Wood MichaelREGULATORY SYSTEMS (TRANSPORT) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister of Transport): I present to the House a legislative statement on the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon MICHAEL WOOD: I move That the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.At the outset I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of those people who have worked on the progress of this piece of legislation over quite a period of time—that time being somewhat elongated by the complications of COVID-19 in 2020. Those thanks go to the previous Minister the Hon Phil Twyford; the Transport and Infrastructure Committee of the previous Parliament which at that time was chaired by Darroch Ball; and of course the people who took the time to make submissions on this bill. It was fair to say they didn't receive an avalanche of public interest in response to the call for submissions. There were nine submissions in total and one person who provided an oral submission to the committee. As we know though it's the quality that counts more than the quality—Chris Penk: How was that?Hon MICHAEL WOOD: —and those submitters certainly did make a useful contribution to that bill. I think some members who participated in that process are affirming that now. I'd also like to pass on thanks to officials who of course do so much of the work in the background on these bills.This bill is an important piece of work. One of the things that we have a responsibility to do in Government and in this House is to make sure that our regulatory systems are fit for purpose that they are efficient that they are adapted to changing circumstances and—perhaps most crucially—that we do that in a way that ensures that New Zealanders are kept safe through the application of relevant regulatory systems. There are probably few areas in which it's more safety critical that that occurs than in the transport system and the Government is certainly committed to making sure that our regulatory systems are kept up to date. That is the function of these regulatory systems bills. They don't necessarily have big gangbuster new policy proposals in them but they make sure that the system functions well.The committee reported back to the House in August last year towards the end of the last session of the Parliament. Alongside the submissions that the committee received they did also receive quite an important letter from the Regulations Review Committee which raised two core concerns. One of those related to the powers to grant permanent exemptions and also the broadness of the transport instrument powers that are a key feature of the bill and I'll speak to both of those features a little bit later on. But what I am pleased to report is that the committee picked up on those points made by the Regulations Review Committee and I think in a good example of the way that our parliamentary processes work those changes have been picked up they have been incorporated into the bill and they will be reflected in the bill which is considered by the House as we now move forward.I'll speak firstly about the transport instruments which I think are probably the most significant innovation brought through by this bill. The bill introduces transport instruments and they're a way of enabling the Minister in the case of transport rules or the Governor-General technically in the case of regulations to delegate responsibility for specified aspects of those rules and regulations to a named lower-level authority. So we have regulations and rules which are set through a fairly fulsome process as pieces of secondary legislation that are granted in the primary legislation. The rules are about then saying what are very detailed and prescriptive things that actually could be dealt with at a lower level by the transport agencies. I'll talk a little bit about some of the areas in which these might be able to apply but broadly speaking it's making sure that the system can be as efficient and adaptive as it can be.I think that in the transport area in particular these are going to be very useful tools when we think about the degree of technological innovation that is constantly shaping the way in which the transport sector develops. We think about the way in which autonomous vehicles are increasingly becoming part of the landscape the way in which the aerospace industry is growing the way in which technical specifications are constantly changing. It is not necessarily always going to be practical to go through a complex and time-consuming rules or regulations approach to deal with all of those changes to keep New Zealanders safe as we move along. The transport instruments process will provide a facility for doing that.There are also some very specific things within our current system that instruments I think will be very helpful for—thinking about matters such as the design of road signs and markings highly prescriptive details on some transport documents. These are not necessarily things that we want to take up the time of Ministers and Governments dealing with rules and regulations. They can be delegated I think appropriately through transport instruments. For those members who are particularly interested in inquiring into this area further some recommended reading would be the most recent land transport omnibus rule amendment. If one looks through the changes that are made through that rules amendment what members will see is that many of them are very specific and technical and really could be dealt with by agencies through the creation of instruments in the future were those in place at the time.The committee has recommended to the House that the provisions relating to transport instruments should better clarify the relationships between rules and regulations and instruments and also to be very clear about their legislative hierarchy. I think that's a good suggestion and it's important in terms of clarifying responsibilities and rights. The new sections of the bill provide that a transport instrument is a part of and is enabled by the rule and regulation that provides for them and additionally that a transport instrument can only be made for the purpose of the rule or the regulation. Now I don't think there was any intention other than that when transport instruments were proposed in this legislation but it is very important that that point is clarified. That does a couple of things but probably most importantly it makes it clear that ongoing parliamentary scrutiny can apply to those instruments because they are directly related to the rules or regulations from which they stem.The new sections also contain an appropriateness test where the Minister—or a specific regulator in the case of emergency rules—must be satisfied that the subject matter is appropriate to be included in a transport instrument. Here in two ways we're just building in some checks and balances bearing in mind that these instruments are delegated down to officials effectively—senior officials albeit—rather than the Parliament. But we have those checks built into the system to make sure that they are set up and then applied appropriately. I certainly support those and they will be reflected as the legislation moves forward.The bill also clarifies who can make transport instruments. In regards to land transport the agency is Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency or the Director of Land Transport. Now the Director of Land Transport is a new position we've recently created to oversee Waka Kotahi's regulatory functions in response to the regulatory failure issues that arose a number of years ago. So I think that's very appropriate. Similarly through Maritime New Zealand or the Director of Maritime New Zealand they may make transport instruments. The bill will also enable Waka Kotahi or Maritime New Zealand to delegate this power to the Secretary for Transport and in some cases that will be appropriate. There are a number of other changes in the bill but there are a couple of things I just want to signal at this point that will become relevant when we advance towards the committee of the whole House. One of those relates to the commencement date and this is referred to in the select committee's report back. The committee recommends changing clause 2 of the bill to allow the majority of the bill to come into force 14 days after the bill receives Royal assent. This change was important because the original proposed date for commencement was 1 July 2020. We all know what happened last year and why there have been delays there so that was a rational proposal for the select committee to put forward. However I will give note that given current timing I intend to make a further change to the commencement date via a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to establish a single commencement date of 1 April 2021. That's simply about simplicity and clarity and I don't particularly foresee that that will create any problems.I will also indicate that there will be further SOPs coming to deal with some additional issues that can be addressed through this bill which will be introduced at committee stage. The first will support the provision of seafarer welfare services provided in New Zealand. What we will be creating there is an ability for the existing maritime levy to be applied for the purposes of supporting seafarer welfare centres. Those centres provide a critical function to what can be quite a vulnerable workforce and are currently reliant exclusively at the moment on charitable donations and that is simply not a sustainable way of funding those services.The second amendment will support the allocation of funding for recreational aviation safety purposes. The proposal will permit fuel excise duty revenue from petrol used by recreational aircraft to be allocated to measures that provide safety benefits to the recreational aviation community. This has long been a little bit of a bugbear for that sector—that they use a fuel in some smaller planes and other aviation vehicles but the benefit of the levy they pay cannot go into their sector. We'll be dealing with that there.Taken together this bill and the amendments that have been proposed by the committee I think tracks a good way forward for our transport regulatory systems. I thank everyone for their contributions and commend the bill to the House. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.