Sowry Roger: State Sector Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Sowry Roger: State Sector Amendment Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7288] 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (Deputy Leader—NZ National) 
: 
 This bill is a fairly small piece of legislation that we expressed some concern about when it was introduced well over 2 years ago and today for the first time we are seeing the Government’s Supplementary Order Paper amending it. That changes the whole nature of the title of the bill. We have before us a bill that is 12 pages long but today a Supplementary Order Paper has been introduced that is 13 pages long. We now have amendments on a Supplementary Order Paper that is of greater size than the bill itself. I suggest that this bill is no longer the State Sector Amendment Bill but the “State Sector (Retrospective) Amendment Bill”. 
We will be debating the bill at length as we go through it because now there are 13 pages of amendments that no one has had the opportunity to make any submissions on. Clearly the Greens or United Future agree with all the amendments that have been put on the Table and have decided that they are worthy of going into legislation but not worthy of public comment. State sector employees and the Public Service Association have been unable to comment on these amendments at all. 
I suggest that the name of the bill should be the “State Sector (Retrospective) Amendment Bill” because as we go into it we will see that one of the issues on the Supplementary Order Paper—in fact the very first issue we will be dealing with—is that the Department of Work and Income the Department of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Social Development will be “deemed to have come into force on 1 October 2001”. That means that the word “retrospective” should certainly be in the title. People picking up this legislation and seeing what we have passed—we will probably get around to that in August 2003—will see that the bill was deemed to have taken effect in 2001. That has got to be one of the worst retrospective pieces of legislation that this Parliament has seen. It is not reflected in the title at all. If the title were left as it is one would think that Parliament was passing legislation that Mr Mallard introduced several years ago. 
The title reflects the hatred the Government had a few years ago towards the then Department of Work and Income and its then chief executive Christine Rankin. That is why it brought in this bill. It wanted to move Government departments around at whim. It wanted to be unaccountable so that it could get rid of departments that had strong work ethics and were strong on forcing beneficiaries into the workplace—like Christine Rankin’s department was. But that Minister and the Government did not like that so it introduced this bill raced it into a select committee fired it back out and then let it sit—not for 1 week 1 month or 1 year but for over 2 years. Finally the Government woke up and with United Future agreement came to the House with 13 pages of amendments. 
Does United Future agree with amendments that are longer than the original bill? Is it happy with them? We do not know that. Has it seen them? They nod. United Future has seen them. Is it happy that the Public Service Association has not been able to comment on them? There is no comment. Is United Future happy that businesses in New Zealand have not been able to comment on the 13 pages of amendments? No it is not but I am quite sure that it will vote for the title without the word “retrospective”. I am quite sure that it will not vote for our amendments and there is complicity in that.