Ardern Shane: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2); and Bills Therefrom — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Shane: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2); and Bills Therefrom — 
[Sitting date: 13 March 2008. Volume:645;Page:14947. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I rise again in support of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). As the Minister of Commerce spelt out in the second reading the bill went to the Government Administration Committee for consideration. 
There was one interesting submission that I would like to briefly touch on. It came from a Wellington-based lawyer Graham Edgeler who raised a concern about the amendment in clause 27 of Part 7—which is the part that modifies the Historic Places Act 1993—that was potentially on the cusp of what would have an impact in a Statutes Amendment Bill. He said he was a person interested in legislation and procedure and he raised with the committee that he considered it was stepping slightly over the line. The committee took advice on that and it was our conclusion that it did not but that it did get close to it. I raise that with the Minister in the House today. 
Mr Edgeler said that Statutes Amendment bills are legislative procedures and although they involve the same parliamentary scrutiny as other laws they necessarily involve a lesser degree of public scrutiny. He is right about that. It is therefore important that an amendment advanced through a Statutes Amendment Bill does not offend against important rule-of-law principles such as accessibility of the law particularly where the amended statute is unlikely to be reprinted as a result of the changes. What does that mean? The select committee needed to find that out. We sought advice from a range of advisers on that and as I said before satisfied ourselves that it does fit within the statutes amendment ambit given that they are omnibus bills that are intended to amend minor legislative misprints to fix up slightly technical redrafts and suchlike. In this case it probably did get very close to not meeting those criteria but that said we accepted that the intent of the bill was just a minor adjustment and so it went. 
The legislation this amends that I took a particular interest in was the Biosecurity Act 1993. I am the National spokesman on the biosecurity portfolio. I found that the amendment was useful and sensible because it gives the deputy chief technical officer the power to appoint inspectors authorised persons or accredited persons when that is necessary and in a timely fashion. That was a weakness in the old Act and there have been occasions when that weakness has caused concern for a number of people so I am pleased to see that happen. 
A number of other Acts have also been amended such as the Cadastral Survey Act the Fisheries Act 1996 and the Veterinarians Act. The list goes on and on and includes as I mentioned before the Historic Places Act the Misuse of Drugs Act the National Parks Act the New Zealand Horticulture Export Authority Act the Radiocommunications Act the Reserves Act and the Summary Proceedings Act. That is a large number of Acts—14 I think—which is not something we should take too lightly. In its deliberations the select committee decided that they all met the criteria of a Statutes Amendment Bill and we were happy to support it.