Clendon David: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — In Committee 
Clendon David: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:14830] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a brief call on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill simply to once again voice the Green Party’s opposition to this bill as we have opposed it from its introduction and to touch on some of the reasons for that as we go through Part 1. As has just been noted the purpose of the legislation is to expeditiously allow for reasonable facilities and activities necessary for the proper conduct of a rugby tournament. After all that is what we are talking about. The Rugby World Cup in its essence is a series of rugby games that will be held over a number of weeks. There will be one ultimate winner and we all share an aspiration as to who that winner might be. But I think we ought not to get too engaged in suggesting there is something incredibly complex unexpected or unusual about the task of organising a rugby tournament. Clearly it is a very large event notably the largest sporting event held in this country and for that reason it is different in scale but not in type. 
We see further down that this bill will empower the making of regulations establish activities and facilities and so on “in circumstances of urgency that for good reason were not foreseen”. In earlier speeches I have challenged and I continue to challenge and question why significant elements aspects facilities and activities will not be foreseen. From the point at which New Zealand was granted the right to host the cup to the date of the first game was a 6-year window of opportunity to get it right. We are quite good at sporting events in this country. We are quite good at managing events and at project-managing in this country. We have struggled from day one to understand why we need legislation that can be fairly described as Draconian to make up for the perceived lack in our ability to organise a sporting event. The word “Draconian” is often used and is probably overused but I believe that certain specific aspects or provisions of this bill richly deserve the term “Draconian”. I think some serious thought ought to be given to this. I am pleased that the Labour Party has come onside in terms of opposing the bill based on its having gone at least one and indeed several steps too far away from reasonable public participation reasonable fairness and reasonable application of the power of this Parliament and of laws. 
Part 1 introduces the point that later on there will be significant discussion about liquor licences. We have a quite robust Sale of Liquor Act in this country. As set out it very readily facilitates one-off or special events—ancillary events as were referenced earlier. Many of us have been involved in clubs organisations service clubs and schools where we may have personally facilitated the application for and the granting and fulfilment of a special licence. It is not a difficult thing to achieve and we fail to understand why the entire Sale of Liquor Act must be overturned or put aside to facilitate these apparently unforeseen urgent applications. We know when the games will be played. We know where they will be played. We can make reasonable assumptions about what sorts of events might usefully be organised and put on to support these games. 
Again we struggle with the notion that we need to overturn the Sale of Liquor Act and put in place much less participatory or accessible legislation that will limit people’s ability to have a say in what actually goes on. There is a question on that point. The interpretation of “public notice” in this bill states: “public notice—(a) means a notice published by the Authority on an Internet site to which members of the public have free access;”. That is a completely inadequate definition of a public notice. It puts the onus on members of the public to constantly monitor a particular Internet site in order to even know what is being proposed possibly over the fence from where they live or work and where their families or communities live or work. There is an expectation that there will be multiple venues and multiple channels for a public notice where laws are to be changed modified or amended. Having a single posting on a single Internet site is completely inadequate and does not meet the test of fairness or access to participation.