Volume 673 Week 77 - Thursday 23 June 2011 
Volume 673 Week 77 - Thursday 23 June 2011 
[Volume:673;Page:19669] 
Thursday 23 June 2011 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 Next week the House will be adjourned for 1 week. When the House resumes on Tuesday 5 July the Government intends to make further progress on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 3) the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill and other bills on the Order Paper. Wednesday 6 July is scheduled to be a members’ day. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I ask the Acting Leader of the House whether it is his intention to use urgency in the first or second week of the next sitting. My second question is that in noting that the Acting Leader of the House has 10 bills on the Order Paper in his name I was wondering whether any particular attention will be given to those bills to ensure that his desk is clear before the end of the legislative year. 
Hon SIMON POWER (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 In respect of the second question that the member asked the Minister of Justice and Minister of Commerce are confident that the Acting Leader of the House will have his bills in mind when determining the legislative agenda for the rest of the year. In relation to the first part of the question it is very early days. 
Questions to Ministers 
KiwiRail—Railway Workshops 
1. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Has the Prime Minister met with management of KiwiRail or representatives of railway workshop workers to discuss the building of railway wagons at Hillside workshop in Dunedin and Hutt workshops in Lower Hutt; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Yes. I understand that the Prime Minister visited the Hillside workshops and discussed its work on 3 September 2009. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the honourable member’s supplementary question I ask how the member’s primary question started. 
Hon Annette King 
: I will read it again: “Has the Prime Minister met with”. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This question was put down for the Prime Minister and was transferred to the Minister of Transport. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: My version of the question has it wrong. I thank the member for clarifying that. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Speaker makes a good point. What happened in respect of this question was that it was put down for the Prime Minister. I suggest that it ought to have been answered on behalf of the Prime Minister rather than transferred to the Minister of Transport with in the process the member who asked the question being forced to change her question. The original question was: “Has he”—the Prime Minister—“been to Hillside workshops?”. The Prime Minister—and there is nothing untoward in it—cannot answer the question today so the proper course would have been for the Government to answer that question on his behalf. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What causes me a little bit of concern is that the version of the question I have is somewhat different from what the member read out. The question was transferred and that is the prerogative of the Government when it is a matter that relates specifically to a particular Minister. But the wording I have does not have “Has the Prime Minister met with” and I am a little concerned because I do not know how many other members have that. [ 
Interruption 
] Before I hear the honourable member I want to clarify. Can the Clerk please show me the correct version of the question. The question was apparently changed after I received my version of questions for oral answer today. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask whether you would consider this issue at a later day though. Is it possible for a question to be transferred to another Minister when one is asking the Prime Minister whether he visited somewhere? I was not asking the Minister of Transport whether he had visited the workshops; I was asking the Prime Minister. Would that not normally go to the Acting Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister? Instead it was sent to the Minister of Transport which made it very confusing as to how I then worded my question and I got advice from the Clerk. But when a question is transferred and I am asking a specific question of a person—I do not know whether the Minister of Transport has been; I wanted to know whether the Prime Minister had been as it was worded. It was then worded as to whether the Minister of Transport had been. Do you get what I am saying? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear what the member is saying and I do not think there is any point in our taking more time on this issue today. Obviously it is the Government’s prerogative to transfer questions as long as the only person who could possibly have the relevant information is not the person from whom it is transferred. In this case I think it is acceptable that other Ministers will know whether the Prime Minister has met with these people. That is why I think it is legitimate for the question to be transferred. I am concerned though that the version of the question I have is not the one that is in front of the House. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that New Zealand Railway Corporation tradesmen have been building carriages building rail wagons and restoring rolling stock since 1875 and are highly skilled; and will he intervene to keep their jobs in New Zealand as he has done for the film industry and now the gambling industry? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The first part of the question was directed in regard to the Prime Minister and my understanding is he would be aware. In regard to the second part of the question I do not think it is appropriate for that to occur because KiwiRail is a company as I have said previously in the House in a very difficult trading situation. We are seeking to turn it round. We need to give it every commercial opportunity to succeed and as appropriate to take the right commercial decisions. It is inappropriate for us to place requirements on that company that we would not place on any other company. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why was the Prime Minister prepared to wine dine chauffeur change the law and suck up to Warner Bros to save jobs in the movie industry and now the gambling industry but has turned his back on hard-working railway workers who can build wagons and carriages in New Zealand and will not keep their jobs? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The important distinction the member has not made is that the Government often seeks to ease the regulatory burden on companies across the country to enable them to be more successful and to help grow the economy. In the situation of tenders for assets it is completely inappropriate for the New Zealand Government to prefer New Zealand companies over international companies. If we did we would be a very very small trading nation because countries would not want to trade with us. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why will he not apply the same logic to his support of a convention centre in Auckland about which he said: “If we build they will come.” to the building of railway wagons at Woburn and Hillside and give the railway workers a chance to attract contracts and more job opportunities in our country? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I think the previous answer applies to this question as well. I also point out to the member that if she wants to require KiwiRail to pay in the order of 25 percent more than it would otherwise have to in order to purchase its assets then that company would struggle. It would not be the case of a number of jobs being at risk; it would be in the order of 4000 jobs at risk. 
Hon Annette King 
: Do the 400 people in Dunedin who were protesting last night at the loss of jobs and who hold fears for the future of their local community have as much influence on the Government’s decision-making as overseas money interests that came to New Zealand scooped up millions of dollars from a supplicant Government and will leave with the cash as soon as the job is done? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: A slightly xenophobic tone is appearing in some of these questions. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take exception to that comment. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not think I need any assistance from the Acting Leader of the House. If the member does not like that comment then she should think about the comments she has included in her own questions. 
Hon Annette King 
: It was not xenophobic. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question was probably highly offensive to certain members of the Government. I let it go because it was not totally unparliamentary but I am sure it caused offence. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Leaving aside that tone I think it is very important to point out to the member that we need to give KiwiRail the opportunity to be successful. It is a company that was bought back by the previous Government at a ridiculously high price. It has been in very poor shape. We have set up a turn-round plan to try to turn it round. We have to give it every commercial chance to succeed. We are talking about 4000 jobs in total at stake. Yes I imagine it is very tough for those who were at the meeting last night in Dunedin as it is when any organisation changes its structure in order that it may be more successful. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why was KiwiRail not given the opportunity even to tender for the railway carriages? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: That is not actually correct. KiwiRail did a tender for the railway wagons using Hillside. My understanding is that the price difference from the successful tenderer was in the order of 25 percent. In the case of the electric trains for Auckland KiwiRail took its own decision not to tender for those contracts. 
Child Abuse Investigations Wellington—Multi-agency Initiative 
2. 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: What steps are being taken in the Wellington police district to improve the investigation of child abuse and the care and support provided to victims? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 I am pleased to report that today I opened the country’s fourth multi-agency centre which will provide one-stop access to services for child abuse victims and improve the investigation of abuse allegations. The Wellington Police District accounts for about 12 percent of all child abuse investigations nationally with more than 8000 family violence reports last year. The new centre in Petone which is called Koru House is a joint initiative by the police Child Youth and Family and the Hutt Valley District Health Board. It follows the establishment of similar centres in Auckland City Counties-Manukau and Tauranga. It illustrates this Government’s commitment to putting victims back at the heart of the justice sector. 
Paul Quinn 
: What services will be available at the new centre to help child abuse victims? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: The centre will provide a safe and supportive environment where child victims can interact with a team of police Child Youth and Family and health professionals. This will include specialised medical forensic and psychological services. It will also provide a vital link from those agencies back to the many community groups that work so hard to provide ongoing support to the victims. When a child’s life is marred by the horror of abuse or violence the child must have somewhere to go and someone whom they can turn to for help. The centre will help to ensure that they receive a caring compassionate speedy and professional response. 
State-owned Assets Sales—Public Consultation 
3. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Is it the Government’s position that a referendum on asset sales is unnecessary and the election later this year will be the public’s chance to make their views on asset sales felt? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Finance 
: The Government’s position in this policy area is in fact in relation to the mixed-ownership model that was pioneered by the previous Government. It is the Government’s position that a referendum on the mixed-ownership model is not necessary and that voters will have a chance to make their views known on that model later this year. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does the acting Minister think that the public will be pleased to learn that without any mandate his Government has budgeted $6 million to spend before the election on preparing to sell these assets as his colleague Tony Ryall confirmed to the Finance and Expenditure Committee yesterday? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I am sure that the public would expect the Government of New Zealand to take a prudent look at potential future policy areas and that they would also be very pleased to know that this Government has saved multimillion times more than that in its alterations of waste in the public sector inherited from the previous Government. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Given that it is obviously a fait accompli does he agree with Mr Ryall’s statement to the Finance and Expenditure Committee yesterday that the Government had no way of preventing the onselling of individual shares to foreign corporates but that the Government would proceed with sale if re-elected regardless of that fact? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I appreciate the member’s vote of confidence but we do not think the election result is a fait accompli. Our view on this matter is that there will be long-term holding of these assets by investors. The sorts of investors that are interested will include KiwiSaver funds. I know that iwi are interested in investing; they are long-term holders of assets. Obviously the Superannuation Fund is a long-term holder of assets ACC is a long-term holder of assets and I am sure mum and dad investors will be long-term holders of those assets as well. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the acting Minister tell the House how much he expects that middlemen and ticket-clippers would cost the taxpayer if the Minister’s privatisation agenda goes ahead given that in the Contact Energy sale alone $32 million of taxpayers’ money was spent in fees to consultants and bankers and that officials yesterday told the Finance and Expenditure Committee that they estimate sales costs to be in the range of 2 to 5 percent of the asset value which would be between $136 million and $340 million? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I disagree with the member’s question because it is not a privatisation agenda. Again in relation to the matter of fees I point out that I was talking to the Minister for Tertiary Education the other day and the amounts the member refers to have been wasted many times by the previous Government in the tertiary education area. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would like you to reflect on that answer. The member asked essentially about the cost of the transfer. What we got was a reply that talked about whether it was privatisation and about tertiary education. The Minister did not address the central theme of the question which was to comment on the cost of the sale. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The remedy for that kind of situation is very simple: to use objective language. Had the member asked a question about the cost of the partial sale of shares to investors I would have insisted on the Minister giving a more precise answer. When members load their questions with their view of the facts I cannot expect Ministers not to respond if they disagree with that view of the facts. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I now seek your guidance. The word I used that I infer that you may be describing as being in some way loaded was the word “privatisation”. Is it your ruling that selling down 50 percent of a State asset is in some way not a privatisation? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not involved in the debate at all. If the honourable member uses that kind of language though Ministers are likely to pick up on it. I cannot help that. If members want to get to the nub of issues they should keep their language as objective as possible and I will help them all that I can then. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I will repeat the question using other words. Can the Minister tell the House how much he expects the cost of sale to be given that in the Contact Energy sale alone those costs amounted to $32 million in fees to bankers and consultants and that officials yesterday told the Finance and Expenditure Committee that they estimate sale costs to be in the range of 2 to 5 percent of asset values which would be between $136 million and $340 million? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Minister obviously does not know and neither do the officials know what it was going to cost at this point because normally in those situations one has some form of competitive process for assessing the sorts of fees that might be payable. But I remind the member that both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have said in the House that they will be expecting a very competitive and the lowest possible price for such an activity. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Given that the Minister is apparently not in possession of the briefing that his own officials gave to the Finance and Expenditure Committee yesterday and given that only 8 percent of New Zealanders ever bought shares in Contact Energy and only 2.5 percent of them retain any interest in it now can he tell the House what percentage of New Zealand families he expects would be able to front up with the $4000 that would be needed to keep their personal share of ownership at current levels in the strategic assets he is preparing to sell down? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Minister would not agree with the member’s characterisation of the current ownership model. But I think the member does touch on a very very important issue which is the importance of ensuring the success of the New Zealand sharemarket in the growth story of this country and the importance of ensuring the opportunity for New Zealanders to invest and hold assets and to receive returns on those assets. I sense that the member is very concerned about that issue but the reality is that again with the KiwiSaver funds the ACC iwi who have now had settlements and other investment funds I am very sure that they will want to invest in and hold these long-term assets. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I seek leave to table advice from the Parliamentary Library setting out the proportion of New Zealanders who owned shares in Contact Energy and who do now. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Broadband Rural Initiative —Reaction of Regional Stakeholders 
4. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister for Communications and Information Technology 
: What has been the reaction of regional stakeholders to the rural broadband scheme? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 Staff from the Ministry of Economic Development have been travelling up and down the country informing rural communities about how the Rural Broadband Initiative will benefit them. Throughout the country they have received extremely positive feedback as people understand the exciting potential that faster broadband can bring to their communities. For example the  
Timaru Herald 
 proclaimed: “Rural schools in South Canterbury are set to benefit from world-class internet speeds …”; the  
Hawke’s Bay Today 
 celebrated: “residents to reap ultra fast perks”; and of particular interest to the member will be the  
Taranaki Daily News 
 which stated: “Rural Taranaki internet speeds are about to improve tenfold as the Government gets set to roll out its $500 million Rural Broadband Initiative next month.” 
Shane Ardern 
: How will the expected passage of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill this afternoon provide better broadband services to rural communities? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Those members in this House who understand that providing better internet speeds will be a massive economic enabler for rural communities and those members who recognise that 230000 households on dial-up in 2011 is just not good enough will be supporting the bill’s third reading this afternoon as we correct the mistakes of the previous Government. The bill provides for the telecommunications development levy to be invested in 3100 kilometres of new fibre into rural areas and an extra 154 cellphone towers. When completed 98 percent of New Zealanders will have access to broadband services of 5 megabits per second or more and 98 percent of schools will have an ultra-fast broadband connection as well. 
Clare Curran 
: How does he respond to the hundreds of schools and dozens of mayors some of whom are now writing to me to express their concern about the zone 3 schools that have been left out of both the urban and the rural broadband initiatives that are now being subjected to an uncosted tender process next year? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Can I ask the House to be a bit more reasonable on the interjection level. I do not know whether the Minister even got to hear that. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Well I have heard it a number of times before so actually I am able to hear it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Silly me! 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: As I have tried to point out to the member previously there is no delay for those schools. They will in fact be connected. There is somebody writing to some schools though scaremongering that those schools will not be connected and I wonder whether the member might know who it is because it is signed by one Clare Curran. 
Clare Curran 
: Point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want this to be heard in silence members please. 
Clare Curran 
: I seek leave to table a letter dated 17 June from Linton Camp School to the Hon Anne Tolley in response to her letter expressing concern that it had been left out of the broadband scheme although the two schools on either side of it had not been. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Question No. 3 to Minister 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Mr Speaker this may assist your reflection on an earlier ruling in relation to the use of the word “privatisation” and whether it was an emotive term. The document that I seek leave— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need that lecture from the member. He will resume his seat. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a Treasury report dated 21 December 2010 entitled  
Privatisation in New Zealand: An assessment of a series of company experiences 
. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
New Zealand - Australia Migration—Economy 
5. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement that “we are trying to change the economic picture to encourage more New Zealanders to stay” in light of the total of 3300 New Zealanders who left New Zealand for Australia last month which topped the previous record of 2900 set in May 1979? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
 on behalf of the  
Prime Minister 
: Yes. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does the Prime Minister accept that the 3300 New Zealanders who left for Australia in May topped the previous record for May of 2900 which was set 32 years ago under his predecessor Mr Muldoon’s National-led Government? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: That may be the case but because of fluctuations it is better to take a year-by-year perspective and that shows that net migration of New Zealanders to Australia in the year to May was lower than in the year to May 2009 the year to May 2008 and the year to May 2001. 
Hon David Parker 
: Which factor is most behind the record surge in New Zealanders leaving for Australia: the wage gap which has grown substantially rather than narrowed under this Government despite National’s election promise to the contrary; the higher minimum wage in Australia which at A$15 an hour converts to NZ$20 an hour; or the better savings and investment record that Australia is heading for instead of the cuts to KiwiSaver here? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: None of the above because the fluctuations on a month-to-month basis are better looked at on a year-by-year basis 3 of which did not have higher numbers to May than when that party was in Government. 
Hon David Parker 
: Why does the Government keep blaming the earthquake in Christchurch for New Zealand’s problems when the increase in departures from Christchurch over the previous year was 300 which is less than 10 percent of the total departures in May; and does he accept that even after the Christchurch increase is excluded the 3000 departures to Australia in May was still at a record level? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Over the last 3 months for example 1600 people left the Canterbury region permanently for overseas. In respect of the more broad numbers that the member used—a May month indicator—I can tell the member that on average over the last 2 years about 1900 New Zealanders left each month for Australia. Under that party’s last 2 years in Government that figure was over 2600 a month. 
Hon David Parker 
: Are more New Zealanders leaving for Australia despite National’s 2008 election promise “Wave goodbye to higher taxes. Not your loved ones.” because only a small proportion of New Zealanders—high-income earners—did well out of his tax cuts while the rest are worse off and are either leaving for Australia or waving goodbye to their loved ones? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Using year to May figures no because that number was higher in 2001 2008 and 2009. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There will be no interruption from the gallery thank you or I will be asking the visitor to leave. 
Parity with Australia—GDP Per Capita 
6. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Has the gap between GDP per capita in Australia and GDP per capita in New Zealand narrowed or widened since his Government came to office? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Finance 
: Since the September 2008 quarter real GDP per capita in New Zealand has fallen by 2.9 percent while real GDP per capita in Australia has fallen by 0.3 percent. This reflects the fact that we inherited a recession from the previous Government which Australia did not have combined with Australia’s unprecedented minerals boom. However these figures move around from year to year and quarter to quarter and will continue to do so. For example in the first quarter of this year the New Zealand economy looks like it has grown a little while the Australian economy has shrunk by 1.2 percent. In the long term we believe that sound policies and careful and considered decision-making will mean that we will close this gap with Australia over time and the resilience the economy has shown in recent times is a positive indicator towards that. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: Given that he has just acknowledged that the gap between New Zealand and Australia has widened in the last 2½ years of his administration is it still a concrete goal of the Government to close the income gap with Australia by 2025; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: It is still the goal of this Government. I point out to the member that as he may well be aware the 2025 Taskforce which was set up to consider how to close this gap noted that “Year to year fluctuations in the income gap will occur but may or may not reflect the relative merits of the policy frameworks in the two countries. For this reason changes in the income gap are most accurately assessed over the medium term.” As I say I refer that member to the 2025 Taskforce. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: If it remains the Government’s goal to close the gap with Australia how long does he think it will take to do that and when will he give the public targets and milestones given that New Zealand’s GDP has fallen 3 percent since his Government came to power the wage gap has widened from 30 to 35 percent of GDP since 2008 and a record number of New Zealanders are now voting with their feet and contributing to Australia’s economy not ours? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The member is wrong on a number of counts as my colleague Mr Power referred to in relation to the numbers in the previous question. Also the member persists in using before-tax incomes for the comparator with Australia which is again misleading. I am surprised actually that the member wants to pop up and complain about the performance of the New Zealand economy when his Government was responsible for the mess that we inherited at the end of 2008. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: What has to be the productivity growth rate to achieve his Government’s concrete goal of closing the income gap and does he think it is feasible with current policy settings? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I do not have that exact figure here but a significant improvement in productivity is required and that is why we are taking the steps we are taking. They are for example a much more competitive tax system; better regulatory reform which the member’s colleague has been involved in to actually reduce the cost of doing business; investing in infrastructure that will improve productivity across the economy particularly in the bottlenecks of areas like transport and telecommunications; ensuring more productivity in the public sector something that this Government is very very focused on; improving trade opportunities—the Prime Minister is going to India next week—and improving education and skills. All those things which are the policy prescription will improve productivity over time. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question basically had two prongs to it and the Minister refused to answer either particular question. He could have answered one or the other but he answered neither. In particular I asked him what the productivity growth rate was and he acknowledged that he did not know. He acknowledged that he did not know what was the productivity growth rate required to close the income gap. I then asked whether he believed that the current policy settings were feasible. He went on to outline a number— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not going to let the member litigate any further by way of point of order. The first part of the member’s question was answered. The member may not like the answer but it was answered and I cannot assist any further with that. The member has a further supplementary question though. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect the Minister actually acknowledged that he did not answer it because— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not going to have the member arguing with me. He asked the Minister what the productivity growth requirement was to achieve the closing of the income gap by 2025 whatever it was. The Minister answered: he said that he did not know that or that he did not have the actual figure for that. That is a perfectly reasonable answer for the Minister to give. As for the second part the Minister did go on to attempt to answer it when he did not actually have to. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: Does he believe that the Government’s concrete goal of closing the income gap with Australia by 2025 set at the start of this administration was a good idea; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I am not sure about this whole “setting in concrete” thing but it is the Government’s goal and it continues to be the Government’s goal. It is absolutely something we are seeking to do and as I explained to the member a number of major policy settings have been enacted in the first period that this Government has been in office that we are putting to the country as evidence of how we are moving to close that gap. 
Youth Minimum Wage—Government Support for Proposed ACT Bill 
7. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Did she state in relation to Hon Sir Roger Douglas’ proposed bill which would reintroduce the youth minimum wage that “we will not be supporting the bill as we are not convinced it would reduce youth unemployment”? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 No I did not say that about a proposed bill. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: I seek leave of the House to table the statement which is in  
Hansard 
— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No we do not table  
Hansard. 
 The member has further supplementary questions to ask; that is the best way to test the Minister’s answer. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: As the Minister with responsibility for employment does she believe that a youth minimum wage would reduce unemployment? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I am open to looking at discussions on that at the moment. I think we need to concentrate on what actually does work. I am a member of Parliament and a Minister who likes to look at a number of options and I can be convinced in a lot of ways. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Can the Minister explain to the House what has changed in the past few months from when she would not support Roger Douglas’ youth minimum wage bill to now when she is considering it as an option? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That is different to a proposed bill. What happened was that months ago when the bill was before the House— 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have been forced to waste a question because she talked about the difference between a bill and a proposed bill. I think that is really dallying with question time. That first answer of hers was out of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am on my feet. I do not know which National member wants to take an early shower but that was a point of order and there was just a barrage of noise. I ask members please to show a little more respect to the House. In respect of the answer to the question the Minister did answer the question. But the Speaker cannot judge whether or not an answer is accurate; that is the idea of having supplementary questions. If a member can pin down a Minister on the accuracy of an answer it is a pretty effective thing to do. It seems to me to be a shame if members go on and follow a pre-prepared line of questioning instead of listening to the answer. If the answer is not what is expected the member should dive into it. Points of order are of no use because I cannot judge a Minister’s answer; I can judge it only as far as it appears to be an answer to the question. Some answers clearly are not and I give members a chance to repeat their question or I ask Ministers to answer the question. But in this case it seemed to me that the Minister answered the question and I cannot judge the quality of the answer. I do not believe that it wastes a supplementary question to dig into a Minister’s answer and test its accuracy. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Did she state in relation to the Hon Sir Roger Douglas’ minimum wage bill that “we will not be supporting the bill as we are not convinced it would reduce youth unemployment”? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes. 
Darien Fenton 
: Does she stand by her statement that “any job is a good job”; if so does she have a bottom line for the minimum wages of young workers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes I do—yes I do. In fact I stand by a young woman who wrote to me just yesterday on Wednesday who said that she had been looking for work for quite some time. She had applied for over 300 jobs and she starts work tomorrow at a supermarket. She is damned proud to be going off the benefit. She has said: “At 52 years of age I am so proud to be a checkout chick and I’m going to love my job.” So yes I back her in her job. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Point of order the Hon David Parker. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That job wouldn’t be good enough for the Labour Party—it wouldn’t be good enough for the Labour Party. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order has been called. The Minister for Social Development and Employment will cease interjecting when a point of order has been called. She has just given the Opposition a further supplementary question. 
Hon David Parker 
: The original question that Jacinda Ardern asked is set out on the Order Paper so I do not need to re-read it. It included the words “proposed bill”; the bill was proposed but the question was identical in substance to the question she just asked. Yet the Minister playing with the House said “No” to the first question and “Yes.” to the second. I suggest that that is trifling with question time. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Speaker cannot really hold Ministers to what members might intend with their questions because in fairness members asking questions often insert claims into questions that are totally outside the Standing Orders. Yet I allow them to go forward because I do not want to limit the Opposition’s opportunity to question Ministers. Ministers have to be careful obviously because some people who are listening will have been surprised at the change of answers; they might have interpreted the question in the same way as the Hon David Parker did. Therefore they will wonder at the answers given. But the member will note that because the Minister did not cease interjecting when a point of order was called I have now given Labour a further supplementary question. So I do not believe that Labour has suffered through this question at all. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Why was she not convinced that a youth minimum wage would reduce youth unemployment? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Because at that time the caucus had not seen the sorts of results from there so we were not convinced. If a bill comes back to the House or is drawn from the ballot then the caucus will make its decision as it does accordingly. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Mr Speaker. What specific initiatives is the Government undertaking to reverse the disproportionately high levels of unemployment for young Maori? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: We are working alongside Maori on a number of initiatives. To give the House an idea of the issue of those aged from 18 to 24 on the unemployment benefit 36 percent are young Maori. However that is mirrored by the numbers coming off the benefit; about 37 percent of those are Maori youth who are cancelling their benefits. We know that Job Ops and Community Max have made a big difference for that population. We also do a lot of work with our Maori strategy which is partnering with iwi to implement programmes and services that assist Maori into employment. So far we have done an extra six iwi partnerships and we are very close to signing up another few which we think will make a difference. 
Pay Equity—Gender Gap 
8. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: Does she agree that women workers are entitled to equal pay? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 Yes. The law is clear: people cannot be discriminated against because of their gender as it would be a breach of the Equal Pay Act and the Human Rights Act. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: What is her response to the comments this morning of Employers and Manufacturers Association head Alasdair Thompson that women do not have equal pay because they take more sick leave because of their “monthly problem”? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I am not responsible for Mr Thompson’s suggestion but I do not agree with it. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Will the Government continue to take advice from a business leader who has just attacked the productivity of 50 percent of the workforce on the basis of their gender? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I listen to the views of a number of people who say things I disagree with or find offensive. It is simply part of being in Government. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does she agree that the sexist and ridiculous views espoused by business leader Alasdair Thompson this morning are proof that the Equal Pay Act needs to be modernised and strengthened? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I am not responsible for his comments. I do not agree with his comments. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not ask whether the Minister agreed with his comments; I asked whether she agreed that the Equal Pay Act needed to be modernised and strengthened. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I invite the member to repeat her question. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does she agree that the sexist and ridiculous views espoused by business leader Alasdair Thompson this morning are proof that the Equal Pay Act needs to be modernised and strengthened? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: The mere opinion of one person on one occasion is not necessarily justification to have a review of the legislation. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: How can women who are concerned that they might not be getting equal pay for equal work find out whether that is the case in their workplace? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: There are remedies and recourses under both the human rights legislation and the Equal Pay Act. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Given the difficulties of taking a case under the Equal Pay Act and the extremely small number of cases taken in the last 40 years how can she ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: The legislation is there to protect women who feel they have been discriminated against. The procedures are there and there is nothing to stop them taking that course. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Can the Minister reassure New Zealand women that despite comments by close National Party ally Alasdair Thompson they will not have to wait until they hit menopause to close the gender pay gap? 
Hon Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In relation to using those types of descriptors in the question as far as I am concerned Mr Thompson’s first association was with the Social Credit Party. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have observed Mr Thompson over a long period— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Labour has just lost its extra supplementary question. I was on my feet and that was not a point of order. What is fair for the goose has to be fair for the gander. I say in relation to the question asked that it was unusual but it was not unparliamentary although questions should not make that kind of assertion. Would Ministers prefer I deprived their colleagues of the opportunity to have a bit of licence to give as much back as they receive? I do not rule out those sorts of questions because Ministers hearing a question like that have pretty free licence. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I have forgotten what the question was. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I invite the member to repeat her question. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Can the Minister reassure New Zealand women that despite comments by close National Party ally Alasdair Thompson women will not have to wait until they hit menopause to close the gender pay gap? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: As I have said before I certainly do not agree with the ridiculous comments of Mr Thompson. I do believe in good fair treatment for women and I think there are protections under both pieces of legislation that I have already cited. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Will she consider adopting my amendment launched yesterday to the Equal Pay Act which requires employers to report on gender pay rates in their workplaces and release aggregated information on gender pay to employees on request? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I have not read the member’s bill so I have yet to form an opinion on it. 
Health and Safety—Workplace 
9. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: Does she have confidence the Government is doing everything possible to ensure health and safety in the workplace? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 Yes but we are constantly looking at what more we can do to ensure health and safety in the workplace. Ultimately under our legislation the responsibility lies with employers to provide safe workplaces. This Government is working hard with business to promote a stronger safety culture. 
Darien Fenton 
: Does she believe that training workplace health and safety representatives is an important means of ensuring health and safety in the workplace; if so what response would she have to the Minister for ACC’s claim at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee this morning that the generic training of workplace health and safety representatives is a touchy-feely notion? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I understand that 6000 places for training were offered and only 4000 people took them up so we have an issue with workplace culture and with encouraging both employers and employees to make sure that their workmates are safe. 
Darien Fenton 
: In light of recent tragedies such as the Pike River mine disaster will she reconsider her decision to restrict union organisers’ access to workplaces for health and safety reasons which was a decision she took against departmental advice? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: No. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: Does the Minister still stand by her response to me in a letter dated 10 June 2010 in which she said: “I do not see any need for a review of the current mines inspection regime.” and does this mean that she will do nothing to improve mine safety until 2013 when the royal commission is due to report back? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: In response to the first part of the question yes. In response to the second part no. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: I seek leave to table two documents— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is this a point of order? [ 
Interruption 
] What do I need to do? 
Hon Member 
: Chuck her out. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. I have just given Labour back its extra supplementary question; Labour now has 28 supplementary questions today. Ministers will learn to stop interjecting when a point of order is called. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: I seek leave to table two documents. The first is a letter from me to the Minister dated 6 May 2010 in which I alert the Minister to deficiencies in the mines regulations. The second is the Minister’s response to me dated 10 June 2010 in which she refuses to do anything. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Members must not describe a letter in that way—“refuses to do anything”. What do I do about that? When members do not use the point of order procedure properly— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Take a supplementary off them! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There will be no more interjections. When members do not use the point of order properly it makes it very difficult. Leave is sought to table a document. Let me hear the description of the first letter again. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: The first document is a letter I wrote to the Minister raising issues of concern in relation to safety in mines. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And the date of that letter? 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: The date is 6 May 2010. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that letter. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: The second document is the Minister’s response to me dated 10 June 2010. In the letter the Minister refuses to take up my advice to review the regulations. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection on that occasion. 
Question No. 8 to Minister 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 I seek leave to introduce my Equal Pay Amendment Bill which will assist women to find out whether they are getting equal pay for equal work. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to introduce that bill. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is objection. 
Foster Carers—Agreement with Fostering Kids 
10. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What agreements has the Government recently made to support foster carers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Today we have signed a new memorandum of understanding with the newly named Fostering Kids which was formerly the New Zealand Foster Care Federation. This memorandum of understanding formalises further our much valued relationship. From July 1 the training that Fostering Kids provides will be aligned alongside New Zealand Qualifications Authority unit standards counting towards a national qualification in family whanau and foster care. 
Katrina Shanks 
: What other individuals have lent their support to foster carers and their children? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I would like to take this opportunity in the House to thank outgoing Children’s Commissioner John Angus whose farewell is being held in Parliament this afternoon. John has brought great independence commitment and knowledge to the role of Children’s Commissioner and he has been a tireless advocate for foster children children in care and those amazing people who look after them. I have very much valued his considered counsel over the past few years and I would like to publicly thank him on behalf of New Zealand children for the work he has done. 
Interest Rates and Lending Practices—Controls 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 My question is to the Minister of Consumer Affairs— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I say to front-bench Ministers and members especially members on the Labour side whose colleague I have just called to please be quiet. 
11. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Consumer Affairs 
: What actions has the Government taken to date to control excessive interest rates or irresponsible lending? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Consumer Affairs) 
: 
 The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has been working on a review of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act since 2008. The ministry has also assisted individuals to take cases to the disputes tribunal concerning irresponsible lending practices. I am advised that the Commerce Commission has taken action against a number of parties over unreasonable fees and misrepresentations about terms and conditions of loans. In August I will be hosting a financial summit in South Auckland. This summit will have a particular focus on irresponsible lending and no doubt excessive interest rates. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Why did the Government deprioritise the review of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act which included improving security and disclosure provisions and delay it by over 12 months when financial pressures on low-income families have been increasing? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: It was not deprioritised; priority was given to consumer law reform work. That work has now been completed and priority is now being given to credit reform. 
Carol Beaumont 
: How will another summit in August on targeting loan sharks create enforceable changes in this parliamentary term? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: It will give communities who are affected by this issue the opportunity to have input into policy before I form a final view on this matter. Given that I have been in the role for 6 weeks as opposed to 9 years when nothing happened I think it is a considerable degree of action. 
Carol Beaumont 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think my question was quite specific. It sought to know how this summit will create enforceable changes in this parliamentary term. I do not believe that the Minister addressed that at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think it would be pretty rough for me to claim that the Minister did not answer the question. It may not have been quite the quality of answer that the member wanted but she should be aware that she has two more supplementary questions should she wish to pursue the matter further. 
Carol Beaumont 
: Why is the Minister now saying that he will consider interest rate caps; and what has changed since the Government ruled out supporting interest rate caps? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: In respect of the first part of the question I say that my colleagues will no doubt be able to reinforce the view that I am regarded as very open-minded. 
Carol Beaumont 
: I seek leave for the Credit Contracts (Oppressive Lending Provisions) Amendment Bill to be set down as a members’ order of the day. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Drugs Illegal—Border Interception of Internally Carried Substances 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I say to both front benches both National and Labour to please be quiet. I have called Nikki Kaye. 
12. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Customs 
: What recent reports has he received on the interceptions of drug-internal couriers at the border? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 In the last 18 months the Customs Service has caught 10 drug couriers or mules trying to bring a range of narcotics into the country by hiding these drugs inside their bodies. That compares with only one drug internal courier interception for all of 2009. These swallowers have arrived from a variety of countries: South America Thailand South Africa Iran and the United States. The largest individual swallower on record for New Zealand ingested 175 pellets which was made up of 890 grams of methamphetamine and 104 grams of opium. 
Nikki Kaye 
: What was the most recent interception of P at the border using a drug mule? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Most recently customs officers intercepted a Polish man who was later found to have 74 plastic pellets containing 370 grams of methamphetamine or P concealed inside him. The value of that would have been somewhere between $220000 and $370000 on the street. Intelligence work by customs officers at the border and the techniques used to detect swallowers hopefully will mean that attempted smuggling like this will happen less and less. 
Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 I move  
That the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This bill lays the regulatory foundations to deliver ultra-fast broadband to 75 percent of New Zealanders and 97 percent of schools and to allow access to much faster broadband services for a quarter of a million rural New Zealanders who are struggling on dial-up. These technologies will see us leapfrog a wide range of our international competing countries improve our connectivity and drive economic growth. The deployment of new digital technology is the most transformative infrastructure project New Zealand has seen since reticulated electricity. It will change the way we work the way we learn the way we receive health care and the way we live our lives. 
This bill also includes a blueprint for a new industry structure that will be a profound improvement to the way telecommunications services are organised and provided in this country. The vertically integrated incumbent company will split itself into two. Telecom as we know it will cease to exist. Chorus a network infrastructure provider and Telecom retail will have separate ownership staff boards shares and incentives. This structural separation is ground-breaking. It supersedes an operational separation model that has been underwhelming in terms of providing genuine separation and supporting competition. 
This bill has wide support from across industry and across the country. There have been some criticisms on the way through—notably from the Opposition members—but they are largely jumping at shadows and at best are based on misunderstandings. I will summarise a few of them now. Chorus will maintain the Kiwi share ownership requirements that are currently placed on Telecom. That is the reality. The free-calling obligations under the telecommunications service obligations for unmetered local calling and basic phone access to all New Zealanders will be unchanged and split appropriately between the network and retail businesses. These obligations will appear in and be supported by legislation as they have been since 2001. 
We have found a way to ensure that the Commerce Commission can have oversight over the wholesale pricing of the fibre network while also maintaining an appropriate certainty of price for partners that allows them to offer the best possible deal to consumers. Contractual mechanisms provide for a delayed return to the Crown if the Commerce Commission intervenes on price. I stress that this is highly unlikely. The network will be a new nascent network competing with a regulated copper network not the vertically integrated monopoly of old. Compensation would not be provided if regulation came about as a result of deceptive or anti-competitive behaviour. 
There have been some comments about equivalence of inputs in relation to open access. The new fibre network will be an open access network. It does not make sense to apply burdensome equivalence of inputs requirements to residential markets in the first instance—especially since technological ways to do this are not yet available or being used overseas. Instead we will be requiring non-discrimination meaning that the same price must be offered by the network owners to all retailers. Equivalence of inputs at layer 1 will be brought in at a later time which is specified. 
Much has been made of the supposed increase in copper broadband price as a result of the averaging of unbundled copper local loop prices with all sorts of figures being bandied about by the Opposition. In fact it is not clear at all that there would be an increase to consumers. Unbundled copper local loop covers only 4 percent of lines and changes to other products that come about as a result of this legislation may in fact result in decreased prices. Finally the weirdest criticism of all is that it is being done either too slowly or too quickly depending on which part of the Opposition speech we are hearing. This bill has had 6 months in the Finance and Expenditure Committee and there have been huge amounts of consultation with the industry on the matters in this bill. 
The real test of this legislation and the regulatory framework it provides can be summed up I think in three questions. It is these questions that I have primarily used to test the merits of the arrangements we have set up in terms of achieving both the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and the Rural Broadband Initiative. The first test is the cost to build. Because the Government engaged in an authentic competitive process to determine our partners and because we opted for a public-private partnership the Government is getting very good value for money for its contribution to the development of rural and urban broadband. In fact one of the criticisms from the Opposition is that we are not spending more money. We are achieving a network roll-out that many thought impossible and we are doing so for substantially less than comparable countries overseas. 
The second test is the cost to consumers. These prices are genuinely competitive and genuinely accessible. Rural New Zealanders will be able to access prices for fast broadband at the same cost as their urban counterparts. Urban New Zealanders will have access to vastly superior fibre services than they have had for about the same price or less that they currently pay for copper. Businesses schools and hospitals around the country will see lower costs and better performance. Because these initiatives also deliver a competitive industry structure we can expect prices and products to get better over time. 
The third test is the cost to taxpayers. We have maintained the fiscal envelope for ultra-fast broadband and the Rural Broadband Initiative. We have enhanced the integrity of our regulatory system at the same time. The Commerce Commission maintains a key role in providing independent oversight over the initiative. We have made changes to the copper regime that make sense given a new environment where there is structural separation between network and retail—something that some would argue should have happened some time ago—and we have provided for the development of a new fibre network that will serve New Zealanders well for decades to come. 
The passing of this bill today marks the end of the beginning towards a new era of world-class broadband infrastructure for New Zealand and the delivery of the Government’s broadband promises. It has been achieved in only 2½ years. I put that alongside the appalling record of the previous Government which took 7 and something years to achieve anything significant in the broadband space. 
I would like to close by thanking the officials for their fine work. They have done a fantastic job. I would also like to thank the select committee for its fine work. I thank the Maori Party for its support for what it knows will be transformative economic infrastructure for New Zealand. I would like to thank the members of the ACT Party who are providing their support for the bill. I commend this bill to the House. I say to those who are opposed to the future who are opposed to this bill and who are opposed to transformative change in the New Zealand economy that it is not too late for them to vote for this bill. I move that the bill be read a third time. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 In 2008 this Government was elected on a promise—a fairly big promise. It was No. 2 on its pledge card to the New Zealand public and it was to deliver ultra-fast broadband to 75 percent of New Zealanders in their homes in 10 years for $1.5 billion. The National Government is pushing through this bill the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill because it wants to satisfy that election promise—a promise that should not have been made cannot be delivered and can be met only by selling the law which is what it has done. 
The Minister for Communications and Information Technology has spent 2½ years trying. This was after he cut the Labour Government’s digital strategy which clearly set out a vision for New Zealand’s future as a digital economy and how broadband would be incorporated. Despite this lack of vision from the Minister he has not at any stage requested analysis or advice from Treasury or the Ministry of Economic Development on the benefits and costs of this bill. Even the ACT Party could not understand that. Roger Douglas was quite right to say that “This Bill has been driven by a political imperative rather than an economic one.” 
Labour believes that New Zealand’s digital environment requires high-speed broadband across urban and rural New Zealand delivered in a realistic time frame at an affordable cost and in a competitive market. Before the last election a plan was in place and there was solid policy around progressing it quickly and there is more coming. This bill before us today does none of that and that is why we are opposed to burdening all Kiwis with this flawed legislation. 
Labour would have approached the fibre roll-out in urban areas differently. The process has lacked transparency. It is full of gaps and holes and we do not believe that the full costs and impacts have been made public. The interests of investors and corporates have been put ahead of the interests of New Zealand consumers and ahead of a strong and vigorous competition in this new and emerging network industry. There has been a lack of public and cross-party consultation. The window for public submissions was very short making it nearly impossible for detailed submissions to be made considering the complexity of this legislation. 
The negotiations with Telecom have been shrouded in secrecy. We are yet to find out the real details of Telecom’s structural separation. It is a huge change but by the time we do find out it will be too late to do anything about it and to have public scrutiny and discussion. The bill will have become law. Secrecy dubious decision-making and the marginalisation of the democratic parliamentary process seem to be the theme of this bill. What we do know about it is that it will create an uncompetitive market that could entrench Telecom2 and Chorus2 as the dominant players at the infrastructure wholesale and retail levels in the New Zealand fibre market. 
Telecom’s history of monopolistic behaviour will not change when it is broken up under the structural separation especially now that the Minister has guaranteed it that any costs incurred by Commerce Commission regulation will be worn by the taxpayer—an indemnity to Telecom; that is truly selling the law. What incentive will this give Telecom to behave competitively? What incentive will it give the Minister to regulate when the Crown will be bearing the cost? Once again the Minister is proposing law that just will not work; law that will increase the cost to the consumer while creating an anti-competitive market. 
Only minor definitional changes were made during the drafting of this bill. It was only after huge opposition from Labour MPs and the telecommunications industry that the Minister conceded that the major component of his bill the 10-year regulatory holiday had to be changed in order to receive enough support from the Government partners and to receive grudging support from the industry. When the amendment was tabled in the House we saw other changes that were new and very late. They were put up without the possibility of discussion. 
This is the Minister who did not know earlier this week that under his watch New Zealand’s broadband performance has seriously declined in relation to other countries since his Government took power. OECD statistics show that monthly prices in New Zealand have slipped from the seventh cheapest to fourth most expensive since 2008. We have gone from 12th to 21st for download speed and 12th to 24th for connection speed since his Government took power. He obviously does not keep tabs on New Zealand’s international competitiveness but he is blindly insistent on ramming through an anti-competitive law which hands a large amount of money to Telecom. 
We also know that this bill will be forcing prices up for urban users despite what he says through the averaging of unbundled copper pricing. While these users wait for fibre—which as the Minister himself has said could take at least until the end of 2019; even later for many New Zealanders—they will be paying more for the broadband services that they receive now. Is that fair at a time when household budgets are most stressed? We should not be surprised—this is classic behaviour by a National Government that is out of touch with the average Kiwi. 
Only a few days ago the Minister put forward an amendment that appears to do away with the Kiwi share obligation for Telecom. So at the last minute the Minister has sprung upon us an amendment that essentially opens up part of the separated Telecom to full foreign control. The old restrictions on foreign ownership will no longer apply to the retail arm of the split-up Telecom and the Kiwi share obligations will be split between Telecom and Chorus. Where that split will be and what the implications are for the New Zealand consumer are unclear. The Minister will not tell us and there is no chance for public scrutiny. 
Labour had a plan that would have been well on the way to completion by now. We want a high-tech economy run on ultra-fast broadband. We want to use technology to improve the responsiveness of the Government. We want to ensure that all users whether they are rich or poor rural or urban have access to the latest broadband services and we want to ensure that those services are provided as cheaply as possible in a competitive market. It is a shame that this Government and the Minister for Communications and Information Technology do not agree with those principles. 
This Government does not care for the average New Zealander; it cares only for those with money while doing deals. That is why Labour opposes this bill. We will repeal the worst parts of the legislation when we are returned to Government. We will review it and restore regulatory oversight. The Commerce Commission will have full powers to examine the contractual arrangements between the Crown and private investment as would happen in the normal course of events. Any consequences arising from this would be borne by the parties concerned. 
One of the things missing from this debate is the reason why people will connect to fibre to high-speed broadband. It seems that Steven Joyce the Minister in his obsession with fulfilling the election promise—a promise that could not be fulfilled with that amount of money—and devising a deeply flawed connection scheme left that bit out. “Build it and they will come.” was his argument. Will they? Content is the important issue and demand is about what people can use the high-speed broadband connections for and what would motivate them to switch from copper to fibre. 
Steven Joyce is not interested in a bigger vision and he is strangely silent on any consideration of how the content industry fits into it. The traditional broadcasting sector is transforming and merging with what has been described as the telecommunications and information and communications technology sector. Increasingly content and the digital environment cross technological platforms. Traditional broadcasting as we know it is now rapidly becoming obsolete. It is called convergence but we have not heard the Minister talk about that. 
New Zealand’s new broadband network will be successful only if people choose to access it and see its potential for the future. To do that they need access to quality and diversity of content from both within New Zealand and without. New Zealand’s broadcasting sector does not currently encourage competition and it lacks that important public television broadcasting function. The current commercial market framework is not delivering that as it lacks a publicly funded component. 
Our concern is about what is coming next. A dominant player is being set up in the fibre industry to deliver the infrastructure with virtually a free pass to price gouge its way through the next decade. Are we going to see a bigger monopoly in the broadcasting sector be given a gold-plated distribution channel into people’s homes? If that is the future for broadcasting fibre delivery in this country—a Telecom-Sky partnership—then today is a truly sad day for this nation. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 The truly sad day is that Labour members will not support something that is good for New Zealand’s growth good for New Zealand’s citizens good for New Zealanders who want to get an education good for the New Zealand health system and good for our country going forward. Labour members could not and would not be able to deliver high-speed broadband for New Zealanders. If they had been in Government as they were prior to this term they would not even get a proposal off the ground. When you hear that— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: When there is an academic-type argument made about the theory of broadcasting—and there will be more academic arguments to come from future speakers on the Labour side—it shows that a Labour Government would never have been able to deliver broadband for New Zealanders. 
National has delivered. The National Party campaigned on that issue the National Government has delivered on it and the National Government will see the benefits of it. Labour and its Green allies would never have been able to get it across the line. That is the difference that New Zealanders need to see. This is a Government of action; it is a Government that will deliver. From the other side of the House we hear rhetoric. Labour is a party of academia. It is a party of failure that will not deliver for this country. 
We recommend this bill to the House. I congratulate the Minister on doing an excellent job in progressing this bill through the House and making a commercial decision about the delivery of service. I thank all those who submitted as part of the process; I especially thank the officials who are here supporting the progress of this bill. Thank you. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 In the third reading of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill I am not going to comment on the member who has just resumed his seat David Bennett because as usual there is nothing much to comment on in what he said. I am going to comment however on the opening comments of the Minister for Communications and Information Technology as follows. 
Firstly the Minister did not perhaps mislead in the technical sense but certainly he pulled the wool over the public’s eyes in several key respects. He said that Chorus will maintain the Kiwi share obligation on Telecom. That is factually incorrect in two respects. First it is entering only into a contract called the telecommunications service obligation not the Kiwi share and Chorus is not equivalent to the whole of Telecom which is currently covered by the existing Kiwi share. Second he said that there would be open access but then contradicted himself by admitting plainly to the House exactly what the Labour Opposition has been saying which is that the weaker standard of access called “non-discrimination” applies across the board but the stronger standard called “equivalence of inputs” will apply only to some parts now and takes 8½ years to apply to everything. That is not good enough for the New Zealand system. 
The Minister said that people would not be paying more for their existing telephone lines under mandatory de-averaging. Well the objective analysis we have seen both from the library and from members of the industry is that the average New Zealander will pay at least $5 more a month for the same service they are currently getting on their copper phone line. The reason that is being done is precisely to make it less costly for them to shift to a fibre-based service except that they will not get the fibre for 8 to 10 years in many cases and will be left paying a higher price for today’s slow copper in order to subsidise Telecom to roll-out fibre eventually to some. The Minister for Communications and Information Technology then said that he was unsure whether he was being described as too slow or too quick. I can help him on that. It took him 2½ years to think up a policy after being elected. He did not have a policy; he had a slogan. That bit was too slow. The bit that was too quick was the select committee process where he started out after 2½ years of going round in circles by giving the public and the industry only 10 days to put together a submission. After 2½ years it was 10 days— 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: That’s not true. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: —which was pushed out to 3 weeks by the Finance and Expenditure Committee as Mr Lotu-Iiga knows. Either way it was a travesty. It was not an accident; it was a deliberate tactic by the “TSO Minister”—that is the “Terribly Slimy Operator” the “Terribly Slippery Operator”—to take as long as possible in the darkened rooms and to then try to railroad it through preventing the industry from having a decent opportunity for rebuttal. 
There are unanswered questions about taxes and there are unanswered questions about international obligations where the world’s No. 1 law firm at taking cases to the World Trade Organization issued an extensive opinion saying that New Zealand was in breach of its obligations because of a disguised subsidy to Telecom. Do members know what? We did not get so much as the dignity of a written opinion from this Government. We had half a page—half a page—from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and a file note from the Ministry of Economic Development saying that it does not matter and that we were right. Well that does not cut it and the cost of that arrogance may well be a suit in front of the World Trade Organization. 
I will frame the rest of my comments using precisely the objectives the Minister himself called the House to mind. Firstly there is cost to build. The Minister said that this was cheap; this is not cheap. The purpose section of the current Telecommunications Act talks about the long-run benefits for consumers. What has happened here exactly as my colleague Clare Curran has said is that $1.5 billion—not as a grant not as a stimulus but as a commercial investment seeking a commercial rate of return—was never going to be within a bull’s roar of being sufficient to get 75 percent of homes covered by ultra-fast broadband. Just look at the costs in Australia. So to solve that problem in the short term this Government sold the law. It sold the law for 30 pieces of silver. Does that sound familiar? Maybe we should call this bill the “Judas Bill”. The Government sold the law in this case for $400 million to $600 million and I give credit to Sir Roger Douglas for nailing the officials on that point. For half a billion dollars extra Telecom has got its leverage over the law once again. It took a long time to sort out that problem. When we did sort it out—and it did not come easy—New Zealand rocketed up the international broadband rankings. After 2½ years of dithering by Steven Joyce and an anti-democratic parliamentary process Mr Joyce has managed to tumble us down those rankings again. 
This National Government once again has proved itself to be out of touch and out of ideas when it comes to high tech. Those members just do not do it too well do they? In terms of costs for consumers the Minister said that prices would generally be competitive. Well no they are not competitive today. People are paying too much now for their copper—5 bucks a month at least—and they will be paying too much for their fibre because the disciplines to keep it competitive have been fatally weakened. Imagine taking the cop off the beat for 10 years. The 10-year regulatory holiday—what an obscenity to good governance that was. What a preposterous idea! How could we imagine a responsible Minister bringing to the New Zealand Parliament the idea that we would take away for a decade the hard-fought protections of the consumer? What a ridiculous and laughable suggestion. It was so ridiculous that the Minister was in a minority of one. Only Telecom backed him and when his friends deserted him he called in the Maori Party to provide a fig leaf so that he could back off it. What a backdown it was. When he changed his mind and Telecom complained he came up with an indemnity for Telecom funded by the taxpayer so that if it was caught out by the regulator in future and had to drop its price it would not pay the difference but the taxpayers—mum and dad Kiwis—who were already paying the phone bill would have to pay a bigger tax bill as well. That is an appalling precedent and this Parliament is the worse for it. Our statute book is the worse for it. 
I will draw the debate in this third reading together with some form of conclusion. Firstly this is bad law. It lacks a good strategic context. It says nothing about the ability of every New Zealander to hook up. By raising costs and prices it means that low-income Kiwis those on the wrong side of the digital divide are now even further behind. Secondly it weakens fatally the regulatory framework particularly at the wholesale level. It does so particularly at the crucial layer 0 ducts and layer 1 dark fibre where the proper disciplines of equivalence of inputs do not apply on fibre for 8½ years. This represents a covert backroom deal with the dominant player in the industry. Strangely enough not even the Minister will know until after the Telecom board has decided the nature of the split which assets are going where and what the final shape of the deal will be. That is great for the interests of shareholders but not great for the interests of consumers. 
We are going back to the future one suspects. It has set back confidence in the industry already. The damage has already been done. It will not take 10 years to realise that damage. The industry has started to shut down. What would a rational policy have looked like? It would have said we need to get fibre in the ground to take New Zealand forward. We want to get as many players as possible contributing. We have an inclusive framework not an exclusive one where they bid one against another and only Telecom gets to play. An inclusive process would have got the most investment from the most players to build the most fibre as fast as possible. That is the opposite of the outcome of this bill. Consumers get a worse deal than they need to get today and their losses will accumulate over the 10 years. It leaves unanswered the crucial questions for the future. How will we get all New Zealanders on to the net and how will we ensure free access to content? Are we building a new monopoly for Sky television? That is the next chapter of this sorry saga. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. It is great to be here discussing what is popularly known as the “Ultra-fast Broadband Bill” but what I have seen in the process through the Finance and Expenditure Committee through the debate in this House—throughout the whole process—is an “Ultra-farce Broadband Bill”. It is a privilege to be here today and to take a call on the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Bill. The Green Party supports better broadband. We know that it is vital for our economic and ecologic future. But we do not support and we will not be voting for this bill for the reasons I will elucidate in this speech. 
This bill has been rammed through in a poor process. We will see poor outcomes and Kiwis will be poorer because of it. UFB or ultra-fast broadband can transform our world. We have heard the Minister talk about the transformative benefits of broadband. Mr Bennett has argued that the Government has delivered it already but we are seeing a process that will take years to roll out. We have seen industry sector groups totally alienated and absolutely frustrated at the process and we still see a bill through which it will take almost a decade to finally roll out ultra-fast broadband. 
I think the tragedy of the bill and the way the Minister has gone about progressing it is that we are focused on the poor process we are focused on the monopoly and we are focused on the regulatory forbearance. Nowhere in the select committee and nowhere in the debate have we actually focused on the substantial benefits. Broadband can bring fundamental benefits to the medical sector to the educational sector and to the entertainment sector. It can even change our Parliament and our Government and make our democracy more inclusive transparent and engaged with our citizenry. I believe that the internet is a human right—or that access to information is a human right—and I wish we were having those discussions in Parliament. Instead because of the way the Minister has gone about it we have had to debate the poor process and the poor decisions he has made. 
I thank the select committee members committee chairman Mr Foss the officials and the submitters. I point out the good work and the great questions of David Cunliffe and Clare Curran in the House. In this call I will look at a few issues. I will look at the history and process of the bill. I will look at the forbearance issue and at the embarrassing backdown the Minister has been forced to undertake. I will look at the Kiwi share changes. I will look at Telecom which is ultimately the big winner of the “Ultra-farce Broadband Bill”. And lastly I will summarise why the Green Party will be opposing this bill. Fundamentally it is not because we are opposed to broadband; it is because we are opposed to this bill the poor process and the fundamentally missed opportunities this bill symbolises. 
Firstly this bill takes a great chunk of taxpayers’ cash—more than $1.35 billion—and essentially gives the lion’s share of the money to Telecom in order for it to achieve its goal of 75 percent coverage. But we can debate what high-speed broadband actually is especially in regard to upload speeds. We can say it is good that broadband is going out there. We support the Rural Broadband Initiative; we do not think there should be a gap in coverage between rural and urban Kiwis. The bill changes the telecommunications service obligation and the levy. The big change introduced in the Committee stage was to the Kiwi share which I will touch on. 
When we look at the history of the telecommunications sector we see that it has been characterised by monopoly poor services and an anti-competitive nature. Just a couple of weeks ago Telecom was fined $12 million for its anti-competitive processes from 2001 through to 2004; we have to ask ourselves why we are here throwing more than $1 billion at Telecom to deliver something. It is because of that company’s lack of investment and the lack of an investment-friendly environment for getting better broadband rolled out for Kiwis. The National Party took the issue of broadband to the election and made it one of its top priorities but for some reason Steven Joyce the Minister for Communications and Information Technology left it until 2½ years into the parliamentary term to finally get a bill through the House. Mr Bennett calls broadband delivered; we have not even passed the legislation. We have not seen any broadband rolled out so I think it is a bit premature to say it has been delivered. 
The Minister in his call on the third reading said that we had had wide support from industry and that those opposing the bill who were mostly just Opposition members were jumping at shadows. I do not know whether the Minister has seen the widespread advertising on television and in print the letters the select committee read the blogs and the newspaper articles. There has been huge fundamental opposition to this bill and this process. Only Telecom as Miss Curran said has supported it. An impressive number of telecommunications companies and industry watchdogs with very diverse interests came out together to oppose this bill. I think it is ridiculous to say that they were just jumping at shadows. 
We have seen a shocking process with Supplementary Order Paper 204 tabled during the select committee process—a Supplementary Order Paper bigger than the actual legislation it was amending. We have seen Supplementary Order Paper 247 tabled in the Committee stage with those fundamental changes to the Kiwi share. We have seen secretive backroom meetings a lack of consultation and an absolute arrogance on the part of the Minister. Every single question has been answered simply with: “You don’t understand it.” It has been the same from the Ministry of Economic Development with its legal advice: “You just don’t understand. Only we understand.” We have seen a great deal of arrogance from the Minister in his saying to people that they did not understand. There has been an absolute lack of cross-party consultation or consensus. When it comes to telecommunications the issue should not be a partisan issue. The different parties should work together because we all want better broadband for Kiwis. 
We have seen a good select committee process. It came up with some good changes along with the equivalence ruling which was not as high as we would have liked but we acknowledge that ground was given there. We saw the review brought forward; there were some good changes there. The main issue for submitters in the select committee was in relation to regulatory forbearance. I believe that the Minister was acting like a bit of a cowboy because regulatory forbearance was needed essentially because the Government would not put in adequate funds to develop the resource. The most apt analogy for trying to develop an infrastructure for broadband today is the Wild West of America with its railways in the 1860s and we have seen “Cowboy Joyce” set up a Wild West environment where there are no regulations so that private people can benefit. That is totally unprecedented in New Zealand legislation and probably worldwide as well. Yet we have seen absolute intransigence by the Minister who has been categorically and fundamentally opposed to changing his position on it. He was fundamentally opposed to letting his officials do extra work on it yet 2 days after the bill was tabled we saw the Minister have to back down because of the realpolitik played by the Maori Party. I say “Good on them”. It has been a shocking process but we had to see that change. Now the Minister has totally changed tune. He has said: “We somehow found”— 
Clare Curran 
: “We listened.” 
GARETH HUGHES 
: “We listened; we found the solution.” Yet this solution has not been put through a select committee process. It has not been consulted on with the public or the sector. We initially welcomed the backdown by the Minister but now we are opposed because he has replaced regulatory forbearance and the Wild West environment; he has actually— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: A blank cheque! 
GARETH HUGHES 
: He has given a blank cheque to the Wild West. The Wild West is still there but he is saying that if people set up camp or a city in the Wild West the Government will cover their risks and underwrite them. That is absolutely shocking. The Minister did have the good sense to back the regulatory holiday; I wish he would now back the holiday highway. 
The real winner of this bill is Telecom. It will be taking about $929 million of taxpayers’ funds and the vast bulk of that will simply flow offshore. We are still subject to the shareholder vote on the structural separation and there are huge questions about taxpayer money going to Telecom—maybe up to $900 million worth. 
In summary we have essentially seen a bill set up a monopoly that will be bad for consumers. We have seen a poor process poor outcomes and a poor deal for Kiwis. Telecommunications should not be partisan. The Greens would have worked with the Government to deal with a good policy. What we have now is increased policy uncertainty for the sector and Labour and the Green Party will look to reform it in the future. 
I have seen the Minister in his information and communications technology hat acting just like the Minister of Transport with his transport hat. Through poor process he is ramming motorways and other types of infrastructure through communities in Kapiti and Waterview and changing the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s water rules. We are seeing the Minister throw huge sums of money to motorways—$10.7 billion on just seven roads of significance to National—with bad benefit-cost ratios and with the main beneficiaries coming from corporate New Zealand. Ultimately just as in this broadband bill Government policy is locking us into an outdated concept. When it comes to roads of significance to National it is locking us into a car and oil-dependent future; with this bill it is locking us into an old-fashioned copper sector. We should have been looking to the future and that is the massive missed opportunity of this bill. In transport I call Steven Joyce the “Colossus of Roads” for building a monument in asphalt and concrete to folly; if I recall rightly the Colossus of Rhodes was actually made of copper. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the third reading of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I have to say that there have probably been very few bills in the last 2½ years of this Parliament that have caused as much discussion as this particular bill has in our caucus. During the second reading debate my colleague Sir Roger Douglas advised the House that the ACT Party would be splitting its vote on the second reading. We continued to split our vote during the Committee stage of the bill and we will be doing so again this afternoon. My colleagues Sir Roger Douglas and the Hon Heather Roy who is in the House with me this afternoon will be voting against this bill and my colleagues the Hon Rodney Hide and Hilary Calvert and I will be supporting this bill. 
I want to take this opportunity this afternoon to state our two positions and to express the concerns we all have including those members who are supporting this bill. Let me start by referring to the arguments put forward by my colleague the Hon Sir Roger Douglas for opposing this bill because it was Sir Roger Douglas who did the heavy lifting on this bill for our caucus. It was he who attended the Finance and Expenditure Committee meetings heard the evidence and formed the opinions. He has a number of concerns but I think his most important concern is that no proper economic analysis has been done. There has been no detailed study by Treasury as to the benefits of this bill and no detailed analysis has been done by the Ministry of Economic Development. 
Clare Curran 
: Why are you supporting it? 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: I am being asked by Clare Curran why I am voting for it. If members have the courtesy to listen I will be happy to explain it to them. But let me just go back to the comments of Sir Roger Douglas in his speech. He highlighted the fact that there had been no proper economic analysis. In fact he referred to the fact that the only major economic analysis and independent study were done by the Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust which concluded that there was no economic benefit. I will quote Sir Roger Douglas’ second reading speech. He said: “The Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust has done the only empirical work in this area and it concluded that faster broadband speeds are likely to have a negligible impact on the New Zealand economy.” I will come back to those comments shortly. 
He also said that the bill was a gamble that would bring benefits to New Zealand that were uncertain. He said we could not be certain of those benefits. He went on to say that there had been no proper cost-benefit analysis and that “with all significant interventions the onus is on the Government to show that the investment of taxpayers’ money is warranted and beneficial to New Zealand.” He said that the greatest flaw with this bill is that it lacks vital information to make an informed decision. 
Not surprisingly he asked a rhetorical question. He asked which is more extreme: a National Government that is happy to spend taxpayers’ money in times of economic hardship with no cost-benefit analysis or politicians who seek fiscal restraint in times of economic hardship and who require sound intervention to justify Government spending programmes. 
I thought long and hard about voting for this bill because I know that Sir Roger Douglas has done the work and that my colleague Hilary Calvert has listened to Roger’s arguments in caucus and supports him. However others in caucus have also spoken—[ 
Interruption 
]—they have spoken to people in industry in education and in health I tell Mr Cunliffe and we have also heard the arguments in support of this bill. We have heard the arguments that it will be transformative for the economy. We have heard the arguments about the benefits it will bring in the education sector to medical centres and in commerce. 
It is a fact that a number—in fact I think most—of our major hospitals are already connected by ultra-fast broadband. Cables are already in the ground. Fibre is already in the ground that connects a number of institutions and that certainly connects the central business districts of some of our major cities. But we are talking about an intention to lay out literally thousands of kilometres of fibre in order to provide better access. Although there has been no major economic study for us to point to that demonstrates the benefits to a certain extent if we look around the world and at places where changes of this nature have been brought about before we see that people tend to absorb the services. New technologies develop that give rise to new uses as people see opportunities to develop and to provide services. 
Although I am reluctant to be supporting this bill given the lack of economic analysis I have listened to the Hon Steven Joyce and his arguments in support of the bill and I have listened to others in the commerce health and education sectors who do believe that it will be transformative and who do believe that services will be provided to New Zealanders that otherwise would not be provided. 
I guess one can look at entrepreneurs such as Sam Morgan and Rod Drury who have recently announced publicly that they are supporting an investment in Pacific Fibre to provide additional international links. I look at their investment and I see them showing that this technology needs to be developed and that if we provide it there will be commercial customers for that capacity. 
I also think of small business New Zealand. I think of small businesses. I am speaking tomorrow at a seminar—as are a number of MPs in the House. It is a conference for supporting small business. It is said that New Zealand is a country of small businesses. We do not all work in central business districts; we are not already connected by cables provided by Vector Unison and other fibre-optic companies around the country or by TelstraClear in the case of Wellington. A number of our businesses and business people work from home. They are a disparate group. All around the country people work from home. Their businesses are spread out. Without the commitment to providing the necessary infrastructure there may be businesses that will not have the chance or the ability to get ultra-fast broadband. 
Who is to know the potential? Who is to know what could come from an investment like this? Yes we are uncertain but I have to acknowledge that another consideration in our decision to support this bill this afternoon—certainly for the three of us who are supporting it—is the fact as Clare Curran said this afternoon that ultra-fast broadband was a key priority of the National Party before the election. We cannot forget the fact as Clare Curran reminded us that it was No. 2 on the National Party’s pledge card. ACT represents just under 4 percent of the party votes cast in the last election. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Ah bye-bye principle. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: That is right I tell Mr Cunliffe; that is right. We recognise that 46 percent of the population of New Zealand voted for National and although we have been strongly outspoken and have voted against issues such as the emissions trading scheme—and the marine and coastal legislation for that matter—we recognise the fact that the National Government is very popular. It has a 46 percent mandate so we ask ourselves whether it would be wise to stand up and ignore that. Let me touch on— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I point out to the member on my left Clare Curran that Speakers’ ruling 61/5 states that running commentaries are out of order. If the member wants to make a speech she can do so. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: One of the issues that Clare Curran raised this afternoon is the role of Telecom and that is certainly a concern we have. We are very conscious of the fact that Telecom has a massive investment in copper. It is being asked to invest its own money along with the Government’s money to lay fibre from the cabinet to the home or past the home. We have to ask why that company would want to do that. Why would it want to do that when it does not have the incentive to do it? 
This contract provides requirements for performance and penalties if the company does not meet those performance requirements. I would like to put our support on notice this afternoon—unlike Mr Mallard who is saying “Let’s tear up the agreement. Let’s tell all of the infrastructure investors around the world that if there is a change of Government we will tear up Government contracts.” No the ACT Party would not do that; we would enforce those Government contracts. We would enforce them. But I say to Telecom that to the extent that there are deadlines in the contract and to the extent that there are obligations in the contract—and there are many obligations and many deadlines—we will not expect Telecom to come back and seek variations. We will not expect Telecom to come out and try to avoid its obligations. We would expect Telecom to meet its obligations in the agreement in exactly the same way that we expect the Government to meet its obligations. Thank you. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. Nga mihi nui ki a koe i tenei ahiahi. The Maori Party proudly stands in support of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill which amends the Telecommunications Act 2001. We support the implementation of the Government’s policy programme for the telecommunications sector. 
This legislation is a key example of the impact of a strong and independent Maori voice sitting at the decision-makers’ table. I start by acknowledging the inclusion of the specific consideration of Maori interests through the establishment of a national Maori broadband working-group which will enhance meaningful and appropriate Maori participation in this sector. The extension of the powers of Nga Pu Waea into ultra-fast broadband in urban areas was specifically negotiated by the Maori Party co-leader the Hon Dr Pita Sharples with the Minister for Communications and Information Technology. Nga Pu Waea is the result of a submission by the Maori Economic Taskforce and shows the confidence the Government has in its recommendations and in having the Maori Party voice right at the top table. 
The membership of this group includes representatives from Maori information and communications technology interests including Te Huarahi Tika Trust Te Putahi Paoho Wai 2224 claimants the Maori Economic Taskforce and the Iwi Leaders Forum. The seven members of Nga Pu Waea are Jeremy Gardiner Daphne Luke Mavis Mullins Haami Piripi Antony Royal Tuwhakairiora Williams and Richard Orzecki. 
For Maori the Rural Broadband Initiative has a significant benefit in connecting whanau hapu and iwi and connecting marae runanga wananga kohanga kura and Maori providers through the use of broadband technology. It will provide for greater expression of kaupapa tuku iho increased commercial and social activities and improved coverage of te reo Maori. 
The working-group called Nga Pu Waea will firstly develop options for maximising coverage and connectivity to marae wananga kura kohanga runanga and other Maori organisations through rural broadband; secondly establish and implement trade training programmes and employment opportunities for Maori through the initiative; and thirdly ensure relationship brokerage with Maori at community regional and national levels to support among other things economic development opportunities including investment opportunities and community-wide education. Nga Pu Waea will be able to provide experience and expertise in Maori economic development through information and communications technology through the dynamics of Maori stakeholder engagement through industry knowledge and relationships through an understanding of the roles of information and communications technology in supporting the promotion of the Maori language and culture specifically and through Maori development in general. 
We welcome this bill in that it will increase coverage and connectivity to marae wananga kura kohanga reo runanga and Maori providers. We are pleased to support this bill because it will enable the establishment of trade training programmes through wananga and employment opportunities for Maori. The bill will also provide specific partnering opportunities for Maori and iwi in relation to design and building services land access and using existing infrastructure and services. Finally we welcome the legislative change to facilitate Maori or iwi investment in the rural broadband sector. 
People out in the real world might ask why we support this bill. What does it mean for them? Obviously that does not matter to the Labour Party but for Maori it is quite important. That is why we have gone with this kaupapa. The concept of communications is obviously important and it is paramount in this day and age. Ninety-nine percent of people have access to the internet. Good connectivity to the outside world is therefore important but there are other aspects of this initiative that make the development relevant to a general audience. Economically information and communications technology is key infrastructure that brings with it jobs jobs and more jobs. As a result of this bill 93 percent of rural schools will receive fibre enabling ultra-fast broadband speed with the remaining 7 percent achieving moderate speeds. As a result of this legislation over 80 percent of rural households will have access to broadband. 
This bill is a vital platform for Aotearoa moving into the future. The Maori Party is pleased to support the bill and we greatly appreciate the willingness of both the Minister and the Government to enter into an arrangement with the Maori Party that is so very constructive for whanau hapu and iwi. 
PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 Malo le soifua. Today is a day of thanksgiving. It is a day of thanksgiving because the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill is a pivotal bill that will transform our country. It will transform our country because it will increase and improve the way that we are able to communicate with each other. Whether one is in a business whether one is in a health clinic or whether one is in a school this bill will improve the way we are able to communicate with one another. 
This bill rolls out ultra-fast broadband—100 megabits per second—to 75 percent of New Zealanders across this country. It will be rolled out to where they live where they work and where they study. 
We have heard today from Labour members that they are against this bill. They are against the fact that this will improve productivity in this country. They are against the fact that this bill will improve the way that we communicate. It will improve economic growth and provide jobs and opportunities into our future and the Minister for Social Development and Employment agrees with me. 
We know that this is a step change. It is part of this Government’s economic plan to improve the economy to provide jobs and opportunities and to lay down the infrastructure for this country to go into the future. I found it interesting that in the debate today we have heard from members opposite name-calling and the use of derogatory terms such as “cowboy” and “Minister of Miscommunication” but those members did not talk about the issues. They have not talked about the benefits that this bill will bring to our businesses our health services and our schools. The bill will improve the way that we communicate. It is fundamental. 
Stuart Nash 
: How? 
PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA 
: Does that member not know what 100 megabits per second does in terms of downloading off the internet? I found it quite interesting this morning that the Labour spokesperson on telecommunications asked the Minister of Commerce whether he was in charge of competition issues for telecommunications. After 2½ years that woman does not know that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology is responsible for competition issues relating to telecommunications. Members opposite would like us to trust them but that member does not know that fundamental fact. 
I will concentrate on what this Government is doing. What we are doing is positive for our communities. This bill will bring about transformation and I commend it to the House. 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 If this bill is the only plan that that Government has for economic transformation then heaven help us—heaven help us. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: Same old speech. 
STUART NASH 
: The Minister says “Same old speech.” but that is because it is the same old message. We keep hearing all these things about the Government having a plan for economic growth—it is to sell State assets it is to create a telecommunications monopoly and it is to not listen to the people. 
The Government needs to start listening to the people of New Zealand and I do not know when that will happen. This legislation absolutely proves that one Minister with one agenda drove it straight through this House—straight through this House. He was not interested in communication whatsoever. Mr Bennett had the nerve to stand up and congratulate all submitters to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. He said: “I would like to congratulate all submitters who contributed to this bill.” I tell this House that only one submitter supported this bill and that was Telecom surprisingly enough. Nearly all submitters were against this bill. I am not too sure whether Mr Bennett’s words were dripping with irony; I am not too sure whether he was rubbing salt into the wounds just to say: “We won. You lost. Eat that!”. I am not too sure what he was trying to do but thanking those who were being screwed was a little bit nasty I tell Mr Bennett; it was just a little bit nasty. 
The other thing I will say is that Sam Lotu-Iiga once again got it wrong. Sam said Labour is the party that is against competition innovation and driving this economy forward. That member has obviously forgotten that Labour was the Government that set up the Digital Strategy. We were the ones who recognised that in order to drive economic growth forward and in order to improve productivity one needs a decent digital strategy. So we set it up but we also made sure—and we were really good at doing it—that we went out to the community went out to the main players and consulted. We talked to the people who would be affected from the real big guys down to the consumers just to understand the market just to find out what it required. That is what Labour does really well and that is what National always fails to do; it fails to consult those who will be affected. 
Then John Boscawen spoke—goodness me! It just shows what disarray the ACT Party is in. John Boscawen called Heather Roy by Hilary Calvert’s name. I am surprised Heather did not stand up and take a call to say she took personal offence at that. I found that astounding. We have a party that is held up by two very senior MPs. Sir Roger Douglas for all his faults—and they are many—sat on the select committee and listened to the arguments very closely. He understood them and wrote a minority report that basically said that this was flawed legislation. 
Hon Heather Roy 
: Good minority report. 
STUART NASH 
: It was a very good minority report. As the ACT member on the select committee he took the report back to the ACT caucus and said that they should not vote for this bill. Heather Roy—and we are so far apart in terms of our politics but it does not mean that I do not respect her intelligence and it does not mean I do not respect her principles—actually listened to Sir Roger. She listened to Sir Roger Douglas and said: “This is the man whom we chose to represent us on the Finance and Expenditure Committee for this bill. He has written this report and I will stand by it.” Well we finally heard why ACT Party members will support this bill. 
Clare Curran 
: Because they’re lapdogs. 
STUART NASH 
: Because they are lapdogs. John Boscawen stood up and said that the reason the ACT Party is supporting this bill is that it was No. 2 on the National pledge card. He admitted it. We have now shown that there are two ACT members with principles—even though like I said we completely disagree with their principles. There are two ACT members who act with principle and three who are there because they are lapdogs and they are voting for this bill because it was No. 2 on the pledge card. That party was founded out of—totally misguided—principle. 
Sir Roger and Heather Roy will carry that party into the next election. I hate to think of the workload that Heather Roy will be forced to carry as she goes around the country explaining what has happened to the ACT Party. But goodness me she will be a very busy MP for the next 5 months. Unfortunately I think she is in a party that is now devoid of all principles and the electorate has finally seen that. It is a sad end for Heather. She will probably come back; I do not know—will she be No. 2 on the list? What a sad end. Anyway I think it is a shame that the ACT Party apart from Heather Roy did not listen to Sir Roger Douglas. 
Then we had Maori Party members standing up and once again how were they bought off? Because there will be a working group. There will be a Maori broadband working group. Well that was pretty easy—that was pretty easy. I would have thought that the Maori Party would demand that not 75 percent of New Zealand but 95 percent of New Zealand would benefit from this bill. Mr Joyce told this House that 75 percent of New Zealanders will benefit from this bill. I tell the Maori Party member Te Ururoa Flavell that every single school in Wairoa will not benefit from this bill. I tell that member that the vast majority of those pupils in Wairoa are Maori. 
This bill is not good for Maori; it is not good. I cannot understand why the Maori Party continues to back legislation that does not support its people. I am astounded—I am astounded. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In terms of disruption to the House I tried to ask the member to pronounce “Maori” properly and I interjected a number of times to try to assist him. If he could at least listen to this discussion and pronounce “Maori” properly that would be helpful. Thank you very much. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I hear what the member says. I remind the member that this is a third reading speech. I refer the member to Speaker’s Ruling 117/3 which states: “Members must confine themselves to the main purposes and contents of the bill;”. That is Speaker’s Ruling 117/3—the member might like to take note of that. The point of order is a very valid one. We ask that you do the best you can to pronounce terms correctly. 
STUART NASH 
: Can I speak to that point of order? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No the member will continue with his speech. 
STUART NASH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is not related to that member’s point of order. I understood—and I cannot point to a reference obviously—that if members in a third reading speech make contentious points against the Opposition then members have the right of reply. All I was doing was exercising that right. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member has certainly done that and he has done it for 6 minutes. I am asking the member to now come back to the third reading speech. 
STUART NASH 
: One thing I would like to say is that Labour absolutely understands the need for a strong and robust telecommunications infrastructure. Napier—I mean the Labour Party completely understands this. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: The “Napier Party”. 
STUART NASH 
: I have Napier on the mind. Napier is coming back to Labour; I can feel the pull! 
There is some legislation that can have cross-party consensus and that we should be able to work on together. If we did work together we would come out with fantastically robust legislation that would drive economic growth forward for this country. This is that sort of legislation. This is what should have happened. This is legislation that both major parties should be agreeing is wonderful for New Zealand. Mr Joyce could have achieved that if he had sat down with Labour and gone through the bill. That could have happened if we had had cross-party consensus on the very important parts of this bill but the Minister just rammed it through. 
I can say that answers to written questions reveal that Minister Joyce neither sought nor received any official advice from the Ministry of Economic Development or Treasury on the economic costs and benefits of ultra-fast broadband—none whatsoever. We do not know whether this $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money will be well spent. I suppose that comes down to the crux of our arguments in opposition to this bill. We are spending a lot of money. We are spending $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money. We are fundamentally changing our telecommunications infrastructure in this country. This is not some bill regulating the use of cars or dogs; this is about a fundamental part of New Zealand’s infrastructure and I believe the process has not been well followed. A major Supplementary Order Paper was introduced to the select committee without sufficient time to have full submissions on it and another 12-page Supplementary Order Paper was whacked on the Table in the Committee stage. It was like urgency without urgency because no one had the ability to submit on it or comment on it. This is simply bad process. 
I understand and we understand the need for urgency on this because this is vital to our productivity. It is vital to our connectivity but it does not need to be rushed through. If it had taken an extra 6 months but that meant we got it right then that would have been fine. We could have accepted that. But the process here has been really really bad. That was highlighted by the Greens speaker and it has been highlighted by every Labour speaker. It was actually highlighted by Sir Roger Douglas. That is the fundamental problem we have. We are all in agreement that we need ultra-fast broadband. No one will ever disagree that we need a really strong good and very robust telecommunications infrastructure. But this bill does not deliver that. That is the major concern I have. To make matters worse a whole lot of questions for Mr Joyce from our spokesperson have not been answered. They simply have not been answered in a way that makes us feel comfortable about this. I certainly cannot support this bill. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 In about 1995 when I was at Dunedin Hospital I watched a video. It was a video of the hospital of the future. It followed a mythical day in the life of a cardiologist at a large hospital in the United States as she went around the bedsides of heart-attack patients with her handheld device. She was prescribing online taking blood tests and getting results back. A video screen would pop up and a general practitioner from hundreds of miles away would tune in to a patient with cardiac symptoms. The ECG would be uploaded in seconds and the cardiologist was able to diagnose that the patient was not in fact having a heart attack. 
All of this was at that time a hospital of the future. I can say now that that is a hospital of the past because the technologies that looked so space-age in 1995 are actually in place in hospitals all around the world except in New Zealand. The technology that this bill will hasten—and I say “hasten” because some of the fibre-optic backhaul is already being laid—is fundamental to the future of our country’s economic and social well-being. I recall that fine member of Parliament the Hon Maurice Williamson saying that backhaul fibre-optics will be the equivalent of reticulated electricity for the 21st century and I absolutely agree with him. 
We do not know the possibilities; they are vast. So it is disappointing that Opposition members are bogged down in the minutiae of things they would not do—the policy differences—and are not looking at the principles and the aspirations. While the Government is looking to the future Opposition members are looking to the details of the bill and picking holes in it often where they do not exist—including the member for Dunedin South who is scaremongering about zone 3 schools. She is talking absolute irrational nonsense about those schools when she says they will not be well served. It is a shame. But this Government looks forward to the future. This bill is a very important part of creating that future and I support it. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the third reading of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That’s good because that’s the one we’re on. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I thank Mr Williamson for his very lucid contribution. It actually made more sense than most of his contributions in this House. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Oh that’s— 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That was a bit unfair and I retract that statement. 
We have heard from prior speakers that Labour is disenchanted with both the process and the content of this bill. I want to reflect on what I think is the poorest aspect of this bill which relates to the uncertainty we still have as to the future regulatory environment in respect of broadband in this country. The bill as it was introduced to the House had a proposal that ousted the jurisdiction of the Commerce Commission. That proposition was widely criticised at the Finance and Expenditure Committee by almost everyone except Telecom. Those who criticised it included both consumer representatives and other industry competitors. Why did they criticise it? They criticised it because they said that the existing telecommunications law provided a framework that ensured they had at least an ability to compete with the dominant supplier in New Zealand Telecom and that those protections were found in the Commerce Act. They said that they have had decades of problems with the dominant Telecom exercising its dominant position to their detriment but that in recent years they had made progress in competing against Telecom by relying on the changes to the law and by way of using the powers that the Commerce Commission has if there is improper conduct—that is uncompetitive practice by Telecom or any other party using its dominant position. 
The effect of the proposed changes in the bill was to oust the jurisdiction of the Commerce Commission. The other competitors said that that put at risk their ability to compete in the market because they could be subject to uncompetitive practice which could effectively make them unprofitable in areas or make the risks too great for them to have confidence to invest in these areas and therefore they would not invest in these areas. As a consequence the New Zealand consumer as well as those competing companies would be worse off because they would face inappropriate conduct or the risk of inappropriate conduct by Telecom without having an effective remedy. 
The Labour Party was convinced that that was right the ACT Party was convinced that that was right the Green Party was convinced that that was right and the Maori Party was expressing nervousness about that as well. Despite representations by all of the submitters and by the other political parties no change was made to that legislation at the select committee. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Because you didn’t have one. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No change was made at the select committee. The Minister for Communications and Information Technology just piped up and chirped that that was because we did not have one. Well he has been in Government for 2½ years and he is saying that he did not have a solution at the time of the select committee. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: We found one. We found the solution. We found one. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Now he has chirped that he found one. Well what he found was a convenient solution to get him out of the political dilemma that he faced which was that he was not delivering on his pre-election commitment to roll out broadband in New Zealand. 
What happened was that the bill came back to this Parliament without amendment. The bill came back to this Parliament without amendment and then the Minister— 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Come on. Vote for broadband. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —without amendment in respect of this important issue—and then the Minister had a road to Damascus experience. He had found some new solution. He had found some new solution that had not been apparent to him or to his officials during the previous 2½ years. That is what he would have this House believe caused him to change this legislation by way of a Supplementary Order Paper. The alternative view of that history is that his Cabinet colleagues and officials having heard the criticisms of what was being proposed were nervous that they could not carry it off that they would not get the votes for it so they changed their position and instead of ousting the jurisdiction of the Commerce Commission have left a jurisdiction for the Commerce Commission. 
Yesterday in the Chamber the Minister criticised me for saying that we are unclear as to the effects of the contractual substitute he has for protecting Telecom from the consequences of Commerce Commission intervention. I cannot be certain whether I am correct in what I said in the Chamber yesterday because I have not seen the contract with Telecom—none of us has seen the contract other than the Minister who may have seen drafts of the contract with Telecom—but none the less he criticised me for misrepresenting the nature of that contract. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: That’s right. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: “That’s right.” says the Minister. He has confirmed that criticism. The problem we have in this Parliament is that we do not know the exact terms of that indemnity or top-up payment that is promised to Telecom. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: It would help if you read the bill. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I tell the Minister that it is not clear from the bill what the provisions of that contract are and the terms of that contract have not been released to us. So we are being asked to pass this legislation on the promise from the Minister that we should trust him. I am not saying he is untrustworthy in a dishonesty sense; I do not want to make that implication—let me make that clear to the House. But we are being asked to trust his judgment on that matter. We are being asked to trust his judgment on that matter notwithstanding the mistakes made earlier in the process that I have already articulated and notwithstanding that we cannot see the contractual provisions that we are told affect this situation. 
We are being told that the effect of these provisions would be to make up the lost revenue. I am not being told that by the Minister; we are being told in the newspapers and by some of the industry competitors that the effect of these contractual provisions will be to make up the loss of revenue that Telecom might suffer in the future should it be the subject of regulatory action by the Commerce Commission. So if that is right—and the Minister says it is not but he will not produce the contracts to show that it is not; he expects us just to take it on trust—the effect of that would be that what the Minister cannot achieve by way of legislation in this Parliament because this Parliament will not pass legislation that gives Telecom a blank slate in terms of future competitive practice in the absence of Commerce Commission intervention he will achieve by resorting to a contractual route that gives comfort to Telecom. I think it is pretty obvious that it would be improper for the Minister to do through contract what he cannot achieve through change to the legislative practice. That is why we in this House have asked for disclosure as to whether that is the case. 
I want to turn to a couple of other points. The first point is obvious. Despite the fact that prior to the last election the Minister promised that by this time broadband would be rolled out in many parts of New Zealand we have not had that. We are actually still dealing with the paper rather than the physical fibre that delivers faster broadband access. The second point is that at no stage did he tell the public of New Zealand that in order for him to achieve his broadband roll-out those people who were not using it would have to pay for it. That is effectively what is happening here. I am told that the cost of copper-based connections is expected to increase as a consequence— 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Oh rubbish! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Rubbish? The Minister says that is rubbish. Well we will put that on record through  
Hansard 
 
and we will see whether in the future as a consequence of this— 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: You’re making it up David. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No I am not making it up; I am repeating what has been told to me I say to Minister Joyce. The Minister says it is incorrect; well I hope he is right—I hope he is right. If the alternative is that there will be an increase in the price of copper-based access to the internet that is not something people were warned about and that is one of the things industry participants have been saying. I am not the Minister and I do not have the same quality of information that he does so it is possible that he knows better in respect of some of these areas than I do and I concede that. But in respect of the issue as to competition practice I do not accept that he is better informed than the rest of this House. That is why the rest of this House did not agree with the ouster of the Commerce Commission jurisdiction. 
I also want to refer to the way in which the Government has now garnered the Maori Party vote. The Maori Party says it is voting in favour of this measure because it has agreement from the Government to set up a working party to consult on broadband delivery for iwi. Well again for me that sort of has shades of the deal that was done in respect of changes to the emissions trading scheme. If the effect of that working party— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. His time has expired. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 It falls to me to end on a very positive note. Boosting infrastructure is one of National’s six points for a much stronger economy and boosting broadband is part of this initiative. Rural communities and schools will have access to fast broadband services via our Rural Broadband Initiative and my electorate of Rangitata says thank you. We are delivering on our election promise to bring ultra-fast broadband to 75 percent of New Zealand and my electorate has said thank you. I commend this bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 65 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 3 (Boscawen Calvert Hide); Maori Party 3; United Future 1. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 2 (Douglas Roy H); Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Bill read a third time. 
Appointments 
Electoral Commission 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Justice 
: I move  
That pursuant to section 4D of the Electoral Act 1993 and section 32 of the Crown Entities Act 2004 this House recommend His Excellency the Governor-General appoint Jane Christine Huria as a member and the Deputy Chair of the Electoral Commission for a term of four years. 
 The Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2010 passed by this House in May of 2010 established a new Electoral Commission that took on the functions of both the former commission and the Chief Electoral Officer. The Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) currently before this House proposes transferring further functions to the commission namely those of the Chief Registrar of Electors from 2012. This will complete the amalgamation of electoral administration from three separate agencies into but one. The Electoral Commission is an independent Crown entity governed by three members. On 24 August 2010 the Governor-General appointed the Hon Justice Hugh Williams QC as the chair of the commission for 3 years and Mr Robert Peden as the Chief Electoral Officer and the chief executive of the commission for a term of 5 years. The deputy chair position was and has remained vacant while a candidate with the support of the House was being identified. 
Today I am pleased to move the appointment of Jane Christine Huria as the Deputy Chair of the Electoral Commission. I am confident she will be a strong member of the commission and will bring a variety of complementary skills and experiences to the role. Mrs Huria is a professional company director and is a director and shareholder of HSR Governance Ltd a company that specialises in governance strategy and review. Her current board memberships include the Accident Compensation Corporation the outgoing Legal Services Agency the Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Commission Winter Games NZ and the Ngai Tahu - mandated health and social services broker He Oranga Pounamu. She is also chair of the advisory board to trustees of the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Trust a lay member of the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal and a mentor in the New Zealand Olympic Committee women in governance programme. Mrs Huria is Ngai Tahu and affiliates to Ngai Tuahuriri. I am proposing a 4-year term of appointment for Mrs Huria under section 32(1)(b) of the Crown Entities Act 2004. Appointments to the commission may be made for 5 years or any shorter period stated in the notice of appointment. A 4-year term is proposed in order to phase the members’ appointments term so that the review of this appointment does not occur in an election year. I commend this appointment to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Electoral Commission has been significantly revamped under the amendments to the Electoral Act that have been passed by Parliament during this term. The commission has already undertaken significant work with the Botany by-election under its purview. It now has the carriage of the administrative arrangements for the Te Tai Tokerau by-election and the general election which is to come before the end of the year. Then it will take on further functions including the work that is currently discharged by the Electoral Enrolment Centre when it takes on those functions under the legislation. 
The legislation provides for three commissioners but only two are currently in office: the Hon Hugh Williams and Robert Peden the Chief Electoral Officer. I remember when the Hon Hugh Williams was first appointed to judicial office back in 1989. I was the law clerk to the Chief Justice at the time and I had to write the notes for the speech that the Chief Justice gave at the swearing-in of Mr Williams as a Master of the High Court as Associate Judges of the High Court were then known. It is significant that although it is no longer a requirement of the Act that a judge act as Chair of the Electoral Commission the House has chosen to recommend to the Governor-General that that tradition continue in this transitional period as the new commission establishes itself. 
It is also significant to note because it will relate to a couple of comments that I am going to make in conclusion that the Hon Hugh Williams not only has judicial experience and therefore as we would all hope will bring an impartial approach to the very important position of Chair of the Electoral Commission but also has significant governance experience in his own right. I recall that prior to his appointment as a Master of the High Court he served as president of what was then the Manawatu District Law Society and immediately prior to taking judicial office he also served a term as president of the New Zealand Law Society. After he was appointed as a full judge of the High Court he also served a 6-year term as chancellor of the Massey University Council. So in those roles he learnt at the coalface if you like what it is like to have to govern an organisation. What I hope we are seeing here is a transition from the tradition of having to have judges sitting as the head of the body that runs elections and matters associated with elections to recognising that although we need impartial people on the Electoral Commission it is equally vital to have people with governance experience particularly given the expansion of the role of the commission—the merging of the three electoral agencies—that the House has determined ought to occur. 
The other current commissioner as I mentioned is Robert Peden the Chief Electoral Officer. Mr Peden was formerly the chief legal adviser to the Electoral Commission prior to taking on the role as Chief Electoral Officer. I do not think there would be anybody in the House who would question Mr Peden’s commitment to independence or to fearlessly policing the rigours of the electoral law as it has been enacted. 
I want to say one or two other things about the legislation as it now stands. It is instructive to compare section 8 of the Electoral Act 1993 with section 4D. Section 8 was the old appointments section now repealed. Section 4D is the new one. Section 8 required as I said that there be a judge appointed to the Electoral Commission. It could be a judge at various levels of the system but it was almost invariably a High Court judge. The appointment had to occur from—if a High Court judge—three candidates offered by the head of bench the Chief Justice for that purpose. So Parliament was very restricted in its choices as to who might head the commission. The Secretary for Justice sat as of right on the commission; so did a judge of the Maori Land Court. All those requirements have been swept aside and now there is just the requirement that there be the three commissioners. I think that is an important step forward as I say given the expansion of the role of the electoral agency and given not only the independence but also the governance expertise that we now expect of it. 
The other significant matter in the legislation is the enhancement of the independence of the commission by the very words of the Act. I noted the careful words that were in the Minister’s speech. He correctly pointed out that no one other than the Governor-General appoints the members of the commission. It is also important to point out that these appointments are not made in the usual way on the recommendation or advice of a Minister; they are made on the recommendation of this House. In that regard it is of concern to see the Government House website describing the Chair of the Electoral Commission as having been nominated by the Minister of Justice. Of course that is not the procedure. The procedure is that the Minister circulates names around the House to various parties and the names that win unanimous approval are the ones that go forward under a communication from the Minister but on behalf of this House. That is a very important point I think just to reiterate. 
We come to the business of the motion: the proposal to finally appoint a third member of the Electoral Commission and to bring it to full strength which is not something that could happen too soon given the workload that I have mentioned and given the functions and tasks that the agency will have to fulfil over the coming months. 
I am aware that there was another candidate who met the approval of parties around the House and who might have been appointed to fill the deputy chair’s position and thereby bring the commission to full strength but that person although eminently qualified has elected to perform paid work for the commission in its education campaign on the referendum which is to occur at the end of the year. So that person’s skills are being utilised by the commission but not in a governance role. 
It is clear from Ms Huria’s curriculum vitae that she has significant governance skills so to that extent her appointment as deputy chair is to be welcomed. The only note of caution that I would sound on behalf of the Opposition is that although Ms Huria has a very impressive CV with respect to her the danger as often occurs with people who are busy directors is that she may have too much on. Given the recitation of the appointments she holds that we heard from the Minister and also given the busy workload that the commission will have over the next year or so it will be very important that she and the other commissioners ensure that they have appropriate time to devote to the important work of the commission. 
Having said that I am glad to see that the commission is now at full strength. It is appropriate given the tasks that lie ahead. I wish Ms Huria and the other members of the commission well in the tasks that lie ahead of them and I am delighted to confirm that the Labour Opposition will support this appointment. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I likewise state that the Green Party very much welcomes the appointment of Ms Huria as a member and the Deputy Chair of the Electoral Commission. As the previous speaker Charles Chauvel has indicated there is a huge task for the Electoral Commission over the next few years overseeing the referendum and a second referendum. We too are relieved that we now have full membership on the Electoral Commission. 
We are impressed by the curriculum vitae of Ms Huria. We agree that it looks as though she is extremely productive. We hope that she is not stretched in too many directions because the Electoral Commission will need a great deal of focus effort and attention to steer successfully through the next period of referendums on MMP etc. We affirm our support for this appointment. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to have a say about the appointment of Jane Huria as deputy chair of the Electoral Commission. The Maori Party stands to support Jane’s appointment to that position. In doing so we firstly mihi to Ngai Tahu and Ngai Tuahuriri on the honour of this appointment—an appointment that we believe is absolutely warranted. 
It is a particularly interesting day for this appointment to come before the House. Jane is a member of the Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Commission which has been set up to provide charitable relief to the Christchurch community from the effects of the recent earthquakes and aftershocks. As Christchurch is no doubt still reeling from the announcements made earlier this afternoon about properties and houses no longer able to be lived in we are pleased that there is something special at least for Ngai Tahu to consider in terms of the appointment of this very strong nominee. 
As I understand it and as has been expressed in this House Jane comes to this position with a wealth of experience in governance and organisation. She has broad-based commercial experience including in law insurance market research and financial markets. In addition to that experience she has directorships in the electricity technology business development education insurance property development agribusiness seafood marketing and sport and recreation sectors. 
As other speakers have said she serves on a number of boards and she is a lay member of the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal and a member of the management advisory group for the Secretary to the Treasury. If all of that is not enough she is also patron of the University of Canterbury Foundation a supporter of the Christchurch Arts Festival and a board member of the Court Theatre. Not only does she sit on many of those boards but also she develops and teaches public and in-house governance courses for the Institute of Directors in New Zealand for the Tertiary Education Commission for university polytechnic and wananga councils and for Sport and Recreation New Zealand. All of these qualifications make her an ideal applicant for the position. 
There is one more reason that I think it is particularly pleasing that tangata whenua has been appointed to this particular role. In the recent process of broadcasting allocations we believe that decisions were made that in effect devalue the role of the Treaty and of te reo Maori as the official language of Aotearoa. The Maori Party allocation was dramatically reduced between 2008 and 2011 to the effect of a loss of some $90000. We could not help but wonder whether confusion has arisen over the differing legislative responsibilities that govern the broadcasting allocation process—namely between the Broadcasting Act 1989 and the Electoral Act 1993. Although the Broadcasting Act has clear requirements on promoting Maori language and Maori culture the Electoral Act refers only to Maori representation. We were astounded that the only party that exclusively represents the Maori electorates was allocated less than 5 percent of the funding for a population that represents 17 percent of the New Zealand population. 
We hope therefore that this appointment will give special capacity to speak to tangata whenua as the Treaty partner to focus on voting constituencies that have been historically under-represented with low turn-out particularly of young Maori and to our unique capacity to express our message through te reo rangatira te reo Maori. We strongly support the appointment of Jane Huria. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to support the appointment of the third Electoral Commissioner. The reason this comes to this House is that we in New Zealand have a long tradition of well-run elections. I think we can be very very proud of the fact that we run non-corrupt elections in New Zealand. We have public confidence in our election processes which is one of the reasons why New Zealand has relatively high rates of voter participation in our democratic elections. People know that if they cast their vote it will be counted properly and that there will not have been corrupt practices in the electoral process that political parties do their utmost to comply with the laws and that we have independent bodies like the Electoral Commission overseeing elections to make sure that the laws that this country has built up over the years are adhered to. 
One of the ways we maintain the confidence of political parties across the political divide in the process is that when we make appointments to the Electoral Commission which oversees elections we make sure that that process is not politicised. We do not see the former president of the Labour Party being appointed to the Electoral Commission and we do not see the former president of the National Party being appointed to the Electoral Commission; we see independent people who are of standing in the community who political parties across the House can agree are appropriate people to oversee elections and maintain our confidence in those processes and also more important maintain broader public confidence in those processes so that we maintain confidence in our democratic institutions. 
There is a saying that the only thing worse than democracy is the alternative. That is a backhanded way of saying that democracy is very very important. We in this House all understand that democracy—for all its flaws for all its frustrations at times and for all its niggles and our sometimes immature behaviour in this House—overall delivers better outcomes than Saddam Hussein managed to in Iraq despite a wealth of oil money. Despite various other despots in other parts of the world democracy delivers good outcomes. 
In New Zealand we have one of the longest unbroken democracies in the world and we can be very proud of that. We have strong traditions and those traditions are in my opinion almost more important than the written rules of law. But those traditions are reinforced and upheld through good rules of law. We in New Zealand have good electoral law and we try across this Parliament to agree on the structure of it. We do not always agree. There is always disagreement at the margins. The Labour Party does not think we do as well as we could on the transparency of donations which can be made in a way that undermines public confidence in our electoral processes but we have some pretty strict rules around what is spent on elections and where the funding for that spending comes from even if in some situations we do not have clarity as to who donated the money. 
The people we rely upon to oversee our rules around elections are at the Electoral Commission. That is the body that we have formed in recent years to take over the functions that were previously split between two bodies. The Electoral Commission is already quite busy; it has had a by-election recently—the Botany by-election—since its formation and of course we have another this weekend in Te Tai Tokerau. I wish the candidates well in that election and I thank them for their efforts. We rely upon the Electoral Commission to oversee the rules to make sure that we are all playing by the same ground rules so that we do not descend into the sort of nonsense—and I think it is nonsense—that we have in places like the United States of America. Enormous amounts of money are spent on elections enormous amounts of money are spent on lobbyists and the outcomes are no more just or good for their country. In fact I would suggest that they are less just than the outcomes we generally achieve in New Zealand. 
We rely upon the members of the Electoral Commission to oversee those rules. We already have two of those officers. The first is the Hon Hugh Williams a former High Court judge who is in charge of this body; I understand he is the chair. Is that right Mr Chauvel? He is the chair. We also have had Robert Peden the Chief Electoral Officer appointed to a role on the Electoral Commission. Today’s appointment of Ms Huria is the third of the three appointees that are provided for under the law. 
We are of course coming up to an election within 6 months. The Electoral Commission already has the workload in respect of those by-elections I have referred to. We are dealing with a new law so the Electoral Commission will be required to make a few rulings that will be slightly different from earlier rulings because the rules have changed. There are some issues that relate to the dual sign-off that we will now need between the Parliamentary Service and the Electoral Commission in respect of some spending that is of proper parliamentary purpose but also falls within the definition of an election advertisement. In respect of those perfectly legal transactions we as parliamentarians will have to negotiate both the rules relating to the Parliamentary Service and the rules relating to the Electoral Commission. We look forward to some sensible rulings from both of those bodies as we parliamentarians try our best to adhere to the rules of the law. 
The attributes of Ms Huria have been well canvassed by other speakers and I do not propose to repeat them. Suffice it to say that her experience is wide ranging and has included public roles as well as roles for private companies. We on the Labour Party side of the House have confidence that she is a suitable appointee to this role. I will not say anything more than that. The Labour Party supports the appointment of Ms Huria as the third member of the Electoral Commission. 
Motion agreed to. 
Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
on behalf of the  
Attorney-General 
: I move  
That pursuant to section 8A(2) of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 this House recommend His Excellency the Governor-General appoint Mr Alan Deans Ritchie of Wellington as the Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner for a term of five years from the date of appointment having noted that the Attorney-General advises this House in accordance with section 8A(3) of the Act that the Chief Justice has been consulted about the proposed appointment. 
 The Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 came into effect on 1 August 2005. The role of deputy commissioner was established by section 8A of the Act as recently amended. The Act provides for the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and sets out a statutory regime for dealing with complaints about judges’ conduct. If appropriate the commissioner or the deputy commissioner may recommend the appointment of a judicial conduct panel to inquire into any matter about the conduct of a judge. 
The Act established processes that recognise and protect the requirement of judicial independence and natural justice. The deputy commissioner will perform the commissioner’s functions when the commissioner has a conflict of interest or is otherwise unavailable to address a complaint. In performing these functions the deputy commissioner will be required to act independently. 
The Attorney-General has received support from all parties for the appointment of Mr Alan Ritchie as the Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner. Mr Ritchie was admitted as a barrister and solicitor in 1971. He practised with Spencer and Ritchie in Ashburton and Chapman Tripp in Wellington for some 12 years. He has been a consultant to the New Zealand Law Society since 2008 and was the chief executive officer and executive director from 1985 to 2008. He is also a member of the New Zealand Parole Board. In 2008 Mr Ritchie spent 3 to 4 months deputising for the previous Judicial Conduct Commissioner. The term of appointment must be for not less than 2 years and not more than 5. It is proposed that Mr Ritchie be appointed for 5 years. The deputy commissioner is remunerated at a rate set by the Remuneration Authority and the current commissioner is Sir David Gascoigne. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Although it is always a pleasure to hear from Mr Joyce it is a shame that the Attorney-General was not able to move the motion we have just heard because it would have been too difficult to resist the temptation to remind the Attorney-General of what he said when it was first proposed by the Labour Government that the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner be created. He said: “The Labour Party approach is illustrated by this foolish legislation: set up an office create procedures appoint a commissioner and then bring on the inevitable amendment bill that seeks to appoint a deputy commissioner.” Well he was quite right except of course that an amendment bill came in under the National Government last year. “The next thing we will have is a registrar a council of worthies hundreds of bureaucrats and lo and behold a culture of complaint being encouraged and nurtured. There are plenty of litigants out there who having lost their cases will personalise them against judges. They are encouraged by this ridiculous regime to make complaints.” I suppose it is different being in Government as we saw with the flip-flop over the therapeutic goods administration earlier in the week. 
Turning to the merits of the motion I tell members that new sections 8A and 8B of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 now provide for an office called the Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner and I remember the debates we had in the House on this last year. The reality is that the Judicial Conduct Commissioner has become an important office. It is a place where people feel that they can go when they have a concern about the way they have been treated in our court system that they do not like. As a result the number of people seeking to use the office has increased greatly. 
I looked at the annual report of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner from last year where Sir David Gascoigne takes great care to recount the level and volume of complaints that have been made to his office. It is instructive to consider that report because it indicates that not only have people found the office to be a useful place to take concerns and complaints but also the number of complaints that have been found to have any substance is very very small. So I think we can take double comfort from this. First people are using the office—hence the need for a deputy to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. But secondly many of the complaints are not being upheld. So people have a safety valve. They have somewhere they can go if they do not feel well treated and they get a decent process. The complaint is investigated and no doubt they feel they have had a fair hearing as a result of the process. But in the end it is confirmed that generally speaking we have a judiciary that is working well because most of the complaints are not upheld. So there are two reasons to be pleased about the way this office is working and the fact that it has been introduced. 
The other comment that is useful to note in the report of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner is that the judiciary itself has been very cooperative with the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. Judges are independent: they have tenure they are not public servants and they are under no duty to cooperate with any statutory officer whom we may appoint. The fact that they have almost universally adopted an approach that is cooperative indicates that they too have come to welcome this move as one that enhances confidence in the judicial process and in our judiciary—a very important pillar one of the three in our constitution. They are things that I think are appropriate to put on record particularly given certain events over the last year. 
Mr Ritchie is somebody who is known to any lawyer who practised during the period that he was executive director of the New Zealand Law Society. I was admitted to the Bar in 1989; he began working at the New Zealand Law Society in 1985. All communications from the society were signed by him and he was a figure who I think was regarded as somebody who worked diligently as an administrator in the society. As the motion from the Attorney-General on the Order Paper records as is required by the Act this is an appointment that the Chief Justice concurred with so we can fully expect that the cooperation that has been extended to Sir David Gascoigne in his role as Chief Judicial Conduct Commissioner will be extended also to Alan Ritchie as his deputy. We can fully expect that the confidence that has been enhanced in the judiciary by the existence of this office and its fair and full processing of complaints will also continue. 
There are other things that this House needs to look forward to. One member has already foreshadowed a proposal to bring forward a register of judicial pecuniary interests and members on this side of the House have indicated that we approve of that general approach and would support it. It is necessary in this day and age that every public official appointed or elected acts with appropriate transparency and it is inevitable that that is the direction in which we are moving. It is something that rather than running from all actors in the constitutional drama should actually embrace. But as I say the appointment of Alan Ritchie is supported by members on this side and we hope that his work as the inaugural Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner will continue to bolster the important work that the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner conducts in terms of assuring people that the judiciary is somewhere they can go for a fair and full disposal of the litigation they may wish to engage in. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party also supports and welcomes the appointment of Mr Alan Ritchie as Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner. He has had a very distinguished—indeed exemplary—legal career and I think he is very well suited to this new role. 
I agree with the previous speaker Charles Chauvel that although the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner is reasonably new it has established itself as an important place of last resort that people can go to when they feel aggrieved by the court process. It is important that we have these checks and safety valves. We are very pleased that this body exists and that people as I said have a place of last resort where they can go. 
I agree also with the previous speaker that we look forward to having a judicial register of pecuniary interests. Kennedy Graham a Green MP has a member’s bill on this issue awaiting consideration by this House and we hope that it will be considered soon or taken up by the Government. 
I repeat that we very much welcome Mr Ritchie’s appointment and we believe he will bring great strengths to the important role of the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take a brief call also in support of this appointment. Alan Ritchie is well-known to most members of the legal community in New Zealand who have held practising certificates for a while. Indeed he has a lot of experience already when it comes to running disciplinary proceedings and trying to winnow out whether there is an issue to be dealt with in response to somebody’s complaint. Of course in his role as Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner what he will be trying to do is ascertain whether a complaint made is founded on any basis. If it not founded on any sound basis it will be rejected pretty pre-emptorily and if it is in his view then the complaint will go a bit further and he will look into it further or create a process that properly considers it. 
Mr Ritchie had a similar role to that when he was at the New Zealand Law Society for many years and was secretary of the New Zealand Law Society I think— 
Charles Chauvel 
: Executive director. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: —executive director—for more than a decade I think from memory. During the period of his tenure there were some problems in various nominee companies in the legal fraternity which resulted in a loss initially to contributors but which was repaid by the Lawyers Fidelity Fund thus forcing good lawyers—well not forcing but having them do what good lawyers then had to do as a consequence of their professional duties—to top up the fidelity fund to meet what were very significant frauds. That of course then led to the Law Society taking action against those errant lawyers who had misused the money of their clients although that money had been reimbursed by other lawyers. The particular lawyers who had caused the problem were effectively brought to heel and kicked out of the Law Society and that assessment of those complaints against lawyers in that case would have been something that Mr Ritchie had a role in. 
This new role in the judicial conduct arena is probably more important and there is no doubt in my mind that Mr Ritchie is a suitable appointment to the role. I do see slight irony in the fact that the amending legislation has been promoted by Mr Finlayson who spoke so stridently against it when in Opposition. But that matter has already been covered properly by Mr Chauvel and I have nothing further to add. 
Motion agreed to. 
Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Debate resumed from 22 June. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this very important Smoke-free Environment (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. This bill imposes controls on the marketing advertising and promotion of tobacco products and it is another significant step forward in reducing the harm from tobacco products here in New Zealand. The Health Committee heard 150 submissions and the committee was in unanimity that the measures taken in this bill were quite appropriate. 
I am sorry to see that Iain Lees-Galloway has just entered the House too late to finish off his speech but he made a very useful contribution during the select committee process and I am sure he will do in the Committee stage as well. I also congratulate the Hon Tariana Turia and the Maori Party on their consistent approach to tobacco control and I acknowledge the work of the Maori Affairs Committee during its inquiry into the tobacco industry in Aotearoa and its consequences for Maori. They would have liked to see even firmer measures than are in the bill but I do believe that the measures taken through this amendment bill are a very important step forward in reducing harm. 
I think it is also important to acknowledge that many individuals have been involved in the history of getting New Zealand to the place where it is at now. If one thinks back prior to the Smoke-free Environments Act of 1990 and even 12 to 15 years ago one could go into public places that were filled with smoke such as aeroplanes railcars and cafes. Most New Zealanders regard it as absolutely wonderful that we have the option of a clean environment. 
It is important to remind the House that there are something like 5000 premature deaths per year from direct smoking and something like 500 deaths from indirect smoking or second-hand smoke inhalation. There still remains a major problem in New Zealand with smoking. As the honourable Tariana Turia pointed out the other night something like 45 percent of the Maori population aged between 16 and 65 still smoke and something like 50 percent of young Maori women are still smoking. 
There is a relentless effort by the tobacco industry to sell tobacco by whatever means it can possibly conjure up. There have been a variety of measures put together in this bill to curtail the marketing the advertising and the promotion of tobacco products. It also includes herbal smoking products which had not had the regulations of the Smoke-free Environments Act enforced previously. It is very much the intention of the Health Committee that those regulations are imposed into the future. There was some debate in the committee as to whether some of the new synthetic products the cannabinoids such as Kronic would also fall within the measures taken by this new legislation. However the view 2 or 3 months ago was that because there had been no public debate or submissions around that that at this stage that aspect would come at a later date. I think the force of view around the country now however is that it would be right and proper to ensure that substances like Kronic synthetic cannabinoids and the whole variety of them do fall under legislation such as this as soon as possible. 
Transition arrangements have been made to ensure that retailers have a reasonable time to prepare. This Government and the select committee very much realise that costs are involved and consequently appropriate transition arrangements have been made. This bill does affect internet sales and that is right and proper and of course includes very strong penalties for trying to sell products over the internet to people under 18. It also affects covert sponsorship. Here again the idea is to counter the exclusive availability of a single tobacco brand at an event including tobacco companies employing people to work at events wearing the brand’s colours. Amendments are appropriately introduced with some pretty stiff penalties of up to $50000 for a manufacturer importer or distributor who breaches the bans. The penalty regime is indeed increased. There has been great concern that in some of the minor retail stores around New Zealand sometimes it is not the owner of the business who has had the penalty brought against them but that will be included in the new regime. 
All in all this is yet another step forward to reduce tobacco harm in New Zealand. It is a very realistic step and a practical step. It comes on the back of previous efforts over several decades including last year a three-step imposition of a tobacco tax of 10 percent a year over 3 years. Cumulatively this is a practical pragmatic and important step forward and I look forward to the Committee stage. I commend the bill to the House. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. This is one of the first issues that I have dealt with as a new member of the Health Committee and I would like to echo the comments made by the chair of the Health Committee Dr Paul Hutchison that it was a pleasure to deal with the bill in a unanimous way. As the committee went through the submissions it acted as one and with a unified voice and with unified questioning as well. It was a pleasure to be on the committee. Of the 150 submitters on the bill it is fair to say some inspired me some really annoyed me and some outright disgusted me with some of the stuff that they came to the committee with in terms of what they said about this bill. 
With 700000 Kiwis smoking at this stage I think it is pretty clear that smoking in New Zealand causes significant social impacts in terms of people’s health. Labour supports this bill because our position is to encourage New Zealand to be smoke-free by 2025. I want to paint a bit of a Pacific picture here if I can. Some Ministry of Health figures from 2008 show that the New Zealand average for male smoking was around the 26 percent mark and for Pacific Island males it was around the 35 percent mark. For females the reading was not much better: on average around 22 percent of females were smoking but for Pacific Island females the smoking rate was around the 28 percent mark. So Pacific Islanders are disproportionately represented in the smoking statistics in New Zealand. It is well recognised that smoking is either a risk factor for or a cause of cancers respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases. Some research from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in 2008 also showed that in the Pacific Island community there were 30 deaths from cancer about 102 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 23 deaths from strokes. Smoking in terms of the Pacific Island community is obviously a very significant issue but the community is dealing with it. 
Smoking is also an issue within my own culture. The ASH study in 2008 showed that 42 percent of Tokelauans registered themselves as smokers which was by far and away the largest percentage in a Pacific grouping in New Zealand. I congratulate the Tokelauan health community. They have recognised that this is a large problem within their people and they are taking strong steps to try to counter that and to ensure that members of the Tokelauan community are quitting smoking as much as they can. 
I will go back to the submissions made during the select committee process. I will congratulate a number of Pacific organisations that submitted to the select committee. In particular I point out one organisation that the select committee heard from in Auckland I think which was Tala Pasifika. Its programme manager Stephanie Erick basically said the thrust of this bill was on the money and that “Addressing the issues of tobacco accessibility to youth and at-risk populations in New Zealand is a major step towards protecting current and future generations who would have otherwise been vulnerable to the deadly and addictive tobacco products that currently enjoy promotion in retail settings across the country.” She also went on to say “To protect our Pacific children and the wider community from being initiated into smoking the removal of tobacco retail displays from sight is an essential and urgent requirement.” I congratulate Tala Pasifika on making that submission to the select committee and I acknowledge the important role that Pacific health practitioners play in making sure that they get as many Pacific Islanders as possible to quit smoking. 
The health of the Pacific Island community is also a very topical issue today because this morning out on the forecourt of Parliament there was a 200-strong protest I will call it of people from the Pacific communities of my own electorate of Mana—predominantly from Porirua East. They came to Parliament to protest against cuts in the health budget. I point out that it was commendable that the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs Georgina te Heuheu addressed the group of people that formed on the forecourt but it was a bit on the nose that she called it a celebration of Pacific health. It was not that at all. It was a hikoi and it was a protest. It was a hikoi and a protest and I think it was a bit on the nose for those people who turned up—the 200 people from my electorate who are worried about the level of Pacific health funding—that the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs although she took on board the comments and the petition from the 200-strong protest called that protest a celebration. It was nothing of the sort; it was a protest at the Government’s cut to funding in the Pacific health sector. 
One of those services Pacific Health Service Porirua has a very strong smoking cessation programme. It is very concerned about what the cuts to the health budget will do to that programme. It is not the only Pacific health provider in Porirua that has a strong smoking cessation programme. I guess I am trying to say it is great to have the will to try to make New Zealand smoke-free by 2025 but if we are to achieve that goal we have to back up that commitment with funding. In the communities where it will make a big difference—and I mentioned before the overrepresentation of Pacific Islanders in the smoking statistics—we have to back up the commitment we make in legislation with the resources to make sure that if we want to get people from the Pacific Island communities to quit smoking we have people in those communities who can encourage that. 
I will turn back to some of the other issues raised at the select committee. Another submitter—a tobacconist I believe he was from Dunedin; I will not mention his name—claimed that 95 percent of his sales came from tobacco. That is obviously the case. He claimed that he sold $150000 worth of cigarettes or tobacco per week through his store in Dunedin. He basically claimed that most of his customers became friends and he had been selling to them for decades. I asked him during the hearing given that he said he had been selling to these “friends” for decades how many of those people those customers he believed would want to quit. I think if I recall correctly he said it would be about 70 percent. I think that although we are passing this legislation there is also a bit of an onus on retailers too. Although New Zealanders have the freedom to buy tobacco whenever they like if they are of the right age there is a responsibility upon retailers to make sure that they are doing the socially right thing and not necessarily feeding the habits of the people who buy tobacco from them. In that case someone who is selling $150000 worth of tobacco per week over his counter through his store and who thinks that about 70 percent of his customers want to quit might need to think about some of the social responsibility that he has too. 
I will pick up on some of the earlier comments that Dr Paul Hutchison made too about some of the details relating to herbal products. I think it is good that the same restrictions on herbal smoking products will come into this legislation. The same restrictions that apply to tobacco sales will be placed on herbal products. Also the fines regime is to increase for both tobacco and herbal products. I believe that the maximum fine for a proprietor for selling to someone who is under age will now increase to $10000. I think that is a positive move in terms of trying to make sure that we crack down on retailers who continually flout the rules and sell cigarettes to those who are under 18 years of age. 
I finish by saying we welcome and support this bill. It was a pleasure to be on the select committee. As I said it was one of my first issues to deal with on the select committee. To sit on that committee and work on a bill such as this which had unanimous support from all parties was a pleasure. I also commend the Minister in charge of this bill the Hon Tariana Turia for her work to make sure that action was taken on this issue. The last Labour Government took some real steps the first marker steps to make sure that we make New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. The Minister needs to be commended for her efforts to make sure that the Government made this legislation a priority even though it took some time for National to do so. The Minister pushed it as hard as she could and it is a pleasure that the bill is at this stage in the House. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand in support of the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. I think it is one of those occasions where—I am not sure about the ACT Party—pretty much everyone in the House is likely to be voting for a bill. Indeed we may well all be giving more or less the same speech in this debate. 
I commence in that tradition by joining other speakers in expressing our appreciation of the work undertaken by officials from the Ministry of Health in assisting the Health Committee in its work on the bill. This is a complex area of legislation surprisingly but the officials were diligent and provided good quality advice I felt to the select committee. I also acknowledge the good heart and spirit with which the committee considered the bill. As others have mentioned the distinctions between the parties on the Health Committee on this issue would not have been obvious to anyone coming into the room because the members of the committee worked as a single unit and it was a pleasure to be part of it. 
The submitters were an interesting bunch. I will comment about them in a moment. There is one person I will single out for some praise at this point in my remarks and that is Iain Lees-Galloway. I single him out not for his role on the Health Committee but for having advanced to this House in the first place his member’s bill to ban the retail display of tobacco and tobacco products which was drawn in the ballot. I suspect that that may well have been the spur that brought this bill to the House and I commend Mr Lees-Galloway for that. 
As I said the submitters were an interesting bunch. I think it would be fair to say that broadly speaking with very few exceptions the submitters said that they supported the legislation or supported its general thrust. From that point they broke down into two broad categories. The first of those was a category of submitters who said that yes of course they support the goal of New Zealand being a smoke-free country and yes of course they support the broad thrust of this legislation but there are some really specific reasons why the time frame in this bill will not work for their particular organisation or business or why the particular way that the bill applies its restrictions to retail displays will not quite work for them and therefore they should be exempted from it. I particularly recall an example from a submitter on behalf of the duty-free retailers at Auckland Airport who said that although they were broadly supportive of this legislation it could not apply to duty-free retailers because of the inconvenience that that would cause to travellers and because the efficiency of airport operations required that passengers were able to make their duty-free purchases as quickly as possible. Covering up the displays of tobacco products and requiring a further step of uncovering those tobacco products in order for passengers to be able to make their purchases would impede the efficient operation of airports. I did not have a lot of time for that argument or indeed for the other flimsy excuses that were advanced by the submitters in that group. I am very pleased that the select committee resisted any temptation that may have existed to succumb to such arguments. 
There has been a small compromise made on the commencement of the measures. I think that was a sensible change to make but that in itself was counterbalanced by another change that the committee made which was to greatly increase the fines. Some other speakers have already spoken about that. 
The other broad category of submitters that I would refer to are submitters like Action on Smoking and Health the Smokefree Coalition and some of those others that Kris Faafoi for example just spoke about in his contribution. Those people were excited about the fact that Parliament was taking this step. They were very strongly supportive of the goal of a smoke-free nation and of concrete steps being taken towards that goal. Those submitters in general were saying that what this bill does is fantastic but there are other things that the bill could also do at this time. For example they spoke about the need for a register. One of the practical problems that is being encountered by people who are out there in the field trying to enforce New Zealand’s smoke-free environments legislation is that it is very hard to keep track of who actually is selling tobacco and tobacco products. They argued very strongly for the need for a register of people selling those products. They were supported in that by the agencies—regional councils public health providers and the like—that do that enforcement. I think the case for a register is extremely strong and the provision of a register would have indeed been an extremely sensible addition to this bill. It is a matter of some regret that we did not take that step. 
The other area that those submitters were suggesting the committee could advance in the bill—to advance the cause of smoke-free environments legislation—was to pick up some more of the recommendations of the Maori Affairs Committee. I have very considerable sympathy for that point of view. We were presented with a rare opportunity of an extremely well-founded and thorough investigation by the Maori Affairs Committee. We know that the committee travelled the length and breadth of the country. In an extremely thorough process it heard from the tobacco industry as well as from all of us who strongly support that goal of a smoke-free nation. 
On the basis of that very thorough inquiry which was supported by all parties the committee came up with a comprehensive set of regulations—plain packaging for tobacco products for example. I believe that there was an opportunity to incorporate more of the recommendations of the Maori Affairs Committee into this bill. The public will reasonably say that for goodness’ sake this perfect vehicle—the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill—is going through Parliament so why on earth does Parliament not take this opportunity to advance that programme of actions so that we can move at a faster pace towards the goal that pretty much everyone shares? That is a reasonable question: why on earth have we not taken that opportunity? 
I have no doubt at all that the denormalising of tobacco products that will occur as a result of this bill being passed into law will be an extremely positive step forward. Other speakers have referred to herbal smoking products and to the changes that were made and those that were not made. I think Paul Hutchison may need to check the officials’ report because I am not sure that his characterisation in his second reading speech of what the bill does and does not do is entirely correct. I think sellers and producers of herbal smoking products should be on notice that the expectation of the select committee is that at some point in the future we will consider changes in order to bring those products in line with tobacco products. 
In closing I join others in praising Minister Turia and indeed those other members of the House who were involved with the inquiry by the Maori Affairs Committee: Tau Henare as the chair; Hone Harawira a former member of this House; and the other members of that committee. This is a good bill. It could be better but the Greens certainly will be supporting it. Thank you. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ka nui te mihi ki a koe i tenei ahiahi. Today is not a bad day—today is not a bad day.  
I thought I would start by just asking a few questions—not of you Mr Assistant Speaker Roy; I do not want to bring you into the debate. I will just check in with the Hon Hekia Parata to see whether she has been following the debate. I am sure she has because today is a good day for the Maori Party I think. Let me just check. If I was to ask which party contributed to a Maori presence in the debate on the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill I ask what the Hon Hekia Parata would say. 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: The Maori Party. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: OK. Right we have one answer from the Minister; that gets her to Fiji. The second question is which party promoted the second reading of the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. 
Hon Members 
: The Maori Party. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: Oh no stop it. Do not do that. Stop it. Let me ask the Minister another question which will take her from Fiji to Hawaii. Who is the sponsor of this particular bill right now? 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: Is it Te Urur— 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: No. The Minister should hurry up; I have only 10 minutes. It is Tariana— 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: Turia. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: Tariana Turia; that is right. The Minister is very good. She must be Ngati Porou; I can tell. The fourth question is who is the co-leader of the most high-profile dynamic effective small but stunningly good-looking— 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: Agile. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: —and agile political party? Who is the co-leader of that party? 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: Dr Pita Sharples. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: He is one of them. Who is the other one? 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: Te Ururoa Flavell. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: No he is not. 
Hon Members 
: Tariana Turia. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: That is very good. I thank the Minister very much. I have one more question for the Minister just to check that she is not reading the answers. Which party does the Hon Tariana Turia belong to? She sponsored this particular bill and is a part of that other legislation passed today for which the Maori Party has provided an energetic— 
Hon Hekia Parata 
: The Maori Party. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: It is the Maori Party. The Minister is the winner. That is why she is a Minister: because she and some of my other colleagues over there know the importance of having the Maori Party beside them. I can see that you are grinning Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. You are smiling because you know that is the answer. I thank the Minister. 
I am really pleased to follow up from and commend the Hon Tariana Turia co-leader of the Maori Party for the amazing amazing—I will say it again—amazing efforts she has made in terms of tobacco control and in paving the foundation for the health and well-being of all tamariki in this nation. Is the Minister nodding? Yes she was. I am sure she was nodding to agree that this bill is important for all tamariki of this nation. 
On a little bit of a serious note I say that the party’s tobacco campaign to rid our shores of tobacco has resulted in a number of landmark milestones a number of which are included in the Smoke-free Environments Act. It is a bit of a history tour. There are things in the Act such as increasing the tobacco tax and now we have the introduction of legislation to ban displays and to keep tobacco out of sight and out of mind. The past 12 months have been the most rapid in the history of making policy on tobacco control that this country has seen. Just over a year ago in response to Maori Party advocacy the Maori Affairs Committee announced that it would carry out an inquiry into the tobacco industry—in particular into the consequences for Maori of tobacco use. In March the Hon Tariana Turia initiated a public consultation on the proposal to ban tobacco displays in retail outlets specifically announcing that the Government would ban retail displays of tobacco. This policy has long been sought by health campaigners in order to denormalise tobacco to help smokers quit and to reduce the number of young people taking up smoking. 
Already these early steps are proving to bring about success. The 2009 Tobacco Use Survey showed that the current smoking rate for 15 to 65-year-olds has dropped to 21.8 percent. In real numbers that is about 60000 fewer smokers. Of those 60000 in real numbers again about 10000 are estimated to be Maori. Those are pretty good statistics. As I say these are fantastic results which demonstrate that people are starting to recognise the serious harm that comes from smoking and they are basically saying that it is not worth it. Therefore the Maori Party is absolutely overwhelmed and privileged by and stunningly supportive of this bill. 
The amendment bill aims to remove tobacco displays from outlets and to include harsher penalties for the sale and purchase of tobacco products to children and young people. The bill makes it much more difficult for companies to enter into covert sponsorship arrangements. This bill makes significant progress in achieving the Maori Party goal of making Aotearoa a smoke-free nation by 2025. 
The Maori Party is pleased and proud to support this bill right through to the end—which will be soon I am sure—as part of our goal to rid smoking and cigarettes from our nation and to therefore have a healthier nation across the board. Today is a good day when the Maori Party says: “Yeah—we’ve done it!”. Kia ora tatou. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I fully support all the things that were said by both the previous speakers I have heard since I came into the House. I have noted that old expression “no man is an island” but I have just taken the opportunity to ask not the multi-choice questions that Te Ururoa Flavell put but instead a rather more direct question of my colleagues who were in the Chamber when I arrived. I asked them whether they had ever smoked. I was astonished to find that very few have that and those who have smoked did so very little. I am sure that Mr Assistant Speaker Roy will not mind my saying that when I asked him he said he had never ever smoked and that that accounts for his fine complexion youthful appearance and high levels of energy and intellectual capacity. We do not wish to bring the Speaker into the debate so that will not be debated. 
I stand as I guess in one way a little bit of an oddity in that I first smoked when I was 11. I used to nick my mother’s cigarettes one at a time. I progressed to getting a job and I started to buy my own cigarettes. Members can picture if they will a 19-year-old Auchinvole in New Zealand gazing with admiration as he watched the classic Kiwi roll his own cigarette with one hand put it in his mouth light the match with one hand and take a puff. Eventually I perfected that art. I was mostly in the rural sector and I perfected that art of rolling my own cigarette sticking it in my mouth lighting it with a match and then I would take a puff and take off half my lip because the cigarette would get stuck to my mouth. 
I remember that for social occasions when we were young bucks we used to smoke Sobranie Black Russians. They were very very special and very expensive cigarettes. People like Tim Groser will remember those. But mostly it was roll-your-owns then tailor-mades and then pipes with pipe tobacco such as Erinmore Mixture. I can smell it now. I can smell it now. 
We used to go to conferences. I was a member of the livestock improvement movement. We had national conferences and everybody smoked. I can remember I think it must have been in the 1970s when someone moved that smoking not be permitted during the conference. There was a stunned silence and then roars of laughter. The next year it was put to a vote. The following year it was not even mentioned; there was just no smoking and that was that. 
I used to go to political conferences. At the National Party regional conference in Auckland my Erinmore tobacco used to be nicked by Kennedy Graham’s brother and we would share a good pipe of tobacco. We had a debate at the divisional meeting about whether we should smoke. I was one of the strong proponents. I can remember using phrases like “Have some sympathy for smokers; they are a dying breed and they are dying at a faster rate than the rest of us.” One could make quite a light-hearted speech about that. 
In the 1960s and 1970s when I was going through adolescence almost everybody did smoke. If we look back at the films in those ages we see that there was an awful lot of promotion of tobacco. I gave up when it became more difficult to smoke. My children have never smoked and my wife has never smoked although my wife has never objected to my smoking. I have now not smoked for about 13 years because it became harder and harder. The children would oblige me to smoke outside the house and they did not like me smoking in the vehicle—that sort of thing. 
I still smoked my pipe—I was comfortable with it—but when a friend of mine asked me why I smoked and started to explain much the way that Mr Assistant Speaker Roy did that it impaired one from certain functions compared with not smoking and that I would have much fun in life if I did not smoke he gave me a little bit of a challenge. I was ordering a wrought-iron gate from him for my mother-in-law’s 100th birthday and he could not make it in time because he was too busy. So I said “Gosh I thought I’d heard that you could do anything you’re such a brilliant fellow.” And he said “So I can and can you stop smoking?” so I said “Probably.” He said “All right you send me the design of the gate. When you send me that get rid of your pipe all the tobacco that you’ve saved up cigars and that sort of thing get rid of them all and don’t smoke ever again then I’ll get your gate finished.” So we did a deal. We had just moved across to the Coast. I had a complete change of habit lifestyle and everything else. It was a good time to stop. 
I have never ever smoked since other than a puff of a cigarette that a colleague gave me. I thought “No I don’t want to go back to that.” and I never have. The question though is what have I learnt from it? If one speaks to people and asks about their experience of smoking one learns that there are not very many who have a good experience. There are not very many people who want to maintain smoking. I have never ever had any experience with drugs other than those administered in a hospital. This story would perhaps be different if I had asked around about drugs. Drugs just have not happened in my life. I have had no exposure and no opportunity and I have never sought them. So on the one hand I have smoked cigarettes but on the other hand I have had no other drugs. People who work with druggies tell me that they all want to give up. They do not want to persist with them. Nicotine and other drugs like that are very hard to kick once they get hold of someone. 
Would I go back to smoking now? I guess if someone produced a box of Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes I would give one a go. Former smokers are always vulnerable. Alcoholics are never cured they tell me. Formers smokers are never completely cured. It is a matter of opportunity. As I say if someone showed me a packet of Sobranie Black Russians or if I went into a shop and saw them I might have a go. I think the proposals in the bill to remove the visual temptation and to take away the opportunity from people can be only a good thing. 
I had the privilege of attending several sessions of the Maori Affairs Committee as it interviewed the tobacco suppliers which I spoke to. As a large contributor to their fortunes I felt entitled to have a fairly aggressive approach to them. I asked whether they really still believed in that wonderful old adage “cigarettes whiskey and wild wild women”. Largely tobacco suppliers are there to generate money—profits—for their organisation and their shareholders. They will fight extraordinarily hard to maintain that profile. 
I was very supportive of the work done by the Maori Affairs Committee and was very impressed that it almost went out on a limb and fought the issue—perhaps against the wishes of some of their own members—but fight it the committee did. I raise my hat of course to the— 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Hon Tariana Turia. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: —Hon Tariana Turia and her associates in the Maori Party. The tobacco industry can do without us we can do without smoking and we should strive to achieve the purposes of this bill. Thank you. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I will take a very brief call on the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. It is one of those bills with an aspiration for New Zealand. It aspires for New Zealand to end smoking by 2025 which is a wonderful aspiration. 
I also praise as others have done the work of Tariana Turia and my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway in pushing this bill through. As other speakers including Kris Faafoi have said the bill builds on a lot of the work that Labour did while it was in office to outlaw the smoking common in restaurants and bars where it is now no longer common. 
The bill brings into force measures that I think as others have said will decrease drastically the incidence of smoking. Te Ururoa Flavell talked about there being 60000 fewer smokers and that is a fantastic statistic. If smoking rates continue to go down by that amount then that is something that we can be really proud of and is something that New Zealand can be happy about in terms of what this Parliament is trying to do. 
The word “happy” brings me to the point Mr Flavell was talking about in terms of today being a happy day. It is a happy day and we should enjoy that fact. I think he should enjoy it too before Saturday which will probably be a less happy day. I was contemplating as he was talking with National members my hope that voters in Te Tai Tokerau were watching and seeing that a vote for the Maori Party is ultimately a vote for National. 
With that final remark I commend this bill and I pledge once again Labour’s support for it. Thank you. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I am proud to say my father’s name was Kelvin Robin Tremain. He was an All Black through the late 1950s and 1960s and back then was possibly one might say the Michael Jones of the 1980s or the Richie McCaw of this century. He was a member of an All Black team at a time of greats whose names still decorate the walls of many rugby clubs and museums around the world—names such as Colin Meads Brian Lochore and Waka Nathan. 
The All Blacks in those days were serious smokers. I know that my father was a smoker right throughout the period that he was an All Black. He smoked right through his adult life. I am not proud to say this but in fact at his peak my dad smoked two packets or more a day. Unfortunately Kel died at 54—19 years ago. He died at 54. Can members believe that? At 54 years of age he passed away. He died of cancer. The thing that I want to reflect on tonight is not the fact that he died—he was a big boy; he made his own decisions—but it is what he missed out on. What he missed out on is the last 19 years and I just want to make quite clear the poignancy of what that means to my family. What that means is that yes he knew Ange my wife but he did not know my brothers’ wives Jan and Hetti and he never met his 10 grandchildren. So he has never met Sam Will and Lily who are my kids. He has never met Jan’s kids Anika Jack and Greer or Hetti’s children Anouk Edu Mela and Kully. I think that is the real loss. 
I know why members on this side of the House and around the House support this bill so much. Yes my dad was a big boy and he made his own decisions but his life was taken early. I totally support anything that brings about a change to the way that we smoke in this country. This bill makes it more difficult and reduces the opportunity to smoke. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 113 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 40; Green Party 8; ACT New Zealand 1 (Boscawen); Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; United Future 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 4 
ACT New Zealand 4 (Calvert Douglas Hide Roy H). 
Bill read a second time. 
Sittings of the House 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I seek leave for the House to rise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears not to be. Leave is granted. 
The House adjourned at 5.54 p.m.