Lotu-Iiga Peseta Sam: New Zealand Productivity Commission Bill — Second Reading 
Lotu-Iiga Peseta Sam: New Zealand Productivity Commission Bill — Second Reading 
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PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the New Zealand Productivity Commission Bill. I thank the previous speaker Mr Cunliffe for making that speech. It should have been made at a barbecue at St Marys Bay over the summer. It was a speech full of rhetoric but with little in the way of substance because that speaker Mr Cunliffe was not present at the Commerce Committee hearings. In fact it looked as though he had not read the bill before he came into the House as my colleague Ms Shanks kindly pointed out. 
This bill will be one of the most important pieces of legislation that our Government will pass in this term. It is one of the most important pieces of legislation because we all know that productivity is a serious problem in this country—productivity leading to prosperity leading to jobs leading to opportunities and leading to a better standard of living in this country. Mr Cunliffe pointed out that throughout the 2000s when he was a Minister of the Crown and when he and his colleagues controlled the Treasury benches the productivity rates year on year from 1999 to 2008 were 1 percent per annum. One percent per annum is poor. He and his colleagues have to take some level of responsibility for the lack of productivity for the lack of growth and for the stagnant way that our economy went forward in some of the best economic conditions that our country has experienced over time. 
The biggest productivity growth rates in this country were in growth in bureaucracies. That is why this bill is very important. It is very important because it will provide the impetus for creating ideas for providing research and for looking at ways in which regulation and red tape can be cut. This bill is about inquiring into productivity-related matters and reporting back to the Government in order to formulate policy and formulate laws that will make this country rich and prosperous again. 
The roles and functions of the Productivity Commission will be modelled extremely closely on the Australian Productivity Commission. Our select committee had the privilege of hearing from Gary Banks who is the chairman of the Australian Productivity Commission. We heard about the way that the Australians are running their Productivity Commission and also about the pitfalls we might encounter in terms of how we proceed. As has already been stated we have a chairman designate. His name is Murray Sherwin and he has quite extensive experience in the private and public sectors particularly as the Director-General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. 
As has been stated the select committee worked quite closely across party lines in order to refine this bill. We worked closely in order to take the emphasis away from a focus on regulation and to leave open the types of productivity measures that might be relevant to the Productivity Commission. Independence was seen to be a critical feature of the Australian Productivity Commission. One of the recommendations that came back from the select committee was to explicitly allow for the Productivity Commission to negotiate with the relevant Ministers in terms of the terms of reference for any of the work that they would commission going forward. The other issue we focused on was provision for the functions and the role of the Productivity Commission to be quite wide. It is about reviewing the efficiency and effectiveness of regulatory agencies looking at and analysing the impact of regulations but also researching productivity-related matters to build up the institutional knowledge of the commission over time. There is also provision for the commission to work closely if it is relevant and if it is appropriate with the Australian Productivity Commission. 
The bill that has been presented back to the House has strong support I believe. Members will hear that from members of the select committee who were actually at the select committee. The bill has strong support across the various parties and it is a bill that I certainly recommend to the House.