Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Madam Chair.Hon Shane Jones: Wake up!BRETT HUDSON: It's wonderful to move on to—oh I was just texting my daughter Mr Jones. I'm sorry if that's a terrible thing in your eyes. Some of us care about our children.On Part 2 Specified airport services" this is a part on which as the bill was introduced and went through the Transport and Infrastructure Committee we had particular issues.Hon Shane Jones: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. At a time of heightened sensitivity to family concerns and the damage that bad politics does I take very strong exception to that member's suggestion that I or anyone else do not have my seven children or my nine mokopunas uppermost in my mind.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Mr Hudson—BRETT HUDSON: Thank you Madam Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): No Mr Hudson. I think perhaps—BRETT HUDSON: I withdraw and apologise.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you.BRETT HUDSON: The airport services is an area of the part that we had issues with coming into the Transport and Infrastructure Committee but of which I will acknowledge the officials who upon listening to the submissions that were received on this part have made some significant and constructive changes to. There are still two particular areas of concern that we have around this but I do want to at least begin by acknowledging that the attention they paid to those submissions and the changes they have made have gone a great way to from our perspective making this change far more palatable.The two areas that are still concerning but which we're not going to allow to stand in the way of the passage of this legislation are first a comment I made when the departmental report was presented to the committee was that the basis behind the argument that a full inquiry into amending the particular regulated services or type of regulation particularly the type of the regulative method on airports that are currently regulated was acceptable to be done under a truncated process because Parliament had already considered that those airports should be regulated.I think that actually we have to take Parliament at its full extent of word and knowledge when it passes legislation. Unless we can find very clear statements from Parliament at the time I don't believe that the fact that Parliament agreed to a certain amount of tier-two regulatory power at one time inherently means that Parliament would have no issue therefore with that being changed.My view on this is that when Parliament passed that law at the time it fully appreciated that what was in place was that those airports would be regulated under an information disclosure regime and that it wouldn't necessarily be an easy task for that to be changed and if it were changed the process to change it would be as comprehensive as the process that put it in there in the first place in terms of the inquiry.So we don't actually think it was established satisfactorily during the select committee process that there was a prior argument a prior evidence that changing the ability for how an inquiry might be undertaken under currently regulated airports and the truncated nature of that—how that was already established to be OK in the eyes of Parliament. The argument was "No this is actually a matter for Parliament to debate from the very beginning to the end."The second point and I think it's the more fundamental one actually to this is that in the regulatory impact statement that accompanied the introduction of this bill officials noted that there is no evidence that the current regime of information disclosure is not working for those regulated airports. It also noted in that same regulatory impact statement that even if there were a problem the impact of landing fees on consumers—and the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs has been telling us how we should all be thinking about consumers in everything we talk about in this bill—would be minimal and far less than the other competitive pressures on airfares.So my argument there is I don't believe it was ever established that there was a fundamental need to take power away from Parliament—because that is what this does—and place it actually in the hand of the Government the hand of the Ministers the hand of the Executive Council to be able to decide to change the regulatory environment for these airports that are currently regulated instead of sending it back to Parliament to decide whether or not there should be a change should it come to pass that there is sufficient evidence or any evidence quite frankly that the current regime is not working and therefore that it should be looked at to change.That simply was not ever satisfactorily—well it wasn't actually truly canvassed to be honest but it was never evidenced. There was some talk about the potential that the information disclosure means that airports could play a bit fast and loose; they could choose to try to not disclose information or all of the information or they could argue a lot to try to delay things. But I come back to the point that the officials made on the introduction of the bill: that they had no evidence that that was happening. There was no evidence that the information disclosure regime was not working as intended.Now I think it's actually a fundamental part of the legislative process here which is why when legislation comes in that is creating or amending regulation-making powers—that one the Regulations Review Committee was established in the first place but that it goes off to that committee for comment. What is happening is effectively the outsourcing of parliamentary sovereignty because it's Parliament that makes the law not the primary legislation. It's not the Government; it certainly isn't the officials; it is Parliament that through the process of debate here across all stages makes the determination of whether or not a law will be enacted in the first place or amended. To then put greater latitude into regulation-making powers is to outsource that decision from Parliament as a whole to the executive wing to the Government to the Executive Council on advice from officials. It's a big step because it takes the decision away from 120 members and places it in the hands of—I think it's roughly about 29 members now—25 members shall we say in Cabinet plus the Governor-General.So I actually think it is—well it should be—contingent on the Government given that it's their legislation establishing the need to begin with. So giving the evidence that says what we have today isn't working and this is why Parliament shouldn't wait any longer but should hand the power over to the Government on its behalf to make the change when Government feels that it might become a greater need. That is in effect what the amendments in Part 2—prior particularly to the amendments the officials recommended in the departmental report. It's what those amendments do. It removes the authority from Parliament and places it in the hands of the Government and what is Parliament for if not to scrutinise the work of Government? But by doing these things we take that scrutiny away. After this debate it probably will in fact—because we have given our support to the legislation as a whole—enact that.So I do acknowledge again that the officials did listen to submissions on this part of the bill. They did make changes. I particularly commend the amendments that they did offer up around the need to properly assess the costs versus benefits particularly if there is a move to seek to add additional airports into the regulated airports scheme but also if there are new services—not particularly changing those current regulated airport services but if there are new services to be brought on—the Commerce Commission will have to undertake a cost-benefit study on that and will have to provide that report that shows that it will be worthwhile and why it would provide those additional material benefits. But that doesn't take away I argue from the fundamental point that while it is all good that the bill that has been before the House has proposed amendments to make it better than it was on introduction there was still not an establishment that the need to change to add the regulation and to amend the existing regulation—it was not evidenced that there was a current need that would require that Parliament release some of its sovereignty to the Government to make the decision on its behalf. Hopefully were there to be some future evidence that might actually give Parliament cause to want to change it. Minister if that comes about—because there's no evidence of a problem today—why not bring that back to Parliament then? It's what we exist for. Let Parliament make that decision when it's required. Minister please answer that one."