Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 2) be now read a second time.

This—

💬 Hon Andrew Hoggard: Great bill.

Well, it is a great bill, whoever said that. I think it was Minister Hoggard, who’s a new member to the Parliament, and he won’t have seen one of these pieces of legislation moved before. But it is—

💬 Hon Andrew Hoggard: So excited.

Well, you are sorry. And maybe, in your ministerial roll, you’ll have the opportunity to engage with it at some point. In fact, I think you probably will, because, actually, as I read it, one of the matters covered in the instruments we are confirming includes extending and amending levies on egg producers and also on the owners of pāua and rock lobster quotas, continuing the export prohibition on green-lipped mussels under a certain shell size, and correcting some tariff drafting errors, so it may well be the case, Minister Hoggard, that you indeed engage with this. In fact, many of the pieces of secondary legislation that the House is confirming have to do with agricultural matters. And it’s one of these little constitutional quirks that there’s a range of instruments where they get passed by various departments—well, they get passed through the various regulatory processes that they have to go through—but then they have to be confirmed by the Parliament, and it’s very important that happens, because if that doesn’t happen by a certain date, they get revoked. And so traditionally, this is one of the last acts of a Parliament for the year, and it’s a very important piece of legislation.

It’s been reported back from the Regulations Review Committee. Now, the Regulations Review Committee—

💬 Ryan Hamilton: Woo.

I’m looking down the back there to the new deputy chair, the aptly named member for Hamilton East, Ryan Hamilton, and I know that he’ll be doing a good job. And the member who’s just resumed her seat before I spoke, the Hon Rachel Brooking, is a former member of the Regulations Review Committee. In fact, I see many members in the House: Dr Duncan Webb—I believe he’s been a member before—Hon Rachel Brooking, and no doubt some future members to come as well. It’s a very important committee.

💬 Hon Andrew Bayly: What about me?

What’s that?

💬 Hon Andrew Bayly: What about me?

Andrew Bayly—yes, indeed. Well, no one could ever forget about Andrew Bayly. It’s because you’re sitting right directly behind me, Minister, that I couldn’t see you, but it’s a very important committee. In fact, we started our time in Parliament on that very venerable committee together, and—here’s a blast from the past—the Hon David Cunliffe was the chair of the committee, and David Parker, the former Attorney-General.

Anyway, I digress. I’d like to thank them for their diligent work considering the bill. It’s really important we pass it, but I know members want to get on to more substantive matters, such as the resource management matters we’re about to discuss. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The irony is that this, in fact, is the only bill that is urgent in this urgency motion, because as Mr Bishop identified, these regulations will be revoked or will expire if this legislation isn’t passed, which is quite different from the other material on the Order Paper.

I think it’s worth noting that this does come before the House as almost pro forma legislation, but confirmation bills are, in fact, a really important parliamentary check on executive power. In my view, confirmation clauses are something which we would do well to think more carefully about, because whilst the debate here might not be extensive—and indeed we have a vote but no debate on the third reading—what does go on at the Regulations Review Committee is genuine parliamentary scrutiny.

Now, I feel somewhat for my colleagues on the committee who are new to the committee because they were presented, essentially, with the draft report that the prior Parliament had done the scrutiny of. So they didn’t get a really good look at what goes on, and the fact that the secretariat of that committee do carefully engage with the relevant departments.

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Very good secretariat.

Yeah, very good, very competent, and very diligent secretariat, thank you, Rachel Brooking—behind me. But I think it is really important to recognise that this is an important constitutional check. The other thing to note about this particular bill, as is common, is that these regulations or secondary legislation, more appropriate given the new legislation around that, is levying; largely levying, through actual levies or through excises or duties or what have you. And those kinds of regulations which, essentially, require payment from citizens to the Crown are deserving of particular scrutiny.

It is also important to recognise that the committee picked up a couple of quirks in there and has brought this legislation back to the House in an amended form. In many cases you wouldn’t expect that, but it turns out that a couple of those pieces of secondary legislation relating to a reduction in fuel excise were in fact no longer in force, so you really don’t need to confirm levies and regulations relating to levies that are no longer in force. You’ll see if you look through the tracked version of the bill that they actually aren’t there anymore. But if you do look at the other levies there, you can see why they may be niche in some ways, like a levy on the sale of arable crops, which is obviously an industry levy. But we do know—this new Government makes a bit of a thing of it—that those levies are important to businesses; important in two ways. Important because they come off their bottom line, which obviously affects profits, and nobody likes that in one sense, but, equally, funds important industry bodies. And, in fact, they create markets, ensure standards are kept, and are real advocates for the industries themselves.

Those levies, like the arable crops levy and, of course, things like the biosecurity entry levy make sure our borders are safe, make sure that our crops, our agriculture is kept safe from foreign pests and what have you—absolutely critical, and we want to make sure that happens. And of course, the export standards, the green-lipped mussel in fact isn’t so much a levy but a prohibition on exporting undersized green-lipped mussels, and we want to make sure that export qualities are kept up.

So I do absolutely want to make it clear that whilst the bill comes to the House with a truncated procedure, it isn’t a bill which gets a truncated scrutiny before the Regulations Review Committee. And I must say I’m very gratified to have been elected unopposed—which is unusual for me—to chair of the Regulations Review Committee. I fear I may not last long there, but it’s really good to be there and to see enthusiastic new members there who are really interested in what’s going on in this committee.

The constitutional check of a confirmation bill is one which I think we can’t underrate, particularly when we’re dealing with things like levies and what have you. So we have had a good look at them. Most—all but two, in fact—we have recommended be confirmed, and other than that, though, it’s good to come back to the House and say, “Yes, the reasons for putting these various levies and rules, excise—what have you—in place stand”. We’ve checked it again, we consider it still to be appropriate, and this House, using not delegated authority but the authority of a House of Representatives, does that. So it’s good to come to this House with the first, I think, select committee report as usual—straight out of the gate—first select committee report reported back to the House, I believe, and to come back and say we recommend that these pieces of secondary legislation be confirmed. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. The Green Party supports the Secondary Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 2) and endorses the reflections that have been made by previous speakers around the importance of those existing checks and balances on this type of legislation. We commend the Regulations Review Committee members for their constructive and collaborative work, and therefore we commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

This bill is set down for third reading immediately.

Third Reading