Third Readings

When this legislation was last debated the Hon Ruth Dyson was speaking. She has 9 minutes and 30 seconds remaining if she wishes to take it.

Mr Speaker, I certainly do wish to take my remaining 9 minutes 30 seconds. I recall that when I started my contribution on this legislation on Thursday evening of the last sitting week, the member of Parliament for Invercargill had just resumed her seat and had been praising the community trust and the work it does in Invercargill. I was disappointed that she had not continued her contribution, because I thought that after a pretty rigorous week in Parliament it was a very pleasant way of ending, with a local constituency member praising an organisation in her own electorate. So I am sorry that she did not take up the remaining 30 seconds, but I want to commend her for that contribution.

It is also fitting that a debate on a statutes amendment bill is not as partisan as some of the other debates that we have in this House, because the nature of a statutes amendment bill is such that if any single member of the House disagrees with a provision in it, then that part does not proceed as part of a statutes amendment bill. It has to be unanimously agreed. That is pretty unusual. It is also unusual in the fact that statutes amendment bills are—particularly this one—omnibus bills, so they cover a wide range of legislation. From memory, this legislation, which we are putting through its third reading now, covers 34 different pieces of legislation, which is a lot. That is why it has been divided into 34 bills for the third reading and, then, of course, it amends 34 different existing Acts.

The nature of the amendments within a statutes amendment bill are generally technical. They generally clarify policy that is unclear because of the drafting, so that the original policy intent is reflected in the amended drafting. They are not meant to involve any policy changes at all. It is for this reason that during the select committee consideration of this legislation, some of the proposed amendments outlined in the original legislation were struck out by the committee. The Government Administration Committee, which considered this legislation, considered that some of the provisions, as they were outlined, were not appropriate for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill, and in other parts of the legislation, the committee just recommended changes. So we struck out some provisions and we recommended changes in others.

It is ironic to reflect that during a debate that contains no policy alterations at all—although these are important changes to make, they are not policy changes—we are having a full parliamentary debate and we have had select committee scrutiny. And it is quite an irony when you consider that on something that is much more important because it involves people’s lives and it involves New Zealand’s security and our integrity as a nation—the issue of sending troops to Iraq, for example—there was no parliamentary vote at all. So here we have the juxtaposition: a statutes amendment bill that does not have any policy at all goes through an entire select committee process including submissions—not very many in this case—the Committee of the whole House, and a vote at every stage; but for something as important as sending our young men and women to be involved in combat in Iraq, we did not have the opportunity for a parliamentary vote.

As I said at the beginning, this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) contains amendments to 34 different Acts. It is very helpful that it is in alphabetical order. It starts off, I think, with probably the Animal Welfare Act—yes, the Animal Welfare Act—and it goes right through to the Wildlife Act. It does not cover every letter of the alphabet, but it does a pretty good job. You might ask: “How does it have more parts than letters of the alphabet?” Well, that is because we have several letters repeated. For example, we have got the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act, we have got the National Parks Act, and we have got Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act. My colleague Adrian Rurawhe spoke on that in the earlier part of the debate—at the Committee stage, I think; yes—and I hope he might make a contribution in the third reading as well.

I want to acknowledge the officials who worked on this legislation. Of course, as I said, it does not have the rigour of a partisan debate, but it does require quite rigorous consideration by the select committee, and the officials, of course, helped us in that regard. Some of the amendments that we considered were fixing up previous errors. I have to say that the Government Administration Committee has not always made those corrections in the way that it intended, and sometimes other committees that have considered these legislative proposals have had to come back in subsequent statutes amendment legislation to correct what they thought was a correction. So we did not always get it right, but we certainly tried. The officials worked really hard to service the committee in that regard, as did the Clerk’s staff who support our committee, so I want to commend them.

I also want to make particular acknowledgment of the members on the committee, four of whom are no longer members of the Government Administration Committee. Mojo Mathers was on this committee, and still is, so I certainly acknowledge her, but others who were on the Government Administration Committee who are no longer on that committee are Trevor Mallard; the deputy chairperson, Chris Auchinvole, who has recently turned 70, is now sporting an elegant beard, I understand, and is very happily residing in his retirement from Parliament on the West Coast; Eric Roy, a former presiding officer of the House; and Kanwaljit Bakshi, who is still a member of the House, of course, but is not on the Government Administration Committee. So I just want to acknowledge them and their contribution.

We did give this legislation some rigorous intent, as I have said, to the point that we recommended that parts of it were not suitable for inclusion in a statutes amendment bill, and then we also made amendments to provisions that we left in. These are important considerations. Some of them caused political debate in the committee, even though that is not the point of a statutes amendment bill.

The provisions in Part 23 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), which contained alterations to the Official Information Act, caused me particular amusement, if I could just digress momentarily from the debate specifically on the legislation. I have been making a lot of Official Information Act requests to the Earthquake Commission because in our part of the world we have a lot of earthquake-related issues, and, of course, under the provisions of the Official Information Act there is a limited time frame within which Ministers or Government departments and agencies—anyone covered by the Act—are required to respond.

The Earthquake Commission was at one stage taking 6 months to respond to requests under the Official Information Act, and I certainly took the opportunity to mention that in passing in regard to the alterations just to see whether we could make it a provision under the statutes amendment bill amendments that the Official Information Act had to be complied with. But, of course, that is not necessary. I am pleased to say that the Earthquake Commission is now complying with the legislation through quite a lot of the intensive work that it has done. They might not be satisfactory responses, but at least it is complying with the legislation.

So with those comments can I just say that this is an unusual way of having legislation changed. Generally, it is done within a policy setting. This is an entire piece of legislation covering 34 different Acts of Parliament that does not make any policy changes at all. It makes technical alterations. It clarifies the original policy intent of the legislation, which had not been properly carried through from original drafting through to the final provisions of the legislation, and it also updates legislation. It is good legislation. It should receive the unanimous support of the House because that is what a statutes amendment bill requires in order to proceed.

I enjoyed being the chairperson of the Government Administration Committee, which considered this legislation. I think that the staff and the members of the committee gave it rigorous consideration. I hope there are no faults in it as we have progressed through this third and final reading, because if there are, we will be back here correcting them in a future statutes amendment bill. Thank you.

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this, the third reading of bills divided from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). As I have said, as a first-term MP, nearly every day is a day of firsts, and this is the point where we have reached with the third reading of this legislation. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) is a type of bill that I have not had to speak on before. One thing that has become apparent, if I might just say, in the role of a new member of Parliament is simply the volume and variation of the work to deal with. This is a great thing. The fact that we deal with so many things of import to our communities, to society as a whole—and I refer here to our work both inside and outside this House—is a great thing. In fact, the work is so enjoyable I would make the comment that at times it is very difficult to think of it as work.

But with the volume and variations of things that we do have to deal with it is helpful to have an aide-mémoire to remind us of the work at hand at this moment. I do apologise for my French pronunciation—it is only marginally better than my English. Unfortunately, my sign language is very limited, but it is at least succinct. So as an aide-mémoire I would just like to remind us all that this legislation started as an omnibus bill. An omnibus bill is a bill that contains changes across many Acts that are generally quite technical in nature and are non-controversial. They are not matters of policy but matters of small change. I am sure that that reminder serves us all well.

As this is in fact the first omnibus bill that I have had to speak on, I made some inquiries about what the nature of an “omnibus” is. Surprisingly, I could not find any references from the likes of great political luminaries such as Winston Churchill. I thought I would consult a very sage, world-renowned, and estimable man of knowledge in these areas, so I looked to see what Reg Varney had to say on these matters. I could not find a direct quote from Mr Varney, but given that one of the dictionary definitions of omnibus is “bus” and his very direct experience with such, it would be a fair comment to suggest that he might describe an omnibus as a vehicle that takes you where you need to go—a large vehicle that takes you where you need to go. That is just what this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) represents. It is amending provisions across 34 Acts. It is making small and non-controversial yet important changes—important to ensure that our laws are working effectively and as we intended. It is getting us to where we need to go.

On that, I might make comments on a few of the very important changes that are being made. I would also like to take this opportunity to correct a little misunderstanding we had in the Committee of the whole House stage. It was postulated that the changes under this omnibus bill were, in fact, prohibiting the introduction of Labour caucus members to Antarctica—Labour caucus members and other native invertebrates. As it transpires, that is not what the legislation is doing. The amendment referenced there was about harming native invertebrates in Antarctica. That is not what this bill does. This legislation makes changes to apply the same protections as are currently in force for native flora and fauna in Antarctica. They may be gentle wee flowers on the other side of the House, but they are not native to Antarctica.

The other area that was canvassed quite considerably over the debates on this legislation was the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995. This was because, of course, the potential is, as the provisions exist, that a person can change the name of another person, because they do not have to prove their identity when making said change. So it is quite possible that, you know—what could we envisage? Well, someone could indeed change the name of the current Labour leader to something like “The Kingston Flyer” without his permission and without any check on their legal right to do so under the current provisions. That is probably something they might do just before they sent him packing down the line from the Labour leadership, which history shows us is quite a regular occurrence in recent times. It has also shown us that it is quite common that such people find themselves in New York at the United Nations, or what is otherwise known as the “Last Train to Clarksville”.

The other amendments that are made in this bill include some very, very serious and simple but important changes to the Local Government Act 1974. We are making a change that will ensure that when people deal with temporary road closures, they are, in fact, dealing with the right agency. The right agency for consultation around local road closures is the New Zealand Transport Agency, not the Ministry of Transport, as is currently in the provision. If we were to operate according to the law, the local bodies would be consulting with the wrong agency. As you could imagine, if the law was taken very literally, it would make what is already a troublesome and burdensome job all that much harder.

But there are some very sound, pragmatic, and sensible things being done to help our Government agencies operate more efficiently and more effectively. The Copyright Act 1994 changes are a good example of that. Basically, the change there is permitting the Copyright Tribunal to sit with as many as five members—and it currently sits with a maximum of five—and as few as two members. As a member opposite pointed out in one of the other stages, the incredibly sound law that this Government has enacted around what is commonly referred to as the three-strikes legislation—or even sometimes, a little unkindly, as Skynet—and the implications of that law meant fewer illegal downloads, so the Copyright Tribunal has less of a workload now than it has had in the past. So a law change that actually permits the tribunal to go about its business with a better-sized tribunal than was legally stipulated at a full number of five members is simply common sense. It is a good change. It is a practical and pragmatic change, and it helps to ensure that we are delivering better public services.

Another matter of some interest that was mentioned by a member opposite is the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012. It has been identified that it might be a good idea for the National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme—or NAIT as it is also referred to in the legislation—to contract out some of the tasks that it does around compliance and the like. The change we are making just ensures it is very clear to all that the responsibility and accountability for such outsourced activities will remain with NAIT, which makes complete sense, I think, to anyone who might envisage what the Act should have been, and is clearly changing it to something that makes greater sense.

One change in particular that has stuck out for me since the first time I spoke on this legislation, which was in fact in the second reading, relates to information requests—both the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and also the Official Information Act 1982. We are making the same change across both. It relates to what happens when a request is amended or split into separate parts. As the law stands today, those local authorities or a Government agency can take the opportunity there to reset the requests as individual requests and go back to the start of the allowable time frame of 20 days. That means there is the scope there for such bodies to deliberately slow down a process, particularly as these are Acts that are used quite frequently by members of the public and interested groups.

So what this change is doing is reinforcing that, yes, each change does mean that for that amended part or for that new request there is a 20-day time frame, but—and this is very, very important—that 20-day limit will be applied only if the local authority or agency can show that it has made a demonstrable effort within 7 working days of the original request to make some meaningful progress on that request. What that means is that if they have been stonewalling such requests—to use a term that many of the public might consider—and then seek a further extension by looking to break it up into subsequent parts, they will not receive that allowance of a further 20 working days. That places some certainty and some favouritism, if I can use that word, back on the part of the requester, and that is a very, very sound measure.

Overall, I think that this omnibus bill—these 34 Acts we are amending—makes very good sense. The amendments are a sensible thing to endorse, and I commend the legislation to the House.

I just remind the House that thanks to the contributions from previous speakers we do know that this debate is about a statutes amendment bill. It amends 34 pieces of legislation. It is non-controversial. It is an omnibus bill, and we now know what an omnibus does. We have had a helpful quote from Reg Varney. It would be most appreciated by the Deputy Speaker and others in the House and by those listening if people speak to the provisions of the bill. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will endeavour to speak to the provisions of the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). It is important to recognise that statutes amendment bills are intended to be non-controversial, and I thank the Hon David Parker for his explanation during the Committee stage about the changes to the Standing Orders that generally disallow omnibus changes to legislation but do make exceptions for statutes amendment bills. It is because they are non-controversial and have tended to make small technical changes to legislation that they are quite different from other bills before this House, and if one single MP opposes a statutes amendment bill, then it does not proceed.

The Green Party exercised that right recently, because it was proposed through Supplementary Order Paper 50 to amend the original bill to change the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act 2013 to increase the travel benefits for MPs who had entered Parliament prior to 1999. To the Green Party, that looked to be both substantive and controversial, and it had no place in a statutes amendment bill. Therefore we opposed it, and it is not in the bill. I think that if that process, where we had to have the consensus of all the parties, applied to other legislation, legislation would be less partisan, it would be much more enduring, and you would not get the changes that are made by different Governments as they get into Parliament. So there are major advantages in a statutes amendment bill because it does have the agreement of all the House.

I would like to comment on some of the changes that the legislation makes to the Official Information Act—and they may seem small but they are significant. One of them is that if someone asks a department, a Minister, or an agency that the Official Information Act covers, for information orally, then the department or agency can ask that this be put in writing, but if that person—the requester—does not do that, then the department has got to record its understanding of the request and then provide a copy to the requester. The legislation also makes other changes to the Official Information Act to clarify that requests for information can be made in any form and do not need to refer to the Act. Also, the changes put in doubt that agencies, Ministers, and departments can provide the information to requesters in an electronic form.

Another improvement in the legislation is to allow the Ombudsman to hear complaints under the Act when an agency has failed to decide a request as soon as reasonably practicable. These sorts of changes are entirely consistent with the spirit and intent of the Official Information Act, which is to promote open government, and, as the Dominion Post said in an article last year, access to good information is not just some theoretical nicety; it is the oil that makes democracy work. It is because Government agencies are acting theoretically on our collective behalf—we fund them through our taxes—that we have every right to expect that they tell us what they are doing and that they respond promptly to requests for information.

The Official Information Act was introduced under the Muldoon Government, but the way that it is currently administered under this Government shows what a blatant disregard National has for the Act’s history and for the principles that informed it. We now see major delays in the release of information, and pages and pages of redactions when the information is finally released, so the Government has certainly strayed a long way from National’s original values of ensuring that there are effective checks on the power of the State and ensuring that the State is accountable.

David Fisher made a significant speech late last year, which described some of those changes. He said that when he started out as a journalist you could just ring someone in a Government department, ask for information, and it was provided. Now that does not happen, and we have the Prime Minister saying last October that Ministers sometimes waited 20 days to respond because the Government might take the view that it is in its best interests to do that. So that is a real corruption of the spirit and intent of the legislation. This legislation will not fix that, so the only thing we can hope for is that the review undertaken by the Chief Ombudsman, Dame Beverley Wakem, into the way in which the Official Information Act is being implemented will result in some quite substantive changes and recommendations for change, to try to restore public confidence in the effective operation of the Act.

The Official Information Act is critical. It is the essential oil of our democracy, and the Government needs to listen to the Chief Ombudsman’s recommendations when they come through, and it would be good if the public availed itself of the opportunity to make submissions to that review on how the Act is working. This legislation makes some minor changes but they will not correct that erosion of the spirit and intent of the Act, with Ministers sitting on information, major delays in its release, and major redactions. But the Green Party will support this legislation for the small changes it does make in that area. Thank you.

New Zealand First supports these various bills arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). The most important one for me concerns Official Information Act requests. Amendments were made to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and to the Official Information Act 1982, which would allow official information applications to be made orally. This is important for people who are not comfortable doing things in writing—it can be a huge barrier for many people, including the elderly, dyslexic people, and people who can express themselves orally but struggle doing anything like this in writing. It can be a barrier for people for whom English is not a first language. Often they cannot write English very well but can usually make themselves understood orally. Also, it is a barrier for sight-impaired people—and the list goes on.

The point here is that access to official information is an important human right—a very important human right—so it must not be compromised by official bureaucracy or obstructed in any way. Indeed, Government agencies and local government need to be proactive in assisting people to get the information they need. I am sad to say that I do not think that that is the case often enough in New Zealand at the present time. I would also have to say, sadly, that local government—some, but not all, councils—is, in fact, the worst offender.

Like many other people I have had personal experience of this. Christchurch City Council has been one of the worst offenders. My personal experience relates to information that I tried to get, perfectly reasonably, concerning that council’s recycling operations a couple of years ago. It was perfectly clear that it had something to hide and it was going to use the rules under the legislation to try to avoid giving the information that was being requested. It went to extraordinary lengths to do that.

That leaves people in the position of having to take the time and effort to go to the Ombudsman, but the Ombudsman, of course, has only relatively limited power, which is, I think, far too easily disregarded by councils. The Ombudsman’s determinations are not properly acted upon in many cases. So I want to use this occasion to say how disgusted I have been with the Christchurch City Council over its handling of official information requests in the past. We as members of Parliament need to take a great deal more interest in this, because far too many people in this country have too much difficulty in getting the information they are entitled to. The whole area needs more review, and people need easier ways to hold both Government agencies and local government to account over the many and various ways they have of avoiding their official information obligations.

This legislation by its nature is limited in how far it can go for that purpose, but it does make a minor yet very worthwhile step forward by making it clear that official information requests under both of those principal Acts can be made orally and must be acted upon. But the amendment also now says that local authorities or agencies may then request that oral requests be put in writing. So, again, councils and agencies may just always do that as a matter of course. They may abuse that provision. Thus a request for a written version would be open to abuse if a local authority or agency actually did want to be obstructive. As I have said, too many do just that.

I am glad to see that one of the amendments in the legislation now makes a request for an application to be converted into writing conditional, allowing the request for a written version only if it is reasonably necessary for the purpose of clarifying it. I am glad to see that is now in the legislation. Putting a request in writing should be necessary only in an extreme minority of cases. I, for one, will be watching and listening to see whether Government agencies and councils actually obey the clear intent of the legislation so that when applications are made orally, there is a request to put them in writing only for the purpose of clarifying the question, not for the purpose of conducting some kind of exercise in delaying or obfuscating the request.

I expect the Ombudsman will be watching that closely too. The message to Government agencies and local government has to be to watch out—the first step is being taken to avoid this kind of abuse, and people are watching. Those agencies and those councils need to toe the line. But as far as this legislation is concerned, there is now a satisfactory balance between unclear applications and the right of the applicant to rely on an oral request. That is the way it is in the law; we now want to see that that is operated satisfactorily in practice.

Finally, as for the dozens of other minor or technical changes made in this pretty large piece of legislation and the various Acts it concerns, we in New Zealand First think they are all sensible changes, and so we will be happy to vote for the legislation as a whole.

What a joy it is to have the opportunity to speak for 10 whole minutes on the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Although the Deputy Speaker cautioned the House that he has heard about the structure and provisions of a statutes amendment bill, that was several speeches ago.

💬 Hon Member: He might have forgotten.

But no, I am not willing to incur his ire by going over, yet again, the purpose and procedures of a statues amendment bill. But what I will say is that I was disappointed to hear that the Green Party exercised its right, if you like—and it is a right—and its ability to object to one of the clauses, and that was around the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act and Supplementary Order Paper 50. I am disappointed that the Greens saw fit to withdraw its support for that clause, because I am not entirely convinced that its support was withdrawn for what I would regard to be the right reason.

From my understanding of that Supplementary Order Paper on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act, it was put in to clarify a reference that was unclear as to how the travel entitlements for international airfares should be calculated. In 2013, when this bill was with the select committee, the words “lowest cost” were added to the provisions. I am absolutely sure that right around the select committee table each member, from whatever party, would have supported that approach—that with an international travel entitlement for a former member, of course lowest cost would be a desirable starting point. However, it was not clear, and this was an error that created further uncertainty. So lowest cost, whilst being desirable, also created further uncertainty, so the proposed Supplementary Order Paper was put into the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to correct that error, which was introduced during the select committee proceedings in 2013.

But what that Supplementary Order Paper on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act was doing, which in my view—but I can be corrected—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the point that my hand gestures have been trying to indicate is that this is no longer part of this bill, and so it is no longer—

💬 Hon Annette King: Relevant.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: —relevant to be addressing it. We have indulged the member for some time.

What an excellent ruling. Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. That is wonderful. Having embarked for so long on this point, could—

💬 Hon Annette King: Talk about that cheese from Whitestone.

Well, yes, there is always a solution for everything, is there not? If the Deputy Speaker would indulge me for a further 30 seconds only, just to say that the Supplementary Order Paper was about honouring agreements and honouring entitlements for former members of Parliament. It was not like we were sitting there feathering our own nests, or anything of the sort. It was about honouring a prior agreement, which the Green Party then saw fit to withdraw its support for, and I do regret that. I have wound up, and I want to thank the Deputy Speaker for his indulgence.

I want to talk now, taking a step back from the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), about the select committee consideration of the bills in the first instance. Many of them have been captured in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), but prior to their appearing in this legislation—because there were oversights or drafting errors or various reasons for them to be in it—there was select committee consideration of them. I was going through them trying to identify a bill where I was involved in the select committee process, and it started to make me wonder how it is with the select committee process that members sit around, sometimes for months, considering clause by clause, a revision-tracked version of the bill, and discussing various clauses and what the consequences of those are and whether there are any unintended consequences. It is not like we do not ask those questions in the select committee process.

I guess the clauses in this bill—where I may or may not have sat round the table—will generally pertain, perhaps, to the Local Government Act in this instance. So clause 42 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) makes a consequential amendment removing an outdated reference to a borough council. You have a look at that and you think: “Well, we haven’t had borough councils since the Local Government Act 2002.” I came into Parliament in 2005, so there have never been any borough councils in my time in Parliament. I am just reflecting that despite all the hard work done by many members of Parliament, these unintended consequences—these omissions and these errors—do pop up in statutes.

I do also acknowledge a previous speaker, Ruth Dyson, who went through the members of the Government Administration Committee praising the Labour ones—as you do. But I think that member is quite right that over the months that the Government Administration Committee worked on this bill it delved quite deeply into a number of statutes, and found some significant and some minor ones. Although they are meant mainly to be minor and insignificant, there are a few in there that did catch my eye as being slightly more substantial—like Part 20 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), pertaining to the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012. Interestingly, the amendment in clause 63 of that bill enables the National Animal Identification and Tracing organisation to contract out its compliance and enforcement functions to its subsidiary or holding company. You read it now in the bill and you think: “Well, that’s obvious. Why did the Primary Production Committee not capture it at the time?”. I do not know the answer to that, but it does perhaps beg the question of why the select committee process—as thorough as it is, and as diligent and hard-working as committee members are—does not always get it right, and neither do the parliamentary counsel and the drafters.

There is another aspect that is captured in this bill, which I want to touch upon briefly. Select committees are well served by those officers of Parliament whose job it is to support us in our consideration of and deliberation on bills. For example, the National Parks Act 1980, which is Part 21 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), would have had, in 1978, in 1979, and in 1980, a bill introduced to the House, probably by the then Minister of Agriculture, who would have taken advice from officials. The bill would have been drafted, put to Cabinet, and would have gone through the House, and got to the select committee. The select committee would have considered it over some months, taken some submissions, incorporated those into the bill, and relied on the advice of officials and of the bill drafters. We do that, but we cannot just sit back and accept blindly what those officials tell us, because they are human too, and maybe some of the drafting needs to be corrected, as has popped up in clauses 65 and 66 of this omnibus bill. Clause 65 corrects a drafting error by replacing references to “conservation management plan” with “management plan”—really minor stuff, and probably easy to see why it was missed back in 1979, and probably 1980.

Again, clause 66 of the bill corrects a drafting error and restores the power to forfeit seized property used illegally in a national park. That is the reverse of the repeal of section 61(8). You can see the complexity that we get ourselves into when we start delving down into the processing of the original bill—it gets enacted into Parliament, and then suddenly we discover that there are some parts of it that were unintended. I would not ever, ever call it sloppy or bad work or not well considered, because I know that every select committee and every select committee chair does their utmost to return a bill for the second reading, Committee stage, and third reading in a better shape than when they got it. One of those tenets, I guess, of us as parliamentarians—those of us involved in the select committee process—is that we want to do a good job.

So now we have the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I want to thank the Deputy Speaker for his indulgence as I ranged slightly wide of the mark, and I commend the bill to the House.

It is a pleasure to make a contribution on the third reading of these now 34 bills before the House, formerly the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). During the earlier stages of that bill I called it the “Fixer-up Bill”, and in this instance I will probably refer to it again as that. It fixes a number of mistakes over a wide range of bills that we have heard about already in this debate.

I do want to mention again a point that I made during the Committee stage, and that was around the Ngāti Manuhiri claims settlement. I want it recorded again that this is a very important issue for all iwi and all claimant groups that get to the settlement stage: to make certain that the deed of settlement and the Act of Parliament enacting the settlement that they have negotiated are consistent. In this instance, one clause that added the two words “Crown body” to a section in the Act was inconsistent with the deed of settlement. The question I raised earlier was, in fact, around whether or not the Minister and the Government had considered asking Ngāti Manuhiri whether they would prefer the legislation to be changed or the deed of settlement to be changed. The number of Crown body - owned land and properties within the area of interest to Ngāti Manuhiri, I think, should have been examined to see whether that was viable. So I raise that issue in the third reading.

Also, fixing up 34 bills—in speaking and adding to the previous contributor around the process, I am asking the question why so many mistakes. One can project forward to the next statutes amendment bill and wonder what mistakes have been made over the last few months that will come back to the House to be corrected as well. Perhaps the Ministers were too busy or perhaps the select committees overlooked certain things. I think it is important that we try our very best and work cooperatively in this House. This particular type of bill seems to me one of the few occasions where, as has been mentioned before, we need to have absolute agreement across the entire House for these bills to proceed. They are, to me, a rarity.

The other point is that as a new member of Parliament over the last 5 months, I will be able to go home to my people at the end of this week and say that I have spoken on 34 bills this week and I have been really productive. I think that will more than quadruple the number of contributions on bills that I have made so far. I will be very pleased to be able to do that, and I think some of the other new MPs might be able to say the same as well.

In responding also to some of the other points that have been made, indeed, it is really important that the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act is amended so that it is very clear about the process of changing one’s name. I can tell you that one of the issues in my electorate is that up to the 1930s, indeed, the registration of births, in particular, was not done very well. Even as a new MP I have had to assist a constituent who did not have their birth registered way back in the late 1920s. These issues of getting that correct are very important. I have also mentioned this issue to a family member whose name was recorded incorrectly within the records. This was in 1960. She wants to change her name to correct the spelling of her name, which was recorded incorrectly. I will not mention the name, but her name, if translated as it was recorded, would mean “chair”, and I can assure you that she is not a chair. That was a simple spelling mistake because of the recording of her name when her birth was registered.

It is important that on the whole host of these bills we have had a number of contributions on the Official Information Act. I too support the contribution that the Hon Ruth Dyson made around the time frame for receiving responses for Official Information Act requests. Also, I have heard a number of contributions that I am not sure were all very helpful in discussing these amendments to the 34 statutes. I am tempted to add to that but I will refrain from doing so. I think it is not very helpful, although from time to time I probably will go there in certain circumstances.

Another Act that caught my eye was the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978. A few weeks ago—and I have mentioned it in this debate—I attended the Matatini festival held in Christchurch. A number of groups there in their waiata and their haka spoke about issues regarding the misuse of drugs. I think it is important that we acknowledge that this is a huge issue amongst all of our communities. I can tell you that in Te Tai Hauāuru it is no different. The issues around the misuse of drugs need serious attention. Making certain that this particular Act is amended will, hopefully, contribute to an improvement in terms of helping those who have addictions. The issue of addiction is a huge issue within my electorate and I, suspect, in a number of electorates. We need to acknowledge and also make certain that we make positive contributions towards addressing the misuse of drugs. Nō reira, tēnā tātou katoa.

We are 155 for 3, Mr Deputy Speaker. I understand that members of the public who are listening to this debate on the third and final reading of the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) this afternoon will probably be only those members of the public who are unable, for one reason or another, to find themselves in front of a television or listening to an alternative radio station. I notice that the House is full and ready to go for this concluding debate! It is somewhat surprising and interesting that I find myself speaking in this debate as one who has not sat on the Government Administration Committee, which considered the bill and its various component parts.

I listened intently to earlier debate from members across the House and was particularly interested in the commentary of my colleague Brett Hudson in his attempt to understand the term “omnibus”. It put me in mind—I am not wanting to deviate too much from the bill—of my long-ago legal studies when, of course, those students who studied legal system and legal practice and all those important matters will well know that the “man on the Clapham omnibus” is, of course, the standard reference in legal terms for reasonableness. It is a term that goes back to a time when horse-drawn and long vehicles for passenger conveyance were regular. Clapham, I am told, was a sort of nondescript London suburb where a reasonably well-educated person who might be the hypothetical reasonable man—they were probably less concerned about gender equality in those days—would be a traveller on the Clapham omnibus. So it seems appropriate and somehow relevant that this long vehicle of a bill should in fact reflect the nature of an omnibus, being a long vehicle. The component parts of the original bill are indeed long but they are important none the less.

One of the things that always fascinates me as a chair of a select committee and as a member of this House is that the level of detail we are required to be conscious of as legislators is sometimes overwhelming. There can be occasions when the sheer size of the legislation we are confronted with is so daunting and detailed in its manner and style that it is very difficult to get every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. This legislation attempts to resolve some of the issues that occur from time to time when an “i” is not dotted and a “t” is not crossed. I am particularly mindful of the time when I was chairing the Justice and Electoral Committee in the last Parliament and we were considering the Judicature Modernisation Bill, a bill of 1,200 pages. My heart went out to the Parliamentary Counsel Office staff who were responsible for drafting that legislation. I simply do not know how they were able to keep to terms on the detail of each particular clause and the wording of it. It seems to me to be particularly concerning.

The senior whip has just handed me a note, Mr Deputy Speaker. We are 162 for 3 after 33 overs and it is the drinks break. So Parliament’s audience will probably increase while the drinks break is on.

I want to turn to several of the measures in the legislation. Although they are, as we have already heard from numerous speakers across the House, not controversial, they are none the less important. They raise detail issues that we as legislators do have to consider and from time to time do need to make amendments to. This process is a neat and efficient way of doing that in terms of the efficiency of this Parliament and the efficiency of the way we create law and make provision, sometimes, for things that some people would think were quite mundane, ordinary, and unspectacular in their nature. The reality is that, of course, that is not the case. Often these sometimes apparently small matters are in fact very significant, albeit to a small or narrow range of people.

I was particularly interested in the select committee’s recommendations regarding legal professional privilege. This is an area that is, I think, sometimes overlooked by members of the public, but it is, of course, a very important area. So the committee came back and recommended the removal of clauses that would have amended the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act of 1987 and the Official Information Act of 1982, as those amendments would have included a definition of legal privilege from the Evidence Act dating back to 2006. But this definition may have been able to be interpreted to restrict professional privilege to circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated, and that was simply not the intention of the amendments. So the committee—wisely, I think—made a decision on that, and that has been included in the amended legislation before us today.

There are a number of quite fascinating pieces of statute that are being addressed by the original bill. I want to refer, with the goodwill of the House, to several of them. I particularly want to refer to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995. Part 4 and clause 15 of the bill will make a change that allows for the Registrar-General to require persons lodging a statutory declaration for a change of name to provide evidence of their identity and other information necessary to process the application. Why is this important? It is, actually, very important for the person who is seeking to change their name that their information is accepted and taken as pivotal to the application for a change. Until now my understanding is that that may not necessarily have been the case, and there may have been a number of unreasonable barriers placed in front of people who wanted to make a change of that nature and who, for one reason or another, were precluded from doing so.

Similarly, in Part 8 of the bill, in clause 23, there is to be an amendment to the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act of 1982, and this is a provision that will repeal the requirement for the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions to prepare an annual report. On the face of it you would say it is perfectly reasonable for the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions to prepare an annual report and that that report should, appropriately and properly, be presented to Parliament. However, what has happened since the original legislation was passed by this House back in 1982 is that the report that has been required, until now, to be provided annually is no longer of any value at all, because credit unions and insurers are now prudentially supervised by no less a body than the Reserve Bank itself. It is no longer appropriate, even though it seemed sensible and appropriate and good legislation at the time, way back in 1982, for an annual report to be presented to the House that is no longer current or relevant.

Another area, and just a final one that I would like to highlight before my time expires, is in Part 12 of the bill, which relates to the Land Transport Act of 1998, clause 34, where consequential amendments were overlooked when that Act was amended to allow the use of vacutainers in the collection of blood specimens in matters relating to blood-alcohol assessments and blood-alcohol driving offences. The use of vacutainers is relatively new technology and it is one that was simply, by omission and non-conspiratorial error, just simply omitted from the original bill. This Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) is a good example of how a small but important detail such as that can in fact be relatively easily remedied by this Parliament in an efficient and sensible way. Other speakers who have been participating in this debate have, I think, neatly and appropriately summed up the whole purpose and common sense of this vehicle for making a wide range of minor but significant and important changes to legislation. I commend the legislation to the House.

I am honoured to take a call today on these bills arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I would like, first of all, to acknowledge all of our parliamentary colleagues who have worked on this legislation, and in particular the chair of the Government Administration Committee, the Hon Ruth Dyson, for all of her work and for all of the work of her committee. This Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) has been proposed because it amends 34 other pieces of legislation. Its purpose is to fix previous mistakes. We acknowledge the need to fix and update legislation that is out of date, as well as the need to bring legislation into line with other laws, and at the same time fix any technical problems it may have. The Labour Party supports the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4), including all of the amendments contained in it.

As a new MP this is my first time making a statement on an omnibus bill. One of the things I have to learn is how to pronounce that term properly—“omnibus”. I just found out, as part of reading and researching this bill, and as is covered in our Standing Orders, that this is one of the very few pieces of legislation that every single member of Parliament has to agree on before it progresses any further. I agree with this legislation, so I will not be that one member today who disagrees with it. But for me as a new member it is fascinating to learn that there is a bill that every single member must agree with. It is also very pleasing as a new MP to find out that there are certain pieces of legislation, like this one, where we come together as representatives of our electorates—those who have been elected by the people of Aotearoa New Zealand—and find out that we can indeed work together. We can indeed work alongside each other to come to an agreement on amending 34 different Acts. I find it very, very pleasing that we can actually work together on something like this.

One of the changes that I want to cover, and it is not one that has been covered by many of the other speakers previously, is the change proposed in what was Part 31 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that will amend the Tokelau (Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone) Act 1977. Amending that Act is very important to the people of Tokelau, one of our neighbouring Pacific countries. Indeed, it is important because they are a realm country, so every Tokelauan person is a New Zealand citizen. Tokelau and some of our other Pacific neighbours do not have very many natural resources. The fisheries in the vast Pacific Ocean are one of those resources, so may I state that it is incumbent on Aotearoa New Zealand to ensure that we get this right for the people of Tokelau.

I would also like to quote from Part 31 of this legislation where it relates to penalties that are currently applicable to fisheries offences in Tokelau. These penalties have not been amended since 1977, and they are out of step with the penalties in the New Zealand legislation. In contrast, the penalties that are applicable to fisheries breaches in the New Zealand exclusive economic zone have been amended several times since the 1970s. I would also like to say that the Government of Tokelau has approved the amendments that are proposed in this legislation. Clause 107 of Part 31 amends the maximum penalty in section 6 of the Act for foreign fishing craft fishing in the territorial sea of Tokelau from $100,000 to $250,000, and in the case of an unlicensed foreign fishing craft, clause 108 amends the maximum penalty in section 8 of the Act from $100,000 to $500,000. It is my sincere hope that if and when any of these clauses are breached, these fines are imposed to discourage illegal fishing in the territorial waters of Tokelau.

One of the other changes discussed at the select committee concerns Official Information Act requests. This is important, especially to members of the public who lodge Official Information Act information requests. At the select committee one of the amendments proposed would have made it possible for those who are not accustomed to writing or handling formal requests to have their Official Information Act applications made orally. The committee has allowed this, but it is possible, however, on the condition that people do so only when it is necessary to clarify their request. Part 17 of the legislation also removes section 2(1) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 in clause 49, and section 7 in clause 51. In Part 23, which amends the Official Information Act 1982, it amends section 2 in clause 70 and section 9 in clause 71.

This is non-controversial legislation. We fully support all of the amendments that the bills divided from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) propose. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Bills read a third time.