Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill - First Reading

Madam Speaker,

The Green Party will be supporting this Bill through first reading as on the whole we are in general agreement with what it sets out to achieve.

We appreciate the Government's interest in doing more to prevent identity fraud of the type which led to the conviction of two Israeli spies who stole the identity of an Auckland man in a failed bid to obtain a passport in his name.

I have no idea how widespread such identity theft is in this country, but on the surface it does appear to be rather too easy at present to get hold of birth, death and marriage certificates in someone else's name, thereby giving a criminal or spy a strong platform from which to launch fraudulent activity.

We therefore have no problems with the Government's efforts to do more to regulate the access of strangers to information about any individual.

The Green Party also supports most other aspects of the Bill which are in the most part quite sensible technical amendments to how the information collected about births, deaths, marriages and relationships is managed.

However, where we do have some serious concerns about several aspects of the bill.

The first is in relation to the part of the bill which places a statutory obligation on both parents of a child to jointly notify a Registrar of the birth of a child.

The only exceptions are when there is only one parent at law - this happens with some procedures for assisted reproduction, or where one parent is "unavailable", or where requiring the other parent to sign the form would cause so-called 'undue distress' to one of the parents.

This changes the position from the current law, where the obligation to notify a Registrar rests only with people who are legally guardians of the child at the time of the birth.

If this bill goes through there will therefore be a statutory obligation on fathers of children to make the notification, and an obligation on mothers to jointly make the notification with the father - whether they choose to or not.

Aside from the situation where a woman fears for the safety of herself or her baby, which would probably be covered by the "undue distress" exemption, there are a range of other situations where women may not wish to have the father of their child's name registered.

One is where the woman is in a same-sex relationship, wants her partner to share parental responsibilities, but wants to conceive naturally rather than by assisted reproductive technology. Another is where the woman has a partner of the opposite sex who is infertile, but chooses to conceive naturally to another man. A third is where the woman simply wants to raise a child on her own without any involvement financially or emotionally from another parent.

These are all reasonable choices for women to want to make, and choices that some women do make. Yet with the new section 9 proposed by this Bill, they are not choices that women will be lawfully permitted to make.

Furthermore, section 89(e) of the Act makes it a criminal offence to "having had the relevant provision of this Act drawn to the person's attention, fails or refuses to give any information required by this Act to be given".

Women who choose to refuse to make joint notification with their baby's father to a Registrar, unless they meet the narrow exemption criteria contained in the new section 9 proposed by this Bill, will therefore be subject to prosecution, and to a fine of up to $1000.

This aspect of the Bill is nothing short of draconian - it makes criminals out of women who wish to make choices to raise their children without the involvement of their biological father.

I also have serious concerns about the wide ambit of the new sections 82 and 85A inserted by Clauses 33 and 35 respectively.

The new section 82 gives to the Registrar-General extensive and intrusive powers of inquiry regarding birth information. Those women who choose, for often good reasons, not to have the father's name included on the birth certificate are likely to bear the brunt of those investigatory powers, and have fathers' names registered against the will of themselves and, often, of the father as well.

The new section 85A permits the chief executive of the Ministry of Health to provide health information to the Registrar-General for the purposes of correcting what the chief executive considers to be errors or omissions in the registration of births. It also permits the Registrar-General to "correct" information, apparently without consultation with the parent or parents who have notified a Registrar of the birth.

There is a real danger, that without consultation with those who have notified the registrar, that not only will biological fathers' names be registered against the wishes of the mother and of themselves, but errors will be created rather than corrected as a consequence of this provision.

Because of our deep concerns about these elements of the Bill the Green Party will not promise to support this Bill past this initial first reading tonight.

We hope the Select Committee will look seriously and carefully at the implications of what the bill sets out to do in the area of birth registration, and that organisations with an interest in this area will take the opportunity to make useful submissions on the broader implications of this legislation.

I think we all have to tread a little carefully when Governments put forward legislation which they tell us is merely technical and I hope this bill gets the scrutiny it deserves from the Select Committee and the public alike.