Business Payment Practices Act Repeal Bill

Members, we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clause 7, “Repeal of this Act”, and if we can keep the questions to the Minister around repeal of this Act. The question is that Part 2 stand part.

Thank you. My question for the Minister is this has become a practice, it seems, in this particular period of your Government, to repeal Acts that they have just put in, and I would like the Minister to tell me why we would do that. Why would we take away the very record of the fact that we have repealed? So this is a repeal of this Act, as I understand it, not a repeal of the Act before it. That’s done elsewhere; this is a repeal of this Act. So could you just talk to me about why this wording is in this bill? It’s a new practice, as I understand it—we didn’t used to do that.

My question does follow on from my colleague Helen White’s question, and the first time I came across one of those clauses was in another bill which was being taken through under urgency, actually. But it’s a self-repeal clause, and it would be good to get some explanation as to why we have self-repeal clauses, as Helen White asked for.

But the particular issue I wanted to focus on is that it’s the 28th day after the date on which it comes into force—fine; 28 days after this bill comes into force it gets repealed—but I’ve seen other lengths of time on other bills that have been put up by the Government. I think some of the other self-repeal clauses have gone out to a year out—that was another one that I was interested in. So it’s a genuine question. I’m looking for some consistency around these self-repeal clauses. They are a little new to us. They have been used before, but they’re being used increasingly frequently. Knowing this Minister, I’m sure there’s a good reason for it, but I’d like to hear, as Helen White said, the reason for the repeal bill, but also why it’s 28 days, as opposed to a year in some other cases. If we’re going to have these consistent self-repeal bills, it would be nice to have a little bit of consistency around that too.

Well, thank you. They were good technical questions. First of all, why do a repeal of the repeal bill? Well, some members won’t be aware of it, but this has been a practice for 10 years now. I’ve just asked for some specific notes on it. Parliamentary Counsel Office practice is that repeal bills that mainly just repeal an Act should include a clause that provides for self-repeal after a suitable time—i.e., after its work’s done—or to remove clutter on the legislation website. Now, examples of where this has taken place recently are the Taxation Principles Reporting Act Repeal Bill, fair pay agreements, the New Zealand Productivity Commission—a whole raft of them, right?

This is sort of standard practice. So you have to bring in the Act to repeal it, because otherwise that doesn’t work within a legislative sense. The bill is brought in and the 28 days is a standard repeal period, actually. The reason why we are doing this so quickly—as I’ve said in our opening speech in the debate—is that we are very conscious that unless we repeal the Act, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment have a statutory requirement to go ahead and spend the $2 million to $3 million, to maybe $5 million, but also we want to be clear with industry, who are probably going to be spending tens of millions of dollars to actually do that. So we want to give absolute clarity, and that’s why the bill will come in and then be immediately repealed within 28 days.

Just a couple of responses to that contribution from the Minister. It was, in fact, the Taxation Principles Reporting Act Repeal Bill which had a self-repeal clause on it of one year, and so the Minister has said that 28 days is the standard. I appreciate that he doesn’t have the tax officials here in the Chamber, but I’m hoping that perhaps the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) officials can prompt us with just a wee explanation as to why one bill merited a year and one bill merited 28 days. But—

Hon Andrew Bayly: I’ve just answered that.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Well, but the difference between the periods—they may not have that explanation to hand as to why the Taxation Principles Reporting Act Repeal Bill self-repealed a year later, whereas this bill repeals 28 days later. But if they have, that would be great to know.

The other thing, and the Minister brought it up in his speech just now, as to why we needed to have this particular bill—keeping those words straight is getting challenging—going through urgency now. I can see the repeal clause with 28 days, but then he mentioned the bill going through now, so I am going to respond to that as well. He said that the reason that we need to get this through under urgency now is because otherwise MBIE would have to spend $2 million or $3 million, or whatever it is, in order to put this—

Hon Andrew Bayly: And industry.

Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: Yes, and industry would have to spend money too, in order to get this practice into place. I am somewhat sorry to ask this of this Minister, because I know he is diligent, but this Government, famously, has come into Government saying it had a 100-day plan. Now, the fact that most of the 100-day plan seems to have consisted of “stop, repeal, replace, remove” is neither here nor there—let’s see the positive stuff. The Minister has seen this coming for a long time, so why leave it till the last minute?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we’re having a constitutional debate here which is not really relevant to the bill, but none the less you asked about the 28-day repeal. Where bills or Acts have transitional arrangements, that’s why you have a longer period of time, and that’s why the tax—I see the member; she’s probably the only one in the House that probably understands it. But that’s why the taxation—

Hon Matt Doocey: Oh, that’s outrageous!

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: Well, I’m sure many of you are very interested in these constitutional aspects, but I know—

Hon Matt Doocey: I was up all night understanding it.

Hon ANDREW BAYLY: I apologise to you—there are some very diligent people. But that’s why the taxation one had a longer period of time, and this is why we only have 28 days. It’s perfectly relevant.

I just also want to pick up on Helen White’s Amendment Paper on this part of the bill, suggesting that it is delayed for 24 months. Look, the whole purpose of doing it now, under urgency, is so that we stop people incurring lots of money. We’re conscious about the Government wasting even more money on a scheme that will not bring much benefit to it. That’s why we would not agree to the 24 months, because that, in effect, allows the money to be spent.

In terms of urgency, look, there have already been 49 pieces of legislation, or there will be by Friday, or maybe Saturday—and I’m looking at the chief whip there. But the fact is that this one was deemed, because of the urgency around people actually incurring money—that’s why we’re pushing it through now under urgency. Otherwise, we could have had a longer period to do it, but we are very conscious about giving clarity. Industry has asked for that clarity, and we’re delivering that clarity.

OK, so we haven’t moved to the title and commencement debate yet. This is strictly about repeal, so if someone’s got a question strictly about repeal, I’ll take it.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the Minister for that clarification. What I’m interested to know from the Minister about the repeal process is this. I’m aware that a lot of communication was undertaken with small businesses and with industry, as well, in terms of how to get this bill right, and I would like some reassurance from the Minister. On the 28th day after the date in which it comes into force, when it is repealed, is there a sufficient plan in place so that all of those entities that may have undertaken some form of work and that may have changed their database and their pay systems and may have gone in to undertaking some sort of changes to how they make their payment so that it’s self-reporting and, potentially, undergone some expense to do that work—are there sufficient notifications and communications in place?

We know that not everybody tunes in to watch Parliament, so they might not all be watching this right now. So what reassurances can he provide the business community that there is a plan in place where all of those who are affected by this legislation being repealed are informed in enough time to be able to make those quite potentially technical IT changes to their systems to make sure that they’re not incurring costs unnecessarily?

The other point I would like to make, and I acknowledge—I still have not heard the access to finance. That’s the big elephant in the room that hasn’t been addressed. Access to finance for small businesses under a cost of living crisis—that question has still not been addressed. I think that if you’re going to repeal this Act, then it is incumbent upon this Government to address the question of what the plan is for access to finance for small businesses going forward in New Zealand.

Point of order. I just want to seek clarification. The Minister has started to talk about issues which are really about clause 2 and the amendment there where it is proposed to have a trial period and not repeal. I don’t want to lose my opportunity, so my understanding is that this particular part of the debate is about the repeal of the repeal bill, not the extension of time that might be present, and I just want to make sure that I’ve got the agreement of the Chair—

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Yes, the member is correct.

HELEN WHITE: Thank you.

I move, That debate on this question now close.