Dean Jacqui: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 24 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2506. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): What a joy it is to have the opportunity to speak for 10 whole minutes on the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). Although the Deputy Speaker cautioned the House that he has heard about the structure and provisions of a statutes amendment bill that was several speeches ago.Hon Member: He might have forgotten.JACQUI DEAN: But no I am not willing to incur his ire by going over yet again the purpose and procedures of a statues amendment bill. But what I will say is that I was disappointed to hear that the Green Party exercised its right if you like—and it is a right—and its ability to object to one of the clauses and that was around the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act and Supplementary Order Paper 50. I am disappointed that the Greens saw fit to withdraw its support for that clause because I am not entirely convinced that its support was withdrawn for what I would regard to be the right reason.From my understanding of that Supplementary Order Paper on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act it was put in to clarify a reference that was unclear as to how the travel entitlements for international airfares should be calculated. In 2013 when this bill was with the select committee the words “lowest cost” were added to the provisions. I am absolutely sure that right around the select committee table each member from whatever party would have supported that approach—that with an international travel entitlement for a former member of course lowest cost would be a desirable starting point. However it was not clear and this was an error that created further uncertainty. So lowest cost whilst being desirable also created further uncertainty so the proposed Supplementary Order Paper was put into the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) to correct that error which was introduced during the select committee proceedings in 2013.But what that Supplementary Order Paper on the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Act was doing which in my view—but I can be corrected—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the point that my hand gestures have been trying to indicate is that this is no longer part of this bill and so it is no longer—Hon Annette King: Relevant.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: —relevant to be addressing it. We have indulged the member for some time.JACQUI DEAN: What an excellent ruling. Thank you so much Mr Speaker. That is wonderful. Having embarked for so long on this point could—Hon Annette King: Talk about that cheese from Whitestone.JACQUI DEAN: Well yes there is always a solution for everything is there not? If the Deputy Speaker would indulge me for a further 30 seconds only just to say that the Supplementary Order Paper was about honouring agreements and honouring entitlements for former members of Parliament. It was not like we were sitting there feathering our own nests or anything of the sort. It was about honouring a prior agreement which the Green Party then saw fit to withdraw its support for and I do regret that. I have wound up and I want to thank the Deputy Speaker for his indulgence.I want to talk now taking a step back from the legislation arising from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) about the select committee consideration of the bills in the first instance. Many of them have been captured in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) but prior to their appearing in this legislation—because there were oversights or drafting errors or various reasons for them to be in it—there was select committee consideration of them. I was going through them trying to identify a bill where I was involved in the select committee process and it started to make me wonder how it is with the select committee process that members sit around sometimes for months considering clause by clause a revision-tracked version of the bill and discussing various clauses and what the consequences of those are and whether there are any unintended consequences. It is not like we do not ask those questions in the select committee process.I guess the clauses in this bill—where I may or may not have sat round the table—will generally pertain perhaps to the Local Government Act in this instance. So clause 42 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) makes a consequential amendment removing an outdated reference to a borough council. You have a look at that and you think: “Well we haven’t had borough councils since the Local Government Act 2002.” I came into Parliament in 2005 so there have never been any borough councils in my time in Parliament. I am just reflecting that despite all the hard work done by many members of Parliament these unintended consequences—these omissions and these errors—do pop up in statutes.I do also acknowledge a previous speaker Ruth Dyson who went through the members of the Government Administration Committee praising the Labour ones—as you do. But I think that member is quite right that over the months that the Government Administration Committee worked on this bill it delved quite deeply into a number of statutes and found some significant and some minor ones. Although they are meant mainly to be minor and insignificant there are a few in there that did catch my eye as being slightly more substantial—like Part 20 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) pertaining to the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012. Interestingly the amendment in clause 63 of that bill enables the National Animal Identification and Tracing organisation to contract out its compliance and enforcement functions to its subsidiary or holding company. You read it now in the bill and you think: “Well that’s obvious. Why did the Primary Production Committee not capture it at the time?”. I do not know the answer to that but it does perhaps beg the question of why the select committee process—as thorough as it is and as diligent and hard-working as committee members are—does not always get it right and neither do the parliamentary counsel and the drafters.There is another aspect that is captured in this bill which I want to touch upon briefly. Select committees are well served by those officers of Parliament whose job it is to support us in our consideration of and deliberation on bills. For example the National Parks Act 1980 which is Part 21 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) would have had in 1978 in 1979 and in 1980 a bill introduced to the House probably by the then Minister of Agriculture who would have taken advice from officials. The bill would have been drafted put to Cabinet and would have gone through the House and got to the select committee. The select committee would have considered it over some months taken some submissions incorporated those into the bill and relied on the advice of officials and of the bill drafters. We do that but we cannot just sit back and accept blindly what those officials tell us because they are human too and maybe some of the drafting needs to be corrected as has popped up in clauses 65 and 66 of this omnibus bill. Clause 65 corrects a drafting error by replacing references to “conservation management plan” with “management plan”—really minor stuff and probably easy to see why it was missed back in 1979 and probably 1980.Again clause 66 of the bill corrects a drafting error and restores the power to forfeit seized property used illegally in a national park. That is the reverse of the repeal of section 61(8). You can see the complexity that we get ourselves into when we start delving down into the processing of the original bill—it gets enacted into Parliament and then suddenly we discover that there are some parts of it that were unintended. I would not ever ever call it sloppy or bad work or not well considered because I know that every select committee and every select committee chair does their utmost to return a bill for the second reading Committee stage and third reading in a better shape than when they got it. One of those tenets I guess of us as parliamentarians—those of us involved in the select committee process—is that we want to do a good job.So now we have the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I want to thank the Deputy Speaker for his indulgence as I ranged slightly wide of the mark and I commend the bill to the House.