International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill

I rise to speak to the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill and to Supplementary Order Paper 175, standing in my name. As the bill has been written by the Government, the commencement date is entirely open. The bill would come into force on a date set by an Order in Council. That sounds good enough, but the bill lacks the default specified commencement date that is now the usual drafting practice. That means that the bill, when enacted, could wait 10 years or 20 years or even longer before coming into force. Will it still be relevant then?

It is not a hypothetical problem. The Parliamentary Counsel Office annually publishes a list of Acts not yet in force that do not have a specified default commencement date. On the latest list there are 38 such Acts that, in whole or in part, are not in force. The oldest is the Summary Proceedings Amendment Act 1976. So Parliament passed a law 37 years ago, and part of that law is still in limbo. Is that acceptable?

This International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill should not be another of those blank cheque bills. When Parliament passes legislation, the resulting Acts should be brought into force within a reasonable and definite period of time. The Order in Council process allows the Government of the day some flexibility to ensure that the implementation can be conducted to deliver a good public policy process, but surely that flexibility must be backstopped by a default specified commencement date.

I am aware that there are issues around treaty-making powers of Government, the desire to avoid a vote in Parliament, and recent developments since 1996 to provide some opportunities for scrutiny by our Parliament’s select committees. The principal Act is unusual in that it enshrines in New Zealand legislation the nuts and bolts structure of an overseas body—in this case the International Monetary Fund—but that is an argument for another day. Today I am focusing on the issue at hand, and that is if Parliament passes a law—considering the time it takes for Parliament to pass that law, and the work and energy that have gone into it by many groups and parliamentarians—then surely the Government is obliged to reasonably bring it into force.

It is not necessarily an academic debate. Amongst the 38 Acts not brought into force are two domestic violence Acts and two Acts regarding Family Courts. This is a real issue because too many children in New Zealand are children who do not choose to be victims of neglect. These children do not choose to be absent of a loving home. These children do not choose to be victims of violence. This Government continues to leave the legislative solution in limbo, not being brought into force. Ministers are not allocating public funding and are not taking policy decisions.

I draw the House’s attention to the Ministry of Justice’s Care of Children Amendment Act 2008. If we look at the departmental comment around sections 5 to 8, 10 to 13, and 18 to 21 it reads as such: “Relates to agreements between parents and guardians, duty of lawyers and courts with regard to reconciliation and conciliation, disputes between guardians that lead to mediation or counselling, the mediation and counselling process, and appeals to the High Court and Court of Appeal. Will come into force on a date to be appointed by an Order in Council. Needs operational policy development and additional funding to bring it into force.” If we go to the Family Courts Amendment Act 2008, the departmental comment on it is: “Relates to the appointment and powers of Senior Family Court Registrars, and amendments to s 8 inserting ‘mediator’ after ‘counsellor’. Will come into force on a date to be appointed by an Order in Council. Needs operational policy development and additional funding to bring it into force.” One more that I draw the House’s attention to is the Family Proceedings Amendment Act 2008, which “Relates to the counselling and mediation process and rules under the Act,”—and at the end there—“Needs operational policy development and additional funding to bring it into force.”

The National Government is taking advantage of this blank cheque written by previous Parliaments in the form of an open-ended commencement date. I take into account the comments from the Hon David Parker. However, we cannot have open-ended start dates for any Act. Therefore, I commend this amendment to the House.

I rise to speak to clause 2 of the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill in respect of the commencement, and I also want to speak to Brendan Horan’s Supplementary Order Paper 175, which tries to tackle the challenge that is presented with an international organisation making decisions about when things come into force, and tries to align New Zealand’s decision making with that.

I wish to speak in favour of the current arrangement in the legislation, on the strength that it permits the Government to bring legislation into line as the process naturally runs its course. I think Mr Horan raises a valid point, so I am not suggesting that he is not raising a point worthy of debate, because I think it is worthy of debate. But I think, on balance, it is important to give the Government that flexibility. Our real beef is with removing from the legislation the further consideration of important issues, and those are updates to the articles that will in future be made by regulation.

I would be very interested to hear the Government take a call on why it is not interested in having proper parliamentary scrutiny over those articles. I am sure the Minister in the chair, the Minister for the Environment, will leap to her feet shortly and engage passionately in this debate, because I have seen her following the issues closely and nodding as the points have been made by the Opposition, so I think she is considering those issues, and I do look forward to her response. It is a serious issue that has been raised, and parliamentary scrutiny is something that we should not let go of lightly.

What we are talking about here is legislation that relates to approximately NZ$1.8 billion. This is legislation that we are debating in the House and we are giving it the proper parliamentary scrutiny, but I think it pays to remind ourselves that this is actually a considerable sum of money and a considerable investment that New Zealand makes in its relationship with the IMF. We should not forget and we should not trivialise this, because we largely agree on the principle of supporting the IMF, and we certainly, as Labour and National parties, have agreed by and large that the IMF should exist in order to promote economic growth that is sustainable. I took the Government to task in my earlier address about whether it is really meeting those obligations; whether it really is addressing the balance of payments problem that we have as a country. The IMF projects it to be the worst in the developed world in the current year. This Government as yet has shown no leadership on addressing that problem, so those concerns remain.

When we are talking about NZ$1.8 billion, I think it is worth asking when this should come into effect. What is the proper process for this legislation to come into effect? It seems to me that the provision in this part of the legislation is, in fact, adequate. The subclause that says the Act comes into force after the date on which it receives the Royal assent, “except as provided in subsection (2)”, is an attempt to ensure that those things that need to come in immediately can come into play. The second subclause, which comes into force at a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council, is an attempt to deal with those things that do not need to come into effect immediately but can come into effect later, as and when needed, to line up with the international decision-making process.

On the surface this seems like a very sensible commencement clause, notwithstanding the issues that Mr Horan raised. So Labour will be supporting this clause, as indeed it is supporting the whole bill, because it does support the purposes of the IMF around economic stability, around meeting that balance of trade issue, and around making sure that there is sustainable economic growth in countries—something New Zealand unfortunately is not modelling at present, but which we believe would be of value to all countries. All growing countries can provide the necessary services to their citizens that make them able to maximise their potential.

So Labour will be supporting this bill. We question the Government’s record on some of these issues, but we support the intent of this legislation, which is to meet our international obligations on this matter.

I just want to reiterate why it is that we will not be supporting Brendan Horan’s proposed amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 175 to clause 2, which changes the open-ended nature of clause 2(2). The main provisions, the substantive provisions, of this bill, the International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill, are contained in clauses 5 and 6, which refer to amendments to the existing schedule 1 of the International Finance Agreements Act, and that schedule sets out New Zealand’s current obligations vis-à-vis the IMF. This bill changes those provisions in the way that is set out in schedule 1 to this amendment bill and schedule 2 to this amendment bill. Schedule 1 of this amendment bill gives effect to the 2008 reforms to the IMF, which were agreed then but which have yet to be implemented in New Zealand law, even though we have agreed to them at the international forum. The date on which the 2008 reforms can and should come into effect is when this legislation is given effect through receiving the Royal assent, and that is what the effect is of clause 2(1). It says that the Act will come into force on the day on which it receives the Royal assent, except to the extent provided in subclause (2), and that subclause (2) then takes out of that general proposition the provisions in clause 6 so that clause 6 does not come into effect on the date when the legislation receives the Royal assent but, rather, comes into effect on such later date as is given effect by Order in Council.

For the Labour Party, that is appropriate in the circumstances because the clause 6 provisions are the 2010 reforms, and we are not ready to have them brought into effect yet, and so it is appropriate that Parliament authorises them being brought into effect at a later date. This is slightly different from the concern that we have about future changes to these provisions in the governing Act, which set out New Zealand’s obligations to the IMF. We think they should not be able to be changed by statutory regulation. We are happy that the current changes, which are agreed through this legislation, through a proper process, do not come into effect in part until the Government passes an Order in Council pursuant to clause 2(2). Therefore, we will be supporting this clause.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 175 in the name of Brendan Horan to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendment not agreed to.