O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): We're late on a Thursday afternoon we're discussing the Regulatory Systems (Transport) Amendment Bill and on the surface it may seem that it's not an important piece of legislation but it's something that will actually affect everyone's lives. Often it's good to start with a little example of what this will do. I mean most law doesn't come through this House. Most of the things that affect people's day-to-day lives don't come directly through this House. Most of it appears in our lives through secondary legislation and through other ways in which officials can actually make the local laws. Just an example one thing this will enable is that currently if you have a road sign for example and it warns about a certain type of bird or it's a warning for motorists about a certain thing that you need to be very careful of—well currently there's quite a process to go through before you can put a new bird on there for example.I'll give you a really good example of that. Recently I was lucky enough to be in the Bealey Hotel which is in Arthur's Pass. Now some people may remember that that was the site of a possible sighting of a moa. A local character publican called Paddy Freaney—some thought perhaps looking through the bottom of a bottle of Irish whiskey but nevertheless it may well have been and it caused some stir to the extent that there was quite some worldwide interest. Now it may well have been that Mr Paddy Freaney and his friends late at night had seen a moa so it would've been very important to ensure that traffic going through there—and it's quite a lot of traffic; the Coast to Coast goes through there a lot of traffic—knew that there was a possibility they may hit a moa on the road. However under the current system it would've taken quite some regulatory approval to go right through a system before you could actually put a picture of a moa on the road sign to ensure that were there a moa there it wouldn't get run over. So there's some amount of levity in that but it just gives an example of why it is necessary to ensure that our regulation-making powers are as efficient as possible. But at the same time we need to balance that with making sure that local officials can't wildly go out there and just make regulations make local laws where there is no scrutiny.Now already in the speeches today there's been some discussion about the Regulations Review Committee here. Now some of us that'll get to sit on there—again one of those committees that until you sit on it you don't actually realise the importance of the work that committee actually does because they are the committee who ensure that this secondary legislation these regulations—that there is some scrutiny of them. But there's been another piece of legislation that's gone through this House to ensure that secondary legislation is actually—we actually have it all in one place because at the moment there is so much regulation so much information. Nobody actually knows—you could actually spend hours going through the regulation to look for it. So that's a piece of work that's actually going to be very important that will relate directly to this legislation because what it actually means now is that as these different regulations are made as these different little rules are made that actually were they not to be something that will enhance safety—not enhance our lifestyles but that will actually come back before that Regulations Review Committee—as I said before a very important committee—to ensure that they are the right regulations.Just another example of the type of thing that this regulation does is for example making sure that in the perhaps vehicles in the past—now when there's a fatal accident or road accident or serious accident police impound the vehicle and are required to examine it to get the evidence see what caused that accident. I myself drive a 1974 Austin 1300 which is a very simple vehicle and anyone—a mechanic—looking at it were they seeking to find any evidence from that vehicle they would very simply be able to do so. However I was also lucky enough to recently test drive a Tesla. Now although there are apparently only 15 moving parts on a Tesla I would imagine that were one of those vehicles to be involved in an accident it would actually require just a little bit more science more inspection and more research to ensure that the evidence available to support a prosecution proven or whatever the evidence was being sought—that they had that vehicle wrong. Currently that vehicle can only be impounded for seven days. Of course what this regulation will allow is to ensure that it's actually able to be impounded for 10 days which means over a week. It doesn't mean that the said vehicle will of course grow cobwebs and remain there for ever but it just does ensure that the necessary evidence is able to be found.Another thing in here—and again I'm very privileged to be the newly minted chairman of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee and we've been lucky enough today to have several entities come before us including Waka Kotahi and the Ministry of Transport. Now those bodies—very august bodies and again doing very very important work. These regulations will just again look at the numbers and makeup of those boards to ensure that those boards are actually effective. One of the small things that'll be effective: there'll be an odd number of members of the board so that should anything come to a vote then they won't be bogged down. Those of us who have been on perhaps select committees where one party doesn't have majority will know that sometimes very good law good regulations and good decision-making at those committees can be compounded by the lack of a majority on one side. So again that's a very important part of this.So again what on the surface of it looks like a very humdrum piece of legislation when one digs down deep into it you can see that actually it becomes a very important part of the work of this House. If there's nothing else that comes out of this that can force those members opposite—if they could stop sort of speaking at the tops of their voices and listen one thing they may learn is that they can go home back to their electorates for those who have them knowing that when they do have members of their electorates that come in complaining about what they will consider to be a very poor local regulation there is now within this legislation a means to ensure that there is at least some oversight—possibly not as directly as we would all like but certainly there's the ability of some oversight to ensure that those little laws become important. Even things like speeds in the harbour—it would be ridiculous to think we'd be debating such a thing in this House but on the other hand very important if you are from one of the many harbours around New Zealand where the number of recreational craft is increasing. It's important that the local harbourmaster have the ability to actually set these regulations. Any regulation particularly anything that ends up with an infringement around it of course becomes an instrument of the State so it's very important that there is that sort of oversight. Again coming back to—that's something that will be addressed.So I just leave it at that just to say that this is again in my as I say newly minted job as the chairman of the transport select committee—more and more understanding that the infrastructure of this country—to ensure that those who are tasked with keeping the country moving have the regulation the ability to do so but more importantly that this House directly or indirectly has the ability to scrutinise any of that regulation. I commend this bill.