Standing Orders—Suspension

I move, That Standing Order 256 be suspended to permit the introduction of the Business Law Reform Bill to amend: the Building Societies Act 1965, the Commerce Act 1986, the Companies Act 1993, the Co-operative Companies Act 1996, the Distress and Replevin Act 1908, the Financial Reporting Act 1993, the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982, the Life Insurance Act 1908, the Personal Property Securities Act 1999, the Securities Act 1978, the Securities Markets Act 1988, the Superannuation Schemes Act 1989, and the Unit Trusts Act 1960. The purpose of this motion is quite simple. It is to allow the introduction of a Business Law Reform Bill, covering a range of technical amendments to legislation. The reason it is required is that under the Standing Orders an omnibus bill of this sort can be introduced with the consent of the Business Committee, but the consent of the Business Committee is according to near unanimity, and that is interpreted to mean, in effect, all parties. Any one party has an effective veto power within the Business Committee. Although this bill is supported in its present form by all parties except one—that being New Zealand First—it could not be introduced—

💬 Simon Power: France, exercising the veto.

I think the Soviet Union has exercised the most vetoes in the history of the United Nations. I would not want to compare New Zealand First with the Soviet Union. For example, New Zealand First is open all hours, which is more than one could ever say about the Soviet Union. So all parties, other than New Zealand First, were in favour of the introduction of this bill. I believe that it was reasonable therefore to seek parliamentary support via a motion to allow the bill to proceed to introduction and first reading, because it is very widely supported in terms of its removal of compliance costs, its clarification of various statutory provisions, and its consistency between different legislative requirements.

It is supported by the Institute of Directors, the New Zealand Law Society, Business New Zealand, the Investment Savings and Insurance Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Actuaries, the New Zealand Association of Credit Unions, Trustee Corporations Association of New Zealand, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand, and others. It is seen very much as a business-friendly measure. Indeed, business groups themselves, in response to demands from within the business community, suggested a great number of the measures. Assuming the motion is passed, we will probably deal with the first reading in the fourth week of this sitting,or perhaps a little earlier. I think that is all I need to say at this point.

I want to take a call on this matter and bring the attention of the House to an issue that worries me. Firstly, let me make it very clear that National supports this motion and will be voting for it. But I am concerned that we are taking up the House’s time in having to debate this motion at all. That worries me. Normally, convention has it that when the Government puts up an uncontentious omnibus bill, the parties agree to it, and if it contains issues that maybe there is some objection to, then they are taken out. That has happened for, I imagine, as long as you have been here, Mr Speaker, and probably for longer. It worries me that we have now got into a position of having to spend maybe an hour or so of the Government’s time, which is precious enough under MMP, to have this debate so that the Government can do what convention has set down for many, many years.

I want to talk just a little about that aspect, and to do so in the context of the Standing Orders. Quite honestly, I can see the time coming when, if it becomes the norm for the Government to have to put through a non-contentious omnibus bill by way of a motion, then it is likely that a suggestion or a recommendation will be made to the Standing Orders Committee to change the Standing Orders. So rather than the Business Committee operating by total consensus, as it basically is, or near unanimity, in fact maybe we will have to set a figure of a 90 percent majority, or something of that nature. I say that that is bad. If we have to go down that line and get to the stage where the Government finds that we have to address the issue of the Standing Orders and to change convention because one of the smaller parties is holding up something that has worked well for many years, then I think that is unfortunate.

It worries me in the context of, in the main—although I am not a supporter of MMP—the way in which we have set up systems that basically have worked well enough. I know there are some issues we are going through in the Standing Orders now as a consequence of MMP—the number of House sitting hours, etc.—which we will debate at some stage, but it worries me that we have got ourselves into a situation now of having to spend some time debating this matter. I will be very interested to listen to New Zealand First’s contribution. I am sure that Mr Jones will be taking a call to tell the Parliament why New Zealand First cannot agree to this, and why it has gone outside what is the norm to get the Government to the stage where it has had to introduce a notice of motion.

As I have said, normally those bills are not contentious; they are done for a very good reason. Normally, they are put through without much debate at all. Normally, they are agreed to, and they go to a select committee for a quick once-over, come back, and away they go. They are technical bills. There is nothing contentious or political about them. I cannot understand why we have had to go through this procedure. It disappoints me.

One of the things I will say to other parties in this House is that they need to realise that it is these sorts of things that may well one day upset—it is only a little thing and by itself it will not upset our MMP system, but it is one of the reasons that people start saying: “If you can’t get the Government’s legislation through the Parliament, because we have to take into account every whim and wish of small parties, then maybe we will have to go back to address the whole system under which we elect members of Parliament.”

I wanted to make this contribution, because I think that members of the House need to consider that as we do things, particularly where we get to a stage where a Government is forced to bring a notice of motion to put through this sort of legislation, that may have a downstream impact. New Zealand First, and also other parties that may for some reason or another want to try to move outside what has been the norm, need to think very seriously about what they are doing before they take a step that breaks convention. Convention has been set by this Parliament for many good reasons. We need to be very careful about convention before we go through the system of changing it. I do not want us to have to get to the stage where the Standing Orders are changed so that the Government can force something on us. The Business Committee has worked extremely well under the Speaker’s guidance. Indeed, in my view it has worked particularly well since its inception. It will seem a great shame if this becomes the norm, and we may well have to go back and change the Standing Orders so that we have to operate in a different way.

I say to the Parliament, particularly New Zealand First, but to all parties, that where they think something is not working and they want to frustrate the system, they should be careful. I am not trying to be critical, because there may well be a particularly good reason for New Zealand First’s action in this case; I want to take us outside this particular issue and just think more of the general basis and wider ramifications of what we are doing here and what the impact of it may be downstream. Often, as the old saying goes, one does something here and there are downstream consequences later. Maybe one day these things will come back to bite us. I leave that thought with the Parliament as we debate this issue. It is an important issue and one that we will be supporting. However, it is more the principle I wanted to put on the floor of the Parliament today for debate.

I regret to have to tell the senior National Party Opposition whip and the Leader of the House that times have changed under MMP. The days of the National Party and the Labour Party running this House, as they want to run it, no longer exist. We are now under MMP, and minority parties are entitled to have a say. New Zealand First is exercising the right given to members of the House under MMP to do so. Of course, what we are doing here indicates that Mr John Carter has not read the Standing Orders and the report of the Standing Orders Committee and has forgotten the progress of the previous Business Law Reform Bill entirely—a bill of course that was introduced by the National Party under the good old National Party - Labour Party way of doing things, when National was in power, although it was under MMP. However, National, as usual, put it through with the cooperation of the Labour Party, because that was the old boys’ and the old girls’ network. Well, things have changed, and New Zealand First is entitled to express its view under MMP, and rely on the report of the Standing Orders Committee of 1995.

That Standing Orders Committee looked at things like—and this bill really is a Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Members can call it what they like; chalk is chalk, cheese is cheese, and a Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill is a Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, even if one wants to call it something else. Page 49 of the Standing Orders Committee review has a provision about legislative procedures and the Law Reform Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, and I quote: “The committee received strong submissions suggesting such bills should be allowed only for technical amendments or amendments for cognate legislation. ... The Committee agrees that the practice of using a miscellaneous provisions bill (apart from a Statutes Amendment Bill)”—New Zealand First supports the Statutes Amendment Bill—“should not continue ...”. What we are seeing here is the continuation of that process in contravention of a Standing Orders Committee report. It “should not continue and ... the form of any other type of omnibus bill should be closely defined. ... The committee proposes”—on page 49—“that the acceptable practices with regard to omnibus legislation be codified (they are not dealt with in Standing Orders at the moment) and that steps be taken to prohibit some of the less desirable practices that have arisen in recent years.”

I tell Mr John Carter and the Leader of the House that what New Zealand First is doing is totally consistent with the proposals of the Standing Orders Committee. Neither of those gentlemen appears to have read them. I apologise; I am sure they may have read them, but they appear to have forgotten them. They do not want to remember them. We in New Zealand First are here to do our job. We have done our research, and it is very clear that this type of legislation should not be permitted according to the report of Parliament.

Page 50 refers to the scrutiny of bills, and page 51 has the point about law reform or omnibus bills, in paragraph (f): “More than one Act may be amended in a law reform or omnibus bill where those Acts deal with an interrelated topic that can be regarded as implementing a single broad policy or where the amendments being effected to the different Acts are of a similar nature in each case. Further, a law reform or an omnibus bill could also be introduced if the Business Committee agrees to its introduction.”

We did not agree to it—the Standing Orders Committee report made that clear. Those provisions are intended to permit the present practice of introducing customs legislation amendment bills, taxation reform bills, and to allow for the companies reform legislation, for example, to continue. They would not permit Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bills, and some of the contents of recent finance bills. New Zealand First believes that it is acting in total accordance with the Standing Orders Committee report.

We have the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill before the House, which is an omnibus bill. It has nine pieces of legislation in it, and New Zealand First has no opposition to its coming in in that form. As the first two lines state: “This Bill aims to improve the effectiveness of the Department for Courts’ fines and civil enforcement activities.” It has a single motive going through nine bills, and we support it. We do not have a bill before us at the moment; I do not even know whether the Government has drafted it. The quotes Michael Cullen was giving were from May to June 2001. The Government has had at least 2 years to do something, and it has done nothing. We are now into 2003—another 6 months has gone by since we raised this issue in November last year. The Government has had 2½ years to get something drawn up, and, as yet, we have not seen a bill to back up what is proposed.

This House is giving the Government carte blanche to put anything into 13 pieces of legislation. Is that the way this House should work? Is that the way that parties in this House should allow the Government to run the business of this House? It is great for National and the Labour Party, but New Zealand First takes the view that we are here to play a role in this House, and we intend to do so.

If we look at the previous business law reform legislation introduced in 1999, we will see that it was not here for a few months—it did not go down to a select committee and come back a few months later, as suggested by Mr Carter. That bill was introduced and had its first reading on 27 July 1999. The second reading was on 5 October 1999. The select committee issued its report on 2 October 2000—a year later. The date of consideration was 7 November 2000. The date of the Committee stage was 4 April 2001. The date of royal assent was 2 May 2001. That bill took almost 2 years to pass. I am saying that the legislation we have before us could quite easily be introduced on an individual basis. New Zealand First has had an opportunity to read what it believes is likely to be in the legislation, and it does not look too difficult. I have suggested that five items within it should be in the statutes amendment legislation, but that offer has not been taken up.

Of course, what we are also doing is suspending Standing Orders, which must be one of the most crucial constitutional steps for this House to take. One member said once: “The suspension of Standing Orders when it is a contested matter is a very, very serious matter indeed.” He referred, for example, to the Marsden Point Refinery Bill. Who was the member who said it was “a very, very serious matter indeed” on 22 June 1994? It was none other than Dr Michael Cullen, and what is he doing today? He is suspending the Standing Orders to introduce an amendment to the Distress and Replevin Actof 1908. Does anybody know what that is? That is what members of this House are supporting today. This bill should not just be amended, but repealed. I have read the submissions from the Law Society that have been put up on every one of these bills, and I have written to the Minister, giving him my views on it, as well. We are not taking this lightly; we are taking it seriously.

The Distress and Replevin Act was based on an 1868 Act, and we are suspending the Standing Orders so that we can amend it. Why does it need an amendment? Because when the Personal Property Securities Act was passed in 1999, the Distress and Replevin Act was forgotten about. I have acted on the Distress and Replevin Act, so I know what it is all about—it is dreadful legislation, but it is ancient legislation. It is as if we had a 1908 house, which was a run-down sort of a place, with scrim, an outdoor toilet, and all we are doing with this legislation is putting in a new window—we are not doing terribly much. This is a serious objection. It is supported by the Standing Orders Committee report, and we will be opposing the motion.

I note that you found the New Zealand First member’s arguments as compelling as I did, Mr Speaker. I do defend his right to object to the introduction of the Business Law Reform Bill, notwithstanding the fact that I found the arguments for objecting to it rather specious. Firstly, I would say that it is vital for the Business Committee to maintain a policy of unanimity or near unanimity in making decisions. Therefore, if one party of significance is not happy with the decision that the rest of us agree with, then it is entitled to have its objection heard. Having said that, I line up with the Labour Party, the National Party, and every other party in this House in saying that this bill is a good bill, and that it should be allowed to proceed to select committee in the form in which the Government wants to introduce it.

I ask New Zealand First why it is objecting to the bill now when it is substantially the same as the bill that was put before the Business Committee in May 2002, when the committee agreed to the bill being introduced under Standing Order 259. I wonder why it has subsequently changed its position on the bill.

I also ask New Zealand First to explain to all the small-business people out there listening to Parliament today why it is slowing down the process of this Parliament reducing the compliance cost to business that a number of the amendments in this bill will achieve, because that is really the point of an omnibus bill in the business law area. It is designed to bring together a number of small, and often technical, changes to a variety of pieces of legislation, and to package them together so that they can move through the House swiftly, without having to have several separate pieces of legislation involving a lot more time of Parliament and the select committees.

Another question to New Zealand First is why is it trying to discourage employees being able to—

💬 Dail Jones: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not mind a series of questions, but I presume I will be given a call to answer them, otherwise it is out of order.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: No, the member cannot presume anything. He has had his call.

💬 Dail Jones: But he cannot keep asking me questions all the time, knowing I cannot answer them. That is out of order.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Please be seated. He is not addressing the questions to the member. He is addressing them to the party.

In that case, I will invite New Zealand First to reflect on the fact that opposing the passage of this bill puts off removing significant impediments to people saving for their retirement, because there is some very good content in this bill, which removes or reduces compliance costs for employer superannuation schemes. A party that I thought was keen on people saving should reflect on why it is stopping people from saving.

As far as the detail of the bill goes, I am looking forward to the introduction of the bill when I can talk in a more fulsome fashion about the contents of the bill. I would just like to note before the House that many of the amendments contained in the bill have been at the initiative of the organisations directly affected. The friendly societies, credit unions, building societies, and the Investment Savings and Insurance Association are all seeking improvements to their legislation, and I am pleased that Parliament will be able to get on with helping them do a better job for their constituencies and for the country at large. I would like to confirm again that the Green Party will be voting in support of this motion.

Debate interrupted.