Hudson Brett: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2174. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is an absolute pleasure—perhaps even an unbridled pleasure—to speak on this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). There are a lot of firsts being a first-term MP and this is my first chance to speak on an omnibus bill. I have to say it is a little daunting in fact to be dealing with measures that impact so many Acts at the same time—33 of them in fact. I am of an age when I can remember some of the traditional fairy tales and folk stories and the Valiant Little Tailor sprung to mind. Or for those who prefer animated features there is the Brave Little Tailor with Mickey Mouse where he got seven in one blow—they were giants of course or flies. Here we are dealing with 33 Acts—33 Acts in one legislative blow. It does show what Parliament can achieve when we all do work together when we are all on the same team so to speak and when we are all doing the things that we agree are necessary. Of course this bill is very much about tidying things up making small clarifications and making minor technical corrections—things that are non-controversial things that are generally non-complex and things that do have in fact unanimous support and not just broad support across the House.I do recall when this particular reading began that it was claimed in fact that we were dealing with 34 Acts and that we had tried to crib an additional Act but one of the members opposite the Hon David Parker pointed out that it was in fact only 33. He also pointed out that the Labour side of the House understands very deeply the significance of having one extra. Well I would like just to point out that right at the moment this side of the House has a very solid understanding of the significance of having one extra and in fact we have our organisation outside of this Parliament working extraordinarily hard to make sure that we get that significant one back. We understand how important it is.I go back to this particular significant one—or significant 33 in fact. We are amending and making corrections to a number of Acts. These are still important changes even though they may not be major or complex ones. For instance in the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and the Official Information Act we are amending around the area of the definition of legal professional privilege. Unfortunately the definition as it stood could have been interpreted to restrict legal professional privilege to circumstances where proceedings were in train or contemplated and that simply was not the intention behind those provisions in the first place. So it makes very good sense that members across the House would agree that this is the form that we could take to remove this.An area that I think is very very important where we are doing further amendments in this bill is the other area of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act and in fact the Official Information Act itself and that is around how we deal with Official Information Act and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests. There is potential at the moment under the way the system is managed where requests can in fact be made orally but the Government agency or local authority could then just choose to request that those requests are also put in writing. So it could actually use that as an abuse of the process to force a delay in that request being dealt with and responded to. That is not in fact a good thing at all and this bill will address that by ensuring that requests to put Official Information Act requests in writing can be made only if that is a necessary step to help to provide clarification as to what the official information request is actually about. I think that is a very very pragmatic way of ensuring that potential line of abuse is prevented.There is another area and I might even be the first speaker on this bill to bring this one up. There is a point and it is clarified that if there is an amendment or several amendments made to that initial request those changes will in fact be treated as new requests and each of them will then get the 20-day time frame to be addressed in but—and this is the really important part this omnibus bill is going to introduce—this will apply only if that authority or that agency can make a demonstrable effort to have sought that clarification within 7 working days. So if the agency or the authority has sat on that request and then decides it is going to get broken up or there is an amendment that will require a new request it will not get to sit behind a 20-day time frame if it cannot show that it actually attended to that request in a timely manner in the first place. I think that is really actually a significant change this bill is making. It may not be complicated it may not be complex and it may fit within the provisions of an omnibus bill but it actually is something that can have a real substantive change for people who do make Official Information Act requests. It is also providing that if an authority or an agency is going to say that a request cannot be attended to or cannot be responded to because the information cannot be found it actually has to provide some evidence that it has made a reasonable effort to find that information before declaring or decreeing that it is too hard to get. That is another very solid change in an area that is a well-used Act in New Zealand. You know people use that Act to get the information they need.There are others—in fact with 33 Acts there are a number of others. One I found quite interesting actually is a change to the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. The current provisions allow that when someone lodges a statutory declaration for a change of name they do not actually have to provide evidence as to who they currently are. So I could just imagine this just as a way of explanation or illustration. Across the House we would see the next Labour leadership challenge because history tells us they happen quite regularly and Grant Robertson—he is a potential contender—could have changed Mr Nash’s name to Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii because he would not have had to prove that he was Mr Nash and that could well have disrupted a Labour leadership challenge. So it is extremely good to see that we will in fact require those requesting a change to actually prove that they are the person who is going to make the name change request.There is another one that I draw on because basically nomenclature is very important. Under the Heavy Engineering Research Levy Act 1978 we are replacing the New Zealand Manufacturing Engineer’s Federation (Incorporated) with the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association Incorporated to reflect that the relevant body in fact has changed its name for the purposes of consultation. This is a very important thing. You could obviously say that the Act may not apply if it has changed its name but as we all know naming is extraordinarily important. One only needs to look at the difficulties that arise if one confuses for instance the Judean People’s Front with the People’s Front of Judea to know that nomenclature is a deeply deeply important thing so I am very pleased to see that we are addressing that.Simon O’Connor: Also a very naughty boy.BRETT HUDSON: Yes perhaps I am a very naughty boy but now on to something completely different. The Local Electoral Act extends by 7 days the time frame for completing pre-election processes. These are simple sound changes that mean that the Acts that we have—the enforcement and the compliance with them—make more sense for the real world that we all live in. That is an extremely positive thing to achieve in a bill such as this one.What I would like to say around this being the first time I deal with an omnibus bill is that it is extremely pleasing to be part of a process where we do have the universal support of the House. We all spend a great deal of time opposing each other’s views on many matters in this Chamber but this process is one where we can come together where we can recognise that there are things that need to be tidied up where we can make minor technical changes where we do not have to be in conflict and we do not have to oppose and where we will provide the public and the bodies that either use legislation or are required to comply with it with more accurate complete sensible and workable legislation for them to go about their business with. It is a great pleasure to be a part of this process and to speak on one of these bills for the first time. I commend it to the House.