Clark David: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5045. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): That act from Mr Faafoi is going to be a hard one to follow with his excellent suggestions for alternative titles. I however wish to attempt a few of my own and one of them is to draw attention to the fact that we discovered in the fine print of schedule 2—in a Supplementary Order Paper that we did not really have an opportunity to discuss at length because of other pressures—a concern that vulnerable workers’ rights are removed in this bill. The ability to contest the nature of employment with the transitional arrangements is not protected in the bill. It is explicitly ruled out in that schedule so we may actually say that this is the “Standards and Accreditation (And By the Way Removal of Vulnerable Workers’ Rights) Bill”. The slipping in of that particular little line there is rather mean-spirited I think. Some of my colleagues have agreed with me and I suspect many people watching at home will agree that targeting those who formerly worked for the accreditation committee that will now transfer to the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and ruling some of them out from taking any action based on what they perceive to be an injustice in the transfer is a pretty mean-spirited step. So we may give it that alternative title just to make people aware that that is part of the Government’s agenda here.Part of the Government’s agenda beyond this bill I would suggest is to remove the protection for vulnerable workers. It really is a shame and there is no need for it I would suggest in this bill. Some of the other provisions in it are designed in part to cover that off but just to make it perfectly clear the Government put a special clause in there to say that Part 6A of the relevant employment legislation does not apply—i.e. vulnerable workers cannot go back to that protection if they feel hard done by in this transition. So we could make that point by putting that in brackets in the title of the bill.To raise another thing that has been brought up in the debate the “Detraction from Our International Reputation and Influence Bill” may be another title that we could adopt given that we have seen in the bill that the change in structure will interrupt the existing successful arrangements we have whereby members of the existing committee participate in international fora. We have seen in the submissions process in the select committee that that will be less highly prioritised. So we may choose a title for the bill that reflects that change in emphasis that focus on collecting of fees for the setting of standards and accreditation from successful existing industries and the likely lower priority given to new and emerging industries as this Government seeks to protect entrenched interests over those that are coming through—those that would diversify the economy; those that may actually grow the economy in a way that protects it and ensures that our future prosperity is protected.I would be interested in the Minister in the chair the Hon Paul Goldsmith taking a call on this because he has not addressed this problem in the debate in my view and he could probably quite well address it in this particular title and commencement debate which lends itself to a quite wide-ranging debate within the confines of the nature of describing a bill but none the less wide enough that the Minister in the chair could give I am sure an illuminating response if he had one at his disposal. But we shall see. That test will remain.We could also call it the “Standards and Accreditation (And By the Way ‘Henry VIII’ Clauses Slipped In As Well) Bill” because that is another point that has been well made in the debate—that there are clauses that are very wide ranging in this bill that appear at the end that give the Minister the ability to hire and fire and that allow the Minister to make some quite significant changes. They were referred to by my colleague the Hon David Cunliffe in his contribution to the debate. So we have seen that in this legislation there are many things that reflect the Government’s wider agenda and that sense of being a little bit arrogant a little bit out of touch. It thinks it can pop things in here that wipe out protection for vulnerable workers. It thinks it can slip things in here that give the Minister or others rights to do away with the usual parliamentary process with the “Henry VIII” clauses when it wishes. Also we have seen here that arrogance in the ignoring of the advice to select committees from industry representatives—that sense of being out of touch with where industry is today.