Collins Judith: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3415. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): What a privilege it is to be able to speak to this most important bill the Standards and Accreditation Bill. I know it is important because of the quality and the length of the speeches that have preceded mine which of course will not be a read-out speech prepared for me by Winston Peters but in fact will be my own. Having said that if there were any doubt in the minds of the public as to the need for this bill all I would say to you is this: Labour the Greens and New Zealand First are against it; it has got to be good. If in doubt if they are for it be wary. They are against it. They started off being for it—I was a bit worried then—but now I know that we are on safe ground. Even though we have so much fun in the Commerce Committee with the really good-natured chair Melissa Lee the deputy chair Mr Brett Hudson and also my dear colleague across the tablefrom me Clare Curran—we have so much fun—I have to say that we do occasionally disagree. And that gives me hope because with total agreement in Parliament well that is not really democracy is it? It is the Opposition’s job to hold the Government to account and occasionally to let us know why we are here.I think it is just fantastic that the member who has resumed his seat is so concerned about this bill stopping trade. Well actually it is the other way round really. What this is about is actually saying: “Do you know? The standards people have been working really hard for a long long time.” That is the problem. It is taking too long for standards to come through—standards that are around trade and business—and this is a country of trade. So yes the legislation that this is going to replace has been around for a long time too—so long that even the previous Labour Government decided that it needed a review. What has happened between the previous Labour Government’s deciding that standards and accreditation legislation needed to be reviewed and changed and now? Well what has happened is actually about 7 years of Opposition for Labour—and that is about it really. It cannot find anything good to say so it is just not bothering to say it; unlike me of course who is always looking at the positives along with my colleagues on the Commerce Committee. I must say it is so good being the MP for Papakura—everything is positive apart from that terrible thing that we had the other day.Having said that seriously standards and accreditation are important. They are important for business. They are actually very important for our consumers. We are all consumers are we not? We all expect certain standards but actually in most cases standards are not compulsory unless they are legislated for or regulated for. The previous speaker—and I am not going to try to remember who he is—said something about how so much of the working parts of the bill will be taken care of by regulations Order in Council and therefore will not be subject to the democratic process. He has not been in Parliament for very long so I am going to tell him this. We have the Regulations Review Committee actually and regulations can be reviewed by that committee. That is a very powerful committee of Parliament. It is so powerful that I have never been appointed to it. I am sure the Deputy Speaker has been though. [Interruption] Yes you are on the right side there. I never have been. It is just too powerful for someone like me. What that committee does is actually look at those regulations. It takes complaints from members of the public. It takes complaints from MPs. And it can actually bring about changes. I would say that it is a significant check on the executive and the power of regulation making so members should be aware of that and take that into account.One of the reasons why you would not want to have a bill like this with all of the detail about regulations and everything that we would have in regulations in it is because of the fact that it takes a long time for legislation to come through the House. The fact that this piece of legislation has been incubating since 2007 tells us that it takes an awfully long time for such contentious legislation to come through the House. What that says to us is that if you want anything changed you need to have the power to have it changed quickly—particularly when you are dealing with trade. If everything was fabulous in the whole standards sphere we would not be bothering with this would we? Really would we? The fact is no we would not. It is not fabulous because the legislation that is being repealed has been around since 1988. I do not think DNA was even being used in 1988. Everything has changed since then. The Testing Laboratory Registration Act is also being repealed and that is from 1972. People on the opposite side of the House will remember that year; that is the year Labour won. It was a big year. It was the year my family voted for Labour—about the last time but there you go.Having said that I think it is really important that we try to keep up to date with things. So I see no problem with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment having some responsibility. It does not mean that it is in charge of how the standards are made or of what standards are made but actually it means that you have a Minister who is responsible if there is not enough funding and if there are not enough standards coming through. I would say this to the Opposition: you will be able to really hold the Minister and the ministryto account.So I think that is a really good thing—Stuart Nash: Imagine holding a Minister to account.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Mr Stuart Nash MP for Napier says that is an excellent thing.Stuart Nash: Imagine holding a Minister to account.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well would that not be wonderful Mr Nash and while I think of it is it not great news standards-wise and accreditation-wise that the Hon John Banks has been exonerated today. Well what good news for justice coming through—fantastic. And I think all those people who thought such bad things about the Hon John Banks—my good friend—might now like to apologise. But there you go; that would require standards from the Opposition.Sue Moroney: A technicality—come on.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Yes and Miss Moroney says: “Come on.” Well I know Miss Moroney that you would not be up to it. But anyway I am sure Mr Nash would because he is the next leader of the Labour Party and I think it will be an interesting day when that happens.Quite seriously standards are really important for our trade. We are a little country. We are a trading nation. This is how we make the money that pays the taxes that by the way pay our salaries that pay for Working for Families and that pay those who are having to be dependent on the State. How we pay for things is actually by trade. We are never going to survive by trading with ourselves: 4.5 million people—fewer people than there are in Melbourne—are not enough for us to be able to survive on. We cannot all knit things that we want to buy from each other. It is not going to work like that. What we need to do is trade and we are competing against some massive markets and some really big players. If we look at some of the huge players that our exporters have to deal with and actually have to compete with we need standards about which they can in fact say: “These are New Zealand standards and these standards mean something.” It is all very well to say it has all been fine in the past but actually do you think the leaky home issue came about because of excellent standards? Really? [Interruption] Do you really think it did? Do you really think that that helped? I do not think it did at all.I think it is time for a Government to take responsibility for standards and this Government is putting its hand up and saying: “We will take responsibility.” That is a really good thing. We are not saying which standards should be approved. We are not saying how to do it. But we are saying that this is important and we are going to take responsibility.