Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Minister of Customs): Tēnā koe Madam Deputy Speaker. I'm happy to join in the contributions in this House in supporting the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) not to just prolong it but again offer my view on the support of this House acknowledging that this is a legislative vehicle in which we can get technical amendments through the House that wouldn't necessarily get any time in the House given the legislative programme before us. As the Hon Aupito William Sio mentioned the Statutes Amendment Bill is a legislative vehicle that makes minor technical and non-controversial amendments to a number of Acts and it allows amendments to be made that would not usually receive sufficient priority to be progressed individually.The part that I do want to make most of my contribution on is Part 1 the Animal Welfare Act 1999 clauses 3 and 4. But before I do can I just give a bit of context as to why this particular part of this bill is important to me as Associate Minister of Agriculture. I just remind us that animal welfare in New Zealand is about caring for animals and it is about caring for our reputation. Some members in the House will be pleased to know that New Zealand is a nation of animal lovers. We rely on animals for companionship and economic prosperity. Sixty-six percent of households own a pet and $20 billion in animal-related export revenue is important to our State. Our animal welfare system has been ranked first-equal alongside the United Kingdom Austria and Switzerland by the global charity World Animal Protection.Our global reputation as an ethical food producer is enhanced by our commitment to animal welfare. Even isolated cases of poor animal welfare may negatively affect our reputation as ethical producers of animals and animal products. I do want to acknowledge the extra $10 million that we had in Budget 2015 to develop new regulations around improving our compliance and enforcement activities in animal welfare.To the actual clauses in this bill that I mentioned: clauses 3 and 4. As the previous speaker spoke to it is around modernising it. The actual clauses talk about trapping and ensuring that we are practising trapping ensuring that if we are trapping at sunrise we need to be checking the traps 12 hours from sunrise. If the traps have caught any animals then we've got to make sure that 24 hours—that we are checking those traps. Of course modernisation through technology should be able to tell people that are trapping that they should be able to check their traps. In terms of Part 1 of the Animal Welfare Act it's part of a wider commitment to improving animal welfare practices in our country because of the impact it has on our economy.Just quickly there are other parts of this bill that I just want to make comment about. The previous speaker talked about—particularly—Parts 3 4 5 and 11. All of these parts talk about improving the payment of invoices and it's important that we do that that our systems around legal representation in the courts are as efficient and as effective as possible. But I just thought because these particular parts all relate to the payment of invoices whether there's something more deeper that we need to examine in the system of invoicing for legal representation. I will leave that up to the capable hands of the select committee.But in closing there are parts of this particular bill that when I read them and I want to mention Part 12—I will mention what they are. Part 12 which is the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act; Part 17 which talks about the Housing Corporation Act; and Part 26 which refers to the Real Estate Agents Act 2008 and consequential amendments. When I read this particular part I did want to ask questions as to why those particular amendments were necessary. Of course I'm sure there's a valid reason why they've been caught as part of this Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). But I look forward to this bill going to the select committee. I do hope those that are impacted by the various parts—Hon Ruth Dyson: Who's chairing that committee?Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: It must be a hard-working chairperson of the select committee. For the public and those that are impacted by these particular parts I do hope people take the opportunity. Those particular parts Parts 12 17 and 26 for me—there's really a question around why we are making these changes. When I read the parts of the Act it's not quite clear. But of course this is the first reading and I look forward to the full report from the select committee to particularly answer those questions on Parts 12 17 and 26 as to the need for it. I commend this bill to the House.