Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Third Reading 
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Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) 
Second Reading 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) be now read a second time 
. The bill confirms and validates 12 Orders in Council and one set of regulations made under eight separate Acts. The bill must be enacted by 31 December 2011 to avoid the subordinate legislation lapsing. 
The bill was introduced and read a first time in July this year and referred to the Regulations Review Committee. The committee asked the six relevant Government agencies responsible for administering the legislation to explain why confirmation or validation of the orders is warranted. The committee was satisfied with the responses it received and presented its report on 18 August recommending that the bill be passed without amendment. 
I note the committee’s suggestion that the current process for considering subordinate legislation bills allows for only limited scrutiny although I do not agree that passing the bill “takes up a substantial amount of House time”. I would suggest that the next Government could ask officials to bring forward its proposals for the bill earlier in the year to enable a fuller consideration by the committee. I thank the committee for its expeditious consideration of this bill and commend it to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) is about scrutiny and in this House we have all learnt to welcome scrutiny. It was an extraordinary spectacle to be present for the last speech that we heard from the Opposition member Tau Henare in the general debate— 
Paul Quinn 
: Opposition? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Government. I beg Mr Quinn’s pardon; it is easy to make that mistake sometimes when Mr Quinn or his colleague are on their feet. From a person who was recently caught abusing a constituent while driving his Audi it is a bit ironic to be mocked. My partner is a working class man who spent 15 years as a cop started a business and did well enough for himself to buy a nice car. I am very proud to sit in that car—in the back or the front. When my partner is driving his mum and needs to go into the pharmacy to get her some medication I sit in the back only to be snapped by some National Party spook lying in wait to do some dirty tricks in the election campaign. Well you know we have come to expect this but we know that people will actually focus on the issues and not on this sort of nonsense and distraction that we get from Tau Henare and the rest of the cream of National. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: The brains trust up today. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: And the brains trust. I will not even respond to the homophobic reference about  
Driving Miss Daisy 
 that we heard in that speech because the voters will judge the urban liberals—well the old Tories who seek to masquerade as urban liberals—opposite. 
Turning to the substance of the bill the Minister of Justice referred to the Regulations Review Committee report on this bill. These bills are an annual feature of our Parliament. They do take up House time. The Minister as Acting Leader of the House knows this and I am surprised he does not think it is an issue given his frank lack of progress in getting measures through the Order Paper in this Parliament. 
Hon Simon Power 
: That’s right. I’ve done very little work—very little work! 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Well I would not measure the work by volume I tell Mr Power but I certainly would measure it by quality. If it is a question of trying to get quality time on the Order Paper then we do have to ask ourselves going forward whether these annual Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) bills are the best use of the House’s time. I think not. The committee thinks not and it reported unanimously including its National members. So it would be useful if whoever is Leader of the House from Labour or National after the election has a good hard look at the recommendations made which the Minister so glibly brushed off. 
The futility of this legislation is also pointed to by the procedure that will be adopted today for dealing with it. We are having a truncated second reading debate. There will not be a Committee stage or a third reading debate as I understand it. So really this House is performing no effective scrutiny except for that which the bill received from the Regulations Review Committee. As I pointed out in the report that scrutiny consisted of writing six letters to the departments concerned asking them whether there was any need to continue the measures contained in the bill receiving an assurance that that was the case and being unable to take it any further reporting to the House accordingly. If members think that this House doing its job consists of that kind of scrutiny then I have to question whether members have an accurate appreciation of what that job is. 
Yes it is important to have scrutiny of tax measures and levies. Yes it is important to have scrutiny of delegated legislation that amends primary legislation. Those are the two types of measures in this bill. But I am sure that if the Standing Orders Committee had a good look at this question got some expert advice and looked at what other Parliaments do in these sorts of cases we could find better-quality uses of House time. On that note I will commend the bill to the House to the extent that I can in light of the scrutiny it has received. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I take the floor simply to reiterate what was said by my colleague Metiria Turei in the first reading of this bill: that although the Green Party supports virtually everything in the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) we oppose the Hong Kong and China free-trade agreement. Because that is contained in this subordinate legislation we have no option but to oppose the passage of this bill. 
I just add parenthetically that the procedure of the House might be improved if we were able to make a division of these kinds of bills into separate individual votes such that we could record our vote for the overwhelming majority of legislation that we do support while recording our opposition to free-trade agreements. As long as they are lumped into one we will be voting against all of them with some regret. 
I do not want to take any more time of the House other than to say that if this is the last piece of legislation—unless I am wrong—before the House for which the Minister Simon Power is responsible let me take the opportunity to pay tribute to the very singular contribution he has made to this House in the course of his career. I think it is hugely valuable. Even though we oppose quite a lot of the legislation for various reasons I none the less salute him for his capability and his hard work and determination and I think the House is poorer for his departure. He goes with our best wishes. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much Mr Deputy Speaker for giving me the opportunity to speak to the second reading of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). I begin in the same tone as the previous speaker Kennedy Graham and wish the Minister in charge of this bill the Minister of Justice all the best. I understand he is giving his valedictory later today. Both as a member of Parliament and a former journalist I thank him for his support and wish him all the best. 
It is a pleasure to speak. I also reiterate what Charles Chauvel said earlier about this bill—that it is about scrutiny. We came into contact with this bill in the Regulations Review Committee which I have had the pleasure of sitting on for the last 12 months. I also pass on my thanks to Charles Chauvel and to Tim Macindoe the deputy chair of that select committee for their guidance over the last 12 months. 
This bill looks at 12 orders and one lot of regulations and although those at home might think that during an eventful day in Parliament this may be mundane there are a number of issues of interest contained within this bill. [ 
Interruption 
] Well there are a number of them I tell Dr Prasad and I will go through them now if he gives me the chance. A lot of them concern levies for eggs and tamarillos—levies that we surely do not want to see lapse through the sunset clauses contained in the bill. 
I say in all seriousness that there is a provision in the bill to make sure that excises on tobacco do not expire in the time we are here. If there is one thing I am proud of during my time in Parliament so far it is that this House has taken some serious action towards cutting down on the horrible effect that tobacco has on our community. I think about 21 percent of our population aged 15-plus smoke tobacco. It is responsible for thousands of deaths and about $1.5 billion in costs to our health system. If this bill contains provisions so that we are putting price pressure on tobacco I think that is a good thing. 
There are also a number of other things that I think should be mentioned quickly. The bill has some provisions to prevent the export of pounamu which I think is a good protection for a very precious stone that is relatively unique to New Zealand. There are also some provisions about the export and import of trout which I am sure will be of much interest to the fishing industry. I also say that we have reservations about the process here as Charles Chauvel pointed out but we commend this bill to the House. 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
: 
 Much has been said about the purpose of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). I thank the Minister responsible for this bill the Hon Simon Power and I wish him good luck. I look forward to his valedictory. 
As my colleague Charles Chauvel said earlier this bill is about scrutiny. What is worth noting is one particular piece of legislation an order made under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Social Security Act 1964 which came into force on 1 April 2011. This particular order is validated and confirmed. It amongst other things increased most benefits pensions and allowances. Under this National Government there are more people on the benefit. The number of people receiving an unemployment benefit has increased by 10.6 percent and the number of people receiving the student hardship grant was up by 234 percent from June 2011. Since June 2009 40481 more people are now recipients of New Zealand superannuation and this number will undoubtedly only go up in the coming years. 
Talking about superannuation I wish to bring to the attention of this House two important and meaningful articles by Brian Gaynor. The first one was published in the  
New Zealand Herald  
in 2007. It is entitled “How Muldoon threw away NZ’s wealth”. The second one “Key’s compulsory super talk music to ears” was published in August 2010 also in the  
New Zealand Herald 
. Both articles touched upon very important issues concerning our superannuation funds and schemes. Let us look at Australian and New Zealand figures on a per capita basis. Australians have A$56000 of superannuation funds whereas New Zealanders have just NZ$5500 of superannuation funds. Australians have A$29200 of net overseas debt while we have NZ$35900 worth of debt. The irony of this is that we once had a fantastic and better superannuation scheme which was terminated by a National Government in 1975. I quote from that article. This was the worst economic decision by any New Zealand Government in the past 50 years and turned the country from being “the potential Switzerland of the Southern Hemisphere into a low-ranking OECD economy [that is falling further and further behind its next-door neighbour].” 
If the New Zealand superannuation scheme was still in place I believe that New Zealand would be much better placed in this modern and ever-changing world. Since coming to office this National Government has borrowed NZ$37 billion in less than 3 years and has delivered nil growth to show for it. In fact it has repeatedly failed to meet its growth projections and GDP per capita has fallen. That failure has now resulted in the credit rating agencies downgrading our credit rating. I would like to quote what the Prime Minister said before the Budget. Prime Minister John Key confidently predicated that the political humiliation of a downgrade would be avoided. I quote: “It would add 1-2% of interest on the amount the government borrows which is around $600 million each year. … ‘That’s every homeowner every business everybody paying 2% more. That would be irresponsible in my view for the government not to act’ Key says.” 
This is the last sitting week of this forty-ninth Parliament. Reflecting on what the ever-popular National Government has achieved it is fair for me to list the following facts: the National Government has borrowed more debt it has created fewer jobs it has frozen the superannuation fund it has no real plan to grow our economy and the only answer it has is to resort to selling the family silver. Thank you. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. I te tuatahi hei wawahi i te ahuatanga o taku korero e hangai tonu taku korero ki te Minita ki a Honore Simon Power ko ia tenei ka riro i tana turanga i te ra nei. Ko taku ko te mihi ki a ia na runga i te ahuatanga o tana korero ka puta a ko ake nei me te mihi ki a ia mo te mahitahi me te aro mai o ona taringa ki nga korero a Te Pati Maori. No reira koia nei te mihi ki a ia me te tumanako ia ka riro ma te wahi ngaro ia e manaaki e tiaki tae atu ki nga mema ka puta i te Whare Paremata apopo. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa me ki haere e hoki ki te wa kainga kia rongo koutou i te mahana o te whanau a ka mutu kia mohio ano hoki kua ea te wahi ki a koutou. No reira e te Minita tena koe ka nui te mihi ki a koe e mahitahi me matou ka mutu ma te wahi ngaro koe e manaaki. 
[ 
Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. Greetings to us all. Firstly and as an opener to my address I direct these remarks to the honourable Minister Simon Power in his move to other things today. I pay tribute to him ahead of his valedictory statement which he will make later on and to his ability to collaborate and to take into account statements made by the Maori Party. Thus I pay this tribute to him with the genuine desire that the origins from which all things come protect and look after him including members who exit the House of Parliament tomorrow. I wish you all good tidings. Return home to the warmth of the family knowing full well that the part you have played here as a collective has been satisfied. So salutations to you Minister. We very much appreciate you working together with us. Finally may the origins from which all things come protect you. 
] 
I just acknowledge the Minister Simon Power I wish him well as I said in Maori in his move on into other things. I also wish the same to the other speakers this afternoon but I just pay tribute to Simon Power for the work he has done with the Maori Party not only at the Business Committee I might add but also on legislation that has been pretty important to us. I wish him well. 
I will take just a brief call to look at the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) which basically validates and confirms Acts that might otherwise become obsolete. As others have said the purpose of the bill is to prevent the expiry of certain subordinate legislation that lapses at a stated time unless it is earlier confirmed or validated by an Act of Parliament. Again others have said that the bill contains 13 items of subordinate legislation that would lapse unless they are validated and/or confirmed and they have also given time to the detail of the bill talking about the intricacies of the Customs and Excise Act the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act the War Pensions Act and the Wine Act as I am told it is called. 
My small and humble contribution is really intended to step back a little bit and question the power vested in Parliament to revisit legislation—which is a pretty important issue actually; it will be an issue tomorrow—the ability of Parliament to confirm to validate and to otherwise authorise Acts on a retrospective basis and indeed the ability to make the unlawful lawful. The classic recent case of this was the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill which was moved through Parliament under urgency in October 2006. For those who have forgotten this shady past following the 2005 election there was widespread debate about the dubious practice by political parties of breaching election or parliamentary spending rules in some respects. So legislation was introduced to validate the invalid—to rectify the expenditure that the Auditor-General had concluded went beyond the appropriations and was deemed unlawful. 
Legislation to confirm to validate and to redress unlawful practice is not just a contemporary thing. I was fortunate to get some information about another piece of legislation so that the history of this has some whakapapa dating back to legislation called the Indemnity Act of the 1860s. For those members who do not know it basically rendered military officers and others immune from prosecution for anything done by them while they were acting under the authority of the proclamation of martial law back in the 1860s. Basically the Government of the day passed the Indemnity Act to prevent itself from being taken to court for its illegal actions in Taranaki in around the 1860s. Taranaki is where my wife and my in-laws come from. 
The tragic story of this bill can be traced through the  
Hansard 
 of 29 October 1860. It describes the events surrounding the storming of Parihaka on 25 January 1860 against the people of Taranaki who were gathered there in a state of peace. I particularly refer members to the  
Hansard 
 record of the Hon Mr Swainson who described in full the establishment of martial law in Taranaki and provided the House with this pretty eloquent conclusion. He said: “But Acts of Indemnity cannot bury our actions in oblivion nor can they shield us from the judgment of posterity … It is hard to say indeed whether to Great Britain victory or defeat would be the more painful humiliation : either result would certainly be followed by a bitterness of feeling between the two races which in all probability would never be effaced and which would too probably end in the extermination or oppression of the Maori people a lamentable and humiliating fulfilment of the proud professions with which the colonization of New Zealand was commenced.” One always hopes that we learn from our experience and that our history informs our present. 
In this Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) our focus is mainly on timeliness: ensuring we are keeping up with the time frames established on the 13 various pieces of legislation that would otherwise lapse or fall into oblivion. My point in taking us back to 2006 and even further to 1860 was to simply encourage us to all think about the power of the executive and how we make the best use of the parliamentary authority vested in us as members of Parliament. It is a question that will no doubt as I said rise again tomorrow when urgency is once again called upon to basically make the unlawful lawful. We will see what rolls out tomorrow. Koinei taku ki a tatou kia ora tatou. 
[ 
This then is my tribute to us so thanks. 
] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a brief call just to make a couple of points but before I do that like everybody else can I acknowledge Minister Simon Power for his contributions. In the 3 years I have been a member it has been enjoyable working with Minister Power in the two or three bills he was responsible for that I have debated. I appreciated his acknowledgment that we have supported the kinds of legislation around children and families that he is so passionate about. So are we. I thank him for that and wish him all the best over the next period and I look forward to seeing what transpires in his career next. I think we all do. 
When the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) was first introduced it was the first Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill that I have taken a call on so it was useful to try to understand the House’s procedure on it. Then having a look at the 13 different areas that this bill addresses I got into the debate quite a bit because we were not aware of a lot of the provisions—I certainly was not—and we know there is a process to decide whether to confirm or validate some of them. 
The bit that is disappointing—and my colleague Charles Chauvel talked about this earlier—is that in reading the report from the select committee we do not get an idea as to what level of examination there was of the necessity for the 13 pieces to be either validated or confirmed. The select committee has pointed out quite rightly that there is a problem in that this is a ritualistic procedure that we are going through in the House looking at subordinate legislation in this way. I hope the new Parliament looks at that anew to see whether there is a simpler and more efficient way of doing it rather than taking up as much time of the House as this. With those comments I commend the bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) be now read a second time. 
Ayes 110 
New Zealand National 57; New Zealand Labour 42; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 10 
Green Party 9; Mana 1. 
Bill read a second time. 
Third Reading 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) be now read a third time 
. 
Bill read a third time.