Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to stand and speak in support of the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. I've come to realise that there are largely two categories of bills—those that have the power to transform the lives of large groups of people directly impacting the way we live our lives the way we're allowed to for example express and affirm love and sometimes transform society and the way society works; to address perhaps historical wrongs that have been perpetrated against specific groups. Bills that are explosive and command attention.And then we have some bills that are quieter. They go about their business quietly and make some small improvements that are important to people to us at specific times in our lives. These are improvements perhaps that create a more cohesive piece of legislation and by extension ensure that the lives of the people we're here to serve tick along as smoothly as possible. These are perhaps bills that take us as a nation into the 21st century and ensure that we continue to be at or move into the forefront of the digital age. This bill I think potentially falls into that second category. Both types of bills of course have a huge amount of value to the lives of people and this bill is no exception.The main purpose of this bill as we have heard from members on both sides of the House previously is to re-enact and update the 1995 Act. This amendment bill aims to strike a good balance between public rights to access information—so it's about openness it's about transparency. But it strikes that balance with the need to respect and protect individuals' rights to privacy. For example it makes it easier for individuals to get historical information online—say about one's family about one's ancestors. But it also authorises the registrar-general to establish a limited search function for non-historical information namely information about those who are still living whose privacy must be protected.So it strengthens the privacy protections by ensuring that an individual who is for example looking up their own information online is not accidentally given someone else's information where that person has obtained a non-disclosure direction. So it gives that protection to at-risk individuals that we absolutely must and have a responsibility to maintain.This bill also responds to an issue raised in the Law Commission's review of burial and cremation law that will enable more accurate and more timely information regarding death. It clarifies the existing law which conflates responsibility to notify a death with responsibility to notify the disposal of a body. This is a few lines from the Law Commission's report on death burial and cremation—it's called A New Law for Contemporary New Zealand"—that I particularly liked. It says: "… death is the point at which the profane and the sacred collide. It is a natural event yet surrounded by mystery and culture. It is steeped in the physical reality of bodily processes but surrounded by different ideas and philosophies about the long goodbye." Legislation has an important role to play in making the profane or the secular aspects of death easier—easier for the families that are impacted by that death making it more streamlined so that loved ones can focus on the sacred and on the rituals that are associated with death and dying that provide the closure that families need at that point in time and allow them to move on with their lives as quickly as seamlessly as possible when death occurs.This bill aims to do just that. It aims to futureproof the system as well—the system of civil registration of life events—while aiming to strike that important balance between accessibility with the right to privacy. I want to add my voice to members who've gone before me and thank the former Minister the Hon Peter Dunne for the work that he's done on this bill and also the current Minister the Hon Tracey Martin for picking up this bill.For the reasons that I have outlined for the balance that this bill aims to strike and for the fact that it moves us as a nation into the 21st century and allows historical records that have been on paper to be digitalised—for all those reasons I commend this bill to the House. Thank you."