Tisch Lindsay: Racing Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Tisch Lindsay: Racing Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:606;Page:3957] 
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
: 
 It was very interesting to hear the Minister’s comments about the uniformity and consensus between the three racing codes—I know they put a joint submission in to the Government Administration Committee. I was on that select committee. Why then did the Minister commission a report after the select committee had deliberated and after we had moved to report back? The introduction to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report states: “This report has been prepared in response to terms of reference developed by the Department of Internal Affairs on behalf of the Minister for Racing and the Minister for Economic Development.”. If that report is so important and if a working group has been established which has not yet reported back to the Racing Industry Board why are we debating this bill tonight? Why are we debating this bill tonight when a week would have allowed those submissions from the working group to be considered by the Racing Industry Board and to be taken to the Minister—or has the Racing Industry Board already reported back to the Minister without hearing what the meetings around the country have been deciding? 
I went to the working group meeting in Hamilton last Wednesday. At that meeting the chairman told those who were present that they had an opportunity to make comments on the working group’s report by Friday 8 March—that is this Friday. The Racing Industry Board would then look at the submissions from around the country deliberate on them then talk to the Minister about whether any changes to the bill were needed. I would have thought that that was pretty important to the consultative process. The industry needs all the support it can get—we acknowledge that—and that is the point of having a report commissioned by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report makes certain recommendations. I do not know what the cost of that report was but a report prepared by a firm like PricewaterhouseCoopers would have cost megabucks. Then the working party said it would travel the country with that document so that members of the codes could have input. There would have been a couple of hundred people at the meeting in Hamilton last Wednesday and there was a lot of discussion. It was a well-run meeting and there were a lot of opportunities. People at that meeting were told that they had the opportunity to have a say on the recommendations that were made in the working party’s report. If those people have not had a say—which is the case now because we are debating the legislation—all those people have lost an opportunity. 
I can tell the Minister that a lot of people out there are pretty annoyed and upset because they were led to believe that they still had an opportunity to have a say on the report of the racing industry working group. In fact today I got a letter from a solicitor who is well known in the racing industry and in my electorate Piako—he comes from Cambridge. The letter stated that he was at the meeting on Wednesday which was chaired by the chairman of the Racing Industry Board and that at the meeting people were told that submissions in relation to that report should be in by 8 March. That is why I am saying that the commencement date of this bill is being rushed. I am suggesting that we could have had a week longer in order to hear what the working group had to say. I am not saying that the answers would have been changed—I am not saying that at all—but people were led to believe that they had an opportunity to make submissions. Those meetings were well attended—there were full meetings around the country—and those people are being disenfranchised by our having this debate and moving the bill through the Committee stage tonight. I am not saying that the findings of the Racing Industry Board would have changed the bill in any way but that those people have been disenfranchised. There are a lot of unhappy people in the racing industry tonight who are concerned that their voices have not been heard.