Statutes Repeal Bill

I move, That the Statutes Repeal Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Government Administration Committee to consider the bill. Today I present to the House the Statutes Repeal Bill. The bill repeals or partially repeals 132 Acts that have been identified as no longer being required, because they are obsolete, redundant, or spent. The bill forms one part of the commitment made by this Government to improve the regulatory environment in New Zealand, as outlined in the Government response to the Productivity Commission’s report on regulatory institutions and practices. This is built around a set of core expectations for departmental regulatory stewardship. Ensuring that the statute book contains laws and regulations that are easy to use, up to date, and fit for purpose is key to having a quality regulatory environment. The Statutes Repeal Bill will help achieve this by clearing the statute book of some unnecessary and spent Acts, without having to proceed with a repeal bill for each of the 132 separate pieces of legislation.

The bill will reduce the total number of Acts enforced in New Zealand by 124. It will reduce the number of public Acts, which is currently 1,116, by 116 or slightly more than 10 percent. That is right—10 percent of all public Acts will come off the books. Without this bill the spent Acts will continue to sit on the statute book, which may create confusion for users of legislation.

The bill contains five clauses. The first two clauses cover the title and the commencement of the legislation. Clause 3 repeals the Acts specified in schedule 1 of the bill in full or in part. Clause 4 enacts schedules 2 and 3. Schedule 2 saves important provisions from a small number of the Acts being repealed, to avoid adverse effects on some parties. Schedule 3 covers consequential amendments, which are references to the repealed Acts in other enactments. Part 2 of schedule 3 covers the consequential revocation of seven regulations. Clause 5 provides for the Statutes Repeal Bill itself to be repealed 28 days after the Act comes into force, thereby removing the need for future repeal bills to have to repeal their predecessors.

Eight of the Acts being repealed are private Acts that are redundant and the relevant successor, entity, or promoter has agreed to their repeal. The Acts put forward for repeal have been identified by Ministers from 10 portfolios. Acts were identified by the responsible department, following a process of consultation led by Treasury and the Parliamentary Counsel Office. Ensuring that the legislation it is responsible for is still necessary and fit for purpose is an important part of a department’s regulatory stewardship obligations. The identified Acts represent an interesting cross-section of New Zealand history, with many relating to significant events, such as the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake and the hosting of Rugby World Cup 2011. A large portion of the Acts originate from the period of 1985 to 1993, reflecting a large number of significant reforms that took place in the New Zealand public sector during that time.

A similar bill, now the Regulatory Reform Repeals Act, was passed by this Government in 2012 and repealed 32 Acts, including itself. New Zealand is one of a number of countries that use omnibus repeal bills to repeal redundant legislation. The United Kingdom has passed 19 statute law (repeal) bills since 1965. The Federal Parliament of Australia has a regular repeals day, where redundant legislation is considered for appeal. It is not my intention that this be the last Statutes Repeal Bill. I intend that an omnibus bill of this nature be proposed periodically, to ensure that Acts that are no longer required are removed from the statute book. I thank my colleagues responsible for the Acts put forward for repeal in this bill. Their decision to put these Acts into the bill shows the commitment that this Government has to improving this stock of legislation.

I am surprised that we did not hear, in these lists of statutes that need to be repealed, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill. I see that Nuk Korako is here, and hopefully he is going to take a call and explain to the House why it is that the members’ ballot was clogged up with a bill that could have been dealt with in this omnibus piece of legislation, if there was any need to deal with it. Instead, it is a separate piece of legislation.

The Minister who just spoke, the Hon Steven Joyce, heralded the fact that this is actually saving the country money by having less complicated laws on the books and getting rid of costs that would otherwise be incurred in society. I find that impossible to reconcile with the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill that, according to the media—they describe it this way—“was plucked from the members’ ballot box on Thursday and added to Parliament’s agenda. It would let airports ‘determine the most appropriate way to advertise lost property’.”, i.e. let them do it as they think fit, rather than have a regulated way of doing it. If that is the case, you do not need the law at all. You could have just repealed it.

I am looking forward to hearing from the honourable member in whose name this bill sits as to why the legislation to get rid of that old, redundant piece of airport authorities rules relating to how you publicise lost property sales—why they are not doing that through the Statutes Repeal Bill, so that we can save this country the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth, and it is hundreds of thousands of dollars, of parliamentary time that is going to be wasted, as well as stopping members using the members’ bill process for more significant pieces of legislation that ought to be heard by this House.

It is not just me or other Opposition members saying that. Andrew Geddis, Professor of Public Law at the University of Otago, said “Not only is the bill ‘disrespectful to New Zealand’ ”, but that he found it “personally insulting”. He said that it stopped bills of real public significance from being put before Parliament, and then he listed one or two. He makes the point that the members’ ballot is one of the only opportunities for Opposition MPs to get attention to their issues and to have them debated. As others have said, it makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s claim that the Government is focused on the issues that matter.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It has been 3½ minutes talking about something that is not in the bill.

That is probably about enough, I would agree.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not in the bill; that is the problem.

That is the problem.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is a lot that is not in the bill.

I think that is a fair point. I think I have made enough of a contribution on that issue myself, but I do look forward to Nuk Korako responding to that, given that he is in the House. I see him across the Chamber. I am sure other members will comment as well.

In terms of the statutes that are being repealed, it is good that they are. There are some very old Acts in here. The Consolidated Statutes Enactment Act 1908 is repealed, as is the Counties Insurance Empowering Act.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge Authority Dissolution Act is an interesting one. We have had to have some specific amendments to replace that in this legislation, because evidently the authorities could not be trusted to light the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The Government thought that it was necessary to tell the people who run the Auckland Harbour Bridge that they have got to keep the lights on. “The Agency must at all times ensure that the Auckland Harbour Bridge is adequately lighted so as to provide for the safety of ships and aircraft in the vicinity of the Auckland Harbour Bridge.”

💬 Hon Member: Keep your lights on at the National Party.

Well, perhaps. The other one that I see there—they have got a new section to prevent the unauthorised use of the King George the Fifth Memorial Children’s Health Camps Federation emblem. I am not sure that that required legislative force.

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Quite right.

“Quite right.”, says Mr Foster-Bell. Well, I am not sure that that sort of thing needs to be stated in legislation, but the National Government thinks it does. Labour will be supporting this bill to select committee. It is a piece of legislation that should pass. It is good that we repeal or partially repeal the 132 Acts that are no longer needed. But I do lament the fact that the Government, having made the enormous mistake of clogging up the members’ ballot, did not take this opportunity to get rid of that old piece of Auckland Airport legislation through just repealing it here, rather than forcing us to relitigate this issue for months to come whilst Nuk Korako shepherds his incredibly important piece of legislation through the House.

E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua mauri ora, tēnā koe, ā, tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema.

[Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, and a vibrant life to you and to you all the members.]

At least the Hon David Parker did make a few fair points, particularly around those that agreed that this bill has some useful measures, and at least he had the courtesy to pronounce my colleague Nuk Korako’s name correctly. It is a proud name that that member carries, and his bill, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill, actually does do something useful. Actually, repealing the entire Airport Authorities Act is something that this House does not want to do. Nuk Korako’s bill makes a useful modification, modifying one small provision, so I congratulate Nuk for that good work that he is doing.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, do not spend more money justifying it.

This is a useful bill. Unlike states like Singapore, which regularly and routinely include sunset clauses in their legislation, we have not had a tradition of doing that, so the statute book does become, over time, somewhat clogged up with bills that have outlived their usefulness. This Statutes Repeal Bill does much to correct that situation. It provides, also, a timely and very cost-effective way of doing this. It is an omnibus bill, as others have pointed out, and this particular omnibus bill removes 124 pieces of legislation—that is actually 10 percent of the total New Zealand statute book that we are repealing here.

Some members have referenced legislation that is being repealed. One interesting example that I would draw on is the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake Act. We have heard caterwauls from some people in this House that it has taken a few years to repeal the emergency legislation for Canterbury and to transition from that recovery into regeneration, as this Government has been progressing—yet it has taken us the better part of 80 years to consider repealing the Hawke’s Bay earthquake emergency legislation from 1931. We also have one bill that covers Depression mortgages from the 1930s. We have one that deals specifically with the Y2K bug—which one can only assume was a Labour-manufactured crisis because it never eventuated and that legislation is no longer required. We also have the Seamen’s Union Funds Act from 1971, and many pieces of legislation that were passed during the reform period of the fourth Labour Government that have outlived their usefulness—although, at the time, they were necessary. This is a very good, sensible, timely, and efficient way to fix up our statute book, and I commend it to the House.

It is a distinct pleasure to be able to take an opportunity to commend this bill to the House and speed it on its way to early implementation. My short contribution tonight will be divided into two sections: what is in the bill, and what is not in it.

Let us start with what is not in it. Nuk Korako’s bill is not in it: the bill that has taken up hours and hours of House time to achieve the unbelievable feat of empowering airports to change the way they advertise lost luggage from a classified ad to an internet ad. At least it was not going the other way and going from the internet to a classified ad, because that would be, perhaps, even more wasteful than what we have seen in this House. It has become an emblem of a third-term Government—a Government that is tired, that is out of touch, and that is not focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders. Mr Deputy Speaker, I see you waving your hand; you are probably feeling what every New Zealander is feeling—

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Bored with your speech?

—why on earth is Parliament talking about lost luggage? Ah, the shrill sound of the lesser Canterbury banshee—is it not lovely?

The other bill that is not repealed by this and should have been is the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill by the distinguished former mayor of Palmerston North, Mr Jono Naylor, which, drawing upon his years of experience at the pinnacle of local government, has drawn the time of the House to raise the litter infringement fee from $400 to $1,000—based, no doubt, on the average hourly rate of the average National backbencher. Fair enough.

So what is in this bill? As one thumbs through its many pages, and who can argue with the objective of extinguishing redundant legislation—

💬 Hon Member: What about redundant members?

—of terminating redundant members; we are not looking in any particular direction—but terminating things that have no longer got a useful life in Parliament. As we thumb through the pages, this is the “nuke ’em” bill for old laws. It is appropriate that Mr Korako is here to bless its passage, because he has become an icon of legislative redundancy—an icon of legislative redundancy. What goodies do we find in the annals of this tome? I think it is appropriate that we first turn our attention to the detail of Part 10. This will no doubt be of great relief to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because at this stage of the day, you will be wanting specificity in the contribution.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not bringing me into this. Carry on.

Part 10, “Fisheries Act 1996”. Clause 45 amends section 186A, “Temporary closure of fishing area or restriction on fishing methods”, and it replaces that section with a section that says that it “may be in force for a period of not more than 2 years and, unless sooner revoked, is revoked at the end of that 2-year period:”. It is followed by clause 47, which says: “in section 197(3)(a), replace ‘not exceeding $1,000 in any one year’ with ‘at a rate determined by the chief executive’ ”.

What is clear—and, Mr Deputy Speaker, your office has earlier today, quite rightly, given this House 2 hours to debate it—is that a rate determined by the chief executive of the Ministry for Primary Industries fisheries division is precisely zero, because they are no longer in the business of enforcing the law in respect of fisheries, and, in particular, bycatch. They have had solid evidence of fish dumping, and they have, at the highest levels, made a conscious decision, despite advice, that it would be sufficient for a prosecution to ignore it and let the culprits away scot-free. As my good colleague Kelvin Davis said earlier in the day, that matters to the average Kiwi fisher because the same Government is blaming recreational fishers for the depletion of fish stocks that is actually being done by commercial players who are not accurately reporting their bycatch because they have illegally dumped it, which brings us back to this bill—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill—let us do that.

In clause 47, the words “at a rate determined by the chief executive” reveal the agenda of this Government. There will be no penalties, because it is a happy hunting ground now for illegal fishing.

💬 Brett Hudson: What a load of rubbish.

What a load of rubbish, as the members opposite have said. It is a load of rubbish—it is actually a crime, and it should be prosecuted. Just because someone might, hypothetically, have given millions of dollars to the National Party should not mean that they are above the law, colleagues. It should mean that the law treats the rich, the poor, the insiders, and the outsiders just the same. That is the Westminster democracy that we are here to defend, that is the Westminster democracy that the people around these walls fought and died to defend, and that is what the current Government is not upholding.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, new section 110, inserted by clause 40—actually, this is not ridiculous; this is one of the clauses that I think the Government has got it right on—gives an obligation to give effect to a ministerial direction to a former State-owned enterprise now known as an entity in the mixed-ownership model. It is a sort of mélange à deux between the public and private sectors—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Ménage à what?

Mélange not ménage it is, because what a bugger’s muddle this has turned out to be. Those entities do not know whether they are subject to Crown direction or not. So, finally, after months and months of advice being given by Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the geniuses on the far side have clarified that in fact those rather muddled entities should be subject to ministerial direction under new section 110 inserted by clause 40 in this bill, just as the Labour Opposition has been advising for the last year or two.

Turning the page—this is a bit like a bedtime story is it not, where the child says: “Oh, that is a good story, Dadda. Wow, can that really be true? Can they really be that stupid?”. “Yes, son, they can.” But wait, there is more. Turn to Part 21, “Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988”, as one scans down through new section 95A and down through clauses 77 and 78—on and on and on it goes, pages and pages of legislative amendment to what end? To achieve the earth-shattering outcome of allowing members of the public to exchange one power of attorney with an updated power of attorney. A laudable goal you might say, one that we would support. We are, in fact, voting for this bill but these are the massive issues of State that are consuming the minds of the bodies politic on the other side of the House, fiddling while Rome burns, and incrementalising while New Zealand slips further and further behind its colleagues in the OECD pack.

Our last bill that we debated was the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill. Let us put this in the language that farmers will understand, 4c in the dollar for milk at the farm gate relative to the consumer price—4c in the dollar. Why is that relevant? Because this bill is a missed opportunity to drive New Zealand forward, up the value chain where we can earn a higher living; none of that is in Part 21 on page 21. Actually, that in itself is a feat that the Government ought to get credit for—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member is talking about page 21 of the bill. In my pages, the last page is page 14. So I have been struggling to find the relevancy of the various clauses. He talked about a clause 47; there is not one. He talked about a clause 120—something like that—there is not one there either. So I am pleased to see that there is only a minute and six seconds left, and I would really hope that in the last minute and six seconds he makes it relevant to the matter under discussion.

Mr Speaker, that timely interjection is really a dagger thrust at the heart of New Zealand’s democracy, because one of three things can have happened: either the Speaker has a different version of the bill from members of this House, which would be a travesty of our democratic tradition; or yours is single-spaced and mine is double-spaced, which is the most hoped for explanation; or possibly that my executive assistant has, in fact, inserted the Statutes Amendment Bill rather than the Statutes Repeal Bill.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that is probably it. You are in the wrong place on the wrong day with the wrong bill.

Which might happily conclude my contribution.

Well, I hope that timely interruption by the Speaker is relevant enough to make page 2 of the Dominion Post tomorrow.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that it was almost inhumane and cruel of you to wait until Hon David Cunliffe only had a minute left, to point out the fact that he had brought the wrong bill to the House. But I am very happy to take a call on this—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take offence at the fact that it took members opposite 9 minutes to work that out.

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would just like to suggest that there are lots of things that the other members of the House could have taken offence at and did not.

I have to say that it is not uncommon for this side of the House to always be puzzled about what that member is speaking about in the House.

I am very happy to take a call on the Statutes Repeal Bill. I would just like to highlight the fact that the Productivity Commission’s report made it very clear that it felt that the Government should be focused on our large stock of regulation and making sure that we keep updating that to stay in line with a changing world. I think that as a country we should be very proud that we actually rank second in the world in terms of ease of doing business, at how good our regulatory platform is, and that we remain focused on keeping red tape and compliance costs to a minimum. A big part of being able to do that is bringing omnibus bills like this to the House to make sure that we keep modernising and we keep our statutes up to date. I know that the Hon Damien O’Connor would agree with these comments. I look forward to him taking a call and supporting the bill. Being a good West Coast man he understands how important it is support our private sector and businesses with good legislation.

I would just like to highlight that there is a wide range of legislation in this omnibus bill. I think the Hon Steven Joyce highlighted the fact that we have got legislation dating back to the 1930s when we had to deal with an earthquake in Hawke’s Bay, right through to 2011, dealing with the Rugby World Cup. I am very happy to take a call in support of this bill. Thank you.

I am very happy to speak to this Statutes Repeal Bill—I think I got that right. It is a good and useful bill. It is a necessary thing occasionally to have a clear out of the statutory cupboard. New Zealand has been, on occasion, referred to as having the fastest legislature in the West. I think we are also one of the most prolific. There is legislation in this repeal bill that dates back over 100 years. It simply serves no purpose and, for that reason, we support most of what we see in this bill.

There is one considerable exception to that, however. If one goes to schedule 1 on page 7 of the bill you find the Sentencing Council Act 2007 is one of those Acts to be excised from the statute books. We are entirely opposing the proposition that we ought not to retain that legislative opportunity, because that is all it is so far. The bill was passed, of course, and the Act came into being during the last Labour Government, towards the end of its term. This Government has chosen never to actually put it into existence. A sentencing council has never been established; if it is repealed in this bill, then one never will be able to without yet another Act of Parliament. We will be supporting this bill to select committee but at the select committee we will be arguing that, rather than repealing this bill, the National Government should look at amending it to suit them. That would be very much in line with their contribution to the debates at the time the bill was passed. To be fair, the Government has been consistent. They did oppose the passing of the bill in 2007, but, as I will come to later, the National Party in Opposition did not object in principle to the idea of a sentencing council, they simply proposed that the Government of the day, the Labour-led Government of the day, had got the wrong model for a sentencing council.

We are very strong on the fact that we actually need a sentencing council. The primary function of such an entity, of course, is to even out sentencing to ensure that there is a level of consistency. I think it is a well-drafted piece of legislation as it sits. It does not take away Parliament’s right to make law. It does not see Parliament interfering more than it ought to in the business of the judiciary. It does enable a judiciary to, within its own realm, come to some sensible guidelines about what sentencing should look like. We have had quite recent high-profile instances where people have really questioned and challenged what appear to be significantly different sentences for offending by offenders where there seems to be a great deal of similarity. As I said, we will support the bill to the first reading but we do think that it is a mistake to repeal the sentencing council legislation.

The 2007 Act, as it stands, was written in response to a Law Commission report at the time called Sentencing Guidelines and Parole Reform. The commission published the useful report and a set of statements about why a sentencing council was both necessary and useful to have. As I said, in 2008 with a change of Government, Simon Power, who was the Minister at the time, referred to the council as “just another layer of bureaucracy”, and suggested that it was unnecessary. But, sadly, the very evident and measurable disparity in sentencing outcomes has been obvious ever since then, and, indeed, I would argue they are getting worse. There is evidence that we are getting considerable disparity in sentencing outcomes, and that is a very unfortunate outcome indeed.

I will not dwell on it at any great length, given the time available, but I would encourage people to go back to the 2006 Law Commission report headed A Sentencing Council and Sentencing Guidelines, a fact sheet. It is a good summary sheet of what the intention was, what the outcomes could be, and, indeed, what the nature of the problem was at the time. We roll forward a little to 2013. The Law Society published a report of a piece of PhD research done just 3 years ago and talked about massive differences in the severity of sentences imposed by District Courts. It used the example of aggravated drink-driving offences. It controlled for things like the number of offences an individual may have committed, the severity of offence, and a number of other variables it took into account. And even allowing for those variables, this particular piece of PhD research came to the very obvious conclusion that there are serious and significant disparities depending on where one is sentenced. Often it is geographic, and it is also to do with the individual judges. That report has been anonymised so it does not identify individual cases or individual judges, but it is a very compelling piece of work that won the support of the Law Society, and I do believe it needs to be taken seriously.

It is also informative to go back to the original Hansard, of the third reading particularly, when the sentencing council legislation was passed. As I say, Mr Power at the time—Simon Power, as he was; still is—who became justice Minister, was somewhat scathing of it. He said that the sentencing council would become the district health board of the justice sector, and he suggested that the Minister of the day would be able to hide behind it if there was any criticism or critique of the operation of the courts. I think a close reading of the legislation indicates that is actually not a reality—that it would absolutely not protect a Minister from reasonable critique if things were not working well within the court system.

Charles Chauvel, for Labour at the time, of course, made the point that we had a very regrettable situation in New Zealand where people of a similar situation have come before different courts in different parts of the country before different judges and have actually received different types of sentences—not only of severity but type.

I would hope the Māori Party would also look long and hard at this repeal Act, specifically in terms of this sentencing council legislation, because of what Pita Sharples—Sir Pita Sharples as he is now—said at the time. I should say that this sentencing council legislation was one of a raft of bills that I think may have been debated as co-joint—wrong word, but you know what I mean: a raft of justice bills were debated together. Mr Sharples said at the time: “The key measure to bring about change in the justice system as mandated by these five bills, is the Sentencing Council.” He went on to say “The Māori Party supports the establishment of this new forum to ensure a consistent application of justice whether one is sentenced in Whangarei or Dunedin; South Auckland or the South Island.” He went to say that he hastened to suggest that tangata whenua expertise must be considered a core priority in considering the appointment of membership—and that, indeed, would be a valid point, at the point that we ever did establish such an entity.

As I said earlier, Chris Finlayson, the current Attorney-General, made a very typically well-informed and thoughtful contribution at the time. He did say that Labour members had got it wrong in terms of the model they chose for the council, but he did not dismiss the idea or the value of having something like it. I will quote him again. He said: “The National Party moved a great deal, from complete opposition at the outset to offering a model that would have achieved the Law Commission’s aims while still being constitutional.” Earlier in his speech he called it “unconstitutional” and “odious”—a splendid word—but I would ask the National Party members, and particularly at select committee, to reflect very closely on the speeches that were made both in support and in opposition to the sentencing council legislation in the 2006-07 debates and think that maybe we are throwing out some babies with the bathwater here if we repeal the Act.

I think there would be considerable value in retaining a council. We are entirely open to the notion of an amendment. It is perfectly possible that the model chosen was not the best and that we might potentially do it better. But we absolutely believe that there ought to be something like a sentencing council to endeavour to moderate, to ensure that the judges—the judiciary themselves—have a forum where they can look. A level of self-awareness could emerge, I think, which could enable much better, much more consistent sentencing, and inevitably, emerging from that, would be much greater public confidence in the outcome of our judiciary and our justice system.

So I look forward to the select committee with interest and I would encourage, as I say, Government members particularly to have a think about the potential for an amendment rather than repeal. Thank you.

Well, having done a quick scramble through this piece of legislation, weighty as it is, and the schedules attached to it—Mr Deputy Speaker, I think you pointed out it was at least four or five pages—and, on behalf of New Zealand First, and standing in for our colleague Denis O’Rourke, who would normally be speaking on this bill, I say that New Zealand First will support this legislation through to select committee, where we will enjoy having a quick study of exactly what the implications of the legislation are.

I have listened carefully to some of the speeches this evening, and I was very interested listening to the last speaker from the Greens, David Clendon, talking about the Sentencing Council Act. I know that was a piece of legislation that generated much debate in the House back in 2007, from all sides. There were those of us who were somewhat sceptical, but at the same time we could see some of the clear anomalies that were arising.

I think, possibly, it would be a good time to caution the Government, because on the back of what we have seen up in Auckland just recently—where a young man who was found to have punched a female police officer in the head, knocking her unconscious and who then set about kicking her, subsequently received a community sentence—one could say that maybe this piece of legislation is worthy of reconsidering and maybe should be extracted from this bill. There are some clear anomalies right now in sentencing and there has been more than one commentator out in the community who has said things like: “What’s happened to the old National Party? They’ve gone soft on law and order.”

People are asking where the equity and the consistency in this National Government’s law and order policy is, because there was a time when people like Judith Collins and the Prime Minister, John Key, would have leapt all over such an incident and been outraged at the sentence that was given. But, of course, that was when they were in Opposition, and now that they are in Government, they seek to repeal the Sentencing Council Act, which, I admit, at the time when it was brought to the House by Labour was somewhat controversial and did not have the unanimous support of the House. But it certainly did gain some credit in the eyes of people like Simon Power and a few other people who did study it and take the time out.

It is interesting also that on the one hand you can have this Government lauding and applauding the Law Commission’s reports and reviews on aspects of the justice system—indeed, when it comes to the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act—and, on the other hand, dismissing its recommendations quite casually, it would seem, as with this piece of legislation right now. I think it is timely, because one of the things that has been said in the House this evening by a couple of the speakers from the Opposition benches is that they have noted the pieces of legislation that are not in this bill that could quite rightfully be in this bill, and one of those pieces of legislation might be the little piece of legislation the Government is currently running through the House to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 17.

Why do we say that? Because, looking back at another piece of legislation that was entitled the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6), from March 2008—we finish a piece of legislation proposed by the Labour Government and vehemently opposed by a chap by the name of John Key. “The overriding factor is we won’t vote for legislation which means 17-year-olds won’t be tried by adult courts. They’re doing adult crimes and should face adult sentences.”, said Mr John Key. Another person—and this was National’s children, young persons, and families spokesperson by the name of Anne Tolley—said that the bill was “a missed opportunity” because it did not tackle child abuse rates. “Moving 17-year-olds into the Youth Court would add too much stress to the system.”, said Anne Tolley, and yet here we have legislation going through proposed by Labour, resisted by National, and now being proposed by National and supported by Labour—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come back to the bill.

I am saying that maybe there are some bills that should be included in this Statutes Repeal Bill that are not. Maybe we need to pursue that at the select committee stage to ensure that they are put in there, because, clearly, this Government does not support some of its own legislation that it clearly said before was superfluous and should be going. That fits within the scope of this bill. It is removing legislation that is superfluous.

There is another piece of legislation in here, and it is in schedule 1, on page—oh, my gosh, there are so many finance Acts being repealed in here that it is lost in here, in schedule 1. It is the Children’s Health Camps Board Dissolution Act 1999, and I have just been frantically searching through trying to see exactly what that says. I would be interested to see whether one of the Government speakers could take more than a 2-minute call and explain why that piece of legislation is now redundant. Has it got something to do with the fact that in 1999, the then National Government decided it did not like children’s health camps?

That is interesting, because I would like to hear whether that is what happened—that it actually dissolved the health camps or did away with them, which would now make the Children’s Health Camps Board Dissolution Act 1999 redundant—because I was actually one of those wards of the State who was a beneficiary of the children’s health camps. In fact, we had a children’s health camp at Riversdale in the Wairarapa, where hundreds of us kids who were in State care were sent for our holidays because our foster parents could not afford to send us on holidays. So the State provided these children’s health camps, where we would all go and we would learn a whole bunch of skills—outdoor skills. We would learn to mix and mingle with other kids of our age whom we had never met and to develop social skills and be taught by some excellent New Zealanders—yes, a whole bunch of things that we would never have learnt at home.

It was a holiday that our foster parents could not afford to give us, so we were always grateful, as we grew up and became adults, that the State had these health camps and the State did provide the funding and the State did give us kids who were wards of the State—today, we would be called “CYFs” kids I guess—that opportunity to have a holiday. More importantly, I think it was sometimes to give our foster parents a bit of respite, knowing that for 2 weeks of the school holidays, little Ronnie Mark was going to be away at a health camp somewhere.

So it would be interesting to know why the Children’s Health Camps Board Dissolution Act is included in here, and it would be interesting to know why the National Government of the day did away with the health camps. Maybe it earned a dollar or two selling them off or something—I do not really know.

The Farm and Fishing Vessel Ownership Savings Schemes (Closure) Act 1998—well, we all know that this Government really does not give a toss about helping New Zealanders to buy farms or buy their own fishing vessels and to become owners of their own businesses. So, if that was a savings scheme that was designed to help New Zealanders get on to a farm, I guess we can understand this Government’s desire to repeal Acts like that, and the fact that it has made these Acts redundant and valueless, because it would rather sell off the farms to foreigners, and particularly to Chinese buyers, wherever it can.

The Farm Ownership Savings Act 1974—there we go again. Let us undermine every Kiwi’s ability to buy and own their own farm—something that that Government is very good at. It is more interested in foreign investors taking up ownership, like with the six farms up in the Ōpōtiki area right now that we know are being sold off to a German. There is another one that has gone under the hammer for—I think they outbid New Zealand Manuka by some ridiculous amount. I think it was another couple of million dollars over the top just to make sure that they bought it, but, of course, this Government is not interested in New Zealanders owning their own farms or owning their own land.

The Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act—I guess that is redundant now. We are moving on to another Rugby Cup series further down the line. The Seamen’s Union Funds Act, the Sentencing Council Act—those things have been touched on.

I think it is going to be interesting having a conversation as to why these Acts are now redundant. It will be good revisiting the reasons why the National Government does not like New Zealanders—or it cannot be bothered helping New Zealanders—save for farms or save for fishing vessels, and why it helped do away with children’s health camps. I guess that is the sign of a caring, sharing Government! I thank you.

After the earlier and somewhat unexpected segue to another omnibus bill on the Order Paper—that being the Statutes Amendment Bill—I think I will return right now to the omnibus bill that is the Statutes Repeal Bill, which is the one that is actually set down on the Order Paper for this evening.

It is a bill that will reduce and eliminate unnecessary and redundant legislation. By doing so—by having better and less regulation—we help to make our country more productive to help our international competitiveness and, ultimately, to actually improve our living standards. Making the body of existing legislation easier for users to navigate and also actually easier for departments to administer—and in this bill we will remove some 128 laws, reducing the number of public Acts by something around 10 percent, and along the way we also will remove parts of eight other Acts—is well worth doing to help us to be a more productive and efficient body of law.

Mr Mark—Ronnie Mark, as he referred to himself—raised some concerns about which Acts are included or omitted from the Statutes Repeal Bill. Well, when considering what you might or might not include in the bill, one could consider that a way to make sure you get it right is to consult, which is exactly what the Government did. In October 2015 a draft of the bill was put out for public submissions, giving people the opportunity to comment on what was proposed to be repealed and on what potentially was not included. So what is before the House has been tested in the public and, therefore, we can conclude it has some degree of support already.

The other thing that Mr Mark mentioned was something about camps. He waxed lyrical about his enjoyment as young Ronnie Mark in the said camp—and how it was terrible that this Government did not seem to appreciate them. But, being a little confused, he seemed to miss the point that he was actually referring to a dissolution Act. So while talking about how much he loved the camps, he was actually talking about why we are repealing an Act that dissolved those boards in 1999. Well, I have got good news for Mr Mark, because one could ask oneself: in repealing some Acts, what implications are there for those Acts and provisions that are removed? Will they force some Acts to come back into force? The answer is no. The Interpretation Act 1999 has a number of provisions that deal with the effect of repealing legislation, and it confirms that the repeal of an enactment does not affect the validity, invalidity, effect, or consequences of anything done under the enactment, nor any existing right, interest, title, immunity, duty, status, capacity, or an amendment made by the enactment to another enactment, or similar matters.

So, Mr Mark, this Statutes Repeal Bill, should it be passed in this House, will not affect the dissolution Act that you so fondly refer to. On that note, I commend this bill to the House.

I not going to take a very long call on this one. I just want to explain it a little bit and then also just point out a couple of things that have been highlighted by a few of my colleagues.

This bill is an omnibus bill introduced under Standing Order 263(a). This Standing Order provides that “An omnibus bill to amend more than one Act may be introduced if … amendments deal with an interrelated topic that can be regarded as implementing a single broad policy,”, and I guess the big issue for us is, actually, we have had members’ bills, in particular, go through this House that could have been included under the Statutes Repeal Bill. Unfortunately, the National Government would prefer that we waste our time on bills like Nuk Korako’s member’s bill, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill, which could have been included here. It would have saved us a lot of time. It would have saved the country a lot of money. It has been brought up through the media, and the public are starting to ask questions about what the National Government MPs are actually doing in respect of the members’ ballot.

I do want to point out that that is not the only bill in recent times that has been questioned with regard to the point of it and whether or not it is actually something that is important to New Zealand and New Zealanders; it is only one of many. I want to just highlight two others that actually ended up being dumped. They took up valuable places in the members’ ballot. The first was the Public Collections and Solicitations (Disclosure of Payment) Bill, which was put in the ballot—a valuable place—by Matt Doocey, and was drawn out and eventually dumped, actually. It was badly criticised by the officials. I was on the select committee on that one—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: And not part of this bill, so let us move on.

—and it was dumped. Going back to Nuk’s bill—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, because that is not a part of the bill either.

—this is another good example of a member’s bill that actually could have been folded into the Statutes Amendment Bill but has not been. It is a wasted opportunity for the National Government and a complete waste of time and money for New Zealanders. That is all I have to say.

I hope I am not confused. I believe that we are talking about the Statutes Repeal Bill at its first reading, are we not? Somehow, I have heard three speeches from members of the Opposition talking about the Statutes Amendment Bill at its second reading—not the first, the second. And all this continued reference to my good colleague Mr Nuk Korako about his bill—well, actually, it is covered, as I understand, by the Statutes Amendment Bill, which is not the one we are currently discussing. Anyway, Mr Deputy Speaker, I do feel sorry for you tonight.

This bill is a good bill. It removes 124 laws, and I do note that that is up from 120, the number with which the bill was initially contemplated and introduced. That is a massive 10 percent reduction in the number of laws currently in passage. That is 1,200-odd laws that apply to New Zealand, which I find quite fascinating, and this is a 10 percent reduction. The key feature of this bill—and I have listened to some of the Opposition members—is that this is a bill designed to do this in one big hit. It is a very efficient method and, I do note, very unusual. I do note that the last time such an omnibus bill was passed in this House was in 1907, although overseas it is a bit more common. But I have just listened to some of the Opposition talk tonight and you would think that this is a bad thing. Well, actually, this is an exceptionally efficient way to deal with reducing or removing 124 Acts of Parliament. Most of the Acts of Parliament that we are dealing with and that we are going to remove actually date back to when we made major structural reforms in New Zealand to the public sector, between 1985 and 1993. I do note that there was an 8-week consultation process.

I think this bill is all about continuing to enhance New Zealand’s position as a great place to do business, and on that basis I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you for this call on the Statutes Repeal Bill. This bill repeals and, in some cases, partly repeals about 124 Acts that are no longer needed because they no longer have any effect or were designed to achieve regulatory outcomes that are no longer relevant. It is a bill that will reduce overall legislation in New Zealand, and some of these enactments have not even been brought into force by Order in Council. Due to the fact that this Government does not have any intention of bringing some of these enactments into force, it is really wise that we repeal them so that we reduce the uncertainty that is associated with them remaining on our statute book.

Some of the Acts that are listed for repeal seem rather curious. Looking at them gives us a pretty unusual and unique overview of New Zealand’s history. For instance, we have the Phoenix Assurance Company of London Act 1887. This is an Act that enabled a London company to sue and be sued in New Zealand. We have the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake Relief Funds Act of 1931. This legislation dealt with the aftermath of the devastating 1931 earthquake in Napier. We have legislation like the Southland Flood Relief Committee Empowering Act of 1992. That was an Act that discharged the Southland Flood Relief Committee from administering money held in trust for providing relief and assistance to people suffering hardship and damage from floods in Southland in 1984. This is legislation that was needed at the time but is no longer needed now.

The Statutes Repeal Bill will also repeal over 60 finance Acts, something that we all agree on, and this is a repeal bill that we in the Labour Party are, of course, in support of. But although there may be colourful and interesting issues for legal historians and researchers in looking at why we are removing some of these Acts, we should also look at why there are certain things that we are not considering. I know that some of my Labour colleagues spoke about Nuk’s bill, but the bill that I would actually—

💬 Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is not in the bill is not part of this discussion, so let us talk about the bill.

OK, so let me go back to what is in the bill. The oldest statute that this bill will repeal is the Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Company Act 1879.

💬 Hon Member: Fascinating bill.

This was a fascinating bill, yes—a private Act that was passed in order to change the name of an insurance company to give it corporate identity. The most recent statute that this legislation will repeal is that called the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act 2010. This is an Act that made itself expire on 4 December 2014. However, it still remains as an active piece of legislation still in force. It is absolutely vital that this omnibus bill gets passed so that we can actually clear out some of that old legislation and unclutter our statute book. It is very fitting, and I think it is something that we should absolutely do.

If I can just end on this note: as we are considering the 124-odd Acts that we are repealing, there is one piece of legislation I wish we were also considering. Just today we had the Sisters of Mercy come to Parliament. There were several of us—from different parties—who were there to receive a petition that they, together with five Catholics girls’ schools, came to deliver. It was a petition called “Shelter for all”. They said to us that we, as politicians, should consider housing, especially all of our families and children who are homeless. My wish is that we would also be considering in this bill the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act 2013—something that had so much promise that it would deliver and would house so many of our families, but it has not. We support this bill on the first reading, but, as I say, we wish it also included various other Acts for repeal. Thank you so much.

It is a pleasure to speak on this bill, but I think it is also an honour to be in the House tonight to witness what is surely the best speech in 50 years on the wrong bill. I am sure the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who would be the best person to make a judgment on that, would agree with that.

This is a serious bill, repealing statutes. I would like to point out that the legislation on mortgages during the Depression that is being dealt with in this bill actually had a significant impact on a lot of New Zealanders. Lower-order mortgages were written off and families who had invested all their savings in mortgages lost everything at a stroke of a pen, so I think it is good to see that one disappear. Also, the Y2K legislation—I know that the hysteria that was around the country at the time of the millennium, when all sorts of things were going to stop working when the millennium ticked over, came to be little more than scaremongering. Some people, I suspect, made money out of it, but it really did not have any impact whatsoever.

This is a good bill, and I have pleasure in commending it to the House. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.