Brownlee Gerry: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:609;Page:6292] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: Clause 7 has the most incredibly obvious statement which the Minister should elucidate a little for the Committee: “This section establishes New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.” I need to know and I think the Committee should know why that has been put into the bill. Quite clearly the whole bill is about that very purpose. Why is that in Part 2 and not in clause 3 “Purpose” in Part 1? 
The next issue relates to the Crown entity status now being put upon this organisation in relation to the Public Finance Act. We can take it then that New Zealand Trade and Enterprise effectively is a Government department as opposed to a Crown-owned company or an entity that operates in a totally commercial fashion. That brings us to clause 9 “Functions” which has a very nebulous statement “contribute to a supportive environment for sustainable economic development by—(i) fostering collaborative networks and partnerships …”. That clause goes through very wordy statements expressing what this organisation is supposed to do. I know that it is a bit of a trend these days for any organisation to give itself a brief to go to the area it thinks it might be involved in without too many specifics. It seems to me that there are absolutely no specifics in the bill whatsoever. 
Would the Minister explain to the Committee whether subclauses (1) to (3) of clause 9 provide for any constraint on the activities of this body and in particular what we can take from subparagraphs (i) to (iii) in subclause (1)(a). What does “provide a conduit for input and advice from industry trade unions local government and relevant community groups regions education and research organisations potential investors and individual enterprises on programmes to implement the Government’s policies for economic industry and regional development” mean? Can the Minister tell us what that means. Does it mean to provide a conduit for potential investors in regional development? If that is the case then that is fine. It should be clear but it is not clear in the bill because it states that the activity is only for input and advice from those organisations. 
It seems to me that if the bill is supposed to facilitate all those wonderful things happening—that word alone is a bit of a buzz word—then it should be much clearer that the entity has to be engaged in an activity rather than simply provide advice and make that advice part of the conduit. 
Further it is interesting that clause 11 “Capacity and powers” states that the new body New Zealand Trade and Enterprise “has all the rights powers and privileges of a natural person of full age and capacity;”. Considerable rights powers and privileges are given to a natural person of full age and capacity. The Minister should tell the Committee how specifically that empowerment will work in favour of the new entity. The clause states further that it “has the statutory powers conferred by this Act or any other Act.” That leads us to search through the bill for specific statutory powers that will be given to the new entity New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Are any statutory powers given?