Faafoi Kris: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3403. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Can I thank the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs for his contribution to the beginning of this second reading of the Standards and Accreditation Bill and also thank the Commerce Committee. We supported this bill at the first reading because we wanted this bill to go through the select committee process. We had concerns that we expressed at the first reading and we thought that because we wanted to hear from the sector those who are experts in putting the standards process together. We wanted to make sure that the concerns that we had heard from the industry and that we had ourselves got a public airing. It was not an adversarial select committee process; it was respectful. We heard a lot of submissions from people who are experts in this area. Those submissions only solidified our concerns that we had at the first reading of this bill. Therefore from this stage on unless we see a significant amount of amendment at the Committee stage—and I am not necessarily that hopeful—Labour will not continue to support the Standards and Accreditation Bill through its further passage through Parliament.It may sound like a mundane piece of legislation but it actually is very important. Standards affect us every day. Whether they be in a health and safety setting the processes we use are very important in a health and safety context and in some of the equipment that we use. Some may have varying degrees of opinions as to what kinds of standards we should have in our health and safety area but it is very important that we do have standards to make sure that workers and their customers and anyone else who is in a workplace is as safe as they possibly can be.Of course we have seen through the Christchurch earthquake that having standards around construction is very important. There has been a royal commission into one particular incident. So making sure that we have the process right in terms of building and construction and what is proposed in this bill is very important in terms of the safety of our buildings for the population of New Zealand. Also in an electronic sense we are becoming a much more digital world and we need to make sure that we have got good standards in place there. So although it might sound mundane it is very important that we have a very effective and sustainable standards process.But we do not believe that the proposals in this bill for a number of reasons will create an effective and sustainable process for coming up with standards in New Zealand. There are a number of areas that we had concerns about before the select committee process and we continue to have them. They do go to the independence of the new body that is created within the bill. As the Minister said the standards body that precedes the new body is to be disestablished and is going to be morphed into the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment one of the superministries of Steven Joyce. We have an issue with the independence and it is not just us. A number of the submitters as I will get to later have an issue with the perceived and real lack of independence of that body now that it is located within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.The Minister also mentioned that one of the key drivers of this piece of legislation was to make sure that the standards process was financially sustainable. We and others through the select committee process have real concerns about that and also about the ability to produce public-good standards and who pays for that. There is an argument that if a private business or an industry wants to come up with a standard there is a commercial benefit to it but there are a lot of standards where the standard is of a public good and I guess the big question mark around that is who pays for that. That was obviously one of the drivers behind the review of the standards process. We do not believe that this piece of legislation addresses that especially when it comes to the issue of public-good standards. Also again around health and safety our good friends at the Council of Trade Unions believed that there was not enough input in the process.Brett Hudson: Very good friends.KRIS FAAFOI: Well they are our good friends. They represent workers and being a party of workers we will stick up for workers 7 days a week 24 hours a day.Can I first move to the cost issue and point to a submission—if it is OK with you Mr Deputy Speaker I am going to be quoting quite extensively from some of the submissions to the select committee—from Diane Baguley who has been a member of the joint Australia - New Zealand committee for quality management standards since 1995. She has a lot more expertise around this area than me. I must add that this submission is dated 1 January. It was important enough for Diane Baguley to be sitting at her computer to put this submission together on the very first day of this year so this is not something that she is taking lightly. The fifth objective in the overview was around the financial sustainability of the standards process and her submissions did say: “It is a practical rather than a strategic imperative and could conflict with the first three objectives. However it seems to have been the main driving force for the change. I consider that there have been clear reasons for the Standards Council being unable to maintain financial viability under the … Act”—which we are amending—“in particular refusal by the relevant Ministry to support a strategy for funding public good standards … together with lost opportunities by government departments to reduce duplication of effort in standards development.”I think what you have got there is a clear indication from someone who has had 20 years in this area and has a major concern that when it comes to those public-good standards that I talked about before—ones where a commercial entity might not necessarily be the one that wants to front up with a bill—there is an onus on the Government of the day to fund the Standards Council as it stands currently to make sure that those public-good standards are done. Diane Baguley obviously is saying here that this Government just basically refused to do that. I think that would be a concern to most New Zealanders who would want to see a lot of these public-good standards processed.She also went on to say that the British Standards Institution pointed out in 2012 that it was “extremely rare that a national standards body exist with no financial support from the government.”—that is the British Standards Institution looking at our situation. She said: “The development of standards and active engagement by New Zealand in the international standards community are essential parts of the infrastructure for”—I want to make sure I emphasise this—“trade innovation and consumer protection.” So here we have an expert in her field saying that by the very fact that this Government is kind of stepping away from its responsibility to properly fund the standards process in the eyes of the international sector that looks at standards this could seriously affect our reputation and our future in trade innovation and consumer protection.I also want to talk to the lack of independence concerns that we had before this piece of legislation went to the select committee. I do want to quote from a submission from the Centre for Advanced Engineering—again people who have much more experience than I in this field. In its very opening remarks in its submission it says: “The Bill presents a very major change to the way Standards are prepared and approved. [The Centre for Advanced Engineering] is concerned about the lack of rationale for these changes that the Bill contains provisions which appear unworkable that much detail about how the new system will work remains unclear and that the proposals could lead to significant dysfunctionality and poor outcomes for industry.” It goes on to list some examples of what it thinks may happen.I do acknowledge that the Minister did say that there were a number of changes that were made in the select committee but that goes nowhere near close enough to the concerns that we have about the lack of independence of the new standards body now that it is going to be put within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. This decision was not taken lightly because we know that this process is very important for every New Zealander in everyday life and in every walk of life. We want to make sure that we get the standards process right. We do not believe that our international reputation is enhanced that the efficiency of the standards process is made any better or that the driving force behind this change is whether or not it is cost-effective. We do not believe that it meets those three tests.