Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Over the last two or three weeks I've had quite a rude awakening about the realities of being a backbench Government MP and the expectations of one's position as a backbench Government MP. I made it quite clear to all of my colleagues last term throughout the three years that in no way would I stoop to the level of asking patsy questions in this House and yet it seems I am the only one from our party that is asking patsy questions. Not only that but I've had the pleasure for want of a better term of speaking on a few bills thus far in the last couple of weeks. One was the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) the other was Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill and now we're talking about the Legislation Bill. It's been quite a treat actually!The previous Labour member that spoke Kiri Allan actually got to the level of quoting the Oxford Dictionary in regards to this legislation. Now we've got the National Party who are standing up and actually talking about themselves rather than about the bill and that means that we've stooped to the lowest level of creativity and entertainment in the face of what is obviously some quite dry legislation. However it's often the dry legislation that is the most important because it deals with things that people don't really realise or understand or things that go around in the background that actually do affect everyday people throughout their lives and this bill is actually one like that.One of the good things about speaking on bills that you don't know anything about is that you end up learning quite a lot about something that's important. One of these things—and it has to be acknowledged that the Hon Chris Hipkins actually noted it as well—is that this is actually a bill that was put through last term through the National Government by the Hon Chris Finlayson. It has cross-party support and it always did even though the legislation isn't the most simple or easiest to understand. That's why it's quite important to understand that it is important because it deals with one of the most important aspects of running any Government in a modern and robust democracy and that's open and transparent Government. The key to that—and the key to this legislation and what it tries to instil—is enabling easy access to the law. That might seem like a simple intent and I guess it is when you look at it in the explanatory note but the way in which this bill—and the size of the issue and the problem the breadth of the issue and the problem that is trying to be addressed is quite large and quite huge so it's quite a good thing that the coalition Labour - New Zealand First Government is getting through it before Christmas.The most important thing that this bill actually addresses and enables is the fact that it actually affects ordinary Kiwis especially small businesses. It gives them access not only to the knowledge of the law and the obligations they are required to meet but most importantly I believe to the rights they have as well.The biggest problem that this legislation is trying to address is that when it boils down to it there is no central register of delegated legislation. What this bill will do is allow access to that secondary legislation that has been made. First of all it will identify what it actually is—because at the moment there is no way of identifying that clearly; it's quite ambiguous—and most importantly what parts of those legislation are in force. Again it comes down to obligation and rights.In fact two inquiries—and I know it's already been mentioned previously by Minister Hipkins—have identified this as being a huge issue: one by the Productivity Commission the second a Government inquiry into the whey protein botulism scare. It was actually quite amazing to understand or to comprehend or to find out that in the dairy industry—just the dairy industry itself—the regulations are touching on 12000 pages. I think the scariest point that was made by the chair of that inquiry was that they weren't even sure whether they had found it all—they didn't know. So if some organisation can't get or doesn't understand whether they get all of and identify all of the secondary legislation then how can we expect ordinary Kiwis to?If we break down the legislation into what the benefits are that the bill will bring there are a number of things. It will enhance the ability of individuals and businesses to find a law that applies to them which sounds like it's pretty simple and should have been happening in the first place but it hasn't been up to this point in regards to this part of the legislation. It'll enhance regulatory design and lead to better legislative schemes. It will result in more efficient oversight of the regulatory regimes and it will assist New Zealand to meet any transparency requirements which is important for the international trade and investment agreements made.The way it will achieve this will be to sweep away the existing confusing definitions of legislative instruments require all secondary legislation to be presented to the House provide for narrow expectations for the duty to present legislation to the House require the agency that makes new secondary legislation to notify it to the Parliamentary Counsel Office provide transitional arrangements for existing secondary legislation to be captured and republished and also not apply to secondary legislation made by local authorities.One of the most important benefits of this legislation is the fact that it improves the oversight and the scrutiny of the regulatory regimes. It's been noted that the Regulations Review Committee have voiced their frustrations over a number of years in regards to this and this bill goes a long way to addressing those concerns.In essence and in conclusion and in summary the bill will define what will be classified as secondary legislation which is very important. It will implement a system to streamline the process for the notification publication and presentation of the secondary legislation. This will in turn improve the accessibility of the law and improve institutional understanding of regulatory rights and obligations and the improvement of these areas will have a flow-on effect of greater compliance and more business efficiency. For those reasons I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.