Nash Stuart: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Standards and Accreditation Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5028. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I find it quite surprising that Mr Hudson and the Minister in the chair the Hon Paul Goldsmith have stood up and talked about independence in the way they have. I want to clarify that there is a difference between independence and competence. I am not suggesting that those who are going to be appointed will not be competent but I am suggesting that they will not be independent. I point to clause 6: “The chief executive must appoint a suitable employee of the Ministry to be the NZ Standards Executive.” Immediately the New Zealand Standards Executive is beholden to the chief executive officer. He is an employee of the ministry.Under the “Functions of the NZ Standards Executive” in clause 7(3) it says: “In performing the functions … the NZ Standards Executive must … act under the direction of the Minister and the chief executive.” To me that does not suggest in any way shape or form that this is an independent position or a person who has been given a mandate to act independently. It actually states in the legislation that they must act under the direction of the Minister and the chief executive. As mentioned I am not saying that this person will be incompetent in any way shape or form—in fact they will probably be highly competent—but independent? No I do not buy that. What I would also like to talk about is the fact that this New Zealand Standards Executive may in fact delegate authority to anyone within the ministry as well. Again that just flies in the face of what constitutes independence.What I would like to talk about briefly though is the New Zealand Standards Approval Board. The board is the governance role of this whole process. Clauses 11 and 12 talk about the functions of the board but first of all I want to go to schedule 1 which talks about the appointment of board members. The Minister in the chair said that absolutely there will be experts in this field and therefore there is nothing to worry about. Well in schedule 1 clause 1(2) it says: “The Minister must only appoint a person to be a member of the Board who the Minister considers has adequate skills and experience to perform the functions of the Board …”. The English language is wide and varied and there are many words that we can use that describe a person’s competency expertise or experience and “adequate skills” is not one of those. To me the term “adequate skills” does not denote expertise in any way shape or form.The other thing I would like to say is that when we look at the nomination of board members—this is schedule 1 clause 2(1)—it says: “If the Minister considers it appropriate he or she may invite public or private nominations before appointing a member to the Board.” So again I do not know at what point in time or how we quantify what “appropriate” is but the other thing this actually says is that the Minister may in fact shoulder-tap someone and say: “Come along I want you to put forward your nomination to be a board member of the standards authority.” and that is not independent in any way shape or form. I will go back to the point: it does not mean that the person may be incompetent but if there is a private process where someone is being shoulder-tapped by the Minister I think that flies in the face of what constitutes independence. If we do not get this right in terms of independence then all it does is it devalues the work that the standards authority and the standards board undertake because if there is a perception of cronyism—and I do not use that word lightly—then even if it does not exist the ability of this board to gain the credibility needed will be greatly diminished and that will be a real shame.The other thing if I go to clause 3 in schedule 1 is: “The Minister appoints or reappoints a member of the Board and a chairperson of the Board”. So again this is not independence; this is the Minister determining who is on this board and who is chairing this board—so who has the most powerful position. Clause 4 in schedule 1 says: “The acts of a person as a member or chairperson of the Board are valid even though”—sorry this is another thing that I do not quite get and I am not too sure where this leads from. Clause 4 in schedule 1 actually says that if a person on the board has been elected or nominated through an appointment process that is defective then they are still able to sit on that board. I am not too sure how that comes about or where again is the independence let alone the validity or the mandate because the board is a very important part in terms of this whole process.The board has the ability to “approve or decline proposed New Zealand Standards:” to “adopt or decline … other standards organisations’ standards [as standards for New Zealand]” to “approve or decline modifications to New Zealand Standards:” to “advise the Minister on any matter referred to the Board …” to “advise the Minister on the currency of New Zealand Standards”—I mean you get the point. What I am actually saying here is that the board has a very important role to play and yet the legislation says that the board members have to haveonly “adequate skills”. I am hoping that what the Minister is going to do is stand up and let me know or give a feel for what the definition of “adequate skills” is.I will go back to a point that I often make in this Chamber and that is that we are held up in the global market place as a country that stands for something a country that has really robust processes around our standards around our export quality etc. etc. If we do not get this right then what we end up with is a devalued brand where people begin to question the efficacy of what we stand for. That is why this is so important. And the shame of all this is that as Ms Curran alluded to earlier as a Parliament we have the mandate and we actually have the responsibility to get this right.I know in these sorts of circumstances that Labour is always willing to work with the National Government in the select committee process to ensure that the processes and the legislation governing such an important area are done in a way that gains credibility not only for our Parliament and our country but for us on the international stage. It is such a shame that the Government did not take up the opportunity for all MPs to work together to get this right. In fact yesterday I think I spoke on a bill for environmental reporting standards where again the Labour Opposition offered a way through where the Government could work with Labour to come up with something that was a robust and responsible piece of legislation.The thing is that I actually believe that the people of New Zealand expect us to work together. We are not here to get in the way of the Government when we are putting forward this sort of legislation because we understand how important this legislation is. We are not not supporting this because we do not believe that standards are important. We think standards are incredibly important but we will never support legislation where we think it is not the right thing to do. So to the Minister in the chair I would like to say that this is a real missed opportunity.Some of the wording in this bill greatly concerns me. When Mr Hudson stood up and said: “Of course these people are going to act independently” I think that is a little naive with all due respect because if you are beholden to the Minister for your appointment or if you are beholden to the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment for your appointment then you are going to undertake the sort of direction that the Minister or the chief executive officer puts on the table and purports to represent. That is the concern I have. It could have been better it should have been better and it is a shame it is not. Thank you very much.