Clark David: Patents Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClark David: Patents Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12980. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North): It is with some degree of pleasure that I rise to speak on this Patents Bill. It is very nice to be able to support a Government bill.Hon Simon Bridges: How much?Dr DAVID CLARK: I am invigorated if that is what the member is asking. I am invigorated by this opportunity to speak on the bill. It is with some pleasure that I speak because this is a Government as we know with the worst economic record of any Government in the last 50 years and it is not often that we get a chance to actually speak in support of some of the policies that it puts through. So you Mr Speaker and the members of the House will understand how pleased I am to be speaking on this bill as a consequence.The Labour Party believes in the importance of a clean green diversified economy that creates sustainable jobs for New Zealanders. The issue we have is that this Government is not creating that kind of economy more generally. We know for example that in my home district of Otago there is the highest number of unemployed people in 22 years. There are 7800 people unemployed currently and that is not a proud record for this Government. But here we have a genuine attempt I think to diversify the economy.Hon Simon Bridges: You need more mining in Otago. Dig it up.Dr DAVID CLARK: So I compliment the Government on this. The research and development tax credits are an issue. Mr Bridges across there raises the issue of mining and no doubt he is trying to draw attention in this context to the cuts atOceana Gold that have taken place in the last week in Otago under this Government because of its lack of growth generally and because of its poor economic record.But here we have an attempt to genuinely diversify the economy to look at the issue of patents and what the right balance is between the interests of inventors and patent owners and the incentives on them to develop and produce new technologies new ways of doing things and new ideas and the interests of society as whole which we know can result from these new inventions and ideas. We think that this is a good bill because it does attempt to balance those two interests: first allowing innovators to profit from their inventions; and second ensuring the monopoly rights that accompany patents are not unduly exploited. That has got to be recommended to the House.The absolute novelty test—New Zealand will finally catch up with the rest of the world on that. It means that a patent will be invalid if the invention was not new or wasobvious in light of information available anywhere in the world at the application date. So the bill does tighten New Zealand’s overly generous patent law.I want to just pick up briefly on something that the previous speaker Mr Jonathan Young the current chair of our Commerce Committee raised. He raised the issue of Big Brother and tried to frame this debate in terms of international trade and particularly the Big Brother issue. I think though it must be on record that the complaint that New Zealanders have about the process with the passing of the Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill was that it was not properly investigated. The previous illegal spying acts had not been investigated Mr Young. The Henry report the leaking of theKitteridge report and the various issues and bungles by the Government were not exposed to transparency and not even to an independent investigation. New Zealanders want to know that their spy agencies are acting in their interests and not in some other interests. It would have been good process for the Government to appoint an independent inquiry to sort out those matters before the law was changed to make illegal what was previously legal.I think it needs to be put on record that these two things are not easily likened and pulled under the same banner. Mr Young is drawing a very long bow there. New Zealanders are not happy with the progress of that bill. But here we are protecting ideas and concepts using patents and protecting the intellectual property that will create the kind of economy we need to ensure a prosperous future for our country—a country that is going to prosper from the likes of the ideas of theHamiltonJet theGallaghers of this world the Scott Technologies and so on to make sure that the appropriate protections are in place and the public-good interests are protected in the longer term. Thank you.