Davis Kelvin: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — Second Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — Second Reading 
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KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. He mihi hoki tenei ki a koutou o Ngati Manawa me Ngati Whare. Tena ra koutou. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker. This salutation is to you as well Ngati Manawa and Ngati Whare. Welcome 
.] 
The Rugby World Cup is the third-largest sporting event in the world third only to the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. This comes from a diehard rugby fanatic: everybody in this House and everybody watching this debate needs to realise that the on-field results of the Rugby World Cup are not what is most important for New Zealand. Now do not get me wrong I really want it to be Richie McCaw who this time next year lifts the Webb Ellis trophy above his head. I do not know whether I can take another 4 years with a thick cloud of despair hanging over my head and I really hope it is Richie McCaw who lifts that trophy next year. 
But it is not about the rugby. What is most important about the Rugby World Cup next year are the 3000 media people who will arrive on our shores; media people with their pens poised to write stories about New Zealand and their cameras poised to take photographs and hours and hours of footage of New Zealand. Those people will be travelling from north to south east to west and all around New Zealand experiencing our landscapes our people and our unique Maori culture and heritage. They will be visiting our art galleries our museums and our vineyards. They will be participating in activities all around New Zealand and in between that they will even get to watch a bit of rugby. Those 3000 media people will be portraying New Zealand to an audience of 4 billion people and if we can get just 1 percent of those 4 billion people to say New Zealand is a place they really want to visit and if 1 percent of them come to New Zealand in the next 10 years then the Rugby World Cup will have been a real success for New Zealand. 
Aside from those 3000 media people 70000 to 80000 visitors will land on our shores and do exactly the same thing: they will travel north to south and east to west. They will go to the museums vineyards and art galleries and they will sit in our cafes. They will participate in all the activities that will be organised around the Rugby World Cup. They will meet our people and experience Maori culture. When they go back we want them to tell a dozen of their mates that they missed out on the experience of a lifetime and that they need to come down to New Zealand. If we can achieve that if they tell their friends and families to come down to New Zealand then the Rugby World Cup will have been a success for New Zealand. 
What we cannot afford are any “Delhi moments” or people visiting or watching saying “Crikey! New Zealand was disorganised it was chaotic and it was not prepared for us.” That is why the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill is good legislation bar one point. We want to work with the Government to make sure that the Rugby World Cup is a success. We want to make sure that everybody who comes here goes back and tells the rest of the world what a great place New Zealand was to visit how highly organised it was that everything shone and was polished and that everything worked really well. 
But as my colleagues have explained we have one issue with this bill and we would like that issue to be ironed out. We believe that we need to remove the ability the Minister for the Rugby World Cup has under this legislation to override any decision of the Rugby World Cup Authority. We have asked what possible credibility the Minister could have over and above that of the Rugby World Cup Authority which is made up of a judge lawyers and other experts and people with experience in their particular fields. We would expect the Minister to defer to those people and their wisdom and experience and follow their recommendations on any particular issue. The Government has not been able to describe a situation yet where unfettered power is necessary but it still insists that the power remain. As clause 51(4) says in Part 4 “A decision of the Minster under this section is final”. That means it does not matter how rational and reasonable an argument may be or how good it is if the Minister does not like that argument then he can say no to it. There is no right of appeal; there is no right to any come-back. We believe that unfettered power is unnecessary. We believe that there is an inherent danger in one Minister having unfettered power. I guarantee that if we swapped sides and there was a Labour Government over there and a National Opposition over here and we were debating the same issue National would also be raising it with us. The only difference is that we would listen to National. 
The argument of John Hayes that the Minister’s involvement will hasten the process is flawed. He claims that after the authority has made a decision on any application the Minister can consult with various Ministers perhaps the Minister for Economic Development or the Minister of Police. Well it will not streamline the process if the Minister listens to a recommendation and then goes off to consult with three four or five—or however many—other Ministers. This simply adds steps to the process and in no way streamlines or speeds the process up. Therefore the notion that granting the Minister unfettered powers will make a decision quicker is nonsense. 
When Mr Hayes’ argument ran out of steam and puff he just flung that good old Tory endearment at us that Labour was being a nanny State. I do not quite understand that. Here we are arguing for an organisation’s decision to have standing and mana and he was arguing for the Minister to have unfettered power and to override the decision of the authority—and he is calling us nanny State. 
At the Committee stage of this bill Labour in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard intends to introduce an amendment that will provide that the Minister may not grant an urgent approval that has not been recommended by the authority. This will introduce greater democratic oversight to the urgent approval process. 
It is important that the Rugby World Cup is highly organised. It is important that we put on our best show for the rest of the world. It is important that we do not have any “Delhi moments” where we are disorganised and chaotic and things are not organised properly. But we can make sure that all that organisation happens under this legislation without the one part that we disagree with which is the part that gives the Minister unfettered power to overrule any decision of the authority. Unless we have ironed that out the Labour Party will not support this bill. I think National needs to seriously consider that small part of the bill. Kia ora.