Heatley Phil: Statutes Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Heatley Phil: Statutes Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:11247] 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture) 
 on behalf of the  
Associate Minister of Justice 
: I move  
That the Statutes Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. As the House will be aware Statutes Amendment bills are useful vehicles for making minor technical and non-controversial amendments to Acts. They allow amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to be progressed although on an annual cycle the current bill is a combination of the bills developed in 2008 and 2009 and is therefore larger than normal. 
The bill amends 47 statutes administered by 15 different Government agencies and it contains 196 clauses. Each of the amendments in the bill has received unanimous cross-party support. I thank Parekura Horomia and his team for that. The bill was reported back by the Government Administration Committee on 1 April 2010. 
I thank the Government Administration Committee for its careful consideration of the bill. I endorse the committee’s one recommended amendment an amendment to clause 156(2) which I know Jacqui Dean worked on. The amendment will add the words “in each place where it appears” to the end of the clause as the term to be replaced by the bill appears more than once in the affected section. This change will be addressed by way of a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee of the whole House as the committee considered that the six additional words did not justify the expense of reprinting the bill at this point. 
Somewhat unusually for a Statutes Amendment Bill the bill received five submissions from members of the public. Four of these submissions related to the amendment in clause 119. Clause 119 members will be interested to know amends section 94A of the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1998 and it is important. Currently two people such as a husband and wife who wish to create enduring powers of attorney in favour of each other are required to seek advice and have their signatures witnessed by a person who is independent and who is a lawyer qualified legal executive or authorised trustee corporation officer. 
In effect this has meant that two people wishing to create enduring powers of attorney in favour of each other had to seek advice from two different law firms or trustee corporations. This unintended consequence of section 94A has increased the expense involved and has deterred some couples from creating mutual enduring powers of attorney. The amendment will enable witnesses from the same law firm or trustee corporation to separately advise and witness the signatures of two people who have granted each other respective power of attorney although each witness must otherwise be independent under section 94A(4). 
Although the four submitters either supported the intention of the amendment or did not oppose it they each considered that it did not go far enough to address their concerns about the independence requirements of section 94A. However any change to widen the amendment in clause 119 to address the concerns raised would represent a significant policy change. As Parliament has deliberately enacted the requirements for independent witnesses this is not something that is suitable to be progressed in a Statutes Amendment Bill. The committee has recommended that concerns about section 94A be addressed in the review of the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988 which is set for 2013. 
During consideration of the bill by the select committee Nathan Guy signalled he had received additional amendments for inclusion in the bill subject to the agreement of all parliamentary parties. All parties have indicated support for an amendment to the Sentencing Act 2002 to correct an error in the definition of “Instrument of crime”. It is intended that this definition be amended so that it is consistent with the equivalent definition in the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009. 
The inconsistent definitions were inserted by the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill which was passed last April and came into effect on 1 December 2009. The definition was intended to be the same as the definition in the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act so that the instruments of crime restrained under the Act could eventually be confiscated under the Sentencing Act. However a paragraph was omitted in error. The effect is that where an instrument is sold or converted into another property before a forfeiture order is made the proceeds of property into which the instrument was not converted can be restrained but not confiscated. As with the amendment recommended by the select committee this amendment will be moved by way of a Supplementary Order Paper in the Committee of the whole House. 
This bill proposes a number of positive changes to the statute book that are minor technical or non-controversial. Again I thank the committee for its diligent and expeditious work and I commend the bill to the House