Hipkins Chris; Bishop ChrisREINSTATEMENT OF BUSINESSHon CHRIS HIPKINS (Leader of the House): I move Government notice of motion No. 4 in my name relating to the reinstatement of business.This is a routine motion that's moved at the start of each Parliament so that the business of Parliament can be resumed where it was left off before the election. The only exceptions are the items of business that are defunct or that need to be replaced. By convention all members' bills are being reinstated select committees can resume consideration of bills referred to them by the House by the last Parliament. They decide what pieces of committee-initiated legislation business they may wish to continue with.CHRIS BISHOP (National): Thank you very much Mr Speaker and the National Party will be supporting the reinstatement motion moved by the Leader of the House. Can I first take this opportunity sir to congratulate you on your election to the role of Speaker. I'm sure you'll continue on in the tradition that you established in the last Parliament of fairness to both sides of the House and recognising that we are in a slightly unusual situation of a—for the first time under MMP—majority Government elected in its own right without any extra support needed to get over the line on confidence and supply. And that of course has implications for select committees and has implications for the way in which the House operates. But I'm sure you will as someone who is a lover of Parliament and someone who realises the important job—constitutional job—that the Parliament provides in holding the executive to account take that into consideration. I know that that is something that you take very seriously. National will be supporting the reinstatement motion. It's a slightly different situation to the last Parliament. In the last Parliament we obviously had a change of Government and the incoming Government wished to not reinstate some items of business on to the parliamentary Order Paper. And so there was quite an extended debate at that time. Members who were here will recall some extended debate on that. National will be supporting this motion but we do wish to make a few points about some of the business that is being reinstated.The first is that we would like to know from the Government why the Autonomous Sanctions Bill is not being reinstated on to the parliamentary Order Paper—something that sat on the parliamentary Order Paper for three years in the last Parliament with no progress being made. And we look forward to hearing from the Government as to exactly why that is.We also welcome the chance for potential progress on the Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill which was a member's bill drawn at the tail end of the last Parliament in the outgoing Rt Hon David Carter's name. And we look forward to the chance for the Parliament to consider that. With the departure of a longstanding member—members will know who I'm talking about—the opportunity presents itself for the new Parliament to wipe from the statute book that repugnancy to our constitution and to this Parliament. There are parties in this Parliament who have been very keen to repeal that legislation and now they will have the opportunity; that's being reinstated as a member's item of business. We look forward to the Parliament considering things like the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill for example which the National Party pushed hard in Opposition and was unable to make any progress on. This Parliament has the opportunity to take up that issue with alacrity and with urgency. We look forward to the Parliament discharging the petitions on the Order Paper better. If you read through the Order Paper and the reinstatement motion there's an enormous number of petitions—a point that I know you sir Mr Speaker have noted—and the new Petitions Committee of the new Parliament thanks to the new Standing Orders will have the opportunity to deal with those petitions in a more timely manner. It is frankly unacceptable that select committees sit on petitions for two to three years. People who petition Parliament with members of the public have a right to expect that Parliament answers those petitions in a timely manner. Two years or three years is unacceptable. The new Parliament will have an opportunity to consider that. On a final note the Privileges Committee will consider the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill. This is not one would say a particularly sexy piece of legislation. It's not something that the public out there listening probably are too concerned about. But—and I know the Attorney-General agrees with me on this—it is of fundamental importance to the future of our constitution and our Parliament the issue of whether or not the courts are able to issue declarations that a law passed by this Parliament a democratically elected Parliament is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.Hon David Parker: They already can.CHRIS BISHOP: That's right and the question for the Parliament is: what does Parliament do about that in response? We'll be considering that at the Privileges Committee and it does raise issues to do with privilege and to do with our constitution and we will be considering that. That is not a bill that I would urge the Government to proceed with haste on. That is a bill that requires due consideration.So we'll be supporting the reinstatement motion and members on this side may wish to make a few other remarks. Thank you Mr Speaker.