Clark DavidDr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): I will take a slightly different point of view from that of my colleague Clayton Cosgrove although it was a very harmonious committee that considered this bill. The one point that I would question a little is his praise for the Minister in the chair the Hon Paul Goldsmith and the advice that he was given. I honestly believe that Ministers themselves have a responsibility for the legislation they put forward to this House. We are here this evening debating legislation that has been proven to be inadequate and not sufficient for the purpose it was originally created for. Here we are passing through the Committee a bill that does very little indeed. The changes that are going through in this bill could easily have been rolled into an omnibus bill and hundreds of thousands of dollars I suspect of taxpayers' money could have been avoided being spent on paying all of us and all of our staff to be here in the evening debating a bill that virtually does absolutely little of any value. We are happy that it does little in fact; for the one reason that it was likely to do harm. That is where we got to. That is where the back of the envelope - type calculations that my colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove got to—that it may well indeed do harm. But ultimately we do not know. We do not know because the analysis was not done in a way that could give us the confidence to know whether this was a good thing we were doing or a bad thing. The small changes and tweaks that are going through in the bill we do support so we do end up on balance supporting it. I would be interested in the Minister in the chair giving us a little bit of a history of how he came to put this legislation forward because the story I heard and what came out in the select committee was that this was ultimately the result of a promise that John Key had made when he was out kayaking—I cannot remember whether it was with Kevin Rudd or somebody else—that they would try to unify the arrangements in New Zealand and Australia which on the surface seems like a sensible thing to do. I would like the Minister to give us the reasoning behind it and the reasoning he has now reached as to why we should be doing exactly the opposite. If he could slip on his flip-flops and get up and explain to us how he came from one position to the extreme opposite—maybe with a slight Australian twang for some amusement along the way—that would probably be doing a public service. At least we would be entertaining the public but we might also learn what he hopes the bill will now achieve. I think it is important to understand why we are here why we are passing this legislation and why this could not have been done through an omnibus bill—whether in fact there is another process that has been considered for the bill from here on through the House. That may be something we would have to take technical advice on but it would save the House some time. We could get on with what would be hopefully more important legislation in the wider interests of the country. The one thing I will say is that this bill is emblematic of the Government's wider efforts. It is a Government that has said it wants to get exports up to 40 percent of GDP and that requires us diversifying our—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for interrupting the member but I have let him go now for about 3 minutes and I want to remind him that we are on the Committee stage of the bill. The bill has been accepted in its current form and principle and all we are trying to do is make sure that the detail is actually consistent with the principles accepted at the second reading. His speech was probably marginal for a second reading one but it is certainly not good for the Committee. Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Point of order—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am still on my feet Mr Cosgrove. What I am going to ask the member to do now is to stick to the detail of the bill.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I do not wish to challenge your—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): You had better not be.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I know you too well to do that in a lot of ways. But one thing I would say about the member's speech is that it is a very unusual situation that we face in the Committee in that a proposition was put forward by the Government and then reversed. There was an extreme amount of conjecture around that some extremely flimsy analysis around it and part of as you say checking the accuracy or the detail in the Committee stage—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK; thank you. I have heard enough. Dr DAVID CLARK: Thank you Mr Chair. Let me read from new Part 6 inserted by clause 6: The purpose of this Part is to regulate the provision of patent attorney services by giving effect to the joint registration regime in accordance with the Arrangement." That is precisely the issue. Does this bill really give effect to a joint registration regime in the way that it was intended when the bill was lodged with the House? I do not think it does anymore. That is what I am arguing. I think the bill has changed in such a fashion that I am questioning whether it really achieves the original purpose put forward by the Minister and I would appreciate his response on that."