Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well thank you very much Madam Chair. First I just have a bit of statistical trivia for the Minister of Statistics. The Chair told us that Part 1 was debated for two hours. Now we started Part 1 at 9.30 last night adjourned at 10 resumed at 9 and she said we had been debating for 40 minutes today. So I ask the Minister of Statistics: is 70 minutes more than two hours; if not should we have had more debate on Part 1? I dare say we should have because the excuse that we've got a lot to get through is not good enough. The reason we're in extended sitting is so we do have time as a Parliament to scrutinise legislation.Turning to clause 17 there's this question of delegation. It's very clear: The Statistician may delegate in accordance with clauses 2 to 4 of Schedule 6 of the Public Service Act 2020 any of the Statistician's functions or powers under this Act or any other Act". Now the Minister has been very cautious to say "Yes the Statistician can delegate but of course the responsibility will be entirely with the Statistician." So it's almost as though we're eating our cake and having it too here. Anybody can carry out the chief statistician's role. Anybody within the Public Service so long as the process of notification and so on is gone through with can have all of the powers of the chief statistician but there will be no diffusion of responsibility in line with that diffusion of power. This seems to be almost too good to be true. So I wonder if the Minister could explain how it's possible that the chief statistician can delegate to a whole range of people and not lose any accountability whatsoever. And if he's not certain that that's possible perhaps what he'd like to say is that actually yes there's a diffusion of responsibility because actually at some point if an agent a delegate does something and it's not quite what the chief statistician wanted or perhaps the chief statistician couldn't reasonably have monitored the behaviour or activity of the delegate then of course that cast-iron guarantee that all of the accountability will be in place is lost. So that's the first question—you know is it really possible that a delegate can have all the accountability of the delegator? It would seem logically impossible if they're different people. There's got to be some diffusion of responsibility.But second of all and perhaps more importantly if we accept there might be some dilution of accountability maybe it's worth it because there's a benefit. The real question I have apart from whether he really thinks that there's no loss of accountability is: what could be the possible benefit? Why does he want to take the powers of the chief statistician—which are very powerful powers; they're there for good reason so the Statistician can get really good representative data sets so we can understand what's going on in our society. Why would he want to diffuse that? What possible benefit could there be from some other agency having those powers?And final and third question because you never know if you'll get another chance here: who does he think might be an example? Can he give us three examples of the kinds of people that might within the Public Service have those powers from the chief statistician delegated to them? So just to wrap up: does he really believe you can delegate with no loss of accountability whatsoever that the person with the delegated power will really be perfectly controlled by the chief statistician and therefore perfectly accountable? Second of all whether or not he does what is the benefit of this delegation? And thirdly what are three examples of people who might be delegated to?Hon Dr DAVID CLARK (Minister of Statistics): This power mirrors effectively a similar power under the Public Service Act. It is not anticipated to be used often so I cannot give the member three examples and I think you know it's there should it be required. It's appropriate to have those measures there in the law should they be required. But I will repeat for the member I think for about the fourth time now that there is no diffusion of responsibility. There is a clear line of accountability here as is good management practice. The Government Statistician is accountable for every decision made by a delegate. The bill hard-wires in legal obligations regarding independence and confidentiality which apply to any delegate and it is a criminal offence to wrongly obtain data while acting as a delegate of the Government Statistician. Now the member may argue that it's a bit odd to have this in here or he doesn't much like having delegation in here if we don't think it's going to be used. I think it's worth exploring theoretical possibilities having the right framework in place to protect against any harms which might be done should those clauses be required and acknowledge that this is mirroring the Public Service Act practice and mirroring best practice around accountability for responsibilities."