Power Simon: Commerce Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Power Simon: Commerce Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18539. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Just for clarification because this is a very complex piece of legislation and so none of us on this side of the Committee get out of order in respect of contributions that we might make during the Committee stage the debate that we are about to enter into relates to Part 1. Does that include those matters contained only in clauses 3 and 4 including the new Part 4 substituted which of course would lead us right through almost the entire bill up to what would be regarded as Part 2 which commences with clause 27? Am I reading that correctly? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: As I understand it Mr Power it includes clauses 3 through to 26 so that would include new clause 4 and it also includes the schedules as well. 
SIMON POWER 
: I understand. Thank you for that clarification. Those members of the public and the Parliament who were tuned into this debate yesterday will be aware that this bill is receiving the support of a substantial majority of the parties in the House although not of all and we are now in the Committee stage of the bill where we can spend some time on it. We are lucky to have in the Chamber the Hon Paul Swain who has some technical expertise in this area and who will be able to assist us during the Committee stage. 
These matters relate to the principal part of the bill and in particular I will commence with the purpose clause. The reason I am going to start there is that I want to allow the Minister time to reflect on Supplementary Order Paper 244 which she has tabled in respect of a couple of amendments made to this bill and ask her to explain to the Committee how that Supplementary Order Paper and the amendments contained therein relate to the work done by the Commerce Committee and whether we are talking about technical changes or major changes. I notice that the initial amendment actually has to do with legal costs surrounding the input methodologies and it might be worth the Minister’s while to just clarify those matters so that we do not get sidetracked into a lengthy and technical discussion on those points. 
Just returning initially to the purpose clause the Minister said in the second reading if I recall correctly that the key to this particular clause was to balance the issues of investment alongside the benefits with consumers. Regulation and the role that it would play in balancing those two variables is essentially what this legislation is all about. I did raise the issue—and I would be interested in any comments that the Minister might have on this—of whether that purpose clause goes wide enough or is intended to capture the consumer of tomorrow and how that is balanced alongside these regulatory decisions in respect of infrastructure and pricing at the consumer end. So there are two things that I would ask the Minister to comment on at this early stage. The first is the matter of balancing the rights and interests of the consumer of tomorrow against the purpose clause and the matters that I have outlined. Secondly would the Minister be kind enough to give a quick overview of the Supplementary Order Paper so we will know as we work our way through that we will not have to have too many technical discussions about that document. I am signalling those two matters at this point. 
Because of the way this bill has been structured we will have a substantial debate on Part 1 of the bill. As I rightly understand from the Chairperson’s colleague who was previously in the Chair Mr Robertson we are dealing now with clauses 3 to 26. This is essentially the guts of the entire bill barring the matters relating to airports and airlines and regulation in that regard. We will be getting into quite a complex and detailed discussion around the input methodology determination and the rights of merit review appeal. I will be interested in the Minister’s comments on valuation techniques the calculations relating to the weighted average cost of capital and other matters. This is a good time to do that because the first and second readings do not allow us to have those discussions in a detailed way and of course the Minister did not appear before the Commerce Committee during its deliberations on the bill. So now is an opportunity for the Minister to give us some of her thoughts publicly on these matters. 
As I say we are certainly supportive of this bill but I think there have been some big changes around those merit review processes. I think it is worth the Minister making some comments on the consumer-owned electricity trusts as well. I would not say that those matters are controversial but they deserve further explanation from the Minister. I think what I will do at this stage is signal that those are the areas along with the Supplementary Order Paper and the purpose clause that we are interested in hearing from the Minister on. Once those matters have been dealt with I am sure we can proceed at a seemly pace through the rest of the Committee of the whole House. 
Just before the Minister takes her call I take this opportunity to thank the officials who were involved in putting this legislation together. As I said yesterday in the second reading as did the Minister and Mr Swain this is complex stuff and we were guided through it by the officials from the Ministry of Economic Development with a degree of competency that frankly allowed those of us who are not specialists in this area to decipher some of the more technical aspects of the legislation in what I thought was a pretty reasonable way. I think probably two or three members of the committee in particular grasped the issues quickly and were able to have some good discussions with the officials during the process. 
I will not say any more other than that I look forward to hearing from the Minister on those points and I am sure she will not mind if we spend just a little time on those three or four issues prior to moving through the Committee stage.