Browning Steffan: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9420. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak on the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Amendment Bill. The Green Party has reflected on this bill. As the bill has progressed through submissions we have seen that the retrospective aspect of this bill is not acceptable and we will continue to oppose this bill. We are not going to vote for sorting out this illegal collection of funds to make a legal right and that is something that some of the submitters have put to us through this period of time.I heard a lot from the member Mr Goldsmith that when it is in the best interests it is the right thing to use retrospective legislation but you would have to ask in whose best interests this is being done—a shonky board or the actual gasfitters plumbers and tradesmen who have paid through the nose significantly for a board that did not function very well at all? The communication we have had with tradespeople—and a number of people in the House here tonight have had some of that communication—convinces me that besides this principal issue behind the bill which is the retrospective aspect of the funding we are talking about a dysfunctional board in the past. It was a board that was conflicted and ineffectual in part. Significant fees were amassed unnecessarily through unduly bureaucratic behaviour and then it did not follow through with what it was responsible for. There was the talk of the cowboys and the fish and chip shop / pizza place—Hon Maryan Street: No it wasn’t Pizza Hut; don’t say it again.STEFFAN BROWNING: I know it is not a pizza place and I am not going to talk about or give an ad for Pizza Hut but I know that place too because I also come from the top of the South Island and I was a customer at that place. As was mentioned earlier there are people there who were hurt and who have been skittled professionally and there are other ones who have walked through totally free because this board could not even do its job. And yet it has spent something like $200000 of disciplinary fees on the investigation with no result. I think it is a very very important time to hit the refresh button for that organisation.Talking of refresh buttons we can talk about some other retrospective-type behaviour that we are getting from this Government. We can look at the Government Communications Security Bureau for example and what it has done. We can think back to some retrospective stuff in terms of Aziz Choudry when the SIS in that instance went and busted illegally into his house. Then what did the Government have to do? The Government of the day had to turn round and pay him a settlement and then it changed the law again. Why? To look after Aziz Choudry? The law change was made to carry on and to cover their butts for the illegal activities that they had done on many other people and here we go again for some more—maybe retrospective? We will wait and see—when Mr Key covers up his shenanigans with the Government Communications Security Bureau. That is past history. It is not just him; it is others as well but it is a long history. And what are we doing now? We are looking to do something by using that illegal behaviour and then turning round and ultimately penalising the community in another way.Going back to plumbers and retrospective stuff it is interesting—and a very important example was given to us—in terms of how different boards professional boards handle complaints. It was mentioned by one of the submitters to the Government Administration Committee about the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand and it is a very very sad indictment. We have already had the one with the fish and chip shop but this one was the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand and was to do with the building in Christchurch that ultimately led to the death of 115 people. And what has happened there? That professional body was not even ableto go through and carry out a decent disciplinary action for the people responsible there. The Green Party will be opposing this bill. Thank you.The question was put that the amendments recommended by the Government Administration Committee by majority be agreed to.