Faafoi Kris: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5043. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for the opportunity to have a discussion around clauses 1 and 2 the title and commencement clauses to the Standards and Accreditation Bill. This is an opportunity when we can seek alternative titles to the bill that is being debated. A very simple change to the bill as it is is that we just change it to the “Lower Standards and Accreditation Bill” because that is exactly what this bill does. It does lower the standards and accreditation of New Zealand’s processes around this not just in the eyes of the people who practise here in New Zealand but also in the eyes of the international community which should be of major concern to this Government but it does not seem to hear about that.A number of people and organisations came to the Commerce Committee and made that very point: that if we change the structure of our standards and accreditation process New Zealand would be looked at in a much dimmer light in terms of our international reputation around standards and accreditation. You would have thought that the Government would take that on board because it was not just one or two of the around a dozen and a half submissions that came to us. It was a very strong vein of opposition and concern around our international reputation.You would think that the members on that committee would have taken that feedback to the Minister and said: “Minister we think we’ve got a problem here. We have got all these people with much more experience than us in the industry who actually do this day in day out and they say it is a bad idea. Do you think we should do something about it?”. But no they did not do that. They completely and utterly ignored the submissions from those submitters like the Building Industry Federation which I do not think we should ignore to be frank and many other submitters who were mainly from around the construction industry who have serious concerns around what the Government is doing. Their submissions were that if we do this things will get worse.My alternative title for the bill is that it should be the “Lower Standards and Accreditation Bill”. These are not just my words. I am not being in opposition just for opposition’s sake which you think the Government will have a shot at us about—“Why are you guys being so negative? You always oppose everything.” Well that is not the case in this case. There were many submitters who came to us who made the point that I have been talking about.One of them and I want to quote from her submission was Diane Baguley who has been a member of the joint New Zealand - Australia committee around standards since 1995. It is a long time 20 years. Twenty years is a long time to be an expert in something. So when Diane Baguley turned up we were paying attention but it seems that the members on the opposite side of the House on our select committee did not really care about Diane’s 20 years of experience and expertise around standards because she did have concerns around lowering standards through this bill. To quote Diane Baguley—who I think is a submitter who spent her New Year’s Day putting her submission together which is I think a commitment to the cause—she said: “I do not consider that the provisions set out for the establishment of the standards function within MBIE”—which is the loss of independencethat we are talking about—“can adequately control the risks associated with the new structure whether to the management of standards development or the reputation of New Zealand in the international standards community.”When someone with 20 years’ more experience than me in the standards sector says that I think we should listen to it. We think that the Government should have listened to it and maybe the Minister in the chair would like to take a call as to why he did not listen to it and why his party did not listen to it therefore lowering the standards of the standards and accreditation process here in New Zealand.Diane did not stop there. She went on to say more about this piece of legislation. She said: “The model proposed in the Bill if realised might even be used as an example by countries without robust government systems with undesirable results. New Zealand is well respected”—she may use that in the pasttense now—“in the international standards community” and an argument can be made that other countries may say “Well if New Zealand does it this waywhy don’t we do it this way” and that could be influential. Diane Baguley is directly saying that because we do this and we have got a good reputation other countries that do not have such a good reputation may say: “Well you know look at New Zealand. They have been the shining light”—have; past tense—“so why don’t we do what they do? If they don’t think independence is important any more then we’ll do it too.” We do not think that is the kind of example that New Zealand should be setting. We want to make sure that our systems are robust and that they continue to be looked upon by the international community as some of the best if not the best.But we think the changes within this bill lower the standards which is why I offered up a cheeky—well not too cheeky—alternative title to the bill. An alternative title—and a good alternative title that you should take because I think it more accurately describes the bill as it stands at the moment. It was not just Diane Baguley; there were other submitters who had concerns about the lowering of standards and also about the amount of political influence that could now come in to the setting of standards. It was the Building Industry Federation which I quoted extensively earlier in the Committee stage that said quite simply in one sentence: “ … Standard-setting should not be subject to direct political influence by the government of the day.” We could not agree more with that and why the Government ignored that I do not know. Maybe the Minister in the chair who I think has taken the time to answer some of the questions that we have posed might take a call in this late stage of the Committee of the whole House to answer some of the questions that we have posed here.It is lowering standards because the Minister in that contribution that I mentionedearlier said that one of the problems he is trying to solve is a lack of visibility for the New Zealand Standards Council which for a short period of time will continue to be the body that looks after standards in New Zealand. His novel approach to curing the visibility problem that he pointed out was to put the new body within the uber-ministry run by Steven Joyce—the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. From my reckoning taking a small independent body that lacks visibility and putting it in a ministry that has eaten six other ministries that has thousands of employees and that cannot seem to spend money wisely is not the right solution to that problem. If you want something to be more visible you do not put on camouflage. So I think the Minister may want to revisit his thinking behind that because to me that does not make sense. If you want something to be more visible—as you know Mr Chairperson health and safety is very important; it is something that we all think is important—you put something on that is more high-vis so you can stand out. But in this case the solution to a visibility problem is to put camouflage on the new body and to put it within a ministry that has as I say taken on so much responsibility that it cannot control itself.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Title and commencement.KRIS FAAFOI: So the title of this piece of legislation should be the “Lower Standards and Accreditation Bill”. This Government has lowered standards because it has not taken on a lot of the recommendations that have come through the select committee process: to keep independence to make sure that there is a viable financial model and to make sure that we do address the issue of whether we can properly cost and fund the standards process. This is another example of the Government trying to solve a problem and where it has not solved the problem that it is trying to solve it has actually created others.So we will watch very closely whether our predictions of our international reputation being even more dimly viewed by the international community will come to fruition. We believe they will and I would like to say to the Government: you were warned—by about 19 submitters who all said the same thing—that this lack of independence will lead to our international reputation being affected. In the end we will have lower standards in our standards and accreditation processes. It is a missed opportunity for the Government to have done something properly and it is a really wasted opportunity. Thank you very much.