Tisch Lindsay: Standing Orders 
Tisch Lindsay: Standing Orders 
[Volume:650;Page:18845] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 I was not a member of the Standing Orders Committee that produced the report but I have been on it over the years. Some points have not been raised by previous speakers and I wish to highlight them. 
The first concerns the legislative procedures which are in chapter 5. Some time ago the Legislation Advisory Committee brought forward a submission about “the current scarcity of available legislative time in the House of Representatives and the impacts that this scarcity is having on the governments’ ability and inclination to progress technical administrative or uncontroversial Bills through the legislative process.” The proposal submitted by the Legislation Advisory Committee was to amend the Standing Orders to facilitate more use of omnibus bills. The committee decided that that was not a good idea so we find that in these Standing Order amendments no progress has been made in that respect. 
Since that time the Law Commission in conjunction with the Parliamentary Counsel Office has commenced an extensive review of the presentation of New Zealand statute law and in particular has investigated ways of making New Zealand statute law more accessible. I have that document here; it is a very comprehensive document that sets out the sorts of things that a future Parliament will need to consider. In fact the recommendation from the Standing Orders Committee was that in the next parliamentary term the Standing Orders Committee should consider proposals for the legislative process in the light of the Law Commission’s work. Although that is an ongoing process the issue has been highlighted and we look forward to some further discussions on it in that respect. 
The second point I wish to bring to the House’s attention relates to delegated legislation and the affirmative resolution procedure. This is found on page 29. I have some interest in this matter because I was on the Regulations Review Committee that tabled a report in February 2008 that looked specifically at the affirmative resolution procedure. That report came about in response to concerns about the potential proliferation of the use of the affirmative resolution procedure. The committee undertook an inquiry into the procedure and made an interim report. The first report was done back in 2004 when I was not on the committee. The committee that I was on—the one referred to in this report—resolved in October 2006 to resume the inquiry in the light of subsequent experience. 
At that time we made two recommendations. The first was that Standing Order 317 be amended by substituting a 3-month referral period for the current 28 days. The reason is that for many bills the time for select committees to hear submissions is very much truncated. We wanted the time to be extended. The second recommendation was to insert a provision permitting amendments recommended by the select committee to be incorporated in the resolution to be put to the House without the select committee process being repeated. Once again if we have agreed to the amendments there is no need for them to go back to the select committee. 
The first point substituting a 3-month referral period for the current 28 days was not agreed to by the Standing Orders Committee but the second point was. No agreement was reached on the first point but I am sure that when a future Parliament looks at this matter in 3 years’ time it will become part of the amendments made to the Standing Orders. The Regulations Review Committee looked at it in 2004 we looked at it again in October 2006 and it appears in the report of February of this year. 
The final point I wish to bring to members’ attention is on Officers of Parliament. I refer to page 40 of the report. I have been on the Officers of Parliament Committee when it has looked at the role of the Controller and Auditor-General the Ombudsmen and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. What is being suggested here and what has been approved—it is amendment 41—is that after the Officers of Parliament Committee has deliberated has looked at the budgets and has made recommendations those reports can go forward to the committees that handle those particular Officers of Parliament. We are recommending here that a new Standing Order 386A be inserted providing that reports from Officers of Parliament stand referred as applicable to the Finance and Expenditure Committee the Government Administration Committee or the Local Government and Environment Committee so that those committees can at least have an opportunity to have input. At the moment there is no referral to those committees. The Officers of Parliament Committee is a very powerful committee and it is able to deliberate set budgets and handle all the affairs of those three Officers of Parliament. 
The National team that was on the Standing Orders Committee—as I said I was not part of it but I have an interest in what happened there—is happy to see these amendments progress through the House and come into effect in the next Parliament.