Wong Pansy: Standards and Conformance Bill — In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Standards and Conformance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:634;Page:5396] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I am actually surprised because the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel is well known for being upfront in taking calls. She is about the only Minister on the Labour front bench who is prepared to answer questions and I think that the two questions posed by my colleague the Hon Nick Smith are very good ones. I am concerned about the fact that in June two members of the Standards Committee were sacked simply because they voted against lowering the standard for building materials. My concern extends then to what would happen to the Auditor-General who actually raised the issue that the Labour Party used taxpayers’ money illegally in the election campaign. I am coming back to the bill but there is a concern if appointed members of a committee get sacked simply because they want to maintain a higher standard about who then is left to hold the Government to account. 
I also want to pose some more questions relating to Part 1. This part increases the functions of the Standards Council to include the development of standards that promote social responsibility. The term “social responsibility” is very subjective and I have a horrible vision of our officials from the Ministry of Economic Development holding hands with international delegates and conducting strategic conversations in order to develop a social responsibility standard. 
I have suddenly found in the last financial review of the Ministry of Economic Development that there is a buzzword and a communication strategy that apparently each Government department is conducting—that is not just a conversation but a strategic conversation. I was very interested in this and I asked the officials what “strategic conversation” means. It is a term that is actually contained in the objectives of a Government department’s mission statement. Apparently the Ministry of Social Development states in regard to “strategic conversation”: “A less technically sophisticated evaluation that can add more to the strategic conversation is of more value than a technically sophisticated evaluation whose results may distract from ensuring the most strategic use of resources.” 
I ask my colleagues whether any of them understands that statement. I thought that another Government department might be able to enlighten me as to this term “strategic conversation”. The Ministry of Economic Development states: “Our attention has turned to improving the quality of strategic thinking and conversation. As part of this we have put more focus on synthesising research to distil the implications for our strategy.” I ask my good colleagues on my side of the Chamber whether any of them is any the wiser about the term strategic conversation. 
We are going to elevate strategic conversation to an international level in order to develop standards that will promote social responsibility. I would like the Minister to take a call and say how much more compliance implication that would impose on business or on anybody trying to adhere to or develop eventually a social responsibility standard. The Minister is the one who claimed sometime in June that she was conducting a dynamic review on the compliance burden particularly horizontal vertical strategic—who knows? She is doing this particularly for small-business people and I want to know what the implication of these new objectives will be for the Standards Council. What sort of a standard will be developed to promote this so-called social responsibility issue?