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 second time. The Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill confirms and validates 16 orders or regulations made under seven different Acts. The bill must be enacted by 31 December 2012 to avoid subordinate legislation lapsing. The bill was introduced on 30 August 2012 and referred to the Regulations Review Committee on 11 September. The committee asked the five relevant Government agencies responsible for administering the legislation to explain why confirmation or validations of the orders is warranted. The committee was satisfied with the responses it received and presented its report on 26 October, recommending that the bill be passed without amendment.

The committee has noted that the current process for considering subordinate legislation bills allows for only limited scrutiny, and has recommended that these bills be introduced earlier in the year than has been usual in recent years. The Government will work to improve the process for considering this type of bill when progressing the next subordinate legislation bill. I thank the select committee for its thoughtful consideration of this bill.

I rise to support the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill, but I suspect that there are a number of people out there listening today who are wondering what on earth a Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill is.

💬 Grant Robertson: Thousands of them.

Thousands of people are probably wondering what it is. It is a very grand title indeed. So I thought, perhaps, I would give just a little explanation so that they could follow what this debate is. Subordinate legislation bills are introduced every year to confirm and/or to validate what is called subordinate legislation. What is subordinate legislation? Well, in fact, it is regulations and orders that are made by this Parliament. The purpose of this bill is to confirm that subordinate legislation—in this case, regulations and orders—is able to continue, so that it does not lapse. If it has sunset clauses, we confirm that it can continue to carry on and continue in force. This is something that we do each year, and we bring in a bill. Parliament is the one that decides on this, because this is an area where Parliament has already decided that it does not just allow Cabinet to make decisions in terms of the executive making regulations.

This particular bill is covering seven Acts, confirming regulations in them. What are they? The Animal Products Act 1999, the Commodities Levies Act 1990, the Customs and Excise Act 1996, our New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and Social Security Act 1964, the Road User Charges Act 2012, and the War Pensions Act 1954. This bill actually covers those six main areas.

You might wonder what sorts of issues are covered in those particular Acts. Well, if you take the Commodities Levies Act 1990, it makes orders about commodity levies on things like navel oranges, kiwifruit, nashi pears, arable crops, cereal silage, maize, asparagus, and so on.

Then, if you look at what happens under the orders being made under the Customs and Excise Act, you will see that orders are being made on tobacco products and the indexation of tobacco products. The indexation of excise duty is brought about by confirmation of these orders. This is an area that I have particular interest in, because we know that if we do have an increased price for tobacco, we also have a corresponding reduction in the consumption of tobacco. Of course, there are those out there who think that the earth is still flat and that tobacco has absolutely nothing to do with cancer. There are others who have proven over many years that tobacco cigarettes—no matter how many you smoke—are going to be bad for you. The first one is bad for you, and so are the 60 you smoke every day. And so we do know that increasing the excise on tobacco is likely to lead to people stopping smoking.

It has been asked of me over the years why we would want to penalise the poor by putting up the price of tobacco. My answer is: why would we let tobacco companies kill poor people? That is what this product does. It is one of the only products that if you take it is likely to lead to your death. So I totally support raising the excise duty on tobacco, and I would imagine that there are very few people who would be opposed to that. It also deals with the excise duty on alcoholic beverages, but amongst that we also have motor spirits and toothfish, so it is quite a broad-ranging order indeed.

The other one I wanted to talk about is the road-user charges of 2012. This increases road-user charges through an order. This really came out of an experience I had as Minister of Transport. I see Mr Colin King smiling over there; he probably remembers the event very well. You see, when I was Minister of Transport I decided that I would increase road-user charges because there had been one increase in road-user charges on vehicles over 3.5 tonnes since 1989. As you know, road-user charges are the way we ensure that those who drive heavy vehicles help to pay for their share of the roads. I am sure the member for Invercargill will be very aware of the damage that big vehicles do to roads, and particularly local roads down in an area where you have a lot of farming, and you have big vehicles on the road, and the damage they do in cutting out those roads—

💬 Phil Twyford: Especially in Southland.

—particularly in Southland. In fact, there is a major problem in Southland because the funding that goes into the maintenance of local roads in our rural areas has been cut by this Government. You will see the results of that in the years to come, because if you do not maintain your roads and you do not have enough money coming in through your road-user charges and other avenues, you will pay for it in the future when it costs you much more to go back to square one to repair your infrastructure. So road-user charges are the way that we get heavy vehicles to contribute to their cost. In fact, it is my view that they do not completely pay for the damage that they actually do on the roads.

When I was Minister, I decided to increase the road-user charges, and it was actually quite a modest increase in road-user charges—for example, a typical 5-tonne truck would pay an additional $53 every 10,000 kilometres, while a 23-tonne four-axle truck was expected to pay around an additional $198 for 10,000 kilometres. It made up about 10 percent of a truck’s total operating costs. So you can see that the impact it would have had on freight was quite small. What happened because I increased it—one increase since 1989? We had the truckies go on strike. They blocked the roads around New Zealand in big convoys of trucks. They did not like to have an increase in road-user charges.

So I then said, OK, we would undertake a review in the way we set road-user charges, in terms of the notification and what notice is given that the road-user charges will go up. One of the reasons that there was not notification on the particular occasion when I was Minister was that the year before I had increased it very marginally, and had given notice. Within 3 days, there was something like $21 million of forward buying of road-user charges certificates to try to avoid the increase. It is sort of like going out and filling up your car with petrol if you think the excise duty is going to be put up on Budget night, and hoping that you have got a windfall because you have avoided having to pay the extra cost. Of course, there was a famous occasion in this Parliament when one of the Opposition members of the National Party, when we were in Government in the 1980s, decided—

💬 Grant Robertson: Who was it?

—I will not name him—that petrol excise was bound to go up that night in the Budget. He rushed out and he filled up his car, rubbing his hands with glee, only to find the excise duty was put down and in fact he made a loss.

But what came out of my experience in road-user charges is giving notice of setting. This is what came out of that review, and under this order it is set at a particular time and there is enough notice for people to know that it is going to be set, but also mechanisms are in place so there cannot be a whole lot of forward buying to avoid having to pay what is a legitimate cost of vehicles on the road.

This is a standard bill that we have before the House. It validates orders and regulations that are made by this Parliament, and Labour supports the bill.

I am very pleased to add my contribution to the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. I hope that all members of the House support the passage of this bill. It is a small but important bill that validates and confirms orders and regulations under a wide range of legislation.

The bill is considered every year in order to prevent any of the items of delegated legislation from lapsing. The orders and regulations of this bill are generally technical, although we have heard a very eloquent speech from the Hon Annette King and have heard about the variety of things that are in this particular piece of legislation. We have got seven commodity levies to five orders under the Customs and Excise Act. We also, as has been mentioned by Annette King as well, have a set of regulations made under the Road User Charges Act confirmed.

This bill should not take up the House’s time unduly, but it is important that we give the same level of careful attention to this as we do to every bill. I am pleased to support this bill to the House.

It is a pleasure and somewhat of a surprise to take a call on the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. But, as all of the speakers who have spoken so far have indicated, this is a significant bill in the sense that although it has a name that sounds innocuous, if not deadly dull, it does actually cover some matters of significance to New Zealanders. As my colleague Annette King has noted, a bill like this effectively just allows the process of laws and regulations to carry on without having to go through specific legislation for each of them, but where there are levies or consequential actions of legislation, this bill allows those to be continued, validated, and confirmed, as is noted here. But the subject matter of those is, indeed, significant, and my colleague Annette King has mentioned a couple of those.

It is quite notable around the question of tobacco and alcohol that using this mechanism is a much more sensible way of being able to manage the ongoing nature of those levies, rather than, as she noted, the late-night Budget night activities of people desperately finding their way to sources of petrol and cigarettes, for fear of what might happen. I did think the story that Annette King told about the National Party backbencher of the 1980s—

💬 Chris Hipkins: It was a Wellington member, actually.

A Wellington member? We are getting a little more information now about just who this person might be. But that particular member who did that perhaps epitomises that the National Party still has not quite worked out how to do its sums, has not caught up with what goes on, when it comes to the change in the system. Thinking that it was planning ahead, but getting it wrong—that is the National Party through and through.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: Sounds like David Cunliffe.

Jonathan Coleman is interjecting about people being able to do their numbers. I do not think “The Maestro” from Mount Albert should be talking about getting his numbers right. Jonathan Coleman is one person who, when it comes to adding up numbers, should just keep quiet, in my view.

In addition to the Customs and Excise Act changes that Annette King has mentioned, I just wanted to speak briefly on what is clause 10 of the bill, which proposes some changes around the New Zealand superannuation and retirement income rates. This is an area where we have finally seen some action from the National Party, albeit action that is virtually automated on this matter, but certainly ongoing attention to the question of the sustainability of our superannuation has been severely lacking. John Key has continually said that it is not his responsibility to try to deal with these matters, because nothing will occur in terms of the lack of sustainability of the scheme for 10, 15, or 20 years. Although an automated increase as is contained in this bill might be useful, what would be really useful from this Government is if it took seriously the challenge of the sustainability of superannuation in New Zealand, if it actually decided that it was worth thinking about something beyond a 3-year electoral cycle, and if it looked at what we need to do as a country to ensure that New Zealanders are looked after in their retirement. So simply rolling over provisions extending out the rates and benefits within an Act might be one thing. What we would like to see is this Government taking seriously the challenge of providing superannuation into the future for the range of New Zealanders.

We all know in this House that the cost of superannuation will soon exceed the education budget, and we actually need to be taking seriously how we as a country, looking forward to the next generations and the retirement of the baby boomers, will have sustainable superannuation. Putting the head in the sand, as the National Government is doing—the “ostrich economics” approach—is simply not good enough. We need a Government that is prepared to plan for the future, to plan for 20 years out, because that is the responsibility we as parliamentarians are charged with—not just dealing with what is in front of us today but ensuring that tomorrow and in the future we have a sustainable superannuation scheme that can allow New Zealanders to live with dignity in retirement. At the moment the Government has its head stuck in the sand. The only thing it is prepared to do is what is virtually automatic, which is to increase these rates.

There are many other matters in this bill that I am sure my colleagues will refer to in their speeches. We of course support this bill because it is about the efficient running of Government, but the Government needs to ensure that the substantive matters covered in this bill are dealt with in a proper way and with the kind of vigour that New Zealanders would expect from a Government that actually has an eye to the future.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to take a very short call on the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill, which the Green Party will be supporting. As with these sorts of bills from other years, as many speakers have mentioned already today, it just consists of very technical regulations and orders that are extremely uncontroversial.

The Regulations Review Committee’s correspondence showed that all relevant departments considered it necessary to have the regulations in question confirmed or validated. If confirming these regulations will assist with the proper functioning of departments, then it is definitely most worthwhile to support the bill. So it was no great surprise to see that the Regulations Review Committee recommended it be passed without amendment, and we join the committee in thanking the relevant departments for their assistance.

What was more interesting was the recommendation by the committee that the Government examine the viability of introducing bills seeking confirmation and/or validation of subordinate legislation earlier in the calendar year than has been usual in recent years. I think this seems like a very sensible recommendation. If we are going to go through this process every year, it is worth allowing the committees more time to undertake serious scrutiny of the technical issues surrounding the legislation.

It seems to be that more can be substantively accomplished through consideration at the select committee—at least in the first instance—than in a first reading debate. Of course, as others have noted, the annual nature of this process is not necessarily desirable. It is good to see a streamlined debate recommended in the case of these confirmation and validation bills. But that does not necessarily mean that we are still operating as efficiently as we might otherwise do. Charles Chauvel in his speech at the first reading made the very good point that this process undertaken annually is probably not a very efficient use of the House’s time. As he said, it would behove us to try to enact primary legislation that does not require taking time out of the business of the House each year to have bits of it confirmed. If there are major issues with a piece of legislation, we can always deal with that in a more robust way than this yearly exercise makes room for. It seems more efficient to delegate more time for the Regulations Review Committee to scrutinise these sorts of provisions in the course of its business, rather than this slightly onerous procedure that we have now.

I note that other speakers have referred to the changes to the road-user charges. Part of this bill is specifying the rates of road-user charges for distance licences for road-user charge vehicles. Interestingly, the Government’s financial statements are out today, and they show that there was a significantly lower tax take from indirect taxes. That was primarily because of the road-user charges, which were $73 million lower than forecast. So what this suggests is that actually the Government’s most recent change to the road-user charges regime has not delivered the revenue that was expected. That is, in part, probably because road use is down. It has been down for 5 or 6 years. It has not been growing, so there is less revenue coming in from road-user charges and from petrol taxes.

It seems in this particular case that the changes that were made to the road-user charges scheme maybe were very optimistic in terms of the revenue that they would raise. This is going to pose a significant issue for this Government, which, of course, has very, very ambitious highway-building plans that it intends to fund from road-user charges and petrol taxes, which, of course, probably are not going to deliver enough revenue. So now the Government is looking to creative borrowing techniques like public-private partnerships and getting us into some really long-term expensive loans to pay for its motorways.

I would expect that next year we may well be seeing an update to the Road User Charges Act, hopefully, increasing the rates of road-user charges, because, after all of this work that we have just done, it seems that the Government has not got it right and is not going to be getting enough revenue in. It probably should be revisiting its spending priorities, because the spending priorities just do not match up with the demand that is out there in the market. Obviously, if you are making investments for the next decade or two, one would want those investments to be supportive of the sorts of economic development that we are actually going to see in that time.

Aside from that, I do not have much to add. This bill raises no major issues of policy for us. We will be happy to see it pass, although I do expect that we are going to have to see an update to the road-user charges rates in a very short time.

I would like to thank the committee for its careful consideration of the process, and extend particular thanks to Mr Chauvel, who I think has raised very good points about the process, and about the opportunities to improve the process and make it a little more streamlined and efficient. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to take a call during the second reading of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. It is appropriate that we actually do have this tool by which Parliament can approve this legislation.

For a brief moment I will look at commodity levies. They are a process whereby levy payers contribute to the performance of various functions of organisations that they have chosen to support, and that can vary. There are constitutions that back up those organisations, whether they be Beef and Lamb or a horticultural organisation. On that basis, it is very important that those people who are paying the levy have a say as to whether those levies continue or not. That having been proven and supported by the Regulations Review Committee, it is then appropriate that we have this piece of legislation coming through the House so that we validate these regulations again.

On that basis, it is a pleasure to support this bill. We look forward to it reaching through the Committee stage and the third reading.

New Zealand First supports this year’s Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. Amongst other things, the bill would validate this year’s superannuation rate order. This will confirm an automatic increase in the rate of New Zealand superannuation as set out in schedule 2 of the Social Security (Rates of Benefits and Allowances) Order.

For people living entirely on New Zealand superannuation in New Zealand, this will, of course, be welcome, but it is, in fact, hardly enough for a reasonable retirement income for people these days. The rates of increase in power charges, council rates, insurance premiums, and many other basic living expenses indicate that New Zealand superannuation is simply not keeping up with the cost of living. Over the years successive Governments have, in fact, whittled away the New Zealand superannuation entitlement one way or the other. And now I see that Labour wants to increase the age of eligibility from 65 to 67, which is not something that New Zealand First would ever support and which I am sure baby boomers and those looking forward to retirement at the age of 65—especially those who actually need to retire at 65—would not support.

The Government, of course, has not shown its hand on this issue or on superannuation issues generally, and, as a result, there is much speculation in the community about what will happen to superannuation in the future. Baby boomers are likely to get a bad deal whichever of the major parties succeeds in 2014, and I and New Zealand First believe that that amounts to a breach of the social contract. This system is based on taxation and it is based on superannuation being available at 65 and at a rate that equates to at least two-thirds of the average wage. We in New Zealand First do not want to see either of the major parties, or the New Zealand Government generally, resile from that social contract. We think that that is wrong.

In fact, New Zealand First is the only party that can be relied upon to keep the retirement age at 65 with no means testing. You certainly could not rely on those people opposite when it comes to superannuation. The Government has not shown its hand, but that means only that it is not being upfront about what it really wants as far as superannuation is concerned.

New Zealand First is absolutely certain about 65 years being the age of eligibility and no means testing. And, when possible, New Zealand First would increase the rate of superannuation by 1 or 2 percentage points in relation to the average wage, to recognise the hardship that people living entirely on superannuation are now in from the age of 65. We believe that it is affordable well into the future if priorities are well ordered and there is real growth in the economy, but we do think much more is needed.

The issues of overseas pensions and eligibility for immigrants need to be addressed. Immigrants resident for at least 10 years get full New Zealand superannuation, even though they may have made little or no contribution to the New Zealand economy, whereas people who work 45 years in New Zealand will get exactly the same. That does not seem right to us. And then there is the issue of returning expatriates—what is called the silver tsunami—those 1 million people living overseas, half a million of whom live in Australia. Even if a relatively small percentage of those people come back to New Zealand, the impact on the New Zealand superannuation liability is going to be very significant.

To address these issues I have a member’s bill in the ballot system, which is entitled the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income (Pro Rata Entitlement) Amendment Bill, and I would encourage the Government and all members to have a look at it. It means that migrants and expatriates would get New Zealand superannuation only according to their period of residence in New Zealand, and that is something that I think needs to be urgently addressed in this country. By addressing those issues relating to the entitlement rates for migrants and returning expatriates we can make a major contribution to assist with the economic sustainability of New Zealand superannuation, we can therefore improve the rate of New Zealand superannuation for those people who rely on it entirely, and, especially, we can retain the age of 65 years for eligibility for the future, permanently and with no means testing.

New Zealand First does support this bill, but also encourages a much more comprehensive review of New Zealand superannuation than simply confirming schedule 2 of the order, which confirms the automatic increase for superannuation this year.

It is a pleasure to be able to stand and take a short call and to join with members from across the House in supporting this Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill in its second reading. As others have said, this is a bill that confirms and validates various orders and regulations that need to be confirmed by our Parliament. It is a bill that is a formal and technical requirement. It is an annual requirement, and it is one that, even though it is a small bill with a quite grand name, is an important part of our constitutional framework. Therefore, it is a great pleasure, as I said, to stand in support of this bill, which, as I say, has broad support across the House. I commend the bill to the House and look forward to its progress with vigour.

Labour is supporting this Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. Why? Because this is the high point of John Key’s bold and energetic effort to build a brighter future for New Zealand. It is the sharp end, this bill, of National’s programme to transform the New Zealand economy and tackle the big issues.

For anyone who has just tuned in to this debate, my apologies. I want to explain that the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill is a bill that will prevent the lapse or expiry of a number of other bits of legislation that have sunset clauses built into them. It deals with such things as the Animal Products Act, the Commodity Levies Act, the Customs and Excise Act, the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act, road-user charges, and the War Pensions Act. What it does, essentially, is roll over levies, rates of taxation, and rates of payment.

I wanted to follow up, really, on the comments of a couple of other colleagues who have talked about road-user charges, which is one of the bits of subordinate legislation that are covered by this bill. It is worth noting that, as well as rolling over the current set of road-user charges, as this bill does, at this time the Government is actively pursuing raising road-user charges and raising the petrol excise as part of a mad scramble to try to find alternative and additional ways to fund its State highway building programme.

The Government has announced that Transmission Gully is going to be funded through a public-private partnership, which, as has been stated, is really just an elaborate way—and an expensive way, I should add—of borrowing over a period of time. It is a way of front-ending a huge piece of roading expenditure without having to fund it up front out of the National Land Transport Fund. The Government, as well as making it easier to do public-private partnerships, is legislating to make it easier to bring in toll roads. All of this is an elaborate strategy to front-end the biggest motorway building programme this country has ever seen. Nobody would object to that if those mega-motorway projects were seen to be good value. But I think people do object to their road-user charges and their petrol excise going on projects of which a number are white elephants that will be a weight around this country’s neck for a long time to come.

Many of the roads of national significance are of such poor quality. I raise the example of the Kapiti Expressway, which was shown recently in a leaked report produced by the engineering firm Beca Group to have a benefit-cost ratio of 0.2, meaning that, at a cost of about $600 million, it would take that project 30 years to deliver an economic benefit equivalent to about $120 million. That is an indication of the incredibly low-quality spending in the transport portfolio by this Government.

I think that people—including those of the Road Transport Forum, who are not known to be critics of building new roads and motorways. Even the Road Transport Forum recently described the roads of national significance as “gold-plated”. When the Road Transport Forum says motorway projects are gold-plated, that means, I think, that there is clearly something wrong with them.

The other factor that relates to road-user charges—and Julie Anne Genter commented about this—is that revenue from road-user charges and petrol excise is falling, and that is putting additional pressure on the National Land Transport Fund and making it more difficult for the Government to front-end the building of these massive motorway projects. People are driving less, and traffic volumes have been static, if not falling, for a number of years—6 years or so—in New Zealand. It is part of a very well-documented international trend that people are driving less. One of the interesting things about that is that actually the younger generation are driving less. They are choosing to live in downtown urban communities. They rely on the web much more to provide a sense of community and connectedness now, and the car is no longer this universal symbol of freedom and aspiration, especially in our larger cities. For all those reasons people are driving less and road-user charges are generating, and are set to generate, a much smaller and smaller part of the revenue that we need—the $3 billion to $4 billion a year that we are accustomed to spending on our transport system.

That raises some real questions, of course. It raises questions about the quality and the value for money of our spending on transport, and it raises for this Government and future Governments real questions about how we will pay for—how we will generate the revenue for—our transport system. It is clear, I think, particularly when we think about what is likely to happen with a move to more and more electric vehicles and more people travelling by public transport, that diesel tax and petrol tax are not in the medium term to long term going to be able to generate the revenue that we need.

Those questions, I think, should be in the back of our minds in relation to, particularly, the provision about road-user charges in this rather tame and unexciting but, nevertheless, necessary bill. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to take a short call on this bill, the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. I am not going to do what the previous member, Phil Twyford, just did and start apologising. This Government has nothing to apologise for. We are very keen, very keen and positive, on what we are continuing to achieve.

As many have noted, this is a bill that goes through in order to validate regulations. I am very pleased to hear that all parties in the House are supporting it. We do not want a repeat of the debacle yesterday, when a certain party decided to vote against a procedural motion on an Appropriation Bill. This really is an opportunity to put regulations in place.

I note, as have others, that this has also seen a change around superannuation and war pensions. I think that will be particularly pleasing to people across the country. Certainly, different members from Tāmaki are happy about that. We want to get this bill through and move on to other legislation. I am happy to support it.

This is a split call. Raymond Huo—5 minutes.

I rise to take a call to support this bill, the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) bills are introduced annually to confirm and/or validate subordinate legislation—that is, regulations and, in this case, orders. As the purpose clause confirms, subordinate legislation has to be confirmed to avoid the effect of provisions—namely, sunset clauses—lapsing or being deemed to be revoked after the lapse of a certain time unless confirmed or validated by an Act of Parliament. That is the reason why we are here this morning.

I am particularly interested, in Part 2, in clause 8, “Commodity Levies Act 1990”, and paragraph (b), on the Commodity Levies (Kiwifruit) Order 2012, which confirms an Order in Council. This order requires kiwifruit growers to pay a levy on fruit grown for export, and Mr Colin King just touched very briefly upon the relevant clauses of the levy. As far as this particular clause is concerned, we can see that Kiwifruit Growers Inc. may then spend this money on purposes, including crop health and protection.

But what this bill does not say is the story behind this, which is that spending money on crop health and protection would be too little, too late because the horse has already bolted. The kiwifruit industry is on the verge of collapse, and that is because of this National-ACT Government’s inaction over the Psa disease.

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: What?

The Ministry for Primary Industries released a report this year—I am just quoting from the report released by the Minister’s own ministry, and I notice that that Minister is shaking her head. That report states that “shortfalls in biosecurity checks … were largely to blame” for the arrival of the Psa vine disease in 2010. The Ministry for Primary Industries’ report also states that “MAF was too slow to respond once the disease was detected,”—

💬 Hon Anne Tolley: Really?

—well, read the report, rather than interjecting on my speech—“staff failed to recognise that kiwifruit pollen could carry Psa and imports from Psa-affected countries should have been halted” immediately. Now the Minister for Primary Industries is the Hon David Carter. It was his ministry that produced this report. So now we have an industry that is virtually a basket case because of the Government’s inaction. Kiwifruit orchards that were worth as much as $400,000 a hectare are now worth as little as a tenth of that. The growers say that this Government needs to take responsibility for the outbreak and help get the growers back on their feet. But the Hon David Carter is washing his hands, and now they blame him, because, collectively, this National and ACT Government has been taking a hands-off approach. Thank you.

I rise to speak to the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill. We in the Green Party are in support of it. It is a process bill. I note that the Regulations Review Committee has suggested that it can be done in a better way, and I think it was very positive to hear the Government saying earlier in a speech that it is prepared to look at how it might be able to streamline it when this same process is undertaken next time. So that is a very positive thing.

I will mention the Commodity Levies Act part of it, as well. It is unfortunate, I think, that there is not at least one more commodity levy mentioned there. We have got navel oranges, kiwifruit, nashi pears, arable crops, cereal silage, maize, and asparagus. The organic sector in New Zealand is able to get absolutely no levies. The organic sector is not funded by the Government either. This Government has chosen not to support the organic sector in getting a commodity levy order in operation so that it could actually be funded for the benefit that it would bring to New Zealand, as does happen in numerous other countries around the world, particularly progressive countries in Europe and Scandinavia.

The organic sector talked to the Government about how the organic sector might get support, and everybody realised that getting another commodity levy in was no small task. We accept that there is inevitably, in the introduction, grower or producer resistance, albeit the growers and producers get a very good benefit once the levy is in and the organisations and their research supporters get the benefit from that. I am looking forward to a time when the organic sector in New Zealand is properly appreciated for the benefit it does from building soils, which are built for intergenerational support and production; for the health benefits that can come from better-quality food; and for the extra, good green jobs it can create from that. That would actually come if there was proper support. It is a shame that this Government, rather than getting in behind and in lieu of a commodity levy order for the organic sector, actually dropped the process where growers could actually get some support towards getting certification into organics and would actually be steered through the course that was needed to do that. It was working, it had good measureables, and initially the Government allowed it to roll over, but it closed it down. Why? Is it partly the fact that it might show up other parts of production because there is actually some best practice that could be shown in that? It is hard to tell, apart from the fact that maybe there was not seen to be that immediate cash cow that we get from one of our other sectors.

The Greens, as I say, support this bill, and we are happy to be part of a cross-House support of it. But the note I have made of organics and the commodities levies, the lack of support, needs to be noted too. We hope that this Government and other parties will end up with a cross-House support for the organic sector as part of the “clean, green” image and brand that has been touted from the Government side earlier in the day. Thank you.

It is my pleasure to take a call on this bill, the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill, today. The purpose of this bill is to confirm and validate subordinate legislation made under various Acts. This bill is required every year. It is a technical bill. Traditionally, all parties in the House support the bill, and this year is no different. We have received cross-House support for this bill.

The Regulations Review Committee endorsed this bill with no changes needed to alter it to bring it back to the House to progress. We did raise the issue that it would have been quite nice to have this bill before the select committee a bit earlier, because we did have a discussion around whether some of the levies and regulations still need to have subordinate legislation imposed on them. It would have been quite nice to have a bit more of a discussion on each one in the select committee before the bill came back into the House.

This bill covers 17 orders of regulations under eight different Acts. It is my pleasure to support this bill to the House today.