Dyson Ruth: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 11 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2172. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I say what a pleasure it is to resume my really rudely interrupted contribution on the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). I also want to acknowledge Denis O’Rourke whom I beat to the call at that peak listening time of 7 minutes to 10 p.m. when we were last debating this bill and I look forward to his contribution. There will be fewer people listening Mr O’Rourke but I am sure that every one of them will be waiting anxiously for your contribution and will enjoy the benefit of it.This is a statutes amendment bill Mr Deputy Speaker and one with which you are probably quite familiar given that it is in your name. It is the bill that was referred to the Government Administration Committee some time ago and I want to acknowledge the members who sat on the committee who debated this bill with some rigour. Sometimes I think that committees give statutes amendment bills not enough consideration and the bill slides through and we end up with an amendment to an amendment. We are already fixing up mistakes which is the point really of a statutes amendment bill and I do think that we need to take a little more care. So I want to acknowledge the other five members of that committee: Mojo Mathers and the Hon Trevor Mallard; Chris Auchinvole and Eric Roy who are no longer members of this House but who made a huge contribution in relation to this bill; and also Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi who is still a member of the House but unfortunately is no longer a member of the Government Administration Committee.For new members particularly they might be wondering what a statutes amendment bill is. Well I just alluded in a rather casual way to the fact that it is really about fixing up mistakes. It amends legislation it is an omnibus bill and it is outlined in Standing Order 262(1)(f). That is worth a read if members do not have anything else on their reading agenda for the evening because it describes the fact that this is one of the rare occasions when a bill can amend a large number of other Acts. It is further described in Standing Order 292(3) which talks about amendments to the statutes amendment bill and then in Standing Order 305(2) under the heading “Questions to be proposed in committee”.That is how statutes amendment bills are covered and referred to in the Standing Orders but the most important thing that members need to know is that one single member of Parliament can object to a provision in a statutes amendment bill and then it does not progress. That particular provision within the statutes amendment bill would be withdrawn. A very unusual process that a Minister goes through—and the former Associate Minister of Justice the Hon Chester Borrows went through this procedure with this very Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4)—is going to the representative of every single political party in Parliament and asking for their sign-off so every member of this Parliament is bound to support every provision. If we get a new provision added or amended—as is the case with this bill where the select committee actually made substantial amendments—then once again every member of the House must agree to it. So it is not a simple majority as it is with other statutes that are before the House; it is one that everyone agrees to.As I said earlier the select committee paid a lot of attention to this bill and we have made a number of recommended amendments. We have recommended that some provisions be omitted entirely because they have the potential to alter the original intention of the legislation and that is clearly not within the parameters of a statutes amendment bill. We have omitted some. We have proposed the omission of some because we believe that they substantially alter the primary legislative purpose and with others we have said that they are not suitable for a statutes amendment bill because there is a policy debate to be had on them.So I was really pleased with the work that we did on this bill. These bills are not ones that usually grip the nation. They are not ones that members generally want to take a call on with the exception of Mr O’Rourke and me—we are usually elbowing each other out of the way to get the next speaker’s call on them—but it is a really important task for this Parliament to make sure that our legislation is clear that if a matter is taken before the court there is not a debate about what the intention of Parliament was and of course that the interpretation that is made of our legislation carries with it the intent of the Minister and the Government of the time. That is what we hope that we have delivered back to this House and I look forward to this amended Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) progressing through the House. Thank you.