Street Maryan: Energy Safety Review Bill — Second Reading 
Street Maryan: Energy Safety Review Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6602] 
MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the second reading of the Energy Safety Review Bill. Before I begin on the points I wish to cover I need to address some points made by my colleague Chris Auchinvole who has just resumed his seat. He and I were both on the Commerce Committee. I have two points to make. First consultation did occur in the drafting of this legislation. There was substantial consultation on the part of the Minister with the electrical workers’ unions electrical contractors and the Electrical Registration Board. In fact it came as no surprise to anybody. So I need to put on the record that the presumption made by the previous speaker is inaccurate. A great deal of consultation went on beforehand. In fact submitters came to the table and said how long the process had been in train. 
The second point to make in rebuttal is simply that the process of hearing submissions is a fundamental part of the democratic process. If legislation on first drafting is not perfect that should be no surprise. The whole process of hearing submissions hearing responses to them and the work of the select committee in proposing amendments is the stuff of this Parliament. It is the stuff of this House. It is the material purpose for MPs sitting on select committees. So that should come as no surprise either. The fact that submitters recommended changes and at times registered complaints about parts of process is not unusual. It is part of the process; it is part of opening up the legislative process to the public for comment and that is as it should be. 
Having dealt with those matters arising out of the contribution of the previous speaker I wish to get to a couple of key points in this bill. First energy is critical to economic growth as the Minister said in his second reading speech. But it is also critical that energy is delivered to New Zealanders in a way that is safe for people safe for property and safe for the workers who are delivering that energy. As a result this bill amends a number of Acts: the Electricity Act 1992 the Gas Act 1992 the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 and the Ministry of Energy (Abolition Act) 1989. In the course of amending those Acts it is not just the safety of supply that is important but the safety of the workers is also important in the delivery of energy and in the case of this bill in particular of electricity to consumers throughout New Zealand. 
The process of splitting the original bill into two parts has been touched on by my colleague Chris Auchinvole. I want to comment on that briefly because it was important that the part of the original omnibus bill that related to electrical workers was allowed to proceed without hindrance. It should have been allowed to proceed without interruption to its next stage while certain issues relating to plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers were sorted. There were clearly issues pertaining to the latter sectors that did not pertain to electrical workers and it made no sense to the Commerce Committee to detain the progress of the bits pertaining to electrical workers until the rest could be sorted out. So we awaited the report of Hazel Armstrong which will become the subject of more discussion in this House when the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Bill is debated in this House shortly. 
The next point that I wish to make is probably the most critical point. It is to do with the registration and licensing regime that the Energy Safety Review Bill proposes. The original bill proposed a licensing-only scheme. It became very clear in the course of submissions that there was an attachment to registration that was readily understood by many of the members of the select committee. So the members of the select committee resolved to revert to a registration and licensing system. 
To make this perfectly clear registration is the “ticket”. Registration is what one gets when one has completed all the requirements to become an electrician. Electricians represented their position to us as strongly as any profession would represent its cause around registration to us: that it is a point of identification for electricians that they are electricians. It is a point of identification for doctors that they are doctors; it is no less the case for electricians. So the retention of registration—that is getting that ticket that says that one is a registered electrician—remains absolutely critical. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Here is Mr Duynhoven’s. 
MARYAN STREET 
: The Minister has his electrician’s ticket and still retains it to this day. That becomes a critical point of identification and we wanted to retain that. There was no useful purpose served in not retaining that point of identification for electricians. 
Licensing however is the ongoing attestation of competence. For example in the electrical field there have been huge advances in technology and they are issues that are way beyond my competence to comment on. But with technological advances comes the expectation that registered practitioners will continue to update their skills in order to provide the confidence to consumers—that is to customers whether they be householders or businesses—that the registered practitioners who are coming to repair modify or install energy to their premises are competent to do so on the basis of current best practice. That is what licensing does. So licensing is an ongoing process that attests to competence. 
I can give another example from the health sector that is comparable to this; it is nurses. People train for 3 years then become registered as nurses. Nurses will say that whatever else they do with their lives and whatever career they embark on being registered as a nurse is of fundamental importance to them. But they also receive an annual practising certificate. The annual practising certificate has to be attested to annually and is a statement about the holder’s competence to practise on an annual basis in the face of technological changes. It is the same for electricians. 
So the Commerce Committee came down in support of registration and licensing which is to do with the security that tradespeople—in this case electricians—have over their identification as tradespeople and the security for customers that the competence of those tradespeople is without question.