Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): I think it was the Standing Orders Committee of the 50th Parliament—2011 to 2014—that introduced the Standing Order that provided for the referral motion debate that we're having right now. My recollection of the advice of the Standing Orders Committee to Parliament is very clear: it was to dissuade the sorts of things that are happening far too often in this Parliament.If there are two clear themes to emerge from the fact that we are debating the report-back date of 27 May on this bill it is one of utter contempt for the public and the stakeholders who are going to submit on this bill and frankly utter incompetence in the fact that one of the reasons that we are considering this shortened report-back date is that some of the amendments that are being made to this to correct drafting errors need to be made by 1 July 2019.Now I want to touch on the first one of those things. There's contempt for the process and I want to make two key comments about it. Firstly one of the really important changes to this bill is in respect of the youth justice jurisdiction and there's no doubt that just about every member of the previous Parliament would have heard from the Children's Commissioner about the importance of making that change. There's no doubt certainly in my mind that that was contested and controversial. Therefore as many reasons as there were for increasing the youth jurisdiction age there were just as many arguments against doing so and even though we have come to a point that I personally think is sensible there are a number of people in the community who will want to be heard on this very important change to our judicial system. The fact that we are going to refer to the committee open the batting for submissions in an obscenely short time frame hear from those people and then give some kind of impression that we are carefully considering what they have to say is an absolute nonsense. That is the second part of the sheer contempt that this Parliament shows for those submitters. It is the inconsistency amongst some of the parties that support the Government in respect of motions like this and I had the rallying cries of members of the Green Party ringing in my ears on the one or two occasions in my five years as a Minister when it was necessary and appropriate to do that. A rare and reasonable approach was nevertheless absolutely panned by the Green Party members and yet what have we seen in the 52nd Parliament? Time and time and time again the contempt for the public submission process by the use of the early report-back motion and I'd like to hear why the Green Party think that's a good idea. We are standing up and talking about why we think this is a very bad idea—a very bad step in the lawmaking process. The thing that we are here to do is to legislate and hopefully legislate for the public good and not make a mistake. I understand that one of the things that this bill is going to do is to correct an error. Errors are made and they're made despite the best efforts of officials of lawyers and of politicians to get it right. Sometimes we don't and it's necessary to go back and correct and improve bills. I have no issue with that—nobody's perfect. But the fact that much of this legislation had its genesis years and years ago is the second part of my submission and that's the incompetency around the current Government in not bringing this to the House before today forcing the House to consider whether or not the select committee should report back to the House on 27 May. It simply should not have been here now; it should have been here weeks or months ago. The policy effort was done mostly under the previous Government in the 51st Parliament and actually in the one before that. This was a long time being carefully considered and having carefully considered it we should have acted decisively and yet we are now what April—18 months. We are in the 18th month of this Government with barely eight weeks to go before some of the provisions in this bill need to be enacted and somehow that's a reason to curtail the public submissions and to pay lip-service to the very important contributions that they will want to make to some significant policy changes not the least of which are changes to youth justice jurisdictions and age. They deserve better. They actually deserve a longer period of time in order to be able to be heard and to at least enable the select committee to carefully consider the aspects of the bill because as a couple of the Labour members said in the first reading this is a technical bill—as if that somehow lets the Government off the hook. By saying Well it's only a technical bill so we can just rush it through."—actually that is the very reason to slow it down and to at least take if not the six months that's provided for in the Standing Orders as the default position for legislation being considered the four months and two days. That would be the bare minimum that this House should consider without an unlimited-time debate on that issue. At least give them that much time to be able to tell us what they think about this and not have members of the select committee pretend that that's going to make a blind bit of difference because they want to know that the committee is listening to them and that Cabinet if they come up with some material changes that will improve the bill will have an opportunity to consider those. Although the objective process as we know is that it's Parliament that passes laws there's no doubt that the Government of the day has a considerable influence over whether or not changes being recommended by the select committee actually get through and that takes time as well. I know that from experience. So the idea that all of that can be done in the time that we are setting ourselves—what something like 6½ weeks it's going to take for the Clerk's Office to firstly advertise set a closing date receive submissions arrange for oral submissions for those who want to come and hear it get officials convened provide initial advice do all of the things that are necessary in order to give good support to the select committee in the consideration of this bill and then enable the select committee to report back to this House a meaningful report—and all of that's going to take place in 6½ weeks. That frankly is not only contempt for the public but it's contempt for this House because this process started about six or seven years ago. The Government gives itself—both Governments—six to seven years to think about what this bill should say but it gives the select committee six to seven weeks. So for every year that they have had to think about this the select committee and the public get one week. I think that metric says it all about the contempt that this Government has for a process of passing legislation that I for one think is very sound has stood the test of time and is robust enough that while there are occasions where we do need to hasten the passage of legislation it behoves us not to do that. The default position has to be that the length of time required to give best consideration to a piece of legislation is at least six months and it's not unusual for the Business Committee to hear from a select committee that says "We didn't have enough time." even then and for it to request an extension because they take that process seriously. Unfortunately this will not be a serious process. This will be a rushed process it will be a flawed process it's a contemptable process when it comes to the treatment of the public and this House and it is wrong. It should not be happening and I very strongly oppose it."