Tisch Lindsay: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Tisch Lindsay: State Sector Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:610;Page:7324] 
LINDSAY TISCH (NZ National—Piako) 
: 
 We are going through a very important process at the moment. My colleague Judith Collins has just said that this legislation is being rushed through. Members on the Government side of the Chamber have said that it has been sitting around for 2 years—that is what they have just said. But the point that we made earlier is that this bill is actually a rewrite because we had Supplementary Order Paper 107 lodged yesterday at the eleventh hour. No one has had an opportunity to look at it and what are Labour members doing? They are rushing it through now. 
Last night we started on this debate and here we are today with a completely new bill. Part 2 and all the schedules are absolutely new. The point that I made in an earlier debate was that the original bill went to the Government Administration Committee which had only 9 days for submissions. I was on that select committee and heard those submissions. Then what happened? The second reading was on 11 September 2001 and the bill sat in abeyance for 22 months. When we came back yesterday to debate this bill we found that it is not the bill that we had talked about back in September 2001 because we now have a Supplementary Order Paper that is longer than the original bill. We have 13 pages of new material that no one has had an opportunity to look at. The point here is that we believe there needs to be scrutiny and transparency. This is an abuse of the process because the Minister has lodged a Supplementary Order Paper without the opportunity for anybody to have a say about it. 
I want to hark back to the point that Judith Collins and I made about the Law Society. The Law Society stated that the need for cautious assessment of the proposed provisions is given emphasis here because one of the parties to the contracts that are to be overridden by means of statute is the Crown. That is what the Law Society stated; contracts will be overridden by the Crown by Order in Council. The executive will decide to merge departments amalgamate them and abolish them. Those matters will not come back to Parliament for us to debate and to see the merits or otherwise of—[ 
Interruption 
] I invite the Minister to take a call and substantiate the reasons that we are debating Supplementary Order Paper 107. It is interesting is it not that not one Government member has taken a call on that substantial Supplementary Order Paper? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I did. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Oh well the Minister says that he took a call but at that stage we were debating the title. We are now debating the substantive part of the bill and I would have thought that if the Minister believed that he is not by regulating overriding what Parliament can do then he would take a call to put that matter to rest. The Law Society in its submission stated that the Crown would override contracts by means of statute. 
The Law Society went on to state that the Crown is not only promoting the legislation but will also be a contractual beneficiary of it. This Government by regulation will be able to take away the right of the public to make submissions. This Government is becoming increasingly arrogant and is increasingly using regulation to push through its programme without the scrutiny of this House and without the transparency that all members and every other New Zealander expect there to be. 
I go back to the point about the Regulations Review Committee. The Minister might like to take a call and answer the question that I put to him earlier on. I invite him again to take the call because that is what the Regulations Review Committee said. That committee is the watchdog and the question has not been answered.