Dalziel Lianne: Regulatory Improvement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Regulatory Improvement Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 30 March 2010. Volume:661;Page:10168. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Committee stage of this bill. This will be the first of a number of calls I will be taking in this area because obviously this bill had its genesis in decisions that were taken through a Labour Cabinet. In fact the bill was introduced in my name prior to the last general election. Since that time it has been picked up by the now Minister for Regulatory Reform and I place on record my congratulations to the Government on having a Minister for Regulatory Reform. It is an excellent concept. It is the same as the Labour Government having a Minister for Small Business. It is worthwhile having somebody whose single focus pretty much in that portfolio space is on small business. In the current Government this concept of regulatory reform as being a significant driver for the Government is one that we support on this side of the Chamber. I was kind of a de facto Minister of Regulatory Reform because of the work that I did on the Quality Regulation Review. 
A number of people who have spoken on this bill have talked about it being the outcome of the Quality Regulation Review. It is not the only one. It is only one small part of the Quality Regulation Review which had a whole lot of different streams of work. One of those streams of work even though it did seem to cause one Jonathan Young some angst was the idea that I had spent my time travelling around different parts of New Zealand getting feedback from business. I found that to be the most enjoyable part of the review because it was something I was directly involved in. Some of the changes were made directly as a result of that one-on-one engagement. I found that there were really small things that were utter irritants to business and removing some of the clutter assisted business to get on with their primary job. Not all of the provisions in this legislation fit within this category. I know that the Green Party members will be talking about the changes to the Conservation Act so I thought I would comment on that one initially but certainly I do want to come back in on some of the other issues as well. 
We received very few submissions on the bill. I cannot remember the exact number but there were very very few indeed. [ 
Interruption 
] There were 12 or so—a very small number. The issue that came up on the question of the changes to the Conservation Act was focused on a misreading of the bill and what it proposed to do. The argument that was brought to the Commerce Committee was that this would apply to leases. Of course leases are not covered by the proposal; it is simply licences that are. Let me put on record what the response was from the Department of Conservation. It was the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand that registered its opposition. It said that it opposed extending the term of permits to 10 years with permits at present granted for a maximum of 5 years. 
The submission questions the justification for the changes particularly in terms of freeing time spent on processing permits so more time can be spent on planning and environmental monitoring. The Federated Mountain Clubs considered that this was more about Department of Conservation prioritising than about business compliance costs and it notes that most businesses obtaining permits are small flexible businesses that do not require upfront investment to operate. It says that although they would benefit from greater business certainty by obtaining a longer-term permit this does not outweigh the rights of New Zealanders to comment on the land’s management. 
The response from the Department of Conservation was: “Over 300 new permits are applied for each year with at least the same again being reissued each year. In obtaining a permit significant staff and applicant effort occurs. Reducing the regularity for seeking a permit will reduce effort and cost and enable effort to be better placed in improved planning and management of concessions. Permits are granted for many activities including some which require significant financial investment—e.g. aircraft landings boating guiding grazing. A longer-term permit will provide greater certainty for investment in these opportunities. The Department of Conservation’s planning processes enable opportunity for public engagement on how public conservation lands and waters are managed over a 10-year period.” 
Certainly when we considered this matter at the select committee it was felt that this was an issue that fitted within the purview of the legislation but more important that the question of environmental protection and public engagement with the Department of Conservation over the estate was reasonably left to the broader planning role of the department rather than requiring people to apply every 5 years. 
Interestingly I actually thought we had some information in here that we do not have I say to the Minister in the chair the Minister for Courts. I have not been able to find it in my notes since I realised that this would be a debatable issue in the context of this Committee stage. One of the pieces of information I think would be useful for the Committee if the Minister could supply it is how many of those 300 applications per annum are renewals and how many of them are challenged. If the reality is as I recall the advice we got at the select committee that almost none of them are challenged because they are ongoing concessions then it would seem to me that we might be trying to make dare I say it a mountain out of a molehill—which is probably not fair to say given that it was the Federated Mountain Clubs that raised the issue. Incredibly useful advice for the debate would be to know how many of them are normally opposed. My recollection would be that very very few if any that are longstanding concessions in our Department of Conservation estate are in any way challenged by anyone and have been a great opportunity for people to get engaged with our conservation estate especially in terms of our tourism industry. It might be slightly different now with mining on national park land but there we go; that is probably a debate for a different occasion. 
The other issue I thought I would touch on was that there were a number of submissions in relation to the hazardous substances legislation as well. One of the problems with the way the submitters came forward was that it appeared that they had not quite realised that the bill was not changing any of the GMO provisions in the legislation. So we ended up hearing a couple of submissions where people were genuinely concerned about something that genuinely was not happening. The commentary states: As nothing in this bill addresses or affects the regulation of genetically-modified organisms as any changes to the regulation of such organisms is likely to be contentious and as the purpose of this regulatory improvement omnibus bill is to address minor regulatory problems”. 
So again I say to the Minister that it would be useful if the Minister puts it on the record that this is not an intention of this legislation and it never was an intention of this legislation. I understand that the submitters were utterly genuine in the submissions they were making and possibly it was useful that they brought the matter to our attention just to show that this was an issue that will continue to be of importance across New Zealand. But in this particular case it was not an issue that required the attention of our committee because the bill itself did not cross the line into the area of genetic modification. 
Having made those opening comments I think it would be useful to have some clarity from the Minister and if we can get those additional points of information to assist the Committee in the debate I think that would be very useful.