Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 2) which the National Party will be supporting—to the great relief of the Leader of the House no doubt—this bill which typically is not a bill which attracts a lot of debate or attracts a lot of controversy.This bill does have an important purpose and that purpose is to prevent the revocation of certain pieces of subordinate legislation that by virtue of Acts of Parliament under which they are made are revoked if they are not confirmed by an Act of Parliament. So this is Parliament's ability to be able to scrutinise the lawmaking the subordinate legislation which is made under Acts of Parliament to ensure that it is in line with the intent of Parliament and then this legislation gives Parliament that ability if it is not satisfied for those regulations to be lapsed if they are found not to be within the intent that Parliament gave to that legislation in the first place.As a member of the Regulations Review Committee we were able to look at the regulations which are presented in this bill and we were able to hear submissions. We received submissions from a number of Government departments from the New Zealand Customs Service the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry for Primary Industries and they all said that they believed that these needed to be confirmed to ensure that they were not automatically revoked.So these confirmations as the Minister Chris Hipkins has outlined cover a range of pieces of legislation from the Animal Products Act which includes some fees and charges and levies to the Antarctica (Environmental Protection) Act. Most interesting I think came under the Commodity Levies Act where there were levies regarding kiwifruit rock lobster pāua arable crops maize cereal silage and asparagus—and I'm sure the Green Party would be very interested in that one. The ones around the asparagus were very important regulations which are included in this bill.Tim van de Molen: Asparagus is a great crop.SIMEON BROWN: Asparagus—that's right Mr van de Molen. I appreciate your input there. The Customs and Excise Act included a number of other excises and that particularly focuses on the tobacco products indexation and the 10 percent increase in tobacco excise which was confirmed as well as the indexation of excise on alcoholic beverages.So this does cover a wide range of regulations and the point of contention—which I'm glad to hear the Minister saying is going to be addressed through the Standing Orders review and which was discussed at the committee and is outlined in the report back to the House—is over the process around when the committee should be able to review the regulations. The National members of the committee believe that the committee's scrutiny would be more effective if it was able to consider the instruments prior to their finalisation.The way that the process currently works is that the regulations are made and then this bill is brought to the select committee and at that point we scrutinise and then we make recommendations to the House. The National members believe that what should take place is that before the regulations are finalised they should be scrutinised and then the process should go towards the confirmation. This would allow the committee to report to the relevant Minister if necessary before the instruments come into force.This anomaly is particularly important I think when it comes to duties or levies. Under the current process if an Act which allows for these levies to be put in place—if levies are put in place—is then found to be inconsistent or the Regulation Review Committee reviews those levies and finds them to be required to be revoked then currently the process is that while they've been in place they've been in law essentially and those levies have been charged. Then the committee looks at those regulations and may decide to revoke them and at that point those duties or levies in most instances will have to be refunded to the people upon which they have been charged.So this leads to a potential situation where essentially levies are charged and then the Regulations Review Committee reviews those regulations which set up the levies and says Actually we don't believe that they fit within the purpose of the Act." and then they are revoked potentially by Parliament if that's the recommendation by the Regulations Review Committee. Parliament will pass an amendment to the subordinate legislation confirmation bill and then they are revoked and then a refund of those levies will have to be put in place. So what we're saying is that that process should be reversed and the regulations should be reviewed first prior to them being struck so that the requirement for those levies to then be refunded is no longer in place.So that's something which I'm very glad to hear that the Minister is going to look into as part of the Standing Orders review. I think that's something which all parliamentarians would find incredibly interesting and would be quite interested in being part of—I certainly would be. I know there would be many members on this side of the House and I'm sure there would be others on the other side who would have a range of different thoughts as no doubt they will have had experience with constituents who have come to talk to them about different levies which have been struck about when and how they were struck the process of consultation and whether that was done through due process.We will be very interested whether the Regulations Review Committee can play a more substantive role in actually looking at these regulations prior to them being struck. I think that will be certainly something which all parliamentarians would be very interested in. So I'm really looking forward to that conversation. I'm really pleased that the Minister has indicated that that conversation will happen. I'm sure it will be something which all of Parliament can agree on. It will be something which will be very very interesting indeed. So without further ado I just want to say that I commend this bill to the House."