Volume 613 Week 41 - Tuesday 4 November 2003 
Volume 613 Week 41 - Tuesday 4 November 2003 
[Volume:613;Page:9621] 
Tuesday 4 November 2003 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Speaker’s Statements 
Donna Awatere Huata 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received the following letter from the Director of the Serious Fraud Office: “Dear Mr Speaker In accordance with the conventions applied to the application of the criminal justice system to members of Parliament I must advise you that I have laid a number of charges under the Crimes Act 1961 against Donna Awatere Huata a list member of Parliament with the ACT party. Ms Huata was arrested this morning and appeared in the District Court at Napier where she was remanded on bail. The court did not make any orders suppressing any of the details of the court appearance. Twelve charges have been brought against Donna Awatere Huata. Eleven of these allege the use of a document to defraud—namely the use of cheques to defraud the Pipi Foundation. The remaining charge alleges that Donna Awatere Huata perverted the course of justice in relation to investigations being undertaken into the affairs of the Pipi Foundation. D J Bradshaw Director.” 
Points of Order 
National Party Leadership 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave that at the end of this day’s question time there be a debate for 1½ hours on the issue of the National Party’s change of leadership. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has properly sought leave. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As Leader of the House I just wish to make it clear that we do not have enough time to do that every time the National Party changes its leader. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As is so often the case that was not a point of order. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a long tradition in this House that when a political party does elect a new leader that is acknowledged in the House. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Dr Brash. I am sure he will prove to be a very worthy leader of a very worthy party and wish him every best wish in his new role. I would also like to acknowledge Bill English in the role that he played in leading the National Party also. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That may well be the member’s view but that is the first time I have heard that particularly done in this House. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want to move on to questions. I do not want any more frivolous points of order. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is not a frivolous point of order. I therefore now seek leave for an urgent debate to take place on the issue of the National Party’s leadership after question time tomorrow—in which case he will be more permanent in his job. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that to occur. Is there any objection? There is. 
Questions to Ministers 
Taxation—Policy 
1. CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What are the Government's priorities for changes to the tax system? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Government is engaged in a comprehensive programme of tax simplification and compliance cost reduction. We also plan to introduce a package in the 2004 Budget to deliver income increases including through the tax system to low and middle income families. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Has the Minister received any reports on other possibilities for tax changes? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: And can I add my welcome to Dr Brash. I have seen a report advocating a reduction in the top income tax rate and the corporate tax rate to 30c in the dollar. This would deliver nothing to anybody earning under $38000 a year. 
John Key 
: Earning less under you. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I notice the spy has not come in from the cold just yet! This would not deliver anything to anybody earning under $38000 a year and would place considerable pressure on both the fiscal position and the economy where the domestic sector is moving very strongly. It is no wonder that National post-coup is described as a bunch of deranged haemophiliacs arguing over which is the best band-aid. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That last phrase was out of order and I ask that it be withdrawn. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I withdraw it. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Given that the Minister’s own preferred measure of the Budget balance shows the surplus in the year ended June 2003 was $5.6 billion is he determined to continue overtaxing hard-working New Zealanders; if so is this related to his need to fund his planned election year give-aways? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It is a bit rich as we might say on this side of the House to describe a programme designed to deliver better incomes to low and middle income people as a give-away but tax cuts for people on many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year as presumably good economics. 
Dail Jones 
: Why does the Government give greater priority in its changes to the tax system to giving tax incentives for foreigners in the film industry while failing to support New Zealanders in export businesses with tax incentives such as the New Zealand First proposal for a 20 percent tax rate especially bearing in mind this country’s seriously deteriorating balance of payments situation? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The film industry offers the opportunity for substantial development of employment and wealth creation within New Zealand. But I think if the member actually looked seriously at his proposal on tax rates which involves differentiating between an exporting business or a non-exporting business and which part of it is exporting and which part of it is not he would find that huge compliance costs would be created in trying to operate differential tax rates in that regard. 
Rod Donald 
: Why does the Minister continue to refuse to give middle and low income workers in this country the same 6 percent tax concession that those earning over $60000 currently enjoy? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The roughly $79 million a year cost of that would be far better spent if there were other mechanisms designed to address and assist savings. The Government expects to make announcements on that within the next few months. 
David Benson-Pope 
: What is the estimated cost of reducing the top personal tax rate and the corporate rate to 30c? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The reduction would cost approximately $1.7 billion. It should be noted that if that was applied to increases for low and middle income families via such mechanisms as family support it could lead to increases of about $150 a week or more for a two-child low-income family. Under the proposals I have seen that family would not get a single cent extra. 
Ministerial Confidence—Police Minister 
2.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Police; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Prime Minister’s idea of a police force sufficiently resourced to deal with all facets of crime in this country the new multilingual handbook that now enables police to arrest people in 40 different languages and how is a police officer expected to hold a baton handcuffs and a handbook at the same time whilst trying to find the correct language of 40 languages to shout: “Stop you’re under arrest!”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I think it is admirable that the police are being responsive to a range of communities. 
Simon Power 
: How can the Prime Minister have confidence in the Minister of Police when under his watch violent crime has risen 3.6 percent in the 2002-03 year while he has done nothing except bluster in this House? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: My confidence in the Minister is well founded particularly when I see that for the 2002-03 year there was the highest police resolution rate for recorded crime for 20 years. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Prime Minister have confidence that the Minister of Police is adequately monitoring how the police apply the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act provisions on free speech when launching prosecutions under the Telecommunications Act with regard to the content of emails and are there any recent instances that give her cause for concern in this regard? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I assume the member is referring to a matter that appeared on television news last night in respect of an email sent by an Aucklander to the American Embassy. I assume the American Embassy exercised its rights as anyone can to lay a complaint. The matter is before the courts and it would not be appropriate to comment further. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How does she expect the country to believe her on the issue of the resourcing of police when in a recent boy-racer riot in Tauranga the police arrested no one at all nor did they confiscate any cars because they said that they simply did not have the resources? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have not seen that report but I do know that at the initiative of a member of this House Clayton Cosgrove the law was tightened on boy racers and the police will enforce that law. 
Land Transport Management Bill—Auckland Issues 
3.  
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her statement that “the Government is preparing a major land transport package which will help address Auckland's congestion”; if so will the Government accept amendments to the Land Transport Management Bill to address the criticisms by Auckland business and local government interests that in its current form the bill will fail to deliver adequate solutions? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes and no for good reason. I do note that the Mayor of Auckland has said that the bill now scores an eight out of 10 in achieving faster progress to equip Auckland with a modern integrated transport network. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that the bill has been described as “still not enough tools to urgently fix Auckland’s incomplete transport network” by the same mayor John Banks; “a red light to road users” by Business New Zealand; “almost hopeless” by the Employers and Manufacturers Association; and “bad news for the majority of New Zealanders” by the Automobile Association; if so will she consider amendments to address the concerns of those organisations? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I consider an 80 percent tick rate by the Mayor of Auckland to be very good and we are happy to keep talking with him about the other 20 percent. I also know that under this Government Auckland has at last got its fair share of transport funding. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What other reports has the Prime Minister seen on the Government’s work on Auckland transport issues? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Overall local government in Auckland has been very positive. The Mayor of Auckland has said that not only is very good progress being made on Auckland transport issues but that for the first time in 25 years we have a Government of a mind to engage with Auckland so that Auckland can address its problems. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If any of that is remotely true why is the Government collecting $2.2 billion in all sorts of road taxes with the intention of repairing or constructing new roads yet giving Transfund almost less than half of that—$1.2 billion; why is she robbing the New Zealand motorist and road user in the way she is? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Every Government for a very long time including the one the member served in has taken more money off various road users in petrol and fuel levies than it has spent on roading. Not to do so would lead us to radically increase other forms of taxes which we are not prepared to do. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Given that earlier this year she described herself as “a straight shooter” who “tells it like it is” and who “leaves people in no doubt where she stands” were those answers to Dr Brash’s questions as straight shooting as she can manage or is it not true that she prefers to remove herself as far as possible from Auckland’s transport problems? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As someone who with the exception of 1 year has lived in Auckland for the last 40 years I am very familiar with Auckland issues—more I might say than some in this House. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that the 21st century transport legislation negotiated between the Government and the Greens will do more for Auckland’s transport through proper funding of public transport alternatives to roading and demand reduction— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Mr Heatley will leave the Chamber. I said no interjecting during question time. Please repeat the question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Why do you pick on our side for interjections when there have been numerous interjections around the House including one from the Minister immediately to your left that was clearly audible to everyone here? Surely he should be going as well. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will not have the member questioning my decision. I had given the one warning that I always give. That was not the first interjection; it was about the third. I ignored the other two but the third was made loudly. The member will leave. 
Phil Heatley withdrew from the Chamber. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that the 21st century transport legislation negotiated between the Government and the Greens will do more for Auckland’s transport congestion through proper public transport demand management and alternatives to roading than the mindless pouring of concrete recommended by some other parties? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I do want to acknowledge the considerable assistance given by both the Greens and United Future on this legislation. I believe that it is good legislation because it goes beyond just narrowly looking at road to looking at all modes of transport including alternatives to transport. The fact that under this Government money for public transport has doubled I think is a triumph. 
Larry Baldock 
: What is her reaction to the group of major Auckland transport operators including the Auckland chamber of commerce that yesterday urged the Government to implement the Land Transport Management Bill with urgency so that further steps can be taken to achieve faster road network completion in Auckland? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I understand that the Minister of Transport had a very constructive meeting with that group yesterday. It is hoped to make great progress on this bill this week so that it can be got on with. 
Dr Don Brash 
: In light of the strong chorus of criticism of this bill will the Prime Minister take the advice of Mr Simon Carlaw chief executive of Business New Zealand to “take this legislation back off the Greens and put it right” or will she continue to ignore the advice of Auckland business and local body leaders about the shortcomings of this bill? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I believe it is very good legislation. It is not the policy of this Government to put things “right”. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What is honest about a system that bleeds the motorist of over a billion dollars a year for her weirdo pet projects and is Mr Swain the Minister of Transport saying that whilst Auckland will not have tolls on its bridge Tauranga will? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It is up to Tauranga to decide for itself. But can I say that the Government’s policy on funding transport is just as honest as the sentiment contained in the minority report from New Zealand First that advocated another 5c levy on petrol. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek to table that report so that the country might know the truth apart from what it has just heard from the Prime Minister. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that report. Is there any objection? There is. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does she support comments made by the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues the Hon Judith Tizard who opposes the eastern highway because it will give “the people in Howick an extra half-hour in bed”—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister will leave the Chamber. Members were warned about interjections. Please start again. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does she support comments made by the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues the Hon Judith Tizard who opposes the eastern highway because—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Judith Tizard withdrew from the Chamber. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will deal with the member when she returns to the Chamber. Please start again. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does she support comments made by the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues the Hon Judith Tizard who opposes Auckland’s eastern highway because it will give “the people in Howick an extra half-hour in bed” or will it be left to Dr Brash and this party to solve Auckland’s transport problems? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member for Auckland Central is an honourable member and she said she did not say that she opposed it. What I can say is that this Government takes a well-rounded view of land transport issues. Motorways are not the only solution. Demand management as the leader of the Green Party mentioned recently is an important ingredient. Frankly if the country had waited for the last National Government to solve Auckland’s transport problems it would still be waiting. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Can I seek the Prime Minister’s confirmation that she will not put Auckland’s traffic problems right but that they will be left as they are? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I note it took the member several minutes to drop to that particular pun. I have every intention of this Government fixing Auckland’s transport problems. 
Deborah Coddington 
: I seek leave to table a  
New Zealand Herald  
article by Bernard Orsman quoting the Hon Judith Tizard as stating the eastern highway was not the right solution “just so all the people in Howick can have an extra half-hour in bed”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Solomon Islands—Police and Defence Deployment 
4.  
LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: To what extent has New Zealand achieved its objective in deploying police and Defence Force personnel to the Solomon Islands? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 In less than 100 days the deployment has made enormous progress towards its first objective—that is helping to restore law and order and a new sense of security. Over 3700 weapons have been collected 200 arrests have been made for major crimes including Harold Keke and Jimmy Rasta 25 allegedly corrupt and criminal police officers have been arrested and a further 50 dismissed. This has all helped to provide a positive environment to restore Government services to restore the economy and to reform the public sector. 
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: How long will police and Defence Force personnel continue to be deployed? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: This month—probably towards the end of the month—the infantry company will be withdrawn and replaced by an enhanced platoon of 40 Defence Force personnel. The helicopter support will be phased out by May of next year and as foreshadowed the 35 police personnel will continue on a rotational basis for up to 2 years. Their continued presence after this time will be considered in the light of events. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Was a New Zealand Army infantry company part of the original request from Australia for forces to assist in the Solomon Islands; if so why precisely did the Government on 14 July not agree to that request from the Australians? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The member is quite wrong. The Government did agree to the request. We said that there would be a company on stand-by if required. Some time after that the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer rang me to ask for New Zealand to deploy that company. Within 48 hours a decision had been made and the troops were on the ground at the time they were originally expected. They have stayed there for the full duration of the deployment we foreshadowed at the time. 
Child Youth and Family Services Department—Baseline Review 
5.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: What responsibility does the Government accept for problems in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services that the  
First Principles Baseline Review  
finds to be “deep and systemic” and that “are about more than just levels of resourcing”? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 The Government does believe that the department must have the resources and systems in place to fulfil its functions. That is why we agreed to the whole-of-organisation review of the department after it had been in operation for 2 financial years. That was a long enough time to give us a good knowledge of the real issues facing the department. 
Katherine Rich 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister did not answer my question. It is quite simple: after 4 years in office does the Government see itself being responsible for the failings at the Department of Child Youth and Family Services—yes or no? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member cannot insist on a “yes” or “no” answer. The Minister addressed the question. 
Katherine Rich 
: In a week when the damning house report will be released and when the chief executive was scheduled to be before the Social Services Committee for the department’s financial review is it not just too much of a coincidence for Jackie Pivac to up and resign and swan off for a holiday when she and the Government have more pressing issues to attend to? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No. 
Georgina Beyer 
: What does the Minister believe is the underlying cause of the problems identified in the baseline review? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The Department of Child Youth and Family Services was set up as a stand-alone department in 1999 by the National-led Government with neither sufficient resources nor systems and without an adequate infrastructure. That followed a history of underfunding by the National Government. For example— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is an extremely serious issue. Children die in this country because of the failure of this department. To start saying that it is the problem of a previous Government after this Government has been in office for 4 years and through four Budgets breaches every aspect of the Standing Order and should be stopped. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And that stops too because it is not a point of order. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It had better be a point of order this time because that previous point was not; it was a point of debate. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I refer to Standing Order 372 which talks about the use of arguments inferences imputations epithets or ironical expressions. That is all we have had from this Minister on an extremely serious issue. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is up to the Minister how she constructs her answer—as long as she addresses the question. She had not finished. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That followed a history of underfunding by the National Government. For example the former agency’s budget was slashed by $30 million in the 3 years between 1990 and 1993—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I accept interjection during answers; I do not accept a rabble-like noise. There is too much interjection; I must be able to hear the Minister. Some interjection is fair enough but I must be able to hear the answer. 
Barbara Stewart 
: What proposals are planned in the current Budget round to solve the fundamental problems that cause the overwhelming demand for the services of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services; or is the Minister’s Government prepared merely to sacrifice the careers of senior public servants on a regular basis? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The member asking the question may have overlooked the fact that about 10 days ago we released the baseline review of the department which had a comprehensive package of recommendations and the funding agreed to in order to implement those recommendations. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: On what day did the Minister first find out that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services did not know how many children were in its care and can she tell the House what she did about it? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I regret I am unable to provide that information but I will provide it to the member as soon as possible. 
Sue Bradford 
: What level of expertise and practice management will Treasury and the State Services Commission bring to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services on the new advisory group set up as a result of the baseline review and will the Minister consider adding someone with credibility in this area such as the Commissioner for Children to the advisory group? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I do believe that that proposal is worthy of consideration. 
Marc Alexander 
: What responsibility does the Government and the Associate Minister accept for the alarming fact that about half of the notifications to the department have to be revisited because they were not dealt with effectively when what that means in real terms is that in 32000 cases children have suffered from further abuse and neglect unnecessarily; if not why not? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That specific point was identified in the baseline review: that the trade-off between quality and quantity had been made to the detriment of the performance that was acceptable. That is responded to by the recommendations of the baseline review. 
Katherine Rich 
: When the Minister offers the lame excuse that after 4 years it is still the National Government’s fault for underfunding how does she reconcile that comment in light of the Prime Minister’s statement regarding the Department of Child Youth and Family Services that: “It’s no longer about money. There’s been a lot of money going in so there must be something about systems processes and the ways of operating which isn’t working.”; does her Government accept responsibility for the failure of those systems and processes over the last 4 years; if not why not? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That was exactly the point that was made in the baseline review: that it was about more than just money. Since we were elected in 1999 we have significantly increased the money and as the baseline review recommendations pointed out it did not make a marked difference. That is why the previous Minister agreed to have a baseline review. 
Georgina Beyer 
: Is the Minister able to expand upon what the Government is doing to address the problems facing the department? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: We have already increased funding to the department by more than 50 percent. We have improved the professionalism of social workers strengthened the relationship with the community sector and agreed to the baseline review recommendations. The review has a comprehensive range of recommendations which will be implemented. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: Does the Minister believe that the former Minister Steve Maharey’s $216 million “circuit-breaker” programme to rebuild the image of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services delivered on its promise; if so in light of the damning review of the department exactly what did the $216 million circuit-breaker programme achieve? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The member misrepresents the purpose of that funding increase and in my view that is irresponsible when we are talking about the functions of such an important department. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to consider that answer. The Minister said that the question was misleading and therefore somehow out of order. The phrase was “circuit-breaker” and that is what the Minister said it was. I suggest that if the Minister is going to accuse members on this side of misleading then she should at least elaborate on what she is saying. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister never used the term “misleading”. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Following on from the baseline review and the resignation of the chief executive what assurances can the Minister give the parents caregivers and families of the children who are now clients of the service that their cases will be dealt with in a professional stable and beneficial way for those children? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The baseline review did acknowledge that there were deep and systemic problems with the operations of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services some of which will cause public concern. That is why the Government made it a priority to consider and support the implementation and full funding of the recommendations—for exactly the reason the member raised in his question: so that the public can have confidence in the department’s functions. 
Katherine Rich 
: Does she agree with the Hon Tariana Turia’s statement regarding the resignation of the chief executive of the Child Youth and Family that: “This situation was not of her making and is a reflection of Jackie’s integrity and character that she has offered to resign.”; and does she think that her failure to express confidence in Jackie Pivac plus the placement of three other Government organisations to babysit the department played some part in the decision of Jackie Pivac to resign? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes and no. 
Te Whare Whakapikiora o te Rangimarie Trust—Funding 
6.  
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Why did the Ministry of Health make a final payment of $90665.33 including GST to the Te Whare Whakapikiora o te Rangimarie Trust when there was no contractual obligation to do so and why did the ministry pay $74146.96 excluding GST of this payment directly to the Inland Revenue Department to cover the trust's outstanding tax liability? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The Ministry of Health did not make a final payment of $90665.33 GST inclusive to the trust. The trust received $5625 GST inclusive in recognition of services provided without payment from July 2001 to January 2002 while the ministry carried out a second review. A tax liability of $74146.96 GST exclusive had been identified by the Inland Revenue Department prior to the second review commencing relating to koha payments made to voluntary staff dating back to 1995. The ministry decided to pay the Inland Revenue Department directly for the outstanding tax as the trust would not have the ability to clear the debt because its contract had not been renewed and the debt did go back 6 years when the trust was contracted to operate. 
Heather Roy 
: Of the $688000 received by the trust does the ministry know how much was used to provide Maori patients with treatment by Mr Apera Clark traditional Maori healer and clairvoyant and how much was spent by him and his wife on personal rent power petrol groceries dog food digital television spa pools and cases of muttonbirds; or does she and her ministry not care how this money was spent? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Certainly the Ministry of Health and this Government do care how money is spent. In fact the first review on this trust took place under the old Health Funding Authority starting back in 1999. It then came to the Ministry of Health in December 2000. That is when a second review was carried out. It was not happy with the services provided by Mr Huata and the trust and decided to terminate the contract. It was terminated. They received no more money after they were given—[ 
Interruption 
] They received no more money for services— 
Stephen Franks 
: You know that’s not true. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will stand withdraw and apologise for that comment. He knows it is out of order. 
Stephen Franks 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: They received no more money for the contract other than the $5600 that was paid out after July 2002. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Does she or her ministry know whether any patients were treated at Mr Apera Clark’s Maori cultural and spiritual healing clinic after the Ministry of Health contracts expired; if so how many patients and what health outcomes were achieved? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: My understanding is that yes patients continued to be treated by the trust after the contract expired at the end of June 2001. I do not know how many people received services but the trust has been providing those same services—traditional Maori healing services—from 1995. That is what it was contracted to provide—first of all as a pilot in 1995 then in 1998 it was given a year-on-year contract. 
Heather Roy 
: How come the ministry continued paying Mr Apera Clark $2076 a week for 10 months after a ministry audit revealed that patients were being treated by untrained staff patient safety was at risk there was no sterilising equipment patients’ records contained no medicine dosages and one consultation was counted as three for payment because consultations involved prayer counselling and medicine dispensing; and how can she deny that she has two standards—one for politically correct healing and one for medicine that works because any proper medical practitioner would be struck off? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am certainly not defending anybody who provides a shonky service. However let us get this into perspective. Traditional Maori healing was provided funding in this particular trust going back 6 years. It was done not just by this Government; it was funded over a number of years and the Ministry of Health continued to fund the trust while it was reviewing it. However prior to the conclusion of that review the ministry had given notice that the contract would not be renewed and it did not renew the contract. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister telling us that because this trust was established in 1995 one could probably conclude that the ACT party the National Party and the Labour Party on these matters to do with one standard position for all have the same policy? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister has no responsibility for other parties; she has responsibility for her own party. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: What I can conclude is that this Government and previous Governments before us have decided that we can and should fund traditional Maori healing following the development of proper guidelines for traditional Maori healing under the National Health Committee under a National Government. Interestingly enough we also provided funding for traditional Maori healing when that member was Treasurer. 
Heather Roy 
: Is it her policy to fund Maori spiritual and cultural healing and is there any clinical evidence that such healing is effective; or is this funding just political correctness gone mad? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It obviously is not considered to be political correctness gone mad. As I said in the mid-1990s guidelines were developed by the National Health Committee which were then used for contracting by the previous Government and this Government—[ 
Interruption 
]—and I can tell the member who is screeching over there that it is our Government’s policy also to fund traditional Maori healing so long as it meets the guidelines established by the National Health Committee. 
Heather Roy 
: I seek leave of the House to table a letter from the Ministry of Health to Mr Apera Clark asking him to send an invoice for the final payment of $90665.33 for services undertaken. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Australia—New Zealand Relationship 
7.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: Does he believe that New Zealand's relationship with Australia is a close and positive relationship; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 From our perspective it improved after the last league test but deteriorated somewhat after the first two 1-day matches. Politically however I think the relationship is good. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Did the Government agree in late August to send an infantry company to the Solomon Islands—after refusing and only putting one on stand-by in July—because of a second letter from the Australians with what a Cabinet paper suggests were “more worthwhile military tasks” or because of serious Australian frustration with New Zealand reflected in the speech made by the Australian High Commissioner Dr Allan Hawke on 15 August just before the decision where he said: “The ANZAC relationship is finely poised on the fulcrum. It can go one way or the other ...”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Once again the member is absolutely wrong. This Government right at the start said it would provide a company; that a company was on stand-by; it would be sent if needed and requested. When it was needed and requested it was sent immediately. To draw a line with the high commissioner’s speech which had nothing to do with the connection the member is trying to draw is quite bizarre. 
David Benson-Pope 
: Could the Minister detail other positive comments that he may have seen reflecting New Zealand’s relationship with Australia? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There have been many such comments. For example in March this year Prime Minister John Howard said that the opportunities he had to talk with Helen Clark “about developing further an already very close and intimate relationship are quite without parallel”. Another quote that relates to Dr Smith’s question came from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer who last week paid tribute to New Zealand last week saying that restoring life to normality in the Solomon Islands could not have been achieved without the major contribution that New Zealand had made. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: If High Commissioner Hawke’s comment: “The ANZAC relationship is finely poised on the fulcrum.” was not referring to the situation in the Solomon Islands what was it referring to; and is the Minister concerned about that statement? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I am happy to table the speech and the report of the speech for the member. The high commissioner was saying he was concerned that the next generation would be a further generation removed from the ANZAC tradition and he was concerned about what might happen in the future. He also said in answer to a question about the defence relationship: “I don’t see any fracturing or downgrading of the defence relationship in any shape or form.” How much clearer could he have been? 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does the Minister consider it to be a close and positive relationship when his Cabinet on request from Australia to contribute troops to the Solomons looks at the proposal—and the Cabinet paper itself refers to thankless tasks—and declines to send troops; and then on a second request where the Cabinet paper then speaks of more worthwhile tasks the Government decides to send troops; and does he consider that is a positive relationship when New Zealand contributes troops so long as they get a better job from the Australians? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: One would hardly send a company of infantry to do a job that did not exist. The Labour-led Government made it absolutely clear that the company was there if required; it would continue training in New Zealand until such time as it was required. When it was required it was sent immediately. I have already quoted to the member the high praise given by the Australian Foreign Minister about New Zealand’s contribution. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I seek leave to table the Cabinet papers that show the Government made those decisions. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Child Youth and Family Services Department—Election Promises 
8.  
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: Does she stand by Labour's 2002 election promise that it will “Invest more funding in community-based services meeting the needs of children and families and improve social work practice at Child Youth and Family.”? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 Yes. 
Marc Alexander 
: In the light of the Government’s election commitment when will she action the call made in the report provided by Mick Brown 3 years ago that the department should contract out all tasks—other than those relating to the immediate safety and security of children—to community agencies allowing the Department of Child Youth and Family Services the time it needs to carry out those functions that are best and most appropriately carried out by a Government agency? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Of the 53 recommendations that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is responsible for implementing—in the report by Judge Mick Brown which the member referred to—over 40 have already been completed and the rest are partially completed. 
Moana Mackey 
: How has the Government met its 2002 election promise? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: More than 900 community service organisations will receive funding totalling nearly $90 million in this financial year. The latest Budget included an additional $25.6 million over the next 4 years for these services. We have also improved social work practice by setting up registration of social workers and investing significantly more in training. 
Katherine Rich 
: When Labour’s 1999 child youth and family election promise was to ensure that all State agencies keep accurate statistics relating to their services for families how does she reconcile that election promise with the fact that today the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is unsure how many children are in its care and whether they are enrolled in a school? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I would agree that that particular manifesto commitment has not been completely delivered. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: In light of the Government’s 2002 election commitment has the Government given consideration to abolishing the Department of Child Youth and Family Services as a Government agency altogether and better resourcing the community and voluntary agencies that currently work with at-risk children and young people to ensure that a better range of services are provided to those needy young people? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No the Government has not considered that proposal. 
Marc Alexander 
: In light of Labour’s commitment to increase funding to community-based services does the Minister agree that the proposal for a family support services operational group within the Ministry of Social Development is merely another concession to the empire building of her colleague when this is exactly the kind of work that could be carried out by the community groups that the Government pledged to fund last year—and do it better? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No I do not agree with either of the assertions made by the member in his question. It is almost impossible to comprehend how the member could envisage an individual community organisation having both the mandate and the ability to provide an overarching family service policy in the way that is envisaged through the recommendation of the baseline review to be instigated within the Ministry of Social Development. 
Ministerial Confidence—Health Minister 
9.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Health; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes because she is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If she is such a hard-working and conscientious Minister why is she a Minister who says that the efficacy of Alzheimer’s drugs has not been proven when Canada UK Australia USA Latin America and Western Europe all make those drugs publicly available; or is this just another example of inexcusable inexplicable heartless cost-cutting? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No none of the above. This country has very careful mechanisms for assessing what drugs it is appropriate to fund and I am not aware that those mechanisms and procedures have changed substantially in recent years at all. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why does the Prime Minister not inform herself of the facts before she rises and makes a statement like that when Canada UK Australia USA Latin America and Western Europe—nearly all the First World—recognise that those drugs do work and make them publicly available whilst her Minister is demanding that Pharmac do a trial to find out what everybody else in the world knows and is prepared to spend money on excepting her heartless Government and Minister? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I can only repeat that getting value for money is very important and that does not mean paying any price for any drug that a pharmaceutical company wants. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Is the Prime Minister aware that these drugs are the only treatment available to patients with Alzheimer’s and why will they not be funded? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I suggest the member put down a question on notice with specific reference to the question of Alzheimer’s drugs. It is this Government’s determination to provide proper treatment for people across the range of conditions. It is also a fact that we consider health sufficiently important to have it as a front-bench portfolio. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister might think that health is important enough to have it has a front-bench portfolio but being informed about it is not what she is demonstrating today. She should not—having attempted to answer two questions already—then pretend that she has adequately answered this House by suggesting that the member “put down a written question”. She has been asked why the only drug proven worldwide is being denied to the thousands of sufferers in this country and— 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Speaking to the point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No I have not finished yet. Sit down! I am on my feet. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will please be seated. He does not have to be rude. He had not finished; I was going to allow him to continue. Would he please continue? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member is within a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No. My point of order is that the rudeness commenced with the Prime Minister thinking she could rise to her feet when a point of order was being properly made. If you want to point to rudeness then you should point to her. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will make the decision on that. The Prime Minister rose thinking that the member had finished. The member had not finished and I was going to let him carry on. Would the member please carry on. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You can make any defence for her you like but the reality is— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is not a point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: The reality is that I was making a point of order. I had not finished and you have accused me of rudeness when that accusation lies properly with the Prime Minister. I want to continue on when you properly—what you should have done—call her to question and accuse her of rudeness not me. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member is wrong. He will carry on with his point of order or he will leave. Would the member please carry on with the point of order. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If that is the way I am treated I am not interested in carrying on with the question. 
Corrections Department—Supervision of Paedophile 
10. RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
 on behalf of  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Will there be an independent investigation into the actions of the Department of Corrections with regard to the supervision of paedophile Lloyd Alexander McIntosh; if not why not? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 No. The offender was being supervised 24 hours a day by a private provider contracted by the Department of Corrections. It is entirely appropriate that the Department of Corrections investigate the actions of the contractor and review its own procedures in relation to such contracts. 
Richard Worth 
: Does the Minister agree with the comments made by his colleague the Hon Philip Goff: “We’re fortunate that it was not at the most serious end of offending.”; if so is he prepared to explain those comments to Mr McIntosh’s female victim and her family who are coping with the reality that the State literally stood by while she was being assaulted? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: On most occasions I agree with the comments made by Philip Goff. I think it is really important to say that the department did all that it could. It made sure that McIntosh stayed in jail for as long as possible it had conditions applied to the release it negotiated a 24/7 supervision with McIntosh it contracted two agencies to carry them out and it took action when the conditions were breached. The department did all that it could. 
Ron Mark 
: Given that the Minister only yesterday finally conceded that despite his earlier protestations that there was no need for a fully independent inquiry into the Department of Corrections emergency response unit why will he not now accept that there is quite clearly a need for an independent inquiry into the department’s close supervision programme of Mr Lloyd Alexander McIntosh; or do we just have to sit here and wait until he gets another kick in the butt from the Prime Minister and finally does what we all know he needs to do. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The first part of the question can be answered. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: For a start as I indicated to the member I was always relaxed about some form of inquiry but not political grandstanding. That is why we have taken this course of action which the member supports. The difference between the two is that this one is about contracting arrangements with third parties. That is why it should be done by the department. 
Students—Achievement Levels 
11.  
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What steps is the Government taking to lift the educational achievements of school children in New Zealand? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Our Government is investing heavily in numeracy initiatives because we see it as a top priority for lifting educational achievement. Initiatives include a nationwide numeracy project involving more than 10000 teachers and the hugely popular numeracy assessment tool known as “asTTle”. This award-winning tool allows teachers to test students’ skills accurately identify their weaknesses and adapt and target their teaching accordingly. 
Jill Pettis 
: What are the benefits of lifting numeracy skills? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Good numeracy skills are essential to everyday life and to success. It is important that 5-year-olds can count from one to 10 and it is important for adults to do more complicated calculations—such as starting with a base of 27 and learning to count to 14 from amongst those numbers. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister explain how an increase of 40 percent in spending on Ministry of Education bureaucrats is lifting the educational achievement of children? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I will brief the member later but in the last Budget— 
Opposition Member 
: Answer the question! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister has the opportunity to answer the question before any comment like that can be made. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: In the last Budget the former Crown entity the Specialist Education Services came into the Ministry of Education thereby boosting the budget substantially. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: How will shutting down 300 schools help lift educational achievement of New Zealand schoolchildren? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No decision has been taken to close 300 schools but I should say that spending money on numeracy initiatives rather than on building contractors for empty classrooms would be considerable progress. 
Environmental Risk Management Authority—Policy 
12.  
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Does she stand by her comments about the Environmental Risk Management Authority that “We have established a system that allows people to have their say on those applications and I encourage those wishing to do so to use the system”; if so what is she doing to encourage people to have their say? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 Yes and we have increased the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s funding giving it the resources to run robust public hearings but not exhaustive ones and to build its relationships with the public. 
Sue Kedgley 
: In its consideration of the GE-onion application currently before it why did the Environmental Risk Management Authority refuse to hold hearings anywhere but in Christchurch and refuse to allow teleconference facilities to be available so that the many submitters who could not travel to Christchurch could make submissions; and how do those policies encourage those wishing to do so to have their say on the authority’s applications as the Minister promised would happen? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: The submissions were heard in Christchurch because the application involves a 15 square metre plot of onions located only in Canterbury and because it is a field trial rather than a release meaning that most if not all genetic material or heritable material will be destroyed at the end of the trial. I would also like to point out that it is for the panel to regulate its own hearing practices. However I understand that a New Zealand resident overseas is being heard by videoconferencing even though for a very small and concentrated trial. 
Larry Baldock 
: How many submissions have been received by the Environmental Risk Management Authority regarding the application by Crop and Food Research to begin field trials on genetically modified onions and does that number suggest to her that people are still confused about the difference between commercial release which was covered by the moratorium and field trials which have been taking place for years and were not covered by the moratorium? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I am advised that around 1900 written submissions were received. Although about half of those are form submissions the number still indicates to me that people want to have a say in these matters. I believe that the system we have set up gives them that opportunity. 
David Parker 
: Is the application concerning onions to the Environmental Risk Management Authority from Crop and Food Research the first of its kind in New Zealand? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: No it is not. We have had 13 other field tests of genetically modified organisms in New Zealand already. Those have been for a variety of organisms including potatoes cattle and petunias. In other words the authority has had plenty of experience with these kinds of applications. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Why did the Environmental Risk Management Authority offer teleconference facilities to an overseas submitter but not to any submitters in New Zealand and when parliamentary select committees are able to advise submitters when they should turn up to make a submission why is the authority unable even to advise some submitters which day they can be expected to be heard by the authority; and is not all this just part of an ongoing authority strategy to make it as difficult as possible for ordinary New Zealanders to make submissions? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I understand that one of the other submitters who applied for a videoconference was Jon Carapiet of GE-Free New Zealand knowing also that four other members of GE Food New Zealand are appearing and being heard by the authority. Jon Carapiet I think was on the Green Party list at the last election. Mr Carapiet asked to appear on the videoconference link only at 5 p.m. last Friday. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: When she decided recently that our taxes would fund 87 percent of the cost of the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s regulatory hearings in order to shield applicants from paying the full costs of their business activities did she ensure that the authority received enough funds to conduct hearings in main centres and provide teleconference facilities as is routine for select committees; if not will she provide this funding? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I remind the questioner that when the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act was passed in 1996 it was decided by the then Government that there would be a 100 percent cost recovery by 1999. Because of a delay in the hazardous substances part of the Act that did not come into place until 2001. It was decided at that time that the 100 percent cost recovery was too large a barrier for people working in hazardous substances such as plastics manufacturers as well as for people involved in research on new organisms. I would remind the questioner again that the Environmental Risk Management Authority is a statutory authority; it is not under ministerial direction. Certainly it gets funding from the Minister and as a statutory authority it determines the details of how it conducts its hearings. 
Sue Kedgley 
: In light of her claim that “ERMA makes its decisions in an open and transparent manner” why did the authority go into a secret session yesterday so that details of Crop and Food Research’s collaborator in the onion field trial could remain secret; and what exactly is commercially sensitive about the name of a company that a Crown research entity is collaborating with? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: As I was not at the authority hearing yesterday I am not totally sure which information is being referred to. When information is defined as commercially sensitive it is not publicly available for all the applicant’s competitors to see. This is in keeping with New Zealand’s international obligations. It is of course made available to the authority which scrutinises the application in light of all the information it has. 
Question No. 8 to Minister 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 During an answer to a supplementary question in relation to question No. 8 I gave an incorrect figure. I would like to correct it now. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is not. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: In relation to the recommendations completed on the Judge Brown report the correct number is 34. 
Points of Order 
Withdrawal from Chamber—Hon Judith Tizard 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is some interest in the issue of the Hon Judith Tizard. You said that at the conclusion of question time you would deal with the matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I said I would do so when she returned to the House. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: OK. That is all right. 
Urgent Debates 
Department of Child Youth and Family Services 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received applications under Standing Order 376 from Katherine Rich and Dr Muriel Newman to debate the release of the Government’s baseline review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility and I consider that it does require the immediate attention of the House. I therefore accept the applications. As Katherine Rich was the first member to lodge an application with me I call upon her to move accordingly. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. After 4 years of a Labour Government the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is in crisis mode. That is something that the National Party has been saying for the last 2 years. After years of denying Opposition concerns the Government has accepted that and it has recently been confirmed in the Treasury baseline review. It is quite clear that social workers are overworked morale is at an all-time low caseloads are growing at an alarming rate notifications are rising well above predicted levels and a waiting list of children has not been cleared. The unallocated case list which 2 years ago Judge Mick Brown said should be reduced to zero within 6 months has been— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member and this will not come off her time. I know that select committees are meeting. Members will leave the Chamber quietly if they have to go to those meetings. I want to hear the member concerned. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: During the last 4 years we have seen review after report after blueprint after review after task force and basically all the reports state the same thing. They state that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is underfunded that there is low morale and that social workers find it difficult to undertake quality social work in what are extremely difficult situations. 
I say God help the children of New Zealand because at the moment we cannot guarantee that the department can do so. I had believed that when a notification was made to the department every notification and every call would be logged. What we have seen in the last couple of weeks is that a 21-minute call from Ron Burrows somehow or another could slip through the cracks. When a distraught father rang to talk about things that would concern most New Zealand parents—things like safety concerns for a 6-year-old girl who was soiling herself and wetting her pants because she was distraught about the situation she was in—I would have thought that those sorts of things would be important enough to warrant an official notification. We saw that one fall through the cracks and we look forward to seeing the review of that. When Phil Goff appeared before a select committee and said that there could be a situation whereby a child was kicked out of a whole range of schools but his or her behaviour was not deemed significant enough for the intervention of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services something is wrong. Obviously the threshold for intervention is far too high. 
Some incredibly alarming comments have been made in that review of a sort that I have not read in reviews previously. They were comments like “the entire CYF system is unbalanced and unstable”. The children of New Zealand deserve a department that can predictably look after them in times of need. It is clear that the Government’s handling of Child Youth and Family Services has been incompetent at best. Let us remember that 2 years ago a report from Judge Mick Brown stated exactly the same things that were included in the baseline review. I tell that Minister that there were 57 recommendations in his report not 53 as she told the House today. The last time I checked only a mere handful had been implemented so it is quite obvious the Government is in a bit of a panic to get through the others. 
Judge Mick Brown’s report too highlighted problems with regard to the overwork of social workers and problems with the risk assessment processes and the unallocated case list. One of his key recommendations was that the unallocated case list which is basically a list of children waiting to see a social worker be reduced within 6 months to zero. That does not mean that all incidents would be dealt with immediately. It just means that once the risk is assessed they would be dealt with within 1 day 3 days 1 month etc. The Government has not done that. Sure at the time the Government signed up to the recommendation as being one that it would implement but the recommendation was diluted down was put into the blueprint and the specific nature of that particular recommendation was suddenly and conveniently forgotten. The last time I checked 1780 children were waiting to have their case assessed by a social worker. 
One of the things Judge Mick Brown said was that when a case was on the books things could escalate over time and we have certainly seen that prove to be correct. Members should just remember the names Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. Those girls were known to the department. In fact one of the girls had written in her textbook that she was concerned that her stepfather could potentially do her harm. What did the department do? It sent out a letter that we believe was intercepted by Bruce Howse. Again and again the names change but the facts are basically the same. They are facts of incompetence and of a department that is struggling and under-resourced. 
It is quite clear that some of the things that have been brought up about Child Youth and Family Services would not be tolerated if we were talking about individual parents. Let us imagine that an individual parent did not know how many kids were in his or her care. Let us think about a situation where we asked an individual parent whether his or her child was enrolled in a school and that parent said that he or she was not sure. Basically that is the situation Child Youth and Family Services is in. I am absolutely gobsmacked to read that the department does not know how many kids are in its care how many kids are on its books and whether those kids are enrolled in a school. I say that school enrolments should be fundamental. They should be one of the basics that are ticked off by every single social worker. The department should know basics like that. 
I look back at Labour’s 1999 election policy concerning Child Youth and Family Services. I see it stated Labour was going to “ensure that all State agencies kept accurate statistics relating to their services for families and that this information would be publicly available”. Well there is something pretty fundamental about whether children are in school. There is something pretty fundamental about knowing how many kids are in one’s care. The failure to know that is simply not good enough. But Labour has tried a number of tricks. What it does is to change the Minister and conveniently it gets the chief executive to resign during the week that a damning report is expected on Child Youth and Family Services’ handling of the Bruce Howse case. Yes the Government has given Jackie Pivac the sandbag treatment and it has left no bruises but the situation she was put in is quite clear. A chief executive cannot work in a situation where the Minister fails to express confidence in her work where credibility is at risk and where she has three other Government departments babysitting her work. It is no wonder Jackie Pivac decided that the writing was on the wall and it was better for her to resign. But what a week it was to resign in. I wonder how useful our financial review process at the Social Services Committee is going to be when we look down to the end of the table and see not one person whom we can hold accountable for what has been going on in Child Youth and Family Services over the last year. Everybody will be able to pass the buck and say he or she is sorry but he or she is not able to answer that question. It is just all too convenient that Jackie Pivac takes off for a holiday in what is quite an important week for Child Youth and Family Services. 
In terms of denying Opposition protestations it is interesting how quiet members are on the Government side of the Chamber. I think they know that we are bringing up a lot of pertinent points and they have no answer to them. After 4 long years Child Youth and Family Services is actually in a worse position than it was 4 years ago; 4 years ago the unallocated case list was not as bad as it is now. It is interesting to hear the Minister blame National’s underfunding of 4 years ago for that. I think that is just a lame excuse at best after that period of time particularly when the Prime Minister has said that the issue is not about money but is about leadership and about running a department. I say to members on the Government side of the House that they can try to distract attention and can call together new reviews new blueprints and new committees. Let us remind them of the child abuse committee that Steve Maharey drew together. It was supposed to be a high-profile committee. I cannot find any evidence that it actually met to discuss a very important issue. All the written questions that I asked about it were delightfully fudged. 
It will be interesting to see the results from the reviews as they come out this week particularly in the case of Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson. The member over there on the Government benches can yawn. I say that all the yawning in the world will not bring back those two girls to this world. They were betrayed by Child Youth and Family Services. I think they deserve greater respect given that we are talking about issues of such great importance than just a casual yawn and a quick retort from members on the Government side of the Chamber. There are a whole lot of names tattooed on the brains of many members here—Craig Manukau Delcelia Witika “Lillybing” James Whakaruru—and no amount of yap from the Government side of the Chamber will bring back any of those children. 
It is important to talk about some solutions. Quite clearly we need to see better leadership from that department. It can commission all the reports it likes but if they are not implemented all that they will do is to gather dust on a shelf somewhere and postpone what really are some important decisions to be made in that department. No amount of funding and no amount of postponing the inevitable will make things any different for children in this country. They deserve better than that. Children cannot vote so perhaps that is why members on the Government side of the House are not quite so interested in them. But if children are in need are vulnerable and are being abused they deserve a department they can rely on. Parents also deserve to have a department that when they ring up they know will take their views and their concerns seriously. When a 21-minute call can go unheard unlogged and not acted upon it makes all parents in New Zealand feel concerned about Child Youth and Family Services. It makes all people—all parents neighbours grandparents and citizens of New Zealand—worry about the service that is there to protect our nation’s most vulnerable. 
I suspect we will hear a whole raft of excuses. The Minister had better not dare to say that it is National’s fault because after 4 long years that does not wash any more. Nobody believes that. Nobody outside this House believes that. When people get into Government and aim to change some of the processes and operations after a certain amount of time blaming the faults on someone else just does not work any more. We look forward to hearing the excuses from members on the Government side of the Chamber. I have to say though that I think the financial review process will probably be a waste of time because the Government has conveniently put a whole range of people down at the bottom end of the table who will be totally unable to answer our select committee’s questions. The Government tries to change the faces and tries to change the Ministers but ultimately the problem is the fault of the Government. It should come out and explain its 4 years of inaction. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 It is a bit rich for that member to come into this House and say that the National Party has no responsibility for the situation in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. In talking about neglect and abuse I tell the House that in October 1999 when the Labour-led Government took over responsibility for the Children Young Persons and Their Families Agency that organisation had been through seven restructurings and five changes of name. It was described by one of their outgoing chief executives Griff Page as the most demoralised organisation he had ever seen. So for that member to come into the House and say: “We care so much about children; it would never have happened in our days.” is frankly gobsmacking and beggars belief. It is just incomprehensible. 
National when in Government totally starved services for children and young persons of resources. Its funding in the 1990s completely failed to accommodate growing workloads. It underfunded the agency continually slashed over $30 million of its budget for the 1990 to 1993 term and then wondered why it was so dysfunctional in the way it delivered its services. In 1999 the agency became a stand-alone department—just prior to the change of Government. It was a rush job by Roger Sowry and his colleagues to create a stand-alone department with the community funding organisation and with less funding and infrastructural support than it had had in the past. We knew that the department was fragile at that time but until we became the Government we did not know that not only had National underfunded thrown two departments together with less money and said: “Hope you make it buddies; we are out of here.”—which is what it did—it also had a significant amount of child youth and family funding as time-limited funding. 
What did Roger Sowry as Minister think would happen to the needs of children young people and their families in New Zealand? Did he think they would all magically disappear and there would be no future needs? Why was there time-limited funding for a department that had a statutory responsibility for the care and protection of our young people and families? What has Roger Sowry got to say to this House in response to that question? Absolutely nothing! There is no response at all from the former Minister who should come to this House and explain why he did that to a department with the statutory responsibility that in my view is more important than any other—that is the care and protection of our children. 
We were left with an organisation that was underfunded that did not have the infrastructural support or management systems it needed and that had been operating for only a few months. That is why significantly more resourcing was put into that department. It got the money that our Government considered was needed to do the job that we as Government and the public expected it to be able to do. In Budget after Budget the department has had significant amounts of more money. In fact it had the most significant increase in funding it had ever received in the entire history of that department—whether as an agency or an entity within the Department of Social Welfare—but it kept having to come back for more. 
When Steve Maharey was Minister he asked Judge Mick Brown to undertake a review of the care and protection system which is a critical part of the work. It is very appropriate that that review was called for and then the recommendations were put into place. That made a significant difference in the way the department was able to operate in the most critical area of care and protection. 
For example Mick Brown’s recommendations improved the relationship with the community’s social services sector. The department does not perform the functions it is required to on its own. It is vital that it has a strong relationship with the community’s social services sector and that improved immeasurably because of the actions taken as a result of the Mick Brown report. That report stressed how important it was to improve the front-line capacity of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. That information informed bids to fund record increases in front-line numbers—record increases in the number of people actually doing the work within the department—and to ensure that quality social workers were both recruited and then retained. 
The unallocated case numbers were a focus of that report were a focus of the previous Minister and were significantly reduced. I retain my commitment to that ongoing work. Children received faster service and community liaison social workers were funded thus improving the network with foster carers and others who work in our communities to support the care and protection of our children. 
In anyone’s language and informed view of the department the quality of its work significantly improved in the time from when the Labour-led Government took over at the end of 1999 to now when those recommendations from the Mick Brown report have been put into place. Social worker numbers were increased to their highest level ever and social workers received a pay increase as part of a major recruitment and retention package. They finally got an entirely new computer system based on casework needs and realities rather than the antiquated rubbish that had been passed on to them by Roger Sowry and the National Government of the time. 
That Government had expected social workers with increasing caseloads to operate with reduced numbers of workers no infrastructural support fewer resources than they had ever had and not even a computer system that responded by looking at their casework needs. That was what the party opposite when it was in Government expected of that department. The baseline reviews and events since have made some obvious recommendations. That is where we as members of a responsible party have to look. 
The Department of Child Youth and Family Services has acted on the themes from Mick Brown’s report such as the fact that the department has to work with communities and not be apart from them. Initiatives like the Stronger Community Action Funds in everyday communities have enabled the department and communities to work together to build stronger families where children are kept safe. That is a critical message that this House and the public of New Zealand need to hear. The best place for children to be kept safe is with their families. In order to ensure that that can happen we have to work constructively together to build strong families who can give our children safe lives. 
The department’s chief executive who announced her resignation from that position yesterday has led a number of those significant improvements particularly that of relationship-building with the sector. More funding was provided for programmes like Social Workers in Schools which has been a resounding success around the country. The call for so long has been that teachers are able to observe children in a way that very few others of us have the opportunity to do. They understand when children are unhappy distressed angry or not functioning to the best of their abilities and they know when something is wrong with either the children or their relationships with their families. But teachers are not trained nor do they have time to make the interventions that are necessary in order to help those children. The Social Workers in Schools programme has filled that gap—a gap that was known but ignored for over 9 years by the National-led Government but that this Government moved very rapidly to address. 
That is why I am very happy to look at the investment and achievement of the department in the last 4 years under a Labour-led Government compared with 9 years of literal abuse and neglect under that Opposition party when it was in Government. The baseline review was called for and agreed to by Steve Maharey when he was Minister and supported by Michael Cullen as Minister of Finance because it was clear that the department had had 3 years to settle as a stand-alone department that it had had time to get itself organised and that anything we discovered from the review would not be mistaken for teething problems which are inevitable in a new organisation. So after 2 full financial years and at the start of the third year they said that it was the right time to have a baseline first-principles review. 
Are we confident that the department understands its functions and responsibilities and does it have the structure and resources to be able to deliver those responsibilities in a way that is satisfactory to this Government? The response from that baseline review team whom I want to commend for the highly professional collaborative and supportive way that they worked made it clear to us that urgent action needed to be taken and that is exactly what we took. I also commend the way my colleagues Michael Cullen Steve Maharey and Trevor Mallard have worked with me in a collaborative and supportive way because we all agree that the work of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is too important for us to underfund and treat with the same neglect as has been the case under the previous administration. 
So we took the decision not only to have the baseline review but also to give it the consideration that it needed and then to act on its recommendations. The department has enjoyed the collaboration of the other three ministries—the State Services Commission Treasury and the Ministry of Social Development. Frankly I find it offensive to have the sort of criticism aimed at that review team as has been made by the current spokesperson on social welfare for the National Party Katherine Rich. It is totally unfair to undermine in the way she did the quality and the huge amount of energy and effort that went into the review. 
The Opposition should think about the comments that Mick Brown used in his report. In fact members opposite might want to think about the title. Mick Brown called his report  
Care and Protection is About Adult Behaviour 
 because he knew better than anyone that no matter how good the department’s social workers are they cannot be in every New Zealand home 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Ultimately for every New Zealand child to be safe every New Zealand family has to make that its top priority. In fact it should be its only priority—for its children for its neighbours’ children for its community’s children. For all New Zealand children to be safe they have to have strong and safe families. So instead of suggesting as I have heard Dr Newman suggest that the department should be ripped to pieces restructured and privatised we should all support social workers in what will always be a very challenging job. 
I want to support every staff person within the department in the work that those staff do. It is one of the most emotionally demanding and challenging jobs but it is the most important work. Ensuring that our children and young people are safe is the most important responsibility we can give to every public servant and I know that those public servants put more effort and energy into it than any member opposite ever values. It is about time we started appreciating high-quality public service instead of calling for it to be privatised or attacking it. 
Calling for the department to be restructured yet again would be a total disaster. It is time for us—and I hope that this Government has shown the sort of leadership that finally can get a positive response from Opposition parties—to get alongside and behind the department and back it in its work rather than attacking it. We must stop blaming social workers for every ill in New Zealand society. For many children the tireless efforts of social workers are the only real hope they have for peace and security in their lives. In other words I ask the Opposition spokespeople to stop playing petty politics with the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. Its job and the energy and effort of its staff are too important for that. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Barbara Stewart. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just seek a point of clarification. I know the member rose to her feet but she did not actually call—but I did. Are you not meant to call the member who called? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thought that she had. I would ask the member to call. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I would like to say that the children of New Zealand need a better deal. They need to be kept safe. The Department of Child Youth and Family Services appears to have been in a constant state of flux in the time that I have been in Parliament. The department is in a state of crisis. We continually hear of mistakes. This is the second review that has now been held and hopefully we may get a bit further than we have in the past. 
A picture has long been emerging of this service as one that totally lacks direction that struggles under the weight of public expectations that suffers serious systemic failures and that cannot retain its workforce. The bottom line is that it does not have the systems in place to meet the increasing demand for its services. The Labour Government cannot blame previous administrations for the department’s performance over the past 4 years as I have heard. After 4 years in Government the Minister for Social Development and Employment Steve Maharey and the multitude of other Ministers who are also associated with this department with varying degrees of responsibility have not demonstrated the political will to address the steadily increasing demand for its services and the department’s ability to meet this demand. There is now a review that clearly illustrates where the department needs to improve its service delivery and a strategy to enable this to occur. 
We know that State intervention has become increasingly necessary in the lives of an increasing number of children and we really need to look at the bottom line. What will the Government—the Labour Government—do to ensure that this does happen? It is a dedicated department staffed by people who are struggling with the resources they have. The recent review points out that there are deep and systemic failures within the department. We hear that constantly and there is no action. The department does need to be efficient in the operational areas and it can be efficient and effective only when it has the resources. It is absolutely appalling to hear that the department which looks after a whole range of children in New Zealand does not know how many of those children attend school on a regular basis. 
Now I know as a parent that one of the first things I make sure my child does is attend school. I would have believed that while a child was under the care of the department that would be one of the key things it focused on as well. When I look at the unallocated caseload—and I hear the number of 1780 unallocated cases—I am very aware that people are now waiting longer and longer for help. I am very concerned now that I hear that telephone logs take so long to come to light and the department cannot even find out whereabouts the telephone call has been made. It is no wonder that the public of New Zealand has completely lost confidence in this department. I feel very sorry for this department as it struggles against the huge expectations of the public and it cannot deliver. Many many parents and grandparents have come to me worried and concerned about their children in the department’s care. 
We know that the department is short on resources. I hope that the new resources that have been allocated to this department do help but I also know that the buck stops with the Government. I am really concerned about what is happening because it is dealing with our future citizens here in New Zealand. It is a fact that staff members are stressed. Staff turnover is high; the numbers are constantly turning over. What that means is that nobody within the department ever has any experience to call upon. How can a new social worker give the same degree of service that an experienced social worker can give? I know that our newer people have heaps and heaps of enthusiasm but sometimes the experience that they need to call on is not there. 
I was very disappointed to see that Jackie Pivac has resigned and I hope she is not being made the scapegoat after this last damning review. I feel very concerned about the lack of social workers who are actually going into training. It is extremely concerning that nobody in New Zealand really wants to pick up on this line of work. So obviously something needs to be done about this. What can we see being done about it? Very very little! I would have expected at the very least that there would have been some concerted advertising campaign or something that we could see that tried to ensure that we have the social workers available. 
It is all fine and good to say that our social workers need to be registered. That will improve the level but the bottom line is that we actually need the social workers to be available to be registered. So it is going to be very interesting to follow up on the financial reviews on this particular aspect. The financial reviews themselves will be very interesting. Because of the huge turnover it will be most interesting to see who comes before our select committee at this point in time. 
We know too that closer cooperation is needed between all the Government departments involved in the care and protection of young people. The link between truancy and crime is very obvious and the Department of Child Youth and Family Services does not appear to be the only agency that is working on this. We know that the police youth service agencies are also working on this. So surely the departments could get together to come up with a concerted programme that would work across all people there. 
So all in all New Zealand First members believe that the review is very welcome. We would like to see it actually work because we know that the people of New Zealand have no faith in the department and some of the children they are dealing with are scarred for the rest of their lives with the type of treatment they get and the time they have spent waiting. 
One of the areas that the department will have to focus in on is the number of young P users that are coming into this area. It is important too that when the department gets back on track and is looking at the total review it takes the widest possible view and implements the report. This time around I will be following very closely what happens as a result of the report ensuring that the young children of New Zealand and the department actually provide a far greater degree of accountability for the outcomes that have been identified as being essential in this particular area. New Zealand First believes that the review was damning but it gave the department some really good signposts to work towards and we will be monitoring very closely how they are working towards ensuring that that review is implemented. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 On radio this morning Judge Mick Brown was talking about the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and he said quite clearly that there have been no changes in the 3 years since he did his report on the department—no changes. The Labour Government is responsible for the deepening crisis in child welfare. It cannot blame anyone else because it is responsible. The baseline review is the most damning review in parliamentary history as I understand it. It highlights Labour’s failure to run a child welfare agency that can adequately deal with New Zealand’s most vulnerable children. The report is an absolute disgrace. 
I want to put on record what the findings were. The department was unstable. There was deep and systemic failure. There was a lack of sound data. The department did not even know how many children were in its care. There was a failure to follow court orders. Children were in care far longer than they needed to be. Their time in care had gone up from 163 days in 1999 to 433 days on average now—over 1 year and 2 months in care. 
Then the review went on to ask the social workers what they thought and they said they were stretched too thinly to do quality work. They could not do effective interventions and that was why there were higher notification rates with 50 percent of the children coming before the department being children it had already dealt with. In other words its interventions were not working. The social workers said the Government had an obsession with risk aversion to the extent where they could not carry out professional social work practice. So here is a Government more concerned about keeping the department out of the headlines than about what really mattered to the children in its care. As a result there has been an exceptionally high turnover of social workers. We understand that some 75 percent probably more like 90 percent of front-line social workers have very little experience and that morale is at an all-time low. 
I say to members who have heard what I have just said about the report’s findings: who would have thought this would be happening under a Labour Government? It is an absolute disgrace. 
I want to talk about what happened during the process of the report. Steve Maharey the Minister who was in charge of the department was very vocal when in Opposition about the department and he promised to build a strong fully funded service when he was the Minister. But he failed totally. He failed the people of New Zealand he failed the families at risk he failed the staff and he failed the chief executive because he failed to provide a service that could adequately cope with the child abuse problems that New Zealand faces. He failed to deliver to this country an agency that could adequately deal with our most vulnerable children. 
So what happened? Well after the election when Labour realised through its polling that it was failing in the area of child welfare it decided it was time to have a review. A review bought it time. It took the heat off the Government. In May of this year when the findings of the review were finally made known to the Prime Minister she suddenly realised she needed to get rid of her Minister out of the hot seat because otherwise we would be calling today for his resignation. So she asked that Minister Steve Maharey to step aside. She said he was too overloaded. The new Minister Ruth Dyson said: “He wasn’t able to devote the time needed to the department which is why he decided to move on.” Can members imagine that! The Minister of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services did not have the time to devote to the department. What sort of failure is that? He should resign all his welfare portfolios. He has performed disgracefully for this department and for New Zealand. 
But what then happened of course was a really cunning strategy. A new Minister was put in and when the report finally came out last month the chief executive had to stand there on her own unsupported by her new Minister and take the blame. I say that is a disgrace. At the end of the day when one is in Parliament one has to take the blame; the Ministers and the Government have to take the blame not the people who work in the departments not the bureaucracy. It was really gerrymandering to get rid of the chief executive. We have heard that before. The last time Maharey was involved he actually changed the whole public service— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot use a single name. It is almost like a nickname. She must use the full name portfolio or title. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: The last time Mr Maharey was involved he manipulated the whole Government service to get rid of Christine Rankin so this is just par for the course. 
 We go further and look at the process of this review being presented to the public. I was approached a few weeks ago and asked whether I as deputy chair of the Social Services Committee would agree to delaying the financial review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and to having it at the same time as the baseline review was released. I refused because all the financial reviews are on a timetable. As a result instead of coming out next month the baseline review came out last month ahead of the financial review because the Government clearly did not want the select committee to be able to investigate and review the work of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services as it stood. It needed to be able to say: “Hang on. We’ve done a review. Here are all the changes.” It was a cunning plan by the Labour Government to avoid accountability. Further it knew that the chief executive would be pressured into resigning which would give the Government an ideal opportunity to say: “Well we can’t hold anyone to blame. There’s no chief executive. We haven’t even got an experienced Minister. Therefore we’re blameless.” That is appalling. The Labour Government should be responsible for the failure of this department. The workers there do their best undoubtedly but they are without proper leadership and without proper support. In that difficult difficult area they are bound to fail and that is precisely what has happened. 
We now have the bizarre situation where instead of having one Minister responsible for the department the Government has put four Ministers in charge. I am expecting that when we ask a question in the House relating to the department the Treasurer will stand up and answer it or the Minister of State Services Mr Mallard. The Government has now spread all accountability amongst four Ministers. When one looks at the future operation of the department one finds in fact that there now is a family support service to wrap around those same families who need help but it is not run by the department; it is run by the Ministry of Social Development. That means that whenever we ask about practice issues the department will be able to say: “It wasn’t us. It was them.” So from now on all lines of accountability will be blurred and this is from a Government that was elected to power on the promise of being open transparent and accountable. Well I say this Labour Government has delivered exactly the opposite. 
In looking forward one has to say that the Labour Government is absolutely devoid of ideas on how to address the crisis in terms of child abuse. All it is concerned about is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It should be looking at putting a fence at the top of the cliff. I ask the Government why it has not followed on with the model of the Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland which has a one-stop-shop community-based agency with the police social workers and education workers working together. That is the model of the future for New Zealand—a regional and community - based agency that is built up from the bottom. 
Secondly why does the Government not look at opening up the Family Court? If that had been done so many cases where court orders were not followed by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services would have been out in the public arena a long time ago. The department’s dysfunction in terms of following court orders would have been recognised widely by the public. Something would have been done years ago about this department had the court been open. I call on the Government to open up the Family Court. It has a bill before Parliament that could do it. 
We also need to address long-term welfare dependency because most of those families are involved in long-term welfare dependency. Labour is making the situation worse. Finally for those families who have children but who do not actually want children we should be encouraging open adoption because maybe that would be better for those children. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The debate we are having today is very timely and I would like to thank the National Party and ACT members who called for it; also Mr Speaker for allowing it. Review after review has been done of this department and of course yesterday Jackie Pivac resigned. 
First of all I would like to acknowledge the starting point of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. It was in late 1999 under the National Government not under the current Government. The genesis of the department was very much characteristic of what I think of as the Rankin era under the National Government. For example as soon as the new department was set up a new logo was developed at the cost of $18000. The department had a change of name and even to this day I find that people still do not know its correct name; it is referred to by many different names. On top of that the person who was appointed to lead it appeared as far as I can tell not to have a particularly social work practice background. Ms Brown as she was then had started work in the benefits and pensions section of the Department of Social Welfare and went on to become a senior manager in the Income Support office at Takapuna. She did not really have a substantial background in social work practice. One of the first activities of the new department’s boss in October 1999 was to spend $13000 on sending two managers to a 5-day course in Gulf Harbour—a residential leadership course that cost $6500 a head. It was very similar as some members will recall to the courses at Wairakei that Work and Income staff were sent to. It epitomises the excesses and the lack of focus on what really matters in that late period of the 1990s. 
But of course it is 4½ years since then and the problems have continued after that rather unfortunate start. In March 2001 we had the results of the Brown review. Judge Mick Brown did an excellent job of reviewing the functions and operations of the department. I gather from colleagues today that Judge Brown himself is quite disappointed that so many of his recommendations have not been followed through despite the efforts of many within the department. In some 57 recommendations he pointed out huge deficiencies and gaps not only in the systems of the department but also in social work practice. He said that it was absolutely imperative that the performance and capability of the department be improved to tackle the waiting-list problem and to tackle the issue of children being placed in inappropriate care. He said there was a desperate need for organisational change including better monitoring and better information systems and a need for a lot more focus on staff training and development. For anyone who knew anything about the department that report was not a surprise. It was a much-needed summary of what needed to be changed and Labour said that yes it would do it. 
But the next thing we know is we suddenly discover earlier this year that there is to be a baseline review of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. The result of that has been even more shocking. As one person has said the report indicates that the “entire CYF system is unbalanced and unstable”. I shall mention some of the conclusions of the baseline review. The review team could not even find out what the department’s sustainable financial baseline should be which is quite a stunning indictment on a large and critical Government department. The department’s problems are deep and systemic. It is very unsure about its priorities. There is mismatched effort—too much time is taken trying to meet quotas rather than there being a focus on the quality of what it is doing. There is a large variation in the quality of service delivery critical gaps in information and large problems with basic information and management systems. The report is really building on what happened with the Brown ministerial review. It is time for a change. 
The cases have continued. Other members have talked about some of them. I think everyone in the country knows about some of the cases. The most recent tragedy of course was that of Coral Burrows and we have had the shocking information that Coral’s father did make a 21-minute call to the department’s call centre. For some reason the person who took the call did not identify that there was a real problem behind the call. As far as we can tell prior to any investigation by the Government the call was left to one side without even any record being made of it. Once again I question the quality of the social workers the kind of experience and background of the people who take these calls. I think there are about 17 social workers working at the call centre. What is their background? As a mother I cannot imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a call like that. All I know is what has been in the media—and most of us are in that position. How would we feel if someone made such a call about a child? Could we imagine not taking action on it? What age are the social workers? Do they have any life experience? Do they have any experience in social work practice itself? Who supervises and supports those social workers? What are the management systems behind them that enable them just to miss a 21-minute call and not think it meant anything? I think we all mourn the loss that that call represented. 
The resignation of Jackie Pivac was an honourable move. I congratulate her on taking this stand yesterday. It is obviously a sad day and after 31 years in the public service Jackie Pivac does deserve our thanks for the effort she has made. But I do think it has been the honourable thing to do and that it clears the way for a new chief executive officer to really take charge and change this department in the dramatic way that it must be changed following the baseline review. 
There is a babysitting body now in charge of the department made up of people from Treasury the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Social Development. I say that is all well and good in terms of things like finances and management systems but what about the need for expertise in social work practice which is actually at the heart of the statutory function of the department? I would very much like to see someone like the Commissioner for Children Cindy Kiro added to that oversight body because without someone with experience as a mother and as a social work practitioner who understands front-line social work I do not think we will really get the rigour that is needed given the state of this department. We need oversight from people who actually understand the situation faced by front-line social workers and the need they have for adequate support and supervision behind them. 
The solutions to the problems lie in implementing both the Brown and the baseline reviews. All the answers are there I think in terms of the department itself including the fact that the social workers who work for the department need to be trained properly to be looked after properly and above all to be treated with respect. The staff themselves need to treat callers and the people they are dealing with with respect. They also need to take more care with the families—take a more holistic approach—and understand that the families of children also need a little more care and attention. 
Other members have mentioned and I agree too that we also need to look at the broader picture. We need to look at how we deal with things like child poverty. This Government should do a lot more to address child poverty through things like reforming family support and family assistance. It should support my member’s bill for a universal child benefit. Poverty and unemployment themselves are exacerbating factors in many of the problems for these families. We also need an immediate repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act. That in itself—the fact we accept a law that allows people before the court to get away with having beaten their children with bits of wood or hosepipes—actually exacerbates the whole culture of abuse of children that we have in this country. I think that both in law and in practice we have to do everything we can as legislators to end that culture of abuse. 
Above all it is up to all of us to have more respect for children. As Judge Mick Brown Dr Hassall and others have said in these debates what underpins this situation in the end is the fact that it is not up to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services on its own to solve these problems. It is true that the department needs a huge makeover and extensive changes in management and in practice but above all it is up to each of us in this country to learn to understand and respect all our children in a much better way than we do now. It is that culture of abuse that actually leads to so many of these sad situations. It is not just up to the social workers themselves; it is up to us. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to talk about this rather sad issue and what I have been seeing is a lot of finger-pointing and point-scoring. What seems to be lost in all of this is that we are actually talking about people and we are talking about victims. Just 2½ years ago the chief social worker Shannon Pakura when asked how she would judge her reign at the Department of Child Youth and Family Services suggested that there would be no more child deaths. Clearly that has not happened. We have had the case of sisters Saliel Aplin and Olympia Jetson who were stabbed to death by their stepfather Bruce Howse when he found out that the department was investigating allegations that he was abusing Olympia. We have had the case of foster-father Michael Waterhouse who beat 3-year-old Tamati Pokaia and is pleading manslaughter as a defence against charges that he murdered Tamati. He was entrusted with the care of the 3-year-old by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and he was quoted as saying in reference to the child: “He was making a groaning sound and I could see he was in a tonne of pain. You could see the veins on either side of his neck bulging out.” We had the case of Coral Burrows and as has already been stated her father Ron called the Department of Child Youth and Family Services months before she was killed. We all know what happened. 
The department has a history of not doing what it should be doing. The answer from what I gather seems to be to throw more money at it. Is that really going to solve the problem? I doubt it. Let us look at the size of the department and the resources it sucks up. It is the Government’s fourth-largest department with a full-time staff of 2149; with 989 in the field doing social work 412 in other core functions such as adoptions and residences contracting and coordinating and 748 in management and professional support—such as it is—and psychologists and lawyers. Its current budget is $435.3 million. That is a sizable chunk of change yet let me recount the story of Sade. She was 2 in July 2000 when the Department of Child Youth and Family Services took her from her parents and placed her in the care of her grandmother Patricia Bissett—despite knowing she had a history of violence and was an alcoholic. Bissett beat Sade about the head and body stubbed cigarettes out on her and finally took the little girl to hospital after she had collapsed into a coma. Sade nearly died and has been left physically and intellectually disabled. Bissett was jailed. The departmental office that dealt with Sade was grossly understaffed at the time and the social worker concerned—get this—had just 9 days’ experience. 
With those kinds of resources and with four Ministers who are supposedly in charge and responsible for the department it does a very poor job. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered. If the Government agrees that the problems with this department are deep and systemic and partly attitudinal why would it not agree with Mick Brown’s comments on radio this morning that some of the staff are drongos and need to go? How will this be reconciled with one of the major problems of the department—that is recruiting and retaining experienced social workers? I suggest that one of the most important aspects is to allow those social workers to get on with the job and not burden them with onerous paperwork duties and outcomes that are actually meaningless. 
In the light of the Labour Government’s commitment to increase funding to community-based services how can it be confident that the department will improve its coordination with these agencies as required by the care and protection blueprint given that the strategies and systems for coordination and collaboration will not be established until June 2004? That is 4 years after Mick Brown highlighted this deficiency. With that kind of resourcing and with the number of Ministers associated with it one would think that we could get things moving a little quicker. 
A lot of these children are dying and the sad thing is that families do not trust the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. Time and time again we hear of stories where families are coming under strain and pressure. They want to hold up their hands and say “Help!” but they are scared that if they do they will be punished: their children will be removed from them and their families destroyed. Time and time again that has happened and what benefit is that to the children? In quite a few cases they go to homes that are worse than the homes they were taken from. With four Ministers responsible and so much money embedded in this organisation that is the outcome! Is it the social workers’ fault? No it is not. It is not the social workers we should be attacking but the onerous bureaucracy that the Government imposes upon them because that is what Governments do. They kill the passion of the people who run those sorts of programmes. 
Jackie Pivac we note is leaving without a golden handshake and quite frankly she should not get one—not with the track record she leaves behind. Despite a more than 50 percent increase in funding from 1999 the problems remain. In fact the problems have probably grown by 50 percent and probably 50 percent more taxpayer money is now being wasted. It is not a matter of throwing more money at the problem because the problems are deep and systemic. There is an overly broad set of strategic directions that are impossibly unclear with outcome priorities. That has set up the Department of Child Youth and Family Services to fail from the beginning. 
There has been a vicious circle of problems such as increased notifications and due to resourcing constraints not enough early interventions. The department is able to handle only the most urgent cases so other less critical ones are not dealt with which gradually become even more critical. Staff morale is low and with high stress levels and caseloads they cannot do the job they are tasked to do. As a result of negative publicity social workers are defensive in practice. That hardly sets them up to produce the best possible outcomes for the children and families they are supposed to work for and with. 
The notification system is obviously in trouble and the Burrows case highlights that. There are the findings that 75 percent of physical and sexual abuse cases are classed in less urgent categories and that should be a crime. There is a disturbing lack of information and critical information gaps—for example key aspects of the department’s operations the number of children in care and a trend in financial information. They are just a few examples. Put simply social workers do not see the Department of Child Youth and Family Services as an employer of choice. The department must then recruit new graduates who lack experience. I highlighted that somewhat earlier. 
What is the answer to some of these problems? Clearly we need to re-evaluate where the Department of Child Youth and Family Services can be of the greatest possible benefit. Why do we not ask the harder questions? Why do we have the Department of Child Youth and Family Services at all? Clearly we need a 24-hour emergency service but what more than that? There are organisations trusts and charities out there staffed with passionate people who do give a damn and can do the job entrusted to them. They are under-resourced. Look at the Family Help Trust in Christchurch which is doing a fantastic job for the citizens of Christchurch but continually has its hand out asking for more resources. Its staff do not sit behind desks day in day out answering telephone calls—they are out there doing the work that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services should already be doing. There are the Presbyterian Support Services the Salvation Army and Parentline. There are plenty of organisations staffed with people who can and are willing to do the job but do not have the resources. Most of them are staffed with disgruntled social workers from the Department of Child Youth and Family Services who find that the culture of that department is just not conducive to doing the job they were trained to do and want to do. 
Local solutions for local problems seem to be a sensible approach. Why do we have to have a head office in Auckland Wellington or wherever when the problems are far more regionalised? Break it up and let us staff it with people who care about what they do and do not have to bow and scrape to a Government bureaucracy that inhibits them from being as constructive as they possibly can be. The money being asked to increase resources for the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is ridiculous. If we throw money at it we are throwing more down the gurgler. Taxpayer money should be given to the charities and trusts that already do the job—they can do the job better and that is where the resources should go. Let us cut back on the Department of Child Youth and Family Services—it screws up. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is a tragedy in this country that we even have a Department of Child Youth and Family Services because it is a tragedy when the Government feels that it has to step in and take over the role of a family. No Government wants to have to do that but it is done because families are failing at the moment and they are failing a lot worse than they were back in October 1999 when the Department of Child Youth and Family Services was first set up. Labour took over in November 1999 and today we have had the disgraceful sight of the new Minister in charge of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services trying to blame National which had 1 month in power after the Department of Child Youth and Family Services was set up for the running of that department. She is blaming us for the 4 years of neglect and lack of responsibility that Labour and its cohorts have wrought on this country. That is absolutely a shame and a tragedy to the people of this country. 
Today the Prime Minister has told us that Labour does not set out to put things right. No it does not; it sets out to put things wrong! Absolutely! I would like to know why when Jackie Pivac has resigned and is going off without a golden handshake that Minister Steve Maharey is still on the front bench. He is getting paid the same money for doing a quarter of the job. That is what he is doing. Where has responsibility for the department gone? This particular department has gone from the Minister who refers to himself as having had a life of blameless excellence to poor old Minister Ruth Dyson who has never claimed she has had a life of blameless excellence—and I say good on her for never claiming that. What has happened is that the buck has not been able to stop with Steve Maharey; it has been able to stop with poor old Ruth Dyson. She has yet another unsuspected situation on her hands where she will be able to fluff around make all sorts of comments and try to blame National—when actually National was not in power when all of this was happening—and nothing will happen. 
Today I would like to talk about the work of social workers. I have met many social workers both in my life as a lawyer and in my time in Parliament. Most social workers give a tremendous amount a huge amount to the children in particular of this country. They are people who consistently have to work in an environment where there is a culture of blame on them. It is not their fault when families fail. That is the fault of a Government that sets about destroying the family unit so that people will become more and more dependent on the Government. That is a shame and a tragedy. How many social workers will this country need by the next election? It will probably need another couple of thousand. The reason is that this Government is all about taking responsibility away from parents paying parents to have children that they cannot afford having children shift from home to home depending on how much money will come in the door with them and having solo mothers attract predators who want to get an income from living with them—using children to feather their own nest. That is a disgrace. 
I spoke to Mr Ron Burrows about 6 weeks ago. He rang me to tell me about his phone call with the Department of Child Youth and Family Services in Tauranga. He told me what he had said to the department and he told me that it had said there was nothing that it could do. We have now found out after investigation that the staff member did not even bother to log that 21-minute phone call. He or she denied Mr Burrows had rung the department. Fortunately Mr Burrows’ telephone records showed that he had so that verified him. First the department did not do anything about his call secondly it called the man a liar and then it turned around later and said it was sorry and the chief executive would be sacked. Of course the Minister was sacked too but we are not supposed to say that because he is still on the front bench. Responsibility for the department has been given to another Minister who will at least try to do her best. 
I sat on the Social Services Committee for some months earlier this year and last year and I am pleased to say I will be back there this week as well. I have seen a Minister Mr Steve Maharey come along to that committee and act in a way that I can only say is arrogant. He has a way of dismissing any comment from the committee and any questions that do not fit his spin that everything is just fine with the department. Well everything was just not fine with the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. 
I have had a look at the baseline review. That baseline review states some very interesting things. It states it has come to the conclusion that the particular situation in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services has not improved. It has not improved since back in October 1999. It has not improved after 4 years of that Minister who still sits there collecting his ministerial salary and all the perks that go with it being responsible for the department. Not one thing has improved in 4 years. 
More taxpayers’ money has been poured into the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. I do not think there is a person in this House who would object to money being well directed in order to help the children and families of this country. I do not believe there is one person in this House who would object to that. I think we would all like to see money being used for the benefit of the children of this country who do not have the sorts of families that many of us had—very good families. We would like to see that money do some good but has it done any good? No it has not. The situation has actually become worse. It is an absolute tragedy that no matter how much money is poured into the department we have a culture where we do not take responsibility for our actions and where children are used as a mechanism to get income. That is a disgrace and it is something that this Labour-led Government has encouraged and fostered and will keep on doing. 
One of the things that the Government has stated in this review is: “... we are not able to say what a sustainable baseline for CYF should be.” That is because the Government cannot tell what the data regarding the department are because the department is not very sure about its data. We already know that it does not bother to log phone calls that are 21 minutes long from distraught fathers who are worried about their children—and particularly not at Christmas time because maybe someone needed to go out to see that child. 
One of the things that have happened over the last 4 years is that this Government has been so intent on trying to get the numbers of unallocated cases dealt with that it has actually had a certain quantity of work going on but there is not the concern for quality that there needed to be. We have heard today about the number of people who with their new qualifications to be social workers—straight out of learning to be social workers—have had the buck stop with them. They are the people who have to live with the fact that their actions have not been able to save children and that is not right. They should not be resigning. They are the people who suffer—those social workers and the children and their families—while this Government sits by and does yet another review. When will this Government learn that review after review will not change a thing if it keeps up the attitude that families are not important? 
In my time in this Parliament I have been shocked by the way that this Government thinks it will replace families. It will not replace them while there is breath in our bodies. The family is the central unit of any society. The traditional family is the best unit for children. We see that time and time again. Sure there are some families that are dysfunctional but the dysfunctional ones that we consistently see do not represent the traditional family unit. In fact they are something that has been made up because of the money that comes from the funding of children whether or not they are wanted. That is a disgrace. 
In summary this Minister Mr Steve Maharey needs to go. He needs to go right back to the back bench and to start to learn again. Ruth Dyson who has been given yet another responsibility is sitting there on the back bench. She is in the Labour Cabinet and she is getting all the tough jobs. I am sure she is not necessarily the right person to do them but at least she will have a go. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I welcome this debate today because this Government has been in the driving seat on the Treasury benches for 4 years and during those 4 years I cannot remember— 
Simon Power 
: Four long years! 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I say to Mr Power that they do feel like long years. He should get used to long years because in his young years he will get used to more long years. In 4 years of being in Government I cannot remember the National Party raising this debate once. National Party members say nothing about these issues and I have often wondered why that is but today I think I know the reason for that. If I were in the National Party it would take me at least 4 years to get over the sheer embarrassment of what it did to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services in its various forms during the 1990s. I would be embarrassed about that; I would keep my mouth shut and say nothing. Finally I might creep out of my shell and try to start to debate the issues once again. 
I know a lot about the running down of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. I used to lecture half the social work students who are currently in the department. Mrs Shipley started the decline of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services; it can be traced to when she became the Minister. She cut the department’s funding attacked its training attacked that organisation and began the process of seven restructurings in 9 years and five changes of name in 9 years. She began that process. She was the person who ensured the department lost money year after year and she began the process of bringing that organisation to its knees. In 1999 the organisation then called the Children Young Persons and Their Families Agency went through a ridiculous process whereby the Government of the day the then National Government tried to call it I think at the time the Department of Child Youth and Whanau Services. The then National Government backed off from that after a large argument—as if it mattered—before it set up its last incarnation of that organisation which it had destroyed. That National Government gave us that organisation in October 1999 and we got our warrants on 10 December. That is when the organisation was formed. We were delivered an essentially abused and neglected department that had been run into the ground. 
National members sit on the other side of the House and say we should fix the department. Let me tell the House about the first thing that we found. The department had been left in such bad shape that when we looked at its first budget we found that 65 social workers would have to be fired in order to meet the cuts that the previous Government had built in to the baseline of the organisation. It had built in sending 65 social workers down the road. National members get up in the House today and say how shocking that is. Let me say to them that social worker numbers in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services today are higher than they have ever been in the history of the organisation and the workforce has stabilised in its turnover so it is no different from any other public service organisation. The previous National Government did not do that; we did it. 
We are confronted with a department that over the last 4 years has had a great number of improvements. Let me just run through some of them. We were the people who asked Mick Brown to review the department. No one else did that. I asked him to give us an independent review. We were the people who set up the non-governmental organisations to be a reference group for the department. We were the ones who restored its baseline in our first Budget so that it did not have to fire 65 social workers. We were the ones who gave more money to community groups. We were the ones who saw to a change in its contracting. We were the ones who raised the salaries of social workers hired more social workers and registered social workers. I know that Mrs Rich on the Opposition side of the House hates to listen to this because she likes to think that nothing has happened for 4 years. After the embarrassment of her Government driving this organisation into the ground cutting its funding and driving social workers away she loves to think that nothing has happened. 
But a lot has happened. There have been changes in salaries a lifting in the number of people and a drop in the number of unallocated cases. The National Party did not even have a system of identifying how many unallocated cases there were. It did not have a system at all. When I was formerly in Opposition I used to ask how many young people were waiting to be looked at and the then National Government could never tell me that. Can we tell National Party members now? Yes we can. Why can we tell them? We can tell them because we record unallocated cases. We insisted that we know what the situation is for the benefit of people here in the House. We introduced the new computer system and a new call centre. 
The Opposition member is completely and utterly ignorant of how the call centre system works. She said that the people who are on the end of a phone call at the call centre do not want to record something—that those professional senior social workers just choose not to record something. They do not choose not to record something; they receive 27000 notifications every year. They receive hundreds of thousands of phone calls every year. Many of those phone calls take 21 minutes because when people ring in to complain about their partner’s treatment of their children they take some time to do it. I know that Mrs Rich knows nothing about social work. She is the agricultural spokesperson on the Opposition side of the House and knows more about pig farming than children in the social work situation. But she does not even know how the call centre works or how a professional social worker deals with those calls. It is embarrassing to have someone on the front bench of the National Party who does not even know the most basic ways that a professional social worker goes about recording a notification. That is embarrassing—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Members on the Opposition side of the House talk about the social work area and baseline reviews as if we are not the ones who asked for the review. When we came into Government the department was brand new and it said it thought it did not get enough money. The department said the previous Government had treated it so badly that it had ended up with no money. I told the department that we could not do a baseline review when the department had been in place for only 5 minutes. I said we would run the organisation for 2 or 3 years and then do a baseline review. We did that. The lines in the paper were written by our officials. We know what is in the paper. We do not need people like Katherine Rich to get up and read out what she almost seems to believe are secrets about the department. We know what is in the paper. We asked for it we worked with the officials and they gave us what we wanted. We know what is recommended in the review: $127 million worth of new funding and a range of improvements yet again to the department. 
The only argument that Katherine Rich came up with today was to come in here to the House and say that seared on to the minds of National people were dead children. She raised sickeningly the case of James Whakaruru. I say to Katherine Rich that if she reads the front cover of the report on James Whakaruru’s death from the Commissioner for Children she will find out when he died. He died in 1999. Who was the Government in 1999? The National Party was in Government. The only argument National makes today is to dig up the case of that poor child and say on the basis of that that this Government is not performing. James Whakaruru died on National’s watch not on ours. National members should not come in here and try to use him to attack this Government which has for 4 years worked assiduously to improve the circumstances of children of families and of social workers. 
I want to go back to what I said at the beginning. I know that National Party members are embarrassed about 9 years of doing nothing. I know they feel bad about that. But I think they should acknowledge that under this Government there has been more money more social workers more work with community organisations and more change all of which has been designed to put right an organisation that they destroyed. Yes they did that. We are the Government that will put the organisation right. They know that. We are the ones who can be trusted to do so. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Points of Order 
Withdrawal from Chamber—Hon Judith Tizard 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I would like Judith Tizard to withdraw and apologise for the remarks she made when she was leaving the Chamber during question time. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs) 
: 
 I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Under Standing Order 343 I seek leave of the House to make a personal explanation about my views on the eastern corridor. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to make that explanation. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In order to maintain good order in the House I want to make it clear why we objected to that and perhaps give the member an opportunity to reconsider the type of leave that she seeks. The Minister is the Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues and it is her responsibility to assist the Prime Minister on matters relating to Auckland. The eastern corridor is a matter that is of great importance to Auckland. It is part of a programme of roading that the Government puts a great deal of store in. I am quite unclear as to whether a Minister should use the personal explanation process when she has been quoted while talking about a Government policy. It would be quite improper for the House to grant leave for a personal statement on that basis. Personal statements are usually very personal to the member. There is nothing personal to this member about the eastern corridor. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs) 
: 
 The only question I have which might lead people to think I was in opposition to this proposal is as the MP for Auckland Central. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: I am speaking to the point of order. I am happy to seek leave to table the letter I wrote to the newspaper which had grossly misquoted me. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has made the point. That was not really a point of order from the member who spoke previously but he got the point over that he wanted to make. The member has sought leave to table the letter. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Land Transport Management Bill 
Instruction to CommitteeCWH 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Land Transport Management Bill that it take the bill part by part and consider any schedules as one question. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
In Committee 
Clause 1 Title 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Land Transport Management Bill so-called and I want to make the point that the title of this bill is a travesty of the truth. Far from dealing with the serious land transport problems we have in this country it dumps massive roadblocks in the path of progress for our motorists for our communities and indeed for the economy generally. It is a bill that does nothing at all to deal with the serious congestion problems we have on our roads. It is more than a year since the Prime Minister herself suggested that road transport congestion in Auckland was costing the economy in excess of $1 billion a year. Well last week the estimate was increased. It is no longer $1 billion a year. The estimate of the cost of congestion in Auckland alone is $1.4 billion a year equivalent— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. When I was a third-former in this House I was instructed by many Speakers and Chairs that the title debate was a very very narrow debate. There is plenty of opportunity in the debate on the rest of the bill to have a formal discussion about what should or should not be in the bill. This is a narrow debate and I would appreciate some instruction from you around this matter. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I remind members that the bill has been considered by a select committee. In such circumstances the debate on the title clause is limited strictly to the elements of the clause 
and any amendments proposed thereto. The debate on the clause is a very narrow one. Members must address whether the title in the form in which it is expressed properly represents describes or reflects the purpose and contents of the bill as agreed at the second reading. I would certainly say that Dr Brash addressed the issues of the title in his introduction but he went on to move away from that. I would draw the member’s attention to the fact he is speaking to the title. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I have ruled on this matter. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes you have but I have a point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I have ruled on this matter. It is a new point of order—is that correct? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes it is. There is no question that your ruling is right. A member must contain himself or herself strictly to the title. Therefore I would ask you Madam Chairperson to explain to the Committee the parameters of the word “Management” when it relates to a bill and whether it is impossible for a member to tease out the issue of why “Management” is an inappropriate word in the title of a bill. Frankly no word in any title of a bill could ever be discussed if a word like “Management” cannot be extrapolated explained and extended as Dr Brash was doing. We know that the Labour Party is absolutely petrified that the National Party has a new leader in Don Brash and that Helen Clark is counting the days until her premiership ends. His elevation to the leadership of the National Party was the beginning of the end for the current Labour Government and it will fall because of it. 
Deborah Coddington 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Please be seated. There was far too much noise going on. I will give members one warning that there will be silence during points of order. That is the final warning to all members. Mr Brownlee was speaking to the point of order quite correctly. I will now rule on Mr Brownlee’s point of order. In the point that I made I covered the title; it was covered in that. I do not intend to debate the Land Transport Management Bill title. It was covered in the ruling I gave. 
Dr DON BRASH 
: I was pointing out that the title of the bill the “Land Transport Management Bill” is totally inappropriate because the bill does not deal with what it purports to do. The title is so far off the rails that it must be amended to reflect what the bill really does. I suggest that the bill should be called the “Land Transport Mismanagement Bill”. As currently drafted its purpose fails to address economic efficiency in any shape or form. An outdated dilapidated roading system is costing New Zealand billions of dollars yet what does Labour do? It throws economic efficiency on the scrap heap because it thinks it knows best. Well it does not and just about everyone who wants to fix transport problems knows that. Perhaps the bill should be called the “Red Light to Road Users Bill”. That is how Business New Zealand describes the bill. That title might be more appropriate because the bill is steeped in old-fashioned dogma and is backed with so much opportunity for ministerial meddling that it guarantees no private sector involvement in new roads. Labour knows best? Yeah right! 
But maybe Aucklanders have the best idea for the title. Perhaps the bill would be best named the “Tool-box Without the Tools Bill” reflecting Auckland Mayor John Banks’ comment that “We have the tool-box but still not enough tools to urgently fix Auckland’s incomplete transport network.” Thousands of Aucklanders are despairing that after 4 years of a Government with a Prime Minister from Auckland Labour cannot do the job that is needed. If Aucklanders want a Prime Minister from Auckland who will do the job then I will make it a priority for the next National Government to fix things and to fix them properly. 
Part of the reason the title is wrong lies of course with the Greens. We could call the bill the “Greens Before Growth Bill” because the Greens have done a deal to put the priority on skateboarders not motorists in favour of a “Nandor corridor”. 
I am surprised that Michael Cullen the “stealth tax bomber” has not sought to change the title to the “Petrol Tax Diversion Bill”. That is because the bill allows the Land Transport Fund to be used for any approved activity. Indeed there is no cap on the amount of money that can be siphoned off to non-roading purposes at all. It could cover just about anything. Indeed the bill opens the floodgates of a disaster. The title includes the words “Land Transport” but that definition includes coastal shipping—water transport in a Land Transport Management Bill! The only ships I know that run on the land are those that have foundered on the rocks and that is precisely what this bill will do for land transport solutions. So we could call the bill the “Ship Bike Train Cycleway Footpath and Skateboard Bill” to reflect the Mickey Mouse coalition that put it together. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I am happy to take part in this debate on the title. I shall read clause 1 in its entirety: “This Act is the Land Transport Management Act 2002.” How could anybody be confused about that? How could anybody advise a new Leader of the Opposition showing off his wares in Parliament to make that speech? Mr Brownlee the new National spokesperson on transport is sitting next to Mr Brash. Mr McCully is advising him on how to behave in the House and he gets him to do a filibuster on the title clause. Oh my goodness! Dr Brash should get a new adviser quickly. He needs to know that it is not very statesmanlike when showing his wares as a future Prime Minister to make a filibuster speech on the title of a bill. Oh dear that is not a very good start on his first day. Clause 1 “Title” states: “This Act is the Land Transport Management Act 2002.” Who could have advised him to do a filibuster on that? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I deliberately waited until the member had gone past 2 minutes of his speaking time. The time he has spent straying from a discussion on the title is greater than that spent by Dr Brash even though in my opinion Dr Brash was speaking to the title—he was pulled up by the Chair and the Committee for supposedly straying from the title. Mr Gosche has simply used the word “title” on a number of occasions throughout his speech but he has not at all addressed the failings of the title nor has he been able to mention one single thing that justifies it. We know that this debate is very very tight—we do not doubt that at all—but if Government members take the call they should defend the title. It is just not defensible for them to say that members on the other side have not been advised properly or some other thing like that. We know that it is all rubbish. We know how terrified they are of the huge overwhelming public acceptance of Don Brash’s elevation in the National Party. We know that Judith Tizard is living in fear that her seat is now likely to disappear from under her. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member will come to the point of order tersely. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I am coming to my point. I am saying that the Standing Orders are being abused by members like Mark Peck who is in trouble in his seat and David Benson-Pope the member for Dunedin South—in fact most people in Dunedin do not know he is a member. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member will be seated. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: You get my point though Madam Chair. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I will just remind members again about silence during points of order. It is usual to allow members to respond to the previous speaker. They should be brief; it is not a licence to stray. The member did mention the title. I remind members again that this is the title debate. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: That is why I read it out twice. I could find nothing in the title about skateboards nothing about ships nothing about any of the things the previous speaker mentioned. That is why this bill is aptly titled. It is about the management of land transport in this country—something that this Government and this Minister of Transport know about and something that this bill actually delivers on. 
I would be terribly embarrassed if I were a new Leader of the Opposition to get up and filibuster on a title. The Leader of the Opposition said last week that he would not engage in that sort of silly behaviour. That is promise No. 4 that he has broken already. How embarrassing is that? I tell Mr McCully to look after his new man. He should have let Mr Brownlee make that stupid speech because he is good at it. Mr Brownlee will make a fine speech on the title in the next couple of minutes. He will raise all that stupid stuff too. The members on that side of the Chamber do not have any good ideas about land transport management. Over here we know all about it. Land transport management is what this bill is all about and that is why the title is a very good one. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I was interested to hear that member’s speech but he did not mention the title once in terms of what it is about. I suggest that if we are going to carry on like this let us have a wide-ranging debate and talk about the facts in the bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member can seek leave for a wide-ranging debate. 
PETER BROWN 
: I seek leave to have a wide-ranging debate on the title. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action? There is. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 Madam Chair in terms of your ruling we are allowed to respond to the previous speaker so I make the comment that the whole point of Dr Brash’s initial speech was that this bill is called the “Land Transport Management Bill” but does not deal just with land transport. I ask the Minister of Transport to take a call and defend his title of the bill because how can we have a Land Transport Management Bill that deals with water transport? It would be more appropriate to call this bill the “Land and Water Transport Bill” because it includes barges ferries lake ferries and the like. This Government might think it can walk on water but I have news for it: it cannot drive on water. A more appropriate title might be the “Anti-Motorists Bill” because this legislation will suck even more money out of motorists in terms of road-user charges and spend it on water transport on propping up wharfies and on satisfying the trade union pressure. “Stifle Economic Growth Bill” would be a better title than “Land Transport Management Bill’. There is nothing purely “Land” about this bill in terms of what the title says. 
There is nothing “Management’ about this bill either. There is no management in this bill. This bill will not give New Zealand one more kilometre of motorway or roads. This bill is not about management. It is as Dr Brash said about mismanagement. When Dr Brash is the Prime Minister of New Zealand in 2005 we will see some legislation that deals with progressing the management of roads and road transport and getting this country up into the top half of the OECD. That is what this so-called Land Transport Management Bill is meant to be all about. 
Why do we not just call it the “Wasting Your Life in Traffic Bill” or the “On Yer Bike Bill”? It was drafted by the Greens. It was written by a researcher in the Greens’ office and it panders to the Greens. A better title as Dr Brash said would be the “Greens Before Growth Bill” or as I said the “On Yer Bike Bill” or the “Social Engineering Bill”. It is social engineering because money taken from motorists in road-user charges is to be spent on environmental issues—on cycleways. How about the “Road Cycleways and Walkways Sustainable Development”—whatever that means—“Bill”? But as I said the title “Land Transport Management Bill” is a total misnomer. 
Also just while I am on the point of the title what about calling it the “Land Transport (Mismanagement of How to Draw Up Legislation) Bill”? We have seen today the Minister dump a whole raft of changes in a Supplementary Order Paper on to the Table. If he is so proud of this legislation I ask him to take a call and tell us exactly why he thinks it should be called the “Land Transport Management Bill”. There is nothing in this bill but mismanagement by socking cars and by socking motorists and it will do nothing at all to increase the building of roads the efficiency of road-user charges and the efficiency of spending money on roads in New Zealand and getting New Zealand up into the top half of the OECD. 
It is a totally wasted piece of legislation. It is a waste of submitters’ time. We have been through the whole process. We have taken the legislation right through the select committee and we have brought it back to the House. We have taken out things like coastal barging and lake ferries and we have reduced the water transport aspect down to coastal shipping but what happens when we come back today? The Minister has put all of that back in again. Talk about ministerial directive! We took that out of the bill too. I see that it is creeping back in as well under the Supplementary Order Paper. 
I say to the Minister that if he is so proud of this bill being termed the “Land Transport Management Bill” why does he not take a call and explain exactly to us what there is about it that is management and not mismanagement? What is there about it that makes it just a land transport bill? Or is he just trying to sneak through the fact that road-user charges will be spent on water transport on cycleways on walkways? If he were honest about it he would put that in the title. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I am very happy to speak to the title of the Land Transport Management Bill. This bill moves us from a 1950s approach to transport into the 21st century like most other modern OECD nations. The things in this bill are absolutely mainstream in modern transport planning. The title makes it very clear why this is so. 
First of all this bill is not what some members of the Committee would like to see. This is not a “Build More Roads Anywhere and Everywhere Bill”; this is a Land Transport Management Bill because it recognises that only when we take a holistic approach to all forms of land transport will we solve the serious congestion problems in Auckland our serious dependence on fossil fuels which are not going to be there for ever and the serious air pollution time wasting and crashes that go with our particular brand of transport at the moment. It is a Land Transport Management Bill because it is multimodal. 
In fact Infrastructure Auckland has shown that if we were to follow the wishes of some people in this Chamber and try to solve Auckland’s problems by just building roads not providing land transport we would end up at the end of 10 years after building all the roads on anybody in Auckland’s wish list with congestion 50 percent worse in the isthmus and 10 to 20 percent worse on the other motorways. Only an intermodal approach that says we have to match the mode to the purpose will solve the problems and that is why we are talking about transport management. It is about managing the demand; it is about managing the way we match supply to demand. Heavy freight that goes long distances from Auckland to Wellington should travel by road. People who commute the same distance to work every day should have adequate public transport so that they can use that means of transport. People who do very short trips and who are fit enough should have facilities available so that they have the options of walking or cycling. And we need to find alternatives to transport like teleworking so that people have choices. It is about managing those things. 
It may seem illogical to include water transport in a land transport bill but that is also sensible. The title underlines that funding goes to water transport only when that water transport takes traffic off roads and makes the roading dollar go further. That is the logic behind coastal shipping and ferries being in this bill. They can ease up road congestion because the funding can more efficiently be spent on an alternative route for freight. 
I commend this bill to the Committee and look forward to taking part in the debate that will ensue. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to take a quick call in the title debate because being an Aucklander and hearing some of the things that have been said I sometimes wonder whether the National Party’s Auckland MPs have actually looked out of their windows when travelling on our Auckland roads and seen the work that has already begun. Maybe we should have called it the “I Only Travel in Taxis Bill” because they have been asleep in the back seat not looking at the progress already starting on Auckland roads. Perhaps we could call it the “Auckland is Thankful for the United Future MPs Bill” because at least we have become involved and begun to start something that is beginning to make progress in Auckland. 
We are concerned with roads in Auckland so we are not going to be a party that will stand back solely to criticise because criticism never gets anything done. Maybe we should call it the “Don’t Criticise All the Time but Get Constructive Bill” for Auckland. Auckland is an important part of the country but we also understand that it is not the only part of the country. United Future is pleased to support this bill because progress is happening. 
How does one eat an elephant? One eats it one bite at a time. So we could perhaps call it the “One Bite at a Time Bill” because we have got together with parties that are prepared to take one bite at a time in order to get on with the roads in Auckland. The people listening to this debate will know that business communities in Auckland are very pleased to see this bill come about. They are rejoicing about it as is United Future because we like to move ahead. We could call it the “Everybody Likes it Done Today Bill” if members like because everybody would like the roads done today. Of course that is not possible because it does take one day at a time. But there are some parties in this House—United Future is one of them—that will stick up for and stand and move ahead with progress. I am glad I am not in a senseless party. United Future is making a difference in this great nation of ours. People out there can be thankful that some parties in this House are making progress so that our road problems will get fixed—and United Future is one of them. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 The title of this bill deserves debate because it misnames a large piece of legislation. The bill is not just about managing the land transport system; it includes allowing taxpayer money to be spent subsidising barging operations. Perhaps this bill should have reference to that in the title. If somebody thinks that coastal shipping comes under the Land Transport Management Bill that would be stretching the English language in the definition somewhat—but it does and coastal shipping will be entitled to subsidies under this new legislation. That is why this title is so wrong. 
It is also wrong because everybody who has read the bill knows that it will do nothing to advance the management of land transport in this country. In fact this bill’s purpose—and therefore it’s title—is best summed up by a comment from a Green member at the select committee: Mike Ward who said he hoped that the passing of the bill would ensure there would be no extra traffic growth on our roads. So if this bill is about zero growth in traffic then we should say— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Does he even own a car? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: He does not. He does not have his licence—and is quite proud of it—and that is why he is the expert on land transport in the Green Party! We would be better off calling this bill by the title the Greens had—the “Road Traffic Reduction Bill”. At least that title reflected exactly what the bill is all about which is reducing the amount of traffic on the roads. This bill says that it is about managing traffic on land when in fact it includes subsidisation of coastal shipping subsidisation of barging the enabling of regional councils to own a whole new raft of infrastructural assets and the subsidisation of the construction of those assets. None of that is reflected in the present title. 
If that is not enough I want to agree with colleagues who have raised the issue of the Supplementary Order Paper that has been put on the Table today. It does not change the title but includes in relation to debating the title a whole new definition of transport. Transport now includes harbour ferries and ferries or barges on rivers or lakes. The title should reflect exactly what people want. If people are out there looking to set up a barging operation or some sort of boating operation with transportation across a lake they would not go to the Land Transport Management Bill to see what the regulations were that covered their operations. They would go to maritime legislation to look at those regulations. 
The least the Government can do is be honest with the title because this title is simply not honest in terms of what the bill does—and more important what the bill does not do. This bill will not deliver the solutions that Labour has promised Auckland for so long. The land transport problems in Auckland will not be solved by this bill which is titled the Land Transport Management Bill because nothing in its clauses goes any way at all to solving those problems. 
I hope members take the opportunity to vote against the title clause of the bill because it is so out of touch with the bill’s contents and I hope members also take the opportunity to chuck the bill out in its entirety as we move through its Committee stage. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I want to make a couple of brief comments about Part 1 as we start to get into the guts of the bill. I am extremely proud of this landmark legislation which suddenly now transforms the way in which we deal with and manage transport across New Zealand. I also want to pay a quick tribute to my former transport Minister colleague Mark Gosche who did a lot of the work on the bill. 
I think there will be a lot of talk in this part and other parts about what the bill does or does not do. I do not like to be uncharitable but I want to remind the Committee just how many bills the National Government introduced in its 9 years in Government to try to improve land transport in New Zealand. It was zero zippo zilch not a sausage and not a single bill. It is important therefore as we work our way through the bill to realise that during that time not one single piece of land transport legislation came forward from the National Government. 
Of course the National Government started to think a little bit about land transport. Do members remember the Better Transport Better Roads strategy whereby National was going to corporatise and then privatise all the roads? There were howls of derisive laughter from local authorities which was one of the reasons why National got chucked out. 
I do not like to be uncharitable so I want to move on and note that this part includes the purpose clause. As my colleague the co-leader of the Green Party Jeanette Fitzsimons said it is about a multimodal approach to transport. There are not many people in New Zealand—in fact only a very few narrow-minded people—who want to go back to the tired old days of the benefit-cost ratio. That thing was pilloried up and down the country by territorial local authorities that said nothing could be built in New Zealand unless there was a benefit-cost ratio of around four or so. It was heavily predicated on road accidents and fatalities which meant very little could be done anywhere—for example in Auckland. We have been able to make some progress in Auckland only because of the multimodal broader approach taken in the legislation. 
I also want to point out Supplementary Order Paper 165 in my name which in the immortal words of the Hon Stan Rodger contains “mainly minor technical amendments”. There are a couple of things in there. I am particularly pleased now about the fact that the Supplementary Order Paper introduces the word “efficient” into the purpose clause. Given that there has been a lot of comment in the media about that I think it is really important that the select committee thought about and worked on it. There has been a lot of consultation with the parties who have been involved in supporting the bill and I welcome that particular inclusion. 
This is a good bill. This part starts to define how we will shift transport in New Zealand and how we will solve some of the problems. I commend it to the Committee. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 Part 1 of this bill is a shambles—an absolute shambles. The Minister knows it is because if he did not know that he would not be coming into the Committee with Supplementary Order Paper 165 which is some 12 pages long to change the bill. The Minister has had the bill back from the select committee for 2 weeks and he has come back with another 12 pages of amendments because in the last 2 weeks he has been done over again by the Greens. When those amendments are put into Part 1 it becomes a shambles. 
I want to speak to a couple of amendments to Part 1 for which we seek support. The first amendment is to clause 3(1). We believe that the purpose clause should be amended so that we start to make economically efficient land transport decisions. At the moment the purpose of the bill is to make decisions about funding and when making those decisions we have to have regard for a whole range of Green ideas around everything to do with the road. The objectives of environmental sustainability and social responsibility are included but there is nothing about economic efficiency or the creation of a safe responsive and economic land transport system. We seek to amend clause 3(1) to put that in. 
We also want to amend clause 3(2) to ensure that when Transfund New Zealand makes any decision on funding it has to have regard to whether the funding decision improves economic efficiency in land transport. At the moment under this legislation Transfund New Zealand—which has all the money—will have to make decisions but it will have to make decisions based on whether roads will be environmentally sustainable. The Greens have put all that in there. So if a road runs through let us say three rare ferns and a couple of old trees that will be it—it will not be environmentally sustainable. Every single argument will be around that issue. 
Phil Heatley 
: What about the taniwha? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: That is before we even get to the taniwha argument which is in there as well. There is nothing in the bill about economic sustainability and there is nothing that says: “This road should go here because it makes sense for the economy.” To achieve 5 or 6 percent growth a good roading infrastructure is needed and this bill simply will not deliver it. 
Under Part 1 we also want to remove that silly stupid nonsense that puts coastal shipping into the Land Transport Management Bill. Those of us who pay our petrol tax will find the money being used to subsidise foreign shipping vessels trundling around our coastlines. What sort of nonsense is it to have tax collected at the petrol pump being used to fund a coastal shipping operation and to subsidise a foreign vessel to pick up empty containers and ship them around the coastline? We think that that is nonsense and I say to the Minister we believe that those who pay their petrol tax money will also think that that is nonsense. We can understand why the Minister never talks about that; he is always very quiet about it. We want to see that part removed from this bill because we think it is a shambles. 
In fact this was the Minister who said when he was in Opposition that he was going to stop foreign vessels from going around the country from port to port and carrying domestic cargo. He has backed down and broken that promise. He has forgotten those speeches. Not only is he not going to stop it but he is also going to subsidise it. He will use taxpayer money to subsidise foreign vessels. Not only has he broken his word to the Seafarers Union that he was going to stop it—Mark Gosche made the same promise; he sat there for 3 years and could not deliver on it—but now his Government is going to subsidise it. Harry Duynhoven made the same promise as well and he knows he did. He backed down on it but now the Government is going to subsidise foreign shippers out of petrol tax money. New Zealanders will not get roads built out of their tax money because the money will be going into foreign shipping. 
Is there a cap in this part on how much is spent on subsidisation for foreign shipping? No there is not; there is no cap at all. Later in the proceedings we will move amendments to try to put a cap on to that as well. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 If we go back to the genesis of this bill we see that it followed on from the  
New Zealand Transport Strategy 
 which was released in December 2002. One of the objectives of that strategy was to assist economic development but if we look at the bill we can see that it has totally removed any reference to economic development—any reference at all. That reflects how this Minister has been shoved out of this bill. 
I know that this Minister’s heart is in the right place. Of all members in this Labour Government this Minister is probably one of the few who does understand economic development and what we have to do to grow this economy. Unfortunately this bill was drafted when Mr Gosche was the Minister of Transport. It was drafted as we know in conjunction with the Greens and it was a trade-off with the Greens. 
When we came to the Committee today we received Supplementary Order Paper 165 which will change clause 3(2)(e) by omitting the words “cost-effective” and substituting the words: “allocated in an efficient and effective manner”. Well what does that mean? I ask by whose standards? What is meant by “efficient and effective”? That is just semantics. It is just a little bit of a crumb that has been tossed to United Future so that that party can boast it is the Larry Baldock clause. It is a meaningless piece of verbiage that adds nothing at all in terms of economic efficiency. 
Just the other day on 30 October it was reported in the paper that higher road-user charges and increased fuel taxes contributed to the Government’s road funding agency Transfund New Zealand holding $225 million in its accounts. That is money that has been taken from New Zealanders who are trying to get from one place to another. If those New Zealanders live in Auckland they are penalised even further because they are spending on average $50 a week to fill a petrol tank. Of that sum $27.25 goes into Government taxes and fees but—members should listen to this—only $6.95 of that $27.25 is spent on roads at the moment and when this bill is passed even less of that $6.95 will be spent on roads. 
This bill has no cap on how much of that money can be taken out and used for other purposes. Part 1 is extremely loose in its definition of what an “approved activity” is so we have no idea of how much of that money will be spent on roads. The Government did not put a cap on what will be sucked out of road-user charges and spent on other approved activities. 
The bill also tries to deal with the protection of the environment and sustainable development. One of the worst things for the environment in Auckland is that cars are idling on the massive car-parks we call motorways. Cars stuck in traffic contribute to bad emissions. The worst thing is for cars just to sit there. What will this bill do to expedite that problem? Nothing. 
I have a suggestion for the Government. In 1989 the America’s Cup (Planning) Act was passed. It aimed to expedite planning consent in order to get the America’s Cup village and other facilities built quickly and efficiently so that Auckland and the rest of New Zealand could benefit from the economic growth that that would bring. A planning authority was set up— 
Mark Peck 
: What did Bluff ever get out of the America’s Cup? 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: I say to the member that his Government passed the legislation. If he did not like it then why did his Government pass the legislation in 1989? The Act set up a planning authority to fast track consents so that the America’s Cup village could be built. Who would deny that that has brought enormous benefit to this country? 
I have a member’s bill—the Auckland Roads Network (Planning) Bill. Even though I hate the word “planning” I could not get around it because there was not another word that fitted. “Planning” is a word that has been hijacked by socialists. However I had to use it. We will be able to set up a planning authority to fast track consent for Auckland’s roading network. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is interesting to listen to the Opposition debate this part which is really the guts of the bill. This is where National should have had Don Brash speak because he could have talked about the real guts of the bill instead of wasting his time on the title. But I suppose he will learn sooner or later. 
The two previous speakers from National and ACT should check their in-trays every now and then for documents from the organisation that funds transport—it is called Transfund. The previous speaker talked about economic development. We can look at the latest edition October 2003 and consider the people of Northland and that very good group of mayors up in Northland. I send my greetings to them particularly to the Mayor of the Kaipara District Council who took me in a helicopter with the Mayor of the Whangarei District Council over Northland’s roading problems. He said there were a lot of forests growing there but no roads to handle them; that tourism was now burgeoning but that people had to drive on gravel roads. What did those people get from the previous National Government to fix that problem? Zilch zero zip nothing! Yet National Party MPs up there just take them for granted. 
There are eight more regional development projects for Northland dealing with the problems of tourism and forestry—the industries that are sharing old broken-down dangerous gravel roads. They looked at trains and did not reject them out of sight but said it could not be done in that part of Northland and everybody agreed. Transfund is funding it. Then I turn the page of this document and see that the Napier-Gisborne rail link is to be funded with $164000. The very poor road between Napier and Gisborne which cannot handle very big heavy trucks will get some relief. Local people are so keen on this link that the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and the Gisborne District Council are putting up $100000 of ratepayers’ money. Will we get any complaints from motorists about that terrible use of their funds which will put heavy road traffic on to rail where it belongs and not through that windy dangerous piece of road? Will the motorists who travel that road complain that that is a misuse of their funds? 
Mark Peck 
: I don’t think so. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: Absolutely not! They do not want to get stuck on those narrow dangerous windy roads behind big trucks. They would rather see heavy freight on rail. They would say that that was a good sensible common-sense use of their money. The National Party says no it is not cost-effective and efficient to do that. That is why in its 9 long years in Government it built nothing to solve the problem up in Auckland. Why? Because it had a cost-benefit system that equated a death to $2 million and lots of people were dying elsewhere. The time delay and its cost-benefit measurement did not measure up against road deaths so Auckland just got nothing. The record of the National Party with its love of efficiency was 22 percent 23 percent and 21 percent spending. It let Auckland go; it did not bother. There was nothing sensible about it. 
I will give members one example and they will be very interested in it. The Auckland Harbour Bridge could have had high-occupancy vehicle lanes to relieve a lot of the pressure but nobody would do it. Why not? Because it would have interfered with the cost-benefit ratio on the North Shore busway. They wanted the busway because it was absolutely sensible to have it but if in the meantime they put a high-occupancy vehicle lane on the Auckland Harbour Bridge then they would never have been able to build the busway. That was the madness that National oversaw for 9 years. That was the economic efficiency that Dr Brash is so proud of and that Mr Key and Mr Sowry will speak about. What a shambles! National did not use the opportunities when it was in Government for 9 years and that is why voters rejected it and chucked it out. 
Members on this side of the Chamber will use the money in the best possible way and that is why we are putting these words in the bill—because we want to see decent roads to deal with logging traffic and tourism in Northland. We have to spend money on that. The Government put in 100 percent of the funding of roads in Northland. It did not have to get a cent from the ratepayers that Dr Lockwood Smith is supposed to represent. Did his ratepayers have to spend any money on that? Not a cent! He says that building decent roads in his electorate to deal with tourist and logging traffic—which should not be mixing together on gravel roads—is a terrible waste of money. He also says that we should not dare to take heavy traffic off a skinny little dangerous road between Gisborne and Napier because that is not a sensible thing to do with taxpayers’ money. People will be laughing at the National Party in those parts of New Zealand. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I listened with great interest to the last speaker and I concur with everything he said. Yesterday at a mayoral forum in Whangarei the mayors of Northland told us to go easy on the Government on the issue of transport because of the goodies that we have just heard about. I willingly acknowledge the work that the Government has done in the last 3 years and the extensive changes that have taken place and are about to take place. If the Government can find a few more dollars for the railway all the better. The issue is that the work has been done and accomplished and more visible evidence is yet to be seen. 
It was our good luck perhaps that we—being from a region in Northland that has foresight and knows how these things work—took up the challenge of an integrated transport study gave a regional face to Northland transport issues had the agreement of territorial bodies and put together a regional plan that gained Government acceptance. But that was not accomplished under this bill—it was accomplished under the cost-benefit situation that the member spoke about plus additional Government funding. The big problem with this bill is the very issue that the last member spoke about which is funding. 
I say to my National Party friends who sit to my right that I have heard some of the debate so far. I concur that between 1993 and 1999 we in Northland awaited developments—with a white paper a green paper and I think a pink paper and any other paper—but nothing took place before the election of 1999. Nothing happened. As a New Zealand First member my position is that the old party did not do it. In this city we spent numerous hours discussing it—paper after paper—with an optimistic Minister and nothing happened. The Hon Maurice Williamson the man who now sits behind me was in that very position in 1999. I say to my National Party friends that he appeared 2 weeks before the election in 1999 and assured us that things would happen. So New Zealand First members do not come to this issue with any great optimism about what our friends on the right might do. They did nothing in this regard. 
But I also say to the party across the House which says that this transport bill is the best it has ever seen that one thing we have to thank the Government for is its understanding for a time that the transport issues in Northland came about under the present regime. So when we look at the issues we will be debating in Part 2 we see that at the end of the exercise they will all come back not to all the fine speeches we made in this House in defence of this bill or to those that will be made opposing the points in the bill but to one simple issue: after all the talk have the objectives set out in Part 2 the ability to be achieved in funding terms? The answer will be no. We have already heard that from the Minister of Finance and we have heard it in various ways from the other side. 
So on behalf of New Zealand First I point out that there is an alternative. It is presented in the minority report and as we go through each of those sections we ought to think very carefully about it. The funding answer in this bill which is espoused by some parties in this House is not fair and reasonable when motorists are paying an unused share of the road levy at the present time. To that end we do not support this bill. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 In speaking to Part 1 of this bill I want to address the question of efficiency which has dogged the argument about the Land Transport Management Bill since it was first introduced and has I must say generated a great deal more heat than light. Efficiency used to be the objective of transport legislation but nobody could figure out what “efficient” actually meant. It seemed to mean that we had to meet a cost-benefit ratio and the way that cost-benefit ratio was calculated was a black box that nobody else could get inside. It gave huge weight to the saving by very large numbers of people of fractions of a second but no weight at all to what was happening on rural roads. So I came to this bill with a very jaundiced idea of what “efficient” had actually led to in the past under the previous Government and under the previous legislation. 
The Greens of course wanted to ensure from the beginning that the funding for transport was allocated in a cost-effective way and that I think is a word everybody can understand. So in the bill as introduced the purpose clause states that it “ensures that land transport funding is cost-effective;”. That seemed to us to say what needed to be said. However we have agreed readily to the change in Supplementary Order Paper 165 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain which states that instead of the funding being cost-effective it should be “allocated in an efficient and effective manner”. That is absolutely fine. We want to see the funding allocated efficiently. Nobody wants to see transport money wasted or used inefficiently or ineffectively. I personally do not see that the amendment makes a lot of difference to the outcome but I am perfectly happy to support that change. 
Another thing in the Supplementary Order Paper that I want to draw attention to is the definition of land transport options and alternatives. Land transport options and alternatives have to be considered now at all levels before funding is allocated. This is a piece of legislation that states we should not just rush in and build something until we have looked at the need we are addressing at the various options for addressing that need and at which of those options will address that need most effectively and most efficiently for the least amount of money. It goes on to state that then having looked at those options we should go and build the best one or otherwise we will end up with a lot of white elephants because we did not do our homework properly. So options and alternatives are a key part of the decision making in this bill. 
What the change in the Supplementary Order Paper has done is to clarify that land transport options and alternatives include demand management options and alternatives. Only if we start looking at the demand side of the equation can we prevent the constant increase in demand for transport jamming up whatever roads we build. It is now well understood internationally that if all that people ever do to deal with transport demand is to build more road space they actually induce more demand the road space fills up as fast as they build it and things continue to get worse. So we have to look at some more creative alternatives. There is a whole raft of things that some councils are already doing and they are things that regional land transport strategies will have to look at in order to provide different ways of meeting the demand. 
My favourite example—I know the Minister likes it too but it is only one of many examples—is the walking school bus. We all know that on weekdays when schools are open traffic congestion on the Auckland motorways is much much worse than it is during school holidays and it is that way simply because so many parents drive one child to school. We also know that the safety situation and the congestion outside school gates at half past 8 in the morning is so extreme with vehicles milling around and parents letting children on and off that it has made it unsafe for other children to walk and cycle to school when they would otherwise have liked to do so. We can have the Auckland roads as uncongested on school days as they are during school holidays if we promote all the other safe effective ways of getting children to school rather than each of them being delivered by a parent in a separate car. The walking school buses which provide supervision for large groups of children to walk to school safely have a whole lot of other benefits as well. They are supported by the people who are into health and exercise. They mean fresh air for children rather than keeping them cooped in cars all the time. Walking school buses are better for children’s development than going to school by car. They experience the world around them rather than just sitting in a motor vehicle. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to address some comments to Part 1 particularly the purpose clause and to make some reference to the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 153 and 158 which I have on the Table. The first amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 153 does address the issue of efficiency in subclause (1) of the purpose clause. Based on the comments made in the speech given by the Hon Roger Sowry I look forward to National’s support for that amendment. I can tell Mr Sowry that he need not bother writing his own amendment as he is recommending exactly the same things that I have put in my amendment. We do need to see efficiency mentioned in the bill and I welcome the Minister’s reference in his speech earlier to what he has adopted in Supplementary Order Paper 165 in his name. That is the second Supplementary Order Paper on the Table and it omits the word “cost-effective” and substitutes the words “allocated in an efficient and effective manner”. 
When we went through the submissions—and I admit I did not get to hear them all because the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee meets at the same time as the Local Government and Environment Committee—we heard that many many people were crying out for efficiency to be put into this bill and we have taken that very very seriously. We will be glad for the amendments that are passed during the Committee stage. Even though the ACT member has called them crumbs we in United Future are happy to make any amendments we can to the legislation in order to improve it. If we were to look at the crumbs that ACT may have we would see of course that ACT would be very very hungry for some time—very few amendments are ever made through its efforts. 
This bill does take a multimodal approach to transport and as I said in my second reading speech we do support that multimodal approach. But as I also said then the reason we want to see efficiency mentioned in the purpose clause—and also in connection with clause 20(3)(c) which Jeanette Fitzsimons referred to earlier so that it further strengthens the need for efficiency—is that the multimodal approach must be balanced by the requirement for efficiency. We welcome some of the common-sense approaches that are incorporated in this bill and the things that will come out of it. Certainly the walking buses are a great idea. They do help to improve some things but in no way can they solve Auckland’s problems or Tauranga’s problems and that is the problem with the ideology that lies behind the multimodal approach. 
I am astounded to hear Jeanette Fitzsimons say she does not understand what efficiency is and that she cannot define it. I will help her out this afternoon by giving her a definition of what United Future understands efficiency to be and telling her why we want efficiency to be included in this bill. We are not talking about the old cost-benefit ratio where we had to have a person die on a corner of a road in order to get that road fixed. Efficiency relates to the efficient movement of people and goods around a transport system. That is the definition of “efficiency” that United Future has adopted. It means that when people move around this country they can do so in an efficient manner without spending hours and hours sitting in traffic. It means that when producers—the people who work hard to produce the goods that keep our economy going—want to move their products to the market they can also do so in an efficient manner. 
The issue is not about spending money efficiently. After all every Government department should be spending its money wisely and efficiently. But land transport is about having an efficient system— 
Peter Brown 
: What are you talking about? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: That member obviously has not caught on because I have said before that an efficient system is one that moves goods and people around this country in a manner that does not waste time. I will not use the word “efficient” again so he cannot come back at me with that argument but I refer to a system that moves people around without having them waste time. Delays are inefficient. Surely we all understand that. What we want to see in this bill is that if we are to allow for a subsidy for rail or for walking and cycling in order to get people off the roads that subsidy is balanced by the requirement to prove that it will contribute to the overall efficient system that we are developing. The land transport system that we want in this country is one that will be efficient for everybody not just for cyclists or for those who want to walk. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I call Mark Peck. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. It is a tradition in this Parliament that you go from side to side of the Chamber. The person on his feet was sitting on the Government side of the Chamber and in fact earlier in the debate when I went to take a call you went from the Opposition side over to the United Future side and then came back. You cannot classify United Future as being part of the Government for some calls and then as part of the Opposition side for others. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No the member is not correct. It is not a Government party. I call Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. You had called me. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I call Mr Mark Peck. 
MARK PECK 
: I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 In speaking to Part 1 of this Land Transport Management Bill I can understand why Mark Peck wants to close down the debate. The Government ought to be ashamed of this bill and of the pathetic weak Minister in the chair Paul Swain who is being pushed around by Jeanette Fitzsimons for God’s sake! Members should read clause 3 “Purpose”. Subclause (2) provides that this legislation will improve social and environmental responsibility in land transport. But our people around Auckland want some roads to be built. That Minister and his Government closed down the debate on the Penlink toll road legislation last year. They would not allow that to go ahead because Jeanette Fitzsimons did not want it to go ahead. This weak Minister kowtows to Jeanette Fitzsimons! That is pathetic. Meanwhile the other day as I tried to get to Auckland the traffic jam was right back to the end of Windy Ridge just past Warkworth. 
I say to the Minister in the chair that this legislation will not solve that problem. As may be seen in Part 1 this pathetic legislation has more to do with the Greens doing deals with Labour than with solving the problem—and the purpose clause reveals that totally; it shows there are backroom deals. Jeanette Fitzsimons has told us today this is not a bill for roads. The Greens do not want to see more traffic on our roads—the Greens have already told us that—so we know that this bill is not a bill for roads. Why does this Minister think all those business organisations in New Zealand who know something about financing and construction say that this legislation will not work? 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Not all of them. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: Almost invariably they all say it will not work. The Minister can probably find one obscure business group somewhere that may say it is possible this legislation will work but almost without exception they all say it will not work. When we read the purpose clause we find it is obvious why the legislation will not work: because the focus is on social and environmental issues and on long-term planning. Again we have heard from Jeanette Fitzsimons what that means: long-term planning so that nothing ever happens. Then we turn to clause 4 and find that is all about the Treaty of Waitangi—more roads around the country being held up by taniwha. 
This Minister has got to get his act together. He is being pushed around by Jeanette Fitzsimons on this legislation and that is clear in Part 1. He is being pushed around by officials when it comes to road safety issues. He is not prepared to take a stand himself based on research. He lets the officials push him around. The death of New Zealanders will be on this Minister’s head because this legislation will not result in building better roads in order to save lives. The changes to transport enforcement that the Minister is proposing will result in more accidents and more deaths. Research is starting to show us that fact. 
As we debate Part 1 I am angry about this legislation because it so clearly makes it— 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: There are great roads up there. The member knows absolutely nothing about this. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH 
: I say to the Government that the Environment Court has just ruled that this Government is so useless at making progress on roading that the court wants the Government to be back in court next year. The court has extended the use of the link road at the end of the northern motorway for only 10 months and the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2 (ALPURT B2) has a build time of 3 years. The Environment Court does not trust this Minister; it knows that this legislation will do nothing. So the Environment Court wants the Government to be back in court in 10 months’ time because it knows there will be no progress and it wants to keep the heat on this Minister and this Government. The Environment Court does not trust the Government. That is the only explanation as to why when the court knows the build time for the road is 3 years it wants the Government to be back in court in just 10 months. 
In conclusion I emphasise that when we look at Part 1 which contains principally the purpose of the bill and the definitions we see clearly that this bill will not result in more roads for New Zealand. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The Minister well knows that this bill is not going to do the job on a nationwide basis and it most certainly is not going to do the job for Auckland. He knows that. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: It’s a start. 
PETER BROWN 
: It is hardly going to be a start. Little or nothing will occur before he has to bring in more legislation to address the Auckland problem. This is just farcical. The Government has bought into the Greens—lock stock and barrel. I think someone said earlier that this bill should be called the “Traffic Reduction Bill” that the Greens had. It would have been more honest to use the title of Jeanette Fitzsimons’ member’s bill. 
This bill produces a framework for road tolling. I do not know where Paul Swain the Minister in the chair is on this. He looks as if he is all at sea and is quite clearly out of his depth when it comes to road traffic management. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
PETER BROWN 
: Just before the dinner break I was endeavouring to emphasise the huge importance of roading in this country. We need more roads and we need better roads. There can be no argument on that. The influence the Greens have had on this bill is dramatic unnecessary and will be to the detriment of New Zealand as a whole for quite some time. The key to developing our roading is funding. New Zealand First will not support a generic tolling regime. I want to make that quite clear. That is not necessarily saying that we are against tolling per se but we will not accept a generic tolling regime. That is what this bill does. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: No it doesn’t. 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes it does. I invite the member to read the commentary and then she will understand a little bit more about it. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Read the bill. 
PETER BROWN 
: I would be curious to know what that member knows about this bill. 
John Carter 
: Or any bill. 
PETER BROWN 
: Or probably any bill but I could write in block capitals on the back of a postage stamp what that member knows about this bill. 
We believe that the motorist in this country has been paying unnecessarily for other things when the funding should have gone into roading. First and foremost we would like to see that 18.5c back into roading—not on a one-hit basis but on a gradual basis. 
Larry Baldock 
: How gradual? 
PETER BROWN 
: I think we could do it over 5 years. That is my opinion but I am not talking about one-hit stuff. I am aware that some time ago the Minister of Finance—I think it was mid-September—told this Chamber that an economic report was being compiled presumably by the Treasury that would say why this 18.5c was essential to the Government’s coffers. In answer to a question he made reference to the Minister of Transport saying that he would consult with the Minister. 
Larry Baldock 
: I asked the question. 
PETER BROWN 
: I think Mr Baldock asked the supplementary question and I followed up with a point of order. As I recall he was going to consult the Minister of Transport about releasing this report to all MPs. That was my point of order and he assured the Chamber that he would. I have not seen it. Has Mr Baldock seen it? 
Larry Baldock 
: It’s still coming. 
PETER BROWN 
: I know that the officials have not seen it. When I asked the officials at the select committee they were not aware of this economic report about the 18.5c. But on the basis that there is some substance to that—I want to make this quite clear because the Prime Minister was confused in an answer to the Rt Hon Winston Peters earlier on this afternoon—New Zealand First would look at a different regime of funding. We would look at funding based on a regional fuel tax. It is far better than tolling. Look at the latest toll road in Tauranga. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 It is not true that the Land Transport Management Bill is good for nothing. In my opinion it has two very fine uses: the first could be as a doorstop. If doused in petrol its second use could be as a Little Lucifer fire-starter. What it will not do is fix New Zealand’s roads or Auckland’s roads. 
I want to put this in perspective: if this legislation were used to construct the Flemington track where the Melbourne Cup was run today we would not need gallopers we would need hurdlers. They would have to be good hurdlers. They would have to jump over hurdles so high that they would be unbelievable. This legislation is drafted by the Greens for the Greens. It is all about coalition arrangements and all about walking buses around the Coromandel. It has nothing to do with the $1.4 billion of economic activity that is just not happening in Auckland. 
We have sat through this debate and heard some self-congratulatory speeches from the Labour Party. What a load of nonsense! What a load of waffle! If the Minister’s own officials cannot provide him with the information I will do so myself. Never let the facts get involved with a good story! That has a helluva lot to do with Part 1 which is meant to fix the problem outlined by the Government. We have been told that Auckland roads are being fixed because the Labour Government is spending more money. Let me just point this little fact out: in the 2002-03 period $151 million was spent on Auckland’s roads. It was up from $89 million. That is quite correct. That is an increase of about $80 million—$80 million out of the $256 million that was raised on the 4.7c petrol tax. 
Just before the Government goes round congratulating itself on what a wonderful job it has done fixing New Zealand’s roads I want to say that it has failed miserably and is a disgrace. This legislation is so bad that the Minister went up and down the country begging people to oppose it. He said he wanted people to write the strongest submissions they could because this was the biggest load of rubbish they had ever seen in their lives and had nothing to do with fixing roads. What he said was: “Look very quietly this is about a coalition agreement with the Greens. I have not drafted it. It has not come from my officials. It has not come out of my office. It has come out of some woofter in the Greens—and Heather Simpson.” That is what has happened. 
I want to tell members how much worse it has become. Not only has this legislation now come out of the Greens but I sat on that select committee—day after day hour after hour—and begged the Labour members to put efficiency into the clause. I was on my hands and knees begging them for efficiency. Do members know what they told me? They gave me the old “deer in the headlights” look. There was no response from Paul Swain’s office. He did not want to know because he was too busy booming up the coalition arrangement and being Helen Clark’s lapdog. That is what this bill is all about. That is what was happening. 
Lo and behold what do we see? Efficiency has now been introduced. Why? Because United Future wandered over and said it might not be good for much or contributed much but if the Government did not put efficiency in United Future would not like it either. Mr Swain said: “What the hell when we are forming legislation that is good for a coalition negotiation who cares whether it fixes roads! That is not our objective.” 
This legislation has failed so miserably that I do not know why I am going on to discuss the individual bits of it. It is so bad that after asking people to campaign against his bill Mr Swain gave up and set up the joint officials group. We all know that at a date between 15 and 17 December it will come back and say that this hopeless legislation is a waste of space but do not worry about it because we have our coalition agreement tied up and here is the real deal we will present to the people of Auckland. That is now called blatant vote buying. We have tied up the old coalition arrangements so now we will get out there and try and hoodwink the good people of Auckland. Well it will not work because they are good in the Labour Party at babysitting the settlers. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I did not have the opportunity to be on the select committee that considered this bill. But as an ordinary New Zealander who has a car who pays petrol tax and who in the past has had vehicles that incurred road-user charges I like most other New Zealanders thought that the money collected from road users actually was spent on improving roads. We thought this Land Transport Management Bill would solve the traffic problems around New Zealand—Auckland’s traffic problems in particular and the big problems here in Wellington—and what do we find? This is a piece of politically correct rubbish. I tell you what you know here we are talking about a bill— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Please do not bring me into the debate. You used the word “you”. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Oh! I apologise Mr Chairman. I meant the Minister of Transport—the Minister sitting next to you in the chair who was falling asleep until you did what you did and woke him up. 
 When we look at this bill to see what its objective is we see that it is to protect and to promote public health. When we talk about transport petrol tax and road-user chargers most New Zealanders think we are actually talking about roads. I would like the Minister to stand up to take a call to explain to New Zealanders who see this bill as the answer to New Zealand’s traffic problems what protecting and promoting public health have to do with transport. The question is whether we need improved roads in New Zealand and the answer is a huge “Yes” as we all know because poor roading holds back progress and productivity. All those poor people sitting in traffic jams every day end up wasting their lives; they are not able to get on and drive their own productivity and the productivity of the country. 
Nowhere is worse off than Northland with the Orewa to Puhoi link road for the northern motorway sitting incomplete because this Minister does not have the courage to do something about it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will withdraw and apologise for challenging the Minister’s courage. That is not permitted in the Chamber. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I withdraw and apologise. I did not know that “courage” was a word we were not allowed to use in this House. However— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My understanding of the Standing Orders is that when a member has had a point of order drawn to his or her attention in respect of a matter there can be no reference to it. It is very clear in the Standing Orders that questions of courage cannot be raised in this House. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: A lack of courage. The member will continue. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: The point is that the Minister being Minister has had the opportunity to try to help to push forward the completion of the northern motorway. He has completely and utterly failed in that regard. We have our major State Highway 1 weaving through a residential area and stopping dead in the middle of a paddock. It is costing the region $1 million a week—that is Transit New Zealand’s figure—in lost productivity. The Minister is busy telling everybody this bill will be the answer. That is an absolute load of rubbish and the Minister knows it. By the time the Government goes through this process—if anybody will go into a partnership with the Government to help to build a toll road—that bit of road will be about 10 to 15 years away. By then all the consents for it will have lapsed and we will have to go through the whole process again. The Minister is looking at a delay of probably up to 20 years before the northern motorway is completed and does not stop bang-slap in the middle of a paddock. 
The Minister just shook his head. I challenge him to get to his feet to take a call and to explain to the people of Auckland and Northland—that is millions of people who feel that this Government is stupid for not completing a major piece of roading infrastructure—exactly how this bill will help them. They know they are losing $1 million a week in lost productivity for this nation because this Labour Government is too stupid to prioritise that roading which clearly should be prioritised. What other country has a major State highway stopping in the middle of a paddock for goodness’ sake! Honest to goodness me! The point about that piece of highway is it was stuck before the Environment Court for 6 long years but all the consents are now through and the Minister has the opportunity and the ability to do something about that project and to have it fast-tracked forward. Under this bill he is condemning that project to remain stalled for probably another 10 or 20 years because this bill does not have the provisions in it actually to do what he has told people it will do. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I do not know much about this bill at all I must confess. I am pleased as the newly appointed spokesperson on transport for the National Party to announce that I have done no work on this bill whatsoever. I am delighted to find today that I need not have bothered and that I have been quite insightful in not finding out anything about this bill. When the Prime Minister was asked in the House today about this particular piece of legislation she said it is a good piece of legislation but one cannot expect a Labour Government to put anything right. If it is so good and if the Government cannot fix anything with this bill why would one bother to put any time into it? 
That Minister can wave his hands in absolute disgust as a member of the Labour Party caucus that the Prime Minister should be so honest with the House as she was today but I ask why we are discussing this bill when the Prime Minister has conceded that it will not put right the problem. That is what the House heard today. Members can talk all they like about the money going to Auckland; my colleague John Key outlined how many hundreds of millions of dollars are being sucked out of the South Island and other parts of New Zealand and sent to Auckland. What for? To fix the roads which the Prime Minister has told us today will not happen under a Labour Government. 
I noticed earlier in the day that the Government put out a release stating that it had put an extra $21 million into Auckland roads. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: When? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The Minister sitting in the chair is saying “When? What? Where? Why?”. He is scratching his head; he does not know. He should talk to the Hon Judith Tizard. She announced today that an extra $21 million would be spent in Auckland on the roading system to fix up the drains the gutters and the walking tracks. Not one car will move faster more smoothly or more quickly to its destination because of that spend. The Government collects $256 million out of the taxpayers’ pockets gives out a lousy $21 million and brings a bill into the House that the Prime Minister says will not fix the problem. 
I ask the Minister why we are discussing this bill. The Minister went up and down the country saying to the major groups that have an interest in roading that they should not worry about this bill. He told them that the Government had to put the bill through the House because it had stitched up a deal with the Greens but that it wanted those groups to oppose the bill as much as they could. He said that the Government had to put it through that that was the price of it being in coalition but that it would bring in another bill in the New Year by which time it would have convinced United Future that it was now so hopelessly dependent upon the success of the Labour Government for its own future that it would have to support that bill no matter what. That is what the Minister has done. This is the way the Government is putting out the spin. 
I have always said sadly that people understand small numbers more than they do the bigger ones. When one talks about $256 million or in the case of the Auckland roading system now it seems a blowout to about $3 billion New Zealanders understand that as just a big number. When one talks about $21 million New Zealanders think it is just 6 months of good luck on a Saturday night; they understand that figure. This Government cynically manipulates that sort of understanding to make out that it is doing something about the transport problems in the big city of this country Auckland. 
As the Minister seems keen to talk to the Committee I want to know why after all these years we suddenly find that a new bridge is going up in the Waimakariri electorate. Is it not fantastic! The ACT party talks about a club of the right getting together to unseat Clayton Cosgrove and suddenly a bridge that has not been needed for over 25 years comes out of the bag and the pork-barrel Government goes on its way spending taxpayer money all over the place. I am very pleased about it. I am delighted that that bridge is going there. It is a very important access way to our city. I am pleased that the Minister has done it. But there is nothing like a little bit of vested interest and the fear that Government is slipping away to get those members moving. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 165 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain to Part 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Roger Sowry to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to omit subclause (1) and substitute the following subclause: 
(1)The purpose of this Act is to contribute to the aim of achieving an integrated safe responsive and economically efficient land transport system. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 153 in the name of Larry Baldock to clause 3(1) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 54 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8. 
Noes 61 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Roger Sowry to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to insert after subclause (2)(a) the following new paragraph: 
(aa)improves economic efficiency in land transport funding planning and management; and. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 33 
New Zealand National 25; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 82 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The amendment to clause 3(2)(e) in the name of Larry Baldock on Supplementary Order Paper 158 is out of order as it is inconsistent with the previous decision on the Minister’s amendments. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Roger Sowry to clause 5 be agreed to: 
to amend the definition of  
land transport 
 by omitting the words “coastal shipping”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 33 
New Zealand National 25; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 82 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that Part 1 as amended be agreed to. 
A party vote  was called for on the question  
That Part 1 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Funding of land transport system 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Part 2 contains quite a lot of meat. It deals with a number of substantive issues and involves a lot to do with tolling and public-private partnerships. I know that members want to talk about a number of other clauses but I suspect that there will be some outrageous outlandish and hurtful criticisms particularly from the National Party about these provisions. 
Never before in my life have I seen something as unbelievable as the National Party’s minority report which states that National is concerned the Minister has to ensure that a feasible untolled alternative road is available to road users when there is a tolling arrangement. This concern is unheard of internationally. In fact virtually every tolling arrangement in any country requires a feasible alternative. Anyone going to Europe knows that. This minority report was done by the old demoted spokesperson on transport. I know that the new modern spokesperson will probably want to take a careful look at it and possibly rethink his views. 
This part is about tolling new infrastructure not existing infrastructure. There are lots of conditions around it and decisions that have to be made after comments from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that there should be some ability for the Minister to give some initial indication a project will proceed. That has now been built into the bill. 
Public-private partnerships are very important for New Zealand. They have been very very successfully operated in other parts of the world. Before I hear all the comments that they will not work the particular clauses in this legislation are based on the Melbourne link where lease arrangements are used to attract public-private finance in order to get a project built. 
There are some very very good clauses in this part. It is the meat of the bill and I commend it to the Committee. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 The Minister as he said just touched on the guts of the bill which will allow generic tolling in this country. Well that is the spin and that is all that will be spinning. Mark my words: no tyres will be spinning on toll roads in New Zealand as a result of this legislation. 
The Minister predicted that we would be opposed to this part because of the need to have a free alternative route. He needs to do his research properly. Every financier who came before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and there were many—said to us time and time again that they had had huge experience in funding such operations overseas. We had people from Australia who had funded the Sydney tunnel and the Victoria ring route people from the United Kingdom and financiers from all over the world who told us time and time again that if there was a free alternative the toll road would be used only at periods of heavy traffic and that there would not be enough money generated to fund the road. Those are the simple facts of life. 
I might add that Standard and Poor’s released a report some months ago that looked at all the problems with funding toll roads. The report found that in 90 percent of all cases people who were putting up toll roads over-predicted the income they would get—and that was when there was not a free alternative. The banks themselves had to write down that kind of funding because they could not rely on it. 
The Land Transport Management Bill will not be the solution to Auckland’s problems. I was absolutely stunned that the day after this bill came back to the House for its second reading I read in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 that Transit was telling the country it was releasing its 1-year study into an alternative harbour crossing for Auckland. First it told us that it would take 16 years to build—5 years for planning and 11 years for construction. What a joke it is to take 16 years to build a bridge that would be about a quarter of the size of a bridge built very recently from Copenhagen to Sweden which is 16 kilometres long. That bridge was built in 7 years and we are talking about 16 years. Will that work out under this Land Transport Management Bill? I think not. The predicted cost of the Auckland bridge is $3 billion. The reality is that if that bridge were ever built it would take longer than 16 years and would cost $5 billion. 
Members should think about these figures. New-road spending in Auckland is roughly $151 million a year on State highways—and that is calculated on the new revamped numbers. That bridge alone would cost $5 billion dollars and take roughly 33 years of the entire spending in Auckland so it would not happen without some alternative forms of funding. That is why Auckland mayors want the full tool-box—regional petrol taxes and borrowing—and I know that the Minister will deliver it to them in a sneaky piece of legislation. He will whip it in between 15 and 17 December—but I cannot tell members because if I tell them I will have to kill them. 
That is what will happen but it will not happen as a result of this legislation. Why will it not work? Because this bill states that there has to be a free alternative the new bridge would have to be built 500 metres away from the existing bridge. What would people do? Option A would be to take the non-paying alternative and option B to pay four bucks to go over the bridge. It will not happen. That is why I tell the Minister in Sydney they tolled both the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the tunnel. They are not just brighter than we are in Australia but they can do the maths. They can work out that they need all those funding sources and that is what is required if we are seriously to fix Auckland’s road problems. We do not need some woolly-woofter document that is there to shore up the relationship with the Greens. We want serious stuff that will actually fix the roads. 
I now want to discuss consultation. When people came to the select committee time and time again—rightly so—they said that consultation was a nightmare when trying to build anything. Beca Carter those wonderful engineers told us that they allocate up to 7 years to build a road that can take 2 or 3 years to construct. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I start off by saying that the Prime Minister said— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Welcome back. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Let me tell the member that it is hard to make a comeback when one has not been anywhere. 
Peter Brown 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am keen to hear this member speak and I apologise for interrupting. However I draw your attention to the fact that you have gone from a National Opposition member to a National Opposition member—if he is still a member—and that seems to me to be an unusual practice. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No not so. The reality is that I look at the proportionality of the House and National has twice as many members as any other party in Opposition. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I want to pick up on two things the Prime Minister said at question time today as a start to this speech. First of all she said not to rely on the Labour Party to get roading initiatives right. I think she got that in one. Secondly she said not to listen to the National Party because it never did anything. I tell the Prime Minister that that is wrong. 
Back in the early 1990s when Auckland’s roading was starting to become a problem we began a very long process of trying to engage various stakeholders through what was called the Land Transport Pricing Study which tried to find out what the Road Transport Forum the Taxi Proprietors Federation the Automobile Association local authorities regional authorities and so on thought should happen. We got through to a document by the end of the decade in 1999 called  
Better Transport Better Roads 
. 
Before Labour members start to rip into me about what a hopeless document it was I tell them that I have some wonderful quotes on file from Labour members about me such as “He’s going to privatise our roads with tolls. That’s what this Minister Williamson will do.” and “Don’t you let the National Government get back.” If the Minister tries to deny it I will start with some of the quotes because some of his senior colleagues gave some absolute beauties—for example: “Toll roads are an outrage.”; “The roads should be free.”; “They should be for the public to use at their will.”; “They’re the Queen’s highways.”; and “If you let this Williamson and the National Government back in that’s the outrage you’ll get.” And what do we see in this bill? Toll roads. The Minister had better get the Labour research unit quickly on to the search engines of their computers and start to dig up some of the juicy quotes from his colleagues about how dreadful the privatising of roads by having toll roads would be. 
I have gone through this legislation carefully and I have to say that it really does miss the bus. In fact although it probably has the bus in it it misses the road. That is what it does. The legislation in order to curry favour with the Greens—who seriously believe we can get people out of their motorcars—states that we will not build any more roads or finish all those partly broken arterials in Auckland that simply do not function until they are joined up. Instead we will fund walkways and cycle tracks. That is the Greens’ view of it. 
I tell this Committee and this Minister that every other jurisdiction in the world that has poured huge sums of public money into shifting people into public passenger transport openly acknowledges that the money was wasted because people are wedded to the motorcar. Modern lifestyles demand that if we are to drop the kids here go to the supermarket there pick up something and go to the gym after work public transport that used to work—the old “get up go to work go home go to bed” mentality that some Labour Ministers still employ; in fact they go home to bed in the afternoons—simply does not work now for modern lifestyles. This bill does not recognise that. 
I tell the Minister the one key ingredient that can fix the transport issues is to start pricing roads based on what they truly cost. That is what should be in the bill and I intend to take a number of calls on that issue because it is central to the legislation. If we did not pay for the electricity that we used but just paid a flat rate of $20 a month or something we would leave the lights and everything on all the time. I tell the Minister that on some central arterial routes in downtown metropolitan Auckland it costs a fortune to have traffic moving at peak times. In other places in the country like on a back road at Opotiki on a Sunday afternoon it costs very little yet the same petrol tax is used for the same number of kilometres. 
The legislation will not work unless we do two things. First of all we must free up some private investment. I can tell members that I have not met one private investment company that will have a bar of investing in new roads. If the Minister knows about any I want to hear what they are because I have not heard of any with the restrictions that are in this bill. Why does the Government not say to a private company: “If you want to buy the land if you want to spend the money and if you want to build the road then that’s all right but there will be some restrictions.”? But that is not what it says in this bill. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 In summarising what I have just heard it seems to me as if we had a Government that was in power for 9 years and that took 9 years to produce a document. Then we had the Labour Party that was formerly opposed to tolls and the Greens who are opposed to roads. It is a jolly good thing United Future arrived on the scene so that we could have this bill come into the Chamber today—a bill that will provide some alternative methods of funding for New Zealand’s roads. 
We do need alternative funding. Since coming to this House I have made frequent points about the diversion of funds from the petrol excise tax and I take Peter Brown’s point. Some people think that I have gone quiet on that issue but I have given the Government a chance according to its word to give an explanation about what the money is used for. I believe there will be some good reasons why some of that money is spent on things other than roads. 
Most New Zealanders are not so much concerned about the money not being spent on roads as about lack of accountability and lack of transparency. If Treasury can make a good account of why that money is spent on health or other aspects of the Budget then most New Zealanders will be prepared to put their hands in their pockets to pay for the roads that we desperately need. If we do not see that explanation coming forward very soon I will again join my voice with others in this Chamber who want that accountability and transparency. 
But the facts are that we do need alternative funding to get our roading network built. We need it in Tauranga which needs $500 million worth of roads built within the next 10 years. If we consider that Tauranga’s population is 100000 we have as big a challenge if not bigger than the one Auckland faces with a population of 1 million and a need for $5 billion worth of roads. We have the same challenge in Tauranga. I am pleased to hear the member from Auckland John Key say that he would toll almost anything in order to get the roads built. That is very different from the view of the member for Tauranga who is now campaigning against tolls in order to try to shore up his support in the city and appeal to a small minority of Tauranga residents. 
Most residents in Tauranga want our roads fixed. They see this bill as providing something very practical in order to get our roading infrastructure moved forward. I love going to Germany and driving on the Autobahns but the reality is that the German people pay heavily for that facility. We in New Zealand will have to face up to the facts of what it will cost us to build a 21st century roading infrastructure. 
This bill through tolling provides one of the mechanisms for that alternative funding and it will invite some public-private partnerships. Unlike the member who spoke before me I do know of some companies—some investors—who are very enthusiastic about this bill. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Name them. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: I will be happy to do that after this speech. I invite the member to come and see me privately and I will be happy to tell him about them. They have not listened to all the hype that has been coming out of the Opposition about how useless this bill is. They have read it for themselves and they have seen the changes that were made during the select committee process. They are very satisfied that this bill now provides a mechanism for them to get involved and invest in New Zealand’s roading. I look forward to that developing in the years ahead. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Make a profit? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: They will not enter into it unless they make a profit; the member can be assured of that. 
Many people said at the beginning of this bill that it was useless and I have to agree with them in terms of many of its complicated parts but I believe that the select committee has done an excellent job in listening to submitters. The bill has been changed particularly the parts that relate to alternative funding which is the part that United Future has taken most interest in because of our agreement with the Government. It is now a workable bill but it is not the total answer. It is not a silver bullet. 
We need further alternative methods of funding. As I have said before I look forward to working with the Minister to see those provided so that Auckland Tauranga Wellington and even Southland can have the kinds of roads that we should have in this country as a developed nation in the 21st century. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I have to respond to that member. He sat there yesterday with the mayors of the local district and other dignitaries and agreed with the member for Tauranga’s assertion that the first call for funding for roading should be on the petrol tax that goes into the Crown account. Now he is saying that the member for Tauranga is doing this for popularity reasons. I tell you that— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Do not bring me into the debate. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well I tell the Chairman and the Committee that the member for Tauranga had a public meeting on Friday— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: You’re supposed to tell him. 
PETER BROWN 
: That is what I thought. Members are keen to know what the member for Tauranga did. He called a public meeting. Every seat was taken. It was full and brimming at the sides. There were business people small-business people large-business people and members of the general public. They were not necessarily New Zealand First people. Many of them probably voted for United Future. I think they might change their mind now after hearing that member. They said unanimously that they do not want tolls. 
Tolling is not fair. If one wants to look at how tolling is being applied and how unfair it is from time to time look at Route K in Tauranga right now. It was estimated it was going to take between 6000 and 10000 vehicles a day. It is averaging 2000 vehicles a day. It is barely getting sufficient funds to man the toll bridge. It is not paying for the debt of building the road because people use the alternative route. That member Mr Baldock will support clause 53(2) which the Minister has put in. It was not in the bill as introduced. It will allow the Minister to toll an existing road. We know that is set up for Tauranga. We know that that is— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Ha ha! 
PETER BROWN 
: The Minister is laughing. He knows that it is a set-up for Tauranga. He knows that we are so darn efficient in Tauranga we want to use our roads to the maximum and he thinks that the people of Tauranga are silly enough to pay a toll on a bridge that was tolled a year ago but the toll has been taken off. I tell the Minister that they are not that silly. Mr Baldock might think they are but I can tell members that they are not that silly. They do not want the bridge to be tolled again to pay for future developments in Tauranga. 
I might add that the harbour bridge project clarifies and fits all the criteria of a State highway. It should be declared a State highway and it should be funded by Transit/Transfund. This is nothing but a con trick to keep it as a local road and force the local people to deal with the problem. There is money in Transfund to pay for that project right now. It does not need any further income at all. Mr Baldock knows that. I say to Mr Baldock that if he puts his name and United Future puts its name to signing up to this bill as apparently they are going to they will be doing a disservice to the people of this country. New Zealanders do not want generic road tolling across the board at the whim of the Minister. I think the Minister will find that out in due course. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: They don’t want taxation for that matter. 
PETER BROWN 
: No they do not want taxation. I think the member behind me made some very good comments. The average person wants the cost load spread as far as possible in proportion to road usage. Mr Williamson would like swipe cards transponders and what have you. I do not think New Zealanders will go that far but they would be prepared to pay for roading through their fuel tax if it was across the board. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What’s the difference between that and road tolls? 
PETER BROWN 
: I tried to illustrate— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why should my grandma pay for your roads in Tauranga? 
PETER BROWN 
: She does not have to pay for our roads in Tauranga. The member is quite confused. How long has he had the transport portfolio? I will have to talk to him privately. He has no idea how this system works. 
I make it quite clear that we should be sitting down working out the total cost to this country of bringing the roading up to par and then working out a formula that is fair to everybody. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 This is Part 2 which deals with the funding of the land transport system and the land transport programmes. The member for United Future made a very good speech in favour of pork-barrel politics because with this legislation we are seeing a return to having money dished out in election year or close to election year to favour certain electorates. We will see tolling only in Tauranga just to satisfy that member. We have heard that a bridge will be built in Waimakariri which will keep Clayton Cosgrove safe because he listened to the speech given at the ACT conference and knew that he might be in danger of losing his seat. We have seen the Associate Minister of Transport signal what will happen in the eastern part of Auckland. She said that she did not agree with the eastern corridor and that it was not the right solution just so that the people of Howick could have an extra half an hour in bed. She says that she was misquoted but everybody says that do they not when it comes back to bite them? 
People have said tonight that they do not understand what the old system of cost-benefit ratio was about or that it was something to do with having someone die on a road before anything got done. That is impugning the reputation and expertise of all the officials at Transfund who did a very good job of setting a cost-benefit ratio. This bill sacrifices cost-efficiency to social and environmental factors. The efficiency goal in terms of the cost-benefit ratio does not accommodate those considerations at all. Members opposite obviously do not have a clue what the cost-benefit ratio meant. [ 
Interruption 
] It is obviously market day again because the fishwives are out in force—to quote the member for Tauranga. 
Safety considerations are incorporated via the estimates of the benefits of a project in reducing road accidents. They already are taken into consideration. That is part of the cost-benefit ratio. United Future members talked about efficiency but they cannot actually define what that means. They had some nebulous definition that efficiency meant moving around without wasting time. It is interesting that they support the Transmission Gully project—or their leader has supported it—but Transfund has repeatedly reported that that project is not cost-efficient. All projects seeking money from Transfund should be evaluated on economic criteria and be expected to provide a positive net benefit for the required investment. That is what it means. 
The previous Minister of Transport said earlier that this legislation would get the trucks off the road. That is absolutely not true. That is Government spin because this Government has done a sweet deal with Toll Holdings and given that company exclusive use of the soon-to-be-formed Track Co. Under this bill road-user charges will be used to maintain and prop up Track Co the rail track— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That’s outrageous. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It is outrageous. The people who use the track should pay for it. Toll Holdings an Australian company should pay for it. It only has to get freight up to a certain tonnage—the Minister knows what I am talking about—which is not very high before it stops paying any rent on that. So New Zealand road users will be subsidising Toll Holdings which has come in here and is going to take over the New Zealand trucking industry. Why would it want to invest money in a trucking industry when it wants to put all the freight on to rail? It would not. If this Government wants to get freight on to rail it will have to return to the bad old days of the 40-mile or 150-kilometre limit because that is the only way freight will be forced on to rail. Trucking is more efficient. 
This Government should be getting rid of all the nonsensical consultation that is in Part 2 of this legislation—consultation that goes on and on. Consultation has to be with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust with affected communities and with Maori of the region. We will have more and more taniwha nonsense and consideration of wahi tapu holding up the construction of important roads. Members should look at what has happened about the highway between Auckland and Hamilton. The people in this Government talk about roads being safe and saving people’s lives— 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Part 2 provides for the first time in New Zealand law for public-private partnerships for the building of new roads. This provision has exercised more excitement than any of the other measures in the bill both from those who are extremely wary of public-private partnerships as the first step towards the privatisation of roads for private profit and from those who see public-private partnerships as a wonderful free lunch that will fund roads we otherwise could not have funded. 
The way they are set out in this bill neither of those views is true and perhaps would not be true under any circumstances. But I want to point out that public-private partnerships are not a free lunch a panacea or a source of funding for roads that we would not otherwise have had. Regardless of whether the public sector or the private sector builds a road the money for that road will be borrowed or will come from road-user charges and petrol tax or from tolls. There are only three possible sources of funding for that road in order to pay off the initial capital and running costs. Whether the public or the private sector provides that capital the funding stream still has to come out of the same pockets so it is not really a panacea at all. 
However with a design-build - fund-operate road such as is provided for in the bill there is the possibility of efficiencies in having the contract with the same concession partner who works through all stages of that operation. So the Greens have agreed to support the public-private partnerships provision provided that there are measures in the bill—which are there now—to make sure that the agreements cannot be rigged so that the public purse carries all the risk and the private purse gets all the profit. I think we have achieved that quite well. 
When working through the Rodney District Council (Penlink Toll Road) Empowering Bill that came to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee a while ago it was interesting to find that the main way that that project was to be profitable for the private partner was through a tax rort. The private partner was double-dipping on tax savings and once the Inland Revenue Department had pointed that out to the select committee it became quite unlikely that the road would have gone ahead—even if the bill had been passed. When these agreements are set up it is very easy to disguise the fact that the public purse is being made to pay twice for the road. I think we have managed to avoid that kind of rort in this bill. 
Another way that the public purse can subsidise private profits inadvertently is if deals are set up where the return on capital is predicated on a certain traffic volume and if that traffic volume does not eventuate—and we have just heard from Mr Brown about what has happened with Tauranga’s Route K where the traffic volumes are— 
Peter Brown 
: You are not challenging me? 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: No I am not challenging you. I myself virtually predicted that the traffic volumes would not quite measure up and therefore that the revenue would not be there. There are some overseas agreements where the public purse then has to compensate the private partner if those traffic volumes do not come up to scratch. This bill initially tried to prevent that with clause 61(2)(j): “The public sector will not be liable to compensate any party because traffic numbers fall below forecast levels …”. That has been replaced with the rather broader and more general provision in clause 61(3B) which I think is an improvement: “A concession agreement must not include any provision that provides a disincentive for a party to pursue other sustainable transport options …”. In order to keep up traffic volumes on a road we do not want public transport authorities avoiding expanding a rail link or putting public transport into place because they might reduce the profits of the private partner that owns a public-private partnership concession road. 
With those provisions in place plus the fact that there must be an alternative route before a toll can be charged I believe we have put sufficient conditions around public-private partnerships so that where they are in the public interest they will happen and where they are not in the public interest they will not. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I think a number of speakers have traversed the inadequacies of this bill and have come to understand why the Prime Minister told the House today that Labour is unable to fix the problem not only of roading throughout New Zealand but more specifically the difficulties of Auckland City. I am flabbergasted to read clause 15 in Part 2 which talks about consultation. We know that up and down the country now local authorities that had their new bill passed just before Christmas last year are beginning to struggle under the weight of the consultation they are required to participate in and their ratepayers are beginning to feel the cost of that consultation process. 
Interestingly it probably will not hit them fully until the election year 2005 but I note that in order for any of the parties involved to get a roading project up and running there is an extraordinary requirement for consultation. Clause 15(1) lists that when it is preparing a land transport programme Transit must consult Transfund New Zealand the Land Transport Safety Authority every affected local authority—that would be the regional councils—and every affected approved public organisation. What sort of a list is that? What public organisation does not have an interest in transport on behalf of its members on behalf of its employees or on behalf of the group that it works in? Is there a public organisation that does not have an interest in transport? One could go to the phone book find the public organisations in a certain area that must be consulted and come up with a huge list of those I am sure. 
Clause 15(1) provides that Transit must consult the Accident Compensation Corporation the Commissioner of Police the Ministry of Health the New Zealand Historic Places Trust and the land transport users and providers. [ 
Interruption 
] Perhaps the Green member could tell the Committee who the users and providers are who have to be consulted in this particular clause because once again I would have thought that it was a matter of going to the phone book to find out who the users are. 
Clause 15 goes on to list affected communities Maori and the public. In the case of Auckland there are seven territorial local authorities plus the Auckland Regional Council plus the infrastructure-owning Auckland Regional Transport Network Ltd plus the Infrastructure Auckland organisation. So Transfund New Zealand has an interest Transit has an interest and Track Co. has an interest. In this case it is easy to list seven groupings that have to consult anything up to 11 other categories of interested parties before anything moves. In the case of Auckland there are seven territorial authorities and it is inconceivable that a roading project would not go across more than two or three of those authorities. It is not hard to build a picture of a massive consultation process that will just bind everything up so much that nothing will happen. 
I know that the select committee heard from the respected Auckland engineering firm Beca Group. It said that even without this bill a roading project that might take 2 years to construct can take 5 years to gain consent. 
John Key 
: Seven. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The member behind me says 7 years. A 2-year project takes 7 years to get off the ground. That firm came to the select committee and said: “Make it easier.” Well the Labour Government being the Labour Government thought that was code for “make it harder”—it must have. The brilliant Minister Mr Swain got all those cloth-cap friends of his into his office in the Beehive sat them around a table and as they sipped their water they came up with this amazing clause that makes it harder. 
JILL PETTIS (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Earlier on in this debate there was much made of the words “efficiency” and “cost-effectiveness”. I think Jeanette Fitzsimons said she did not understand what efficiency meant in terms of this bill. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I said nobody could define it for me. 
PETER BROWN 
: Larry Baldock from United Future had a go. He tried and got four out of 10. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness should apply to every dollar the motorist puts in. If we go for road tolls as this bill does the motorist has to build toll plazas man them 24 hours a day be responsible for their administration pay back the interest on the capital borrowed and make a profit for the private component. If we talk of fuel tax there are none of those capital costs or outlays. It is relatively very easy to collect. It can all or very very largely all of it go into roading—the whole darn lot. I would like to see a measurement of what amount of a dollar collected through fuel tax could go into roading as against a dollar collected at a toll plaza. I would say it would be significant. 
Larry Baldock 
: Are you going to support a 50c increase? 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Baldock has asked me a question and I will endeavour to answer it. I would say that fuel tax wins hands down in terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We are arguing therefore whether the motorist pays enough now or in lieu of paying a road toll should pay a bit more. If the Government is to collect so many millions—or so many billions as Mr Baldock obviously thinks he is going to—through road tolls from the whole of the country what would that amount to in terms of adding on to the fuel tax or taking a bit out of the 18.5c or whatever? With fuel tax we do not have to worry about alternative routes. We do not have to worry as they are worrying right now in Tauranga about putting restrictions on those alternative routes in order to compel people to use the toll road. Fuel tax or to put it better another way the motorist paying on a common user basis is a much fairer system it is a much more easily understood system and it is a much more acceptable system to the average New Zealander. 
I say to the Committee is the motorist paying enough now? Is there an economic report? Has the Minister of Transport seen the economic report that the Deputy Prime Minister indicated he was having compiled some months ago? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It’s a secret. 
PETER BROWN 
: Is it a secret? Or is it worse still a con trick? Is it something that the Minister told us about in this House but does not exist? 
Hon Paul Swain 
: No it was about the cost and charges study and it is due to come out at some stage. 
PETER BROWN 
: Why not bring it out before this bill is passed so that we the people who are genuinely questioning this bill can have a fuller understanding of what it is about? 
 I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon Paul Swain to ask his officials whether they are aware of such a report because the last time I spoke to them they were not. I find that most unusual. I tell the Minister honestly that I would not run a corner diary with that sort of philosophy. If we are straight-up in addressing roading problems in this country then we have to be straight-up. We have to divulge what we know what the problems are and what the recommendations are for fixing them. If there is a report on the economic evaluation—call it what one likes—of roading in this country in terms of the 18.5c that goes into the Crown account then we should see it before we pass this bill. I believe that the Minister has a duty. The Minister of Finance referred to this in the middle of September in answer to a supplementary question from Mr Baldock. I gather that Mr Baldock has not followed that up. He is nodding that he has not followed it up. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 The Land Transport Management Bill is a hopeless piece of legislation and everyone knows it except for the Prime Minister who came to the Chamber and said: “I think it is a good piece of legislation”. We cannot expect the Labour Government to get it right. “Trafgaffe”—that is what this will be known as. She will regret the day that she took on the warrior for the National Party the future Prime Minister of New Zealand Don Brash. She will regret the day that she rolled out “Trafgaffe” and she will be eating her words for months to come. As she sees the polls slip lower and lower her fear will rise and all of a sudden she will rue the day that she did not do something to fix Auckland’s roads. Mark my words “Trafgaffe” is here to stay. [ 
Interruption 
] The senior Government whip needs to listen because this legislation will not work. 
I want to discuss a couple of specific clauses—in particular the clauses that state that we cannot toll existing highways in New Zealand. I think this is a poorly constructed piece of legislation and I will explain why. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: That’s not what you said in the select committee. 
JOHN KEY 
: That is what I said. In the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I argued vehemently that existing roads should be tolled. Imagine this clear example: we are on a three-lane highway in New Zealand and one lane could be tolled. Under that model we could have traffic demand management we could raise funds to put into new roading and we could take a step toward fixing Auckland’s roads. What did the Government say when adviser after adviser told it to do that? It said no it would rather deliver a hopeless piece of legislation. 
Mr Brown has said that the answer lies in fuel tax. He is right in part because a great deal of money will be required to fix New Zealand’s roads. But fuel tax is not the answer in totality because it does very little for demand management. 
Peter Brown 
: Don’t tell me the Greens have got at you. 
JOHN KEY 
: No no it does very little indeed. It cannot be specific to a single lane. It cannot be specific to some clip-ons that could be put on the Auckland Harbour Bridge. 
Brent Catchpole 
: You can’t put any more on it. 
JOHN KEY 
: Well one can actually. I do not believe that fuel tax is the single answer. I think it is part of the problem but not the complete answer. 
I also refer to why the inability to toll existing roads is so important. Auckland has had an uncompleted network of roads since 1963. That is the fact of the situation. Those pieces of road need to be put together. That has to be the priority for Auckland. I do not believe that any single individual road in Auckland will be self-sustaining from a tolling point of view. I think that if we look at building the eastern corridor for $2.9 billion or $3 billion we will not be able to toll it and pay for it in totality. But we can toll the network in Auckland which can be paid to fund not one specific road but all roads. We are talking about a large amount of money. My prediction is that we are talking about a minimum of $10 billion to fix Auckland’s roads. That will not happen without some substantial efforts to toll. 
I also make reference to clause 62(2) and the provision that requires the Minister under the concession agreement to be satisfied that the activities have a high degree of support from the affected community. When the officials came before the select committee I asked them what a high degree of community support was. They were unable to give an answer. They thought that two-thirds of a community had to agree before it was OK. Two-thirds is a ridiculous number. Seventy-one percent of all New Zealanders turn out for a general election and about 29 percent vote in local government elections. How on earth will we get two-thirds of a community to agree to sign up for a toll road? What is an “affected community”? If I have a beach house that is at the end of an area where a road could go through am I part of the affected community? Not according to the definition in the bill. 
I will also talk about the limitations of the concession agreement which was limited to 35 years. I want to give the Minister some credit because he changed it from 30 years to 35 years and that is good. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I have listened with huge interest to this debate and I will make a few comments first of all about the Green Party’s contribution. I have always believed that the Greens are a party of principle and its principle is simply that no sacrifice is too great for the people of this country to make on its behalf. It is a party prepared to die in the ditch on its principles. Jeanette Fitzsimons very nearly did according to I think the  
Independent  
just recently. Ignoring the green strip on the road that is supposedly for buses or cyclists or somebody or other the Green Party—this party of principle this party of the law—instructed a taxi to pull in outside Bowen House which held up the traffic and contributed to an outrageous situation in this very town just outside this very building. I am shocked. It is not the sort of thing that an ACT party member would do. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That’s resignation stuff. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: It is resignation stuff. I am talking about principle: getting things right doing things right and sticking to what one believes in. I hope that Jeanette Fitzsimons will take a call and explain to the Committee why she ignored the very important paint on the road which enables cyclists and the buses to travel in safety except when the Greens are in a taxi. 
I listened with great interest to a new economic policy that I heard from some members tonight—I think United Future has one and I think Peter Brown has one as well. It is that roads should be free. One can only assume that United Future prays to God and the next morning there is a free road somewhere. I have a little surprise for them—it does not happen that way. Nothing is free. Somebody pays somewhere. If this principle about roads being free really did work why do we not apply it to electricity? Why not make electricity free? We have a shortage of electricity right now so imagine what would happen if we made electricity free. It would make the roads in Auckland on a Friday morning at 9 o’clock look absolutely ridiculous by comparison. Why do we not have free food? There is a thought for us. What would happen if food became free? I have heard these dumb concepts in the Chamber about this new economic principle. 
If we really want to look about and fix the roading problems then two things stand out in my mind. First of all you have—I say “you” Madam Chairperson but I am speaking in the “ewe” concept being an agrarian-type person—to make decisions. This might be a difficult concept for the Government to understand but we have to decide that we will fix this problem make a decision and stand or fall on the merits of that decision. 
 It is not difficult but what we have here are huge impediments to decision making. At last count clause 15 listed something like 11 organisations. There was Transfund the Commissioner of Police affected local authorities—God only knows how many of them; representatives of land transport users affected communities the Ministry of Health and approved organisations. I suppose “approved organisations” means groups like the Environmental Defence Society and Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand and those sorts of organisations. Then there are affected Maori. That is an interesting one. I see later on in the bill somewhere that there are such things as Maori roads. I wonder whether anybody could tell me exactly what a Maori road is. Is it a road that is privately owned by Maori or is it the “Road to Nowhere” up near Tame Iti’s spot? Some of the stuff that I find in this bill is quite extraordinary—absolutely amazing. 
If the Government is going to have this level of consultation then we should not be surprised to find that no decision will ever be made because there are vested interests. It will be a case of territorial authorities versus everybody else. Then we have Infrastructure Auckland which is desperately wanting to hang on to however many dollars it has. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question 
that the question be now put 
. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I put it to you that this is a very significant piece of legislation and this part has 60 clauses in it. There has never been transport legislation with as many clauses and in a short period of time the National Party has I think taken three calls. To take the closure motion as quickly as this is an outrage. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member—[ 
Interruption 
] That member can leave the Chamber because a warning has been given that during points of order there will be silence. 
Dianne Yates withdrew from the Chamber. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The chairperson is the sole judge of when to accept the closure. 
A party vote was called for on the question 
that the question be now put 
. 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Is the point of order relevant to the vote? 
PETER BROWN 
: Earlier on—I think you were in the Chair at the time—I picked up on the chairperson going from National Party member to National Party member. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No no— 
PETER BROWN 
: Let me finish. My point of order is serious. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Will the member please be seated. It is not a point of order about the vote. I thought the member had a point of order— 
PETER BROWN 
: Well I am challenging the vote because New Zealand First has had only calls that I have taken. My colleagues here sought the call. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No that is not a correct point of order. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 60 
New Zealand Labour 52; United Future 8. 
Noes 47 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Abstentions 9 
Green Party 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Roger Sowry to clause 10 be agreed to: 
to amend subclause (2) by inserting after the words “The national land transport account may be used to provide funds as follows” the words “ with available non-roading funding capped at 10% of the total fund”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 34 
New Zealand National 26; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 82 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Roger Sowry to the amendment to clause 61 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 165 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain be agreed to: 
to omit new subclause (5) set out on Supplementary Order Paper No 165 and substitute the following: 
(5)The term of a concession agreement is open to negotiation between the parties involved. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 34 
New Zealand National 26; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 82 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment to the amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 165 in the name of the Hon Paul Swain to Part 2 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 47 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Roger Sowry to clause 53 be agreed to: 
to omit subclause (1)(e). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 34 
New Zealand National 26; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Noes 82 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 47 
New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I am challenging whether you are administering the speaking slots in proportion to the party size. I believe that New Zealand First got two calls on Part 2. I got both of them but my colleague did not get a call. I believe that other parties are getting a bigger slice of the cake so to speak than we are. I am asking you to administer the calls proportionately and I wonder whether you would confirm whether I am correct. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That was carried out. 
PETER BROWN 
: Can you tell me how we stacked up compared with the other parties? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No the closure was given correctly in terms of the Standing Orders. The member can have a look if he wants to. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I did not challenge your ruling at the time but I would now like to point out that the Green Party had one call on Part 2 National had four and two other members of the House had two calls each. My colleague came down to the Chamber to seek the call and did not get one. I feel that we have been rather under-represented in the last debate as well which is why I abstained on the closure motion. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: As I indicated the proportionality in terms of the Standing Orders was correct. 
JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I am seeking clarification Madam Chairperson because I think this is an important matter. Peter Brown has asked whether the number of speaking slots for each party could be indicated. You have said we cannot— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No I did not say that; I said they were available to members. What I said was they were given proportionally and the member’s proportion was correct. 
JOHN CARTER 
: It would be useful perhaps if we could be told the number of speaking slots we got so that each of the parties could know. Given that the Greens have also expressed an interest it might move this along if the Clerk could give us an indication of the number of speaking slots that each party got and then we can judge for ourselves. I am unsure. I think the National Party got four slots—Gerry Brownlee got one John Key got two and Maurice Williamson got one. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: To clarify the proportionality was correct in terms of the numbers in the Chamber. The National Party received four calls New Zealand First two United Future one ACT two and the Greens one. 
RODNEY HIDE (ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No I am sorry the matter of the closure motion cannot be debated. It is not a matter of further debate. I have ruled on the point of order. Is this is a new point of order? 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Yes. My point of order is that what you have just said is incorrect. It would be impossible for there to be proportionality when we got two calls and the others got only one. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That is not the only factor that is taken into account. In terms of the proportionality issue that Mr Brown raised I refer members to Standing Order 103. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. You said to the Committee that the speaking slots were allocated in terms of proportionality. The entire Committee heard you say that and it was not correct. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: It was correct. 
Part 3Administrative provisions relating to Transfund and Transit and miscellaneous provisions  
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 Right at the start of Part 3 we find the reason the Prime Minister so confidently said in the House today that Labour could not fix the problems of Auckland transport and could not put right the difficulties that New Zealand communities are faced with when it comes to their need for roading. The reason for that can be found in clause 70 “Objective of Transfund” where subclause (2) states that “Transfund must exhibit a sense of social and environmental responsibility which includes—(a) avoiding to the extent reasonable in the circumstances adverse effects on the environment;”. That is a very broad and most definitely contestable circumstance put upon Transit when it comes to considering any project at all—adverse effects on the environment. 
Some people in this country believe that every time a key is turned in a car there is an adverse effect on the environment; that every time the wheel of a car turns full circle on a road there is an adverse effect on the environment; that every time a bit of shingle is quarried to build a road there is an adverse effect on the environment; and every time some new tarmac is laid down somewhere there is an adverse effect on the environment. 
Under subclause (2) Transfund must take into account the need for the views of affected communities to be taken into account by persons and organisations preparing land transport programmes. I spoke before about the incredible list of affected parties that clause 15 picks up. So we have not only the all-catching subclause (2) enabling every environmental enthusiast in the country to hold up a roading project anywhere but also the obligations on Transfund to go out and find the objectors and consult them. 
Subclause (2) also states that Transfund must provide for the need for persons and organisations when preparing land transport programmes to give early and full consideration to land transport options and alternatives in a way that contributes to the objectives referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b). This means effectively that if there is a big group out there that thinks bicycles are the answer then the roading is out. If there is a big group out there that thinks walking is the answer then the roading is out. If there are a lot of people in the whole phone book of organisations that must be consulted then we see a complete slowing down of these projects. 
I repeat for the Minister’s benefit that one of the most respected engineering organisations in this country Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner—the Minister nods his head because he knows—asked the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee whether it could have some way of speeding up these projects. People might have thought: “No hang on. There should be a reasonable amount of process when these projects are put together.” But Beca Carter said that under the current arrangements a road that takes perhaps 2 years to build—therefore many many kilometres long—can take 7 years in the consent process. 
 I ask the Minister to explain how clause 70 of Part 3 will in any way mitigate against the extensive resource consent process that is there now. It will not make a blind bit of difference. All it will do is ensure that the Government has a huge fund of money being collected from petrol tax—from the 4c that my constituents pay on every litre of petrol in Christchurch—accumulating for its use. We have seen in other parts of the bill the legislation allowing it to put its hands in that pot. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 This afternoon we heard the Prime Minister state that this Government could not fix the roading problems in Auckland—it could not put it right. [ 
Interruption 
] She clearly stated in question time in answer to a question from this side of the House that the Government could not put it right. The planning for the motorway system in Auckland has been in place since 1963—40 years ago. Successive Governments have failed to provide the funding and in this case it would be for Transfund to fund this roading network. Instead Governments have failed to put the planning in place for that funding. The network and the corridors are in place—they have been there for 40 years—but the funding has been done piecemeal. The Government has swapped it from one project to another and it has continued to do that and it has just done it again around Auckland because it wanted to shuffle the figures and it tried to bring in tolling. Tolling will not work. The Government has continued to tax the motorist but it has failed to put that money towards roading. All tolling will do will mean that the Government will put less of the petrol tax towards roading and will continue to siphon it off and put it elsewhere. Therefore Transfund will never have sufficient funds to fund the Auckland network. When will this Government put the 4.7c of tax that it put on in February last year into roading? It put the tax on motorists throughout the whole country to pay for the roads in Auckland. That money has never gone towards the roads in Auckland. The taxes were siphoned off elsewhere yet it was stated that it was definitely to be for the solving of Auckland’s roading problems. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Has the member been to Auckland? 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: I wonder whether the Minister has been to Auckland. I live in Auckland and I have to travel through Auckland on a regular basis. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: There are roads under construction and bridges being built there. Auckland has never seen so much activity. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE 
: The Minister is bleating saying that there are bridges being put in here and everywhere. I ask the Minister why the Albany to Puhoi realignment (ALPURT) in North Auckland has not gone ahead. It has now gone back to the consultation process because this Government wants to toll it. So once again the funding that was already set aside for this piece of road has been transferred elsewhere. The Government has shown that it is not to be trusted with the taxes that it collects from petrol taxes. The Government wants to siphon it off and transfer it elsewhere and it does so. It transferred the funding from the ALPURT project because now this bill has brought in that that particular road can be tolled. All tolling will do is slow it down and put it back. When the courts were asked whether they would extend the resource consent at Orewa for this particular project they said that yes they would extend it but for only 10 months—not the 7 years that was requested to extend this motorway. They limited it to 10 months because they know that this Government cannot be trusted to put this funding towards the roading in Auckland which it had promised in the long term. It was promised to Auckland as a means of funding Auckland’s roads as an election sop. What happened? The moment the election came around the Government shifted it away from Transfund to elsewhere. This Government cannot be trusted to fund the Auckland network. It is estimated that it will take $10 billion to get Auckland back on the road. This Government has proved that it is not willing to do that. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 Part 3 is the essential part that changes the statutory objectives of Transfund and Transit to broaden the focus of each entity—the administrative provisions relating to Transfund. Let us look at what this means. Clause 70(1) states: “The objective of Transfund is to allocate resources in a way that contributes to an integrated safe responsive and sustainable land transport system.” What is a land transport system? Land transport according to clause 5 means: “(i) transport on land by any means:” plus “(ii) the infrastructure goods and services facilitating that transport:”. Under this bill there are road-user charges of which as we have already heard only $7 of every $50 that is spent on petrol goes into the roads. The rest goes into Government taxes. Even more of this will be spent on other things. This legislation is so loosely defined. 
I ride my horse every weekend around the Rodney electorate and I could argue that under this legislation this Government should hand out road-user charges to me for my horse—and not just for the horse but for the blacksmith as well because it provides money to infrastructure goods and services facilitating that transport. Why on earth should the people who use the roads have that money sucked off and put into the fact that I ride a horse? I choose to ride a horse because I think it is environmentally sound. I do not see many Greens out there around that electorate riding horses. Does that member see them? [ 
Interruption 
] I do not see them riding bicycles for that matter. But under this legislation the Government could put money into the blacksmith the stables and the vet and take from me all the responsibility for paying for my own form of transport that I choose to use in the weekends. It could take all the responsibility for that from me and load it on to the poor old motorist who gets whacked every time. 
Do members know why this legislation is anti-car? Because that is what it is; it is anti-car. Why is it anti-car? It is because cars represent freedom. Cars represent freedom of choice for people who choose to get around— 
Opposition Members 
: Oh! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: “Oh!” those members say laughing away. What does that Government know about mothers who have to get across Auckland and pick up children from four different places? This party knows about bringing up children. This party knows about having children. The three women ACT members have 11 children between them. What does that Prime Minister know about bringing up children? What does that Prime Minister know about picking up one’s kids from soccer and music picking up someone else’s kids from school and running all around town? That is what using a car means. That is what freedom of choice means. 
This Government would not have a clue what it is like for an average family to get around Auckland—or Tauranga for that matter—or any other city where there are problems with the roads. It is not just in the cities but out in the rural areas too where the roads are in an appalling state. This legislation because of the changes to the provisions for Transfund and Transit will do nothing. In fact it will do even less for the roads. Under this legislation especially Part 3 that money can be used for anything—any land transport; any means of transport on the road. This is an absolute disgrace for New Zealanders for New Zealand working families who are having even more choice taken off them. 
 I have no problem with people using public transport but it is always the same—whenever one goes to a public meeting people say: “We need more public transport. We need more money for public transport.” but when one says at the end of that meeting: “Who came to this meeting using public transport?” they all shake their heads; not a single person. Well public transport will not be there if they do not use it. If people do not use it they lose it. The reason people do not use public transport in New Zealand is that we are wedded to the car because it affords us much greater mobility. We are a nation of people who actually like freedom of choice. We do not like central planning or central control which this legislation brings back in terms of shifting the focus of Transfund and Transit which were operating very well. It was not so much the lack of funding that stopped roads getting built; it was the Resource Management Act. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Part 3 introduces the radical idea that Transfund and Transit should exercise their functions with a reasonable degree of social and environmental responsibility. There is a change! 
We have already heard from Lockwood Smith tonight that he is totally opposed to social and environmental responsibility. He said that he just wants roads so therefore he does not want responsible roads; he wants irresponsible roads. It seems to be that what the National Party is mainly arguing tonight is let us have irresponsible roads. Lockwood Smith and the National Party should eat their hearts out! We are to have roads built with a reasonable degree of social and environmental responsibility. The clause that provides for that is clause 70 which sets out the objectives of Transfund. In meeting its very reasonable objective of allocating funds to contribute to an integrated safe responsive and sustainable land transport system Transfund has to avoid to the extent reasonable in the circumstances adverse effects on the environment. 
Members may not know that the biggest single cause of water pollution of local streams in rural areas is rural roadworks. It is greater than agricultural run-off even. The silt running from rural roadworks through carelessness where proper silt traps and bunding around the works are not put in creates more problems for the life in those streams than any other rural activity. All this legislation is saying is that when Transit is building a road it needs to take a reasonable amount of care to protect the environment. It means that when roads are planned through fragile ecosystems like wetlands Transit must not just barge through without any thought as to how the ecosystem will be disrupted or where the water drainage will go. It means that the old cut and fill approach to putting roads through fragile landscapes sometimes needs where it is reasonable and affordable to be replaced by a certain amount of bridging and tunnelling which is what every other civilised country that has some care for its environment would do. I am proud of the fact that this legislation moves us forward to a time where we meet our economic needs with a certain amount of responsibility towards our social and environmental needs as well. 
Clause 70 also requires that Transfund takes into the account the views of people who are affected and there seems to be a lot of opposition in the Committee to that as well. There seems to be huge opposition to the idea that anyone should be consulted that people should have a chance to express a view and that options should be considered at an early stage when it is still possible to choose the best one. Surely we are past the old Industrial Revolution stage where we simply bulldoze something we call progress through anything that is in the way without taking any account of people or the environment on the way through. I cannot believe that New Zealand wants to be stuck back in the Dark Ages and I am proud that we now have legislation that provides for proper consultation of the people whose lives will be affected by the road and proper environmental responsibility. 
I want to ask those people who think that consultation will delay things whether they have ever thought how long it takes to build a road when people do not consult. How long does it take to go through appeal after appeal when everybody is up in arms at the project because they never had a say? What about all the cases we never hear about where people get it right in the first place where people are consulted and where the problems are ironed out at the beginning when there are still options and that simply go through without opposition? It is faster in the end to do it right at the start than to keep on trying to deal with public opposition once it gets up a head of steam. That is why we have consultation principles in this bill that provide for the consultation to be early rather than right at the end which is what Resource Management Act consultation does. They also provide for options to be properly considered and provide for the appropriate bodies that have advice to give for example health organisations and the people who are affected such as the communities through which roads are built to be consulted. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I want to cover this part that relates to the administrative provisions for Transfund and Transit. Firstly I want to claim credit in this Committee for being the Minister who created the beasts Transfund and Transit and separated them. When I became the Minister of Transport there was what I think was a grubby conflict of interest within Transit. Because it was both the funder and the provider of roads there were some quite perverse incentives for it to fund its own little operation at the expense of others. 
However I say to the Minister how disappointed I am that this legislation has not moved us forward and given Transfund a whole tool-box full of the funding tools that are so desperately needed and that are just taken for granted elsewhere. I was staggered to hear Peter Brown the New Zealand First member say how opposed to tolls he was. I ask that member to just reflect. Can he tell me a civilised Western World jurisdiction that we would like to be comparable with that does not have toll roads? That is the question. Some of the most left-leaning Governments in Europe have toll roads. Schroeder has toll roads in Germany and he is from the left. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Denmark. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes that is right. I know that right-wing countries like say the United States—which we obviously like to compare ourselves with in some way—has toll roads and Canada has toll roads. Tony Blair that Labour Prime Minister in Britain—I was going to say ever-popular but that is not quite the case any more—has toll roads. 
John Key 
: China. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: My colleague John Key interjects with the best interjection of all. The People’s Republic of China—the communists the reds under the bed—probably has more toll roads as a percentage of its network than anywhere else. I ask Mr Brown how he thinks the old blunt instrument of the flat petrol tax can continue when things like demand management will be an essential part of any formula in the future. How would he try to stem peak demand at peak times? 
I say to the Minister that I hope he looked at an example that I looked at in California—in fact it was present in more states than just California; it was also in some of the other west coast states—where some of the trucking companies were being allowed to have global positioning systems on their trucks and to pay time of day day of week and location rates. That would mean that if the trucking companies stayed away from the “Spaghetti Junction” that we have in Auckland during the peak time they would get a discount and if they did their goods delivery at 3 a.m. in Penrose rather than at 3 p.m. they would get a discount. I think the flat universal hubodometer-type charging that we have for the big trucks is a nonsense. 
When I first saw this bill come to Parliament I thought that it was weak and now that the Greens have nobbled it further it is even weaker. It is actually puerile. If the Minister wanted to get the roading system working he should have taken up the offer that the National Party made that we would make up the numbers needed to provide the Government with the tool-box that Mayor Banks the employers and manufacturers and so many other sectors have said is desperately needed. I see that Simon Carlaw quotes from Business New Zealand. There is a whole range of others also saying that. It is just not possible to go into the future using some sort of a communist socialist flat-earth thinking whereby we will all pay the same no matter what. I think one of the most bizarre proxies for our road use and charging—and it has not been addressed in this part—is rates. What on earth does the value of one’s property have to do with what one should pay for the roads? 
I would have loved to see something in this bill that moved us out of that flat-earth thinking moved us out of rates and moved us out of the petrol tax to some extent—although I understand that petrol tax will always be a reasonably flat proxy—and put in place some proper systems whereby Transfund could start some electronic road pricing. Maybe it would not be for ordinary cars to start with; I do not think most New Zealanders are quite ready for their car to have electronic road pricing. Yet they only have to flick over to Melbourne or to New South Wales and they think it is great there. So it is not that far away. We are not talking of nations that are so bizarre. Electronic road pricing is just across the pond and it will come to New Zealand. But what about electronic road pricing for our commercial vehicles? There is none of that in this part. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I welcome following the member because if he had listened to me carefully he might have understood a little more of what I said. New Zealand First never ever said that we are totally opposed to toll roads—never ever. I did not say that. What I said—I will make this quite clear and I think the Minister will understand it—was that we are against the framework of generic toll roading that this bill provides for. We would be supportive of the individual toll road but we are not prepared to give a blanket across-the-country support for toll roads that just leaves the Minister or some such person to sign off on them. I tried to point out and I went to some pains to do so that there is better use of a dollar when it goes through the petrol tax system. The member just acknowledged that there is a use for that. 
We are saying that if we provide a framework for generic toll roading then motorists will get taken to the cleaners time and time again and they are sick of that. The average motorist is sick of being used as a cash cow. So just to recap for the benefit of anybody who is in doubt we would not necessarily oppose a toll road in a specific area for a specific reason but we are not prepared to support a bill that gives toll roading carte blanche here there and everywhere. Nor are we prepared to support a bill that has been amended to give the Minister the right to toll a road that is already in existence which we know is targeted at the harbour bridge project in Tauranga. We know the Government has United Future under the thumb. The United Future members will put their little hands up and say yes they will go along with that. We know that clause 53(2) although not in this part has been specially inserted in order to accomplish that project by means of tolling. I tell the Minister that if he pursues that then there will be quite some outbursts in Tauranga. The people there do not want a toll to be put back on the harbour bridge. There is no reason— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Yes they do! 
PETER BROWN 
: That member is so out of touch he does not know what the price of petrol is. He just gets in his Crown car and drives around the country at the taxpayers’ expense and he gleefully enjoys it. For a young man who does not know what he is doing he is doing very well at the taxpayers’ expense. 
Brent Catchpole 
: He certainly won’t be walking home tonight. 
PETER BROWN 
: No he will not be walking home tonight. 
David Benson-Pope 
: What is that member’s salary—unearned? 
PETER BROWN 
: The member over there on the Government side of the Chamber is very confused. I would invite Mr Benson-Pope to stand up take a call—he has plenty to say in terms of interjections—and let us hear what he actually feels about this bill. Generic toll roading is not required in this country; it is neither required nor is it desirable. I think the Labour Party will find to its detriment that New Zealanders do not agree with it. 
We believe that in the first instance and I want to make this quite clear there should be fairer use of the 18.5c tax that goes into the Crown account. The Minister shakes his head— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Why didn’t you change it when you were in Government? 
PETER BROWN 
: We did. I welcome the opportunity to say we did exactly that. We took money from the Crown account and put it into roading—and the 2.1c was going to carry on. Is that right? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: It would have been more. 
PETER BROWN 
: It would have continued and by now the Crown’s portion would have been reduced significantly. 
But I want to know from the Minister where the economic report is. I do not want to stand up here harping on about the evils of that 18.5c being used in the Crown account if in fact that can be justified. On the information available to me I do not believe there is justification for that money to go into the Crown account but when the Minister of Finance says that he has compiled an economic report I want to see it. I will be asking the Minister about that report time and time again. I will not be like a United Future person who rolls over because the Government smiles nicely or does whatever it takes for the United Future members to do that. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support Part 3 which provides objectives and functions for Transfund and Transit. The objective for instance that Transfund allocate resources to achieve an integrated and a safe responsive and sustainable land transport system is very laudable. Clause 70(2) outlines some of the aspects of creating such a system which dovetails into the objectives in the land transport strategy. For instance in that clause Transit and Transfund have to minimise any adverse effects on the environment. 
I want to give as an example the eastern highway in Auckland because I think that if one applied the objectives set out in that clause and dovetailed them into the objectives in the land transport strategy one could not go ahead with that eastern highway. Clause 70(2)(c) states that there has to be a full consideration of land transport options before any project is entered into. If one fully considers what should be done about that corridor from the east of Auckland in through Remuera and into the city then one would not go for an eastern highway. Instead one would go for upgrading the railway because that option would reduce the impact on the environment and provide many other benefits. 
For example one of the objectives in the land transport strategy is assisting economic development. We know that to push a highway into central Auckland will just clog up central Auckland by putting more cars into that area. It will encourage more people out in Howick Panmure and places like that to hop into their cars to come into town. It will have a worsening effect on Auckland’s economy and cause more gridlock. Also encouraging more people to get into their cars and use petrol will subtract from the resources available for the Auckland economy because there is a huge burden on the Auckland economy from the overuse of cars and the petrol costs and maintenance costs involved. Adding an extra highway will actually make that burden worse for the Auckland economy whereas a railway would allow people to go from the eastern area much more smoothly and efficiently in economic terms. 
Another objective in the land transport strategy is assisting personal security and safety. We know that building another motorway—the eastern highway—will only put more cars on the road with more accidents. Travelling by rail is clearly much safer than travelling by road so a railway would fit that objective if Transfund were to consider the range of land transport options for that particular corridor. 
The third objective in the land transport strategy is to take into account access and mobility. There are a lot of elderly people children and beneficiaries who either cannot drive cars or do not have the money to run a car long distances. Under this legislation they would be better served by a railway that went through that eastern corridor rather than by a motorway. 
The fourth objective is to protect and promote public health. It is much healthier to have more trains running. Particularly if the rail system was electrified it would not put the same degree of fumes into the air as motor vehicles do. Fumes from transport are killing 300 or 400 people in Auckland each year and are reducing the health status of us all. Also it is much less stressful for a person to hop on a train in Panmure and go in by rail than to hop into a motorcar with the stress of going along a clogged roadway—either the highway itself or once one gets to Auckland if the new highway is built along streets with traffic jams everywhere. 
The fifth objective in the land transport strategy is to ensure environmental sustainability. If one looks at that eastern highway one sees it will have a number of detrimental effects in that respect. One of those is in terms of the green space that such a highway will destroy. If one looks at any of the options that have been proposed for the eastern highway one sees they all go through parks and green space and have a detrimental effect on the environment. 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to address this part of the bill and particularly a couple of my amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 153 to clauses 70(1) and 79(1) in which I want to see the word “efficient” inserted into the objectives. I believe it would be best if clause 70(1) read: “The objective of Transfund is to allocate its resources in a way that contributes to an integrated safe responsive efficient and sustainable land transport system.” That is the kind of system that I believe New Zealanders want and it is the one this Government ought to be committed to delivering. 
We have had a great deal of discussion this evening about “efficient” and what it would mean. Members have talked about us wanting to get our money’s worth from the system whether it is put in by way of road-user charges petrol excise or tolls. However we may contribute not only do we want that the money be spent efficiently but also we want to get a good outcome from our expense. I believe that the outcome New Zealanders want is greater mobility—as I said earlier “efficient mobility” but we will take out the word “efficient”. We want to be able to get around without being stuck in traffic. If we choose to travel by train as the speaker before me said—riding on public transport and getting there quickly and cheaply—that is a choice New Zealanders have but most want to be able to travel in their automobile. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Oh no! Who told you that? 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: It is a stunning comment I know but it is true. Most of us want to move around in our automobile because we consider it to be the most efficient way to get around this country given that we do not have huge populations that will sustain the kind of train network we see in other countries particularly in Europe. 
The member who spoke somewhat earlier is still committed to the fact that all the money for Transfund and Transit should come by means of a fuel excise tax. He considers that to be an efficient way of collecting the money and he completely rejects the user-pays principle. I am astounded by that. I still do not understand how he considers that this bill will provide for what he calls generic tolling—that somehow tolling schemes will spring up all over the country—when most people have commented on how difficult it will be to get a tolling scheme under way. There is a huge contradiction in that. 
The whole point of the bill is about giving communities choice about the way they meet their roading needs and I support that principle. I particularly support it for Tauranga where people will be able choose the way they solve their roading network. I have some sad news for the member who spoke earlier: his party leader may well be finished as the member for Tauranga. Although right now he is running around telling Tauranga people that tolling is a terrible rip-off he will have to turn round to explain to his supporters in retirement villages around Tauranga—people who do not even go across the bridge more than once a week—that they will have to pay another 30c per litre on their fuel. They have plenty of time to be able to avoid the bridge and go by the alternative route that will be provided. He might find that some of the support base he has relied on for a long long time may begin to dwindle away. I think he should wake up and realise as also should the other member of his party who lives in Tauranga that in meeting the problems of the city there needs to be many different tools in the tool bag. Not all of them are delivered in this bill as we said earlier but they are coming. They will be delivered so that communities can choose which particular tool to pick up to meet their needs. 
Bill Gudgeon 
: Far short of Route K’s expected numbers. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: It is doing just fine. Once the bridge is built Route K will be a marvellous way of getting across the city and to the other side of the harbour. 
Clause 79 discusses Transit and its objectives. Again I believe that the word “efficient” should be inserted in subclause (1) so that it reads: “integrated safe responsive sustainable and efficient land transport system.” I fully support that Transit should be the lead builder of highways in New Zealand. I believe that Transit does an excellent job. Also I believe that the requirement now for Transit to give a 10-year programme for its new State highways is an excellent move forward. It will mean that people have more certainty. However it is becoming painfully obvious to everybody that the funds that will be available to Transit to build the land transport system will be limited. 
JILL PETTIS (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 Some months ago  
Trans-Tasman 
 wrote a review of the Land Transport Management Bill and in the column on the right under “Comments” it wrote: “Could be the pinnacle of this Minister’s career.” It must be a very low mountain. 
I feel sorry for that Minister because sometimes life is not fair. He has been delivered the ultimate pup by the Greens. I say that because Keith Locke got up and waxed lyrical about trains in Auckland. Let me avail Mr Locke of the facts. There were 925 million trips taken in Auckland last year—875 million in cars 48 million on buses and 2 million on trains. Every time someone got on a train the New Zealand taxpayer gave that passenger a $10 subsidy. It would have been quicker to give him or her a taxi chit. 
Hon Member 
: What! 
JOHN KEY 
: That is right $10—a $20 million subsidy. Boston Consulting Group wrote a report which Mr Locke obviously has not read. It said that if $1.5 billion was spent on all the things to fix the rail network in Auckland including electrification double tracking of the western line signature stations and so on we would do really well—we would really knock it out of the park. Those 2.5 million trips taken on a train will increase maybe to 15 million or at very best 25 million. If the number goes to 25 million the operating subsidy required for those trips will be $4 per trip—$100 million. So if Mr Locke thinks that spending $1.5 billion and then paying an operating subsidy of $100 million is a great way to get 25 million people around Auckland when at the same time car trips will be up at 1.1 billion then all I can say is: “Goodness help New Zealand if Keith Locke is ever in the finance portfolio in bed with the Labour Party.” because it will not work. I feel sorry for this Minister of Transport because he has been delivered a pup. 
I want to refer to one other thing. The Minister has gone around the country and said: “We’ll be able to borrow and that will fix some of the roads.” He is absolutely right. The borrowing level in Auckland in my opinion is somewhere in the order of $5 billion to $6 billion. That is the amount that will be required. That is the kind of borrowing involved. That is not new. Transit has had the ability to borrow with the Minister of Finance’s approval for decades. That is not new. If that is the best the Land Transport Management Bill can deliver then it is a hopeless piece of legislation as well. 
 I want to refer in part to Transfund and to some additions that were made such as the construction of the Transfund board because I thought in part that those looked pretty good. The old board could have on it no more than five people. The select committee wisely said that the number of people on the board could go from six to eight. I initially thought that that was pretty good but the last Transfund board was dominated by none other than Mike Williams President of the Labour Party. When he got control of the funding schedule lo and behold a whole lot of projects that were ranked 94th 87th and 42nd and happened to be in Labour Party electorates were rammed up the list. 
I ask members what happened to Auckland’s projects. Miraculously they were dropped off the list. So on the one hand I look at the provision and say that if Mike Williams had a lesser voice on Transfund’s board it would be a good thing for Transfund. On the other hand I have no doubt that the Minister of Finance will appoint another two or three Labour Party lackeys to push through its socialist agenda and pork-barrel politics that seem to be dominating Transit New Zealand and Transfund New Zealand. What a sad day it is. 
I want to refer to one other point which is last year’s performance by Transfund. Last year’s performance showed that at the end of the year Transfund had failed to spend $155 million. That is right—it had $155 million left over despite the fact that the Auckland Chamber of Commerce could point to a couple of billion dollars-worth of projects that were ready to go. Why was that? The reason was that it had approval for projects it did not have funding for. 
DAVID BENSON-POPE (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Whip—ACT) 
: 
 I would like to take a call on Part 3 which spells out the administrative provisions of Transfund New Zealand and Transit New Zealand. I seek some clarification about this part of the bill from the Minister because following on from the contribution made by John Key the previous speaker one has to realise that more and more New Zealanders are now saying that the boards of Transfund and Transit are stacked with Labour Party cronies and that the decisions that are made are no longer about the good of New Zealand but about what will help buy Labour votes in Labour Party seats. 
I see no other example that highlights that as much as what happened with the completion of the northern motorway. It was always known to be a No. 1 priority as soon as the consents were through in the Environment Court. But what happened under this Government? The project got dumped right to the bottom and the money was put into other areas. The real reason is that basically the whole of the north is held by the National Party. Those seats are all National Party seats so Labour does not care a stuff about that project. All the money has now gone into Labour Party electorates. 
I ask the Minister to take a call and explain how he reconciles clause 71—which talks about the statutory independent functions of Transfund New Zealand—with clause 74 which says that the board will be appointed by the Minister. The problem is that the National Government when it had to appoint members to the board had a focus on growth and productivity and on trying to lift the prosperity of this country. Labour has one focus and one focus only—that is winning power by buying votes. 
I would like the Minister to take a call to tell us how he can explain that to New Zealanders who at the present time are very worried about the Labour cronies on those boards. The people are getting sick of the Labour Party trying to buy votes. I can say that a lot of us as members of Parliament yesterday visited mayoral forums around the country and heard that local authorities are sick to the teeth of the hundreds of millions of dollars they are paying in compliance costs and consultations imposed on them by the Labour Government. It is all money that has to come out of their ratepayer-funding base following the passing of the Local Government Bill the Responsible Gambling Bill and the Prostitution Reform Bill. Local authorities are terrified of the Land Transport Management Bill and what it will cost them. 
Progress reported. 
The House adjourned at 9 55 p.m.