Hipkins Chris: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:668;Page:15111] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 What a vacuous load of nonsense we just heard from Jacqui Dean. The suggestion that the Labour Opposition not supporting the giving of absolute power to Murray McCully means that Labour is somehow opposed to rugby is extrapolating things just a little bit too far. I can assure the Committee and anybody listening or watching on television that the Labour Opposition is 100 percent behind the Rugby World Cup 2011. We are 100 percent behind the Rugby World Cup and we are very much looking forward to seeing it successfully hosted in this country. 
Let us not forget how we ended up with the hosting rights to the Rugby World Cup in the first place. Helen Clark flew with the Kiwi crew all the way to Dublin in order to secure the hosting rights. The Labour Government was behind it— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: We are debating Part 6. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: —and the Labour Party remains behind it. I turn now to Part 6 of the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill which Jacqui Dean was just speaking to. Part 6 deals with the remaining technical aspects of the legislation including the regulation-making power of the Governor-General by Order in Council on the recommendation of the Minister for the Rugby World Cup. Now of course we come back to the concerns raised by the Labour Opposition in terms of the regulation-making powers that the Minister will have effectively to overturn recommendations given by the Rugby World Cup Authority. The Minister will not have to follow the recommendations of the Rugby World Cup Authority. The regulation-making powers that this part gives to the Governor-General—because the Governor-General will be acting on the advice of the responsible Minister; in this case Murray McCully—effectively mean that the Minister will have absolute power to do whatever he likes. He will not have to be guided in any way by the decisions of the Rugby World Cup Authority and that is the reason the Labour Opposition is voting against the remaining stages of this bill. 
It is not as Jacqui Dean suggested because we do not support the Rugby World Cup; we do. We are 100 percent behind the Rugby World Cup but we on this side of the Chamber support democracy. We believe that the provisions of this bill could easily have been remedied if Murray McCully had agreed to support the amendments put forward by Trevor Mallard. This issue could have been resolved and this bill could have been passed with much broader cross-party support than has been the case. But Murray McCully rejected the approach by the Labour Party and that is why we continue to oppose it. 
Finally I want to talk to some of the clauses in this part listed on page 83 of the reprinted bill as tabled in the House. They concern the service of notice and documents. I am not a lawyer and I do not usually pay much attention to these types of matters but I think it is important that when we are talking about the service of notice and documents and about ensuring that processes operate fairly transparently and so on there is real clarity around what will be deemed to be a service of notice or a document. Can it be done electronically or by fax and so on? Clause 89 as set out on page 83 makes it very clear when a notice will be deemed to have been issued or served. I think that it is really important that the Committee is very clear on that. Clause 89(4) states “If a notice or document is to be served on a Minister of the Crown service on the chief executive of the appropriate department of the State is service on the Minister.” This comes back to this ultimate power that Murray McCully will have under this legislation. He can be sending off missives to departmental chief executives serving notices on all of his ministerial colleagues. That is just a further example of the ultimate power that Murray McCully is being given in this legislation which is why the Labour Opposition is opposed to it. 
We do not have anything that we are really opposed to in Part 6. Part 6 is a pretty technical non-controversial part of this legislation. It is primarily Part 4 that we have our concerns about but I think Part 6 gives further examples and further elaborates why it is that the Opposition has expressed so many reservations and how easily that could be resolved if the Government was willing to take a more democratic approach to this legislation.