Guy NathanSTATUTES REPEAL BILLSecond ReadingHon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries) on behalf of the Minister for Regulatory Reform: I move That the Statutes Repeal Bill be now read a second time. This bill repeals or partially repeals 137 Acts that are no longer needed because they no longer have any actual effect or have very limited effect or are designed to achieve regulatory outcomes that are no longer relevant. By helping clear the statute book of some unnecessary legislation this bill forms part of the commitment made by this Government to improve the regulatory environment in New Zealand as outlined in the Government's response to the Productivity Commission report on regulatory institutions and practices. While this bill is only one part of that commitment it is a part that should be of particular interest to this Parliament because of our role as makers of legislation.Statutes repeal has not been an area of great focus for New Zealand in the recent past. Indeed it has been over a century since the last statutes repeal bill was passed back in 1907. However that does not make this type of bill inconsequential. To quote the United Kingdom Law Commission which has advanced 19 statute repeal bills since 1965 repealing more than 3000 Acts: The purpose of our statute law repeals work is to modernise and simplify the statute book reduce its size and save the time of lawyers and others who use it. This in turn helps to avoid unnecessary costs. It also stops people being misled by obsolete laws that masquerade as live law. If an Act still features in the statute book and is referred to in text books people reasonably enough assume that it must mean something."The Acts repealed by this bill vary substantially in their original purpose and span many major events in New Zealand's history. The oldest Act in the bill is section 4 of the Wellington City Reserves Act of 1871 which is one of five 19th century Acts contained in this bill. The bill also repeals legislation responding to the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake several pieces of legislation that reconstructed the public sector in the 1980s and more recently legislation that enabled the very successful hosting of the 2011 Rugby World Cup here.The bill also repeals latent legislation. The term "latent" is used to describe Acts that have been passed but have not yet been brought into force—in other words laws that are in legal limbo. Since the Government has no intention of bringing those enactments into force it is desirable to repeal them. This enables administrators business and other users to plan and act with certainty as to what is and will be the law reducing the costs of compliance and doing business in New Zealand.This bill has been through substantial consultation which has been useful in both finding additional Acts to repeal and ensuring that no repeals in the bill have unintended consequences. An exposure draft of the bill was released publicly in October 2015 and responses from the public helped the Government more thoroughly consider the bill before its introduction.The Government Administration Committee chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson finished its review of the bill in March. I thank the committee for its good work. It received only four submissions but this was not unexpected in view of the earlier public consultation on the exposure draft when 16 submissions were received. The committee has unanimously recommended that five additional Acts be repealed in the bill. These Acts were identified by submitters to the select committee which shows the value of public participation in this process.In particular I am pleased to see that this bill is of use to Wellington City Council which had been seeking to repeal the Wellington City Reserves Act of 1872 and one section in the Wellington City Reserves Act of 1871 but was unable to do so through the Wellington Town Belt Act of 2016.Grant Robertson: What a brilliant piece of legislation that was too.Hon NATHAN GUY: I remember that one because it was a local Act. Having local government as well as central government in keeping the body of legislation up to date and fit for purpose reinforces the usefulness of this exercise.One submitter expressed concern about the repeal of the Sentencing Council Act of 2007 through a statutes repeal bill suggesting that it was a serious constitutional matter. However the select committee received advice that the Sentencing Council Act has no actual effect because the Government has not created the sentencing council and it decided some time ago that it would repeal this legislation when the appropriate legislative vehicle arose. Whilst a separate repeal bill for the Sentencing Council Act would allow more parliamentary time to be devoted to scrutinising that particular aspect of the bill it would result in substantially more use of parliamentary resources. It would also further delay its repeal and create more uncertainty for the legal community and I am sure no one in this House wants to do that. That is why the Government continues to support the repeal of the Sentencing Council Act through this bill.Some of the members of the select committee raised concerns about the repeal of the latent provisions as I have already mentioned of the Medicines Amendment Act 2013 because those provisions have a default commencement date of 1 July 2017. Following Government decisions in respect of the regulation of therapeutic products in New Zealand it is neither necessary nor desirable to bring the latent provisions of the Medicines Amendment Act 2013 into force. Repealing those provisions in the bill rather than in a stand-alone bill represents a substantial saving of parliamentary resources. The Government will address these issues more thoroughly through a therapeutic products bill that will be released for consultation later this year.This will not be the last statutes repeal bill. While 137 full or partial repeals represent a substantial achievement there are over 1900 Acts in force in New Zealand including local and private Acts and more of these will be redundant. We know that over time more Acts will outlive their original purpose and become redundant. My colleague the Attorney-General also regularly reviews latent legislation to see whether it can brought into force or indeed repealed. Repealing redundant laws is just one part of the wider work we are doing to improve the quality of law that governs New Zealanders. Regulation is not the highest-profile topic in Government but it affects all New Zealanders because otherwise things that are not well done through the House can cause a problem.I am confident that this bill along with initiatives like the regulatory reform task force and the recently released regulatory reform strategy will help improve our overall environment and reduce red tape and compliance costs for Kiwis and New Zealand businesses. For the first time New Zealand has ranked first in the world for doing business in the World Bank 2017 report following two second-placings in preceding years which is well done. The report highlights the good work that Government agencies continue to do through the Business Growth Agenda to reduce the cost of doing business.Once again I thank the committee for its careful and thorough work on this bill. The committee's recommendations have helped increase the total number of repeals in this bill. This has been a valuable exercise in improving and trimming down New Zealand's body of legislation making it more up to date and overall more fit for purpose. I commend this bill to the House."