Chauvel Charles: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21740] 
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.