Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I want to reply to some of the things that people have said starting with Rachel Brooking. I want to thank her for a very considered reply. She had clearly taken the time to think about the policy issues behind the bill and give at least some idea of why she might be opposed to it. Her argument if you were to summarise it seemed to be that introducing this bill into law would put some policy values ahead of others. That is simply not true on any reading of the bill. The bill doesn't stop a Parliament from making any particular law. What it does require is that Ministers chief executives and members in charge of members' bills when making laws and regulations are transparent about how they're doing it—about what they believe the costs and benefits are. It doesn't prevent a law from being made and I think that objection is a real mistake about what this bill does.It's a similar objection sometimes to the Reserve Bank bill. It doesn't involve Reserve Bank independence; it involves Reserve Bank transparency. In a very similar way this simply requires the publication of a certificate showing that the lawmaker has at least attempted to follow the principles of good lawmaking and for failing to either publish or actually follow the principles they can face a declaration from the courts that they have failed to make laws in accordance with good principles. That doesn't invalidate the law. She also went to the trouble to download a Master's thesis from a student at Otago. That is a well-known criticism. One of the things it says is that the problem of poor lawmaking is not widely accepted. Well that might be true if you're a Master's student at Otago but I can tell you that out in the rest of the world complaints about the quality of regulation come up every day. There is a problem to be solved and this solution does not constrain Parliament. It requires it to be transparent and gives people a say if Parliament doesn't follow its own rules.I'd like to thank Chris Penk for his support. I'd like to say to Vanushi Walters that I couldn't actually find anything of substance in her speech to respond to—I'm sorry about that. Golriz Ghahraman raised the question of whether it would be possible to make legislation for tobacco control or to restrict carbon emissions. It certainly would. On carbon emissions one would simply have to show there's a market failure. There's a tragedy of the commons. There's a justification in a free society to actually have restrictions on property rights to put those rules in place but a Government would have to show that the benefits of that law outweighed the cost. I think an emissions trading scheme would actually quite easily pass under the Regulatory Standards Bill. Golriz Ghahraman also said that it would diminish other human rights or public rights. That's simply not true. She also said she didn't get my letter. I apologise. I sent the letter to Chlöe Swarbrick and I'm sorry to hear that Chlöe Swarbrick didn't pass it on—there may be something going on there. Emily Henderson's speech: I tried to write down notes for everybody that I could respond to. All I could say is that I grew up in Whangārei and if Emily Henderson speaks the way she spoke tonight in Maunu in Tikipunga in Onerahi Whau Valley Kensington down in Vinetown then she may be a one-term MP. The alternative is that she actually speaks differently there from the way she is here and what does that say about her character? That's all I can say in response to her.Penny Simmonds: well she said that she was worried about—thank you for the support. But she said she was worried about judges legislating from the bench. That's clearly not the case. Judges can issue declarations which will have an effect on the reputation of lawmakers—it may force them to reconsider their law—but judges cannot legislate from the bench. They can only issue declarations under this law so I don't think that's true.Ingrid Leary made a point that a number of people have made which is why would you want to introduce more red tape and this kind of intersects with an argument that also Rachel Brooking made that there's already a number of provisions which require high standards of lawmaking. You can't have it both ways. Either these provisions are already there and are required—I would argue they're not—and if they are then there shouldn't be any problem because no one will ever get a declaration in court that laws haven't been made properly. One way or another if they think everything's perfect they should support the bill—why not put it into law? On the other hand if they think lawmaking is currently inadequate then perhaps we do need the bill.That's my response to some of the objections. I commend this bill to the House and I hope people will reconsider their support on the other side. Thank you Mr Speaker.