Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you very much Madam Chair and could I just begin by acknowledging the previous speaker the Hon Meka Whaitiri who recently became the chair of the Justice Committee and say how much I appreciate the very even-handed way in which she is performing that task. I think it is a committee facing some challenging issues but I do appreciate the leadership she's bringing. Can I also acknowledge Raymond Huo who's in the Chamber who was of course the chair of the Justice Committee at the time that this bill was being considered and he would have chaired the submissions. Like the Hon Meka Whaitiri I was not a member of the Justice Committee at the time that the bill was being considered so we're both at a little bit of a disadvantage but nevertheless it's an interesting piece of legislation it's an important piece of legislation but as the Leader of the House noted it's also an extraordinarily dry piece of legislation and so I think the next acknowledgement should be to the Leader of the House for managing to stand up and speak for five minutes with barely a reference to a note and to sound as if he had a fairly good idea of what he was talking about. I should also acknowledge my very learned and distinguished young colleague Christopher Penk the member for Helensville. His was a very erudite contribution. I'm not sure that I'll be able to match it. In fact I think rather like my far from illustrious cricketing career I suspect I won't be troubling the scorers for all that long.But it is important just to put on record once again that the National Party is supporting the bill. That won't come as any surprise to people who are aware of its history because it is a National Party bill. It was drafted after the considerable work of the Hon Christopher Finlayson and the officials who worked with him and I want to acknowledge all of them for their contribution to it. I also want to put on record that the Attorney-General the Hon David Parker—and I commend him for having picked up the bill and for continuing with it—is today moving Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 394. So there are a couple of amendments and the National Party will also be supporting those. I'm hoping that the Leader of the House while he's in the chair may be able to give us a little bit of an explanation as to the exact reason for the motion in it: That the enacting words clauses 1 and 2 Parts 1 to 7 and Schedules 1 to 4 be a separate Bill and that the enacting words and clauses 1 and 2 be replaced with: …" and so on it goes. I hope that he'll give us the benefit of his considerable knowledge and enthusiasm for the reason for that.But I also note that the commencement dates are quite interesting under clause 2(1)(b): "the rest of this Act comes into force—(i) on 1 or more dates set by Order in Council; or (ii) to the extent not brought into force earlier on the fifth anniversary of the date of Royal assent." And that is a fairly unusual provision to find in a piece of legislation. There's certain to be very good reasons for it but I'd welcome the Minister's explanation for that slightly unusual matter. We had a discussion in the second reading yesterday of some of the key features of the bill and I drew attention to the recommendation of the select committee to produce an exemption for council-controlled organisations because I did think that that was an example that those listening to this debate who may really be struggling to understand what it's all about might have been able to relate to because it essentially showed that over time with the way in which technology and other advances have changed our access to legislation we had the slightly extraordinary position where Auckland Transport could do something in one way but the Auckland Council effectively touching on the same matter had to deal with it in a different way. And so it is of course appropriate that this bill attempts to deal with that. Just another couple of matters in the remaining time that I have available: I would invite the Minister to explain how the bill will improve the quality of law in New Zealand by making agencies subject to certain legislative disclosure requirements when developing Government-initiated legislation because that is an important provision in it. We also note that the bill will conclude the Government's implementation of recommendations that actually arose from the Law Commission's work back in 2008 regarding the presentation of New Zealand statute law and so it is something that has been considered over a decade and more obviously that work was initially instigated under the period of the previous Labour Government led by the Rt Hon Helen Clark. So I can see that there's been a lot of continuity obviously a lot of thought has gone into it and I'd welcome the Minister's insight into that. And perhaps also the Minister might like to respond to the recommendation of the committee to amend and add transitional provisions in the bill to implement the access to the secondary legislation project in stages—and that obviously is partly relating to the SOP—in particular the requirements for lodgement and publication of secondary legislation. I'm not sure how much enthusiasm the Leader of the House has for those challenges but there are a few opportunities. And Madam Chairman I can assure you I won't be troubling you again on this subject this evening."