Standards and Accreditation Bill

New Zealand First supported this bill through its first reading. It was described to us so eloquently, as a lot of these recent bills from the National Government are. Its description was wonderful; its intent was very positive. Apparently, there were some issues to tidy up. The reality is—and, unfortunately, I seem to be saying this quite often now—that what you get told and what is actually in a bill seem to be two very different things. Sometimes these bills do not quite reach that wonderful objective, and at other times they are actually completely contradictory. And I think, when we speak about the Standards and Accreditation Bill, we see an almost contradictory intent with regard to the content of the legislation itself.

So, firstly, it is highly important to note today that, at the time that this bill was brought to the House, obviously the Government went into consultation. It went to its ministry, and the ministry came back and said that its findings showed that the infrastructure relating to standards and accreditation was basically sound. And, further, the discussion document released by the ministry had no actual submissions. It did not speak about the governance arrangements, which were, apparently, such an issue for the Government at the time, and the two Crown entities in charge of the standards and accreditation communicated well and got on with the business in front of them in a good and timely fashion. The Government asked the question, and silence was their answer. Silence is golden, but there was nothing wrong with the legislation, so the Government needed to take that on board. But, no, after a resounding snub to the discussion document, this Government, yet again, decided to fix the proverbial out of something that was not broken.

What New Zealand First hopes for when we support legislation through to a select committee, as was the case in this instance, is that experts and those concerned citizens of New Zealand can make an informed contribution to the discussion so that the Government and the members opposite can take heed and learn from the experts. Unfortunately, that was most definitively not the case. This Government did not listen to the experts. It did not listen to prudent counsel. So—I said it in my second reading speech, and I will say it again—this feels like a waste of the House’s time. It does not achieve what it said it would, and, in consultation with experts who told the Government it would not achieve what it said it would, then it just—well, it is unfortunate; that is a very nice way of putting it.

What was highlighted very quickly in the submissions process was that many submitters spoke about the lack of sufficient detail provided in the consultation process, so that they were not actually able to make truly informed decisions. They suggested this lack of detail would undermine the confidence that they and our trading partners need in order to undertake business in a sound and reasonable fashion. So what they were saying to the committee was that, actually, what you are doing is undermining existing standards and accreditation. You are confusing the issue—you are mixing it up—and you are actually taking a backwards step in terms of confidence in our system. National speaks about being the party of business in New Zealand, but business has told National that that lack of confidence will undermine that process.

We even had feedback from our Australian counterpart, and they said: “Don’t do this. It will confuse the issue, and you will create that level of confusion.” When you are talking about standards and accreditation, consistency and clarity and easy access to the information are absolutely essential, and this, New Zealand First asserts—and we do so in consultation with experts—is, again, a backwards step.

Another upsetting precedent is that more and more submissions are made on the basis and presumption that the Government will pass the legislation anyway. What we found and what we saw were submitters coming to the Commerce Committee literally saying: “Look, don’t do this—but we think you’re going to do it anyway, so because we think you’re going to do it anyway, this is what we think you should do to mitigate the mess that you’re creating.” It is just unreasonable, it is unfair, and it makes a mockery of the process. It is supposed to be consultative. We are supposed to be listening to the people of New Zealand, and our advisers and members opposite, and the Ministers, are supposed to be taking this information on board, but the cynicism with which people came forward was, to be honest, disappointing and disheartening.

So earnest people in organisations made submissions to the select committee on the Standards and Accreditation Bill knowing full well that the Government would ignore what they had to say. So we have come to this stage. I repeat: New Zealand First supported this bill through the first reading, but we have come to this stage and we have learnt without doubt, without issue, of the facts that the experts were not listened to, and no good information that was passed on to the committee was taken on board. I acknowledge that someone from the Labour Party did acknowledge that there were a few issues acknowledged by the committee, and an attempt was made to fix the issues identified, but the reality is that the committee fell very well short of the mark.

So I have had time to touch on only a few of New Zealand First’s concerns about the issues raised by submitters. This Government is undermining and compromising what to date has been an internationally recognised standards and accreditation process. The Government is taking New Zealand backwards. Further, we continue to be concerned about statements made within the regulatory impact statement that if these new bodies sat within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, then we would be cost saving, apparently. It has been spoken about a few times. Yet again, lyrics on a song sheet—it sounds good, but the reality is Mr Joyce’s superministry has not really achieved any of the synergies that were promised in terms of cost savings and efficiencies.

So there is no upside to this legislation, and, in fact, it takes New Zealand backwards in a very—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Two senior members behave themselves. Just behave yourselves.

And in a timely fashion, that is my contribution for this evening. Thank you very much.

Debate interrupted.