Worth Richard: Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Worth Richard: Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7006] 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: Those were truly generous comments from the previous speaker were they not? Without reservation I offer Mr Jones an accolade for his contribution to the House in the context of the comments he made on this bill. 
It is right to say that National is supporting this bill but we have reservations about some of its aspects and it is really those reservations that I want to touch in this third reading. It is quite puzzling legislation in some respects but its purpose is plain enough. The key measure mirrors the principal Act’s import-control mechanism and provides for the Governor-General by Order in Council to make regulations that prohibit the exportation of specified goods. Such a prohibition may be on general limited absolute or conditional terms. A conditional prohibition permits the exportation of goods subject to the grant of a licence or permit by the Minister. 
There is the strange statement in the explanatory note that the enactment of the bill together with certain amendments to other legislation would enable New Zealand to ratify the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. That date is clearly well passed and this bill is not yet passed. One looks at its legislative history and sees that it was introduced on 21 May 2002. There was a first reading on 20 February 2003 and the select committee report was tabled in the House on 11 April 2003. So here is a bill that was introduced into Parliament for a defined purpose—to produce an outcome according to a fixed time frame—and it has simply not done that. It was apparently not seen as appropriate for the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—to which it was referred—to make any correction because the committee’s report notes in effect that the committee recommended that the bill be passed without amendment. 
The specific issue I wish to pick up is the definition of international obligation in clause 6 of the bill. The bill is intended to give effect to the requirements of the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions and any other international obligation that provides for the restriction on or the prohibition of the exportation of certain chemicals products organisms wastes or other substances that pose a risk to human health or to the environment. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What about Monaco? 
RICHARD WORTH 
: Mr Cosgrove’s interjection has just reminded me that when members of the House were looking at the Stockholm Convention we discovered that there was a significant slip of constitutional importance in that legislation. That was because of the possibility that were the provisions of the convention to change as a result of protocols side letters or whatever—perhaps an amendment to the convention itself—those changes would pass into New Zealand law without the need for further legislation to incorporate those international treaty obligations. 
In this bill we see exactly the same thing. In new paragraph (a) inserted by clause 6(1) under the definition of international obligation one convention “the Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade” is defined. The definition runs on: “and includes the Annexes to the Convention and any amendments to or substitutions of those documents that are or will become binding on New Zealand:”. The Rotterdam Convention is included in the definition that picks up later occurring action but the fault is replicated in the other paragraphs of the definition in respect of both the Stockholm and Basel conventions. The legal issue is known as “incorporation by reference”. It is commonplace to see references in secondary legislation to material that is incorporated by reference. That material might be overseas standards in respect of lifejackets for example or issues relating to the areas covered by the Codex regime. 
I find it of concern that the Parliamentary Counsel Office has seen fit not to take up this issue and deal with it robustly and in a way akin to the templates that have recently been developed for regulations. Once legislation incorporates international obligations amending legislation—whether primary secondary or tertiary—should be enacted to pick up and move into domestic law any changes that have occurred at the international level in respect of those obligations. 
I would suggest that the Legislation Advisory Committee an entity in which there is both parliamentary and external input should look at this issue at the primary legislation level—as it has similarly looked at it in respect of secondary and tertiary legislation—with a view to seeing guidelines developed and changes made to the Parliamentary Counsel Office drafting manual that are referred to in the Cabinet Office step-by-step guide. 
It is against that background and with the reservations I have expressed that National supports this legislation. Its objective is a desirable one. 
Bill read a third time.