Mallard Trevor: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMallard Trevor: Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11476. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. That was a shocking abuse of process which is coming very close to the approach from the Minister of Commerce. Can I say that the Labour Party will be opposing this motion not because we are opposed to the timing involved in it and the report back but because of the oppressive approach of requiring a select committee to sit during House sitting time and on a Friday in a week in which the House has been sitting.Can I say I have not heard anywhere in this House today any argument against this bill the Copyright (Parallel Importing of Films) Amendment Bill—I think there are a few questions around the House and I think probably all sides have questions about the bill—but there are a lot of questions around the process. I say to the Minister of Commerce that if there is a bill around which someone expects agreement and it is coming in under urgency the practice is normally to supply to each of the parties a copy of the bill—a confidential draft—before the House goes into urgency so that members have an opportunity to study it so that they are prepared for the debate. Then when they come to the debate they will have a view and it is properly made up. The practice—I think generally last used under Muldoon—of dumping a bill having it introduced and going straight to the first reading is something that is not conducive to positive practice in the House or to support.I will reiterate a comment that I have made previously and that is that as this bill is one that is generally I think likely to be unanimously supported at its later stages it could well have been a very good candidate to come up on a Thursday morning in an extended sitting and go through in a quarter of an hour or half an hour rather than having an hour and a half debate on the first reading and another hour or an hour and a half on a referral motion. I think it is something that is generally not a good use of House time and it is an abuse of process.There is not much doubt now that this bill needs to get through by a date in October in order for there not to be a gap although I am not quite sure what the massive problem would be if there was a small gap between the current law and the new law. That is something that the Minister who has the ability to have a reply in this particular debate might want to explain when it comes to his reply. But I think I can accept that it is logical to have this bill when it becomes an Act coming into force at the time that its predecessor goes out. Therefore having a shortened select committee process is logical.But I say again to the Minister who has got the chair of the Commerce Committee I think sitting behind him—is Jonathan Young the chair of that committee? I say to the Minister that compared with a number of the chairs and certainly compared with one that I have experienced recently he is exceptionally competent. The member especially when he has got support of the major Opposition parties and I understand other parties as well could have called for submissions over a short period had hearings over a day or two and got the bill reported back inside the time that we are currently obliging the committee to have now. Jonathan Young knows that when one works in a cooperative manner things can go through pretty smoothly and especially where there is legislation that is widely supported within the House the process can be truncated. There is nothing in the Standing Orders that says that a bill has to take 6 months or 4 months or whatever to get back. If there is cooperation within the committee there is no reasonwhy it could not have been back in 5 6 or 8 weeks anyway with plenty of time to have it passed before the due date without this sort of oppressive motion.I must say that it is important that the bill is looked at pretty carefully. There are certainly some doubts from the people within the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment as to whether the bill should be passed or not although I think it is fair to say given the current direction or on occasions lack of direction—the wild free-market approach of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment—I am not sure that we should rely that heavily on a regulatory impact statement that it has made. But it will be an interesting part of the select committee process to have the officials interrogated on that and to see whether there is any deeper rationale behind what they are saying than what has come out in the regulatory impact statement. Frankly it sort of reeks a bit of ideology—the sort of ideology that permeated through Treasury in the 1980s and the 1990s and appears to have spread into parts of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment I think it is fair to say. It has not spread into all parts of the ministry but it was certainly the sort of free-market approach that has caused problems for our economy and problems across quite a wide range of areas.I hope that the select committee in its hearings has the good sense to call in the New Zealand Motion Picture Industry Council. It is an organisation that is an industry group of both the major and the independent exhibitors and distributors. It is fair to say that it is almost like we are back where we were when I was a kid when the local theatre was run by someone locally it was not part of a massive chain and it was not a big multiplex with 17 theatres most of them with uncomfortable seats. We are now getting back to the relatively small and local approach but there are still some of these big ones even though they are failing. [Interruption ] If I were that member I would just be quiet on this particular subject. I think it is not one that he should interject on. I think it is fair to say that most movie theatres the more modern ones are relatively small. In fact one that I have spent some time in in Taupō I think had only 11 seats in one of the theatres and one of them was on the other side of a pillar. So it is fair to say that there is a range. Bringing together these different groups in a group like the New Zealand Motion Picture Industry Council means that you can get a united voice and one that I am sure will be interested in talking to the committee.I think it is probably fair to say that it will tell the committee that this legislation does not go far enough that it would like the sunset period to be further away and that it would like the 5 months held at 6 months or 9 months or some figure closer to that. It will be interesting to hear the logic. But having said that I do accept that the Minister in bringing the bill to the House has worked a compromise. He has shown that he has been able to listen and I hope that the select committee process is such that that continues to be the case. Thank you.