Opposition Grows Re: Births Deaths Marriages Bill

Interaction
Submission from Graeme Hunt

Opposition is mounting against a controversial bill that would see official records of births, deaths, marriages and registrations locked away from public eyes – shifting this information out of reach of researchers, historians, many genealogists and others.

The government bill will render this public information classified unless an applicant meets a series of criteria that would satisfy the register's gatekeeper - a state employee or civil servant – that lawful access is permitted.

Individuals will be able to access their own records and records of immediate family members. Individuals will be able to authorise any other person to access their records. Permission for other "legitimate purposes" will be allowed such as for administering a deceased person's estate.

Restrictions to the information will not apply where the person was born at least 100 years ago.

The bill is titled: Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill. Internal affairs Minister, Rick Barker, is in charge of the bill. Parliament received its first reading of the bill on March 1 and submissions on the bill are due on May 4 2007. (click here to download a pdf of the government bill)

Opposition to the bill is growing by the day. A significant number of respected New Zealand historians and writers state the legislation, if passed, will make the "job of competent historians writing about 20th-century New Zealand difficult, if not impossible".

Journalist and author, Graeme Hunt, told Scoop the bill encroaches on well established principles held sacred within open and free democracies. He sees the latest government move as a clamp-down on the public's right to sight public information. He says it is out-of-step with trends in similar democracies such as the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Scoop Image: Journalist and author Graeme Hunt.

Within the bill, the government states: "Currently, with few exceptions, a person can access any person's registered information. Access is granted if the applicant provides the name of the person whose record is sought. There are few safeguards to protect the privacy of individuals who do not want their personal information made available to the general public or certain persons. Once released the information may be used for any purpose, including the intrusive or unlawful purposes or in ways that are otherwise inconsistent with the intended purposes of the collection of information."

The bill introduces a new framework to ensure that access to "registered information incorporates appropriate privacy safeguards, and is consistent with the purposes of the registers".

The purpose is detailed as:

A source of demographic information and information about health, mortality, and other matters important for government, and An official record of births, deaths, marriages, civil unions, and name changes that can be used as evidence of those events taking place, and also of age, identity, descent, whakapapa, and New Zealand citizenship status.

The bill will create an offence should an individual publish information on the Internet from indexes that were previously obtained. That means it will be unlawful to publish information that is currently contained within databases - professional and private records – so often used and accessed by genealogists, historians, and journalists.

Graeme Hunt is not alone in his opposition to this bill. Scoop understands many other professional groups are preparing a strategy to block this bill from becoming law.

Those organisations include: Book Publishers' Association of New Zealand, New Zealand Society of Genealogists, New Zealand Society of Authors (yet to formally consider it), Press Freedom Committee, Archives and Records Association of New Zealand, Professional Historians' Association of New Zealand/Aotearoa. The Newspaper Publishers' Association is also concerned about the bill, and, professional historians such as Dr Barry Gustafson and Dr Michael Bassett have already publicly voiced opposition to the bill citing the failure of the proposed law to allow open and legitimate historical research to be conducted.

Graeme Hunt said: " The proposed bill would impose unnecessary hurdles on scholarship relating to 20th-century New Zealand. The burden would be greatest (not least in cost) on genealogists and historians. They would not be allowed to inspect the register or extracts from the register, except with the express permission of a family member. This would make independent scholarship extremely difficult.

"Writers would be dependent on other published material and family information, oral history (itself unreliable) and myth.

"History-writing should be transparent and contestable. It would be much less so if this bill became law. The imposition of a fine of up to $10,000 for illegal access to, or dissemination from, a register is draconian and anti-democratic," Graeme Hunt said.

He said the bill is a "savage attack on freedom of expression and freedom of dissemination and is, in my view, as unlawful as it is undemocratic," Graeme Hunt said.

Do you believe a feature of democratic societies is the free flow of public information? Or do you believe the state has the right to lock away factual accounts of births, deaths, and marriages?

1. Introduction

I am an Auckland-based journalist and author, these days self-employed through my own company, Hunt Communications Ltd. I was for many years editor-at-large of the National Business Review.

Since 1984 I have written nine major books and written or edited five others. History-writing is an important part of my portfolio and my works include:

The Rich List: Wealth and Enterprise in New Zealand 1820–2003 (the first edition of which was a bestseller)

Black Prince: The Biography of Fintan Patrick Walsh

Centenary: 100 Years of State Insurance

Rural Challenge: A History of Wrightson Ltd (with Hugh Stringleman)

Hustlers, Rogues & Bubble Boys: White-collar Mischief in New Zealand

Peka Totara: Penrose High School Golden Jubilee 1955–2005

I am a genealogist but, more importantly, an historian. In the course of my research I have drawn extensively on primary records, not least extracts from the register of New Zealand births, deaths and marriages.

I am, therefore, horrified at the proposed restrictions as outlined in the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill now before the House.

If passed, the legislation would make the job of competent historians writing about 20th-century New Zealand difficult, if not impossible, I am, therefore, vehemently opposed to the bill though I applaud efforts to make the register less prone to identity theft.

2. Background

Civil registration started in New Zealand on a voluntary basis for Europeans in 1848, 11 years after civil registration was introduced in England and Wales (1 July 1837). Registration later became compulsory for New Zealand Europeans and was extended to Maori.

It was introduced in England and Wales during a period of rapid change in religious persuasion when only about 40 per cent of churchgoers attended the established church (the Church of England). Many were Dissenters (in England and Wales, mainly Methodists and Congregationalists) or simply ‘non-attenders’

As a result of this, major population increases and huge demographic changes, the traditional system of de facto registration through the Anglican Church –– the recording of baptisms, marriages and burials that had been in force since 1538 –– started to break down.

Civil registration, conducted publicly with full public access to the registers, limited the chance of bigamists and under-age girls marrying. It also identified children born out of wedlock for Poor Law purposes (England and Wales) and estate purposes (England, and Wales and New Zealand).

In New Zealand, as in England and Wales (and later in Scotland and Ireland), civil registration was transparent and public.

3. Use of the registers

For family historians, historical authors and researchers, the open-register policy in New Zealand was a godsend in a country where virtually no census enumerators’ records have been retained (as they have for mainland Britain and the United States). People were able to record the history of families; historians met a key ethical duty of inspecting primary information; researchers were able to ensure that fact ruled over family legend or myth.

The proposed bill would impose unnecessary hurdles on scholarship relating to 20th-century New Zealand. The burden would be greatest (not least in cost) on genealogists and historians. They would not be allowed to inspect the register or extracts from the register, except with the express permission of a family member. This would make independent scholarship extremely difficult.

Writers would be dependent on other published material and family information, oral history (itself unreliable) and myth.

History-writing should be transparent and contestable. It would be much less so if this bill became law. The imposition of a fine of up to $10,000 for illegal access to, or dissemination from, a register is draconian and anti-democratic.

4. Bill of Rights Act

The 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.

The Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill is a savage attack on freedom of expression and freedom of dissemination and is, in my view, as unlawful as it is undemocratic.

5. Press freedom

This bill is an attack on press freedom. Media organisations would not be able to inspect the register without family permission. To check the accuracy of ages, names and facts they would be dependent on second-hand sources.

In nearly all other democratic countries the trend has been to make more information public. In New Zealand, if this bill became law, we would be heading in the other direction.

A feature of democratic societies is the free flow of public information. Autocracies, generally speaking, seek to limit access to public information. For this reason the bill should be opposed as much on principle as on the detail.

It has no clear public-policy objective other than to impose the veil of secrecy on an open society. It should, therefore, be opposed at all costs.

Graeme Hunt – Waitakere City

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