Woodhouse Michael; Robertson GrantHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I don't think we will be too long in our detailed examination of the bill. I do want to address the most controversial part of the second reading speech from Dr Leavasa and his outrageous claim that the Ponsonby Rugby Club has produced more All Blacks than the Otago University Rugby Football Club which is as any rugby aficionado knows the cradle of All Black rugby. Now it's been a while since I've had a look at it but I think there were about five or six ahead. So we'll just let that lie there but I think that could be a battle that Dr Leavasa—I'm not even a member of a university rugby club. I'm a Sharks man but there you go. I will defend the integrity of Otago Rugby.Now on a slightly more serious note I was—Simon Court: Forty-eight All Blacks from Ponsonby.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Forty-eight? Well there were 49 I think from Otago University. If one counts those that played after leaving the university then I think it's up to about 70 against a paltry 51 from Ponsonby. So there you go. Now anyway I definitely digress. I wanted just to address the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) in the name of Nicole McKee and also something she said in her second reading speech before I ask the Minister for Sport and Recreation a question about clause 21. I think it's going to be quite important. She said—and I'm paraphrasing—that the bill will result in fewer women and girls participating as a consequence of its failure to address the perception of the ability for transgender participants in women and girls' sport. Now while that might be an issue and I'm not undermining that this bill is not going to make that worse. In fact thanks to the amendments made to the bill by the Social Services and Community Committee which have been approved at second reading that risk is lower not higher. Now I think the SOP is in the name of Karen Chhour is that correct?Nicole McKee: It is.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Thank you. The SOP will seek to add section 49 of the Human Rights Act into clause 5—the definition of threat to integrity". But the select committee has already dealt with that by the inclusion of Part 2 of the Human Rights Act: bullying violence abuse sexual misconduct intimidation or harassment in sport or organised physical recreation. Now Part 2 includes section 49 and section 49 is a carve-out for legal discrimination on the basis of sex disability and something else; I can't remember what it is. So the SOP is unnecessary because the select committee and this House have now already dealt with it. My question Minister is around clause 21—I think it's something that has troubled me since the bill was introduced—and that is the voluntary nature of the codes. What's it called? The departmental disclosure statement talks about the integrity codes made by the commission under clause 19 not being mandatory and organisations will need to opt in for the integrity code to apply. This approach may be considered unusual compared with other secondary legislation; however it is consistent with other regulatory approaches. Now we kicked this around. We didn't make any changes as far as I can tell. So I would like an explanation about why organisations won't be bound by the codes and the perceived risk that regional or national sports organisations or codes would just stay out particularly if they had issues of integrity or betting infractions a record of drugs. Why would they not want to be a part of that and that being the case why not simply make it compulsory?Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Sport and Recreation): Madam Chair I thank the member for raising this. As I indicated in my earlier contribution I am conscious that this is one of the areas where there has been debate. I'll be completely transparent with the member. We debated it ourselves as to whether or not we should be heading down the path of effectively mandatory codes or whether it should be the approach which we ended up adopting that is in the bill.I have several comments. Firstly internationally there is different practice in this. So there wasn't one thing for us to say "That's what we should follow" if we were looking at where other countries or other jurisdictions went. Secondly we are at a particular juncture in this legislation between the role of the State and the role of individual organisations and bodies. If there is a crime that has been committed then quite clearly there are pathways you know for that to be dealt with. Where a law is broken—it's not a question of a code or anything like that—it is a breach of the law and the prosecutions which you would expect that would follow from that would follow from that to take some of the examples that the member has given. But when we're talking about getting sports to adopt and genuinely own these we fell on the side of saying "We want sports to sign up to it". Now I think the wording is important in clause 21 here because once a sport has agreed to a code it's bound by the code. So there is a binding effect once you do it. It's our view—and certainly by the consultation we've undertaken with sports—that most sports want this. Most sports will be very pleased to sign up. Then once they are as you go through clause 21(2) and beyond you'll see that they are in fact bound by it at that point. So it's the point of entry into having the code at which we have left that open. The experience internationally what we've heard from the codes themselves indicates to us that we've fallen on a line of effectively giving people something that they will have true ownership of rather than feel that it's being dictated down to them rather than it not necessarily working for them and their sport as well as it might. The member notes and we've got that in the changed clause 22 that we now have the three-yearly review. In a way I'm actually very happy that that is now in the legislation because that means we can see really this contestable space which I absolutely acknowledge that it is—we'll be able to review in three years' time whether we got it right."