Volume 686 Week 31 - Tuesday 11 December 2012 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 686 Week 31 - Tuesday 11 December 2012 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7315. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Tuesday 11 December 2012 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Questions to Ministers 
Child Poverty—Government Actions to Address and Measuring Numbers Affected 
1. 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement “I am deeply concerned about every child in New Zealand who is in poverty”; if so why has the number of children living in material hardship grown under his watch? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes I stand by that statement. The recent report by Bryan Perry says that the rise in non-income material hardship from 2006-07 to 2010-11 which the member is referring to is “not unexpected given the impact of the GFC and the economic downturn.” Interestingly enough though the same report also shows that in 2007 after Working for Families had been introduced and following a $7 billion surplus there were between 170000 and 240000 children living in poverty depending on the exact measure used. So that is the point is it not? Labour had $7 billion and still had— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statements that if the Government does not take action to provide food in schools “we are effectively punishing children for the sins of their parents.”; if not what has changed since he has made those statements other than that the number of children living in hardship has increased? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes I stand by that statement. The Government has expanded Fruit in Schools the Government has given money to KidsCan to fund more schools and the Government has worked with other commercial entities like Fonterra to run programmes in schools. I go back to this question: in 2007 as an example was there any child in New Zealand going to school hungry? 
Hon David Parker 
: Yes there was. 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Absolutely and there was a $7 billion surplus and they did not care about it. 
David Shearer 
: In light of that last answer will he back the proposal made by KidsCan today where a $1.9 million investment by the Government would be matched by the private sector to provide 16000 children in deciles 1 to 4 schools with food; if not why not? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: We are not ruling out doing a bit more work with Julie at KidsCan and we will go away and have a look to see whether there is some more we can do. But let me raise another question. In 2006 was there any child who went to school— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It is actually the Minister’s job to answer questions not to ask questions. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! 
David Shearer 
: Would he support a policy to ensure that private rental properties for low-income tenants are upgraded as recommended by the Children’s Commissioner particularly as private landlords have been slow to take up the Government’s Warm Up New Zealand programme? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I think the Minister for Social Development has already said that she will look pretty closely at potentially the warrant of fitness idea for landlords who receive the accommodation supplement. Again they might want to have a look at it. But this is a Government that by 2013—from 2009—has insulated 190000 homes at the cost of $347 million. This is a Government that in 4 years— 
David Shearer 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That question was about private rentals not about what the Government has done. In State housing— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Now one is getting as bad as the other. The member was— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: It was a good point of order I thought. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member was perfectly at liberty to raise a point of order but not to enter into the debate that way though. I think that given the tit for tat we had better move on to the next supplementary question. 
David Shearer 
: Will the Government adopt a measure of poverty; if not why not? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: No not a single measure of poverty. I think there are a number of ways of measuring poverty but I think I will use this measure as one measure—that was in 2007 after housing costs there were 240000 children in New Zealand living in poverty and that Government had— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
David Shearer 
: Does he think that the $9 billion a year he spent on tax cuts two-thirds of which went to the top 20 percent of income earners giving the bottom 20 percent nothing have been beneficial to children in poverty; if not why not? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The member has to stop consulting the Labour finance spokesperson to get his numbers because they are always wrong. As we have been through before the tax cuts were not only distributionally neutral as has never been debunked by Labour but interestingly enough—[ 
Interruption 
] We are in the silly season so if they want to reverse the National Government’s tax programme in 2014 they can go ahead because this year alone the Government got billions of dollars extra from those tax cuts. 
David Shearer 
: I seek leave to table a document by Brian Easton—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! This is a point of order. 
David Shearer 
: —which backs up the figures that I just used about National’s tax cuts benefiting the— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The article is by Brian Easton but what was it published in? 
David Shearer 
: It was on his website. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think that is readily available to all members. 
David Shearer 
: It is not a well-known website although it might be more well known now. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I think we had better settle down. The House has had its fairly robust time. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. Does he agree with his statement on 3 July 2012 that “If you don’t measure monitor and report on things I don’t think you get progress.”; if so does he agree that setting indicators and targets for the reduction of poverty is critical if we are to achieve the difference we want in the lives of some 270000 New Zealand children? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I absolutely agree that you need to measure monitor and report on things. Therefore I have measured that this year the Government will spend $2.1 billion on family tax credits 40 percent of which goes to beneficiaries. We have measured that this Government will give around $2 billion on subsidising housing through income-related rents and accommodation supplements. This year this Government will spend $1.4 billion on early childhood education. This year this Government will spend almost $5 billion on benefits including $1.8 billion on the DPB. This Government will put $24 million into rheumatic fever. This Government will increase the number of children going to early childhood education and this Government—suffering the worst global financial crisis we have seen—has maintained all benefit entitlement. Not bad. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Is the Prime Minister pleased that in the relationship accord signed with the Maori Party 1 year ago today it was agreed that a Ministerial Committee on Poverty would be established to bring a greater focus to and improve coordination of Government—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! I want to be able to hear this question. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Shall I start again? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member may start again. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Thank you very much. Is the Prime Minister pleased that in the relationship accord signed with the Maori Party 1 year ago today it was agreed that a Ministerial Committee on Poverty would be established to bring a greater focus to and improve coordination of Government activity aimed at alleviating the effects of poverty and will he ask that the committee now demonstrate the leadership required to adopt a strategic framework for addressing child poverty? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes I am pleased it has been formed. I have also myself been to that committee meeting and seen Russell Wills actually presenting to the committee his recommendations that were presented in the child report today. The Government will look at adopting some of those recommendations but I go back to the point I made earlier that these have been difficult economic times and the Government has put more money in these areas. The people I think who should be ashamed in this country are the people who had a $20 billion surplus over 3 years and cared so little that— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The Prime Minister has got no responsibility for that. Question No. 2 Todd McClay—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I would like the House to be just a little more reasonable with the interjections. 
Economic Recovery—Support for Vulnerable New Zealanders 
2. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What measures has the Government taken to support vulnerable New Zealanders through the aftermath of the domestic recession and global financial crisis? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Now look I just asked the House to be more reasonable. The Minister has not even opened his mouth and the honourable— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I wasn’t interrupting anything. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I am still on my feet. The honourable shadow Leader of the House is interjecting in an unacceptable way. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Despite difficult economic times the Government has focused on assisting those most in need through the recession. We have adjusted all welfare payments for the cost of living. New Zealand superannuation has been increased by $194 a fortnight or 22 percent since 1 April 2008. We adjusted all benefits to compensate for the rise in GST. We have also invested significantly more in specific programmes designed to help New Zealanders off welfare and into work because that is the single most important step households can take to help themselves. We have also embarked on a broad-ranging process of reform to reorganise the way that government interacts with those who are most vulnerable so that we can encourage them on to a path of independence rather than trapping them in dependence as our traditional structures have. 
Todd McClay 
: What are some examples of Government initiatives focused particularly on improving the lives of vulnerable children? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There is a long list but these measures are focused on those who suffer the most deprivation which is actually a different group—a smaller group—from those who find themselves in a situation of a low-income household. The initiatives include though the Better Public Services results targeted on increasing infant immunisation rates which are now higher than they have ever been in New Zealand a reduction in assaults on children and increasing participation in early childhood education particularly for those from the most vulnerable households. This comes on top of extending the programme to improve the living conditions of tens of thousands of New Zealand children by insulating and heating 230000 homes which will include the insulation of all 70000 State houses by the end of next year. That is not to mention the rheumatic fever programme and further funding for free under-sixes doctors’ visits. 
Todd McClay 
: What recent reports has the Minister seen on the position of New Zealand’s most vulnerable children? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Children’s Commissioner’s expert advisory committee today issued its report on solutions to child poverty including 78 recommendations. We will pick up some of the ideas that we believe will work and some of the issues that the report covers are already being addressed. For instance there is merit in the suggestion of community hubs and in a warrant of fitness for homes that access Government subsidies. The Government is already ensuring that beneficiary teen parents are in education and being helped into work. In fact all 2600 teenage mums under the age of 18 now have an organisation alongside them supervising their progress. However we will not support universal child payments. Families on the lowest incomes are in the greatest need and any new spending needs to be targeted on them. 
Todd McClay 
: What is the Government’s overall approach to addressing some of the issues raised by the Children’s Commissioner’s advisory group report? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Our approach is to work to protect those who are genuinely the most vulnerable by targeting more of the Government’s resources on those people and those families rather than spreading resources thinly across all New Zealanders through universal programmes. We are also focusing on mobility—that is assisting people out of the dependence in which they can often be trapped to take the steps such as through education through skills through supported childcare and through assistance into employment towards independence so that they do not remain in poverty. 
Child Poverty Abuse and Neglect—Government Measures to Address 
3. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: When he said “we don’t want to see any New Zealand child suffer … children don’t get to make choices they’re often the victim of circumstance” does that mean he will take tangible steps to ensure children don’t suffer because of circumstances beyond their control? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 We are taking tangible steps. If the member read the White Paper for Vulnerable Children for example she would see that we are introducing amongst other things child abuse prevention orders; new teams made up of local education health and social sector professionals to respond to the needs of vulnerable children; a new system to draw together information from Government agencies and front-line professionals about vulnerable children and to provide early alerts; and a new Child Protect line to provide a single point of contact for all New Zealanders to report any concerns they have about children or young people. Together with a number of other initiatives these represent the most significant advancement in child protection in many many years. 
Metiria Turei 
: How does his Government’s welfare sanctions regime which deliberately takes money from the poorest children because of their parents’ inability to fulfil his social obligations fit with his desire to ensure that children do not suffer because of the choices of others? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly as the member will be aware the matter is before the select committee so people can put forward their ideas. But whenever sanctions are applied—and there are examples where sanctions can be applied—the Ministry of Social Development or the front-line Work and Income people go through many many steps before they get there but there are in the end very good reasons why a sanction would be applied. They are also maintained at 50 percent where there are other dependants. But in the end the idea of the sanctions is to see corrected behaviour. More often than not we use carrots; occasionally we are required to use a stick. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does he think that the 36000 children admitted to hospital in the past year for poverty-related medical conditions got there because of choices that they made; if not will he now commit to extending free doctors’ visits to all children? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: We are not in a position to extend free doctors’ visits to all children but we have been in a position to extend free doctors’ visits to under-sixes and I think if you look at the financial conditions that this Government has faced that has been an important step. Secondly I am not sure that it would be in the best interests of the very children she is talking about that we extend that policy on a universal basis because children coming from very well-to-do homes actually can afford to have their parents pay. Let us target and focus more on those who are in need. 
Metiria Turei 
: Has the Prime Minister talked to general practitioners about his view that parents of children over 6 who cannot afford to take their kids to the doctor should simply hope that the doctor will not make them pay; if so what did the general practitioners say? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I cannot recall a specific conversation on that so I would not want to offer a view. 
Metiria Turei 
: I seek leave to table a transcript of John Key’s radio interview— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The source of this is? 
Metiria Turei 
: The source of this document is from my own office—a transcript of the interview that was given. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A broadcast interview? 
Metiria Turei 
: A broadcast interview. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No we do not— 
Metiria Turei 
: —showing the Prime Minister— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Members should know better than to use that process to try to enhance their statements because we do not table transcripts of— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have had rulings in the past about generally available transcripts of radio interviews but whether radio interviews that are not now available to members—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! It is a point of order and it should not be interjected on. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: My understanding is that if that interview is not available for rebroadcast and this transcript is available—not otherwise available—then it has been the practice to at least put it to the House. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I should have—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! This is a point of order. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Both sides should come to order. I apologise to the member. I should have checked when the interview took place. If it took place a year or two ago then no problem. If it is a very recent interview though then it is available. Such transcripts are readily available. I will just check with the member. 
Metiria Turei 
: The interview took place yesterday but there is no transcript of this interview available to members. So— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! To deal with the problem I will seek the leave of the House and that will settle the matter. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. First of all this whole ruling should change when the Prime Minister puts the issue in contention. He claims that he cannot remember what he said yesterday and the second thing he said was— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member is now using the point of order process to try to score a political point. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The House will stop and he will not do that. Sure we could do that in the old days but not any more. The easiest way to settle this is to seek the leave of the House and I will do that. Leave is sought for that transcript to be tabled. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Metiria Turei 
: If the Prime Minister does not want to see children suffer why has he immediately ruled out a universal child payment for the under-fives despite the Children’s Commissioner’s group of experts recommending that it would make life better for a quarter of a million New Zealand children and be a genuine investment in the prosperity of our country? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Because I think that in difficult economic times it is far better to channel those resources to those in need. 
Metiria Turei 
: So if the Prime Minister’s priority is to target the poorest children will he immediately approve additional financial support for the 170000 children whose parents are beneficiaries or failing that pass on the child support payments to those families or failing that at least try to protect the jobs for their parents 78000 of whom no longer have work under this watch? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The Government is channelling resources—significant resources—to those families and the Government is working in difficult economic conditions to try to preserve New Zealanders’ jobs. 
Metiria Turei 
: Given that kids have no choice but he does what dollar value would he put on the lost opportunities of a generation of Kiwi kids who are trapped in poverty and who may not grow up to be the doctors and lawyers and artists and gardeners and even the Prime Ministers of the future because his choice is to help out wealthy adults at children’s expense? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly I utterly refute the last point. Secondly it is a well-known statement of fact that I actually came from a very economically poor household and it did not stop me becoming Prime Minister. What made me Prime Minister was that my mother who was a solo mother had the foresight to ensure that I got a decent education. This Government is doing more about that than those people over there have done. When they had $20 billion over 3 years in surplus— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The question was asked by the Green Party not by the Labour Party. 
Immigration Minister—Confidence and China Southern Airlines Frequent Flyer Scheme 
4. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can he have confidence in the Minister of Immigration when he told the House on 14 November that they will “need to meet health and good-character checks.” when in fact Immigration New Zealand rules regarding visitor visas mean that most China Southern Airlines passengers will not be subject to any health or character checks at all? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: The member really if he has got very detailed questions needs to put them to the Minister of Immigration. But my understanding is that people including China Southern Airlines visitors who come to New Zealand will still need to apply for a visa and have all of those conditions met. What they will be waived is the economic test because the number of miles that they have flown indicate that they have got the resources to go back to China. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can he possibly have confidence in the Minister such that he is now making that answer given that the average length of stay in New Zealand for Chinese tourists is 5 days; how can he then continue to defend his Minister’s claim that they “still will need to meet health and good-character checks.”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do not think the length of time that Chinese tourists stay in New Zealand has got anything to do with the question the member is asking. Chinese tourists tend to come for smaller periods of time at the moment. That is one of the reasons why we are working aggressively in that market to build up the length of time that they may stay in New Zealand so that they become higher-spending consumers. That is true also in Japan. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister is being asked how his Minister of Immigration can make those claims when that is not what the law is and it is not what is being applied by Immigration New Zealand either. I am not interested about the high value of their visit— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The member is now debating the matter. He can raise a point of order about whether or not his question was answered. In his question the member mentioned issues to do with how the Prime Minister could say what he said given that they had stayed here only 5 days if I remember correctly. What the member is now just raising by a point of order does not match exactly the supplementary question he asked. That is my dilemma in dealing with it. But he cannot debate the Prime Minister’s answer by way of a point of order. If the Prime Minister has not answered his question that is one thing but I do recollect that in the member’s question he related the issue of how the Prime Minister could say what he did given that they stayed here only 5 days on average. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We can be as obtuse as we like about this but the fact is that my question wants to know how a Minister can argue that there are health and good-character checks when there are not under the rules any such requirements at all for people who stay less than 6 months. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the member feels aggrieved I will invite him to repeat his—was that exactly the question he asked? I invite him to repeat it. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: This is my question: given that the average length of stay in New Zealand for Chinese tourists is 5 days how can he continue to defend his Minister’s claim in this House that they “still will need to meet health and good-character checks.” when no such requirements are at all applied? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I said to the member if he wants detailed questions about immigration he needs to put those down for the Minister. But if that is what the Minister told the House I have no reason to deny that it is incorrect. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What confidence can you have in a Minister of Immigration who allows the Prime Minister to claim that one can be considered as a reasonably high net worth individual because they have travelled 40000 kilometres when a couple of trips back and forth between mainland China and Hong Kong gain such individuals frequent flyer status? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do not have a global positioning system machine with me so I cannot exactly tell you how far it is between mainland China and Hong Kong but I suspect you might have to do a bit more than a couple of flights. But in principle there is quite a lot of logic in saying that if people can meet those frequent flyer sorts of tests that China Southern Airlines have they will likely be reasonably high-class individuals. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call Brendan Horan. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! I have called Brendan Horan. 
Brendan Horan 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that natural justice and due process are relevant in the administration of the Immigration Act? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I do and I think it is important to be consistent when one is applying that. I know that selection of people when they come to New Zealand for visas is difficult and when 171000 a year are coming that is really challenging. But when it is one of eight you would think you would get it right. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The House will come to order. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! The right honourable Prime Minister both right honourable gentlemen should desist. Thank you. The House will settle down. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why did the Prime Minister on 28 November tell Parliament that Immigration New Zealand started to undertake work on the China Southern Airlines special deal from 4 September 2012 when first our Immigration New Zealand senior managers had enjoyed the hospitality of Chinese counterparts for months before September and second a ministerial section in the Immigration New Zealand weekly internal newspaper  
Visa Pak 
 dated 24 August 2012 confirmed that the China Southern Airlines deal would be effective from 1 September 2012 a full 4 days before the Prime Minister claimed the commencement of work on this issue? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Because that was the advice I received. 
Exchange Rate—Forecasts Effect on Export Sector and Current Account Deficit 
5. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Compared to 2012 does the Reserve Bank forecast the New Zealand dollar (as measured by the Trade Weighted Index) to strengthen or weaken in the next two years and does he believe this will make New Zealand exporters more competitive or less competitive? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yesterday the Reserve Bank recorded the trade-weighted index at 74.5. Its forecasts issued recently forecast that this will fall to 72.0 by March 2015. All other things being equal the forecast fall in the exchange rate will increase the competitiveness of exporters. By comparison the same index increased by 9 percent between March 2007 and March 2008 the period the member may recall. 
Hon David Parker 
: In respect of that period has he read reports of a politician in 2007 warning—and I quote—that “the New Zealand economy could not sustain exchange rates at US74c.” and further saying that “it would lead to substantial job losses and closures.” and was that politician the then Leader of the Opposition John Key? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes I do and that is exactly the point. Fortunately the National Government took over the economic levers in late 2008. Since then we have focused relentlessly on the competitiveness of our businesses and undoing the damage of the previous Government and that is why our exporters have sustained a higher exchange rate. They have shown great resilience over the last few years and with the Government’s continued backing their performance will continue to improve. 
Hon David Parker 
: If it is all going so well why do the Reserve Bank Treasury and various economic forecasters show our current account deficit getting worse? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Compared with the period 2006 to 2008 when the current account deficit was 8 percent or above—that is minus 8 percent or above—the forecasts now show it peaking at around 5.5 or 6 percent which is a considerable improvement. But there is no doubt and where we do agree with the member that the relatively high exchange rate is making it more difficult for this economy to rebalance more towards exports and away from domestic consumption. Our response to that is to focus on the competitiveness of our businesses. Every time we try to do something to make it easier for businesses to employ people the Opposition opposes it because fundamentally it is against growth— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon David Parker 
: How does he propose to reduce our current account deficit when because of the overvalued currency exporting is forecast to get even harder resulting in even more job losses and imports are forecast to become even cheaper harming our local industries yet monetary policy conditions continue to be myopically focused primarily on inflation? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Actually the monetary policy conditions have been loosening somewhat because our banks are finding that the costs of raising money on the international market are dropping and this is being reflected in mortgage interest rates continuing to drop to the lowest levels that they have been at in 50 years. New Zealanders who go and borrow money today are paying less than they have at any time in the last 50 years. But in respect of the current account deficit if we could just lower it we would but actually we cannot. We are focusing on supporting our businesses to be competitive and assisting them to make the decision to employ another person invest another dollar and sell another product successfully in our exports markets. One thing we will not be doing is hiring more photocopiers to print money which is the Opposition’s policy. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
John Hayes 
: What reports has he seen on alternative proposals for managing the New Zealand dollar? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have seen reports that the best way to deal with the challenges of the New Zealand economy is to print money because that looks easier than actually making our economy more competitive. We completely disagree with those reports. They come from the Greens-Labour Opposition and I think it is what it regards as “new thinking” about how to manage an economy. We are totally opposed to it. 
Hon David Parker 
: In light of that last answer can the Minister point to any example where the Labour Party has called for the printing of money? Because I do not know of it. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am not responsible for that but I can say that the senior— 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The accusation was made in the last answer that the Labour Party had been doing exactly that and I am asking him to clarify— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I hear the member. I think given what the Minister had said the question was not unreasonable because Ministers can be questioned on anything they include in their answer. The question was a straight question of the Minister: whether he had seen any evidence—was it—of the Labour Party arguing for the printing of money as part of economic policy. I would like the Minister the Hon Bill English to answer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: What I can say is that the senior economic spokesperson for the Opposition— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Order! The Minister made a statement. He is being questioned on it. It is a straight question on it. He should answer it. The question is about whether or not the Minister had seen any evidence where the Labour Party had called for the printing of money. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It may be the case that I have been confused between the senior economic spokesperson for the Opposition and the Labour Party finance spokesman and I will concede it is possible that the Labour Party has not said that. What it has said is that it is breaking up the bipartisan consensus over monetary policy and it is going to go in a different direction. The Greens have said that that direction is printing money. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I gave members of the Opposition the chance to question the Minister on a matter that was important to them and I do not think the interjections are actually that helpful and they will now stop. [ 
Interruption 
] That is not helpful either. 
Business Growth Agenda—Purpose and  
Building Natural Resources  
Progress Report 
6. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: How is the Government encouraging the sustainable use of natural resources to support jobs and grow the economy? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 The Government has a comprehensive programme of initiatives to responsibly develop our natural resource - based industries and increase exports. These are detailed in the Government’s  
Building Natural Resources 
 Business Growth Agenda progress report released this morning. It sets out how New Zealand is building jobs and growth from sustainably using its natural resources. It contains 49 separate initiatives that the Government is working on. I have here an autographed copy of the report should the acting Opposition economic development spokesperson share his predecessor’s enthusiasm for receiving a personal copy. 
David Bennett 
: What natural resources initiatives is the Government working on? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Government is focused on making progress in a number of key areas. I will list just a few by way of example: investment in oil and gas exploration which received a significant boost today with Minister Heatley’s announcement of the award of the block offer 2012 exploration permits; we are making more changes to the Resource Management Act to speed up decision-making processes to give more investors more opportunities to invest; we are in the process of setting effective limits for water quality and quantity to provide more certainty to businesses; and we have given the green light to the investigation of the Wairarapa Water Use Project which has the potential to irrigate an additional 30000 to 50000 hectares of land in that region and boost the area’s GDP by around $400 million. 
David Bennett 
: What is the key goal of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The goal of the Business Growth Agenda is to support New Zealand businesses to become more competitive and provide them with more opportunities to invest and grow so we can have more and higher-paying jobs for New Zealanders. We have undertaken a comprehensive programme of around 250 initiatives across interconnected portfolios to build a more productive and competitive economy. The  
Building Natural Resources 
 report is the fifth progress report alongside others on export markets innovation skilled and safe workplaces and infrastructure. The sixth report  
Building Capital Markets 
 
will be published early next year. 
Child Poverty—Government Initiatives Hospital Admissions and Statistics on Outcomes 
7. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Is he satisfied with the state of children’s health in New Zealand; if not why not? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 For the great majority of New Zealand children yes. But for some children in New Zealand the state of their health does need to improve and that is why the Government despite tight times has spent billions extra to support these children and their families. Twenty-eight thousand kids at 148 schools are part of the rheumatic fever programme 93 percent of children aged 2 are now fully immunised over 90 percent of children under 6 are now getting free doctors’ visits including after hours and the Government has funded targeted additional Well Child visits. We have also received a number of new reports. We agree with some recommendations but not others and we will be considering these over time. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Taking those statistics and figures that he likes to trot out into account why have hospital admission rates for children with acute upper respiratory tract infections viral infections skin infections dermatitis and eczema and some vaccine-preventable diseases increased over the last 3 years and what does he intend to do about it? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Yes some causes of hospitalisation have increased whereas others have decreased. But overall the latest report I think the  
Children’s Social Health Monitor 
 shows that we are having a reduction in those numbers of hospital presentations. The causes of those of course are quite multi-factorial. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Why do admission rates for socioeconomically sensitive medical conditions remain much higher for Pacific children and then for Maori children than for European and other children and what does he intend to do about that? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: As I have said there are indications that those hospitalisations are now beginning to reduce. What is the Government doing? We are doing a number of things. We have grown the number of doctors and practices that provide free visits to children by 25 percent where we now have 93 percent of New Zealand children able to go to primary care for free if they are under the age of 5. We have extended that to after hours. We are also investing $24 million in a rheumatic fever programme and very important a number of Government departments have contributed to the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of homes that have benefited from the Government’s home insulation programme. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Why are rates of sudden unexpected death in infancy very unequally distributed with rates for babies from the most deprived 20 percent being over six times higher than for babies from the least deprived 20 percent of areas and over four times higher for Maori babies; and what does he intend to do about that? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Yes the Government is quite concerned about the rates of sudden unexpected death in infancy. The advice we have received is that there are two major interventions that could assist in reducing these numbers. One is reducing the prevalence of smoking of which the Government has an unparalleled record of achievement. The second is in the area of providing safer sleeping spaces. Quite a lot of activity is happening around the country in that area including 4000 pepi-pods which have been made available to new mothers around the country. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Does the Minister have any specific plans to address in the next Budget unequal health outcomes arising from poverty; if not why not? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: The member will have to wait until the next Budget to see those but what I can tell the member is that in a series of Budgets this Government has invested in order to improve the health status of all New Zealand children. If I was to take for example immunisation it was only 4 years ago that 67 percent of New Zealand’s 2-year-olds were fully immunised with a marked contrast between Maori Pacific and European. Through the funding and effort of this Government we have now closed that gap to where 93 percent of New Zealand children are fully immunised and Pacific children are I think now at 96 percent fully immunised. So we have closed the gap through focus and effort and that is certainly the Government’s record. 
Oil and Gas Exploration—Permits Awarded for 2012 Block Offer 
8. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy and Resources 
: What recent announcement has he made about Block Offer 2012? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Energy and Resources) 
: 
 This morning I had the pleasure of awarding 10 new exploration permits in the Taranaki Pegasus and Great South Basins following the success of Block Offer 2012. Strong interest in the permitting round proves that New Zealand is a key destination for both domestic and international investment in exploration with bids from the Netherlands Austria Canada the United States Australia and Japan alongside those from New Zealand companies. Responsible use of our abundant natural resources is a key plank in the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. Realising the potential of our petroleum resources will benefit the whole country through the creation of both new jobs and income for the Government to help fund things like schools roads and hospitals. 
Colin King 
: What work will companies be undertaking as part of their exploration permit? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: The purpose of exploration is to find out more about the resources that are within each of the areas and whether they are of a magnitude worth extracting. If they are then we can have a robust debate about the benefits and risks of accessing that resource. Exploration permits are awarded for 5 years. Most of the exploratory work is unobtrusive such as desktop mapping and seismic and aeromagnetic surveys. Contingent on that and what these surveys show some companies may drill exploratory wells. 
Freshwater Management—Reform 
9. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Does she agree with the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society in relation to freshwater that “failure to act with decisiveness and urgency risks further environmental degradation and erosion of our international environmental reputation”; if not why not? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister for Primary Industries) 
 on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: The Minister agrees with the need to act decisively and urgently on improving the way we manage our freshwater resource here in New Zealand and that is why this Government has made improving water quality a priority. 
Eugenie Sage 
: When will she act decisively and urgently to introduce strong national standards and rules for clean water so New Zealanders can safely swim in our rivers or is it acceptable that more than 52 percent of river sites monitored for recreational water-quality are unsafe for swimming? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Minister is working very hard now on a substantial package of water reform that brings together many of the good reports from the Land and Water Forum. She hopes to have that work before Parliament early next year. 
Eugenie Sage 
: When 50 percent of sites on Wairarapa rivers that are monitored for recreational water-quality are unsafe to swim at how does she propose to prevent more water pollution from intensive agriculture which is subsidised by this Government without strong national standards for clean water? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The member will have to wait until next year to see exactly how the Minister proposes to solve the water-quality issues in this country. But I do assure the member that this Government does treat it like a priority unlike the previous Government which established a programme of water inaction over 9 years. 
Eugenie Sage 
: What message has the Minister got for New Zealanders who want to enjoy a hot summer’s day at their local river or lake but cannot go swimming because in the words of her ministry “There are many freshwater swimming spots which should be avoided.”? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Minister’s message to all New Zealanders is following a decade of inaction by the previous Labour Government supported by the Greens. This Government is absolutely focused on putting water quality and quantity at the top of its priority list. 
Earthquakes Royal Commission Report—Regulatory Environment for Building Industry 
10. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
 to the  
Minister for Building and Construction 
: How quickly will he respond to the building performance assessment and construction recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Building Failure caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 As the Government said when it released the final parts of the royal commission’s report it expects to release a full response by early to mid next year. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Can he assure the House that the regulatory system behind the building control system today would not allow a repeat of the sequence of events that ended in the tragedy of the CTV Building? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Yes indeed I can assure the member. Some of it was under the Labour Government and some of those changes have been under the current National Government where we have done full accreditation of things like the building consent authority and from December next year building officials who work within those will actually need to be qualified to perform the work. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Can he confirm that specific concerns about poor seismic-resistant design were raised with him by the group of engineers who approached him in his electorate office in 2008 and will he now urgently review those concerns in light of the royal commission’s findings? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I presume the member is talking about the individual John Scarry raising it with me. He raised concern about the entire engineering profession in New Zealand and about poor standards across modern building practice. I have got a copy of notes from the things that he said at the time and what was interesting is that the CTV Building was built back in 1986 a time Mr Scarry was not referring to. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Can he confirm that specific concerns about poor seismic-resistant design were raised with him by the group of engineers which included Charles Clifton associate professor of civil engineering and the structures group leader at the department of civil and environmental engineering University of Auckland and will he now review the concerns that were raised with him by the group of engineers in light of the findings of the royal commission? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: By my recollection of that meeting some many years ago there were three at it. They made the claim again on this morning’s radio. Mr Scarry said two Prime Ministers—that is Helen Clark and John Key—have both ignored him and eight building and construction Ministers which I presume is seven from Labour followed by me have ignored him. He feels terribly ignored and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand Inc. is ignoring him as well. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Can he confirm that specific concerns about poor seismic-resistant design were raised with him in 2008 and will he now specifically review those concerns in light of the findings of the royal commission? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: It is very hard to recall the meeting. It was in an electorate office; it was not with officials. It was a couple of engineers: the two who have been mentioned plus one other. The general concern was across the entire engineering profession that all the buildings that we were currently building were not up to standard and I needed to do something. I have made it clear on a number of public occasions that if Mr Scarry can get the support of the engineering fraternity—that is the Institution of Professional Engineers the Structural Engineering Society New Zealand and a whole lot of other engineering associations—and it backs his claim which it does not I will take it seriously. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: In light of the fact that the royal commission report volumes 5 and 7 acknowledge that the regulatory system behind the building control standards is more lax now than it was in 1986 which was the point that was raised with him and given the recommendations for improvement will he now review those matters that were brought to his attention all those years ago? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: All of the recommendations made by the royal commission will be looked at carefully and considered carefully and then a final considered view will be put by the Government. But I just do not accept that the current regime is more lax than it was back in 1986. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I seek leave to table an email that Charles Clifton—whom I described in one of my questions—emailed through to Radio New Zealand this morning after he heard people saying that the system today was nowhere near as dangerous as it was back then. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Earthquakes Royal Commission Report—Government Response 
11. 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
 to the  
Minister for Building and Construction 
: What is the Government doing in response to the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission’s full report? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 Yesterday we released the final part of the report—that is volumes 5 to 7—without a Government response because we wanted the families who had lost loved ones in the earthquake to have access to the information as soon as possible. The full report was comprehensive—more than 1100 pages—and contained 189 recommendations including a number that will require policy and legislative changes. As I said before in answer to the previous question we need to carefully consider the full report and expect to issue a full and comprehensive official response early to mid next year. Lessons must be learnt from the Christchurch experience and changes must be made. 
Nicky Wagner 
: What changes is the Government proposing to improve the way we deal with earthquake-prone buildings in New Zealand? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Last Friday the Government released a consultation document around earthquake-prone buildings. We are proposing to introduce a mandatory time frame and process to deal with earthquake-prone buildings. This will shorten the existing time frame from an average of 28 years to 15 which breaks down to 5 years of seismically assessing all buildings and then 10 years post-assessment of strengthening or removing those buildings. I must stress that the proposals out for consultation are simply proposals at this stage and no decisions have been made. I encourage all New Zealanders to have their say as any decisions will affect a large number of New Zealanders and communities right across the country. This process is about ensuring we strike an acceptable balance between protecting people from serious harm and managing the economic implications of strengthening or actually removing the most vulnerable buildings. 
Broadband—Wholesale Pricing 
12. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by all his statements? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. 
Clare Curran 
: Does he stand by his statements regarding the draft Commerce Commission recommendations for wholesale broadband pricing that “in its current form it would be very problematic” because “it substantially reduces the income of that company” referring to Chorus the Crown-backed ultra-fast broadband network? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. 
Clare Curran 
: Why does he want most New Zealand households to pay around $12 a month more for their phone and internet services than they otherwise would? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly I would reject the proposition that they would be paying more. Secondly I think it is important that New Zealand has a roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. Thirdly it is quite correct that the Government has taken a very close look at that Commerce Commission ruling which is an interim ruling. 
Clare Curran 
: Does he believe that it is a fundamental principle of our telecommunications regulatory regime that the regulator is independent to carry out its role without interference or undue political influence? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Of course. They are free to go about their work. The Government then is free to decide whether it wants to adopt that. 
Clare Curran 
: Will he rule out legislation if the Commerce Commission comes back with a final decision that his Government does not agree with? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Definitely not. 
Voting 
Correction—Alcohol Reform Bill 
BARBARA STEWART (Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to correct a vote cast by New Zealand First last week on Supplementary Order Paper 40 in the name of Iain Lees-Galloway during the Committee stage of the Alcohol Reform Bill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. The member may proceed. 
BARBARA STEWART 
: The vote should read 7 votes in favour for Supplementary Order Paper 40. 
Urgent Debates Declined 
Earthquakes Royal Commission Report—Release 
Child Poverty—Release of Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group Report 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Honourable members I have received a letter from the Hon Lianne Dalziel seeking to address under Standing Order 386 the royal commission report into Canterbury earthquakes. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving the administrative responsibility of the Government. The test for whether a particular case of recent occurrence requires the immediate attention of the House is a high one. The royal commission’s report is extensive and working through its recommendations will take some time. Although the member’s letter refers to a decision to release a discussion document this is not authenticated. The purpose of an urgent debate is to hold the Government accountable for its actions. Despite the matter’s obvious importance I do not think I would be justified in setting aside the business of the House at this time. The application is therefore declined. 
I have also received a letter from the Hon Maryan Street seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the release of the Children’s Commissioner’s expert advisory group’s report  
Solutions to Child Poverty in New Zealand 
. This too is a particular case of recent occurrence involving the administrative responsibility of the Government. Although the Government has given its view on one of the recommendations the report contains 77 others. Working through these will take time. There must be an element of urgency for a matter to take precedence over other business. The application is therefore also declined. 
Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill be now read a second time 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 59; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1. 
Bill read a second time. 
Resource Management Reform Bill 
First Reading 
Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Resource Management Reform Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. Resource management reform is a key part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. New Zealand needs a resource management system that enables growth provides good environmental outcomes and is capable of adapting to changing values pressures and technology. In 2008 the National-led Government initiated a two-phase programme of reform of the resource management system. Phase one of that programme resulted in the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Act 2009 which delivered a number of improvements to the operational efficiencies of Resource Management Act processes. 
In phase two we are introducing the current bill and are also working on a cohesive package of reforms for our freshwater and resource management systems with public consultation on wider reform expected in the first half of next year. The Government’s reform package is focused on delivering a system that answers communities’ planning needs enables growth and job creation and provides strong environmental outcomes in a timely and cost-effective manner. While we are considering that broader package of reforms there are however some issues we can and must address more quickly. 
The Resource Management Reform Bill 2012 provides 6-month limits on council processing of medium-sized consents a one-off streamlined hearing process for the first Auckland Unitary Plan a choice for major regional projects to be consented directly through the Environment Court and enhanced requirements for councils to base their planning decisions on robust and thorough cost-benefit analysis. The costs uncertainties and delays of the current resource management system are affecting New Zealand jobs infrastructure and productivity and they place an unfair burden on communities. They are causing frustrations for those wanting to progress important developments including housing subdivisions industrial developments or infrastructure projects that collectively are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It is also leaving communities with uncertainty and drawn-out battles for years on end bringing with it significant cost. This bill delivers on National’s commitment to introduce a 6-month time limit on council processing of notified consents. It will help give certainty to communities and developers by reducing the time for consents by about one-third from the current average of 9 months. 
In terms of the economics of delays a 2007 estimate put the cost per day of a hypothetical $10 million project being delayed at $2200 which for a 3-month delay could mean an additional $140000 of unnecessary cost. This is not about changing the basis on which the final decision is reached but about getting to the decision more quickly to give certainty and to lessen the cost and time impact on everyone involved. 
The bill also proposes a simpler direct referral path to the Environment Court for applicants of major regional projects should they choose that route. The threshold for these projects would be smaller than nationally significant projects but still involve major investment. Councils would be required to permit the direct referral if the application meets certain criteria unless there was a good reason not to. Exactly where the threshold should sit will be determined after a period of consultation and will be contained in regulation to ensure that it can easily be updated to keep pace with cost pressures over time. 
The bill also includes a one-off hearing process to streamline and improve the development of Auckland Council’s first Unitary Plan while ensuring that Aucklanders will have comprehensive input and are assured of a high-quality independent review of the council plan. I am concerned that under existing law Auckland Council estimates that its first Unitary Plan could take up to 10 years to become operative. No one benefits from long drawn-out and expensive processes during which time Auckland’s development stagnates in a cloud of uncertainty. Auckland’s economy is too important to New Zealand for us to wait up to a decade for the plan to be implemented. Auckland represents some of our most pressing housing affordability issues and the council needs to be able to make changes to address this issue without long delays. The Unitary Plan developed by the council after enhanced consultation will be referred to a hearings panel appointed by me and the Minister of Conservation in consultation with the council and the independent Maori Statutory Board to ensure that the consideration is properly independent. There will be the usual guidelines applied for making appointments including a high degree of local knowledge competency and understanding of tikanga Maori. The process will involve all the dispute resolution options available in the Environment Court and provide the board with wide discretion to control its processes to ensure that it is easily accessed and understood by all. 
After considering the plan and hearing public submissions the panel will deliver recommendations to the council. Those accepted will be immediately operative subject to appeals only on points of law. Aucklanders will have full appeal rights to the Environment Court for any recommendations the council does not accept. The new process also requires a publicly available independent audit of the council’s evaluation of the costs and benefits of major policy changes. Under this new process it is estimated that most if not all of the plan provisions will be operative in 3 years instead of the 10 it may otherwise have taken. 
The bill also recognises that decisions made at local and regional level can have far-reaching effects on local jobs and growth. We need to make sure that elected councillors and hearing commissioners have all the information they need to inform their decisions and that that information is public. Under this bill councils will be required to undertake more robust cost-benefit analysis under section 32 of the Act including considering how the local economy and jobs will be affected before making major decisions on policy and planning. The bill requires the analysis to be proportionate to the size of the proposal so that plans with major implications will need considerable and careful work without burdening smaller plans with undue cost and effort. 
There are a number of other issues that the bill will address. These include extending access to the emergency provisions under the Resource Management Act to all lifeline utilities and clarifying the intent of the 2009 Resource Management Act amendment that councils are not able to introduce blanket tree protection rules in their plans. The bill also makes some minor changes to how boards of inquiry make their decisions when considering nationally significant proposals and amends Environment Court procedures so that all proceedings must explicitly promote timeliness and cost-effectiveness. 
Good resource management should contribute to our future environmental and economic prosperity. This bill addresses some significant issues now while further work on water and wider resource management reforms continues. I commend the bill to the House. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Earlier in question time today the Prime Minister was reflecting on some of his upbringing. One of the things he did not discuss during that speech was the person whom he named as a child and then later in life as his political hero. That person was Sir Robert Muldoon. This legislation that is in front of us today owes an awful lot to Sir Robert Muldoon. It actually says in the regulatory impact statement for the Resource Management Reform Bill that the goal of this legislation is to provide “greater central government direction on resource management …”—greater central government direction on resource management. This is a continuation of this Government’s centralisation of power and taking away of decision-making rights from local communities. It fits right alongside the Local Government Act changes that were before this House that centralised power. It says—and Sir Robert Muldoon would be proud—that this National Government knows best. It knows better than local communities about how they should look after their resources. 
We saw it with the Local Government Act we have seen it with Environment Canterbury we have seen it with decisions about transport and here in the Resource Management Reform Bill we once again see a Government determined to take power away from local communities— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How does it do that? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —and bring it back to itself. Dr Smith asks me how it does that. Well let us just have a look at that shall we? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why is 6 months too long? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Let us just have a look at that shall we? Let us have a look at clause 13 of the bill which introduces an investment threshold. If a project or a consent is above a certain investment threshold that will be directly referred to the Environment Court. Who is going to set that? Who is going to set the regulations for that? It is Ministers. Ministers will set the regulations. They will say what the level of an investment threshold is. It is not going to have anything to do with the local community and what it may want. That will come directly from Ministers. This investment threshold is an interesting one because not only will it be set by regulation by Ministers but there is no attempt here to set any other kind of threshold. I do not know; in a Resource Management Act perhaps we might see a threshold of environmental impact that could be used. But no we do not have that; we simply have an investment threshold. 
 It is very interesting to look at the regulatory impact statement’s comments around this proposal when it discussed the consultation on that. This is what the regulatory impact statement says: “There has been no departmental stakeholder or public consultation on the proposals outlined in this RIS. Most critically there has been no consultation with the Courts to ensure that there is adequate capacity to deal with an increase in direct referrals. Inadequate Court capacity is a risk that would potentially mean that the proposal would not achieve its objective. … Without consultation”— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Potentially. Maybe. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —without consultation Dr Smith—“it is difficult to provide robust advice on the costs benefits and risks of the two options.” So Government members come to this House with a proposal that they have not even consulted on as to whether it is a good idea. They do not know whether the courts have got the capacity to do it and they think it is fine just to take that power away from communities. 
I want to mention the changes that Amy Adams glossed over and these are the changes in clause 12 which amends section 76(4A)(a) which will prevent councils from protecting groups of trees. I find myself asking what the National Party has against trees. What brings those members to this House to separate trees out from any other kind of natural resource and say that local communities do not get to control what happens there? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yes they do. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No they do not Dr Smith. What this does is it says to local communities that if they want to protect trees it will be an individual tree notified in a plan—an individual tree notified in a plan. That is as good as it gets— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Or group. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —or group says Dr Smith interjecting standing up when he should not be. A group of trees actually in this definition is a line or a grove of trees in an adjacent area. Well Dr Smith may or may not know it but when councils and communities are looking at the protection of trees they are actually looking beyond a line of trees adjacent to each other or an individual tree. What they are looking at is an overall plan for the kinds of trees and bush life that they want in their communities. Why should councils and local communities not be able to decide that a particular species of tree or a particular type of tree or trees of a certain height should be able to be protected? It is ridiculous. It will create a bureaucratic nightmare for councils and that is deliberate. It is deliberately designed to make it more difficult to protect trees and easier to fell trees. That is the purpose of this. It goes directly against the Environment Court’s ruling on this matter and it once again is this National Government saying to local communities that “We know better than you do about the protection of trees. We know better than you do in your local community about how to manage your resources.” It is once again Muldoonism on its way through. 
I also want to mention a couple of other matters where the Government has done this and one of these is the changes around section 32 of the Act. Under section 32 as it currently is in the Act an evaluation of a council’s plan has to be undertaken. Well the Government has now decided that that evaluation should focus on economic growth. That is what the Government has decided. That unbalances the inherent balance within the Act for sustainable development. It takes it away from sustainable development and says “We will prioritise economic development within sustainable development.” That is the purpose of the Act—sustainable development—and this fundamentally unbalances that. But once again look at what the Government has brought to the House. The regulatory impact statement tells us that under the section 32 changes costs will be high because a lack of experience with cost-benefit methodology exists in councils. It then goes on to benefits where it says the benefits would be medium and that they are not quantifiable benefits anyway. Then it goes on to say that there are high risks associated with these changes. Once again the Government comes to this House with a proposal where the costs are going to be higher where it cannot quantify the benefits and where the risks are high and it expects this House to vote for that kind of change when we do not even know whether it will benefit the kinds of things the Minster for the Environment said she was interested in. 
There is a range of other clauses that the Labour Party has concerns about. Clause 11 amends section 53 of the Act to allow the Minister to make changes to national policy statements without following the consultation process. Once again there is one set of rules for the Government and one set of rules for everybody else. The Government is making changes because it thinks it knows what is right rather than in a manner that is consistent with this particular piece of legislation. The other aspects of this bill my colleagues will cover in some more detail but one in particular is the question around the fast-tracking process for the Auckland Unitary Plan. In principle the Labour Party is happy to see a process where we get through the Auckland Unitary Plan in a quicker and more efficient way— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Oh that’s not Muldoonist? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —but what is Muldoonist Dr Smith is that this Government the National Government is going to decide who is on the panel that hears this. Well I have some suggestions. We have had leaked from the National Party the memo with the four people who are likely to be on that panel. It is going to be chaired by Paula Rebstock obviously—I mean there is nobody else is there? I think Tony O’Brien is there Peter Kiely is there and Stephen McElrea is there. That is what we have come to expect from this National Government. It puts the cronies in place to oversee something like this. So it is all very well to say that yes the Government will fast-track this Auckland Unitary Plan but it is going to be controlled once again by Ministers. 
The Labour Party understands that there is room for more efficient and effective processes within resource management but this bill is not that. This bill is once again a power grab by this Government. It is taking away the rights from local communities to make decisions that affect them. It is putting in place unbelievably silly rules around things like trees and separating them out and once again trying to avoid the public having a fair say in all the consents that affect them. We would like to support a bill that reforms the Resource Management Act to make it more effective and more efficient. Unfortunately we cannot support this bill because it does not do that in a way that retains community representation or in a way that gives local communities the ability to make decisions about their own resources. 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 In contrast to the previous speaker Grant Robertson I am very pleased to be supporting this bill the Resource Management Reform Bill. We do need to see reform of the Resource Management Act and we believe that these will be good reforms. National is absolutely committed to looking after our environment while encouraging economic growth. As Bluegreens we believe that good environmental practices underpin the prosperity of our nation and that prudent and careful managing of our natural resources can and should go hand in hand with developing our economy. Improving the way that the Resource Management Act works is key to our Government’s programme and this bill is the second tranche in Resource Management Act reform. 
This bill has four distinct areas. The first is a focus on Auckland. It is a focus to streamline the planning process and to support the production of Auckland’s first combined plan in a good length of time. The second is to improve the time efficiency and effectiveness of the consenting process for medium-sized projects and to provide for easier direct referral to the Environment Court for major regional projects. The third and this is what Mr Robertson has been discussing is to require a more robust process with stronger information requirements for council decision-making particularly around the analysis in section 32 reports. Finally the fourth is a series of minor and technical amendments. This work follows up on the significant Resource Management Act reform that was done in 2009 which actually took a lot of the time of the Local Government and Environment Committee and we were very pleased to do that work. Despite the dire predictions from Labour following on from the conspiracy theories of Mr Robertson we have had very good responses from those 2009 amendments. We have been very pleased to see how those reforms have been received. There has been hardly any criticism at all and there have been significant improvements in the quality and the timeliness of the consenting process. 
Also we have seen the effectiveness of the national consenting provisions or the Environmental Protection Authority consenting provisions which have predicated some of this new work and particularly in terms of the Waterview Connection decision-making. Everybody who was involved in that regardless of whether or not they liked the decision was pleased with the way the process worked out. 
Finally it was very good to see the creation of the Environmental Protection Authority which came out of that legislation. Just last week the Local Government and Environment Committee reviewed the Environmental Protection Authority and discussed the establishment process and its first year of work and was very pleased to see how well it was functioning. I believe that the establishment of the Environmental Protection Authority will be an important contributor to the effective management of our natural resources as we go forward. 
Following this bill there will be further amendments to the Resource Management Act to deal with planning weak planning unnecessary costs and delays and to introduce freshwater reforms based on the recommendations of the Land and Water Forum. This of course is particularly important legislation and New Zealanders are keen to see new ways of managing our water resources. Everyone in this House understands the importance of getting this Resource Management Act legislation right and the Local Government and Environment Committee looks forward to working on this bill and looks forward to the submissions process. Thank you. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
: 
 The Labour Opposition will be opposing this bill the Resource Management Reform Bill. This bill amends the Resource Management Act makes a number of changes to the Resource Management Act process and imposes a 6-month consent time frame for medium-sized projects. It is phase two of a series of Government reforms to the Resource Management Act with more coming next year so let us start there. We have already had the experience of this Government doing things in a piecemeal way in an ad hoc way and with a half-baked approach and that is what we are facing yet again with this bill. Why does the Government not complete its work and bring to this House a comprehensive piece of legislation for us to consider? Bringing in piecemeal pieces of legislation is a waste of the House’s time and a waste of the time of the Local Government and Environment Committee and means that those who want to submit to any bill that comes to this House have to do it two or three times depending on how many times this Government decides it is going to bring in a bill that relates to the same topic. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Well how come Labour had three RMA bills? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: So I ask Nick Smith who has probably been the author of this—I doubt whether Amy Adams is the author of it; right behind this are the hands and the fingerprints of Nick Smith—could he not have learnt from the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012 that you do things based on evidence that you do the job first and then you bring the bill to this House? But oh no here we go again with a half-baked idea that has had very little consultation. 
I found the regulatory impact statement also very very interesting. Remember the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill? It had a very interesting regulatory impact statement. In fact it ripped the Government apart in terms of saying how poor its consultation had been how rushed it had been how it had not considered all the options because there was not time and that there was no quantitative evidence to back up some of the claims that Nick Smith had made. So what does the regulatory impact statement say on this bill? It says this: “Given the nature of the issues covered in this policy process accurate quantification of the size of problems and the size of impacts has not been feasible across all options analysis. It is difficult to quantify the scale of costs reduction resulting from the proposals in this paper as they impact on a broad spectrum of business community and a mix of direct and associated holding costs.” In other words the work has not been done and the regulatory impact statement is pointing this out. It has not been feasible to look across all the options so why not wait get the evidence and do the work before introducing a bill? But no once again this Government rushes headlong into legislation before it has thought it through. 
My colleague Grant Robertson pointed out the Government’s consultation processes. Well it did a little bit of consultation in 2009; then it looks like it put it on the shelf and went away and forgot about it. There has been very little consultation since 2009. In fact the regulatory impact statement says: “No subsequent consultation has been undertaken including with the Environment Court in relation to capacity to implement proposed changes.” Well would you not think you would go and talk to the Environment Court and ask them: “Will you be able to handle the cases we think will be coming through?” Would that not be a logical question? Would it not be your first question because is this Resource Management Reform Bill not all about unblocking roadblocks—unblocking roadblocks? So what do Government members do? They put in place a bill and they do not consult the Environment Court and say: “Hey can you manage this?”. So where is the next roadblock? It is likely to be at the Environment Court. So what a fundamental error this is by this Government on this bill to not do a simple bit of consultation before it rushed this bill. Two days before the House rises one more day of Parliament and it had to rush it in. It could not wait until next year to ask the Environment Court what it thought about it. That is what the regulatory impact statement says. 
This bill is a power grab by this Government and it is also once again taking away decisions from local communities. I believe it is an attack on local democracy because we now see an emerging pattern in the 4 years of this Government. We have seen it with the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill where the Government took away the right of local people to have a vote on their regional councils with spurious evidence and spurious argument. Everybody who submitted to that select committee knew it was spurious argument that was being used including the commissioners themselves. Then we had the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill which once again reduced the ability for local communities to have a local say. So this is just yet another example of this Government’s disregard for local communities and for democracy at a local level. We need a Government that works from the grassroots up not the Beehive down but that is all that we have had to date from this Government. 
I have a series of questions to put to the Government. I would like some answers and I hope we get them at the select committee. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Don’t hold your breath. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I will not hold my breath. But what is the estimated cost to local government of the Resource Management Reform Bill 2012? I want to see the estimated costs. Has the work been done Dr Smith on what the cost will be to local government? Having slagged off local government up and down New Zealand—having slagged them off because they are putting up their rates and increasing their debt—once again here is the Government imposing on local government. So what is the cost? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: We’ll save them money. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is not what local government believes. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: We’ll save the Auckland Council money. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is not what Auckland Council believes. So if it is saving the Government money put the costings on the table. Let us see the costings. I will be asking for them at the select committee. Have the costings been done by the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry for the Environment? Have they even been done? Where are they? 
Phil Twyford 
: Would you trust them? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No you would not trust Government members with the costings because obviously this is an agenda they want to push forward and to hell with the consequences. I want to know what consultation has been undertaken with the Auckland Council on the impact of the Resource Management Reform Bill on its Unitary Plan and in what way will it assist it. Is the council happy with what is being proposed in this bill? Have the Auckland Council Mayor and councillors said that they are happy with the proposals in this bill? After all we are told by Amy Adams that this is to help Auckland. Well are they happy? Give us some feedback on that. 
We also want to know why the hearing panels under the Resource Management Reform Bill are going to be chosen by the Government. How can that be open and transparent? Why are Government members not allowing local people to make that decision? Are they going to allow a local representative on the hearing panel? I think the answer is no. I think Grant Robertson got it right when he said there has already been a list put out as to who is likely to be on any hearing panel: chaired by Paula Rebstock—the person who gets every chair available—with Stephen McElrea Tony O’Brien and Peter Kiely. So where is the local community representative on that hearing panel? 
I also want to know what consultation has taken place with the Minister of Maori Affairs Pita Sharples on tikanga knowledge and Maori representation on the Resource Management Reform Bill 2012. Was he happy with the decisions that have been made as they affect Maori in terms of this bill? I would like to see the information provided by Dr Sharples on what he thinks about this bill. I suspect he is not very happy about it at all. What delays if any are estimated for local government by this bill? What delays will they face and what will be the costs to them? 
I also want to know what will be the impact—finally the impact—of this bill on the recently passed Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill because the four well-beings have been removed from the Local Government Act and one of them was economic well-being the others being environmental cultural and social. Those well-beings are not allowed to be considered now but this bill says that there must be an overriding consideration for the economic development in an area. So how does it go when there is one thing that takes away the economic well-being against this bill saying that people now need to consider it? 
This bill is once again a dog’s breakfast. The Government ought to have waited and got it right but it rushed headlong into a bill that I think is going to cause more problems than it is worth. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 It gives me no pleasure to speak on the Resource Management Reform Bill because it is one of three bills this year that have done little credit to New Zealand’s once highly regarded environmental management framework. At the start of the year we had the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill with its very weak purpose which has a framework that is now allowing Ministers to contemplate allowing deep-sea oil exploration as a permitted activity. Then we had changes to the Crown Minerals Act to allow the Minister of Energy and Resources as well as the Minister of Conservation to make decisions on any applications to mine on conservation land—and we know who will win that arm wrestle. And now we have got this bill. It is another attack by National on the Resource Management Act. 
When the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer and then the Hon Simon Upton shepherded the principal Act through this Parliament more than 20 years ago the legislation was regarded as world-leading. It had been informed by extensive public consultation and discussion about the principles in the Act and the whole framework of the Act. And it was legislation that was consistent with New Zealand’s international reputation for being clean and green and committed to the careful stewardship of nature and to development that met the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It was enduring partly because of that bipartisan involvement and commitment to the Act. That image has been shattered. This year we cannot even look after the children of the current generation without even thinking about future generations. The Government has abandoned its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol we have attracted criticism from United Nations officials and we have got a Government that is not committed to giving integrity to our “100% Pure New Zealand” brand. 
On this bill there has been absolutely no effort by the Government to develop any cross-party commitment to the changes that may be needed to the Resource Management Act—none of the extensive public consultation that we saw on the principal Act—and so we risk zigzag policy-making where the next Government undoes much of the work of its predecessor. 
So as a key part of the whole system of managing our natural resources and our environment the Resource Management Act should not be an ideological football but in this bill it is. We all benefit from clean rivers from compact cities from ground water that is not contaminated by nitrates from sewage that is well treated and does not go into rivers and from coastlines that inspire us with their natural beauty rather than being overshadowed by big pretentious holiday homes yet it is this sort of development that this bill will allow—development that cuts across that “100% Pure New Zealand” image. It is a shameful bill that the Green Party will be opposing because it epitomises the National Government’s position to develop at all costs and to hell with the environment and to go after the dollars now with no thought for the consequences that that has for the quality of life for others or the quality of nature. 
It is a selfish bill to promote selfish development and we are opposing it for a number of reasons. One of those is that it promotes speedy decisions rather than quality decisions. It is all about central government in Wellington getting involved in the minutiae of decision making whether it is in Auckland or whether it is the timetable for councils to consider consents. When you have a 6-month time limit on councils being able to consider and process consents regardless of the scale and complexity of the application that cuts across the community’s ability to get involved. Any developer can spend years working up an application and put it into council and then the community gets a month effectively to be able to understand the development and make submissions on it. So that will lead to quick decisions yes but not ones that are good quality not ones that recognise the scope of environmental impacts. Again another way the bill reduces public participation is that it sets a limit of 20 working days on the public submission period again regardless of the scale of the proposal. 
The bill restricts access to justice to the Environment Court because—and this I think is a direct attack on NGOs like the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society which have had to pick up the baton because we do not have statutory agencies such as the Department of Conservation engaging in the level of resource management advocacy that they used to—it limits interested parties status in any Environment Court appeal to those that are directly affected by the application. What that means is that if someone from Whitewater NZ has an interest in a river but may not kayak that river herself and there might be a future potential recreational value of the river she potentially will not be allowed to get involved in any Environment Court appeals as an interested party. 
The bill is also bad because of the way in which it makes it much more difficult for councils such as that of Manawatu to introduce regulation to control intensive land uses such as intensive agriculture. This is because the changes to the section 32 analysis bring into play assessments of economic growth anticipated to cease if the council introduces rules controlling for example nutrient leaching or stocking numbers in sensitive catchments. This means that the council now has to have particular regard to that economic impact. This follows on from Minister Carter’s criticisms of the Manawatu plan for introducing rules that seek to protect our rivers to clean up our rivers and put rules in place to do that. This is why the Government is targeting councils that do that by making it very difficult to put in place regulation through the much more stringent section 32 requirements. Again on the Auckland combined plan the Minister mentioned consultation with the council about appointing the hearing panel for the Auckland combined plan but there is no right for the Auckland Council to appoint the commissioners who will hear the submissions on its combined plan. Once again it is control central—this Government wanting to direct everything from Wellington. Is Auckland happy with that? I doubt it. 
And again just like the Environment Canterbury legislation the Government is seeking through the bill to restrict appeal rights. People will be able to appeal decisions on the Auckland combined plan to the Environment Court only if the council rejects the recommendations of the Government’s stacked hearing panel. It cannot appeal to the court if the council upholds those recommendations. Again there is a very limited period—20 days I think it is—for the council to consider the hearing panel’s recommendations. So we have got a very truncated process to make sure that the Government hearing panel on the Auckland combined plan comes up with the recommendations that the Government wants and there is a very limited ability to challenge it. 
So not only is the bill reducing the ability of the community to participate in resource consent decisions but also it is reducing the scrutiny that those decisions will get in the Environment Court by the restrictions on participation in appeals and the limitations particularly in the Auckland Council process. 
So the Green Party will be strongly opposing the bill. The streamlining that the Government is talking about will result in poor decisions that have the fingerprints of Wellington all over them rather than promoting local decision-making by communities and public participation which was such a cornerstone of the Resource Management Act when it was introduced. Thank you. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Firstly I want to commend the Minister for the Environment Amy Adams for this bill the Resource Management Reform Bill which sensibly builds on National’s first phase of changes to the Resource Management Act. One of the principal changes in this bill is to limit notified consents to being done within 6 months. Let me give members opposite a very practical example of why that change is needed. Right now in my community the Government is wanting to build a teen parent unit to give the opportunity for teenagers and their babies to be able to get a good-quality education. It is disgraceful—disgraceful—that a simple change to allow that to be built on the site of a primary school and an early childhood education centre not only requires a resource consent but also has been delayed by more than 6 months because of the Resource Management Act. Members opposite have the gall to get up in this House and to lecture us about child poverty and yet we are trying to do something about it to resolve it in that way with bills like this and they say no. My challenge to Eugenie Sage is this: how was the management of water in Canterbury helped by it taking 19 years to get a damned water plan? And I ask: how are the issues of Auckland helped by it taking 10 years to get a plan for developing our biggest city? We say that we can do better. 
Although this bill is technical it actually illustrates so aptly at the end of this parliamentary year the differences between this National Government and the members opposite. We on this side of the House are about making the Resource Management Act work more efficiently so that we can build the infrastructure so that we can have affordable homes and so that we can build the industries and grow exports and jobs. Members opposite have made plain in their contributions on this bill that they stand for bureaucracy and procrastination—bureaucracy and procrastination. You see when they were in office the number of late consents grew from 6000 a year to 16000 a year. What did they do? Absolutely nothing. And what did they do when it took years—a decade like the Whangamata marina—to get a resource consent? They introduced three resource management amendment bills and every one of them made the process more bureaucratic. 
So I am delighted that we are ending the political year on this Resource Management Reform Bill. It shows that National is walking the talk on making sure we have got modern infrastructure. It shows that National is walking the talk and not just shedding crocodile tears on the issue of affordable housing. It shows that National is walking the talk with businesses that actually have the capacity to grow exports and to grow jobs. This bill is actually a test at the end of the year. Are members in favour of jobs exports affordable housing and growth? Opposition members are saying no. We are saying yes. We have got a plan and we are delivering on it. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I am taking a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Resource Management Reform Bill 2012. Can I just say that in this particular instance it is very clear that New Zealand First is the central party of politics in this country—and we will be taking the central middle ground—in that we see arguments on both sides. But in this instance we are prepared to support this bill through its first reading in order for the Resource Management Act to get a fair airing and a fair hearing and for it to be reviewed in a proper manner. 
I think we would all agree—and I do not think anyone would really dispute it—that there have been some issues around New Zealand on occasion where the Resource Management Act has been brought into disrepute and there have been major problems as a result and where a review of the Act certainly would see some improvements being made to it. I can recall being involved for instance in the Pak ’N Save Wairau Road supermarket instance which had gone on for something like 18 years and where one party one of the major supermarket operators took on the other supermarket operator—there had been only two in the country—and very much used the Resource Management Act to stop the Pak ’N Save supermarket going ahead. The supermarket operator was very much seen as a vexatious litigant and used all sorts of things like traffic issues and other issues—even though its own supermarket was 5 kilometres away and had no bearing on the new Pak ’N Save whatsoever—and all sorts of spurious arguments under the Resource Management Act to stop the competitor setting up. 
There were many other examples. I sat as a Resource Management Act commissioner for 9 years and we had similar problems when the Birkenhead Library was demolished prior to getting resource consent and then spent 2 or 3 years finally getting a resource consent to replace the library with another library which seemed an odd situation. Likewise getting the consent for the Albany Senior High School was a major undertaking and again there were some very spurious arguments around that. At the end of the day they were met but they did delay for several years the high school being built and added a huge amount of expense. At the end of the day the community really wanted to find a way through it but again it was very very awkward. 
I can also remember with the Auckland Regional Council when the North Shore City Council submitted consents for 64 water catchment areas on the North Shore. There were 64 different water catchments on the North Shore and we were given only a 6-year consent. Even though it had cost $2 million for the application and it had taken our staff of the council more than a year to prepare the consent we were then provided initially with only a 6-year consent. We said that when we were spending that sort of ratepayers’ money—$2 million—and getting only a 6-year certainty of the resource consent then that was very very poor use of public money. We managed to convince the Auckland Regional Council to extend that period out considerably longer than that. 
These are the sorts of things that go on throughout New Zealand. They were only my personal experiences from the North Shore and within Auckland but if you multiply that out around the country it is a very very expensive process that can cost communities a great deal of money. We often refer to the Resource Management Act as the “rich man’s Act” and many people refer to it as the “rich man’s Act” because it usually meant that the party that had the deepest pockets that could employ the most expensive consultants and that could stretch it out the longest would often try to win the argument simply by investing more and more money into the particular problem. What we did find in many instances was that of course communities suffered because often it was community groups conservation groups—the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society or whatever—that under the Resource Management Act were being put to a huge amount of expense to try to take on some various situations that were very very costly for communities. 
Again I can recall the Long Bay development plan which took a number of years. The locals had to raise many many hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the development at Long Bay. Again it seemed that the whole process was an incredibly long and litigious one which perhaps had it been able to be sped up and had heads been able to be knocked together a little bit more speedily it would have saved everybody a huge amount of grief and money. 
Having said that we also agree that the Auckland Plan is a major concern to Auckland. It is necessary to get the Auckland Plan in place and there are merits in speeding up that process so that Auckland can get on with one plan. We are supportive of that but we certainly do have some concerns. We would hope that the hearings that are held by appointed commissioners are held in a full and frank manner and certainly with good intent. We certainly would not want the plan to be controlled from Wellington for a controlled outcome. We certainly want to ensure that Auckland gets the best results from that. From speaking with different Auckland Council members most of them are very supportive of the idea of getting this bill through so that they can get on with the Auckland Plan. If Auckland is to succeed in its economic growth then it certainly does need that to do so. 
Likewise when you read in this bill that there is a need to consider regional economic impact and opportunity costs and costs and benefits as a result of this bill again there are opportunities in communities around New Zealand. If the Resource Management Act can be fine-tuned and can be improved in some areas then it certainly could help economic and regional development around the country by doing so. However having said that as I said at the beginning we are the central party of New Zealand politics which sees both the good and the bad and we do have some concerns about the proposal that the hearing applications for water conservation orders under the Resource Management Act will not be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. That is somewhat concerning to us because we do feel that anything to do with water water rights or applications for water should be a very transparent and open public process. The public have a right to know what is being heard and the finding of that and the background to any hearings. So we will be raising that particular aspect with the Government because we believe that it should be open and transparent and that there should not be smoke and mirrors when it comes to those sorts of issues. 
But overall we will support this bill through. We will raise some issues with the Government in terms of the Resource Management Act. It is an important piece of legislation for New Zealand. It is a piece of legislation that does safeguard our environment and safeguard our communities to a great extent. But it has become at times very unwieldy and expensive and perhaps has been an undue cost on many communities in New Zealand that are trying to move ahead. That having been said if we can find some middle ground if we can find some areas where it can be modified to everyone’s satisfaction including those who are very very strong in terms of conservation and the environment if we can find ways through to improve it overall then I think most New Zealanders would support that. Thank you. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 I am pleased and will be very interested in the Local Government and Environment Committee’s discussion on section 32 of the Resource Management Reform Bill which deals with considerations inserted by clause 69. There has been identified a lack of direction in the consideration provisions of section 32. I am particularly mindful of the Otago Regional Council’s water plan which is going to have a large impact on water users throughout the Otago Regional Council’s area and the deficiencies that were identified in the section 32 report associated with that plan which had no numbers associated with it. So I am very keen to see this bill progress through the House so that we can get some more robust consideration of the economic impacts. I look forward to the select committee’s consideration. Thank you. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 This bill the Resource Management Reform Bill represents the latest instalment in this Government’s slide into Muldoonism and it is the latest exhibit really in a long line that we have seen under this National-led Government. You see it never saw a power exercised by a local council in this country that it did not want to take for itself. It never saw a council that could not have been improved by the appointment of commissioners and the sacking of elected representatives. It is a long litany and it bears repeating I think. It goes back to the establishment of the Auckland super-city where it overrode the democratic rights of Aucklanders to have a vote on the super-city. It took away that right and it proceeded to corporatise 75 percent of local government and take all those operations and activities out of the reach of ordinary citizens and away from the normal democratic process. We saw it with the sacking of Environment Canterbury because National’s corporate dairy-farming mates were not getting quite enough free irrigation consents. 
We saw it with the systematic stripping away of local government rights enjoyed by communities around this country in two bits of legislation—most recently the abolition of the four well-beings the narrowing of the purpose statement of local government and the taking away of all sorts of powers that communities have enjoyed for many years including the right to vote on amalgamations. We have seen it in the way that this Government has spent most of the transport budget on big new State highway projects forcing local communities to pay more and more for their local roads or let them fall into disrepair. The latest land transport management legislation also very explicitly takes away powers from regional councils and gives them through the Government policy statement to Cabinet to determine transport funding priorities. So there is a pattern here and we have seen it in one piece of legislation after another with this Government. It is centralising more and more decision-making power in the executive arm of Government and away from local government and away from local communities. That is what is going on here. That is the context in which we have to see this Resource Management Reform Bill. 
I want to give three examples of this Muldoonist tendency to centralisation. The first is the issue of blanket tree protections. That is something that is worth looking at. It is worth a little bit of scrutiny I think the way this Government is overriding the rights of local communities. It is overriding rulings that the Environment Court has made and is trying to make it much harder more expensive and more bureaucratic for local communities to use the provisions of the Resource Management Act to protect trees. Secondly let us look at the Auckland plan because I think that is another very interesting case study in this Government’s Muldoonism and its complete inability to resist taking powers for itself and we will look at that in a bit of detail. Then thirdly there are a number of other measures in this bill. They are a grab bag of measures that repeat this tendency that is on display so often with this Government to take powers away from local communities and invest them in central government. 
The spiritual godfather of this bill could be said to be Ronald Reagan the former US President who is often said to have said that “Once you’ve seen one redwood tree you’ve seen them all.” In fact that is very unkind to Ronald Reagan because he has been misquoted so many times. In fact what Ronald Reagan said was “A tree’s a tree. How many more to you have to look at?” and that pretty much sums up this Government’s attitudes to the urban forest that Aucklanders treasure so much. This bill could be known as Nick Smith’s revenge—it is the remaking of the chainsaw massacre of 2009 when in a very ham-fisted way Nick Smith tried to take away from local councils the ability to use blanket protection measures for trees by deeming that trees in a certain area were to be protected and if they were to be severely pruned or cut down then the owner would need a resource consent. So what Nick Smith tried to do back in 2009 was basically to dictate that councils would have to individually name particular trees that they wanted to save. The Environment Court looked at this and said “What a load of nonsense.” and said that it was going to allow in the North Shore and Waitakere legacy plans councils to basically say that trees in a certain area could be covered by blanket tree protection rules. 
So the provisions in this bill on trees in section 76(4A) in clause 12 are deliberately about trying to overturn the Environment Court ruling and basically make it virtually impossible for councils to protect their trees. They either have to name specific trees or a grove or a line of trees in a property or adjacent properties. The effect of that is that it will become humongously expensive for councils to protect trees. They will no longer be allowed to protect trees of a certain species or of a certain size; they are going to have to name certain trees or a grove or a line. This is hugely ironic. This is the Government that rails against councils about how they are spending too much money. It accuses them of being bureaucratic and then it is imposing a cost of what will undoubtedly be millions of dollars in the case of the Auckland Council if it wants seriously to protect the trees in the leafy suburbs and in the Waitakere Ranges for example. In places like Titirangi and Laingholm the communities there have about 40 percent higher rainfall than anywhere else in the rest of Auckland. There is a real problem with instability and erosion. The trees in places like that—in the Waitakere Ranges—are basically holding up the roads and the houses and if we see the deforestation that many people predict as a result of this bill then the blame will lie fairly and squarely on the shoulders of this National Government. 
The other thing that is worth noting as well as all the aesthetic and quality-of-life benefits of the urban forest in Auckland is that trees have a huge benefit for stormwater. Every tree scientists calculate treats 16 cubic metres of stormwater. If we see deforestation in parts of west Auckland for example of any significant scale then there will be a huge negative impact on stormwater and erosion. So there is a terrible irony in this in that the same National Government that rails against councils accuses them of overspending and accuses them of being bureaucratic is actually imposing massive costs on local government or forcing it into a situation where it will simply be unable to protect its urban forest. 
I want to move on to the issue of Auckland because Labour has signalled that we are willing to give qualified support to the Auckland Council for the proposal that the Auckland Council took to the Government for a fast-tracked process for the Auckland Unitary Plan. Many of us are very sympathetic to the Auckland Council’s argument that the bedding-in of the Unitary Plan should not be allowed to take 5 6 7 or 8 years but the support is qualified because it is unclear to us as it is to many commentators that this process will actually deliver a shortened time frame and a good result. But the thing that is really interesting about this is that the Government could not resist taking control of the process. So what has it done? It has said “OK we are going to appoint the hearings panel that is the one-stop-shop for considering the Auckland Unitary Plan.” Paula Rebstock Peter Kiely Stephen McElrea Tony O’Brien—fine upstanding New Zealanders and true friends of the National Party. People like this will be making the decisions because this Government has hijacked Auckland’s Unitary Plan process. 
It is a plan that belongs to Aucklanders. The bill for it will be paid for by Aucklanders but this National Government could not resist putting its sticky fingers in the cookie jar and hijacking the Unitary Plan process that should belong to the people of Auckland. It is typical. It follows on an established pattern of hostility that this Government has towards Auckland. It cannot stand Mayor Len Brown’s agenda for public transport in Auckland. It cannot stand the agenda for a quality compact city. It can barely disguise its contempt for it and that is why it is insisting on putting its own people into a hearings panel so that it can exercise control and take it away from the people of Auckland. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak on the Resource Management Reform Bill. The first thing I want to say is that we have a very good record in terms of local government and resource management reform. We have under the first phase of resource management reform reduced late consents from 31 percent to 5 percent. A lot of our reforms focus on reducing cost to businesses households and local government. But what I am absolutely shocked about is when the Labour Party stands up in this House today and says it cares about Auckland and it cares about housing affordability—the two key provisions in this bill that will do something for the young people of Auckland in terms of housing affordability are firstly 6-month consenting for medium-sized projects which are developments in Auckland and secondly the Unitary Plan process so that we do not have 10 years of trying to actually consent some of these major developments—and the Labour Party opposes the bill. 
So my message to Aucklanders is that this bill is crucial in terms of housing affordability for Auckland. I am gobsmacked that the Labour Party is opposing this. The two key provisions around consenting for major developments but also the Auckland plan process which Len Brown asked us for—he is not a Muldoonist person as Mr Twyford has said. He asked us for this process. We are delivering this for Auckland—two key things that will help young Aucklanders get into housing—and it is being opposed by the Labour Party. 
This comes in a long line of opposition to good reform in Auckland. The Auckland local government reform was widely held up at our local government hearings recently as something that has been successful. It has seen a reduction in water costs in our city. It has seen a major reduction in regulations in our city. This is about getting Aucklanders into houses in a much more affordable way and I am gobsmacked that the Labour Party is opposing this. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: A split call—Moana Mackey. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Well Nikki Kaye might be gobsmacked that we are opposing this bill the Resource Management Reform Bill but if she had actually listened to the speeches by my colleagues she would understand why this bill will not do any of the things that she has just outlined. In fact the Labour Party put together a very good housing policy that will make a difference and that will build 100000 houses. It is a very comprehensive policy—a very comprehensive policy. That is the kind of thing we need to see out of a Government that is taking affordable housing seriously not gutting the Resource Management Act taking protections away from trees and putting in place time frames. We are going to be looking at that 6-month time frame very carefully at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I remember that when the Hon Dr Nick Smith was in Opposition he put forward a member’s bill to put time restrictions on Resource Management Act consents. Local government was horribly opposed to it because often there are many good reasons why it cannot do a consent within a prescribed time period. 
But what we are seeing in this bill overall—and this is why Labour is opposing it—is a power grab again. That is what we saw in recent weeks with the local government legislation and that is what we are seeing here today. This is taking away more power from the grassroots in New Zealand. We are going to have more decisions made not from the grassroots up but from the Beehive down. That is the modus operandi of this National Government. 
I do not know why the National Party does not trust local government. It is democratically elected yet what we have seen consistently from this National Government since it was elected are moves to take away the right for people in Canterbury to elect their own regional council. And when the Hon Dr Nick Smith who was a Minister at the time was asked why he thought that was appropriate—and people in Canterbury still are not allowed to elect their regional council—he said that it was because he was worried about the outcome of the election. Well that is called democracy. That is called democracy. Unfortunately democracy means that the people’s will is going to determine the decisions that are going to be made in future and Governments have to roll with the punches and live with that. It is simply unbelievable that a Minister of Local Government would say: “Well I’m going to take away the rights of people to elect their regional council because I don’t like the decisions that that democratically elected regional council has been making on a decision as important as water allocation in the Canterbury Plains.” 
So then we had the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) that again strips away power from local authorities. Basically it tells them that they are in charge of roads rates and rubbish and nothing else. Anyone who has had anything to do with local government knows that that simply is not the case. Local government is a crucial partner with central government in future economic development well-being environmental well-being social well-being and cultural well-being. But National has taken those well-beings out and said to local government: “We’re going to put you in a position where legally now you could be very easily challenged because before it was clear that that was your mandate.” I look at the Ashburton District Council which put together health services for the people of Rakaia because there were none there. Without local government those people would not have access to health services. That fell under the mandate of the four well-beings. Well that is gone now. That could be legally challenged.  
So how is all this about reducing costs to local government when all we are doing is increasing uncertainty which by its very nature will result in legal challenges and will increase costs to local government and to ratepayers? And lo and behold here we come to the first Resource Management Reform Bill. It is one of two that we have been expecting.  
Again the changes made under the guise of reducing costs and streamlining are not about reducing costs and streamlining; they are about limiting public consultation limiting community involvement in the decisions that affect them directly and giving more power to central government and in particular to the Minister. I could not believe it. The Hon Dr Smith basically said that this was because he wanted a teen parent unit in Nelson. This is why we are having to gut the Resource Management Act because he wanted a teen parent unit in Nelson. We have got a great one in Gisborne and it happened with the Resource Management Act. There are teen parent units all around the country that manage to survive the horrific Resource Management Act process. I think that it is extraordinary that that was a reason given by the member.  
Finally I want to come to the issue of trees in Auckland. I do not pretend to understand the depth of feeling surrounding trees in Auckland. I guess it is kind of like the Gisborne to Napier rail line. But I do appreciate the comments made by my colleague Phil Twyford about what this might mean on an issue that is very serious for Auckland residents. We had another big bust up about it back in 2009 when they made Resource Management Act changes then as well. Again you have got the Hon Dr Nick Smith who as my colleague Phil Twyford pointed out seems to be saying that you do not need a lot of trees; you could just have one and look at it a lot of times. That seems to be the approach being taken here.  
I want to congratulate my former colleague Lynne Pillay on the work she did with the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society legislation. I would hate to see that good work by Lynne Pillay undermined by the provisions in this bill. 
DENISE ROCHE (Green) 
: 
 I am going to focus my remarks mostly on how this bill the Resource Management Reform Bill impacts on Auckland. I guess if I were to summarise the provisions in this bill that are about Auckland I would have to say that this bill shows that Wellington hates Auckland. This National Government hates Auckland. Having dismantled democracy in Canterbury having ripped the guts out of local government with the Local Government Act 2002 and having forced the amalgamation of Auckland this Government is now set to slip through another piece of legislation that enshrines the power of the Government to interfere—interfere—in local government. 
This bill will do to Auckland what the Canterbury earthquake achieved in Christchurch—that is the handing over of power and control of the future development of the city to the National Government’s agents. It is outrageous that this bill allows the Government to appoint the hearings commissioners who will hear the first Auckland Unitary Plan—the combined plan. Just to remind the House that combines the regional policy statements regional plan city and district plans and regional coastal plans. These hearings commissioners also set the terms of reference for the whole plan. 
We have seen this before from this Government. When it forced through the amalgamation of Auckland and it put that legislation in place it also set up seven council-controlled organisations and it appointed the directors of those council-controlled organisations. One of them was Auckland Council Investments which oversaw the board of the Ports of Auckland. The Ports of Auckland I remind the House has seen the worst industrial dispute on the wharves at Auckland since the 1951 lockout. That is what happens when this Government appoints its cronies to positions of power. This bill once again allows the Government to meddle with and interfere in Auckland. It includes the provision that the Ministry for the Environment will audit the planned economic and environmental analysis before the plan—the combined plan—can be accepted. It is another example of the Government parachuting in its people. 
The Government makes no apology that this bill once more reduces citizen participation in local government issues once more aimed at reducing local democracy. The regulatory impact statement says it really baldly. It says the bill will “provide greater central government direction on resource management”. So this bill and its impact on Auckland is the streamlining process for the Auckland Plan. That includes the 3-year deadline. There are pros and cons about that but it has got to have it done and dusted within 3 years. There is only a 20-day period for the council to decide whether to accept or reject the hearing panel’s recommendations and then there is a whole raft of very complicated processes that have to happen if it does reject it. 
Then there are also the provisions in the bill about unilaterally deciding to cut submitters from the process—for example if they miss out on a pre-hearing meeting without giving reasonable excuse and it has not defined that. It sets out to punish councils in New Zealand with penalties if councils do not get the resource consents through in the 6-month time period. That is despite whatever the size of the project is. Given the deregulation that occurred in the 1980s and the whole leaky building saga that councils and the Government have had to deal with in the decade since one would think it would be fairly short-sighted to introduce legislation that once more means we will not be taking care with how developments proceed and with what kinds of restraints we should have on them. 
I guess to sum up the Greens will be opposing this bill because it weighs heavily in favour of developers and does not give enough recognition of or care for future generations in the development of our cities. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise to speak with pleasure on the Resource Management Reform Bill 2012. This is the second piece of such legislation that this Government has brought through. We made it an election promise in 2011 that we would do so and we are firm in our resolve. 
There has been a lot of silly talk about not much consent and this being anti-Auckland. For the benefit of those who have not read the bill and are not aware of its provisions let me say that there is a 6-month consenting for medium-sized projects of which there are about 1600 processed each year. That 6-month statutory time limit for local authorities to reach consent decisions will reduce costs reduce uncertainty and reduce delays. This is about reaching consent decisions faster not changing the final decision. Incidentally the 6-month time provides a 20-day submission period which is exactly the same as the current system. 
I would say in summary that these cost uncertainties and the delays about the current resource management system are affecting New Zealand jobs and infrastructure. I hear a lot about it on the North Shore from my constituents that this is a real barrier to them making progress in their businesses and in the work that they want to do. They encourage us to put through these reforms. It is delivering on our commitment and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Resource Management Reform Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee. 
Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill 
Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill 
Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill 
Third Readings 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill the Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill and the Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. These bills provide a strong legislative framework for reducing alcohol-related harm. It is the first time in more than two decades that Parliament has acted to restrict rather than relax our drinking laws. Most New Zealanders enjoy alcohol in a responsible manner; however the harm resulting from excessive drinking strains our country’s health and law enforcement resources and causes people and communities a lot of grief and stress. These bills contain a wide range of measures that will help to bring a change in our drinking culture. They provide many parts of society from central to local government communities and parents with tools to make that happen. Some people including members of this House feel that the bills do not go far enough. However they strike a sensible balance and deal with the considerable harm that alcohol causes without unfairly affecting responsible drinkers. 
I would like to take this opportunity to outline some of the bills’ key measures that will help reduce problem drinking in our country. Let us look at access to alcohol. Right now we can buy alcohol in supermarkets bottle stores clubs bars and corner stores sometimes 24 hours a day. This is despite clear evidence showing a link between alcohol availability and harm such as crime and health problems. The Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill which I will now refer to as “the bill” introduces national maximum trading hours of 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. for bottle stores supermarkets and grocery stores and 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. for restaurants bars and clubs. The bill also clarifies that dairies and convenience stores are not eligible to sell alcohol. Grocery stores which also sell a range of household products will still be eligible to hold licences. Definitions to make it clearer about the kinds of stores that can sell alcohol will be expanded on in regulations. 
Accessing alcohol is easier when there are more licences and communities have been telling us that they are concerned about the proliferation of stores selling alcohol in their areas. At present it is very difficult to successfully object to a licence application. Licence criteria are limited and licences are relatively easy to obtain. This can be frustrating and disheartening for communities concerned about alcohol-related harm in their areas. Under the bill licences will be harder to get and easier to lose. The bill introduces additional licensing criteria including whether the licence is likely to encourage heavy drinking or increase alcohol-related harm whether granting the licence will have a negative impact on the community—for example by increasing noise levels or vandalism—and any relevant local alcohol policy in force for the area. The new criteria come into force 6 months after Royal assent. Until then the existing criteria will continue to apply. The timing of this change has led to concern that people may apply for licences before the 6-month mark in order to avoid the strict criteria. The new Act will make it clear that any licence applied for in that 6-month period will receive an interim licence for up to a year. An interim licence cannot be renewed. Once it expires the licensee will have to apply for a licence under the new Act if they wish to continue selling alcohol. 
As mentioned earlier licences will be easier to lose. The bill increases focus on compliance by licensees and managers. Licensees and managers who repeatedly fail to meet their obligations under the new Act will lose their licence or certificate if they commit three specified offences within 3 years. They will also be subject to a stand-down period of 5 years. The bill also expands the range of offences for which an infringement notice can be issued and gives licensing inspectors the power to issue infringement notices for certain offences. These changes make it clear that there is no room in the industry for licensees and managers who do not take their obligations seriously. The bill also has a strong focus on local decision-making. At present licence applications that are opposed by police a licensing inspector or a medical officer of health are transferred to the Liquor Licensing Authority for a decision. This will be changed so that all applications will be decided locally by district licensing committees or DLCs which will replace the existing district licensing agencies. Each committee will be made up of two community members and an elected representative or a commissioner will be the chair. This means that representatives of the community will have a direct say in every licensing decision. 
Another important measure to give local communities a greater say is the option for communities to adopt a local alcohol policy. Under these policies communities will be able to restrict or extend maximum trading hours. They will also be able to limit the location of licensed premises near certain facilities such as schools and specify whether further licences should be issued in a defined area. There have been calls to make local alcohol policies mandatory; however there are important reasons why policies should be optional. Firstly there is significant cost associated with the development of a local alcohol policy. Some territorial authorities—particularly the smaller ones—may not want to fund the development of a policy. Secondly some communities may consider that a local alcohol policy is unnecessary for their area and that the national maximum trading hours a new criteria in the bill adequately address their needs. It is very important that we allow communities to decide what it is best for them especially given the aim of increasing community input and control over licensing. 
One of the key concerns of communities has been the impact of alcohol on young people. The new Act will have a special focus on this vulnerable group. We know that heavy drinking is not the exclusive domain of the young but young drinkers—particularly those under 15—suffer significantly more alcohol-related harm than older drinkers. The Government had proposed a split age of 18 years for bars restaurants and clubs and 20 years for bottle stores supermarkets and grocery stores. In August of this year this House voted to retain the current purchase age of 18 years. As many of you will know I was personally disappointed by this choice. 
However the purchase age is not the only tool available to reduce the harm for young people. The new Act will give parents more control over their children’s drinking and make adults’ responsibilities clear. Evidence shows that most under-18-year-olds get alcohol from their parents and other adults such as older siblings or friends. Often this alcohol is supplied in large quantities and without adequate supervision or controls. The bill changes this so that anyone who supplies alcohol to minors must have the express consent of the minor’s parent or guardian. All alcohol whether it is supplied by a parent or someone else must be supplied responsibly. These changes provide police with a tool to intervene in unsupervised or poorly supervised events such as after-ball functions or student parties. 
During the select committee process a wide range of submitters expressed concern about the exposure of children and young people to alcohol advertising. The bill prohibits advertising or promoting alcohol in a way that has special appeal to minors. It also expands other promotion offences to limit the harm of advertising. In supermarkets and grocery stores alcohol and any alcohol advertising and promotion will be restricted to a single non-prominent area that cannot be near the checkout or the entrance. This will mean that our young people are not constantly exposed to alcohol when accompanying their parents on trips to the supermarket. The Government has also agreed to establish an expert forum to consider whether further restrictions on alcohol advertising and sponsorship are required. The forum will report back to the Ministers of Justice and of Health within a year of the bill being passed. 
The Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill also makes changes to alcohol control bylaws which we know as liquor bans. These bans cannot currently cover places like supermarket car parks and school grounds which are areas where people including young people gather to drink. The Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill addresses this by expanding the definition of public place to include school grounds private car parks and other private spaces to which the public has legitimate access. This gives councils the power to make alcohol control bylaws covering these areas. The Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill also makes changes that will contribute to the effectiveness of the new framework. This amendment bill expands the definition of a public place to include vehicles in those areas. It also allows police to seize alcohol from a young person found drinking alcohol in a public place without a parent or guardian as well as allowing them to issue an infringement notice. 
As many of you will be aware these bills come into force in stages and will not be fully implemented until 12 months after the legislation is passed. This is to allow for the development of regulations to implement these bills. It will also give local authorities licensing bodies and licensees time to prepare for the changes. The Ministry of Justice is working closely with a range of agencies to ensure stakeholders are well-informed and supported during this implementation stage. I acknowledge that getting these bills through to this stage has been a very long process. I would like to thank all members of the House for their contributions to date. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 In early 2009 I attended the ministerial meeting on the drivers of crime and I was so impressed with the quality of discussion that occurred there that I went back to the Labour caucus and asked if we could offer to work collaboratively with the Government on these issues that were the drivers of crime. Obviously there are distinct differences across the House in terms of how we might address crime but the drivers of crime were just so blindingly obvious as one of the National Party Ministers is wont to say. We said that the area that needed commitment from Governments of all colours across electoral cycles was the question of agreed policies around 0 to 12-year-olds. We stopped it at 12 because we felt that some of the policies that National was bringing forward like the boot camps and things like that were not evidence-based. At least on the 0 to 12-year-olds we could get agreement. National was not prepared to go down that path but what it did agree to do was to undertake some “initial cooperation on the alcohol issue”. Unfortunately if what has occurred is cooperation then I would really hate to see what the alternative was. 
As the former Minister who introduced an alcohol reform bill before the 2008 general election and announced the Law Commission review I have been hugely disappointed in the lack of progress from this Government. I have been even more disappointed in the misrepresentation of the current debate around the Alcohol Reform Bill. The first thing that I just want to address is the conscience vote. Parliament had a conscience vote dating back to the days when we had a triennial referendum on prohibition continuance or State-purchasing control—and yes even I am old enough to recall voting in one of those. But when the referendum ended so should have the conscience vote. It was at that point that we should have realised that it was no longer going to be a justice issue but really ought to have been a health issue in terms of regulating the sale and purchase of what is a drug as we do with pharmaceuticals legislation as we do with the Misuse of Drugs Act. So we actually could have had that chance then but we did not. 
The Law Commission said that the conscience vote can “reduce the quality and effectiveness of the alcohol laws that Parliament enacts.” and that “The resulting statute can lack coherence and structural logic.” What the Law Commission did not anticipate when it wrote those words was that it could also lack teeth. It could also lack teeth. And the reason is that when the Law Commission wrote its report on the conscience vote it was absolutely crystal clear that it had the role of drafting the legislation that would come before this House. It was the National Government that took away its opportunity to actually draft the law. So it did not anticipate National preventing it from completing the task that it had been given. 
National of course gave up the conscience vote except for age. I have to say that was a very clever move on its part because all of the public focus then went on the remaining conscience vote on the age and all of us got rung up by various parts of the media to ask us how we were voting on this one issue. That was the tactic. That was the strategy: have all the public attention on the age so we cannot see what the real issues are. And that is how it got agreement. The rest of the bill did nothing controversial—nothing controversial. In fact it delivered to many of those who were arguing for nothing controversial to come to the law or no substantial change to be made. This is National’s bill. It is not a shadow of the law the Law Commission would have written and that is why I have been saying throughout this debate that it is a travesty. 
The Law Commission spells out exactly what is required and I say to all of the people who stood up in this House and said they want evidence to go and read the Law Commission report. That is the evidence. It has all the evidence we need. And the evidence says increase the price of alcohol increase the purchase age for alcohol decrease accessibility decrease marketing and advertising increase drink-driving measures and then on top of that increase treatment options for heavy drinkers. So who has dominated this debate out there in the public arena and who has actually dominated the debate in this House? I would say that there are two interests. On one side there are the private interests and on the other side there is the public good. I just want to describe who has been mounting the argument for the private interests because it is not just the alcohol industry that we have heard about it is not just the breweries and the makers of distilled spirits and it is not just the wine industry and the hospitality industry although many of them have different views on different matters because there is not a level playing field out there in terms of who can do what. 
The real winners the real private interests that have dominated this debate are the Food and Grocery Council which has actually continued its ability to sell dirt-cheap alcohol through our supermarkets thereby driving down the cost of takeaway alcohol that is drunk away from supervised premises where there is no host responsibility beyond the door. So as soon as somebody walks out the door with the bottle of whatever the host responsibility goes out the door with them. Who are the other private interests that we have dominating this debate? It is the advertisers and the marketers but most important it is those who receive the advertising dollars—the media. I am afraid they are the true influencers of public opinion and they have sought to influence public opinion on advertising and marketing pushing that private interest over the public good and I am going to come to the public good in a minute. 
When I introduced the original bill that National threw out I remember that there was a headline in the  
New Zealand Herald.  
What it said was that I was putting a guy out of business who had run his dairy for 24 years—that my bill was going to put him out of business and he had been running this dairy for 24 years. But then read the story because the headline tells the story and not everyone reads the whole story. But when you read the story he has not had a licence to sell alcohol for 24 years; he actually had the licence to sell alcohol—beer and wine—for only 3½ years. And guess how much that alcohol made up of his turnover in that dairy—30 percent of his turnover in 3½ years was selling alcohol from a dairy masquerading as a grocery store. That is the problem. We are not debating the real issues because we are not seeing the real issues actually being put in front of the public in terms of the public good. 
 Who represents the public good? Who has been speaking on behalf of the public good? It is the police and the people who operate our courts our hospitals the emergency departments ACC health groups NGOs and not-for-profits working on areas in terms of public health right the way through to domestic violence and communities struggling to deal with hard issues finding alcohol promotion being really a major part of their concerns that they are having to confront as a community. But they are fearful of speaking out. And why are they fearful of speaking out? It is actually not because they do not want to be challenged on their views; it is because they are fearful that they will lose their charitable status. They are fearful that they will lose Government funding if they speak out against Government policy. The truth is that the NGO sector the not-for-profit sector the health sector and our police are not participating in what is being described as political advocacy. They are in fact representing the public good and it is their interests that we have sought to prevail in this House. That is why we retained the conscience vote for this debate. We wanted to debate the real issues: restrictions on advertising discounting and promoting of alcohol; restrictions on trading hours; minimum pricing; making local alcohol policies mandatory and strengthening the community’s say; banning the sale of ready-to-drinks with more than 5 percent alcohol and more than 1.5 standard drinks; health risk warning labels and nutritional information panel requirements; health levies; and lower blood-alcohol levels for drink-driving—all of which would contribute to saving lives. 
Today Alcohol Action NZ has put out a media release with the headline: “National’s Alcohol Reform Bill totally fails the public”. It says: “The campaign for effective alcohol law reform will go on. National has only delayed the inevitable. Just as happened with tobacco reform parliamentary champions will emerge who are prepared to put the public first. Meanwhile history will judge those MPs who wilfully planned and led the wasted opportunity to do something to help the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders being harmed ...”. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 After I spoke in the Committee stage of the Alcohol Reform Bill last Thursday I had to leave the Chamber so I was not present when my commitment to highlighting the issue of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and to supporting measures that would reduce its incidence were questioned disingenuously by an Opposition member. I am confident that the fine folk of Alcohol Healthwatch who lead the charge in this area and the remarkable Shirley Winikerei who is a tireless campaigner on the issue in my electorate of Hamilton West will confirm that I have been a vigorous champion of the foetal alcohol spectrum disorder cause for all the time I have been a member of Parliament. Although MPs’ increasing awareness of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder has not translated into Parliament meeting all of Alcohol Healthwatch’s aims I think the organisation may feel confident that its voice is a respected and increasingly heard voice in our Parliament and that has to be a good thing for our future mothers and their babies. 
The Labour member who attacked me last Thursday said I should put my money where my mouth was by supporting her amendment although she must have known that it was outside the scope of the bill and could not be adopted for reasons that were explained to the Committee by the Associate Minister of Justice. For the record not only am I aware that there is measurable public support for introducing health warning labels but also I was one of the first MPs in New Zealand to make a written submission to the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council review panel in support of alcohol being mandated to carry health warnings. However because of our agreement with Australia any changes to alcohol labelling must be developed through the Australia New Zealand Joint Foods Standards Treaty. That is why labelling was deemed to be outside the scope of the bill and the inconsistent amendment was rejected. 
I understand that the joint ministerial review of food labelling law and policy has resulted in both Governments recently agreeing to give the alcohol industry 2 years to introduce pregnancy warning labels on alcoholic beverage containers and that we have the option to regulate if it fails to do so. Although I would like it to be sooner I am reassured to know that it is happening and I remain fully supportive of the warning labels. 
The expected enactment of this legislation today is a significant step forward for New Zealand. I was pleased to hear a police officer during a Television One news item at the weekend say how much he is looking forward to the passage of the legislation because of the local alcohol plans the chance to stop all-night licensing hours and so on. I met recently with the mayor and councillors in my city of Hamilton to encourage them to get their local alcohol policy in place and I commend them for their very positive moves in that regard. 
I am the first to acknowledge that this legislation will not solve all of our alcohol-related problems and I believe that we must remain ready to respond in the future if further legislative change is required. But the fact remains that legislation alone cannot change a culture and it is dangerous attitudes and a reckless approach to personal safety that are at the heart of New Zealand’s alcohol abuse problems. Each and every one of us must do our bit to influence better decision-making by our friends and family to teach our youth how to handle alcohol sensibly to oppose irresponsible promotions and distribution of alcohol to support our health workers and law enforcement officers who bear such a heavy burden whenever alcohol is abused and so on. 
As this long process draws to its welcome conclusion I want to again praise the Law Commission for the huge job it did researching the issues consulting New Zealanders and ultimately proposing to this House reforms that are overwhelmingly reflected in the legislation that is soon to be enacted. Not all of its proposals made it however. Members will know that during the Committee stage I promoted an amendment seeking to increase the age for all categories of liquor purchases as was mentioned a few moments ago by the Minister of Justice and as was recommended by the commission. It was narrowly defeated and I believe that most New Zealanders were hugely disappointed at that outcome. But I thank those members who chose to support it. We have dropped the ball in that respect. 
I congratulate the Hon Judith Collins on the many fine amendments she promoted in her Supplementary Order Paper to this legislation such as the tighter controls on liquor displays and measures to prevent irresponsible liquor advertising and promotions. I am especially pleased by the Minister’s empowering of parents and guardians to control the supply of alcohol to minors. That is a bold and crucial step. It will help to avert the types of tragedies we have all been aware of during this debate in recent years. I offer my deep sympathy to the families who have suffered those terrible losses. 
There has been a lot of discussion of what is not in the legislation and I do respect the views of all who have taken a close interest in this issue. But today is the time to welcome all that is in the legislation and I remain confident that the measures in this legislation will make a positive difference. Now is the time for us to put them into action and for all of us to commit to making them work. That is my firm intention. 
I seek leave to table the submission that I made on 10 May 2010 to the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council review panel in support of alcohol being mandated to carry health warnings. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is none. Leave is granted. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 That contribution from Tim Macindoe I think really sums up the Government’s position on alcohol reform and trying to deal with alcohol harm: patronising full of platitudes and absolutely devoid of action. I do want to congratulate— 
Darien Fenton 
: And substance. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: And substance as well. I do want to congratulate Mr Macindoe on the position he has taken and on the advocacy that he has carried out over the years. Unfortunately he has failed to influence his own party and he has failed to influence this Government to actually pass legislation that will make a real difference. 
This has been a long journey. It was started by Labour back in 2008 when Lianne Dalziel first promoted legislation in this area and the Law Commission was asked to undertake its review. The Law Commission presented its comprehensive evidence-based report and anticipated that it would be drafting legislation that this Parliament could consider. However this National Government got its hands on it and Simon Power dramatically watered down what the Law Commission suggested Parliament should be doing and brought to Parliament a weak and insipid bill the Alcohol Reform Bill. 
 But we on the Opposition benches supported it because we had hope that when it went to the Justice and Electoral Committee we might have the opportunity to strengthen it. And indeed members on the select committee did hear thousands of submissions all making good suggestions about how we could strengthen this legislation to make it align more closely with the Law Commission’s report and more closely with what New Zealanders wanted us to do so that it would actually achieve something. Many members on the committee made good suggestions and some positive amendments were made to the legislation but unfortunately not enough. 
Then along came Judith Collins. She took a watered-down bill and diluted it even further. In the face of pressure from a number of different industries Judith Collins folded like a piece of paper. What we ended up with was something that was so watered down that this is essentially the homeopathic approach to alcohol harm. There was no substance nothing left in this bill by the time it was watered down first by Simon Power and then by Judith Collins. 
Judith Collins faced pressure from the liquor industry and under pressure from the liquor industry she removed the sensible provisions that were originally put in the bill by her predecessor to regulate alcopops. So we lost the regulation around the number of standard drinks that any one can or bottle of alcopop could contain. We lost the regulation around the maximum amount of alcohol volume that there could be in each alcopop. So we will continue to see the crime scene in a can that the police refer to so often: the Cody’s the Woodstock and all the other horrible cheap alcopops designed to do one thing and that is to get people as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. Judith Collins is responsible for that and the National Government is responsible for that. 
Under pressure from the supermarkets Judith Collins folded once again and cancelled out the changes her own colleagues on the select committee made to strengthen the provisions about where you could put alcohol in a supermarket. Her own colleagues wanted to make the bill stronger and Judith Collins trumped them. 
She has delayed the introduction of the local alcohol policies which were one of the few positive aspects of this legislation. It is something that communities are crying out for—the ability to determine the number of liquor outlets and how liquor is regulated in their own communities. It is something that people want now. They do not want to have to wait 12 months and there is no reason for them to have to wait 12 months. This is not forcing local government to do anything; it is empowering local communities to have local control over local decisions. That opportunity is being delayed and justice delayed is justice denied. 
But it was not just the watering down. This bill was pretty weak to start with. The Government failed to act properly to curb advertising. It was given a number of different options that it could have taken up at the Committee stage. There were simple things like shifting the television watershed out by a mere half-hour like eliminating advertising near schools like taking a proper look at the role that alcohol sponsorship plays in our communities all the way through to the suggestion of a total ban on television and radio advertising and a total ban on sponsorship. There was a wide spectrum of options on the table any one of which the Government could have chosen to take up and it chose to do nothing—nothing—on liquor advertising. 
The Government failed to act on price. Again it was given a number of options: minimum pricing excise tax and a health levy applied at the point of sale all of which would have helped deal with price. We know that the evidence says that price is one of the premium ways that we can curb the harm caused by alcohol. But because this Government is beholden to the Food and Grocery Council it chose to do nothing on price. 
This Government failed to act on reducing the blood-alcohol level. Again there are over 300 studies internationally that show that lowering the blood-alcohol level will have a significant impact on the harm caused by alcohol particularly on our roads obviously but it is also about setting the environment in which alcohol is consumed. The Government is beholden to the Hospitality Association and frankly to the Automobile Association whose position on this issue has been disappointing. The evidence was there the opportunity was there but again National failed to act. 
We had a spirited debate about the purchase age and Tim Macindoe brought this up. I want to know why that was singled out for the conscience vote. Why was all the attention put on the age? Why was all the media attention put on the age when the evidence says that it is one way of dealing with harm but it is a small way? It was described by one member as trying to empty a bucket of water with a teaspoon. It will happen but it will happen over a very very long period of time and there are other more effective measures that this Government has failed to pick up. But that is where all the attention went and as Lianne Dalziel said it was a superb strategy from the Government to divert attention away from its failure to act on any number of ways it could have acted to truly deal with alcohol-related harm. 
This is not the end of this debate. There is no doubt that we will have to revisit this issue again in the future and it will have to be done with a Government that has got the vision the purpose and frankly the guts to tackle this issue properly. When we do—in fact in all dealings to do with alcohol-related matters in the future—this issue should cease to be primarily a justice issue and should be a health issue. The Ministry of Health should be the lead agency. The Minister of Health should be the lead Minister. 
I want to just briefly reflect on the paucity of alcohol addiction treatment that there is available in this country at the moment. That is another area where this Government is failing. It takes far too long to access addiction treatment once somebody is referred or self-identifies as needing it. That delay often results in people not accessing the treatment they require. That is something that ought to be one of this Government’s health priorities but of course it is not. 
There is nothing wrong with what is in this bill and that is why it will get broad support from around the House. But what has left New Zealand so disappointed with this Government is the things that have been left out its failure to act and its failure to tackle the big issues the difficult issues. That is why New Zealanders are resoundingly disappointed with this legislation. It is weak. It is insipid. It will not achieve the outcomes that are desirable and we will have to revisit this issue again because of this Government’s failure. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I want to begin by quoting the Law Commission from the foreword of its report  
Alcohol in our Lives: Curbing the Harm 
. It says: “The principle under which we have approached this review is that New Zealanders live in a free and democratic society. They are subject only to such limitation in their freedom as can be justified in such a society. They have liberty to behave as they choose as long as their actions respect the rights of others and are not contrary to the law. Public policy decisions that are made to restrict activity have to be justified by strong arguments that it is in the public interest that individuals and corporations do not exercise their freedom in particular ways. We believe the recommendations in this report meet that test.” 
At the heart of the debate we have been holding in this House over months and indeed years is a disagreement about where the limits to individual liberty should lie. In general this House has moved to limit personal liberty where it has threatened harm or cost to society itself; where it threatens harm to others particularly without their consent; and where harm is threatened to the individuals themselves. For example we insist on seatbelts in cars not so much because of the cost of health care that society would incur but because of the risk of injury to the wearer. We limit personal liberty in all of those circumstances. 
The Law Commission’s report goes on to document considerable harm caused by alcohol consumption to those who drink it the people they interact with and the wider society including those who have to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. One in three New Zealand drinkers for example report being harmed by their own drinking in the past year alone. At least a third of all recorded offences that the police deal with are committed by someone who has been consuming alcohol. Over a thousand deaths a year are related to alcohol along with untold illness and injury. And most of this harm is sustained by those communities that are already marginalised by poverty racism and other factors. Alcohol magnifies and compounds that harm. 
I am not a wowser. I do not believe in prohibition. I enjoy a few drinks and I would say that I derive some benefit from them. But those benefits that are derived by those of us who do enjoy a few drinks must be weighed against the very considerable harms that are done to our society by alcohol. There is plenty of evidence to support most of the Law Commission’s recommendations. There has been one particularly powerful report  
Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity: Research and Public Policy 
 by Babor and others on behalf of the World Health Organization in 2003 where experts ranked possible interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm based on reliable evidence. I will not run through all of the actions that they rank but the most effective actions that Governments can take are a suite of actions that are grouped as regulation of physical ability—so where alcohol can be purchased when it can be purchased and so on—increasing alcohol taxes and lowering blood-alcohol limits for driving. 
There is also very strong evidence around advertising and sponsorship yet our Government has essentially chosen to take very little or no action in precisely these areas that would have most effect on reducing alcohol-related harm. It has also chosen to take little or no action in the areas that the Law Commission has recommended and prioritised. Instead the Government has focused on preserving maximal individual liberty totally without evidence of effectiveness. So focused has it been on this one area that in most cases it has not been willing to even try to influence the individual choices that New Zealand citizens make. Alcohol under this set of bills will in most cases continue to be available more or less anywhere any time. Consumers will still be bathed in alcohol marketing wherever they go. Alcohol will continue to be available cheaper than milk. We will continue to allow much more drinking before driving than most countries. There will not even be any information on alcohol labels—so much for the market theory—and penalties for selling alcohol to those who are under age will remain pathetically weak. The approach taken by the Government is more like a game show based on exposing competitors to extreme temptation than a serious attempt at healthy public policy. I wonder who the survivors will be. 
Some of the elements of the Government’s response have no evidence at all to support them. In the Babor review there was no evidence that voluntary codes of practice for bars had any effect at all yet that is precisely the approach that the Government now favours around ready-to-drinks. Others of the Government’s responses show a stubborn refusal to learn from the experience of other countries in a form of New Zealand exceptionalism. Here for example are the countries that already have blood-alcohol limits of 0.5 milligrams per millilitre or less: Australia Austria Belgium the Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Israel Italy Japan the Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal the Slovak Republic South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland and Turkey. But no we will stand with the Americans. Where they go we go. 
Interestingly the approach that the Government has adopted is more or less exactly what the Hospitality Association lobbied for and other parts of the alcohol industry thought they might be able to get away with. That match of Government policy to industry demands is becoming disturbingly familiar. We see it in the Government’s interactions with the food industry with the Aussie banks with the roading lobby with the big carbon polluters and so on. So ironically under the guise of individual liberty the Government has actually ceded control of our economy society and environment more and more to major commercial interests at the expense of human ones and at the expense of the collective good. 
The Green Party stands instead for an economy set up to deliver on our collective social and environmental goals. We stand for a society in which we all look after each other. We stand for a society that is prepared to limit individual liberty and constrain corporate interests in order to protect itself and each one of us from harm and cost. The relationship that New Zealand society has with alcohol is a sick one. The harm associated with that dysfunction is massive and the mandate exists from the New Zealand public for substantial change. The Law Commission has given what history suggests will turn out to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to limit that harm. We remain frustrated and disappointed that the Government has chosen not to take up that opportunity. We will vote for this legislation because it is a step in the right direction but it is a baby step when a giant stride was needed. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a short call on this. The Alcohol Reform Bill is now divided into three bills: the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill; the Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill which amends the Local Government Act in relation to alcohol control by-laws and liquor bans; and the Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill which expands the definition of a “public place” to include vehicles in those areas and which also allows police to seize alcohol from a young person in a public place who is not there with a parent or guardian as well as allowing the police to issue infringement notices. 
Our alcohol reform package is designed to put in place a new regulatory system for the safe supply and sale of alcohol. It aims to help minimise the harm caused by excessive and inappropriate consumption of alcohol. In previous speeches I have talked about the importance of empowering local communities to create their own local alcohol policies—a huge plus as we have heard many speakers observe—and how these bills give parents more tools to manage their children’s access to alcohol. 
Other salient features are that it allows the Minister of Justice in consultation with the Minister of Health to ban alcohol products that are especially appealing to young people or particularly dangerous to health. It strengthens the existing offence of excessive consumption of alcohol by making it apply to any businesses selling or promoting alcohol and prohibiting a wider range of promotions such as the most iniquitous one which is advertising free alcohol. It makes it an offence to promote alcohol in a way that has a special appeal to those under the purchase age. These changes will apply to any promotion including TV advertising and billboards. 
The package sets up an experts forum to examine the merits of further restrictions on alcohol advertising and sponsorship—a very pertinent point given the Law Commission’s report. I particularly loathe the so-called ready-to-drinks or alcopops. These are alcoholic wolves masquerading as sweet syrupy sheep. We have a regulation-making power in the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill allowing us to restrict ready-to-drinks at any time in the future. This sends a very strong signal to the industry that it must take action to reduce the harm. I commend the legislation to the House. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 It is rather sad that New Zealand First cannot support all three bills from the Alcohol Reform Bill that we now have before us. We will be able to support the Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill and the Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill but we will not be able to support the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill which forms the main part of the alcohol reforms. The expectations of the public that these reforms would make a difference were very high. Those expectations have not been met by this legislation. One expectation was that the public’s majority view of the needed reforms would be delivered and that expectation is not being met either. The result is that this Government’s attempt at the reforms needed around alcohol is a failure. 
What we can expect is that some of the worst behaviour around alcohol abuse will carry on unabated this Christmas and New Year period. What we can expect is that the drinking culture amongst the young will get worse and not better. What we can expect is that the rate of harm to young drinkers in particular will accelerate and not improve because this Government has made it clear to them that all is well and that they should carry on just as they are. That is not what the public of New Zealand wants. What we can also expect is that the big commercial interests in alcohol will be feeling very well satisfied with the legislation as it now is because they are well and truly off the hook. The truth about this legislation is that it is an opportunity lost. It is an opportunity lost to send a message about the awful drinking culture especially amongst the young in this country. It is an opportunity lost to introduce some real controls around the most dangerous forms of alcohol products. It is even an opportunity lost to warn people on labels on alcohol about the real dangers of it especially with regard to pregnant women. 
There are some good things in the three bills though but not nearly enough to save the legislation from being a failed and weak attempt at reform. One of the areas where some progress is made is in the better empowerment of local authorities to make by-laws and to establish local alcohol policies. The provisions for local alcohol policies are welcome. Local alcohol policies have a capacity to make a large contribution to alcohol control in New Zealand because they will reflect local issues and local attitudes. However these should be mandatory in the legislation and not just discretionary and this shows again the weakness of the Government’s proposed legislation. There are some better controls around supermarkets dairies and grocery stores and those are also welcome to clarify the law but they too have been weakened when more restriction was indicated. 
But there are really two great blunders in this attempt at alcohol reform. The first of course is the failure to return the age for purchasing alcohol to 20 years. Only New Zealand First voted as a party on that and we voted to return it to 20 years. It was clearly what the vast majority of New Zealanders wanted. Increasing the purchase age would have made alcohol harder for young people to get. It would have meant less consumption by that age group. It would have given them a good signal that they need to change but that opportunity has been lost. 
The second failure is the failure to deal with the problem drinks the ready-to-drinks. These sweet easy-to-drink ready-to-drinks and similar drinks are well known to be very harmful because large quantities can be consumed especially of course by young people. Sugar levels are very high. They make the drinks very attractive. These drinks have at least 5 percent alcohol and in many cases a lot more. They can be treated by young people as though they were soft drinks and they lead too easily to intoxication. They are pushed and priced to sell by alcohol producers and sellers. They are condemned by the experts and the Law Commission as one of the drinks most potentially harmful to our young people. And what has this Government done? It said “Well maybe we’ll do something about it in the future.” and that is not good enough. Drinks of this kind with more than 5 percent alcohol should be covered by this legislation and should be prohibited. That would have been the most effective thing we could have done as part of these reforms. This Government has totally abdicated its responsibility to act effectively in this way. Instead it has sold out to big alcohol industry players that have twisted the Government’s arm. In so doing the Government has also sold our young people down the river—a river of bad alcohol and bad habits. 
The Government says that it has got assurances that the alcohol industry wants the chance to introduce its own measures to limit the production and the sale of these drinks but that does not explain at all why the Government should not be prohibiting and regulating these drinks right now. In fact providing a level playing field and requiring all industry operators to do the same would assist and not hinder industry cooperation. The industry in any event cannot be trusted to do the right thing without regulation. Otherwise it would have done it well before now. It is very uncertain what in the end the industry will do without the guidance of regulations. It is as we all know actually the Government’s job to propose legislation and regulation. It is not a matter for the alcohol industry to do so and there is no need for the Government to wait and see whether the alcohol industry will act appropriately. It should just pass the necessary measures right now to restrict or prohibit ready-to-drinks the biggest single alcohol problem in this country for young people. 
 So for those reasons New Zealand First cannot support such weak and watered-down legislation except for the few areas of advantage and I refer especially to local alcohol policies which can make a good contribution. New Zealand First has no choice but to vote against the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill. New Zealand deserves a lot better than this but this Government is not capable of it. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak on the third reading of the bills from the Alcohol Reform Bill. This legislation is in response to the Law Commission’s 2010 report. As the Minister of Justice noted in her speech it is the first time in two decades that a Parliament has acted to restrict access to alcohol. 
I also was personally disappointed that the purchase age has remained at the status quo but I agree with other speakers that we have in this legislation the tool to begin to change the alcohol culture and there will be no single magic bullet. 
I am particularly pleased with three aspects of the legislation and those include giving parents more tools to manage their children’s access to alcohol. In particular it is an offence for anyone other than a parent or guardian to provide alcohol to an under-18-year-old without a parent or guardian’s consent expressed. Also it has to be given in a responsible manner. I agree with other speakers that empowering local communities is going to have a crucial part to play in changing alcohol culture. I am also very pleased that supermarkets and grocery stores will display and advertise alcohol only in a single non-prominent area. I commend this legislation to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to begin by acknowledging the work that has gone into the Alcohol Law Reform Bill which we are debating today: the work that was done by the Law Commission in its excellent report on the state of alcohol law reform in New Zealand; the work that was done by the officials from the Ministry of Justice some of whom I see are present in the gallery today who gave excellent advice to the Justice and Electoral Committee as we conducted our deliberations heard submissions and received advice in the 49th Parliament; and also the work of Lianne Dalziel. When she was Associate Minister of Justice she introduced a good and comprehensive set of alcohol law reforms that were unfortunately withdrawn by the former Minister the Hon Simon Power. They were essentially confined to the legislative dustbin. That is a real shame because 2 or 3 years ago Parliament could have passed comprehensive alcohol law reform if that had not been the history of this matter. 
 Instead we saw new legislation tabled. It was to have been passed in the previous Parliament but it was not. That Parliament ran out of time as it did with so many of the other measures that were being advanced by the former Minister of Justice and so it is not until now the end of the first year of the next triennium that this Parliament has finally gotten round to addressing the issue of alcohol law reform. That is a shame because there will have been further unnecessary alcohol-related deaths and illnesses suffered in New Zealand as a result of that delay and that must weigh on our consciences. 
There were I think some useful observations made in the Minister’s speech and in some of the speeches made by Government members about the good innovations that are contained in this bill and they are undeniable. It is quite clear that if this bill passes through Parliament we will have in general a better regime for regulating the sale and purchase of alcohol in New Zealand compared with that which exists now. There are some good logical technical changes which I commend to the House and which certainly lead me to be inclined to support the legislation. But as other speakers have noted that unfortunately is not the yardstick by which this measure is going to be judged. It is not going to be judged by those sensible technical improvements. It is going to be judged by all the lost opportunities which we as a Parliament have passed up to really try to make a dent in the problematic parts of New Zealand’s binge drinking culture which is a problem that is acknowledged right across the House. 
I want to remind the House of some of those lost opportunities by way of speaking to some of the Supplementary Order Papers that were voted down in the Committee of the whole House. There was a very very good suggestion from my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway who spoke earlier in this debate which would have put some restrictions on the advertising of alcohol. It would have ensured that the exposure of young people to alcohol advertising was reduced by ending billboard and poster advertising within 300 metres of schools creating a 9 p.m. watershed for alcohol advertising on television and restricting alcohol advertising in cinemas to those films with an R18 rating. There would have also been under his amendment a committee of officials set up to plan and implement the introduction of greater restrictions on all forms of alcohol promotion in accordance with the Law Commission’s report. It is a great tragedy that that Supplementary Order Paper 91 did not pass into law because it would have meant a better bill. 
Similarly David Clark suggested an amendment that would have increased the restrictions on the advertising of alcohol on television in order to prevent the relentless presentation of the product in the attractive light in which it is currently portrayed which as we all know from the evidence tends to increase consumption. Again all the evidence before the select committee was that tackling advertising in a sensible way would really help to get the message across that alcohol is not a normal product and that it does have hazards if it is not consumed appropriately and responsibly and yet we failed as a Parliament to progress that amendment. 
There was another amendment which I supported from my colleague Louisa Wall which would have ensured that off-licence premises could not be located within a 1-kilometre radius of an early childhood centre or a primary intermediate or secondary school. I acknowledge that that amendment had some issues around workability but— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Sure did—sure did. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: I cannot forget Mr Williamson the evidence that I heard at the select committee from schools in low-decile areas that are having to deal with the fact that their kids— 
Mike Sabin 
: Local alcohol plans take care of that. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Their kids walk past liquor stores every day on the way to school. This is a “normal” product. The advertising is out on the street on sandwich boards. Those kids in those areas are exposed to these advertising messages right from the beginning and the evidence is that the normalisation of alcohol in that way is going to be detrimental to many of those children. 
There were some other very good amendments. The restriction on the trading hours of off-licences proposal which Andrew Little put up on his Supplementary Order Paper 110 is one that I think it is a shame we missed the opportunity to progress. One that I think really did deserve better treatment from the House than it got was Lianne Dalziel’s suggestion that we empower the Minister with the ability to set a minimum price regime for alcoholic products. Contrary to all the propaganda and all the misinformation that were put out about that proposal all it would have done was insert a clause in the legislation giving the Minister a power. She could have taken advice from the officials. It could have been a sliding scale type of arrangement that would have affected only alcoholic products that were truly identified as problematic. Again the evidence we heard in the select committee was that that is cheap wine in supermarkets. That is what people use to pre-load before they go out on the town and buy from on-licences. It is an area where we have to get more serious and where very little will be done by this legislation to make a change. 
One of the members on the Government benches interjected earlier that local alcohol policies would go a long way to solve one of the problems that I was speaking about earlier—and they will where they exist—but one of the things that I think best typifies the lost opportunities in this legislation is our failure to have made local alcohol policies a comprehensive requirement of local government regions because again at the select committee what we were told is that the areas of greatest deprivation are often the areas where it is hardest to get civic involvement in local government so that people will push for stronger regulation of the availability of advertising in their communities. In other words the places where you most need a local alcohol policy will probably be the last places to get them if they get them at all because we have made it a matter for the discretion of the local authority rather than saying to the local authority: “Look you need to have one of these for the well-being of your community and here are the sorts of things you might want to put in it.” The other problem is that we have very much restricted the matters that local government bodies can deal with in local alcohol policies. They are not able to take a health promotion approach. They are simply restricted to the old regulatory philosophy about the availability of alcohol and again that is a lost opportunity in this legislation. 
There were a number of other very good Supplementary Order Papers. I think the failure of those Supplementary Order Papers to progress simply because they were moved by the Opposition and because the Government members were whipped on every issue in this bill—other than the age issue—is one of the reasons why in the media and in the public there is this very justifiable sense of a lost opportunity with this legislation. 
I want to conclude by praising the work that has been done throughout this debate by Alcohol Action New Zealand. Professor Doug Sellman the Director of the National Addiction Centre Professor Geoffrey Robinson the chief medical officer in Wellington and Professor Jennie Connor the head of the department of preventive and social medicine at Otago University have issued a statement today. I want to read the last paragraph of that statement in conclusion: “history will judge those MPs who wilfully planned and led the wasted opportunity to do something to help the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders being harmed by weak alcohol laws. Their failure is seen in the bill due to be passed in Parliament today—of particular note: Key Dunne Borrows Joyce Collins and Power.” 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
Tena koe. Kia ora tatau katoa e te Whare. A ka mihi ra ki a tataui a tatau e wananganeiitenei o ngapire e paana ki te waipiro. 
[ 
Thank you. Greetings to us all the House. I acknowledge us as we address this of the bills here relating to alcohol. 
] 
I am pleased to take a short call on behalf of the Maori Party to raise a couple of issues in this final reading of the alcohol reform legislation. I listened to the member Charles Chauvel and his mention of Doug Sellman. I too want to acknowledge the background work that he did with the Maori Party in providing us with some solid information and statistics which were helpful certainly to the Supplementary Order Papers that I presented to the House as well. 
Up until this point in time we have supported—pretty much—the general passage of this legislation. It has been wide-ranging legislation covering off a fairly substantive change to some legislation to do with alcohol and that has been pleasing because it has opened the door up to the big discussion. We supported it along the way because we believed that we gained some concessions to the Maori Party and also as I say to allow that debate to happen. But we really do believe that we must focus on the long-term outlook the intergenerational shift which will ensure that we reduce alcohol-related harm right across the whanau. 
We advocated for significant investment in the sector targeted at alcohol treatment services. We were pleased that the Government moved in this way with a $10 million announcement. We also supported the proposal for a cross-agency advertising and sponsorship review as recommended by the Law Commission. We are particularly supportive of the Law Commission’s advice that alcohol advertising and sponsorship could be addressed by limiting product information to sort of a plain format pretty much like what the Hon Tariana Turia has done in terms of addressing issues of tobacco and health-related issues with that. 
We are however disappointed that we have not gone far enough. In that regard we say that we have not gone far enough because we have attempted through the Maori Party to look at what we have termed “social hazards”: one to do with alcohol of course and the others to do with tobacco and gambling. The Hon Tariana Turia has certainly looked at the whole issue of tobacco and plain packaging is coming our way I hope in the near future. The gambling legislation in my name is a member’s bill and we are hoping to have some major changes in respect of the legislation on that. And of course here we are talking about the alcohol reforms. 
The question was asked: why is the Maori Party taking a pretty strong stand on what we have termed social hazards? It is pretty much because it recognises that they are having a huge effect on Maori society throughout the country. It is not as if it has just happened; it has been over time. For those who did not know Maori society is one of the few societies where the history prior to the arrival of the settler group was that we were basically free of alcohol. Indeed the term that is used for alcohol now is waipiro which is basically “stinking water”. Although people do get off on a bit of alcohol now and again the effects have been pretty traumatic and manifest themselves in all sorts of ways which have been debated in the Chamber as we have gone through this legislation. 
We are disappointed that the local alcohol plans remain voluntary. The liberalisation of alcohol sales opening up supermarket sales extending opening hours reducing the minimum purchase age to 18 and increased numbers and increased densities of outlets have all pretty much compounded the problem. 
So we tended to put our energies into tabling various amendments which included the following: make the proximity to a school a criterion for determining liquor licences and adding Maori representation to local committees—the local committees to be expanded out by one person to accommodate mana whenua representation. We wanted to limit the visibility of advertising in grocery stores and grocery shops so that the products are not visible in the store but they are able to be sold. We talked about eliminating advertising and sponsorship of alcohol except inside on licensed premises bars etc. We talked about a sinking-lid policy on off-licence retailers and liquor stores within territorial authorities. Basically the replacement of existing stores is the only exception and only if there is not another liquor store within 5 kilometres of that store. We talked about changing trading hours to 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for off-site premises and 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. for on-site premises with a one-way door restriction period between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. and a minimum price per unit of alcohol sold which will be set by the Ministry of Health. This follows a similar model that they proposed in Scotland. 
So those are some of the amendments that we put up. Unfortunately most of them got slammed down and did not go too far despite the fact that there was relatively positive support across the House for some of those general ideas and we had slight variations on those themes. The legislation could have gone a little further and we are voting against it at this third reading because we think we could have done much better. We need to start thinking about the bigger picture of alcohol harm. It is not just about what we drink it is about how we drink it is about who we drink with and we need to take the communities with us. 
In closing one of the recommendations from  
He Tete Kura: Maori Addiction Treatment 1980-2008 
 tells us that there are three specific aspects to how we can work together to reduce and prevent alcohol-related harm. They are to build strengthen and maintain links with whanau hapu iwi and the community and the sector around the country; secondly explicitly foster a collective whanau approach in the Maori addiction treatment sector and workforce; and finally work more as a unified and collective sector to achieve whanau ora for Maori with addiction-related issues and problems. 
If we were able to move in that direction to deal with some of the issues that we clearly have to address in terms of alcohol the Maori Party would have been far more positive about giving support to this legislation. Sure there are some good things in it that address some of the issues that have long been out there but we think we could have done better bearing in mind it is probably going to be a while before we come back to address the issue of alcohol in the future. It would have been an awesome opportunity if Parliament was able to look at some of those amendments that I and other members of the House were able to put up but it was not to be this time. We hope that the debate on record now serves as a good platform for future debate should a further attempt come up in the near future around reforming our alcohol laws. At this point in time we will not be supporting this legislation at its third reading. Thank you. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The next call is a split call. 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 I have no joy in speaking on this legislation. I think of a young woman who at the beginning of this year after a party in the early hours of the morning slipped and fell on to the motorway in Mangere and got rammed by a truck. Now I think of how many people will die—alcohol related—during the holiday period. There is no joy in this given that many people drink and alcohol has become a normal natural part of our enjoyment of social engagements. It is of no joy for me to vote against the legislation given the liquor industry provides jobs for our workforce. Jobs are what our communities desperately seek especially at this time with close to 300000 New Zealanders who are jobless and a 13-year high unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. 
I do want to acknowledge though my colleague Lianne Dalziel who has persistently argued and advocated on the issues advanced by the community on this matter. I also want to acknowledge my Labour colleagues and other parties who have developed Supplementary Order Papers to promote significant change and to improve this legislation. 
I think all of us have attempted to highlight to this Government the state of the national crisis on our hands. Despite what the liquor industry and this Government say the community knows the true state of this national alcohol crisis. Twenty-five percent of New Zealand drinkers are heavy drinkers a third of all police apprehensions involve alcohol half of serious violent crimes relate to alcohol 60 different medical conditions are caused by heavy drinking up to 75 percent of adult presentations at emergency departments on Thursday Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol related there are over 300 alcohol-related offences every day and over 500 serious and fatal injury traffic crashes every year at least 600 children are born each year with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder there are over 1000 alcohol deaths every year and more than 17000 years of life per year are lost through alcohol. 
More than two-thirds of alcohol in New Zealand is being consumed at harmful or hazardous levels by about 700000 heavy drinkers—the total population of Wellington and Christchurch combined. There are more than 70000 alcohol-related physical and sexual assaults each year in our homes and a third of police apprehensions involve alcohol. 
Like tobacco alcohol is a killer. Twenty people are dying every week from alcohol-related problems—half from injuries and other acute deaths related to intoxication and the other half from various chronic diseases. This includes our three most common cancers: breast cancer prostate cancer and bowel cancer. Second-hand alcohol causes brain damage in up to 3000 unborn babies every year. This together with alcohol-related violence poverty and neglect suffered by children constitutes a serious breach of the human rights of New Zealand’s most vulnerable citizens. 
The alcohol industry will argue that it wants responsible drinkers but the industry and the supermarkets and dairies actively target our young people. Every advertisement seen by a young person aged 15 to 24 years increases by 1 percent the number of drinks they consume. The alcohol industry wants customers for life similar to the tobacco industry. The community responded with marches petitions newspaper articles letters to the editor and documentaries all pointing to the harm caused by alcohol—[ 
Bell rung 
]—that was fast—in our communities. We have a national alcohol crisis. 
Let me just say that the liquor industry argued personal responsibility but it will not tell New Zealanders that alcohol is highly intoxicating alcohol is a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage alcohol can directly cause aggression and a lot of the alcohol industry’s profit comes from heavy drinking. 
Let me just conclude. Our children who are the most vulnerable are targeted by this industry and under this legislation they will continue to be the targets. When I weigh up the benefits promoted by the liquor industry and the improvements that the Government says it has made in this legislation against the harm and the cost of alcohol-related harm in our communities the harm and the cost of harm far outweigh any benefit to society. I will be voting against this legislation. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call to vote in support of these three bills the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill the Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill and the Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill. The Green Party will be voting in support but we are deeply disappointed. The three bills we have in front of the House are a missed opportunity. These three bills fail to tackle the big issues facing our country and they are significant issues. What we are talking about is New Zealand’s cultural drinking problem. 
As we know the first part of dealing with the problem—[ 
Interruption 
] It is a—oh we have had a good interjection from the public lobby. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Just one moment. Can security just find out where that is coming from please? I am going to stop the clock Mr Hughes. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh is it in the Chamber here? Well I will ask the member if he wants to use it to go out into the lobbies. I will invite—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I did stop the clock so—Gareth Hughes. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. That might be the best contribution by the member Brendon Horan we will see today! As I was saying the country has got a cultural drinking problem. It is important that we acknowledge it. You know all of us see it in our towns in our cities as we go out on the weekends and sometimes accompany the police. We see it on the news we see it in the media we see it at public events. In my town a third of the crime occurs down the “golden mile”—down Courtenay Place—which some of our members are more noted for patronising than others but this is where the bulk of our crime in my city of Wellington happens and it happens of course because of the alcohol problems we see particularly on Saturday and Friday nights. 
We know it is causing real harm. We have heard some heartbreaking stories over the course of this debate. We have heard some heartbreaking stories in the Justice and Electoral Committee. We know that alcohol in New Zealand is responsible each year for 1000 deaths—1000 people’s deaths can be attributed to and no doubt were avoidable because of the role of alcohol. 
Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch you picked me up in my Committee stage speech on mentioning the intoxication of members that I had seen. That got quite wide play in the media and I think it is symptomatic of the fact that we still cannot have an open and honest discussion around alcohol—the fact it is happening. I think sometimes we like to keep our heads in the sand and pretend it is happening somewhere else but it is happening to our country. It is happening to our towns our schools our communities and unfortunately sometimes to the poorest and most vulnerable Kiwis. 
As I said the Green Party will be voting in support but we lament that the measures in this legislation are not going to be the most effective that they could be. There are three big missed opportunities. The first is we see the Law Commission report there—a substantial tome. It is a real once-in-a-generation opportunity to take the momentum from this well-considered well-researched substantive report. It is a missed opportunity because there was genuine cross-party support across this Chamber. We have heard some good things from the Labour Party some good amendments from the Maori Party. My colleague Kevin Hague the Green Party spokesperson on alcohol put up a number of good amendments. There was a real opportunity to get cross-party support for greater alcohol action. It did not have to fall across the partisan lines that it has where sadly the balance has fallen on less regulation less action than what I think people would have wanted. Third was the missed opportunity of genuine public support. The polls are saying that Kiwis do want to see greater action. Really the once-in-a-generation opportunity to take the work of the Law Commission the cross-party support and the public desire for action has been blown. 
Unfortunately all the attention was on the smokescreen of the purchase age issue. I am glad we did keep it at 18. I think it was all about avoiding the real issues. It would not have been fair it would not have been effective at reducing real harm and in fact it was damaging because it took the focus away from those real issues. It is good to see Parliament use a three-way vote so that the desire of the majority of members—the largest number of members—could be achieved in the final vote. But what we have failed to address is those real issues: the issues of accessibility advertising and intoxicated driving amongst many others. 
We know that in the period between 1990 and 2010 there have been 8000 new alcohol outlets in New Zealand. There are 1000 alcohol outlets now that sell alcohol 24/7 and it is good that we see that 65 percent of people in the Health Sponsorship Council say that there are too many liquor outlets. We have a real need for action on the accessibility of alcohol. Likewise with advertising because we have a barrage of it on TV. I understand that annually around $70 million is spent. We know the studies show that numerous people particularly young people remember the ads. We have got to remember why the alcohol industry is spending so much money on alcohol advertising and the simple answer is that it is spending it because it works. 
Lastly intoxicated driving—a real opportunity to move into international norms and lower the blood-alcohol level. We are glad to be voting for alcohol measures but we could go— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 The member Gareth Hughes who just resumed his seat said something about members having had their heads in the sand. I am not sure too many people in this place would disagree with that. Can I just firstly in this last call commend the Minister of Justice for the work and also the Justice and Electoral Committee. It is a substantive— 
Brendan Horan 
: What about your son coming on a Wednesday and making out it’s a Thursday and putting my mother’s grave on TV? 
MIKE SABIN 
: —piece of work. At least it is the member speaking and not his cellphone on this occasion. It is a substantive body of work because this is a substantive problem in this country. It is by volume one of the biggest problems if not the biggest drug problem. By consequence probably not so. If we had 85 percent of the population smoking P we would probably see some slightly different consequences but none the less this is a country that has challenges around substance abuse and alcohol is at the top of that list. Problems like this will never be solved by this place. They will never be solved by the police; they will be solved by the community. The appropriate tools are what are required for the community and the appropriate culture is something that only the community can foster with the assistance of messages from this place. 
There has been some discussion in the House about the purchase age. For me it was 20. Why? Because I believe that so many parents in this country believe that lowering the age was the cause of the problem. In all likelihood it is probably not but in their minds it was and the overwhelming dissatisfaction from members of the public about the fact that the age was not raised to 20 says very clearly that they think that that is an important aspect of this issue. Whether or not it is the point is that that 85 percent of the population—we need those people on our side because this issue will take the community to solve and those people need to know that they have our backing. 
The ironic part of that is that two members who took calls Lianne Dalziel and Iain Lees-Galloway took a fairly prominent position on the fact that we had gone soft and we were getting this all wrong. They both voted for 18 because they do not see that those parents need empowering and that we needed to support them and even more ironically what you find is that both those members have some very strong views on the decriminalisation of cannabis under the guise of medicinal marijuana. If you turn to some of the blogs you see some really interesting commentary. One of them from Iain Lees-Galloway said: “Worth having a good read of this to take it all in.” when referring to the Law Commission’s report on the Misuse of Drugs Act. “Lianne Dalziel and I are as keen to hear your thoughts as the Law Commission is.” They are very keen to hear the thoughts on the decriminalisation or liberalising the use of cannabis a drug that does so much harm in this place— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! 
MIKE SABIN 
: —and stand on that side of the House and criticise this Government for the role that we have taken with regard to getting the right balance and right measures. My challenge is to the people in this House and to this community and to New Zealand is to make sure that we pick up a challenge and help change that culture. This legislation will take us there. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 32 (Ardern J Chauvel Clark Cosgrove Cunliffe Curran Dalziel Dyson Faafoi Fenton Goff Hipkins Horomia Huo Jones King A Lees-Galloway Little Mackey Mahuta Mallard Moroney O’Connor D Parker Prasad Robertson G Shearer Street Tirikatene Twyford Wall Woods); Green Party 14; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 13 
New Zealand Labour 2 (Robertson R Sio); New Zealand First 7; Maori Party 3; Independent: Horan 1. 
Bill read a third time. 
Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill read a third time. 
Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill read a third time. 
Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the select committee reports back to the House on Monday 15 April 2013. The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill makes three major changes to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005. It repeals the sunset clause in that Act to make it permanent it suspends the civil limitation period for victims’ claims while money is being held by the Ministry of Justice and it clarifies for the avoidance of doubt the application of the Act to unlawful detention claims. 
The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005 was passed by the previous Labour Government and has two main objectives: to ensure that financial compensation is treated as a remedy of last resort for prisoners whose human rights have been breached and to recognise that victims should have the first claim against any such compensation awarded to prisoners. The Act provides clear statutory guidelines for the rare circumstances in which courts can award compensation for a breach of a prisoner’s rights. For example prisoners must make use of the existing complaints mechanisms available to them and if other remedies can provide effective redress they must be used instead of financial compensation. This ensures that compensation is reserved for exceptional cases where it is the only appropriate remedy. 
It is important to note to avoid confusion on this point that when I say “prisoners” I am using that term to refer to all persons under the control or supervision of the State. The Act applies to claims made by prisoners whether sentenced or remanded; people on community-based sentences or home detention; people subject to conditions under the Parole Act 2002; persons arrested and detained under the Armed Forces Discipline Act 1971 who are awaiting release or trial; or members of the armed forces who are service detainees or service prisoners. 
If compensation is awarded to a prisoner or if a settlement agreement is entered into the Act requires that the agency responsible for the breach must pay the money to the Secretary for Justice. Deductions are made first by the Ministry of Justice to pay any legal aid debt related to the compensation claim and any outstanding reparation owed to victims in any earlier orders under the Act in favour of victims. The Act then allows victims of a prisoner to claim against the money through a simplified victims’ claims process. 
This process provides an easy and cost-effective way for victims to take a civil claim in circumstances where the offender has the means to pay at least some of the damages and also importantly when the Crown has control of the money. The ministry works with agencies courts and victims’ advisers to identify possible victims and contact them. Notices of payments to prisoners are also published in the  
Gazette 
 on the ministry’s website and in newspapers. A victims’ special claims tribunal then determines any claims received. 
The Act will effectively expire on 1 July 2013 due to the sunset clauses contained in it. If the Act expired the restrictions on the awards compensations and simplified victims’ claims process would no longer apply to prisoners’ claims lodged from that date. The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill will therefore repeal the sunset clauses in the Act and make the current regime permanent. It is important that we keep the clear statutory guidelines on awarding compensation and that victims continue to have an easy way to make a civil claim if prisoners receive compensation payments. In addition the bill replaces the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Redirecting Prisoner Compensation) Amendment Bill which was introduced last year. That bill has now been discharged. 
The new bill reflects the change of direction I signalled in October. I indicated that I would rethink the redirection bill and seek the views of other parties. The bill will make sure victims will continue to benefit from the current regime while also recognising that we need to strike a balance between victims’ rights and the legitimate claims of prisoners whose human rights have been breached. The bill ensures this system is fair and balanced and avoids any unintended injustices. 
Additionally the bill ensures that victims’ ability to bring claims within the civil limitation period is not affected by any administrative delays. It stops the clock on the civil limitation period on victims’ claims while the Ministry of Justice makes the necessary deductions from the compensation to pay legal aid and existing debts to victims. This means that victims of the prisoner will not be locked out of the simplified claims process due to administrative delays. The bill also includes a clarification for the avoidance of doubt that the Act applies to prisoners’ claims of unlawful detention. These claims arise from time to time generally when a prisoner is held beyond their statutory release date due to an administrative error. 
The underlying purpose of the Act is to require offenders to address the harm that they have caused to their victims before receiving the benefit of any compensation for breaches of their rights by the Crown. Abuse by people in power is not acceptable in relation to prisoners and it is something that we take very seriously. The Government has great confidence in the ongoing integrity and professionalism of Department of Corrections staff working in New Zealand prisons. However if breaches do occur we should respond fairly in a way that appropriately balances the rights of prisoners and their victims. I commend this bill to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I want to begin by recognising the professionalism of the Department of Corrections and the enormous efforts that the management of that department has gone to over the last decade in particular to really lift the game of the performance of its staff particularly its custodial staff. It has been a privilege over the last year to have visited I think all but four or five of the Department of Corrections’ facilities and prisons around the country and to be able to see for myself this improvement. 
The history of the legislation of which this Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill is the latest chapter is that when the Hon Phil Goff was the Minister of Justice in the previous Labour-led Government there were abuses of prisoners by prison officers. There was litigation on the subject of those abuses and the court held that those abuses were systemic in nature. The Department of Corrections needed to take action to address that systemic abuse and I believe there is evidence that it has done so. In the course of the litigation the court eventually when the matter was taken on appeal restricted the levels of compensation that would be properly payable to inmates whose rights had been abused by the Department of Corrections. But before that happened Parliament had moved in the way that the Minister of Justice outlined in her introductory speech on this bill to create a regime that would provide for the payment of compensation to those in custody and also a regime where those payments could be accessed by the victims— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: Before the dinner break I had gone through the history of the series of bills and Acts to which this bill is the successor and I was about to make the point that the original legislation the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act because it was experimental in nature and because it was responding to a particular problem at a particular time unusually for our parliamentary practice contained a sunset clause. I think that is an indication that this House was very much enacting the original Act on a wait-and-see basis. Is this novel approach going to be one that we want to persist with? Is it going to work? Is it going to be practical? Is it going to be effective? I think the history of the legislation is instructive. There has been a low level and a low number of claims that have been made under it. So when the Minister came to me last year and asked me whether given the approaching date of the sunset clause’s effectiveness it would be in order to extend the Act for another year in order to negotiate between the parties in the House what the form of the new legislation—if any—on this basis ought to be I said that I thought that would be fine. 
I think the issue now is that we need to look at the adequacy of what is being proffered to the House. I have two problems with it. They are problems that both the Hon Phil Goff and I foreshadowed extensively in the debates around the legislation that extended the sunset clause. 
The first problem is this. This is supposed to be victim-centric legislation. This is supposed to be legislation that says from this Parliament to those who suffer the horrendous consequences of crime that we want to do something to show that we understand that that is an awful situation to be in and that they have a right where possible to be made whole. This legislation does that by saying that if a person in custody or under supervision in custodial terms receives a payment from the Crown then a procedure exists by which that offender’s victims can recover some money from effectively the offender in token of the suffering that they have gone through. That on its face sounds really good and it is something we have supported. But the question has to be asked: why stop there? What happens if an offender receives some other form of windfall that is not from the Crown? What if the offender receives a bequest or a legacy while in custody or detention or otherwise under supervision? What if they receive a lottery win? These questions are not addressed and yet they ought to be. This is supposed to be legislation about those who suffer the adverse consequences of crime. If we are serious about putting in place a regime that looks after people in that situation and does seek to make them whole we as a Parliament should not be concerned about the source of the windfall payment that comes into the hands of the offender. We should simply look at whether or not there is such a payment and then subject it to the process in the bill. This legislation does not do that. It is for all its masquerading as victim-centric actually punitive in respect of the offender. 
I think that brings me to the second objection that I would raise in this debate and it is this. We have always had a tradition in this country and in the common law traditions that we have inherited against double jeopardy. The law and the constitution say that there should be only one punishment for a crime. Well if that is right then it is wrong in principle to say to an offender that not only will we take away your liberty but if during the course of your time in custody or supervision you come into a payment we also will take money away from you and pay it to someone else. So the second problem I have with this legislation is that there is no recognition—and this is something that the Minister told the  
New Zealand Herald 
 last month that she would take pains to address and has not—that there is a real danger here of punishing people twice. I think there should be a provision that says that if somebody is in custody and they come into funds that are then to be paid to the victims of their offences that should weigh as to their penalty. The Parole Board for example should have to take that into account in deciding whether or not they ought to serve their full period of a custodial or other sentence. And yet there is no recognition of that principle in this legislation. So I think we need to take real care as to how we proceed in this case. 
This legislation as I said earlier was always experimental. It was always a response to a particular series of circumstances at a particular time. That is why the original Act had a sunset clause. We then saw the High Court the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court address the cases that led to the particular concern. At the same time we saw the Department of Corrections smarten up its act considerably. Those two matters beg the question of whether the legislation remains necessary. And then we have these two other flaws: the fact that although it appears to be dressed in victim-centric clothing this legislation is actually very much about doling out extra punishment and it does therefore offend an important principle. Finally on top of that we had the assurance from the Minister that there would be consultation about the form of this legislation. There has been none. For all those reasons the Labour Opposition will not be supporting this legislation. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 It seems to be my permanent lot in the current Parliament to follow Mr Chauvel every time I speak in a debate. He is a very thoughtful member. In fact I have to say that my mother—who is probably watching at this moment as she is a bit of a parliamentary addict—seems to think that Mr Chauvel gets every speaking call that the Opposition is allocated. Be that as it may I think that this bill the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill needs to be seen in the wider context of the Government’s commitment to putting victims at the heart of our justice system. That is not just a slogan; that is a very real commitment and I think it is something that the New Zealand public are very anxious to ensure that we can achieve. National is firmly committed to building a safer New Zealand. It is one of our core commitments that we campaigned on last time. It is a core focus of our Better Public Services strategy. We have embarked on a very comprehensive programme of reform in order to protect communities to prevent crime and as I say to put victims first. So as we look at this particular bill which I acknowledge is actually quite a long time in evolving we need to remember that that is very much a core focus of it. I just remind Mr Chauvel of that in light of some of his previous comments. 
It is aimed at striking the right balance between retaining support for victims while at the same time maintaining fairness to prisoners. The latter part of the equation is often not a very popular point with the wider public but nevertheless in a civilised and decent society it is something that we should pay due respect to. I think it is important for those who may not have been listening to this debate before the dinner adjournment just to explain that the bill makes the existing regime which is due to expire on 1 July next year a permanent one. As I have said this issue is one that requires balance sensitivity and a clear explanation given the strong public interest in matters of compensation. It is always something that strikes a lot of public comment whenever compensation particularly for prisoners is in the news. 
 The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005—of course that was a measure of the previous Government—responded to the concern that offenders should not receive compensation for wrongful treatment without first repaying the debt that they owe for the harm that they caused their victims. I would imagine that there would be widespread support for that particular sentiment. It is important that victims continue to have an easy way to make a civil claim if prisoners do receive compensation payments. The whole point of this new bill is to ensure that the system is fair and balanced and will not lead to unintended injustices. After all victims of crime are in the system entirely without any fault and entirely without any choice in the matter. They have to deal often with the considerable financial emotional and physical effects of crime long after it has been committed. In fact we know that there are many who are permanently traumatised by that experience so provisions for better compensation of victims have been an absolute priority for this Government. I have to say that fairness is not possible because the only thing that could possibly be fair is for them not to have become the victims of crime in the first place. 
But I am pleased and proud that National established a victims’ compensation scheme in our previous term in office. A few people mocked the establishment of the $50 offender levy on all offenders regardless of the crime that they commit but I am delighted to say it has been an unqualified success. It has worked incredibly well. In the first year considerably more was taken in than had been expected. It is a levy that is in addition to any sentence or court order that is imposed. We have used that new levy to expand services and support for victims of crime particularly of serious crimes and their families. More than 4000 victims or their families have received extra support in the first year of the levy and the levy has funded 13 different services for victims of serious crime. There is quite a lot that it has gone towards. We have also taken numerous steps to protect victims: 6000 families have been protected through police safety orders. Victims now have more say in impact statements and that is something that they warmly welcome in the court system. We are improving the victim notification system and we are setting up a victims’ centre to improve the information and services that victims receive. 
As I say this is a measure that needs to be taken in the wider context. It is about trying to get the balance right. I dare say—and particularly having listened to the comments Mr Chauvel has made—that there will be some submissions and we will take careful note of them when it comes before the Justice and Electoral Committee. But I believe that this is a measure that will enjoy widespread support and I welcome its introduction this evening. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 It is with some regret that I rise to oppose this bill the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill. It is not because I do not believe that we should have victim-centred legislation—I believe that we should—but because I believe that this legislation is a thoroughly inadequate way of ensuring that offenders genuinely address the wrongs that they have done to their victims. 
I say that from the perspective of the Minister of Justice who put in place the original piece of legislation the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005. I did that at a time when we were dealing with the residue of a Department of Corrections that had gone beyond the law and had breached the responsibilities that it had for the proper care of prisoners. Prisoners are there. They are locked up. They are locked up because they have committed terrible crimes. They are there because they deserve to be there but in our society we operate a system whereby the agencies of State are not exempt from the law; they have to operate under it. When they breach the law they should be called to heel on that. But I was faced with a situation arising out of what the Department of Corrections put in place called the behaviour modification regime. That regime was found—it was started under National and continued under Labour—to be in breach of international requirements on us. The fear that I had was that there were some lawyers who were keen on goldmining this case to make a lot of money for themselves and to give a bit of it to the inmates. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Outrageous. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: It is outrageous Mr Chauvel. I am sure you recognise that most lawyers would not sink to such depths but unfortunately it happens. 
What worried me was when I looked at the individual cases of the inmates who were covered by the  
Taunoa 
 case. They had done horrendous things to their victims and not one of them had paid a penny in reparation or restitution to the victims. The reasons for that were pretty straightforward: they came from dysfunctional backgrounds they had no savings and they had no income because they were going to be locked up for a long time. The victims got nothing and suddenly the offenders because of the Department of Corrections breaching its responsibilities were going to get a large handout. I thought that that was fundamentally wrong. I just thought it does not make sense. Yes the State has been wrong in its actions but why should these guys get the money and their own victims not get a cent in compensation? It seemed wrong to me and I brought this legislation in. 
I have got to say to the members opposite that the National Party in Opposition opposed it and made some outrageous statements that we should ignore all United Nations conventions about the treatment of prisoners. It is singing a different song in Government and that is probably a good thing. 
What I wanted to see was what I have always believed in: a system of restorative justice. Restorative justice is probably the best form of justice because it requires when somebody harms another person that there is a responsibility on the offender to put things to right for the victim to the extent that they are able to. There are a lot of different ways in which you can put things right. Sometimes it is by showing genuine remorse and apologising and asking for forgiveness. That can be shallow and it can mean nothing or it can be genuine. When it is genuine it has a real impact on the victim. The Samoan culture for example has a practice called ifoga where the offender has to go and cover himself with a fine mat and sit in front of the victim’s house until the victim is prepared to forgive him. We might be disparaging about those things but that produces a real form of natural justice. 
The other way you can do it is by restitution and reparation. Money does not solve everything but if a victim is suffering financial consequences from what the offender has done to them getting restitution actually does make a difference. It is a concrete form of payment from the offender to the victim and that should happen. Of course it does not happen for the reasons that I talked about before. 
I was not sure how this new regime was going to work. I therefore put some sunset clauses into it. I wanted to see how the thing would work. If it was effective then you might continue it. If it needed improving because it did not come up to the standards that we wanted we could make those changes or we might decide simply that after the  
Taunoa 
 case this was not a frequent enough event to actually have special legislation to cover it. The idea was that there would be a proper review of the legislation. Well sadly National after 2008 in Government did not do that review. We were caught in the situation last year where the legislation was going to expire and there was nothing in place that would improve the situation for the victim. So the Labour Party in Opposition did the responsible thing and said to the Minister: “We will work with you. We will extend this legislation for a year until we do that review. We will work together for the good of the victims in this country and we will try to find a better way of doing it.” Maybe Charles Chauvel and I were naive but we actually accepted the Minister at her word. 
I have got to say to this House that the Minister breached her undertaking and her promise. There was no consultation. There was no review that I can actually see—any meaningful review that even took place. So we wasted the time last year in extending the legislation. There is still no review no consultation and no attempt to reach across the House and say: “Let’s work together and get something that really does work properly for victims.” I think that that is a disgrace and I think on that basis it is impossible to support this piece of legislation. 
But I want to still do my best to be constructive for the Minister and say that this is still an opportunity to do the right thing for victims across the board. I am not interested only in helping that tiny number of victims who are in a situation where their offender gets a payment from the State because the State has breached its obligations. That covers a tiny number of people. Every day I read about and I talk to people about a situation where the victims are left penniless and the offender does nothing for them. 
One of the worst examples of that is in the case of white-collar offenders. White-collar offenders come from the top levels of society often. They are the accountants and the lawyers and the financiers. They live pretty well. But they get greedy and they get reckless or both and they rip people off. I have got people in my electorate who have lost their life-savings to white-collar offenders. You know to give credit to the courts there have been some reasonably tough sentences brought down but in the end those offenders will do a couple of years in prison and they will come out. We have seen it happen in the past. They will come out and because they have got the education and the contacts and the backing they will make a lot of money again. Everything will be sweet for them but my victims are living out the last days of their lives with their savings destroyed by these crooks who ripped them off. Those crooks go back into society and they never have to pay the money back. 
What makes it even worse—what makes it even worse—is that they are protected by trust laws. They go into prison they make no payment in reparation or too little payment but they have their money protected and/or hidden in family trusts. So they come out of prison and they have got the money there because it has been protected and they have got the skills the education and the contacts to make a lot more money and the victim is locked out on the outside. I say to this Government that that is what it should be looking at. It should be looking at a much wider scheme that ensures that those who have committed offences against society and against their victims are required to set things right for their victims. 
This bill does nothing of that sort. This bill is a cop-out. It is second rate. It is a broken promise by the Minister who did not honour her undertaking to consult with the Opposition on this. She has sat on her hands and done nothing. She brought this legislation which does practically nothing back into the House. We hear the fine-sounding speeches from members of the Government talking about victims’ rights but with a piece of legislation that hardly touches on victims’ rights or setting things right for the victims of our society when the offenders should be made to do that. 
I say to the Government that this legislation is not good enough. We are opposing it because it does not do what it should be doing for the victims. I ask the Government finally to honour the promise that it made across the House and bring in proper legislation that would do the right thing for victims. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Overall it is disappointing that here we are on the second to last sitting day of the year in the middle of December allegedly moving into the season of goodwill and good cheer and we are once again debating the latest iteration of this dismal legislation the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill which seeks to somehow serve victims by punishing victims. We have heard a lot about victims’ rights but the people at the heart of this legislation—people in the State’s custody whose human rights are abused people who are mistreated while incredibly vulnerable in the custody of this State—are also victims. We are not hearing too much about those. This legislation and the preceding legislation seem to establish a hierarchy of victimhood. Frankly I do not accept that around something as fundamental as human rights. 
It is true that the Greens actually supported the initial 2005 legislation. We opposed it at its first reading. We were persuaded to support it at its third and final reading on the basis that it would be short term—that it would have an expiry date; a sunset clause was built into it—and also that there would be a comprehensive overhaul and an inquiry into how we can deal better with victims and make our criminal justice system genuinely victim-centric with a genuinely restorative approach in which we can heal wounds make some restitution to people and hopefully reduce the likelihood of reoffending. 
I think the Government ought to take pause to think. We have just heard from the gentleman who was the Minister of Justice at the time this bill was put in place the Hon Phil Goff— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: It’s a long time since I’ve been accused of being a gentleman David. 
DAVID CLENDON 
: Yes. The party that initiated this legislation the Minister who led it and a party that supported it have now turned against it. It was an experiment. It may have had value for a short time in a very specific situation. Mr Goff is quite right: those offenders who were tortured at Mt Eden prison—and they were tortured; that was the finding of the court—were not pleasant people. They were very very tough people. They were quite unwell about as unpleasant as can be. It was a unique one-off situation that this bill was responding to. The Government is using as a justification for the embedding of this dreadful legislation as a permanent feature of our legislative canon that the public wants it so. It is suggesting that the public demands that victims must be given compensation and that prisoners ought never to receive any. I simply do not accept that. What limited research there is available tells us that the public is actually much less punitive than one would imagine if you look at the corrections and other forms of legislation that have passed through this House in the last 10 years or so. Anecdotally we all know—and I talk to people a lot about this stuff about prisons and corrections and the like—and yes if you open a conversation about that immediately the knee-jerk reaction from people involves locking doors and throwing away keys. 
If you scratch one inch below that surface New Zealanders are actually much more reasonable than that. New Zealanders will listen to a well-constructed argument. Very few offenders go away for ever—only the worst of the worst. We know that most of the people in our prisons ultimately will come out. If the message we are giving those people while they are in jail is that they have no human rights and they have no right to receive compensation if their human rights are compromised by the State what is that message telling them? It is that they are less than human that they do not have the normal rights of a citizen. It is brutalising and it is dehumanising and we will all suffer the consequences of that when these people are finally released back into society. The likelihood of those people being genuinely reintegrated back into the mainstream and becoming good citizens is much diminished if they are subject to this sort of legislation and the expectations that are built into it. 
The regulatory impact statement is a very interesting read and I recommend it to anyone who has not read it. It has a series of options. Option one is to allow the status quo—allow the existing legislation simply to expire. The regulatory impact statement tells us that in the short term that would expose the Government—the State—to some financial risk. Inevitably there would be some further claims against the original legislation. But why do we not simply accept that risk take that cost up front and then move on and develop some genuinely victim-based legislation? Our integrity and our reputation as a country that acknowledges and respects human rights are worth a great deal more than any short-term cost that might be imposed if this legislation is allowed to expire. There have after all been something like only 25 awards that have been subject to victim claims since 2005. There are another 15 or so in the offing. We are talking about in total figures some few hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the scheme of things it is rats and mice. It is not significant numbers; it is pennies. It is too cheap a price to sell ourselves out for—to sell our reputation and our integrity. 
Clause 48 of the regulatory impact statement as I have said suggests that letting the Act expire is the best way to ensure that we comply with domestic and international human rights obligations because this legislation has always been on incredibly shaky ground in terms of our human rights commitments internationally. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is the most obvious one but not the only one. There have been some very tortured semantics brought to bear to say that well yes prisoners can get compensation which is what the international agreement demands but of course we know that in reality this legislation endeavours to make it virtually impossible for any prisoner who is offended against to receive genuine restitution. 
The regulatory impact statement goes on to say that this new option ensures that offenders do not receive financial compensation for wrongful treatment without first having to redress the harm they have caused. I have no particular problem with that. We are not opposed in principle to any money coming to prisoners being disbursed to their victims. But in the way this is done—and Mr Chauvel has outlined the exclusivity of this legislation—other forms of income for prisoners would not be subject to this. Why is it that we want to diminish the constraints on the Crown? There is no doubt that if this legislation is embedded the likelihood of inmates bringing complaints or bringing cases against the Crown will be diminished. It will be reduced. Why would offenders put themselves through a claim against the Crown knowing full well that they will not get any significant financial redress if and when the Crown is found to have acted against their human rights? 
Money is not the sum total of restitution and again the model of restorative justice is highly sophisticated. It is complex. It is hard. It takes time. But it is ultimately where we need to go. We need to go to a genuinely restorative place. Extending the life of this legislation making it permanent takes us further away from that place. It is a short-term fix now treated as if it is a long-term solution which it patently is not. 
One remarkable new feature of this bill is that it talks about illegal or wrongful detention false imprisonment of people and not only that it will be under the ambit of this bill from here on but that it has been made retrospective. Retrospective legislation is seldom good legislation. It has a place a very limited place and this is not one of them. It is extraordinary to suggest that a person who has been kept in prison longer than the court decreed they ought to and who has successfully claimed against the Crown will find that any financial redress will also be subject to this new law. It goes on to say that “if the courts found unlawful detention claims should not have been subject to the PVC Act”—that is retrospectively—“the Crown may be liable for some payments made in accordance with the Act.” This sort of reflects the consultation if one can call it that. The Department of Corrections understandably the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade—I am puzzled as to why they were one of the very privileged few who had opportunity to submit. Treasury is another. This bill reeks of risk aversion in terms of saving that last dollar. It is willing to sell out our integrity sell out our reputation as a country that respects human rights for everyone. I think the price is far too high. We will continue to oppose this bill. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a short call on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill. The purpose of this bill is to make restrictions on awards of compensation and the victims’ claims process in the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005 permanent. 
We make no apologies that we are aiming as a Government to build a safer New Zealand. We have embarked upon a comprehensive programme of reform to protect communities—we all know about the police safety teams and the neighbourhood policing teams—prevent crime and put victims first. We are staying tough on criminals and keeping record numbers of police on the beat and we are focusing the justice system on the rights of victims. 
It is important to note that the new bill addresses some of the concerns raised by a couple of the previous speakers in that it replaces a previous bill introduced in 2011. The previous bill put any money left over from payments to offenders direct to funding general victims’ services rather than to the prisoner. Consideration by Cabinet led to the decision that the redirection of all the balance of prisoner compensation to the victim support fund would be unfair—Cabinet thought that would be unfair. The bill retains support for victims while at the same time maintains fairness to prisoners. 
So what are some of the fundamental things in the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005? The Act underlines the rare circumstances in which courts can award financial compensation to prisoners for breaches of their human rights. It allows certain amounts that prisoners owe such as reparations and legal aid related to their human rights - breach claim to be deducted from any compensation and it provides a simplified process for victims to make civil claims against compensation payments before anything is paid to prisoners. Victims can make civil claims seeking redress for the harm they suffered such as emotional harm or property damage or loss caused by an offender. 
The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005 responded to the concern that offenders should not receive compensation for wrongful treatment without first repaying the debt they owe for the harm they caused their victims. It is important that victims continue to have an easy way to make a civil claim if prisoners do receive compensation payments and we believe that this new bill will ensure the system is fair balanced and will not lead to any unintended injustice. I commend the bill to the House. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 This bill the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill effectively re-enacts the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005 so that it will continue in force beyond the extended sunset date of 1 July 2013 so the restrictions in the current law and the process by which prisoners’ victims can claim for an award made to a prisoner are simply carried over indefinitely. New Zealand First members expected a new updated piece of legislation rather than a simple re-enactment of the 2005 law so this bill in this form is something of a surprise to us. 
I would have to say having just listened to the last speaker Cam Calder that his is a view looked at through rose-coloured glasses and that is not something that New Zealand First will do. It expects a rigorous examination of the current regime in the current legislation to see firstly whether it does in fact work and secondly whether it achieves its stated objectives. New Zealand First will vote for the bill but only as far as to the Justice and Electoral Committee which it wishes to carry out a thorough examination of it. We expect changes and we expect a genuine review as part of the select committee process. As far as we are concerned that will mean a full examination of the original 2005 legislation not just an examination of the provisions of this particular amendment bill. 
I am not saying necessarily and New Zealand First is not saying that the current legislation is a failure. I do not know—we do not know—yet whether that is the case. But we do know that the principles must include these things: first of all being a prisoner means being penalised only by the temporary removal of personal liberty and by incarceration. It does not mean any additional punishment in any way concerning prisoners’ claims. Prisoners should have the opportunity for rehabilitation education and reorientation in their direction of their future life. Secondly it does not mean that there should be any loss of other rights for prisoners. It does not mean the loss of the right to accident compensation for genuine injury or disability from genuine accidents. It does not mean the loss of the right to compensation for significant mistreatment should that occur. 
On the other hand the rights protected in this way must be balanced against the fact that there is considerable concern in the community that prisoners abuse some of those rights and we all know that there are cases where that has happened. Those are genuinely held concerns in the community and we must give full attention to them. We certainly should not mollycoddle prisoners and we should make sure that there are no rorts of the kind that we have seen by some prisoners in the past. 
New Zealand First will want to make sure that the re-enacted legislation is appropriate in restricting claims by prisoners because there is a case for that. On the other hand prisoners can also be victims and their rights must also be appropriately protected. So that is where the balance must be struck: protecting the rights of prisoners on the one hand and on the other meeting community expectations that prisoners’ compensation be accessible by their victims to meet the claims properly awarded made to those victims. The select committee will be the place for all that to be looked at. 
One of the matters that I think needs consideration is section 13(1) of the 2005 Act which says that “No court or tribunal may in [these sorts of] proceedings … award any compensation … unless satisfied that—(a) the plaintiff has made reasonable use of all the specified internal and external complaints mechanisms reasonably available … but has not obtained in relation to that … redress that the court or Tribunal considers effective; and (b) another remedy or a combination of other remedies cannot provide ... redress that the court or Tribunal considers effective.” The possible problem with that legislation is in the words “redress that the court or Tribunal considers effective”. I think that needs further consideration and it certainly needs advice from officials as to how that sort of assessment has actually worked in practice. 
In section 13(2) there is a need for similar reconsideration and advice because that refers to how “In this section reasonable use of a complaints mechanism means the use that the court or Tribunal considers it reasonable for the plaintiff to have made in the circumstances.” So “reasonable” means reasonable and that is a brilliant thing to say in a piece of legislation. So what does it mean? We are going to have to get some advice on that and to see what effect that has had in practice. It is a subjective test and we all know that that is often the cause of considerable trouble in other legislation. 
In section 14 there are other matters to be reconsidered too. That says that a court or tribunal must take into account certain matters that are specified in section 14(2). Those include in section 14(1)(b) “the quantum of an award … to provide effective redress.” What is “effective redress”? Effective compared with what? I would like to hear about that from the officials. We also see for example in section 14(2)(b): “whether the defendant’s breach of or interference with the right concerned was deliberate or in bad faith;”. That is something to be taken into account. I do not understand really why that is relevant given that it is the breach itself that is the issue not whether it was deliberate or in bad faith but I am willing to listen to explanations about that too. 
In section 14(2)(c) the words “relevant conduct of the plaintiff” are used. Relevant to what? What does that mean? There is just not enough guidance and I would like to hear advice about that as well. In section 14(2)(g) we see the provision: “the extent (if any) to which effective redress in relation to that act or omission has been or could be provided otherwise than by compensation;”. I would like to know whether that actually occurs in practice and if so how well it has worked. Finally in section 14(2)(h): “any other matters the court or Tribunal considers relevant.” That is a pretty open-ended invitation and I would like to hear more advice on that too. 
However I want to make it clear in closing that firstly New Zealand First does want to see an effective and practical way of facilitating victims’ claims against prisoners. We in New Zealand First do believe in promoting victims’ rights and this is one valid way of doing it provided prisoners’ rights are also appropriately protected. But it must be workable and it must be fair. As I have already said important prisoners’ rights must not be unduly compromised. I think there is a lot in the 2005 piece of legislation that needs review needs clarification and needs improvement. So as I have said it is a surprise that this is simply being put up for re-enactment without that review and without that improvement. That is something that we will simply have to try to do through the select committee process. Nevertheless I look forward to the select committee stage to discuss all of that and for that purpose New Zealand First will support the bill going to the select committee stage but it may well not consider it further unless the Government is willing to consider improvements and amendments to the bill. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak to the first reading of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill. This bill is to make permanent the restriction of awards of compensation and the victims’ claims process in the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005. It was a Labour bill so I actually find it quite surprising that Labour is opposing this tonight. 
The regime in the 2005 Act expired on 30 June this year which necessitated an interim bill earlier this year to extend that date to June 2013 allowing time for this bill to be passed. And I believe that the Minister of Justice wants it reported back by April next year. 
The 2005 Act outlines the rare circumstances where courts can award financial compensation to prisoners for breaches of their human rights and it is concerning that this has actually happened in New Zealand. The 2005 Act allows any money owed by prisoners such as reparation or legal aid to be deducted from any compensation. 
In addition the Act provides a simplified process for victims to make civil claims against compensation payments before the prisoners are paid out. Importantly this new bill softens the interim bill which puts that any money left over from payments to offenders be directed to victims. After consideration Cabinet felt that this was unfair—that the payment of the balance of the prisoners’ compensation to victims would be unfair—and therefore that decision was reversed. 
This bill does retain support for victims while maintaining fairness for prisoners and I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 That member Jackie Blue obviously does not have a very good recollection of the matter coming before our select committee the Justice and Electoral Committee just a short while ago. The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act when it was originally introduced was introduced as a short-term measure and that was the reason for putting a sunset provision into it. I think it has had about three sunset provisions—2007 2010 and 2012—and now the 2013 deadline is starting to loom which is why we are dealing with it again. 
What is kind of frustrating to this side of the House is that we agreed to extend the expiration of the Act earlier this year in order to provide a temporary measure in lieu of the alternative Government bill which would have made these restrictions permanent. Of course that bill has disappeared from the Order Paper. The member who has just resumed her seat did not even mention the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Redirecting Prisoner Compensation) Amendment Bill known in the regulatory impact statement as the redirection bill because it has come off the Order Paper. It has been ditched. We agreed to have the temporary measure last enacted—and the member is on the select committee so she must remember it—we agreed to do that on the basis that that particular piece of legislation was going to have its first reading and be referred to the select committee. Well it never came. It never had its first reading and it was never referred to the select committee. So as a result we agreed on the basis that the Minister of Justice had offered to negotiate with the Opposition spokesperson on justice—my colleague Charles Chauvel—and other members in this House over the content of the measure. Of course she has failed to do so in good faith. 
That is actually why we are opposing this Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill. It is about process and I think the process is really important. I think that if people actually want to get legislative changes through this House when there are areas upon which we can work together to achieve agreement that is what we should seek to achieve and that is what we sought to achieve. The Minister did not consult with us about the new bill that she had introduced and then she did not consult about removing it from the Order Paper and she did not consult about this amendment either. I think that to turn this the temporary measure into the permanent fix actually does not solve the problem. 
We have heard members opposite talk about victims of crime. If somebody is in prison and they are left a bequest and inherit a lot of money it is not caught by this bill. If they win Lotto because somebody gives them a Lotto ticket for their birthday it is not caught by this. The only thing caught by this is if their human rights are abused and they receive compensation from the Crown. 
Charles Chauvel 
: So perverse. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is absolutely perverse and I cannot believe that members of a National Government are happily standing up and saying that this legislation is good enough. It is not good enough. That is why we were prepared to work with the Government to find a real fix which was about prisoners’ deriving income during the time that they are incarcerated or deriving some benefit while they are incarcerated—not dependent on their having their human rights abused and having compensation paid to them by the Crown but actually looking at the whole issue as to whether they should be able to be deprived of some element of what they gain while they are serving their sentence so that the benefit of it can pass on to a victim if the victim wants that compensation. I have spoken to victims of crime who do not want any money from anyone who has done to them what was done. 
I want to also remind the House that regarding victims of crime we talk about what it is that they want and we are talking about whether the legislation is victim-centric or not. We had a meeting recently with the Sensible Sentencing Trust and one of its members highlighted to us that there was a real concern about the lack of engagement with the Ministry of Justice and the Minister over some of the issues that are truly of concern to the victims of crime. 
What the trust had discovered was that on the Ministry of Justice website is this incredible document that is essentially a literature review of all of the issues relating to adult victims of crime. Right at the end—and this is what the trust drew to our attention—it says: “Guiding principles for providing effective service and support to the victims of crime—A key aim of this report was to provide information on how best to support victims of crime. In reviewing the extensive range of research relevant to crime victimisation a number of guiding principles emerge as important in delivering effective support and services to victims. These principles are applicable to all agencies government and non-government that work with victims of crime.” That is the advantage of actually looking at the international literature. Even our own literature supports this. This is what best practice actually informs Parliament about in terms of decision making and this is actually what a victim-centric service provision looks like. 
It says: “Respectful and confidential treatment: available research shows while outcomes are important to victims (eg reparations convictions) consistent with the concept of procedural justice the manner in which victims are treated is more important.” That is what all of the evidence shows. “Individualised response/flexible services: there is strong evidence that people are affected differently by crime. Services allocated purely by crime type or victim type are likely to miss other victims with significant needs. Assessment must ensure individual needs are identified and services need to be sufficiently flexible to provide individualised response. A range of service options should be offered so that individual preferences can be catered for.” 
Then it talks about services being accessible: “Services can only assist victims if they are known to victims victims are comfortable using them and are available at the time and location when needed. Participation in the justice system can be important to victims and so must be accessible to them.” Therefore it talks about services needing to be well advertised and using publicity campaigns to ensure that victims are aware of their existence. “Certain services need to be available 24-hours (eg crisis response)”. Well we have just had to have an urgent intervention in Auckland because the crisis centre for sexual violence was about to close its doors at Christmas. That had to be addressed extremely urgently. “Services and access to justice need also to be available in rural and provincial areas …”. How often do we forget that these services are not just city-based in terms of that support? “Services and justice responses need to be culturally appropriate and accessible to those from different ethnic backgrounds … services and justice responses need to be sensitive to the needs of vulnerable populations and accessible to those with disabilities younger victims those living in socially and economically deprived areas.” 
Then it talks about provision of the right information at the right time in the right format. How many times could you say that about a whole range of different areas that we should be addressing? “Delivered by experienced knowledgable well-trained empathetic staff” “Consistent high quality services and support” “Integrated service provision” “End-to-end individualised support” and “Accountable services”. 
 Those are the things that the victims of crime are actually saying to Parliament that they would like to have delivered for them. I do not think that anyone can stand up in this House and say that the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill that we have before us in any way begins to address those particular needs. Labour members will be looking at the bill very carefully when it comes to the select committee. The reason we are not supporting it is that it is a bill that fails to actually address the core needs of victims that have been expressed to us and have been identified by the Ministry of Justice as being based on international best practice. The literature says so and as I say the Sensible Sentencing Trust is asking us to look much more compassionately at these issues. 
So I think it is a very disappointing piece of legislation. The Minister of Justice can do a lot better than this. I have to say quite frankly I am disappointed that effort has not been placed in this particular quarter where it should be. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on this Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I would like to acknowledge and thank the Hon Lianne Dalziel. I do not have the history of the debate and the discussion over its previous course but I do agree with the issues around support having previously been part of support groups to help victims especially victims of crime especially our vulnerable and especially our women and our children. The list she read out is definitely a list of the areas where concern and care are needed in support of them. 
The Hon Phil Goff spoke about restorative justice and I do have some experience in that. I would agree that this is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and also the offenders as well as the involved community and I think we do not often talk about that when we talk about restorative justice. It is not just the victim and the offender; it is the whole of the community working collectively together. It ensures that the victims take an active role but also that the offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions. That is absolutely important and I think that is what is important. 
What I am looking forward to is having the debate. As again I have not been part of this history previously I would like to hear about these issues and I think there is some merit in some of the conversations we had as a select committee. I think that is important. I think the things we will be debating will be around for instance the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005 which did respond to some of the concern that offenders should not receive compensation. I was fortunate to be on the Justice and Electoral Committee when we heard submissions on the Victims of Crime Reform Bill and yes there was the Sensible Sentencing Trust—Garth McVicar and others—and what we heard really clearly there was that there is a need for balance in the system that does take into account the needs of the victim. 
So I rise in support of the discussion in the first reading and also at the select committee for this bill. Thank you. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: A split call? 
Dr Megan Woods 
: Yes it is. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I call Dr Megan Woods. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Speaker— 
David Clendon 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member but our second speaker this evening is actually unwell and will not be here so we are quite happy for Labour to take the whole call. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: OK it is not a split call. The member may take a little more time. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. I am happy to take what was going to be a short call on this bill the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill. My colleagues have traversed the reasons why Labour will not be supporting this bill and the history of this bill at some length. Indeed many of my colleagues have been very involved in the history of this piece of legislation through the passage of this House and have a great deal of background to it. 
The previous Labour speaker before me the Hon Lianne Dalziel pointed out very succinctly the reasons why it is that Labour is not supporting this piece of legislation. This is a piece of legislation that does not do what it set out to do. It is a disappointing piece of legislation and it does not achieve what it promised to do. It does not address those core needs of the victims that we as members of Parliament hear day after day from people and that we know exist. We are disappointed that this is a piece of legislation that does not address those. Put simply for us this legislation is simply not good enough. 
 We have heard a great deal about how the original Act was a piece of legislation that was never intended to have the longevity that members opposite are attempting to give it that it had indeed sunset clauses in it which are being rolled over and over and that this is just not adequate. What is more we agreed to the last rollover to that legislation on the proviso that the Government was going to come and consult with Opposition members and that we could actually genuinely work together to try to get a piece of legislation that would address these very real needs and these very important needs in our society and in our communities. Again we are disappointed—there is that word again—that Government members did not come and consult with Opposition members— 
Maggie Barry 
: You’re always disappointed. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: Yes Maggie Barry we are often disappointed by the Government members opposite. We are very disappointed that they fail to deliver on what they are going to do and that it is a Government of broken promises. Yes we are very very disappointed in that Maggie Barry and we are disappointed that this bill is not sufficiently victim-centric. We have an opportunity here and we are not taking it. We do have an opportunity to actually do something that addresses these rights and we have the Government members opposite standing there and they are talking a great deal about victims’ rights. They are talking about the slogans that go around this. They have got a great deal of empty rhetoric around this. 
If this was a Government that really cared about victims’ rights would it be a Government that was prepared to let the burglary clearance rate languish at 25 percent with no movement in that figure? Seventy-five percent of burglaries remain unsolved. If we actually think about the constituents we talk about the everyday people we talk with and their experience of crime in this country often for me in my electorate office in Wigram it is people coming in and talking about the devastation that a burglary has had on their life. They are talking about the way in which they do not feel safe in their homes and they are talking about the way that they do not feel safe in their communities any more. If the Government really cared about the rights of victims and was going to back up its rhetoric that we are hearing opposite and was going to not be a disappointment then we might actually see some movement in that figure. The 25 percent is just not good enough. Three-quarters of the people getting away with this most devastating of crimes is not good enough. 
If this was a Government that really cared about the rights of victims and really fundamentally addressing these let us have a look at some of the other things that it could do. There is a backlog of 900 jury trials in the Auckland and Manukau courts. The backlog is 900. That is in an area where you live and that you represent Darien Fenton—900 people. That is 900 victims that is 900 offenders that is 900 witnesses and that is 900 communities waiting for over 2 years to get justice. This is not a way to deliver fair outcomes to anyone involved in crime let alone the victims. 
This is again an example of a Government that is not committed to a victim-centric justice system. What it is doing is putting up legislation that does not adequately meet the mark on what it needs to do. The Government is putting up legislation that is not adequate for what it needs to achieve. 
Labour believes that the best solution to stop compensation payments to inmates is to ensure that breaches do not occur in the first place. There are many very unfair aspects of this legislation that my colleagues have traversed at length—for example the fact that if you get your money while you are in jail and you have got a victim waiting or if you get your money through Lotto or you get an inheritance from a family member or if anyone leaves you some money in a will then that money is not there. We have not heard in any of this debate in the House a Government member rise and tell us what is fair what is just and how this bill is doing adequate justice for victims and looking after their rights—the very thing that Government members are purporting that this bill has done. 
Let us actually have a look at the reality of the situation. Since the enactment of the precursor to this legislation there have actually been a low number of claims such as the one that triggered that original piece of legislation if we actually look at the reality of the situation and what has been happening. We have not heard Government members actually address what the scale of the problem is here what it is that they are seeking to address and what it is that they are seeing to solve with this inadequate piece of legislation. The Labour Party minority view in the legislation that extended the sunset clause made it clear that we supported the extension of the sunset clause only to ensure that replacement legislation would be required and could be developed. We have not seen that through the passage of time. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee when it heard the original piece of legislation for the extension of the Act received five submissions and only one of those was in support. Submitters opposing the bill were primarily concerned about the human rights implications of the provisions in the original Act and bill. These are concerns that have not been adequately addressed. We do not have a Government that seems to be adequately concerned about prisoners’ and victims’ rights. We do not have a piece of legislation that is going to address a real need. We have a piece of legislation before us that does not do what it promised to do and we have a piece of legislation that is a disappointment. For this reason Labour will not be supporting this bill. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 On this subject I would like to start by reading out a quote in relation to this issue. It goes along like this: “Most people including myself have a deep sense that it is wrong that serious offenders can be awarded compensation for wrongful treatment without those offenders themselves being required to pay compensation to their victims for the serious wrongs inflicted upon them.” That quote is from the Hon Phil Goff from 14 December 2004. I want to ask the House and ask the Opposition what has changed in the view of the Opposition. I absolutely agree with what Phil Goff had to say back in 2004 when he first introduced the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill which ended up becoming the Act. The problem we have with the Opposition’s argument is that if we were to go along with what it is suggesting and simply vote this piece of legislation the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill down then on 1 July next year we would actually see that compensation scheme for victims being done away with. That would be an unacceptable position for this House to leave victims in. 
The original Act responded to the concern that offenders should not receive compensation for wrongful treatment without first repaying the debt they owed to the people whom they harmed—the victims. This bill is about continuing that scheme because it is going to expire next year if nothing is done. Opposition members are arguing that they do not support this legislation but they would see the very scheme that they themselves put in place in 2005 being done away with. That is unacceptable. 
This Government has done a lot for victims. This Government campaigned in 2008 on supporting victims. The biggest change that has been made for victims has been the $50 offender levy. We have used that new levy to expand services to and support of victims of serious crimes and their families. More than 4000 victims and their families have received extra support in the first year of that because we implemented a victims’ offender levy. This piece of legislation continues something that the Opposition started and put in place for a very good reason. It is important that it stays. The petulant attitude that says “We don’t like that the Government hasn’t worked with us. Therefore we should vote this piece of legislation down.” is wrong and should not be an argument that is supported. I commend the bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
The question was put that the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be agreed to. 
Ayes 86 
New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 34 
New Zealand Labour 34. 
Question agreed to. 
Electronic Identity Verification Bill 
Identity Information Confirmation Bill 
Third Readings 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Internal Affairs: I move  
That the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill be now read a third time 
. These two bills represent a shift in how New Zealanders’ identity information can be used for proving who they are. Both bills shift away from heavily paper-based models and allow identity services to be brought into the 21st century. The bills achieve this in different and complementary ways. The Electronic Identity Verification Bill governs the operation of the igovt Electronic Identity Verification Service. The bill will enable New Zealanders to verify their identity once the Department of Internal Affairs—sorry to the Department of Internal Affairs—and then to be able to use the igovt services to prove their identity online. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Do you want me to read it for you? 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: No I think I will be OK. The bill itself is rather mechanical in nature specifically setting out how individuals apply to use the service and what the legal effect of the service is. The Electronic Identity Verification Bill opens up the potential of the internet. It is hard to know who someone is online even if they want you to know. The bill changes that. It allows individuals to prove who they are online when they want to do so. This opens up the internet to allow Government and business to offer more online services particularly services that involve risks such as the handling of sensitive personal information. The service will become an essential piece of infrastructure for New Zealand. 
The igovt log-on service has existed in a limited form for 3 years. This bill will enable it to be used much more widely and will encourage the uptake of online Government services. 
The second bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill governs a service for agencies to confirm that individuals’ identity information is correct. Identity fraud is a serious issue and this is another tool to help us combat it. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: How many cases a day? 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: Heaps. The department holds the authoritative source of identity information for many New Zealanders through its Citizenship Office Passports and Births Deaths and Marriages registry functions. Agencies must gain the consent of the individual before using the service. Again the bill is largely mechanical in nature to support the service. The Identity Information Confirmation Bill supports agencies when dealing with customers through both online and off-line channels. The bill allows Government agencies and businesses to be more confident that they are not dealing with false identity information. This combats the increasingly sophisticated fake documents being generated and passed off by fraudsters. 
It is important that employers are able to use the confirmation service during employment processes to identify fraudsters wrongly applying for jobs especially in sensitive roles such as in the education sector. The service also enables employers to comply with the Immigration Act’s requirements that they not hire people who are not entitled to work in New Zealand. It also means that individuals do not need to show as much identification to prove who they are. Again the service will be an essential piece of infrastructure for New Zealand. 
These bills and the services they govern have a number of similar policy foundations. Both of the bills deal with the sharing of personal information that is central to verifying an individual’s identity. Privacy considerations have been at the forefront of policy decisions on these bills. In particular both bills require the consent of the individual concerned before any information is shared. Both bills also enable the Privacy Commissioner to ask for reports on the services being regulated so that the Privacy Commissioner can proactively monitor these services rather than waiting for complaints before being able to act. 
The bills also have other safeguards to ensure personal information is used responsibly by agencies. These safeguards are in line with the information privacy principles of the Privacy Act 1993. Both bills enable people to opt out of using the services and require participating agencies to maintain alternative ways of dealing with people. The digital divide is an important policy consideration and we have to accept that some people are not comfortable or able to use new technologies. A person should not be penalised for opting out of using either of these services. 
These bills aim to reduce identity crime in our society. Identity crime has been an increasing problem whether it is through the creation of a false identity or worse still stealing someone else’s identity. There are numerous high-profile examples such as the convicted sex offender who committed identity theft in order to— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: David Garrett. 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: —I agree with the member—obtain employment in the education sector or the fraudster who created 100 false identities in order to obtain millions of dollars in superannuation benefits. Sadly these cases are the tip of the iceberg. These bills offer new tools for Government agencies and businesses to prevent identity crimes. In doing so they also reduce the chances of innocent members of the public having their identity stolen. 
I anticipate that both bills will be important for helping New Zealand businesses to meet their obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. When that Act comes into force in July 2013 banks and other financial institutions will be required to undertake greater checks to verify the identity of their customers and thus prevent identity crimes. These bills will help those businesses to do this. Importantly the bills do this in a way that reduces compliance costs. 
I would like to thank the Government Administration Committee for its rigorous consideration of these bills and the 12 submitters to the committee. I appreciate the multipartisan approach that has been taken towards the bills and the constructive chairmanship by the Hon Ruth Dyson. I would also like to thank my ministerial colleagues the Hon Nathan Guy and the Hon Amy Adams for the work that they undertook to progress these bills during their times as Minister of Internal Affairs. I commend these bills to the House. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 The Labour Party is supporting these bills the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and I think we will be supporting them with a little more enthusiasm than the Minister for Courts Chester Borrows who has just spoken in favour of them. Some of us have thought about this issue before we came to the House. I have got a bit of advice for the Minister who is a relatively new Minister and that is it always pays to look beyond page 1 when you are handed someone else’s speech. In that way you can work out whether there are any words you do not know or if anything is not clear. What was absolutely clear was that the honourable Minister in delivering that speech had not looked past page 1 before he started delivering it. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Oh don’t be unkind. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well no I am being generous to him. If the Minister had looked beyond page 1 and delivered the speech like that it would be very serious. 
Maggie Barry 
: Oh faux gravitas has choked you has it Trevor? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Unlike the member opposite I have not had as much to drink over dinner tonight as she has—as she has. 
Maggie Barry 
: Maybe you should. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well if drinking turned me into a person like Maggie Barry I would certainly not take it up. I would certainly not take it up because she is the evidence of the problem. She is the evidence of the problem when that sort of thing occurs. 
These bills really come at the same issue from different perspectives. The Electronic Identity Verification Bill is an opt-in scheme whereby people can get into the system get in there once and stay in there and give permission for different agencies to use the authentication system in order to know whom the agencies are dealing with. I think that over a period of time more and more people will want to get involved this way although I must say it is a matter of trust as far as Government agencies are concerned and we have had quite a few problems with trust of Government and Government agencies in this area. One just says ACC and Judith Collins. We say Work and Income and Paula Bennett. We say Novopay and Novopay and Novopay and Paula Bennett and Judith Collins. What we have is breach after breach after breach after breach of privacy on the part of Ministers and of Government departments. I say that those people are going to have to clean up their act and they are going to have to clean up their agencies or there will not be a chance of people willingly going into the system because they know that Ministers will spray their private details around into the public—spray their details around into the public—in a way that is just not acceptable. 
I agree with the comments that I presume were drafted by officials for Chris Tremain the Minister in charge of the legislation around the work of the Government Administration Committee. I want to acknowledge both Mr Bakshi and Mr Auchinvole for the work that they did do but I think what people will generally agree on is that in the select committee on these bills it did not really matter which party you were coming from. You know we had different perspectives on some of the details and different angles on occasions—and I do want to acknowledge the work that Gareth Hughes did; he did a good job in this particular area—and we mainly came to agreement. I also want to acknowledge the Government’s flexibility in making changes to make the legislation work more carefully when evidence was produced in the select committee. As far as the punishment regimes were concerned I acknowledge its willingness to shift from something that was for multi-fraud on the part of a company a bit of a slap with a wet bus ticket to something that might at least be a ruler across the hand rather than a wet bus ticket. So there has been some change in this particular area. There have been some powers granted to the Privacy Commissioner who will be able to proactively require reports about the operation of the service although I must say that having the Privacy Commissioner being able to ask for a report or even asking for a report and getting a report that is available appears to be a different thing these days. I will say no more about that. 
Going now to the Identity Information Confirmation Bill what this does is allow both public and private sector agencies to check identity information. It is my expectation that it will be used pretty extensively not only by a number of Government agencies but also eventually by banks and similar organisations. I think there will be a standardisation of the identity verification services. It allows agencies to check whether the identity information presented by a customer is consistent with what is held by the Department of Internal Affairs through its registers: the citizenship register the passports database and the various registers of the Births Deaths and Marriages registry office—although I think probably it would be unlikely that many people would want their identity information confirmed through the deaths register. I think if they are doing that it might be an indication of an issue for the person and a possible fraud. Although if it was like— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Unless they’re David Garrett. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: David Garrett. I was going to get on to David Garrett the ACT member and I understand a very close friend of a number of people opposite including the one with three names whom I have forgotten—Jami-Lee Ross. I have got it. He is a very close friend of Jami-Lee Ross Mr Garrett. I understand that Mr Garrett actually gave Mr Ross’ mother advice on his name. You know he got it off a headstone or three—got it off a headstone or three—and I think that is—[ 
Interruption 
] Well the members opposite defended him for so long. The members opposite defended David Garrett for quite a long period of time and I just want to say this. They seem to say that there is not much of an issue—not much of an issue they said. This was a guy who stole the identity of a dead baby. He stole the identity of a dead baby and the National Party members defended him. 
I am pleased that since that time they have confessed their sins. They have confessed their sins and said “We have got to have a system that is better and we will not allow that sort of thing to occur in the future.” and they have been involved in this legislation weak as it was when it was introduced. But with the work of a number of people it has got a lot stronger—again especially Mr Auchinvole. I want to acknowledge the fact that he put a bit of backbone into the Ministers. Mr Auchinvole in particular was very clear. He gave us examples of frauds with his own credit card. The member had been slightly loose with his details and they were being used on a basis that was absolutely inappropriate. He shared that with us and I think a number of us—most of us many of us—have been involved in things that have looked dodgy. It is slightly harder to do now although I am informed that every day in New Zealand there are about 2000 cases of online or related identity fraud. Credit card fraud people using the—I suppose we are not allowed to talk too much. Oh it is not before the court is it? But there are questions about a member of Parliament and whether he used the cash card in the appropriate way or not. If that is proven then that would be a very serious matter. 
But there are privacy breaches all over the place. In 2011 probably because of the lax leadership of “Paula Benefit”—Bennett sorry; that is the Wainuiomata name. I have been in Wainuiomata too long this week. “Paula Benefit” is what she is known as over there. Paula Bennett’s leadership led to a breach of privacy—a massive breach of privacy. She put a beneficiary’s details into the public. The Work and Income staff thought it was all right to do the same and 10 of them were so bad last year that they had to get the sack. In 2011 10 people from Work and Income followed Paula Bennett’s leadership and they got the sack when actually she should have. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the cognate bills the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill both of which are big steps forward in identity information management making life easier for consumers and for businesses. It is always a pleasure to follow the Hon Trevor Mallard in a debate and to try to work out how on earth something that was such a matter of agreement between the people at the Government Administration Committee has suddenly become a huge partisan issue although I think he did say that partisanship was subordinated to common sense. These bills are an exercise in common sense and in consideration of what is sensible. The Electronic Identity Verification Bill will regulate and enhance the operation of the igovt identity verification service including making it available to private sector agencies as well. 
I would like to acknowledge the initial efforts of the chair of the Government Administration Committee Ruth Dyson and the subsequent efforts of the select committee in her absence. We worked very well together and I think everybody brought something to this bill. Indeed I reflect Mr Mallard’s comment about Gareth Hughes certainly contributing with safeguards and concerns over verification processes. He was assiduous in follow-up work and we were all able to contribute. We all enjoyed it and when it came to penalties I think it was Eric Roy the Deputy Speaker who suggested that we should really lift the game rather than leave it where it was where people did not suffer too much as a consequence of stealing information. As the Hon Trevor Mallard said each of us had something to bring to the table. In my particular case I well remember being part of a bank verification group that sold its files to a commercial company in America which then contacted us about buying shares and that sort of thing. It showed complete disregard for the privacy of identification. This bill shows that this Government understands that it is time to expand the service to allow for a greater range of uses so that people the Government and businesses can realise the benefit that internet technologies offer. The Department of Internal Affairs is partnering with New Zealand Post to commercialise its service and to make it more widely available. 
We were—I think I speak for all the members of the select committee—particularly impressed by the work of the officials on this bill in that they would listen to our concerns they would go away and they would come back with a complete description of how our concerns could be met. 
The Identity Information Confirmation Bill creates a new service that enables approved agencies to check whether identity information—names dates of birth and that sort of thing—presented to them by customers is consistent with the records held by the Department of Internal Affairs. Again I was able to instance the fact that I had had my bank card stolen. The only thing— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Who would want it? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Well exactly. That is exactly what I thought—who on earth would want it? And when I was interviewed by the police I said to them: “Why would they want these cards? I have already cancelled them.” Mind you that was an experience in itself—phoning the bank to say “I wish to cancel my cards. They have been stolen.” only to have the bank say “What were the numbers?”. I did not know what the numbers were. I was standing in my gym gear. My trousers had been stolen and my wallet with them. Mind you my tailor later when I put in an insurance claim asked “Were you in the trousers at the time?”. I was not; they were nicked out of the gym. 
Hon Amy Adams 
: Too much information. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Too much information indeed. But the interesting thing was that those people used the cards as their identification in South Auckland to open accounts at department stores and they were accepted. The only thing that prevented me from being charged and prosecuted for the bills was the fact that they were a different age from my age. 
This new system that we are putting in will provide a safeguard against that. It will also help to ensure compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 which requires banks and other financial institutions to undertake more comprehensive “know your customer” checks. In an earlier age of course we all did know our own customers and that sort of thing but we live in different times now. 
The Data Validation Service will be available only to organisations that meet strict security privacy and integrity criteria. We have heard on this side of the House endless criticism of breaches in security. For goodness’ sake it is the exception that proves the rule. Things will occasionally go wrong. It is not the end of the world when there are breaches but what it does normally do is ensure that safeguards are put in place. 
These bills will enable New Zealanders to transact more easily online and will give businesses and Government agencies confidence against identity fraud. They will give individuals confidence against identity fraud. The identity services will be able to be used by all New Zealanders for a wide range of transactions offered by Government and private sector agencies. The culmination of all this will be that New Zealanders will be able to prove their identity quickly and securely when dealing with Government agencies and businesses. Thank you. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am very very pleased to take a call on these particular bills the Identity Information Confirmation Bill and the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. I have only one question for the member who just spoke Chris Auchinvole and that is if someone was going to steal another member’s identity why on earth would they choose his? Clearly—clearly—they had not done their homework if they chose Chris Auchinvole’s identity to steal. Clearly they are proving the Darwin theory if they tried to steal Chris Auchinvole’s identity. 
It feels a little like  
The Day of the Jackal 
 here today because actually this legislation should have been passed quite some time ago and would have been passed quite some time ago if the Government had not put it on the back-burner. Why did the Government put it on the back-burner? Well let us go back. Let us rewind the clock back and try to remember why the Government might have put this legislation on the back-burner. I believe that it was dealing with a few identity-related issues at the time this legislation was languishing on the Order Paper. In fact a member of Parliament who was part of the Government stood up in the House and made a statement confessing that he had stolen the identity of a dead baby. After he did that suddenly the Government did not want to debate this legislation. It put it right down at the bottom of the Order Paper— 
Hon Judith Collins 
: He was not a Minister. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: He was part of the Government. If all those backbenchers over there can claim that they are part of the Government then David Garrett was part of the Government. 
Maggie Barry 
: What about Gareth Hughes? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Well Gareth Hughes is sitting right over there and I do not think Gareth Hughes has done anything wrong. I think Maggie Barry should apologise to Gareth Hughes for that absolute slur on his character. I believe that Gareth Hughes is an upstanding citizen. I do not think he has ever stolen the identity of anybody and I think Maggie Barry should stand up and apologise. In fact Maggie Barry has got no right to comment about identity theft because she has never done it. Therefore under Maggie Barry’s standing orders she is not allowed to talk about it. If Maggie Barry has not stolen the identity of somebody she should not be commenting on it. Apparently according to Maggie Barry you can talk about something only if you have done it yourself and if you have not then you should not be talking about it. 
Identity theft is an issue that all New Zealanders will have an interest in because an average of 2000 New Zealanders a day are affected by some form of identity scam. That is quite a significant number—2000 New Zealanders a day are affected by some form of identity scam. I said in one of the earlier readings of this legislation that I think— 
Maggie Barry 
: Don’t worry no one remembers it. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Nobody remembers it says Maggie Barry. Well I cannot remember a single thing Maggie Barry has said in the House this year other than insulting all of the other members of the House which she is quite good at. I have to say that Maggie Barry is quite good at insulting other members. I do not think she has made any other contribution to Parliament than sitting up the back after long emotional dinners and flinging insults to the other members in the House. 
As I said in one of the earlier speeches on this legislation I think that issues around identity will be some of the most important issues that we deal with in this Parliament over the next few years because fundamentally things have changed so much around the storage of personal information the volume of personal information and the propensity of people to release their own personal information quite freely much much more than they did in the past. If we look at social media for example people release huge volumes of personal information about themselves that once upon a time simply would not have been anywhere near the public domain. Many of the forms of identity verification that are currently used are actually widely available so if someone wants to set up a profile on a website on many of the websites they will be asked questions like what their date of birth is. Date of birth is used as an identity verifier in a whole host of online environments and actually it is quite easy to get hold of. I think that leaves people quite open to the prospect of identity theft. Their mother’s maiden name is another one that is a piece of information that is not difficult to get hold of from many people and is often used as a form of identity verification. So one of the things that is quite important and one of the reasons why the Labour Party is supporting this bill is making sure that there are secure and reliable forms of identity verification available to New Zealand citizens so that they can have their identity verified. 
I guess there is a question for the Government as to whether this legislation will extend only to New Zealand citizens or whether New Zealand residents might also be covered by this. If somebody wanted to verify the identity of a New Zealand resident—for example verifying that they were in fact a New Zealand resident—would this legislation apply? This is very relevant to the Government because its own spy bureau for example the Government Communications Security Bureau may wish to verify whether somebody is a resident of this country because it seems that the bureau does not actually know whether someone is a citizen or a resident and therefore whether it is allowed to spy on them or not. Mr Dotcom who was not a citizen but was a resident was in fact protected but the Government Communications Security Bureau did not seem to know that. The Government clearly does not have any sort of identity verification service within its spy bureau. It seems to think that it can do whatever it likes without any sort of identity verification. Perhaps this bill might go some way to solving that problem. 
However all those things aside one of the things that New Zealanders are very concerned about is what the Government is doing with their private and personal information. It is all very well for us to talk about what other people are doing with New Zealanders’ private and personal information but in fact under this Government’s tenure New Zealanders have no certainty that the Government itself is not using their private and personal information incorrectly. I ask the Minister who is sitting over there the Minister for ACC—she is in the Chamber tonight—what the number 6748 means to her. To Judith Collins what does the number 6748— 
Hon Judith Collins 
: It’s much less than my majority honey. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It is much less than her majority. What does the number 6748 mean to the Minister for ACC? Anything? Nothing. We are getting nothing from the Minister for ACC. That is the number of people whose private and personal information was released by ACC and yet the Minister does not know that because she does not actually care about ACC releasing people’s private and personal information. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Was I the Minister at the time? No. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Oh what happened to the member who was the Minister for ACC at the time? He is coming back into Cabinet after Christmas apparently. I am sure Judith Collins will be there welcoming him with open arms when he is restored to Cabinet after Christmas. 
A total of 6748 people had their private and personal information released by ACC. Then of course we have got the Work and Income fiasco. We do not know exactly how many people’s private and personal information was released by ACC although we know quite a lot about two of the people whose private and personal information was released by Work and Income because it was released by the Minister for Social Development. Paula Bennett released their private and personal information herself. She did not think that was problem. Apparently if someone criticises the Government this Government thinks it is OK to go and look them up and splash their private and personal information all over the media. That is OK according to this National Government. 
We move on to the Inland Revenue Department. The Inland Revenue Department is one of the Government agencies that has some of the most private information about people—huge volumes of personal information about how much people earn what they pay in child support a whole variety of those sorts of quite sensitive pieces of information. It actually probably has the best name and address database of any Government agency. The Inland Revenue Department I would say without doubt has the best name and address database of any Government agency. It is the most up to date. The Inland Revenue Department has this amazing way of finding people and yet New Zealanders can have no confidence at the moment that it is actually treating that private and personal information with the care that it deserves because we have seen the release of information by the Inland Revenue Department that really should have been held private. 
There were 7000-odd documents accessed from Work and Income’s kiosks. It did not even actually need to release the information. It just put its computers in the foyer area so that anyone could go and look it up. I think New Zealanders should be quite concerned—and rightly concerned—that the Government is not taking due care with their private information. And let us not get on to Novopay because I am towards the end of a 10-minute— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: It doesn’t work anyway. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: It does not work anyway. I am towards the end of a 10-minute speech and there is another 20-odd minutes of a speech about Novopay. Again there is no certainty for people that their private information is being protected by Novopay. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: “No pay”. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: As David Cunliffe points out it actually would be more accurately described as “No pay” rather than Novopay because there is certainly no guarantee even with all the private and personal information it holds that people will get paid. 
This is good legislation but it does not deal with many of the fundamental issues around identity theft and around the release of private and personal information which this Government is not dealing with. 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support the Electronic Identity Verification Bill but not the Identity Information Confirmation Bill which the Green Party will be opposing. We have requested that the questions be put separately so that our votes can be recorded subsequently. 
Both these two important bills deal with electronic information at its heart and how we manage it. It is a big important policy debate. I think it is only going to get more important as the years roll on. I want to point out and congratulate the parties. We have a collaborative process on the Government Administration Committee which I was involved in with the Electronic Identity Verification Bill. I have heard the support of Chris Auchinvole and Trevor Mallard and I would like to reciprocate and say that it was a very collaborative process—a very well-mannered select committee. This is select committees at their best putting the politics aside and working out what is best. 
But can I just touch on the deplorable comments of the member from National Maggie Barry. I did not hear the actual comments that Chris Hipkins alluded to. If I had I would have taken a point of order and urged her to withdraw and apologise. I understand Maggie Barry said that members like Gareth Hughes were stealing people’s identities. This is an outrage from the member that does no service to that member or that party or the good work that all the parties have done on this legislation. I think it belittles Parliament’s poison ivy Maggie Barry. If we are going to talk about identity let us talk about common herbicide. Maybe we should give that member the identity of the “Roundup member”. 
Back to the issues at hand I just want to touch on the issues which are that we hear about this stuff only when it goes wrong. We hear it from the likes of Work and Income Novopay and ACC leading the Privacy Commissioner to call this year “the year of the privacy breach”. It is critical we get this stuff right and it is critical as I am sure the member Clare Curran would agree that MPs get their heads around this stuff and understand it because it is so critical and will be increasingly important as the years go on. I would like to acknowledge the work of Nikki Kaye in particular from the National Party and Clare Curran from the Labour Party. Together we have worked on a cross-party IT group for the last two Parliaments and I think we have done some good work. It is good that parties can work across the floor on that. Just to continue the good vibes I would like to thank the officials at the select committee all the submitters and the Privacy Commissioner in particular and InternetNZ for its very well-reasoned submissions. 
This bill and the Electronic Identity Verification Service—or igovt as it is more popularly known—give individuals using the internet the option of using a secure channel to verify identities and to access services from both Government and approved non-government agencies. It is desirable. It is beneficial. Many New Zealanders want to engage and will find it more convenient to engage with the Government through this channel. I note that the regulatory impact statement says that it has an economic benefit of $300 million which is obviously very desirable. I would like to point out though that it is important that we do not entirely replace face-to-face interaction with Government departments. I am sure the housing Minister Phil Heatley could tell us about the problems when you get rid of face-to-face agents and you go to only a call centre or an online-based system. So it is obviously not the answer and it is obviously not the way all Kiwis want to engage. There is a real digital divide in New Zealand. We know from the latest statistics that around 22 percent of New Zealanders still do not have broadband access. 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: I’m a Minister in learning. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: It is good to see the National Government still learning as Phil Heatley says. So we have seen where it goes bad. You can just see with the kiosks at Work and Income. Sometimes this relentless drive for efficiency can have real costs for New Zealanders and not necessarily a good service. Sometimes it can just turn into a farce. 
I want to quickly touch on how the Electronic Identity Verification Bill was improved at the Government Administration Committee. I think there were three big fundamental changes. The first was changes to clauses 56 which increased the fines. Like we saw with the  
Rena 
 we had some pretty low traditional historical fines that were not really in keeping with the modern world. We have increased these to $1 million for corporate agents which I think is more realistic and more up with the times. Secondly we have changed the requirements so that information can now be accessed only via a search warrant to access someone’s usage history. Up until then the bill had previously been drafted so that any official in the Department of Internal Affairs if they were working with the concurrence or I guess the proxy of the chief executive could access all that information which is potentially all New Zealanders as I believe more and more New Zealanders will choose to engage through this unique verification portal the igovt portal. So it is good that we have got another check and balance which is the search warrant. 
Then we have got the changes to clause 65A which deals with the deletion of data. Obviously we will collect a huge amount of data for the Government under this system in terms of identity and all the information and photographs of an individual so having a deletion of data provision I think is very important. That was a clear message from the submitters to the select committee. What we have done is left it up to the Minister to decide through regulations but with an important clause attached that the Minister must consult with the Privacy Commissioner. I think given the year that we have had and given the increasing engagement with the Government online we will see an increasing role for the Privacy Commissioner and hopefully we will see increasing funding for that very important office. So ultimately this is a good bill with significant economic benefits. They are good benefits for New Zealand citizens. I think it is important however to note while we are talking about the verification of identity that anonymity online is also important. We should not lose that in a free and open internet. Obviously we need to do more to attack the digital divide or else this Parliament will just see more and more New Zealanders left behind not able to access the information or the assistance that we will see delivered through this service. 
On the second bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill the Green Party is disappointed that we cannot support this bill. We tried to improve it so that we could support it. Unfortunately Jan Logie’s Supplementary Order Paper 148 was not supported. The key issue for us in terms of this bill facing the House is the need to address identity theft. We acknowledge that that is incredibly important. We think we do need greater legislative amendments to increase that. But what we were particularly concerned about was the potential that the system could be abused by employers particularly as part of the requirement to disclose information to verify identity. The fear was that an employer could require an employee to disclose quite a large amount of information. The employee might be reluctant to given maybe a history of discrimination. We heard numerous accounts from Jan Logie where this has happened or scenarios where it could happen. Normally people in the current world do not have to disclose information where they feel it could put them in a discriminatory situation and what we could see is this law overriding that. That was our great fear. We tried to amend that with that Supplementary Order Paper which unfortunately did not pass. That is why we will be voting against that bill tonight. When the question is put we will be voting for the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and against the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. Thank you. 
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) 
: 
 It is my privilege to speak on the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. These two bills are sponsored by the Hon Chris Tremain. Can I also acknowledge the chair of the Government Administration Committee the Hon Ruth Dyson and the other members of the select committee for their contribution. Can I also acknowledge the work of the officials in the select committee process. It has been a great pleasure of mine to be part of that select committee. 
In this modern world the changing technology requires a lot of new legislation and this bill is part of that. The Government is rolling out ultra-fast broadband and people require the tools to use those facilities. The main aim of the bill is to simplify the interaction between individuals and Government agencies. However I am sure all of us will agree that when information is exchanged by electronic means it raises the issue of privacy. This legislation introduced by our National Government ensures that issues of privacy are attended to with the utmost priority. Only if the person provides consent to the relevant Government department does this allow for the exchange of the information. For any organisation that commits an offence under this bill its penalty amount has now been raised significantly. The idea is to deter anyone from the misuse of these services. It is another step by this Government that reduces red tape and paperwork. I hope this will be a tool for people to enhance their ability to work with identification at different agencies. I commend this bill to the House. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 The Electronic Identity Verification Bill is intended to regulate the operation of the Electronic Identity Verification Service to give individuals using the internet the option of using a secure channel to verify their identities and to access services from approved Government and non-government agencies. The provisions of the bill expand the igovt services to all members of the public and will allow more agencies to use the service to identify their clients. I think the current service is a great success and therefore the expansion of it is certainly a good thing. 
New Zealand First is pleased to see the anti-hacking provisions in the bill and we are pleased to see the penalties for the misuse of information as well. It is very important as the bill does to distinguish between corporations and individuals. Organisations that hack information would be doing so for commercial gain and they cannot be imprisoned so we are pleased to see that there are very high financial penalties for their infringements of the bill—of the Act as it will be. We would have liked to see other penalties considered as well such as the deregistration of a company in New Zealand for the most serious of cases. However it is very good at least to see very high penalties for corporations that infringe. In respect of the regulation of information New Zealand First agrees with the proposed new clause 65A concerning regulations to prescribe the length of time that electronic identity credentials photographs records of usage history status information and technical codes are retained after their cancellation revocation or expiry. 
We also approve in particular of the requirement for the regulations for these purposes to be subject first to consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. I think that is a very important safeguard. New Zealand First also approves of new clause 65A allowing a different duration to be set in regulations for electronic identity credentials issued to children under 14 years of age. This is simply of course because as we know children’s appearances change dramatically as they age and they generally hold fewer identity documents which can limit the effectiveness of biometric checks. New Zealand First further supports new subclauses 26(5B) and (5C) in relation to the situation where an individual’s application to amend their information has been refused by the applicable chief executive by requiring that chief executive to take reasonable steps to indicate that the information recorded in a credential is disputed. That is the very least that we think should be done in those sorts of circumstances because the bureaucracy does not always get things right and individuals need to at least have the opportunity to say that. So New Zealand First supports the bill and especially the role identified for the Privacy Commissioner. 
New Zealand First also supports the Identity Information Confirmation Bill to attack especially online fraud. The bill will achieve an important objective to facilitate the use of an electronic service that allows agencies to confirm identity information provided to them by individuals with information held by the Department of Internal Affairs under the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995 the Citizenship Act 1977 and the Passports Act 1992. In relation to the definition of “identity information” that includes information about a person’s full name gender date of birth place of birth other recorded information—for example in a passport or a photograph in a passport—and the status of any other recorded information. In clause 8 there is a list of conditions for using the confirmation service which most particularly of course require the individual to consent whether in writing or electronically. It requires the agency or intermediary applying to give an assurance that the consent has been obtained and of course that they have entered into the required confirmation agreement. There is also the ability for an individual to consent on a one-off basis or on an ongoing basis and the ability to withdraw that consent as well. We think those also are very important safeguards. 
I also approve of clause 9(4) which states: “The confirmation service must not at any stage supply to the agency or intermediary any recorded information about the individual who is the subject of the search.” It is of course just information that we are concerned with here. Clause 10 gives a long list of requirements in respect of the responsible officials requiring a need to be demonstrated by an intermediary before they can enter into an agreement. Also they must have policies and practices in respect of security of information and relating to the privacy of individuals. Clauses 11 11A and 11B contain I think very comprehensive provisions concerning what must be in a confirmation agreement and in addition how those agreements are to be used. For all of those reasons New Zealand First approves of the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. 
We think there are satisfactory safeguards in the bills with regard to individual privacy. We think especially that the provisions relating to the role of the Privacy Commissioner who will also ensure that the safeguards for the privacy of individuals are respected are very important as well. So for all those reasons New Zealand First will vote in favour of both bills. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 I am pleased that the House has returned to a level of calmness after the antics that we had earlier on in this debate. I think my Thursday morning sparring partner Mr Hipkins and his mentor Trevor Mallard were getting a little overexcited over there invoking the ghost of David Garrett but I am glad the House is back to normality. 
The Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill are very good pieces of legislation. They are all about implementing part of the Government’s Better Public Services programme—the result No. 10 that we have got there which is about making it easier for New Zealanders to interact online with the New Zealand Government. The legislation enables an automated electronic service that authorised agencies can use to confirm the accuracy of individuals’ identity information. It can be used for a wide range of purposes including meeting new anti - money-laundering requirements. The legislation also helps to combat identity fraud by preventing the use of fake identities. It extends the use of the web-based Data Validation Service to public and private sector agencies on a strictly need-to-know basis. And it allows agencies to check whether the identity information presented by a customer is consistent with that held by the Department of Internal Affairs through the citizenship register the passports database and various registers such as the Births Deaths and Marriages register. 
This is good legislation and I commend it to the House. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I would like to say that both the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill are actually very important bills because they go right to the heart of the relationship between citizens and the State which is essentially about the trust that is held between the information that citizens provide to the State and how that information is used and exercised. That is why Labour is supporting both of these bills. They are both important bills. I would like to commend the work that has been done on the bills in the Government Administration Committee and the effort that has gone into these bills from members all around the House. 
I would also like to make mention of what was just said by the previous member Jami-Lee Ross around supposed antics with reference to the ghost of David Garrett. This is actually one of the reasons why these bills are so important. These bills are so important in terms of ensuring that there are provisions in place for the security of information and how information is used. I would like to read to you some words said around 10 days ago by our Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff in terms of her annual report about the importance of privacy and the importance of people’s information. She said that the public is increasingly suspicious of handing over personal information as complaints reach a record high in our country. She said that in the year to 30 June her office had received 1142 complaints which topped a steady rise in the last 5 years. What those figures represent is that there is increasing concern amongst the public about how personal information is being used and that the link between public trust and responsible stewardship has not been made in the minds of some people. She said that in 2012 the most complained about organisations were all Government agencies with ACC taking the top spot with 173 complaints. 
I did want to run through just a few of these because they are important. As I said they do go to the very heart of that important relationship of trust and how the Government chooses to deal with it on a systemic basis right across the Government—not just at an individual agency departmental or ministerial level. 
 Marie Shroff in her annual report said that that data breach in March from ACC was a watershed moment for the public sector that exposed weaknesses at a systemic and governance level and highlighted the integral nature of data management in the public sector and at all levels of the organisation. She said that the lack of commercial drivers meant that public trust must be clearly demonstrated as necessary to effective government. I think that is very important because when we are looking at these bills and what they do—and they do go some way to addressing some of these issues but not nearly far enough—there is and needs to be recognition from right around the House of the importance of these issues and how they are dealt with. There needs to be—and it would be very good to see—clear support from across the House for law changes that require notification of affected individuals. I also would like to note that when the Privacy Commissioner released her annual report the Government was yet to respond to most recommendations of the commissioner’s August 2011 review of privacy report. 
I would like to make mention of the top complaints that were received because I think the most important point that was being made here was that the privacy breaches that were appearing were all coming from Government agencies including ACC as we know and the New Zealand Police department the Department of Corrections the Ministry of Social Development the Department of Labour Immigration New Zealand the Inland Revenue Department the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Civil Aviation Authority. They were the top agencies that were reporting breaches. The fact that those breaches were being reported is a good thing and it is a healthy thing but the remedy—how they are to be dealt with—is the next important issue. 
I would like to I guess make mention of—I think a number of my colleagues across the House have made mention of—the systemic issues that have occurred particularly in the last year. We have had reports just in recent months about these and we are up to I think between 30000 and 40000 individuals whose breaches of privacy have been notified as a result of some of these issues that have come to light. They have come to light not unfortunately because of self-notification; they have come to light because they have been exposed. The Inland Revenue Department had 32 breaches which represented 6379 individuals. ACC as we know is a well-known case where 6000 individuals’ data has been made available to the public. In the case of the Ministry of Social Development 7300 files were made available. I do not know what the latest count is—maybe one of my colleagues can help me here—with the Novopay breaches and the information that has been provided but the last count sometime in November was 8000 individuals affected. That is more than 30000 if you do a count-up around that. 
I also want to make mention of—[ 
Interruption 
] Well it is the tip of the iceberg. It does equal a small town but it is the tip of the iceberg. I also want to make mention of the really good work that has been done by my colleague Darien Fenton in the immigration area around the breaches—and I am sure she will talk about them herself—that have occurred and the effect they are having on those individuals and what that actually means. 
I think the major point to be made here is that when you do have—as I think is agreed around the House—issues of privacy breaches of breaches of information and the impact on individuals you have to deal with it at a governance level. That is extremely important. That is why there is a bill which has been pulled from the ballot called the Electronic Data Safety Bill which actually follows on from what is being discussed here tonight—and there is reasonable support around the House for both these bills. It is about how to deal with these issues by essentially establishing a commission of inquiry into the privacy breaches that have occurred in the last few years and as I have just outlined the effect of them here in the last 12 months and across all of those Government agencies. The bill looks at what the capacity across the Government is to respond to those breaches it tries to look into how they have occurred and then most important it looks at some remedies for dealing with them so that they do not happen again in the future. 
There is no doubt that all of these breaches have been acknowledged but unfortunately there has been a tendency which we have heard tonight from the Government side to try to say that things occasionally go wrong that there is no big deal here and that it is human error. Well I think these issues are a bit more than just human error on an individual agency basis. There are systemic issues here. This is the digital environment. We do have to address these issues on a systemic level across the Government and I do hope that when that bill comes up for debate there is serious discussion around it and there is support across the House. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 I will take a short call on these cognate bills the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. The igovt service allows individuals to check their identity when transacting with Government departments. It has already been in use since 2009 to a limited capacity with regard to birth certificates death certificates and marriage certificates and it is very much time to expand. The Identity Information Confirmation Bill creates a new service that essentially enables approved agencies to check identities against the Department of Internal Affairs database if you like. This is a very good tool to help protect against identity fraud which is a massive problem in many respects and on many levels. As for privacy concerns this is not a compulsory system; it is an opt-in and opt-out system and requires the consent of those partaking. I think it is important to note that the Privacy Commissioner will be monitoring both these initiatives in real time. So essentially there are very good checks and balances in place. 
This is very much part of this Government’s Better Public Services agenda. This is very much a part of what we are trying to do in terms of efficiency effectiveness and being pragmatic for the New Zealand public. I just want to take the time to commend the Hon Chester Borrows for the work that he in particular is doing in this area. He is a great servant of this place and of New Zealanders. I commend these bills to the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I understand that this is a split call. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am taking a call on the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill which are cognate bills. It is fair to say that the Electronic Identity Verification Bill has had a much smoother ride than the other bill the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. I put a lot of that down to my colleague Ruth Dyson and her excellent chairing of the Government Administration Committee. If you look back at the Identity Information Confirmation Bill it dates right back to 2010 and the very unfortunate timing of its introduction I think as my colleagues have referred to. I think it was very embarrassing for the Government actually to have to debate the first reading of that bill not long after David Garrett was exposed for actually stealing someone’s identity—in fact a dead baby’s identity. So it is a little bit ironic to be debating this bill tonight. I cannot help but refer back to that time and also to the fact that we have had so many breaches by this Government—so many breaches by this Government. Again my colleagues have listed them and the numbers are really mounting now are they not of those breaches across Government departments: ACC which was a massive breach; Work and Income; the Inland Revenue Department; and Immigration New Zealand. 
We are just starting to get to the tip of the iceberg on Immigration New Zealand and it is worth pointing out that the privacy breaches that are being identified are starting to come out. Immigration New Zealand holds enormous amounts of information from people and rightly many people are concerned not only that their privacy is being breached but that they have not been informed of that breach. So I am certainly following that up. 
I think it is very important that the Government is up front about this. I remember way back in the Government Administration Committee when we first did the legislation relating to Births Deaths and Marriages which was in the good old days when Labour was still in Government. There was much suspicion about opening up the registers to New Zealand through the digital system. There was a huge amount of suspicion and it was very understandable. Way back then identity frauds were starting to occur but now look at today—an average of 2000 New Zealanders are affected by online scams identity theft credit card fraud and sophisticated viruses every day. According to Veda Advantage for the 2008-09 year there were more than 7000 incidents of fraud and false pretences using credit and bank cards and credit by fraud and the New Zealand Police identified 900 cases of identity fraud in New Zealand in 2009. I think that those are just a fraction of the real figure. 
It is very understandable that New Zealanders feel so anxious about their private information because it can be misused as other colleagues have referred to. It is also something very personal—our unique identity. It belongs to us and our identities are precious to us. In the past we have held them in the form of passports licences and family documents such as family photos and diaries. Many of those of course get lost in things like the dreadful Christchurch earthquake. You know some of those things like family photos will never be recovered. But the public records do hold on our behalf many of the most important things about our identity and that means that the New Zealand State has a special responsibility to treat that information about our identity with particular care. 
 Every New Zealand citizen has something on the record. Technological developments mean that access to personal information is changing. Personal information has become a valuable commodity to be bought sold combined sorted profiled and mined meaning that the opportunities for misuse are expanding every day. So we have to recognise the real threat that there is around identity fraud. The State has to take particular care. 
I am pleased that the Privacy Commissioner is satisfied with the legal safeguards and controls in this legislation. We hope that will hold true and we hope that this legislation will see a real improvement in the Government’s igovt strategy and in the Government’s protection of private information. 
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill cognate. As has already been discussed by my colleague Gareth Hughes the Greens will be voting in support of the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and opposing the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. We would have loved to support both bills actually because we do recognise the importance and the value that they offer. However as I will talk more about later the privacy concerns in terms of protecting people’s human rights in the employment process overrode our ability to support the second bill. 
The Electronic Identity Verification Bill as has already been stated many times in effect creates an online passport—a unique online identifier to verify somebody’s identity. It really opens up our system so that we can extend the current igovt process to further organisations or Government departments. I know that that is going to be a good thing for many people particularly because I hear of so many clients of Work and Income whose access to their entitlements is delayed because they turn up for an appointment to access some service or access an entitlement they find out that they do not have the right ID with them they are sent away and they have to wait until another appointment is available. The hope is that with this bill we will be able to streamline processes which will make it easier for the staff in Work and Income and make it easier for the clients coming in to be able to access the services. That is certainly a very good thing. We note also the projected economic benefits of this bill as stated by my colleague Gareth. There are potentially $300 million of savings from it. 
But we would also like to be that reminder that we have to be always mindful of those who do not have access to online services. I have heard some very angry voices recently particularly from older New Zealanders who feel as if they are getting locked out. They have been into Government departments and they have been sent away to go and look up something online which is completely intimidating for them and not something they feel able to do even if they do have physical access in terms of broadband. So that is something we always need to be mindful of. 
I shall speak a bit more about why we are opposing sadly the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. Although we really do support the intent of the bill and are very aware of identity fraud and the harm that it is causing particularly in terms of financial fraud—and this bill certainly holds out the hope of being able to take action on that and decrease it and that is incredibly important—our concern arises with it being used in the employment process. We have not heard much evidence of how common identity fraud is in terms of people going into employment. The Supplementary Order Paper 148 that we put forward excluded it from being used in the employment process because of our concern for marginalised groups. There is certainly the ability to opt out and that fulfils the technicalities in the Privacy Act as we know it for people to be able to have the choice to opt out. The reality is that for marginalised people who are worried about their ability to get a job to say “No I am not going to provide you with that information.”—people are not going to feel able to make that choice. By not making that choice they will in effect be required to give information that presents their date of birth and their nation—place of birth. Those are two points that we know are common bases for discrimination in this country which is something we need to ensure people’s ability to protect themselves against. That is why we will be voting against this bill. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I am pleased to support both the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and the Identity Information Confirmation Bill. Both of these pieces of legislation are an important step forward in terms of enabling both consumers and businesses to transact more easily with the Government. Thank you. 
Electronic Identity Verification Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Identity Information Confirmation Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 105 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 15 
Green Party 14; Mana 1. 
Bill read a third time. 
Human Rights Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 4 December. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 Members have always liked to think that their contributions in this House will be lucid and coherent but I have to say Mr Assistant Speaker that the first time that I was about to take the call on this bill the Human Rights Amendment Bill you very kindly and charitably adjourned the House just as I was about to take it. On the second occasion I took the call at exactly the same time on an evening you had me a little discombobulated I must say by the fact that you bounced in your chair at one stage and I thought you were standing to adjourn the House. So I am not sure that my contribution on this third attempt will necessarily go down in the annals as one of my finest contributions in the House. 
But I would like to clarify that when I took the call the other day I failed to make it clear that one of the most— 
Hon Member 
: I think this is his best speech ever. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: Thank you. 
Andrew Little 
: Why don’t you talk about something in the bill? 
TIM MACINDOE 
: I do appreciate Mr Little’s praise. All praise is gratefully received particularly from that member who is not known for dispensing it very often. 
The Human Rights Amendment Bill amends the Human Rights Act 1993 and I failed to make clear the other night when I took the call at exactly this time of night that its major purpose is to enable the establishment of a full-time commissioner with responsibility for leadership in disability rights within the Human Rights Commission. That is a serious issue. It arises from the fact that as I mentioned last time the previous Labour Government in its dying days ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That was in late September 2008. Article 33 of the convention requires States—there are all sorts of long words here—to effectively ensure that we will recognise and uphold the important rights and interests of people with disabilities. So this bill is an important measure and I have no hesitation in supporting it. 
The creation of this role requires an amendment of the Act as it currently enables the commissioners to have formalised leadership in only two areas and those are the areas of race relations and equal employment. In fact tonight when I attended the function to farewell the Retirement Commissioner I had a quick chat with Joris de Bres the outgoing Race Relations Commissioner and he commented on the fact that he had enjoyed my outstanding contribution in this debate last week and I made it clear to him that I would give him even greater pleasure tonight if he tuned in at the same time. 
Hon Chester Borrows 
: Tune in next week! 
TIM MACINDOE 
: So I hope he has and at this rate he will be tuning in not only next week my good friend Chester Borrows but probably next year. I have been known occasionally to take time— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for to me to leave the Chair. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9.00 a.m. (Wednesday)