Hughes Darren: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Darren: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12032. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 The Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill has made good progress through the House this afternoon. It has met with support from right across the political spectrum in a way that we do not often see in the House. Obviously members have reflected on it and believe it will be of practical application to New Zealand to people who travel and to people who export. As I said in my first reading speech I hope it will also critically enable those in developing countries—be they State-run airlines or private enterprise airlines—that face significant barriers to entry into this market to offer airline services for passenger and freight flights around the world. That has to be seen as a good thing; it cuts the cost of business. This bill does not necessarily of itself change the quantity of flights that are taken but it acts as a way of providing security for those who lease out these very expensive types of equipment and for those who seek to operate them to ensure that they are able to offer people all around the world in some of the most impoverished parts of the world access to these sorts of services for their economic and social development. 
I acknowledge the points that the Green Party made in respect of the environment. It is a matter of enormous regret that we hardly ever hear Government legislation explained in any context of sustainability. That seems to be very much out of vogue with the present Government but I hope that with continued activism on these issues by parties on this side of the House we can make sure that those issues are taken into account as legislation is developed. When we are incorporating an international treaty it somewhat limits the ability of the New Zealand Government to make changes but it would have been nice if at least we had heard some reference to sustainability from Ministers as they spoke. That did not happen today. There was more of a limited view on the dollars and cents aspect and not looking at the opportunities this might provide for people in some of the poorest parts of the world. 
During the Committee of the whole House a number of questions were asked of the Minister of Transport. He took the last speech in that part of the bill’s consideration. His answer to some of the questions was to simply reread the clauses that were already published which was not entirely helpful because we already had them. But he did answer questions in a couple of areas. He was silent on the aspects of obligations which my colleague Darien Fenton mentioned. I was interested that he did not pick up the issue of consultation because that is what one of the clauses we debated in the Committee stage was about. As we sum up the bill and sum up what it does one of the reasons we questioned that issue is that we know this Minister has a unique definition of “consultation”. Some of the processes he follows for consultation are not the standard ones that we would see in many other places. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: That’s unfair. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Let me give him one example. This is the Minister who rolled up to the Kapiti coast one day and said that despite what his party campaigned for in Opposition he was going to build a four-lane 100-kilometre expressway through the community. He asked them to let him know what they thought about it in 4 weeks’ time as he was not very busy for the next month so he said they could kick the tyres. He asked them to let him know what they thought about it. I suspect as that plan goes through more and more tyres will be kicked and some of them will be on the Minister’s Crown car. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What about the optics? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: The optics get worse and worse on some of these things when we do not consult which is why we are pleased that this civil aviation bill is an example of consultation. Parliament has come together united on it. 
The Minister’s other definition of “consultation” is that if he lived in an area 35 years ago and if he heard of something when he was growing up there as a teenage boy he can come back years later and say that they all knew about it because he remembers it from when he was a teenager on roller skates. This is the definition of something that everyone should expect! 
Putting aside what everyone had thought for the previous 20 years would be the case the expressway proposal for Kapiti that he is advancing is a disaster. I am pleased that he has at least one bill on which he is able to bring Parliament together. What we wanted in Kapiti was Transmission Gully; a local western link road; improvements to State Highway 1; a commitment to our rail services to push electrification further north up to Levin Otaki and Shannon; and the electrification and double tracking that would have ensured quality reliable and affordable public transport services. 
I guess what I am saying as we sum up the bill is that there are two ways of operating. The Minister gets a big tick for this bill—10 out of 10. We will all vote for it. But some of the unusual approaches he has taken to other areas of the transport portfolio are I think worthy of mention at this point. 
Labour has offered its support for the bill. The reasons are obvious and manifest so I will not take any more time now other than to say that I hope the kinds of arrangements that should flow from this convention actually do flow. I am sure that the officials who have worked very hard on making this legislation acceptable in the New Zealand context will be monitoring it and will be in a position to offer advice as time goes on on whether it has had the ability to meet its objectives particularly the objectives that members have drawn to the attention of the House and the Committee today which are the things that we see as being most important to the passage of this bill. The Labour Opposition offers its support for the third reading of the bill.