Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Kia ora. I want to take a short call on the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill and I want to start and preface my contribution by saying that legislation that is passed in this House in my humble opinion should be very clear it should be removed of any ambiguity it should be based on the most recent information and statistics that are available and where possible—and I think it is a sign on this side of the House—ministerial interference should be at a minimum. So let us turn to this bill. This is why Labour is not supporting this bill. On reading it it is not only unclear—and I will reference the particular parts of the bill—it is dated and of course for me it has too much of the Minister in it. I will draw your attention to the first clause new section 79B Policing services that may be subject to cost recovery" which says: "(1) The Minister may recommend a regulation under section 102A only if the Minister"—only if the Minister—"is satisfied that the policing service in question is a demand service." If anyone should know what a demand service is it would be the Commissioner of Police surely. Surely the Commissioner of Police would know that but in this instance we have "the Minister". The Minister in his or her ivory tower is going to determine what meets the criteria for a demand service. So I would put that down and I would probably want a response from the Minister in the chair. The second point I make is that it is unclear. Minister Judith Collins got up and shared with this Committee particularly around new section 79F and the payment of fees. We in this House were led to believe that it was going to be $7 per vetting service but the Minister responded and said "No it's $8.50." and other colleagues have actually put up the point: how sustainable is $8.50 and could it go beyond that? So I think that having the Minister in the chair making up decisions like that is not a good process when we are coming to examine particular bills and that should have been put on a Supplementary Order Paper in my humble opinion. The third point that I mention is that it is dated and this is in response to new section 79G. Others have talked about the figure in the regulatory impact statement the police—which is 3 years old. You know it talks about approximately half a million vettings being processed each year. I would like to know whether that figure is the current figure. This Committee should have the most up-to-date vetting numbers per annum and using figures that are 3 years old does not give this Committee the necessary information to make a decision on this bill because it is a police cost recovery bill. We should have in this Committee the most up-to-date figures that the police are currently having to deal with. This is what I am saying: it is outdated it is unclear and the Minister of Police is tampering with it. The other point that the Minister made when she took the chair was in terms of new section 79G—the exemptions. She mentioned that if you do 20 or fewer vettings per year you might be exempt. As my colleague Kelvin Davis mentioned in my electorate we have something called Iron Māori where we have thousands of people converging on the Pandora Pond in Napier and we have hundreds of volunteers. I can see that this is potentially going to cost what has become an iconic event in my electorate. I have Kahungungu Waitangi Day where we have thousands of people come there and we have again lots of volunteers and I can see an impact on those organisations. I have Tamararo which is one of the largest kapa haka in Gisborne and of course this Labour weekend we are going to have Māori rugby league converge on Wainuiōmata. These are just some of the many many local events that I believe could be impacted if we do not give a clear signal about who is in who is out and how much it is going to cost. Kia ora."