Williams Arena; Bishop ChrisARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Madam Chair thank you for the opportunity. I have five questions for the Minister about the Royal assent. The first question is about the nature of Royal assent. For the committee's benefit Royal assent is granted by usually the Governor-General and so my questions are around the legal risks which this legislation creates at every point of decision making and in exercise of the Crown's powers and that includes the point about Royal assent. This is separate from the point about the commencement date and particularly about the date of Royal assent.So my first question to the Minister is: what legal risk should the people giving Royal assent consider when making the decision to grant this bill Royal assent? And the second question: what rights are extinguished upon Royal assent? This is in the context of this bill having a relatively unusual provision which is to exclude compensation for the effect of the repeals. That is a big part of the Act which I was not able to traverse with the Minister in Part 1 of this debate but it is still relevant to the Royal assent given that it creates a legal risk that that body takes on when giving Royal assent.My third question about that which I'll ask now as the Minister is considering his thoughts: has the Government ever extinguished legal rights of this nature in urgency without an impact assessment as a consequential amendment? The reason why the committee was not able to traverse this point about the extinguishment of legal rights and the unusual provision that excludes any remedy because of these repeals is because it was part of a schedule and we were unable to get to that part in the committee of the whole House. It was also not included in the impact assessment for reasons we have already traversed. But it is something that is wholly new to this committee's discussion of this bill. So I'd like an answer from the Minister and then I have two more questions on it.Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm trying my best to understand what the member is saying but I'm struggling a touch. I'd like her to take another call to maybe—Arena Williams: Absolutely.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well just hang on a minute. I'll make a couple of remarks. In answer to the question around whether the Government has ever extinguished legal rights in this way through a consequential amendment the short answer is I don't know. But the more broad point is that we're not extinguishing legal rights. The bill is at some pains to preserve existing legal rights that people have. It upholds Treaty settlements as well. It's a core commitment of the Government on behalf of the Crown which is very important.We had an extensive back and forth last night about Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements and also we had some engagement this morning with former Minister Henare about Takutai Moana and customary rights and customary title. It would be a brave Parliament and Government that decided to unpick that hard-fought-for piece of legislation which of course codified in some respects common law rights around customary title which go back as the member knows from her days at law school many many many decades.I'm time-filling somewhat while we wait for Mr McAnulty to scurry around around the amendments but I didn't quite get the first question from the member in the last call. So maybe she can come back on that one.ARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Madam Chair. The first question was about the context of this—if the Minister could tell the committee what legal risk those people giving Royal assent to this amendment bill should be considering when they are making that decision. It's a question really about what part they play in our constitutional arrangements when exercising Government power to enact legislation which would potentially extinguish the rights of parties to proceedings which are on foot or might be entered into.I'm really glad that the Minister has drawn the committee's attention to clause 11 of Schedule 1 which is the Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements. The reason I'm talking about that is that it is an example I presented the committee with last night where rights are extinguished. So there exists now an agreement between Poutini Ngāi Tahu who have applied as a hapū for a Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreement with those councils that are active within their region which is the West Coast. They are different from those iwi authority agreements which exist under the old regime. Clause 11 does try to fit the Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreement back into the old system but where there are new rights which exist—those examples where hapū or in this case a rūnaka that is subordinate to an iwi organisation has entered into a regional agreement with their regional council—there are different rights which exist under those agreements than there are under the old system.The Minister told the committee last night that clause 11 is worded in such a way as to preserve those existing arrangements and that there are no new arrangements. But actually we should have amended that clause last night because that's not what clause 11 says. So I want the Minister to tell us how in Part 1 when those people giving Royal assent to this bill they should consider examples like Poutini Ngāi Tahu who have rights under the new regime that will be extinguished moving back to the old regime given that they have a role in preserving those rights or at least helping this Parliament to be very very clear when it is extinguishing the right of parties to proceedings now. My fourth and fifth questions are: who will be giving Royal assent given that there are special rules to consider when the Governor-General is overseas? We're in a period of summer holidays because the Government is sitting in urgency and we are using the House's time in this way. There are special rules around who may give Royal assent and if it's not the Governor-General it will be a senior officer of the court. That puts a senior officer of the court—say a Supreme Court Justice—in a really difficult position when they're extinguishing the rights of parties in this way.The last question is: does the Minister know about those arrangements? When will that Royal assent be given? What are his intentions around this?Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Well Madam Chair we're into the realm of legal fantasy now. Maybe it was just a good filibuster attempt but not a great one. The Royal assent is the Royal assent process. The member knows that Parliament passes a piece of legislation. It makes its way to Her Excellency the Governor-General who signs it. And if the Governor-General refused to sign something by Parliament I suspect we would have bigger issues to deal with as a country. But so far in the long constitutional history of New Zealand that hasn't happened—at least while we've had responsible government. So that is what will happen and it doesn't place the Supreme Court Justice or the administrator of the Government or the Chief Justice acting as the Governor-General in a position. The Parliament passes a law and the Governor-General signs it. That's the law and it's pretty simple.In relation to her more substantive point about the extinguishment I'm advised that there are no parties that have proceedings under the relevant bits of the legislation she's talking about. There's no extinguishment of legal rights because there are no—she's talked about parties to proceedings having their rights extinguished. There are no parties to proceedings. No applications have been made. If one was to be made clause 11 is pretty clear: it just goes back to the Resource Management Act 1991 provisions as if the hapū was an iwi authority under that Act and then things can proceed from there. It's pretty simple and we're now straying well away from the commencement. I'm hoping Mr McAnulty has got his amendment under way and we're good to go.