Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. The Civil Aviation Bill that's before the Parliament today will be supported by the National Party. As the member said it's one of those issues and areas of transport that over time needs to be relooked at and reinvigorated to make it more in line with modern practice. However this bill does have a number of concerns in it that the National Party will be taking to select committee. So we are supporting it in the first instance but we want to see some change in this bill as it goes through the process of the committee. I am sure that submitters will be of the same ilk. They will be seeking some changes to make this bill actually much more responsive to the sector rather than what does appear to be on the first instance politically driven and more official dominated than what would actually be needed if you were actually doing the normal kind of reform process when a bill has been around for 20 or 30 years. There are some issues in the bill that haven't been talked about by the Minister. There's some work in there around drones that one of our colleagues had in a member's bill some time ago and it's good to see that that's being addressed by the Government finally but they could have supported that member's bill at an earlier stage which would have enabled us to have dealt with that issue which has developed in modern airports around the world as that technology has advanced to the private individuals that own drones.There are some big areas that there will be some concern around. Really the philosophy of the bill doesn't really take into account modern practice around how airports and the aviation sector could be managed when we look at best practice overseas. There's a concept of just culture in the aviation sector and that means that you learn from mistakes rather than trying to find necessarily the mistake or the reason or try and sanction that person. It's about getting that information so that the mistake doesn't happen again or the incident doesn't happen again. And it's mentioned in the bill but it's not actually promoted. And there's no actual use of this bill to actually tease out and make that a more constructive concept that could well be done in this bill. So we look forward to in the select committee greater discussion of just culture and how that actually could play out in this bill. The bill also doesn't really look at how we could look at the New Zealand aviation sector which has a lot of smaller players. There may be an option for a two-tiered approach that is seen in other countries but it is not being promoted here to the extent that it could be. So that's one of the things that I'm sure will come up. There are international approaches to how companies enter the aviation system and the audit processes around that and that's something that needs to be addressed in this bill as well—there really hasn't been the opportunity to make it internationally efficient and competitive as this bill could make our sector if we had the right rules in place there.Then there are some other issues around some more political context to this bill. And you see that in the Public Works Act for example. There's a requirement there around Land Information New Zealand's CEO being for the buy-back process. And I just want to read from the Cabinet paper on this bill which says that the exercise of such powers requires the scrutiny accountability of central or local government. The next two paragraphs down say that the Government is best placed to assess whether surplus land meets these steps. And then the next one says that the Crown is best placed to undertake the offer-back process of surplus land. It's very much a socialist agenda that you would see from this Government where they know best and they're saying that they're going to make better decisions than local government or corporates that actually make the investment decisions. They've built up these assets for many years they see the potential of those assets to deliver for their communities and yet it's going to be overridden essentially by the mandate of some Minister that knows best. And that's the central theme of their approach in that area. It's very dictatorial it's very much what we expect from this Government and it's very much that Wellington knows best rather than what every region city or town knows. And so I think that's something that needs to be addressed at the select committee. It takes a negative view of the corporate sector. It says that airport companies have commercial incentives that potentially conflict with the objectives of this Government and the provisions that the Crown might hold. So you know basically what they're saying is that they don't trust local communities. And we see that through a lot of legislation that they have been putting in place in recent years. This is just another example of that in an area which didn't need necessarily to have that degree. If we look at another part of that Cabinet paper as well it does raise some other issues around another part of the requirements for airports where they'll be required to consult with central government on their spatial plans and in licensing them there's going to be enforceable regulatory undertakings (ERUs) that will apply to them. And it's really about more costs more reporting more Government influence more Government control and they're creeping into these potentially private enterprises and local body enterprises that actually have proven themselves to be very effective over time and very efficient and actually very important for the growth of regional communities. And it shows I think a misunderstanding by the Government of how actually our communities in New Zealand work. They facilitate an approach that's centric in Wellington—that everyone knows in Wellington what is best for the rest of the country whereas our regions and our regional airports operate slightly differently. They have their own goals. They have their own intentions. Sometimes they want to keep their powder dry for resilience reasons to actually give some motivation to their community that they have that transport avenue available to them. What we're seeing here is a really one-size-fits-all approach. We saw that with the clean car bill where they brought a tax in on all cars just to basically pay for their vision of electric vehicles which completely was not going to happen. And we're seeing that sort of same structure that same ideology coming through in the base of this bill and it's not needed here. I'm sure that as this bill goes through the select committee process we'll see that airport companies the sector that is involved in advocating for those in the airport industry will be able to have a much better approach to this and probably will be much better at self-regulating than having an overt Government regulation that is out of line with what's needed.The airways are a huge part of our New Zealand transport network. We need to be reassured that they will be working in an effective way. There are some good things in this bill that are needed. It is 20 or 30 years since the last bill was done in this area. That's of course going to come through but we do have some concerns around some of the underlying tone and structure of the bill. We feel that it doesn't really take advantage of this opportunity to look at best practice overseas and see what would actually work in the New Zealand environment and it's very much an ideological Wellington-based approach to transport and to aviation when the sector would have some really great ideas that we could implant into this bill and actually make it work. It also has a very control approach.Now I don't know if the bill is actually legally binding since the Minister broke the rules when he initially brought this bill to the House about 10 minutes ago. So it would be great if that was actually determined—if this bill has some legal effect—in view of the mistakes made by the Minister 10 minutes ago. But assuming it is going through and progressing the National Party will be supporting it but we would like to see a much better approach at the select committee.