Adams Amy: Regulatory Improvement Bill — First Reading 
Adams Amy: Regulatory Improvement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:3082] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I am delighted to stand and take a call in support of the Regulatory Improvement Bill. I begin by commending the Minister for Regulatory Reform Rodney Hide for his commitment—in bringing this bill to the House—to reducing red tape for businesses. Anyone who has worked with and around businesses or has been in business and certainly anyone who has spent time canvassing businesses as part of his or her job as a member of this House will understand that a lot of the red tape and compliance that businesses struggle with and that really holds them back are often not found in the primary Acts that this House passes. More often they come about in regulation. Although this House often has its mind on bigger and seemingly more important issues if we really want to make steps in allowing business to get ahead we have to do what the Minister has done and is doing through this bill and that is look at our regulatory system and ask ourselves where improvements can be made. 
This National-led Government is committed to helping business through these tough times because we recognise that business will lead New Zealand out of the recession. Because of that barriers to growth and things that are going to stop our businesses moving ahead and continuing to grow and develop need to be addressed and where possible removed. I suggest that removing unnecessary barriers red tape and compliance costs is a little bit like the journey of a thousand miles: the only way to tackle it is one step at a time. That is really what this bill does. Each change on its own is not large and each change on its own is not going to change the platform on which business in this country is done but when we combine them we get the beginning of real progress in the area. I also say on this point that even though the changes that this bill makes—and there are 22 of them—will not put shock waves through the business press and the mainstream media I suggest that the people who are affected by them will find them a real important and significant improvement to the systems that they operate under. 
I understand that the regulatory improvement process is to be an annual process and that each year we will see a bill of this sort used as a sensible way to address regulatory hurdles that are unnecessary ambiguous and uncalled for. The amendments can be combined into a single omnibus bill to make the most of this House’s time. As the bill progresses and we get to the Committee of the whole House stage the bill can of course be broken into a number of separate amending bills as appropriate. 
In this bill as I said there are 22 separate legislative changes. In this 2009 collection the changes before us arise in the main from the Quality Regulation Review that was carried out over 15 months through 2006 and 2007. The changes fundamentally address regulatory duplication gaps and inconsistencies. They aim to produce more sensible outcomes and at reduced cost to business. Having worked as a lawyer—as I have said in this House before—I mention that there is nothing more frustrating than a regulatory system that is not clear that has duplications and that produces inconsistent results. I certainly support anything that goes towards clearing up some of that confusion. 
I will now focus on just a couple of the changes. I will start by looking at the amendments to the Fisheries Act 1996. I have not spent much time working in this area but when we read through what the legislation does we see that it is a good example of why this sort of bill is necessary. This part of the bill makes changes to ensure that the catch balancing regime works fairly efficiently and effectively. I will outline the issue here as I understand it. When commercial fishers are balancing their annual catch entitlements—which are obviously part of the quota management system—at the end of the fishing year they have to balance that actual catch with their annual catch entitlement. That seems simple enough but there is a problem in that the annual catch entitlement register closes off 15 days after the fishing year ends yet the balancing between the actual catch and that annual catch entitlement occurs some 20 days after year end. In most situations that works perfectly well but what has happened from time to time is that after the annual catch entitlement register has closed for the year administrative errors have been identified where transfers that have been lodged have not been processed. Fishers then find themselves in a situation where their catch is not balanced by their annual catch entitlement register. 
That may not sound like a big deal to any of us but when it happens a debt is generated and if the fisher does not pay that debt he or she risks having his or her fishing permit suspended. That permit is the fisher’s livelihood and if we are going to jeopardise fishers’ livelihoods we need to ensure that the basis for doing so is fundamental and robust. In this case as I have said there have certainly been situations where because of administrative errors transfers to that system have not been progressed and the deadline has passed—there is no entitlement in the Act to address that. So to put it simply these amendments will allow for requests to be made to the chief executive for catch balancing relief and for the annual catch entitlement transfer to be recognised even though that 15-day close-off period after the fishing year has ended and even though that balance would otherwise be fixed. 
So we have—and I think this is a good example of the work that this bill does—the removal of an unexpected and unfair consequence of a simple administrative error. This is not about the mischief this law addresses; this is not the mischief that the original Act was designed to catch. This issue does not threaten the sustainability of a catch of various species; it is simply an unexpected consequence of administrative oversight. To allow for a simple process for that problem to be addressed when it turns up is the sort of streamlining and removal of unnecessary barriers that I wholeheartedly endorse. Importantly I note that that change in particular has been endorsed and supported by both the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council and Commercial Fisheries Services Ltd. 
I just briefly highlight some other examples. I highlight these examples because they go back to the point I raised earlier which is the necessity of tidying up duplication between two pieces of legislation. As I have said before when one is acting to advise clients on their legal obligations a situation where two unrelated pieces of legislation deal with the same area is depending on how one looks at it either a lawyer’s nightmare or a lawyer’s goldmine. This is because the potential for inconsistency is rife. Often the pieces of legislation have not been considered properly together when each one was put in place which leaves clients and New Zealand businesses absolutely at a loss as to how they are to properly address their obligations. 
The first example that I will look at also relates to the fishing industry. It is the amendment proposed by this bill to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Restructuring) Act 1995. The bill would revoke section 18 of that Act. Section 18 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Restructuring) Act imposes a compulsory 10 percent penalty that has to be paid on any unpaid debts under the Act. I have no issue with that. It is appropriate that if a debt is unpaid there should be a penalty. But the issue here which through this bill the Minister has correctly identified and is working to fix is that these matters are also penalised under the Fisheries Act. In effect we have a double-dipping regime where for one breach clients can be penalised twice under two separate regimes. That is simply inappropriate and unfair; it is unnecessary duplication. Under the Regulatory Improvement Bill section 18 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Restructuring) Act 1995 is revoked entirely. The penalties regime applicable under the Fisheries Act will apply and fishers will not have to address a double-penalty regime. 
The second issue I want to touch on in closing is the change to the Weights and Measures Act 1987 which has a similar effect in that the change addresses the fact that two separate legislative provisions currently apply to the supply of LPG in gaseous form. Those provisions are in the Weights and Measures Act and the Gas Act 1992. Once again when two pieces of legislation address similar provisions we will get inconsistent results and we will get confusion. I certainly applaud the work of this bill in tidying that confusion up in this case by removing confusion from the Weights and Measures Act. 
In closing I once more commend the Minister for his work in looking at the small details. The House often forgets them and does not have time to deal with them but they are of massive importance to the business community. Combined the amendments go a long way towards fixing up unnecessary red tape and compliance in this country. I support the bill and I commend it to the House.