Street Maryan: Legislation Bill — First Reading 
Street Maryan: Legislation Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:665;Page:12876] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure and something of a surprise for me to rise and speak on the first reading of the Legislation Bill. Although the nature of this bill has occasioned some hilarity because people consider it to be somewhat technical and dull I will say that as somebody who has never had legal training but who had the privilege of serving on the Regulations Review Committee for 2 years in my first term in Parliament—and it may say more about me than anything else—I actually find this legislation quite interesting. 
I say to the Attorney-General who may take note of this that although Labour will support the bill to go to a select committee I personally have a concern shared by my Labour colleagues about any proposed change to the disallowance mechanisms. I had occasion to swot up on the disallowance provisions being something of a girly swot and I found the Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989 and the provisions surrounding it in the course of my work on the committee. The disallowance provision is Parliament’s nuclear deterrent. It is the final shot against regulations that can be drawn up by a Minister approved by Cabinet and signed off by the Governor-General. 
Regulations go to the Regulations Review Committee for scrutiny—they do not come to Parliament—and that committee decides their fate. I had a couple of years of poring over things that people would find quite dull if they were not intimately acquainted with that particular subject. We pored over lots and lots of civil aviation regulations for example. Why is that important? If we look at the news in the last few days we see the importance of the Civil Aviation Authority and of regulations such as might detail the specified times before dark when a pilot may take off from Queenstown Airport. This is the trivia upon which people’s lives hang from time to time. 
The particular instance when I needed to investigate the disallowance regulations and provision arose from a case that will be familiar to National. It concerned the fact that the Nursing Council wished to change the title of “enrolled nurses” to “assistant nurses”. As it was done outside of legislation—it was done by a statutory body but was affected by regulation—it never came to Parliament. There was a moment in I think 2006 when it looked as though I might have had to rise in the House and exercise the provisions of the disallowance legislation. 
I go back to my notes of 2006. It takes only one member of Parliament who is a permanent member on the Regulations Review Committee to give notice and then a regulation is automatically disallowed unless it is overturned by virtue of debate within 21 days of a parliamentary sitting. If no member of Parliament rose and contested the disallowance of a regulation then that regulation as I understand it would be disallowed and things would be changed without parliamentary scrutiny. It is like the final strike. It is like a nuclear deterrent on regulations. 
I think this area in particular requires careful consideration by Parliament. We pride ourselves on being a very open and transparent democracy and we are. We usually come second equal in the global transparency index of Transparency International. We come second only to Iceland and that country might wish at the moment that perhaps it was not quite as transparent as it is. We have generally come second equal with Denmark or Finland in recent years. That is something to be upheld and something to be proud of. 
We need to ensure that no provision allows regulations to be changed through the measure of this bill without proper scrutiny either by the Regulations Review Committee or by the House itself. The disallowance provisions I suggest need close scrutiny. 
Debate interrupted.