Tisch Lindsay: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 5) — First Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 5) — First Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19587] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 National will be supporting the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 5). It is an omnibus bill that as the Minister said has 24 parts. We have been through the parts and are satisfied that we are comfortable with them. I want to draw the House’s attention to a very important part of this bill Part 7 which amends the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act of 2001. I bring that to the House’s attention because that Act has proved to be very successful legislation. We have seen the ability of private companies to start up. In my own area we have the Open Country Cheese factory which is doing extremely well. I have talked about that in previous debates. The amendment under Part 7 of the bill safeguards a company like Fonterra from having a run on its cash if farmers exit the industry. 
At the moment if a dairy farmer wants to exit the industry perhaps because of a change of farming practice or in order to supply another company—that is what the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act has allowed for and I mentioned Open Country Cheese as an example of that—then the company that is being supplied and Fonterra is the big one would need to pay out in cash for the milk supply shares of that farmer. That is how the situation stands currently. But if more than 5 percent of the milk supply from the whole of New Zealand were to disappear from Fonterra then there could be a huge run on the capital of that company. The amendment envisages that Fonterra would be able to issue redeemable preference shares in place of paying out cash. That would give the company some flexibility. It may well be that Fonterra could pay out in full the cash value of the milk supply shares but if more than 5 percent of the milk supply was affected and the company was unable to do that then instead it could issue redeemable preference shares. At some stage in the future Fonterra would need to pay out those shares to the farmers concerned but in the meantime it would pay a dividend on them. So this amendment—and the industry is fully supportive of it—gives companies like Fonterra an opportunity to have flexibility in the way they run their business. That is a sensible move and we support the amendment. 
I want to look at one other area in particular: Part 6 which concerns the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act of 1995. We note that clause 19 of the bill amends the definition of “suitably qualified person” in that Act by removing the word “registered” from the term “registered nurse”. Some of the questions we will want to have answered during the select committee process concern the implications of that. Who will actually be able to take samples when the word “registered” is removed from the term “registered nurse”? Who is a person suitably qualified to take bodily samples? We will want answers to those questions during the select committee process. I am on the Government Administration Committee and I am flagging now that we will be interested in that area. 
I think clause 21 is an important clause as well. It states the position that persons who are of or above the rank of sergeant can apply for an arrest warrant to detain a person for the taking of a bodily sample. At the moment the legislation states that only those who are above the rank of sergeant can apply for a warrant. So there is a distinction here. The legislation will now allow sergeants to apply for a warrant whereas as the position currently stands only those who are above the rank of sergeant can do so. A lot of stations do not have people of above the rank of sergeant which is a very high position in the police force. Certainly in rural areas like the area I come from the rank of sergeant is the controlling rank in a particular station. So that amendment is a sensible move and it is another one that we support. 
I just make the point however that the Government is using Statutes Amendment bills more than I have ever before seen as a means to correct legislation that it did not get right the first time. When we move on to the debate on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) I will make some strong points as to the process the Government follows. Although we are comfortable with the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 5) if at any stage the Government tries to bring in late amendments and Supplementary Order Papers without consultation then we will come down hard on it. It is an abuse of the process and it is something we do not agree with. When we move on to debate the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) I will make those points. 
We will support the referral of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 5) through to the select committee. The amendments it makes are sensible ones. Our spokespeople have looked at them and confirmed that they are in order so we will support the bill.