Hon RODNEY HIDE (Minister for Regulatory Reform) : I move, That the Regulatory Improvement Bill be now read a first time. It is my intention that the bill be referred to the Commerce Committee.

Today we take an important step towards making it easier to do business in New Zealand by removing red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy. This step illustrates this Government’s commitment to making continual improvements in the quality of New Zealand’s regulation in order to assist the efficiency and the growth of New Zealand businesses. Today I present to the House the Regulatory Improvement Bill. We have reinstated this bill, which was introduced by the previous Government, because we agree that the changes will help business.

Today marks what I intend will become an annual event in this House. The yearly regulatory reform omnibus bill will be a vehicle to improve regulatory frameworks and reduce the compliance burden on businesses in a timely fashion. This Government has a focus on new regulation that would impose compliance costs on businesses, because we recognise the pressures that businesses are currently under because of the global financial crisis. Our aim is to get better policy and better results for New Zealand. When it comes to existing regulations, on which this bill is focused, that means, first, systematically reviewing regulation that has a significant impact on productivity, and, second, identifying and regularly repealing unnecessary or unnecessarily costly regulations. It is crucial that we ensure that the Government’s regulation is necessary, that it is cost-effective and proportionate to risk, that our regulatory frameworks as a whole are of high quality, and that key interested parties are engaged in the process of continual regulatory improvement.

The current bill addresses certain low-hanging fruit reforms that have been identified in the last few years. The provisions in the bill came out of the Quality Regulation Review, which was undertaken by the previous Government in 2006 and 2007, and let me thank the Hon Lianne Dalziel for that work and for working across the House in terms of getting a better outcome. The review identified a number of issues that required amendments to legislation. The changes proposed in this bill cover a diverse range of policy areas and legislation, but they are all aimed at the same objective—namely, improving regulatory frameworks and reducing the compliance burden on business. Those objectives are the unifying theme of the clauses in the Regulatory Improvement Bill, which I am introducing to the House today.

I am advised that the Quality Regulation Review took 15 months to complete and involved a wide range of Government agencies as well as more than 200 businesses. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the businesses and their membership organisations that contributed their time, energy, and ideas to the review, and, again, to thank the previous Minister of Commerce for her work. I am confident that these businesses will enjoy some clear benefits arising from this bill. It goes some way to address the concerns they raised with us. Engagement with business is the only way to understand the real impacts of the decisions we make as parliamentarians, and I intend to continue the momentum begun in the development of this bill.

Overall, these changes address regulatory duplications, gaps, administrative errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation. Collectively they created unnecessary compliance costs and uncertainty for business. Fixing them is a small step toward seeing a more prosperous and more successful nation driven by the initiative and hard work of individuals. These changes, individually, are small fixes, but for businesses these small changes do count, and this Government is committed to do all that it can to address the barriers, big or small, that hold back New Zealand businesses from reaching their full potential and greatest growth.

Too often, much-needed changes to legislation are not made, because it is difficult for small changes to get space on a busy legislative agenda. This bill represents a first instance of a relatively easy mechanism to fast track such improvements. This bill does exactly that; it provides an efficient and effective legislative vehicle to make the amendments, and it consolidates several small gains into an omnibus bill, which can deliver the accumulated benefits these changes represent. The bill comprises 22 changes to various Acts, and all the changes are designed to make it easier to do business. The changes demonstrate that this Government is a Government of regulatory reform: we see the problems and we want to fix them.

Some of the changes are aimed at speeding up administrative processes. These include the proposed amendments to delegation processes in the quota management system and aspects of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, amendments to some public notification procedures under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and improvements to access to information for emergency services. Other clauses aim to provide certainty around existing provisions. Those include the removal of duplicate penalties regimes for commercial fishers, greater certainty around the process for tendering for concessions on conservation land, clarity around governance arrangements in the gas industry, and allowing for provisional test certificates under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.

Several clauses have the effect of reducing current administrative and reporting requirements. Included in these provisions is an amendment that allows business concessions on conservation land to be granted without public notice for 10 years at a time, instead of just 5 years. That will save approximately $1,000 for the application. The Minister will still notify concessions that will have significant effects. Similarly, changes to the Companies Act will mean that some private firms will no longer have to appoint auditors, and thus that Act will be brought in line with the provisions of the Financial Reporting Act.

The other, largest group of changes in this bill will reduce the number of inspections to which firms are subject, by enabling inspectors authorised under one Act, such as the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, to undertake inspections related to other Acts, such as the Health and Safety in Employment Act and the Biosecurity Act, during one visit to the firm, instead of separate visits—often actually now done by the same inspector—for each Act.

The Regulatory Improvement Bill is just one of the essential measures needed to implement improvements to regulation in New Zealand. Many more measures will be needed and are on the way. In recent years there has been an avalanche of new rules and regulations. New Zealand is over-regulated: red tape is tying up businesses in knots—in particular, those involved in building, construction, and property. This omnibus bill represents a fresh approach, which ensures that New Zealand’s regulatory environment will continually evolve to meet the needs of a dynamic economy trying to grow its way out of a recession. In introducing this bill, I recognise that the legislative changes proposed are limited and will not provide an immediate silver bullet to improve overall business investment or productivity. I believe, though, that we can do even better to reduce the red tape and regulatory interventions that are hindering businesses. That is the reason I intend that a regulatory reform omnibus bill will become a feature of New Zealand’s legislative programme each year. Thank you.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : I am very pleased to be speaking on the first reading of the Regulatory Improvement Bill. Obviously, given that it was a bill generated under a Labour-led Government, I am very pleased to finally see it dealt with in the House. I thank the Minister for his very kind words, and I do appreciate them. I felt that when I was Minister I was able to work with him in his capacity as an Opposition member of Parliament but as one who had introduced a member’s bill—that was his passion—the Regulatory Responsibility Bill. Even though we did not necessarily think that that was the right approach in that bill, we were working with him to try to gain the results that we were both trying to achieve. I think we are on a similar track, and I acknowledge his role here in this Parliament as the first Minister for Regulatory Reform. I think that is certainly a great acknowledgment of his commitment in this area.

The Regulatory Improvement Bill itself is a demonstration of the Labour-led Government’s commitment to making continuous improvement in the quality of New Zealand’s regulatory frameworks in order to assist the efficiency and growth of New Zealand businesses. This was a really important process for us. I am really pleased the Minister has said that such a bill will become part of the normal proceedings of Parliament, and I will talk about that in a minute, too. It is really important that we have a regular opportunity, as a Parliament, to tidy up those issues that are not perhaps insignificant enough to make it into a Statutes Amendment Bill, but not significant enough to warrant a bill in their own right. Although it is fair to say that the amendments contained in the Regulatory Improvement Bill are not particularly dramatic, the bill itself is another deliverable of the Quality Regulation Review.

I want to backtrack a minute to February 2006 when the then Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Helen Clark, said: “We will also be taking a fresh look at regulatory frameworks. Feedback from business suggests that higher quality regulation would lead to more growth and investment—and we want to engage with business on how to achieve that.” This is precisely what the Quality Regulation Review was all about. So the previous Government started from scratch and, essentially, we built a process that enabled us to engage directly with business, because we felt that it was business that could give us the best quality information—

Nathan Guy: Didn’t you sack the board?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: —about what it was that was standing in the way of business growth, rather than coming up with a particular proposal—

Nathan Guy: Didn’t you sack all the board when that came out of the recommendations?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I know that the member wants to make this point. Perhaps I need to respond to the interjection. The previous Labour Government established the position of Minister for Small Business. The former National Government did not have one. The Labour-led Government established a Small Business Advisory Group, which did not exist under the former National Government.

Nathan Guy: You sacked them all.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: We did not sack them all; we replaced every single member of it, after one group had been operating for 3 years. They had been in for 3 years.

Nathan Guy: So you sacked them?

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: I did not. I do not know why that member keeps saying that. Does the member object to the second Small Business Advisory Group—the people who replaced the first group? I think there is one member from his patch on the group now, so perhaps the member might like to have a rethink. As I understand it, the Small Business Advisory Group has had its number of meetings cut under this new National Government. So it is very interesting, indeed, that the member wants to interject in that regard.

I released the final report on the review in September 2007, after over a year of engagement with business. The report identified a number of areas that required amendments to legislation, and the changes covered a diverse range of policy areas and legislation. But they all essentially had the same objective, which was to improve regulatory frameworks and reduce compliance costs for business. Those objectives are the unifying theme of the clauses in the Regulatory Improvement Bill. Overall, these changes address regulatory duplications, gaps, administrative errors, inconsistencies, etc. Individually, as the Minister has said, these changes are small fixes, but for business these small things matter most of all. It is not just one thing that annoys small business; it is the accumulation of a lot of things that upsets small business. That is a lesson I learnt by going out and talking directly to small businesses and working through these issues with them.

When Labour was in Government it was committed to doing all it could to address the barriers, big or small, that hold back New Zealand businesses from reaching their fullest potential and their greatest growth. That is why, for example, Labour brought in the research and development tax credit—something that this Government has irresponsibly scrapped, in my view. Too often much-needed changes to legislation are not made, because it is difficult for small changes to get space on a business legislative agenda. In my former roles as the Minister of Commerce and the Minister for Small Business, I combined those roles to champion the idea of a relatively easy mechanism to fast track these improvements, even to the extent that I made a personal submission as a member of this Parliament to the Standing Orders Committee to get the Standing Orders changed so that we would be able to have this bill as an omnibus bill.

Members will be very familiar with the Standing Orders, as has been obvious since Gerry Brownlee took over as Leader of the House. There is a section that deals with the prohibitions on omnibus bills. Standing Order 258 limits the types of omnibus bills. Law reform or other omnibus bills have to go through the Business Committee. The Business Committee has already signed off, as a matter of practice, on a Business Law Reform Bill every year, but, unfortunately again, the types of changes that are made in Government department areas do not obviously fall within the criteria required for a Business Law Reform bill. So the idea of having a Regulatory Improvement Bill every year in the Standing Orders seems to me to be the best way to get around that.

In the meantime I was successful in gaining a ruling from the Clerk’s Office that improving regulatory frameworks and reducing compliance costs for business were sufficient unifying criteria, as I mentioned before. So in order to have this bill introduced, an amendment to the Standing Orders was not required, but I still think it would be worthwhile for the House to think about whether we should formalise a Business Law Reform Bill and a Regulatory Improvement Bill in the Standing Orders. Then there would be no debate about whether we have this approach to dealing with these issues in the future.

The Minister went through a range of different Acts that are being amended by this bill. But I want to make this point, and it was a lesson I learnt very quickly when I travelled from one end of the country to the other, talking to small business. My point is that Government Ministers tend to see individual departments. They see, for example, the Department of Labour, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Inland Revenue Department, and the Ministry for the Environment. Businesses do not see individual departments. They see the Government, and they are asking why the Government is asking them for the same information they gave it yesterday. They do not understand why the Government structures itself in such an inefficient way in terms of responding to the needs of business. I coined a phrase that became my personal driver for the Quality Regulation Review.

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: It’s all about you.

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL: Well, thank you for that. That is lovely. I came up with a phrase that was trying to articulate what we were trying to achieve, and that was: “Why cannot the many arms of Government extend a single hand to business?”. That became my driver. One of the amendments in the bill specifically responds to that call. Why cannot the many arms of Government extend a single hand to business? That is what we ought to be doing.

The Regulatory Improvement Bill is an important measure in its own right, regardless of its content, and I believe we should acknowledge the hundreds of submissions from businesses, large and small, as well as from all of those really busy men and women out there in business who participated in all of the meetings with myself and with my officials at the time. I commend to the House an omnibus bill of this nature becoming a feature of New Zealand’s legislative programme and part of the Standing Orders of this House.

JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) : It gives me pleasure to rise today to speak in the first reading of the Regulatory Improvement Bill. It is a bill I enthusiastically support as I stand on behalf of the National members of Parliament. I thank the Hon Rodney Hide, the first Minister for Regulatory Reform, for introducing the bill. I also acknowledge the work that was undertaken prior to the formation of this Government to get some of the groundwork done on working out what was needed in order to bring this bill to fruition.

This bill is all about cutting red tape. One of the major gripes I heard during the election campaign was about the excessive red tape that people in businesses have to negotiate. This bill contains 22 amendments to legislation, and the broad objectives are “improving the regulatory framework and reducing the compliance burden on business.” Although I acknowledge the work undertaken by the previous Government, I have to say that after 9 long years the voters were not prepared to let it finish the job. That is because they did not trust the previous Government to finish the job.

I want to make some comments in relation to the comments made by the Hon Rodney Hide today. As he has already said, this bill is about “systematically reviewing regulation”. It is about responding to the message that businesses have been giving us systematically—over many, many years—about regulations that are unnecessarily bureaucratic and costly. The Hon Rodney Hide described the reforms as low-hanging fruit. Nevertheless it is a good start, and it shows the resolve of this Government and its partners to reduce the compliance burden on business. At this time of economic uncertainty, this has never been more important. It has never been more important to send a clear message to businesses that we are on their side, we know how important they are to New Zealand, and we are prepared to do the hard work to find ways of assisting them in their business lives.

The mandate was delivered to the National Party and to its partners in this new Government on 8 November 2008. That mandate is now being seen in the lead that the Hon Rodney Hide has taken as the Minister for Regulatory Reform in bringing this bill to the House. I am also heartened to hear the Minister’s comments that regulatory reform in an omnibus type bill such as this will be a feature of this Government. On 4 February 2009 there was another statement from the Prime Minister. It was not the Rt Hon Helen Clark’s statement back in 2006, but another statement on 4 February given by the Prime Minister, the Hon John Key, entitled “Jobs and Growth”. He outlined in that speech a very important part of the jobs and growth package and the important reform that is necessary. I quote: “In particular I have given Rodney Hide, as the Minister for Regulatory Reform, the mission of finding and cutting additional red tape that is holding back business development, reducing investment and depriving New Zealanders of jobs.” In saying that, the Prime Minister has certainly made it clear that this bill is a very important part of our jobs and growth package.

I acknowledge some points made by the Hon Lianne Dalziel, who raised the fact that this legislation has been the result of 2 years of work. But I remind members opposite that they were in Government for 9 long years. She made some comments about the Small Business Advisory Group holding fewer meetings. I am sure that even though there may be fewer meetings there will be less need for talk under this Government, because it will be observing and participating, and there will be much more action. This National Government is a Government of action, not inaction. This Government is well supported in its partnerships, and this Government will see that things get done to make the environment much better for businesses.

The amendments within the bill address regulatory duplication, gaps, administrative errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation that collectively create unnecessary compliance costs and uncertainties for business. I can just imagine that businesses around New Zealand, on hearing that this bill has been introduced to Parliament, have been saying that at last they see evidence that they have been listened to. The amendments also target poor implementation and administration of various regulatory frameworks. Cutting undue regulation will help remove barriers to economic growth, and will help business to do business. This Government is committed to removing barriers; this is an important step to make it easier for businesses to do their job.

I will briefly run through the Acts that are to be amended. It is quite a varied list: the Companies Act 1993, the Conservation Act 1987, the Designs Act 1953, the Fisheries Act 1996, the Gas Act 1992, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Restructuring) Act 1995. The Reserves Act 1977, and the Weights and Measures Act 1987 complete the list of Acts that will be amended under this bill.

I will spend a little time on the regulatory improvement aspects as covered in the explanatory note of the bill, because by concentrating on just a couple of the Acts we can see some very good examples of how businesses in New Zealand will be better off. The first one I will concentrate on is the Fisheries Act 1996. Currently, commercial fishers are required to balance their catch with an annual catch entitlement, which is part of the quota management system. If at the end of the fishing year they have not acquired enough annual catch entitlement to balance against their catch, they incur a debt in the form of an invoice for annual deemed values. The majority of fishers manage to balance their catch within the required time frames, but some do not. For various administrative reasons, which are deemed to be of a minor nature, those annual catch entitlement transfers fail to take place. Such failures only surface after the annual catch entitlement register is closed, and the fishers are therefore precluded from making additional annual catch entitlement transfers to rectify the errors. The fishers then incur an annual deemed value debt, even though they intended to comply—that is the very important point in this case. In this situation most fishers have to pay the debt to prevent their commercial fishing permit from being suspended.

There are currently no provisions within the Fisheries Act to allow that situation to be rectified. This bill will rectify that problem. An objective of the bill is “To ensure that the catch balancing regime is fair, efficient, and effective.” The changes proposed would remove the perception that the Government is revenue-gathering by taking advantage of those minor administrative errors, and would introduce an element of fairness to situations where invoices for debts have been issued although the sustainability of a stock has not been threatened. It would also mitigate the burdens of firms that arise out of legislation. The New Zealand Seafood Industry Council and Commercial Fisheries Services Ltd have both indicated their support for this proposal. As members can see, this is a very good example of how something relatively minor can be fixed within a bill such as this.

There are other very good examples. In fact, the Companies Act 1993 is an example where requiring companies to have their financial statements audited would impose an unnecessary cost, as there is no rationale to have entities’ filing and auditing requirements out of alignment. This issue will be addressed in this bill.

The consultation required for the bill to continue has been undertaken. I am sure that when this bill reaches the select committee we will hear further support and encouragement, and also, perhaps, suggestions as to improvements in the ways the amended bills can assist business. I conclude my contribution to this debate by saying that this bill is all about helping business to do business, and I wholeheartedly support that.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) : I rise to support the Regulatory Improvement Bill, and I endorse some of the comments made by earlier speakers. There is always a need for housekeeping in Government. As life becomes increasingly sophisticated, there is increasing sophistication in regulation in order to regulate the increasingly sophisticated ways in which we go about the business of our lives and commerce. That sophistication and complexity means that on occasions we have regulations that are inconsistent with each other. In a perfect world, of course, those inconsistencies would never arise, but they do in the real world.

Simon Bridges: What about just legislative laziness?

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, I will come to that. That interjection was from Simon Bridges from the National Party, and I will divert to that issue since he has raised it.

Yes, we do see some legislative laziness already from the National-led Government. National should probably put most of the blame for that on its coalition partner Mr Rodney Hide, who is responsible for this very bill. It seems somewhat ironic that year after year we have been lectured by Rodney Hide on the need to know the true cost of regulatory change before imposing it, when on the issue of the biggest regulatory change that this country is going through at the moment—that is, regulatory changes to the system of governance in Auckland—that most basic rubric of his most closely held principles is being ignored. I know some of us doubt the number of principles that really are held by Mr Hide, but I thought that if one principle was close to his heart, it was the need to properly cost regulatory change. Yet in this House this week, we had a question asked yesterday of Mr Hide about whether there had been any costing of the changes that have been rushed through by the National - ACT - Māori Party Government to the system of governance that was recommended by the royal commission. The royal commission, as part of its very lengthy and thorough process, properly costed the consequences of the changes that it proposed. The National Government very quickly came up with some proposed changes to those, but it has not costed them.

Notwithstanding the fact that National has not costed those changes, it will rush them through under urgency next week. So we have changes with billion-dollar consequences over time to Auckland, and National has not costed them. The culprit has left the Chamber. People used to say “The President has left the White House.” Well, the culprit has left the Chamber. He knows that that is true. He was called into order by the Speaker today, because he tried to hide from the House the reality that was eventually proven under the questioning of Phil Twyford, although yesterday Mr Hide had twisted the meaning of a question as if it was about the process costs of the reforms rather than the actual cost of the reforms.

Grant Robertson: Dancing on the head of a pin.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Well, that pin became very uncomfortable for him today.

Hon Trevor Mallard: Something was pricked.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, that is right. A bit of hot air was expelled after that particular attempt to hide the truth from the public. The truth was exposed for what it is.

It is somewhat ironic that the perk-buster, the person who stood for regulatory rigour, is this same day bringing forward a bill that represents improvements to regulatory form, but, of course, this bill is not Rodney Hide’s bill. It was prepared by the previous Labour-led Government, under the ministerial guidance of Lianne Dalziel. The current Minister’s only contribution to regulatory reform is to make matters worse by proceeding with changes to Auckland governance that, even now, have not been costed. You know, we have the legislation on that coming forward next week under urgency. When the Government sits under urgency, it does not have to give advance notice or copies of legislation to the Opposition or the media. The normal checks and balances that we have when we are considering legislation are absent when we sit under urgency.

Against that background, one would think that the regulatory reform man, the man whose rubric of his stance on things is to properly cost them, would, in that situation, go even further towards having decent information for the public and for this Parliament on the economic consequences of the changes to the regulatory structure and local governance structure in Auckland as a consequence of the Government’s rushed changes to those proposed by the royal commission. Let us not forget the royal commission had the involvement of a judge and other very experienced panel members who brought to bear their expertise, and they had the assistance of the relevant Government departments to properly cost those things. That has all been thrown out by the National Government. It has come up with alternatives to the commission’s proposals that are not only less democratic but also probably cost more. We do not know that; we do not know how much extra they will cost. We know that many millions of dollars of costs will be borne by Aucklanders, but we still have not seen the figures.

I turn to some of the improvements that are made by this bill. Omnibus bills are restricted in this House because there is a constitutional risk that we can put into an omnibus bill things that fundamentally change lots of different areas of legislation, and they do not get the proper scrutiny that they need if they are all hidden in one omnibus bill. That is why we are pretty restrictive of the circumstances in which we allow omnibus bills to come forward here. The common theme here is that the changes do not deal with significant issues of legislative principle; they deal with regulatory compliance costs. Each of the changes made under this bill improves regulatory processes, and therefore reduces compliance costs, without making changes to the fundamental underlying principles of the relevant Acts.

One of the changes is to the rules relating to overseas companies. Some years ago the rules were changed, and there was a new rule that said that companies with overseas ownership were no longer required to file audited financial statements to the Registrar of Companies. Previously they did have to file those statements, and the change was made to say they did not have to do so, yet at the moment we have the nonsense that the very same companies that do not have to file audited statements have to appoint an auditor. That is obviously inconsistent. If a company does not have to file audited financial statements, then why should it have to appoint an auditor? This legislation fixes that up by making it possible for an overseas company to pass a resolution that it does not appoint an auditor. The same situation applies to New Zealand companies. There is not a special rule for overseas companies; it is the same rule for New Zealand companies and overseas companies. Accordingly, that rule is being changed.

Some other changes are being made to the Designs Act. At the moment, one can have a registered design. The Designs Act gives people some form of right to protect their design. If people have a novel design and they register it under that Act, no one can come along and, as of right, copy that design and then flog it off to somebody else. It is the output of the designer, and for a limited period of years there is protection for the designer under that Act. At the moment, the designer, or the holder of those rights under the Act, can lose those rights if they lapse because the designer did not pay a renewal fee. That seems to be a pretty harsh penalty. If designers forget to pay a $100 fee, they lose the rights to their design for ever. That is too tough, and it needs to be fixed. The relevant authorities need to be given discretion to reinstate those design rights upon payment of the fees—with penalties, probably, for late payment. But upon payment of those fees and penalties, the rights of the designer ought to be reinstated. That is another thing that this bill does.

There are various changes to the Fisheries Act and to the Gas Act. There are overlapping ways in which the sellers of gas have to report liquefied natural gas under the Gas Act and another Act. That inconsistency is being resolved. Improvements are being made to processes under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996. There are some pretty arcane procedures there that should be applied to things that are high-risk but ought to not be applied to things that are low-risk. This legislation attempts to make some changes in order to make that legislation more practical.

That is why the Labour Party will be supporting this legislation. Thank you.

KEVIN HAGUE (Green) : I shall say, for the benefit of the Hansard record, that I have just given the sign for “kia ora”, which I learnt from the New Zealand Sign Language website this afternoon.

I begin my expressing the sympathy of the Green Party to Hekia Parata and her whānau.

So far, my speeches in this House have often focused on the need for a Green New Deal; for a range of actions by the Government to help people cope with the effects of recession but also to address the urgent challenges of climate change and other environmental problems that cannot wait. If it is possible to do both simultaneously, then why on earth would we not? But the Green Party has some other priority areas for action. Today, in relation to this bill, I will touch on a couple of these matters. I speak on behalf of my colleague Metiria Turei, who cannot be in the House today. The need to protect our natural environment in the interests of our kids, and the need for healthy politics, including the Green Party’s charter principle of appropriate decision-making, are also foremost in our minds.

The Regulatory Improvement Bill is designed to improve regulations and the compliance burden on businesses in a range of areas. That is a process we heartily endorse, and I should say for the record that the Green Party will also support the omnibus bill process. However, despite the claims made by the Government that this bill contains only minor and uncontroversial changes, we disagree. In particular, we are opposed to the changes to the Conservation Act, the Reserves Act, and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Therefore, with regret, we will be opposing the bill.

The Government says that the measures contained in the bill—and Jo Goodhew has already mentioned some of these—address regulatory duplication, gaps, administrative errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation. That is, clearly, a laudable aim. But, unfortunately, although many of the measures contained in the bill—indeed, most—meet this prescription, others do not, and they would have been much more appropriately dealt with in separate legislation. Even though there is an intent to break the bill into separate pieces at a later stage of its process, that is not an appropriate way of managing the substantive change proposed.

Firstly, we have concerns about the implications of some of the proposed changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Some of these changes do meet the criteria the Government has set out, while others do not. For example, the proposed changes to delegations do not meet those criteria. Our co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has been closely involved in this area of law, and we will be considering the submissions made on this aspect of the bill with keen interest, should it proceed.

This speech, however, focuses on our concerns about the proposed changes to the Conservation Act and parallel measures proposed for the Reserves Act. Conservation law is an area where conservative—with a small “c”—approaches to change are most needed, yet the changes proposed in this bill do not fit the “technical and uncontroversial” test, at all, but, rather, have been incorporated into this bill for entirely opportunistic reasons. The amendments to the Conservation Act are designed to reduce the costs and administrative burdens of the concession provisions by amending the current provisions to allow concessions to be granted for a term of up to 10 years instead of for the current limit of 5 years, and by introducing a discretion not to publicly notify the intent to issue such concessions. We are opposed to these proposed changes. Conservation land is extremely important to our tourism industry and will become increasingly so. It is also very fragile land, and many areas have very important values. Although the recreational and tourism use of conservation land is an important purpose in the Act and in New Zealand culture, the protection of that land and its fundamental, intrinsic conservation values is the highest priority.

Extending the maximum period of a concession reduces the ability of the Department of Conservation to oversee, review, and manage any detrimental impacts of the concession. We note that the Minister will have the ability to seek a mid-term review of a concession. However, that will most likely require some external organisation making complaints, and following up a long and bureaucratic process to seek the Minister’s agreement to require such a review. Retaining the 5-year maximum term ensures that every concession is reviewed within a realistic time frame, allowing for better-quality assessment of the impacts of the operation on the habitat without ministerial intervention. The reality is that if a concession application is for a 10-year duration, it will be very difficult for the department and for conservation boards—and I should inform the House that I have previously served on the West Coast - Tai Poutini Conservation Board—to make decisions about conditions with any degree of certainty as to likely impacts. The consequence will inevitably be heightened risk to conservation and recreation values.

Some increased pressure, effectively, will also come on to conservators and boards to consider further applications, or to vary conservation management strategies or national park management plans, as potential competitors are excluded by longer-term, monopolistic licences. If an operator cannot undertake the activity for 10 years, pressure will be put on to create a new opportunity. As public conservation land and amenities face increasing pressure from concession activities, the inevitable consequence is loss of wildness, and erosion of the important values and features that led to this land’s inclusion in the conservation estate in the first place. The current 5-year maximum term provides greater protection of the conservation estate and the public interest in it.

In addition, there is a high level of discretion as to whether a concession application is publicly notified. The risk of the public being shut out of the decision-making process is heightened, as the bill’s provisions make the public’s involvement in decision making more contingent, and would reduce the frequency with which the public may have the opportunity to express a view. This is an inappropriate decision-making process. As the land in question is public land, the public interest should have a greater level of protection. The precautionary principle should be applied in the case of granting concessions. By extending the time frame and increasing the discretion around public notification, it will be more and more difficult to identify and remedy the impacts of concessions.

I note that the longer maximum durations for concessions proposed by the bill set out to reduce the administrative costs faced by concession applicants and holders. Members need to note that the department’s cost is in no way reduced, as all costs are recovered from applicants. So the benefits are all accrued by concessionaires, with less cost and exclusion of competition, while the costs for the New Zealanders who own this conservation land are increased risk to conservation and recreation values, less public involvement in decision making, and potentially the loss of better ideas—those potential concessions that are locked out of the concessions process by the longer-term licences.

We note that these proposals arise out of the 2004 concession review project, and that a number of environmental non-governmental organisations were consulted. Of course, that does not mean they supported the outcomes, and should this bill advance, the Green Party will be paying close attention to the views that non-governmental organisations wish to express.

These provisions in relation to the Conservation Act represent just a fraction of the recommendations of that review, and they have been advanced at this time for opportunistic reasons. We are concerned that changes to the concession process are being made in a piecemeal fashion. The conservation estate is too important for this kind of law-making process. Parliament should instead be seeing all of the proposed changes together, and making decisions on the integrated package. These provisions have been inappropriate inclusions within this bill, and carry substantial risks that they have not been appropriately canvassed—and they will not be appropriately canvassed by the process proposed for this bill. For these reasons, the Green Party will oppose the bill, but offers to work with the Government and other parties to find a formulation for the bill that would really be uncontroversial and attract the support of all members of this House. Thank you.

KATRINA SHANKS (National) : It is my pleasure to stand today to support the first reading of the Regulatory Improvement Bill. First of all, I would like to acknowledge Lianne Dalziel, who started work on this bill a couple of years ago. It is unfortunate that she got the wheels spinning but could not get the rubber to hit the road. That is what this John Key - led Government is about—the rubber hitting the road. It is about actually getting things done, actually delivering what he believes we should deliver. We can say as much as we like about putting processes in place, but unless we actually manage to deliver legislation, it does not mean a lot. I am pleased to stand here and support this bill.

I am also pleased to acknowledge and support Rodney Hide, the first Minister in this Parliament to be a Minister for Regulatory Reform. I think that says a lot about the commitment we have to reducing regulation in New Zealand. In fact, there is a global trend at the moment to try to reduce regulation. I remember standing about a year ago to talk about regulations, and particularly regulations for businesses. I remember quoting something along the lines that since 1999 more than 500 new regulations had been put in place, but I am sure it is more than that. I think I am being conservative. I am sure the number is more than 500. That is a lot of new regulations being put in place.

Regulations are constraints, and regulations are costly to small business. Trevor Mallard may yawn, but many businesses in his area of the Hutt are affected by regulations. He himself has been to see them, and he knows how tied up they are by regulations, by the reporting required by them, and he knows the costs that those businesses incur as a result. Especially in our present economic environment, businesses need to focus on their businesses, not to spend time on form-filling, and especially not duplicate form-filling, which is what they are doing now.

That is why this bill is very good. It is an omnibus bill that changes many different types of regulations.

Simon Bridges: A quiet achiever.

KATRINA SHANKS: A quiet achiever it is. Overall, these initiatives address regulatory duplication, gaps, administrative errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation that collectively create unnecessary compliance costs and uncertainty for businesses. This is what this legislation is about. It will help businesses in New Zealand to keep focused on what they need to be doing, and that is to be focused on their businesses.

There is one provision in particular that I would like to talk to, and it relates to the Companies Act of 1993. I want to tell members why this provision helps the position, and what we have done to get to this stage—to identify the problem and to know we have got it right. In 2006 the requirement for two classes of companies to file audited financial statements with the Registrar of Companies was removed from the Financial Reporting Act 1993. The two classes of companies are, first, companies 25 percent or more of which is overseas-owned, provided that they do not exceed at least two of the following three criteria: annual revenue of $20 million, total assets of $10 million, and 50 full-time equivalent employees; and, second, New Zealand - incorporated companies that are subsidiaries of a New Zealand - incorporated company that is an immediate subsidiary of an overseas-incorporated company. Those are the types of companies that this provision addresses.

The intention was to remove the requirement for those companies to have their financial statements audited. It is not clear whether that has been achieved, as the Companies Act 1993 requires such companies to appoint an auditor. Requiring those companies to have their financial statements audited would impose an unnecessary cost, as there is no rationale to have entities’ filing and auditing requirements out of alignment. To ensure that the policy intent of the audit and filing requirements in the Financial Reporting Act 1993 and the Companies Act 1993 can be implemented in a manner that eliminates unnecessary compliance costs, the preferred option is to amend the Companies Act 1993 to make it clear that the two classes of company are not required to appoint an auditor or to have their financial statements audited. The two classes of companies will benefit from no longer being required to incur the cost of having their financial statements audited, and that makes total sense when we align the two pieces of legislation.

We consulted a number of lawyers and accountants who had requested that this amendment be made; they were consulted on it. So we have identified the problem, and we have found a solution. There is duplication. There is no need for that duplication. If companies do not need to have audited accounts, they certainly do not need to appoint an auditor. So the problem has been addressed. The sector was consulted; it came back and said it agreed with the provision, and that is why we know we have this little provision absolutely right. That is the process we went through with all the other provisions in this bill, to ensure that they were relevant to what each sector needs, and relevant to the environment that companies are actually in.

Many companies fall under this provision. I have not consulted them or asked them, but I would imagine that a company like Rio Tinto Alcan would fall under it. It trades in US dollars, it has contracts in the US, and it is overseas-owned. Therefore it would fall under this provision, which will save it money, save it time, and save it from having to jump over some hurdles that it does not have to jump over in order to do business in New Zealand. So that provision is one provision that is very good.

Another relates to the Conservation Act 1987. Changes to the concessions provisions of that Act will reduce cost and the administrative burden, at a saving of about $1,000 per application. That might not seem much to many people, but it is actually a lot of money when it is accumulated. The provision will allow permits to be granted for a term not exceeding 10 years instead of the current limit of 5 years. It will introduce discretion to not publicly notify the intent to issue licences up to a maximum of 10 years.

Those changes are in the area of conservation. As members can see, the areas are very varied. Next I could talk about changes to the Reserves Act 1977, the Designs Act 1953, or the Fisheries Act 1996. This is a very diverse bill.

The provisions relating to the Designs Act allow for the restoration of lapsed copyright in a registered design where the lapse was because of an unintended failure to pay the renewal fee or to make the necessary application. In relation to the Fisheries Act 1996, we are removing penalty regimes applicable under the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Restructuring) Act 1995 for non-payment of cost recovery levies, as the Fisheries Act 1996 already contains an adequate penalty regime. Once again, that is ironing out duplication of regulations that is not needed—going out and consulting the sector, and actually doing something about the problem. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 is in the bill, as well. The aim of the changes to that Act is to ensure that its policy intent can be more efficiently and effectively achieved, with minimum compliance costs.

As members can see, the theme is exactly what it should be: to address regulatory duplication, gaps, administrative errors, and inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation that collectively create unnecessary compliance costs and uncertainty for business. The bill keeps within the scope of the Quality Regulation Review. Its provisions target poor implementation and administration of various regulatory frameworks. The great thing about the intent of the bill is that this process will happen every year now. We will go through regulations and pick out parts that are duplicated; we will identify them, put together an omnibus bill, and move forward with it, and in that way we will ensure that, slowly and over time, we take out the inconsistencies. We are focused on doing that for the businesses of New Zealand. Thank you.

SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) : It is good to be speaking on the Regulatory Improvement Bill. I am very excited about it, in fact. We have had some valuable contributions today from a number of speakers. I pay tribute, firstly, to the Hon Rodney Hide. I agree with the Hon Lianne Dalziel: let us do something that we do not do enough—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy): I am sorry to interrupt the member but the debate is interrupted.

• Debate interrupted.