Mixed Ownership Model Bill

Mr Speaker, the Committee has elected to call you to return to the Chamber to give some consideration to a ruling that I have given in regard to a number of amendments that were tabled in the Committee. Let me give some context to that event. You will recall that immediately after question time the House went into Committee. It has for the whole time been debating Part 1. When we returned after the dinner suspension, we commenced to again debate Part 1. There had been some 48 calls at that point on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. At 7.33 p.m. I received a bundle of amendments, which I will table for you for your consideration. I was at that time of the mind to take a closure, given the nature of the debate that had occurred and all of the considerations that one does take. However, I delayed for about another 40 minutes while the Clerk at the Table and I gave consideration to these amendments. I also had the Table Office clerk considering the amendments that had been tabled. It is my view that these amendments are not serious amendments, in that they have marginal changes to wording, in my view, or alter the structure of words, or the phraseology—if that is a word—around the way in which the construction of the various clauses of the bill are laid out. Accordingly, under Speaker’s ruling 115/5 I ruled that they do not substantially make a change to any portion of the bill, and in that regard I ruled them out of order. The Committee has expressed some concern about that and has asked you to give a ruling.

Mr Speaker, I think the Chair has summarised the factual situation relatively well. The point that I would like to put in front of you, and the difference, I think, the Opposition has with the Chair, goes to whether or not the Opposition has the right to move amendments to bring a bill into line with the Legislation Advisory Committee’s recommendations for plain English drafting. It is my view that the Legislation Advisory Committee made—probably 5 or 6 years ago now; it might have even been longer ago—some excellent recommendations, many of which have been taken on by parliamentary counsel, but they all go in the end towards plain English drafting. If you would like to look at the amendment of Mr Little to clause 7(1), the amendment of Mr Chauvel to clause 8(1), or the amendment of Mr Twyford to clause 10, I think that what you will find in each of those cases—and I have pulled out just a sample from the amendments; members have been working on identifying this marginal drafting over quite a period now, and have identified a large number of those—using those as examples, I am not going to pretend that they change the direction of the bill, but they could well make a significant difference in having a plain English interpretation, which would be useful for the public at large and for the courts in the interpretation.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Do other members of the House wish to draw any matters to my attention?

I think the previous ruling, which is correctly relied on, talks about the specificity of the amendments. Mr Mallard has made a case that they were very specifically put together, as has Mr Hipkins, but, in reality, where they do not actually lead you to simply understand what the intention is, they cannot be precisely prescribed, even if you went to Speaker’s ruling 115/4, which talks there about amendments or parts of amendments that are too vague being also out of order. Throughout this bundle of amendments there are references that can only be described as vague. There are also, I think, amendments that do what is proscribed here in the Speakers’ rulings and merely attempt to criticise the bill, and therefore in fact start to deconstruct the bill. It is supposed to be a process that allows amendments to a bill for the betterment of the bill. I do not think that case can be made for some of the many, many amendments that are here in front of us. I think the difficulty that this presents is that if we were to get into this sort of situation, every Committee stage of every bill in the House would be an opportunity for the deconstruction of a bill, and that was never the intention for the Committee stage of any bill’s consideration.

I thank honourable members. I was listening to the debate with some care, actually, because I was aware of the potential for concern in this matter. As I looked at the amendments myself—and I had not had the chance to see these because they were brought into the Committee reasonably late—I opened one in the middle of the bundle, an amendment in the name of Andrew Little, and it says “Subclause 7(1): Subclause 7(1) is amended by inserting the words ‘will amend’ after ‘This Section’ and omitting the word ‘amends’ ”. That is clearly not in keeping with the Speakers’ rulings of the House. That is trifling with words. It is not altering the meaning of the Mixed Ownership Model Bill, at all. It is not an alternative form of words that actually have significance in relation to the bill.

I have not had the time or the chance to go through all of these, but I opened up another one, and it related to omitting the word “its”. Amendments must propose a serious alternative form of words. As I say, the first one I opened would replace “amends” with “will amend”, and I think that is not a serious alterative form of words. Proposing amendments that simply seek to change the order of words in a particular clause, or to substitute words with the same or very similar meaning—amendments that do not offer any significant change in the meaning of the provision—is simply not in order. That is why I feel that the Chair and the Clerk’s Office officials at the Table, who have had the chance to go through all of these, have not been unreasonable in coming to a conclusion that they do not offer any significant change to the meaning of the provisions. That is why it has been ruled, as I understand it, by the Chair that they are not in order, and I would have to support that ruling.

I just flick through the amendments to see what is here, I open another one, and it simply amends by inserting the word “rightful” after the words “insert in its”, omitting the word “appropriate”. They are simply, really, playing with words, and do not alter the meaning of the provisions, and they are not in order because of that. That is why I think I have to support the ruling of the Chair. If I could find among them amendments that had significant impact, I would look at it much more, but I am unable to find any that have such meaning, and that is why I think the Chair’s ruling has not been unreasonable. He allowed time. Believing he would be prepared to accept a closure motion shortly after the dinner break, he allowed another 40 minutes, and he and the officials went through each of these amendments. So his ruling was made after a period of some consideration. That is why I feel that the Chair’s decision is not an unreasonable one, and I have to therefore rule accordingly. So I therefore declare the House in Committee for further consideration of the bill.

In Committee

Debate resumed.

Part 1 Provisions for companies to cease to be State enterprises and to become mixed ownership model companies (continued)