Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill

Mr Speaker, the committee has voted to recall you to the Chair. We’ve had five speeches on the new Part 3, and the Leader of the House has taken a point of order to have the new Part 3 tabled amendments ruled out of order. I’m disturbed by that motion because those tabled amendments have been accepted by the Clerk’s Office and have been on the table now since yesterday—they are not new—and we’ve had five speeches in the debate. I have ruled that those three tabled amendments are in order and that the debate would continue.

Just checking that, by new Part 3, you are talking about the one in the name of Jami-Lee Ross, you’re talking about the—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): And Brett Hudson.

Brett Hudson is the other one, and there’s a third one, which is an amendment to Brett Hudson’s one.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Yes, that’s correct.

There are a number of issues here; the most significant of which is the way that the bill is structured. The bill is structured so that all of the principal amendments are contained in Part 1 and all of the subsequent amendments to different Acts are contained in Part 2. The practice of the House previously—I know because I tried when I was in the Opposition—has been that any additional Acts to be amended should be amended in the part of the bill that deals with that. So, in the case of other amendments that we put forward in Opposition—different additional parts—previous Chairs of committee have ruled that they should be dealt with in the debate on the part of the bill that deals with that. In this case, the committee has already completed its debate on the principal part of the bill, Part 1, and on the subsequent amendments, which were in Part 2, and therefore it is alien to the structure of the debate to allow the committee to continue to add more and more parts.

With regard to the point that the Chair of the committee made about the debate already being under way and already being ongoing, in fact, the House this very morning has already dealt with that issue. There were a number of amendments tabled yesterday and debated yesterday that have subsequently been ruled out this morning by the Chair of the committee. So it is not unprecedented, once a debate on a tabled amendment is under way, for it to be subsequently ruled out.

Mr Speaker, thank you. The Minister has quite accurately identified how the bill has been structured. I agree that there would be high precedent value if the decision was made that he’s asking for, because the Government can choose to structure bills in that way, and if it were to continue structuring bills in that way, such a ruling from you would have the precedent that there would never be the ability for the committee to consider a new part to a bill, because if the argument is that Part 1 will always contain amendments to the principal Act to be amended and that Part 2 will contain amendments to every other Act—if the argument from Mr Hipkins is that you could never have another Act amended by a new Part 3, because it should have been done in Part 2—there’ll never be the ability for there to be a new Part 3 in the future.

Having said that, I have a second point worth considering, which is that when the committee was considering the Family Incomes Package some months ago—it was a similar bill, dealing with incomes and taxation, and it was considered under urgency as well—the committee did have a number of new parts to do with reviews, which were accepted and debated. Therefore, there is precedent that the committee can do that.

My third point is that, on advice from the Clerk’s Office, as we were structuring our tabled amendments and taking up our ability to put forward amendments, we were clearly advised that Part 2’s amendments that amend other pieces of legislation—Part 2 is written is such a way that those amendments to other pieces of legislation are there to assist with the implementation of a regional fuel tax scheme; the two amendments proposed by myself and Mr Hudson seek to have reviews of the situation with the regional fuel tax—are not to do with implementation of the regional fuel tax; they’re to do with how it is reviewed and how it is being implemented. Therefore, it is a new issue that should be considered as a new part.

I do appreciate the member’s frustration, and, in fact, this issue was specifically discussed in the last review of the Standing Orders, where a proposal was put forward by the then Opposition that any amendments to different Acts should be separate parts—that the ability to group changes to different Acts should not be allowed to be done in the way that it has been done, certainly for the entire time that I have been a member of this House. The Standing Orders Committee rejected that proposal, and, as a result, the ability of those in charge of bills to, basically, have one part or two parts—as they choose to—remains in place.

Therefore, what we are doing in this debate is no different to countless other bills that have passed through the House over the last decade that I’ve been a part of it, and in the way the debate has been approached, where all of the amendments to other Acts have been contained in a single part, Chairs have ruled that additional amendments to other Acts should be tabled and considered as part of that debate and not as part of additional debates. The risk that we run here is that, if we continue to allow amendments to be added ad nauseam to any bill, the House will never be able to pass any bill. In fact, other legislatures around the world do have that difficulty, and that, of course, is one of the things that the House has considered from time to time in the way it structures its debates.

I agree with what Jami-Lee Ross has said, and I just want to add another point, and that is that, in the debate on Part 2 of this bill, the member from the Government side did not raise any issue at that time, fully knowing that there were these amendments coming up in Part 3. A precedent within this House—and I know that you’re very keen to see it continue at question time—is that you raise issues at the time they are relevant. If there was going to be an issue that that member felt was relevant, Part 2 would have been the time to raise it. Doing it in Part 3, later, when we’re halfway through the debate, is simply not the case of raising an issue at the time when it is relevant.

Mr Speaker, I simply wish to point out that I think the Minister, effectively, made my point, which was that if you were to rule that we cannot have these new Part 3s, then there would be precedent value, and what the Minister is, effectively, arguing is that we shouldn’t have any amendments inserting new parts if they’re going to introduce issues that could, in his view, have been held in Part 2. He’s made my very point. The second thing I wish to say, in response to Mr Hipkins, is that simply because the Standing Orders Committee did consider something and decided not to act—the fact that a committee decided not to act—is not a change to our Standing Orders and is not something that should be considered in this situation.

Right. This is a complicated set of matters, and I might just deal with a couple of the latter points first. The fact that something has been looked at and considered by the Standing Orders Committee and the Standing Orders Committee has decided to stay with the status quo is, in fact, something which I will take into account, because it’s an indication of the view of the House and is important. In fact, if other suggestions put to the Standing Orders Committee last year had been accepted, the Government would not be allowed to have urgency in this situation.

On the question of raising matters immediately, this is not like a point of order for disorder or a question. This is a matter which is currently before the committee and at any stage while it is before the committee it can be raised, and the fact that things have been on the Table for a period of time and not been raised does not exclude members raising them.

It is not new to rule out an amendment on the grounds that it should have been raised in an earlier part. It’s something that my predecessor has done, or it has been done in the time of my predecessor, and one of the reasons that bills are grouped in parts—and I just want to say, you know, in brackets, that I actually think our arrangements for having things in parts in the way that we debate them is unfortunate.

I might sound like someone living badly in the past, but I think the quality of debate when bills were debated clause by clause and people actually debated the clauses that were important to them, and debated those ones well where they had positive suggestions, and we had better cross-floor discussion, using the proper role of the committee—and the role of the committee is that once the House has decided to proceed with the legislation, which is what the second reading has done, the House has accepted the principle of the legislation, and all we’re debating now is the details of how to do it. Previously, there were, I think, much better-quality debates because Opposition members got the opportunity to make positive suggestions. They could say, “Well, we don’t like this legislation, but it would work better this way.”, and it held the Ministers to account in a much better way.

While I’m on my feet saying how things should work, in Speakers’ Rulings there’s a very good Speaker’s ruling from one of the previous Assistant Speakers in the last Parliament on how Parliament should work during the committee stages. What that says is, effectively, if reasonable questions are asked, the Minister should answer them. That will not lengthen the debate; that will shorten the debate. My view is that if Ministers had done that, this debate would have finished on Tuesday, and we wouldn’t be here in this situation now.

So, having got that off my chest, I’ll now go to the essence of the matter, to reinforce the previous rulings that have been made that it is not new to rule out an amendment on the grounds it should have been raised in an earlier part. It has happened in the last Parliament, and for that reason, I have a suggestion, and that is that Mr Hudson’s new part and, presumably, the amendment to it, which should be part of Part 2—my suggestion is that the House grant leave to return to Part 2 for the purpose of voting on that part, on those two amendments. If a member wants to seek leave to do that, that will give the chance to the House to express its opinion on those, but I make it very clear that it will be for the purpose of voting. On Jami-Lee Ross’s amendment, it is my view that that is outside the scope of the bill. It brings matters into the bill which were not previously in the bill, and it is properly raised as an issue—as an amendment.

But I will say to the Government that I feel very strongly for my colleagues, because I think there probably have been three of them in the Chair during the period that these amendments have been sitting on the Table of the House. My view is that it’s the role of the Minister in the chair and the Leader of the House and the Government whips to constantly review the amendments that are on the Table and to bring them to the Chair’s attention as soon as possible—not days afterwards—in order to get their rulings and stop the House wasting its time, which has happened as a result of their tardiness.

So is a member prepared to seek leave for Mr Hudson’s amendment and the amendment to that to be voted on by the committee?

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I seek clarification. Firstly, are you saying that Mr Hudson’s amendment is otherwise out of order if for voting purposes it does not get included in Part 2?

💬 SPEAKER: That’s right.

And are you further saying we cannot debate the essence of Mr Hudson’s new Part 3?

💬 SPEAKER: That’s right.

Can I have a further clarification from you. In the drafting of amendments, we took extensive advice from the Clerk’s Office—

The member—stop right now. One of the very strong principles of this House is that members take responsibility for their own amendments, and it is not the practice of good members to seek to put responsibility with other people for things which they’ve signed their name to. I say as a Minister I made a lot of errors that were as the result of advice but I always took responsibility for those, and I’m not having my staff blamed for members’ errors.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I’m just seeking clarification as well that you’re, basically, saying that a Government member can, at a later point, revisit an earlier part of a bill and ask for it to be reconsidered.

No, no. The member will resume his seat. I am saying that any member now, if they want to have a vote on Mr Hudson’s amendment, can seek leave. The House can do anything by leave. There’s clearly an amendment there which would have been within scope if it had been addressed in the right way. It’s clearly something which some members feel quite strongly about, and all I’m suggesting is a way for the House to consider that by way of a vote, if they so wish, in order to have the House express an opinion on Mr Hudson’s amendment. I don’t know if—

💬 Jami-Lee Ross: But we do that in committee?

I think it’s probably proper to do it now to get it sorted, because otherwise I think the Chair would be obligated to just proceed to report back again, because there’d be nothing before the committee.

I seek leave for Mr Hudson’s amendment to be voted on as a question under Part 2.

Right, and the clear implication of that is that it will be a vote and not a debate. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

In Committee

Debate resumed.

Part 2 Amendments to other Acts (continued)

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Brett Hudson be agreed to:

After clause 12, insert new Part 3

Part 3 – Commerce Commission Fuel Market Study

9 Principal Act

This part amends the Commerce Act 1986

10 Purpose

To provide for powers for the Commerce Commission to undergo a competition study (market study) of a regional fuel market immediately following the establishment of a RFT scheme in a region.

11 New Part 3A

After Part 3, insert:

48 Interpretation

In this Part, unless the context otherwise requires,—

competition report means a report prepared by the Commission under section 51B

competition study means a study of any factors that may affect competition for the supply or acquisition of goods or services

department means a department of the public service specified in Schedule 1 of the State Sector Act 1988

organisation means any of the following:

(a) an organisation named in Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Ombudsmen Act 1975:

(b) an organisation named in Schedule 1 of the Official Information Act 1982:

(c) the Auditor-General.

Regional Fuel Tax means any regional fuel tax or regional fuel tax scheme put in place under the Land Transport Management Act 2003

Regional Fuel Tax Region means any region of New Zealand that has a regional fuel tax scheme in place under the Land Transport Management Act 2003

49 Functions of Commission under thus Part

The functions of the Commission under this Act include carrying out competition studies, and preparing competition reports, under this Part.

50 Commission may carry out competition study

(1) The Commission must carry out a competition study of fuel markets in a regional fuel tax region no later than one year after a regional fuel tax scheme is established in that region;

(a) The Commission must carry out a competition study that assesses the regional fuel tax region in relation to the NZ fuel market

(b) Before carrying out a competition study, the Commission must, by notice in the Gazette, issue a statement of intention to carry out the study, which must—

prescribe the terms of reference for the study; and

specify the date by which the Commission will make the final competition report for the study publicly available.

(2) The study must assess whether price spreading behaviour is occurring in the RFT region

(3) A copy of the notice must be made publicly available.

(4) The Commission may amend the notice in the manner set out in subsections (1) to (3).

(5) The Commission may revoke the notice by further notice in the Gazette.

51A Competition study terms of reference

(1) The terms of reference for a competition study must—

(a) Examine the way in which regional fuel taxes influence the price of fuel in a regional fuel tax region and;

(b) Examine the impact of price spreading of a fuel tax and;

(c) Any other related area that the Commission deems necessary to examine in relation to regional fuel taxes

(2) The terms of reference may name any of the following that it intends to consult as part of the study:

(a) departments:

(b) organisation:

(c) persons:

(d) classes of persons.

(4) The Commission—

(a) must carry out the competition study in accordance with the terms of reference; and

(b) may exercise its discretion in relation to any ancillary matters that are related to, but not explicitly covered by, the terms of reference.

51B Preparation of competition report

(1) The Commission must prepare a competition report that records its findings from the competition study.

(2) The report may, without limitation, recommend 1 or more of the following:

(a) changes to legislation or other instruments:

(b) changes to the policies or practices of central or local government:

(c) changes to the policies or practices of a person or an organisation responsible for the oversight or regulation of a specified industry:

(d) changes to the amount or type of information made available by a person or an organisation in relation to a specified industry:

(e) that a person or an organisation research or monitor a specified matter:

(f) that persons within a specified industry change their behaviour.

51C Consultation on draft competition report

(1) Before a competition report is finalised, the Commission must—

(a) make a draft report publicly available; and

(b) allow a reasonable time for comments on the draft.

(2) In preparing its final report, the Commission must have regard to any comments received on the draft report within the time allowed.

51D Publication and status of competition report

(1) A final competition report must be made publicly available.

(2) To avoid doubt, a competition report is not a determination of the Commission.