Statutes Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Statutes Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Statutes Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

As the House will be aware, statutes amendment bills are legislative vehicles that make small, technical, and non-controversial amendments to a number of Acts. These bills allow amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to be progressed individually. This bill is a great example of regulatory stewardship and ensures our legislation remains fit for purpose and up to date. The amendments covered by the bill include correcting drafting errors, updating language, and clarifications.

The bill, as reported back, amends 41 primary Acts, administered by various Government agencies. Each of the amendments in the bill has received unanimous cross-party support. The bill was reported back to the Governance and Administration Committee on 16 April 2025. I’d like to thank the committee for their careful consideration of the bill and the submitters for their contributions. The committee made several recommendations that clarify and refine the bill.

The bill as introduced includes an amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act that intends to clarify that address verification is only required in higher-risk circumstances. The committee recommends an amendment to make it clear that address verification is not required as part of a standard customer due diligence process but only as part of an enhanced customer due diligence process. This clarification will provide immediate regulatory relief to businesses that have been conservative in their interpretation of address verification requirements, resulting in over-compliance. The change reflects the original policy intent that address verification is only required in high-risk scenarios, while also addressing submitters’ concerns that the original drafting left too much room for interpretation.

The committee also recommends an amendment to the Privacy Act 2020. This amendment clarifies that the six-month limitation period for a claimant to bring proceedings in the Human Rights Review Tribunal starts only when the Privacy Commissioner or Director of Human Rights Proceedings has made final decisions about all related complaints and matters and has notified the complainant about those decisions under relevant provisions in the Privacy Act 2020. This will assist the Privacy Commissioner’s endeavours to settle substantive complaints and reduce the likelihood of adversarial behaviour between parties.

The bill also includes an amendment to the Oaths and Declarations Act to allow oaths to be made and declarations to be taken remotely. The proposal makes permanent similar changes that were enforced during the COVID lockdowns to reduce accessibility barriers. The committee recommended changes to the proposals in the bill that relate to the Oaths and Declarations Act. The main change is to ensure that the administrator can see the person taking the oath or making the declaration, to reduce the coercion by requiring the video to be on at all times.

Lastly, the committee recommends removing the amendments to the Racing Industry Act 2020 and some of the amendments to the Conservation Act 1987 from this bill. The amendments to the Racing Industry Act and proposed changes to the Conservation Act were considered as part of other pieces of work.

Part 20 of the bill amends the Incorporated Societies Act 2022. The committee has recommended that the House note that a number of changes were proposed by the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association which were substantive in nature. The committee did not propose any amendment, as the proposals were out of scope of the bill, but they did suggest the issue be further investigated. I have already taken the step of writing to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, highlighting this matter for further consideration.

The bill will come into force the day after Royal assent. In summary, this bill will provide much-needed changes to the statute book. The amendments will ensure New Zealand’s legislation operates efficiently and effectively. Again, I thank the committee for their work on the bill, and I welcome their recommendations. I look forward to the passage of this bill through its remaining stages and working constructively with parties as similar bills are put together in the future. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s an exciting piece of legislation. It is actually an interesting function of Parliament to go through and take recommendations from all departments and Ministers as to what are, essentially, tidy-ups. It’s important to understand the parliamentary procedure here, because statutes amendment bills are, pretty much by definition, not substantive amendments. Substantive amendments belong somewhere else, quite often in an omnibus bill. Then we have the kind of bills we’re more used to seeing, which are really weighty subject-matter bills. This bill, essentially, is part of the function of Government and Parliament in good regulatory stewardship. The suggestion by some parties that we don’t have a system of good regulatory stewardship doesn’t really hold water.

This is a good example of Government departments ferreting away, combing through the legislation for which they have responsibility, identifying bits where the language is outdated or where another amendment means it’s no longer entirely consistent, and where clarifications are needed. There is a genuine moot point about when something stops being a statutes amendment tidy-up—a modernisation, perhaps—and when it starts being a substantive amendment. There’s a very strong convention that if a member identifies an element of a statutes amendment bill that they consider is substantive and should be separately dealt with, or dealt with in a substantive piece of legislation, it should come out.

I know my friend and colleague Camilla Belich, who sat on the committee, will probably talk about the oaths and declaration amendments. It is a good example where something is at the threshold where there were changes as to how oaths and declarations could be made. I understand these changes were made on an interim basis in COVID when, obviously, face-to-face interactions with lawyers and other people who were authorised to take declarations weren’t possible. We had this kind of audiovisual idea. I do want to say that there are concerns, because we sometimes are a bit flippant or offhand about oaths and declarations, but a lot of what we do rests on the trustworthiness of information provided, so it is important to have, essentially, the solemn moment where you say, “This is my affidavit” or “This is my statutory declaration”, even “This is my passport photo”, and say, “I solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that it’s true”, that it is a true likeness, rather than sort of saying, “Oh, there it is”.

Going online is one thing, but the suggestion was that you could have an audio, I think, rather than an audiovisual interaction. Basically, you could be on the phone and say, “Have you got this document in front of you? Is it true?” Now, it’s a bit loose, so, quite rightly, that was reviewed, and the members of the committee addressed it.

Now, I’ve got another six-odd minutes left, so I thought I’d just list off all of the amendments—or not. No, look, it’s a bill that we’re all behind. I did want to make those points around the functions of statutes amendment bills and the importance of members looking at them genuinely and making sure that they do the job and that they don’t overstep the mark of genuine statutes amendment bills. With that, I’ll leave it, and obviously we’ll be supporting this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to also support the Statutes Amendment Bill. I think, like the previous speakers have mentioned, this is a really interesting function and particularly a really interesting bill. Over the last few months, what we have heard is a number of regulatory system bills which make those sort of—I guess in some ways—mechanical changes and minute changes to a number of legislations as an omnibus bill, which is essentially a combination of these amendments to multiple bills at the same time.

However, the Statutes Amendment Bill has an additional function in this case, which is that the bill should have unanimous approval by the Parliament. It’s also important to point out that in this particular amendment bill, for those particular members of particular parties that are not represented on the select committee—in this case, we do thank the Governance and Administration Committee for their consideration of this bill. But for those members or parties that are not represented on the select committee, they are also kept in the loop of the progress of this bill in order to achieve that unanimous support from the House of Representatives on this omnibus bill.

Now, it has been mentioned as well that although the introduction of the commentary of the bill talks about making 96 amendments to 42 Acts, it’s important to note that as the Associate Minister of Justice stated in her contribution at the beginning, now it is only 41 Acts and not 42.

Some of them I will highlight. I won’t be going through all 41 Acts. I will highlight some of the important aspects of these Acts. To start with, it is mentioned that the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act (AMLCFT) is one of the key elements of this particular omnibus bill. As we have heard also just this week—and also as we have seen in the Justice Committee—there are a number of bills that are currently relating to AMLCFT that are going through the House right now. As we see from the financial task force in their report, this is an area that requires updating.

A number of those updates ostensibly are substantial and deserve amendment bills in their own right. We have seen the second of those amendments being introduced in the House this week, with a possible third one on the way, as indicated by the Minister in charge. But in this case, the omnibus bill that we see here makes a minute change that sets out customer due diligence requirements that reporting entities such as casinos or financing institutions must fulfil, as well as amending areas such as addressing verification of a customer, beneficial owner of a customer, or person acting on behalf of a customer is only required according to the level of risk involved in the transaction, which offers a level of flexibility that we see that is required for this bill.

A second part that is substantial in the Statutes Amendment Bill is around the Oaths and Declarations Act. One of the key adjustments—and I’ll talk more about the ability for Government to make such changes to regulations and also the flexibility of their offers and updates and modernisation that is required a little bit later. In the specific context of the Oaths and Declarations Act, what we are seeing is that it allows oaths, affirmations, and declarations to be administered and oaths to be taken by audiovisual link or audio link. Although this seems minute, it is an important step in allowing accessibility to the way that we look at our affirmations and declarations, particularly in light of the pandemic, where if we do have situations that people aren’t able to do it in person, they’re able to have that flexibility to do it online. We’re happy to see this being introduced as part of the Statutes Amendment Bill to offer even more and even greater accessibility and inclusion to people who are making affirmations or declarations.

Thirdly, another substantial change of this bill out of the 41 Acts that are being amended is the Privacy Act. In this case, this is inserting a new clause 132A in this amendment, which would amend section 98 of the principal Act—which is the Privacy Act—and sets out when a person can commence proceedings in the Human Rights Review Tribunal. It specifies that a person must commence proceedings within six months of being notified of the decision by the Privacy Commissioner or Director of the Tribunal. It also further clarifies, in the cases where there are two or more related complainants, that the six-month limitation period will begin only after decisions for all of the related complainants have been made and notified, which is, again, an important step in allowing for that flexibility but also it makes sense in the case, which currently isn’t allowed under the existing legislation.

One final point I would like to make in terms of some of the bigger changes that are noticed within this bill is around changes to the Defence Act, and particularly around certain changes as recommended on the inclusion and using a more gender-neutral term of aviator as opposed to the existing terminologies that are in the legislation. We do recognise the amazing diversity of the people who are serving our country as part of that.

Those are some of the major changes that we see in this bill. However, it is also worth noting that two particular areas have been removed as a result of the select committee process. Although there are few submissions on this bill because it is a technical bill in nature, we do thank everyone who has submitted on the bill. It is worth noting that there are two particular legislations as a result of the select committee process that have been removed from this because of other considerations, the first one being the Conservation Act. The reason that clauses 25 and 33 have been removed as a result of the select committee process is because it is considered under the broader consultation and changes to that principal Act, which is currently taking place.

However, I would note that there are certain areas of this—particularly in light of the defence to a charge “if the defendant can show that the discharge of the contaminant”, which is in removed clause 33 and is something that is worth greater attention as part of that consultation process, because of the fact that there is a genuine concern from the Greens around the way that our Conservation Act works and the way that it has been, ironically, diluted. That potentially has the potential to allow more contamination of the natural environment. That is something that is definitely worth further attention.

It is also worth noting that although the majority of the Conservation Act in this case has been removed, clause 34 has been retained, which is around taking indigenous freshwater fish without authority. This is specifically to do with a person must not take indigenous freshwater fish from any fresh water, except in accordance with certain sections of that primary legislation. Anyone who fails to comply will be considered as an infringement offence, and it is important for this adjustment to the Conservation Act.

In terms of the Racing Industry Act, it is important to note that the original Part 33 of this bill on the Racing Industry Act has already been incorporated as a part of another bill that’s already been introduced in the House and, therefore, it is redundant for us to introduce it here in this bill.

For the final little bit, I would like to mention that bills like this show the incredible work that this Parliament and the House of Representatives do in order to update our regulations and legislation in a way that doesn’t take a lot of additional resources and in a way that is done with the support of the entire House. It’s a part of the normal function of Parliament. We see these sorts of changes all the time through regulatory system bills or omnibus bills such as this. We don’t need to look for other avenues to make greater changes. So the Greens support this bill.

I just want to highlight very briefly the key changes. Obviously, it has the conservation and racing amendments, because conservation’s being done separately by that Minister. Racing, we have already passed that Act, so that doesn’t need to be included.

On the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act, it is an area where I think we’ve brought some clarity. Some of us would like to go further; however, in the nature of a Statutes Amendment Bill that needs to be small, minor, non-technical, and non-controversial changes, there wasn’t the ability to go any further.

I would like to highlight the amendments to the Incorporated Societies Act got a surprising amount of interest, because there are a number of changes that groups like the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association Inc. would like to see made, but I do note that has been picked up in a member’s bill which is in the ballot under the name of Laura McClure, and I commend her for the work that she’s doing there.

I’m sure everyone would have noticed that the legislative statement in paragraph 10 mentions a change to having audio link or audiovisual link. Can I just highlight that, actually, under the Oaths and Declarations Act, it is only an audiovisual link, so you can give that surreptitious wink if you are being held hostage while you sign your will.

Finally, changes to the Privacy Act—another area that received a lot of questions around this ability to stretch it out to six months on the last claim. Can I just highlight—because this was a question I asked—that it’s the last claim relating to one incident. So if there’s an incident where someone puts in a claim that a decision was made with the wrong information and something was released publicly that shouldn’t have been and maybe something else, it’s the last of those claims that earns the six months. But if you then put in a different claim about a different incident or a different department, that will be treated separately. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Statutes Amendment Bill. As we’ve heard, these are minor technical amendments from New Zealand First’s point of view. They’re common-sense changes that cover over 41 different Acts, and they must be by consensus. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. E tū ana au, ki te reo Māori ēnei kōrero. E tū ake ana ahau ki te whakapuaki i ngā whakaaro o Te Pāti Māori mō te pire e kīia nei, e kōrerotia nei, e wānangahia nei e te Whare.

Nō reira, pēnei anō, kāre au mō te tārua tonu nei i ngā kōrero a tēnā, a tēnā, engari ko tāku i te ata nei kia kawea ēnei tū āhuatanga ki te reo Māori nā runga anō i te whai pānga ki tēnei Whare.

Kua rongo tātou kāore he tino āmaimaitanga o te whakakaohanga mai o ēnei pire e whā tekau mā tahi nei. Tika tonu kia whakatikahia ngā mea kua roa e tārewa ana—e, tēnā koe e Todd i tō kapo whakaahua, ka nui te mihi.

Heoi anō ngā mea e tārewa ana. Taku rua tau noa iho nei ki te Whare nei, tērā ētahi ture kua roa nei e tārewa nei te whakatika, te whakahou rānei e hāngai pū ki ngā mahi o te rangi nei.

Nō reira e tautoko ana mātou i ērā tū āhuatanga katoa, tae atu ki te kupu whakataunaki, te kī taurangi o te Whare, arā e mea ana ko te oath i roto i te reo Pākehā. Ērā tikanga kia whakaaehia te tuku o te oath mā runga i te ipurangi, i te Huitopa rānei. E tika ana, e tika ana. Kei te 2025 ināianei, e tika ana kia āhei te tangata ki te tuku i ana whakaaro, otirā te whakatairanga i āna e kī taurangi ai i roto i te oath.

Me tā mātou e āpiti nei ki ngā whakatikatikahanga, ngā whakaaro nui mō te oath nei, tika tonu kia uru ko te Tiriti o Waitangi ki roto i te kī taurangi o tēnei Whare nā runga anō i te kōtuituitanga o te Kīngi o Ingarangi ki tā te taha iwi Māori e noho nei i raro i te taumaru o tēnei Whare. Ana, whakakotahihia ērā whakaaro katoa ki te Tiriti o Waitangi, koia tonu ko te tūāpapa e noho nei i raro iho i te tūnga o tēnei Whare.

Nō reira ko tā mātou, me whai wāhi te Tiriti o Waitangi i roto i te kī taurangi o tēnei Whare, puta noa i ngā pāti katoa e whai wāhi ai te mana o te Tiriti o Waitangi i roto i ngā kawenga katoa.

Nō reira huri noa, tātou, tēnā tātou, kia ora tātou.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand, and these comments will be in the Māori language. I stand to express the opinions of Te Pāti Māori regarding this bill that is mentioned, discussed, and debated by the House.

So, similarly, I will not merely repeat the statements of each of us, but instead what I intend this morning is that these functions be conveyed in the Māori language due to the relevance to this House.

We’ve heard there is no real concern about the collection of these 41 bills. It is absolutely appropriate that these things that have been unresolved for so long be corrected—ah, thank you, Todd, for taking a picture, many thanks.

Anyway, the things that are unresolved. In my mere two years in this House, there is some legislation for which the correction or amendment has been suspended that is directly relevant to today’s activities.

So we support all of those features, including the affirmation, the Oath of the House—i.e., known as “the oath” in the English language. Those practices to permit the delivery of the oath over the internet or via Zoom. It is appropriate, it is appropriate. We are in 2025 now, and it is appropriate that people be allowed to deliver their opinions, and indeed to uphold what they pledged in the oath.

We would add to the amendments, the major concepts for this oath, it is appropriate that the Treaty of Waitangi is included in the oath of this House due to the partnership of the King of England to the Māori people that remains under the shelter of this House. Now, bring all of those ideas together with the Treaty of Waitangi, which is truly the foundation upon which this House stands.

What we propose is that the Treaty of Waitangi should be included in the oath of this House, so that across all parties the power of the Treaty of Waitangi is included in all business.

And so to all of us, greetings and thanks to us all.]

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. I rise to support, at the second reading, the Statutes Amendment Bill. It was a pleasure to be on the Governance and Administration Committee, ably chaired by Rachel Boyack and then Camilla Belich. We were consulted, as a party, in 2023, because the amendments needed to be minor and non-controversial. I’d like to thank my colleagues for a good process—some quite incisive questioning when the submitters came in.

Some of it is about modernisation. My colleague Dr Xu-Nan picked up on the “airmen” to “aviators”. There’s also the removal of “imbeciles”, which is probably a good thing, particularly in this House! Secondly, we have a huge amount of work here. Yes, the elected members work well. Yes, committee staff work well. But my biggest thank you is to the staff who looked through all of these, collected them all up, tried to marry the language so that we don’t have inconsistencies in our legislation that either mean people don’t understand what the law is or expose people to lengthy court processes. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that.

I’d also like to thank the submitters. Most of them were very much on one or two out of those 41 reduced Acts. The Minister mentioned the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association earlier on. I’d just like to say, in the work that proceeds after this, it seems very important that it’s not about what the incorporated society does, if we’re looking to make things a little simpler in the future. There are plenty of small conservation societies, or other special-interest societies that would feel very much the same as Amateur Sport, so I think it’s very important that it’s about how a society works, how its officers are held accountable, how we know that they’ve actually put the money where they said they were going to put the money, that the members voting for something actually are members—all of those issues should not be dismissed as too difficult for a small society.

There were some helpful and detailed matters raised. The other modernisation, as well as some of the language of “imbeciles” and “aviators”—what a wonderful combination; it sounds like it could be a good bar name, really: “Imbeciles and Aviators”—is in the issue about addresses, and where you have to do address verification. We actually heard, quite strongly, that some of the organisations that have to do address verification these days—and this goes along with the whole difficulties of postal voting for local government—address verification is considerably more time-consuming and difficult, perhaps, than it used to be.

Also, we have minor changes to the Local Government Act, including putting all of the annual report requirements into one place. I would just say, that reminds us how much reporting local government already does. I urge parties that were not on the Governance and Administration Committee to actually note how this process has worked well, how the staff present a whole list of things, consult early with the parties, bring it to the public in case there’s something we’ve overlooked, and decide we’re going to do it like this or we’re going to proceed and request that Parliament follows up on some other matters. Thank you. The Greens support this.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I’ll be very short. Ninety-six proposals which amend 42 Acts administered by 14 Government agencies—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a moment, sorry, was there a point of order?

Camilla Belich: No, it’s just a Labour call.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh, can you show me? Because I’ve just come into the seat. Sorry, can we please start the member’s time again while we just sort this out? Thank you.

Hon MELISSA LEE: Can I?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, you can take your call.

Hon MELISSA LEE: Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill contains 96 proposals which amend 42 Acts administered by 14 Government agencies. All of this Parliament supports the Statutes Amendment Bill, but I just want to mention one particular thing: the amendment to the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004, basically, has derogatory terminology about women, and it actually says, “subnormal woman or girl”, and that is being changed to “certain persons”. I think that is a good thing, and I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you. A pleasure to take a call on this. This is an important bill for Parliament because it changes minor things that would otherwise possibly not be, politically, the focus of Ministers bringing changes to the House. So this bill changes I think 41, now, particular bills—that’s what the legislative statement says, anyway. It makes minor changes. I just wanted to focus on a couple of those because, obviously, I wouldn’t have time to go through all 41 changes.

The one that I wanted to start with was just the oaths and declarations changes. This change was put forward as a way of modernising the way that oaths and declarations are undertaken and allowing those to be done by Zoom or by whatever medium you want to use—FaceTime. The key change that the committee made here from what was originally proposed was actually to make sure that that was an audiovisual link and not an audio link. I recall my time as a junior lawyer, and one of the major jobs that you would do is if anyone wanted to do an oath or a declaration or an affidavit—even if it was a substantive affidavit—it was your duty as a lawyer to go through that affidavit and make sure that the person took their oath and signed all of the exhibits. It was extremely time-consuming, but something that, I think, when you’ve finished your professionals course and when you’ve just newly qualified, you do take extremely seriously. I think that it’s important that all lawyers—or all people, not just lawyers—who are able to take oaths and declarations do take that really seriously. The concern that we had around the audio only was really that when you are required to take an oath from someone in person, you want to make sure that that person is doing so genuinely in good faith, without coercion.

For us, it made sense to modernise it in terms of accessibility—people who are in remote locations, people who may be ill, emergency situations like we had in COVID—to allow the audiovisual change. But the audio on its own seemed a step too far to be able to not see the context of where that person was; to not be able to read their body language; to make sure that they were, indeed, taking their oath or declaration with sound mind, and also without fear of interference or coercion. So I think that was a good change that the committee made, and I want to thank the members of the Governance and Administration Committee.

As you’ll see from the report, I was involved for a part of this but also want to acknowledge Rachel Boyack, who was the chair of that committee at the beginning of this process—although I do note that this particular bill has had a genesis in, actually, the previous Parliament, as well. Both Governments have participated in this bill, and, actually, it’s taken this long to get these changes before the House, and that might be something that we can reflect on in terms of making these changes more quickly, because they are minor changes.

The other thing that’s really unusual about this bill is it requires agreement from every single member of the House. If there was a single member in this House who disagreed with a particular provision in this bill, that provision would need to be removed, otherwise this bill could not proceed. I think that it’s great that we have some bills like that, where each individual member, especially when we do have a Parliament which probably has more party discipline than many other common Westminster systems—that we do have a system where any member of Parliament can look through this. If they haven’t done so, I encourage you to, to make sure you are happy with these changes, because these are going forward, as they are only small changes, and they are going forward in your name, essentially, not just in your party’s name. This is something that each individual member has the authority to have a view on.

With that in mind, it was something that I know the Governance and Administration Committee—and I want to acknowledge the staff of that committee, who really were the ones who shepherded this bill through the select committee stage. They made sure that the communication—and the elected members made sure that this was happening, but it was the staff who actually undertook a lot of the consultation to make sure that other parties who weren’t represented on the Governance and Administration Committee also had the ability to see what was going through and have a view on that and to make sure that they are all happy with that. I think that was New Zealand First—no, it was the Māori Party and ACT. We see we have Andy Foster, who is very actively involved from New Zealand First on the Governance and Administration Committee.

It does go through a number of different provisions. We did have submissions from some members of the public who would have liked the bill to go further and to do more substantive changes. Obviously, that’s not the purview of a Statutes Amendment Bill—it needs to be smaller changes that are not substantive policy—but I think it’s always helpful, and I am encouraged by members of the public who did want to make those submissions. You’ll see that, in particular, in relation to incorporated societies, those submissions became a part of our report, and so that submitter has not—although their changes have not been incorporated, their views have been represented in the second reading report to the House. So that time has not been wasted, and it’s been raised in a really constructive way, I think, by the committee, to be able to look at moving forward.

I won’t use all of my time on this, as this is not something which is, by its nature, political. It’s something that we do in this House because we take our responsibility as legislators seriously, and we want to make sure that the Acts that govern our country have pragmatic and updated changes from time to time. I want to thank everyone who’s been involved in putting this together over two Governments—probably many different select committee members—and the select committee staff who have worked on this, and also the people at Government departments who have suggested changes for the Statutes Amendment Bill. It’s, I think, in a good state at the moment. Obviously, we’ll be interested to look at it a bit further in the subsequent committee stage and third reading, but I think at this stage it’s something that we can all be proud of that we have put together and will, hopefully, make the wheels of the country turn a little bit faster. So I commend it to the House.

Thank you. Just before I take the next call, I just wanted to clarify so the speeches are in order: when an ACT Minister takes the Minister’s call, then National takes call four, so everything is flowing as it should be. Just to clarify that there’s a change in order when a New Zealand First or an ACT Minister actually are in charge of the bill. Thank you. I call Dr Hamish Campbell.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Statutes Amendment Bill. We’ve heard a lot in this debate that this is a vehicle for these minor, technical, and relatively non-controversial changes to these Acts of Parliament. Some of these pieces of legislation have been on the books from the 1950s and 1960s and really do need to be modernised. I think one example was the Housing Act 1955. It talks about a £1 fee for an easement certificate, so I think this just shows one of the reasons why we need to put these sorts of bills through Parliament every now and again. It is to make life a lot easier. It does modernise it. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don’t know if we’re still the fastest lawmakers in the West, but the way this Government’s been pushing large amounts of legislation through the Parliament with scant regard for the basic principles of the democratic process—that there should be space in lawmaking for select committees to do their work properly, to give members of the public and experts a chance to have their say on bills—has been worrying.

Bills like this are a very important way that the Parliament can not only modernise and update the minutiae of our statutes over time but also clean up some of the messes that are caused by over-hasty lawmaking—things like the regulatory systems amendments that we put through from time to time—and, certainly, statutes amendment bills like this are a very important way of cleaning house and making sure that we’re constantly updating and improving the law so that it can better serve New Zealanders.

Labour is supporting this giant compendium of often very minor and arcane amendments to 42 different Acts. I won’t take any more time of the House but wish this bill well as it makes its way through the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to speak in support of the Statutes Amendment Bill in its first reading. This is an omnibus bill that amends a whole raft of minor amendments that are agreed on across the House. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Statutes Amendment Bill. As I’ve heard my colleagues on this side of the House say, we will be supporting this bill. As we’ve also heard, it’s an essential tidy-up—by definition, not substantive amendments—across 42 Acts, because it’s good regulatory stewardship. It’s been very helpful listening when we were in the Governance and Administration Committee. I do want to thank the officials for their tremendous work in terms of when they were shepherding this, and thanks also to the public submissions to help committee members understand.

Particularly, I will just talk a little bit about the oaths and declarations. In a previous role, I did a number of citizenship ceremonies. It’s really important when people are taking oaths, and there’s a bit of a challenge when you’re doing that online. Government members and members of the select committee—we asked a number of questions through the public submission process. It was really helpful to understand the dos and don’ts, and particularly around the risks. So we had very good information, and important information, that the public officials raised at that time.

Also, I want to thank the submitters who were able to be part of the process, because it’s important for scenarios around Aotearoa that we understand, as committee members, what is relevant and what needs to be raised as risk, particularly in those provisions and proposals.

I won’t take all of my time. Labour supports this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

It’s a pleasure to be the last speaker and round off the debate in the Statutes Amendment Bill second reading. The Government whip often says, “Dull but worthy speeches.”, and I think this is a bill that is characterised as dull but worthy. There are lots of small changes in this bill. I can see the unanimous support in the House. Thank you to the officials. Thank you to the Governance and Administration Committee. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Disputes Tribunal Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill.