Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3)

I move, That the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a second time. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) is an omnibus bill designed to provide a legislative vehicle for minor technical and non-controversial amendments existing—well, you all know this stuff. The current bill contains amendments to 16 Acts of Parliament administered by five different Government agencies. It consists of 87 clauses in total. The bill is a good example of parliamentary parties working together, and I thank members from across the House, who have engaged in the process and will be supporting it forthwith.

I would like to touch on a couple of key things the bill does. Part 8 of the bill amends the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 to establish two Deputy Legal Complaints Review Officers in schedule 3 of the Act, instead of one deputy. The increase in the number of deputies from one to two will assist the current officers in managing the caseload.

An amendment to the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act 1978 will keep members on the edge of their seats. It will increase the maximum prescribed rates of research levy set out in schedules 2 and 3 of the Act. These increases will ensure that the levy rates are sufficient to cover the cost of the research and technology transfer services the levies are intended to fund. This amendment is particularly important, as the levies contribute towards essential research into the effect of the Christchurch earthquake on steel-framed buildings.

An amendment to section 100(2)(b) of the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 will increase the number of members, additional to the chairperson, who may be appointed to the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal from four to five. An increase in the number of members who may be appointed to the tribunal will allow more hearings to be held and improve timeliness.

The bill was reported back by the Government Administration Committee on 19 June, and I thank the committee for its careful deliberations. The committee has recommended improvements to Parts 2, 13, and 15 of the bill, and I endorse those changes. An example of those changes are changes to the amendments to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989. These changes make clarifications around the timing of custody orders to resolve conflicts between changes made to section 108 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act.

Since the bill was referred to the committee for its consideration in February this year I have received requests for, and approved, the inclusion of four additional amendments in the bill. It has also come to my attention that two of the amendments originally proposed for inclusion in the bill are now no longer needed—the first because it relates to a point in time that has passed, and the second because the amendment has progressed through another bill. I intend to move to include these amendments and remove the latter two amendments by way of Supplementary Order Paper 165 at the Committee of the whole House stage. These amendments include minor corrections to the Ngati Porou Claims Settlement Act and the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Act 2008.

The Supplementary Order Paper also proposes amendments to the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008, which I am sure we will hear more about from the Hon Maurice Williamson shortly. It clarifies that the New Zealand Geographic Board can assign two or more names for the same geographic feature or Crown-protected area, which can be used either separately or together in official documents.

I would like to speak on that for a moment as it affects the naming of the city of Whanganui, the principal location of a population in my electorate. Some people would prefer to say “Fanganui”, and to those people who prefer to say “Fanganui” rather than “Wanganui”, we say: “Get the ‘f’ out of Whanganui.” The dialect locally in Whanganui and in Taranaki, of course, puts the “h” before the “w” in the way that they pronounce it. The argument, then, which was pretty hot around the city of Whanganui and greater regions, funnily enough, seems to be one of the most frequently asked questions of the member for Whanganui, which is: “So is it ‘Fanganui’ or is it ‘Wanganui’?”. And if you really want to annoy people from Whanganui, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you found the other night at Bellamy’s, just start pronouncing it with an “f” instead of putting the “h” before the “w”.

The argument seems to suggest, though, that we should have different spellings around the country depending on accent and dialect. Taking that to its logical, or illogical, conclusion, we would end up by having a different spelling in the South Island, where Ngāi Tahu pronounce their “ng” as a “k”. Tūhoe sometimes pronounce the “r” as an “n”, and Tai Tokerau drop the “w” so Whanganui would be “Hanganui”. Then Te Arawa, Tainui, and Tai Rāwhiti prefer a hard “f” sound for the “wh”, as noted above. We should not find—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: How does Hansard write all this down?

They are good—they are good. I will tell you what, they are better than you or I ever said they were. We should find this a major affront. If we do not insist that the “ ’ammer ’and from ’Ampsted ’Eath” spell it accordingly, then we should take cognisance of the fact that dialects do not necessarily have to be reflected to pay due diligence to their users.

I speak as somebody whose name is Borrows, which in the common English meaning of the word means to scrounge or, more politely, to take on loan. It is pronounced as it is spelt. But it does not seem to stop the vast majority of constituents, politicians, and correspondents spelling it and pronouncing it “Burrows”, like the rabbit. So most of my mail is addressed to “Burrows”, as are newspaper attributions and references of the radio and television announcers. Telecom has me in the book under both spellings, because it cannot get it right. Leaders of various political parties and even the Prime Minister have a bit of trouble sometimes pronouncing the name correctly. They are all intelligent and articulate people, and we do not hold it against them that they happen to pronounce one name a particular way, let alone how they would pronounce Whanganui.

The bill proposes a number of useful changes to the statute book that are minor, technical, and non-controversial. I thank the committee for its hard work. I commend the bill to the House.

The Labour Opposition intends to support the second reading of this bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3). We will have a discussion about the level of detail with which we will examine it at the Committee stage. With the late changes and the errors of work on the part of the Attorney-General in his previous work, there will be a discussion about whether we allow those clauses to go forward. My colleagues will no doubt do some consultation over the next 2 or 3 hours, before we get to those particular votes in the Committee stage.

I think it is worth putting on record though that this piece of legislation looks like it will go through its entire process as part of an extended sitting. It is an indication to me that where there is legislation that is non-controversial, there is an opportunity for a bit of extra time to be taken while select committees are sitting, and to progress that legislation in a way that is useful to the House and does not take away time that would otherwise be used for debating matters that would be controversial and which the Opposition would want to oppose.

I know the Attorney-General is a bit sensitive about it. He did not like the idea of two Chambers sitting at once—or the Committee sitting while the House is sitting—from some sort of puritanical perspective. But in the end the National Government overruled him and accepted this process, and I am pleased it is working well.

I am delighted to take a quick call on this Statutes Amendment Bill. I want to focus only on the one issue for which a lot of my time was consumed, and that was the issue that arose 3 years ago now, I would say, out of the city of Wanganui, where a lot of my ancestry, the Williamson family, all came from. As you leave Marton, heading into Wanganui, there is a road called Williamsons Line. I had almost a sort of a conflict of interest, because I have a lot of aunties and uncles who lived in the area. They were pretty angry on one side of the debate. When I met with local iwi and talked it through, they were pretty strongly minded on the other side of the debate that Wanganui actually had an “h” in it for a long time. The electorate that Chester Borrows represents has an “h” in it, the river has an “h” in it already, but the town does not.

The iwi showed me a lot of historic documents, and I even found a book written by an ancestor of mine from the Williamsons, three or four generations back, called For Better or Worse, talking about when they arrived in the area. They spelt the whole place with an “h” back then. Even the local newspaper had an “h” in the Whanganui. So what seemed to me was like this was a huge issue. There were locals who were almost going to secede from the union if we put an “h” in and there were the local iwi and others who believed that the “h” was actually that vital to go in—even though the local iwi, with its pronunciation, does not pronounce it as an “f” when it is pronounced “wh”. To those of you who have heard Tariana Turia speak in the House, she would call it “w’ānau”, whereas most Māori I hear would call it “whānau”. It is just the way that the pronunciation goes in Whanganui.

So if you are not even going to pronounce it with an “f”, there are a lot of people asking why you need to put it in. But I have never seen such emotional commitment from the local iwi. A lot of the elderly ladies who were there had tears in their eyes saying they felt it was that important to them. I came away from my consultation round saying, look, this has got to be a bit of a no-brainer. Why do we not just let people do whatever they want? The Government can do its bit—that over time as stationery runs out or new signage needs to go up, or the district health board needs new signing on its vans, we can stick the “h” in, no problem. And when the road signs need to be replaced, we can stick the “h” in. So the Government could do its bit. But if you are a private sector company and you want to call yourself the Wanganui Hardware Distributing Company, you do not have to. So I came back here full of the joys of spring and thought I had got this nailed and that we would just go with the alternative. You can have it in or you do not have to have it in, and gradually, I think, over time the “h” will become prevalent. I think it will just happen, but it will be by osmosis over time.

I got with my officials and they said: “But Minister, there’s no statute on the book that allows you to have alternative place names.” And I said: “But there is. There’s Egmont/Taranaki and there’s Aoraki/Mt Cook.” They said: “No, no, sorry, Minister, you’re wrong. They’re dual place names.” So you could go with dual—there is a provision in the New Zealand Geographic Board legislation for dual naming. You could call it Whanganui/Wanganui, and that really made a lot of sense. We would call it a double Whanganui, but one would have an “h” and one would not. So I said: “Well, look, why don’t we get something into the New Zealand Geographic Board legislation or the New Zealand Geographic Board (Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa) Act 2008, which says that we can have alternatives—one or the other.” I thought that was pretty easy and we asked how we would do this. We could do it through its own bill, but that will hardly get through the House. It will not be seen as that important and will sit at the bottom of the Order Paper and languish. Or let us stick it through a Statutes Amendment Bill. It will be non-controversial. Well, was I wrong! I was unable to persuade the Greens for nearly 2 years. I sat down with the Greens. I got Tariana Turia to work with the Greens—

💬 Todd McClay: For 2 years?

I did not sit with them for 2 years, no, but I did sit over a period of time and I tried to persuade the Greens. I could not quite understand what their objection was. I did not know why they would not go with alternative names. The good news is that the Greens have now come onside, as they have to for a Statutes Amendment Bill. For those thousands or hundreds of thousands of people listening to the radio this morning on this show, you need to know that for a Statutes Amendment Bill to go through this place it has to have universal agreement—unanimous agreement. If anyone disagrees, it does not get through.

So it is a really special moment in time for me. It will not be my finest hour in politics, but it is still a special hour to have been part of the culmination of a huge amount of work to be able to come here and sit through the second reading, the Committee stage, and, finally, a third reading, hopefully, today of this bill. The people of Whanganui can now rest easy in their beds at night. Those who do not want to use an “h” do not have to; no one is going to make them. Those who do can whenever they like formally. And Government agencies will now be able to begin. I have given them a very clear directive not to just go out and replace everything tomorrow—no need—but over time to replace their letterhead, replace their stationery, replace their signage as it gets broken or is requiring replacement, and put the “h” in. And now the river, the electorate, and, finally, actually the place name will have the coherence that I think local iwi wanted. I thank the House for its time.

As the previous member on his feet, Maurice Williamson, indicated, these Statutes Amendment bills have a special place in the Standing Orders of the House. They are an annual exercise. They are reserved for non-controversial and technical amendments for which there must be unanimity in the House before they can proceed. Standing Order 301(2) provides that if any member of the House objects to any clause in any one of these types of bills, then the clause cannot proceed. That is why the Associate Minister of Justice, Mr Borrows, consults over each of these provisions in advance with all the political parties represented in the House to try to ascertain which proposals from Ministers for these types of technical and non-controversial amendments can go through on that basis. Typically what happens is that the relevant spokespeople will get a folder of those proposals from Mr Borrows’ office, and be asked to consult with their spokespeople inside their parties as to whether the amendments truly are technical and non-controversial.

I think it is fair to say that the majority of proposals are approved, but, obviously, if any member takes objection on the basis that there are policy considerations that ought to be more fully debated by the House, then the proposal comes out. There are other ways that other Parliaments deal with these types of amendments. The Commonwealth Parliament of Australia has a Main Committee that has the powers of the House, but which effectively sits separately from the House in order to deal with non-controversial legislation. I think that is an innovation that has been considered here, but not yet adopted. It seems, at least to date, that we have been able to deal with these sorts of things through this procedure.

I do just want to do something that I thought the Associate Minister of Justice might have done, and that is briefly mention each of the pieces of legislation that are to be amended by this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3). I think it is as well for there to be some record in Hansard of what the House actually proposes to do today. There are 16 statutes that this bill would amend—first of all, the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. Section 38 of that legislation, which is the Act that implements our international obligations to ensure that in our banking and financial system there are safeguards around money laundering and the use of bank deposits and other financial instruments for the purposes of terrorism, would be amended to make it clear that both the customer and his or her representative, if any, must have their identity verified to set up an unnamed account or other facility. The regulation-making power in the Act would be amended so that the ability to declare an entity or class of entities to be a designated business group for the purpose of the Act does not require specifying the composition of the business group. It is a good example of why this sort of thing can be dealt with in this type of legislation. It is entirely non-controversial and sensible and giving better effect to the legislation itself, given some 3 years of experience with the legislation working in practice.

The next Act that the bill would amend is the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989. There is a protective provision proposed to be inserted where custody orders that are currently made under that Act expire automatically when a child reaches the age of 17. This provision would extend that out to the age of 18 by way of an automatic expiry. So there is a protection effectively conferred for those who are aged 17 and subject to such an order. Again, that was clearly seen as something non-controversial and sensible by way of better making that legislation work. It is interesting to note that the Government Administration Committee clarified, when it dealt with the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3), that such orders would expire at the age of 18 unless they are specified to expire earlier. So there was that clarification by the committee, and I believe that is going to be approved by the House.

The next piece of legislation to be amended is the Dumping and Countervailing Duties Act 1988. There is a provision for the refund of excess anti-dumping duty paid. That is obviously a sensible provision. If somebody is subject to a penalty under the anti-dumping legislation, which again is legislation that implements our international obligations in the trade context, then there obviously ought to be a power to refund an improperly levied duty.

Then the Electricity Industry Act 2010 will be clarified to make it clear that it is on the recommendation of the Minister of Consumer Affairs that the Governor-General makes regulations under section 111 of the Act. That relates to who can be exempted by way of class from the dispute resolution system that is set up by that Act. It was not clear in the original legislation which particular Minister, whether it was the Minister of Energy and Resources or somebody else, ought to be advising the Governor-General about regulations creating exemptions.

Then the Gas Act 1992 would be amended so that the definitions of “distribution system” and “gas distributor” would be changed so as to take account of bypass distribution networks, so that a person that is not only a distributor but also a retailer that provides line function services to itself, effectively, by that dual role that they play in the industry and then sells those services as part of a bundled service supplied to a consumer is actually brought within the definition of a “gas distributor”. Again, a sensible and technical amendment.

The bill also provides for the enforcement of the dispute resolution scheme to continue. Even if a person formerly subject to the scheme leaves it, they none the less can be subject to the dispute resolution scheme.

The Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act 1978 will be amended to increase the maximum prescribed rates of research levy, from $5 to $20 per tonne of goods, and from 5c per kilogram to 10c per kilogram of goods. That is a very sensible amendment and it will have the effect of increasing funding for research and development, which is something that, certainly, members on this side of the House would like to see.

The Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006—at the moment, there is only one Deputy Legal Complaints Review Officer in the complaints mechanism scheme that is set up by that Act. This amendment would allow for a second Deputy Legal Complaints Review Officer to be appointed. Obviously, that will assist to speed up the resolution of complaints under the scheme by allowing the burden and workload to be shared. Again, an amendment to be supported.

Then there are some local government amendments—one, two, three, four in total. They, in turn, amend list tax areas for groups of territorial authorities to clarify that the Auckland Council is the distribution authority for its area. In relation to Christchurch, they are removing the antiquated reference to the Banks Peninsula district local authority, which no longer exists. There are some consequential amendments overlooked in other legislation, and then there is some legislation relating to the Auckland Council specifically. It provides that the Auckland Council cannot dispose of certain property before the close of 30 July 2012 with a current rating valuation of a quarter of a million dollars or more. The current rating valuation is replaced with the term “current market value”.

The Real Estate Agents Act will be amended so that those licensees who have had their licences cancelled voluntarily in the 5 years preceding the time of the application are not prohibited from being re-licensed. The Residential Tenancies Act would be amended to, basically, provide that every registrar and deputy registrar of the District Court is also a registrar of the tribunal, and there are some consequential amendments relating to that provision. The Social Security Act 1964 will have the definition of “work-test married rate” amended. Finally, the amendment to the Veterinarians Act 2005 will extend the expiry date of existing practising certificates for applicants for new practising certificates until the application for the new certificate is determined. They are sensible amendments, and we have the Government’s Supplementary Order Papers, one dividing the bill and the other amending the Geographic Board legislation, which we have heard much about, the Ngati Porou Claims Settlement Act, which is outdated now because of other legislation that has passed, and ditto the Te Roroa Claims Settlement Act 2008. For the reasons I have outlined, which are that these are technical, sensible amendments, they will have the support of the Labour Opposition.

I was not expecting to be taking this call at this particular minute. I thought that the Government might take a call after my colleague Charles Chauvel’s extensive traversing through the detail of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3). I am certainly very pleased that he has managed to get through such a significant number of different provisions that are addressed in the legislation.

While he was speaking, though, I did actually have cause to reflect on the particular change that is proposed to the spelling of a word in the Dog Control Act 1996. I actually found it quite extraordinary, because I could not quite understand why we were omitting the word “thar”—and I presume it is pronounced as “thar”—and substituting the word “tahr”. When I looked it up on the internet I discovered that, in fact, “thar” is an alternative spelling for “tahr”, so it may, in fact, be—

💬 Dr Cam Calder: Yep.

Well, according to Wikipedia it is, so that may not be a very good source, but in both instances the reference to the word is, indeed, to a Himalayan mountain goat. I think the Deputy Speaker, who is in the chair, would certainly agree with that. And given that that conclusion was drawn from the same reference that accepted the alternative spelling, then that may in fact be correct. I am obviously going to have to do some further research on the matter—not that it is going to be of much import when this legislation is passed, because we will be instating the correct spelling, the accepted spelling. In fact this is the spelling that is accepted on the Department of Conservation website.

What I also discovered in my analysis while my colleague was going through such a detailed analysis of the other parts—I really wanted to pick a part that he had not dealt with—was that, in fact, there is an entire tahr control plan dating back to 1993. I suspect that the Deputy Speaker himself has some knowledge of this, given where this is in relation to. Then I discovered, in fact, that the tahr creates significant threats to sensitive alpine and sub-alpine plant communities, and that there is a tahr eradication programme that actually involves inviting people to come and shoot tahr in our country, so it is also part of our visitor programme as well.

💬 Charles Chauvel: In Whanganui it’s pronounced “taarr”.

Thank you, Mr Chauvel. But what I have not got to the bottom of yet is why it is in the Dog Control Act 1996. So that is a little mystery.

I hope that my sharing of the controversy surrounding the correct spelling of the word “tahr” has, in fact, added some levity to an otherwise potentially dull piece of legislation. But the reason, seriously, that I wanted to take a call is really to back up what my colleague said in relation to the importance of Statutes Amendment bills. The reason I mention this is that legislation can take up an awfully long time in the House, particularly when we are coming back to amend things that are relatively minor technical amendments that people agree to. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) as a process is an omnibus bill that is accepted as an omnibus bill because it has the unanimous support of Parliament. I think that is its strength, and it enables us to actually deal with technical amendments that are relatively minor and things that are not controversial but may be significant. But if they are not controversial and there is, essentially, that unanimity about the need to deal with things, then the Statutes Amendment Bill process is a great opportunity for that.

Statutes Amendment bills are not the only exception to the omnibus bill rule, which does not allow for omnibus bills unless there is that common theme. We have a couple of others as well. I have championed what was then known as the Regulatory Improvement Bill. That became the Regulatory Reform (Repeals) Bill. Again, that is picking up a commonality of theme. They might be somewhat more controversial and they may not be the technical amendments that can be dealt with in Statutes Amendment bills, but, in fact, they are all elements of improving the regulatory framework where there is substantial agreement around the House in order to deal with these matters. Having been a Minister of Commerce I can tell the House how frustrating it is to get ministerial colleagues to agree to prioritise something in their work programme when it is a minor amendment but one that might have such a major impact for improving the regulatory framework.

I will just use one example of something that could not fit within the scope of a Statutes Amendment Bill but could fit within the scope of a Regulatory Improvement Bill, if it had been around at the time. That was an amendment to the sale of liquor legislation that would have allowed for people operating in an environment where they were not dealing with the public. I am thinking of one of our very large wineries up in the Hawke’s Bay and the owner of that winery. Because of, I think, an oversight of Parliament in 1989 when the Wine Makers Act was disestablished by the Sale of Liquor Act 1989, a relatively open regulatory framework, a relatively simple regulatory framework, for winemakers was suddenly overtaken by the very detailed provisions of the Sale of Liquor Act, which then had only four licences. I think that that was problematic in terms of imposing a set of regulatory requirements on top of a regime that was never intended for that purpose. A very well-established winemaker, who was not serving wine to the public and who was not selling it at the cellar door, ended up in a regime where he had to have a liquor licence and a manager’s certificate. Even the district licensing authority said “Why are we seeing you in front of us for authorisation for this purpose?”. That is when we realised that there was a significant problem in the legislation.

Getting that on to the agenda of the justice ministry was hugely challenging, because we were just about to enter into some regulatory reform around the sale of liquor. This is going back to 2007. At the end of 2007, or really at the beginning of 2008, I was given the role of Associate Minister of Justice with responsibility for sale of liquor legislation, and the priorities of the ministry were changed. The point I am making is that it is hugely challenging to meet the requirements of Parliament to bring matters to the House as a Minister when you are competing against all of the other urgent attentions that can exist.

So I just really want to endorse the process of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) that we are debating this morning, but also say that there does need to be room for flexibility around omnibus bills. I think that it is possibly time for Parliament to revisit this issue again. The reason I say that is that the original prohibition on omnibus bills covering multiple Acts dates back to the 1980s when it was a process that was abused. A former Prime Minister of this country, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, wrote a book called Unbridled Power, and part of the unbridled power was actually in relation to the fact that the omnibus bill technique was used to cover for massive changes that were never communicated to the public, such as the Social Security Amendment Bill that contained massive benefit cuts and all sorts of other things, or a finance bill, a finance measure, that would in fact cover many, many pieces of legislation. So I am a great supporter of omnibus bills. I do think they need to be constrained so they are not abused, but I think that the Statutes Amendment Bill process is one that has really stood the test of time. I am very pleased that this bill is going to be completing all of its stages today.

It is a great pleasure to rise to take a short call on the second reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3). Statutes Amendment bills have been a feature of the New Zealand system for many, many years. As previous speakers have said, the bills are legislative vehicles for minor technical and non-controversial amendments to existing statutes.

This bill amends 16 Acts administered by eight different departments. The Government Administration Committee received and considered four submissions from interested groups and individuals. The interesting thing among all of the 16 Acts was the issue of the Residential Tenancies Act of 1986. The current law is that each office of the Tenancy Tribunal has a registrar who is the registrar of the nearest District Court or an employee of the Ministry of Justice designated by the chief executive. This bill now provides that every registrar and deputy registrar of the District Court is also a registrar of the tribunal. Apart from that, looking at the issue of the public, the current law is that application must be made to the “appropriate” office of the tribunal, but this bill makes the change so that application can be made at any office of the tribunal, making it easier for the public to make their applications.

Another change is the increase in the number of members on the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal from four to five, in addition to the chair, to allow more hearings and improve the process.

We need to keep laws up to date and we need to keep the law user-friendly, and this bill does that. I commend it to the House.

First of all, with reference to the comments of Chester Borrows concerning getting the “f” out of Wanganui, or not, as the case may be, there is certainly a need for flexibility with regard to the adoption of place names and their spelling. I remember that a long time ago—well, actually, not all that long ago—when I was a student we had a lecturer from the UK who, during a number of lectures, was required to refer to the names of a number of towns in New Zealand with Māori names. When he got to Wanganui he pronounced it as “Wanger-newie”, which resulted in howls of laughter and derision from the students present. But he persisted with his very individual pronunciations of New Zealand place names, and in the end we all just accepted that and got on with it.

That shows that we do need flexibility in this country as to how we name places officially and how they are pronounced. In fact, there is often more than one name, or more than one version of a name, for a place in this country, and I am aware that on the West Coast there are places with, indeed, several names commonly used. I believe that that arises from the fact that some places were actually named after local pubs, of which there were often more than one in the location. Of course, they were also often the founding establishment of the place the name applied to, so that shows, again, that we do need flexibility. As far as I am concerned, I do not mind whether there are several official names for one place, or several official versions of them.

New Zealand First supports the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3), and I do not wish to debate any of the matters of substance in it, or, indeed, to go through the bill part by part. Most of these provisions are pretty common-sense stuff. I note, for example, that in the amendment to the Electoral Act 1993, clause 58 amends section 127A, to allow a party secretary submitting a list of candidates for election to list seats to pay the required deposit by direct credit, and clause 59 makes a similar amendment to section 146F, to allow a party secretary lodging a bulk nomination schedule of constituency candidates to pay the required deposit by direct credit. This is pretty common-sense stuff; the sort of thing that you would have expected would already be possible. Indeed, I am aware that the Justice and Electoral Committee is looking at a number of minor issues just like that at the present time.

So that is the sort of thing that we are looking at here, and they are mostly of a technical nature or of a minor nature, and are appropriate for an omnibus bill of this kind. So, for all those reasons, New Zealand First will vote for the bill, and also for the two Supplementary Order Papers that have been proposed by Mr Borrows.

Statutes Amendment bills are annual bills that oil the process of legislation and provide oil for a legislative vehicle for minor technical and non-controversial amendments to existing statutes. They can be debated only with support across the House, and it is pertinent at this stage to recognise the huge amount of cooperation that goes on behind the scenes in Parliament—a fact that is often overlooked if the public concentrates on the theatre of question time in the House. There is a lot of cooperation that goes on in the House, and this bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3), is one of those shining examples. Bills such as this allow Parliament to keep the law up to date, accurate, and user-friendly. We have already heard in great detail from Mr Charles Chauvel on the individual matters canvassed by this particular amendment bill. I do not propose to peruse the matter further. I commend the bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee