Little AndrewSTATUTES AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Health) on behalf of the Associate Minister of Justice: I present a legislative statement on the on the Statutes Amendment Bill.DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move That the Statutes Amendment Bill be now read a second time.As the House will be aware statutes amendment bills are legislative vehicles that make small technical and non-controversial amendments to a number of Acts. These bills allow amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to be progressed individually. This bill as reported back amends 41 primary Acts administered by various Government agencies. Each of the amendments in the bill have received unanimous cross-party support and it's interesting to see the proposed amendments in the Statutes Amendment Bill. They are as my introduction acknowledged small discrete changes: anything from modernising a bill—references for example to doctor's surgery" in the Maritime Transport Act 1994 of all things now become "medical centre"; and likewise in the Railways Act 2005 the reference to "registered post" is removed because of course that no longer exists. It's important that legislation keeps up with the times and when only small discrete amendments are required this is the basis on which that happens. So it's an efficient way of using the House's time to do small but necessary and vital changes to important pieces of legislation.This bill was reported back by the Governance and Administration Committee on 8 August this year. I want to thank the committee and the chair Ian McKelvie for the careful consideration that the committee gave to the bill. The committee received and considered 16 submissions on the bill including one late supplementary submission. It is surprising sometimes to see that even with very small discrete noncontroversial changes to legislation people are motivated and energised and animated enough not only to make one submission but to make more than one submission including a supplementary submission. I know that is a measure of the robustness of democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand today. For that we should be most grateful.Two submissions that were part of the original 16 not the late supplementary submission supported the intent of the respective amendments. Four submissions opposed specific parts of the bill or indeed the entire bill. I don't have a full rundown of the detail of that. But again people are taking a close interest in what is passing through this House and what is being done in their name. And some people are for things and other people are against them. The remaining submissions commented on matters that didn't relate to the bill and that's not unusual and that's fine. But of course that can't come into the consideration of this particular bill.The committee did not recommend making any changes to the bill based on the submissions which is not to say that the time spent by those submitters was fruitless. It was them participating in our democracy. I'm sure although I haven't had any advice specifically on the matter that members of the committee would have been well informed by those submissions and would have given due consideration to them. But they weren't necessarily persuasive enough to lead to a change to any aspect of this bill and the changes to 41 pieces of legislation that it makes.The committee's report does recommend two changes to the bill as it was introduced. The first change is to include a new amendment to the Ngāti Manuhiri Claims Settlement Act 2012. In settlement legislation there is a statutory encumbrance which provides for Māori to have a right of access to protected sites as defined by the New Zealand Heritage List. There is a development opportunity that Ngāti Manuhiri wish to pursue in a discrete area of the South Mangawhai Forest. Heritage New Zealand has confirmed there are no sites that meet the definition of protected sites within the discrete area. The encumbrance therefore has no practical effect. So this amendment will remove the statutory encumbrance from this discrete part of the Mangawhai Forest and this will enable Ngāti Manuhiri to fulfil their post-settlement aspirations. This amendment meets the criteria of a statutes amendment bill because it is as I said at the beginning small technical and non-controversial. This amendment the House will be pleased to know received cross-party support earlier this year.The second change recommended by the committee is to remove the amendment to the Unit Titles Act 2010 as apparently it is no longer required. The same amendment was made by the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022 which received Royal assent on 9 May 2022.I do just want to take my hat off too to the staff of the Clerk's Office who have to keep track of all these sorts of things not only individual and discrete pieces of legislation like the Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2022 but also the statute amendment bills that come through and make sure that everything lines up and nothing crosses over each other. So I just want to acknowledge that that takes a fierce amount of organisation and diligence and paying attention and understanding what's going on and the Clerk's Office does a terrific job in supporting the business of this House and ultimately supporting effective democracy in New Zealand.In summary this bill will provide much needed changes to the statute book. The amendments will ensure that New Zealand's legislation operates efficiently and effectively. I endorse the recommendations of the committee. Again I thank the committee for its considered work. I look forward to the passage of the bill through its remaining stages. And although ordinarily I'm not the Minister in charge of this bill I will actually now having read these notes keep very close tabs on the future progress of this bill. I think this will be a remarkable achievement of the House as it passes this bill eventually with the level of unanimity—can you have a level of unanimity?—with the unanimity that it has so far received because that again is a celebration of wonderful things that can happen when everybody thinks together. I look forward as I said to this matter coming to a conclusion. On that note I commend the bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: It's good that such enthusiasm survives two sitting weeks! The question is that the motion be agreed to."