Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 5)

I present a legislative statement on the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 5).

Legislative statement published under the authority of the House.

I move, That the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 5) be now read a second time.

It must be getting close to Christmas. Subordinate legislation bills generally come before the House at the end of the year. It’s normally one of the final things the House does before it breaks for the Christmas adjournment. The purpose of the bill is to confirm, by Act of Parliament, regulations that would otherwise lapse at a particular date. The process for this is set out in the Legislation Act 2019.

The second reading debate is the only opportunity that the House as a whole has to consider the bill. The first reading is without debate, as is the third reading, which will follow straight after the second reading that we are doing now. It’s important that the House passes this bill before the end of the year, because duties and levies that have been paid under a regulation that’s not confirmed by the due date have to be returned to those who have paid them, a potentially complex and expensive bureaucratic nightmare, particularly for our primary industries, where the majority of the levies that we seem to be confirming today seem to have been made—the commodity levies that are being confirmed by this.

Secondary legislation to be confirmed by this is set out in the legislative statement that I’ve just presented to the House. It therefore means I no longer have to go through all of the detail of that, which I’m sure members of the House will be incredibly grateful for. They are regulations made under eight different Acts of Parliament.

I want to acknowledge the work done by the Regulations Review Committee in examining the regulations covered by this bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s interesting to see the innovation being employed, as referred to by the Minister, whereby a statement can be placed on record, and thereby keep contributions to the House reasonably brief and relevant and not need to spell out every detail. In that spirit, I’ll make a few remarks, only briefly. But without that particular mechanism available to me, I would like to make a couple of particular points for the record. One being just to acknowledge the purpose of the exercise that we’re engaged in; second, to make a number of acknowledgments; third, to deal with the real-world relevance of the regulations that we’ve been looking at; and, fourth, of course, to conclude on behalf of the Regulations Review Committee.

So I speak—as much as anything, at this the second reading; albeit the only reading, in effect, in terms of contributions to the debate—on behalf of the Regulations Review Committee. Of course, it’s a committee that has an important function, whereby we’re scrutinising the work of the executive. That much has already been traversed in contributions on other matters recently.

I will acknowledge—as well as the members of the committee generally, as I have done previously—in particular, the deputy chair, Rachel Brooking, who is a new member of Parliament. I wish her and those members of the committee—indeed, all new members of the committee who are in this place—all the very best for the 53rd Parliament.

I do also want to acknowledge the various Government agencies who engaged with us in this process, because we had to move quite quickly to this item of business at our first, and so far only, meeting of the Regulations Review Committee. We were somewhat reliant on the work that had been undertaken on our behalf by the committee clerk staff, whom I also acknowledge, and variously the New Zealand Customs Service, the Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand Police, the Ministry of Social Development, and the Ministry of Transport. So it was that they were able to answer a number of standard questions explaining the way that the orders—or rather the regulations; the subordinate legislation eponymously—have been carried out, and that was a helpful exercise.

I don’t need to traverse the detail, obviously, you’ll be pleased to know. But I do also just want to pause and thank them for the work that they do as a matter of course. The work of, for example, the New Zealand Police is something that’s appropriate to acknowledge today, in light of the role that they played as first responders in the tragedy that unfolded in Christchurch on 15 March 2019, along with the victims and their loved ones, of course. They were essential workers that day; they’re essential workers every day. And though we have coined that term particularly in the context of COVID-19, of course we should always acknowledge the work that they do and thank them for their service at every available opportunity.

Madam Speaker, I promised you the real-world relevance of the exercise that we’ve been engaged with. So just to give a bit of a flavour generally, one of the matters covered in these instruments was the continuation of commitments that have been made in relation to a trade agreement with Singapore. So that’s an international obligation that is appropriate that this House continues, to allow the Government to meet, along with the continuation of various other measures: an increase to the road-user charges for example, which won’t please everyone, but, none the less, does reflect, in essence, an extension of business as usual.

Turning to my final point, which is the conclusion we reached: “After considering the responses, we found no reason why the orders and regulations should not be confirmed.” A neat little double-negative there that I suppose counts for an enthusiastic endorsement in the language of the Regulations Review Committee. We weren’t unhappy, and so it was that we said that the House of Parliament—as a whole, if they were to be advised by us and take their lead from our examination of these regulations—should allow them to remain in force, effectively, or be retrospectively validated for the period that they were in force up to 30 June 2020, which was several years ago, at least according to the way that I feel, and probably a lot of New Zealanders feel! But, in any case, that time has been and gone. Not really a matter of retrospectivity, in a sense that these matters were covered by regulation. They now are also covered by legislation—primary legislation. And so it is that we commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. ACT rises in opposition to this bill and on a very specific ground. In Part 2, clause 7, there are two regulations being confirmed in this bill: the Arms (Prohibited Ammunition) Amendment Order 2019 and the Arms (Prohibited Magazine) Order 2019, the first one of which raises great concerns for the ACT Party.

These two orders were part of a process we believe has been unjustifiably imposed across the country, not because of the intent of this House to keep New Zealanders safe, but because of the process it took to try and achieve that aim. These orders assisted in the establishment of a scheme that saw the Government prohibit and seize ammunition without compensation. The basis of this scheme was taken to the High Court and, regarding the prohibition of ammunition, Justice Cooke referred in his judgment to a statement made by the then Minister of Police in an affidavit where he says, “The Government decided not to offer a buy-back regime to persons who were in possession of what had become prohibited ammunition. They would have an amnesty only. I confirm that in this respect the Government proceeded on the understanding that there is no legal obligation to provide compensation from public funds for property that becomes prohibited by law.”

ACT believes that this shows two intents. The first is to prohibit product, some of it originally purchased from Government sources, and then, two, to justify not having to pay for it. They pulled the rug out from under the feet of people who have done nothing wrong and they have been justifying it ever since. Much like the significant natural areas on those that own their own land, this is a devious way to impinge on a person’s private property rights. How can the fundamental right to own what you have purchased be secured in an environment of confiscation? This is a fundamental principle that the Government decided to ignore and trample over. They did not need to do this. They chose to do this.

High Court Justice Cooke also made some further criticisms in his decision. He goes on to say, at paragraph 125, “It is certainly true that there is no such obligation in the sense that Parliament can always legislate inconsistently with the right to receive compensation for a deprivation of property. But on its face the Minister’s view goes further, and suggests that because the measures involved prohibiting possession of the property no such right to compensation arose.” At paragraph 126 he goes on to say, “For the reasons already addressed at some length, that view is not correct. Moreover, had this been a view formed in relation to a statutory power of decision, there would have been an expectation that the decision-maker would have addressed the common law right more directly. For this reason [he saw] some merit in the applicant’s criticism. It also gains force given that prohibited ammunition has been treated differently from prohibited firearms without apparent justification. The Minister’s statement that there is no legal obligation to compensate for prohibiting possession of the property does not provide a justification.”

ACT have to oppose this bill to the House purely on Part 2, clause 7, as our clear property rights are compromised by the original Order in Council, which is now in this bill seeking confirmation. Going by the judgment of a High Court justice, I think it’s important—the ACT Party thinks it’s important—that we actually should be looking to compensate those who have private property that has been confiscated by the Government. We therefore oppose this order. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading