SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) : I had about 4 minutes left of my 5-minute call when we were last in Committee on the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. It was the second call I had taken in the Committee stage; from memory, I think it was last Wednesday evening. I was raising the issue that no fraudulent activity or fraud was able to be uncovered by the Government Administration Committee when we considered the bill, although that had been one of the main platforms put forward as the reason for this revised legislation. I also spelt out my view that Dr Michael Cullen had gone through the legislative business before the House going forward to the election and had decided that the Order Paper was a little thin—that it did not have quite enough on it—so he had sent someone off to trawl through old bits of legislation, or legislation passed before a certain point, to find something to fill up the time of the House. We do not know why it was thought necessary to bring this bill before the House at this time.

In my speech I also talked about concerns that submitters had raised at the select committee. One submission in particular caught my attention. The submitter asked whether the provisions of this bill breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I did not have the expertise to know whether that was right, and the select committee asked the officials for advice on that. The officials were not absolute in their answer, but, none the less, they gave an answer, and I acknowledge the work they did. The submitter said that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act “guarantees freedom of expression, taken to mean, after the Lange v Atkinson case, freedom of expression within the bounds of honest opinion. Within freedom of expression is the implied right of freedom of dissemination—the right of people to obtain and use previously public information for lawful purposes.” Well, I cannot say whether that is correct, but I do know that the person who submitted that view had clearly put a lot of effort in and had done his research. That was his view. We have to ask why we would restrict people’s access to information when that, in the view of that submitter, would breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and when no evidence had been presented to the committee to suggest why that should be necessary.

The National members on the select committee simply concluded that this bill should not be supported. To the best of my knowledge, nothing that has taken place in the debate so far has convinced National members that we should change that view. I note the Minister is about to introduce a number of Supplementary Order Papers in the Committee stage, and I suspect they are more substantial than the bill as submitted to the select committee. I base that statement on the number of clauses covered and the thickness of the Supplementary Order Papers.

In conclusion, I say the only thing the Committee can draw from this process is the fact that the Minister’s bill should never have been submitted in its original form. Either he was merely trying to gather up numbers by introducing amendment after amendment until he got enough people to say yes, or the Supplementary Order Papers will substantially change the bill. We may end up with something that is of some use to the public, going forward. I do not know whether that is the case, because we simply have not had the time to thoroughly examine the amendments and have not had the official advice that would probably be needed in order to determine whether the changes improve the bill. I ask the Minister to explain to the Committee at some stage why the process was hijacked in such a way, and why we need to have such a large number of Supplementary Order Paper amendments. I ask him to explain those amendments in detail, so the Committee can understand the reasons for such substantial amendments. I ask him also to explain why they could not have been open for public submission in the select committee, which is the standard and proper process. I look forward to the Minister’s response in that regard.

DARIEN FENTON (Labour) : I would like to defend the select committee process on this bill, the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill, because members opposite have appallingly misrepresented it—in particular, Brian Connell; the esteemed chairperson of the committee, Shane Ardern; and Sandra Goudie. Actually, the select committee process was a decent one. I have heard members opposite say that it needed to be democratic, and so on, but I say that the process of the select committee is that people come along, put their points of view, and then the committee members consider them, take them into account, and make changes accordingly. I confirm that that is absolutely what happened. So this idea that the Minister has dreamt up a whole lot of new ideas by means of Supplementary Order Papers is just not true.

I can confirm that the Minister wrote to the Government Administration Committee in the middle of the process and suggested some changes, and he has always been absolutely open to workable solutions. He made that clear from the very, very beginning. I can also confirm that some parties in the House, including New Zealand First, the Greens, and United Future, were open to having a sensible discussion about how this bill could be made more workable. But oh no, not the National Party! One need only read the report. That says it all about what the National Party thought. I say to members opposite there is no point in coming into the Chamber and complaining that the Minister did not go along to the select committee and put proposals. We discussed these proposals during the select committee process, and the National Party members chose to vote against them.

I have been very interested to hear National members say this is socialist mischief. Let me quote from the Privacy Commissioner. Let me tell the Committee exactly what the privacy risks are in our current registration of births, deaths, marriages, and relationships. First of all, there is a lot of sensitive information on our registers, such as health and family information, including past and present marital status, and ethnicity. The Privacy Commissioner goes on to state that information held on the death register will include cause of death—for example, syphilis, suicide, or cancer. It will include the place of death—for example, a mental hospital. It will include the place of burial—for example, a Jewish, Catholic, or Muslim cemetery. It will include ethnicity and also the full names of all previous spouses and partners. It will also include sensitive, personal information on the birth registers—for example, whether the named father is in another relationship. The marriage register will also show existence of earlier marriages. If people do not think that is sensitive, it is worth having a discussion on those issues in the Committee.

I do not understand where the Opposition is coming from on this. I have absolutely no idea. I have heard an observation from Brian Connell, who was a member of the select committee on the bill, and I have to say I liked him a heck of a lot better when he was not allowed to speak in the Chamber. Suddenly the ghost that walks has been released, and he was allowed to speak on this very important Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. He said stupid things in the select committee. He said the bill was arrant, bloody nonsense. I have just read out what is on the registers. If the National Party thinks that is arrant, bloody nonsense, I look forward to going out and telling our constituents and the electorate that the National Party thinks it is arrant, bloody nonsense to know whether people’s parents died of a particular disease, and whether people would want that kept to themselves and to have some privacy about it. All of what Brian Connell talked about is “PC mates”. Well, how lame is that? Can he not think of something a little different to say? I loved the fact that Brian Connell and others took credit for the fact that they invited people, some academics, to make submissions on the bill. They did not need to, because by that time we had figured it out, we had worked together with other parties, and we said, yes—as the Minister had always said—that any workable solution was acceptable, and we should work it through. That could have happened with the National Party members, but no, they decided to make a political decision to oppose the bill.

Sandra Goudie: Rubbish! You don’t get it.

DARIEN FENTON: I get it, but Ms Goudie does not get it. She missed out on being part of the solution, and wanted to be part of the problem.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I have to say we did hold the Minister to task and asked what the premise was for this bill. Time and time again he said it was to prevent identity theft. That was an absolute nonsense and he well knows it. We asked the officials time and time again what the problem was that they were trying to fix and constantly they said it was to prevent identity theft. We have to look at the KPMG report because that says that in no way does identity theft have any relationship to access to information from the births, deaths, and marriages register. The premise for the bill was just not there.

I ask members to read the reports in the press. Here is one from the New Zealand Herald that states: “Faced with a walnut-sized problem arising from identity theft, the Government once again reaches for its sledgehammer.” That is exactly what it has done with this legislation.

There were some fantastic submissions—and I am referring to Part 1 of the bill, which we are required to do—and one of those submissions goes to the heart, the nub, of what we are supposed to have in terms of information. It states: “The free flow of information and ideas is the lifeblood of a participatory democracy.”, and that submitter is absolutely right. This is a Government that has forgotten all about one of those fundamental, basic principles of democracy. It is for this reason that freedom of speech is protected by section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, to ensure that everybody has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind and in any form.

The submission goes on to refer to our right to free speech being under threat and says that the warning was sounded more than 70 years ago when Justice Louis Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court said: “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard … when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. … The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” I say that this bill completely undermines our freedom and our democracy. It is death by a thousand cuts and this bill is just one example of it. It is what submitters said right across the board, and in spite of some of the changes that people tried to negotiate, that death by a thousand cuts has not changed.

I note that Darien Fenton talked about the Privacy Commissioner. Well, what did she say about privacy? She actually described access to information as privacy pollution! That is just so bad. What sort of premise is that? What does that say about transparency and openness and the freedoms of democracy? That is what we get from the current Privacy Commissioner. Her idea of access to information is to call it privacy pollution. That is why we now have this current Government in the back rooms looking at how we have access to registers—and there are dozens of them—right across Parliament and at how it can shut down our access to those registers. It is very like the sort of thing a Mugabe regime would indulge in.

It was interesting to see who many of the submitters were who made submissions on this bill. The members of the Trade Union History Project opposed the bill. Sir Geoffrey Palmer expressed grave concerns about the bill, as well.

Hon Tau Henare: Who’s that?

SANDRA GOUDIE: Sir Geoffrey Palmer—goodness me, who was he? He is actually the president of the Law Commission. He had scathing criticism of Labour’s ill-thought-out amendments to the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act, and that is there in the documentation if the public want to take the time to read it. This current Government cannot deny that those criticisms were made by Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

It comes back to this whole stretch about the reason—the premise—for this bill in the first instance. One of the hallmarks of this Government is its inability to do good problem-definition, so we constantly have legislation coming out of this Government with poor problem-definition. We have all of these consequent problems as a result, including the regulatory problems that go with them. That whole compliance area has been a major issue.

What did the Trade Union History Project members say? Actually they did not want to appear before the Government Administration Committee; they just opposed the legislation outright.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) : I want to respond to a couple of things. Firstly, National Party members have said there is no problem with identity theft. Let me give them but four quick, brief examples.

Sandra Goudie: Directly related to information from—accessed from—births, deaths, and marriages registers.

Hon RICK BARKER: Well, let us start with the member who is sitting just along the bench from that member, the member for Hamilton East, David Bennett. He wrote to me on 15 October 2007: “Dear Sir, We have been approached by a constituent Andrew Hansford. Please find enclosed a copy of his authorisation form. Recently Andrew’s brother was able to obtain a copy of Andrew’s birth certificate by filling in a form and paying a $26 fee. He was then able to obtain a driver’s licence from the birth certificate. Could you please advise if there are any plans to make requirements more stringent when obtaining a birth certificate in order to reduce the opportunity for identity theft?”. That letter was from David Bennett, who is in the same caucus as Sandra Goudie.

Now let us look at question for written answer No. 1503 in 2008 in the name of Sandra Goudie to the Minister of Internal Affairs: “How was the birth certificate of a dead New Zealand girl obtained by Laurelyn Smith?”.

Hon Mark Burton: Who was this from?

Hon RICK BARKER: This was from Sandra Goudie, who said this was a complete surprise. This was in February 2008. Although the member has condemned the bill because she says there is no issue with stealing identity and identity theft, and there is no problem with untrammelled access to the records, she wanted to know how a person got that birth certificate. How bright is this? It shows why she is the intellectual genius of the National Party.

There are just two other examples—very important examples—and they relate to the two Israelis who came here and got false passports. They did so on the basis of ransacking our births, deaths, and marriages records. They obtained all of the records, gained access to all of the information, and recreated their own identities in order to steal a New Zealand passport. They stole people’s identities to gain a New Zealand passport fraudulently.

Now Sandra Goudie says that this is no problem. People can steal records, she is still trying to figure out how people get access to the records, and beside her is a member of Parliament who said: “… Andrew’s brother was able to obtain a copy of Andrew’s birth certificate by filling in a form and paying a $26 fee. He was then able to obtain a driver’s licence from the birth certificate. Could you please advise if there are plans to make requirements more stringent …”. I say to David Bennett that yes, there are.

We agree with the member that there is an issue with unrestricted access to the births, deaths, and marriages records. There has to be a balance between access and restrictions, I grant him that. What we have at the moment is open access, with no record of who has been into the records. In this legislation we are saying that identity theft is important to all New Zealanders. As the Government requires people to put important information forward to the registers, the Government is therefore required to have some record of what happens to that information, and we have struck a new balance.

I want to thank those members who made a contribution to this debate to find the best balance this Parliament can get. But I have to say to National Party members that if they are going to continue to deny there ever is a problem, then they are never ever going to see that there is a solution. If Sandra Goudie wants to know what the problem is, I suggest she moves two seats along to sit next to David Bennett and asks him to tell her about the situation that occurred and that she would like to know because she is struggling to find out what the problem is.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : I think it is up to the Greens to cool down this situation a bit by agreeing, in large measure, with both sides. It is true that the original bill seriously affected the traditionally open access to births, deaths, and marriages records, and the National members who have spoken are quite right to say that there was an outcry around the country from journalists, genealogists, historians, and biographers—that was actually the select committee process working. It showed that MMP was working too, because the small parties, like the Green Party and United Future, were involved in the process. Peter Dunne and I presented a joint submission to the Government Administration Committee, we talked to Government officials together, and we helped transform the bill.

The National speakers are right to say that there has been a transformation of key elements of this bill. This is probably the most changed bill that has been before Parliament in a long time, and that is for the better. The bill retains some of the original good elements, and is transformed in terms of the bad elements. Essentially, the changes preserve open access. It is true that in certain circumstances people can close off their records—their birth records and their marriage or civil union records—but only for a prescribed period and on prescribed grounds, and those grounds have to be substantive. One cannot, just on a whim and without giving any reasons, close off one’s records or close them off for life.

I think it is up to us in this Parliament, in what we say in this Committee stage and in the third reading, to make it clear that we do not want regulations that are Draconian, and that determinations have to be on really substantive grounds to close off records. We want records to be closed off only in really difficult situations, such as some of those presented to the select committee. For example, someone who has been beaten up by a former partner, and who has left that partner and has linked up with another partner, does not want the former abusive partner finding out his or her address through finding the new partner’s details on certain records and then perhaps following through to get the new address. That is a real situation, as were, I think, some examples that have been used here today.

Actually, one cannot close off one’s death record. It is a little hard to close off one’s records after one is dead; that is fundamental. The fact that a person may have died of syphilis will be on the death record. The record will not be able to be closed off, and could, theoretically, be linked to that person’s birth record, as well.

We do not need to get too carried away with identity theft, because there are ways to avoid that. The Minister is right to say that having the access register helps monitor that. There are other improvements relating to the Department of Internal Affairs being able to link death records with birth records on its computer database. The matching of the records in this new system makes it very difficult for a person to go down to a graveyard and take something off a gravestone, because it will all come up on the births, deaths, and marriages record in the department if there is something fishy going on. Similarly, with regard to getting hold of birth certificates, I think the system is now tighter. One can get printouts quite easily, but if we want to get a real proof of identity birth certificate, then we have to go through a more rigorous process, so there are various controls.

The other thing is that although there is identity theft, it often occurs because of the incompetence of the various commercial organisations or banks that do not do proper checking. There are plenty of ways to check who people are these days. In fact, everyone is on about a thousand different databases with all kinds of information, so it is very easy to ask people appropriate questions and to check their identity. One of the things that came up at the select committee was that it is not a question of somehow getting Draconian in terms of the births, deaths, and marriages records and excusing those banks that do not do the proper checking.

JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) : I would like to stand with my colleagues in total opposition to this piece of red tape and box-ticking led by a Minister who is totally confused by the issues. Let me try to explain this simply. There are two parts to the problem. The first bit of the problem is this. The public are entitled to access the records of their lineage and their genealogy. Plenty of people want to sort out their whakapapa. I might want to sort out my particular lineage—plenty of people in the Wairarapa want to do the same, and they do not want to be obstructed by unnecessary information. [Interruption] If the Minister in the chair, the Hon Rick Barker, would stop talking so loudly, we could hear ourselves think.

The second part of the problem is this, and this is where the Minister is totally confused. What the Minister’s officials are doing is giving away legitimised original documents to his Israeli friends, and that is the wrong thing to do. One must have a requirement in the legislation that for someone to collect an original document—a certificate of authenticity from the State about a birth, a death, a marriage, a passport, or whatever—that person must provide proper identification, as happens with a gun licence, and as happens with a driver’s licence. That is all one has to do. One does not need to shut down the whole system and lock it down behind great bureaucratic walls for people who want to get access to ordinary information.

There is no reason people cannot get the information. If a person had syphilis, so what? If a person died of cancer, so what? That is a matter of public record, and that is how it should stay. If one wants to sort out one’s birth record, one can go to any church in the country, look up who did what to whom, and produce a particular record for a person. That information is in the public record. One cannot lock it down. This is totally unnecessary box-ticking, red tape, and the sort of legislative arrangement that this country is going to tip this Government out for, because it is bad, because it is wrong, and because it is absolutely misguided. This Government needs to differentiate; if an agency is going to give someone a legitimate certificate that states where he or she was born, or whatever, it is done on the basis that the person getting the certificate provides identification. The State should not cut everybody’s access off to the whole system.

The second fault of this bill, brought to my attention by a resident of Carterton, is that a person who has had a gender change cannot go back to alter his or her birth certificate to provide for that change. I think that that is a hole in the legislation.

Hon Rick Barker: The member is misguided and has been misinformed, and confused.

JOHN HAYES: No, no, the Minister is the one who is confused here. I will again explain to the Minister the confusion he has. There are two issues. One is public access to the public record, and nobody should be denied that. That is why we are opposing the legislation. The second part of the equation is that if one wants to go to the State and get a birth certificate or whatever, then one must provide identification to do that, as happens with a gun licence, a driver’s licence, or anything else. But to shut down everybody’s access to this information is totally wrong, and that is why the National Party is standing against the Government on this. This is why we think that the Government’s legislative programme is poorly thought-out, is wrong, is confused, and is totally unnecessary red tape. I tell the Minister that this is what our community does not want. It wants very clear, simple systems. The select committee process was very unsatisfactory. Many submitters came to the committee, including Geoffrey Palmer, and said: “Look, Minister, with respect, you’ve got this wrong.” The Minister has not listened to any of their suggestions.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I rise to respond to the Minister’s assertions about the confusion that has arisen over the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. Essentially, John Hayes is right. There are two parts to it. One part is about the New Zealand public having the freedom of access to the information that is currently within the births, deaths and marriages register. That has been a time-honoured tradition for many, many years, and that is as it should be. The public should not be shut out from access to that information—I think it is over 100 years for births, and 50 years for deaths. Why do we not leave their access to that information as it was? That is where the sledgehammer came in, because all that was needed was to say that if one wants a birth certificate, instead of just paying $26 and getting an authorised document, which at the moment anybody can do about anyone, then one has to show some form of identification. I know this because I tested the system myself. I gave someone $26 and sent them off for a copy of a document to see what that person would get. What the person got was a properly authenticated document—no identification was necessary and no documentation was necessary.

Why is a whole raft of legislation necessary just to require that some form of identification is shown before an authorised document is issued? It is as simple as that—it is very, very simple. Any amount of information could be given out on a photocopied bit of paper or on a printout. It did not matter; that was all OK. The fact is that properly authorised documents were being given out. How dumb is that? It is simple. It is so dumb to do that, and it is so simple to fix. When one goes for a driver’s licence, one needs some form of ID. When one goes for a gun licence, one needs some form of ID. There is a whole raft of things for which one needs some form of ID. That is all that is absolutely necessary—people just have to wander along with some form of ID and say they need a properly authorised document. Otherwise, people just say they want the information, and the information is handed over. They pay a few dollars and they get the information, which is just a computer printout or a photocopy or whatever. But no, the registry office is handing out authorised documents. That should have been stamped out long ago. And what do we get? We get this monstrous legislation cutting off everybody’s access to information, without jumping through a whole lot of hoops and hurdles, then denying them access to information—some aspects of it for 100 years and some aspects of it for 50 years.

When the media said it is all about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, the media was absolutely right. This issue should have been able to be addressed without having to deal with legislation, because there are legislative guidelines there. The first question asked is “What is the problem that you’re trying to fix?”. I do not think that that question is ever asked of any legislation by this current Government. The second question asked is “Is there another way of addressing the problem?”. Well, I am sure that the Government does not ask that, either. So what do we get? We get this ridiculous legislation where people’s rights are trampled all over for no just cause.

One of the wonderful things about people having open access to this information is that over a period of a number of years 86,000 corrections were made to the registry. It is only because people have access to that information that the information is actually corrected. A lot of the financial and banking institutions that do background checks are in a classic position to provide that very good information to the registry, to make sure that all those corrections take place. There is no way that the registry office would ever be able to do any work around correcting and substantiating the information on that register to make sure it is correct. It is actually the very nature of its openness and transparency that keeps it honest, and I for one applaud that openness and transparency and the honesty that goes with that. I am a huge supporter of that, and I am saddened by the fact that this legislation cuts across the bows of that. I think that is a tragedy, when all that we had to do was to say that next time a person wants an authorised document, he or she will be required to come in with a couple of pieces of documentation. It is as simple as that—no problem. We just need to go through the process and see what needs to be fixed. Let us not bring out the sledgehammer. But that is exactly what has happened, and that is exactly why we are in this position today. We could not get them to see sense.

Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) : I have been listening with considerable interest to the debate tonight. I am aware that we have discussed the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill in our caucus over the last few months. Various arguments have been put to our caucus about why it should not be supported.

I have to say that, listening to this debate, reading the bill, and reading the report, I find that it is completely clear why this Government is in such a state of terminal decline. It is extraordinary, is it not, that valuable parliamentary time is taken up with this interfering, busybody legislation. It is symbolic of the nature of this Government that this bill is the best it can come up with.

Every day on the North Shore—and I know that my colleagues hear the same thing up and down the country, as well—one of the major complaints I hear about this Government is that it interferes in people’s lives and conducts a nanny State type of policy. Often people will not necessarily have a particularly good set of examples to explain it, but they get a sense of interference, of restrictions on their freedom, and of an inability to go about their lives freely and without restriction. This bill, in its small way—I have to admit that this is quite a narrow bill—is completely symbolic of that fact.

You know, thousands and thousands of New Zealanders take great pleasure in researching family records. Of course they take an extremely broad approach. They are not confined just to the narrow circumstances of their parents and grandparents; people follow all sorts of little byways and highways. It is a very active part of social life and social discourse. In fact, it is actually one of the largest categories of Internet research. Reading the report, and, indeed, listening to my colleagues today and also to caucus discussions, I see that it is clear that this bill will interfere with those rights. That is what it will do. It will interfere with the rights of people to do extended research that, as I say, takes them far beyond their close family relatives.

One has to ask oneself why a Government would even want to do that. Why would a Government be bothered introducing legislation that would have such an impact, unless the fundamental motivations of such a Government are to interfere in people’s lives? When I look across at those members on the other side of the Chamber—many of whom, I suspect, will no longer be here in a few months’ time—I see people who think they know better than their fellow citizens, and who take it upon themselves to say that they know best and that they know what is good for people. Well, the citizens of New Zealand are heartily sick of that approach.

The clearest possible demonstration of that was the debate on the Electoral Finance Bill. That debate was completely about restricting the freedom and choice of New Zealanders, about restricting the ability to get engaged in public debate. In a small way this bill represents exactly the same kinds of tendencies and impulses on the part of the Labour Government.

National took this bill very seriously. We had numerous discussions in our caucus on it. We looked at the details of it. We heard numerous reports from our colleagues, and they were clear on it. It was a restriction on freedom, it was a restriction on choice, and it was a restriction on the fundamental right of New Zealanders to live their lives without excessive interference from the Government. My colleagues who have spoken on this bill so far have made those points absolutely clear.

If New Zealanders want to look at a whole range of busybody, interfering statutes, they can do no better than to look, in the dying days of this Government, at the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. They will say: “If this is what this Government is doing, then it is time for this Government to go.”

Hon MARK BURTON (Labour—Taupo) : I move, That the question be now put.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): These are clauses on the title, the commencement, and the principal Act being amended. There will be one debate and three votes.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) : I rise once again to support National’s decision to vote against this legislation. In speaking to the title, we could call the bill a number of things, but I would call it the “Death of our Democracy by a Thousand Cuts and This is Just Another Slice Bill”. It absolutely is so. Openness and transparency is a fundamental principle of democracy, and that is being denied in this bill.

I ask what is driving it. Earlier I mentioned Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who expressed some serious concerns about this legislation. Just for the benefit of members on the other side of the Chamber, I say that he had serious concerns about this legislation, and I will tell members why. The reason was that the access provisions proposed in the bill will not only affect birth, deaths, and marriages registers but also may have other implications for wider registers. With regard to this we can probably bear in mind the driver for this measure, which is partly the view of the Privacy Commissioner, whose new concept of access to information is called privacy pollution.

The other concern expressed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer was that there is no evidence of how much identity fraud in New Zealand is made by access to births, deaths, and marriages records. Indeed, the information required for identity theft can be obtained from many other sources. He is absolutely right. I said previously that the KPMG report on identity fraud made no linkage between access to the births, deaths, and marriages information in the registers. Sir Geoffrey said also that no figures are available as to how many people, if any, have expressed concern about the current availability of information on the births, deaths, and marriages register. The officials had a great deal of difficulty dredging up the half a dozen that might have existed. We are one of the most open societies in the world, and I think it is to our shame that we are starting to shut down on that openness.

As I have said before, there are two aspects of this legislation that in our view are absolutely unnecessary. All of the submitters who opposed this bill were absolutely right in that this bill is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. This is about, essentially, two things. The bill in its current form—the Minister is still putting through Supplementary Order Papers—is denying people that ready and free access to the information on the registers. They should have been able to have free access, and they should still be able to have it. They should be able to get printouts or photocopies of information.

The other problem we tried to bring to the Government’s attention was the fact that anyone can go to the registrar’s office and get an authorised document without providing any form of identification. For some reason, the registrar’s office produces authorised documentation to people who go there just wanting a bit of information. How dumb is that? I cannot understand how those officials could make that connection between providing an authorised document without the person having any form of identification whatsoever.

Identification is required for a driver’s licence, for a gun licence, and for a whole raft of other licences. If people want an authorised document, they should be required to provide some form of identification. I am sure that that could have been done through any other process than legislation. As I have said before, and as the Government seems to ignore completely, one of the first principles of legislation is to identify the problem—define clearly what the problem is that we are trying to fix.

Sir Geoffrey acknowledged that the linkage to identity fraud was essentially dropped, and that the driver was this thing about privacy pollution coming out of the Privacy Commissioner. We should be very, very clear in the first instance what the problem is and define it very, very clearly.

The second thing that the legislative guidelines ask is whether there is some other way that this could be addressed without having to introduce yet another piece of legislation. I feel that this could have been done by a simple requirement through regulations that some form of identification be required if someone wants an authorised document—not if someone wants any other information—and free and ready access to all of that information. But no, this is the sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Internal Affairs) : I want to respond to members and sum up the situation we have now. Firstly, I come back to Sandra Goudie’s point. She says that there is no point to this legislation, that it is unnecessary, and that identity theft is not an issue. I go back to the several examples I gave earlier in the discussion. Her caucus colleague David Bennett, the member of Parliament for Hamilton East, wrote to say that he had been approached by a constituent who was concerned that his brother had been able to obtain a copy of his, Andrew’s, birth certificate by simply filling in a form and paying the fee. The brother was therefore able to obtain a driver’s licence in Andrew’s name. That is what he said had occurred. That is identity theft. Sandra Goudie herself, in a parliamentary written question, asked how the birth certificate of a dead New Zealand girl was obtained by Laurelyn Smith. Again, Laurelyn Smith used that information for fraudulent purposes. Another high-profile case I alluded to was that of the people who used the registers to get information to steal identities and then fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports for Israelis.

The fact is that the information had to be given by law. That is what it required. If anybody turned up, the law required the registry staff to give that person a certificate—an authorised duplicate. There was no other option. The staff could not just change the requirement by their own wish or will; I could not change it by regulation. That was the law, so we had to change the law. We have taken up, by coincidence, the suggestion of John Hayes, who was here earlier. He asked why the people who turned up should not have to identify themselves. Sandra Goudie said the same thing. I say to Sandra Goudie and to John Hayes that that is exactly what the legislation now requires. If people are going to turn up and get a certificate, they have to produce some form of identification.

But I come back to the point that Sandra Goudie has missed. The certificate is not of value in itself. It is the information on it that is of value, such as the name of the person, the date of his or her birth, and the names of his or her parents. From that, someone can start to track back. When that person has the information, he or she then has the ability to steal an identity. It is not the certificate itself that is of value; it is the information that is on it. We require people to give that information to the State, and therefore the State has an obligation to do its utmost to protect the information. That is why, in the future, people will have completely open access to the registers. Nothing will be closed off to them. There will be no limitation on family searches for family members, or on anything like that—none whatsoever. But when people turn up to seek the information, they will have to identify themselves as to who they are and identify the information that they are taking.

If someone wants to access my record, he or she will be able to do that. But when that person does that, his or her name and details will be taken. Sometime later, if I find that that person has been up to mischief and has been doing things with my name, then I will be able to go to the registrar and ask about who has been there. If it happens to be the Hon Mark Burton, I will be able to go to him and ask him what he has done with my information, because I will know he has had access to it. That is the purpose of the provision. We will then be able to track the mischief. It is simple. So we will do as John Hayes suggested. If people want a driver’s licence or a gun licence, then they have to prove who they are. It will be the same in respect of the register.

The other good thing about this legislation is that it will enhance the capability of researchers to get information. At the moment if someone wants to get information from the births, deaths, and marriages register, he or she has to identify the individual names. Because all the information will now be on a computer data sheet, people will be able to do group searches in areas where they could not before. The research ability will be enhanced significantly by this legislation. [Interruption] I want to assure the member who interjects that he is absolutely wrong on that; he has been misadvised.

Sandra Goudie: He’s not wrong. You can’t read.

Hon RICK BARKER: I say to Sandra Goudie and the Committee that we have good legislation. Members have agreed, I think, to a very good compromise: a balance between open access and ensuring as best we can the protection of the identities of New Zealanders who are on that register from theft and exploitation.

There has been a good process on this bill, and I commend the House for that. I recommend to other members on the National side of the Chamber that they read the legislation now and think about their concerns. With the Supplementary Order Papers, I am sure they will find that all of their concerns have been assuaged. This will be good and enduring legislation.