Hayes John: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — In Committee 
Hayes John: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15118] 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill to discuss the title. As all of my colleagues on this side of the Chamber would understand I am Murray McCully’s greatest fan. In almost every situation I would totally agree with everything he said but on this occasion I wonder whether the Minister for the Rugby World Cup has the correct title for the bill. I wonder whether it should be called the “Labour in Chaos Bill”. It occurs to me that the title of this bill may be being used by competing factions in the Labour Party to begin to run a coup against Mr Goff. We had a split vote on the bill just before tea and the Labour Party is unable to name the people who abstained from voting on it. 
Is it that we have the Mallard faction? Is it that we have the Goff faction? Is it that we have the Shane Jones faction? Is it that we have the Mr Cunliffe faction? Clearly there are four people on the other side of the Chamber who have voted or at least abstained from voting in a way that does not support their leader. This is a very surprising development. 
It may also be that this bill could be called the “Mallard (Sour Grapes) Bill”. I suspect that if Mr Mallard were the Minister for the Rugby World Cup today he would be entirely supportive of the empowering of the Minister to make sure that the Rugby World Cup event is absolutely successful because its success is really important for New Zealand’s global brand and for our economy. 
It is quite interesting to look at the scrambling that is going on on the other side of the Chamber and work out who is in what faction because clearly there is a lot of disharmony on the other side. Four people have moved from the main reason that the Labour Party was voting and they are abstaining presumably because they do not agree with Mr Goff or Mr Mallard or Mr Jones or Mr Cunliffe. I invite the whip on that side of the Chamber to put us out of our misery or at least tell us what is going on. 
I come back to the point of this empowering bill. I am quite sure that if Mr Mallard were the Minister concerned with 85000 people coming from overseas and millions of people watching on television he would not allow New Zealand to be showcased in a way that was not appropriate. The point of this bill is that it does not change the criteria for issuing liquor licences. It will allow the temporary streamlining of Government regulatory processes to ensure the tournament and the many activities that support it can be organised as effectively as possible. When discussing this issue earlier in the House I have drawn attention to what has happened in the Wairarapa with the La De Da concert which was scheduled to take place in Martinborough on New Year’s Eve. We do not want the circumstances affecting the Martinborough concert to happen with the Rugby World Cup. 
In the Martinborough case a council initially told the organisers of this concert that they would not need resource consent as would have been the case if this event had been run in Masterton but now the council has suddenly discovered that it can ankle tap this concert. It will ankle tap the 12000 people who have paid more than $100 and up to $350 for a ticket and it will say that resource consent costing $50000 is needed. 
We cannot afford this situation to arise with an event as important as the Rugby World Cup which is why we must empower the Minister to break through the bureaucratic nonsense nanny State-ism and red tape that could potentially stand in the way of this event which is vital for the New Zealand economy. I particularly want to say that we are not going soft on the liquor process; in fact the bill provides additional requirements for that. Thank you.