Seymour DavidNEW ZEALAND PRODUCTIVITY COMMISSION ACT REPEAL BILLFirst ReadingHon DAVID SEYMOUR (Minister for Regulation): I present a legislative statement on the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.Hon DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you Madam Speaker. I move That the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act Repeal Bill be now read a first time.Technically this is a very simple bill. The New Zealand Productivity Commission was established by legislation as a Crown entity. The Government now wishes to disestablish it for reasons that I will go into and therefore it requires legislation for this disestablishment to occur. It repeals those changes that were made in 2010 when the commission was established by legislation. It also has a series of savings provisions the broad effect of which is that the asset and for that matter liabilities of the Productivity Commission will pass to a host agency referred to in the bill as the Ministry"—in this case the Treasury.The Treasury will become the custodian of any assets and liabilities outstanding and the Treasury will take responsibility particularly for those matters relating to employment of those who will become former employees of the Productivity Commission. We've been very clear as the Government in our communications with the department that we want to ensure that those people who were working for the Productivity Commission are given every opportunity to find new employment within the Government that those people do not find themselves unfairly treated throughout this process.Now to make some more general comments about the policy intention behind the bill I'll make a few comments. One is that this is not in any way an indictment on the quality of the work of the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission has done some tremendous work over the past decade or so and that work will remain available as an asset or a taonga for New Zealanders to be a guide for policy formation.I just make the case that if you look at the five most prominent inquiries according to Treasury they are things such as housing affordability. I remember reading that report as a young staffer in a ministerial office here in Parliament when it came out in 2012. It remains very good advice for any Government wishing to improve housing affordability. Another one which I'll come back to 2014 regulatory institutions and practices; more effective social services 2015; new models of tertiary education; New Zealand firms reaching for the frontier. If you look at some of these subjects they are clearly areas where despite the best advice Governments over the past decade including those members opposite who have recently been retired from the Government benches by the voters have failed to implement the policy process. The case I make is that we are much better at this point in time to retain the assets that the Productivity Commission has generated in its various pieces of policy advice and make sure that we do a better job of implementing them. That is very much what the new "Ministry of Regulation" that will in part be funded by the funding that would have gone on to the Productivity Commission—approximately $6 million each year—is designed and is currently being designed to ensure that we finally do proper analysis of new regulatory initiatives; something that we have paid lip service to but failed to do with the cost measured not only in the compliance costs of things people do but also the things they don't do and also the long-term cost of our culture being eroded—the so-called can-do Kiwi attitude being overwhelmed by a culture of no because there's always a rule saying you can't do that or it would cost too much to proceed. That is perhaps one of the most important economic imperatives any Government has: to stop eroding the culture to stop saying no to stop putting costs on to the things people do through poorly designed regulation. That is why it is so important that we actually have a part of Government that is there to stop poorly conceived regulatory ideas from the rest of Government but also to train the staff across Government in regulatory capacity which has been almost totally neglected by the previous Government I should add. And finally to lead sector reviews to go through existing poor regulations and rules and actually ask the simple question: what is this rule for? Do the benefits outweigh the cost? And if we don't know and we're not sure then maybe the answer is to get rid of the rule and leave people's actions up to New Zealanders' judgment again. That's a novel idea. Let's see where it might get us to. I suspect that this side of the House will have more faith in New Zealanders' judgment than the other side of the House. That is why we're doing this.But there is an interesting point in the fact that this Government instead of just ballooning its Budget every time they have an idea they decide that there's more money to spend because as Fred Dagg once said—it might as well have been Grant Robertson—"We could always borrow a few billion more." Well look where that's got us. That's why this Government if it wants to do something new is casting around saying "Well what we can stop doing to make economies?" Now this is not a familiar concept to Camilla Belich who's earnestly watching or anyone else who was in the previous Government obviously. But it's a very familiar concept to households and firms and ordinary people up and down New Zealand especially in the last few years. The fact that we're doing this tonight shows that this Government is actually committed to looking after the taxpayers' hard-earned money and spending it as carefully as they spend their own. Not a bad concept for a Government to start off with. Finally I want to pay tribute to some of the many people who have contributed to the Productivity Commission over the years. Murray Sherwin as the inaugural chair—again I recall when I was a young parliamentary staffer in the year I worked here outside the private sector I remember seeing Murray Sherwin give presentations about the works they were doing in things like housing affordability. Dr Graham Scott one of the greatest public servants of his generation former chair of the Treasury gave his time to be a commissioner. Professor Sally Davenport Andrew Sweet Professor Gail Pacheco. Also the subsequent chair after Murray Sherwin Dr Ganesh Nana and Dr William Rosenberg Dr Diane Ruwhiu and Vicky Robertson—these are the people who have been commissioners but supported over the decade that the commission has been in place by dozens of staff who have worked hard to produce this stock of reports which are now an asset for the whole country. I hope members opposite while working out why they're on that side and how they could perhaps get back on this side will take the time to ruminate and read because there's a lot of quality there and it's not going anywhere.But henceforth we are going to use the money that would have gone to the Productivity Commission for a more active purpose of improving the quality of laws and regulations that New Zealanders are faced with on a day-to-day basis. Without further ado I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to further debate on it. Thank you Madam Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The question is that the motion be agreed to."