Clendon David: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — Second Reading 
Clendon David: Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill — Second Reading 
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DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou. We in the Greens share with everyone else in the House—and indeed most of the general public—a wish for next year’s Rugby World Cup to be a successful event and to fulfil its potential. It has considerable potential economic value it has resonance in our communities and in our culture and we hope it goes ahead and is successful. 
We opposed the first reading of the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill on the basis that it went many steps too far in terms of overturning processes—well-tried and proven processes for achieving the outcomes we are seeking. We saw no point no real justification for the level of powers and changes in the original drafting of the bill. The granting of the right to host the cup was given in 2005—a 6-year window of opportunity to get it right and we have considerably more faith it seems in the ability of New Zealanders to organise a good event to allow for contingencies and to anticipate what may happen than have the drafters of this bill who seem to believe that there will be numerous occasions for urgency for unforeseen occurrences and for emergency situations. Frankly we do not see that that is realistic. It is unlikely to arise; some good project management and forward planning should facilitate a good event on the day. 
This bill is undoubtedly a better bill for having been through the select committee process. It contains more clarity particularly around matters relating to health and safety. I am quite sure that nobody on the Government Administration Committee or indeed in the House was willing to accommodate any compromises in terms of the health and safety of New Zealanders of our visitors and of anyone else. 
There were some issues around the provision of housing: for example the construction of temporary structures at venues and the like. The Fire Service made a particularly good submission to the committee which was taken on board and I am quite confident that it is possible to ensure people’s health and safety and that all the steps have been put in place to make that work. 
The bill as it is currently drafted still leaves room for some disappointment—staying with the issue of short-term accommodation. There was some concern about the safety and well-being of people with disabilities who might be moving into effectively private apartments that would not normally be used for rental accommodation but that under this bill would be allowed to be. Clearly the health and safety issues have been dealt with but we still feel that there is a considerable likelihood that people with disabilities may in good faith book accommodation assuming that it will be appropriate to their needs and that their needs will be met and those people could be disappointed. 
Access tourism—that is tourism for people with disabilities or who are over the age of 65—is an area of opportunity for New Zealand tourism that is currently not being exploited. We are very slow to come to that party and realise that access tourism is actually a very very valuable niche market worth billions of dollars internationally. If people with disabilities are caught out by the very weak provision in this bill that suggests that councils and property owners be encouraged to make clear that their particular accommodation is not appropriate for people with disabilities then we will do ourselves a disservice in the longer term. Clearly we want to leverage every ounce of benefit out of this event and it would be unfortunate and to our cost in the long run if for the want of some stronger provision making it very clear accommodation unsuitable for people with disabilities is not flagged as such. 
This bill has some very strange things to say about adverse effects. It suggests that in the situations where there are likely to be adverse effects from particular activities the authority when making its decisions must disregard the adverse effect of an activity or a facility that relates solely to the site or location of the facility. I struggled with the logic of suggesting that an adverse effect is OK if it impacts only on the site of the activity—that somehow the adverse effect must flow over into some other site place or activity before the authority may have regard to it. That simply makes no sense to me. The logic of it escapes me completely. 
There is also a suggestion that adverse effects must be disregarded if they are of a temporary nature. But anyone with any knowledge or experience of resource management decisions knows that temporary effects can in fact have some quite long-term and unexpected consequences. It seems to me that inserting these rather clumsy clauses is a fairly clumsy and strange mechanism for overriding genuine and well-grounded objections on the grounds of adverse effect. 
The issue of the ministerial power that is being given by this bill has already been raised. It is worth stepping back one pace and thinking about what is being proposed here. We have in place substantial legislation: the Sale of Liquor Act the Resource Management Act and the Building Act. This bill is designed to sidestep the processes contained within that legislation which contain agencies and process and are tried and true ways of delivering good outcomes to New Zealanders and our visitors. 
It is proposed that this legislation be able to substantially override the Sale of Liquor Act the Resource Management Act and other legislation. We already know of examples where hotels have applied for extensions to existing licensing hours and have been turned down on very good grounds. They will come back for another bite and in all likelihood they will be approved under the so-called empowering bill. We have good substantial legislation in place. Now we are putting in place legislation that can override that tried and true legislation. To add insult to injury almost we are told that there will be a ministerial veto—that is the ability for the Minister to override not only the substantial legislation but also legislation that exempts that standard practice. That is just many steps too far. 
We have recently seen—and indeed the Greens supported it—legislation giving significant and almost unprecedented ministerial powers to cope with the effects of the Canterbury quake. That was an extraordinary event. Thousands of people were made homeless there was many millions of dollars worth of property damage and there was significant social and environmental disruption. We supported that legislation. But for equivalent override powers—the ability to override not one or two but numerous pieces of legislation and all the protections and public processes involved and engaged in them—to be at the fiat of the Minister effectively is simply unacceptable and ought not to be countenanced by this House. We will continue to oppose this bill. Thank you.