Leary IngridINGRID LEARY (Labour—Taieri): Look I'd like to start my contribution just by saying that I know this is a very short clause and it's to do with the date but the issues raised by the Hon Dr Duncan Webb are real issues when it comes to the timing. The question I have is—and I'll say it now and then I'll give some context to it—did the Minister consider last week when it came out in the media about the situation with parking fines in Invercargill moving the date to ensure that there was enough risk and liability consideration to what would happen if the Invercargill situation happened?Now what happened in Invercargill—and the reason I'm interested in this is because I am the Labour buddy MP—is that that council is in the position of having to refund $500000 worth of parking fines. It is something that the council can't really afford to do. It's got a small ratepayer base. It's got a population of around 60000 people.CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Does this have something to do with commencement of the bill?INGRID LEARY: Yes it certainly does. It certainly does Madam Chair because—CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Can you explain to us quickly how it relates to commencement?INGRID LEARY: Absolutely. Thank you for indulging me Madam Chair. So my question is given what happened in Invercargill and given the very very short commencement date and given the questions that come up from the Invercargill situation about who bears the liability of the lost revenue from those fines did the Minister consider moving the date to seek further advice about what would happen in a situation like this?Now this is not hypothetical. This happened. The situation was that parking fines between 1 July 2022 and 29 February 2022—it's been revealed that they were incorrectly issued under a council by-law. The fines were for $40 and then $490880 and 12272 parking fines were issued. This is what I believe if the Minister was prudent and this came up in the media which it did last week—did he say OK have we given enough time to consider what would happen in that situation?" Because the council has decided to return that money to people who got those parking fines.Now the council may in turn I guess try to seek recovery of those fines from the Crown. I don't know if it's going to do that but if I was a Crown Minister I would be asking myself: what risk management strategy do we need in place to make sure we're protected from that? I don't see anything in the commencement date or in the regulatory impact statement or in any of the other documentation that would suggest that there has been some attention brought to the question about liability.I raise this in the context that $500000 is a lot of money for a small council and so they may seek just—I don't know how they would do it whether they would just ask the Minister in the spirit of cooperation. Given that the Crown has recovered a certain amount of that money through this type of legislation through the Public Finance Act they may say "Can you please give us back the amount that we have paid to you?" or they might try and wear it. So the question is very much about commencement because everything might have looked in order although I doubt it with the speed at which we're going through this—but when something like that comes up and it exposes the Crown through the exposure of the local council I do think it's prudent for the Minister to turn his attention to whether the date is simply too quick. And maybe like Dr Duncan Webb saying to leave it for—I'm not sure how long he said; I won't ask him but perhaps a month to seek some further advice and say "What would happen in the case of an Invercargill-type situation?"My final comments are that it's really unfortunate because with the end of free public transport in Invercargill the young people from the south cannot catch buses to the north to get to their sports games—CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Now we're a long way away from the commencement.INGRID LEARY: Yes. I just wanted to make that point because $500000 is a lot of money and a lot of exposure and so I'd love the Minister to answer my question please."