KEY POINTS:
The Government is unsure whether it can meet its target date for scrapping the Serious Fraud Office and merging the corporate watchdog with police.
It was intended for law changes needed to establish an Organised Crime Agency within police and endow it with some - but not all - of the SFO's sweeping powers to tackle corporate fraud, to be enacted by July 1.
However, Parliament will only sit for five more weeks before that date, and much of that time will be taken up with the Budget and subsequent debate.
Police Minister Annette King yesterday could not confirm the bill would make it through Parliament before July 1 and said she was unsure if urgency would be required for that to be achieved.
"The aim is to have it passed this year, in fact as soon as we can," she said.
"It's waiting for its first reading, but we couldn't do the first reading before we rose for the recess."
Ms King said she hoped the bill would make it through its first reading and be sent for select committee consideration once Parliament resumed, at the end of May.
However, that will leave little time for in-depth consideration of what has proven to be controversial legislation. New Zealand First, whose support will be critical for the measure to come into law, has questioned the wisdom of diluting the powers the SFO.
Ms King told the Herald the legislation to disestablish the SFO had been tabled in Parliament, but it soon emerged the legislation had not been tabled yet.
In Cabinet papers on the proposal officials said they believed it was both feasible and preferable to create the new agency over a relatively short period.
The timing of the bill is important because it enshrines the special powers the organised crime agency will have before Parliament considers new laws on search and surveillance, a package of law changes planned for later this year.
The new agency will retain the SFO's power to make production orders, forcing the handing over of data or documents, and examination orders, which compel people to attend a police interview - but officers will need to apply to a judge to obtain an order.
The new office also loses the SFO's power to override a person's right to remain silent - a move made to ensure the agency's powers complied with the Bill of Rights.
