McClay ToddHon TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua): Madam Chair thank you and I thank the Minister in the chair Iain Lees-Galloway for that clarification. So if I understand correctly what he's just said in Part 1 clause 5(2) the reason they're inserting the word Minister" there is so that it is clear should the Prime Minister decide it is the Minister of Tourism or any other Minister that would be responsible for this new part of the Act not automatically the Minister of Immigration. If that's the case that is important. Of course it is up to the Government to make these decisions. But as this is immigration legislation that is being amended to deliver tourism policy and tax policy it's extremely important that the Minister is absolutely sure. I suppose the reason I would ask him to be absolutely sure is because if it isn't correct we will have problems in the future when it comes to these definitions. So perhaps with officials here he could seek an absolute assurance that that is correct and the reason I ask him to do that is not to question what he said but again we don't have the ability to ask those officials ourselves and no one else in New Zealand has the ability to come before the committee and ask the committee to seek an absolute assurance that what the Minister has just said is correct. If it is correct there is yet another problem because in the principal Act it actually talks about the department that is responsible for the implementation of the Act and in that case it must be the ministry of immigration. So it is necessary in the final part of Part 1 to change the definition to allow for the Minister of Tourism or the Minister of Conservation to be responsible for this part of the Act if it enters into force. Therefore I ask the question of whether or not it is also necessary to have a similar clause so that it's not the ministry of immigration that will be responsible. Now the reason that's important—and we'll come to it in Part 2 but in Part 2 it says that at least every five years the parts of this provision of the Act must be reviewed and they can be reset. Therefore as this is tourism policy and implements a new tax and therefore it's also tax legislation it's also important in this case that it wouldn't be the ministry of immigration that would be responsible for that review. It would be the department of the Minister who is responsible for this part of what will become the new Act. The reason we need that decision now is because this is a rushed process and we've canvassed that in the first and the second readings. It is a rushed process. We would have time to make sure we've got it right at a full select committee stage if it was a normal process even if there was only one day where we could have a committee outside of the House so we could have the opportunity to talk to the actual experts—the people that I suppose gave advice and drafted that. So we do need to know whether or not that is the case and it will be important that it's not the ministry of immigration. They have many other things to do. Of course they will be the ones that are responsible for the mechanism that collects this but that's just the mechanism. You actually wouldn't want the Minister of Tourism or the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment or the Department of Conservation being involved in setting the rules or the regulations or assessing whether or not that mechanism is working properly because they actually have nothing to do with immigration and in this case because this is enacting tourism policy and it's a new tax and therefore it is tax policy also it is important that that's cleared up. I'm assuming that actually it does need to be clarified because I've spent some time looking through this today. The original Act is quite extensive but this bill is very very short. I assume the regulations will be many but we can't wait for the regulations because we don't have an opportunity to see them before Cabinet will decide upon them and we do need to deal with that now. Indeed in the case that this is an omission because it is rushed I have an amendment here which I will now table that would follow the language in as far as making sure the Prime Minister can decide which other Minister is responsible for this part of the Act. Also it would denote that that would mean that another department other than immigration would also be responsible for this part of the Act. I haven't said which one it is although we could have put quite an extensive list in there—more extensive than we're going to hear about in Part 2 about what the Minister might consult on because it's entirely up to him—but ultimately it's the same department. It's mirroring the language and the reason I believe that is important is that we won't have an opportunity to come and fix this at all. So I will table that in a second. The second part here is—the Minister was right—there is a definition of "conservation" in this as he said to my colleague. There is and it's good. But there is no definition of "tourism" and I wonder whether that's an error or it's an omission or whether actually there doesn't need to be one and if there doesn't need to be one for "tourism" why is there the necessity for there to be a listing or a definition for "conservation"? I am assuming the reason there is one for "conservation" is because the drafters of the bill—or in this case Cabinet—wanted to ensure that the funds that will be collected from international tourists through this new tax will go to conservation. In the same way that it is left very broad for the Minister to decide what the funds will be spent on in as far as tourism is concerned if there is a reason to narrow the scope of what the funding can be spent on when it comes to conservation then I feel that we must also do the same for tourism. It's not that you would say "Well it's not clear what tourism is."—of course it is—but this is a legal document. It is legislation. We haven't got the opportunity to have a full select committee stage and to have people submit on what they think the money should be spent on. We don't get to bring the experts in and to ask them about what this definition is and indeed the Minister may already know. He may have made up his mind but he has not shared that and in Part 2 we're going to see that actually it's him that gets to make these decisions and these decisions alone with his Cabinet colleagues. So therefore we need to know what the definition of "tourism" is. Now maybe it's not needed but I ask the Minister why if it's not needed do we have one specifically for "conservation"? I just think that since the fund is going to be split and the Minister—or Ministers—have said that it'll be a fifty-fifty split but actually this bill doesn't say that. It doesn't dictate that. It will be up to Cabinet to make the decision some time in the future. It is very important therefore that if the Government is going to define "conservation" we also do so for "tourism". It's not actually that we necessarily would disagree but when it comes to what these funds will be spent on that's where the problem will be because there will be councils up and down New Zealand who say "There's no point bidding for this money because it's going to be spread too thinly. We're not going to get any." but some may want to and they need to have a clear idea of what it can be spent on and what it can't be spent on. A Government has an obligation not to the taxpayer in this case but to those they are collecting the money from to make sure it is being used for what they have said the intention is. The intention is to spend around tourism but without that definition of "tourism" in legislation it will be up to the Minister I suppose to define it in regulation. I don't think that's good enough for this House because ultimately we are talking about what the Minister says is going to be a large amount of money—let's wait and see. But actually we should have that definition in here and then councils and others will be able to plan. They'll know what it could be used for and what it might not be used for. Ultimately I suppose the Minister is going to do one or two things when it comes to how the money is spent. He's either going to be very open and transparent there'll be clear rules around this and the wider tourism sector will have an understanding or he could adopt Shane Jones' approach and if he likes a policy he'll do the proposal. If he doesn't like it he won't—because that's happening everywhere. That's why this is so very very important because the Government have said that they are going to give a significant amount of funding—the big commitments they've made to the tourism sector. This is not going to come close but unless we have a clear definition of the view of what tourism is then there will be many who are unhappy who don't get the funds who may just not bother to apply and that would be a travesty. In that mind it may be that there is very good reason for there not to be a definition of "tourism" in this bill which is amending the Immigration Act but I would imagine nowhere else in the Immigration Act is there a definition of "tourism" just as I'm sure there's no other definition of "conservation" in the Immigration Act that this is amending. Therefore I would ask that the Minister would look at that.I too have an amendment that I'd like to introduce that brings a definition. Now the problem we have is that I don't think this is a perfect definition because we've only just found this and we've had to rush; we haven't had 18 months to think about this. We've only seen the legislation today and it may be the officials would say "Actually yes a definition is needed but this isn't the best one." Well actually the Opposition is saying that we don't want to risk this so I too will be tabling an amendment."