A compromise has been reached on access changes to birth, death and marriage certificates, and the Government will pass significantly weaker than planned legislation through Parliament.
It has been almost a year since Labour ran into trouble on proposals to tightly restrict access to public records, but thisweek it has tabled amendments to its original bill and is confident it has won over enough critics in smaller parties.
Under the changes, open access to the records will broadly remain although someone wanting to search for another person's information will have to go on to a register and show identification.
The person whose records have been searched will be able to find out who has looked at their information.
One of the more controversial aspects of the original bill was the closure of records to people outside wider family members, unless approval was given by the affected person for their records to be examined.
But in the amendments that has been watered down to allow only for a person to ask that their records be closed. That person must have a good reason to do so - perhaps such as threats or harassment.
Greens MP Keith Locke, who campaigned strongly against the original bill after being contacted by upset genealogists and researchers, said he was happy with the changes.
"It retains essentially open access, and you don't have to get the permission of the person to look," he said.
A person who asked to close their records could be granted that only for a certain period, he said.
"There's also a five-year review provision of the legislation to see how it all goes," Mr Locke said.
National and United Future also opposed the original law, and the Maori Party and New Zealand First had been aware of concerns about it.
Last night, a spokesman for Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker confirmed the amendments had been drawn up and tabled and Labour expected to get them through.
Mr Locke said he thought genealogists and historians would be "fairly happy" with the latest version.
