Standards and Accreditation Bill

Judith Collins.

Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Hon Judith Collins.

Thank you so much, Mr Assistant Speaker. Gosh, I worked hard for that—we do not want to give it away, do we? This bill is actually a really good bill. I sat on the select committee that dealt with the Standards and Accreditation Bill, the Commerce Committee, and I must say I thought “Oh, dear. This is going to be deathly dull.”, but it was not; it was really interesting.

This year I have actually looked at quite a lot of the standards around building and all sorts of other things—around gases and things—for my university work, and I would say to that member who has just resumed his seat, Fletcher Tabuteau, that standards are actually not easy to access. You have got to be able to pay for them. They are quite hard to access, and one of the big problems we have got at the moment is that quite a lot of the work for standards is behind the times.

So what we know, for instance, is that testing in a laboratory accredited by the Testing Laboratory Registration Council is now a requirement for more than $20 billion of New Zealand’s exports. We have a tremendous requirement for our exporters to be able to get the accreditations that they need as quickly as possible, because they are in a market that can move very fast and can move away from another product. It is not easy. Standards New Zealand at the moment is too slow. It does a great job, but we need to give it some help, and this is what this bill is really designed to do. Thank you.

As you have heard, Labour opposes this bill, but let me outline the reasons why I am not a big fan of this bill at all. The main reason is that New Zealand has developed what I believe is an enviable global reputation for quality—for standards. It is what we go out to the world with, and we actually saw what happened when New Zealand’s reputation was tarnished, and the potential impact it had, when there was an issue with Fonterra. We heard that there might have been contamination, and, in fact, at that point in time, if you had read the media, you could have believed that, in China at least, the chief executive officer of Fonterra was actually more important or more powerful than the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

The Prime Minister of New Zealand went over there and he tried to allay the fears and say that New Zealand has good quality standards, that we are doing what we need to do well, and that we hold ourselves up to global benchmarks. The chief executive officer of Fonterra went over there and he actually was responsible for putting out the fires that could have cost this country literally billions of dollars. This is why I say that the way we implement standards in this country, or our standards regime, is absolutely vital to maintaining our global competitive advantage around our “clean, green” and “100% Pure” brands. What I would say is that this is all about perception, and when we have a standards authority that is not perceived to be independent, we run the risk of tarnishing that reputation, because overseas investors or overseas markets will look at our country and say: “Goodness me. We cannot necessarily trust the fact that a lack of independence is going to deliver the sorts of outcomes that our market needs to see.”

I am not saying by any stretch of the imagination that the people who will be in charge of the standards regime are going to be incompetent, at all. In fact, they will probably be highly competent. But the fact that they are actually appointed by the Minister and come under the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment umbrella just sends the wrong signal. You know, when you are a member of Parliament what you have to do in areas where you do not have a level of competency is you have to take advice from people who do. This is why the select committee process is so valuable, because we get a number of experts who come along and they voice their opinion, and they say: “This is what is wrong, this is what is right, and this is how to make legislation better.”

The thing that concerns me is that it appears that the select committee listened to a whole raft of experts who said independence is vital to maintain our international credibility and our international integrity, but the select committee did not do anything that put this into effect. This is why I have real concerns about this, and it is why the Labour Party continues to have reservations about this bill in its current form. We already have a great reputation in terms of our global standards, but it did need updating. I do not think there was any debate about that, but we could have done it in a way that maintained our international credibility because if we lose that, if we lose our international credibility and our integrity is slowly chipped away, then what we become is simply another small economy selling commodities into a shrinking global market. We begin to lose the value or the premium that our products currently get, and that is a really, really dangerous road that might be taken.

I am not saying by any stretch of the imagination that this will in effect do that overnight. All I am saying is that when we go out to global markets with our New Zealand brand, there are a whole lot of brand attributes underneath the big New Zealand “clean, green” and “100% Pure” brands that we take to the market. One of those brands is that we know what we are doing, we have independence, and you can trust our products. If it has “New Zealand” on the can, if it has “New Zealand” on the packet, then it will be 100 percent right. [Bell rung] Is that my 5 minutes up, Mr Assistant Speaker?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): That is your 1-minute to go bell—it is a 10-minute speech, normally—and you get a bell at 4 minutes.

The thing that concerns me is that we need that brand to maintain that brand integrity, and one of those brand attributes is the fact that we have world-class standards, that we benchmark ourselves, and that you can trust us and trust our brand. You erode that trust and all it does is it just takes the shine off the brand just a little bit, and I think that is what this piece of legislation does. Taking this within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, by removing that perception of independence, I just do not think is the way forward in the 21st century. This is why we oppose this bill, and this is why we have major reservations about this piece of legislation. Thank you very much.

I am very pleased to support this bill. I sat on the Commerce Committee as we considered this. Although I understand the reservations being put forward by the Opposition, I think that for me they are more rhetoric than real. I think other speakers before me have well articulated the issues from the Government’s side in terms of why we support it, and I look forward to it passing its third reading this evening. Thank you very much.

I am pleased to take a call in the dead of the afternoon for the end of this third reading on the Standards and Accreditation Bill to say that Labour utterly and completely opposes it. This bill is a walking, talking oxymoron of a piece of legislation. The reason for this is that it does precisely the opposite of what good standards legislation should do, because what is required in the field of standards is that the standards are both high—and seen to be high—and trusted because of an independent external validator. What this ridiculous piece of legislation does—and it really is a joke, and I will come on to more about why—is it takes an independent, external body and it collapses it within Steven Joyce’s fiefdom. It puts it under direct ministerial control within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. What a ridiculous backwards step.

Does it matter? Firstly, it matters because the world will not trust it—I think Mr Nash has well expressed that. Secondly, it cannot hope to be independent, because we all know the Minister concerned is a recidivist micro-manager—a recidivist micro-manager. Nothing that he turns his gaze to escapes his attention, except for the fact that he does not do strategy, and that is obvious. But standards will not be independent within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, full stop.

Now let us take a fiscal quasi-example, because the material that this will be considering will not be strictly fiscal in nature, but just suppose they were called upon to validate Budget numbers, and a Budget came forward that purported to show a surplus somewhat smaller than the transfer of funds out of an earthquake fund.

💬 Simon O’Connor: What’s this got to do with the bill?

My point is that if it is the pet of the Minister, the ministry will not call the rort—and that has happened today. We find out that the Government’s fiscal surplus is a surplus in name only; it is actually a transfer back out of an earthquake fund—shame. And it is lovely to see the Minister concerned paying such close attention in the House, because everyone knows his day in the sun was short-lived. [Interruption] Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, I take the point.

The second reason that this bill is a joke is that it has taken since 2008 to get it here.

💬 Su’a William Sio: How long?

Since 2008. We are so very lucky that it is still 10 to 6 on a Thursday afternoon, just before the House rises, because it might just sneak through. I cannot imagine a Government giving a lower priority to any piece of legislation than the National “lost in the maze” Government has given to this piece of standards-setting legislation. It is not only flawed in its absolute foundation, it is not only badly written, but it is an absolute piece of collateral damage on the Government’s road to perdition. It has just snuck under the bar. I do not know what is worse: the fact that it is such bad law or the fact that it has only just got round to it in 7 long years. It has taken the Government as long to pass this bill as it has taken it to find a way to concoct a fiscal surplus. This is no more credible than the so-called surplus the Government unveiled yesterday.

It is not credible to have a standards setting and validating organisation that is not independent of the Minister whose regulations it is supposed to be scrutinising. Sensitive to that fatal flaw, the Government has written the word “independent” over the statutory officer. The word is there; the deed cannot be there, because it is located within a Government department, not its own protected Crown entity, which is how it was.

As if it does not add insult to injury, New Zealand’s standards system has been regarded as an international benchmark. Thus this oxymoronic law fails Murphy’s third test. Mr Assistant Speaker, you are an expert on the Standing Orders and I am sure Murphy’s Law has not escaped you: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This was not broke in the first place, so this Government has wrecked New Zealand’s standards system. It is the slowest motion legislative train wreck this House has seen in—well, at least a week. It has taken the Government 7 years to get a bill to the House that ruins the standards system. It is unbelievable. Members opposite all—I cannot name the number—are hanging their heads in shame. They are hanging their heads in shame, other than the apprentice junior whip, who is holding hers up because she is paid to.

Other than that, they know what we all know—that this is a very sad state. The once-promising National Government—remember Building a Brighter Future? It has come to this. After 7 years it has come to the third reading of the oxymoronic Standards and Accreditation Bill. The only reason we are debating this is that they had to fill up the Order Paper with something. You can imagine them sitting around in Bill English’s office in the morning, because he chairs procedures—setting the standards.

Goodness me—the Minister of Corrections looks about as excited about this as attending a cocktail party at Serco. Right? He is about as excited about this as serving another term as Minister of Corrections. But do not worry, Sam. It is not going to happen. It is a one-off. Imagine if Serco had been put through an independent standards body before it got to run Mt Eden prison—otherwise known as the jungle. Do you know why it is called the jungle, Minister? It is because it has animals in it. Do you know what the prison guards do when prisoners are naughty? They send the naughty ones into the jungle, so they can get beaten to a pulp by the animals, also known as the Headhunters. That is how that place works.

But I will come back to the bill that you are picking up, Mr Assistant Speaker. Entertaining as that story is, you have to admit it is a breach of the most fundamental standards, and well it is that the Minister is hanging his head in shame—shame, shame. Shame on him, shame on National—shame on National, above all. At 5 to 6 on a dead Thursday, shame on National for occupying the Government benches. They are a party out of ideas. This is it—probably the very last idea. It has taken the Government 7 years to pass this Standards and Accreditation Bill that wrecks the standards system. We must be in the bottom drawer of this purgatory that we call the National Government. [Bell rung] I have 2 minutes to underline the fundamental problem with this bill. It is nonsense. We had a world-leading standards system that other countries held up as a model of best practice, and that the Australian standards body was happy to align with. There is a real risk that Australia will not deal with New Zealand now, because of this fundamentally ruined piece of law.

💬 Su’a William Sio: The Minister of Corrections is smiling. He agrees with you.

He does. This bill may be right up there with the other things that are going to sour the sauerkraut and the smoked salmon when John Key meets Malcolm Turnbull. Right? This will sour the sauerkraut because this is a little irritant. The Australian standards setting body was hand in glove with the New Zealand body until this turned up.

The question is: why? This is actually quite a perplexing mystery. Why would the National Government waste the House’s time, waste the public’s time, with something that makes the standards system worse, and that is annoying our nearest neighbour so much that it is throwing New Zealanders into Gulags? Sad, but true. What an outrage that is, for the record. What an outrage that Australia is doing that to New Zealanders, tempting as it is. What kind of standards authority does it put that law through? One can only wonder where the Anzac tradition has gone—into the toilet.

For 7 long years the National Party has been dredging up the most ridiculous, most boring, most failed law it can find—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

That is 10 minutes we will never get back, is it not? But anyway, I commend this bill to the House.