Street Maryan: Inquiries Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Inquiries Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 22 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12776. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):I rise to speak to the Inquiries Bill in its third reading. I acknowledge the genesis of this bill and the number of Labour hands that it has passed through including the Hon Annette King’s and then the Hon Rick Barker’s thereafter. I am pleased to support this bill with Government members. I would like to give a couple of bouquets as I have already. One is to my Labour colleagues who instituted this thing a very long time ago.I must say that Supplementary Order Paper 330 which the Government put forward was very good. It was a suitable improvement on the bill. I think it also represented something that you Mr Assistant Speaker would have an interest in and that is this new form of Supplementary Order Paper which I think is meant to be a readable Supplementary Order Paper. That is a real improvement. Often Supplementary Order Papers come to the Committee and we scrabble to find out exactly which bit of the legislation they previously related to. So this is very helpful in that what we really have in this Supplementary Order Paper is a tracked version of the bill in its final form. That is extremely helpful.One of the things I want to draw attention to—and I seek your indulgence for a moment Mr Assistant Speaker if this sounds like a second reading speech; I do not mean it to be—is one of the things that I was interested in during my role as chair of the Regulations Review Committee which was the extent of the regulation-making powers. I want to refer particularly to what is called an “establishment instrument” which establishes an inquiry. That has been an improvement I think with the deletion of the previous clause 7 and the inclusion of the new one. The establishment instrument is defined in clause 4 as being amongst other things “an Order in Council …”. That is when the Regulations Review Committee begins to prick up its ears and say: “OK how far does this Order in Council power extend and could it be used to thwart the original intention of the bill?”.But what has happened with this one is that it provides greater clarity. The establishment instrument if it is going to be an Order in Council must now do a number of things which I think is really important. In other words a Minister cannot simply say: “We are going to have an inquiry into this and I am appointing so and so and I will set the terms of reference.”What now has to happen is that whichever establishment instrument is used to establish an inquiry must specify the matter of public importance it must name the person or the persons appointed to be members of the inquiry it must name the chairperson if there is more than one person and it must specify the date when the inquiry may begin considering evidence. It must also notify the terms of reference for an inquiry. Or if this is not done in the establishment instrument the appointing Minister or appropriate Minister must establish those terms of reference by notice in theGazette as soon as reasonably possible.Some of this marks an improvement by nailing down the requirements for an inquiry if it is going to fit with this legislation. That is an improvement. I think there have been some other additional pieces that have been included and I refer to the amendment ofmy colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard which has been agreed to by members opposite. I think that also has refreshed and strengthened the purpose of the Inquiries Bill.I think that the introduction of Supplementary Order Paper 330 on the Minister’s part has quite legitimately and appropriately come from the Government’s experience with both the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure Caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes. Both of those inquiries were precipitated by tragic tragic events. If we are able to make the terms by which an inquiry is established clearer more immediate and more transparent by virtue of this bill then this is something this House should pass with alacrity. Not only has the Government’s haste on this been precipitated by two tragedies; it is also obviously in response to the need to have an inquiry into the recent events surroundingFonterra’s products.I for one am perfectly happy to advance the speed of this bill in order for the Government to be able to progress this Inquiries Bill and the amendments in it. So although we have had some concerns around some of the requirements we recognise that Trevor Mallard’s amendment provides that before an inquiry makes an order to impose restrictions on access to the inquiry it must take into account the benefits of observing the principle of open justice. This is really important.I draw for a moment again on the Regulations Review Committee’s experience. We have had a recent complaint before the Regulations Review Committee which is now public and has been reported on to this House in respect of the Teachers Council Disciplinary Tribunal which is the teachers conduct tribunal. The tribunal’s presumption has been—for reasons that I can quite understand but which I think in the end were wrong—for the suppression of identities generally to protect victims in those circumstances. The Regulations Review Committee has come down on the side of the need for the presumption of open justice to be there and suppression of details to be made by exception and not as the rule.This bill is in a similar vein. Trevor Mallard’s amendment reinforces that same principle of open justice and also natural justice. The default position we believe should be that an inquiry the evidence that comes to it and the findings of it should be open to the public and that is the expectation that we have of inquiries that may occur in the wake of the passage of this legislation. So we believe that Trevor Mallard’s amendment is an important change and we are very pleased that the members opposite have considered it to be important as well. This will strengthen the openness of information. It will strengthen the conduct of inquiries and it will allow people in New Zealand to have confidence that when inquiries are called they will have access to the content and the results. Thank you.