Legislative Reviews › Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill - Cabinet papers and policy review report
- The Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill (link to Parliament website)
- Cabinet papers, policy review report and decisions
- Further information
Introduction
The Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill amended the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act 1995. The Act provides for the registration of information about births, adoptions, changes of name, sexual assignment and reassignment, marriages, civil unions, and deaths. It also provides for public and government agency access to that information and for the issue of birth, death, marriage and civil union certificates. These activities are administered by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, whose appointment is governed by the Act.The Bill introduces amendments to improve the ability of the Registrar-General to collect and verify information for the purposes of the Act, regulate access to that information (incorporating appropriate privacy safeguards and recognising that there are a range of legitimate reasons why people want to access the information), and modernise the Act to take account of technological and social developments.
About the Cabinet Papers relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill
The Minister of Internal Affairs has agreed to the Department posting the Cabinet papers and minutes relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill on its website. This page gives you access to that material. These papers are released consistent with the Official Information Act 1982.Please note that these are Cabinet papers, not Departmental papers, and that they appear on the Department's website for reasons of convenience, because it will be helpful for interested people to find all the material relating to the Bill in one place.
Some of these documents have been reformatted as part of the process of putting them on our website. There may be some minor differences in layout (eg font or page breaks) to the paper documents that Cabinet considered. There are no differences in content.
To read a paper, click on the highlighted title below. The papers are all in .pdf format. You need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You can download a free version from the Adobe site. They are listed in date order, with the earliest at the top.
Identifying Papers
To make it easier to follow, the number and letter code that appears with each paper is the reference number assigned by Cabinet Office. The format of the reference number indicates the type of paper:Min indicates the paper is a minute from a meeting, which contains a number of decisions. Where Min does not appear, in most cases this indicates that a paper from the Minister is attached
(03) Indicates the year in which a paper was considered
EXG refers to the Cabinet Committee on Government Expenditure and Administration
SDC refers to the Cabinet Social Development Committee
LEG refers to the Cabinet Legislation Committee
CAB refers to Cabinet
In general, a Cabinet paper is first considered by a Cabinet Committee, which makes decisions, then by Cabinet, which confirms or alters the decisions of the Committee.
If you would like more information about how Cabinet works, visit http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/cabinet/index.htm
Cabinet papers, policy review report and decisions
In September 2003, Cabinet agreed to a number of amendments being included in the Bill.1. Review of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act: Paper One: Protecting the Integrity of the Registers
Reference No: EXG (03) 51 [1 September 2003]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 138k
2. Review of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act: Paper Two: Disclosure of Information from the Registers
Reference No: EXG (03) 52 [1 September 2003]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 138k
3. Review of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act: Paper Three: Keeping Pace with Changes in Society and Technology
Reference No: EXG (03) 53 [1 September 2003]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 70k
4. Review of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act: Paper One: Protecting the Integrity of the Registers
Reference No: EXG Min (03) 10/2 [3 September 2003]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 171k
5. Review of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act: Paper Two: Disclosure of Information from the Registers
Reference No: EXG Min (03) 10/3 [3 September 2003]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 167k
6. Review of the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act: Paper Three: Keeping Pace with Changes in Society and Technology
Reference No: EXG Min (03) 10/4 [3 September 2003]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 100k
On 8 September 2003 Cabinet confirmed the Cabinet Committee on Government Expenditure and Administration's decisions [Not included on this website].
In October 2004 Cabinet agreed to defer the introduction of the Bill until a policy review of public access to the birth, death and marriage registers was completed. As a result of the passage of the Civil Union Act 2004, the review also considered access to the civil union register. The Department of Internal Affairs report was finalised in April 2005.
7. Review of Public Access to Registers held in the Citizenship Office and Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 455k
On 6 March 2006 Cabinet agreed to further amendments being included in the Bill to introduce a new regime governing public access to birth, death, marriage, civil union and change of name registers, and to address other issues that arose in the intervening period.
8. Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill: Additional Provisions
Reference No: SDC (06) 13 [24 February 2006]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 190k
9. Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill: Additional Provisions
Reference No: SDC Min (06) 3/4 [1 March 2006]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 267k
On 6 March 2006, Cabinet confirmed the Cabinet Social Development Committee's decisions [Not included on this website].
On 27 November 2006 Cabinet agreed to introduce the Bill.
10. Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill: Approval for Introduction
Reference No: LEG (06) 169 [22 November 2006]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 100k
11. Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Amendment: Approval for Introduction
Reference No: LEG Min (06) 26/5 [23 November 2006]
File Format: Adobe Acrobat
File Size: 94k
On 27 November 2006, Cabinet confirmed the Cabinet Legislation Committee's decision [Not included on this website].
