Street Maryan: Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Street Maryan: Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 March 2012. Volume:678;Page:1209. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to respond to the speech of the member who just sat down who is the sponsor of the Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Bill Mr Kanwaljit Bakshi. Mr Bakshi was doing all right until he decided to lay into us. I was going to be quite gentle with him about this bill but I am sorry the gloves are off now Mr Bakshi. 
Really and truly this is it. Not only is a waste of Parliament’s time being taken in this form but the bill is even a waste of paper because if one has a look at the commentary on this bill from the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee on which I served at that time—it reported back in 2010—it says “We recommend deleting clause 3” which states the purpose and “We recommend deleting clause 4 which provides that the Act binds the Crown. Clause 5 which would repeal the Military Manoeuvres Act would be spent immediately after the Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Act came into force. As there are no other operative provisions in the bill there would then be nothing in the Act for clause 4 to act upon. Clause 4 is therefore redundant.” So even this little gesture here is far too much. 
This is a ridiculous way of occupying members’ bills time quite frankly. The only reason that this appeared in the ballot was in order for National to have something in the ballot to try to prevent Labour and Green members’ bills in particular from being drawn. That is not the appropriate process Mr Bakshi for this piece of legislation. This is not the appropriate mechanism. It could be done perfectly easily through a Statutes Amendment Bill. 
We are not going to vote against this but I will not let that member be used by his colleagues as cannon-fodder or lobby-fodder in this House. They need to treat that member with more respect and stop giving him ridiculous jobs to do which are no credit to him and no credit to his caucus. I think National needs to think again about just how it treats that member. 
This bill for the sake of the record simply repeals an old provision that was enacted in 1915 at the time of World War I. It allowed the authorities to seize land for the purpose of performing military manoeuvres so that the army could practise somewhere. That provision as Mr Bakshi said that he understood—well he understands it because that is what the Ministry of Defence understands or it is to the best of the Defence Force’s knowledge in fact—the Act has not been used for at least 50 years. I think times have changed. The bill clearly has no purpose any further. It should not ever be enacted. In this time and this day and age it should never be acted upon. It is not the kind of thing that remains relevant to the circumstances of New Zealand these days. 
But neither is this an appropriate way to bring this matter to the attention of the House. A Statutes Amendment Bill any kind of omnibus bill that wanted to repeal laws that have long since passed their use-by date—it could have been done at the end of the last term. In fact I remember we did do a Statutes Amendment Bill that had omnibus provisions in it and that is the way to do it. Mop up all the little bits and pieces of legislation that are no longer necessary no longer serve any useful purpose and ought to be repealed and get rid of them in one fell swoop. But no National has obviously decided to trawl through any omnibus legislation it has sitting around and think: “Gosh how can we clog the ballot process by multiplying the chances of defeating Labour and Green members’ bills.” 
This does not deserve any more time in discussion. The Act should go. We will vote for it to go. We just object profoundly to this process and to the way that that member is treated by his own colleagues.