Borrows Chester: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5071. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
on behalf of the Leader of the House: I move  
That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to nominate that the bill be referred to the Regulations Review Committee and move that the committee report to the House by 5 November 2012. 
This is a routine and technical bill—it comes before the House every year—but it is a very important bill all the same. The bill confirms or validates items of subordinate legislation that must be confirmed or validated by Parliament. This is a requirement of the empowering Acts under which the various orders or regulations have been made. The role played by the House in confirming or validating various items and in particular the scrutiny provided by the Regulations Review Committee provides an additional layer of protection in the regulation-making process. Should the House decide to withhold its approval for a particular regulation or order contained in the bill that regulation or order will lapse. That said this bill traditionally receives cross-party support. 
All of the orders and regulations in this year’s bill are certainly of a technical character. There are 16 orders or regulations listed in the bill that are to be confirmed or validated and they have been made under seven different Acts. I shall provide for the benefit of the House a brief summary of each instrument confirmed or validated by the bill. 
One set of regulations made under the Animal Products Act 1999 is confirmed. These regulations clarify that all fees charges and levies under the principal regulations are GST-inclusive. They also replace part of a schedule providing for unit charges hourly rates and call-out charges payable in respect of the export of live animals and animal germ plasm. I have not come across germ plasm before I do not think. Seven commodity levies are confirmed. They are a levy on navel oranges sold or exported as fresh fruit—as opposed to air force oranges which is a different category altogether—a levy on kiwifruit exported to countries other than Australia a levy on nashi pears exported or sold fresh in New Zealand a levy on all arable crops except maize grain and maize or cereal silage grown in New Zealand a levy on cereal silage and maize seed and a levy on asparagus. 
Five orders are made under the Customs and Excise Act 1996. They are confirmed. Rates of excise and excise-equivalent duties imposed on tobacco products and alcoholic beverages are adjusted annually to reflect the movement in the Consumers Price Index. This bill confirms the duties that were imposed on 1 January 2012 and 1 July 2012 respectively. A 2c per litre increase in the excise and excise-equivalent duties on motor spirits imposed on 1 August 2012 is confirmed. Two orders extending for another 3 years the prohibition on export and import of Antarctic toothfish and Patagonian toothfish are confirmed. 
An order made pursuant to the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Social Security Act 1964 is confirmed. This order increases most benefits pensions and allowances to reflect the 1.77 percent increase in the New Zealand Consumers Price Index from the December 2010 quarter to the December 2011 quarter. It also increases the amounts of funeral grants payable under the Social Securities Act in respect of people who die—fittingly—on or after 1 April 2012. The order also makes some further supplementary increases to the level of superannuation. 
One set of regulations made under the Road User Charges Act 2012 is confirmed and these regulations specify the rates of charges for distance licences for road-user charges vehicles and in respect of additional weight carried by combination vehicles operating under the additional licence. Finally the bill confirms an order increasing war pensions lump-sum payments and allowances in line with an increase in the Consumers Price Index. The order also makes further supplementary increases to the level of veterans’ pensions. I commend this bill to the House.