Curran Clare: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Standards and Accreditation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3407. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): The Commerce Committee did have robust discussions and it is a hard-working select committee which I think is developing its own standard for the quality of baking which may at some point become a publishable standard. But I would point out—and I am sure the members on the other side of the House know quite clearly—that the Labour Party got to the end of this process and could not support the Standards and Accreditation Bill.This is one of those unusual situations in a select committee where you go into a sitting and hear the submissions you do not feel that it is a particularly controversial bill and your ears are open to everything that is being said but the more you hear from the submitters the more concerned you become. You get to the point which is what the Labour members did where you just cannot support the bill as it stands even with the amendments. I would describe those amendments as being very once-over-lightly amendments. I would have liked to have heard from the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs in his opening remarks today about what further amendments he thinks would be appropriate given his review of the progress of this bill before the House and the fact that he now has had the chance to have a think about it.I would make the point that it is a clear sign of an out-of-touch Government and of arrogance when you have submitter after submitter after submitter coming before a select committee and saying: “There is something fundamentally wrong with this bill. Please listen.” And these are organisations that represent thousands of members working in professions such as the Institution of Professional Engineers consulting engineers incorporated architects public works engineers and the New Zealand Building Industry Federation which said: “Standard-setting should not be subject to direct political influence by the government of the day.” That is the crux of the problem in this bill. It is the lack of independence perceived or otherwise by putting such an important function of democracy—standards setting—inside a massive Government department while appearing to give it independence. I am not saying that there was not an attempt to try and provide independent governance but the mere fact that the standards-setting body has been absorbed into a Government department is the fundamental issue in this bill.I think that is really what we are talking about today. It is that the submitters and the Labour Party and I hope other parties in this House realised that this was actually a backwards step and that you have got to ask yourself what lies behind it and what is the reasoning. Well fundamentally the reasoning is cost cutting.Chris Bishop: Oh!CLARE CURRAN: Well there is no other demonstrable—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.CLARE CURRAN: When I was cut off in mid-flight I think my last word was “demonstrable”. So I will start again with that which is to say that it is demonstrably arrogant and out of touch for this legislation to pass through the House without more amendment. This party on this side of the House is the party that listened to the submitters. That is the party over there National which has just railroaded through this legislation which should not be controversial. It had its gestation back in the previous Labour Government around a review that was undertaken and there was a piece of legislation that came forward but this Government threw that out and then came back with this piece of legislation which brings the important independent function of making standards inside a massive Government agency.I want to refer to the regulatory impact statement on this. When we had the first reading of this bill we took heed of the advice that was given around this the concerns that were being expressed and we said that we would vote for this piece of legislation to go to the select committee but that we would be listening very carefully to submitters because of what was raised in the regulatory impact statement. This advice said: “The advice we have received suggested that overall costs of Standards development can be reduced by moving the function into a larger organisation.” That was also my point earlier on which was that what really lies behind this bill is cost cutting and cost saving. It said: “However other changes to the environment we are anticipating such as a desire by regulators to make their documents available to key users at no or low cost may change the costs that specific commissioners of Standards pay over time.” Therefore that could not be predicted and there may not be cost savings. It went on to say: “Some stakeholders have indicated the risk that experts may no longer be willing to participate on Standards development committees given their perception that the independence of Standards will be eroded under the proposed changes. We consider experts will continue to have incentives to participate however the actual impact is uncertain.”This has all been borne out in the select committee in the submissions that came before us. This was a very highly respectable very diverse group of submitters including from Water Safety New Zealand which said that industry consultation should be required in the preparation of the work programme. Well that has not been properly addressed. The Centre for Advanced Engineering—so we have gone from water to engineering—said that “MBIE as the building regulator should not be in the business of drafting standards many of which are building sector related. The relationships as set out in the Bill between the Minister the Standards Approval Board the Standards Executive are awkward and unnatural and could easily lead to significant difficulties.” I grant that there were some amendments around this in the select committee but they did not go far enough. The Centre for Advanced Engineering also said: “The [removal] of ‘personally interested’ people and parties from the standards setting process … is impracticable”.Also the Electricity Engineers’ Association expressed similar concerns. It said “… the apparent unlimited powers of the independent statutory officer (SO) the NZ Standards Executive to among other important functions decide the membership of standards committees … decide or influence the information placed before the Board …”. It was expressing concern about independence about bringing this important function inside. Let us just remember what some of those standards actually achieve. They set the standards for buildings such as buildings in Christchurch that were affected by earthquakes such as standards at Pike River in the mining industry—standards that have real health and safety implications for workers in their workplaces for New Zealanders who are going about their general business and expect that industries and services that are provided for them have safe standards attached to them.There are too many questions about this bill. There are questions around the independence the conflicts of interest and the international reputation of New Zealand standards as was raised by Standards Australia. If the reason for this bill was to save money and it is questionable about whether it will actually save money then this is actually a bill that needs further review and needs further amendment and the Labour Party cannot support it.