Parker David: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: International Finance Agreements Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6617. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): There is an old saying that is that you cannot know what you do not know—you cannot know what you do not know. As I stand here I do not know whether there are hidden mistakes in this bill and whether they are significant. As a member of select committees including at times the Finance and Expenditure Committee I know that it is through the select committee process that we run in this Parliament that you tease out mistakes in legislation—sometimes errors as to words or grammar which have effect as to meaning and sometimes errors as to policy. These things are brought to the attention of select committees through the select committee processes which take time. More often than not the mistakes that are found in legislation are identified by submitters to the legislation who are interested in the areas and go over it with a fine-tooth comb. In a Parliament that has only got one House of Parliament—we have not got an Upper Chamber to correct mistakes and shoot things back to the main House of Representatives when mistakes are identified in the Upper House—we are more reliant on select committee processes.The other thing I would say is the Finance and Expenditure Committee is dominated by Government members. They hold a majority on that committee and they are in control of their own process. Another piece of legislation which was actually more controversial than this where the Government wanted to speed up progress recently was on the reduction in tariffs consequent on the New Zealand - Korea free-trade agreement. Minister Groser approached us and indeed me on our behalf to see whether we would agree to a truncated select committee process. I said no for two reasons. One was that it would just feed suspicion within the population that their rights were being run roughshod over and two I thought it was wrong in principle. We all knew on the select committee—and actually I did not sit for the hearings on that bill but everyone who was on that select committee knew—that there was an interest in actually doing it properly and so the select committee quite properly did not take the full amount of time that Parliament allowed it because we had heard the request from the Government that it was in New Zealand’s interest to pass the legislation promptly.So the select committee did not muck about. It called for submissions through a tight period and it reported the legislation back to Parliament very promptly well within the normal select committee period that was allowed. The process was done properly the bill was properly scrutinised and the Government still achieved its objective. In respect of the Finance and Expenditure Committee it is the most senior committee in Parliament in some ways.Hon Christopher Finlayson: It is not—Privileges is.Hon DAVID PARKER: Sorry excluding the Privileges Committee—quite right Mr Attorney-General. Excluding the Privileges Committee it is known as the senior committee. It has senior representatives from all parties including the Government and it is in control of its own processes. Why can the Government not trust its own select committee which it has got the numbers on to actually give this the urgency that it needs if urgency is needed and have a period where it calls for a shortened period of submissions perhaps so that it can proceed promptly with consideration of the bill?The date of 22 October is a bit more than a month away—what about a month and a week away? It is hard for submitters in that time if they are volunteer organisations which most of the submitters are—from the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants or I do not know there will be some international foreign affairs organisations or the Law Society. These committees are generally populated by people who are doing this in their own time. They have reporting structures that are periodic. They cannot make these decisions as to what the submission should be off their own bat generally; they have to take it to a committee to whom they are accountable and get its approval. That all takes time. You cannot do it in a period that then enables the committee to give consideration to the submissions that are made.The terms of the treaty itself really are not up for grabs. They have been considered by the prior select committee so I do not think that the detailed consideration of the articles will be too hard and indeed the terms of the bill are reasonably clear. It is not a complex bill. It is an important bill because it involves a lot of money but it is not a complex bill. So I would have confidence that the Finance and Expenditure Committee if there was a pressing national interest—as in a New Zealand interest as opposed to a National Party interest—in reporting this back promptly would responsibly go about its business and do just that.I want to reinforce some of the criticisms that have been made in terms of what is our representative democracy. All the members of this select committee including members of minor parties ought to be able to appear. I know that one of the members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee is the Rt Hon Winston Peters. He is a busy man. He is the leader of the New Zealand First Party he is the representative up north and he is on this Finance and Expenditure—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry it is not for me to interfere with the member’s speech but this bill is not going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee; it is going to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee.Hon DAVID PARKER: Oh I am sorry. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I thought this was—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): One moment. For those who may be listening previous speakers have talked about the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee which this bill is being referred to. You are referring to a different committee. I am just trying to help you so that people are not confused about which committee it is going to.Hon DAVID PARKER: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I was not here when the Hon Bill English put the motion so I am sorry I picked that incorrectly. It is going to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee but it is itself a senior committee. It is actually one of the committees that run on a more consensual basis than some of the other committees. I have sat on it at times and it is a more collegial committee a less adversarial committee and it is trying to achieve things in the New Zealand interest. I am sure that that committee too would be able to report this bill back promptly.That brings you back to the why. Why? Why is it that the Government is putting Parliament in the position that it has to agree on an inappropriately short select committee period? That comes back to competence of Government. If this agreement was agreed in May and signed in June why is that we at this late stage and at this late juncture are only now considering the legislation? Why could not the legislation have been produced earlier and have been put to the select committee at the same time as the treaty? Nothing in the Standing Orders would have prevented that. Indeed it would have been more efficient for submitters. Submitters could have been considering the treaty at the same time as they were considering the bill that accompanied it. These things could have been done in parallel by the Government they should have been and if they had done that we would not be contemplating this poor process which leads to less robust outcomes. For those reasons the Labour Party will be opposing this motion.