Why Oppose the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill
This is not a “regulatory tidy-up” — it is systemic erosion. The Bill bundles major policy changes across births, deaths and marriages, charities, gambling, censorship, electronic identity, fire levies, inquiries, and archives. Behind the language of efficiency, it expands executive discretion, enables bulk disclosure of identity data, allows omissions from legal certificates, weakens censorship accountability, and opens the door to the sale or alteration of public archives and taonga.
Here’s what the Bill really does, why it is dangerous, and how it reshapes public records, privacy, and accountability in ways that will be hard to reverse.
Key Principles at Stake
- Democratic accountability: Omnibus packaging prevents proper parliamentary scrutiny and public consultation on each change.
- Privacy & data sovereignty: Bulk release of identity data and expanded RealMe participation undermine individual privacy and Māori data sovereignty.
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi: Article 2 protects taonga tuku iho — including whakapapa, archives, and mātauranga Māori; Article 3 guarantees equal citizenship. The WAI 262 report affirms taonga and data sovereignty as Treaty-protected; weakening archival integrity undermines both.
- Oversight & independence: Delegations of censorship powers and provisions enabling ministerial suppression of inquiry findings erode checks on executive power.
What This Bill Really Does
- Births, Deaths, Marriages: Allows bulk disclosure of historical register data and permits the Registrar-General to omit information from certificates for undefined “good reasons” — enabling effective rewriting of identity documents.
- Charities: Compels online publication of procedures and decision progress in ways that can chill advocacy and harm small, kaupapa-based and Māori organisations.
- Electronic Identity (RealMe): Lets private or offshore entities become “participating agencies,” vastly widening access to identity data and enabling arbitrary service suspension on vague grounds.
- Censorship law: Delegates core powers from the Chief Censor to junior officers and enables disclosure of information to overseas authorities, with weak safeguards and secrecy via OIA withholding.
- Fire levies: Redefines “dwelling” to include caravans, boats, and immovable structures — a change likely to raise costs for low-income households and rural communities.
- Marriage celebrants: Introduces cancellation powers based on undefined “good character” and “public interest,” risking arbitrary or discriminatory exclusion without robust appeals.
- Public Records Act: Allows the sale of public records (stripping their public status), authorises amendments to public archives, and exempts overseas offices — enabling privatisation, loss, or revision of history and taonga.
- Inquiries: Permits Ministers to delay or present reports with exclusions — a tool for suppressing politically inconvenient findings.
- Gambling: Merged clubs can retain machines; “player tracking” risks surveillance and commercial exploitation rather than genuine harm reduction.
Why This Threatens Accountability and Trust
- Unchecked discretion: Vague tests (“good reason,” “public interest”) hand sweeping power to officials and Ministers with little recourse.
- Privacy erosion: Bulk data release and expanded identity-sharing compromise trust in civic records and digital identity systems.
- Historical integrity at risk: Selling or amending archives enables loss or rewriting of public history — including records central to Māori whakapapa and claims.
- Weaker oversight: Delegated censorship powers and suppressed inquiry reports reduce transparency and democratic checks.
- Regressive impacts: Levy changes and compliance exposure fall hardest on low-income households, small charities, and minority faith communities.
The Bigger Pattern
Bundle, expand, and obscure. By packaging far-reaching changes as administrative tidying, the Bill evades proper scrutiny. It expands executive discretion, loosens safeguards around identity and archives, and introduces surveillance-like features under the banner of harm minimisation — a familiar pattern of erosion in plain sight.
If You Care About Taonga, Privacy, and Democratic Oversight
This Bill is not harmless — it is structural erosion. It makes government less accountable, records less reliable, and communities less protected.
If you believe public records must remain public, complete, and beyond sale…
If you believe identity data and whakapapa deserve strict guardianship, not bulk release…
If you believe inquiries must speak the full truth without ministerial suppression…
Then now is the time to oppose this Bill.
“Archives are the spine of a free society. When governments can sell, amend, or conceal them, truth itself is put up for auction.” — Ukes Baha
Read the full submission: Formal Opposition to the Regulatory Systems (Internal Affairs) Amendment Bill