Kuriger Barbara; Meager JamesPart 2 Disestablishment of New Zealand Productivity CommissionCHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members we come now to Part 2. This is the debate on clauses 8 to 12 the Disestablishment of New Zealand Productivity Commission" and Schedule 2. The question is that Part 2 stand part. JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): Madam Chair thank you for the call. It feels like only yesterday we were here discussing this bill. I wanted to lament the fact that we didn't quite get to cover off clause 7 which was the self-repealing part of it.Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Wrong part.JAMES MEAGER: I know. I'm lamenting the fact we weren't able to cover that off. But we will move on to Part 2 and Schedule 2 which is of course the substantive part of the bill. The "Disestablishment of the New Zealand Productivity Commission" is the name of the part and in terms of productivity can I just give a nod to the Minister for Regulation in clause 9 where the title of the clause is actually longer than the substantive part of the clause itself. Now if that is not an example of productivity in legislating and drafting I do not know what is. So I just wanted to commend the Minister and the drafters and everyone who worked on the bill for their efficiency and their productivity in putting that particular clause together. Now I do have a number of questions on this bill. Again as we went through at length last night—and everyone was very enthusiastic late last night on this bill. But of course we do have clause 8 which is the repeal of the New Zealand Productivity Commission Act itself and that is probably the most substantive part of the bill. That is the part which does all the heavy lifting. It repeals the Act or it disestablishes the Productivity Commission. It's the reason why we're here today. It's the reason why we are debating this valuable bill which is part of the Government's 100-day plan of action.Now I'd like to ask the Minister a question about clause 8 and I didn't know whether it was appropriate to ask in the first part or to ask during the second reading but—Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Speak slower.JAMES MEAGER: Sorry what was that Dr Webb?Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Speak slower—it will take longer.JAMES MEAGER: Oh Dr Webb is instructing me to speak slower. I think that comes from Dr Webb's years and years and years and years of experience of public speaking speaking in front of crowds lecturing at a fine university—Canterbury University. It's not the best one in the South Island but close to it—at least in the top two. So I will take the member's instruction and advice and speak slightly more slowly for the benefit of the member who may be getting slightly tired at this time of night.Now I did have a question for the Minister on clauses 8 to 10 and of course clause 10 is the residual assets clause of the bill. Essentially what this clause does is it vests the residual assets liabilities agreements and leases in the Crown as assets or liabilities in the ministry. I just wanted to ask the Minister what kind of robust discussions and debates he may have had with the finance Minister on this because of course you're looking at vesting liabilities and assets in the Crown. That's got to go some way towards the cost savings that we're trying to get out of the disestablishment—Hon David Seymour: That's a second reading question mate. JAMES MEAGER: —of the Productivity Commission and I'd like to ask him about that. It may be that these kinds of questions are something more appropriate for other parts and other stages of the House but as we are here under a constrained sitting environment and we're all new to the place it would be great to get a little bit of generosity from the Chair when it comes to debating these kinds of bills. So then we do have clause 10(2) which is about information held by the commission before it is disestablished also being transferred to the ministry and there'd be some interesting questions there I think for the Minister around how does that work when we're transferring information. I assume the normal privacy obligations apply when we're going from a commission and transferring it to the ministry which we talked about in the interpretation section—so just questions there about how does that work in terms of the privacy obligations of an organisation which is disestablished. Information which is held and transferred—who has the obligations to notify anyone who holds personal information? Perhaps someone who's had an interaction with the Productivity Commission in the past would like to make a personal information or a Privacy Act request. Who would they go to to ask that when the Productivity Commission is no longer with us when it is passed by and—Hon David Seymour: That would be a residual liability. JAMES MEAGER: It may be a residual liability and I would really enjoy the Minister's contribution and thoughts on that. Thank you."