Statutes Amendment Bill

I move, That the Statutes Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. As the House will be aware, the Statutes Amendment Bill is an annual legislative vehicle that makes minor technical and non-controversial amendments to a number of Acts. It allows amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to be progressed. This is achieved with the support of all parties in the Parliament.

The bill as introduced amends 30 Acts administered by nine different Government agencies. Many of the amendments are designed to correct drafting errors and oversights and incorrect references, such as the amendment to section 110 of the Real Estate Agents Act 2008, which clarifies that payments of fines imposed by the disciplinary tribunal should be made to the Real Estate Agents Authority. Previously, the Act did not say who the fines were payable to, and the Real Estate Agents Authority was reluctant to accept payment of the fines without specific statutory authorisation.

The Summary Proceedings Act 1957 currently refers to a section of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 that has been repealed and replaced. The amendment to the Summary Proceedings Act corrects this error by substituting a reference to the replacement section. The amendment to section 134(1)(b) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 corrects a cross-referencing error by replacing a reference to section 131(b) with a reference to section 131(d).

The amendments make unobjectionable refinements to machinery provisions, including two amendments to the Electoral Act 1993, which allow certain payments by a party secretary to be paid by direct credit instead of just by bank draft or bank cheque. A new section inserted into the Passports Act 1992 allows for travel documents such as passports to be cancelled on the death of the holder. Currently, travel documents cannot be cancelled on the death of the holder, which increases the risk that such documents could be used fraudulently after the death of the rightful holder. An amendment to the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 confirms that a registrar can consider objections to licence applications on the papers, unless either party requests a hearing.

The examples of amendments I have mentioned demonstrate the value of the Statutes Amendment Bill as a vehicle for advancing technical yet important amendments. I look forward to the passage of this bill, working constructively with parties as such bills are put together in the near future. Thank you.

This is the second time in the past fortnight, I think, that the House has dealt with a Statutes Amendment Bill, but for anybody who is confused about that, the two bills are distinct pieces of legislation at different stages. The Statutes Amendment Bill that was dealt with by this House last week was the Statutes Amendment Bill from this year. This Statutes Amendment Bill, which is being read a first time, is the series of miscellaneous and technical amendments that have been agreed across the House ought to be made to a series of statutes—30 in total—and that are to be progressed in the coming year.

As I have said before on Statutes Amendment bills, they are dealt with by a particular procedure in this House. The Standing Orders provide that if any member of the House objects to the inclusion by the Government of any clause in the bill, then that clause must come out and not be debated. That is how we safeguard the convention that these sorts of bills will deal with only minor technical corrections to legislation, and do not have a deep policy content, but none the less they need legislative amendment in order to better guarantee the administration of the law in New Zealand.

The Labour Opposition, on that basis, is happy to support the first reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill.

I am very happy to speak on the Statutes Amendment Bill, which is now having its first reading. Statutes Amendment bills are always annual bills that provide a legislative vehicle for minor, technical, and also non-controversial amendments to existing statutes. They seem to be a bit of a pre-Christmas feature of this House. These bills allow us to keep our statutes and our laws up to date, allow us to keep them accurate, and also user-friendly. The previous bill that has just gone through the House is probably a good example of this Government’s drive to be user-friendly for the people of New Zealand.

Statutes Amendment bills have been a feature of the New Zealand system for many years, through the 1950s and the 1960s, and though for a while they were put into abeyance, here they are back again. This current bill before us, which is having its first reading today, amends 30 Acts that are administered by nine different Government agencies, so, as you can imagine, it is quite a good job to get all those amendments put together into one bill. I congratulate the Minister Chester Borrows on bringing this bill to the House in pretty good shape.

Many of the amendments are designed to correct drafting errors and oversights. We do try in the select committee, in our deliberations on bills, not to let drafting errors and unintended oversights get through, but none the less they do happen, and so those amendments are brought forward for correction in this bill. Just perhaps for an example of that, an amendment to the Real Estate Agents Act of 2008 clarifies that payments of fines imposed by the disciplinary tribunal should be made to the Real Estate Agents Authority. Previously the Act did not say who the fines were payable to—a bit of a mistake—and the Real Estate Agents Authority was reluctant to accept payments of the fines without specific statutory authorisation. That is absolutely fair enough. That is what the Parliament is about—to give clarity to those organisations that are carrying out the will of Parliament. In this first reading I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

By definition, a Statutes Amendment Bill deals with issues that are uncontroversial, non-contentious, and generally minor and technical, and those facts justify the use of an omnibus bill. The bills generally go through without major debate, but I have read through this Statutes Amendment Bill and it seems to me that, although the measures it contains are by and large innocuous, they also are, interestingly, a catalogue of Government botch-ups since the last election. I want to give the House some examples of that by going through the bill part by part.

💬 Phil Twyford: We haven’t got all day.

It might need an extension of time, as Mr Twyford has explained.

Part 1 deals with the Accident Compensation Act, and the section that it deals with, section 331, gives the Minister for ACC power to direct the Accident Compensation Corporation to give effect to Government policy. But I have to say that this has caused enormous problems over the last couple of years. We had the absolute debacle of Nick Smith creating an artificial crisis in claiming that the corporation was insolvent and going down the gurgler. That was, as a respected commentator Brian Fallow described at the time, a whole lot of shrill scaremongering and gratuitous scapegoating. So are we really confident that we want to give the Minister this power to direct policy to the corporation? Nick Smith’s policy was about privatisation. It was about cutting back protection for people. I remember most particularly the concern I had that they were cutting back the counselling for women who had been sexually abused. That was an absolute disgrace. They combined that with cutting back counselling for families of suicide victims. So what sort of a Government is it that directs that sort of policy to the corporation, when it has such negative and damaging effects on individuals?

Then, of course, there was the move to lift the levies on motorbikes. As you are aware, Mr Assistant Speaker, I am a motorbike rider. I got my bill the other day. The accident compensation component for registration was about $531. What annoys me, having never made a claim in 45 years of motorbike riding, is that I am paying for the accidents caused by cars that do not see motorbikes, and by a Government that keeps roads in a state where actually a lot of accidents are caused by the state of the roads. I am wondering whether something that should have been in this bill was addressing those sorts of problems with accident compensation.

But of course we had a further debacle with ACC, and that was that the Minister for ACC resigned. The Minister resigned because he had written inappropriately on behalf of somebody who had been making a claim to the corporation, and not recognised and not disclosed a conflict of interest in that way. That was not very good. I think that on this side of the House we applauded the fact that the Minister for ACC had resigned, but then we got a new Minister who started off with the whole of her executive of the ACC resigning over breaches of privacy—massive breaches of privacy—but the Minister taking no responsibility. That was not good enough, either. Mrs Collins does not seem to understand the doctrine of ministerial accountability. We are still waiting to find out actually who did leak those documents relating to Bronwyn Pullar, because we have never had a satisfactory explanation from the Government.

I want to come to Part 4 of the bill, which is about the Armed Forces Discipline Act. What worries me about this is that, given the reports we received recently at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, at the rate of attrition in the armed forces, there will not be an armed force to discipline. I am wondering why we have got this part of the bill before the House. I say that with a real concern about what is happening—a real concern for the Government side to listen to. Is the National Party aware that there has been a drop in the regular force personnel in the last year of more than 1,000 personnel? A thousand of our regular soldiers, sailors, and air personnel have disappeared from the armed forces, taking them down to about 8,500.

💬 Hon Annette King: Why?

Why is a very good question, as my colleague has asked. Some of it seems to have been deliberate—people are being sacked—and some of it seems to be inadvertent. People are so demoralised that they are leaving in droves. What did we find in the select committee? We found that the attrition rate was 21 percent in the last year—21 percent. If you looked at the navy it was 23 percent. What the Defence Force itself acknowledged was that this is absolutely unsustainable. At this rate we will not have a defence force in a few years, so I am not quite sure why we are amending the Armed Forces Discipline Act.

A particular concern for me is what is happening to women in the navy and the air force, because the attrition by women was such that in the last 4 years the numbers have dropped by more than a third. Here we are in modern New Zealand saying that there should be equity between the genders and that we want to see women participating, and what is the record of the National Government? It has been a drop of a third in the number of women in the navy and in the air force. That is pretty serious. Why are we losing these people? We are losing them because the morale, which the Defence Force regularly monitors, is the worst ever on record. Only just over a third of the people in the Defence Force actually want to be there. Two-thirds are either ambivalent about being there or are negative about being there. There is only one ministry that does worse than that and that is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where the Government has ripped the guts out of it and most of the employees do not want to be there. So much for that part of the bill.

Then we come to Part 10 of the Statutes Amendment Bill, and that is amending the Electoral Act. This relates largely to the lodging of list nominees and the payment of deposits, but I wonder whether the National Government in fact has much more significant changes in mind that it is not revealing here. I know the National Party has been looking very closely at what the Republicans at the state level did in the United States. What the Republicans did before the last election was try to devise every mechanism they could to stop people enrolling and stop people being able to vote. That is the negation of democracy. But I hear a whisper that the National Party is intending to close off the date at which people can enrol before an election at the issuing of the writ, so a month before the election. That would disenfranchise tens of thousands of people. I want to ask the Minister who introduced this bill, the Associate Minister of Justice, in putting in a fairly innocuous provision in this bill, is that disguising what the Government is intending to do further down the track in relation to the Electoral Act? We would be utterly opposed to that.

Then we come to the next part, which is Part 11, on the Extradition Act. Well, that is the daddy of them all, because that relates to certain crimes with transnational aspects that are deemed to be included in extradition treaties. That brings to mind one of the most colossal stuff-ups that this Government has made this year, and that is in the Kim Dotcom case. I want to know from the Associate Minister—the police got it wrong, the Crown Law Office got it wrong, and the Government Communications Security Bureau under John Key’s leadership got it wrong, so what is going on in this area, and is this provision in the Extradition Act actually able to address that? Does it address the problem that we found from John Key and John Banks of amnesia—political amnesia? They could not remember what had happened. They could not tell us who was accountable. Mr Key said he did not even know what it was about. The truth was that National was overeager to please United States authorities and, in so dramatically stuffing it up, it has actually undermined the American position. So it has really hosed off the Americans. At the same time it has made the New Zealand public liable to enormous costs in the court action that might be taken by Kim Dotcom against it. John Key said he knew nothing—the Sergeant Schultz defence—but that does not wash.

I want to come to the next part, Part 13, on the Gambling Act. We know that there is another case of amnesia in relation to the Gambling Act, because Mr Banks went down to Skycity, he picked up a cheque for $15,000 in a plain brown envelope, but then he declared it as anonymous. I want to know from the Associate Minister whether there is anything in this change that addresses that form of amnesia and dishonesty where you pick up the cheque personally and then you declare it as anonymous. I want to know whether there is anything in this part of the bill that also deals with the situation where Skycity can go to John Key and say: “You give us the licence to print money”—actually it is called more licences for pokie machines—“and we will build a convention centre for you.” I want to know how appropriate that is and whether that is consistent with the changes that are being made here to the Gambling Act.

I want to, finally, end up on something rather more positive. Well, I hoped it was more positive. It is Part 18. It deals with parental leave and employment protection. But I do not see anything here that deals with the parental leave proposals in Sue Moroney’s Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. I cannot see any commitment by the Government to allow mums, at a very special time—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member, his time has expired.

I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party on yet another Statutes Amendment Bill. We in the Green Party have no objection to the minor technical amendments in this bill. Therefore, I do not believe I can add much to the debate, though I was interested in the many issues raised by the Hon Phil Goff just then. I just commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I support this Statutes Amendment Bill. Despite the protestations of the Hon Phil Goff, this is simply a housekeeping bill. It is simply a makeover bill. It is an omnibus bill that is usually done every year to allow us to update, to correct, and to deal with non-controversial amendments to legislation. It is really important that we do our best to keep our legislation accurate, fresh, relevant, and user-friendly. This bill amends 30 different Acts. Those Acts are administrated by nine Government agencies. So these corrections are important in the streamlining of our legislation. Most amendments are very minor: changes to cross-references and to drafting errors or clarification.

Mr Goff seems to think that these amendments are all about errors, but actually that is not so. I was very pleased to see that some of these updates streamline, simplify, and improve bureaucratic processes, particularly those that embrace new technologies, and I would like to give you two examples. The first example is the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationship Registration Act 1995. This is amended under this bill to allow information to be provided by electronic means. That means that it is cheaper and easier to pass that information on. There is also an amendment to the Electoral Act 1993, and there is nothing sinister about it. All it does is allow party secretaries to pay their deposits, when submitting candidates’ names for election, by direct credit—the modern way. You have a record and it goes through the process—simple, cheap, easy.

There is an old saying that a stitch in time saves nine. The updating of legislation through regular statutes bills that improve and streamline is an incredibly important process to keep our legislation relevant and to keep it efficient, and it is done is a cost-effective way—simple, no-brainer common sense. I support this bill.

New Zealand First is happy to support the Statutes Amendment Bill. We are satisfied that all the amendments in it are appropriate for an omnibus bill. They are minor or machinery amendments and they are non-controversial in nature. I have no issues to raise for debate on any of the many minor matters in the bill. New Zealand First will vote for it.

I wish to close by wishing a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year, firstly to you, Mr Speaker; to all members of Parliament; to all New Zealand First staff in Parliament and in my parliamentary offices in Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill; and to all New Zealand First supporters throughout New Zealand. Especially, I want to wish a merry Christmas and happy New Year to all of the many people in Christchurch who are still struggling with earthquake effects, accommodation and home repair problems, unconscionable rental increases, munted roads and services, loss of business, and loss of jobs. Keep up your spirits and keep trying to get through it all. A merry Christmas and a happier New Year to them, in particular, and to all.

I had expected someone from the Government benches to take the call, but I am happy to do so. This bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill, has been described by one of the National members as a housekeeping bill, a makeover bill, a simple no-brainer, and common sense. Well, apart from the use of the last two words, I thought it might have been a looking-in-the-mirror description, but, obviously, it was not intended in that way.

💬 Phil Twyford: No brain.

Obviously, a no-brainer in that respect—in many respects.

I want to perhaps start where my colleague Denis O’Rourke ended, and that is that we are ending the debate on legislation—so this is the end of the legislative timetable for 2012—and I have to say that as a Christchurch representative it is difficult to see the last item on the agenda as something that will make any appreciable difference to anyone in Christchurch. As Nicky Wagner said, it is a housekeeping bill, a makeover bill, and a simple no-brainer, and it is common sense, but it is tidying-up. It is tidying up things that we have got wrong in legislation over the time. There are amendments to the Passports Act, to the Insolvency Act, to the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act, and to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act—but, as my colleague Phil Goff said, these are not the real amendments that the public are looking for in terms of expanding parental leave in a meaningful way—and a slight amendment to the Health and Disability Commissioner Act.

There are some more substantial amendments, and—I have made this point before—Statutes Amendment bills can be used for the purpose of making substantial amendments. If they are non-controversial and have the support of the whole House, then it is entirely appropriate to use a Statutes Amendment Bill. I did notice that under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981 the unauthorised use of words and emblems relating to the 28th Māori Battalion has been included in this legislation. I really do not know the history as to why that has been included within the legislation, but I just wanted to note it because I thought that it was an important gesture, and symbolic, actually, given that it is the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act, that such a measure could be introduced as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill. I think that shows that there is considerable support right across the House for protecting the integrity of the 28th Māori Battalion, and I did want to place that on the record.

Going back to the comments that Denis O’Rourke was making, there are people in Christchurch at the moment who will not look back on 2012 with great pleasure. In fact, they will look back on it with great sadness, and the sadness is derived from the fact that there seems to be a lack of understanding across the rest of the country of what Christchurch is still experiencing. It is as if the earthquake was so last year and that we are now over it and on our way to full recovery.

Christchurch’s recovery is a long way off, and a lot of the things that have been happening in Christchurch have actually caused people great distress. I see that level of distress in my electorate office on a daily basis. The way I described it recently when I was giving a talk is that I can see people in my office whose mood I would describe as ranging from abject despair to incandescent rage, and that can be describing the same person in the context of a half-hour appointment.

The reason that people are feeling that way is that they are feeling abandoned, and they are feeling that the Government is not hearing many of their concerns. That is why a Statutes Amendment Bill being the last bill to be brought to the House at this time of the year really is not sending the message that people would like to hear, and it certainly is not repeating the message that the Prime Minister gave them straight after the earthquake, which was that “We will stand alongside you. We will stand alongside Christchurch as they recover.”

Actually, there are people in Christchurch who feel utterly and completely abandoned by the Government. They have had a zoning decision made on their land that they do not understand. They have had to deal with the challenges of insurance companies, and with the Earthquake Commission, which, God bless its soul, was designed to provide protection for people, but it has been dealing with this scale of incidents that, really, it was not set up to resolve, and as a result it has not been doing a great service for the people who ought to be able to rely on it. So with the challenges that people are facing, they are feeling that there has not been a Government that has been willing to listen to them.

The lack of community engagement—I mean, we have got amendments here that are dealing with electoral law. Well, that just reminds everyone in Christchurch that we are not going to be allowed to vote for Environment Canterbury representatives next year. We were promised—promised—that we would get our vote back. We did not agree with the Government taking away our right to vote, but we were promised it would come back. So when we see an electoral amendment coming up in this legislation—the last item for the year—it just reminds us that this Government is denying democratic representation in Christchurch. Of course you can have democracy in terms of your 3-yearly election under the Electoral Act, but that is not what democracy means in its total. What democracy means is having a voice and having that voice heard. People in Christchurch have not got a voice that is able to be heard at the moment, because the Government has taken control.

Every time—every time—somebody opens their mouth they are accused of being a carper and a moaner. If they dare—if they dare—to participate in an online survey that is organised not by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority but by their own residents association, because their residents association thinks it is important to know how people are feeling and what they are being faced with in terms of their insurance company, oh no, they are carpers and moaners, and they have got all this time—I will not repeat the word that Gerry Brownlee used in terms of them working on Facebook.

The other thing is that when the Christchurch Press dares to—

💬 Andrew Little: The enemy of the State!

—actually challenge the Government on some of the things that it is doing, it is the enemy of the recovery.

The Speaker is asking me to relate this back to any one of the amendments that are here at the moment. So the amendment that I would like to specifically refer to is to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, because children have been completely left out of the picture in Christchurch as well, if you think about the schools decision. I mean, announcing that shocking decision, and leaving schools—last Friday was the last day that schools had to put in their submission.

💬 Hon Annette King: They wanted to shut Salisbury—why Salisbury?

Yeah, well, the Salisbury School decision has been turned over by the court, and I think that every school in Christchurch—every single school in Christchurch—is going to be poring over that High Court decision with a fine-tooth comb. I suspect that there is going to be more action in Christchurch next year—action taken against the Minister of Education.

The Minister for Building and Construction might indeed smile, because he may be the Minister of Education in the very near future, but that is only if he misses out on the Speaker’s job. We think he would make an excellent Speaker. The reason is that he has good humour. I actually think that Maurice Williamson is the archetypal Speaker, in the sense that you have got to be able to take the mood of the House for what it is. Sometimes people might not be strictly within the Standing Orders, but if it has got the mood of the House—

💬 Hon Annette King: Let the game flow.

—if you judge the mood of the House, you let the game flow, as my colleague quite rightly points out. That means that he would be a fair referee in this House.

This bill does not represent what our city has been looking for from this Government. It is a shame in that regard that the final bill of the year is one that has not been able to address so many of the issues that Christchurch residents are experiencing. But I too join with other colleagues and wish everyone a merry Christmas, and I hope that 2013 brings to New Zealand, and certainly to the city of Christchurch, much more joy than 2012 has done.

It is a pleasure to take a call on this, the Statutes Amendment Bill. I would like to congratulate Minister Borrows on bringing such a good bill to the House. It is important that our legislation is kept up to date, accurate, and user-friendly.

I would like to mention some comments made by my colleague Nicky Wagner, who, actually, is the one person who has her shoulder to the mill in terms of trying to help and assist with what is happening in Christchurch. I think it is a disgrace, actually, that the last speaker, Lianne Dalziel, got up and spent the whole time trying to manufacture another crisis when there are a lot of people—the private sector, the community sector, and the Government—who are doing a lot of work down there to try to make things better in Christchurch.

Like I said, this is a very good bill. There are some very good gems in this bill. There are actually some good cost savings to businesses, which are important, and that has been a big part of the Government’s agenda this year. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

I also take a short call. There is no need to have it any longer than that because this bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill, is nothing more than a procedural matter. It is something that has been happening for many years in this House. I am not sure that it was about pot-shots galore, but it seems to have come to that today, and a few soapboxes have been pranced upon.

However, Statutes Amendment bills have been a feature for some time. They are about ensuring that the oversights are tidied up and that the technical deficiencies are remedied. I am happy to commend this bill to the House. It is hardly something that needs to take much time.

It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the Statutes Amendment Bill. I understand, as a new member—like the last two speakers, in fact, on this bill—that Statutes Amendment bills such as these are to make small, non-controversial corrections to existing legislation. It is interesting that in the debates on the Legislation Bill that we had—admittedly, not this one—there is provision there not only for a review of legislation, but for technical corrections to legislation.

The important thing about this bill is that we are, in the last dying moments of the lawmaking part of this Parliament at this time of the year, dealing with a bill that very much sums up where this Government is at. These might be small, technical amendments to existing legislation, but let us look at them. Given all the issues in front of New Zealand today—issues about joblessness, people searching and craving for work at this very difficult time, as the season of goodwill and joy is upon us—we have legislation that does not deal with the issues that New Zealanders want. That is why this bill sums up, really, the year that this Government has had, and where this Government is at. People desperate for work, people desperate to get an increase in their pay—of those who are in work, 60 percent of them cannot even get a pay rise this year, and they want that. What do we see here? We see nothing in the Statutes Amendment Bill, which will perform small, technical amendments, that will allow that to happen.

We have people who are suffering the inequities of inequality, and my colleague Lianne Dalziel talked about the ongoing unfairness and desperation of people in Christchurch. What did we find in the Statutes Amendment Bill for that? Absolutely nothing. We see small, technical amendments to the Accident Compensation Act. Do we see anything that is going to improve the privacy management and privacy protection of claimants to ACC? None at all—none at all. And those issues are going begging. We have had a grand high report from Australians come in once again—to ride to the rescue—to tell us how to improve our privacy management in ACC. But is there anything in this bill that will help the long-suffering ACC claimants whose privacy has been breached? Nothing at all. What about protecting ACC claimants against bad decision-making? Is there a small, technical amendment that would help? There is nothing at all in this bill about that.

What about in the Companies Act? Where do we see a need for amendment in the Companies Act? What about making directors liable for poor management decisions—just extend directors’ duties slightly, just a little bit, in the Companies Act? Do we see anything in this legislation that does that? Absolutely nothing at all. When we look at the District Courts Act, what is the crying need in the District Courts? It is for more resources so that the decisions can get made. It is good that the High Court can make decisions reasonably swiftly—for example, in the Salisbury School decision. It is good that the High Court can make those decisions, because it has got good, smart judges who can make good, swift decisions on these very important issues, and the parents of those very needy, very important kids at Salisbury School can now enter the Christmas break relieved and with a sense of justice having been done. But is there anything in this legislation that helps the District Court rise to its proper level of functioning and do that? There is nothing here at all.

What about the amendment to the Electoral Act? Is it going to close off the difficulty that our parliamentary colleague the Hon John Banks has been having in his disclosures? There is nothing at all about that. But these are the issues that New Zealanders will go into the Christmas break talking about. They will go into the Christmas break with the last piece of legislation considered by this House doing nothing at all for them. I call this the “Gangnam Style” Government. The “Gangnam Style” Government goes with the spirit of the times. This is a Government that is riding the invisible horse of lawmaking and policy making.

💬 Mike Sabin: Why don’t you put a bit of a dance down?

Oh, I will give you a demonstration. This is the Government that is riding the invisible horse, and it is nothing that is going to help New Zealanders. I would do the other one, but I do not know what that dance style is. This is a Government that is all hat and no horse. It is the “Gangnam Style” of Government, and it is riding the invisible horse. It talks big. It talks about making a big difference, and we will see this afternoon all the wonderful messages that it will give to New Zealand as we enter the Christmas break. But will it make a tinker’s cuss of difference to New Zealanders as they gather round the barbecues? They cannot afford steak on the barbecues this year. It will be cheap snarlers from the supermarket on this summer’s barbecues, because people cannot afford much. But they will be saying that this is a Government that is riding the invisible horse of decision making and of policy making. It does not have a policy and it does not have a plan. It does not have a plan that is going to fix things.

It has come to the House in the dying days of lawmaking—the dying hours and minutes of lawmaking—this side of Christmas, and it will make small, technical amendments, but are we going to do anything that is actually going to do anything that will actually make a difference to New Zealanders? No, no, no. We will go into the Christmas season making changes to the Insolvency Act, but are we going to protect small creditors? No, we are not going to do anything like that. Look at the Private Security Personnel and Private Investigators Act. What was the big injustice a couple of weeks ago? Poor old Sir Peter Jackson, the hero of a nation. He has just made The Hobbit, and the security guard detailed to protect him was a convicted criminal. Is there anything in this legislation that is going to fix that? Not at all. The hero of the nation—the hero of the nation—was subject to the whims of a convicted criminal because our legislation does not provide enough protection to him from that.

The only justice, the only thing that is just and right and that is fitting in the zeitgeist of the times, apart from the Government of the invisible horse, apart from the Government that is all hat and no horse, and apart from the Government that has a “Gangnam Style” of governance, is the very last piece of legislation amended by this Statutes Amendment Bill, and that is the Wine Act. It will be right for Christmas. What a pity there is not a technical amendment that allows provision of enough wine for all New Zealanders who are celebrating this season and wondering what it is that has hit them, and wondering what sort of Government they have got. It is not interested in dealing with the big decisions and making the big calls that are going to really make a difference. This will be a bill that people will look to and say “It is time to drown our sorrows.”, so the amendment to the Wine Act 2003 is in every bit fitting in that regard. But we leave our lawmaking duties this side of Christmas again disappointed and feeling flat that the big issues that confront this country and the people in it have gone unaddressed and unattended. That is the disappointing thing about this.

That is why, as I rise to make this call on this piece of legislation, I look forward—hopefully like the rest of us, and certainly like those on this side of the House—to a year next year in which we can get to grips with the real issues, not just the technical amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act that is in this bill, but real changes that are going to make a real difference, that are going to give people a helping hand, that are going to give people a hand-up, and that are going to give people a chance to make a difference, to improve their incomes, to improve their lot, and to provide for their families and their loved ones in a true spirit of giving and Christmas joy. That is what we needed at this time—to leave our lawmaking duties this side of Christmas in a spirit of hope, and with a sense that we could do something meaningful and real.

But this bill is not that bill. It absolutely sums up this Government. It is the Government that speaks big, that says that it is riding on a white steed of prosperity and a brighter future, but actually it is an invisible horse. This Government, while its hands are on the reins, is going to lead us nowhere, and that is why we need a change. We are 2 years out from it, and this bill absolutely encapsulates the spirit of the nation today.

I am pleased to take the final call in the first reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill. Anyone watching would think that this is a controversial piece of legislation that covers all sorts of things. It actually does. It covers 30 Acts, administered by nine different Government departments, but the very nature of the Statutes Amendment Bill is that it is non-controversial, and that is why it is universally supported in this House. But we have heard about Christchurch, and we have heard the member who just spoke before me, Andrew Little, riding invisible horses and singing in the House, which was rather disturbing, I must say. But what we have heard from that Opposition is that actually it is the party of nothing to say, nothing to do, and nobody is listening, so you are desperate to take any opportunity that there is.

This is a very technical bill. It is a housekeeping bill that is universally supported. This side of the House focuses on what really matters. It is another example of a significant amount of legislative change that the Government has put in place this year—I think almost a record amount of legislation that has been passed. On that note, I shall wish you all a very merry Christmas, and say thank you for the contribution to this year’s Parliament.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.

The House adjourned at 12:41 p.m. (Wednesday)