Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): Well thank you Mr Speaker and may I say I will never forget your name. It is a pleasure to be speaking in the second reading of the Racing Reform Bill. I didn't actually have an opportunity to talk in the first reading and of course racing in my electorate of Hunua—which is South Auckland—is an absolutely essential part of the local community but also business and industry. We've all heard the numbers: $1.6 billion of revenue or activity comes out of the racing industry and 18000 people are employed. But what people also don't realise is that the sports horse and other parts of the equine industry the non-racing component also generates about $1 billion worth of economic activity around the country. Of course with my electorate spanning Pukekohe—where we've got the wonderful Counties Racing Club and the Auckland Trotting Club which is now the main centre for trotting in the Auckland region—but also all those areas like Cleveland and Whitford where we have our sports horses it is an absolute essential part and in fact I live next door to one of the most famous studs in New Zealand.So for me this bill is vitally important to help get the racing industry back into shape. My family have been involved in racing for a long long time. The big underlying issue for the racing industry is one of making sure that the fees or that what you earn when you race in New Zealand is more of a higher amount because that underpins the viability of the racing industry in New Zealand. What we've got now is that our racing returns are making it very difficult to be able to generate sufficient returns to make it economically viable. Consequently we're seeing fewer and fewer owners taking on the risk of buying a horse at the Karaka sales which are just down the road from where I live and taking that risk and being part of a very exciting industry.So what this report seeks to do is another step in terms of trying to resuscitate and make the industry more viable. On that basis we do agree with the overall intent in the Messara report of course. Part of it is around not only improving the stakes but also what happens with race courses and reducing those over time. It was interesting—I think only yesterday there was an announcement from Avondale that they are looking at different alternatives in terms of closing that racetrack which was one that was actually nominated to be closed. So there's still a lot of water to go under the bridge.But as a general rule we very much support the intent of this bill. I'm sure that my friends and people who attend the Counties Racing Club—and I note that on 20 June only a very short time away the Lindauer ladies stakes day is going to be held in Pukekohe. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to attend it which makes me most upset because I'll be down here doing my hard work in Parliament.Anyway we do have concerns about this bill and I know my colleagues have talked about it—but there are genuine concerns. The first one is the process. It's absolutely inconceivable that a Minister for Racing who has such good connections knows the time frames and knows the importance of this has wasted so much time to bring this bill to the House; and then when he does he only gives the industry 11 days to actually look through the proposal and make submissions. Five of those days were public holidays. That is just poor management of a very important industry. I know the Minister for Racing believes he's the special champion of this industry—but one that is just simple organisational skills and that was very poorly done. Here we are having to rush through this piece of legislation to be able to make this work in time.The other thing is the protection around how this is going to be managed in the future. I know there's the Racing Industry Transition Agency being put in place. But even amongst the different racing codes the trotting codes the racing industry the greyhound industry how the funding is going to be allocated is slightly unclear.Then at another level—which the Hon Nikki Kaye has been talking about—there is this issue around how money is going to be distributed with other sporting codes. Those issues haven't had the clarity they require and I think we've got an issue with that. But we will be supporting this bill.