Cunliffe David: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7330. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): I am pleased to take a call in the dead of the afternoon for the end of this third reading on the Standards and Accreditation Bill to say that Labour utterly and completely opposes it. This bill is a walking talking oxymoron of a piece of legislation. The reason for this is that it does precisely the opposite of what good standards legislation should do because what is required in the field of standards is that the standards are both high—and seen to be high—and trusted because of an independent external validator. What this ridiculous piece of legislation does—and it really is a joke and I will come on to more about why—is it takes an independent external body and it collapses it within Steven Joyce’s fiefdom. It puts it under direct ministerial control within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. What a ridiculous backwards step.Does it matter? Firstly it matters because the world will not trust it—I think Mr Nash has well expressed that. Secondly it cannot hope to be independent because we all know the Minister concerned is a recidivist micro-manager—a recidivist micro-manager. Nothing that he turns his gaze to escapes his attention except for the fact that he does not do strategy and that is obvious. But standards will not be independent within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment full stop.Now let us take a fiscal quasi-example because the material that this will be considering will not be strictly fiscal in nature but just suppose they were called upon to validate Budget numbers and a Budget came forward that purported to show a surplus somewhat smaller than the transfer of funds out of an earthquake fund.Simon O’Connor: What’s this got to do with the bill?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: My point is that if it is the pet of the Minister the ministry will not call the rort—and that has happened today. We find out that the Government’s fiscal surplus is a surplus in name only; it is actually a transfer back out of an earthquake fund—shame. And it is lovely to see the Minister concerned paying such close attention in the House because everyone knows his day in the sun was short-lived. [Interruption] Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker I take the point.The second reason that this bill is a joke is that it has taken since 2008 to get it here.Su’a William Sio: How long?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Since 2008. We are so very lucky that it is still 10 to 6 on a Thursday afternoon just before the House rises because it might just sneak through. I cannot imagine a Government giving a lower priority to any piece of legislation than the National “lost in the maze” Government has given to this piece of standards-setting legislation. It is not only flawed in its absolute foundation it is not only badly written but it is an absolute piece of collateral damage on the Government’s road to perdition. It has just snuck under the bar. I do not know what is worse: the fact that it is such bad law or the fact that it has only just got round to it in 7 long years. It has taken the Government as long to pass this bill as it has taken it to find a way to concoct a fiscal surplus. This is no more credible than the so-called surplus the Government unveiled yesterday.It is not credible to have a standards setting and validating organisation that is not independent of the Minister whose regulations it is supposed to be scrutinising. Sensitive to that fatal flaw the Government has written the word “independent” over the statutory officer. The word is there; the deed cannot be there because it is located within a Government department not its own protected Crown entity which is how it was.As if it does not add insult to injury New Zealand’s standards system has been regarded as an international benchmark. Thus this oxymoronic law fails Murphy’s third test. Mr Assistant Speaker you are an expert on the Standing Orders and I am sure Murphy’s Law has not escaped you: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. This was not broke in the first place so this Government has wrecked New Zealand’s standards system. It is the slowest motion legislative train wreck this House has seen in—well at least a week. It has taken the Government 7 years to get a bill to the House that ruins the standards system. It is unbelievable. Members opposite all—I cannot name the number—are hanging their heads in shame. They are hanging their heads in shame other than the apprentice junior whip who is holding hers up because she is paid to.Other than that they know what we all know—that this is a very sad state. The once-promising National Government—remember Building a Brighter Future? It has come to this. After 7 years it has come to the third reading of the oxymoronic Standards and Accreditation Bill. The only reason we are debating this is that they had to fill up the Order Paper with something. You can imagine them sitting around in Bill English’s office in the morning because he chairs procedures—setting the standards.Goodness me—the Minister of Corrections looks about as excited about this as attending a cocktail party at Serco. Right? He is about as excited about this as serving another term as Minister of Corrections. But do not worry Sam. It is not going to happen. It is a one-off. Imagine if Serco had been put through an independent standards body before it got to run Mt Eden prison—otherwise known as the jungle. Do you know why it is called the jungle Minister? It is because it has animals in it. Do you know what the prison guards do when prisoners are naughty? They send the naughty ones into the jungle so they can get beaten to a pulp by the animals also known as the Headhunters. That is how that place works.But I will come back to the bill that you are picking up Mr Assistant Speaker. Entertaining as that story is you have to admit it is a breach of the most fundamental standards and well it is that the Minister is hanging his head in shame—shame shame. Shame on him shame on National—shame on National above all. At 5 to 6 on a dead Thursday shame on National for occupying the Government benches. They are a party out of ideas. This is it—probably the very last idea. It has taken the Government 7 years to pass this Standards and Accreditation Bill that wrecks the standards system. We must be in the bottom drawer of this purgatory that we call the National Government. [Bell rung] I have 2 minutes to underline the fundamental problem with this bill. It is nonsense. We had a world-leading standards system that other countries held up as a model of best practice and that the Australian standards body was happy to align with. There is a real risk that Australia will not deal with New Zealand now because of this fundamentally ruined piece of law.Su’a William Sio: The Minister of Corrections is smiling. He agrees with you.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: He does. This bill may be right up there with the other things that are going to sour the sauerkraut and the smoked salmon when John Key meets Malcolm Turnbull. Right? This will sour the sauerkraut because this is a little irritant. The Australian standards setting body was hand in glove with the New Zealand body until this turned up.The question is: why? This is actually quite a perplexing mystery. Why would the National Government waste the House’s time waste the public’s time with something that makes the standards system worse and that is annoying our nearest neighbour so much that it is throwing New Zealanders into Gulags? Sad but true. What an outrage that is for the record. What an outrage that Australia is doing that to New Zealanders tempting as it is. What kind of standards authority does it put that law through? One can only wonder where the Anzac tradition has gone—into the toilet.For 7 long years the National Party has been dredging up the most ridiculous most boring most failed law it can find—