Curran Clare: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5046. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): I would like to take a call on the title and commencement clauses and in the prevailing theme of my colleagues suggest a new title for this bill the Standards and Accreditation Bill 2014 as being the “Watering Down Consumer Confidence Standards Bill”. I just I suppose reiterate the fact that there are numerous issues with this bill that have watered down and lowered down the standard of what a good standards system should be. Consumer confidence is a really important measure of that.Unfortunately we have heard from the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs only once during this debate. He basically read out tracts from the ministerial report to justify the rationale for the bill before us tonight. He has given us no indication of what the purpose of his amendments are and has essentially given no response to any of the issues that have been raised. So I suppose what that tells you is that another alternative name is the “Usual Arrogance and Out of Touch Nature of the Government when Developing a Standards and Accreditation Bill”—Kris Faafoi: Usual—usual.CLARE CURRAN: Usual—arrogant and out of touch as usual and that is the syndrome to which we are all becoming accustomed. The issues that lie behind our criticism of this bill go to the issues that lie behind so many things that this Government is doing. It is removing independence. There are suggestions of conflicts of interest there are impacts on our international reputation there are impacts on consumer experience and consumer confidence and this is just one of numerous—it is a trend in Government legislation that is coming before this House. If anyone is listening at home tonight at 9.30 p.m. or watching this on the TV then I imagine they will be shrugging their shoulders and saying “Well what’s new?”. We think the bill is deeply problematic and that it is going to need a review by this side of the Chamber when we become the Government. We are going to have to come back to the drawing board on this and we are you know signalling that. The work that was done by officials on this—there has been a lot of work done on this bill and thank you to the officials. However we are not convinced and we are not convinced because of the very very strong weight of concern that has come from reputable industry bodies and people with long history and credibility in this area.We know that the standards framework needed a review. Everything needs a review and it is important that we do that and so that was undertaken. We know that there were financial unsustainability issues but is that a reason to water down and suck an independent entity into a great big amorphous beast that is called the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment? It has its own issues in terms of how it operates and the consumer confidence of people particularly with regard to ensuring that there is good management of processes around health and safety. And here we are—we have created another entity within that. So to consumers listening tonight people out there: be a bit afraid about where our standards are going and how well they are going to stand up internationally. We do not believe that it is independent. We believe that because it is inside—