Hughes Gareth: Standing Orders Inquiry into Parliament’s Legislative Response to Future National Emergencies — Instruction to Regulations Review CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Standing Orders Inquiry into Parliament’s Legislative Response to Future National Emergencies — Instruction to Regulations Review Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19754. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green):Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to rise to support the two motions related to the triennial review of the Standing Orders. I would like to acknowledge the chair of the Standing Orders Committee Mr Speaker. I would like to acknowledge the members the submitters and the officials. We did a good job.I guess I would like to start with an apology. We have got a bunch of students in the Chamber today. Sorry guys I think you have walked in on the most boring dry debate Parliament could have. But it also gives you a bit of background on how Parliament works. [Interruption] I am not speaking of myself. What we are doing is that every 3 years—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave for this particular contribution to be wide ranging so that it might be more entertaining.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is hardly a point of order Mr Brownlee. In fact Mr Brownlee I thought that you were going to raise with me Speaker’s ruling 47/3 that addressing people outside the House radio listeners or those in gallery was out of order.GARETH HUGHES: I would not dare try to top Gerry Brownlee’s entertaining Standing Orders Committee speech.What we are talking about is that every 3 years Parliament gets together and reviews its rules—the laws that Parliament operates for itself. It is a triennial review. It is critically important because the way we operate in this Chamber is how we make decisions how we hold the Government to account and how we act—our code of conduct. I see—I will not make a joke about the departing students. As the former Speaker Lockwood Smith used to always point out we are the fourth-oldest continuous democracy in the world. This is something we should be proud of. We should be proud of our heritage and our traditions. But we should also be open to the future—open to new ideas new ways of doing things new technology—and I think in this Standing Orders review what we are seeing is some modest progress. It is not as wide ranging as we saw in the last Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders review but it is some modest progress all the same.The Green Party made a submission. I understand it was one of only two parties to do so. We made a number of points covering improving legislative quality improving accessibility for members recognising New Zealand Sign Language as an official language improving the lobbying disclosure regime recommending a code of conduct for MPs positive suggestions on voting reform and the process for amending the parliamentary prayer and members’ oaths improving executive scrutiny and lastly ensuring that international treaties are brought to Parliament before ratification. We put a great deal of positive solutions into the mix. Some of them were picked up; some were not. We would like to acknowledge the changes in this Standing Orders review. I think the tidying-up of the pecuniary interests register is particularly good. Moving some of the financial debate times around will I think make a difference but very modestly. So in a nutshell what I was trying to achieve through this process was some practical steps to make Parliament more accessible more transparent and more democratic. I think it is fair to say we are not there entirely. We have still got a long way to go to actually make Parliament more accessible transparent and democratic but I would like to point out some highlights from the Standing Orders review process.First up is amending Standing Order 105. In this term of Parliament we have seen New Zealand’s first ever profoundly deaf MP elected to Parliament Mojo Mathers. To be frank we had to fight to get her the resources she needed so she could participate like any other member in this Chamber. It was a battle played out through the media through backroom pressure and it was good that Mojo Mathers got the support she needed so she can follow what is happening in this Chamber. But of course there was always the inconsistency that despite being fluent in New Zealand Sign Language she could not address the Chamber in that language for want of interpreters and also for want of a Standing Order that reflects the law of this land. As has been pointed out in the previous contributions New Zealand Sign Language is an official language of New Zealand. It was outrageous that a member could not speak to this Chamber through New Zealand Sign Language. I think it is an incredibly positive step that we are taking because I think Mojo or any other member could have tried to address this Chamber in New Zealand Sign Language and it would have been incredibly embarrassing for this Chamber to have had that contribution struck down. So it is incredibly positive it is something that we have pushed very hard for and we would like to acknowledge the committee members.When it comes to select committees which are the workhorse of our Parliament where parliamentarians work together and where real change actually happens it is good to see three big areas of change. First of all is the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act reporting and the section 7 reports of the Attorney-General. I would like to acknowledge Minister Finlayson in particular on this section. The text in the Standing Orders report gives members I think some good guidance. The text is: “We consider that papers presented by the Attorney-General under section 7 of the NZBORA should receive detailed consideration by being referred automatically to select committees. We encourage committees to invite officials or Ministers to assist them in their consideration of these issues.” That is a very positive step.In my 5 years in Parliament what I have seen is some amendments called Supplementary Order Papers that were in fact larger than the primary legislation they were seeking to amend. I am thinking of the ultra-fast broadband legislation and other ones passed under urgency such as the so-called Anadarko amendment which criminalised protest activity at sea. That had huge human rights implications but because it was passed as a Supplementary Order Paper there was no section 7 scrutiny and there was no chance for a select committee to investigate it talk to the experts and think through those Human Rights Act implications. So it is good that the committee is encouraging select committees to bring a Minister in to analyse and consider that section 7 report.We are seeing members being granted wider access to select committee papers. As someone from a small party—well we do not call ourselves a small party anymore; we call ourselves a medium party in the Greens now—where you have got to sub on to numerous select committees it can be the bane of an MP’s life trying to get access to committee papers in the select committee portal. This change is incredibly good and will really help those single-member parties or smaller parties.Lastly the webcasting of select committees is something proposed by the cross-party internet forum which I worked on with Clare Curran Simon O’Connor and Tracey Martin. It is great that the trial was a success. I understand that more than 7000 people have tuned in and seen our select committees do their work and now this is going to be rolled out across the entire range of select committees. It is incredibly positive because what it means is that submitters who want to hear what other submitters are saying do not have to travel all the way to Wellington if they are from out of town. They can follow and engage in the committee at home by computer.When it comes to questions for written answer we have made a slight change here. I put up some proposals to actually encourage Ministers to answer them in a timely fashion through a transparency regime where those Ministers’ results and answering times are reported to the Speaker. What we are seeing is a modest change that says an interim reply is not a final reply. Phil Heatley last night in his valedictory speech reflected on what I think is the funniest answer I have ever had to a question which is when I lodged a written question asking where in New Zealand fracking had occurred. He replied: “Underground.” It was a perfect ministerial answer—absolutely accurate and absolutely useless to the Opposition member asking it. It was a perfect ministerial answer. To his credit—and he did not say it last night—he did answer the question in full the next day so I would like to acknowledge Phil Heatley for doing that. It was hilarious. What a great answer. For the rules that would have been fine. Even an interim answer saying: “I will answer it later on.” is an answer for the questions for written answer rules so it is great we are making changes there.We are going to be reviewing the prayer which is something I feel very strongly about and want to see progress in the next Parliament on. Something the Greens were the only submitters to push for was an inquiry into the preparedness of Parliament for a natural disaster. It is great that that is going to be commencing next Parliament.We also had a great number of missed opportunities. I would have preferred to see greater financial scrutiny of Parliament. We saw the Clerk of Parliament offer an estimates week idea where we could have a week to go through the Government’s books line by line which I would like to see progress on in the future. There was the proposal of a human rights select committee to do justice to human rights challenges and issues.I would have liked to see a greater ability for Parliament to send substantive Supplementary Order Papers back to a select committee. Obviously members can seek leave to do it but any member can block that. So when you have got Supplementary Order Papers that are larger than the bills they are seeking to amend and often with no heads-up to Parliament I think it is important Parliament has greater powers to get them back to select committees in order to hear from the experts the submitters and the Government.I would like to echo Grant Robertson’s call to modernise our petitions. Our Parliament even if we are the fourth-oldest democracy in the world has to be able to engage with the people. In 2014 and in other years we are going to see people going more and more online. We need to be where they are.When it comes to members’ bills I put up a proposal so that if a member’s bill had the support of half of the House including non-executive members it could be put to a first reading vote. What I would like to encourage as we see in other parliaments around the world is MPs from across the aisle working together. I proposed also that MPs from different parties could jointly sponsor a members’ bill and lastly we proposed having a code of conduct and a lobbying regime.So we made a lot of good suggestions. A lot of them got adopted. Not all of them did. We will continue to work constructively and positively with other parties to improve our Parliament’s laws. Kia ora.