Hudson Brett: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 24 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2501. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on this the third reading of bills divided from the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). As I have said as a first-term MP nearly every day is a day of firsts and this is the point where we have reached with the third reading of this legislation. The Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) is a type of bill that I have not had to speak on before. One thing that has become apparent if I might just say in the role of a new member of Parliament is simply the volume and variation of the work to deal with. This is a great thing. The fact that we deal with so many things of import to our communities to society as a whole—and I refer here to our work both inside and outside this House—is a great thing. In fact the work is so enjoyable I would make the comment that at times it is very difficult to think of it as work.But with the volume and variations of things that we do have to deal with it is helpful to have an aide-mémoire to remind us of the work at hand at this moment. I do apologise for my French pronunciation—it is only marginally better than my English. Unfortunately my sign language is very limited but it is at least succinct. So as an aide-mémoire I would just like to remind us all that this legislation started as an omnibus bill. An omnibus bill is a bill that contains changes across many Acts that are generally quite technical in nature and are non-controversial. They are not matters of policy but matters of small change. I am sure that that reminder serves us all well.As this is in fact the first omnibus bill that I have had to speak on I made some inquiries about what the nature of an “omnibus” is. Surprisingly I could not find any references from the likes of great political luminaries such as Winston Churchill. I thought I would consult a very sage world-renowned and estimable man of knowledge in these areas so I looked to see what Reg Varney had to say on these matters. I could not find a direct quote from Mr Varney but given that one of the dictionary definitions of omnibus is “bus” and his very direct experience with such it would be a fair comment to suggest that he might describe an omnibus as a vehicle that takes you where you need to go—a large vehicle that takes you where you need to go. That is just what this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) represents. It is amending provisions across 34 Acts. It is making small and non-controversial yet important changes—important to ensure that our laws are working effectively and as we intended. It is getting us to where we need to go.On that I might make comments on a few of the very important changes that are being made. I would also like to take this opportunity to correct a little misunderstanding we had in the Committee of the whole House stage. It was postulated that the changes under this omnibus bill were in fact prohibiting the introduction of Labour caucus members to Antarctica—Labour caucus members and other native invertebrates. As it transpires that is not what the legislation is doing. The amendment referenced there was about harming native invertebrates in Antarctica. That is not what this bill does. This legislation makes changes to apply the same protections as are currently in force for native flora and fauna in Antarctica. They may be gentle wee flowers on the other side of the House but they are not native to Antarctica.The other area that was canvassed quite considerably over the debates on this legislation was the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. This was because of course the potential is as the provisions exist that a person can change the name of another person because they do not have to prove their identity when making said change. So it is quite possible that you know—what could we envisage? Well someone could indeed change the name of the current Labour leader to something like “The Kingston Flyer” without his permission and without any check on their legal right to do so under the current provisions. That is probably something they might do just before they sent him packing down the line from the Labour leadership which history shows us is quite a regular occurrence in recent times. It has also shown us that it is quite common that such people find themselves in New York at the United Nations or what is otherwise known as the “Last Train to Clarksville”.The other amendments that are made in this bill include some very very serious and simple but important changes to the Local Government Act 1974. We are making a change that will ensure that when people deal with temporary road closures they are in fact dealing with the right agency. The right agency for consultation around local road closures is the New Zealand Transport Agency not the Ministry of Transport as is currently in the provision. If we were to operate according to the law the local bodies would be consulting with the wrong agency. As you could imagine if the law was taken very literally it would make what is already a troublesome and burdensome job all that much harder.But there are some very sound pragmatic and sensible things being done to help our Government agencies operate more efficiently and more effectively. The Copyright Act 1994 changes are a good example of that. Basically the change there is permitting the Copyright Tribunal to sit with as many as five members—and it currently sits with a maximum of five—and as few as two members. As a member opposite pointed out in one of the other stages the incredibly sound law that this Government has enacted around what is commonly referred to as the three-strikes legislation—or even sometimes a little unkindly as Skynet—and the implications of that law meant fewer illegal downloads so the Copyright Tribunal has less of a workload now than it has had in the past. So a law change that actually permits the tribunal to go about its business with a better-sized tribunal than was legally stipulated at a full number of five members is simply common sense. It is a good change. It is a practical and pragmatic change and it helps to ensure that we are delivering better public services.Another matter of some interest that was mentioned by a member opposite is the National Animal Identification and Tracing Act 2012. It has been identified that it might be a good idea for the National Animal Identification and Tracing scheme—or NAIT as it is also referred to in the legislation—to contract out some of the tasks that it does around compliance and the like. The change we are making just ensures it is very clear to all that the responsibility and accountability for such outsourced activities will remain with NAIT which makes complete sense I think to anyone who might envisage what the Act should have been and is clearly changing it to something that makes greater sense.One change in particular that has stuck out for me since the first time I spoke on this legislation which was in fact in the second reading relates to information requests—both the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 and also the Official Information Act 1982. We are making the same change across both. It relates to what happens when a request is amended or split into separate parts. As the law stands today those local authorities or a Government agency can take the opportunity there to reset the requests as individual requests and go back to the start of the allowable time frame of 20 days. That means there is the scope there for such bodies to deliberately slow down a process particularly as these are Acts that are used quite frequently by members of the public and interested groups.So what this change is doing is reinforcing that yes each change does mean that for that amended part or for that new request there is a 20-day time frame but—and this is very very important—that 20-day limit will be applied only if the local authority or agency can show that it has made a demonstrable effort within 7 working days of the original request to make some meaningful progress on that request. What that means is that if they have been stonewalling such requests—to use a term that many of the public might consider—and then seek a further extension by looking to break it up into subsequent parts they will not receive that allowance of a further 20 working days. That places some certainty and some favouritism if I can use that word back on the part of the requester and that is a very very sound measure.Overall I think that this omnibus bill—these 34 Acts we are amending—makes very good sense. The amendments are a sensible thing to endorse and I commend the legislation to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I just remind the House that thanks to the contributions from previous speakers we do know that this debate is about a statutes amendment bill. It amends 34 pieces of legislation. It is non-controversial. It is an omnibus bill and we now know what an omnibus does. We have had a helpful quote from Reg Varney. It would be most appreciated by the Deputy Speaker and others in the House and by those listening if people speak to the provisions of the bill. Thank you.