Catchpole Brent: Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill — Instruction to Committee Second Reading Instruction to Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Catchpole Brent: Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill — Instruction to Committee Second Reading Instruction to Committee Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:19798] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 Mr Speaker— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Did you just hear the interjection from the member? 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Hon Dr Nick Smith has the floor. Does Dr Smith have a point of order? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I was expecting you to deal with the issue that was just raised. But I will leave it to Mr Shirley. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I am trying to assist the House here. I heard you intervene in an altercation across the floor of the House when Dr Smith took offence at the member who has just resumed his seat referring to psychiatric treatment. As the Minister sat down he made another quip that was equally offensive. I was offended by it and I am sure that Dr Smith had good cause to be offended by it too. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: What did I say? 
Hon David Carter 
: He has Alzheimer’s disease now. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Yes he has Alzheimer’s disease now. I think the whole House heard the comment and the Minister is trying to pretend he did not say it. I suggest that the Minister should stand withdraw and apologise and in future he should just try to contain and restrain himself. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: If the Minister made a derogatory remark—and I was distracted because I was calling Mr Catchpole—I would ask him to stand withdraw apologise and cool down. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Well I did make a derogatory remark. I simply said: “Have a rest. There’s probably a good psychologist somewhere around who could help.” If the member finds that offensive then I withdraw and apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member because remarks like that lead to disorder and make it more difficult to control the House. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: I want to come back to the Legislation (Incorporation by Reference) Bill which is the bill on the Table at the moment. I have heard discussion about a Supplementary Order Paper and what have you. I will leave that to the time when the motion is moved to bring the Supplementary Order Paper before the House because a motion has to be brought in order to make sure it can be dealt with. That Supplementary Order Paper is the one on the Building Act. But in reality what we have before us now is the bill. After the original Building Bill went through the Government Administration Committee—and I was on that select committee—and was reported back to the House some additional clauses were added to the bill that had not come before the select committee. One of those clauses that I am referring to in particular is clause 409 which was added to the bill. That provision had the effect of making all the documents available on the website and it had an unfortunate spin-off in that it required additional documents purely by reference to also be included on the website. They included documents such as manufacturers’ specifications and particularly sensitive material that is unique to a manufacturer’s product. All that information under section 409 of the Building Act was going to have to be disclosed free of charge for anybody to access when in actual fact that contravened the copyright regulations and restrictions. Therefore we fell foul of international copyright restrictions on a lot of the products involved and a lot of the information that was appearing on the website. 
This particular bill although it was very very rushed—I point out the Government Administration Committee was given one day to consider the whole thing— 
Hon David Carter 
: Three hours! 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: The member is calling “Three hours”. Well according to the report here it was only 85 minutes. There were 50 minutes of hearing the evidence and another 35 minutes of consideration of the process. So if it was done over a period of 3 hours then perhaps it was broken up during a particular sitting session. I must say that the select committee did a tremendous job to get the bill through in that short time. Given that the select committee had 1 day and that it got through the bill in just under an hour and a half I must congratulate the select committee. Dianne Yates is the chairperson. I know her well; she does a very good job. She keeps the select committee on the ball and she should take a lot of credit for that. So my congratulations go to her. 
However I raise with the Government the issue of rushing these things. We saw that with the original Building Bill. That bill took a considerable time to go through the hearing process but the last phase of it was done under urgency. It was rushed through. Clause 409 was added to the bill prior to it coming to the Committee stage and that was rushed. Nobody had an opportunity to really understand the meaning behind clause 409 and the implications it had with regard to copyright restrictions. Therefore the present bill has had to come before the House. We believe it is a necessity but it would not have been necessary had the original legislation not been rushed. Later on we will hear about the Supplementary Order Paper intended to correct other things within the Building Act. Once again let us not consider this bill in a rushed state. Problems arise because things are rushed. Let us get it right the first time. We should take a little longer and get it right. Had that been done with the Building Bill then we would not have had to have this particular bill. But then the Building Bill was rushed we have this bill and it is important to correct a situation whereby copyright infringements are happening all the time purely because everything was made available free of charge. 
Having said that my concern with regard to the restriction contained in this bill is that it will create barriers to access to the legislation. I notice that the Regulations Review Committee made that comment in its report on the bill and that it was acknowledged by the Government Administration Committee in its report. The fact that there will be barriers to access is a sad situation. I would like to see some way to get around that so that the information can be available but with the copyright restrictions kept in mind.