Clark DavidDr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): This bill is an object lesson in the importance of good policy development. We as a select committee—and Melissa Lee was the Commerce Committee chair—had the unenviable task with this legislation of shaping it into something that vaguely did something sensible for New Zealand. It was as my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove has pointed out a very unusual situation for us to be in. The essence of the legislation was that it sought in its original form to completely unify the qualifications of the patent attorneys across the Tasman—the qualifications the registration regime and so on. During the course of the select committee business it became apparent that the patent attorneys were not at all on board with this and that they had not been fully or effectively consulted. In fact if they had been consulted it was certainly in no systematic way and their ire was apparent very quickly to members of the committee who I think were probably all individually contacted by the patent attorneys and their representatives.What we learnt of course as we unpacked the process of the bill—how it had come to be what it was—was the fact that this bill really was trying to give effect to a press announcement made between John Key and Kevin Rudd after they had met some time ago. They had nothing significant to announce and decided—I think from memory while they were travelling along in their kayaks—that they should announce something by way of joint progress on unification of regulation in the trans-Tasman relationship and announced that they would unify the patent attorney regime. That promise unfortunately it seems was made in the heat of a warm friendship moment. It had not been tested for its clarity of thought and ease of implementation.Unfortunately—and I think that this does rest with the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. I am a little more critical of the Minister than my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove was. I do think that the Minister in giving effect to the Prime Minister's promises still has a responsibility to ensure that they can be implemented in an effective way and that the promise makes sense. I think that as politicians we do have a role in policy development. It is important that we test that with all of those who are affected by the regime and who knows? Actually—and I have not said this in previous parts of the debate—this may have been a very sensible suggestion by the Prime Minister. We will never know because it was not properly tested. The calculations were not done as to whether it would have brought benefits what effect it would have had on the patent attorneys regime whether the incentives that were being set up would have led to the patent attorneys all shifting offshore and moving away from the innovative businesses in New Zealand or whether in fact the New Zealand patent attorneys would have stood to benefit from this regime because we tend to provide services in an innovative and low-cost way. Where we came to was that in fact the officials did not know whether it would benefit the regime here. They had been told subsequent to the announcement that the patent attorneys certainly were not happy about it and that the patent attorneys were not clear that this would be of benefit to New Zealand. So an enormous move backwards was initiated. The legislation was gutted and the patent attorneys were assured that the existing arrangements would stay in place. So here we find ourselves today progressing a bill that has basically been gutted. We find ourselves putting legislation through the House that fails to achieve what it originally set out to achieve. It fails to do that primarily because the officials had not done the calculations that could give assurance to the committee that was a sensible thing to do. Mr Cosgrove was very critical of the officials involved. I think they probably cannot completely escape blame but I also think the Minister must take responsibility for the development of the policy. It is the Minister's job after all. That is why he is here and that is why he collects the salary. He is here to balance up the public interest elements of the legislation with the sensible policy elements as the advisers put them to him. He needs to be responsible for testing what the officials put to him. He needs to be sure that the legislation that he is putting forward in public is robust—not only that it kowtows to the Prime Minister's wishes but that it really is a sensible thing to do. We will never know because it was shot dead in the water. As I have just said—and have not previously really said it in this way—the Prime Minister might have been right. The Prime Minister might have been right but the Prime Minister's idea has gone down in flames because the Minister Paul Goldsmith did not instruct his officials and did not test whether his officials had sufficiently tested the proposition to get it through to the select committee in a robust fashion. So when the bill arrived in the select committee and we examined it and found it wanting when we had the concerns of the patent attorney lobby brought to us and when we sought further assurances and could not get them all of us on the select committee became very nervous about this legislation as we tried to balance up those different aspects. We also became aware of course—as our officials spoke to them—that the Australians were finding the same ground rocky. It is a disappointing thing to be in this House supporting a bill that does very little and that probably is a missed opportunity more than anything else. We could have you know been here passing something through that was really worthwhile. It could be that if this proposal had been robustly examined it would have been found to be the right thing to do. We do not know and we probably will not know until a future Government re-examines the situation looks at the interests of innovators to see whether they are advanced by changes that unify the regimes looks at the way patent attorneys are educated and the way in which their qualifications are tested and recognised and decides what the steps forward should be. There is no doubt overall that we do want to harmonise where possible the relationships between the countries but also make sure that New Zealand's interests are protected as we harmonise between Australia and New Zealand. If we can lower regulatory barriers and if we can make it easier to do business without red tape then I think certainly members across the House would welcome that. Inadequate policy processes do not facilitate that kind of change and unfortunately we find ourselves here today passing a bill that will do very little for the interests of innovators in New Zealand. That speaks to the broader problem. This Government has the aim of increasing exports as a percentage of GDP to 40 percent of New Zealand's GDP. That in itself is laudable. The Minister notably has been very reluctant to put any intermediate targets in place—and maybe politically that is wise but I think that from a public policy perspective it is very unfortunate. We see now that this Government is further behind than it was when it took office. Exports as a percentage of GDP are now below 30 percent—they are below 30 percent. New Zealand must pay its way in the world. Having an aim of 40 percent of GDP being exports is laudable but when we are now below 30 percent and dropping it is a shame for this country and does not speak well to the security of our economic future. We need a broad-based economy. We need a Government that is proactive in making sure regulatory barriers are lowered and in making sure that we have a good environment for business and unfortunately we have Ministers like Minister Goldsmith proceeding with things that have not been thought through fully. I give credit to the chair of the Commerce Committee Melissa Lee for her proactivity in ensuring that we had a good discussion around these issues and ensuring that we did test them and for having the courage to support a challenge to the proposal that had come forward. I give credit to the other members of the select committee who participated vigorously in trying to rectify a situation presented to us by Minister Goldsmith and it was doing the Prime Minister's wishes no justice.