Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)

Can I say what a pleasure it is to resume my really rudely interrupted contribution on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I also want to acknowledge Denis O’Rourke, whom I beat to the call at that peak listening time of 7 minutes to 10 p.m., when we were last debating this bill, and I look forward to his contribution. There will be fewer people listening, Mr O’Rourke, but I am sure that every one of them will be waiting anxiously for your contribution and will enjoy the benefit of it.

This is a statutes amendment bill, Mr Deputy Speaker, and one with which you are probably quite familiar, given that it is in your name. It is the bill that was referred to the Government Administration Committee some time ago, and I want to acknowledge the members who sat on the committee, who debated this bill with some rigour. Sometimes I think that committees give statutes amendment bills not enough consideration, and the bill slides through and we end up with an amendment to an amendment. We are already fixing up mistakes, which is the point, really, of a statutes amendment bill, and I do think that we need to take a little more care. So I want to acknowledge the other five members of that committee: Mojo Mathers and the Hon Trevor Mallard; Chris Auchinvole and Eric Roy, who are no longer members of this House, but who made a huge contribution in relation to this bill; and also Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, who is still a member of the House, but, unfortunately, is no longer a member of the Government Administration Committee.

For new members particularly, they might be wondering what a statutes amendment bill is. Well, I just alluded in a rather casual way to the fact that it is really about fixing up mistakes. It amends legislation, it is an omnibus bill, and it is outlined in Standing Order 262(1)(f). That is worth a read if members do not have anything else on their reading agenda for the evening because it describes the fact that this is one of the rare occasions when a bill can amend a large number of other Acts. It is further described in Standing Order 292(3), which talks about amendments to the statutes amendment bill, and then in Standing Order 305(2), under the heading “Questions to be proposed in committee”.

That is how statutes amendment bills are covered and referred to in the Standing Orders, but the most important thing that members need to know is that one single member of Parliament can object to a provision in a statutes amendment bill, and then it does not progress. That particular provision within the statutes amendment bill would be withdrawn. A very unusual process that a Minister goes through—and the former Associate Minister of Justice the Hon Chester Borrows went through this procedure with this very Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)—is going to the representative of every single political party in Parliament and asking for their sign-off, so every member of this Parliament is bound to support every provision. If we get a new provision added or amended—as is the case with this bill, where the select committee actually made substantial amendments—then, once again, every member of the House must agree to it. So it is not a simple majority as it is with other statutes that are before the House; it is one that everyone agrees to.

As I said earlier, the select committee paid a lot of attention to this bill and we have made a number of recommended amendments. We have recommended that some provisions be omitted entirely because they have the potential to alter the original intention of the legislation, and that is clearly not within the parameters of a statutes amendment bill. We have omitted some. We have proposed the omission of some because we believe that they substantially alter the primary legislative purpose, and with others we have said that they are not suitable for a statutes amendment bill because there is a policy debate to be had on them.

So I was really pleased with the work that we did on this bill. These bills are not ones that usually grip the nation. They are not ones that members generally want to take a call on, with the exception of Mr O’Rourke and me—we are usually elbowing each other out of the way to get the next speaker’s call on them—but it is a really important task for this Parliament to make sure that our legislation is clear, that if a matter is taken before the court there is not a debate about what the intention of Parliament was, and, of course, that the interpretation that is made of our legislation carries with it the intent of the Minister and the Government of the time. That is what we hope that we have delivered back to this House, and I look forward to this amended Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) progressing through the House. Thank you.

It is an absolute pleasure—perhaps even an unbridled pleasure—to speak on this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). There are a lot of firsts being a first-term MP and this is my first chance to speak on an omnibus bill. I have to say it is a little daunting, in fact, to be dealing with measures that impact so many Acts at the same time—33 of them, in fact. I am of an age when I can remember some of the traditional fairy tales and folk stories, and the Valiant Little Tailor sprung to mind. Or, for those who prefer animated features, there is the Brave Little Tailor, with Mickey Mouse, where he got seven in one blow—they were giants, of course, or flies. Here we are dealing with 33 Acts—33 Acts in one legislative blow. It does show what Parliament can achieve when we all do work together, when we are all on the same team, so to speak, and when we are all doing the things that we agree are necessary. Of course, this bill is very much about tidying things up, making small clarifications, and making minor technical corrections—things that are non-controversial, things that are generally non-complex, and things that do have, in fact, unanimous support and not just broad support across the House.

I do recall when this particular reading began that it was claimed, in fact, that we were dealing with 34 Acts and that we had tried to crib an additional Act, but one of the members opposite, the Hon David Parker, pointed out that it was, in fact, only 33. He also pointed out that the Labour side of the House understands very deeply the significance of having one extra. Well, I would like just to point out that right at the moment this side of the House has a very solid understanding of the significance of having one extra and, in fact, we have our organisation outside of this Parliament working extraordinarily hard to make sure that we get that significant one back. We understand how important it is.

I go back to this particular significant one—or significant 33, in fact. We are amending and making corrections to a number of Acts. These are still important changes even though they may not be major or complex ones. For instance, in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act we are amending around the area of the definition of legal professional privilege. Unfortunately, the definition as it stood could have been interpreted to restrict legal professional privilege to circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated, and that simply was not the intention behind those provisions in the first place. So it makes very good sense that members across the House would agree that this is the form that we could take to remove this.

An area that I think is very, very important, where we are doing further amendments in this bill, is the other area of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and, in fact, the Official Information Act itself, and that is around how we deal with Official Information Act and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests. There is potential at the moment under the way the system is managed where requests can, in fact, be made orally but the Government agency or local authority could then just choose to request that those requests are also put in writing. So it could actually use that as an abuse of the process to force a delay in that request being dealt with and responded to. That is not, in fact, a good thing at all and this bill will address that by ensuring that requests to put Official Information Act requests in writing can be made only if that is a necessary step to help to provide clarification as to what the official information request is actually about. I think that is a very, very pragmatic way of ensuring that potential line of abuse is prevented.

There is another area, and I might even be the first speaker on this bill to bring this one up. There is a point, and it is clarified, that if there is an amendment or several amendments made to that initial request, those changes will, in fact, be treated as new requests and each of them will then get the 20-day time frame to be addressed in, but—and this is the really important part this omnibus bill is going to introduce—this will apply only if that authority or that agency can make a demonstrable effort to have sought that clarification within 7 working days. So if the agency or the authority has sat on that request and then decides it is going to get broken up or there is an amendment that will require a new request, it will not get to sit behind a 20-day time frame if it cannot show that it actually attended to that request in a timely manner in the first place. I think that is really actually a significant change this bill is making. It may not be complicated, it may not be complex, and it may fit within the provisions of an omnibus bill, but it actually is something that can have a real, substantive change for people who do make Official Information Act requests. It is also providing that if an authority or an agency is going to say that a request cannot be attended to or cannot be responded to because the information cannot be found, it actually has to provide some evidence that it has made a reasonable effort to find that information before declaring or decreeing that it is too hard to get. That is another very solid change in an area that is a well-used Act in New Zealand. You know, people use that Act to get the information they need.

There are others—in fact, with 33 Acts there are a number of others. One I found quite interesting, actually, is a change to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995. The current provisions allow that when someone lodges a statutory declaration for a change of name, they do not actually have to provide evidence as to who they currently are. So, I could just imagine this, just as a way of explanation or illustration. Across the House we would see the next Labour leadership challenge, because history tells us they happen quite regularly, and Grant Robertson—he is a potential contender—could have changed Mr Nash’s name to Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii, because he would not have had to prove that he was Mr Nash and that could well have disrupted a Labour leadership challenge. So it is extremely good to see that we will, in fact, require those requesting a change to actually prove that they are the person who is going to make the name change request.

There is another one that I draw on because, basically, nomenclature is very important. Under the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act 1978 we are replacing the New Zealand Manufacturing Engineer’s Federation (Incorporated) with the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association Incorporated to reflect that the relevant body in fact has changed its name for the purposes of consultation. This is a very important thing. You could obviously say that the Act may not apply if it has changed its name, but, as we all know, naming is extraordinarily important. One only needs to look at the difficulties that arise if one confuses, for instance, the Judean People’s Front with the People’s Front of Judea to know that nomenclature is a deeply, deeply important thing, so I am very pleased to see that we are addressing that.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Also a very naughty boy.

Yes, perhaps I am a very naughty boy, but now on to something completely different. The Local Electoral Act extends by 7 days the time frame for completing pre-election processes. These are simple, sound changes that mean that the Acts that we have—the enforcement and the compliance with them—make more sense for the real world that we all live in. That is an extremely positive thing to achieve in a bill such as this one.

What I would like to say around this being the first time I deal with an omnibus bill is that it is extremely pleasing to be part of a process where we do have the universal support of the House. We all spend a great deal of time opposing each other’s views on many matters in this Chamber, but this process is one where we can come together, where we can recognise that there are things that need to be tidied up, where we can make minor technical changes where we do not have to be in conflict and we do not have to oppose, and where we will provide the public and the bodies that either use legislation or are required to comply with it with more accurate, complete, sensible, and workable legislation for them to go about their business with. It is a great pleasure to be a part of this process and to speak on one of these bills for the first time. I commend it to the House.

I call David Clendon.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: This will be better.

Indeed it will, Ruth, yes. And in that spirit may I begin by acknowledging the contribution of Ruth Dyson—a very succinct but also quite comprehensive description of the nature and purpose of statutes amendment bills and Acts in their own right. The unique feature of them is that they are agreed to, in large part, prior to being presented to the House. They are inherently non-controversial, although I do note the select committee having done its work well has found one or two matters that are more appropriately dealt with elsewhere, and more power to the committee for having done that.

It is customary to say it is a pleasure to rise to speak and, of course it is, as ever, a privilege to rise to speak, but it is also something of a surprise to be debating this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) this evening. Until about 5.15 p.m. this evening we believed that tonight we would be in urgency, debating the Remuneration Authority Amendment Bill. It was a considerable surprise to discover at about 5.15 p.m. that apparently the Government does not yet have its ducks in a row and it is not ready to undertake that debate. We look forward with some interest to see what will be sprung on us tomorrow morning.

To return to this bill, it is an omnibus bill and it covers some 30-plus pieces of legislation that are amended by it. I think many of those amendments highlight the importance of clarity of language—that legislation expresses in the clearest way possible the intention of the legislators. It is the role of the courts, of course, to interpret legislation, to implement it and apply it, and indeed the role of other organisations and agents of the State and the private sector, and it is critically important that we get the language as clear and unambiguous as we can. Of course, one of the purposes of these bills is to remedy examples where that language has proven to be less than accessible or less clear than it might be.

I would like to just mention in passing two particular parts of the bill, being Part 23 and Part 24. Part 23 deals with some amendments to the Official Information Act 1982. It deals with, as a previous speaker commented—Mr Hudson, I think, outlined that it does explain under what circumstances requests under the Act may be made orally, and the obligations on both parties to ensure that there is some clarity about what is being asked. It is a more or less technical change to the Act, but none the less a useful one. Part 24 deals with the Ombudsmen Act 1975, and again it just clarifies and spells out the situation and the conditions under which the Ombudsman may refuse to investigate a complaint if the Ombudsman believes that there are adequate remedies to be found elsewhere or that the matter is trivial or vexatious—there are a number of provisions there. It just spells out with some clarity how and in what circumstances the Ombudsman may refuse to or choose not to pursue an investigation into a complaint.

I think it is interesting that what links those two parts of the bill is what is happening currently, of course, and that is that the Ombudsman is undertaking an investigation into the implementation of the Official Information Act. Notwithstanding that we are making some minor technical changes to it, the Ombudsman has stated that she believes that the Act is fit for purpose and that it is serving us well in terms of its intention and structure, but she believes that an inquiry is needed to assure the public “that both the letter and the spirit of the law are being observed by the custodians of public information.”

I think it is to the considerable credit of the Ombudsman that she is undertaking that investigation, given that there have been rumblings, concerns, and expressions of concern about examples of alleged abuse of the Act and of manipulation of it. It is to the credit of Dame Beverley Wakem who, of course, has been an Ombudsman for some 10 years, 7 of them as Chief Ombudsman, and who has certainly brought credit on herself and on that office. So we look forward with interest to that investigation and to see what it produces.

I think that I will not endeavour to speak to the other 29 or 30 parts of the bill, but will simply say that the Greens do support this bill.

I would like to begin by acknowledging Ruth Dyson’s superb speech on this bill. It was actually given in two parts—first, at the last time that the bill was discussed a few days ago, actually; and, secondly, tonight. Her review of this fascinating bill was so comprehensive that it does mean that I will now be able to make a much shorter speech than I otherwise would have, so I want to acknowledge her superb contribution. It is true that on the previous occasion I did try to elbow my way in in front of her, but I am glad that I did not because now, as I have said, I can make a shorter speech and that will be perfectly fine, having regard to the comprehensive nature of her contribution.

I do want to say that New Zealand First will support the bill and the recommendations of the Government Administration Committee. The committee has, in fact, done a really good job in scrutinising this very large bill, which makes amendments to over 30 Acts of Parliament. It is not the sort of thing you would like to take to bed to read, but it is, nevertheless, an important bill in its own right. I do think that the select committee has done very well, and the only comments I want to make tonight are in relation to some of the recommendations that the Government Administration Committee has made. I am glad to see, actually, that the first recommendation concerned the removal of clauses 49(1) and 51, amending the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, and clauses 70 and 71, amending the Official Information Act 1982. Those amendments were not appropriate for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill, and, in fact, it is good to see that that is not being proceeded with.

One amendment concerned a definition of “legal professional privilege” from the Evidence Act 2006. That could be interpreted to restrict legal professional privilege to only circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated. That was not the intention of this particular piece of legislation either, so it is good to see that that is gone. Another would amend the grounds for providing a good reason for withholding legal professional privilege, and, again, that is not suitable for a statutes amendment bill. So I do not know how those all got into this piece of legislation in the first place. They should not have been there and the committee is right to recommend their exclusion or amendment.

There is one important area that I do want to comment on and that does concern Official Information Act requests. These are very important to a large number of members of the public, and I would have to say that far too many requests for official information are not properly dealt with by the agencies or the local authorities that deal with them. This is an area that probably needs a lot more attention than it is getting here, but some sensible amendments are being made that we can support.

The amendments to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act would allow applications for official information to be made orally. It is important that that be possible for people who are not used to dealing with written requests and formalities of that kind, and there are plenty of people in that position. So it is very important that those people should be comfortable in being able to make oral applications for official information, and they should be able to get it on that basis. The tension, of course, is that if people make oral applications, they may not be as clear or as comprehensive as perhaps they should be if the applications were done formally in writing. So there is a bit of tension there between the need for people to have that right to make oral applications and for them to be clear enough to be acted upon by the agency or the local authority concerned.

However, it is open to abuse by such agencies and local authorities being obstructive if they can say: “Well, you have to put this in writing. Oral isn’t good enough. It isn’t clear enough.” So there is a bit of a risk there. The committee amendment is very sensible, because what it says is that they can make such a request conditional, allowing the request only if the local authority is able to properly say that it is reasonably necessary for the purpose of clarifying the request that it be then made in writing. I think that is a pretty satisfactory balance between that tension I spoke of, between the right of an applicant to be able to make an oral application and the need for it to be clear enough to be acted upon. So if it is a condition and if it is necessary, then the local authority or agency can then say: “In these circumstances, you need to make a written request.” I think it is a pretty good balance being reached there and New Zealand First can support those amendments for that reason.

It is an important area of the law. We should not underestimate the importance of Official Information Act requests from members of the public because they need to have good access to information, and far too many local authorities and some agencies do make it far too difficult. They are more likely to be obstructive than helpful, and that is not good enough. As I have said, this is an area that I think does need further looking into and change in the future. But as far as these changes are concerned, New Zealand First can support them as part of a statutes amendment bill.

Finally, the only other comment I wanted to make does relate to the minor amendments to the Local Electoral Act and the Local Government Act 2002. They are only technical in content, and it appears that they were unintentionally omitted. They relate to the time frame for completing pre-election processes for general elections, and the sensible change is that they will now be applied to all elections and polls, not just general elections. That is something that in itself is not a very big matter. But one of the things I have noticed in some of the legislation we have been dealing with over the last few years is that there is not a very good comparison between local government election legislation and general election legislation. There is no reason for the differences between that legislation, and a bit more work like this does need to be done to make sure that they both operate in the same sort of way. It is just not sensible that local elections and general elections should have different rules. I think it is pretty sensible that we have consistency, so I am glad to see that we are at least making a little bit of progress with this amendment. We need to do a lot more for them.

All of the changes otherwise—other than those I have mentioned—in this very large bill are very sensible, so New Zealand First will have the greatest pleasure in supporting it at this stage and further.

It is unusual that New Zealand First supports a bill in this House, but I think it is the nature of this bill that the amendments are small, short, and something that New Zealand First can understand. It has actually decided to support it in this case. I noticed it did get Denis O’Rourke out to speak on it, and we have the utmost respect for Denis O’Rourke. We do not know why he is not campaigning for leader. I do not know why Tracey Martin is not campaigning for leader. I do not know why Ron Mark is not campaigning for leader. Obviously, they are waiting for their leader to crash and burn, and then they are going to come out and say what a great person—

💬 Hon Todd McClay: We’ve got the 10-bridge policy; they’ve got the two-letterbox policy.

He has got the two-letterbox policy, but I will not go into that, because if we did an Official Information Act request on that—as required, we are talking about the Official Information Act requirements—I am sure Mr Denis O’Rourke would not like to see the results of the Official Information Act request on the two-letterbox approach. But he did mention the word “consistency”. Consistency from the New Zealand First Party—I would like to see that in its policy around transport.

Today we also mentioned that when we look at the roads of national significance, that is the biggest issue that there will be in the Northland election. Will the Wellsford to Pūhoi road go ahead? That is what the people up there are going to ask. I went on the campaigns with Denis O’Rourke, because, believe it or not, Denis O’Rourke was the transport spokesperson for the New Zealand First Party at the last election. We had a number of debates that we went to together. Mr O’Rourke was very careful and very blunt in his assessment of the roads of national significance. He was very, very blunt in saying that there is no way that the Pūhoi to Wellsford road would go ahead under New Zealand First.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: That is not true. Misrepresentation.

It is not. It is the truth of the matter. We sat in the building just around the corner here, and you said: “There is no way that that road is going to happen if New Zealand First had a chance.” That is the truth.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Why don’t you tell the truth for a change?

OK, we have got some facts to support the truth. This is New Zealand First’s transport policy, written by a Mr Winston Peters—written by Winston Peters. He wrote this. He does not often write much, but he actually did write this. Let us go to page 2 of that policy. I will quote this for you: “We are calling for a thorough review of National’s bloated and hugely expensive ‘RONS’ programme which is massively extravagant given all the other areas of necessary spending that are being cut to fund it.” Do you want me to read that again? I will read that again for you. “We are calling for a thorough review of National’s bloated and hugely expensive”—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! We have strayed far enough. I ask the member to come back to the bill.

If we have a look at Part 12 of the bill, where we actually look at the Land Transport Act, it has made these consequential amendments to the Land Transport Act. This is very important for the Land Transport Act, because the Land Transport Act dictates what is actually spent. If we look at New Zealand First’s policy, it will not spend money on roads of national—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Sit down, thank you. We are going to continue with the debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). New Zealand First’s policy in relation to transport, especially in the north, has very little to do with that piece of legislation. I ask the member to continue.

New Zealand First’s transport policy does not exist, really, and that was the whole point because Denis said he did not have one and he just wanted to set up the trains of national significance. That was those members’ position. But there was a train from Wanganui to Wellington that I am sure the Deputy Speaker would have been proud to see happen.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not bring me into it.

The Land Transport Act 1998 is one of the Acts that this bill does incorporate.

💬 Hon David Parker: In what way?

Well, there are a number of ways. The first way is it makes a consequential amendment in regard to collecting blood specimens for blood-alcohol assessments. So I am sure the member over there would take great interest in that.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: What’s it got to do with Northland?

What has it got to do with Northland? Well, the thing is that New Zealand First does not have a transport policy and it does not believe in the roads of national significance. So just say you were on that road and you got pulled up for a blood-alcohol test. Under New Zealand First’s policy, you would get pulled up on a one-lane road instead of a four-lane road. That is the difference.

There are also changes in there, consequential amendments, in regard to the police and their powers around the Summary Proceedings Act and the Search and Surveillance Act—important things as well, I am sure.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Get the Prime Minister to nail it for you.

Pardon? What was that?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Get the Prime Minister to put a nail in it.

Get the Prime Minister to put a nail in it. Oh, that is the nail in the coffin of New Zealand First, but we know that is coming very soon. The question is whether it is Tracey or Ron who is going to be putting the nail in Winston’s coffin, but we will soon see.

💬 Hon Todd McClay: A stake through the heart.

Yeah, I am sure there will be.

💬 Jacinda Ardern: Does someone not have anything to say about this bill?

No, no, these members need to listen and learn and they will understand. Another part of the Land Transport Act that is covered in this bill is in regard to the definition of “traffic offence”. That is the amended section 91A of the Land Transport Act, covering offences under both the 1977 and 2012 Road User Charges Acts.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Does it apply in Northland?

Does it apply in Northland? Well, that member keeps on bringing us back to Northland. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to read out the quote again that says that the New Zealand First Party will not support roads of national significance? Am I supposed to do that? It obviously is not clear to that member, who spent all of last year, an election year, bagging the roads of national significance. Now he is all for supporting them.

If we look at another part of this bill that talks about land transport, there is the removal of information on stationary vehicle infringement notices, which needs to be included in reminder notices.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: Fascinating.

That is another excellent part of this bill. Did you have something to say over there, Mr O’Rourke? Yes, I did not think so. Then there is the amendment to the Land Transport Management Amendment Act 2008, and that corrects the date on which Land Transport New Zealand, Transit New Zealand, and the office of the Director of Land Transport were dissolved. That is a minor part of the legislation, of course, but it is all part of what has to happen in—

💬 Denis O’Rourke: The whole speech is minor.

Pardon?

💬 Denis O’Rourke: The whole speech is minor.

The whole speech is minor. Well, you know, that member really should be quiet. That member who is here at the behest of one person in this Parliament, and who has never won an electorate seat, never will, and never could, is really here just clipping the ticket, as most members of his party are, and that is the danger of it. [Interruption] Now the Labour Party is having a go. They are all ticket clippers, as well. I do not see any winners over there. Oh, OK, there are two in the front row, but all the rest of them are ticket clippers. They have never won a seat and never will either. That is just the nature of the Labour Party [Interruption] Oh, come on. Do not make it personal now, eh. This is an important piece of legislation here. Those members have to resort to that. I know it is sad, but that is the nature of the Labour Party at this stage.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I would really appreciate it if the member concentrated on addressing the bill in the last 2 minutes of his incredibly long 10 minutes. In spite of interjections from the Cantabrian referring to Northland, which is most unusual, I would ask the member to make his contribution salient to the bill, the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am trying to, but it is just that the continual barrage from the other side breaks through the legislation debate.

Let us go to a different category. Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987—

💬 Stuart Nash: Oh, amalgamation. That’s all you want to do.

Amalgamation—that is the member over there. He loves amalgamation, does he not? He will be amalgamating with the New Zealand First Party and the Green Party soon, so it will be interesting to see how that works out, will it not? That amendment clarifies that information held by a person engaged with a local authority as an independent contractor is deemed to be held by the local authority. That is another part of that piece of legislation that is important for us here tonight. There is clause 50, clarifying that information should be made progressively available. I think that it was the Official Information Act that the member for New Zealand First found a lot of need to discuss in great depth in this House.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Can they employ that in Northland?

Yes, well, can they employ that in Northland? I would like to see an Official Information Act request on the New Zealand First transport policy in regards to the Pūhoi to Wellsford road, and to see that it does not actually support that road.

💬 Denis O’Rourke: The member wouldn’t understand it.

Oh, the member will not understand it. Oh, come on. See, that is the thing with New Zealand First members. They just have to go that way. They are just not—

I am sorry to interrupt. The member’s time has expired. This is 5-minute call from the Green Party.

I too rise to address the incredibly long debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Let me begin with a confession tonight that I am, I think, less blessed than Brett Hudson. It has not come as an unbridled pleasure to address the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Rather, it is something akin to a bridled responsibility, one that comes from serving House duty on a Wednesday night immediately after dinner. So be it. We can all measure up to our responsibilities. My contribution will be mercifully fleeting, for myself and for everybody here tonight.

I did not serve on the Government Administration Committee, so insights are not automatically flooding in as I search feverishly through the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), with its 33 parts, for something intelligible to offer to the House, other than to note the interesting comment from the Hon Ruth Dyson that the role of these omnibus bills is essentially to fix up mistakes and that there is a great deal of that to be had. I think she said, if I understood her correctly, that every bill, or a majority of bills, need legislative amendment at some stage. That may well be the case. It reminds me of the sign on the back of the van that is going around the streets in Christchurch. It is a plumber’s van and it says: “We’re the guys who fix what your husband just repaired.” I think that is what the Government Administration Committee is expected to be doing most of the time.

It does raise the question of whether we could have some alteration to our parliamentary procedure, because if, in fact, we find that the majority of bills that come through the legislative process require amendment within a short space of time, we could ask ourselves whether the Committee of the whole House is an adequate vehicle. The Committee stage may be necessary, but is it sufficient to act as a filter for all the legislative problems we might be bequeathing?

We could perhaps amend the role of the Government Administration Committee so that after bills have gone through the Committee of the whole House, they revert to the Government Administration Committee automatically and immediately, and the Government Administration Committee could patch up what the Committee of the whole House has not succeeded in doing—or it could happen after the third reading. That was my attempt at post-dinner humour.

I will now move on to the really serious part of this contribution, and that is to recall the role of quality control—of course, it used to belong to the Upper House, at least to some extent—in the New Zealand constitution. In our constitutional wisdom we, obviously, abolished the bicameral structure about 60 years ago. Some people think we have floundered around ever since in our unicameral system, churning out the law, especially with this current Government in power, without any real quality-control mechanism. It would be an interesting study, perhaps, to find out how many bills have teetered and tottered their way through infancy only to be admitted to a statutes amendment bill within, say, 5 years of being enacted. I count, in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), four out of 33—one in 2010 and three in 2012.

We could really ask ourselves whether there is some better system of ensuring a better filtering mechanism, or quality control, than we currently have. We in the Green Party are prepared to support this bill in the spirit of close cooperation with the Government and other parties, and I accordingly commend it to the House.

This is a 5-minute call from the Labour Party.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te W’are. Tēnā koe. It is a great pleasure for me to stand to speak in the second reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) tonight. There are 32 parts to this, and that gives me 9.34 seconds to speak on each one of them, which I will not do. I am bound to use a couple of Māori words again, as I have done in the past. Just to give you a heads-up before the end of my speech, the word I am going to be using tonight is “tito”. When used as a verb it means to invent or compose. When used as a noun it means to lie or deceive. At the time I use it I am sure you will work out which one I am using. Can I say that this is a fixer-up bill. It amends 32 Acts. I think that the Government might give a prize to the Minister with the most Acts in this Statute Amendment Bill. I am not sure exactly who that is.

💬 Kris Faafoi: It’ll be Bridges.

Yes, I am not exactly sure. I do not think she is any longer a Minister, actually, the one who has got the most.

In regard to the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act, Part 22 of this Statute Amendment Bill (No 4) amends the meaning of right of first refusal land, and, of course, it is critically important to those of us Māori electorate MPs that we do get the settlement legislation correct. I commend the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations for getting this part of the amendment bill through to this stage. I am sure Ngāti Manuhiri will be very pleased that their Act will be corrected. So I give that out to them.

Also, with the Official Information Act, I endorse the words that have been said by the Opposition side to the Government. I think it is really important that the Official Information Act 1982 is the best that it can be and that the general public have that right to find out information. I am not sure whether these amendments are exactly what they ought to be, but we on this side are supporting this bill.

I mentioned earlier the word that I was going to use. I will use it as a verb. Coming back from the Te Matatini festival, there were many compositions of waiata—tito waiata—that expressed the people’s concern about things that are in this type of legislation. I encourage all of the members opposite to listen to the words of the haka of the winning group—the winning kapa haka. I mihi out to them, W’ānau-a-Apanui and their haka, entitled “Hone Kī”. I think the words within that particular haka are very relevant to the way in which the Government has proceeded with the type of legislation that we now find in front of us. It is legislation to fix what is obviously wrong with these 32 Acts, and, as I said, that gives 9 seconds on each one of these in a 5-minute call—18 seconds if you are lucky enough to get a 10-minute call. I endorse the words of that kapa haka by W’ānau-a-Apanui and I encourage the members opposite—and others as well—to carefully look at what they say, because they are relevant in telling this House the way that our people are feeling about what is happening in our Government and in this Parliament. Nō reira, tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā.

I am very confused by the last speech. I am not sure what it had to do with Northland or New Zealand First’s transport policy—very confusing.

I am very pleased to take a call on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) in this, its second reading. Also, to acknowledge the last speech, we were disappointed it could not be a double call—that we could not have got up to 18 seconds per change. But I was wondering whether this might be a signal or something of the Government and what people are thinking. I think I can state quite confidently as a member of a Government that has an excellent majority that the people of New Zealand are behind what National is doing, including the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that we are considering tonight.

I do not sit on the Government Administration Committee, but every so often I have been subbed in from time to time. I have got the good fortune to sit on the Health Committee and the Commerce Committee, but I am conscious that the Government Administration Committee does a lot of good work across an array of areas, and one of them is pulling things together such as this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I think it is particularly good that Ruth Dyson has been the chair of that committee in the past Parliament—the 50th Parliament—and provides that continuity into this, the 51st Parliament. When she gave her contribution earlier I think she mentioned Chris Auchinvole, whom I believe recently turned 70. Indeed—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: What? Fifty.

50? Was it 50—50, 70, you know—we cannot count. We will have to make an amendment to that. That will be the 34th amendment. Chris Auchinvole was the National representative on the committee at the time.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: A very fine man.

He is a fine man, indeed. He has stepped away, of course, from Parliament and is back down on the West Coast with family. But Sarah Dowie from the National side now helps to lead the Government Administration Committee. So I want to thank them for their work.

There have been some accusations, scurrilous or otherwise, that a statutes amendment bill shows somehow that the Government is making lots of mistakes and errors. Statutes amendment bills are actually quite normal in a Westminster system. They are a fairly normal protocol. In fact, if you look up the Cabinet Manual—I know other colleagues have referred to the Standing Orders, but for those interested in matters constitutional, matters electoral, or just the political process in general, if you turn to the Cabinet Manual you can see that the likes of statutes amendment bills like this one are a means to bring about technical changes. Usually those are quite small—not necessarily insignificant—but are amendments that are required.

I think, even having been here for only 3 and a bit years, you can see, even with a robust select committee process, that it is not unusual or abnormal that there are going to be small technical things that pop through. Some of them arise just by the sheer volume of work that is coming through a committee and they have to be dealt with and acknowledged, but also it is often when applying a piece of law that we begin to see elements that we did not anticipate. It is those unexpected, unanticipated consequences, which is a phrase often heard across and through this House, regardless of political colour—red, green, black, yellow, purple, or blue. So, again, it is quite normal.

Statutes amendment bills—these are again an opportunity to make those changes in a timely fashion. Again, when you look at the Cabinet Manual, it is quite clear to Ministers that if their request is more substantial or of a great urgency, they have to move fairly promptly through a different mechanism.

I think the other side that we need to note around these changes is that the bill requires the affirmation of the whole House. In fact, it was something that Ruth Dyson acknowledged in her speech at the start and it was something I had not actually understood—that it requires the support of every member of this House. That is not an encouragement to members on the other side to get a small headline on page 2 of the Dominion Post tomorrow to oppose this—

💬 Hon Member: Page 22.

Well, it could be page 22, if there are that many pages. But actually every member of the House of Representatives is required to support the bill, and it is good so far to hear that everyone is in support of it.

I do need to acknowledge one of the suggestions from an earlier contribution, that if New Zealand had an Upper House, a bicameral constitutional system, we would not have these bills—that somehow a House of Lords would work. I, for one, am certainly not in favour of a House of Lords, senate, or any Upper House in this country. It works perfectly well in a unicameral system. But the other side, of course, is that the UK itself, which has a bicameral system, with two Houses of Parliament—the House of Commons and the House of Lords—also has to apply statutes amendment bills. So it is not unusual to have this process. I have to stress that context as we look at this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) tonight.

The select committee has obviously considered this bill quite closely. It has recommended several amendments. One is around legal professional privilege. There had been some confusion around the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act of 1982. It was basically that, as written, it could be seen as a restriction, particularly when proceedings are in train or being contemplated. So the select committee has brought some clarification to that.

Others have talked about the Official Information Act requests. I do not think that needs to be gone into any further. There have been some changes through this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) in terms of local government and so forth. There were some changes around how long after a general election—I think it is 7 days—that all the information presented needs to be summed up or tidied up. It seems, if I understand correctly, that that did not seem to apply to the likes of local government Acts or local government elections. Speaking from an Auckland perspective, we have an election in 2016, and we can have a look at it then. It is quite timely that it is in this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), and we make it very clear that the intention, as with general elections, that the post-election work is done within 7 days also applies to local government and other forms of elections. So that was the work that came out of the Government Administration Committee.

There was another amendment that was looked at by Louisa Wall. I think it is important to acknowledge that that was put forward. I understand it was considered by the committee but not seen as being within the scope of this bill. I do not think that has been mentioned by others tonight but I think it is important, as we talk about the purpose of a statutes amendment bill, in that actually anyone in the House is able to raise issues, in this case through the select committee. I was not there for the deliberations so I am not exactly sure why it was seen to be out of scope, from the committee’s perspective. From my own understanding of the issue I certainly can understand why. It is also an issue that probably needs firmer consideration and guidance rather than being part of what is a rather technical amendment bill.

There are a large number of changes. I have a list here; I am not going to go through it, of course. An earlier speaker alluded to a change to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act. Basically, if I understood it correctly, you could go down to the court and seek to have your name changed but you did not have to actually prove who you were by name or otherwise. [Interruption] So it was a little odd, and again just a small example of how all the best clarifications from officials, the work we do at the select committee, can still miss certain technicalities, and more often than not it is when the tyre hits the ground, if you want—I am not trying to make a reference to transport in Northland, Mr Bennett, which has been very popular.

💬 David Bennett: Pūhoi to Wellsford.

Pūhoi to Wellsford is very popular as well. A little money for Tāmaki Drive would be very welcome too. But that was just one example. We as members of select committees, whether it is health, commerce, or Government administration, do try to think through each clause, each change, that has been initiated. But, again, statutes amendment bills often fix up those little technicalities, those little elements, we have not considered.

Another one I just want to mention is a change, in the Prime Minister’s name, to the Governor-General Act. We made some changes recently, and I just want to clarify that the authority that sets the funding for the Governor-General also has the power to deal with things such as KiwiSaver contributions and ACC levies. If I might, I just want to acknowledge the Governor-General for something he did. There is an excellent constituent in the Tāmaki and Maungakiekie electorate. His name is Sir Don Rowlands and he is very well-known in the rowing and sporting community and also in the business community. He was awarded a knighthood by the Queen. Unfortunately, his health has deteriorated quite quickly, and His Excellency went to his hospital bed yesterday to do a private and early investiture. I think that is just a fantastic act. So I thought that was good and I thought I would put that on the record, not only for Sir Don but also for the Governor-General.

There is a whole array of other changes—changes to the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act, the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act, and so on. There is a huge number, and I will leave it to others to speak about them.

I do not know whether or not to call it a rare privilege to see the National Party members engaging in debate. It is somewhat disappointing that it is the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that they have chosen to engage in said debate on, but, none the less, we welcome engagement from the other side of the House. They are often so hurried in their dialogue in this Chamber that I often miss out on the great oratory that they have to offer. Perhaps, though, if the member from Hamilton gifted that opportunity to more of his other colleagues in the future, generally, that would be slightly more welcome. They seem to engage in filibustering much more successfully, despite his length of service in this House. According to the member who just took his seat, the New Zealand public are—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I regret interrupting the member. The member knows—Mr Bennett, return. I am going to warn the member that he knows he can interject when he is seated but he cannot wander around yelling. He must not.

I come back to the point I was making. The member Simon O’Connor, who just resumed his seat, spoke of the New Zealand public’s support for the National Government being so great that they would specifically be supporting the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) this evening. It does not matter, of course, that half the members of Parliament do not know what is in this bill, but, apparently, the public are right behind the Government on this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)—leaving behind the fact that, actually, the whole Parliament is, because that is the nature of a statutes amendment bill. As the speakers who have gone before me have pointed out, statutes amendment bills are intended to be primarily technical. Often they are updating outdated legislation to bring it into line with other laws. Often they are used to fix technical issues. It is not intended to be substantive in terms of the amendments that are made, and that is closely linked to the fact that the entire debating chamber—all of Parliament—must support the amendments in the bill.

We are seeing an increasing number of amendments—and I will touch on a few of them—in the statutes amendment bill that are actually being used to fix up mistakes that have been made in often rushed legislation. We see a bit of it in the Local Government Act 2002 and in the amendments that were made around the super-city. It was a rushed process. It was something that we debated on heavily at the time. We thought the Government was moving too fast with that legislation and now we are seeing the result of that. A perfect example for me of the kind of amendment that a statutes amendment bill is intended for was the last Statutes Amendment Bill, I believe, when we made an update to the classifications legislation to mean that when you were putting out a new classification for an imported DVD, for instance, the new classification did not have to be fixed to the physical DVD. It could be on the outside, on the wrapping. The industry was spending an extraordinary amount of time having to unwrap everything in order to get the sticker directly on the product rather than on the outside of the product. Little changes like that we can all agree to.

I want to come to some of the points of the bill that might have been considered worthy of some commentary by the Government Administration Committee. One of the first of those—and I believe that it has probably been touched on—was the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and the Official Information Act 1982. Regarding the amendments to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, there were two clauses, clauses 49(1) and 51, that the select committee has recommended removing because, in its view, the changes that were made in that part of the Act would alter legal privilege, and the committee believed that it was not appropriate for a statutes amendment bill. Again, that was a really good test by the select committee, checking whether or not that was an appropriate place for that amendment. I assume that the Minister will perhaps be pursuing that amendment in another form.

On, more specifically, the issue of Official Information Act requests, clause 52(2) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and clause 72(2) of the Official Information Act, as introduced, as the select committee has pointed out, confirm that an official information request can only be made orally. It was an issue raised by Denis O’Rourke, quite rightly, that local authorities or agencies may request that oral requests be put in writing. I do not think it would be the intention of this House for it to be that amendment in practice. We would not want a situation, I think, where, for instance, a constituent of any member’s electorate contacted a local authority and asked for a piece of information only to be told the request had to be put in writing. That is not the spirit of the Act. Therefore, I think it is right to have the proposed amendments by the select committee, which would make this ability conditional. So the local authority has the ability to do that, but not as a matter of course.

I think, thinking through that change in a really practical sense, the idea that for a person who might, for instance, have an impairment or a disability, where the practice of actually physically writing out a request was not possible, or perhaps they would not have access to the internet—I know I still have a lot of contact with individuals who do not have access to the internet—it would be unfair to create a provision that would mean they could not access the Official Information Act as a result of this amendment. So I think that is a useful change by the select committee.

Coming back to Official Information Act changes more generally, the bill also replaces another section, section 28(4), of the Act. That is a part of the Act that is around Ministers answering requests on time. I want to make a general statement about that part of the primary legislation. There is no amendment to the requirement to respond as soon as practical, which is within at least 20 days, but our concern is with the degree to which that is actually being upheld currently. The Prime Minister admitted not that long ago that he and his Ministers deliberately hold Official Information Act requests until the 20th day for political reasons, except we have seen some exceptions to that rule. It was in Dirty Politics that we saw the discussion over the very rapid release of information where it was politically expedient.

I think we have to be extremely careful to ensure that political process is not undermining the importance of the Official Information Act legislation. It is that kind of legislation that groups like Transparency International rely on as a measure of New Zealand’s transparency and its accountability, and if we stretch the spirit of the law, which has been done to a greater and greater extent, we actually undermine the law in and of itself. That is a concern that we have had for some time. We cannot take for granted our ranking within that group.

I want to come to amendments to the Local Electoral Act 2001 and the Local Government Act 2002. Again, this is quite a technical change, but the select committee has recommended putting in a new clause there. Essentially, the amendment here extends the time frame for completing pre-election processes by 7 days for general elections. The intention here was so it would not be confined just to general elections, so there is a need to make some amendments, more broadly, in the Local Electoral Act and the Local Government Act, as this amendment does. I would have been interested, though, to hear from the Minister as to whether or not it would have been timely to use this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to ensure that, actually, there were not any other amendments required for another very important cross-electoral issue, and that is online voting. It may well be that there could be legislative impediments to that, and yet we know that the Electoral Commission is looking to trial online voting in some part at the local government level. It is a concern—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

That might have been an opportunity, because there are potentially impediments that we might be reaching further down the track.

Coming then to some of the other changes that have been made as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), I see that Part 31 has an amendment to the Tokelau (Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone) Act 1977. No one, unfortunately, has touched on that Act, and yet it seems rather relevant, given that it talks about the prohibition of foreign fishing in territorial seas. I would have thought that it sounds like an incredibly important issue to have made sure that we have that correct in our legislation, but, again, putting it in law does not always mean it happens. Even though we have the ability to find in breach a vessel that is acting against the law by being in and fishing in a territorial area it is not meant to be in, being an unlicensed craft and being able to be fined half a million dollars does not mean it is actually going to happen. So enforcement is just as important, if you get my drift.

Kia ora, e te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i te Whare e mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak on an omnibus bill. I believe that I also take the last call on this bill. I suppose the first thing, from taking the last call and listening to the speeches in the House tonight, is it is important, I think, to acknowledge all of the good work that is done by members on both sides of the House, particularly from all parties, and to acknowledge the Hon Ruth Dyson, who chaired the Government Administration Committee in the 50th Parliament and the 51st Parliament, and Denis O’Rourke and Chris Auchinvole, who as mentioned is not here. I just acknowledge all of those people and members who were responsible for getting the bill to this stage. My colleague Adrian Rurawhe on the other side of the House mentioned a Māori word, tito. It was an interesting interpretation that he gave. But I suppose the word I want to mention, particularly in talking about the collaboration on both sides of the House, is the Māori word kotahitaka, which really means the togetherness of everyone and working in unison. I think the important thing is to acknowledge that.

The next thing is that Statute Amendment bills are to make short, technical, and, some might say, boring changes to existing legislation, but the changes are not inconsequential. The changes make it to this House only because they do matter, and I believe they are worth talking about. There are actually six that I would like to mention here that have really interested me. The first one that was of great interest to me as the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, and which was alluded to by my learned colleague on the other side of the House, was the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act of 2012. In clause 68 the bill addresses an error in the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act of 2012 that puts the Act out of line with the deed of settlement. The deed of settlement with Ngāti Manuhiri agreed that the iwi should have first refusal over Crown land in an area set out in the trust deed. But I think the important thing there is that the trust deed did not give Ngāti Manuhiri first refusal over land owned by Crown bodies. It was supposed to apply only to land owned directly by the Crown.

Looking at that, I understand now that Ngāti Manuhiri have been consulted on this change and are in agreement that the Act as it stands does not reflect the trust deed and, therefore, should be changed. It is good to see that consultation was carried out with the affected iwi, and I commend the Ngāti Manuhiri people for agreeing to this change and for it being made in the spirit of the original trust deed. That again really reflects the kotahitaka in that and the goodwill as well. That really also reflects the important reasons why we have this type of bill and this type of legislation.

The next one, No. 2, is something that I think really does highlight the fact that quite a small and possibly insignificant thing could actually be quite big, and that one to me was in the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act of 1995. Currently, if a New Zealand - born person wants to change their legal name, all that is required that they have to do is fill in a form, sign a statutory declaration, and pay a fee. They do not need to provide any photo ID or even their birth certificate. This may have worked well in the past, but New Zealanders demand a higher level of security around their identity documents. So this bill amends the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995. This allows the registrar-general to require evidence of identity before registering a name change. I think that is really important, particularly in the day and age that we live in.

The next one concerns the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982. That one there is a reflection on how committed this Government is to reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, and a number of the changes in this bill are designed to do exactly that. Currently the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions is required to prepare an annual report and table it in Parliament. However, credit unions and insurers are now supervised by the Reserve Bank. There is no need for a report to Parliament separate to that carried out by the Reserve Bank. This bill amends the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act 1982 to remove this requirement.

A number of these actually have been mentioned tonight, but pretty much just in passing. I was just trying to give some detail because of the importance of why I believe that these different changes are needed, and that is why I want to highlight them. The changes to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and the Official Information Act 1982 have been mentioned, but I think the important thing is that there are quite a number of changes being made, as we know, to those Acts. These Acts exist to improve the access New Zealanders have to their Government. I think that is a real hallmark of where this Government is actually positioning itself to enable that. They also exist to promote open and transparent local government and central government. These changes to the Acts seek to improve transparency and openness. They also clarify some provisions that have already been in place but have not been universally understood.

We are clarifying that information held by a person engaged by a local authority as an independent contractor is deemed to be held by the local authority. This is as it should be. Local councils often have good reason to use independent contractors to carry out work, but their choosing to do so should not result in reduced transparency, either deliberately or coincidentally. We are also clarifying that requests for official information under either of these Acts does not need to refer to the Act and can be communicated in any form. This bill will put beyond doubt that official information can be released electronically. Again, this reduces the bureaucracy that would be involved if anyone interpreted the current wording of the Act to mean they needed to release information in paper form. There are other changes to improve the way Acts work and increase the transparency.

This is a Government that believes in reducing bureaucracy and ensuring that the laws on our statute book are accurate and up to date. These amendments are minor, technical, and non-controversial, but they are very, very important, as has been highlighted with the speeches tonight in the House on this bill. I have no hesitation in commending the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to the House. Kia ora.

Bill read a second time.