Chauvel Charles: Duties of Statutory Officers (Census and Other Remedial Provisions) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Duties of Statutory Officers (Census and Other Remedial Provisions) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20829] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture gave some advice at the beginning of his third reading speech. He said: “Don’t dig in on this legislation.” I will explain just briefly for his benefit why we did dig in. If the Duties of Statutory Officers (Census and Other Remedial Provisions) Bill was about the census only—because the Minister did not address half of the bill; he addressed only the proposal to defer the census—then our criticisms would have been around only the failure to have a short select committee process. 
Members opposite earlier yelled out and asked what we would do in the select committee. There are a number of questions that were ventilated in the debate. Members who have been here for the entire debate will know this. Those questions include the question of what the effect is of moving from a set of data collected over 5-year blocks and then trying to compare that data with a 7-year block. It is a matter of vital importance for the national data mine. We do not know the answer. We have never heard the answer. We do not know the answer to that question. If there had been a select committee process with some experts coming along to tell members of Parliament about the effects of comparing a set of 5-year data and a set of 7-year data on our economic statistics and on all sorts of other information of national importance I suspect that would have been pretty reassuring assuming that the answer was that it would not have a major deleterious effect on the ability to compare those data blocks. 
We would have asked whether it was still feasible to set electoral boundaries on time. We heard from the Minister an assurance that it will be and he quoted two precedents. Again we probably accept that the Minister is well advised but it would have been useful to drill into that question with the advice of the officials. We heard an assurance repeated to us by a Maori Party member and by the Minister that there has been a guarantee that the Maori electoral option will be unaffected. Again it would have been useful to hear the detail of that rather than having to rely just on a ministerial assurance which is all we have. 
Then there is the issue that I raised; the precedent-setting effect of doing away with the proclamation process which puts the setting of the date of the census at arm’s length from the executive. The Minister told us that that provision was not an attempt to set a precedent but again to have been able to record that in a select committee report back to the House rather than simply relying on an offhand comment in the  
Hansard 
 from the Minister would have been much more reassuring. 
As I said the Minister did not address a whole half of the bill. I reiterate that it makes— 
Sandra Goudie 
: A whole half? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Yes a whole half of the bill I say to Ms Goudie—the bit that relates to the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. As I said earlier we have no argument with the incumbent in that office. He is an excellent Chief Parliamentary Counsel and we have no concerns about the substance of the proposal. Of course it makes sense that the Chief Parliamentary Counsel ought to be able to delegate his powers in this day and age. Of course it makes sense that he ought to be able to have a deputy to act on his behalf in his absence. We supported those provisions in the Legislation Bill. But the question we posed was why we should pluck these particular provisions out of that bill and put them through under urgency. Why do that when it is proposed that the current Chief Parliamentary Counsel be absent from the country for a significant length of time? Why the secrecy? Why does the Government not want ordinary New Zealanders to know what is being done with taxpayers’ dollars in the administration of the office that drafts our laws? That is what I do not understand. If the answer is that this Minister just does not know the answers then he should not have come to the House with carriage of this bill. 
In the end this bill reeks of bad process. The lesson we should have learnt by now in this House is that bad process leads to bad outcomes and that is the reason members on this side of the House have dug in and will not support this bill.