van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm rising today in support of the second reading of the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill on behalf of the ACT Party. We are a democratic country and we should be very proud of that and we should be proud of the rights and liberties we're afforded under being a democratic nation. All New Zealanders elect representatives on their behalf to come to this House to create laws for them. The Government passes new laws all the time for the people of New Zealand and in turn the Government and elected representatives here have a duty to New Zealanders to act in their interests with the laws that are written. It's also true that we have long-established rules and rights under the law about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and what are our duties and freedoms under the law. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act says that there are a number of categories of rights that all New Zealanders have and that those fall into having life and security of a person democratic and civil rights the rights to non-discrimination the rights against search arrest and detention and the rights to justice. These are very important fundamental rights that we are lucky to have because we are a democratic nation. All laws that come into Parliament must be seen by the Attorney-General to see whether they are consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act before they are introduced and passed into statute and the Attorney-General informs Parliament of any inconsistencies he sees in the law. Some of these can be justified. If you take a small example of the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of your age we say that people under a certain age shouldn't have a driver's licence or they shouldn't be able to drive an automobile. I think that's the right thing to do because does anybody want a toddler getting in a car and driving down the street? So there are justifiable limitations to rights. However sometimes the Attorney-General also states that some of the rights that have been changed under law or are inconsistent are not justifiable under law and that the limitation on somebody's right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not justifiable. The most recent example that we've seen of this was when the Attorney-General stated that the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill was not consistent. He said that it was not consistent because it discriminated and it was a discrimination based on race. He said that it limits the freedom from discrimination and that it cannot be justified. So there are times when this Parliament creates laws that do restrict people's rights and they can be seen as a justified limitation and there are times when they are not a justified limitation and so the scrutiny of those laws is extremely important. We all have rights and the limits should be scrutinised very very strongly. Under our current arrangements New Zealanders can take a matter to the court and seek to have a declaration. So they can seek for the courts to scrutinise the law and the limitations that those laws have on their rights—the declaration of inconsistency—but that's where the matter stops. Nobody even needs to know about it. Nobody needs to know that the declaration has been issued and that's where this law comes in. This law would give more accountability. It would give more scrutiny and transparency to the laws that this Parliament passes and that sounds like a good thing because this means that the law that the courts have determined is inconsistent with people's rights and freedoms and cannot be justified will be known to Parliament and that will give all New Zealanders greater protection of our basic human rights. I think this law change would make the Government and members of Parliament think differently and carefully about the laws that they are trying to pass. I think the Government would put more due diligence into the drafting of their legal documents. I think the select committees would do more work in a select committee not to just rubber-stamp what the Government of the day wants to put through without looking at any analysis but to actually go and deep dive into legislation to see whether these rights are being trampled on. Now the ACT Party believes that our laws should be more democratic and that they should be more accountable to the people. We have a different way of looking at our laws. We're supporting this law at the second reading but we believe that they could be better in general not by seeking these declarations but by making sure that we have regulatory standards in place so the laws never end up getting to that point in the first place. If you take for example David Seymour's Regulatory Standards Bill that went in some way to addressing the same issue that the Government wishes to address in this law by making sure that the laws are justified in the first place so that people don't need to seek a declaration and that's because quite often what happens is the Government and elected officials are creating laws where regulatory impact analysis has not met the standards that we would actually require of a law. We need better-quality laws because if we are limiting people's rights it's very important that we're not doing it unnecessarily. We need to make sure that we are getting the laws right that they are consistent with the rule of law and that we're not unnecessarily diminishing the rights and liberties of New Zealanders unless it is absolutely necessary. So we would say that we should have codified in law basic standards of what all laws must pass before they can pass this House. They have to answer a basic test of: what is the problem that the Minister is trying to solve do other laws already solve the problem can this problem be solved without a law what are the costs who pays the costs what are the benefits and do the costs outweigh the benefits or do the benefits outweigh the costs? That is how we would raise the standard of laws being made by the Government and being passed through this House. People should be able to then go to court and seek a declaration that those basic standards have not been met because if we're making sure that those basic standards have been met in the first place there would be less laws being found inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. So yes we need more democratic accountability for people in New Zealand to know that their basic rights and freedoms won't be trampled on by Parliament unnecessarily so that we can have faith in our legal institutions and we can have faith in the Government to act with good intention because those are the rights and duties that all New Zealanders have. We all elect representatives to come to Parliament to act on our behalf and to pass good laws that will keep us peaceful and secure and will provide stability but we don't want to see it being unnecessarily burdensome. So the ACT Party will be supporting this bill because we do think it goes some way to addressing the issue of accountability and transparency but we think there's more that could be done in the first place. Let's put in place regulatory standards so that bad laws don't get passed in the first place. Thank you Madam Speaker.