Huo Raymond: Regulatory Improvement Bill — First Reading 
Huo Raymond: Regulatory Improvement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:3088] 
RAYMOND HUO (Labour) 
:  
Winston Churchill would have been very pleased to hear what I am going to say in the next 10 or so minutes. 
Hon Simon Power 
: No just 10. 
RAYMOND HUO 
: Just 10 minutes—the member is right. 
Mr Churchill was a great statesman and a great historian. Let us look briefly at the historical side of the Regulatory Improvement Bill. I congratulate the Hon Lianne Dalziel who introduced this bill in September 2008. The Hon Lianne Dalziel made history in September 2008. She introduced a brand new bill that aimed to improve some existing laws and reduce compliance costs for businesses. More important the bill was introduced as a result of a careful 15-month Quality Regulation Review and reflected consultation between Government agencies and 200 businesses. Therefore I rise to support this bill both for its content and for the way it was introduced. In that regard to some extent the bill itself may be more important than the content. The Hon Lianne Dalziel and the Labour-led Government listened to business people and set about implementing their recommendations. 
That consultation is particularly relevant today as we have witnessed in the past weeks in this honourable House the way recommendations can sometimes be ignored and how new plans are rammed through. Every member in this House knows what I am talking about. Yes I am referring to the so-called super-city and the way these new ideas new plans and new agendas are being rammed through. 
I come back to the bill. First of all the way it was introduced set a good example. [ 
Interruption 
] Secondly and if members listen carefully they will appreciate this let us look at the content. This omnibus bill makes amendments to legislation with the objective of improving the regulatory framework and reducing the compliance burden on business. The Regulatory Improvement Bill resulted from the Quality Regulation Review that was completed in September 2008. It addresses issues raised by business Government agencies and other stakeholders that require changes to legislation. As the Hon Lianne Dalziel said last week in this House the Quality Regulation Review came out of the statement made by the previous Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark in the House in February 2006. In her statement the Rt Hon Helen Clark said: “We will also be taking a fresh look at regulatory frameworks. Feedback from business suggests that higher-quality regulation would lead to more growth and investment and we want to engage with business on how to achieve that.” 
The bill also offers some assistance to me personally. While practising law in Auckland prior to becoming a member of this House I was often asked why certain companies with overseas ownership must appoint an auditor under the Companies Act 1993 yet these companies are no longer required to file audited financial statements with the Registrar of Companies under the Financial Reporting Act 1993. I did not have an answer then but I have an answer now. The bill puts such companies with overseas ownership in the same position as other companies. We may find a similar situation in other legislation such as the Conservation Act 1987 the Designs Act 1953 the Gas Act 1992 the Fisheries Act 1996 etc. This omnibus Regulatory Improvement Bill aims to fast track a number of legislative changes that are badly needed. The changes cover a diverse range of policy areas and legislation. They are all focused on the same objectives—namely improving regulatory frameworks and reducing the compliance burden on business. These objectives are the unifying theme of the clauses in the Regulatory Improvement Bill. 
The first reading debate on this bill began in this House last Thursday. What surprised me was the level of interjections or noise from the members opposite. This is a business-friendly bill. It is a non-controversial bill. Of course it was a Labour bill that according to the Minister responsible the Hon Rodney Hide was reinstated for very good reasons. While preparing for my speech against those interjections or noise I spotted a line relevant to this bill from a newsletter or press statement—or whatever it was—which my learned friend Charles Chauvel just mentioned. It reads: “New Zealand does not start from a zero base. We rate number two in the world according to the World Bank’s Doing Business survey second only to Singapore.” 
To add more I also note that in 1999 161128 of our people were on the unemployment benefit. In March 2008 the number was 19034. That is a decline of 88 percent since Labour came into Government in December 1999. New Zealand was the only OECD country to have kept unemployment under 4 percent since late 2004. I note that members opposite appear to have adopted a standard chanting slogan of “Nine long years.” I say to those members that yes over the last 9 years Labour did what many members said was impossible. We halved Crown debt at the same time as investing in the future of all Kiwis. Thank you very much.