Statutes Amendment Bill

I’m pleased to take a call on the second reading of the Statutes Amendment Bill. This bill looks at minor technical and non-controversial amendments to a number of Acts. The bill allows amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to progress individually. This has achieved the support of all parties in Parliament. The bill reports back amendments of 46 Acts administered by various Government agencies. Each of the amendments of the bill has received unanimous cross-party support, and the bill is a good demonstration of all the parties working together.

The bill was reported back by the Governance and Administration Committee on 24 May 2019. I want to thank the committee and the chair, Brett Hudson MP, for the careful consideration of the bill. We received and considered eight submissions, seven of those submissions supporting the intent of the respective amendments and one submission received from an interested party of the public which did not relate to any part of the bill. The committee did not recommend making any changes to the House. The committee’s report, however, recommended a number of changes to the amendments of the bill as it was introduced. I support these recommendations and will now detail some of the changes made to the bill.

Many of it was designed to correct drafting errors. Like I said earlier when I opened up my contribution, technical and minor bills—for example, a recommendation to the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007 and the Parliamentary Service Act 2000 by correcting their cross-reference errors. Some recommendations reflect the legislative programme as a whole—for example, the recommendations that the committee have made remove Part 9 relating to the Coroners Act, clause 50 relating to the District Court Act 2016. The bill also reflects provisions contained in the Contempt of Court Bill, which is currently before the House, and then, when passed, will restore the full powers of the coroners to punish for contempt occurring in the courthouse and replace the old contempt provisions for judicial officers with new ones.

Some recommendations are non-controversial and support improvements to the way some Acts work in practice, such as the recommended change to the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. The Act currently requires infringement fees to be paid at a specified address. The recommended change will clarify that payment of an infringement fee to be made at a specified address may not involve payment in person at a physical address. It means that legislation governing infringement regimes can implicitly authorise payment by any method the agency offers. The committee also recommended inserting a new provision to clarify that infringement and that reminder notices can specify more than one method of payment. This would reflect modern methods of payment, such as online banking and other online tools available to ensure payments are completed. Another example is the recommended amendment to the Disputes Tribunal Act 1988, which would replace the references to 28 days with 20 working days. Different time frames have inadvertently been prescribed for applying for a rehearing of a disputes tribunal decision; the Disputes Tribunal Rules 1989 prescribed the time frame as 20 working days, like I said, instead of the proposed time frame of 28 days.

Like I said, these are non-controversial amendments that we’re bringing to the House that form part of the Statutes Amendment Bill. As a supporter of this bill, I’m sure that we will hear from other contributors as to the importance of the individual bills, but, like I said, they’re non-controversial, and I commend them to the House.

Thank you, sir, for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the National Party to continue our contribution on this side of the House in relation to the Statutes Amendment Bill. In keeping with the general nature of these types of bills, this case is no exception in that we support changes that are merely technical—largely non-controversial for that reason. The previous contributor, Meka Whaitiri, who I acknowledge, by the way, as the chair of the Justice Committee, has referred to the large number of—

I’m sorry to interrupt the member. However, this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.