Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to prod I guess the Minister's view on Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 329 because throughout the select committee stage we did hear a really strong submission and obviously there's been a media campaign by Consumer New Zealand around consumer rights and relationships and the possibility to improve consumer rights as part of the amendments we're making in this bill. Basically one of the things that Consumer New Zealand was arguing is that we have fallen behind two other jurisdictions particularly the European Union in relation to the ability to legislate and put in regulations around protecting passengers in the case of delays or cancellations of flights. The SOP that we've put forward would effectively introduce a code of passenger rights—where the Minister would actually have the ability to design this to better protect consumers and it would basically allow the Minister to have a year to work with entities that would be appropriate to set this out.In the SOP we are taking into account the European Union's way of doing things as well as the input from Consumer New Zealand to also set out what the content of the code would have including things like how and when a carrier may deny a passenger boarding on a flight and carriers' obligations to offer assistance refund or pay compensation. We know that in Aotearoa consumers are not particularly well protected. I understand that some feedback has been received around the need to perhaps go through a completely separate legislative process. But I think what this SOP hopefully shows is that there is a way to incorporate it within the work that we are doing. So I'd like to hear from the Minister as to whether this could be an opportunity to improve consumer rights and if not whether the Minister has interest in advancing this work elsewhere.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Associate Minister of Transport): I appreciate and thank the member for his contribution. Indeed Supplementary Order Paper 329—that has been prepared in an area that's particularly significant: consumer protection rights.I note that the bill that's before the House tonight largely carries over the consumer protections from the current legislative regime and it clarifies the consumers' recourse to the disputes tribunal. It provides for regulations requiring airlines to inform passengers of their rights. The issue of a comprehensive consumer rights regulation scheme was raised in the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. At that stage no changes were made. The Supplementary Order Paper tonight would make such a code mandatory and is relatively prescriptive in terms of the matters that would need to be included. One of the issues that officials identified is that it didn't distinguish between international air transport where the code would need to be consistent with international obligations and with domestic travel. Consumer regulations—in essence they would need to be prioritised within the context of the overall civil aviation regulatory programme. It was the officials' view that extensive work would be required to determine what matters should be included in any such code to avoid any unintentional consequences in our domestic environment here in Aotearoa but a proposal put forward by the hard-working officials was that these types of regulations could be provided for in a regulatory systems transport amendment bill.