Dean Jacqui; Wood MichaelPart 1 Amendments to Land Transport Act 1998CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members we now come to the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill. Members should note that the Business Committee has extended the powers of the committee to permit consideration of the proposed out-of-scope amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 17. Members we come first to the debate on Part 1 which are clauses 3 to 10 and Schedule 1. This is the debate on amendments to the Land Transport Act 1998. The question is that Part 1 stand part.Hon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I'll just make a few opening remarks about the debate on Part 1 of the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill. Part 1 primarily makes amendments to the Land Transport Act. Subsequent parts of the bill amend other pieces of legislation across the transport architecture of legislation. I think that at this point of the debate having gone through a couple of readings the primary drivers of this piece of legislation are pretty clear to members of the House. It's a regulatory systems bill so in amongst the changes that are proposed we have a range of regulatory tidy-ups. For example there are changes to the levels of fines. There is—for example in this part—an updating of references to the Privacy Act from Privacy Act 1993 to Privacy Act 2020. That is the core function of regulatory systems bills. They often make small uncontroversial technical changes to bills to make sure that they keep pace with changing conditions and that they are an effective piece of regulatory architecture. There are a couple of key substantive changes that are made to each of the key pieces of legislation that are amended through the course of this bill and I'll just speak to each of those briefly.The first is that through this piece of legislation we create the facility for transport instruments. This is actually a very important change that is going to enable a much smoother and cleaner way of ensuring that our regulatory landscape is kept up to date. Our transport legislation is enormously complex and legislates over a diverse landscape of different transport modes with constantly changing conditions new technologies and new challenges that need to be dealt with by the regulatory architecture. The creation of transport instruments is about making sure that our agencies—in this case through the Land Transport Act primarily Waka Kotahi—have the ability to make ongoing small changes to our transport regulatory regime that are simply inefficient and cumbersome to be made through rules or regulations which are the tools that we have in place at the moment. So I think that these are going to be a very important tool for us to use to make sure that we have a regulatory architecture that is fit for purpose in the modern age. There are some important tweaks that have been made through the select committee process and through the Supplementary Order Paper to make sure effectively that the use of transport instruments doesn't run away from the intentions of the Parliament when we set the legislation and through legislation. So there are clear provisions in place to make sure that transport instruments have to come into place in relation to the scope that has been set by the rules or regulations that they come under. We now have provisions in the bill that make sure that the Minister has to be satisfied that those instruments do indeed meet that test so that we don't effectively have agencies who are setting instruments that might be doing so in a way that is inconsistent with the rules or the regulations under which they come. That is something that the Regulations Review Committee—Chris Penk: That's right.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: —and the Transport and Infrastructure Committee did quite a bit of work—and it's one of our favourite committees I know Mr Penk. I'm sure there'll be some contributions to that effect. I think the parliamentary process has worked quite well in that everyone has recognised the value of the transport instruments but there has been some work done to make sure that they will be applied appropriately.The other key change which is brought into effect through this part and—as we will see—through the other parts is a range of changes around class exemptions. These are quite an important part of the transport system. So making sure that we have a smoother ability in particular to put in place group class exemptions—that's going to be quite important as we deal with new technologies in the transport system. But what we've also clarified in this piece of legislation through the Supplementary Order Paper is that those class exemptions will not be subject to appeal through the courts. We already have a couple of mechanisms in which they can be tested. They do ultimately come out of secondary legislation so they are reviewable by the Regulations Review Committee and they are also reviewable through a judicial review process. So the select committee has come to the conclusion—and I agree—that they should not be appealable through to the courts because we have those protections that are already in place.So members there are quite a few important changes that are brought through in this piece of legislation. As the debate moves through we'll see that effectively most of them are replicated in a similar way through the different parts. This particular part of the debate relates to the Land Transport Act. Again those key changes relate to the transport instruments and the class exemptions as well as a range of other small updates and improvements to the legislative and regulatory architecture. So I look forward to the debate that's ahead of us and am happy to answer members' questions as we move forward.