Parker David: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 19 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2472. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I thank the Minister of Corrections on behalf of the Associate Minister of Justice for his comments and say that I endorse them. I would like to begin my contribution by responding to something that was said during the Committee stage by one of the National Party members who expressed support for omnibus bills. I too support omnibus bills but only in very narrow circumstances such as these. Until 1984 omnibus bills were abused in New Zealand. Actually it was one of the many abuses in my opinion from the then National Government which was running the economy with scant recourse to Parliament. Members will recall if they are as old as me that we had a price and rent freeze in New Zealand that had been promulgated by statutory regulation. Imagine freezing all prices across the whole of the economy for year after year without Parliament being asked whether that was a wise thing to do. That was done through regulation-making powers that were terribly broad under the Economic Stabilisation Act of the time.The subsequent Labour Government came into power with a reform agenda on constitutional matters that was driven by the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer. Amongst the changes to our way in which we conduct legislation in this House and the way in which we hold the executive to account were a number of things. For a start the Economic Stabilisation Act’s regulation-making powers were just repealed which meant that important things that should not be done by regulation effectively had to come to Parliament through Acts of Parliament to be authorised around which there are a lot more protections.If you bring everything back to Parliament through Acts of Parliament there is the opportunity for more scrutiny but Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the Parliament of the day recognised that if you could have omnibus bills into which you could throw everything you could actually pretty much whack a lot of improper things through in one piece of legislation. So not only did they repeal the Economic Stabilisation Act’s regulation-making powers but the Standing Orders were changed in this Parliament to limit the breadth of omnibus legislation and to say that there were only very limited occasions on which omnibus bills could be used. That is why the Standing Orders now come up quite often when we are considering individual pieces of legislation when amendments are proposed by submitters or when amendments might be proposed by parties from both sides of the House that go beyond the scope of the bill and are ruled out by the clerks of our select committees because they infringe the rule about trying to limit the scope of bills so that we in this Parliament do not throw too much into an individual bill that goes beyond the scope of what people think might rightly be within it.Why is that important? We do not have many constitutional provisions in New Zealand against the change of legislation. We have only one House of Parliament. We do not have all of our constitutional rules written down in one place in a written constitution and we do not give the courts the power under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to strike down parliamentary legislation. Actually I agree with those settings. I do not think we should give the courts the power to strike down legislation. But what it does mean is that we have to take great care that we do not misuse the very broad powers that we have in this Parliament to change the laws quite quickly. There are some good reasons for us having those powers. We do not get stymied like they find themselves to be in the United States now where they have got a deadlock against meaningful change. It means that if we as a country want to move on things like climate change actually this Parliament can do it. It is very hard for them to do that in the United States. It is good that we can make those changes but it does mean that we have got to be careful that we do not go too far and have one piece of legislation that effectively gives a big change over great big swaths of the economy or society as happened under the old Economic Stabilisation Act where regulation-making powers were effectively conferred upon the Government for just about everything.The Standing Orders now say that omnibus bills that change legislation in a lot of spheres are not generally allowed. So if the Government wants to change something relating to tax laws it has to bring forward a tax bill. If it wants to change something around the criminal code it has to bring forward a criminal piece of legislation and if it wants to do something about the environment it needs an environmental bill. Where there is cross-over between the environment and the economy it can touch on those things in the same bill as it ought to and often does not.We should not be changing the Local Government Act and the Land Transport Act and the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act in the same bill unless the things that are being done are of minor effect. That is the one exception that we have to omnibus bills in this House so this is that exception the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) or as we now have the list of bills that are before us now it has been split into separate bills following the Committee stage—and I could take the rest of my 10 minutes of time up by just listing the various Acts that we are now considering in this bill. This is the one exception it is a proper exception and we agree it is all non-contentious.I will just mention two final things in closing that I think stand to be emphasised. I do find it ironic that we are improving in a minor way the operation of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act itself when in such a wholesale way we have the Government abusing both of those pieces of legislation. The worst offenders were the Hon Judith Collins—and I say that name as a matter of parliamentary principle rather than as a matter of honour—through her dealings with Whale Oil; the Prime Minister’s own office in respect of Jason Ede’s antics using the Official Information Act; and the Donghua Liu affair to attack the Labour Party and David Cunliffe who I think is justifiably aggrieved at the injustice that he suffered at the hands of the abuse by this Government of those pieces of legislation.The other point I would make is in respect of the more current abuse of power which is that here we have amendments to land transport legislation coming before this House even though they are minor and yet we are not seeing any legislation to authorise the use of $70 million of money collected from New Zealanders by the Government taken through excise duties and road-user charges and being used as a political slush fund by the National Party in Northland. Again that is not coming before Parliament.Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take offence at that reference and I also believe it is absolutely out of order for the member to make such an accusation of the Government.Hon DAVID PARKER: Speaking to that point of order the Government might not like being accused of being improper but I can do that. I have rights of free speech in this House and when the Government acts in an inappropriate way—indeed I have been in Parliament when the prior Labour Government was accused of being party to corruption in respect of the Taito Phillip Field affair and we had to put up with those allegations day after day. We did not like them but the Opposition’s right to free speech meant that those matters were properly raised.Tim Macindoe: I am not questioning the member’s right to free speech. Of course I would defend that as would all members of this House. It is the unparliamentary nature of the specific allegation that the member made that is beyond the Standing Orders.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: All right well—I think I am ready to rule on this. The member has taken part in the debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). He has used a clause to illustrate a point that he has made. Some offence has been taken. I do not hold that the member speaking has abused that right or used unparliamentary language. It is a robust place and of course he may well find that subsequent speeches from members on the other side of the House will be just as robust. However the member must confine himself to the matter that is being debated at the moment which is the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4).Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I do thank you for that ruling because I think it is a proper ruling. No doubt the Government members will get up and try to say that prior wrongs by other parliaments mean that their current wrong is right. But of course that logically does not follow; two wrongs never make a right. Indeed I have been here for 12 years and I have never seen a wrong like this one. That is one of the reasons why the fourth estate is holding the Government to account as well as the Opposition. What is happening currently in Northland is an abuse of power by an increasingly arrogant third-term Government.Hon Maggie Barry: What about Willow-Jean thrown under Winston’s bus? How much of an abuse is that?Hon DAVID PARKER: It is actually none of an abuse. I will address that comment that Maggie Barry has just made.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Please be seated. The point was made by me in ruling on the point of order and granting the latitude that the member was seeking that he must confine himself to the bill. I would prefer him to—in fact the member will come back to the bill.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I take it then that if issues in terms of Willow-Jean Prime’s role in the Northland campaign are raised by the Government members they will be ruled out of order. I would like the opportunity to respond to Maggie Barry’s comments but you have ruled that out of order so presumably those comments are out of order too which is unfortunate because there are proper answers to those.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Back to the bill.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. I will return to the more general proposition that this is actually an instance where—whilst there are political barbs that will always go back and forth across this House as we try to keep democracy clean and free from corruption in New Zealand—this is a good bill. I support it. It is a justifiable and wise use of an omnibus bill which for the reasons I previously addressed is something that we must use judiciously in this House. On that basis I record that the Labour Party will be casting its vote in favour of the final readings of this bill.