Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. Beware the ides of March—beware the Ides of March. Minister Shaw smiles and giggles a bit but he needs to beware the Ides of March. And the reason is because it was in March last year that the die was cast in relation to March this year. The auction dates were set months and months ago. The first auction date will be 17 March just after the Ides of March. This bill needs to be in place by 15 March this year and the report-back date is 4 March. So March has a lot of marching to do. Fortunately fortunately for the Minister the Environment Committee which he's referring this bill to for a very truncated very short scrutiny process doesn't have a very big workload. There was a time in this Parliament when the Environment Committee used to be the hardest-working committee in the Parliament.Erica Stanford: The good old days.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: In the good old days—in the good old days! But in this Government's eyes environmental matters aren't important and the workload on that committee is light to say the least so I don't doubt that the committee will be able to provide some scrutiny but it won't be a fulsome scrutiny. It won't be the kind of scrutiny that is deserving of a piece of legislation as important as this and it won't be the kind of scrutiny that is worthy of the seriousness of the financial risk to the Crown accounts that this bill poses. I want to refer to March last year because that's really important in setting the scene for why this is now being rushed through the Parliament without full and due scrutiny at short notice not giving submitters really an opportunity to give it full consideration. That's because back in March of last year the Minister was saying It's not important. The risk is low. It's not necessary." In fact he took a Cabinet paper back in March last year to a Cabinet committee where the risk was highlighted—the risk was highlighted—and the Cabinet paper made it clear. It said that the technical reserve price can begin without a technical reserve in place. That's what Minister Shaw said in the Cabinet paper that he took to the Cabinet committee. He said the auctions will begin without a technical reserve in place.And then further on in that paper back in March of last year Minister Shaw went on—there was a piece that was redacted but after the redacted piece it says in the very next paragraph "Minister Shaw explained that a technical reserve …" before going on to say that the auctioning would start without one. So he's made it clear that his view amongst his Cabinet colleagues was that no reserve was required. But then in a further paragraph and this shows how fluid and how mixed up the Minister's thinking was back in March of last year—he then went on to say "However I recommend the proposed regulations be set without providing for a technical reserve price at this time." He acknowledged that there was a risk without the technical reserve price but he said officials and this is a quote from the Cabinet paper "Officials advised me that this risk is low and that the options are likely to still clear in line with recent secondary market prices." He says "Officials will be monitoring the first auction in March 2021 in order to develop advice for how to fix the technical reserve price in the next amendment bill to the Act."So what's changed? What changed in that period of time between March of last year and late February this year and now the Ides of March that make it so important? Well I suspect that what's happened—that suddenly the Minister has had a road to Damascus revelation and a conversion on the importance of this—is that probably Treasury and/or the Minister of Finance have said "Hey look Mr Shaw. There is some serious risk here to the Crown accounts. You better tidy it up better tidy it up and get it done soon and get it done pronto." and get it done within that narrow time frame that the select committee is now being asked to consider the legislation. That's not really a good process and sadly here we are back in the first week of the calendar year of this Parliament and due process is again being truncated thrown out the door. The sorts of things that the Green Party used to rail against are being now championed by a Minister who I thought had probably better principles and was ready to stick more to them. Certainly that was his view when he was in Opposition and it seems now that that is no longer the case. He's quite happy to have a select committee process that is short inadequate and not going to be able to provide the full proper scrutiny on such an important matter to taxpayers and to this Parliament.So we are going to support to first reading as we have done the general thrust of the legislation. But as my colleague Stuart Smith has made very clear we are not so sure that this needs to be done so quickly. The Minister himself wasn't sure 12 months ago that it needed to be done quickly and I want to know what's changed. Well something has changed. The Minister hasn't made it clear as to what has changed to convince him that his thinking from 12 months ago should be diametrically reversed to this period of time in less than 12 short months to come to a completely contrary view.So we will be opposing the motion that's currently before the House because we don't think it provides adequate time. The Minister said that traders had been tipped off already that this proposal was coming that they've had a nod and a wink from the Government that this is coming. Previously that Minister and his colleagues in the Government would have been very very unhappy with sending market signals of that sort in a nod and a wink. And it seems now that that's the way that legislation is managed through this Parliament—the people's Parliament. It's managed in a way that works on nods and winks and tip-offs from the Minister. If you're in the circle that's fine. You get time and a chance to prepare in advance your submission to a shortened select committee process. But if you're not in that circle if your organisation—if you as a trader are not part of that privileged little elite group that has the confidence to be given nods and winks and tip-offs from the Minister and his Government then too bad hard luck. You get the shortened version of time the truncated version and you have to do something that others have had plenty of time to think about to prepare to give consideration to to write submissions to get advice—legal commercial financial or otherwise—but some submitters don't have that opportunity and I don't think that's right. I don't think that's good policy I don't think that's good practice and it's certainly not good governance on a matter as important as this. I would have thought that a Government that once prided itself on being open and transparent would have done a better job. I think that those principles of openness and transparency well they went out the door very very quickly. And now we find that the transformation has turned into something called foundation or something along those lines and the woolly sort of thinking and the waffle is now almost at peak waffle. There was a time when this Government and the Green Party used to talk a lot about peak things. They don't talk about that very often now except peak short periods of time for the consideration of an important bill that is a fundamental part of the new emissions trading scheme and the carbon trading system. And we are being asked as a Parliament as a select committee to give it a very short consideration with some submitters having been given a tip-off a nod and a wink by the Minister weeks in advance that this was coming and others not. That's not good Government. That's not good process. It's very very poor. And I think that this House that members in this House even the ones that come via Waiheke deserve something better than that. They deserve something better than simply to be given some talking notes from the Labour Party research unit and then sent down to the House to just read those notes read the bullet points without actually understanding what it's all about. I don't know how things operate on Waiheke. Waiheke's close to my Coromandel electorate but it's not part of my electorate. But on Waiheke I'm sure that even the good people of Waiheke will be very unhappy with this process and they will want to see a full Government process and they'll feel short-changed as do we on this side of the House."