Wood MichaelThird ReadingHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I present a legislative statement on the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move That the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I'm very pleased that we've been able to make good progress on this important piece of legislation this morning—record pace potentially. I just want to acknowledge members from around the House for the way that they have engaged in this piece of legislation throughout its legislative passage in particular the intelligent questioning on Part 6 of the bill in relation to the recreational aviation sector. I look forward to picking up on those issues with the member as we proceed. But I make that comment because I think there is a good recognition across the House of the value of these regulatory systems bills and in working through them in a collaborative way. Ultimately everyone in New Zealand and everyone in this House benefits from having regulatory systems that are efficient that are up to date that ensure safety and that allow activities in our country to proceed with as few restrictions on them as possible. I think given the way in which there's been broad cross-party support for this bill we can see that that has come through in the changes that are made by this bill. Just canvassing a number of those briefly—we've been through them a number of times. One of the ones I do just want to dwell on is the introduction of transport instruments as a legislative facility in this bill. In the time that I've been in this role as Minister of Transport the scale of the transport sector has been thrust upon me. This is an enormous sector covering every way pretty much that we move around our country. It is a constantly changing environment. We're in an era in which technology is constantly impinging and changing the ways in which the transport sector works. It's a highly safety-critical environment as well and we need to make sure that we have a regulatory regime which keeps up with those things. There's just also an extraordinary level of detail.At the moment the way in which our regulatory system works to keep on top of all of that is that rules and regulations ultimately all have to come through to the Minister and the Governor-General to ensure that that regulatory landscape is kept up to date that we keep safe and that we keep pace with technology. Given the scale of the sector that is just not a particularly efficient way of proceeding. So what transport instruments do—and this might be seen as a slightly unusual thing for a Government to promote—is to delegate down some ability from the Minister to appropriately and specifically appointed people in the transport system directors and chief executives to be able to make transport instruments. What we have been able to clarify through the course of this legislation—and here I thank the Transport and Infrastructure Committee for the work that they did in this area. Yes that's a good thing to do in terms of making the system more flexible but we also want to make sure that things don't run away on us. These instruments will effectively be pieces of secondary legislation so the House and the Minister do need to be assured that they will in fact be put in place in accordance with the intention of Ministers when they set rules and regulations. So we've clarified that those instruments will have to pertain specifically to the purposes of the rules and regulations under which they are set and I think that that has been an important clarification and it speaks to the intention that the House has made through the select committee and committee of the whole House process. So I thank members for their support in making those changes.A couple of the other important little changes that are made through this bill—one that hasn't received too much comment is that there are a number of potential changes to the board sizes of the key boards that are governed by the various pieces of transport legislation. The Waka Kotahi board for example shifts from being between six and eight members to seven to nine members. That deals with a couple of particular issues. One is that an even number is never a particularly helpful number if you're dealing with contentious issues where people might actually be voting on matters. I'm sure members in this House who engage in the world of politics will be aware that an odd number on a committee is actually quite good in terms of being able to make decisions. So that's something that we'll be able to provide through this. But actually more importantly that potential change to the Waka Kotahi board size just recognises the sheer complexity of that board their regulatory functions—their functions in planning their functions in funding—and the need to get a good composition of people who can ensure that the board has all of the skills that it needs to cover off that very wide set of functions noting that they manage an annual budget of kinds of around about $4.5 billion. So that just gives a bit more flexibility to make sure that we have the right skills at the board table. Comparable changes apply to both Maritime New Zealand and the Civil Aviation Authority as well. There are also clarifications in this bill in the way that exemptions may be granted from transport rules regulations or under the new regime instruments. This is an important part of the flexibility of the system. We set these rules regulations and now instruments. In 99.5 percent of cases they will apply well to the situations that people find themselves in but from time to time it is appropriate that exemptions are granted. So we clarify the processes by which they are granted in this piece of legislation but also specifically make some clarifications around how class exemptions for groups may be granted. One of the useful changes that was made at the select committee stage was just to clarify that given that those class exemptions are effectively pieces of secondary legislation themselves they are not appealable through to the courts. People do have recourse through the Regulations Review Committee and also through the fact that they are disallowable instruments. So we've provided some clarification and also some protections in those areas as well.Finally I'll just say—we've just passed Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 17 through the committee stage. I'll just say that I'm really pleased with the two changes that have been made via those SOPs. They did come into the process a little bit later and that in part is because COVID did reveal some particular issues to us especially in that area of ensuring the welfare of seafarers who visit our shores. This is something I feel really strongly about—that across our regulatory systems we need to make sure that the most vulnerable people are looked after. We've all heard the stories this year about some of the challenges that international seafarers face. Sometimes that's Kiwi seafarers who are out there and sometimes that's international seafarers who are visiting our shores. These seafarer welfare centres have a long and noble history. They've primarily been set up back in the day by religious organisations. There are effectively three component organisations who oversee the seafarer welfare centres in New Zealand. One is rooted in the Anglican Church one is rooted in the Catholic Church and one covers off other denominational and non-denominational groupings so we've got something there for everyone. But you just think about it and we have some seafarers who have effectively been living in a big metal box bobbing around on the ocean for a year or more due to the impacts of COVID and the inability of some of those ships to land on shore and for people to return home. So these welfare centres are just critical in terms of the human and social needs of those people. They also act as a really important avenue for seafarers to in a soft and easier more comfortable way raise concerns and complaints about their treatment while they have been at sea. We know that some of those issues are very real. It's not over-egging things to say that were it not for this piece of legislation the change that we've made through SOP 17 at the committee those seafarer welfare centres would face a very bleak future. Their funding streams are under real threat and those services would potentially be compromised and that would compromise New Zealand's ability to comply with the Maritime Labour Convention which we are signed up to. So I'm really pleased we've been able to make that change in particular. I'm pleased to see the support that it's received across the House. Again I'll thank everyone who's participated in this process: members across the House the select committee those people who submitted on the bill and of course the officials who have been guiding it through the process and providing really good support to me and I think the select committee as it considered this piece of legislation. As I said at the outset these regulatory systems bills are an important way of making sure that we have modern fit for purpose regulatory systems and I think we've been able to achieve some very good outcomes through the passage of this piece of legislation. I'm pleased to see that it looks like it will pass through the House today and take effect from 1 April. I thank members for their support and commend it to the House.