Hipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Education Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call on the Education Amendment Bill 2009 but I am disappointed that the Minister has not risen to her feet to respond to the very legitimate concerns that my colleague Trevor Mallard has raised with regard to the title of the bill. In fact I look across the Chamber to Mr Allan Peachey and I am sure that had he been sitting in the chair as the Minister he would have taken a call and clarified this issue. He would not have let this sloppy process continue: the process of passing an amendment bill dated 2009 despite the fact that we are now nearly through the fourth month of the year nearly one-third of the way through 2010. I do not think that Allan Peachey would have let the Government get away with that. I think he would have had much higher standards than that. Certainly that is the feedback I have had from my colleagues who sit on the Education and Science Committee. 
I refer in particular to Standing Order 307 “Verbal or formal amendments” which states: “In preparing the bill for the Royal assent”—which comes under clause 2 the clause stating that this bill will come into force once it has received the Royal assent—“amendments of a verbal or formal nature may be made and clerical or typographical errors may be corrected in any part of the bill by the Clerk.” Would this particular problem that we have raised be a clerical or typographical error given that it has been brought to the attention of the Committee prior to a vote being taken on clauses 1 and 2? Could the error be regarded as clerical or simply as a minor or typographical error if the Committee already knew about it when it voted on it? The issue that my colleague has raised is quite significant. 
Is the title appropriate? What would the consequences be if this bill’s title were to be changed to the Education Amendment Bill 2010 only after the Committee had voted on it knowing that it was voting on something that was not strictly speaking correct? Would there be consequences for somebody who then changed that arguing that the error was clerical or typographical if in fact the Committee had known about that problem when it voted on it? There could be some reasonably significant issues with that so I think it is a shame that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Education has not taken the opportunities there. It would be a relatively small amendment. In fact I could probably talk for the length of time it would take her to handwrite an amendment that we could then vote on; I am happy to keep going in order to give her the time to write an amendment. It will not take her very long—well it might take her a while actually. Trevor Mallard has done it so in fact we can vote on an amendment to change this legislation to the Education Amendment Bill 2010 which would be a very sensible thing to do. We are from the Opposition and we are here to help. 
It would be very unwise for this House to go ahead and pass legislation with factual inaccuracies in it right from the very beginning. We are talking about the very first line of the bill. I have to speak for a few more minutes because Trevor Mallard apparently has to produce six copies of the amendment before we are allowed to vote on it. I will do my best. 
I will give it a go by going back to the issue of the Royal assent. The commencement clause states: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” Commencement dates are discussed by select committees quite a lot. I have been involved in all sorts of discussions about when it is appropriate for law to come into effect. The Regulations Review Committee has produced an entire report on that very issue on the dates when legislation should come into effect. The Regulations Review Committee has made recommendations about making sure that the date when the bill can come into effect is clear within the bill. Of course there is a particular clause relating to a king—I cannot remember which one it was— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: King James? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: No I do not think it is the King James clause. I cannot remember which king it was but basically the provision says that we should not where possible write into the commencement clause of a bill that the bill can come into force on ministerial prerogative or that there should be some discretion in there. Parliament ultimately— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Is it the Annette King clause? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: My colleague is asking whether it is the Annette King clause. I am not sure. I do not want to speculate on that too much; that could be career-limiting for me. 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I bring to your attention Standing Order 107(2) which brings into light “the conduct of a member who persists in irrelevance or tedious repetition either of the member’s own arguments or of the arguments used by other members in debate”. I think we have been through this issue over and over again. It is out of order I believe. I ask you to stop this member and ask him to desist from doing that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I was out of the Chamber for about a minute and a half doing some photocopying but I think we are on only the third call of what is an important issue. I am sorry; I see that Mr Chairman is motioning that we are on the fourth call of an important issue. There really needed to be only one call. If there was an indication that the amendment had been accepted I am sure we would have had only four or five more calls in order to get through into the next day. I know there is a lot of debate here. I wonder as we have had no reply from the Minister what we will do after this— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No no. That is not part of the point of order that I was hearing the member speak on. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Well I— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I ask the member to sit down please. I am going to overrule the point of order that was raised on this occasion. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I believe that I am the first member in this part of the debate to talk about the commencement the importance of the commencement date some of the considerations around it and alternative commencement dates.