Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Mr Chair. I rise to speak on behalf of the National Party in respect of clause 2. I think it is an extraordinary few minutes we've had in this Chamber tonight where we've been talking about the commencement and there has been sort of a discussion about when this bill comes into force. There was some discussion from my colleague Chris Bishop and from David Seymour about clause 2(2) and Schedule 8 coming into force on 28 October 2021. So there was some discussion about the space-time continuum and I notice we still have some issues with the clock.Point of order Mr Chair. I just note that the clock doesn't appear to have begun yet.CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): OK. You can carry on and I'll fix it.JOSEPH MOONEY: Thank you Mr Chair.Hon Member: Limitless time.JOSEPH MOONEY: I'd love to have limitless time—Hon Member: Start again.JOSEPH MOONEY: Ha! Should I start again or?Hon Member: Just go back in time!CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): It's your time you're wasting.JOSEPH MOONEY: I'll go back in time. This is all about a retrospective piece of law anyway so I guess that's apt for this evening that we're going back in time back and forth and we don't really know where in time we sit which also appears to be what has happened with clause 2 where we had considerable discussion about this clause 2 and Schedule 8 coming into force on 28 October 2021 which is tomorrow. And then after significant conversation about that Minister Kris Faafoi got up and said Oh hang on. That's been crossed out."Chris Bishop: But it hasn't.JOSEPH MOONEY: I hear from my colleague Chris Bishop that it hasn't been crossed out. So the question is: what are we dealing with? This is emblematic of a Government which is making up a law on the fly and is just making it up as it goes along. I mean how can anyone have any certainty—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member should know that he can't make an accusation that someone is "making it up". The member need only to look at Supplementary Order Paper 78 to know that he is not.JOSEPH MOONEY: This is emblematic of a Government that is making law in a hurry and it is making it in such a hurry that it doesn't even know what it is doing. We have a Minister who tells us that a clause in the commencement has been crossed out and yet we are hearing that it is actually not. So what papers have been tabled on this? This is utter confusion.I wonder if we look at Schedule 8 which clause 2 refers to coming into force on 28 October I mean has Schedule 8 been crossed out yet or is that still happening? I mean there's so much uncertainty here that if no one in this Chamber can know what is going on how on earth can the public understand what is going on? I mean this is not a good way to make law. The Government really needs to step up its game and actually figure out when this law is commencing. I mean it is a very simple question. How can you stuff up quite frankly clause 2 in a commencement section? Something so simple and yet this Government can't even get it right.Mr Seymour has talked about Duncan Webb and you know professor of law and I have a lot of respect for that coming from a legal background. But I have to say that Duncan Webb's contribution when he got up to speak on clause 2 was less than stellar. I was confused. I'm glad that I wasn't being taught by you Duncan Webb I think I would have been very confused as well as I was this evening.Hon Member: Maybe it's the traffic lights!JOSEPH MOONEY: Maybe it is just like the traffic lights: everyone is confused no one knows what is going on. It is just like this commencement section. I mean how on earth does anyone know what direction of travel we are going in? We can't even get a commencement to clause 2 of this piece of legislation accurate.So I certainly hope that we are going to hear some sensible contributions from the other side to actually clarify for us whether or not this subclause (2) of clause 2 is ruled in or out and why have they suddenly just ruled it out if they have? I mean why didn't they get this right at the beginning? I mean this is an important piece of law. It is changing a very important piece of—the certainty of our legislation for New Zealanders and so they can understand that when they sign up to a contract they will be able to rely on the Government to maintain the sanctity of that contract. This is a key crucial part of our system and our rule of law.So this Government is showing that you can't rely on it to protect the sanctity of contract you can't rely on it to get the commencement clause right and you can't rely on it to actually know what it's doing. How on earth can the people of New Zealand know what's right if the Government doesn't know what's going on? I mean come on. You need to step up your game members opposite and do a better job for New Zealand."