set of words here and a policy that doesn't actually deliver the final outcomes that we're seeking for the next 50 years.We will support to build to the next stage and we would like to really get people to think that this is a very important task and we've got to get this bill right. Thank you.