Hudson BrettBRETT HUDSON (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. As Minister Nanaia Mahuta has said the Transport and Infrastructure Committee has made some useful amendments to this bill. While committees often do that the point for this committee and this bill is that the committee had to make these changes because the Government hadn't done the work prior to the introduction of the bill. We know that and we know that for a fact because the officials threw the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs under a bus by putting in their regulatory impact statement that they didn't have sufficient time to get any robust sort of evidence base for this bill in the first place—an admission that it's all based on anecdote. While we might all share and have experienced stories of people being preyed upon by some rogue clampers that does not forgive nor excuse a Government for not doing what it should have done in the first place. So it fell upon the committee to do the Government's work for it and the committee did a very good job but there were some things naturally—those holes that come from poor preparation. So there were holes to be filled. For instance the bill is only intended to apply to private parking arrangements but it required therefore to have a definitional aspect to exclude road-controlling authorities such as territorial authorities which was supposed to have been done by the definition of road". But the committee felt it was important that that was clarified and recommended some amendments to clause 4 to do just that. Similarly it also had to make it clear that the provisions also wouldn't apply for instances of wheel clamping authorised by other enactments such as for instance freedom camping. The committee heard and understood that there was a need to ensure that the cap didn't override parties' rights to argue and seek potential remedies through the disputes tribunal. So it makes it very clear that while the cap of $100 for the parking infringement itself stands even in a disputes tribunal process there are potential areas where parties may seek remedies for wrongdoing or inappropriate behaviours such as for instance where a party that has been clamped and having not obviously paid for the unclamping wilfully damages the clamp damages it more than needed for removal or damages it without having paid the infringement. So the amendment is required to ensure that the cap wouldn't override fair and reasonable processes for people to seek remedies. There was also the discussion about the requirement for the clamper to be "reasonably available". This was something of a vexed discussion because while ultimately the language can be used that the committee recommended a regulation-making power I can assure you that not all committee members wanted to do that. Some of us have a view that there are already more than enough regulations in this country and that simply adding more of them as a legislative convenience is not what this Parliament or any Parliament should be looking to do. However after a protracted discussion with officials we had to accept that there was not a workable way of sufficiently limiting what "reasonably available" would mean. For instance it is quite reasonable to expect that if the clamping took place within moments of the vehicle being left and the occupants then came and paid their fee moments later the clamper would still be somewhere nearby but equally you cannot predict that anything like that will be the case often if at all. So the committee did accept that while as I say not all members wanted the regulation-making power a regulation-making power was going to be the only feasible option for this particular circumstance. So at the end of that process we have agreement on the committee report and the deliberation. We will have agreement still at the second reading to support this bill but I reiterate that the select committee was forced to do the work of Government because the Government was quite frankly too lazy to have done it itself. That was written in the regulatory impact statement by officials—that they hadn't been given sufficient time to do the work. Therefore they hadn't been able to find any evidence and the entire bill and its premise was based on anecdote. But that's the feel-good way of this Government in wanting to do something for the sake of doing something—wanting to do something to make it look like they were actually providing some new legislation instead of simply passing the previous Government's legislation. So the committee had to beat it into a bit of shape because as a Government they couldn't do it themselves. However in saying that we have all witnessed or heard stories of predatory behaviour by some rogue clampers. We do accept and agree that it is appropriate to take some action to limit that so we will support this bill in second reading."