Volume 622 Week 75 - Tuesday 30 November 2004 
Volume 622 Week 75 - Tuesday 30 November 2004 
[Volume:622;Page:17213] 
Tuesday 30 November 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
List Member Vacancy 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I wish to advise the House that the seat of Donna Awatere Huata became vacant by application of section 55A of the Electoral Act 1993 on 19 November 2004. 
I have been advised by the Chief Electoral Officer that pursuant to section 137 of the Electoral Act 1993 Kenneth Xiaoxuan Wang has been declared to be elected a member of the House of Representatives in place of Donna Lynn Awatere Huata. I understand that Kenneth Wang is present and wishes to affirm. Would he please come forward to the Chair on my right. 
Members Sworn 
Kenneth Wang was presented to the Speaker made the affirmation required by law and took his seat in the House. 
Questions to Ministers 
Algerian Suspected Terrorist—Human Rights Obligations 
1. KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: Is he confident that the Government’s treatment of Ahmed Zaoui is in accord with New Zealand’s international human rights obligations; if so why? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Immigration) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Immigration 
: Yes. Throughout the process the relevant agencies have taken account of those obligations. 
Keith Locke 
: How can keeping a recognised refugee in jail for 2 years without a specific charge or accusation being made against him accord with international human rights standards from the centuries-old habeas corpus principle to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which even a former Labour Government—the Fraser Government—was involved in formulating? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: The detention of Mr Zaoui has been found by the courts to be lawful and the court decisions to date have indicated no breach of any international obligations. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why has the Government so mismanaged this affair that a man who is a risk to our country could soon be roaming the streets of New Zealand on bail? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: Under international law anyone who claims refugee status in this country is entitled to a legal process. We are going through that legal process. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Minister accept and agree with the Supreme Court’s determination that Mr Zaoui is entitled to an urgent bail application and will he be advising the Attorney-General not to oppose such a bail application? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: The Supreme Court ruled that detention is potentially available elsewhere and that bail is potentially available. It will rule on that on 9 December. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I point out to the member that the bail application is still before the court. We cannot reflect upon the issues to be heard in that application. 
Ron Mark 
: Has the Minister heard or read the reported comments made by Dr Harrison QC at a recent law conference or those of Deborah Manning on Radio New Zealand last Friday that liken Zaoui’s treatment here in New Zealand to that of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and if he has has he launched an inquiry to see whether Mr Zaoui has been blindfolded shackled led around in an orange jumpsuit mistreated and abused; if he has not found any such evidence what damage does he think comments like that do to New Zealand’s reputation? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: There have been many comments made about Mr Zaoui’s detention. He is entitled to the process of the law. That is what we are currently going through. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: How is it that a man whom the Prime Minister accepts is a risk to national security could soon be out on bail and what will the Government do to protect the country in that circumstance? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: I am not prepared to comment or to prejudge the outcome of the 9 December hearing. This Government is always focused on protecting New Zealand from any risk. 
Keith Locke 
: Why does the Minister keep relying on the SIS’s advice in relation to the security risk certificate applying to Mr Zaoui when that agency is now under a black cloud and the Minister has the power not to rely on that advice and to free Mr Zaoui to live in our community at any time particularly as it is now clear that Mr Zaoui is a democratic politician who has been unjustly slandered by the Algerian regime? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Parts of that question require far too much discussion in relation to what is going on but the Minister may comment on the other parts. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: The process we will rely on will be the process of the law. That will take into account all information provided on the issue. 
Rod Donald 
: Can the Minister name one flaw in the Refugee Status Appeals Authority’s extensive analysis and criticism of both the Belgian and the French court processes which take up an extensive part of its 215-page report? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: No I am not prepared to comment on that. There are very learned people in the Supreme Court who will take those issues into account. 
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology—Conflicts of Interest 
2.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: Does he stand by his statement that “I have such a strong ethical framework that I am deeply concerned about anybody who has a conflict of interest.”; if so is he satisfied with the way Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology has managed conflicts of interest? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 This is the subject of a report by the Auditor-General undertaken in response to requests from both the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology itself and Mr English and tabled in the House today. The report does not find that anything unlawful occurred and it commends the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology for having conflict of interest policies in place. It finds that it would have been prudent for Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology management to have excluded Ms Buck from anything other than the most peripheral involvement in the COOL IT programme and to have declined to consent to her appointment to the joint venture committee as a representative of Brylton Software. The report emphasises: “… there is no evidence that Ms Buck acted to misuse her position.” I accept the conclusions of this carefully considered report and recommend that not just the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology but all tertiary institutions read it carefully. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does the Minister’s ethical framework mean that he now accepts that Vicki Buck had a conflict of interest because she personally was marketing the COOL IT course on behalf of the polytech at the same time as a company of which she was a director and a shareholder collected over $6 million in 3 months; does he accept the Auditor-General’s conclusion: “… CPIT allowed Ms Buck to be put in a position which gave her the opportunity to use her CPIT-funded time resources and position to enhance the value of her private financial interests in BSL.”; and does he care that the enhancement to that private financial interest was $6 million of public money? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member is known for raising his voice to try to emphasise what he sees as an outrage but I say to the member that on this side of the House—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister will now answer the question. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I say to the House that what I have to do as the member himself has to do is to accept that both the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology and the member having asked the Auditor-General for a report the Auditor-General has produced a report that says it can find no misuse of position by Ms Buck and can see no grounds for it to do anything other than to suggest to the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology that it review its procedures. Nothing criminal happened and nothing unlawful happened. If it had the member would not need to ask this question; we would be acting. 
Lynne Pillay 
: What lessons for the future can the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology and other institutions take from this report? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The report’s recommendations in relation to conflict of interest policies cover such issues as their application to independent contractors having procedures in place to assist with their implementation and coverage of passive interests such as shareholdings. The report also emphasises that because conflicts of interest can present political or representational risks for an organisation they are a legitimate matter of concern at governance level. There are lessons that have applicability to the whole of the tertiary education sector and I urge those organisations to read the report and take those lessons into account. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does the Minister agree with the statement made by the Office of the Controller and Auditor-General that Vicki Buck’s conflict of interest raised a “serious management issue” and with the Auditor-General’s statement that the office does not agree with this approach in the public sector; and given that he said that nothing unlawful had happened can he tell the House whether he believes anything unethical happened—because the Auditor-General certainly believes that something unethical happened? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think the member should talk to the Auditor-General’s staff themselves; I have and that seems to me to be an important step for the member to take because he asked for the report. What he will find is that the Auditor-General made it clear that nothing unlawful had happened that Ms Buck did not misuse her position that the Auditor-General’s office was concerned— 
Hon Bill English 
: Was it ethical? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: If the member will stop yelling I will answer the question. The Auditor-General’s office was concerned to convey to the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology that although it had conflict of interest policies in place the governance process should have been one that was more active and the office is urging the institute to do exactly that. 
Hon Bill English 
: What confidence does the Minister have in the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology council and its chief executive officer John Scott who marketed a course and enrolled 18000 people in it 603 of whom completed that course; who have refused to pay back any of the $13 million of taxpayers’ money that they collected; and who allowed a senior employee to market the course at the same time as her own company benefited from it to the tune of $6 million? Is the Minister now telling the House that he believes that all of that is ethical and nobody will be held responsible? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: My approach to claims that are raised in this House is always to allow the process to work its way through. The member made a complaint and I know he is unhappy that he did not get the report he wanted so now he has moved on to the next issue. I say to him in answer to that that he knows that the organisation has now paid back around $83000 in relation to one issue and that it is currently subject to an investigation in relation to the very issue he is raising. I suggest he waits for that too. I know he is disappointed today but that disappointment should not lead to the silly anger he is undertaking now. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member might take the opportunity to correct his answer to the House. The $83000 repayment was totally unrelated to this particular investigation. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I said so. 
Hon Bill English 
: Did the Minister say so? OK I will accept that. I asked the Minister a question: does he believe it is ethical and will someone be held accountable? He has refused to answer either of those questions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There has not been a point of order raised. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It was not a point of order. I did not rule that to be a point of order. It was a debating point. 
Hon Bill English 
: No I asked those questions specifically in my supplementary question and the Minister did not answer them. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister did address that question. 
Hon Bill English 
: No actually the Minister did not address them either. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am sorry but the Minister did address that question. 
New Zealand Superannuation Fund—Reports 
3.  
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Has he received any reports on attitudes toward the New Zealand Superannuation Fund? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. I have read that it is a “serious mistake” and “nothing more than financial smoke and mirrors”. Despite these comments from Dr Brash I welcome his flip-flop that he is now saying National will support the fund. This proves the truth of the old saying “If you can’t beat them join them.” 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What further reports has the Minister seen on this issue? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It is clear that this flip-flop has been welcomed on the grounds that we get greater stability in policy in the long term on retirement income but of course if the contributions to the fund are going to be maintained then substantial tax cuts are possible only if spending is cut elsewhere or debt allowed to balloon out. 
John Key 
: Will the Minister approve the $1 million budget increase requested by the Guardians of the New Zealand Superannuation Fund so that they have the capability to assess opportunities in New Zealand infrastructure and New Zealand venture capital; and if he is now going to get to his feet and tell the House that he has miraculously approved this $1 million increase does it mean it takes the National members to sign up before he gives the guardians the tools to do the job properly? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No the approval was given some few days ago in terms of the decision being taken and I am happy if it is required to have a full royal commission of inquiry to establish that fact if that is what National is demanding now. I am not subject to the member’s blandishments as much as Dr Brash is. I congratulate him on convincing Dr Brash of the sanity of supporting the fund. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is there any new information since Don Brash said: “The Cullen Fund is nothing more than financial smoke and mirrors. It does not change the overall cost of superannuation one bit” and is this new-found agreement yet another example of the two old parties holding hands hoping that national superannuation is sustainable when the real answer to superannuation is strong consistent growth with New Zealanders saving in their own accounts? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the latter point no because many people would never be able to save enough to give them a retirement income equivalent to New Zealand superannuation. The failure to secure New Zealand superannuation would lead to large numbers of elderly people living in poverty. As for the notion of Dr Brash and I walking off into the sunset hand in hand I hope we will do that on the Civil Union Bill in a similar context. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Is the Minister now prepared in the light of the National Party’s policy announcement to resuscitate negotiations for a new multiparty accord on superannuation to provide certainty and security into the future; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I accept the sincerity of the member’s position but in my view the basis for an accord is already there because the superannuation Act provides the capacity to sign up to Parts 1 and 2 of that Act. United Future is signed up to both parts; the Labour Party is; the Progressive Party is; the Greens are signed up to Part 1 and presumably National will now sign up to both Parts 1 and 2. So in my view it already establishes a very substantial accord with any other party being able to sign up to either part in the future. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: In the light of that answer does the Minister therefore consider that the mere act of signing up or making policy announcements provides the level of security and certainty required for the future and if he does consider that what sanctions are in place to effectively ensure other than I guess the public will that those parties keep those policy commitments? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: At the end of the day the sanctions are political as we saw in 1999 when the accord was broken with National lowering the floor on New Zealand superannuation and that undoubtedly contributed to that party’s loss at the next election. 
Supreme Court—Appointment of Judges 
4.  
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
 to the  
Attorney-General 
: Does she agree with the reported view of Hon Trevor Mallard that it is “a pity” that the Supreme Court was not appointed on merit; if not on what basis were the appointments to the Supreme Court made? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 All New Zealand judges are appointed on merit and it goes without saying that the Supreme Court judges were meritorious appointments. 
Richard Worth 
: When Mr Mallard made his criticism in a formal setting to an influential group of New Zealanders was he concerned about specific judges in the Supreme Court or was he condemning the whole group as being devoid of merit? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: I suggest that the member directs that question to the person who made the statement. I certainly would not want to delve into the mind of Mr Mallard. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Has the Attorney-General received similar comments; if so what did they say and from whom? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Yes. Mr Worth was actually reported in the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 11 November 2003 stating that appointments were dictated by the Prime Minister and were definitely not merit-based. He went on to expand on this further in the  
Dominion Post  
on the same day which reported him as saying that “the appointments made a mockery of the Government’s promise to select on merit based on the recommendations of an independent panel.” He then concluded by saying that Prime Minister Helen Clark’s bidding had been done by elevating judges purely on the basis of seniority. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Will the Attorney-General take the opportunity to repudiate in the strongest possible terms the comments made by Mr Trevor Mallard criticising Her Majesty’s Supreme Court judges in light of the excellent judgment shown by those judges in their first case  
Prebble 
 v  
Mrs Huata 
? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: I am delighted to see that the honourable member has in fact changed his mind on this matter and now agrees with me. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Does the Attorney-General agree that establishing an independent judicial appointments commission as proposed by the Green Party and subsequently outlined in the Ministry of Justice discussion document would reassure New Zealanders about future judicial appointments particularly in light of what appear to be attacks on judicial independence by members of the executive and Parliament? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Yes a discussion paper is being prepared and I hope it will be available in the new year to build on the discussion paper that has already been out there because of the few submissions we received as I want to make sure there is proper consultation. I am not sure of course whether that will satisfy some people—those who support courts only when they agree with them. 
Richard Worth 
: How do these ill-judged attacks by senior Ministers including the Prime Minister and Mr Mallard advance the relationship between the executive and the judiciary? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: A robust debate in any relationship is good for it and I am pleased to report that the relationship is an extremely good one. 
Industry Partnerships—Number Established 
5.  
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: How many industry partnerships have been established to address skill and labour shortages and assist people to move off a benefit and into employment? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Work and Income has established job partnerships with seven major industry groups: hospitality road carriers or road haulage retail master plumbers roading the Bus and Coach Association—that partnership was launched by the Hon Rick Barker last week—and the meat industry. The latest of these partnerships with the New Zealand Industry Training Organisation Inc. and the Meat Industry Association was launched yesterday and will see up to 1500 unemployed people trained for jobs over the next year. This will help to push unemployment even lower. 
Jill Pettis 
: What has been the reaction of industry to the job partnership initiative? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As one might expect industries have warmly welcomed the industry partnership approach because it means that training is industry focused practical and gets people straight into productive jobs. As Carl Ammon of the New Zealand Industry Training Organisation Inc. noted the partnership approach leads to improved selection shorter lead times and a more practical focus in helping fill vacancies and keeping industry producing. The next industry partnership to be launched on Friday with Transfield Services New Zealand will see currently unemployed people trained for work in rail and track maintenance giving more New Zealanders an opportunity to gain a decent paying job and ensuring industry labour needs are met. I congratulate those industries on taking a practical approach to meeting their skill and labour needs. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: In light of his answer has he any concerns that the number of people granted a sickness benefit because of depression has increased by over 3000 since he has been the Minister—from 2179 in 1999 to 5222 today; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I am concerned about the number of people on the invalids benefit and the sickness benefit. I have been concerned since the 36 percent increase took place during the middle of the 1990s. We have been concerned to make sure that unemployment goes down and it is now the lowest it has been in 17 years. Against that backdrop we have now introduced world-leading policy relating welfare to health and I will be launching another part of that policy later this week which I am sure the National Party will come around to endorsing as it does every other policy the Government introduces. 
Algerian Suspected Terrorist—Supreme Court Decision 
6.  
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service 
: Has she received any reports from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Justice Paul Neazor in relation to national security risks as a result of the recent Supreme Court declaration that it had the power to consider bail for Ahmed Zaoui? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service) 
: 
 No. 
Dail Jones 
: Will the Minister take up the offer from New Zealand First approved by its caucus today—and I have been given the authority to express it—to amend Part IVA of the Immigration Act under urgency if necessary back to its pre - 25 November 2004 judicial interpretation given by for example Justice Paterson in the High Court on the Zaoui case when he stated and I quote from the Supreme Court decision that he was satisfied that the legislative intent was that a person detained under Part IVA has no right to apply for release on conditions. He also said: “An inherent jurisdiction cannot exist against this specific legislative intent”; if the Minister will not support that offer why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No the Act will be reviewed after the completion of the Zaoui case. 
Keith Locke 
: Does the Minister agree that there will be very few reports from a part-time inspector-general in a poorly resourced office and that that inspector-general and the barely functional Intelligence and Security Committee of our Parliament are grossly inadequate to monitor a service that as the reputable journalist Jane Clifton puts it is “perfectly capable of sinister incompetence and incompetent sinisterness.”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No no and no. I refer the member to the front page of today’s  
Dominion Post 
. 
Dail Jones 
: Is the Minister aware that Auckland University senior law lecturer Scott Optican has said that allowing the Supreme Court to hear Zaoui’s bail application is “absolutely unusual” and that it would effectively be “writing a new page in the history of bail”; if so why will the law not be changed in order to put a halt to that action protect the integrity of New Zealand’s national security and prevent our national security services from becoming the laughing stock of the Western World? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The court has ruled that it has inherent jurisdiction to consider the bail application. I should say that it has not ruled that the Government has been free to release Mr Zaoui; it has ruled that the court has inherent jurisdiction to consider a bail application. That will proceed through to completion by the court. No doubt that matter itself will be part of the review of the Act subsequently. 
Dail Jones 
: What does the Minister intend to do to take up the challenge seemingly issued by the Supreme Court to present to it the substantial information regarding Zaoui’s history available to the Minister and if she does not intend to present the substantial information to justify Zaoui’s detention and the expenditure of about $1.5 million on his detention will she take the honourable step and resign as Minister in charge of the SIS as the ultimate responsibility for that debacle—which it would then be—must rest with her as the Minister? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think that the ultimate responsibility for what the member calls a debacle lies with the Act passed in 1998. That is why it is clearly in need of review. This is the only case that Act has had to deal with and clearly it has not been satisfactory. 
Civil Union Bill—Protection to Couples 
7.  
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Justice 
: Does he stand by his statement in last Thursday’s press release that the Civil Union Bill offers “greater protection to couples in committed relationships”; if so how does the bill achieve this? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I most certainly do stand by that comment. There are many situations in society where people are treated differently because they find it difficult to prove that they are in a relationship. Many people in long-term relationships have been discriminated against because their relationship has been treated as merely a friendship and not as family. Clearly that can have negative consequences for those people particularly in times of crisis or sorrow. The mere fact of being in a civil union will provide social and legal recognition of a relationship and therefore provide those couples and the community with certainty over the status of that relationship. 
Gordon Copeland 
: How does the Civil Union Bill protect the status of one partner in the event of the sudden death of the other as the Minister claimed last week when in fact that protection arises only from the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill and then only when that separate bill becomes law? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Where rights are provided for in legislation those provisions will of course be extended as the questioner refers to by the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. Sometimes though rights are not set out in legislation but are in practice a matter of policy. A good example would be hospital visitation rights. Legal recognition of civil unions and civil union partners will provide a clear message that the relationship is a family relationship and that they are next of kin. I am confident that couples in a civil union will not have to face the absurd situation of being denied access to or the right to make decisions on behalf of a long-term partner in an emergency or in the event of his or her death. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: What advantage does the Civil Union Bill provide over and above that which will apply to de facto couples under the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Entering a civil union will provide certainty of the status of a couple. The process of solemnising a civil union in front of family and friends will provide social and legal recognition of such a relationship. The certificate of civil union registered under the Births Deaths and Marriages Registration Act will provide formal evidence of the nature and duration of that relationship. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Does the Minister agree that if this Parliament fails to pass the bill it would mean that the law states that same-sex couples may shag but they may not formally commit to a long-term relationship— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not usually interrupt questions but I do like felicity of expression which that clearly was not. I suggest that the member reword his question. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Does the Minister agree that should this Parliament fail to pass the Civil Union Bill it would mean that under the law same-sex couples may have sex on a short-term basis but may not formally commit to a long-term relationship and does he think that the real agenda of the Destiny Church – led opposition is to see gays locked up in jail once again? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister has no responsibility for the second part of that question. He may answer the first part. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I certainly agree that the passage of the Civil Union Bill removes a form of discrimination that has no place in the inclusive tolerant and open-minded society that I believe New Zealand is. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Does he concede that he was wrong in asserting that United Future is the only party not voting on the Civil Union Bill as a conscience issue; if so will he apologise to us this House and the public for misrepresenting our position? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am delighted to accept the member’s assurance that United Future is voting on this matter as a conscience issue. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Does he support a referendum on the Civil Union Bill in the light of the overwhelming opposition of submitters to the select committee or does he think that the New Zealand public will be happy to leave it to MPs who may be arm-twisted by their parties to vote for the legislation because it appeared in their election manifestos? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No I do not. I believe that the Government has a legal responsibility to remove discrimination. I believe that that responsibility flows from legislation passed in 1993 by the then Government. It is not for me or the Government a question of negotiation over whether people are entitled not to be discriminated against. 
Treaty of Waitangi—Standing of Treaty Settlements 
8.  
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: Do the following treaty settlements still stand: with NgaiTahu in 1998 and Ngati Tama in 2003 giving them a preferential tender right of up to 10 per cent of aquaculture space with Ngati Awa in 2002 giving it a preferential tender right of up to 5 per cent and with NgatiRuanui in 2003 and Nga Rauru Kitahi in 2003 also giving them preferential tendering rights to aquaculture space? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 Yes. 
Phil Heatley 
: Did the Minister advise the Minister of Fisheries and the Minister of Maori Affairs that those five specific iwi already had those full and final aquaculture settlements: if so why have all three Ministers agreed that those five specific iwi are to receive a further 20 percent of existing space and up to 40 percent of future space? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Yes because the matters set out in the deeds of settlement are in respect of historical grievances before 1992. 
Moana Mackey 
: Does the Government intend to continue making settlements that include the right of first refusal to coastal space; if so why? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Yes. In an open negotiation between the Crown and iwi to settle a historical grievance the Crown considers all aspects of the grievance. Provisions in settlements to grant a right of refusal to purchase coastal space at market rates is one of the many redress mechanisms to provide redress to iwi as part of a comprehensive settlement of their historical claims. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Can the Minister explain why the Government is granting preferential race-based aquacultural space when the 1992 $1 billion Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlement was a full and final settlement of all Maori claims to commercial fishing rights in view of the fact that all statutory definitions of “fisheries” include all forms of marine farming? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: As I am sure the honourable member is aware in fact that settlement did not include aquaculture. That was specifically excluded on the instructions of the Ministers at the time and therefore it became unfinished business. In answer to the first part of the question I say that of course this legislation had a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act assessment as all legislation does and particular reference was made to section 19 which provides that everyone has a right to be free from discrimination. This bill passed its bill of rights vetting. 
Phil Heatley 
: When should Kiwis expect those full and final treaty settlements to end: after the 1992 fisheries settlement after the 1998 to 2002-03 deeds dealing with aquaculture space that I referred to after the give-away of 20 percent of existing aquaculture space after the give-away of 40 percent of future aquaculture space or with some other full and final settlement in the distant future? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Each of those documents of course is full and final in terms of its own settlement. It does not speak beyond the document itself. Maybe the honourable member did not hear this but the deeds relate to pre-1992 and the legislation relates to post-1992. They give rise to separate sets of rights and obligations so they are not the same thing at all. 
Phil Heatley 
: Does the Minister mean then that the five iwi I listed which have already had aquaculture settlements and which will have another 20 percent and 40 percent of space thrown at them are not alone—that we can expect all other iwi in the country not in that five also to put in a historical claim that will include aquaculture over and above that 20 and 40 percent give-away? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Obviously the member did not hear my reply to the supplementary question that was directed to me by a member of my own party. The answer is yes if that in fact emerges in the course of the negotiations and if it is part of the settlement of historical grievances it will. 
Phil Heatley 
: So there is no— 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: There will be an end to it in that the pre-1992 terms of that deed cannot be relitigated. 
Rail Network—Reports 
9.  
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What reports has he received about the success of this Government’s decision to buy back the rail network and encouraging road freight on to it? 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Rail company Toll Holdings and dairy company Fonterra have recently signed a deal that will put one-third of Fonterra’s exports through a rail freight hub in Hamilton. This will see 45000 truck journeys per year being taken off the roads. Fonterra said that this move was “made possible by the Government’s agreement to invest $200 million in rail.” 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: How does this report compare with those made at the time—to the effect that the Government should not get involved in buying back the network? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Fonterra has said that the deal signed could not have proceeded earlier because of uncertainties about the rail network and the operator in New Zealand. At the time of the buy-back of the rail network both the National and ACT parties opposed it. They preferred the rail network to stay run-down unsafe and lacking in investment. This deal and others like it that will follow have proved them wrong. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Minister guarantee that the rail-track that will carry this cargo—probably to the Port of Tauranga—is absolutely and totally safe? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Guarantees and “absolutely and totally” are not in the language I use. I am into risk management. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What other steps have been taken under the new Land Transport Management Act to encourage the movement of freight by methods other than the use of roads in order to meet the objectives of integration public health and sustainability developed by the Government and the Greens? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I can think of two examples off the top of my head—a log depot in the lower North Island that enables logs to be transported by rail to Wellington and in Coromandel where the member comes from funding is being given towards taking aggregate to Auckland by barge. Both of those moves take trucks off the road make roads safer and less congested and deliver local economic benefit. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting the earlier answer to my question does the Minister think it would be prudent to have an up to date thorough inspection of the rail-track that will carry this cargo—in the light that there are concerns about parts of that rail-track? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I believe that an up to date inspection of the rail-track is an ongoing matter but I would say to the member that new rail legislation that improves safety is due to finish its passage through this House presently. 
Civil Aviation Authority—Helicopters 
10.  
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister for Transport Safety 
: Does he have any concerns that Heli Logging Ltd is being prohibited by the Civil Aviation Authority from using its ex-military Westland Wessex helicopters for the commercial purposes for which they were purchased; if so what is he going to do about this? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I am advised by the Civil Aviation Authority that the director is considering the safety record of Wessex helicopters conducting commercial operations before making any decision on the Heli Logging Ltd petition for exemption from the Civil Aviation Rules. As the member will no doubt be aware by law I am prevented from interfering in the director’s decision making. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that Heli Logging has undertaken all that has been asked of it by the authority and that no reason has been forthcoming in recent times for the authority’s prohibiting the helicopters from flying; if he is aware of that can he not do something to give this organisation a fairer go? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am aware that a number of activities have been undertaken by Heli Logging Ltd to verify the performance of the helicopters. I am also aware of previous accidents involving Wessex helicopters conducting logging operations. In February 2001 a Wessex helicopter that was lifting logs in a forest near Motueka crashed killing its pilot. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that this issue has been ongoing for something like 2 years and that these people are entitled to a definitive answer; if so will he lobby hard to ensure the authority complies with that request? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am aware that the company proposed this activity 2 years ago. I am also aware that in or around August it filed for exemption from the Civil Aviation Rules—August of this year just 3 months ago—and that the director is in the process of making a decision. I cannot lobby the director to make a decision either way. I would hope that decision was forthcoming. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Minister recall that some months back the Director of Civil Aviation allowed one of his inspectors to ground an airline and then to receive payment for producing the manuals necessary to get that airline up and running and that that was put down to naivety; if he does recall that can he assure this House that no payment is being made to anybody to keep the helicopters grounded? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: The last matter is an aspect that I have not considered but I can give the member an assurance that if that is the case it is called corruption and it will be dealt with extremely harshly and extremely rapidly. What I can tell the member is that the director has been considering all the information put before him and I have urged him to make his decision as soon as he feels comfortable in doing so. I am sure that he will. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that the company is now taking legal action against the authority as I understand it and does he think it is prudent that a judge should rule on whether this helicopter company flies or should it be the authority or indeed the Minister—does he think they have got that right? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am aware that just last Friday a legal injunction was served against the Civil Aviation Authority to bring this matter to a head. I do not think that a judge is necessarily the most appropriate person to rule; that is why we have a Civil Aviation Authority with the expertise that it has and with the ability to call in outside experts if necessary to help make these decisions. But as I am sure the member is equally aware section 72I(4) of the Civil Aviation Act 1990 requires the director to exercise his discretion in the case independently of the authority itself and the Minister. Therefore I am not in a position to interfere with the director’s decision making. As I have said before I have urged the director to make his decision as soon as possible. 
CulverdenCare Retirement Village—Residents' Concerns 
11.  
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
 to the  
Minister for Senior Citizens 
: When did she first become aware of the concerns of residents of the CulverdenCare retirement village? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Senior Citizens) 
: 
 My recollection is that I was advised of residents’ concerns concerning the CulverdenCare retirement village on 2 April this year. 
Judith Collins 
: What representations if any has she received from the local Labour member of Parliament on behalf of the CulverdenCare residents? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I have received direct representations from only one of my Labour colleagues on that—from Judith Tizard not the local member. 
Murray Smith 
: Can the Minister confirm that as a direct result of United Future’s involvement with the CulverdenCare residents’ committee over the last 8 months a well-documented complaint was lodged with the Securities Commission which last August appointed an inspector to investigate the operation of the village as a prelude to possible statutory management; and what in comparison has been achieved for the CulverdenCare residents by the National Party? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no the first part of the question can be answered. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I can confirm that the member who asked that question did prepare what has been recently described as a “well-documented complaint” to the Securities Commission. I understand that the commission is considering that complaint. To the best of my knowledge no one from the National Party has done a single thing to assist the residents. 
Jill Pettis 
: Can the Minister advise the House of what the Government is doing to ensure that retirement villages operate to good standards and that the rights of residents are protected? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The Retirement Villages Act introduced by this Government establishes standards of practice for all operators including a requirement to fully disclose the terms and conditions of residency. It also establishes a code of residents’ rights and a complaints and disputes resolution process. 
Judith Collins 
: Why was it left to the intervention of Mr Graham Miller of Covenant Trustee Co. for this matter to be referred to the Securities Commission when the Minister has been sitting on the same information for at least 4 months? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: As I would assume the member may know given her previous occupation I am cautioned by the principle that the Government’s role in civil disputes is to set up the framework for such disputes to be resolved generally through civil action in the courts. However I have ensured in this case that residents have applied for legal aid for their action. 
Judith Collins 
: Does the Minister recall advice to Cabinet that Ian Anderson from the management of CulverdenCare was misrepresenting the compliance costs of the Retirement Villages Act in order to force the elderly residents to give up their homes; if so does she still think that adopting a wait-and-see attitude was the right decision for those vulnerable and elderly New Zealanders? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes I do recall that. I also note that Mr Anderson is not the first person in New Zealand to misrepresent a compliance cost imposed by the Government. My concern is to ensure that the situation for the residents is addressed in a way that will have the greatest prospect of success and sustainability. 
Judith Collins 
: Having received the information that she has clearly had—and has admitted to having—for the last 4 months did she not consider that the evidence showed that there could well be a case for the Serious Fraud Office to investigate? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No. 
Hospitals—Productivity 
12.  
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: How does she explain as found by Treasury that in the last financial year a 7 percent increase in hospital spending has produced only a 1.5 percent gain in hospital service outputs especially given that Treasury officers sounded the alarm on declining hospital productivity over a year ago? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The Government has done its bit for productivity today. Mr Swain has helped to produce a 5 pound 6 ounce baby daughter and I would like to congratulate him on that. In answer to the question the Treasury report itself contained the answer. The member has chosen again to quote selectively. I will read from the report and use Treasury’s words: “As discussed previously officials are currently undertaking work looking at hospital productivity and the value gained from additional funding. Hospital activity does however cover only a portion of DHB activity—approximately 60 percent—and available data only covers at most half of hospital output within that. Furthermore Government policy is increasingly focused on areas outside hospital activity such as primary care.” 
Heather Roy 
: What concerns has the Minister about hospital productivity given that her own data shows that under her stewardship the number of people who have died while on her waiting lists has doubled the number forced to go private has trebled and nearly 1500 people have been waiting for surgery for 2 years or more on her active review waiting list? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I refer the member to the Treasury report itself and to the ministry’s comment telling people to be very careful in selectively quoting from figures. For example the member has just quoted that people have been forced to go private. Once again the member cannot find her way around the data and I suggest she looks again at that particular release from New Zealand Health Information Service. It is headed “Publicly Funded Events Only”. The figures she uses include operations paid for by the public purse and carried out in private hospitals. Is that not what the member was asking for? 
Steve Chadwick 
: Is the Minister aware of any other inaccurate reporting of health information? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes. Let me give some examples. Claims have been made that funding for devolved services has been presented as a funding increase—wrong. Claims have been made that district health boards are not funded for cost inflation—wrong. Claims have been made that people have died waiting for for example fertility treatment and that that has caused their deaths—wrong. Claims have been made that individuals have been funded on the basis of their race—wrong. I am afraid the inaccurate information of the ACT member is a daily occurrence. 
Judith Collins 
: What confidence can the New Zealand public have in this Minister given that these same concerns are reflected in earlier Treasury reports and letters from the Minister of Finance yet nothing has changed other than the increase in budget given that the waiting lists were going to be blitzed by Labour but remain static and given that around the country the health service is reaching breaking point? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I refute all of the above. In fact if the member reads the report—she obviously has not—she will see that Treasury stated in that report: “Treasury intends to work with the Ministry of Health over the coming months to improve the quality of performance indicators around reporting productivity.” No country in the world is able to accurately produce information on hospital productivity although certainly in New Zealand we are going to have a go at it. The other thing the member might be interested to know is that hip and knee replacement operations this year are 30 percent up on last year. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that when Treasury reports that delay in implementing new programmes rather than actual savings is the reason for district health board surpluses finding innovative solutions to health workforce shortages and not merely improving data collection of district health board performance is the key issue in combating declining health sector productivity; if so when will we finally see “situations vacant” columns in our newspapers free from health job after health job that needs to be filled? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I agree with the member but it actually needs both. 
Rodney Hide 
: Does it not concern the Minister just a little notwithstanding her bluff and bluster and her constant denial of the facts— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please come to the question. 
Rodney Hide 
: I am Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Come to it now not with those irrelevant comments. Read the Standing Orders. Please ask the question. 
Rodney Hide 
: You would not let me start again would you? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Yes. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: Does it not concern the Minister just a little that on the best figures Treasury has provided for every dollar she has put into the health service she has produced only 22c extra in health services; and does that not reflect the long queues the people dying while on waiting lists and the difficulties New Zealanders are having with the health system notwithstanding the money she has poured in? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member might be interested to know where the additional money goes in health. In the last financial year by far the most money went into increasing wages. In terms of the difference between clinical services and non-clinical services it has not changed; in fact it has improved from when National was in power. Most of the money has gone into wages. It has also gone into surgical supplies. It has gone into the cost of blood services. I can only imagine that the member does not want us to pay out those costs. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not allowed to refer to the bluff and bluster of the Minister but my question was quite specific. I was asking her whether she had some concerns. We have had this report prepared. We have had this data. It is saying that there has been a very small increase in productivity compared with the increase in amount. The health service is going backwards. I asked the Minister whether she had any concerns. There is no way she addressed that. I know I am not allowed to say that it is all bluff and bluster but that is what that answer was. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member said it twice and he is now trifling with me. The Minister did address the question. 
Heather Roy 
: How can the Minister deny that the ongoing decline in hospital productivity will only get worse given that hospitals now have to face the costs of pay parity the move to national awards and the millions of dollars in costs added by the Holidays Act? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I find it very hard to find how an increase becomes a decrease. The Treasury report that the member used as the basis of her question said there was an increase. On the basis of that in the question she has just asked she said there was a decrease in terms of pay parity in terms of nurses’ salary increases. Obviously the Government has to pay for it. 
Heather Roy 
: What responsibility will the Minister take for the fact that hospital productivity—not output—has dropped for more than 2 years running the number of people dying while waiting for surgery has increased from 850 to 1187 in that time and nearly 1500 people have been waiting for surgery for 2 years or more on her hidden Active Review waiting list? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I would caution the member on the figures that she is using. Today she has constantly said that people are dying on the waiting list and has quoted figures. If that is a valid figure why does the member not quote this figure which is on the same piece of paper that she constantly uses: there were 68000 electively treated people in 2001; the figure is now 114905. As that is a valid figure why is the member not trumpeting it? It shows a huge increase in what is being done electively. The reason that she is not doing so is she does not like good figures; she wants to trumpet old and bad figures that actually do not relate to the reality at all. 
Heather Roy 
: I seek leave to table three documents. The first is the Treasury report on district health board performance in the year ended June 2004. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Heather Roy 
: The second document is some figures from the New Zealand Health Information Service—the ones that the Minister was just talking about. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Heather Roy 
: The third is a media report from the  
Dominion Post  
dated 11 April 2003 showing that Government funding increases have not matched rises in productivity. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is. 
Question No. 11 to Minister 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a copy of a letter from Covenant Trustee Co. dated 4 August 2004 to the Securities Commission referring the CulverdenCare Retirement Village matter to it. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I seek leave to table a Cabinet paper indicating that Cabinet knew about that matter on 19 April 2004. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I seek leave to table a decision of the High Court in relation to Culverden Group Ltd Mr Anderson and the Health and Disability Commissioner. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I seek leave to table a copy of a letter from the office of the Hon Ruth Dyson to Barry L McKenzie dated 16 November 2004 in which he is told that the matter has to go to the civil process. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Urgent Debates Declined 
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service—Inquiry and Allegations of Spying 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received a letter from Keith Locke seeking to debate under Standing Order 373 allegations by journalists that the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service spied on the Maori Party and other organisations and the decision of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to initiate an inquiry into the allegations. Standing Order 373 permits a member to raise “a particular case of recent occurrence” for debate yet the member’s letter raises two issues: the allegations and the announced inquiry. I will deal with the two cases separately. 
Allegations can never constitute a particular case of recent occurrence—see Speaker’s ruling 154/2. There can therefore be no grounds for a debate on the allegations. The decision to hold an inquiry is a particular case of recent occurrence and because it requires the concurrence of the Prime Minister it does involve ministerial responsibility. However it would be very unusual for the decision to set up an inquiry to require the immediate attention of the House and I can see nothing in this case that would justify it. The application is consequently declined. 
Third Readings 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I move  
That the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill and the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. These four bills which give effect to the New Zealand Transport Strategy and the recommendations of the transport sector review reflect this Government’s commitment to achieving the New Zealand Transport Strategy vision of creating an affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system by 2010. 
I was pleased to note the support for the main features of the legislation which broaden the objectives and functions of the Civil Aviation Authority and the Maritime Safety Authority to align with the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy; dissolve the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund New Zealand and replace them with a new Crown land transport entity Land Transport New Zealand; and integrate safety funding with other land transport funding. 
The Transport Legislation Bill which is now split into four bills was referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which considered submissions from a range of interested parties. The majority of those submissions provided qualified support for the bill. Where there were concerns the committee has carefully considered those and made recommendations for improvement. The committee made a great job of further refining the bill and I fully support its recommendations. 
The changes that have been made to the legislation are technical in nature and largely respond to concerns about the prominence of safety and ensuring that the full range of New Zealand Transport Strategy objectives are considered in rule making. Those changes help to consolidate the policy principles underlying the legislation rather than represent any significant change in direction. Some have tried to argue that the concept of safety at reasonable cost should be retained. The New Zealand Transport Strategy reflects that New Zealand in the 21st century is a sophisticated place. Our society has a range of economic social and environmental goals. This legislation implements this Government’s policy as set out in its  
New Zealand Transport Strategy 
 by widening the focus of the relevant transport safety legislation from safety at reasonable cost to contributing to the aim of achieving an integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system. This provides a framework that can address the full range of transport objectives while taking into account economic social and environmental considerations as well as those pertaining to safety. The legislation does not mean that safety is less important and the changes made to the legislation by the House make it clear that safety continues to be a significant consideration. 
 The legislation also provides the institutional arrangements for the Government’s transport sector agencies that will underpin the strategy. This includes the establishment of a new Crown transport entity Land Transport New Zealand. These arrangements will overcome past fragmentation and enable the sector to take a broader and more collaborative approach to transport planning and management. The Government intends that New Zealanders will be well served by an integrated affordable safe and sustainable transport system as envisaged in the  
New Zealand Transport Strategy 
. There is a need for the Government transport agencies as a whole to jointly own and contribute to the achievement of the strategy. The Government is getting New Zealand moving again. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 What a disappointing third reading speech that was. Here we have four bills being debated as one and the Minister has had weeks to prepare an erudite exciting blistering defence but I have to say that I have heard the Goons reading stuff late at night on National Radio with more fervour than that Minister can manage. 
National Party members are very sad that we are having to vote against these four bills which started off as one because in the main we support the general thrust of what was trying to be achieved. The previous Minister quite rightly decided after a number of years of the new regime that it was time to review. If we go back to the early 1990s there was just the one monolithic the Ministry of Transport which had been broken up into various components—the Civil Aviation Authority the Maritime Safety Authority the Transport Accident Investigation Commission the Land Transport Safety Authority and a whole range of others. Then Transit was broken up into Transfund and Transit in terms of the State highway. It was clearly time to go back to review and to look at those agencies and at whether there was duplication—or quadruplication in some cases—to see where we could get rationalisation without compromising specific roles. 
The key objective was to do two things. One was to try to make operational issues lie within the operational units and to bring policy issues back to the Ministry of Transport where they should lie and we applaud the Government for doing that. Had National been in power at present I think our review would have come up with a very similar finding. We think that is right. I think it was wrong to leave the Land Transport Safety Authority with some of the control and the powers it had. The authority used to drive me nuts when I was Minister and I used to think that that control should be back in the ministry where the Minister at least has some say—I have to say not all that one would like to have but that will be for another day. However when it came to operational areas where the authority should be working on operational matters the policy function has now been taken out. We applaud that. 
The second thing I was worried about is that it was rumoured the Government might re-merge the funder/provider split within Transit and Transfund. I am delighted to see that it did not do that. There was a worry that this Government would say that it did not need those two separate bodies and that it would now make Transit and Transfund one again. I have to say that would be a great mistake because in the past there were all sorts of accusations—some real some imaginary—that Transit while it was both the funder of all roading and the provider of State highways had a conflict of interest in maybe deciding to do its own roads before it did others. 
So again I was very pleased to see the Government decide not to combine them. It realised that there does not need to be two boards two executive management teams two public relations groups and all the other peripheral systems that go with those agencies. So the proposal was to move the Land Transport Safety Authority and the Transfund funding operation into the one body called Land Transport New Zealand. Again the National Party agrees with that. 
Now anybody listening to my speech would say that until this point it sounds as if I think what has happened is good. The answer to that is yes—absolutely. However I simply cannot understand the Government doing one last thing that has forced us to vote against the legislation. The Government has taken out the absolutely crucial benchmark measure that one has to have in transport which is “safety at reasonable cost”. I will say it again for those who are listening for the first time to this debate that that measure is important when one is making proper judgment calls on decisions about any transport policy. If there was not the “at reasonable cost” measure one proposal that the Minister already could come up with today to save hundreds of deaths on the road would be to set the speed limit at 5 kilometres per hour. The Minister could do that. He could say: “Right we are moving to a 5 kilometres per hour speed limit on the roads.” There would probably be almost no deaths other than from boredom but it would not be at reasonable cost. The economy would collapse New Zealand would not function as a nation and we would not be able to get our goods and services to market. So it would be a stupid law. 
However while there was “safety at reasonable cost” within the legislation where a proper measure could be used whenever a proposal came up—be it realigning a road building a new bridge some new vehicle standards or emission standards or whatever—one could measure the cost. In the case of aviation whether it was to do with certification of aircraft and so on it was quite clearly possible to measure the cost of doing it. One could quite clearly measure what the benefits would be to the economy overall such as whether it would save a number of lives reduce congestion improve traffic flows and so on. 
The old rule of “safety at reasonable cost” simply said: “Go ahead and do it if the benefits to the economy are more than the cost of doing it.” I simply do not know anybody from an apparatchik in the Czechoslovakian Communist party to the extreme John Birch Society of the United States who cannot see that it is a sensible rule. “Do not do it unless the benefits outweigh the costs.” Sometimes the benefits might be three times the cost or it might be four or five times the benefit-cost ratio but at least the benefits of doing something have to be greater than the costs. But here is the rub: the Greens got into the act with their mucky grubby little hands as they do and squeezed the Labour Government. They said: “We don’t like ‘safety at reasonable cost’ because with that in place we’ll never get logs carried from forests on bicycles.” 
Darren Hughes 
: How did you find out? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: One of the members leaked it to me. The Greens said they wanted that clause out. The Labour Government was reasonably sensible and all the rest of it. I could find no officials’ advice that said to take out the words “safety at reasonable cost”. But it was exactly as the Greens wanted. 
I know that the Prime Minister Helen Clark told people in Auckland including the previous Mayor of Auckland that she regretted letting the Greens get so much of their way on the old land transport management legislation and I say to the Labour Government that it will regret letting the Greens get so much of a say on this legislation as well. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government is not prepared to use that discipline. And it is a very strong discipline. 
When I was a Minister every time officials got wheeled into my office the first thing I used to flick to was the benefit-cost ratios and I would ask: “What are you suggesting this for? This has got a lunatic cost to the nation and as far as I can see almost no benefit.” So the issue was killed. However other proposals when wheeled up looked good. I have to say that the one I do not think we even got to doing a benefit-cost appraisal on—because I went nuclear on it—was the Land Transport Safety Authority suggestion that we might use safety helmets for motorcar drivers. No economy in the world does that. Anyone who does a benefit-cost ratio would realise just what a stupid proposal that was. However that proposal could raise its ugly head again. 
I want to know from the Minister why he would not want that discipline. Why would he as Minister not want to know he could sleep soundly in bed at night while officials beaver away on the next little light bulb that lights up in their heads knowing that at least they could not go outside the bounds of “safety at reasonable cost”— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: We don’t fear them; we just tell them what to do. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I tell the Minister that he should fear them. He should greatly fear some of the officials within some of these agencies. Be afraid I say to the Minister be very afraid. They sit there daily thinking that because they are being paid they had better come up with another idea—something else that is stupid like the window-tinting issue. If the Minister ever wants to know about losing sleep let the Land Transport Safety Authority take him through the window-tinting issue again and see how he feels about it. Again that window-tinting issue was very clearly able to be dealt with when we looked at what the benefits were to the economy compared with the ludicrous costs that were to be put in place. 
So I say again the National Party will oppose the four bills that come out of the Transport Legislation Bill—the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill and the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill—for one simple reason: had the Minister been prepared to leave a sensible statement in the legislation that all safety would be delivered at reasonable cost then we would have signed up to it on the day and there would have been no need to have a split vote. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 That was a disappointing speech. I know that the member is in fact rejoicing as he will no longer have to pay the counsellor he has been visiting ever since he was the Minister of Transport about his worries and fears of having to deal with The Land Transport Safety Authority. He has told everybody in the country his stories of horror about the Land Transport Safety Authority. Here is legislation that actually does away with an organisation that Maurice Williamson has denigrated from one end of the country to the other and his miserable party will not even let him have a personal vote to support the Government. He absolutely wants to do that because he knows that this is good legislation that it is a sensible measure and that it is a big step forward. Mr Williamson has been whipped into line and made to vote against legislation that he knows is eminently sensible and very workable. 
He also knows as the Minister would tell him if he had another speech that all of the advice from right across the board on that so-called wonderful “reasonable cost” apparatus said that it did not work. It was well passed its use-by date and select committee members who visited the Maritime Safety Authority’s rescue coordination centre were scratching their heads as to why a lot more was not being done in the area of water safety in this country. I told them why: reasonable cost in the law stopped them from doing it because reasonable cost in those frameworks is dependent on how much money there is to do it in the beginning. And if we have a miserable Government like the National Government was that is not able to put any money into safety then reasonable cost is used as an excuse to do nothing. “Reasonable cost” becomes “least cost”. 
There are a significant number of people who are concerned about safety in this land who have come up against reasonable cost not as a sensible measure of whether the Government should act in a particular way but as an excuse for doing nothing. When we became the Government we put real money into the safety programmes of areas that had been starved of money—and look at the results. We have a much better result in the area of road safety. We are seeing improvements in all of those other areas that were starved of funding. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: The cost is going up. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE 
: That has nothing to do with reasonable cost. If the member opposite would care to read some of the words that he knows are in the law he would see that they talk about assisting economic development. How could we put a stupid rule or law into place that had to be tested against that one alone? It would very quickly be in front of the courts. Industries that are concerned about unreasonable costs being put upon them would ask how a stupid rule or law that adds so much cost for so little benefit could get through the tests that any law changes or rules would have to get through. 
So it is a nonsense for National Party members to say they are voting against this legislation because “reasonable cost” has been taken out. It is just pathetic Opposition politics. They did not like the fact that the Greens might have had a say so they decided to vote against it—I mean let us grow up here. That is not any basis on which to have a policy. But that is what passes for policy in the National Party nowadays. 
If Mr Williamson was given his head and allowed to do his thing he would be voting for this legislation. He would be celebrating and saying that yes the Land Transport Safety Authority used to drive him mad as a Minister and it is good to get rid of it. But he would also say as I would to the chair of that authority and its board members that in terms of the revenue-gathering side it is a job well done. They have put together one of the best pieces of computer work in this nation to do the job they do in that area. Yes they put up some advice on safety that Ministers would tear their hair out about but that is their job. It is called free and frank advice and sensible Government processes see the bad stuff put aside and the good stuff come through. 
 We have got transport working in this country in the last 5 years cooperatively with parties such as the Greens in a way that the Tories never managed. Here they are beating their chests about how great they are at doing things and how many motorways they would build and we cannot find any anywhere that they actually built in 9 long years. When we go around the country we see there is an enormous deficit of transport infrastructure and it is all down to 9 years of pontification by the National Party. National wrote a policy  
Better Transport Better Roads 
 which was thrown in the rubbish bin and rejected. It fills a cupboard in the Minister of Transport’s office. It has been kept as a memento and a reminder of the foolishness of the National Party which upset every Tory council in the country. 
When I visited the councils as the new Minister of Transport they could not believe it. They said: “This is a Minister of Transport who wants to listen.” and I did. They said: “We don’t need great revolutions; we just need sensible Government and some money.” So that is what we have given them. The Green Party and the Labour Party can be proud of the work that is going on. The busway in Auckland is under way and the biggest motorway project in Auckland in many many decades is actually being built. A lot of Auckland MPs who visited that project last week were amazed at what this Government has been able to achieve in such a short time and this legislation will push it along even further. I just wish Mr Williamson was allowed to vote for it instead of being whipped by his party and being told what to do. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I think that the former Minister of Transport summed it up pretty well and New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation. However I think to some degree that the Government will be hoist with its own petard for want of a better statement. 
One of the four bills that this legislation has been split into is the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2). So that members fully understand it I will quote from section 14 “Objectives of Minister” which is proposed to be substituted for the current section 14 of the Civil Aviation Act by clause 5 of the bill. It provides that: “The objectives of the Minister under this Act are—(a) to undertake the Minister’s functions in a way that contributes to the aim of achieving an integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system; …” and so it goes on. The bit that concerns me is the term “responsive”. 
Right now as I speak in this House the Director of Civil Aviation has grounded 10 Wessex helicopters that were brought into the country for logging purposes and there has been no adequate explanation. Only this very afternoon I asked the Minister for Transport Safety some questions and I have to say that the answers were less than satisfactory. The director must give a reason to that company for not allowing those helicopters to fly. It is ridiculous in New Zealand First’s view that the company has had to take out an injunction which will be heard tomorrow against the director and ask the judge to determine a course of action. The Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) will I believe put a greater onus on the Minister to ensure that there is a reasonable response in a timely fashion. 
Another bill embraced by this legislation is the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. This is probably the major concern when it comes to the argument over reasonable cost. I thought that the Hon Maurice Williamson made some very sensible and cogent remarks but the examples he used were somewhat childish. He could have used better examples of the application of reasonable cost. Again I think the Government will be hoist with its own petard on this because the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill refers to assisting economic development. 
One area that needs to be developed in this country is our roading system. It has been starved of funding for many many years. Regrettably although the Government is endeavouring to do something towards addressing the roading problem it has not done enough. It has not adopted what New Zealand First would term a businesslike approach. It is still carrying on the old method of a “pay as you go” type of approach. No area is suffering more from this approach than areas of Auckland in particular and Tauranga. I believe that Wellington is suffering to a lesser degree and that places further south are suffering to an even lesser degree still. 
In terms of Tauranga we need a second harbour bridge and we need it now. It should be funded by Transit. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: There is not enough money. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well if the Minister took a businesslike approach to funding there would be plenty of money. We do not need to increase the petrol tax—as the Government is about to do—and we do not need to implement a tolling regime. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Sounds like Social Credit to me. 
PETER BROWN 
: No it is not Social Credit. It is the exact same way that any major business would fund capital development anywhere in the country. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: You mean borrow? 
PETER BROWN 
: I mean borrow and— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: How will you service the loan? 
PETER BROWN 
: We will service the loan by using the money that comes through from road-user charges and petrol tax that is currently— 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: It will cost a lot more. 
PETER BROWN 
: It will not cost more and I do not mind entering into a debate on this. It will not cost a lot more. It will cost more but we will have the roads in place more quickly and the economic gains from those roads being in place will be huge. The Automobile Association commissioned a report called the Allen report and I invite members to read it. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: We have it. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well read it and take it on board because it points out very very clearly the economic gains. 
Getting back to the legislation I believe that inserting the provision “assisting economic development” in the Land Transport Management Act will give greater thrust to taking a businesslike approach to developing roading in this country and to making it safe and practical for all involved. We do not need tolls or to increase the road tax regime. It is deplorable what New Zealanders are forced to pay right now. 
One aspect about this bill that does concern me and which I must mention is the fact that the Government did not make it simpler. The definition of “land transport” to be inserted in section 5 of the Land Transport Management Act by clause 25(2) of the bill embraces “coastal shipping (including transport by means of harbour ferries or ferries or barges on rivers or lakes) and associated infrastructure”. I understand that provision is talking about funding only. So why does the bill not just simply say that? It could say that for the purposes of this bill coastal shipping ferries and so on can get funding from the appropriate organisation which would be Transfund. I do not see why the bill has to define coastal shipping as a means of land transport. Later on the bill states that transport on land does not include ships ferries and what have you. To me that complicates a fairly simple issue. I think it would be a hard job for many New Zealanders to understand that provision. 
A third area of concern is the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and a fourth bill the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill. The Maritime Transport Amendment Bill effectively changes the name of the Maritime Safety Authority to Maritime New Zealand. We think with its increased responsibilities that is a sensible way to go and it is only right and practical. Most of this legislation is common-sense stuff. Most of it will improve the situation in this country. 
I would like in my final comments to refer to the benefit ratio of reasonable cost. That was an argument that was well put up by some submitters and was of some considerable concern. However hopefully the wording in this legislation that refers to economic gains will overcome those difficulties. 
 I hope that a practical common-sense application will be applied to the various issues that will arise. The one that sticks in my mind as being rather naive is putting seat belts in school buses. The cost of that would be totally impractical and I hope that there is no drive as a result of this legislation to push for what one might call impractical and unreasonable solutions. I believe that would be against the clauses that refer to assisting economic development. So I am hopeful that the Government and all the officials in the various departments who will administer this legislation will take a common-sense approach to it. 
New Zealand First will support this legislation. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party opposes the third readings of the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill and the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill which were split out from the Transport Legislation Bill. 
Firstly I would like to go back to the way in which these amendments were introduced under the one bill. The Transport Legislation Bill was introduced into the House on 12 August and the Government dispensed with Standing Orders 191 to 194 so that the Transport and Industrial Committee could meet on Fridays and every evening when the House was sitting. The Minister rammed through the legislation so that the select committee had to report back in October. The select committee was given just under 6 weeks—from the time when the Transport Legislation Bill was introduced to when it had to be reported back to the House. 
Increasingly this Government is using the moving of a referral motion to set aside the Standing Orders. We see that as an abuse of power that affects small parties that do not have representation on all select committees. Some members of smaller parties are on more than one select committee. It is also an abuse of power for the submitters whose time to make submissions is considerably shortened. I must say that the chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee is fair. He does do his best to let submitters have their say and allows for a decent amount of time to be given for questions. However he too is under pressure. We are debating four major pieces of legislation and we have seen them rushed through in just over 6 weeks if one takes the time up to their third readings. That is the first reason why the ACT party is opposed to this legislation. 
Secondly the original bill was supposed to be focused on a reorganisation of the Crown entities that were involved with transport. Instead this Government has used that excuse as a way to bring in legislation to codify the  
New Zealand Transport Strategy  
that was brought out in December 2002. That was part of the deal between the Greens and the Labour Government. It is one of the reasons the select committee never got to see the Ross Armstrong inquiry into public-private partnerships. We will never know for sure what went on between the Labour Government and the Greens at the dinners at Hoffman’s restaurant in Wellington. A deal was done whereby the Greens would not support that inquiry because they were desperate to have the  
New Zealand Transport Strategy 
 which they had co-written come into legislation and in particular the sustainability filter that we will see increasingly brought into legislation—and Jeanette Fitzsimons is nodding her head; she is not disagreeing with me. I think those situations that we get under MMP where we see those sorts of deals are abhorrent. 
The Labour Government calls this legislation vision. It says that the New Zealand Transport Strategy is a vision of an affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system. For people stuck in traffic not just in Auckland but in Wellington—people coming into the city from the Kapiti coast the Hutt and Eastbourne—its vision for transport does not include sustainability. It involves people getting to work on time and getting to the doctor in the shortest time possible so that people can get back to work and not have their time deducted. It means people picking up their children from school and taking them to sport and going to the supermarket. None of those issues will be made any easier by any of the transport legislation that we see going through the House. The  
New Zealand Transport Strategy 
 talks about land transport but land transport in this country does not mean just road and rail any more. It includes maritime transport and air transport. It would be a great surprise now to all of those who have travelled by boat ship plane or helicopter to know that those are now classified under land transport. 
People who know that New Zealand has huge transport problems think that this legislation will solve their problems. They should know that it will not fix a single thing. The Government says that it wants to promote economic growth. How can economic growth be promoted when sustainability must be ensured under this legislation? Sustainability must be ensured and not just considered. It has a higher grading under this legislation than safety. As several speakers have already said safety at a reasonable cost has gone. Mark Gosche was possibly right. Yes safety was used as an excuse sometimes to do nothing but that does not mean to say that it had to be used to do nothing. It could still be used to progress transport. 
But sustainability cannot be defined. Even the Greens cannot define sustainability. We are not talking about sustainable yield here. Under this legislation we know that sustainability will now include endless consultation with all manner of organisations including “affected communities public and Maori.” So Maori are not part of affected communities or part of the public; they are something separate. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Separatists. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: It is separatism. Maori must be consulted when any form of land transport strategy is drawn up. We know what that means. The public sure knows what that means by now. All of those people who are still wasting time trying to travel between Hamilton and Auckland know what consultation with Maori means. It means that a taniwha will pop up when a culvert has to be put in or when a bend has to be made in a road. All those taniwhas pop up and miraculously they disappear when the chequebook from the road builders comes out. I do not know where those taniwha go. I suspect that they pop up somewhere else only to disappear again when the right price is paid. 
But as I have said sustainability is now more important than safety. When people climb into a helicopter or an aeroplane what is the first thing they think of and what do they check? Do they check how kind to the environment that company has been or do they think about how many accidents that company has had or how many fatalities? People who fly are more concerned about safety and having their safety ensured as far as is possible than having the environment sustained as far as possible. When I fly to Picton on Sounds Air the plane lands on the airstrip at Koromiko which has a row of trees that have to be trimmed for safety. I could not care whether those trees are pine kauri or sacred to Maori. People’s safety is far more important than whether those trees should be sustained. If that is what the Greens mean by sustainability then they have a lot of explaining to do. 
If this Government is serious about promoting economic growth it would realise that it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that to allow the transport industry—that is road air and sea—to develop and grow and to promote economic growth it has to be done with minimum regulation and compliance restraints. There was a good intention in the legislation in terms of reorganising the Crown entities but it has been ruined by a Government that is regulation-mad and compliance-obsessed. We will not be supporting the legislation. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Greens are of course supporting the legislation which is the last piece of structural legislation needed to implement the New Zealand Transport Strategy the others being the Land Transport Management Act and the Auckland transport legislation. So this legislation is a landmark that puts in place a 21st century approach to transport which is very different from what we have had in the past. But it is only the beginning of the culture change that is needed to make this legislation work on the ground and in practice. 
The most important thing it does is merge Transfund and the Land Transport Safety Authority into Land Transport New Zealand which has the promotion of sustainable land transport as one of its statutory functions. This sustainability imperative is new and it will be a major challenge that needs a culture change right through the transport sector to make it work. But we are encouraged that it is now to be law. Deborah Coddington remarks that it is abhorrent that sustainability increasingly will be brought into legislation. Well I have to say that the Greens take a different view. We believe that the ability of our society and our economy to continue to function long term into the future is one of the most important things that we should bring into legislation in this country and we are glad to see it happening through cooperation between the Government and the Greens. 
The new entity of Land Transport New Zealand will be an active advocate for a safe sustainable integrated and responsive land transport system. It is an organisation that will have considerable local and regional outreach through offices out in the community and this will help with the new relationships that it needs to build with the community. It is the end of the old idea of legislation gradually being put in place to provide for the corporatisation of roads. The idea was that it would all just happen through the market if one created a corporate entity and left it to do it by itself. Well that clearly did not happen in the 1990s and we now have a much more hands-on transport-planning process that is driven by community needs. 
The staff of the new entity will face a challenge in learning to work with community groups and in broadening their horizons to take on board all five objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy. We will be watching closely to see how the entity rises to the challenge of building those partnerships with community organisations so that when transport infrastructure is built it is built in response to the needs of the community and with the support of the community. There will be far less hassle at the Environment Court and at later stages if that proper planning and consultation is done at the beginning so that the infrastructure is widely agreed to. Bike Wise is a good example of how those partnerships can deliver excellent results and we are very pleased to have been able to help find a funding solution to keep Bike Wise going so that that national strategic focus on assisting cycling strategies is able to continue. 
The other important thing the legislation does is align all the safety agencies with the principles of the New Zealand Transport Strategy so that they all now have the objective of providing a safe sustainable integrated and responsive transport system. I have to say that all this fuss that is happening over “safety at reasonable cost” is a smokescreen and a diversion. It is actually an absurdity that people are getting so worked up about this. The concept of “safety at reasonable cost” is already embraced in the five objectives of the strategy. The agencies do not have any ability to provide safety without considering cost—the economic development imperative assures that. The safety imperative is there but it is simply broadened to include being responsive to the community to include public health issues and to include sustainability issues. 
Making sure that projects deliver on all of the five objectives of the strategy is a complex balancing act and that is now provided for in the law. It is more complex than “safety at reasonable cost” but it is also more real. The trouble with “safety at reasonable cost” was that it depended on a narrow and rigid cost-benefit analysis which hung entirely on what price one chose to put on a human life. If anybody thinks there is an objective measure of the price one should put on a human life then that person has taken economics to an absurd extreme. These things are value judgments and it is much more honest to admit that at the heart of transport spending there will be value judgments about how we weigh and balance these five much broader objectives rather than our just saying: “Right because we valued a human life at $2 million the benefit-cost ratio came out positive and therefore we should build this bit of road.” We also know that an awful lot of projects that would not meet the benefit-cost ratio were redrafted to pretend they were safety projects in order to come up with figures that would meet the benefit-cost ratio. So this was never an objective analysis; it was always just a way of trying to make the figures suit one’s purposes. 
We look forward to the next part of the New Zealand Transport Strategy being implemented and that is vehicle emission testing which will occur in 2006. Under the new framework we will have better air quality cleaner vehicles and higher standards for what can come out of the exhaust pipe. 
I am glad that the legislation does not in fact promote Peter Brown’s idea of passing the costs of roads we might want to build now on to future generations by funding them totally through borrowing. I make the point in case it has escaped some people’s notice that future generations will actually have quite a burden to cope with. For one thing if we build a lot of roads now and defer the capital costs that will mean a much higher maintenance cost for future generations to cope with. In addition to that they will be coping with much higher fuel prices because of the world oil situation and on top of that they will be coping with the costs of climate change and the energy policy changes that are needed to meet the climate change imperative. If on top of those challenges we also require them to find the capital plus interest costs to pay for roads we want to build now we are passing a completely unfair and unsustainable burden on to future generations and I am glad that the legislation does not do that. 
Another matter that is dealt with in these bills is that the rule covering regional land transport committees is amended to clarify that those committees which are of course central to the implementation in the regions of the objectives of the strategy and the legislation have a balanced mix in terms of the five objectives of the strategy and that the representatives on those committees are drawn from the wider community. It was always intended that regional land transport committees should draw in people with experience in public health experience in sustainability and experience in access for and mobility of the disadvantaged so that they can contribute directly on those committees and not simply assign those purposes to people who were already there for other reasons. So we see that as a very positive change. 
We look forward to the revised land transport strategies which those committees will produce and to the growing sustainability safety and human responsiveness of the New Zealand transport system as a result of this legislation. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on these land transport bills. I speak on behalf of our good member Larry Baldock who has done a wonderful job on transportation issues. I see here that the Government has removed that provision relating to “safety at reasonable cost” but I say to the Minister of Transport that surely he should have put in “safety at reasonable speed” which would probably be about 120 kilometres an hour! Obviously that was overlooked but never mind. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Petrolhead! 
PAUL ADAMS 
: That is correct! I just pick up on what Jeanette Fitzsimons was saying about borrowing to fund roading being provided now. Surely if I bought a house 20 years ago at a certain price and only today am I having to pay the interest on it that has to be far more cost-effective than trying to find the money 20 years later and having to pay $400000 or $500000 for a product I could have bought 20 years ago for less. I think the Greens also fail to understand that if roads are put into place now that will have benefits for the economy because transport will be speeded up and businesses will operate far more efficiently. 
But never mind I come back to this legislation which United Future is very happy to support. It is long past the time that the Government transport sector should have been restructured in such a way that a single agency had the authority and the resources to take the lead in developing and implementing transport policy and that administrative overlap and wastage were minimised. I think that one of the great things about this legislation is that a lot of that overlap and wastage will be minimised. 
United Future has worked closely on transport issues with this Government. We are determined to see the problem of the chronic underfunding of New Zealand’s transport infrastructure addressed and we are determined to see reforms that will enable much-needed new roading projects all over the country to be expedited. We have already made significant legislative reforms that will enable alternative sources of funding such as the utilisation of public-private partnerships. We have also ensured that extra funding for all regions—not just Auckland—will be made available from petrol excise tax and that a more favourable proportion of that tax will actually be spent on roads rather than ending up in the Crown account. 
However there is little point in securing extra funding if it will just be frittered away by an uncoordinated bureaucracy or tied up while projects are waiting to get the go-ahead. That is why United Future is so pleased to see this legislation. By strengthening the role of the Ministry of Transport that single agency will be able to take the lead in developing and implementing transport strategy. Rather than having one agency pulling in one direction and another pulling in another and both spending road-funding money in an inefficient and uncoordinated manner as they go we will see road money being spent strategically and efficiently thereby maximising the gains from increased funding. 
United Future is also pleased to see resolved the longstanding issue over which agency should have primary responsibility for undertaking search and rescue coordination. By enabling the Minister of Transport to direct the new maritime transport authority rather than the Civil Aviation Authority to carry out the management and administration of national search and rescue in the future we will hopefully see better search and rescue coverage and response times and avoid a repeat of the incident near Oamaru that resulted in tragic loss of life. 
So United Future is happy to support this legislation at its third reading. 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in support of the third reading of this transport legislation. In dealing with the last point raised by the previous speaker I say that I too am pleased to see improvements in the coordination of search and rescue services. As the member is probably quite aware the present and previous Ministers of Transport addressed that matter following the local member expressing his concerns about the coordination of a search and rescue effort off Kakanui that was less than desirable as a consequence of which there were some delays in the dispatch of helicopters. If there had not been any delays that might—or might not—have led to a different outcome for that rescue. 
But more important this legislation assists in meeting the Government’s five objectives in respect of transport. The first is to assist economic development. We need a smooth transportation system of course to ensure that our products get to port and then further afield in the most cost-effective and safe way possible. The second objective is to assist safety and personal security. Our third objective is to improve access and mobility for all people. The fourth is to promote and protect public health. Obviously we do not want to undermine public health through inappropriate transportation systems. Last and allied to that we want to ensure the environmental sustainability of our transport system. 
Will this work and has the transport strategy that the Government embarked on over the last few years been working? I think two recent instances give good examples of progress being made. One was the purchase back by the Crown of an interest in rail at the same time that Toll Holdings took over ownership of Tranz Rail. That company of course promised to invest substantial amounts in rolling stock in consideration of the Government contributing money to the upgrade of the rail network and we have seen that strategy begin to bear fruit in the minimising of the costs of road transport. The Minister of Transport in question time today made reference to the announcement made by Fonterra and Toll Holdings—or Tranz Rail—last week. Fonterra announced that it is moving some tens of thousands of tonnes of dairy produce by rail from its major factories in the North Island directly to ports. I think—and the Minister can correct me if I have the number wrong—that 45000— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: 45000 truck movements. 
DAVID PARKER 
 —truck movements a year will be avoided through the increased volume of freight that is being transported by rail— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: And there’s more of that to come. 
DAVID PARKER 
: There are many more examples like that as the Minister points out. That proves that the Government’s integrated approach to transport in New Zealand is working. In addition to the increased movements by rail there have been recent announcements of barging of aggregate to major metropolitan centres being used to avoid road transport. Again that is a cost-effective environmentally sustainable way of transporting goods that decreases the load on the road network and that makes our roads more pleasant to use as drivers do not have to contend with as many trucks. It also makes good economic sense because we do not have to build extra road infrastructure; the volumes of freight that are being taken through other modes of transport like rail and barging do not have to be catered for by the roading system. 
We have also seen progress on the motorway system in Auckland. A large number of projects are now under way including some long-overdue linking of the motorway system and the traffic is starting to move a little bit more freely in Auckland. But there is still some way to go up there. 
One of the things that the Minister of Transport and the Prime Minister have taken an interest in is the need for equitable spreading of the transport funding throughout the different regions of New Zealand. I know that the road funding formula that was previously used by Transfund put too much weight on safety issues the effect of which was that if people were stuck in a traffic jam in Auckland that traffic jam might have been terribly inefficient it might have caused unnecessary pollution and it might have hamstrung the Auckland economy but it was not a problem because there were no safety considerations in terms of people being stuck in traffic jams. As a consequence the Government has changed the funding formula so that it has regard to things other than safety. 
Initially in the first re-cut of budgets by Transfund the weighting went almost exclusively to Auckland. Again the Minister and Prime Minister intervened and said that was not fair either. One injustice is not cured by the creation of another. So the Government through its policy framework ensured there was an equitable funding formula that ensures that all regions of New Zealand like my own province of Otago—and including Auckland but not only Auckland—get a fair share of the revenue. We see that coming through in more passing lanes better bridges and wider and safer roads. We are also seeing contributions to public transportation in an effort again to give people alternatives to driving with just one person in a car at a time. We are seeing advances in public transport particularly in the larger metropolitan centres. 
So I commend the Minister for this legislation. I also agree with him that the select committee made some significant improvements to the form of the legislation. Other parties contributed to the legislation as well and I thank them for it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Well I guess that that speech is an indication as to why that member’s seat will be changing hands at the next election. One of the extraordinary things we have learnt is that it is dangerous for a member from the far end of another island to apparently speak knowledgably about issues in Auckland because if he knew the truth he would know that we have been waiting on the North Shore—and Madam Speaker will be well aware of this—nearly a decade for the North Shore busway. The Government has been in office now for 5 years and not a sod has been turned so it is extraordinary for the Government to stand up and boast that it is solving the transport problems. The problem is that there is very little action. 
I will pick up on a comment made by Mr Peter Brown from the New Zealand First Party because I found it to be particularly interesting. He said that New Zealand First was fundamentally opposed to tolls. Mr Brown comes from Tauranga and will be well aware that the bridge in Tauranga would not exist but for tolls. That is the reality although I appreciate that the tolls have subsequently been removed. Mr Winston Peters the leader of that party has been the member for Tauranga for the entire period involved and no doubt supported the erection of that bridge presumably with tolls. He knew that it would not be built without tolls. More seriously however how on earth can there be public-private partnerships unless there is a degree of tolls? Has New Zealand First or for that matter the Government even thought about the fact that the whole reason that Australia is able to have an effective programme of road building in the major cities—Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane in particular—is precisely that it has tolls? The tolls are the funding stream fundamentally for the public-private partnerships. Without that those projects would simply never have been completed.  
Let us contrast that with what occurs in New Zealand. We have a very ineffective regime that was introduced last year. It is very ineffective indeed and as a consequence there has been no real progress on some of the major infrastructure projects. I refer the House and the Deputy Speaker to an issue that I am particularly interested in: the matter of the second harbour crossing. Currently 160000 vehicles cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge. On projected rates of growth that will rise to between 200000 and 250000 vehicles within the space of 10 years. Even at $2 per vehicle that translates into a revenue stream of something like $140 million. That is the sort of revenue needed to build a project like a second harbour crossing particularly if it involves a tunnel. If the New Zealand First Party and because of the limitations around the Government’s legislation Labour are so blind to those opportunities then there is no hope that a project like a second major harbour crossing can be completed. Yet that is exactly what the Auckland region needs. So I would say to both the Government and its helpers—in this case New Zealand First—that they should take their blinkers off look at what Australia has done effectively and repeat the formula here. Motorists and other citizens are crying out for real results.  
We are opposed to the legislation and we are particularly opposed to it on two grounds. The first is the removal of the phrase “safety at reasonable cost”. It was simply a ludicrous proposition for the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to suggest that Maurice Williamson did not support our position. Maurice Williamson wrote the minority report on the Transport Legislation Bill. The reason he wrote it of course was that he was the Minister when “safety at reasonable cost” was introduced. It was Mr Williamson’s initiative that brought that into place. Now the Government wants to cancel it and substitute words that are frankly no longer capable of precise meaning. They can be interpreted in pretty much any way that one wants. I have no doubt that the Government or the authority will do precisely that. We will see references to sustainability economic balance and all those sorts of words that are not capable of precise meaning. Because they are not capable of precise meaning we will get no sense of prioritisation no sense of ranking and no sense of the allocation of scarce resources. Blind alleys will be pursued effective transport solutions will be ignored and public funds will be wasted. That is the scenario we are looking at. Therefore I guess it is not surprising that the Greens support this legislation. I find that to be most disappointing. I would acknowledge in this particular instance that New Zealand First recognises the importance and seriousness of the removal of those words.  
The other issue I wish to deal with is the insertion of the consultation rules in clause 30 of the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. They refer to Transit every affected regional council every affected territorial authority affected approved organisations—I wonder what an “affected approved organisation” is—the Ministry of Health the Accident Compensation Corporation the Commissioner of Police the Secretary for Transport the Ministry of Justice land transport users and providers affected communities and—get this—Maori and the public. What is different about Maori that would not make them an affected community or members of the public? Where is the oft-stated mantra which I have even heard the Maori Party talk about—of one law for all? TarianaTuria was obviously using it in an unusual situation in her desire to have police protection because of the SIS.. Clause 30 is a breach of the principle of one law for all. Surely it is reasonable in 21st century New Zealand that we treat all citizens alike and that we all have equal rights of consultation. That is the very foundation of our democracy. Instead we are building and deepening into our law provisions that separate people out by virtue of their ethnicity. Surely if a particular community is affected such as Ruatoria that will encompass the Maori residents of that community in relation to a particular project.  
What is the difference between Maori and the affected public generally or the affected community? The answer in relation to land transport is nothing. Maori have the same interest in land transport as the general public. We are not talking about the issue of Maori land or the language where specific and separate consultation may be expected. We are talking about issues that affect all of us equally and that affect particular communities in particular ways. On that basis also we are opposed to this legislation. I know that Government members will say that that was in the previous legislation. We in National have been reviewing the way we look at things. It is absolutely clear—and even the Government has some minor recognition of this—that New Zealanders are crying out for our laws to treat us equally where they affect matters of general interest. So along with the issues around the removal of the phrase “safety at reasonable cost” that is also a profound reason why we are not able to support this legislation. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to speak to this legislation which is divided into four bills as it completes its third reading. I say to the member who has just resumed his seat who I believe represents the electorate of North Shore that he began his speech with a fairly lacklustre attack on the Government for taking as he said 5 years to do something about reducing congestion in Auckland and so on. I was really surprised that Dr Mapp did not give credit where it was due. After all the previous National Government which he was a member of took 9 years and achieved virtually nil. Last week this Government let the contract for the new North Shore busway in his own electorate and he did not seem to know about that. That particular contract will ensure that a lot of North Shore commuters commute in a much speedier time when the new North Shore busway is built. So I was a bit surprised to hear that criticism. I have always thought of the member as a pretty decent sort of a joker and I would have thought he would give credit where it was due. I guess politics will always get in the way of the facts regardless of how good the argument may be. 
This transport legislation which is now in its third reading is about delivering an affordable integrated safe responsive and sustainable transport system for New Zealand by 2010. As the Minister for Transport Safety safety has been one of the things I have been particularly involved in. I am very much aware of some of the criticisms that some folk particularly from the aviation industry have made with regard to the removal of the “safety at reasonable cost” provision that was in the previous legislation. Many commentators talked about a diminution of safety but the real message behind that was the second part of the phrase—“at reasonable cost”. Some folk were very concerned that we may as a result have safety at unreasonable cost. Certainly some of the commentary from Opposition members has been about that. 
Let me assure members that safety has not been diminished. It is obviously a key part of the Government’s role. Indeed the Prime Minister and Cabinet have appointed me to the new position of Minister for Transport Safety in order that we continue to have the focus on safety that I have voiced throughout my parliamentary career. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Are you the first? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am indeed the first-ever Minister for Transport Safety in New Zealand. This legislation is not only about continuing the focus on safety but also about broadening the objectives and functions of the Civil Aviation Authority and the Maritime Safety Authority in order to align with the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy. Those who have been concerned about that development may like to note that we were a little on our own with regard to the wording that we had. Other countries have for many years had a similar approach to the one that our transport legislation now takes. 
This legislation effectively dissolves the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund New Zealand and replaces them with a new Crown land transport entity known as Land Transport New Zealand. It integrates safety funding with other land transport funding. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which I chaired in the previous Parliament has a long history of acting very responsibly and in most cases in a united fashion in terms of processing legislation such as this. It took on board concerns raised during the passage through the committee of the Transport Legislation Bill. Where concerns were raised the committee carefully considered them made recommendations for improvement and further refined the bill. It is pleasing to me that the changes have been largely technical in nature. The committee has responded to the concerns about the prominence of safety and has ensured that the full range of New Zealand Transport Strategy objectives are considered in rule making. Rule making is certainly an area that is a large part of the work I am involved with. The changes to the original bill are about ensuring that the policy principles underlying the legislation continue rather than representing any significant changes in focus or direction. Safety will be retained at reasonable cost. Safety at unreasonable cost clearly will not occur because that would be challenged. 
New Zealand in the 21st century has developed considerably since legislation on transport was first put in place. We have a huge number of competing goals that sometimes see complementary solutions. I am very pleased that this legislation will get New Zealand moving again. I am pleased that the Government sees that New Zealanders should be well served by an integrated affordable safe and sustainable transport system. As the Minister for Transport Safety members can be sure that I will do my utmost to ensure that safety remains at the core of that. 
I am concerned that in an area where one would think we should have for the greater good of our country some unanimity in Parliament we get at times into the business of seeing minority reports on what is essentially quite straightforward legislation. This legislation is about assisting economic development assisting safety and personal security improving access and mobility protecting and promoting public health and ensuring environmental sustainability. All of those one would consider are worthwhile objectives for any modern nation to espouse adopt and get on with. I see this legislation as doing exactly that. Those five objectives are very important for the future development of our country. I think that in the future we will look back in history and say that this legislation was a turning point for the better that ensured the continuing development in a sensible manner of our transport system. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I will take up a point that the previous National speaker raised about tolling. Mr Mapp pointed out that New Zealand First is against tolling. That is correct; we are against it. The issue he raised was quite irrelevant really. I ask Mr Mapp whether he has forgotten his statement that North Shore residents have been waiting for a busway for 10 years. I remind him that his party was in Government for at least 5 of those years; for probably the full 9 years of the National Government North Shore residents were waiting for bus lanes. In response to Mr Mapp’s suggestion that this Government has delayed the busway for 5 years I suggest that his party also did that for at least 5 years. 
I also point out that were it not for legislation that has just passed through the House the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2 would have been constructed by now. It was delayed because the opportunity to toll it was in the pipeline. Because of that legislation the construction of that road has been delayed. About this time last year Transit New Zealand had to apply to extend its resource consent in order to end the motorway in the middle of Orewa. It asked for an extension of 7 years but the courts allowed it only a 1-year extension. That road still has not been built. It will be interesting to see what happens. It has simply been delayed because of the prospect of tolling. 
The Transport Legislation Bill has been divided into multiple bills but the main issue I will talk about is the change to the Civil Aviation Act. That legislation better coordinates the search and rescue organisations. It provides for a structure that is coordinated. Under new sections 14B(2) and 14C inserted by clause 5 those mechanisms are put in place. New section 14B(2) states: “The Minister may authorise the payment out of money appropriated for the purpose …” of search and rescue “… to—(a) any person who assisted in a search and rescue operation …; or (b) the owners of any vehicle ship or aircraft …”. It is all very well reimbursing people for the use of those vehicles but there is a lot more to search and rescue than just using vehicles vessels and aircraft. I suggest that funding for some of the training of those organisations is sadly lacking and desperately needed. 
 I will give an example of a search and rescue organisation. I was fortunate enough to be invited out on the new Maraetai rescue vessel over the weekend. We went to the launch of the Hibiscus Coast sister ship. That was a search and rescue organisation that had been fortunate enough to obtain two of the support boats for the New Zealand Americas Cup team. It has had to fund those vessels the fitting out of those vessels and the manning of those vessels. The people are all volunteers. They do not get the funding they should. I do not believe they get enough funding certainly for their training. They only get funding for fuel when they are out on operation on a rescue. If they are out on a full training mission they do get some funding but when they have to train people on the ground and on the water separately they do not get any funding whatsoever. I suggest that that is not the best use of our rescue organisations. 
I would like to pick up on another part of this legislation: land transport. This legislation combines the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund into what is now Land Transport New Zealand. This is a good combination because finally we get some coordination between the two. It means that the funding has not been landed with Transit. That would have been a disaster. This legislation provides for a much easier process for funding. Certainly it makes safety paramount. The safety part of the legislation is the main reason New Zealand First will support it and therefore it is important that safety is paramount. 
I would just like to point out one of the issues this legislation is leading up to—and I have witnessed it recently. As of 1 November in the Clevedon electorate we have seen a reduction in speed limits. The speed limits on some of the highways around the Clevedon electorate have been reduced to 80 kilometres an hour. That is because the roads are of a low standard. Government after Government has failed to put funding into these roads. One of the excuses for reducing funding was that “safety at reasonable cost” has been removed. This sadly has left a situation where the Government has started reducing speed limits. I think Maurice Williamson suggested that the speed limit could be reduced to 5 kilometres an hour. That is a bizarre statement but we have seen speed limits reduced to 80 kilometres an hour because the funding has not been put into those roads where there is a high growth rate. 
I heard the Minister say and I heard Harry Duynhoven repeat that this Government is getting New Zealand moving again. I would suggest that it is getting us moving at a much slower rate than the rate we have been moving at until now. The Government is allowing speed limits to be reduced because it has not provided proper funding for the area. 
Mark Gosche made reference to a huge undertaking in central Auckland where they are completing the motorway interchanges. This is a huge task. It has taken over 40 years to complete. It is still not quite ready. I was one of the Auckland MPs who had the opportunity to inspect that area. It is a massive undertaking. There are motorways going underneath over the top and all over the place. “Spaghetti” is probably an understatement in describing that particular intersection. The Government’s provision for that is well placed. Certainly Auckland has needed it for a long long time. But the rest of the motorway system does need to be completed and it is a long way off yet. I hope the Government will allow the funding for that to come forward. 
New Zealand First is disappointed that the “safety at reasonable cost” provision has been removed but we will support the legislation because safety is paramount to us. “Safety at reasonable cost” would have been a satisfactory way of getting it—we would have preferred it—but we are not going to knock this legislation back purely because that provision is not there. 
I ask the Minister—and particularly Harry Duynhoven who had quite a bit to do with the Maraetai sea rescue vessel just recently—to see that some more funding is provided for training the crews particularly those who are volunteers. Funding is essential to make sure that the service is top class and that this legislation can come into proper being and provide the full service. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I am absolutely delighted to take part in this debate on the third reading of the transport bills. I have heard a number of speakers in this House particularly the Hon Maurice Williamson saying that National is not going to support this legislation. I am absolutely astonished at what Mr Williamson says out of one side of his mouth in Auckland and what he then says in this House when he is surrounded by his caucus mates. It is really sad that the National Party has yet again failed completely to grasp the urgency that the whole of New Zealand sees in this transport area. 
Darren Hughes 
: What even Richard Worth? 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: No okay not all the National Party members! Dr Worth would not see urgency in anything. But Maurice Williamson has been Minister of Transport and does know what an appalling mess National left this area in. We had Transit which had no plans for major projects in Auckland. We had the Land Transport Safety Authority with very little money to do anything coherently about transport safety. We had Transfund which seemed to be completely transfixed by the idea of legal risk and was trying to stop everyone including local and regional government doing anything in this area. This Government has got this whole sector moving. It has got New Zealand moving. It is particularly focused on the huge cost of transport congestion and transport problems in Auckland. That cost is not only to Aucklanders but to the whole country. 
There have been repeated assertions that Auckland transport problems cause about $1 billion worth of problems for the rest of New Zealand. This legislation is the second part of the Government’s legislative programme. We have put in place for the first time a New Zealand Transport Strategy. That strategy talks for the first time about the level of infrastructure the level of safety and the level of services New Zealand needs not just about what the Government is prepared to dole out to its mates on the basis of political support—like the old system whereby the National Roads Board had roading up to every National Party Cabinet Minister’s farm gate and county chairman’s farm gate and ignored the problems of the rest of the country. 
I am really proud that for the first time in my adult life we are seeing a Government grappling with the whole of New Zealand’s transport priorities to deliver affordable integrated safe responsible and sustainable transport for the whole of New Zealand. 
I congratulate the Greens who have worked very hard on this. I accept that their priorities are not always the same as ours but I absolutely recognise that their concerns are from the heart and that they recognise for example as National and ACT and all the others absolutely refuse to that there are as many people dying as a result of the health effects of transport emissions as there are in transport accidents and incidents. 
So I am absolutely delighted that for the first time we have a New Zealand Transport Strategy. We will have structures within the Ministry of Transport that can deliver good advice and good policy on that area. We will have coherent Crown agencies for transport. I look forward to working with Land Transport New Zealand. It will balance the need for safety which was of course at reasonable cost but “reasonable cost” was dictated by the previous Government—actually Maurice Williamson and Jenny Shipley. In many cases as my colleague the Hon Mark Gosche pointed out they did not put up any money so there were no safety services. That was particularly the case in areas like marine safety such as surf lifesaving and so on where lives can be saved. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Or the coastguards. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: Also the coastguards. But there was no safety because there was no funding. 
Land Transport New Zealand will take on the operating responsibilities of the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund and will provide better planning better debate and better delivery in local government; and regional government can expect better understanding of its transport needs and improved responsiveness to them. 
What we had was a wonderful system of regional land transport strategies which should have been bottom-up debates about what the priorities were in every regional area. But what did we have over the 9 years of the previous National Government? We had Auckland going through its fourth and fifth iteration of its regional land transport strategy so we could say that all these projects have been examined they are necessary we know what the priorities are but many other areas—for example through the Horowhenua Rangitikei and Wanganui—have had appalling floods in the last year. We saw that the regional land transport strategies in those areas had two or three roads if we were lucky. The work was not being done because those places had no hope of ever getting better transport systems unless we got the work done in the major cities. 
So I am delighted to see the New Zealand Transport Strategy in place. We are starting to get local and regional government working towards it. We are starting for the first time to get a realistic assessment of what it will cost to provide New Zealand with a good integrated responsive safe affordable sustainable transport system and we are looking at our five priorities for transport. Those priorities are: assisting economic development assisting safety and personal security improving access and mobility protecting and promoting public health and ensuring environmental sustainability. 
This legislation will increase the scope of the Maritime Safety Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority to take account of the Government’s transport strategy. I look forward to seeing both of those organisations working in the public interest rather than just trying to fend off the vested interests which were trying to downgrade safety downgrade investment and downgrade the services that New Zealand industry needs in places like Whangarei Tauranga and the South Island. 
I am absolutely delighted to see this legislation well on its way through the House. I will address very briefly the concerns that the select committee heard from the National Party represented in the transport sector. We saw Tony Friedlander who I have to say is very fair. He always says that he is a National Party bagman: he goes around and does the fund-raising for them. Frankly I wish him well right now given the state of the National Party. But he has been attacking this Government on the idea that somehow or other we should move away from the benefit-cost ratio. This Government sees the benefit-cost ratio as a very useful tool but it is only as good a tool as what one puts into it. So if we place the highest priority on roads that lead to certain people’s farms then that is what we will get. 
Of course we heard the National spokesman on transport Roger Sowry say that his answer to New Zealand’s transport problems would be a six-lane superhighway between Wellington and Auckland. That is going to solve the transport problems of Northland of Southland and of Wellington! It is absolutely ridiculous. No wonder that man is on the way out! We now see that Maurice Williamson has been reincarnated I think for the third time and I dread to think what state he is in having been dead twice in the transport portfolio. But here he is back and he is going to be in charge of the National Party’s interests in Auckland and the rest of the country. Well who is responsible for the mess that the Labour-Alliance Government and the Labour-Progressive Government inherited? Maurice Williamson is responsible. I concede he was ably assisted by Jenny Shipley and Jim Bolger and all of those who went with him but he is the reason we have to deal with this huge backlog of investment planning and organisation. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Maritime Transport Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 83 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2 . 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Bill read a third time. 
Electoral Matters Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Electoral Matters Bill that it have the power to consider and if it thinks fit adopt the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 310 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 92 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 27 
New Zealand National 27. 
Motion agreed to. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Electoral Matters Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
Motion agreed to. 
Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
Motion agreed to. 
Electoral Matters Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 Amendments to Electoral Act 1993 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 At 7 minutes to 5 this Tuesday evening this Parliament is about to debate the most self-serving electoral manipulation that I have seen in 14 years of Parliament. The Minister is casting himself as the Huey Long of New Zealand politics who wants to give to himself the power to regulate the colour style shape and design of every other party’s electoral signage in this country and—what about this—it may only be used for the purposes of ensuring it does not endanger the safety of road users. Well what we have learnt from the Government’s quota ticketing policy is that it is the behest of the Government that counts the most rather than road safety. 
What is wrong with Supplementary Order Paper 310 is that it not only cuts across the Government’s much-vaunted partnership with local government by removing all discretion of local authorities relating to the erection of election hoardings it now gives the power to a Government Minister to make recommendations to the Governor-General which she will rubber stamp that will allow the Government to decide the design layout shape and colour of electoral hoardings. In no other part of the Electoral Act does the Government have the power to regulate the activities of its political opponents but that is what will happen with new clauses 7A and 7B. It is a self-serving electoral manipulation that opens up our electoral law to the sort of Louisiana style of politics that brings democracy into disrepute. 
I tell the Minister that it is anti-democratic for a partisan Minister to set the rules for people’s election hoardings. Regardless of this false caveat of not affecting the traffic this Government is trying to give itself a power that could be used against its political opponents. Blue is the sign of preference for Transit advisories in many parts of the country. When the Minister travels into his electorate he will see significant numbers of— 
Simon Power 
: That would be a first. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It would be a first for that Minister and I have to tell members that Craig Foss has probably knocked on another couple of hundred doors in Hastings today. This Minister wants to give himself a power that no other party has ever sought in this Parliament and that is to regulate the activities of its opponents. Can members point to one section of the Electoral Act where Ministers can regulate the activities of their opponents in a way that can benefit the Labour Party? There is not one section. 
The National Party will also be using this debate to point out that Harry Duynhoven would have been out of this Parliament had this new section prevailed when he applied for a Dutch passport. Remember that? The Prime Minister said it was only a technicality. This bill would still see Harry Duynhoven out on his ear if the Speaker were bold enough to make that decision because it would be the Speaker’s choice to make. The bill states that a member of Parliament would be out on his or her ear but there is an exception if he or she renewed a passport or travel document. Mr Duynhoven did not renew his passport; he had had it taken away from him. He applied for a passport while he was a member of Parliament. Even though the Prime Minister tried to minimise it by saying: “Oh it is only a technicality.” the fact is that even the Government has admitted that what Harry Duynhoven did was an offence and it was this Parliament and this Prime Minister who let him stay in this Parliament. This bill would not fix that. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I suggest that the member Tony Ryall read the report from the Justice and Electoral Committee on this bill. 
Rod Donald 
: It was unanimous. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: It was unanimous—absolutely unanimous. It was unanimous because there was no dissenting opinion in it. The National Party was represented on the committee by none other than two members. Let me refer Tony Ryall to the fact that Clem Simich and Richard Worth were on that select committee— 
Darren Hughes 
: Dr Richard Worth! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Dr Richard Worth. What did the select committee say unanimously to this Parliament? Let me read the select committee report to the member Tony Ryall so that he can hear it probably for the first time and perhaps begin to comprehend it: “We are concerned that variation in local authority rules can unnecessarily impinge on free political speech and add to the costs of advertising.” That is what the National Party signed up to; that is what the report stated unanimously. [ 
Interruption 
] The select committee then went on to state and Wayne Mapp should listen to this as he will learn something maybe for the first time: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines for hoardings at the Committee of the Whole House stage (if his discussions with the Society of Local Government Managers have not had satisfactory resolution by that time).” The select committee carried on to state unanimously: “We propose that minimum levels could be set where appropriate for size content and display period.” and colour. I just want to say to that that is the recommendation from the select committee. 
I have taken the select committee at its word—unanimously encouraged by the National Party—and done exactly that. That is what Mr Ryall has conveniently overlooked—as will Dr Nick Smith because he is unbelievable. Not even the High Court in New Zealand could believe Dr Nick Smith. It found him to be unbelievable so no one else will find him to be believable. Having done that we went through the law and we saw—[ 
Interruption 
] I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I know what the member is going to say— 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: That member accused me of being gutless. I resent that bitterly. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I will rule on that because I heard the comment myself. The member knows he cannot imply that a member lacks courage. I ask the member to withdraw. He is a longstanding member. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Having endured the Minister’s outrage over a comment made by a colleague on the Opposition side of the Chamber I waited for you to bring the Minister to order firstly over his comments regarding Dr Nick Smith and secondly over the fact that those comments were well outside the scope of Part 1. I noted that you started to reign in the Minister but then refrained from doing so. If we on the Opposition side have to endure points of order from Minister Barker then I ask that you apply the same standards to the issues raised by him and leap in as appropriate to bring him to heel when he makes inappropriate remarks during a very tightly worded part of the bill—in particular when he hurls innuendo at a colleague on the Opposition side of the Chamber. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Under Speakers’ ruling 43/3 a member is entitled to reply to comments made by the previous speaker. However I take on board what the member has said. This is a rather robust debate and relevance is something that the Chair takes into account. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Having been asked unanimously by the select committee including the National Party members on it—there is no minority report in here; I have read the report thoroughly—I came back with Supplementary Order Paper 310 in my name to do exactly that. 
There are several safeguards on that Supplementary Order Paper. Firstly before a regulation goes as a recommendation to the Governor-General there has to be agreement by at least half of the parties in Parliament. The second caveat on it is that at least 75 percent of all members of the House have to be represented. Why are we trying to do this? We are trying to set a standard time of 2 months and a standard hoarding size which has never been applicable before and to remove from some of the local authorities the ability to put restrictions on what can be on political hoardings. If we are to remove the restrictions that others may have then we have to state what will be on them so we are doing it in the positive way. That in my estimation is a temporary fix because the election is coming up very shortly—[ 
Interruption 
] Some time between now and then—and I do not have another electoral matters bill that can go through the House before the next election. If one were to be introduced tomorrow and referred to a select committee it would sit waiting in that committee for at least 6 months and it simply would not be possible to give effect to it before the election. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Fix it. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: We are going to fix it now. 
Secondly I would say that once we have gone through the election we will have a review of the Electoral Act and the regulations will I suggest become law at the following election. So after the next election we can regularise this matter in a more structured way in primary legislation. I am not the happiest person at having to do it by regulation but there is another safeguard—a safeguard that is currently lounging on the Opposition benches in the form of the chair of the Regulations Review Committee. If the Government is to put in vogue regulations then I would expect that when the matter goes to the Regulations Review Committee Mr Worth’s eagle eye will spot anything that is offensive to the National Party and bring it back to the House immediately. 
Darren Hughes 
: Why doesn’t Nick Smith have confidence in Richard Worth? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The junior Government whip has a very good question. It seems to me that the National Party does not have confidence in Mr Worth being able to scrutinise this legislation. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Don’t be stupid! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: If that member thinks I am dumb then he is unbelievable. It is all right to be accused of being dumb but I would hate to be accused of being unbelievable—or to be found to be unbelievable. 
This measure is something that has been negotiated with all the other parties in this House and I am very sorry we could not negotiate it with National because it was found to be untrustworthy. I handed a very preliminary draft to Mr Worth in confidence. Within minutes the deputy leader of the National Party Mr Gerry Brownlee attempted to table it in the House. It was given and accepted on the basis of confidence— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Stop cheating. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: There was no question about it. I say to that member that if something is accepted on the basis of confidence and it is found that that confidence cannot be respected then it should be handed back. The confidence should not be betrayed. I make the point to the member that there are moral issues involved here. One is integrity—personal integrity. When one accepts something in confidence one accepts that. [ 
Interruption 
] The member Nick Smith keeps barking out that I would not know what integrity is. He is the member who went before the High Court against someone else and the High Court did not believe him. The High Court found Dr Nick Smith to be unbelievable. The National Party has put itself out on a limb because it was found to be untrustworthy. People who give things in confidence expect things to be dealt with in confidence. I say to each of the other parties here in the Chamber that we can negotiate and sort out these issues but the National Party has wound up on a limb on this particular issue because it was found to be untrustworthy. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want Parliament to know exactly what this Associate Minister of Justice is asking us to do. In the most sensitive area of law electoral law the Government is going to cheat on the rules and late in the process without any public process introduce a sneaky dirty Supplementary Order Paper to change one of the most important parts of election campaigning—that is election hoardings. I tell Mr Barker that when he abuses parliamentary process and runs around sneakily with a Supplementary Order Paper that most New Zealanders would find offensive I make no apology at all for letting the public know the way in which this Labour Party Government will pull off an electoral rort. 
The Government is saying here that there is one set of rules for everybody else when it comes to the Resource Management Act and signage but that when it comes to Parliament we will write the rules to suit ourselves. [ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Franks that if a local council wants to put up a hoarding to advertise a school gala then it has to comply with the Resource Management Act. That will not be the case if one is a political candidate. Why do we want to have special rules just for ourselves? More important why is Mr Barker not prepared to subject his Supplementary Order Paper 310 to a public submission process? This Supplementary Order Paper says that when it comes to MPs— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: You asked for it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well let us just deal with that. Let me read what the Justice and Electoral Committee report states: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines …”. Are these guidelines? No they are new law. This is special law—not guidelines for local authorities. The Supplementary Order Paper states that all citizens in New Zealand have to comply with the Resource Management Act except if they are parliamentary candidates. If the Minister is genuine in representing this measure as being part of special provisions for elections then why does it not apply to local elections? We have just had elections for district health boards and for councils. Why does it not apply to them? 
Darren Hughes 
: It’s for political parties in general elections. They cover the whole country. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Darren Hughes the “Albert Einstein” of the Labour Party says it is because local council candidates stand for only one district where there are rules. Well that is not so in the case of the Wellington Regional Council or the Auckland Regional Council where a candidate may be standing in seven or eight districts. Neither is it the case if one is standing for a district health board. That argument does not stand up. 
The reason that Rick Barker is passing this special set of rules now without any select committee process is that he wants to rig the election for the Labour Party. Let us see how far it goes. Why is it necessary to regulate the colour of election hoardings? Is there anything in the committee’s recommendations on guidelines that says it is proper for Mr Rick Barker and his 19 Cabinet colleagues to regulate the colour of election hoardings? Mr Barker is saying that it would be quite permissible under the Supplementary Order Paper for Cabinet to decide that we could have red election hoardings only. That would be the sort of dirty trick that Rick Barker would try to pull off. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Read the Supplementary Order Paper! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I have read the Supplementary Order Paper. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There is a longstanding convention and I would have expected you to step in and make the point by now that the Minister in the chair does not object because of his advantage with regard to the microphone. He has done it at least eight times. When will you bring the Committee to order? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I was aware of that and if the member had observed what I was doing he would have seen that I had my finger on the mike so that the Minister could not be heard. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: So that is a new Standing Order? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I am just saying that I had my finger on the button. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Regardless of whether you have the finger on the button that controls the microphone that is placed in front of the Minister Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings remain. In fact you have ruled from that Chair on a number of occasions in recent weeks that the Minister sitting to the right of you may not interject while a member is on his or her feet. Whether those interjections are amplified is not the point; the point is that the Minister sits in a position of advantage and it is entirely improper for that Minister to take advantage of that positioning to interject on members who have the call. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has made his point. I did call the Minister to order and maybe I should have done so earlier. The member is correct. It is a convention that Ministers do not take advantage of a live microphone. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I continue with the absolute cheat going on in Parliament in respect of this Supplementary Order Paper and the regulation of election hoardings. The Minister says it is all hunky-dory because the Regulations Review Committee can review the regulations that allow him to tell us that we all have to have red election hoardings. Well let us be real. What is the average time it takes the Regulations Review Committee to deal with such a complaint? The average period of time is 18 months which would be well after the fact that he had cheated himself into winning another election. It is a very poor check. It would be outrageous for Parliament to pass law and say that even if it is bad law it is OK because the Regulations Review Committee can review it. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I thank the Minister in the chair Rick Barker for making Supplementary Order Paper 310 available to New Zealand First about 6 weeks ago or even more and for the discussions that have taken place since that time on the issue. There was a change to that Supplementary Order Paper and I appreciate the discussions that took place on that as well. 
There has already been public debate on the issue of course and that is referred to in the report back of the Justice and Electoral Committee. The last sentence of the commentary on the bill with regard to the proposal we are now considering states: “We note this proposal corresponds with a recommendation in our Inquiry into the 2002 General Election report; namely that: ‘Amendments to electoral legislation for the 2005 General Election include national guidelines on hoardings.’” That was a public review. It was held by the Justice and Electoral Committee. It went on interminably and everyone had his or her say. That committee reported back unanimously to the House—and I am referring to a recommendation in the 2002 general election report—that it wanted national guidelines on hoardings. That is what the Minister has done. New Zealand First would have been the first to object to any cheating that might have taken place. I think that claim from the previous National Party speaker was totally uncalled for. This discussion took place absolutely openly. 
I think all of us know that when we have general elections different councils have different rules. If one is in say the Helensville electorate one has only the Rodney District Council the Waitakere City Council and the North Shore City Council to cope with—only three councils. But invariably one has three different rules. Signs may be up to 3 feet high or must be below 3 metres or must be below 2 metres. There are rules about the places to put signs. There are all sorts of rules from different councils. It is very confusing. All one is trying to do is hold a general election—the most important thing that the country could ever want—and one is stuck with all these administrative regulations that pour out from councils which seem to have people whose job is to makes one’s life as difficult as possible. 
All that the National Party spokesperson Dr Smith is doing is supporting these councils having all these regulations. New Zealand First wants to see a reduction in regulations. This Minister is really being hammered to reduce the number of regulations. Here is a bill that makes things simpler for general elections and the National Party is opposing it and saying it wants things to remain as they are or be even more difficult. I would have thought that the Nelson National Party executive would be absolutely delighted to have this legislation because it would have to have only one sign. 
This measure cannot be done secretly because it has to go back to the political parties for them to discuss as the Minister has indicated—half the parties in the House or 75 percent of the members of the House. The National Party these days is not big enough to stop it on its own—of course maybe that is what is upsetting the member and from the way things are going it will not get any better! That means that no political party other than the Labour Party could object to it on its own. Other parties would have to get together and lodge an objection. New Zealand First is quite happy to work along those guidelines. Here in the Committee today for example only one party is objecting to this legislation and that is the National Party. All the other parties want to see simplification of how one runs an election and that is all that this particular Supplementary Order Paper does. 
I was quite happy with the first suggestion and just as happy with the second suggestion which was not quite as good. But it has all been out in the open. There has been no hiding of anything. Some bureaucrat somewhere perhaps in Nelson has got in touch with the local member Dr Smith and he has said that he will support that local bureaucrat in Nelson. Well I just say that Parliament should make the decisions as to how we run parliamentary elections. There have been two reports from the Justice and Electoral Committee supporting this view. Both were unanimous. I am sure that Mr Worth will ably look at this matter in the Regulations Review Committee should it come up. I am also a member of the Regulations Review Committee and we can— 
Richard Worth 
: A hard-working committee. 
DAIL JONES 
: It is a hard-working committee that looks at every regulation that is passed in this country and does more per minute in terms of scrutinising the law than any other committee in the country. It is a very hard-working diligent and highly qualified select committee—if we all say so ourselves—ably led by Mr Worth. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party will certainly support the proposal restricting the powers of local bodies. I think the National Party is probably on its own on this amendment. I have looked hard at it and the ACT party has looked hard at it. We cannot understand National’s position quite frankly. We do not want to see local body fiefdoms with all the irregular forms that would come out of that. I think the 75 percent test that is proposed here is appropriate and the ACT party will be supporting it. 
What is a curious thing though in this bill is the reinstatement of the pre-Duynhoven situation. What we really have in this bill is a restating of what the law said prior to the extraordinary accommodation that this Labour Government did when it used its majority to subvert all principles of electoral law to accommodate Mr Duynhoven. The proposal here states that if a person does swear allegiance to a foreign power or head of State while in office then that does create a vacancy. 
And it should. Indeed Mr Duynhoven should have resigned. There should have been a by-election. I believe he would have won it and we would have wished him well in that. But as a matter of principle that is what should have happened. It was a very bad day in this House particularly from a procedural point of view when we saw people sitting on their hands delaying an action that should have been triggered automatically to declare a vacancy. That did not occur and that was very bad. It was bad for Parliament and bad from a constitutional point of principle. The ACT party just flags that. It is very interesting that the law having being changed to accommodate Mr Duynhoven it is now being changed back to what existed prior to that accommodation. That will be seen by many people to be the duplicitous act that it was. It was a very bad day in our history when that occurred. 
The ACT party is also quite concerned about the broadcasting aspect. We have long opposed the election-broadcasting provisions. We believe that they are unnecessarily restrictive and punitive. It is not really the business of the State to prescribe them to the extent that it has. Since 1996 when ACT was first in Parliament we have continued to oppose those provisions and we certainly oppose them as they stand in this bill. 
We also note that Electoral Commission membership is still done under the old first-past-the-post formula. I see that “Captain Wayne Mapp” is acknowledging that point and good on him. The two main parties are using the tyranny of their majority to impose a situation that is reflective of a first-past-the-post Parliament. All other parties whether it be New Zealand First ACT the Greens the Maori Party or whatever should have an independent voice—whether it is under a collective umbrella or whatever—on the Electoral Commission membership. It is a very bad reflection on the bill that in this closing month of 2004 the Labour Party and the National Party are using the tyranny of their majority to continue what is clearly a first-past-the-post Parliament arrangement. It is a cosy little arrangement between the clubs. 
No minor party in Parliament can really rely upon those two major parties to represent its interests—not in the cold fire of an election. We know that is unreal; it just does not happen. Even if a party might be a potential coalition partner— 
Richard Worth 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This debate is on Part 1 not Part 2 and for the last substantive period the member has been talking about Part 2. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Speaking to the point of order I point out that this is included in Part 1. The member who raised the point of order is mistaken. To be precise it is included in new clause 4A. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that and he can continue. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: It seems that member is very confused about this point but perhaps he will have a chance to address it later on. I was talking about the tyranny of the majority—of the two main parties in this Parliament the Labour Party and the National Party. It is a disgrace that they have used that tyranny in an electoral sense to reserve their dominance total say and monopoly of the Electoral Commission membership. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I have found this a particularly interesting debate over the period since June last year when it first began or at least it first began for me and my family in June last year. I have been aware that on the last few Sunday nights an excellent historical drama set in 1660s England about the reign of Charles II has been shown on television. At the conclusion of that drama was a little clip on what followed which was that the Scottish King James II— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: He wasn’t Scottish he was French. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Sorry I am corrected. He was a French king. My history is not great. I can tell members the history of motoring things with great clarity but I am not too good on the history of kings and queens. However the next bit I know very well which was that Prince William of Orange became the next king of England. Prince William of Orange became King William III the husband of Queen Mary. Why is that important to our Parliament? Every day that we all take part in this Parliament most of us walk past a large painting in the lobby entitled “The Peaceful End of the Glorious Revolution” which was of course that which installed King William III and Queen Mary. It was the signing of the Bill of Rights by that Dutch Protestant King of England King William III on 16 December 1689. 
Why is that important for us? That particular Act was pretty important for a whole bunch of reasons. However an Act that followed which was much more important to this debate was the Act of Settlement 1701. That Act again passed by King William III was to ensure that the Catholic faith never ever in the future got anywhere near being enthroned in England as a king or queen of England and to this day that is how it has been. Why is that important to us? It is important to me. My good fortune is that I am the only New Plymouth MP ever in the 150-year history of that seat to actually have been born in New Plymouth. That is an interesting fact. What is even more interesting and I only discovered much later is that by another dint of good fortune I also happen to be born Dutch. My father’s arrangements to become a New Zealand citizen had run into some sort of glitch and they were not formalised until 3 weeks after I arrived. I do not think I arrived early. My mother always said that I arrived feet first late and noisy so I guess I have continued in that vein ever since. 
Tony Ryall alleged before that I had broken the law—presumably a deliberate act—by applying for a passport from the Netherlands that led to this entire debate. He then went on to allege that I would have still have broken the law under the new Act because I had my passport from the Netherlands previously removed. All of that is totally wrong. It is factually wrong. I did not do either of those things. If the National Party says something often enough presumably it will believe it. We can understand that but it should not expect the public of New Zealand to fall for that nonsense. It is simply untrue. 
Ken Shirley just alleged that I swore allegiance to a foreign power. That is also wrong and also simply untrue. I did not do either of those things. As I said by dint of good fortune I happened to be born Dutch. I was also born in New Zealand and I happen to be a New Zealander of which I am very proud. When I am travelling overseas I regularly promote the virtues of New Zealand. Long before I was an MP I did that. In addition because I happened to also be born Dutch like many other New Zealanders of my generation whose parents immigrated to this country—incidentally my mother was born in Taranaki and was a New Plymouth person—we had a right that the Dutch Government decided to take away in March 2005. That right was to confirm our Dutch citizenship. It was not to get anything new but to confirm what already existed. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: An act of allegiance? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: No it was not an act of allegiance but simply to confirm that we had been born Dutch citizens as well as New Zealand citizens. Around 30 members of Parliament in this House either hold or are eligible to hold dual citizenship and many of them will have dual passports. It is important to get one’s facts right. I simply did what any other person in my position would do and that was to ensure that my children had a right to Dutch citizenship if it applied. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This bill is a shadow of what it should have been and the Government knows that. This bill should be addressing substantive matters such as State funding of political parties and some of the matters raised by Mr Shirley such as a proper donations disclosure regime so that we could have “look through” laws that expose what the Free Enterprise Trust gets up to in relation to the National Party. Notwithstanding those concerns however the bill does make some progress. One point of progress and a bit of a late running point is the Supplementary Order Paper that I notice 92 members of this Chamber supported. Ironically only the National Party appears to oppose it and I guess that is because its biggest fear is that its support will stay below 25 percent in this Parliament. 
 It is obvious that if National members had any confidence in themselves they would expect to win more than 25 percent of the vote at the next election and therefore would be able to block any regulations that they did not like under the amendments in the Supplementary Order Paper relating to election hoardings. But National members have already given up the chase not only to win the election but also to even get above a quarter of the vote. Quite clearly their concerns are totally unfounded in relation to the hoardings. The rules are very tight and I am pleased that the Minister was willing to accommodate many of our suggestions that we made to make them so particularly the one about the rules having to be in relation to the purposes of traffic safety and for no other reason. It is good to see that some other parties got some clear restrictions in place too. 
There were extensive negotiations with parties over this Supplementary Order Paper and therefore I find it extraordinary that the National Party seems to be on its bike about this one especially when there was a request to standardise hoardings after the inquiry into the 1996 election and that was repeated after the 1999 election and again after the 2002 election. So it is good to see that Labour has finally fixed that problem notwithstanding the fact that National members today do not seem to be singing from the same song sheet as the National members on the select committee. 
It is even better to see that the Government is finally dealing with the bureaucratic problems of the Broadcasting Act and I will come back to that when we get to Part 2. Suffice it to say that it has been a long and sorry saga. 
The other long and sorry saga that this bill fixes is that it confirms that members of Parliament who were born outside New Zealand or who have entitlement by reason of their parents’ birthplace are allowed to become a citizens of their home countries without having to leave our Parliament and that they are entitled to renew a passport of that country without having to leave our Parliament. I think that is very sensible very reasonable very fair and very consistent because as we all know during the debate over “Harry’s law” a previous Parliament amended the law to allow a member to become a dual citizen as a result of marriage without losing his or her seat. So it is entirely consistent that we have now enshrined permanently in this bill the new rules around dual citizenship. 
The only people who should be losing their seats as a result of this legislation are the National and Labour representatives on the Electoral Commission—and they are National and Labour representatives. It is absolute bunkum to claim that they represent the Government parties and the Opposition parties. Those two people are there to represent two parties and two parties only and it was good to see that that point was agreed to at the select committee when I put forward a minority report—or should I say it was good to see that ACT and United Future agreed with me. New Zealand First came back to say it wanted its own seat on the Electoral Commission and never mind the rest of us. 
But the point I want to make is that the potential for abuse from what Dr Smith was going on about is nothing compared with the undue influence that National and Labour representatives have over the allocation of broadcasting funding and broadcasting time during the election campaign which is why I put forward an amendment today and I look forward to the support of all parties in this House to get rid of the National and Labour people on the Electoral Commission. It is totally inconsistent in a modern democracy with more than two parties in this Parliament to have only two of those parties allowed to determine the allocation of election funding and broadcasting time. That should cease. It is ironic that we have an amendment today to stop those two parties being on the commission for the purposes of offences against the Broadcasting Act but they get to dish out the lolly. It is time that that law was changed. It is time that all parties in this Parliament got up to speed and got rid of the offensive provisions in the Electoral Act that give the two-party club extra power. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to devote my time on this occasion to talking about Supplementary Order Paper 310 which contains the new provisions of clause 7A. Those provisions were not directly before the select committee and therefore submitters did not have an opportunity to comment on them at that stage. Notwithstanding the fact that those provisions were not in the original bill they have been signalled in respect of the report of the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Inquiry into the 2002 General Election and in particular the Government’s response to that. I note in that response that the Government said it would discuss this with local authority organisations in particular the New Zealand Society of Local Government Managers before recommending any amendments to the Electoral Act. I know that some correspondence took place and that the select committee was aware of that but that it was also aware that not much progress had been made. Then as we got close to reporting back to the House the local government organisations indicated that they were too preoccupied with the local body elections to have done much about it. 
We therefore support the Government’s move to make some provision in the bill for the standardisation of election hoardings. I know that it is an intrusion into local government affairs and into the powers of Transit in terms of the use of highways and jurisdiction over highways and to some it could be seen to be a degree of self-interest. But we are dealing with elections that are on a national basis and whilst it may have been appropriate for different electorates to have different rules during a first-past-the-post regime—because in that case the contests were from electorate to electorate—in the MMP environment where the list vote is a national vote I think it is important that there is some consistency in the use of signage during the election period. Otherwise we could get into a situation where one party was disadvantaged in electorates that it had a strong hold on through different rules in terms of signage. 
Therefore I think it is appropriate that there is some standardisation in this respect for the limited period of time that comes before elections. In particular the select committee recommended in its report that the Government address the issues of signage in three respects: size content and display period. With regard to size this Supplementary Order Paper provides for a limit of 3 square metres and that fits with the standard size 2400 x 1200 or 2.88 square metres that most billboards have adopted. I know from my experience as secretary of a political party that that is a normal size with corflute boards and will therefore accommodate that as a maximum size with the ability obviously to go smaller. 
Secondly the display period is limited to a period of 2 months prior to the election. That is not to override any other regulations that local authorities may have that may extend that period but at least in terms of this Supplementary Order Paper and the consistency of signage and allowance for signage it is restricted to a 2-month period so that the intrusion into normal local authority affairs is not too severe as far as time is concerned. 
The contentious issue really was the content. United Future did have some serious reservations about the idea of the Government by Order in Council determining the design layout shape and colour of signs. One can imagine that a Government might decide that all billboards should be in red or in blue just in order to manipulate the system. However there are very large protections in the Supplementary Order Paper that satisfy us that that abuse will not happen. The first is the fact that the provision for an Order in Council must be limited to matters that would look to the safety of road users. So effectively the Supplementary Order Paper can restrict limitations only to the extent that it might endanger the safety of road users. That is of course a fairly broad statement and it could be interpreted restrictively in ways that did count against a political party and therefore United Future was pleased to see and encouraged the other restriction and that is that parliamentary leaders of at least 50 percent of the parties in Parliament representing 75 percent of members must agree. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 We should not let the Government get away with its explanation of Supplementary Order Paper 310. Just for starters I point out that this Supplementary Order Paper arrived at the National Party caucus this morning. There has been some suggestion that this is a negotiated position and that National has been fully involved in the development of this Supplementary Order Paper. 
Darren Hughes 
: The National Party knew about this weeks ago. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: Not so. This Supplementary Order Paper arrived this morning. There has been no opportunity for consultation and no opportunity to look at what the ramifications of some of these clauses might be. As the Minister—if he is frank enough to acknowledge this—might say there have been significant changes between this Supplementary Order Paper and an earlier draft Supplementary Order Paper that was before Parliament. 
But it is actually much worse than that. I believe that the Minister perhaps unknowingly misled Parliament when he read from the Justice and Electoral Committee’s report on the Electoral Matters Bill. What was said then and what the Minister failed to properly identify were these words about electoral hoardings from all members of the committee: “We encourage the Minister to address guidelines for hoardings at the Committee of the whole House stage if his discussions with the society of local government managers have not had satisfactory resolution by that time. We propose that minimum levels”—and I emphasise “minimum levels”—“could be set where appropriate for size content and display period.” 
Now three points immediately emerge from that particular passage. First of all we are talking about guidelines. Second we are talking about minimum levels and third we are talking about three elements: size content and display period. But what do we find in this Supplementary Order Paper? First of all we find that these provisions are not guidelines. They are proposed regulations. Second we can try to see whether minimum levels are referred to in this Supplementary Order Paper—but they are not. There are no minimum levels being contemplated at all. They may be maximum levels. 
Then when we look at the three elements I identified—size content and display period—we find that a significant rewording has occurred. We are now by this particular Supplementary Order Paper to contemplate regulations covering design layout shape and colour—a quite different set of parameters. So it is mischievous for the Minister to contend that in what emerges in this Supplementary Order Paper there is an accurate reflection of what the committee unanimously decided. It is quite wrong for him to assert that in some way there has been an inconsistency of position in what National is saying in respect of this Supplementary Order Paper. 
But there is a further and very significant point—that is it was within the contemplation of those who sat on the select committee that we would be talking about guidelines for hoardings in a more general way than is currently proposed by this bill. But what we are looking at is quite clearly partial treatment of politics and politicians and that should never be the case. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Preferential treatment. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: That is preferential treatment says Dr Mapp behind me and that is quite right. What has been exposed in connection with the signs and hoarding controls—whether they are bylaw controls or controls proposed through district plans—is an inconsistency in council districts. That inconsistency in some cases requires applications to be made by way of non-notified consent. In other cases applications should be made by way of notified consent. It is wrong in principle that politics and politicians should be preferred yet that preferment is what the Minister has set out to do in this case. There has been no opportunity of course for the select committee to look at this Supplementary Order Paper and the thrust of what is proposed I would suggest goes far beyond what should reasonably be contemplated in the short period of time we have in which to consider Part 1 in the Committee stage. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I want to talk about two points. The first arises directly from the speech given by the Hon Harry Duynhoven. I know that Mr Duynhoven earnestly and seriously believes the factual content of everything he says. I understand that that is his belief. The question is however whether it is a correct interpretation of the events and I suggest to Mr Duynhoven that it is not. No one has suggested that Mr Duynhoven committed a crime. It is perfectly legitimate under New Zealand law to apply for the passport of another country if one is entitled to do so; we have a rule of dual citizenship. However the action of doing so was a breach of section 55 of the Electoral Act. That is incontrovertible. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: The action of doing what? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The action of applying for a passport. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I didn’t apply for one. I have never applied for one. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The reality is that that was demonstrated by the fact that this Parliament passed legislation to rectify that very event. Now Mr Duynhoven has said that he did not apply for a passport—“he applied for nationality” may be a better way of putting it perhaps. But he undertook actions that were in breach of the Electoral Act—in short in breach of the very grounds by which one can be present in this place as a member of Parliament. If that had not been the case there would have been no correcting legislation. 
Our problem is not per se with the fact that Mr Duynhoven did that but rather with how the matter was corrected. There were two ways of doing so. The first option—and one I might add that is often undertaken in Australia—is a by-election. One perfects the wrong by going back to the people and seeking a fresh mandate so that the deficiency is not evident any further. Usually it is the case in Australia that when that happens the person is actually elected. The problem that Mr Duynhoven has now is that he is a member of Parliament by virtue of legislation not by virtue of election. Surely that is an awkward and a somewhat embarrassing situation to be in. 
The extraordinary thing is that when the Justice and Electoral Committee examined that whole area of law its members did not change it in such a way that would have enabled Mr Duynhoven’s situation to be legitimate thereafter. Of course that was the proposal by the Government initially—that it would just pass a law to fix up Mr Duynhoven’s situation because after all all the law would be fixed up so that anyone else in that situation would be able to do exactly the same thing. It was just a minor technicality essentially when put like that. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: That’s what she said; she said she would fix it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: What the Government did effectively was to fix Mr Duynhoven because he is now in the invidious position of being the only person who has done an action that firstly required legislation to fix it and secondly still leaves him in an exceptional position in terms of the legislation proposed here. The legislation that is now proposed states that one is not in breach of the law if one renews a passport or travel document. As Mr Duynhoven has said he was not renewing a passport or travel document. He was making an initial application for nationality— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am sorry but I take exception to that. The member knows full well that I said in my speech that that was not the case— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but if he is claiming misrepresentation then I suggest he look up Speaker’s ruling 35/3. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Perhaps I ought to conclude my speech by saying that Mr Duynhoven had a clear choice. He could have gone down the path of legislation with all the bankruptcy that that implies or he could have gone to the people for a fresh mandate. I am sure that on reflection Mr Duynhoven would have preferred the latter course. That is the reality—that on reflection maybe that is what he would have preferred. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 I will pick up on the point that Dr Wayne Mapp made because I think it is pivotal to what this legislation is about. Members may recall that Mr Duynhoven was discovered to have pledged allegiance to another State and to have— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: That also is wrong and incorrect. The member will withdraw it. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Well frankly after Mr Duynhoven applied for a Dutch passport— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Wrong too! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: —and had it presented to him with his photo in the paper that was when this Parliament became aware of the fact. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Wrong too! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Mr Duynhoven says: “Wrong too! Wrong too!”. It sounds as though there was no problem whatsoever. If there was no problem whatsoever why did we have special legislation? As I have said in this Chamber before Mr Duynhoven somehow got himself into a position whereby Parliament had to pass special legislation. That was because he breached a provision of the Electoral Act that states that if one puts oneself under the care and protection of another sovereign one breaches that Act. If members receive a travel document that means they have some sort of allegiance to a foreign power then that is a breach of the Act. The matter was given to the Speaker to consider and he considered and considered it. Then lo and behold while the Speaker was considering it the Government said it would introduce rushed special legislation in order to clarify the breach of the law that was committed by Mr Duynhoven. 
My assessment of what happened is that the Dutch Government removed citizenship from foreign nationals and then decided to reinstitute it. Mr Duynhoven applied for a passport. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Wrong! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: What did he apply for then? 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Nothing except confirmation. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: He applied for confirmation of his passport. What happened then was that that the Prime Minister said that that was a slight technicality. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: You’re a disgrace to Parliament. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I am a disgrace to Parliament? I have never had to have special legislation passed in order to guarantee my place in this Parliament. If Mr Duynhoven enjoyed the support of the people of New Plymouth why did he not go to the people? Why did he not put his mandate and his breach of the Act before the people of New Plymouth? I will tell the Committee why he did not. The Prime Minister was running scared of the people of New Plymouth on the seabed and foreshore issue so she said that the matter was of no consequence. She said the fact that Mr Duynhoven had applied for a passport was of no consequence whatsoever and the Government would pass a law to stop it from breaching the Act. 
This bill has no impact whatsoever on Mr Duynhoven’s breach of the Act because it makes it clear that if a member of Parliament applies for a passport or travel document then that is a breach of the Act. Is that not what the special legislation for Mr Duynhoven validated? It was to validate not only his breach but everybody else's breach of the Act by virtue of renewing or applying for a foreign passport. It is clear that the Prime Minister has admitted with this legislation that the breach that Mr Duynhoven made was untenable. She simply has not changed the rules. If it was just a trivial legal technicality then the Prime Minister would have changed the rules. She has not done so but has in fact confirmed the law in respect of Mr Duynhoven. That means that if Mr Duynhoven breached the law again today in the way that he breached it previously the Speaker would have to declare his seat vacant. I am sure that the Speaker could consider and consider the issue and then we would have more rushed legislation. But the fact is that the Duynhoven breach of the Electoral Act remains as a stain on this Parliament because special legislation had to be passed in order to let that member keep his seat. That is a serious matter. 
DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Rod Donald to clause 4A be agreed to: 
to insert the following new subclause: 
1ASection 8(4) of the principal Act is amended by repealing paragraph (b). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 17 
Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 98 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 310 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to insert new clauses 7A and 7B be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 90 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 25 
New Zealand National 25. 
Amendment agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments to Broadcasting Act 1989 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 This part deals with amendments to the Broadcasting Act. One of the problems with these kinds of rules generally is that they become highly prescriptive. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There was an oversight on my part on the voting before the dinner break. I have not discussed this with the senior Government whip but I seek the leave of the Committee to amend National’s vote from 27 to 25. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. I ask the member whether he refers to the vote on Part 1 as amended being agreed to. 
Simon Power 
: It was for all votes taken from 5 minutes to 6. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I point out for the benefit of listeners that Part 2 is about amendments to the Broadcasting Act. I know I will probably be breaching the Standing Orders but I say to the young people in the gallery tonight that this is an important part of the way that elections are run. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is breaching the Standing Orders. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: This issue is about the way that our country has allowed public funding to help the democratic process. For a long period of time we have allowed free broadcasting to political parties at the time of an election. Typically there is an opening speech a closing speech and then time for advertisements. As soon as we get into that kind of situation of course there is a necessity for detailed rules so that everyone is treated equally. On top of that we now have multiple broadcasters. One of the issues that the Justice and Electoral Committee had to deal with was the fact that not every broadcaster is actually interested. Broadcasters will ask themselves: “Is it relevant enough to our listening audiences for us to broadcast the opening and closing speeches of the leaders of the respective parties?”. I suppose one could say that the public broadcaster acknowledges that responsibility. 
I have to ask some deeper questions. Although National is supporting this part this whole issue invites some profound and fundamental questions. I raise this matter because I was on the relevant select committee between 1999 and 2002. We heard substantial submissions on this kind of issue. One question the select committee asked at that time—and I know its work has informed the current select committee—was: “At what point do we say that this has all become too complicated and that it would be better to allow the parties to take that allocation of what is in effect public funding and spend it as they please?” The free-choice approach would be to say that rather than forcing political parties to have a certain amount of time on radio and television we would give them an allocation—determined on a number of formulae based on representation in the House polling and so forth so as to get some sort of fair formula—and then to leave it to the political parties to determine how they spend it. 
I believe that at some point this Parliament and the relevant select committee will have to seriously address that question. We are locked I guess in a paradigm whereby for television and radio there is a set allocation and a formula-driven approach for each of the parties and that is how it is done. Under the current legislation we have to deal with the fact that there are ad breaks and all that sort of thing and there have to be detailed rules around all that sort of stuff so that no one is disadvantaged or advantaged by that kind of process. At what point do we say that that is no longer workable? 
I know that Mr Franks will remember the submissions made by various submitters between 1999 and 2000—and no doubt much the same submissions were given more recently—that it is becoming increasingly difficult in a more complex broadcasting environment. We are no longer in the situation whereby just Television One TV2 and TV3 are free to air. We have multiple channels. A number of the Sky channels are also free to air. The role of the Internet was hugely important in the American election in particular. It profoundly influenced the outcome of that election. Yet our legislation does not recognise those kinds of things. [ 
Interruption 
] DrudgeReport.com was hugely important. I think it is probably time for a back-to-first-principles review of this area. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I want to respond briefly to a couple of points. Firstly in response to Dr Mapp yes it is fair to say that this bill does not take a back-to-first-principles measure on any of these things. This bill is very modest in what it sets out to do. It sets out to tidy up a number of the technical issues around the broadcasting provisions in the legislation which have been there for quite some time and have been reported on by select committees after the last 3 general elections. By putting this bill through I was simply trying to tidy that up. I accept the point Dr Mapp made that we need to have a more general look at the Electoral Act at some point in the future. Hopefully we will get some agreement on how we will do that and how soon. There are not only broadcasting issues but a range of other issues as well that the select committee has discussed from time to time. I believe it is timely to come back and have a broader look at electoral matters and I would be keen to see the select committee do that. 
The second issue I raise is the amendment put forward by Murray Smith to clause 18. I have been asked by Mr Smith to have a close look at it and I have done so. I have consulted my officials. Clause 18 amends the amount of time from 30 days to 50 days. It seems that the Justice and Electoral Committee has considered the issues raised by the amendment quite seriously and thoroughly and has extended the time in which bills can be paid from 30 days to 50 days. As the select committee has come back with a unanimous view on that and that is its recommendation I am reluctant to make any changes. I am persuaded by the select committee’s position. Fifty days seems to me to be fine. 
Dail Jones 
: Working days? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Working days. It is a long time and I am happy to stay with that. The last thing I will add is again in response to Mr Mapp. I accept that this is a modest bill and that we need to make some more fundamental changes later on. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Before I call the next speaker I will inform the Committee of the altered results for the votes on Part 1. The result for the vote on the closure motion is now Ayes 71 Noes 45. The vote on the amendment in the name of the honourable member Rod Donald to clause 4A is Ayes 17 Noes 98. The vote on the Minister’s amendments is now Ayes 90 Noes 25. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Part 2 does some minor tinkering with the election broadcasting provisions. Many New Zealanders will probably be a little contemptuous of us fiddling with this stuff at all because it is a part of an election process that turns them off. We know that the television stations do not clamour to offer time for political debate even though typically television is a place for debate and contention. The television people tell us that when election broadcasts run their audiences drop away. 
 In this part the Justice and Electoral Committee has fine-tuned some of the processes on the assumption that a scrupulous appearance of fairness is actually consistent with free political speech. What the committee tried to do some time ago and should have been doing with this legislation and did not was look at the whole theory of control of election broadcasting. 
This part regulates something that in most countries is regarded as elementary free speech. Few New Zealanders are aware that political parties in New Zealand cannot even pay for time on radio and television. Even within the spending limits—because many people are afraid of a massive spend-up; they fear that elections can be bought despite the evidence from around the world that that is not very easy—we cannot choose to allocate the funds we are allowed to spend to television and radio. Yet television and radio are clearly where most of the public discourse that sticks in people’s memories takes place. 
So we have an impoverished political debate. By depriving political parties and candidates of the right to speak through radio and television in effect we confer a veto power on journalists. The editor of TVNZ who makes the lead decisions on what the issues of an election are to be has an authority and a weight that virtually no other Western democracy allows. In other countries parties can fight it out. They can choose what the issue is and by their advertising force other parties to respond. New Zealanders have seen the effect of our system over 20 years. It is a system in which the majority of New Zealanders felt that no one in Parliament ever spoke up for them about the treaty. They saw an entire industry created by consensus between the two main parties that could not be challenged because the media consensus was consistent with the consensus of the two main parties. 
So we have in the Broadcasting Act—only tinkered with in this part—a regime for an absolutely derisory amount of time for political debate. The debate is governed and controlled by the people who decide whether there will be a “worm”. It is not genuine debate because the journalists in their news coverage decide what the real issues will be. 
The select committee laboured hard and came up with the recognition that it had done very little. Our most pathetic recommendation is: “We encourage the industry to work with the Electoral Commission to develop a code of practice.” What a cop-out! The ACT member—myself—dissented because that is a deeply constitutional issue. Why should the Electoral Commission be developing a code that could prescribe even further constraints on free political speech at election time? The detailed existing prohibitions should have been abolished in this bill. There has been a very minor relaxation. 
The two major parties of course benefit from the tightly limited time. In fact even Labour and National under the arrangements reflected in the bill hardly get the amount of time to cover the issues facing the country that a supermarket would devote to selling a new dog roll. If we think of an advertising campaign of six or seven short and tightly constrained appearances that has to cover all the issues facing a country at an election we can see how contemptuous this Parliament has been and this legislation is of freedom of political speech and the ability to argue the issues that worry the people. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to speak to my amendment to this part. I will refer firstly to the report back from the Justice and Electoral Committee which states: “The United Future and ACT members consider that there should be a discretion given to the Electoral Commission to pay accounts after the 50-working day period.” We stated: “Circumstances could arise where accounts might not be received by the Electoral Commission through no fault of the broadcaster political party or Electoral Commission. In that situation the current provision would result in the broadcaster being left out of pocket with no legal ability to recover their debt.” 
I will give an example. We envisage that if we go to the full term the election will be held next September. The 50-working-days rule means that accounts have to be in and paid by the middle of December about a week before Christmas. I can imagine that the Maori Party for example—which is likely to get $75000 worth of funding based on last term’s allocation—may decide to spend all its funding on Maori radio. It may wait for the invoices to come in and they may trickle in in October with perhaps an outstanding one that does not arrive till November. In that case $75000 worth of debt would be sat on. Then because of Christmas looming and the busyness of that time the person in the Maori Party who is responsible for sending the account to the Electoral Commission may overlook doing so until December suddenly realise that time is short and rush it off to the Electoral Commission where the account arrives 1 day beyond the time. Under clause 18 of the bill the Electoral Commission has absolutely no discretion to pay the account and the broadcasters would be left out of pocket to the tune of $75000 with no ability to recover it. Maybe an account is sent to the Electoral Commission and somehow gets lost in the post and it is not the Maori Party’s fault that it is not paid. Whatever happens we would be in a situation where because this bill provides a straitjacket to the Electoral Commission with no flexibility whatsoever we would have $75000 worth of debt to several Maori radio stations that could not be recovered. That could be the death knell for those radio stations. 
Fifty working days is a reasonable time—10 weeks in fact—to get the accounts in. But in circumstances such as those I have described it may be that whether it is 5 working days or 100 working days deficiencies mean that it simply does not happen through no fault of the broadcaster and yet the broadcaster is heavily penalised by being unable to recover the money. That could easily be remedied by the amendment I propose which would give the Electoral Commission the ability to determine at its discretion that given all the circumstances the account ought to be paid. If the commission still had the money in its pocket—if it had not handed it back to the Crown—then it could make the payment albeit that the account had arrived a day or even a month late. That discretion is I think a prudent thing for the Government and Parliament to grant because at the end of the day the consequences of non-payment could be serious. The amendment really provides no harm to anybody at all. It seems to me that when we give those sorts of authorities to Government organisations we ought to build in whenever we can some degree of flexibility and discretion to take account of exceptional circumstances where something like the situation I have described may happen. 
Why make 50 working days mandatory? Nobody has put up any reason why the Electoral Commission should be bound to a fixed date like that and should have no discretion. There has really been no argument on that—and no argument from the Minister except to say that the select committee had decided that that should not happen so therefore he would go along with it. In the select committee we did not consider that issue for any length of time. Those who did support the clause simply felt that 50 working days was all that we needed to give. But I think this is bad law as it stands. Although the simple amendment to give discretion costs nobody anything it may save the Government a huge amount of money and embarrassment if a broadcaster were to go under simply because the Government had ignored this modest request. I commend the amendment to the Minister and encourage him to look again at the possibility of putting it into the legislation because I think it is a very a small change and would really do no harm. 
I do want to correct a comment that I made in my speech at the second reading stage when I said that New Zealand First only wanted itself National and Labour to be represented on the committee. I acknowledge that it wanted itself Labour and National to be represented and one representative of all the other parties. I do not think that improves the situation much but I do want to set the record right in so far as I did misrepresent New Zealand First’s position. Obviously if New Zealand First can get that while it is the third-biggest party that would be wonderful for it. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 There are two or three particular areas that I would like to draw to the Minister’s attention and seek his comments on. The first relates to clause 26 inserting new section 80A “Duty to report suspected offences”. The reason why I raise it with the Minister is that I seek his comment on whether there should be some element of discretion for the Electoral Commission not to refer minor breaches of the Broadcasting Act to the police. Members who have been in the House for any length of time will recall the debacle we had in 1996 when I think a quarter of the members of Parliament who were elected had their spending returns referred to the police. Their spending returns were referred to the police because of a myriad of minor technical details. 
For example I am aware that a number of returns were referred to the police by the electoral office because members had failed to put on their returns the street number of a company that they had paid an election expense to and a number of spending returns were referred to the police because members had failed to identify correctly the address or the name of the person to whom an election payment was made. As I recall the situation I think every party in the Parliament had members’ spending returns referred to the police. Now that was patently ridiculous because the electoral office did not seek that information from the members involved but the members had to put up with having their returns referred to the police and the uncertainty that was attached to that. Thank goodness the police exercised their discretion and decided that that was a complete and utter nonsense and a waste of police time. So I would like the Minister to consider whether there is an option for the Electoral Commission to either have opportunities for people to remedy any potential breaches or have some discretion in respect of minor breaches. New section 80A “Duty to report suspected offences” inserted by clause 26 does mean that if United Future as it did last time fails to put its spending return in on time but puts it in the next day or if United Future fails to state the address of a person to whom it paid a cheque then that return technically has to be referred to the police. Indeed that happened in 1996 and again in 1999. 
A second point I would like the Minister to comment on is why we are continuing with the charade of opening and closing addresses. I wonder why he is not prepared to entertain the idea of allowing parties the choice of whether to spend their resources on producing opening and closing addresses. Frankly there is such a plethora of media now that very few people tune into the opening and closing addresses. Some of them are pretty awful and they do not maintain the public’s interest. I suspect if we were to pick up on the point that Mr Franks raised about the opportunity for parties to successfully put their message to the voters we would realise the resources being spent on producing opening and closing addresses and the free time that is contributed to them would be much better spent elsewhere. So why can parties not have the choice of how that taxpayer resource is spent? 
I wonder whether the Minister can also comment on why we are continuing with the prohibition on paid election programmes in section 70(2)(c)(ii) of the principal Act which is amended by clause 13. Essentially that is a restriction on the ability of individual candidates to promote their election outside the election period. What that means is that candidates who have been selected by the National Party—such as Gil Stehbens who is going to be the next National MP in Rotorua or David Bennett the next National MP in Hamilton East do not have an opportunity to advertise their candidacy and their availability on the radio but sitting members of Parliament do. Sitting members of Parliament are able to advertise their candidacy under the cloak of their constituency services. I have been in parts of the country where electorate MPs advertise their availability on the radio which in my view skirts around the restrictions on the ability of individual candidates to promote themselves. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports this part of the legislation. About the only real issue is the one that has been raised by Murray Smith the United Future member. I understand the ACT party is likely to support that amendment if it is consistent with the report and I expect it would be. 
I have had the opportunity to listen to the debate on this issue. I was not at the Justice and Electoral Committee at the time; a member deputised for me while I was dealing with another piece of legislation. I am going to support the United Future amendment. I think it just adds that extra degree of safety. It is perhaps unfortunate that the member mentioned the particular party in question; it could happen to anybody. From the point of view of extra caution New Zealand First will support that amendment. There is really nothing else to say. It is largely a non-controversial measure and I do not intend to take up the time of the Committee any further. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I want to make some remarks about election broadcasting and in particular I will follow on from the comments made by my colleague Tony Ryall in respect of choice around opening and closing addresses and the funding required for those addresses to be made freely. 
I note in the commentary on the bill that the Justice and Electoral Committee had a job of trying to balance freedoms around the election broadcasting expectation while at the same time not wanting to prescribe too heavily on the political parties the exact measures. I listened with interest when Stephen Franks from the ACT party made the comment that other political elections enjoy much more freedom around the edges of these types of funding arrangements but of course are restricted in many ways by constraints that they impose upon themselves. 
If one looks at the US election recently held and in particular at the plethora of rules and regulations that was laid down when Senator John Kerry was to meet President Bush on the platform during the presidential debates we can see that there were rules covering such things as how far apart the podiums would be whether there would be one podium or two lecterns who would speak first whether the candidates would sit or stand what arrangements would be made about which topics would be debated at which debate that the first debate was on foreign policy and the second was on the economy and domestic policy and that they were not allowed to have an environment where those subjects overlapped in those two debates. Further concerns were expressed between the parties over things such as the number of questions that would be asked who would ask those questions—would members of the audience ask them—and whether each candidate would be able to chip in while the other candidate was speaking. Those sorts of rules were very tightly prescribed. It made the leader’s debate with Paul Holmes look like a bit of a walk in the park. 
But I have to say that for us then to form the view that other jurisdictions have much more freedom around the way they conduct these broadcast debates or political statements is not actually that accurate although to be fair in respect of those two presidential candidates I have to say that that was done by way of negotiation between the two parties as opposed to a set of rules that was set down. I think that the most intriguing thing though was that when all those rules had been set down when all the arrangements had been made and when the gofers had finished negotiating on behalf of the candidates for months on end both candidates walked out wearing white shirts and red ties! I thought that was quite interesting—completely immaterial to this bill but interesting none the less. 
In respect of the opening and closing debates broadcast during the election period in New Zealand new section 71 in clause 17 attempts to blend choice with prescription and as is so often the case it would seem to me that what some political parties would wish for is far more choice and far less prescription on this particular issue. In the end the political parties themselves are best placed to determine what particular market what particular sector and indeed what particular medium will appeal to their voters. It should not be left to the State to make those decisions completely on their behalf. In fact when one thinks through the logic of every party having to spend money on an opening statement and a closing statement it all seems a bit odd. Who could forget at the last election Winston Peters sitting behind his desk looking in his own mind one imagines seriously presidential and then holding up three fingers to recite a child’s nursery rhyme. Only if he had been forced to have an opening statement would he have restricted himself to such a series of bizarre approaches. Having said that I am sure the Rt Hon Winston Peters would have preferred the freedom to choose his own medium his own setting and his own time frame in which to make his opening statement in his own way. Whilst the select committee has tried hard to blend prescription with freedom we still are not left with a huge amount of choice. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I want to talk about the opening and closing addresses which are in Part 2. In doing so I begin by commending Television One and Radio New Zealand for voluntarily giving time to the opening and closing addresses. It is time that they give up and are not reimbursed for and I want to thank them for their willingness over the years to do that. 
The opening and closing addresses do play an important role. The election should really be a level playing field. At the time that the House rises and heads towards an election every party is at zero seats and approaches the election from the point of view of having to win representation from that point. But so much of our system is geared against that level playing field. In particular the funding that is provided for television and radio broadcasts is paid out on a proportionate basis—the larger the party the more money it gets and the more time it gets. To some extent that clearly goes against the idea that all parties approach an election on the same basis. There is some justification for it in terms of the allocation of finances from the public purse; arguably the distribution of public funding of election broadcasting on the basis of the public support for parties that has been shown in the past can be justified. But when smaller parties are unable to top up their funding by private funding to supplement that to bring them to a level playing field in my view it provides some distortion. 
I think the opening and closing addresses in contrast help to level the playing field. Although there is more time allocated at least all the significant parties get an opportunity to provide their opening and closing addresses at a time when the members of the public who are interested in the election and in political events may make up their minds. We know the power that there is in television broadcasting in particular. The ability to judge all parties over one or two nights on their opening addresses and over what has proved to be about a 30-minute period on their closing addresses does I think have quite an influence on helping people to make up their minds as to which party they will support. 
I think that in so far as we get the generous time of Television One and Radio New Zealand it was important when we were considering this bill to provide as much flexibility to them as we could and in particular to allow them advertising time in between the opening and closing addresses. The sacrifice they have made in the past in that they were prevented from obtaining advertising revenue during a time when they would normally expect it has been an extra penalty that they have paid. The Justice and Electoral Committee recognised that it was a penalty that ought not to be imposed on them and that it was not necessary for it to be imposed on them. 
I think it is appropriate that the restriction on election advertising stays because of the potential for parties to distort the opening and closing addresses period by using greater resources. Therefore I think it is wise to restrict that. However the select committee has left the discretion on the broadcaster in terms of judging to a large extent whether advertising in the grey area constitutes election advertising. But I think we can have confidence in the broadcasters that they will take a conservative approach to that. If they get advertising from a third party that looks as if it is a little close to promoting a particular party or suggesting that people not vote for a party I am sure they will take a conservative view and not allow that to happen. 
I think the changes we have made not only fix an ambiguity in the Act as far as advertising is concerned but provide a very good balance whereby the broadcaster is able to get paid for time but there is the limitation to ensure that there is not any distortion through advertising between the opening and closing addresses. Certainly I think one of the things that the Government needs to look at is this whole idea of the ability to top up funding. I also think that the process we should be adopting is that once public funding is allocated parties that get less than the largest party are able to use their own resources in order to top up funding because of the level playing field nature of our elections. 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to be speaking on behalf of National on Part 2. I will start by saying if I may that issues touching on electoral legislation need to be treated with considerable care. New Zealand does not have a written constitution and in the developed world we are one of only three countries that do not have one. The other two happen to be the United Kingdom and Israel. 
I know that in the course of this debate National members have been looking with interest at Mr Murray Smith’s contribution in the form of the amendment that he has proposed—very late in the piece I would have to say—to clause 18. The whole issue of electoral broadcasting is of course a hot topic and the Justice and Electoral Committee was concerned not to leave room open for undue influence upon the perception of opening and closing broadcasts from both the placement or the content of advertising that might have political impact. I believe that the balance that the select committee has struck is probably reasonable in the circumstances. There is no doubt that the current position on advertising between opening and closing addresses is at the lowest ambiguous—it is certainly that. One of the things that the select committee did was to insert in clause 22 a new section 77A into the Broadcasting Act. 
It might be said that the public is not much interested in these things; it might also be said that there is no compelling reason for change. But certainly in the context of the developing dynamic of MMP it becomes increasingly important for the system at least to appear to be fair—even if it is not completely so. That is why those changes have been made. 
One of the things we did suggest was that industry work with the Electoral Commission to develop a code of practice. I am not sure whether the ACT member has taken a call in this debate but he is a very substantial contributor to the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee and he dissented from the position of the majority in connection with the broadcasting issues. I hope he is given an opportunity to talk about those sorts of issues. As a bottom-line position we need to be careful not to constrain or limit free media speech. 
I think the Committee certainly from National’s perspective will have to think more deeply about Mr Smith’s proposals. I just say I suppose by way of friendly caution to him that when in the Committee stage of a bill proposed amendments arrive very late there is no real opportunity for caucuses to reflect on what their significance may be. Even if they are of undoubted intrinsic merit there is no real opportunity for them generally to be taken up because of the need to align them with other provisions in the bill. 
I have spoken about electoral hoardings in the debate on another part of the bill and I do not seek to do that now. In simple terms National’s position is that it supports this bill. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: You are confused. 
RICHARD WORTH 
: I will respond to an invitation that has just now been offered to me by the Minister in the chair. He has made the suggestion that National is confused on these issues. I would just like to say to those who are listening to the radio and also to members in the Chamber that “confused” is something National never is. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Murray Smith to clause 18 be agreed to: 
to add to subsection (2A) in subclause (1) the following words: 
unless: 
(a)the Electoral Commission determines in its discretion that in all the circumstances the account ought to be paid and 
(b)the Electoral Commission has not repaid to the Crown the money that has been allocated to the relevant political party under section 74A and which would have been used to pay the account. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 30 
New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 90 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; Green Party 9; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 309 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to clauses 19 and 21 be agreed to. 
Clauses 1 and 2 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The title debate is an opportunity to review the scope of this legislation. One cannot help but reflect on the fact that clause 6 in Part 1 is the source of governmental embarrassment. About a year ago the Prime Minister was saying that it would all be fixed and that a mere technicality was being perfected. For some unexplained reason the Government has changed its mind. I have yet to hear from any Government member why under this legislation—to be known as the Electoral Amendment Act 2004—the rules that effectively prevailed prior to Mr Duynhoven being in breach of the Electoral Act have been affirmed. Admittedly there is a minor change in that if a person already has a passport or a document issued by another Government he or she can get it renewed or re-issued. 
But I want to know why we are now in the odd situation of Parliament—I use that term collectively—having passed legislation exempting Mr Duynhoven from the 1993 Electoral Act not carrying over that exemption into this legislation. That is a fair question and one that I believe the public of New Zealand deserves an answer to. In particular I would like to hear the Government say what caused it to change its mind. The matter is hardly referred to in the report which simply recommends that the new section be clarified. It makes no reference whatsoever to its purpose in the first place. 
Also the report contains no reference whatsoever to that legislation having been induced by Mr Duynhoven’s breach of the law. I know that Mr Duynhoven took a call and gave a whole series of exculpatory statements but the fact remains that he was in breach of the law and this Government bailed him out by what has to be referred to as an affront to constitutionalism—by having a special piece of legislation. So one member of this Parliament was not actually elected by the people of New Zealand. One member of this Parliament is here because of partisan legislation. That is the constitutional affront. 
There was another approach that could have been taken and that was to hold a by-election. The Government refused to take that path and I would not be at all surprised if Mr Duynhoven rues the day he himself did not make that choice. Now he has to wait until the general election to find out whether he has the trust of the people—to find out whether he is elected by the people instead of by partisan legislation of this Parliament. [ 
Interruption 
] I say for the benefit of the Minister that that is the legal situation. Mr Duynhoven is here by virtue of legislation not the will of the people. 
The Minister ought to take a call because today we are dealing with the Committee stage of the Electoral Matters Bill which has as one of its central features the issue around Mr Duynhoven. This Parliament and the people of New Zealand deserve better than the Minister’s silence. It is reasonable when issues of high constitutional moment are being dealt with that the Government take at least one call to explain why it was legitimate to pass legislation to allow Mr Duynhoven’s breach of the Electoral Act to be perfected by legislation and why 2 years later that kind of action will not be able to be carried on henceforth. I ask the Minister why the Government has made that choice. He has the opportunity to explain. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 The Electoral Matters Bill is best broken into three major issues. The first issue which was dealt with in the last part related to broadcasting matters and amendments to the Broadcasting Act. Generally there was widespread agreement throughout the Committee on that part. It was a non-controversial part in the sense that the bulk of it was dealt with and agreed to by the Justice and Electoral Committee. A couple of amendments were offered by Murray Smith but there was nothing that was going to rock the world. 
However it is worth spending a bit of time on the other two issues that have been raised in this debate. My colleague Dr Wayne Mapp raised the issue of Mr Harry Duynhoven. I do not intend to traverse the issues already covered by Dr Wayne Mapp. I offer a slightly different perspective on that argument which is: who was Harry Duynhoven hiding? Who were the people behind poor old Harry Duynhoven—poor old Harry Duynhoven the public fall guy for any number of Government MPs who did not have the wherewithal to put their hands up and say in the House: “I am in the same position.”? 
Members can criticise Harry Duynhoven and have done so at length but another question has been avoided in this debate. Whilst the Hon Harry Duynhoven was pushed out the front who was hiding behind him? Where is that person now? [ 
Interruption 
] The member for the ACT party Stephen Franks says that even Harry Duynhoven does not know. I do not think that is right. I think Harry Duynhoven does know and I think it drives him nuts. I think it drives him nuts not to be able to stand up and simply say: “I took the fall for these other people. I took the hits publicly. I could have gone to my constituency and easily won a by-election.” Nobody in this Chamber can seriously put a case for Harry Duynhoven not winning that by-election. But who was hiding behind him? 
To some extent I have a bit of sympathy for Mr Duynhoven. In my view he was hung out to dry. That is not to say that what occurred was right. In fact Dr Wayne Mapp has gone to some lengths to discuss why the processes around Mr Duynhoven’s particular case were deeply and constitutionally wrong. But that does not excuse those who got off scot-free. I remember sitting in this Chamber when the House was in urgency and asking David Benson-Pope who at the time was the Government senior whip: “Who else is there?” I sought leave for Mr Benson-Pope to tell us who the other culprits were. Every other whip in this Parliament stood at some time as I recall and said that they had checked and it was not one of theirs. We asked the chief Labour Party whip who at the time was David Benson-Pope to stand and make the same declaration but he would not make it. 
This bill is about letting those other people off the hook while Harry Duynhoven was sent out to take the hit for them. The other issue which caused some controversy at the commencement of this debate was that relating to powers around design layout and colour of hoardings. I finish by saying that there cannot be one rule for MPs and another rule for everybody else. If the law is wrong we should amend the local government legislation and the Resource Management Act. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I hope that Mr Power gets another call because I can see that he has a lot of explaining to do of the National Party’s position on the provisions of the bill we are debating which essentially tell local authorities to get their sticky fingers off free speech during elections. But I go back to the other provision that he addressed very well which is the reversal of the Duynhoven amendments. 
Part 1 reasserts the importance of loyalty among members of Parliament. Most of us thought it was elementary that New Zealand voters are entitled to expect that when they elect members of this House those members will owe allegiance to New Zealand to the Queen in right of New Zealand and to the people without a conflict of interest. It was pretty straightforward and it has been in our electoral law as long as anyone can remember as well as being in the electoral law of other countries. Now this bill is reinstating it with a minor qualification. It states that there can be a residual loyalty or association with the country of place of birth from which a person came and that one may renew a passport issued by that country before one took office without being deemed to have signed up one’s loyalty to another country. 
Do members recall the scorn that the Prime Minister placed on the Electoral Act’s requirement that people not swear allegiance to a foreign power? She called it an anachronism—an “antiquated technicality” I think the words were. 
 That shameful episode when the Speaker of this House failed to carry out a statutory duty and delayed declaring the vacancy to enable the Government to rush through the legislation that Mr Power has just described probably hid a multitude of people who had signed up allegiance to other lands. I do not think there is anyone in Labour who would still be so blind as to have signed up to the Comintern or to the Communist Party as one might have expected not so many years ago but undoubtedly there must have been more than poor Harry Duynhoven who had signed up allegiance to a foreign power. 
I have no doubt that in the panic they were in if he was alone they would have let him swing at that time. There must have been others to cause them to do something as constitutionally offensive as changing the Electoral Act to get rid of a loyalty requirement and now to reinstate it—because funnily enough it proved not to be an antiquated technicality. Funnily enough when the Justice and Electoral Committee was looking at this provision we were all of one mind that it was important that people not have divided loyalties that it is significant when someone signs up to a foreign power and that it could be relevant to the New Zealand voters that someone has a citizenship that gives them a bolt hole so that they could muck things up here and then disappear to go and live somewhere else because they do not really care. 
It is perfectly open to New Zealand voters to elect a foreigner to this Parliament if they wish as long as they have New Zealand nationality but they need to know what they are doing. It is perfectly rational that the Electoral Act should say: “If you sign up to another power then give the voters a chance to reconfirm your mandate or decide that they would rather have someone who had undivided loyalties.” So to reinstate this under the bland heading “Electoral Matters Bill” means it is a very sad day for something as boldfaced as this. I thought the Government would have been more imaginative. I thought it might have come up with some other changes to the citizenship requirement. For example if this Government really wanted to suddenly assert loyalty why did it not overhaul the dreadful provision that allows non-citizens to vote in New Zealand? In my opinion citizenship should be a privilege. 
This bill instead of simply reinstating the law before the Duynhoven amendment with a minor modification for citizenship from one’s country of birth should have dealt with the offensiveness I see when non-citizens can come here and vote for our Parliament without having any necessary allegiance to this country. They can preserve all their options vote and go back home again leaving a shambles behind them or vote for benefits that they have never had any part in producing. I believe we do not take our citizenship strongly enough and it is time to change that. 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 In considering the title I must say that I am a little bit disappointed in the number of speeches that have come from National that have really relitigated the past in terms of Harry Duynhoven’s situation. I am also concerned at the attacks from National that I have perceived on Harry Duynhoven over this issue. I think he acted with integrity throughout the process. He was the unfortunate victim of a law that perhaps was not all that it ought to be. 
The Justice and Electoral Committee did get the opportunity however through this to readdress the issue as to what the qualification should be for membership in the House of Representatives. Really in essence what the select committee came up with was to say that there needed to have been some positive act while an MP and that it ought to have involved allegiance to a foreign power or State. That was the essence really of what we came to and I think that is probably the right balance as far as that is concerned. 
I want to address the fact that the title the Electoral Matters Bill really understates how minimal the bill is in terms of the alterations it makes. My concern is that the Government did not take the opportunity to make some other changes to the bill at the time and only took a very minimalist approach when it looked at making alterations. 
 I draw the Committee’s attention to a couple of matters that have been in urgent need of amendment and that this bill could have and should have addressed. They are matters that relate back to recommendations in the select committee reports on the 1996 and 1999 general elections. I note that the select committee’s report on the inquiry into the 2002 election listed 20 matters that had arisen in previous reports that we felt needed attention. The committee then listed another 12 matters that we felt were additional recommendations that ought to be taken into account. 
Obviously some of those matters have been around for a long time without being addressed and whilst the Minister has indicated that he will look at a thorough review it is impractical for that to happen before the next election—it is impractical for it even to be looked at before the next election. Certainly it will not be implemented before the next election. So we will be looking at at least another 3 years before some of those pretty essential matters are addressed. 
The most important recommendation in the select committee’s report is recommendation No. 17 which stated that the Broadcasting Act should be amended to include a clear distinction between an election programme promoting a constituency candidate and an election programme promoting a political party. That was reinforced by new recommendation No. 6 in the report which indicated that clarification be provided on whether a constituency candidate’s broadcasting may promote a party or its list and whether a party’s broadcasting may promote a constituency candidate. That is a huge area of confusion as I know from my position of having been involved in the last three elections mainly from an official point of view as secretary of a political party. When we get to the situation of what a constituency candidate can advertise and what a party can advertise there is a huge amount of uncertainty. I think that that could have reasonably been cleared up without too much effort and placed in the bill. 
We face silly situations such as whether a constituency candidate can even have the party logo on his or her advertising without falling foul of the provisions that require that separation. There is difficulty particularly for radio broadcasters as well as other people in authority in determining whether what is being promoted by way of a programme is really something that should come out of party funding or something that should come out of the constituency candidate’s own funding. That desperately needs to be cleared up. Certainly United Future’s point of view is that there should be flexibility so that the constituency candidate and party can nominate to a large extent where it will come from. In the MMP environment it is simply silly that a constituency candidate cannot even put a party logo on his or her advertising which is the narrow interpretation of the provisions that has sometimes been taken. So that is one thing that could have been fixed. The other one that also directly involved me was recommendation 20. The select committee was looking at section 71A of the Electoral Act. 
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to. 
The Committee divided the bill into the Electoral Amendment Bill and the Broadcasting Amendment Bill  
divided into Electoral Amendment Bill Broadcasting Amendment Bill 
pursuant to Supplementary Order Paper308. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Today we heard that the Salvation Army is selling all its residential homes. I wonder what this Government has to say about that—this Government whose members when in Opposition professed to care so much about older New Zealanders. However today there is no comment from it as the Salvation Army following the example of Presbyterian Support Services decides to sell all its residential homes. Why is the Salvation Army selling up? Two years ago Dave Nelson brought a petition to the Health Committee about aged care and residential care that stated that his home which was mainly geriatric hospital beds could not keep going at the current rate of funding. The reason he could not keep going and said that they would have to cut care cut costs or close was this bill. 
This bill the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill is the income and asset testing bill. It has a very long history with a promise that this Government made time and again to older New Zealanders to remove income and asset testing. The money it has put aside to increase the assets a person can keep is why the Salvation Army is selling all its homes and why Presbyterian Support Services has already sold all its homes. Kemp House says that it will have to cut corners or close because it has had so little increase in funding when increased costs have gone up that it cannot manage to deliver aged-care services at a level that it finds acceptable. So this Government which proposes that it really dislikes private providers is pushing all of aged care into the hands of private providers and that is because of this bill. 
Before I came to Parliament I worked as a geriatrician through the 1990s so I have a lot of experience of rest homes dementia units hospitals and the assessment of elderly people. I heard the promises from the Labour Party year after year up and down this country saying that it would get rid of income and asset testing. It started back in the early 1990s. The history of this bill is that we have an ageing population. In the early 1990s a lot of aged care was provided by local public hospitals. Over the 1990s public hospitals became a place to deliver acute-care services but not to deliver long-term care. During that time the decision was made to move people into the community rest homes hospitals and dementia units. 
In 1994 10 years ago $636 was the amount set by Jenny Shipley for hospital care. However when this Government came in no change was made to that amount. Previously rest homes used to subsidise the hospital section. Now unless there is a retirement village that can subsidise the rest home and the hospital section proprietors cannot afford to stay in business. They cannot afford to pay the wages the increased electricity and food costs or to keep paying medical expenses and the cost of taking people to doctors. Today The Salvation Army decided to pull out. 
We heard Labour say continually that it would get rid of income and asset testing. However this bill the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill does not do that. In no way does it do that. What it does do is increase the level of assets that can be kept. A means test on income still will occur the regulations and the actual legislation remains and all that is changed is the amount that a person can keep when he or she goes into residential care. People may be able to keep more money but they will have to start paying for a whole lot more when they get into residential care. We will see a two-tier level. We will see that those homes that are paid the contract price only and provide only that level will go back to having more than one person in a room. I can bet anything one likes that that will be the only way unless rest homes can on-charge for extra services. That is what will happen I say to the Minister. If the Minister travels around the world he will see that aged-care services in New Zealand have been delivered at an extremely high standard. I have been to homes in the UK Australia and the USA where there are two three or four elderly people in one room—but not in this country. 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First will support the bill with the recommended changes by the Social Services Committee. This bill amends the income and asset testing regime that applies to residents of long-term residential care regardless of what National has said. Along with that the resident can if he or she wishes access financial support for care costs administered by the Ministry of Social Development. The purposes of the bill are to progressively increase the value of assets that people may retain before being required to use those assets to pay for care. At one stage this was never ever deliberated on or taken care of but for New Zealand First this is a step in the direction that will help people retain more of their assets. 
The bill will remove asset testing for those aged 50 to 64 who are at present being required to use their assets to pay for their care. It will exclude from the income test the earnings of the spouse of a person in care and it will specify that $636 per week is the maximum contribution adjusted annually. New Zealand First has always been concerned about the care of our elderly in rest homes. Whether or not they have been taken care of privately we have always been concerned. 
I refer to the main changes that will take place. One change is the maximum contribution and setting mechanism. The next is the meaning of “region” and those things that are concerned with the region. There is also the matter of gifts and means assessment and the mechanism for adjustment of excluded income. 
My comments on this bill will be very brief. We have committed ourselves to accepting this bill and the changes that will take place. New Zealand First recognises that there is a need to support residents who are in long-term residential care as a token of respect for and recognition of their contribution to the nation and to our society and community. New Zealand First will support this bill and hopefully in the future as time goes by adjustments will be made as we look at the economy the contribution of our nation and as we look at and respect the dedication and support that our elderly folk have contributed to our nation. So without further ado we support this bill and we will ensure that we hold the Government to account for any changes that will take place in the future. Those changes if recommended should contribute to a more enjoyably lifestyle for our elderly folk. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 As I rise to speak in the Committee stage of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill I have a question for the Minister in the chair Ruth Dyson. If this bill is so great why was there almost universal opposition from most of the residential care providers who came before the Social Services Committee to tell us of their views on this bill? We heard from far and wide. We heard from a lot of the groups that have been involved in long-term residential care for many many years. They are not fly-by-nighters. Rather they include groups like the Christian-based groups such as Presbyterian Support New Zealand The Salvation Army and Age Concern. Group after group came before the select committee and pointed out what they thought were some pretty serious errors in the bill. Groups like Presbyterian Support told us that if changes were not made to the present mode of funding there would be a mass exodus from the industry. Presbyterian Support as one example pointed out that it had already exited long-term residential care over a period of years but that it would be forced to further leave the industry if it was not in a position where it could cover its costs. Group after group particularly our Christian-based social services said they were actually cross-subsidising their long-term residential care and using money they were getting from other areas to put into their care services. That was something that was of huge concern to us. 
The select committee also heard from The Salvation Army. It said that it was at that point considering departing from the provision of long-term residential care. At the time some members scoffed. They believed that that was just something that was trumped up as a way of making the point at the select committee but it was interesting was it not to read the newspaper today and see that after many many decades of providing residential care— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: For 70 years. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: My learned colleague tells me they have been providing that care for 70 years. After 70 years of providing care in this community it is now saying that it has had enough. It is getting out of that particular area of work and will move to helping people more in their own homes. Well that does not suit everybody. One of the things the residential carers were saying was that the people coming to their facilities were people who had significant problems because they had waited in their homes for too long. The Salvation Army at the time it came before the select committee had 13 facilities. I have read in the paper that it now has 12 which it is going to put up for sale. 
We have to look at that mass exodus from the industry and start to ask why. This Government likes to champion public provision yet it is creating an environment where those public-spirited organisations and those that are not private providers are frankly not in a position where they can stay and provide services. Like many of my colleagues in this Chamber I have had letter after letter from groups from parents from children and from all sorts of workers in the sector who are saying that working in this particular area is just not an easy job. I have here sitting on my chair about a hundred different letters and that is just one of the files I have brought to the Chamber. 
Here I have a letter from a daughter of a resident at St Barnabas. She says: “Each day I see the tremendous job the staff do. It is not an easy job to care for frail elderly people who can be very demanding.” She goes on to say that she is concerned about the legislation because she sees some of those who provide the services as simply not being able to stay within the sector if they are not compensated to a level that allows them to stay in business. We are going to see a continuing exit from the sector—that is for sure. Groups like Presbyterian Support New Zealand are saying: “We are providing these sorts of services as much as we can but we are not going to be mugs about it. If we are not going to be compensated if we are not going to be in a position where we really can cover our costs we can’t continue to cross-subsidise this part of our work with other areas we work in.” 
I think it will be a shame. A lot of these groups are the ones that look after those who do not have too many other options. One of the things that will happen as many groups leave the sector is that we will see more reliance on the Government. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 In many ways this bill epitomises the deceit of the Labour Party. During the 1990s—and I hope the Minister will take a call— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Would the member withdraw that word please. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I am prepared to withdraw it but I must say I believe that the Labour Party has been somewhat slippery. I hope the Minister will take a call and tell us what she campaigned on during the 1990s because the clear message from the Labour Party was that it would remove asset testing for the elderly. In fact it started off as more than that: it said it would remove asset and income testing for the elderly. That was altered slightly as the decade wore on but during the 1999 election campaign the clear message was that the Labour Party would remove asset testing. 
Let us have a look at this bill. When do its provisions commence? On 1 July 2005. That is almost 6 long years since the Labour Party campaigned on an absolutely clear-cut issue—categorically it would remove asset testing for the elderly. But what is this bill really about? If we look at it we see that it is to progressively increase the value of assets that people may retain. There is nothing about removing asset testing and though I am not allowed to use the “d” word I do believe that it is quite right to say that the Labour Party has been as slippery as a Waikato River eel in terms of that—and that is insulting the Waikato River eel! [ 
Interruption 
] That is right—absolutely. But this is a very serious matter. Obviously that was a promise to older people and the Labour Party has made an absolutely clear backdown on it. 
A little while ago my colleague Dr Linda Scott was talking about The Salvation Army withdrawing from the residential care sector. I was not on the Social Services Committee during the submissions but I note that Major Alistair Herring said that the legislation was based on the false assumption that the bottom-line weekly payment of $636 represented the actual cost of providing basic residential care for an older person. He said that a more realistic bottom-line figure would also take into consideration the 21 percent increase in the consumer price index since 1994. Again the Labour Party has absolutely ignored that. It has absolutely ignored the reality of what has happened since 1994. 
Clause 3 the purpose clause goes on to state that the bill’s purpose is: “(d) to clarify the funder’s obligations to pay for contracted care services associated with long-term residential care;”. What does Major Herring say about that? He says he believes that there will be many opportunities for district health boards to disagree about payments for services deemed by the provider to be additional services. That is a sort of fine-tuning and an example is specialised equipment such as a shower chair for a morbidly obese resident. There could be disagreement between providers and district health boards as to whether a shower chair is covered in the contract and there will be example after example in terms of the detail. Yet that has been totally ignored by the Minister. I hope the Minister will take a call and explain just where this very very important fine detail is indeed defined in the bill—because it is not. This Labour Government has presided over the genesis of one of the most complicated health bureaucracies ever known to mankind. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on this section of the bill. I was on the Social Services Committee as this bill progressed. That was probably one of the most frustrating times I have had on a select committee because we discovered that the majority of the submitters’ concerns were not actually being addressed in this legislation we are dealing with tonight. 
The elderly are a segment of the population that we really do need to be concerned with and care for. We will all become elderly and some of us sooner than others of course. I am probably in the latter category. One of the major concerns submitters had was the cost of caring for the elderly. Apparently it is a Government decision to increase it and it is not dealt with in this legislation. That frustrated me and frustrated a lot of submitters but I think the main concern we have as has previously been said is that these particular facilities are closing down. We just cannot have that. We even have major problems with the pay structure for those who care for the elderly and it is a competitive market out there. We are thankful in this country that we have low unemployment but when we are starting to deal with the elderly and these types of issues we need to be very careful that we do not put those in desperate need into an even more desperate situation. 
I believe that the Government has a responsibility to attend to the conditions and careers of carers in New Zealand especially that dedicated group of people who care for the elderly in rest homes. I believe that if the Government is sincere in its intention to promote the care of the ageing in those homes then it must walk the talk. United Future has previously spoken on this bill and called on the Government to take the initiative gather the sector’s stakeholders and find a way out of this hole in respect of care for the aged. I note that around 31000 people—which is 7 percent of those aged 65 and over—are in long-term residential care. That is a lot of people. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: An ageing population. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: It is an ageing population as my colleague has just said. On average people spend 2 years in long-term residential care and I know that many members in this Chamber would have gone through some of those rest homes and seen those people. They would have seen how they enjoy the company of others how they are well cared for how they are taken out on trips and that they do many other things. In those final years that is very very important. United Future is supporting this bill because we welcome the fact that asset testing has been removed— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: It hasn’t been removed. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: —well it has been improved dramatically—but we have major concerns with the fact that we need to address the issues of the costs of the homes and the pay rates of the staff. Those issues are highly important to us and we hope that the Government will address them sooner rather than later. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak during the Committee stage of the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill and I have to say from the outset that our party will be opposing this legislation. 
I would like to start my contribution by noting that the date for commencement of the Act which is written in Part 1 is 1 July 2005. I make the point to the Committee that that seems to me to be yet another Labour Party election bribe. If we have an early election we can just imagine what the Labour manifesto will say: “Vote for us if you are an elderly New Zealander and we will remove asset testing.” If the election comes after 1 July 2005 then the election manifesto will say: “Look at the Labour Party. Aren’t we clever? We have started to remove asset testing.” But is it not interesting that I seem to recall from a few years ago that a promise was made that the Labour Party would remove asset testing—full stop? But here we are; we have a half-hearted attempt to start backtracking because—guess what? We have an election around the corner and the Labour Party is positioning itself with the elderly vote in its sights. 
I would like to make the point here that the cost of this legislation will be literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars a year as time goes by. Others in this debate have already made the point that we have an ageing population and what will happen is that people who could well afford to pay for themselves in residential care will be subsidised by hard-working taxpayers who can ill afford to pay their mortgages let alone the high taxes that will be necessary as time goes by and as the changes to the asset-testing regime progress. 
 I would say that this bill has to be one of the most irresponsible bills that any Government could bring in. The Labour Party knows full well that by the time it has long gone from the Treasury benches some other poor Government will have to pick up the cost of what will be hugely expensive legislation. As we all know it is very difficult to repeal a lot of social legislation once it has been put in place. 
I have to say it is bizarre that the day the Committee stage of this bill is taking place is the day on which The Salvation Army has signalled that it will get out of the residential care business. It warned the select committee in no uncertain terms that unless the Government changed the legislation in a way that would allow such social service providers to be in this business it would simply have to quit. Did the Government listen? No way! The Government did not listen. The Salvation Army also warned in its submission that Labour's removal of the asset-testing regime signals that the Government will become a monopoly purchaser of residential care services. It is the nationalisation of residential care for the elderly by stealth. That is what we are seeing today because almost no one eventually will have assets that are high enough for them to pay privately. 
Members of the Opposition who are opposing this bill as well as people listening are seeing another example of nationalisation by a Labour Government that wants to regulate almost every sector of our society. It is hitting hard at private charities—organisations like The Salvation Army and Presbyterian Support New Zealand an organisation that has been around for 100 years. They have been around and in the business of providing care for the people who most need it and the Labour Government in a bizarre fashion is forcing them out of the business because it thinks that the Government knows best. I say to the Minister in the chair Ruth Dyson that if I have that wrong I would like her to stand take a call and explain to members why it is that today The Salvation Army is quitting the business. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 The Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill is a perfect example of what is produced by a cynical Government that campaigns on one thing and then delivers exactly the opposite. Colleagues who have spoken earlier have asked the Minister in the chair Ruth Dyson to take a call. I reiterate that request. I want the Minister to stand up and reconcile this matter for those who are listening—probably the elderly because the elderly often listen to the radio at night. Some elderly people cannot get to sleep at night and so unlike lots of others who are doing other things they often listen to the radio—[ 
Interruption 
]. The Minister is very much awake. Mature New Zealanders often listen to the radio at night. Although sometimes I wonder why in the case of this legislation I have no doubt at all that some of our senior citizens will be listening to the debate. I think it is only fair that the Minister should stand take a call and respond to the question of why she was happy to be part of a Labour Opposition that campaigned on a plank of getting rid of asset testing. 
My colleague Dr Hutchison says that Labour started off the first part of its 9 years in Opposition by saying it would abolish asset and income testing. By the time we got to 1999 it was promising to abolish asset testing only. Of course this bill does not deliver this. Labour has been in Government for nearly 6 years now and one has to ask when it will deliver on its promises. This bill does not do that. It creates a huge expectation for one part of the community but lays some costs on another part. I want the Minister to stand up and explain why she was happy to say in the second reading of this bill: “We consider that it is legitimate to expect people to contribute towards some of the costs of care because those costs would need to be met if the person were living at home. As such the income test is retained.” That is in direct contrast to what I have no doubt that the Minister as part of the Labour Opposition— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: It's the “Maharey principle”. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: My colleague Dr Scott calls it the “Maharey principle” which means to say one thing when in Opposition and do exactly the opposite when in Government. I know that this Minister does take calls so I ask her to seriously consider getting to her feet and explaining why she can sit there with her chest puffed out and be proud of what this Government is doing in what is really a shambolic bill and answer the question of why Labour is not doing what it said it would do when it was in Opposition. We know why: the reality is that once a party gets into Government it has to come up with solutions. I would not say that this bill is a solution though. 
I have to agree with the previous speaker Muriel Newman who raised the issue that this legislation will in the long run create huge huge costs. In pretending to be doing something that is close to what it promised but not actually going quite to the point of getting rid of asset testing Labour is piling on a huge cost factor which we will all pay for some time in the future. Given that there are now providers exiting the sector we will probably start paying that cost a lot sooner than anybody thinks. I think it is a cynical Government that will do this to some of the most vulnerable people in our community. However I am sure that in our senior citizenry we have intelligence and common sense. Those citizens will not be fooled by this—they just will not be. They deserve far better than this at their time of life. It is not right that not so very long ago promises were made that today can be seen for what they are—a total sham. It is obvious that the Minister will not get to her feet and she should. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 In speaking to the Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill I would like to echo the words of my colleague— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Is that because you've got her speech in front of you. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: No no. I say to the Minister that we do not necessarily always speak from prepared speeches. 
We know the intention of this bill and we are incredibly concerned. As members have already heard providers are getting out of residential care because they are not being supported by the current Government. One has to ask oneself why they are not being supported by the current Government. I am reminded of a press release written by Simon Carlaw. He used the words socialisation and de-privatisation to describe this Government's policy and direction. De-privatisation is exactly what the Government is going to get because residential care providers are getting out of the business. 
The Salvation Army is getting out. It is getting out of Ohinemuri an aged-care house in my electorate. It is no longer worth The Salvation Army's time and effort to go down this path when it is not supported by the current Government. That is a huge concern. What will happen? Where will those old folk go? 
The current ideology is that all those old folk will be looked after in their own homes. Well that is really fine and dandy. Who will help to look after them in their own homes? Caregivers are in crisis at the moment because they are not getting funding or support either. So what will happen to those old folk? Is this really going to cut much mustard with them? 
Yes the Government was going to scrap income and asset testing but with this bill it has allowed old folk to keep at least more of their assets. But how will that help them? What actual benefit will that be to them if they require caregivers or residential care? Who will provide those services? Will it be the Government? Hello no; I do not think so—because it is not cutting the mustard right now. It is not doing that. 
Here I have a press release from Mayor Lawrence Yule of Hastings. He is ready to go to Wellington to fight funding cuts for the elderly and disabled in Hawke’s Bay. Why is that? Because agencies there are grappling with what he states is a multimillion dollar cut in funding for the elderly and disabled. 
So I ask the Government what this bill is really doing for the elderly? The Government is just not doing anything. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Where is all the money going? 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: That is a good question. That is something we find difficult to understand with this Government. The money certainly is not going into looking after the elderly. It is not going to residential care providers and it is not going to caregivers to help them to look after the elderly in their own homes. 
All we have to do is to look at the multitude of press releases about caregivers: “Low pay for caregivers blamed on woes”; the numbers are not there. “Radius polishes its services via home-help stake”; they are not there! “Qualified caregivers ‘will be sought after’ ”—why? Because they are not there. “Seminars boost for caregivers”; look there is a whole heap of hooey and no “do-ey”! There is review after review and pilot programme after pilot programme—and what is happening? Caregivers are still in crisis and old people are not getting residential care because people are getting out of the business. 
This bill does not help that in any way shape or form. Although those elderly people can retain a greater proportion of their assets it does not help them. If they cannot go into residential care provided by a private provider then will the Government provide residential care? I would think not and if it did I would be very sorry to see that day arrive. 
This bill also provides for an increase in the consumer price index. That will not go anywhere near matching compliance costs and increased costs. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes I am talking about the preliminary provisions in the bill; I understand that we are talking about Part 1 “Preliminary”. The bill does allow for an increased consumer price index but nothing is allowed for the cost of the Holidays Act—because the Government did not allow for it either. It did not assess the impact on the health and disability sector and of course there are all those other increased costs from employment occupational safety and health requirements electricity cultural sensitivity and goodness knows what else in order to meet obligations requirements and standards. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 As we have been hearing tonight Part 1 states that we will see the implementation of this legislation in 2005. Back in 1998 National increased the income and asset level that people could keep when they were in residential care. At this time 6 or 7 years later I certainly support an increase once again in the level of assets that people can keep when going into care. It is a principle that National established and the level has increased over time. The problem is that this bill will not be implemented until 1 July 2005. The reason the date is so far away is that when Labour became the Government it realised how much this promise would cost. This legislation is costly because we have an ageing population and aged-care services are expensive. 
Members should think about what the elderly can get for $636 per week. We are talking about specialised care. No longer do rest homes have to have a set number of parking spaces for residents. People do not drive to the door of a rest home any more—they come in an ambulance. The level of disability and the level of care is much much higher than it was in 1994 when the figure of $636 was set. The people who come in an ambulance to a rest home are generally very physically frail or have some form of dementia. They may not be bad enough to go into a dementia care unit—if they are basically in a semi-terminal phase they will go into a hospital—but rest home services provide very high levels of care now. What do residents get for $636? They want to have a rest home with good facilities in terms of the size of the rooms and the showers. The home has to have equipment. It has to pay for doctors be warm provide good food and often cater for special diets. The home has to provide for medications. All those things come out of that figure—one does not get a lot for $636 per week. 
Time after time the Social Services Committee heard submissions from the rest home sector which was concerned about that $636. The Salvation Army has said clearly today that after 70 years it can no longer afford to provide rest home care. This Government has kept between $100 million and $200 million in order to honour part of a promise. While in Opposition Labour members irresponsibly said that Labour would take off income and asset testing. It came into Government found out that that was an extremely expensive promise and has backed off it ever since. It has come up with what we see in Part 1 today which allows people to keep $150000 worth of assets. Those assets really are for the relatives not for the person in care; it is the relatives who get those assets when someone dies. 
That change means people will have to pay for a lot more services. Part 1 clearly clarifies: “… the funder’s obligations to pay for contracted care services”. District health boards are now contracted funders. District health boards from all over the country are screaming about the risk that has been handed to them by our aged-care services. Every district health board that came to the select committee said that it was really worried about the devolvement of aged-care funding to district health boards and the financial risk they were taking on. We see that they have offered rest homes a 1 percent increase in funding when the rest home and hospital sector says it needs at least a 20 percent increase. This Government has devolved its responsibility to district health boards and has kept the money that should have gone into improving services in order to fulfil the half-promise that it irresponsibly made to older New Zealanders. 
National has never promised that it would totally remove income and asset testing. We have never said that. We certainly support increasing the asset level but we have not broken a promise. We realise the financial implications of this legislation for New Zealand given our ageing population. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 The residential care sector has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. As my colleague Lynda Scott said not only have expectations of the level of care changed—people arrive at the facilities with more extreme conditions less able to look after themselves and more in need of quite specialised care—but the expectations of family members and residents have changed as well. I visited the Montecillo Veterans’ Home and Hospital in Dunedin just before it was decided to move the facility altogether. The person who ran that facility said that when family members come to look at the facilities now they have a much higher expectation of what they want for their parents than they did even 10 or 20 years ago. Families are no longer satisfied with little shoebox rooms and single beds. They want en suites colour televisions and a lot of the other things that residents were used to when they lived independently—and rightly so. They want a standard of care that they feel comfortable about putting their parents and other family members into. 
That has meant that a lot of residential care facilities have found it very difficult to upgrade. I believe that is why some of the Christian-based social services agencies are getting out of providing residential care—because they simply cannot look at refurbishing their facilities given the $636 cap on the funding that the Government offers them to provide care. That is why we are seeing a greater amount of cross-subsidisation than we had in the past. In my home town of Dunedin we have a number of very good facilities such as Taieri Court Rest Home Birchleigh Village and Ross Home and Hospital—all facilities that have looked after many friends of our family and also members of my own family. But I must admit I do worry when I get an increasing number of letters from the staff of those facilities from family members of residents and from clients—from residents—who are simply worried and who express concerns about how those services are going to continue in light of the present environment. 
We have heard a lot about broken promises. That is something we do not hear Labour mention in this debate. Labour members say they deliver; they say they keep their promises. I think this would be a good idea for a new Tui beer commercial if Age Concern wanted to pay the money: “Let’s get rid of asset testing. Yeah right.” That is basically what Labour said in the 1990s it would do and it has not done it. Labour is going to make a song and dance about partially keeping a promise but how does one partially keep a promise? The removal of asset testing is one thing that Labour has not delivered on although Helen Clark went from Kaitaia down to Invercargill telling elderly folk that that was exactly what she was going to do. She has not done it and I do not think that has gone unnoticed by Age Concern and Grey Power who are deeply disappointed that the Government has not kept its promise. The Government got all the kudos and the bouquets at the time when it announced that policy and yet when push comes to shove it has not been able to deliver. That promise was not on the pre-election credit card funnily enough because even when the Labour members were in Opposition they knew I think that that promise would be very difficult to deliver on simply because of the cost. When we on the Social Services Committee looked at the cost projections of this particular piece of legislation we got into quite large sums of money that are difficult to imagine particularly when looking at the baby-boom bump coming through in the demographic profile. 
I think one of the ironies of this legislation is that it will put the squeeze on the not-for-profit sector. At a time when the Government is making it far more difficult for private providers to continue to provide early childhood education it is doing exactly the opposite of that when it comes to providing residential aged care. We will see an increasing number of groups leave the residential care market. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the motion  
That the question be now put 
. 
Ayes 74 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 45 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 9; Green Party 9. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 281 in the name of the Hon Ruth Dyson to Part 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 111 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 9 
ACT New Zealand 9. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 as amended be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 111 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 9 
ACT New Zealand 9. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Before I go to the next part I note that there seemed to be some surprise that I took the closure on Part 1. I gave it a lot of consideration actually. I did think that that particular part was constraining members because they were wandering fairly widely in a way that I thought would be more appropriate to Part 2. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. While you are making that point of clarification in respect of the closure motion I wonder if you could advise the House whether in fact that was the first closure that was sought. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Yes it was. That is why I commented on it. To save members continually repeating themselves I thought we would move to Part 2. I thought that was appropriate. 
Part 2 Amendments to principal Act 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The debate on Part 2 is much wider ranging because there is a lot more detail in this particular part. One question that really concerns me when we are talking about being able to pay a maximum contribution of $636 is whether that applies just to rest homes and hospitals. In the past it was for hospitals. In 1994 when it was brought in it was for hospital level care and the Government gave a top-up on top of that. Rest home care at that time was about $450 per week so it was much less. Now it is $636. Most rest homes are asking that; that is the minimum one pays for rest home care. Then there is a hospital care top-up on top of that. So even if people are paying $636 for contracted services the Government will face quite a price to pay the top-up for people even in rest home level care and hospital care. Home cannot deliver quality care at that price. They will exit.  
 I become concerned about the merging of rest home and hospital level care. In the past hospital level care was for those people who needed the care of a registered nurse. They needed to have a registered nurse on duty 24 hours a day to provide a much higher level of care. Rest homes are required to have a nurse for so many hours per day but the nurse does not have to be there at all times. Hospital level care means care for people who are very disabled. We often have people who are dying of cancer who have tracheotomies who have advanced Alzheimer’s and need a lot of care or people who have catheters. They need registered nursing care. 
To get a registered nurse these days with the very low unemployment rate that we have is very difficult and these homes can no longer afford to employ nursing staff. Therefore most of them are looking to the Philippines and other overseas countries to be able to bring in nurses to staff these facilities. They have found it so hard with the payments they receive to be able to have qualified nursing staff. It has been very very difficult. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not know the actual level of ability of nurses who are brought in from overseas but presumably they would have to meet New Zealand standards to be able to work here. However it does mean that it is very difficult for rest homes to be able to do that. In fact the increased asset money will go to the relatives of the people going into care. That is where the money will go. From July 2005 people can keep $150000 worth of assets when they go into care but it is not the elderly person who will benefit. It just means that the person’s relatives will benefit. 
Although National would support the increasing of the asset level it has come at the cost of all other aged-care services. We have seen all over New Zealand people having difficulty with access to equipment difficulty with assessment to get into rest homes and hospital care and difficulty with being able to pay for home-care workers so that people can remain within their own home. The whole sector is under pressure because of this bill that we are debating tonight. 
I would like the Minister to take a call and explain to us why the Government set the asset level where it did at the expense of all other aged-care services in this country. Because that is what is happening. This Government came into office having irresponsibly gone from one end of this country to the other saying it would remove income and asset testing but it was not able to deliver on that promise. I want to hear from the Minister why she thinks the asset level the Government has set is the right level when all other levels of aged-care services in this country are under pressure. They are under so much pressure that the not-for-profit organisations in the sector have had to exit. Presbyterian Support Services has exited and The Salvation Army today announced it is exiting and that is the reason. Those providers who came to the Social Services Committee were very concerned about the $636 which was going to be the maximum contribution someone could pay. Their concerns were that they could not deliver the services at that level. What is happening is that public patients who may be in a public hospital who then go into a hospital in the community are being subsidised by private patients. 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I just want to express my disappointment at the announcement today that The Salvation Army is pulling out of providing services. The Salvation Army has done a tremendous job in providing services for aged care up until now. 
I wonder whether the Minister could take a call and clarify some concerns that I discussed with somebody yesterday. The person called me from a retirement village in Auckland and put its case to me. There are 37 residents in that retirement village and of those 37 two are in long-term residential care. The organisation claims the $636 figure for each of those two persons but the cost to the organisation is actually in the vicinity of $750. It has applied for a top-up and it receives $1 a day per person which is a long way short of the $750. 
I see that the Supplementary Order Paper does go some way in amending that and taking that $636 limit to be adjusted and decided in regulation and in regional divisions. So perhaps Auckland could be at a higher level but there is no guarantee. The Supplementary Order Paper does not guarantee that that figure of $636 will be increased in areas of high demand and high cost. It states that if any area is under that figure then the maximum amount is set at $636 and it remains at that until that particular region supersedes the $636. But nowhere does it explain whether that $636 is going to be increased other than by the consumer price index adjustments. 
The rest home was concerned that it was providing a service to those two long-term residents in its retirement village. One of them is not able to pay any additional fees but the other one does have the means to pay and is willing to pay but the village is under the apprehension that $636 or whatever the regional limit is going to be is all they can collect from that resident. Its decision has to be whether it pulls out of long-term residential care—in other words pushes its clients out of the retirement village—or reduces the services it is providing to those two individuals. The rest home’s concern is that if it has to push them out where do they go? Do they end up back in their homes with their families looking after them? 
Those two individuals do not want to be a burden on their families any further. That is why they went into a retirement village and they do not want to go back into their homes or outside of the retirement village and be looked after by their families until such time as they have to be hospitalised. That is another phase. When they go on to be hospitalised then they do require additional services and additional care. But it is during that in-between stage—when they are in long-term residential care—that those people want a reasonable level of care and service and some of them are willing to pay for that but the retirement village is uncertain as to whether it can ask them for additional funds. If it can ask them then that is fine. But what is the mechanism that allows the village to charge those clients for additional funds? I ask the Minister to take a call and explain that so I can get back to that retirement village and explain it. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I would like to take a call on Part 2 of this Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill and I would like to refer to the promise that the Labour Party made in its 1999 election brochure that it was all about people not money. That was the election brochure where Helen Clark’s photo was airbrushed; members will remember the lovely airbrushed photograph. Anyway the brochure stated: “Labour will abolish its asset testing. We say asset testing older people is wrong. It will go.” Now if members refer to schedule 1 of the bill which contains the new schedule 27—which clause 5 of the bill proposes to substitute for the current twenty-seventh schedule of the Social Security Act—they will see a table that shows asset testing being abolished but does it happen next year? No. Does it happen the year after? No. Does it happen the year after that? No. It happens in the year 2026. That is when the asset-testing regime will go. So can the people of New Zealand rely on Labour Party promises? The answer is no absolutely not. 
While we are talking about promises—because this bill is meant to be the delivery of an election promise—I remind members what Helen Clark our current Prime Minister said in this brochure: “Under my leadership a Labour-led Government will deliver public health services we can all be proud of. We are going to put the heart back into the health system.” What do we think the more than 3000 New Zealanders who died on the waiting list think about that? Will they believe— 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Not much I don’t think. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: No I do not think they can think of much because they are not actually here! The Labour Party Government’s health system failed those New Zealanders. What about the hundreds of thousands of people waiting on the waiting list? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: 173000. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: There are 173000 people waiting on the waiting list for health services. What will they say? They will say that Labour’s delivery of health services to New Zealanders is an absolute disgrace. 
We have another failed Labour Party promise in this bill before us now. Labour said it would be used to abolish asset testing. I say that this type of bill from Labour is wrong. In this case it is intergenerational theft. It is asking future generations of New Zealanders—our children of today—to pay huge amounts of money for an asset-testing regime that this country does not need. What it needs is an ability for older New Zealanders to retire with money in the bank. To enable New Zealanders to afford to save a decent amount for their retirement this Government should be introducing tax cuts. If we had tax cuts then this sort of bill would not be needed. Tax cuts is an idea whose time has certainly come. We have the Progressive Party the Government’s own coalition partner agreeing that taxes are too high in New Zealand. We need tax cuts to allow New Zealanders to retire with money in the bank; then this sort of poorly designed legislation would not be needed. That is why the ACT party is opposing this bill. 
A point that submitters made one after another was that this type of residential care for the elderly this type of business is increasingly difficult to provide not because of a whole bunch of other stuff but because of the Labour Government increasing the regulations on their sector and in particular increasing the cost of wages and salaries and industrial relations concerns. The Government has regulated the labour market so much that organisations like The Salvation Army find that they no longer have the money to be able to keep their care facilities ticking over. The costs have now gone beyond the pale and they have had to close their doors. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 One of the things that Part 2 deals with is changes in the provisions relating to needs assessment. At present there is a very complex process for working out who gets what. In talking with the people at the Montecillo Veterans’ Home and Hospital in Dunedin I was concerned at the long drawn-out process that needs assessment currently involves. Sometimes it can take months and months of caring for a person before the hospital or residential care facility gets its first payment. There is so much toing and froing between the district health board and the residential care facility that it is no wonder there is a lot of concern about how this part will be interpreted. That concern led not only to quite a few minor amendments to the bill but also to some major ones seeking clarity on that particular point. 
There is one aspect in this part that I do agree with. It is that those New Zealanders who are aged between 50 and 64 will be captured within the funding so that if they are in need of residential care they will not be in the position of having to sell everything in order to pay for their care. The reason for that is that some New Zealanders from the age of 50 and onwards suffer from the early onset of for example Alzheimer’s disease and from other sorts of disabilities and illness that required them to go into residential care facilities to be looked after much earlier than most other Kiwis would like to go into such facilities. 
Muriel Newman in her speech read out two very pertinent points from the brochure. One of them was that Labour would abolish asset testing. It did not state Labour would kind of abolish asset testing nearly remove asset testing or partially change asset testing; it stated Labour would abolish asset testing altogether. The second part of what Labour stated in its brochure was if my memory serves me correctly that the asset testing of old people is wrong. Well has Labour not changed its tune I say to the ladies and gentlemen sitting over there on the Government benches as arrogantly as ever about what it will actually deliver? Young Darren Hughes can be as smug as he likes because basically this legislation will be fully implemented by the time he retires. I can see why he is smiling: he is thinking that this legislation will be in place ready for when he retires. I think he will be very disappointed. One of the things we have seen is a number of groups say that they will get out of the provision of residential aged care altogether. I wonder who will be providing those services when members of Parliament who are here today require that level of care. 
As we have heard from previous speakers we have seen quite a change in the residential aged-care market over a period of time. I think that some of the amendments to Part 2 will introduce greater clarity to the understanding of the sector but I am concerned about the complexity of the legislation. That was something that was brought up by submitter after submitter to the Social Services Committee. People were unsure how an eligible person would be defined. They were unsure of what constituted a contracted service of what was a specific service incorporated within the $636 funding cap and of what was part of the contract and what was not. One of the things that indicates that ideology plays a part in this legislation is that the Government is not only stating what the publicly funded providers can charge but also telling private providers exactly what they will charge. In any other business that is called price fixing. The Government is getting involved in meddling in areas that it should not be involved in. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 This bill has been characterised by the absolute silence of the Minister in charge of it the Minister for Senior Citizens. For a decade she went around campaigning that Labour would remove asset testing. She has not denied that and neither has the Government removed asset testing. Despite many of my colleagues asking for her to take a call she has failed to do so. It almost epitomises that little saying: “What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to break election promises.” I was not going to say the “d” word again but really that is what should be said. 
Part 2 is unnecessarily very complicated. It has various sections relating to needs assessments clothing allowances residential care schemes and means assessments. Yet if Labour had kept its promise and removed asset testing as in 1999 it said it would all this complicated legislation and this complicated Part 2 would not be here before us. After all as Muriel Newman read out Labour’s 1999 election brochure said very clearly: “We say asset testing older people is wrong. It will go.” So here we have Part 2 with this highly complex tortuous piece of bureaucracy which requires everything from needs assessments to means assessments clothing allowances and residential care schemes. All those things would not be necessary if Labour was prepared to keep its promises or even if Labour was prepared to make legislation simple and straightforward. But oh no it has gone ahead over the last 6 years and introduced one of the most complicated health systems known to personkind with 21 district health boards. That is just being repeated 6 years later by this very complicated Social Security (Long-term Residential Care) Amendment Bill. 
Section 153(1) in clause 4 states: “The maximum contribution is the amount to be prescribed by an Order in Council made by the Governor-General that is $636 per week …”. It is very salutary to see what Major Alistair Herring of The Salvation Army told the Social Services Committee. He said: “The Salvation Army believes that the bill should at the very least commence with the adjusted figure of $757.14.” Not to do so is to continue the situation of underfunding that the residential care sector has experienced over the past 9 years. Right throughout Port Waikato almost on a weekly basis I hear the same cry that the Labour Party Government fails to recognise that residential home care and institutions are going under because it is not prepared to be realistic about funding. It has totally ignored the Price WaterhouseCoopers report of 1999-2000—absolutely ignored it. Instead it has watched as home after home has closed down. 
It is a particular tragedy when we hear that The Salvation Army itself is exiting from residential care. That is one organisation that most New Zealanders trust. It is an indictment on the Labour Party Government that it has presided over the time when The Salvation Army which has been in the business of looking after the elderly for 70 years has due to the Government’s absolutely unrealistic formulations exited the industry. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on Part 2. It is interesting to see the voting by all the parties here in the Chamber. This bill has been severely criticised and major concerns have been brought to the Government’s attention not by parties that oppose the bill but rather by parties that support it. It should be a major wake-up call to the Minister in the chair the Hon Ruth Dyson and to the Government that those who support the basic principle of this bill which is the removal of asset testing are speaking out so fervently and bringing such major concerns to the attention of the Government. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.