O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Madam Deputy Speaker it may be some consolation to Kieran McAnulty the member who has just resumed his seat from that closure motion which is more appropriate for a committee stage that you may have used one of the first arguments I was going to put forward—and I hope it's not presuming to bring you into the debate which it's not. Unfortunately the Minister has not given this House—I was going to say adequate reason" but that in fact would be misleading. No reason was given to us and I'm disappointed in two ways. First and foremost there is comity in this House around this bill. No member during the first reading indicated any opposition to the bill whatsoever. There were some questions on technical issues that were being raised but all of us I would say were looking forward to engaging in a select committee process to discuss and robustly draw those out and then effectively a bombshell was dropped where all of a sudden we found that the process was to be expurgated or truncated down as my colleague Michael Woodhouse has said to two months.It's confusing in the first instance and I think it is contemptible in the second. And the second reason I am very concerned and very happy to take this call is as has been noted the Minister has given no particular reason. I think that would help this side of the House at least process and understand why this has happened. The silence unfortunately is—well for me personally—somewhat galling because we've gone through a series of speeches indicating that we need to hear people's voices; in fact a number of the first reading speeches when addressing the bill spoke about the voices of people to be heard. And yet we have a contradiction and I think it needs to be drawn out here and now that those voices maybe—maybe—will get to be heard but I think it'll be very very difficult.The first reason for that is we are dealing with an omnibus bill here. I have no intention of going through all 12 bills. I think that would be a waste of this House's time and a waste of this speech. But there are 12 bills which are to be affected here. That is almost if you will 12 very distinct groups who will be affected. And so it doesn't matter if it's from the Department of Corrections through to police to those who work in the probationary space through to—because of course we're primarily talking here about 17-year-olds who are going to be dealt with now in a very different way within our justice system. Those groups even in the first instance within Government ministries will want to speak; in fact I suspect many of them will want to have advisory roles and as other speakers have just touched on but not really in much depth that takes time. For those advisers to be brought together to discuss to engage with any feedback that's been produced they need time.We've seen a process now that is truncated and if we are to take the sitting calendar between now and the end of May we find we don't have an enormous amount of sitting. We're about to move into Easter soon. That actually takes out a number of weeks. The House is I think rightly distracted—rightly distracted—by the arms legislation going through. That's going to take an enormous amount of time. It won't immediately affect the Social Services and Community Committee but it is occupying a lot of the MPs' time. And it's illustrative of a process that's been started that in and of itself it is not a long period to the end of May but again when we look at how many days the House is sitting how many hours the select committee will be sitting during that time it's incredibly incredibly short. I think the other factor we need to bring in of course is we're approaching the Budget. As we move into May that's going to be a much further distraction putting a lot of MPs' time away. So I'm very concerned—very concerned—about how much time MPs will have to engage with those who are fortunate enough to get in front of the committee. As I say 12 pieces of legislation are going to be affected. We heard in the first reading speeches a number of people saying the voice of children is incredibly important. And as I say there was comity and agreement in this House that that's true. There's a funny symbolism a contradiction if you will that we are now actively as a House discussing how we can silence or reduce the amount of noise if you will that young people can make around us. I suspect they would come to this House or rather to the select committee and by and large agree with what's happening. But you cannot propose—or the Government cannot propose—a bill which purports to support and empower young people to have a voice and then set about a parliamentary process which reduces that. That is an inherent contradiction and one of the reasons why I'm standing to take a call here in the House.We had some suggest this bill is simply changing drafting errors. That is not the case. In fact we've had a hint from a speaker on the other side who's indicated there are policy changes. That's setting off a red light if you will in my mind and with others. If there are policy changes here that we have not seen or understood it's in a select committee process that we'll be able to draw them out and understand them much much better. But if we pick up on that drafting errors question—drafting errors come in because processes are rushed and you can I suppose mount the argument that even if a full process was used last time and errors have occurred one is not going to actually reduce the number of errors by making that even smaller. So I think that's incredibly worrying. Look of the last couple of points I'd like to make first and foremost is perhaps one around motive. There is concern from my side that the Government is very very keen to get legislation out of select committee as fast as possible because there isn't sufficient work for them on the Order Paper. Hard to prove this but it is a real concern in the dynamic of this House that the Government does appear to be struggling to get its legislation or get enough legislation on the Order Paper to keep the House busy. And we're seeing a slightly growing trend of moving things into select committee and then wanting them out of select committee as quickly as possible in order to continue the functions of the House and I think that's very very concerning. What adds to my suspicions there is that most of the legislation on the Order Paper is actually legislation proposed by the National Party—by the previous Government. There are some minor tweaks and changes but by and large they are bills which the Government knows will be well supported by both sides of the House and so rushing them through select committee means that they can come back to a committee stage which of course will take up a lot more time in the House backwards and forwards. But what I think it's important to note too—because it's been brought up often and unfortunately not in this case because no Minister has found it fit to take a call in the House—is "Well we'll just use a committee stage to debate the issues." There are two problems with that: one committee of the whole House stage is not the appropriate time to do that; it is select committee. Secondly the committee of the whole House is a whole lot of MPs talking to one another. And while I rate all members in this House what we are asking for is the appropriate time to allow the public of New Zealand to have their say. I'd put it particularly to those members opposite that have made a big big call about young people's voices that those members cannot make that statement—cannot make that statement—if young people do not get the opportunity.The last two points—first and foremost there is no need to rush this bill. I know that there is a starting date. I'm sure if a Minister takes a call they will do so. But fundamentally—fundamentally—they had an opportunity right from when they became Government to put this much much higher up the Order Paper. In other words if there is any blame or cause or reason why this has to be rushed it sits at the Government's feet. There was no need for us to be having to debate this today. I'd love to hear from the Minister if the Minister chooses to take a call—any of the Ministers to take a call—why this bill was not introduced months ago. It would have saved us having to rush up against the start date. It's possible that the Government didn't realise that the changes proposed were going to start midway through the year and they've been caught a bit short but I don't think that's the case. But I'd welcome the Minister if they have a chance to speak to address that. The final thing I'd like to add fits within this social development space. I think this is at least the third time in almost as many months that I've had to stand in this House and ask why we are truncating social development bills. We had it a few weeks ago around the winter energy payment and we had it a few weeks before that around a social rewrite bill. But I don't intend to relitigate those.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good.SIMON O'CONNOR: They are two further examples and unfortunately in the social services space where we are truncating processes and I said then and I'll say it again now that is what leads to errors and that is what leads us to have to return to this House and do more and more amendment bills. So I'll put on the table now that I think that if we as a House agree—or rather this House agrees by majority—to truncate this process to force it through we will end up having to come back in one way shape or form to amend Oranga Tamariki to amend this Act to amend these changes. It is too broad a bill. It's an omnibus bill affecting 12 pieces of legislation. Errors will occur but it is unfortunately a trend which is developing here. So I cannot speak in support of this motion. I would ask the Minister to reconsider and to allow a full time so that particularly the young people in New Zealand can have their say."