Chauvel Charles: Duties of Statutory Officers (Census and Other Remedial Provisions) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Duties of Statutory Officers (Census and Other Remedial Provisions) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20824] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I agree with my colleague Mr Mallard— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: And that is an unusual thing. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: It is not necessarily a usual thing. But it is correct that the bill is not aptly titled. As I suggested earlier to try to cloak what is being done here in the innocuous title of the Duties of Statutory Officers (Census and Other Remedial Provisions) Bill is to actually obscure what is being attempted. Two things are going on here. 
First of all there is the deferral of the census. As has been said members on this side of the Chamber accept that that had to be done. Our argument is with the process. It should have gone to a select committee for a couple of weeks. We should have heard— 
Hon Members 
: Why? Why? Why? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Members opposite ask why why why. The tragedy of this is that we have had the current Standing Orders in more or less their current form since 1986 and still we have to educate National on process. We are a unicameral Parliament. Our select committees are the only place where reasonable scrutiny can occur and still we have the question years and years after—25 years after—1986 asking why bother with select committees. Well actually process matters because what it does in the end is assist the Parliament to make better laws. One of the tragedies of the New Zealand Parliament over years and years is that National’s contribution to it has been flawed laws because National thinks always that the end justifies the means. Well it does not. There were very legitimate questions raised during the debate and the discussion around whether the deferral of the census as proposed by the bill was a useful and justifiable thing to do and what the effect of that deferral would be. But we will never know the answers because Maurice Williamson Minister of Statistics knows best and this bill was never going to go to a select committee. That is really what is going on here and the innocuous title of the bill obscures that. 
The other thing that is going on here is what I referred to when I spoke about the position of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. I make it clear that there is no criticism of David Noble here. He has been a terrific Chief Parliamentary Counsel and I hope he continues for a long time in that office. I think it is an excellent thing if he has been given some development opportunities by way of some further work experience in the United Kingdom provided that proper administrative arrangements are being put in place back at the Parliamentary Counsel Office so that its duties can continue to be discharged. But we do not know anything about that and we never will because again the Minister has not taken a call on those issues. The public and the New Zealand Parliament are not deemed worthy by this Government to have these issues disclosed to them. This is just all about the Government saying it will take the provisions that suit it out of bills then ram the bills through under urgency and basically the public’s right to know be damned. That is the attitude we saw today from the Minister in the chair the Minister of Statistics—that is if he even knows about these arrangements. 
I suspect that one of the issues that might be going on here is that the Attorney-General has made these arrangements and not bothered to tell his ministerial colleague. Otherwise why would we not have heard from the Minister on what surely are proper administrative arrangements for the conduct of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel’s office? So I say that this bill is not well named. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I would like to hear what the member is saying so please calm it down. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: As I was saying this bill is not well named. To talk about the duties of statutory officers when in fact what is going on here is the census deferral without any expert advice or public testimony in a select committee along with the regularising of an arrangement with the Parliamentary Counsel Office which the Minister is very very reluctant to talk about for some reason—if he even knows about it—indicates that calling the bill what it is called is all part of an attempt to cloak it in mystery and subterfuge. That is a real shame because these are matters that should have been openly debated and ventilated.