Jones Dail: Business Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Jones Dail: Business Law Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:11902] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I have taken quite a close interest in this legislation on behalf of New Zealand First even before it was introduced to the House. New Zealand First generally opposed the introduction of this bill in an omnibus form because of— 
Hon David Carter 
: They generally support the Government on all other matters. 
DAIL JONES 
: We did not support the Government on the no-confidence motion earlier this year—which the National Party did. Twice we did not support the Government on a no-confidence motion this year—unlike the National Party—and there could be no more important debate than that. I suspect that will end the National Party’s comments on that particular issue. The National Party twice voted for the Government to stay in office. On amendments to the Prime Minister’s statement the National Party voted with the Labour Government to keep it in office. On the Greens’ amendment on the question of genetic modification the National Party voted with the Labour Government to keep the Labour Government in office. How much more cuddling up to the Government could there be than that—to keep the Government in office on two motions of no confidence? Three out of three times New Zealand First voted against the Labour Government; only once out of three times did the National Party vote against the Labour Government. So I suggest that National Party members pull their heads in; they do not realise that on no-confidence motions they voted to keep this Labour Government in office and New Zealand First never did at all. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Get back to the bill. 
DAIL JONES 
: I come back to the bill. I appreciate the interruption because it gave me something to say and to get off my chest. I still do not think the National Party members realise that they voted to keep this Government in office. 
I have taken a close interest in this bill even before it was introduced into the House. It is an omnibus bill and totally breached all the Standing Orders for omnibus bills and the requirements of the Standing Orders Committee that considered these matters. It was necessary for the House to move a motion to allow the bill to be introduced. I spoke at that time as well having gone through the bill in great detail at that stage. My concern then was that this bill might be held up in the Commerce Committee for the 2 years or so that the previous Business Law Reform Bill of about 1998 or 1999 had been held up. I must congratulate this select committee on getting this bill through much more promptly than was the case on the earlier occasion. I am not sure whether there has been a change of Government in-between because the first bill was such a long time ago but this select committee has to be congratulated on getting this bill through in prompt time. 
My criticism of the bill stands entirely correct when we look at the bill and in particular the amendments to Part 10. This bill was supposed to be all in order before it came to the House. Everything was supposed to be up to date and up to scratch—perhaps one or two slight amendments might need to be made in the select committee to give effect to the legislation. But when we look at the amendments to Part 10 “Securities Act 1978” we see that there are effectively about 36 pages of amendment—it is virtually a new bill. An omnibus bill is really meant to be a short bill—not quite a Statutes Amendment Bill but a shortish bill with a shortish list of issues to be considered. That is the way an omnibus bill goes to the House. This bill has 36 pages of amendments to Part 10. That is some omnibus bill! That is some amendment to the legislation! I suggest that it is not the way in which omnibus bills are meant to work. Clearly the next time the Standing Orders Committee meets it will see that this is a classic example of all its provisions for omnibus bills being breached. 
Does anyone in this House particularly understand what has happened to Part 10? [ 
Interruption 
] I must thank Lianne Dalziel for writing to me on that issue. She wrote to the New Zealand First member of the committee and the letter was passed on to me to try to interpret. It was a fairly complicated piece of information which I was just about able to grasp. We worked on the basis that no one seemed to object to it. On balance it seemed to work out as fairly as it possibly could in a very very difficult situation. New Zealand First does not oppose Part 10. We did not oppose it in the select committee and we do not oppose it now. This is a classic example of legislation going to a select committee people then discovering they want to add something to it—this so-called omnibus bill—and the bill coming back twice as big as it was before it went to the committee. The remaining members of the House have to accept the word of the nine members of the select committee that all is in order and that this massive addition to the bill is fine. I have had the opportunity as I said to read the previous Minister’s letter and I take the committee’s word—as one always does—that the amendments are in keeping with what was in the correspondence. 
I note my favourite clause in all legislation clause 13: “Section 2(3)(b) of the principal Act is amended by omitting the word ‘capital’ and substituting the word ‘capital’.” It must be a wonderful piece of statutory interpretation just to move a comma. The law draftspeople concerned obviously have to be congratulated because clearly that resulted in a substantial amendment to the legislation and must have had considerable import for everybody. 
 I looked at another piece of the legislation with considerable interest because I am one of those practitioners of law who has dealt with the Act concerned—the Distress and Replevin Act 1908. I saw that it was not quite correct before it went to the select committee and amendments have been made to it. Those people who have an interest in that Act will realise that clause 38 of the bill contains amendments to section 4 of the Act. The committee recommended “that the provision be clarified to ensure that a secured party has priority over a landlord for the purposes of distress for rent if the security interest relates to a motor vehicle property owned by a company or property owned by an incorporated society. Generally speaking landlords will have priority over a secured party where the goods are the property of a tenant or person in possession of land who is an individual.” It is a very important point. When a tenant is in arrears with the rent under the very very archaic provisions of the Distress and Replevin Act one has to give notice lock up the premises and conduct an auction in terms of the Act to make sure that one knows precisely what one is seizing so that one cannot be subsequently sued by the tenant if anything goes wrong. These amendments are intended to clarify the interaction between the Distress and Replevin Act and the Personal Properties Securities Act 1999 and to confirm that the landlord’s rights under the former Act will prevail over the latter Act in certain circumstances. 
It is quite a wonderful quirk of history that something that was passed in this House in 1908 before there was even the thought of a computer or the types of security systems we had in the mid-1960s 1970s and 1980s with the chattel transfer legislation—although that was an issue in 1908—higher purchase legislation leasing and the like is still being applied. Now we are into computers and all the things that the Personal Properties Securities Act covers. It is quite extraordinary. If we could somehow get a member of Parliament from 1908 to see that that legislation is still hanging on in 2004 that member would not believe what has happened. But that is our responsibility; for all we know this amendment being passed today might still be active in another 100 years’ time. From the way in which this Government is delaying making amendments to the Distress and Replevin Act or producing a new Act it might be yet another 100 years before someone gets around to introducing new distress and replevin legislation. I believe that the matter is before the Law Commission and I am looking forward to the Law Commission’s report coming to hand as promptly as possible. 
The amendment to the Distress and Replevin Act is promoted in order to mitigate the potential effect of section 22(2) of the Interpretation Act. Again that shows that Parliament is fiddling around with legislation—such as the Personal Properties Securities Act 1999 and putting in a new Interpretation Act in 1999—and not fully appreciating the other amendments that need to be made. The section provides that a reference in an enactment to a repealed enactment is deemed to be a reference to an enactment that replaces or corresponds to the enactment repealed. I am sure we all understand what that means. 
I repeat that I am very pleased that my concern over the way in which this legislation would be expedited has resulted I believe in the Government making sure that there would be no delay due to this bill hanging around in the select committee and that it came back to the House promptly. New Zealand First wants to see it passed as soon as possible.