Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): It is a pleasure to speak on the Estimates for Vote Parliamentary Counsel. This is a little-noticed part of the important justice portfolio and we did a thorough job investigating the Estimates for this. In particular I want to make mention of what is known in the legislative lexicon as the ASIP project which is the Access to Subordinate Instruments Project. Some of my colleagues regularly mock me for the interest and pleasure that I show amongst them for the importance of the regulations review process and the importance of this particular project. This is because this project which the Parliamentary Counsel Office is implementing is a fundamental part of the rule of law. It actually comes out of the important work that the Regulations Review Committee did in the last Parliament—chaired by the Hon Maryan Street—which recommended that the Government move towards having a register of delegated legislation. Many people watching or listening tonight will not know that there are vast swathes of bodies in the public sector in New Zealand that can make rules and regulations and by-laws and issue notices and all sorts of what is sometimes called tertiary legislation often referred to as subordinate instruments which have the effect of impacting on people's lives. Obviously some of these bodies are things like the Ministry of Social Development and we have got the police but there are things like the Institute of Valuers things like the Dietitians Board things like the Chiropractic Board and things like the Nursing Council. Across the broad sweep of New Zealand society and the public sector we have all of these agencies which to be honest sometimes are not that well equipped to cope with the making of these laws or these regulations or these delegated instruments. What the Regulations Review Committee found in the last Parliament—and we have continued this work in the 51st Parliament—is that it is very hard often to find these rules. It is hard to find these instruments. It is hard to examine them and that is actually our job on the Regulations Review Committee—to examine them and to make sure that they are vires that they are empowering legislation and that these agencies are acting in accordance with the rule of law. So what the ASIP project is doing is it is going to sort this out. So when it is complete—and it is going to take a bit of time because as I said there are a lot of agencies and there are a lot of pieces of tertiary legislation—there will be a place that New Zealanders can go not just to find Acts of Parliament which is what we have now and not just to find regulations but to find all of those subordinate instruments. Actually—and this is the really exciting thing—it will eventually be able to distinguish between the various types of subordinate instruments. Members may not know—some members may know; most will not—that there are disallowable instruments that are legislative there are not-disallowable instruments that are legislative and there ones that are disallowable but are not legislative. There is a whole variety of different types.Kris Faafoi: I already know this stuff.CHRIS BISHOP: Actually members may laugh over on the other side but this stuff matters. This is really important because the Regulations Review Committee has the power to recommend to Parliament whether or not something should be disallowable. This is actually really important and up until the start of the ASIP project and the completion of the ASIP project we did not have the ability to know where they were and this will help.