Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I just wanted to add another contribution at this Committee stage because we have heard a lot about this bill being about data protection—and it is indeed—but what has not been covered within the legislation is actually how that data will be protected. We do not know. In fact under the legislation we are permitting the Director-General of the Ministry for Primary Industries to be able to freely disseminate and share this protected data among Ministry for Primary Industry (MPI) officials. There has been an amendment made to new section 74 in clause 6 in that regard but there are further provisions in new section 74G where it outlines situations where the director-general may disclose and use confidential information. In particular if we look at subsection (4) it states that The Director-General may disclose the confidential information to 1 or more of the following persons …"—and I will just go through them—"(a) a government department or statutory body for the purposes of that government department or statutory body:"—that is pretty broad—"(b) an adviser for the purposes of obtaining advice about the agricultural compound to which the information relates: (c) the World Health Organization: (d) the Office International des Epizooties: (e) the Food and Agriculture Organization:". What I am saying though is that this is about protecting data. That data is held and is to be kept confidential and it is the responsibility of the director-general but the legislation provides that the director-general may disclose and share that confidential information to quite a number of bodies. So I would like to ask the Associate Minister for Primary Industries exactly how the director-general intends to—or how he does indeed—keep that information confidential so we can give the agrichemical companies and all of the other applicants the assurance that the commercially sensitive data that they are placing with the ministry is indeed protected. Please I do not want this to be seen as me questioning the integrity of the people within MPI but I think that the public of New Zealand have a right to know exactly how the director-general protects this information. Who within MPI has access to that information? We have heard about a lot of hacks recently—a lot of hacks—and goodness knows surveillance and everything that is going on within the Government—Hon Member: Your imagination's running wild Rino.RINO TIRIKATENE: Ha ha! But this is a very serious point that I raise. Companies—yes it is great that they are getting an extended period of data protection but how indeed is their data being protected when this legislation permits the director-general to freely use his own internal officials external organisations and any other Government department that it might impinge on? How will that data remain confidential? How does it remain confidential so it actually lives up to what the purpose of this legislation is? It is good that we can actually say we apply it in law but we do not want companies to feel that their data may not be protected. I believe it is a fair question to ask the Minister: how will the director-general ensure that the data is protected so it can give confidence to the applicants and companies that will hopefully be adding to the richness of the agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines across our primary sectors? How indeed is that data being kept confidential and safe so that it cannot get into other competitors' hands or other industry rivals who have ulterior motives? Ultimately they all want to make money. They want to devise good things but they want to make money out of it and they need confidence that our director-general is going to keep it safe. Thank you."