Macindoe TimHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Thank you sir. Before I respond to that memorable and electrifying speech by the Associate Minister of Justice made on behalf of the Attorney-General in the second reading of what is yet another excellent bill that was instigated and drafted by the previous National-led Government I wondered if I might just seek the indulgence of the House for a moment in order to enable me to acknowledge the very sad death last week of one of the Waikato region's finest sons Lance Coombes of Ngāhinapōuri.Lance's funeral service at the Claudelands Event Centre in Hamilton yesterday afternoon was attended by nearly 1000 people. I had the privilege of delivering one of the tributes to a man who was highly regarded deeply loved and a very humble but generous contributor to our community. Numerous good causes and local projects have benefited from Lance's strong support over many years and he will be deeply missed. I am confident that all who knew Lance would join me in extending our deepest sympathy to his lovely wife Dulcie and their family. I have lost a very dear friend to whom I owe so much. God bless you Lance. May you rest in peace. Thank you Mr Speaker. As the shadow Attorney-General I'm pleased to confirm that the National Party will of course be continuing to support this bill at its second reading. The Legislation Bill was as I mentioned drafted by the previous National Government following a considerable body of work that was undertaken by the Hon Chris Finlayson and his officials when he was Attorney-General. I am grateful that the current Attorney-General the Hon David Parker has picked it up and is continuing to move it through the House albeit at a slightly glacial pace because it was last before the House some 18 months ago. I'm grateful that the Associate Minister of Justice did acknowledge the work of the previous Government but I thought he could have been a little bit more effusive in his praise of the work that was undertaken. As he noted the bill updates and replaces the Legislation Act of 2012 in order to implement publication and other reforms relating to the production of high-quality legislation that may be easily accessed easily comprehended and will be user-friendly. It also updates and re-enacts the Interpretation Act of 1999. It's interesting that both of those measures are bills of less than two decades in age—in fact the Legislation Bill is less than one decade. It just shows how rapidly evolving both the law is and also the technology and the requirements on all of us to ensure that we respond rapidly to changing times conditions and expectations of legal practitioners and to all who rely upon the effective and fair application of our laws. It's very important that we as parliamentarians do all we can to produce an accessible and up-to-date statute book to afford clear and transparent public access to the law. This bill will make it easier to find and access secondary legislation by requiring it to be published on the New Zealand Legislation website alongside Acts of Parliament creating a single official public source for New Zealand legislation. I'm very conscious that because this is a very dry measure—I don't think there will be many of them but it may be for those who will be listening outside the House to this particular debate—if I perhaps just give one practical example which the committee has worked on and which I have no doubt will be discussed in greater detail assuming this bill passes its second reading when it returns for its committee stage debate and that is the recommendation of the select committee to produce an exemption for council-controlled organisations. It relates to Auckland. The committee is recommending amending clauses 75 and 113 to extend the exemptions that apply to secondary legislation made by local authorities to those made by council-controlled organisations. Those amendments would exempt this legislation from the obligations to lodge and publish the legislation under this bill and to present the legislation to the House of Representatives unless the empowering provision expressly requires it. It would avoid anomalies if that particular recommendation is adopted such as those that currently require traffic bylaws made by Auckland Transport under section 22AB of the Land Transport Act 1998 to be published on the New Zealand Legislation website and presented to the House whereas traffic bylaws made by Auckland Council under the same provision would not be. I'm sure that that is an anomaly that has just arisen over time as more and more local and central government legislation comes into existence and it's right that we should acknowledge that anomaly and do something to fix it. Customarily the second reading debates focus on submissions that have been received on the bill and the select committees deliberations. However I'm at a disadvantage because I was not a member of the committee. I wasn't in my current role until a few months ago so I wasn't able to hear the submissions that were received and to work with the committee on it. In fact I note that there have been many changes to the committee's composition in recent times and it seems that almost every member of the House will get a turn on the Justice Committee during this Parliament. The current chair of the committee is another one who is new to the committee in recent times. I can however report that the committee received eight submissions from interested groups and individuals and heard oral evidence from two of those submitters. I thank those who made those submissions and I'll leave it to subsequent speakers to report on their recommendations and the committee's response. But I want to assure the submitters that they have been heard and the committee has made several suggestions for amendments and additions to the bill in response. I've just covered one of those by way of example. That is good process and no doubt the Minister will also respond to those suggestions further in the next debate. So I'll just say in conclusion that the bill enjoys widespread support. The low number of submissions indicates that it reflects good work and sensible initiatives and I anticipate that we will consider some of its key features in more detail when it moves on to its part-by-part examination in the committee of the whole House. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare e Te Mana Whakawā.