Lee Melissa: Standards and Accreditation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Standards and Accreditation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:492. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National):This is my first opportunity to speak as the newly appointed chair of the Commerce Committee so I would like to start by acknowledging the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the Hon Paul Goldsmith for bringing this bill to the House. I would like to start off by commending the member who just sat down Clayton Cosgrove. I will be working closely with him in the Commerce Committee and I look forward to having discussions.We hold high standards in this Parliament. When I got this bill and I was told I had to actually speak on it I started thinking about standards. I thought I could start off with comments about keeping standards in the Labour Party but I thought that would be overly political. I thought I had better not comment about the Labour leadership. I thought I had better not start off with the Labour leadership and thought that I should actually speak about the bill.The aim of the bill is to amend and consolidate the law relating to standards and conformity assessment bodies and to repeal and replace the Standards Act 1988 and also the Testing Laboratory Registration Act 1972 among others. The reason we are doing this is to make sure that the New Zealand standards systems are actually viable well functioning and meet the needs of the businesses regulators and consumers—I guess pretty much futureproofing.When Mr Cosgrove talked about having standards to make sure that New Zealanders are kept safe I agreed with him. We have had some disasters in this country where good standards might have actually prevented some of those disasters. I look forward to the submissions during the select committee process when we will hear from experts and from communities as to what kinds of standards we actually need to have in this country.I think the importance of bringing this bill is that the National-led Government has always been focused on boosting growth and creating jobs. This has been said over and over again but I reiterate that a strong economy can provide financial security for families opportunities for our young people safer communities higher qualifications for our children and better education and health services which are required by all New Zealanders. A more productive and competitive economy actually needs standards—from product standards to building standards energy safety environmental management and information technology standards as well.I know that Mr Cosgrove talked about wanting an independent standards authority but there is also another view. We deal with a lot of overseas nations. We trade with them. Sometimes with regard to standards a Government entity is better recognised than an independent one. There will be different views from the different organisations that will actually submit so I look forward to those discussions that we will have in the select committee process.Generally standards are voluntary but standards can be mandatory when it is actually cited in Acts and regulations that there are agreed specifications for products processes services and performances. For example if an electrical product is marked as meeting a particular standard it actually means that it is meeting the minimum safety standard requirements. This bill will establish a new independent statutory board to approve New Zealand standards with a new independent statutory officer from within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment as has been said. The bill will also ensure that an independent standard development committee will continue to comprise industry and technical experts consumer representatives and regulators. This is a good bill. I commend it to the House.