Hague Kevin: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11477. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green):Tēnā koutou anō. Tēnā tātou e huihui mai ki roto i te Whare.[Greetings once again to you collectively. Acknowledgments to us assembled in the House .]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Tēnā koe.KEVIN HAGUE: It is a source of some regret for me that I was not able to speak in the first reading of this debate because I would have loved to reminisce aboutFlipper andDr Who —some of those films that I saw in my youth.Hon David Parker: Back when you had hair.KEVIN HAGUE: I did have hair at the time Mr Parker yes. I rise now to express some thoughts from my colleague Holly Walker on this debatable motion around the shortened period for select committee consideration. Our decision to abstain on the Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill itself notwithstanding theGreen Party will support this motion but not because we are happy with the 7-week select committee process on a piece of legislation like this. Rather we are supporting this motion because the alternative was for the Commerce Committee to have only 4 weeks to consider the bill—something we consider to be totally unacceptable. A 7-week process although far from ideal is better than a 4-week process which is why we requested that the Minister of Commerce extend that as much as possible. It is I guess a source of further regret that this bill has been introduced under urgency which is a further abuse of process in our view.As Holly Walker noted in her substantive contribution to the first reading we can see no reason why the select committee process needs to be this short given that we have until the end of October to pass the legislation required before the provisions of the current ban lapse. We certainly recognise the Minister’s concern that ensuring that something is passed before then is important because if the ban were to lapse in October followed by a period of unrestricted parallel importation it could be that that could give rise to problems that may be difficult to reverse. But I am mindful also of Trevor Mallard’s comments about that and I am not sure. I would like to know what those possible unforeseen consequences might be. I guess if we knew what they were they would not be unforeseen. It is likely that some form of shortened select committee process was always going to be necessary but we in the Green Party do not see why it should not be 2 or 3 months rather than a matter of weeks only.It is a good innovation in this current Parliament that we now have debatable motions when the process for select committee scrutiny is being curtailed. That greatly increases the transparency of parliamentary decision making and requires Ministers to actually justify their decisions to curtail the level of parliamentary scrutiny—or rather it should require Ministers to justify that curtailment of parliamentary scrutiny. On this occasion I notice that the Minister has not yet taken a call and I look forward to him doing so to explain the reason why that shortened scrutiny is necessary.It still seems to be increasingly common for members to be dealing with bills that have a curtailed process such as this one. Recent examples include the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill which was given an extremely short select committee process of only 2 weeks yet has then languished for months since the Government Administration Committee reported back; and the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill which currently stands before the Social Services Committee.Very often the consequence of shortened select committee scrutiny is a worse bill that actually needs this House to go back and repair errors that were made and could have been avoided in the first place if proper process had been followed. What might not be so apparent to members when we make these rather arbitrary decisions to approve shortened select committee processes is that this puts the staff and officials who serve the select committee under incredible pressure. This includes select committee clerks report writers and administrators as well as the officials who are appointed to the committees as advisers and staff from the Parliamentary Counsel Office who are faced with the often mammoth task of producing revision-tracked versions of bills with substantial changes in a very short period of time sometimes only days. This is often invisible to members but very apparent to the staff affected. It is not appropriate unless vitally important which it does not appear to be in this case or indeed I would say in the other cases that I have mentioned already in this contribution.Shortened select committee processes of course also constrain the ability for members of the public and affected stakeholders to have their say on legislation that affects them. This should also be avoided wherever possible and should be used only as a last-resort measure. In this case it very clearly is not a last-resort situation. In this case7 weeks is too short but it is a lot better than 4 weeks so the Green Party will for that reason support the motion. We wish however to have our concerns about the whole process surrounding this bill noted for the record. Nō reira e te Whare e huihui mai nei kati au i konei tēnā koutou katoa.[And so to you the House who have gathered I end here and thank you all collectively .]Thank you.