Mallard Trevor: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9416. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): That was a sad performance from a member Dr Cam Calder who normally does a little better than that. Occasionally one just hopes that when one gets to the second reading of a bill we might find a National Party member who has read it and refers to it. Maybe I am hoping for too much when it comes to the mid-ranked and in fact some of the brighter MPs from the National Party like the one who has just spoken.To make it clear the Labour Party is opposing the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. I say this more in sadness than in anger. I did some work with Maurice Williamson in order to facilitate getting the bill into the House and to move it quickly through the select committee process. It is fair to say at this point that I regret the cooperation that occurred on that occasion. I was gullible—I think that is the right word—enough to take the Minister for Building and Construction at his word that this was a relatively minor matter and that it would get the unanimous support of Parliament. Clearly that was wrong and as the Government Administration Committee has sat and people have looked more carefully at the legislation what we are seeinghere is in fact a case of retrospective taxation without representation. It is a combination of two of the worst sins that a democracy and a Parliament can do wrapped up in one tiny little validation bill.I say to the Minister that it is pretty sad that he is trying to ram this through in the way that he is in the dead of night—in the dead of night—as he is wont to do with his legislation. What we know of course with this Minister and a number of his colleagues is that it is a case of legislate in haste and repent over a long period of time. What we are—Hon Maurice Williamson: Who cocked up the original bill?Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Minister says that he voted for a bill that was cocked up to start with. It may or may not be the case that there was an error in the earlier legislation. Certainly there was an error—well I hope there was an error—in the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board’s understanding of the legislation. There is no doubt that the board has committed some acts; it has taken money off people in a way that it was not entitled to do. Authorities have looked at it. The Ombudsman has looked at it the Auditor-General has looked at it the Regulations Review Committee has looked at it and all of them have found that the board acted in an ultra vires manner in the way that it collected this funding. The Regulations Review Committee as far back as 2011 concluded that the board appeared to have made an unusual or unexpected use of its levy power.What is clear is that the bill makes actions that were previously unlawful lawful. It is just a question of whether we should be doing that. I mean what would people say if this was a general taxation matter and people had to pay hundreds of dollars each in additional taxation as a result of this sort of retrospective legislation? The Labour Party is not comfortable with the retrospective validation if this is done. In fact the rule of law and the supremacy of Parliament is something that is very important. When a law is passed and boards are given authority—a levy-making authority as is the case in this case with this Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board—then there is a requirement on the boards to act according to that law and to not go outside the vires that has been established for them. Retrospective legislation is something that should be used in very limited circumstances and one should be very careful not to disadvantage individuals or groups of individuals when one is involved in retrospective legislation.Normally with validation it is a validation of a right not the validation of taking money away from individuals that it has been established should be repaid to the individuals. What is more these people have spent a not unreasonable amount of money in establishing their rights. It is not cheap to build cases to the Auditor-General to the Ombudsman and to the Regulations Review Committee. They put in a lot of time and energy and got a lot of advice and they won. What we have now is Maurice Williamson coming to this House and saying “Too bad that you won with the Ombudsman too bad that you won with the Auditor-General too bad that you won with the Regulations Review Committee. We are now going to change the rules of the game and confiscate the wins that have rightfully accrued to this group.”It may well be that it is appropriate going forward for there to be a right to levy in order to ensure that cowboys are properly regulated. I think if that is what the bill did we would be happy to support it and to support it quickly through the House. If the Minister wants at the Committee stage to make an amendment to the bill in order to make it consistent in that way with proper process then I am sure he will get Labour’s support and unless the Green Party is going to sleep—I think I am getting a nod from Holly Walker as well—we will get support from the other parties and we will—Hon Maurice Williamson: If you guys stump up with the money I’ll do that.Hon TREVOR MALLARD: The Minister says “What about the money?”. Well I say to that Minister: is it the right of Parliament to confiscate money from individuals who are rightfully entitled to it on a retrospective basis? Is it right to retrospectively tax individuals when they have won their case effectively with three different authorities? My view is that that is not an appropriate thing to do. The Labour Party has prepared Supplementary Order Paper 204. Whether the Supplementary Order Paper goes far enough I am not sure; there has been a bit of debate about this within the Labour caucus. It is a Supplementary Order Paper that attempts to get a point of balance and to force an agreement between the warring parties in this area and in the absence of an agreement to get the Chief Ombudsman to make a ruling that would be binding as far as the level of payment is concerned. We think that that is a proper approach because the Labour Party’s view is that if one is to be taxed it should be prospectively and not retrospectively and that validating legislation should be used to benefit or to protect individuals not to punish them.