Hipkins Chris: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Social Security (Commencement of Benefits) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8215. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I would like to thank the Minister who was in the chair a moment ago Anne Tolley for her contribution with regard to the concerns that I was raising about what the original intent in the passage of the legislation was. I have some further comments to make on that in response to the Minister because she raised the issue first of all of what the Government policy of the day was not what the legislation was. Ultimately the question therefore from a legal standpoint becomes: which takes precedence—Government policy or legislation? Actually the law is pretty clear: legislation trumps Government policy. Government policy informs legislation in the way the Government presents it to the House but the word of the law is what ultimately takes precedence. So regardless of what the Government’s policy intention was at the time the question was what the legislative intent was at the time and the legislation it seems to me from a very clear reading of the principal Act was actually quite clear.Then the question becomes: what remedy is there if there was an error in the Act? So we turn to McGee the authority on these issues in the New Zealand House of Representatives and it makes it very clear that if there is an error in the drafting of legislation the law that takes precedence the law that applies is in fact the law as assented to. Even if there are mistakes between the House’s passing legislation and it being signed by the sovereign—being given the Royal assent—it is the legislation that receives the assent that ultimately becomes the law. Even if the Government’s intention was not enacted by the law the fact is that that was the law that was signed by the Governor-General and therefore that was the law that applied. Therefore is there good cause for retrospectivity?I then turn to the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee’s advice on these matters. The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee guidelines are very clear. It is in the very beginning of the committee’s principles of legislative design—Chapter 3 Part 1.7—that it specifies “Legislation should not affect existing rights and should not criminalise or punish conduct that was not punishable at the time it was committed.” It goes on to say: “The presumption against retrospectivity: The general rule is that legislation should have prospective not retrospective effect.” Therefore the question that the Committee needs to turn itself to is whether there is good justification for effectively taking away someone’s rights—for making right something that was wrong or wrong something that was right previously.I think that the Parliament needs to be very very careful in doing that particularly when it comes to issues of individual rights and entitlements. This is not an authority that we are dealing with. It is not a legislative body. It is not so much a Government department. This is something that affects individual citizens. I think the Parliament needs to tread very carefully when we are trying to change the law retrospectively in that regard particularly as these retrospective changes go all the way back to 1998. It is the better part of two decades’ worth of previous application of the law that is being retrospectively changed by this legislation and I think we need to be very careful about that. I think that the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee is quite right in its guidance to the House and to those drafting legislation that prospectivity should be the main principle behind legislative drafting not retrospectivity.To recap those three points I just made—regardless of the Government’s policy intention at the time it is the legislation as given the Royal assent that takes precedence and that triumphs. Secondly if there were mistakes in the legislation that was given the Royal assent it is the version of the legislation given the Royal assent that ultimately is the law. Regardless of whether the mistakes were in Government policy or in the drafting of the law once it was passed and once it was assented to that was the law and that has been the law since 1998. The third point is about whether there is a case for retrospectivity and really I think the Parliament will be going against itself against its own advice and against its own better principles if we allow this legislation to go through with the retrospective clauses that exist within it. I think we enter dangerous territory when we pass the legislation in the way we are going to be passing it if this bill is passed now.There are further points I am going to make about the substance of clause 5 but I will do that in a further contribution. Thank you.