Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill

on behalf of the Leader of the House: I move, That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to nominate that the bill be referred to the Regulations Review Committee, and move that the committee report to the House by 5 November 2012.

This is a routine and technical bill—it comes before the House every year—but it is a very important bill all the same. The bill confirms or validates items of subordinate legislation that must be confirmed or validated by Parliament. This is a requirement of the empowering Acts under which the various orders or regulations have been made. The role played by the House in confirming or validating various items, and, in particular, the scrutiny provided by the Regulations Review Committee, provides an additional layer of protection in the regulation-making process. Should the House decide to withhold its approval for a particular regulation or order contained in the bill, that regulation or order will lapse. That said, this bill traditionally receives cross-party support.

All of the orders and regulations in this year’s bill are certainly of a technical character. There are 16 orders or regulations listed in the bill that are to be confirmed or validated, and they have been made under seven different Acts. I shall provide for the benefit of the House a brief summary of each instrument confirmed or validated by the bill.

One set of regulations, made under the Animal Products Act 1999, is confirmed. These regulations clarify that all fees, charges, and levies under the principal regulations are GST-inclusive. They also replace part of a schedule providing for unit charges, hourly rates, and call-out charges payable in respect of the export of live animals and animal germ plasm. I have not come across germ plasm before, I do not think. Seven commodity levies are confirmed. They are a levy on navel oranges sold or exported as fresh fruit—as opposed to air force oranges, which is a different category altogether—a levy on kiwifruit exported to countries other than Australia, a levy on nashi pears exported or sold fresh in New Zealand, a levy on all arable crops except maize grain and maize or cereal silage grown in New Zealand, a levy on cereal silage and maize seed, and a levy on asparagus.

Five orders are made under the Customs and Excise Act 1996. They are confirmed. Rates of excise and excise-equivalent duties imposed on tobacco products and alcoholic beverages are adjusted annually to reflect the movement in the Consumers Price Index. This bill confirms the duties that were imposed on 1 January 2012 and 1 July 2012 respectively. A 2c per litre increase in the excise and excise-equivalent duties on motor spirits imposed on 1 August 2012 is confirmed. Two orders extending for another 3 years the prohibition on export and import of Antarctic toothfish and Patagonian toothfish are confirmed.

An order made pursuant to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Social Security Act 1964 is confirmed. This order increases most benefits, pensions, and allowances to reflect the 1.77 percent increase in the New Zealand Consumers Price Index from the December 2010 quarter to the December 2011 quarter. It also increases the amounts of funeral grants payable under the Social Securities Act in respect of people who die—fittingly—on or after 1 April 2012. The order also makes some further supplementary increases to the level of superannuation.

One set of regulations made under the Road User Charges Act 2012 is confirmed, and these regulations specify the rates of charges for distance licences, for road-user charges vehicles, and in respect of additional weight carried by combination vehicles operating under the additional licence. Finally, the bill confirms an order increasing war pensions, lump-sum payments, and allowances in line with an increase in the Consumers Price Index. The order also makes further supplementary increases to the level of veterans’ pensions. I commend this bill to the House.

This is an annual ritual, the introduction and first reading of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. Unfortunately, it has become a ritual. The Minister for Courts quite correctly said that these enactments dealt with in the bill are traditionally a matter for cross-party support, and certainly that is not changing today. But what I want to do is try to make some observations about the utility of the process.

I think in the spirit of the House trying to do its job better, there are some ways that we could explore in order to use the time of members more efficiently in respect of this sort of exercise. I was encouraged by the Minister’s motion of referral because I note that it proposes a report-back date of Guy Fawkes Day, 5 November. It might well be that that ought to inspire us to rethink the way in which this legislation is dealt with on an annual basis by the Parliament.

I want members and those listening to have a very clear picture of what will happen from here. This legislation, if it passes its first reading, will be referred to the Regulations Review Committee. The Minister made a reference to the valuable scrutiny that the committee will perform, and that is kind of him. Unfortunately, this is what the Regulations Review Committee will do: it will write to each Minister and department responsible for one of the orders dealt with by the legislation, and the letter that the committee writes to the Minister and to his or her department will ask whether or not there is an ongoing need for the particular order that is being validated or validated and confirmed. The Minister or his or her department will invariably write back and say to the committee that, yes, there is an ongoing need for another year, or whatever the term for the confirmation or confirmation and validation is. The Regulations Review Committee, having no way to test that response, will accept the advice that comes back, and it will report to the House that the enactments referred to in this bill ought to be confirmed or validated and confirmed, as the case may be.

That is the extent of the scrutiny that will come from the Regulations Review Committee, and I can tell the House that as the chair of the committee in this term and the last term. With the deputy chair of the committee from the last Parliament present in the House, he will remember that that was exactly what was done last time.

The problem that we have with this system is that these Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) bills have been enacted by this Parliament for many, many decades. They date back to an earlier era when there just was not the sort of scrutiny that we have now with our committee system. The fact is that the Committee stage in the House is recorded in Hansard, so that people can actually see the detailed level of scrutiny that is performed in respect of legislation. The bills date back to an earlier time when the thinking around subordinate legislation was very different from the way that that thinking occurs now. All we are doing, by dealing with an annual bill like this, is trying to preserve the form of the principle that all expenditure and all revenue raising by the Crown ought to be authorised by Parliament, by the legislature. That is all this exercise is designed to achieve: to preserve the principle and the form of that notion. But, as I have said, it is simply a ritualistic exercise.

Much work has been done on what it costs to run this House per minute. There are various exercises that indicate the expense that the taxpayers are put to as this House operates. There are actually more important and more significant things that we could be doing than dealing with this sort of annual exercise every year, and this is precisely the speech that I gave last year when we dealt with this sort of legislation. It cannot be beyond the expertise of the Standing Orders Committee and the expert advice that it receives from the Clerk to be able to find a better way to deal with this sort of exercise.

I would say that the beginning point ought to be that we should no longer legislate annually to continue with this type of exercise, and we should no longer have primary legislation that requires ongoing confirmation or confirmation and validation, because it is an outdated exercise. There are easier ways to do it. We could just deal with each of these matters in primary legislation, or we could simply delegate a particular power to a Minister to deal with by way of Order in Council and have it scrutinised by the Regulations Review Committee in the ordinary course, which is what generally happens in respect of regulations and new regulation-making powers every year anyway.

We do not need to spend the time of the House every year in this way. Given the report-back date of Guy Fawkes Day, I am hoping that the Regulations Review Committee will agree to report to the House not only in terms of the enactments dealt with in the bill but also to ask that we actually find a better way to use the House’s time, rather than have an annual Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill, which, as I have said, pre-dates the modern scrutiny methods that are now at our disposal and is not, by any measure, an efficient use of the time of the House.

You may have noticed my nimble move across the House then, to rise and take a call on this Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Nearly missed it.

Yes, indeed. Firstly, as a member of the Regulations Review Committee can I acknowledge the chairmanship of Mr Chauvel and also acknowledge the points that he raised. I must admit that this committee, for me, thus far, as a new member of Parliament, has been very much a learning curve.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Straighten your tie up. It’s tucked out to the side.

Oh, it is too. Thank you, Mr Mallard. That was because I moved with such speed across the House. Obviously it was blown under my jacket. In all seriousness, the Regulations Review Committee is a committee that deals with very technical issues, and the chairmanship of Mr Chauvel and his knowledge in this space is certainly very helpful for me personally as a member. So I do take heed of the comments that he has raised and the points that he has made to the House today in terms of the use of parliamentary time. I have heard figures of anything from $500 a minute to $6,000 a minute, in terms of the cost of running Parliament. I am not sure whether that depends on the quality of the speaker at any given time, but I would suggest I am probably somewhere closer to the $500 mark in terms of this particular subject.

The bill itself is a non-contentious bill, as pointed out by the previous speakers, and it gives effect to various orders and regulations and ensures that they are validated so that the business of this House and the orders that this bill deals with can proceed. Traditionally it receives broad support across the House, on the basis that these orders and regulations tend to be routine and very technical in nature. I think that is certainly the case, as acknowledged. If the House were not to validate these orders and regulations or confirm any items of delegated legislation, then they would simply lapse, and that would obviously be an unacceptable situation.

The previous National speaker, the Hon Chester Borrows, stole my thunder to some extent when he alluded to all of the matters that this bill will be dealing with, and I can simply add to that by saying that obviously, in terms of Consumers Price Index, excises, and so forth, the mechanics of this bill really deal in a substantive way with the changes that must occur with these things on an annual basis.

I will conclude by saying that this is fundamentally a mechanism and an uncontentious means by which this House can deal with routine parliamentary operations and give effect to these orders and regulations. I would also like to acknowledge the comments that were made by Mr Chauvel, as I said, and I look forward to this discussion being continued so I can actually get my head around it a little further as to how a more pragmatic system may, in fact, operate. I am certainly open to discussing that. I have no problem with commending this bill to the House.

I too rise to support the referral of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill to the Regulations Review Committee. As a member of that committee I certainly look forward to the opportunity to address, I think, the concern that Charles Chauvel has raised. When I first looked at this particular bill and saw my name on the speaking list, I thought I probably was not going to find a lot that I could say about it. But I am inspired by my colleague Charles Chauvel—as always—because I believe that what he has managed to do is to actually ask the House to confront a serious issue around a bill that might not look, on the surface of it, to raise such a matter.

He talked about what was going to happen to this bill when it went to the select committee. It will go to the Regulations Review Committee, and the committee will resolve to write to all of the Ministers and their departments in relation to each of these particular validation provisions. They relate to the Animal Products Act, the Commodity Levies Act, the Customs and Excise Act, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act, the Road User Charges Act, and the War Pensions Act. So there are Ministers in this House who will receive a letter, I think, from us asking for confirmation that in fact there is an ongoing need for the order or the levy, so that we are able to report to the House that the criteria for confirmation and validation have been met. But I think Charles Chauvel raised a really good point: what is the point of that? We already do that when regulations are referred to the select committee. We do not actually need to have a confirmation and validation process in order for that to occur. So whenever regulations are passed they are referred to the select committee. If we have concerns about any particular elements of them, we scrutinise them and we do write to the departments.

Maybe the question that we want to consider at the select committee—as I say, it never occurred to me that this would be an issue, but having listened to the inspiring contribution of my colleague I am just wondering whether perhaps we should write to ask not just for confirmation that the confirmation and validation requirements are met, but whether each one individually, of itself, should be in legislation that requires this process to occur. If, in fact, it does not require this form of debate and this form of scrutiny, then perhaps something that we could add by way of value in our report back to the House is a proposal that we address this when we debate the primary legislation.

If we look at the dates of the primary legislation, of course, they change in each of these validation bills. For example, we have got the War Pensions Act, which dates back to 1954, and the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act is 2001, but the Social Security Act, of course, is 1964. Then we have got some in the 1990s, but then we have the Road User Charges Act 2012. So there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which regulation-making powers are subject to legislation that requires confirmation and validation in respect of the stated time of lapsing, unless they are either confirmed or confirmed and validated by Act of Parliament.

I actually honestly think that it is time for Parliament to have this debate as to whether this very process is one that is perhaps past its use-by date. As a result of this legislation, we could ask ourselves whether we need a confirmation and validation process, or whether it should be reserved for the very exceptional circumstances. These do not seem exceptional to me: commodity levies around navel oranges, kiwifruit, nashi pears, arable crops, cereal silage, maize, and asparagus. Apart from some of them describing my favourite fruit and vegetables, which would be particularly asparagus and nashi pears—

💬 Charles Chauvel: Cereal silage!

Cereal silage is not something that really has found its way into my diet. It was really just those two, asparagus and nashi pears. But the point that I am making is why them and why not other commodity levies that are applicable, or are they all the levies that are applicable under the Commodity Levies Act 1990?

The other thing that I find extraordinary about this legislation is the same with every other one of these bills that has preceded it. The first job, after setting out the purpose of the Act, which never changes, is to have a clause headed “Validations to prevent expiry do not cure invalidity, etc”. That is to ensure that if there is something else wrong with the regulation, this bill is not a cure-all; it deals with just the question of expiry. Then there is the clause saying the Act binds the Crown. But then we have the repeal clause, and this is the same in every single one of these particular bills. Clause 6 of every single one of them is the repeal clause: “The Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Act 2011 (2011 No 96) is repealed.” But the 2011 legislation would have repealed the 2010 one, and the 2010 one would have repealed the 2009 one, and the 2009 one would have repealed the 2008 one. I think you get the drift. So although the technical niceties, I guess, of the legislative framework would appeal to somebody who does not want redundant legislation sitting on the book, which is something that I have been a champion for for many, many years.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I don’t like redundancy. I don’t like redundancy. This is supporting redundancy.

Regulatory redundancy, Mr Mallard. Perhaps regulatory redundancy is the kind of phraseology for what I actually do appreciate, as a champion for quality regulation and a very good legislative framework. So even though it might meet that test, one does have to come back to the essential question, which is whether we could cure the real problem, which is to address it up front when the legislation is passed. I do not recall any of the debates that we have had on a Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill actually going into the detail of any of the particular orders that are being validated.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I can remember. I can remember.

Well, Trevor Mallard is obviously going to take a call on this and speak for some considerable time on his memory of other examples, which of course will find their connection to this particular one through the repeal clause, because the repeal clause will have had exactly the same effect as the repeal clause does in this particular one.

I did suggest to the whips that it probably was going to be relatively challenging to spend the entire 10 minutes that one has to speak on a bill, on an important debate, on any matter in the House. I did not think that there was going to be an opportunity, really, for me to explore some of these issues, but the fact is that I have managed to do so entirely within the Standing Orders. That is a result of the absolute inspiration that Charles Chauvel does represent in bringing these important matters to the House. I do not know that others can see why these things are so important, but I do think that they are. We are often criticised as a Parliament for not taking the opportunity to address some of the—I do not know—historical ways that we have dealt with things, and not having a modern way in order to address these issues. This process may have been designed to protect against orders being passed that have not been subject to a debate in Parliament. There may be rhyme or reason that applies to that historically. But I seriously do not think any of these particular provisions have been reviewed, and I hope that our select committee, the Regulations Review Committee, can, in fact, raise that with the individual departments when we write to them.

I do support this bill and look forward to it coming to the select committee.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I rise to take a very, very short call on the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill, because I would really like to acknowledge the contributions made by Mr Chauvel and the Hon Lianne Dalziel, and even Mike Sabin, who all rightly pointed out that there are some real issues around the process, and whether or not it is really the best use of taxpayers’ money that Parliament spend a considerable amount of time debating what are just technical amendments.

As the Green Party has looked in depth at the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill and found nothing particularly controversial about it, we are happy to support its referral to the Regulations Review Committee. We would be happy to see an improved process by which the House does not need to debate every single time there needs to be a CPI increase in various things, whether that is the duties on alcohol or tobacco, or whether it is New Zealand superannuation payments. I do think it would be a much better use of our time to talk about some of the substantive policy issues that, unfortunately, do not come before this House for scrutiny—like, for example, the decision to spend billions of dollars on uneconomic motorways, or the funding freeze on Radio New Zealand, whose budget has not been updated to take into account increases to the CPI and is thus actually, effectively, a cut to something that is a fundamental and substantive issue that is important to New Zealanders.

I think that I do not need to restate all the excellent points already raised by the Hon Lianne Dalziel and Charles Chauvel, so I will not take up the time of the House any further. I am looking forward to the debates on other legislation that is coming up today. Thank you. We commend this bill to the House.

You can tell from the discussion in this House the extraordinarily, I guess, controversial and competent discussions we have in the Regulations Review Committee from time to time under our esteemed leader, who gets through, on a bad day, in 15 minutes. None the less, it is a—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Shh! Shh! Don’t tell the whips that.

It takes quite a lot longer than that to get through the real business of the House, though.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: Are you mad? Don’t tell the whips.

No, no, quite clearly the Opposition does not understand the intelligence of our whips, for a start.

It is a great pleasure for me to take a call on the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill at the first reading. The legislation may seem a little spurious to some, but it is one of those tools this Parliament uses to ensure that democracy proceeds in New Zealand in a smooth and proper manner.

I want to take a little bit of time—unlike, I guess, the members of the Opposition—to talk about the reason for these levies and charges that are imposed here and to talk about the relevance of one or two of them, particularly under the Animal Products Act, which looks at charging for inspection, around hourly rates, and vet inspections of animal exports. It particularly relates in this case to our equine industry. The equine industry in New Zealand is about a $160 million export industry. Every one of these 3,500-odd horses that leave the country is inspected under this very piece of legislation, so I think it is very relevant to some parts of our industry. When you look at things like navel oranges or kiwifruit, navel oranges, particularly in respect of Gisborne, are a very important export. The Bay of Plenty, of course, has its kiwifruit. Both of these provide levies back to their parent bodies, which help to develop further the agricultural industry in New Zealand.

Of course, we get on to the Foundation for Arable Research, which deals with almost all of the seed industry in New Zealand in one form or another. I say for the benefit of Lianne Dalziel that she might not have eaten maize silage, but maize silage really is the ruminant variety of muesli, and often they add a little bit of cream or whatever to it. It is certainly a very valuable part of what we do in New Zealand agriculture.

The other thing that particularly appealed to me was that this piece of legislation deals with pensions, and I am just hoping that they will last a little longer. I was intrigued to see that it proposes a 1.77 percent increase to pensions, and I am figuring that in 5 years’ time, when I get to that stage, it will have gone up by about another 9 percent, which I am quite looking forward to. So for me this is a very relevant piece of legislation.

I am not qualified to enter the debate as to whether or not we should be discussing this in the House or whether there are much better ways to do it. I suspect there are much better ways of dealing with this stuff, but, none the less, some of the bits and pieces that are picked up in this legislation are very important not only from a revenue perspective for the Government but from a revenue perspective for all of those organisations that collect levies and fees to enable them to operate, to carry out their research, and to further develop our agricultural industry. So I have no problem commending this piece of legislation to the House, and I look forward to the intense discussion we will have with the Regulations Review Committee on this issue. I commend this to the House and wish it well as it goes through.

New Zealand First also supports this year’s Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. Amongst other things, as we know, the bill would validate this year’s New Zealand superannuation rate order, which would increase the rate of New Zealand superannuation, as set out in Part 2, by approximately 2 percent overall. For people living entirely on New Zealand superannuation, this will, even at almost 2 percent, be very welcome. But I think it is hardly enough, really, for a reasonable retirement income these days, when you take into account rates of increase in power, the quite significant increases in local authority rates that we have seen in recent times, significant increases in insurance, for reasons that will be fairly obvious, and many other basic living expenses. It seems to me highly unlikely that an increase of almost 2 percent would realistically cover all of that and a lot more.

In fact, over many years successive Governments have whittled away the New Zealand superannuation entitlement one way or another. As we know, Labour wants to increase the age of eligibility from 65 to 67. The Government has not really shown its hand about what it plans for New Zealand superannuation in the future, and, as a result, there is much speculation about what will happen to New Zealand superannuation in future years. One way or the other, I think baby boomers are going to get a bad deal, whichever of the major parties succeeds in 2014 and beyond. I consider that to be something of a breach of a social contract. We were told decades and decades ago that there was this social contract in the form of a taxation-based system, whereby we would all pay our taxes over our working lives and we would get an entitlement to New Zealand superannuation from tax sources in the future.

The point about this is that that is an undertaking that I think has been breached. It does not matter what people from Labour or National say, people in the community know that it has been whittled away over time and that they can expect the same to happen in the future. In fact, they also know that there is only one party, New Zealand First, which can be relied upon to keep the age of eligibility at 65 years, with no reduction in the rate and the way it is calculated. When possible, New Zealand First would increase the rate by at least 1 or 2 percentage points in relation to the average wage, to recognise the hardship that we all know that people who are living entirely on New Zealand superannuation are suffering. We think, as distinct from the other parties, that this is affordable if priorities are well ordered by the Government and if we get real growth in the economy. I think that is also a priority that both parties have not done very well on. It can be done, should be done, and must be done.

But, in fact, much more is needed too, and there has been a huge silence about some of the main issues surrounding New Zealand superannuation. For example, the issue of overseas pensions and eligibility for immigrants needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed urgently. Immigrants resident in New Zealand for at least 10 years still get full New Zealand superannuation, whereas they may have made little or no contribution to the New Zealand economy. Then there is the New Zealand diaspora: a million people, with half a million in Australia. It is a silver tsunami, which may return to New Zealand at an unknown rate of arrivals in the future. Many of those, even though they may have spent most of their working lives overseas, may qualify and become entitled to 100 percent of New Zealand superannuation.

On the other hand, there are people who are bringing into New Zealand—and are entitled to bring into New Zealand—an overseas pension that they have earned overseas, only to have it deducted under section 70 of the Social Security Act from their New Zealand superannuation, even if it is a contributory scheme that they have earned overseas, whereas KiwiSaver in New Zealand does not get deducted from New Zealand superannuation. So there are many anomalies—those and many more—and too much unfairness surrounding all of those issues, especially for immigrants and expatriates returning to New Zealand, which were not addressed by Labour and are not being addressed by National. That unfairness needs to stop.

Those, however, are detailed issues for another day, but they are urgent. For today’s purposes, New Zealand First is happy to support the bill to validate the superannuation increases, which are so sorely needed, and I just regret that we cannot do more for people who are living solely on New Zealand superannuation. As many of them know, New Zealand First wishes to improve the SuperGold card and other benefits that go with New Zealand superannuation. They cannot rely on either of the main parties to do any of that. Only New Zealand First really looks after people who are reliant on New Zealand superannuation. However, for today’s purposes New Zealand First will be happy to support the bill.

I would like to congratulate Mr O’Rourke on managing to inject a hint of controversy into Parliament’s annual consideration of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill, because that is no mean feat. I have been here for only 4 years, but I seriously doubt whether that has ever been done before.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: It certainly has.

Mr Mallard assures me that it has. Well, as I look up at the packed public gallery at the moment, I realise that this is not a measure that is likely to be detaining viewers at home in front of Parliament TV, unable to tear themselves away from their sets.

Nevertheless, this debate is an opportunity to acknowledge and bring to public attention the work of our Regulations Review Committee. Its tasks are often conducted below the radar and are often seriously dry subject matter. Nevertheless, it does perform a very important function. Although I am no longer a member of the committee, I was a permanent member of the Regulations Review Committee for the whole of the 49th Parliament, and, as Mr Chauvel acknowledged a few moments ago, I was the deputy chair for about 2 years. I would like to think that Mr Chauvel and I worked very well together in that time, and I do acknowledge his sterling efforts.

In fact, Mr Chauvel has retained the role in the 50th Parliament. I am really not sure what crime he committed in order to be saddled with the task for another 3 years, but apparently he enjoys the work. So if chairing the Regulations Review Committee makes Mr Chauvel happy, I want to assure anyone who may still be listening that that makes the rest of his colleagues on all sides of the House delirious with excitement. We are absolutely ecstatic about his willingness. He has taken one for the team and we all commend him for that. When he spoke on this bill earlier in the debate, his enthusiasm for the work was truly enchanting—if, in fact, heroic.

The Hon Chester Borrows outlined the need for the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill to be considered and enacted by the House annually to ensure that various orders and regulations that must be validated or confirmed by Parliament do not lapse. So it is probably worthwhile to write into the record of this first reading debate that the bill validates or confirms orders and regulations under a range of legislation.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Come on! We were promised 2 minutes.

Mr Mallard would like me to wind up. Would you like me to wind up fairly soon? I am being encouraged not to continue. I was simply thinking it would be worthwhile to bring into the public arena the fact that under this bill we are validating or confirming—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: Bring back Martin Gallagher.

Well, he is a fine man. I certainly enjoy his friendship and his support in his new role as a councillor in Hamilton. Yes, I would say to bring him back to many fields of endeavour, but probably not to this House any time soon.

I will try, for the third time, to point out to those who may be listening, and who are wondering what exactly Mr Mallard was trying to say, that the bill validates or confirms orders and regulations under a range of legislation, including—and this is the exciting bit—the Animal Products Act 1999.

💬 Louise Upston: The high point.

Yes, it is the high point of the speech, as Ms Upston has just acknowledged. Also the Commodity Levies Act 1990—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: The deal’s off.

There is more. Wait, there is more: the Customs and Excise Act 1996, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act, which, of course, got Mr O’Rourke so excited a few minutes ago—that is, the 2001 measure—the Social Security Act 1964, the Road User Charges Act 2012, and the War Pensions Act 1954.

I will conclude by saying there are very good reasons for regulations to have expiry dates, and there are equally good reasons for many of them to be renewed each year. Other members have queried today whether this is the best way to do that. I will look forward to hearing whether they can come up with a better way of achieving that objective, but, in the meantime, I have great pleasure in supporting this bill’s first reading.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Regulations Review Committee.

on behalf of the Leader of the House: I move, That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill be reported to the House on or before 5 November 2012.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am getting to my feet only to check with my colleague, who is the chair of the Regulations Review Committee, whether the restricted date is one that has been the subject of discussion and agreement. If he nods, then I will sit down. I am sure the debate, at that stage, will be concluded, otherwise I will keep going.

💬 Charles Chauvel: Having paid close attention to my speech, you obviously—

Well, I apologise to the member. I was drawn away to the Speaker’s office at the Business Committee. It is clear, therefore, from either the nodding or the shaking that we are going to vote one way or the other on this.

Motion agreed to.