Volume 632 Week 20 - Thursday 20 July 2006 
Volume 632 Week 20 - Thursday 20 July 2006 
[Volume:632;Page:4269] 
Thursday 20 July 2006 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Next week in the House priority will be given to the completion of the Appropriation (2006/07) Estimates Bill and the remaining stages of the Protected Objects Amendment Bill and the Coroners Bill. If possible priority will also be given to the first readings of the Ngati Mutanga Claims Settlement Bill the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Bill. 
Wednesday is a members’ day and it has already been agreed between the parties that the Hon Jim Sutton’s valedictory speech will occur at 5.30 p.m. on that day. 
Questions to Ministers 
Early Childhood Education—Accessibility 
1. MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What is the Government doing to put quality early childhood education within the reach of all New Zealand families? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Today I am announcing $9 million in new grants to assist 42 early childhood education providers to plan for and build new early childhood centres. The funding which goes to low socio-economic rural and isolated communities will provide for nearly 500 new places across New Zealand’s growing network of early childhood centres. 
Moana Mackey 
: What else is the Government doing to lift the quality of early childhood teaching and lower the cost to all parents? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Heaps but I will just limit myself to the following. Through this year’s Budget the Government will invest an additional $162 million in early childhood education. That includes $128 million to implement Labour’s policy of 20 hours a week of free early childhood education for 3 and 4-year-olds $30 million to help centres to employ more qualified teachers an extra $4 million to ensure playcentres remain financially sustainable and overall ensuring that people carry on remembering how much Labour is doing for early childhood and how little National did. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Does the Minister believe that the downgrading of the Parents as First Teachers programme in the Hawke’s Bay is something that he is doing to put quality early childhood education within the reach of all New Zealanders? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: It has not been downgraded. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Can the Minister explain why a parent who works 5 hours per day for 4 days will have 20 hours of early childhood provision subsidised by the Government whereas someone who works two 8-hour days will have only three-quarters of his or her childcare subsidised? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member is referring to the fact that we have agreed with the early childhood sector that we will introduce the free 20 hours at 6 hours per day. The reason it is being introduced in that way is that the current way of funding the early childhood education sector is for 6 hours per day. The sector agrees with us that we should introduce this new policy with current arrangements monitor it and change it when necessary. 
Foreign Affairs Minister—Confidence 
2.  
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the 
 Prime Minister 
: Yes because he is a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does she believe the behaviour of the Minister in Washington yesterday was acceptable when he interrupted Senator John McCain potentially the next President of the United States as the senator was in the middle of answering questions from journalists; if so why? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Ah McCain you’ve done it again. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Indeed he has; he has supported New Zealand. Indeed “McCain you’ve done it again.”—I thank Mr Williamson for that. There is no indication that Senator McCain took any offence. He probably was not used to the aggressiveness of the New Zealand media in seeking interviews. 
Dr Don Brash 
: How can she possibly be happy that Mr Peters rudely interrupted the man who could be the next President of the United States when he was in the middle of comments lavishing praise on New Zealand advocating a free-trade deal with New Zealand and suggesting that New Zealand should be regarded as an ally? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Indeed of course what Senator McCain was saying was that he did not see our nuclear-free policy as any impediment to a free-trade deal which is directly contrary to what Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith PhD has been trying to tell the country for umpteen years. 
Peter Brown 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that all official reports—and I stress “official reports”—show that the New Zealand - US relationship has indeed been enhanced by the visit of our foreign Minister and that any person looking at the substance against the spin would see that the language and tone used by senior US officials demonstrate clearly the strengthening of this relationship? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Indeed and of course Mr Peters also had a fruitful meeting with Condoleezza Rice—another person who could be the next President of the United States. Of course if Mr Peters were to meet all the people who could be the next President of the United States he would be very busy indeed over the coming months. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does the Prime Minister think it is telling that Mr Peters had no press conference with the US Secretary of State after his meeting with her today and that his meeting with her was cut short from 1 hour to 30 minutes and does she not think that Mr Peters may well have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No Mr Peters does not model himself on the Leader of the Opposition. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Minister confirm that it is not the practice of the Secretary of State ever to have a press conference with another foreign Minister after their meetings though the Secretary of State would do so for the Prime Minister of New Zealand such as when Colin Powell had that meeting and described our relationship as being “very very very close friends”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That is my understanding and indeed United States politicians hold far fewer press conferences than their counterparts in New Zealand are accustomed to holding. 
Heather Roy 
: Is Winston Peters a better person for the job of Minister of Foreign Affairs than his predecessor the Hon Phil Goff or is Mr Peters’ appointment simply the price that this country has to pay for the Prime Minister to keep her job as Prime Minister? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: They are different but both excellent men in their very different ways. But I do note that Mr John Key was boasting some months before the election that National had already offered the Foreign Affairs job to Mr Peters. 
Keith Locke 
: Did Mr Peters raise with American leaders New Zealand’s abhorrence at the gross human rights abuses at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre; if not why did the Government miss such a valuable face-to-face opportunity to express New Zealanders’ concern that a country such as America is so undermining international human rights standards? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have no information on that point. It would seem particularly inappropriate to have done that with Senator John McCain who has himself raised some questions about those matters. 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Given that the Prime Minister cannot give us the specific information now could the Prime Minister find out whether Mr Peters did raise that question and report back to the House? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Is that a supplementary question? 
Keith Locke 
: No it is a point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry it is not a point of order but I remind the member that he could put it down as a written question. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Has the Prime Minister seen the comments of veteran reporter Barry Soper who described the Minister’s behaviour in Washington yesterday as “embarrassing arrogant and insulting” adding that it was the most embarrassing thing he had seen in 26 years of travelling with Ministers and Prime Ministers and does that assessment not cause her to review the wisdom of appointing Mr Peters as the Minister of Foreign Affairs? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the last point I would remind the member that his colleague Mr Key was boasting some months before the election that National had offered that job to Mr Peters—and I have no doubt that if that had been the price of a coalition with National National would have paid it. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Does the Prime Minister agree with the account in Mr Peters’ press release of yesterday’s incident or does she believe the statement by Barry Soper that the release was “full of untruths”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The press release I have relates to a productive trip to Washington for Mr Peters. It outlines whom he met it states that we have a longstanding relationship with the United States and it states that the discussions raised were across a wide range of areas. All of those seem to be purely factual statements to me. 
Peter Brown 
: Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to confirm that this is not the first time that a particular Television New Zealand reporter has engaged with politicians under one auspice only to portray the result on national television as being something completely different? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Modesty prevents me from commenting on that question any further. 
Te Reo Maori—School Programmes 
3.  
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: E whakapono ana ia ki ta te Kaiwhakahaere Matua o Te Taura Whiri i te Reo a Haami Piripi i ki ra “kare te Tahuhu o te Matauranga i te whakamanako i Te Reo Maori a kare hoki i te whakauru ahuatanga Maori ki roto i nga hotaka ako o nga kura” koina te kaha aro pono mai o taua tari ki Te Reo Maori ae ranei kare ranei; ki te kore he aha ai? 
[ 
Does he believe that “the Ministry of Education does not give te reo Maori the acknowledgment that it should and is failing to push Maori in school work programmes” as stated by Maori Language Commission Chief Executive Haami Piripi is a true reflection of his ministry’s commitment to te reo; if not why not? 
] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 No. I understand that the comment was from a discussion on the  
Te Karere 
 programme about the need to strengthen our acknowledgment of Maori language learning in the school curriculum. The new draft curriculum which is being launched on 31 July includes specific acknowledgment of Maori language learning. I am also pleased to announce that for the first time a draft curriculum to support the teaching of te reo Maori as a curriculum subject is being developed. That is due to go out for national consultation at the end of this year following regionally based trials. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: He aha te take e panui atu ana Te Ara Reo a-Iwi i nga ara ki Te Reo Maori ki Aotearoa whanui mo nga Tari Kawanatanga e ono ara Te Tari Hiranga Tangata Te Ratonga Manene Te Tari Koporeihana Whare Te Tari Taiwhenua Te Koporeihana Awhina Hunga Whara me Te Tari Pirihimana engari e ngaro nei Te Tahuhu o te Matauranga? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Why does the Office of Ethnic Affairs Language Line advise New Zealanders that they can request Maori language services at six Government departments—namely Work and Income Immigration New Zealand the Housing New Zealand Corporation the Department of Internal Affairs the Accident Compensation Corporation and the New Zealand Police—but the Ministry of Education is not included in that list? 
] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I was not aware that they were not being referred to the Ministry of Education. It is probably because of the very wide range of schools which of course would deal directly with parents who were concerned about the issue. But I am happy to take that up with the member and see whether it would be a useful development. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What else is the Government doing to support the teaching of te reo Maori in New Zealand schools? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The Government supports the full range of te reo Maori learning. That includes providing nearly $18 million a year to support teaching in Maori immersion $7 million a year for Maori medium resources $5 million over 4 years for the teaching of Maori in mainstream settings and $500000 through Budget 2006 to develop a Maori language education outcomes framework. I should say that today my colleague Parekura Horomia is launching a radio dramatisation of the first Maori language novel. It was developed in partnership with the Maori Language Commission and will be a welcome addition to the resources currently available in the Maori language. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: He aha i kore ai a ia i kite i etahi putea hou mo nga rawa a-reo Maori nei i te wa e umere ana nga kura mo aua rauemi? 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Why did he not seek any funding for Maori language resources at a time when schools were screaming out for such resources? 
] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I will just take the member back to the fact that we already have in the Budget substantial money that is still being rolled out—$18 million around Maori immersion $7 million around Maori medium resources and other areas in the Budget like the $500000 for the language education outcomes framework. There is the fact that we are regionally trialling the curriculum I mentioned before and the fact that next year it will go out nationally. All that funding is there already. That is why I do not at the present time need additional funding above that. We have a large amount to implement right now. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Hei whai haere i te whakaaro nui o Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o te Rotoiti ki te whakamohio i te kupu ‘kura’ i te taha o te kupu ‘school’ i o ratou tohu a-kura he aha ta te Tahuhu o te Matauranga i te taha o LTSA ki te whakakohatu i Te Reo Maori hei reo tuturu i Aotearoa nei?  
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Following the initiative of Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Rotoiti to introduce the word “kura” alongside the word “school” on their bus signs what work has the Ministry of Education initiated with the Land Transport Safety Authority to affirm the official status of te reo Maori? 
] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member is right. That is a matter for Land Transport New Zealand but I have personally made it clear that I am comfortable with having both words on the bus. 
Taito Phillip Field—Ingram Report 
4. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 on behalf of  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does the Ingram report exonerate and vindicate Taito Phillip Field of any wrongdoing? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: On behalf of the 
Prime Minister as I have said Dr Ingram found that no conflict of interest existed or appeared to exist between Mr Field’s private interest and the use of his influence as a Minister. The report did find significant errors of judgment. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why does she regard the actions of a millionaire MP who used formerly illegal immigrants as slave labour in return for political favours as only “errors of judgment” not political corruption? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member may use as much pejorative language as he likes. Those are not the findings of the report. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can she confirm to Parliament that the Ingram report examined Taito Phillip Field’s conflict of interest only in his capacity as Minister of the Crown not in his capacity as a member of Parliament; and why did Labour refuse leave for a Privileges Committee inquiry which can investigate his conflicts of interest as a member of Parliament? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the first matter the member is of course correct. Those are the terms of reference. If the member would stand back from the particular circumstances of the case and think about the circumstances in which the Government would start launching inquiries into the affairs of members of Parliament as opposed to Ministers he might have pause for thought. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can we take it from the last answer that the Prime Minister agrees with the view of the National Party that Taito Phillip Field’s actions as a member of Parliament have not been investigated were not covered by the Ingram report and therefore ought to be investigated? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. Quite a range of matters in relation to Mr Taito Phillip Field’s role as a member of Parliament were investigated. It was not an appropriate matter for Mr Ingram to conclude anything in relation to conflicts of interest in that respect. If we were to have a commission of inquiry every time allegations were made about a member of this House we really would have a very large number—starting off with any number of members on all sides of the House. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister not see the difference between allegations made about members of Parliament in a general sense and highly specific information contained in the Ingram report which suggests if not describes paying workers below the minimum wage and not paying PAYE or GST—actions regarded by her Government as exploitative and potentially illegal for every citizen of New Zealand except Taito Phillip Field where they are apparently not meant to be investigated and are regarded as simply errors of judgment? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The matters the member raises can of course be brought to the attention of a range of authorities that act independently in those matters. I note the member’s support for the so-called 90-day bill that removes the rights of all workers. 
Hon Bill English 
: At this time of the 90th birthday of the Labour Party which was celebrated in a high-profile event in Taito Phillip Field’s electorate can she outline how using slave labour in return for political favours is consistent with the principles of equal opportunity for all and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: As I said before the member may use as much pejorative language as he likes; those are not the findings of the independent report. I note that the one person in this House who I know opposes any kind of minimum wage and wants to remove most protections that workers have is the Leader of the Opposition who has given speeches on that matter frequently in the past. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does this Prime Minister have any sense of shame about any action she is willing to defend if it prolongs the stability of her Government and her period in office or will she surprise everybody by acknowledging that this is the worst breach of standards of public life in a long long time and there ought to be severe consequences for it? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If we had a commission of inquiry on every member of Parliament we might well find that that statement was not true. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Prime Minister now telling the House that the reason why these matters should not be investigated further is that they are actions that are similar to actions taken by every other member of Parliament and can she understand why the rest of us might find that grossly insulting? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No but what the member seems to have ignored is that Mr Phillip Field is no longer a Minister was not reappointed to the ministry and has not been reinstated—whereas National kept everybody on no matter what they did when they were Ministers. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can we take it from the Prime Minister’s statement that when she removed Taito Phillip Field from the Cabinet after the 2005 election she already knew what matters were going to be brought forward by this inquiry? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: A number of allegations had already been made. That is why the inquiry was being held. That is why Mr Phillip Field could not be reappointed to the ministry while the inquiry was under way. Mr Field has not been reinstated unlike Dr Nick Smith who found guilty of contempt of court kept his place on the front bench of the National Government. 
Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency—Legislation 
5.  
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of State Services 
: Does the Government still aim to introduce legislation to the House this month to set up an Australia New Zealand therapeutic products agency; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services) 
: 
 No. Consultation on the proposed Australia - New Zealand therapeutic products agency is ongoing. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Has she seen Australian consultant Val Johanson’s damning report predicting that if New Zealand joins the trans-Tasman therapeutic goods agency compliance costs for natural health products will escalate over 50 percent of small dietary supplements businesses will close down or move offshore and the cost of natural health products will significantly increase; and can she explain why she would want this to happen in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes I have seen that report. I do not agree with everything in it but certainly in terms of the consultations we are looking at ways we can ensure that those who make complementary medicines in New Zealand will not be unduly affected by the cost of compliance. 
Darien Fenton 
: Has she seen the reports from opponents of the scheme stating that traditional Maori medicines and healing would be legislated out of existence; and is this correct? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes I have seen such reports. Their information regarding Maori and other traditional medicines is wrong. The authors have been told that is the case but for their own purposes they continue to peddle this misinformation. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Does the Minister acknowledge that there has been significant public opposition to the agency and that the establishment of the agency is in doubt because New Zealand First will not support the accompanying legislation; if so for how long does she intend to pursue this rather futile exercise? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I will continue to negotiate a joint regulator until all the issues have been finalised. It will then be up to this Parliament whether the proposal is accepted. But I would note that this regulator and the negotiations around it have been almost 10 years in duration. They started under a National Government and continued under this Government for the very good reason that we are progressing our joint relationship with Australia. This proposal is seen to be an advance on CER which I think it is to the benefit of New Zealanders. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Why has the Government spent $6 million to date on a project that has never had parliamentary endorsement or approval and why will the Minister not admit that she does not have sufficient support in this House to get the legislation through and that she does not have support amongst most people in the dietary supplements industry; why will she not call it quits stop wasting taxpayers’ money and convene a working-group across all parties in this House to come up with a New Zealand - based alternative? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Because more than those in the complementary medicines sector are involved in this joint regulator. I am certain members of this House have received letters from those in the pharmaceutical industry who are in favour of it from those in the over-the-counter industry who are in favour of it from those in the medical devices industry who would like to see changes but are in favour of it and from some of those in the complementary medicines sector who want to see regulation that protects New Zealanders. What I have not ever been able to understand from that member is why New Zealanders should have to put up with this sort of thing happening in this country. These are herbal medicines complementary medicines that have to be withdrawn from our market because they are not regulated in New Zealand. These so-called complementary medicines have in them undeclared prescribed medicines. They have been put into the so-called complementary medicines and that is able to happen because we do not regulate them in this country. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Does the Minister agree with Marcus Blackmore head of Blackmores New Zealand that in Australia regulatory creep has resulted in a drug-based model of over-regulation of unnecessary red tape that is too complex too costly and bears little relation to the public risk involved; and does she further agree that we should have random testing of all products in New Zealand under the present legislation that all members of Parliament in this House agree that we need a simple regulatory system that will ensure all complementary medicines are true to label and that it should be in existence now with random testing? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: If it were so simple that all one needed in a regulatory system was a random test then we would have a very poor system indeed because it is exactly what we have now. The only way these products are detected is by a random test. What we ought to have is good manufacturing practice and in every part of the process knowledge of what has been put into the product. That does not occur in New Zealand. We find out by chance in this country by a spot audit not by products being manufactured in a proper way as is done in every First World country around the world. 
Foreign Affairs Minister—United States Visit 
6.  
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (National—East Coast Bays) 
 to the  
Minister of Trade 
: Is he confident that the current visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the United States will have a positive effect on the effort to get a New Zealand - United States free-trade agreement; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Trade) 
: 
 Yes I am reliably informed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that Winston Peters had a very successful meeting with Condoleezza Rice this morning. Trade matters of course are not specifically within the Minister’s portfolio but I am told by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade that the meeting was characterised by both sides as being friendly constructive and forward-looking which I believe is very positive for our overall relationship. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Does the Minister judge Mr Peters’ meeting with Senator McCain yesterday to have been a success; if so how? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I judge that meeting on the substance of the meeting and again I am informed that it was a positive and constructive meeting with a senator whom both Winston Peters and I have met before in New Zealand and who is a very strong supporter of New Zealand’s case both for the resumption of training in military matters and for a free-trade agreement. I judge it on the substance of the meeting not on the spat that might have occurred between some journalist and the Minister because they had a disagreement. 
Dianne Yates 
: How does the Minister assess the level of support within the United States’ political and business sectors for free-trade agreements with New Zealand? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There is very strong support within the corporate business and congressional sector for free-trade negotiations. If I use as an example Tom Donohue who is the President of the US Chamber of Commerce or Governor John Engler who is the President of the National Association of Manufacturers I can say that both have been strong advocates for such an agreement. Within Congress the New Zealand caucus now has 65 members. Included amongst those members or supporters are Senator John McCain and Senator John Sununu who both on leaving New Zealand after meeting with Winston Peters and myself wrote personally to the President advocating for such an agreement. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: In what way did the decision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Peters to interrupt Senator John McCain in mid-sentence as he was promoting the case for a free-trade agreement between New Zealand and the United States advance the prospect of such an agreement being reached? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I understand that the Minister was advised that this was a photo opportunity only. He has a certain amount of time for discussions with his counterparts and he did not want that time to be taken up with questions from journalists who could have asked those questions after the meeting. 
Dianne Yates 
: What support is there within the administration for starting free-trade negotiations and what is the likely time frame? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs is Chris Hill. He has been very supportive of New Zealand’s case much more so than I can remember of anybody in the administration over the last 6 years. I have to say that both the former US Trade Representative Rob Portman and the current Trade Representative Susan Schwab have shown some sympathy for New Zealand’s position. It is likely however that major negotiations that are taking place between the US and Korea and Malaysia which are amongst their top trading partners will take up most of the time that is left within the current trade promotion authority. I think our position at the moment should be to position ourselves for the next opportunity to come up when there is a new trade promotion authority. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: If the approach taken by Mr Peters in his discussions with Senator McCain yesterday was as successful as the Minister has just told the House it was can we take it he will be using such an approach as his own model for future negotiations overseas; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I think the Minister and I have slightly different approaches in these matters but I can assure the member that the independent reports I have from those who were at the meeting—and neither the member or I were there—were that this was a substantive positive and constructive meeting. The fact that there was a disagreement between the Minister and the media is neither here nor there in relation to his good relationship with his counterparts. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Does the Minister believe that the earlier statement made by him that the Government’s relationship with Mr Peters is the sort of relationship one has with one’s mother-in-law has any application in relation to events in Washington yesterday; if so what is that application? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: With due deference to my late mother-in-law I had a fantastic relationship with her but I do know that she liked her own space and I like my own space. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Has the Minister been advised why it was that Dr Cullen was appointed Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mr Peters’ absence rather than himself as a former Minister of Foreign Affairs and can he reassure the House that no adverse conclusions should be drawn regarding his working relationship with Mr Peters as a result of that oversight? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The member can be absolutely assured of that. The member may be aware that I am frequently out of the country on trade business. For the sake of continuity it is very good to have the Deputy Prime Minister acting in that role. 
Exports—Product Types 
7.  
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: Does he believe that high-value high-tech products developed from a huge stable commodity base provide more certainty for increased exports than new unproven enterprises? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister for Economic Development 
: Yes to a certain extent. But we do need a balanced portfolio of products and that means added-value products from our existing product base and new products that either use new technology or exploit emerging new market opportunities. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Has the Minister put any proposal to Cabinet seeking more funding for the Waikato Innovation Park; if not will he consider doing so in the near future to aid the expansion of innovation within the pastoral sector which remains the backbone of our economy and export industry? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: At the moment we have received no formal request for additional funding for the Waikato Innovation Park. Of course an initial $2 million was funded. The park has been so successful that it is now looking for further space and initial discussions are under way with the park around the financing of that. 
Immigration Service—Ministerial Discretion 
8.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: What accountability if any does he accept for decisions made when ministerial discretion is being exercised in giving directions to the New Zealand Immigration Service on cases that are exceptions to policy? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 The Minister of Immigration is accountable for decisions being made when ministerial discretion is being exercised. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Why was a ministerial discretion exercised in response to submissions from Phillip Field in the case of Mr Sunan Siriwan to direct that a work visa be issued when Mr Siriwan had been an illegal overstayer in New Zealand for 8 years working illegally during that time and had also been declined refugee status—a ministerial decision that an experienced immigration consultant described publicly as “defying logic and precedent”? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: As I clarified yesterday and upon which you ruled Madam Speaker the Ingram inquiry does not fall within my responsibilities. Ongoing immigration matters do. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Yesterday I listened very carefully to your ruling and it is out of order for the Minister to quote your ruling to reinforce his position. You did not rule yesterday that the substance of the Ingram inquiry was outside the responsibility of the Minister. In fact yesterday our member did not ask questions about the Ingram inquiry itself; he asked questions about matters that were raised in the inquiry. So we seek from you a reassurance that the Minister will not be able to use your rulings to reinforce his wish not to answer any of these questions. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Speaking to the point of order Madam Speaker although I have no wish to draw the Speaker unduly into the debate I note that yesterday’s ruling stated according to the uncorrected transcript: “As I heard the Minister’s answer he said he was not responsible for the report and then went on to address the question relating to immigration. So in effect that is not a valid point of order.” 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I will rule on the point of order. As I recall yesterday I ruled that the Minister was not responsible for the report but is responsible for matters relating to immigration—not the report itself. Therefore perhaps we could have the question again for the benefit of members—not an additional supplementary question but the same question—then we can start again. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Why was a ministerial discretion exercised in response to submissions from Phillip Field in the case of Mr Sunan Siriwan to direct that a work visa be issued when Mr Siriwan had been an illegal overstayer in New Zealand for 8 years working illegally during that time and had also been declined refugee status—a ministerial decision that an experienced immigration consultant described publicly as “defying logic and precedent”? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Ministerial discretion is exercised because no two cases are alike and not all circumstances can be foreseen when policy is written. It is important that policy and practice are humane as well as robust. Members on all sides of the House accept this when they put forward representations for ministerial discretion. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Why was ministerial discretion exercised in response to submissions from Phillip Field to direct that a removal order be cancelled and a work visa issued to Ms Phanngarm—the partner of Mr Siriwan—who had been an illegal overstayer in New Zealand for almost 5 years whom Noel Ingram said the Refugee Status Board had found to be “an entirely incredible witness” and who had been declined refugee status four times and deported? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: As I have said no two cases are the same. Ministerial discretion is exercised on the basis of the information made available to the Minister at the time. If members opposite have additional information they wish to put forward in relation to a current case then that of course will be considered. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Why was ministerial discretion exercised in response to submissions from Phillip Field in the case of Ms Ngaosri to direct that a 12-month work permit be granted when Ms Ngaosri had been an illegal overstayer in New Zealand for some years after having been declined a request for a special direction by the Minister in 2001 and declined refugee status in both 2002 and 2003? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: If members opposite are going to trawl through every exercise of ministerial discretion by members on this side of the House then I am sure they will be interested in some of the decisions of the Hon Tuariki Delamere or for example of the member who asked the question when he was Associate Minister of Immigration. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Has the Minister investigated whether there were any unusual circumstances in the pattern of decision making involved in the 262 special directions given by his office over the period 2003-05 inclusive in response to submissions on immigration cases from Taito Phillip Field? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Current and past Ministers and Associate Ministers have received submissions from all sides of the House. Some members work harder than others. The member Dr Lockwood Smith has put forward 21 submissions in the last 3 years which is not as many as his colleague Mr John Key has put forward. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I asked the Minister very specifically whether he had investigated whether there were any unusual circumstances in the pattern of decision making involved in those 262 special directions in response to Taito Phillip Field’s submissions. That was a very specific question. The Minister may not wish to answer it but he either has investigated those decisions or he has not and the House has a right to know. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: As the member knows no member has a right to a yes or no answer. The Minister did address the question though obviously not to the satisfaction of the member. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Can the Minister confirm that several members of the House asked the Minister of Immigration to intervene in the multiple case of Chinese Indonesians who had claimed refugee status in New Zealand and had had their claims declined and who remained in New Zealand and worked in the country illegally on the advice of a pastor of a church in Auckland and supported by the MPs? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I can confirm that current and past Ministers of Immigration have received requests for discretion from members on all sides of the House. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Was a special direction given in the case of Mr Bulakorn Nakhen for him to be issued with a work visa in February 2005 or did the New Zealand Immigration Service issue the visa in response to a letter it had received from Phillip Field in which he sought according to Noel Ingram QC to “ ‘clarify the understanding’ he had allegedly reached with Mr O’Conner whereby Mr Nakhen ‘would be allowed to re-apply for re-entry via a legal permit preferably a Work Permit …’ ”; and does the Minister consider it acceptable for either a fellow Minister or a member of Parliament to write directly to the New Zealand Immigration Service telling it of agreements allegedly reached with his office? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I am advised that in the case mentioned by the member no ministerial discretion was exercised. 
Oral Health—Improvements 
9.  
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What work is being done to improve the oral health of New Zealanders? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Health 
: In addition to the $40 million child and adolescent oral health package announced in the Budget the Government will be undertaking the largest oral health survey in New Zealand’s history. The survey will involve over 7000 participants and has been welcomed by the New Zealand Dental Association. 
Sue Moroney 
: What reports has the Minister received on factors contributing to a decline in the oral health status of New Zealanders? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: I have seen reports that a lack of dental therapists has resulted in more children developing cavities. Maori Pacific and rural children have been the hardest hit. Amazingly the lack of dental therapists is a direct result of the National-led Government’s decision to completely stop training new therapists. The Labour-led Government has restarted the training programme and the first new graduates entered the profession late last year. 
Judy Turner 
: When will the Minister step in with some money so that the Catholic Sisters of Compassion no longer have to fund a Saturday dental clinic for children in Lower Hutt who currently cannot access services in a timely way when needed? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: The Government has already announced expenditure of $100 million over the next 5 years for dental services. It is the first time for a long long time that we have seen a real commitment from a Government to oral health services in this country. 
Police—Priorities 
10.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Is she satisfied that police effectively prioritise their time and resources; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) 
: 
 In general yes. The responsibility for prioritising time and resources rests with the commissioner and district commanders. I accept however there has been some confusion over the past few years about the concept of performance measures in regard to traffic enforcement. That confusion was put to rest by Commissioner Broad’s policy directive on 5 July. 
Simon Power 
: Does she stand by her statement made in the House yesterday in relation to the two central district memos pressuring officers to issue more traffic tickets: “It is interesting that this problem has come out of one district.”; and does she still think it is interesting that there is now a third memo—this one from Marlborough and dated 6 June—ordering all officers to issue at least two traffic tickets a shift until the end of the financial year? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes I do stand by what I said yesterday. It is surprising that the two memos came out of one district but the member might be interested to know that the story he has just quoted was in the  
Marlborough Express 
 in June. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: The Minister mentioned in her primary answer that there has been confusion over performance measures; does she have any other information on this? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have been trying to get to the bottom of the confusion and members might like to listen. I have done a lot of work on the issue. It is now apparent that the use of infringement notices and traffic offence notices—performance measures—was first introduced in 1997-98 in line with Treasury guidelines. I also have with me the New Zealand Police road traffic enforcement agreement 1999-2000 and it lists the data that must be provided by each district. The data includes speeding offences detected per hour drink-driving offences detected per hour and contacts per hour to name but a few. This particular agreement was signed by one Clem Simich Minister of Police and by transport Minister Maurice Williamson. I also happen to have with me a 1997 press release that says: “Police have to issue a set number of traffic tickets and detail their time on the beat this year as part of a Government push to make the force more businesslike.” I am glad I have finally got to the bottom of why districts have been allocating tickets on individual police numbers. I am glad I have got to the bottom of it at last. I can say that the issue is finally being cleared up by the new Commissioner of Police. I can tell members that no such performance indicators now exist. When the member opposite stands up and tries to blame it on this Government with a hidden agenda New Zealanders should have a look at what was going on. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I remind members that both questions and answers are meant to be succinct and that continuous barracking does not aid those who wish to hear the answers to hear them. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That was a speech. If the Minister wants to reply in that manner she should call a press conference. Not only that her answer was allowed to continue; it should have been stopped a lot earlier. When there is barracking from this side of the House—and on many occasions you have said there is too much noise coming from this side—it cannot be stopped when a Minister like that carries on in that manner which was giving a speech not giving a response to a very clear question. [ 
Interruption 
] There should not be interjections when I am speaking. I ask that you ask the Minister to apologise for her response to these matters. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Are you speaking to the same point of order? 
Ron Mark 
: Yes I am. I rise to take this point of order because I could not hear the detail of the answer. Given that New Zealand First was the first party to raise the issue of quota ticketing in the House I was extremely interested to hear the quotes from the documents—in particular the times and the Ministers involved—but with the barracking and the noise despite no matter how hard the Minister tried I could not hear. It is partly due to the fact that I have suffered hearing loss on one side due to my military service but that is just something that—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Power may disagree with what I am saying but it is against the Standing Orders to interrupt on a point of order as Mr Ryall knows. Both members should be ejected from the House if equality is truly to be applied. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I think I should in all fairness admit that Government members were doing a fair amount of the barracking on that occasion for which I apologise. We were of course stunned to find out that these actions were the result of National Party decisions in 1997. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I know it is Thursday but members should just settle. We are nearly at the end of question time. I have ruled on the matter. If I am asked to intervene each time there is a long question or answer it will be accompanied by a whole lot of points of order objecting. I ask members to actually exercise some control in these matters. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm that in order to make issuing traffic tickets a “first priority” and “everything else is secondary” for front-line officers the Tasman district commander pulled the plug early on “Operation Vanquish” which targeted real crime including dishonesty crimes and according to the memo had made “a fantastic impact into Marlborough’s crime scene and criminals” and how can she still claim that traffic tickets are not being given priority over real crime? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: My understanding from the Tasman district is that it had one of the highest rates of road crash and deaths for a district in New Zealand. I happen to have the comments that the superintendent made at the time. He stated: “Our staff are the people that knock on the doors and tell people that fathers and mothers and sons and daughters are dead. They remove seriously disfigured human bodies from roadsides. We have the power to change this. We have the duty to do so.” I would prefer to take the word of Superintendent O’Fee who actually faced that high death toll in the Tasman district and wanted to do something about it. 
Ron Mark 
: Has the Minister received any reports about the Hon Tony Ryall when he was the spokesman for law and order in the National Party cautioning New Zealand First about attacking the quota ticketing controversy because it really was about road safety and getting the number of lives lost down and if she has not seen those reports would she like to have one? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No the Minister has no responsibility for that. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Ministers are routinely asked to comment on whether they have seen reports and they are always permitted to answer questions on whether they have seen reports on matters relating to their portfolio. This is clearly a matter relating to the Minister’s portfolio; it is about quota ticketing. It is clearly a matter that has been debated in the House by Mr Ryall and myself and it is about a report I am asking the Minister to comment on and the conclusion to my question is if she has not had such a report would she like one? She is perfectly able to comment on that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No normally there are not comments on shadow reports in the way in which the member has phrased the question. He would perhaps like to reconsider while I call the next supplementary question. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What would be the likely impact of cutting back on traffic enforcement? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I think it is very clear that when the policy to insist on indicators for district performance was brought in under the previous National Government we started to see a drop in the number of road crashes and road deaths. I do not know why National members would not want to take some credit for it—they do not—but I have to say that because the New Zealand police have been policing to reduce deaths and injury on the roads we have seen a dramatic drop from around 700 deaths in 1999 to about 404 deaths last year. A lot of people’s lives have been saved in that time. 
Simon Power 
: If what the Minister claims is correct and the purpose of prioritising traffic tickets over other crime is to save lives why do all these memos mention the end of the financial year as the target? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I would imagine it was because the original agreements which go right back to 1991 were done in a financial year and were signed every year. I would imagine that is the case. But I think it is time we accepted that New Zealand does have a high road toll we have too many people hospitalised from accidents and we should stop making excuses for people who receive tickets when they break the law. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. In your generosity you have given me an extra attempt to ask that question in a manner that is acceptable. Are you saying that it will be counted as the first of my supplementary questions? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Yes you can have your supplementary questions. 
Ron Mark 
: Well I shall come back to that thank you Madam Speaker. Is it not a fact that the controversy causing the public such angst in terms of traffic ticketing and quota ticketing has its roots in the previous National Government’s decision to merge the traffic officers into the police and that National Government’s decision to require beat officers and detectives to issue traffic tickets and will the confidence and supply agreement between New Zealand First and Labour not look at that issue in respect of evaluating the costs and benefits of demerging traffic policing from the police? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have asked members to take notice of the fact that questions and answers should be succinct. I would also note that in supplementary questions it is one supplementary question. So would the Minister succinctly reply to one of those matters please. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The decision to include infringement notices and traffic offence notices as performance measures against speed drinking restraint visible road safety enforcement etc. commenced in 1997-98. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That’s not a quota. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That was when the numbers of tickets that needed to be issued were first decided. I say to the House that the effect of that decision has seen the road toll come down and lives saved and I wonder why members opposite do not take some credit for the fact that the number of lives lost started to come down then. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm that the policy directive from Commissioner Broad came on 5 July—after the first memo came to light—and would that policy ever have changed had these revelations not been brought to her attention? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I cannot say for sure but I would wonder when they came to light in the newspaper as a headline in 1997 why it was not fixed by National members then if it was such a problem. If it was such a problem why did they not fix it then? That is what I would ask. But I have been the Minister for 9 months and the issue came up in that time—in July. I then set about addressing the issue with the commissioner. That has been done. 
Ron Mark 
: Does the Minister not accept that a lot of this controversy arises as a result of the National Government’s decision to merge the responsibility for traffic with the police and is it not New Zealand First’s intention to work with the Government under the confidence and supply agreement to evaluate the costs and benefits of demerging traffic enforcement from police duties during this term of Government? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: A review into the merger of road policing and general policing is being undertaken by the State Services Commission and will be reported to both parties in November this year. 
Simon Power 
: Does the Minister agree that although in the Prime Minister’s words “one swallow does not make a spring” three memos do make a policy and can she reassure the House that there are no further memos instructing police to give priority to ticket writing over other crimes—since she was not able to give that assurance to the House and the public of New Zealand yesterday? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I said in this House yesterday that I could give no such assurance. I am being upfront because I cannot give such an assurance. But I also said that I would be interested if there were any memos of that nature after 5 July. I would be concerned if that were to happen and would ask the Commissioner of Police to account to me for it. 
Simon Power 
: I seek leave to table said Marlborough police district memorandum that requires the district commander’s priority to issue two traffic tickets per shift. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I seek leave to table three documents. The first is the agreement of the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Police with the Commissioner of Police 1999-2000. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I seek leave to table a press release from July 1997 where the police are told to issue a set number of traffic tickets and detail how they spend their time. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I seek leave to table an article about Superintendent Grant O’Fee district commander for the Tasman Police District regarding Operation Life in which he says it is his staff who have to knock on the doors of people when their families have been killed. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I ask for guidance please. Given that the Minister in answering that question that I did not even get to hear was quoting from official documents my understanding is that under the Standing Orders it is not a question of her having to seek leave to table those documents—thus giving National the chance to veto such leave to save embarrassment—she is actually formally required to table those documents. Is she not? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No. No one sought leave to have them tabled. The member at the time should have sought leave if he had wanted it. Can we please move on? 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave under the Standing Orders given that the Minister quoted from official documents in giving an answer for her to table those documents. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: She has tabled them. 
Civil Defence and Emergency Management—Wairarapa and Wanganui 
11.  
GEORGINA BEYER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Civil Defence 
: Was he satisfied with the response of regional civil defence and emergency management personnel in the Wairarapa and Wanganui regions in the last 2 weeks; if so why? 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Civil Defence) 
: 
 I am very satisfied with the response of the local civil defence personnel during the periods of adverse weather throughout New Zealand. Coordination activities undertaken by civil defence and emergency management personnel in the Wairarapa and Wanganui regions were swift and effective. I congratulate all personnel on their efforts in response to the various emergencies. 
Georgina Beyer 
: Can the Minister advise on any specific action as a result of effective agency engagement between the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management and other key agencies in the areas during the response phase of those emergencies; if so what? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Yes I can. On Sunday 9 July a three-span bridge was knocked out at Mangamahu cutting the area off. On Wednesday 12 July I contacted Transit which said it had a bridge and if requested was willing to build it but it had no funding to do so. The office of the Minister of Transport suggested that I contact Land Transport New Zealand and within hours of my having done so Land Transport had agreed to fund the Bailey bridge in its erection. We had a bridge engineers and funding—all to the delight of the local mayor Michael Laws. I thank the good Minister of Transport Annette King for responding to my request and I thank local government staff for their hard work during that time. This response shows how effective local decision-making with national support can be. 
John Hayes 
: I seek leave to table a request from the Carterton District Council that appeared in today’s edition of the  
Wairarapa News 
 which asks the Government for $200000 for flood repair to damaged roads. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Waste Strategy—Confidence 
12.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Does he agree that there has been a “loss of confidence” in the Government’s 2002 New Zealand waste strategy because key elements have not been implemented as reported by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 No. The member must be speaking in support of the parliamentary commissioner’s particular focus on the development of economic instruments such as taxes levies charges and permits. Although the Government believes that economic instruments are potentially one important element in changing wasteful behaviour we realise that other tools and work programmes can contribute significantly to that objective. Our success in meeting waste reduction targets while working collaboratively with stakeholders confirms that is an appropriate strategy. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Can the Minister explain the purpose of providing every one of the 600 delegates to the Local Government New Zealand conference this week with a single yellow child’s gumboot stamped with the Ministry for the Environment’s logo; is that gimmick a good use of public money and the right example to set on waste? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am waiting for order so that the Minister can respond and we can hear the answer. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: It would have been more useful if the member had read out the line that is written on the gumboot. It is in relation to issues around climate change. I have heard that member urge the community to consider climate change. As far as the gumboot is concerned I advise the member that the Ministry for the Environment tells me that the gumboot is a penholder. However given its size it might be more appropriate for the member to use it to contain National Party policy. 
Dave Hereora 
: Is the Minister aware of alternative approaches to working collaboratively with stakeholders including local government on matters such as waste? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am aware that the National Party has suggested two alternative and rather unpalatable approaches to working with local government. One approach is “an overbearing form of leadership that demands obedience and that stifles free thought and innovation that dictates rather than leads.” That statement was made by Don Brash who was apparently describing Nick Smith’s new-found interest in economic instruments to the Local Government New Zealand conference. The other approach is Don Brash’s own view that the local government leaders are a frustrated middle management group who are introverted in their thinking and are merely awaiting inspired leadership to reform their ways. That is why one mayor who spoke to me said the Leader of the Opposition had referred to them as being dicks who did not know what they were doing. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I remind members again that their answers and their questions should be succinct. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Can the Minister explain to Parliament how providing 600 mayors and councillors with a left-footed yellow gumboot with the words: “Are you thinking about climate change?” on it may stop global warming? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The member has just illustrated the usefulness of focusing on this issue. I inform him that Local Government New Zealand gave those members who did not wish to use the penholder the opportunity to recycle those boots for the use of young children. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would members please control themselves if they wish to remain in the Chamber. I will not call the member until there is silence. Members can sit here until 6 o’clock if they like—until we have silence please. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Why when there are serious and urgent environmental issues all over New Zealand did this Government last month choose to spend $125000 on a lightweight glossy booklet which was described as a gift from the retiring chief executive Barry Carbon and this month to spend $1000 more on single children’s gumboots to give to 600 mayors and councillors all of which will end up in the landfill; does that not illustrate a culture of both waste and extravagance in his ministry? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Absolutely not. I would like to thank both that member—for reasons she will understand in a moment—and Dr Smith for their really helpful publicity for an excellent publication. I am pleased to announce now that largely thanks to that fantastic publicity the print run for that publication has been exhausted such has been the public demand for it. I have since authorised a rerun of that excellent publication. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Given that the Government has no policy on climate change that emissions in New Zealand have increased at four times the rate of the United States and three times that of Australia that the Government’s carbon tax has been thrown in the bin that its animal emissions levy has been canned as well and that there is now no climate change policy in New Zealand does he really think that a single yellow gumboot—passing the boot to local government—is the answer? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: As the member is aware I do not have ministerial responsibility for climate change issues. In terms of policy on this matter I say that this Government has substantially more policy than the Opposition. On Monday the National Party told us that councils should have more choice about how to handle waste. On National Radio Nick Smith has said exactly the opposite of that—another example of the total discord within National. With regard to the boot there have already been some really useful suggestions about where it will go this weekend in Christchurch. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. When my colleague last spoke there was some distortion with the microphone. She is probably not aware of it. I wonder whether she can now move to another microphone to ask this supplementary question. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member for that; I was going to suggest it myself. 
Nicky Wagner 
: Can the Minister tell the House how much the 600-odd gumboots cost including the cost of no doubt extensive policy and public relations advice and the cost of every one of them being embossed with the ministry’s logo; if not why not? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I will be happy to provide that information for the member if she puts down a written question. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Minister believe it was good value for money for taxpayers through his ministry to provide every mayor and councillor at the Local Government New Zealand conference with a 5-year-old’s yellow gumboot? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I think it has been extraordinarily good value in focusing on climate change and I thank the member for his contribution. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave to table the Government’s great contribution to the climate change debate: a child’s yellow gumboot for a left foot. 
Gumboot by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Standing Orders—Sessional 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That pursuant to section 25(1) of the Parliamentary Service Act 2000 this House adds the following premises to the parliamentary precincts: 
the parts of Bowen House situated at the corner of Lambton Quay and Bowen Street Wellington and described as “additional premises” in the letter dated 24 December 2004 varying the Deed of Lease dated 14 December 2001 between Capital Properties (Kingsway) Limited and the Parliamentary Corporation; and 
the area of the first floor of Bowen House contained in Certificate of Title 37A/166 subject to a Deed of Extension and Variation of Lease signed and accepted on 30 November 1999 between Capital Properties (Kingsway) Limited and Her Majesty the Queen acting by and through the Secretary for Internal Affairs; and 
the premises known as “the House of Representatives ex-Debating Chamber” situated at levels sub-basement and sub-sub-basement at No 3 The Terrace Wellington on land contained in Certificate of Title WN41C/805 subject to a Memorandum of Lease B.263261.1 (Wellington Registry) dated 29 October 2004 between AMP NZ Office 1 The Terrace Limited and the Parliamentary Corporation. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora Madam Speaker the Maori Party is pleased to have the opportunity to talk to this notice of motion particularly about the additional premises associated with parts of Bowen House. Most members of this House would be aware no doubt of the long association Bowen House has had with the Crown. I found out that it was named after Sir George Ferguson Bowen Governor of New Zealand in 1867 and indeed the first Governor to assume office in the new capital of Wellington in 1868. So the relationship of the building to the House of Parliament has a lengthy whakapapa. The inevitable question we bring to this debate is how the whakapapa specific to tangata whenua—and in this case to mana whenua—is included within the scope of this notice of motion. 
The parliamentary record shows that it was Bowen who appointed two Maori representatives to the Legislative Council in 1870 which was described as a sign of goodwill. And it is with goodwill also that the Maori Party asks this House to consider the significance of the Bowen House site as a potential settlement asset. Bowen House has a memorial on its certificate of title under section 27B of the State-Owned Enterprises Act for the full building in the claim before the Waitangi Tribunal from the Wellington Tenths Trust. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Would members leaving the Chamber please show some courtesy to the member trying to address it. It is a longstanding convention that members should not conduct conversations in the House unless it is necessary to do so and then only without disturbing proceedings. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. The Maori Party comes to this debate then thinking of those tupuna of Te Atiawa: Ngati Tupaia Taranaki and Ngati Tama who were resident around Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara the Wellington Harbour in the 1840s. Fifty years after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi the Native Land Court determined there were 301 beneficial owners of the Tenths reserve the Maori reserve lands based largely in urban Wellington. There are currently over 4500 beneficial owners descended from them. The Maori Party considers that it is important to flag the interests of those owners and that any property which has a memorial on the title—such as the additional premises on the first floor of Bowen House be included in the scope of this motion. 
The Wellington Tenths Trust is a recognised iwi authority and as such it is in active consultation and partnership with city and regional councils regarding development and long-term planning. One such example of their working relationship is their active involvement in the Wellington City Council’s open space naming policy which confirms the council’s commitment to ensure that traditional Maori names are used where appropriate. It was pointed out to me that evidence of their expertise is right outside this very House in the small triangle of land on the corner of Molesworth Street and Lambton Quay. I would recommend that members who have not already done so walk outside this Chamber to visit the magnificent pou whenua gifted by the Wellington Tenths Trust. 
That site has a fascinating history. In 2002 a member of the public asked the Wellington City Council to name the corner Anzac Corner as that had been the colloquial name for the site in the 1920s when the temporary cenotaph was placed there. The council approached the Tenths Trust who determined it should be named Waititi meaning the place of shining waters. This name refers to its history as a beach front where water seeping from Te Awa o Waipiro—Waipiro Stream—gave the sand a shining appearance. This stream connected the two pa sites: Kumutoto and Pipitea. The site is of great significance to iwi as it was a tauranga waka—a landing place for waka—and as such it is a wahi tapu. Topography suggests that this beach was a significant entry point to Tinakori Kumototo and to Te-One-i-Haukawakawa. In light of this history and in respect of its significance the Wellington City Council rejected the suggestion to name the site Anzac Corner and instead it has become known as Waititi Park. 
I take the time to track over this history because it will indicate to this House our history as tangata whenua and how that is so strongly linked to our history as parliamentarians. The origins of the Wellington Tenths Trust predates Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The trust derives its source from the 1839 deed of purchase by the New Zealand Company which promised the chiefs of the Port Nicholson district that they would retain one-tenth of the total land ceded by them to be held in trust for their heirs forever. The Waitangi Tribunal has found that this deed of purchase was flawed. Indeed its finding in 2003 is as follows: “The Tribunal finds that the 1839 deed of purchase was invalid and conferred no rights under with English or Maori law on the New Zealand Company or on those to whom the company subsequently purported to on-sell part of such land.” 
These are substantive issues. The report of the Waitangi Tribunal into the Wellington Inquiry District—Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara me ona takiwa—validates the history passed down through the generations. It is a story we must be familiar with before we make any decisions on memorialised properties or core Crown properties. The Waitangi Tribunal found through its Wellington inquiry that the Crown had in fact breached the Treaty of Waitangi on at least 70 occasions. It also recommended that tangata whenua and the Crown should enter into negotiations to seek and settle historical claims. 
The Port Nicholson Block claim is about the taking of Wellington land through the various actions of past Governments. Wellington Tenths seeks like all other iwi a fair and equitable settlement—a settlement that honours its importance as mana whenua. Wellington Tenths is able to negotiate only for assets held by the Crown—properties such as the one currently under debate. If the properties are core Crown properties such as No. 3 The Terrace the trust has also sought a first right of refusal in any negotiation. It is not able to seek redress involving privately owned property. Indeed the trustees’ stated commitment is that they do not want to act in a manner that will be detrimental to the communities in which they live. 
We must never forget the history and the significance of tangata whenua. The Maori Party stands here today to ensure that properties such as the Bowen House site do not become further alienated from Maori. We recognise the deed of lease between Capital Properties (Kingsway) Ltd and the Parliamentary Corporation as signed in 2001 but we also recognise that any properties with a memorial on the title are to be considered part of any Treaty settlements. The aspirations of the Wellington Tenths Trust are that its interests in any memorialised properties or any core Crown properties are protected. Those are simple aspirations to be heard to be respected and to be recognised. The Maori Party is happy to take up the trust’s call. Kia ora tatou. 
Motion agreed to. 
Estimates Debate 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 18 July on the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill. 
Vote Economic Industry and Regional Development ( 
continued 
)  
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 It is a lengthy expensive and time-consuming process for middle-sized and even smaller New Zealand businesses to develop overseas export markets. The Minister in charge of this vote Trevor Mallard will well remember a meeting that he and I attended earlier this year in Lower Hutt with a surprisingly large group of manufacturers who are really grappling with this very issue. They have a desire—and we as a nation need to back them strongly—to export more products into overseas markets. But they are faced with a huge marketing task that can take a long period of time—sometimes amounting to years—and most of them do not have the capacity to actually fund that sort of campaign in distant markets such as Europe Asia and so on. At that meeting I strongly advised that the Government should do more to assist those kinds of businesses. 
So I begin today by strongly endorsing the Government’s decision to invest more money into the area of market development assistance through the Market Development Assistance scheme. The increased investment amounts to an extra $19.8 million in the 2006-07 year and increases of $14.8 million for each of the following 3 years. 
The development of new export markets for the New Zealand economy is now an urgent necessity. By comparison with other small nations of our kind such as Ireland and Singapore we are both a long long way further from our markets and also I think significantly off the pace in terms of actual uptake in getting into new export markets particularly in manufacturing technology and so on. It is more difficult for us because of our geographical isolation. In fact New Zealand is the most physically distant developed country in the world relative to major export markets in Europe USA and Asia. 
The type of assistance offered through this vote is well designed with a matching of the market development expenditure of companies or indeed a cluster of companies—something I specifically recommended to that group of manufacturers in Lower Hutt earlier this year—working through a joint export development project. The grant is for up to $100000 per year for a minimum of 5 years on a matching basis. In other words if the company or group of companies put up a hundred grand that figure would be matched by the Government. I encourage New Zealand firms to avail themselves of the opportunity this new vote presents to them and to get out and develop new international markets for New Zealand exports. 
Our nation is running a large balance of payments deficit and our trade and future economic success will continue to rely as it has done in the past on a vibrant marketing-orientated export sector. I note that this theme has been taken up in recent days by the New Zealand Institute which has come out with a new study and also by the Canterbury Manufacturers Association amongst others. The New Zealand Institute report is well worth reading. It is the first of what will be a group of five reports with four still to come. I therefore call on the Minister and the Government to continue to give assistance and support to exporters through a consistent well-thought-out plan as we move towards Export Year 2007. 
 In drawing attention to the fact that next year is Export Year for our country I want to mention that there was a debate at the Commerce Committee on this vote about which is better: tax incentives for business to get into exports or Government grants. It was an inconclusive debate although the Minister said we should be having it. Because I belong to a dynamic centre party I want to say that the answer in my view is a bit of both. A matching dollar for dollar grant system is a good idea but there must also be a place for direct tax incentives. I am hopeful we may see some of those incentives in the business tax package that we have announced for the very near future pursuant to the supply and confidence agreement between the Labour-led Government and United Future. 
I hope we will continue to develop more innovative means of giving assistance to New Zealand companies that want to get involved in export markets and I think that that matter should remain very near the top of the Government’s economic development transformation agenda for the foreseeable future. Thank you. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise in this debate. I thought we might have some discussion on the State-owned enterprises issue because it is one of the matters that are the subject of this estimates debate. 
I begin by saying that one of the issues of course when we are talking about the finance area is that there are some very clear policy differences between the National Party and the Labour Party. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but this is not the actual State-owned enterprises debate. That is the next one. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote State-Owned Enterprises 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 We have already had a taste of what Mr Swain is going to discuss since he brought up his issues in the previous vote. It is interesting to see that the Minister Trevor Mallard is once again not able to take the chair but I note that Minister Cunliffe will be all ears listening to some of the issues the Opposition is going to bring up. In the area of State-owned enterprises there has been a subject of great debate over the last few weeks because of course the Minister announced a major change to State-owned enterprise policy. He asked State-owned enterprises to spread their wings and expand their operations. The Opposition was a little concerned by this not least because we had a concern that there was an opportunity for crowding out private sector investment but also we wondered about the expertise that some State-owned enterprises have. We raised some concerns but that coincided with research released by Victoria University which also stated that those board members surveyed had concerns about the skills they had around the board table and also concerns about some of the appointments that had been made more relating to political affiliation as opposed to skills. 
So I would like to hear the Minister in the chair explain how this new regime will work why he thinks the present board members around the table have the skills to take State-owned enterprises into this new realm and also how it will make any difference. Because in the last couple of weeks we have had quite a high-ranking ex - Labour Cabinet Minister say publicly that he does not think it will make any difference to the way State-owned enterprises are doing their business at all. He pointed out that State-owned enterprises have always had some flexibility and some ability to make commercial decisions and get into other areas without having this new announcement. 
I would also like the Minister to explain why he thinks it is OK that New Zealanders should feel confident that State-owned enterprise decisions are going to be good ones because Minister Mallard has said that he and Michael Cullen have the final sign-off. I would like to hear the Minister explain why he thinks those Ministers have the financial ability and business nous to make sometimes complex business decisions that traditionally have been made by those boards. 
I would also like him to explain the theory behind this new change. Because in all the advice from officials concerns have been expressed. The Ministry of Economic Development has expressed concerns. Treasury certainly did. The Crown Company Monitoring Advisory Unit expressed concerns about pushing State-owned enterprises into these new additional areas of commercialism. 
I would also like the Minister to talk about why he thinks this will contribute to economic transformation. Because when one ignores the big issues such as tax accident compensation the Resource Management Act employment law and trade policy why does he think expanding the area of State-owned enterprise work is going to make any difference to kicking New Zealand’s economy along? Yes there have been some successes but also there have ultimately been some failures or as Treasury euphemistically put it non-successes. I would like to hear about that theory underpinning this strategy when all officials pointed to concerns and clearly were unsure about what the spill-over benefits would be. 
I am concerned that State-owned enterprises are starting to be treated as extensions of the Government’s social agenda. Is that OK when one is talking about firms that basically look after over $2 billion worth of assets? If one has $2 billion worth of assets I do not think it is OK to use as one of the reasons for expanding State-owned enterprise areas that it is to make them more exciting and less boring places to work. When one is overseeing $2 billion worth of assets I do not think there is a business or a businessman or businesswoman in the country who would see that as being a good excuse to expand State-owned enterprise risks and investments. 
So in terms of the State-owned enterprises plan I hope the Minister will get on his feet and explain more about how this will contribute to the grand plan of economic transformation. Because it is not clear from what has been said—if anything the more the Minister gets interviewed on this the more murky the thinking appears to become. What kinds of projects are they going to get into? How will New Zealand’s economy fare better with expansion of projects from learning media etc.? I would like to hear from the Minister on that. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 After a little bit of a false start I am very keen to take part in this debate. I have just changed my opening words as I thought they could have been a little better. I thought it was very interesting that the National member Katherine Rich who has just resumed her seat talked about State-owned enterprises but actually left out the most critical issue for National which is whether it will sell any. Of course the big problem National members have is that deep deep down they do want to flog off State assets but they cannot bring themselves to say it because if they say it they will not be elected. That is the huge dilemma the National Party has. So National members went into the last election with a whole pile of waffle around this area. In fact when they were pushed they could never get anybody to identify which State-owned enterprises they were prepared to sell off. 
In fact the leader himself said: “Well there are many State-owned enterprises we could privatise.” but when we asked him which one he said: “Well not that particular one maybe another one.” It goes back a couple of years but he has made many many statements on State-owned enterprises. For example in 2004 when pushed he said: “If it were up to me I would sell Kiwibank.” Then as it got close to the election and people started to wonder whether Kiwibank would be sold—and a lot of the people who banked with Kiwibank wanted to know the answer to that question—we heard John Key say: “Well in fact we wouldn’t sell it within our first term.” 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: 2006-07. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes Mr Chairperson. So the question is as we look forward in terms of this debate what is National’s policy on State-owned enterprises? For example would there be any changes if the National Party were in power? Would we be having a different kind of estimates debate now? I think it was disappointing the previous speaker did not raise that issue at all. 
Having had the pleasure of being a former Minister for State Owned Enterprises I can say that our State-owned enterprises perform particularly well relative to the private sector even when we take out the fact that there are some monopolies within them such as Transpower. When we look into the future this Government has clearly said that it will not have asset sales. We are opposed to asset sales but the same old issues need to be addressed. For example how much should the companies retain as retained earnings for their own future work—because State-owned enterprises need to keep moving forward—and how much should be given back to the shareholder who ultimately is the taxpayer by way of dividend? This age-old issue is always debated. We have been engaged in a long-term hold project whereby we have been working out how to try to mimic the private sector without obviously the discipline of the sharemarket. In all of these things State-owned enterprises are looking forward to the future. 
Of course they have always been able to expand their business. It is only when it comes down to major issues and major capital outlay that they need to come back for a decision from the shareholder which is no different from the operations of any other major company. The board is responsible for the governance of the company and for making sure that the company is performing but if any major issues need to be decided or if any major investment is required then back to the shareholders it goes. I think that the State-owned enterprises model is a good one. 
It is clear that this Labour Government is committed to State-owned enterprises. We are opposed to asset sales. We are keen to ensure that in this financial year they continue to perform strongly and well and that there is a balance between making sure there are sufficient earnings so they can expand and how much should be returned as a dividend. We know that State-owned enterprises must be able to continue to develop because to stand still means to go backwards in particular in areas where there is international competition and in energy and other areas where our State-owned enterprises compete. The decision about how much there should be in terms of retained earnings and how much should be in dividend is a matter for the Government. I congratulate the State-owned enterprises which have been good performers over the last little while and will continue to be over the next 12 months. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I wish to recognise the contribution of the former Minister for State Owned Enterprises the Hon Paul Swain for whom it was my distinct pleasure to serve as Associate Minister in times gone by. The Hon Paul Swain was a prudent careful but visionary Minister who should take some considerable credit for the fact that under his stewardship the average rate of return amongst the State-owned enterprise portfolio was higher than the average rate of return for the NZX50. That tells us two things: not only is the governance model for the State-owned enterprise stable appropriate but also the public has nothing to fear from those who think as a matter of religious conviction that anything owned by the State must by definition perform inadequately. Under Mr Swain’s tenure quite the reverse of that was proven to be the case—and it still is the case. 
The reality is that the State-owned enterprises matter. They have over $10 billion in assets. They are responsible for something like 16 percent of Crown revenue and that amounts to billions of dollars per year. And of course they make a contribution to essential services and essential infrastructure that New Zealand needs not only today but for the longer term. 
I wish to address a couple of the points raised by the Opposition spokesperson in her remarks. The first is that notwithstanding the Government’s willingness to see State-owned enterprises play a more transformative role in the economy we will continue with the regime of prudent monitoring of tight performance expectations augmented as the Hon Paul Swain has noted by the long-term hold owners’ review process. 
The Opposition spokesperson indicated her concern that there may be a tendency for Ministers to take important commercial decisions. I think it is worth noting that it is certainly the view of the current shareholding Ministers that when they appoint a board they back them or sack them. Board members are the people who have the expertise and they are the people who must judge the commerciality of decisions in the first instance. If Ministers are deeply unhappy then they have remedies available to them under the State-Owned Enterprises Act. 
Let us consider however the policy advantages that State-owned enterprises have because the reality is that the Crown is the kind of shareholder that any company and any management team would want to have. Why? Because the Crown is not in it just for the quick buck; the Crown is in it as the custodian of the public interest for the long term. Because the Crown has an eye on long-term value creation we can make investment decisions that take a while to pay off. 
Let me conclude with I think the best example to show the difference between the two sides of the Chamber. When the present Opposition members were in Government—and I know it is a long time ago now—they issued a directive under the State-Owned Enterprises Act to prohibit State-owned enterprises from investing offshore. The National Government said: “Thou shalt not invest!”. We lifted that directive. Meridian Energy bought Southern Hydro in Australia. National opposed that. Meridian built it up and extracted portfolio synergies between wind energy and hydro generation. Meridian sold Southern Hydro for nearly a billion dollars of profit much of which has contributed to the Government’s ability to upgrade the transport infrastructure around this country. 
Let us reflect on that example. National opposed offshore investment; it used the most draconian provision of the State-Owned Enterprises Act to prevent it. Labour gave boards the right to make those decisions and Meridian Energy did us proud. Meridian Energy returned the capital to the Crown and it has been used for the good of the public of New Zealand. What we want is good tight prudent management that delivers sustainable returns for New Zealand and invests in this country’s transformation for the future. I believe that is what this policy will deliver. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote State-Owned Enterprises be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; United Future 3; Progressive 1. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 48. 
Abstentions 9 
Green Party 6; Maori Party 3. 
Vote State-Owned Enterprises agreed to. 
Vote Sport and Recreation agreed to.  
Vote Health 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 In Parliament’s voting of $10 billion to the Minister of Health for the administration and provision of our national health service Parliament has to ask itself what progress this Government is making towards delivering a healthier nation and the improved welfare of our people. This is a Government that is asking Parliament to vote it over $10 billion which is an increase of $4 billion since it came to office but what has it got to show for it? There is all that extra money and we have a sicker nation. There is all that extra money but one has to be sicker today to get an operation in any public hospital than 5 years ago. There is an extra $4 billion but there are fewer elective surgeries being performed in this country than 5 years ago. There is an extra $4 billion but our public health initiatives are still not reaching the most at-risk groups in our community. 
This Government has run out of ideas it has run out of energy and it has run out of commitment to provide the vision and leadership that we need in the health sector to provide this country with better health and welfare in terms of our natural beings. This is a Government that this year came to Parliament to ask for $10 billion but we know that it is already planning on having $100 million worth of deficits in the accounts of the nation’s district health boards. That is how bad this Government’s management is of our public health system and the public purse which is shown here in Vote Health. A $100 million deficit in district health board accounts is already being budgeted for in this year’s appropriation. 
This is a Government that is having all its chickens coming home to roost. It has been able to cover up its poor performance in health through bluster and spin but now the public is on to it. Everywhere one travels around the country one sees there is widespread dissatisfaction with the New Zealand public health system. Doctors in both our hospitals and our general practices are disenchanted with this Government’s management and the way in which the system is bogged down in bureaucracy. 
We have fewer general practitioners in this country than we had 6 years ago. General practice has to be the cornerstone of our health service and there are opportunities for general practice to have an even greater role in providing for the health and welfare of New Zealanders. But this Government is attacking general practice at every opportunity. There are fewer general practitioners in the country today and there are many thousands of New Zealanders who cannot get registered with a general practitioner. 
Earlier this week I was in the Horowhenua. In the Horowhenua they are flying down a general practitioner from Kerikeri 3 days a week because of its shortage of doctors. On the Kapiti coast the person who runs the primary health organisation a contracted provider told me on Monday that 1000 people on the Kapiti coast cannot get a doctor. We know that New Zealanders cannot get registered with a general practitioner in Timaru or Gisborne. That has been reported. We know that in Waimate almost 2000 people cannot get on the books of a general practitioner. That is the state of the general practice workforce in New Zealand which the Government continues to ignore. 
The pressure on that workforce is becoming even worse as a result of this Government’s cynical plan to manipulate the nation’s public hospital waiting lists. That cynical plan is not about providing New Zealanders with treatment or care; that cynical plan is not about prioritising patients who need to get care; that cynical plan is all about chopping people off waiting lists so that the Prime Minister can stand up in the Chamber and say that she has cleared those waiting lists. But New Zealanders are on to that. Every day hundreds of New Zealanders find out about their friends and neighbours getting a letter or a phone call from their district health board telling them they have been culled from a hospital waiting list. 
There are two areas where people are being culled from their waiting list. The first concerns those people whose general practitioners say they need to see a specialist. Those people—over 120000 at the last count about April—need to see a specialist. Their general practitioners say they need to see a specialist but the Minister and the Government say that people who have been waiting more than 6 months regardless of the urgency of their care are to come off the waiting list. The cruellest cut of all though has come for those thousands of New Zealanders who were promised an operation. The Government never wanted to see that list revealed but we got the information out. An estimated 10000 New Zealanders who were promised an operation have been culled from hospital waiting lists—and the human cost is incredible. 
New Zealanders heard about the young woman who had a breast mastectomy and was promised a breast reconstruction but because of the severity of her disease she had to wait more than 6 months in order for things to settle down. What did this Government do? Did it honour the pledge to sufferers of breast cancer that they could have breast reconstructions? No she was cut off the waiting list by Pete Hodgson. What about the young child who cannot smile? That child was chopped off the waiting list by the Government. What about the young woman who was turfed off a hospital waiting list and as a consequence was admitted to hospital as an acute patient and now has a colostomy bag? How happy are Labour members about that? 
The Labour Party has just celebrated its 90th anniversary but did Labour members really come to Parliament to dump from waiting lists old people women who have lost their breasts and children who cannot smile and cut them out of the public health service? Did they really come to Parliament to provide fewer elective surgeries for New Zealanders who need them? Did they really come to Parliament to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an extra 1800 bureaucrats in the health system? Is that really what Labour is about? 
Under this Labour Government health dollars have gone further and further up the social strata. The Government is providing a political strategy rather than a health strategy. Its own people are the ones who are missing out. When Labour party people were celebrating in the electorate of the millionaire member from Otara did they think for one moment about the tens of thousands of their supporters who have been culled from hospital waiting lists? 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Too busy with the chardonnay. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Too busy with the chardonnay! Did they think what they were doing for the tens of thousands of their supporters—people who live on little more than national superannuation a welfare benefit or a low income? Did they think of the young woman with skin cancer eating away at her face who has been culled from a hospital waiting list and who cannot get care? Is that the Labour vision of a public health system in New Zealand? Is it Labour’s vision that millionaires in Whakatane pay $20 for a visit to the doctor but beneficiaries in Tauranga pay $30? Is it Labour’s vision that for every two nurses who have been employed in the public health system in the last 5 years there is another manager? Is that really what Labour came to office to have? Did Labour really come to office to have the aged-care workforce fade away through lack of support and training? Is that what Labour is really about? 
This Budget is not honest to Labour’s roots nor is it honest to the people of the public health system. This is a Budget that throws money everywhere but does not provide the care or attention needed to provide a decent health system in this country. Is this a Budget that says we have limits on our capacity in the public system so let us use the independent sector to provide more care in our hospitals and more care for New Zealanders? 
Hon Members 
: No. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: No. Is this a Government that has decided that it wants to support the work of non-governmental organisations? No. Is this a Government that says it wants to keep pace with inflation and the cost of drugs and put more money into Pharmac? No. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I am pleased to take a call on the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill. This year again there have been some very positive developments in Vote Health. New Zealand First has long said that New Zealand needs a properly funded health system and that as a start we must move towards health expenditure of 10 percent of GDP which many other countries around the world have. We believe this is totally achievable if we have an economic plan to improve our national income. So we definitely support the increased appropriation this year. 
We must acknowledge too that there has been a considerable increase in health spending over the last 7 years and that is to be commended. We now have over $10 billion in total for health and that also must be commended. 
 The fact that the major priorities have been outlined for the 2006-07 year means there is no confusion about where the moneys will be spent so the public of New Zealand can expect some positive outcomes in many areas—for example the health of older people children’s health primary health and obesity. All those areas need some dedicated moneys. 
Unfortunately there are no quick solutions to the many and varied challenges facing the health sector and we are pleased to see that some of the challenges are at last being recognised and worked on. New Zealand First believes that one of the aims of the health service must be to provide New Zealanders with certainty about their health care and to ensure timely access to quality services. This is in part largely successful particularly when it comes to emergency admissions to our hospitals. The Minister has said and the figures show that 75 percent of all hospital admissions come in through the emergency department. It is only the remaining 25 percent of hospital admissions for elective surgery that we hear the most about. That is where the dissatisfaction comes about. The dissatisfaction comes from the mismatch of the public’s expectation and what the system can actually deliver in a timely manner. New Zealand First believes that that needs to be addressed relatively rapidly. 
We applaud the announcement of the additional moneys for the oral health of New Zealand children. We know that the school dental service and the Adolescent Dental Benefits Scheme were both in dire straits—and perhaps to some extent still are—and that fewer than 40 percent of eligible preschoolers are enrolled in the school dental service. The Government has recognised that we no longer have the first-class service that existed in years gone by and has moved to rectify the situation. This funding is a step in the right direction. 
We will be very keen to see in action the process for allocating the funds. When we split the $40.8 million between 21 district health boards it is fairly obvious that district health boards will not be able to make much of an impact on children’s oral health with that amount of money. We know that some district health boards have proposed projects of $10 million and if we do the calculation we find that that is 25 percent of the total amount that one district health board wants to spend. 
We have been reassured by the Minister of Health that those with business cases approved later on in the year will still have the funds available. We will be most interested to see how that will work. We know that oral health is important to a child’s health or to a young person’s health overall. 
In the area of the elderly we believe that the Minister of Health must honour his commitment to ensure that the money in this year’s Budget for elder care is passed on promptly and in full. The key to that is to ensure that the district health boards deal fairly with the providers in the sector. Allocating funds in the Budget will be absolutely pointless unless they get to their intended destination. We know that low pay rates and the lack of training that carers of the elderly receive is a situation that must be corrected if we are to see sustained improvements in this industry. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I start by looking at one item in our financial review of the Ministry of Health—the proposed trans-Tasman joint therapeutics agency. In this year’s estimates $1 million is allocated for setting up a joint therapeutic agency with Australia and that is on top of $5 million that has already been spent. In our report we questioned the ministry’s mandate to proceed with this project and to spend all this money. We pointed out that it is operating under an executive mandate not a parliamentary mandate. We also pointed out that this huge expenditure of money—we are now up to $6 million—has never come before our Parliament. There is no parliamentary mandate for this project. 
The other extraordinary thing about our hearing on this particular aspect of the estimates was that we asked the Minister of State Services Annette King to come down and brief us in our select committee about the agency but she refused to do so. She refused to come to the select committee to brief us about it. We know she has been meeting with her Australian counterpart. I think they have had 15 meetings and they have made a series of decisions. We asked whether we could see the minutes of those political meetings but she refused to provide them. The Minister Annette King has also for 3 years refused point-blank to address my Official Information Act requests. 
What the Minister did tell us was extraordinary. In our estimates hearing a two-page briefing was sent in place of the Minister coming. I am speaking specifically about what is in the estimates if members want to read the report. She said she expected that legislation would come before Parliament in July. At a cross-party briefing outside this House the officials said the same thing. The officials said that legislation setting up the joint agency would be introduced in July. 
In the House today the Minister admitted there would not be any legislation introduced in July for the simple reason that the Minister does not have sufficient political support in this House to introduce the legislation. She also does not have support from the majority of those in the dietary supplements industry in New Zealand. They are implacably opposed to what she is doing. 
 So basically we are calling on the Minister to call it quits acknowledge that she does not have the numbers acknowledge that she does not have the support of the industry in New Zealand and instead get a cross-party group together to work on a simple New Zealand alternative in place of the legislation. 
The Minister said with great glee that it is terrible that some dietary supplements have been found to cause adverse reactions. That is what she said in the House today. It is good that she has found out about some of those supplements and there should be constant monitoring of them. But what she did not mention was the information that I eventually managed to extract from her after numerous written questions which was that last year more than 20000 New Zealanders suffered adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals almost 17000 New Zealanders suffered adverse reactions to a medicine in a hospital and a further 4000 adverse reactions were reported in the primary health care sector. However representatives of the centre for adverse reactions monitoring said that that was probably only a tiny fraction of the number of adverse reactions that occurred because there is no mandatory requirement to report adverse reactions to medicines. The centre therefore knows that it receives reports of only a very few of those occurrences. 
So here we have 20000 or probably 40000 or 100000 New Zealanders becoming ill with an adverse reaction to their medicine. What are we doing about it? We are doing nothing. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena tatou katoa. In the last month a number of ground-breaking reports have been released that add to the depressing chronicle of evidence about the state of health in Aotearoa. The Maori Party welcomes these reports; however they become drained of any moral value if we fail to act. The estimates debate is an opportunity for the Government to dare to act in the interests of the health of the nation. 
So let us set the scene. The world’s leading independent general medical journal  
The Lancet 
 surveyed over 10000 New Zealanders asking them about any incidents of discrimination when they approached a health professional. The study described the health system of this country as “racist and discriminating against Maori”. It claimed that 4.5 percent of Maori experienced unfair treatment by a health professional compared with just 1.5 percent of Pakeha. It stated: “The findings of this survey show that deprivation and experiences of perceived racial discrimination contribute to inequalities in health outcomes between Maori and Europeans. Indeed the combination of deprivation and discrimination as measured seems to account for much of the disparity in the health outcomes assessed.” 
The impact of multiple factors of disadvantage in limiting health outcomes has always been well understood by tangata whenua. Ngati Hine leader Moe Milne for example described te oranga o tangata whenua as being influenced by factors other than purely the absence of disease. She stated: “I was told ‘We lose our tangata whenua status when we don’t have whenua to stand on. We lose our whenua status when we don’t have tangata to stand on it.’ ” It is in this relationship of all the intersecting parts that the greatest damage lies. 
Reference is often made in this Chamber to the most vulnerable of our communities—the so-called welfare cheats the dole bludgers the welfare dependants and those who are said to be ripping off the system. But I have to ask who the greatest beneficiaries are. Who feels good about the theft of Maori resources—our waterways the land confiscations and the foreshore and seabed—and who feels bad? 
The relationship between health wealth and well-being is absolutely linked. The determinants of health are overlapping and multiple. Poverty intergenerational and lifestyle factors ethnicity racism and ill health are factors that are all related yet this Government persists in treating one factor in isolation. These are systemic issues. We are always told that people must take personal responsibility—and yes people must do that—but who in this Chamber will take personal responsibility for the creation and support of systems and policies that will guarantee disadvantage and that will not change the lives of the most disadvantaged? This Parliament is frequently swamped with accusation denial and decision makers who will not take responsibility for decisions they have made to create what to many of our people is an unjust system. If we are really to eliminate health disparities we need to address the institutionalised racism that reveals itself in the link between racism morbidity and mortality. We need to treat the health of the whanau as being intricately associated with the health of the individual—we need to make the associations and we need to act. 
The National Party must also stand up and take responsibility for its role in planting the seeds of racism amongst the public mind. I wonder how many members in this Chamber have had calls from Maori who are sitting in their homes listening to National members talk about Maori in terms of privilege and I wonder how that wounds the psyche of Maori people. The focus on so-called Maori and Pacific privilege is in itself creating disadvantage. That party is allowing people to talk about us in a negative way. That party is giving people permission to be racist and that must stop. 
Last week the Public Health Advisory Committee released its report called  
Health is Everyone’s Business 
. That report urged New Zealanders to rise to the challenge of reducing health disparities particularly between Maori and non-Maori. The committee advised the Government of the widening social and economic inequalities that are resulting in whole population groups being left behind. It described how in New Zealand ethnicity presents an independent and significant effect. The committee concluded that being Maori or Pacific further increases the risk of death or ill health across all socio-economic categories. I repeat—being Maori or Pacific further increases the risk of death or ill health across all socio-economic categories. If we were to say that being Pakeha further increased the risk of death or ill health would that be ignored? If we were to say that being an MP further increased the risk of death or ill health would attention be taken? So why is it that the association of being Maori or Pasifika with the risk of ill health and death is so casually described—almost taken for granted—as a universal assumption of truth? 
The Public Health Advisory Committee identified that there is no easy solution to health inequalities no quick fix no one-size-fits-all. Collaborative effort is required to address the social and economic determinants of health. Health cannot be treated in isolation. The final report released just a week ago proved that although poor health can be expected to lower living standards there was also evidence that poor living standards increase the risk of poor health. And who are the New Zealanders most at risk of poor living standards? Forty percent of Maori and 58 percent of Pacific people experience some degree of hardship compared with 19 percent of Europeans. That is not a gap; that is an ocean. 
Disparities emerge and grow from the overlapping disadvantages of racism and poor health and impoverished living standards and deprivation. If we add to those factors the variable of being Maori or Pacific the result will be severe and significant hardship. Yet the appropriation has allocated a measly $3 million to policy advice on reducing disparities in health status for Maori. Worse still there is no specific funding at all for Pasifika health. I like many others have heard all the excuses that the priority of better health for all perhaps means reducing inequalities for Maori Pasifika and those on low incomes without actually having to spell it out. Well I am a firm believer in spelling it out telling the truth and facing the facts. 
The reports I have spoken of today are not Maori Party documents. They are not the reports of Maori researchers academics or wananga graduates. They are not the reports of the United Nations special rapporteur. They are the reports of Professor Peter Davis of the University of Auckland of the Public Health Advisory Committee and of Ministry of Social Development. We must act decisively with courage and information to make the connections explicit and to treat the whole rather than the separate parts. Within Te Ao Maori we know we live the reality of taking into account all aspects of our spiritual physical social cultural intellectual and psychological selves when we consider the concept of health. Kaore te taha wairua i te tu i tona kotahi; the spiritual side does not stand by itself. We cannot divorce the water from the lake and still call it a lake. So we understand only too well the impact of multiple disadvantage—that everything is connected that nothing can be treated in isolation. Solutions must be all-embracing and inclusive. We must all take responsibility for being a part of that solution. I ask today: who in this Chamber will address the living conditions that create poverty misery and the underclass? Who in this Chamber is prepared to burst the septic boil of racism and stand up to protect the well-being of all? When will we invest in raising the standards of living? Only then will the state of health in Aotearoa be something we can all be proud of. Kia ora. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 The Labour Government is failing ordinary New Zealanders. It has had 7 years to prove itself and it is failing miserably. Under Labour New Zealanders are getting sicker—yes sicker. This month Judith Collins National’s welfare spokesperson exposed figures showing that a staggering 122000 New Zealanders were on the sickness and invalid benefits. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How many? 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: It was 122000. That is more than the population of Hamilton City or Dunedin City. Judith Collins showed that the numbers of people drawing those benefits had increased by 47 percent and 38 percent respectively under this Labour Government. That is an astonishing figure. The population has not increased by 40 or 50 percent so what is going on with New Zealand’s health we can ask. Why are New Zealanders getting sicker? I will tell colleagues what is happening and it is not good. 
They are not getting the operations or drugs they desperately need. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders are being dumped from waiting lists and not getting the procedures that specialists say they need. Why are they being dumped? They are being dumped because the hospitals do not have the resources to do the operations. That is despite the millions of extra funding that has gone into a bloated health bureaucracy. Half of all the district health boards are struggling to match last year’s numbers of operations. Compared with 5 years ago fewer patients are getting elective surgery. Patients now have to be sicker to get an elective operation and because they have to wait longer the operations are more complex more complicated and bigger. It does not make sense. There is no logic in it. There is not a lot of sense in Labour’s failed policies. 
Recently there was some publicity about medical adverse events that cost taxpayers a massive $850 million each year. That is serious money. The figure comes from a 2002 study. We would think that the Government would sit up and take notice of that report and implement immediate and urgent steps to reduce medical adverse events—not only to reduce the pain and suffering of New Zealanders but also to save money. But has it? No it certainly has not. 
This Government is interested in spending money and not in saving money. This Government is more interested in wasting hard-working New Zealand taxpayers’ money than in relieving New Zealanders’ pain and suffering. The irony is that although this Government is happy to spend money as if there were no tomorrow in pharmaceuticals it is the opposite case. That is an area where the Government needs actually to be spending money but it is doing the exact opposite.  
Darren Hughes 
: Who wrote this rubbish? 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Shut up Darren. You might learn something. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: Yes he might learn something! The per capita amount of pharmaceutical spending has been flat-lining and dropping over the last 5 years. Pharmac’s annual budget is not even keeping up with inflation or the consumer price index. 
Darren Hughes 
: All these prepared speeches. It is a debating chamber. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE 
: There has actually been a press release this afternoon from that member’s Government. It has announced an increase in Pharmac’s budget to $600 million which is up from $582 million in last year’s budget. But when one works out the figures one finds that that figure represents an increase of only 3 percent which in no way will match the 11 percent predicted increase in prescription volumes. So it is pretty simple to work out that we are going backwards quite fast. This has done a disservice to New Zealanders. They are not getting the drugs they desperately need to keep them well and out of hospital. 
A recent study shows that in the last 6 years Australians have had access to 58 more new emanated medicines than have New Zealanders. New Zealanders are missing out on medicines compared with their counterparts in Australia. This study also confirmed that the few drugs we have in common are more restricted and more difficult to access than in Australia. Pharmac tried to fudge the issue and even the Minister was reported in the House for fudging it and saying that New Zealanders had access to more medicines than Australians. Government members were very very quiet when the detail of it was worked out. It was pointed out that Pharmac included items such as condoms peak flow metres Janola and calamine lotion. These are hardly lifesaving and innovative new drugs. It takes far too long to get drugs through Pharmac’s process. 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 We are talking about the estimates of appropriations but quite frankly when it comes to health we might as well be talking about the estimates of misappropriations. This debate goes right to the heart of what is wrong with health under this Labour Government. The Government is now spending $10.5 billion a year on health. That is a 66 percent increase on what it was spending when it came to office. As everyone knows and as the Labour members know health is actually not improving in New Zealand. Those members have nothing to say about that. The marginal member for Otaki Darren Hughes was saying that this was a debate. Well why do Labour members not get up take a call and actually debate some of these issues? Why do they not get up put their money where their mouths are and tell us what they will do? 
Frankly health has been an abysmal failure under Labour. The reality is that the more the Government spends on health the worse it gets. For 6 years we had a Minister of Health who was a dental nurse. Now we are counting the problems in oral health. We all know that oral health is a problem in New Zealand. It has been going on for 6 years and what is the Government doing? It is commissioning a report. It will have another committee it will have a hui but it will not have any answers. Goodness knows what we will have after 3 years of having a vet as Minister of Health. We may be counting the number of successful dog microchippings—it will be just as relevant to the health of New Zealanders as what we have had so far. 
We can conclude that the more money Labour throws at the health problem the worse it gets. Labour members are averting their eyes—they do not have the answer. They know that health is a minefield; it is a disgrace. The Minister of Health is a joke. He is an embarrassment to the Prime Minister he is an embarrassment to the front bench and he is not even here to take a call today. It will be very very interesting to see what happens when the Associate Minister gets up and tries to justify the $10.5 billion of expenditure. We know that the system is in crisis. We know that one has to be sicker than ever to get an operation in New Zealand. One cannot fool the listeners at home. They know that that is absolutely correct. They would be absolutely appalled to know that one dollar in every five of Government expenditure is going into health yet the kids are getting fatter people are getting sicker parents cannot get operations— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What would you do? 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: The member for Waimakariri asks a very good question. I will tell him. The one line that should be in these estimates of misappropriations is the big line called bureaucracy. I can tell the member that under this Government we now have 12000 bureaucrats and 12000 hospital beds. That is one bed for every bureaucrat. We have had an increase of 2000 bureaucrats in health alone under this Government. I say to the listeners at home that Government members are not saying anything now because they know it is true. They know that since this Government came to power 17 football fields are now needed to accommodate all the bureaucrats in Wellington in terms of office space. 
Darren Hughes 
: Ha ha! 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: That is a joke. It is a disgrace. Darren does not have an answer to that—he knows it is true. We have fewer general practitioners fewer people having operations— 
Darren Hughes 
: Rubbish! 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: It is true. We have more bureaucracy. Labour thought health was in a safe pair of hands but it has turned out to be the nightmare portfolio. Who on that front bench would want to have that portfolio now? The answer is no one. The fact is that health under Labour is in the cart Mr Hodgson is in palliative care and the people of New Zealand are waiting for a change of Government so we can start to get the services that the people of New Zealand deserve. They are not getting those services under Labour. 
Last week we had the roll-out of primary care. What a dismal failure that will be. Three million dollars will go to the poorest people in New Zealand and $60 million will go to people who can already afford to go to the doctor. How is that targeting need? The reality is that Labour is letting down the people who voted for it—the poorest people in New Zealand who have the highest health needs. The message is actually getting through because those Labour voters know that this Government does not represent their interests. 
This Government is more concerned with irrelevant fringe social issues rather than with strengthening health strengthening education and strengthening the economy. That will come back and bite it in 2008 if not earlier. Government members are not saying anything now because they know it is true. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building Issues) 
: 
 It is too difficult to resist having a crack at that member who is allegedly a general practitioner. When we asked that member what his policy for health would be all he talked about was bureaucrats. Has he forgotten the Health Funding Authority? Has he forgotten that when something went wrong in the health system before we had district health boards we had bureaucrats? But no one would take any responsibility when things went wrong under the Health Funding Authority that Dr Jonathan Coleman’s crew in National set up and that he as a general practitioner milked and got his income off. Now at least we have district health boards with accountable people. If communities do not like what the health boards have done they can get rid of them—they are accountable. That member as a general practitioner milked the system under the Health Funding Authority all right and National created the bureaucrats in the system—a huge monolith of bureaucrats. 
But here is the deal: Dr Coleman said we should get rid of the bureaucrats but what does that mean? I will just talk about that. Here is an economic fact: the health sector requires money. Where do Governments get money from? They get money from taxation revenue. Is that not right? That member—a general practitioner—was elected on the basis of National’s policy of a $7 billion tax cut. I will explain to him what happens when revenue is reduced. The money has to be found from somewhere. When a $7 billion tax cut is given—[ 
Interruption 
] The member did not do very well when he was on his feet; he is doing even less well now that he is squawking like a headless chook over there. Half of the $7 billion tax cut was to have been based on borrowing. Where would the other half have come from? The other half would have come from cuts in expenditure like that on health or from asset sales. One could not sell enough assets to cover what National wanted to do. 
I ask Dr Coleman to tell the truth. I ask him to get up again take another call and explain to the people he hoodwinked in the electorate he won that if he had his backside on the Government side of the Chamber he would cut health expenditure in order to give away a $7 billion tax cut and then he would borrow the other half of the money needed for the tax cut. That does not mean getting rid of bureaucrats. If he got rid of every so-called bureaucrat and administrator in our health system he still could not pay for the tax cuts that he wants to give people. What would Dr Coleman do? He would get rid of nurses cut services and put cash registers back into the hospitals as National did in the 1990s—and that genius over there was a general practitioner in the 1990s. I ask him to go back and think about the legacy that the National Government put through. I ask him to look at the health figures that that Government left—at the cash registers in the hospitals. Under that Government people were not bumped off a waiting list; they were bumped off permanently because they could not get into a hospital. 
I challenge Dr Coleman to say whether he would get rid of the primary health organisations and the Public Health Care Strategy. There is silence. He is lost for words and so is that other thing over there beside him. Would Dr Coleman get rid of the primary health organisation system? Would he get rid of the district health boards? We do not hear anything now. The reason is that this is not an election year. In election year the only thing he came out with of course was a $7 billion bribe. I say to that member that he has no credibility. He may be a general practitioner—he may be a witch doctor for all I know—but he has no understanding of economics. What is even worse is that he stands up in this Chamber and thinks everybody who listens to him is an idiot who does not see through that. Well I say people are not idiots. 
Darren Hughes 
: He is arrogant. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: He is arrogant—absolutely arrogant. 
Would National get rid of the primary health organisations? Would it do away with the free doctors’ visits for under-sixes? No Dr Coleman will not say what National would do away with. He will not tell us how he would fund his health proposals because he does not have any health proposals. That member over there has shown himself for what he is. He is a political fraud—an absolute political charlatan. He is a naive new member who is up himself to the point where he goes out and tells people whatever they want to hear. I say to Dr Coleman that if he were in Government Rangiora Hospital would be gone by lunchtime. If he were in Parliament on the Government side of the Chamber Canterbury District Health Board would have its budget slashed under him. Why would that happen? Because we know he could not pay for tax cuts without doing that. We know—as John Key said—that National would borrow half of the $7 billion needed in order to give a tax cut. [ 
Interruption 
] The member says that is right. That is the first truthful thing he has said in this contribution. John Key said that. I wonder whether the folks who are listening to this debate—the elderly who would have been turfed out of rest homes or the people who would not have had cheaper prescriptions—heard that. 
We know that when we got into Government many people could not access the public health system and if some of them had been able to access their doctor and their specialist for treatment of their injuries they would not have needed to be put on a waiting list. If they had minor injuries those could have been stitched and fixed up and they would have gone away back to their normal quality of life. This Government has put a heap of money in the pot in order to clear the existing waiting lists out—and we are doing that. Also for anyone with a minor injury or illness surely it makes sense to do what we are doing: providing those people with the drugs they need and getting them in a measured and cheap way to their specialists and their primary health care providers so they can be fixed up and stitched up without needing to be put on a waiting list—because by God they are healthy. That is our policy. 
We did not hear anything from members on the Opposition side of the Chamber except for a lot of voodoo economics. The National members are running like mad from their tax cut bribe. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 I take the opportunity to close this debate. Never before has a Government invested so much money in the health status and care of its people. It has committed $10.5 billion. I am very proud as Associate Minister of Health and as part of a Government that has committed so much to the future health and well-being of its people. I acknowledge New Zealand First for its wisdom in contributing to this debate and to this Government. Barbara Stewart quite rightfully points out the priority areas in health care that we have laid out in front of the public and are absolutely committed to. Those are the health of older people the health of children primary health care and dealing with public health-care issues like obesity. We have invested a huge amount in primary health care because prevention is better than cure. We know—as the public of this country knows—that money spent up front looking after people preventing many of the ailments and many of the long-term problems is money well invested. 
Tony Ryall made a very good point. He said that general practitioners are very very important people. Yes they are. They are key components in the Primary Health Care Strategy. I am not sure whether Dr Coleman is a necessary general practitioner given his ignorance and the ignorance he showed in the House just before. But general practitioners and other primary health care providers and nurses—all those people—are essential elements of our Primary Health Care Strategy. Another very good point raised in this debate was the fact that 75 percent of people go into our hospitals through emergency care or acute incidents. Every one of those people almost without exception will say that the care he or she received was exceptional. It is absolutely amazing. Every day up and down this country we can meet people who will say and know that when they need health care they will get it and it is our public health system that will deliver it to them. 
The National Opposition focuses on the 25 percent of people who go into the hospital system—and members should remember that that is just one part of the health system—for elective surgery. That is always an area of difficulty because with increasing technology with increasing knowledge and with more drugs we are able to deal with more people. That is a fact and because the demands on the system will never ever be entirely satisfied we have had to make some calls. We have said we will focus on public and primary health care areas where prevention will deliver for us as a nation long term. We have said we will target areas of need. As the Maori Party quite rightly pointed out too many of those areas of need are unfortunately found within the Maori and Pacific Island populations because disparities of wealth align with disparities of health care. There is no doubt about that. 
That is why we have said all the way through our health strategy and through the primary health strategy as well that we will focus on areas of need. That means we will focus on the disparities in health for Maori and Pacific Island peoples and we are proud of that. It is a health system based on need not on ability to pay. 
The other reality pointed out by my learned colleague the Hon Clayton Cosgrove is that if National were to offer $7 billion worth of tax cuts as it did it would have to slash funding. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Who to? 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: They blame as the member pointed out the bureaucrats the administrators and the managers in the health system. Well if funding in health care is increased by 66 percent we need to know that it is being spent in the right areas. We need to know that that money is being well managed. That is why we have had an increase in administrators. We do our very best to minimise increases in that area but we need to know that every dollar is being well spent. 
The other reality of course of the National Party’s alternative policy is that one would not only have to slash funding to health but actually hand responsibility over to the private sector. The National Party ideologically believes that the private system can deliver more efficiently. Well I struggle to understand that because we have had some models that have attempted to do that—for example when the National Government privatised the railways although I am not sure that that is a wonderful example of large infrastructural private management. But we do need a nationwide system of health care and that is what we are backing. The National Government’s experiment in railways did not work and privatisation in other areas it reformed has not worked either. Its reform of the electricity system based ultimately on the ideal that privatisation would deliver to us did not work. Those two simple examples of key infrastructure reforms—of key Government services such as health—have failed under the private sector management models. 
That is why we as a Government are absolutely committed to the provision of public health services throughout this country. We will take taxpayers’ dollars spend them and invest them wisely in health care because that ultimately will determine the wealth of this country. One’s health is one’s wealth. There is absolutely no doubt about that—members should ask people who face acute and immediate health problems. They know where their priorities lie. So too does this Government. That is why I am proud to say that under the Minister Annette King and now under Minister Pete Hodgson we have invested 66 percent more money into health care since 1999. 
Darren Hughes 
: That’s a pretty good record. 
Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR 
: It is a very good record. In spite of all the harping on by the National Party we will have increasing health status for New Zealanders not only now but into the future. Oral health care which was raised by members in the Committee is a classic example. The National Government through its 9 years of management of this country chopped investment in training dental therapists. As a result we have seen a decline in the standard of dental health of young New Zealanders. There has been a direct decline in oral health because of worthless management and a lack of investment. We have started now to invest. We have 100 dental therapists training at the moment. We are investing $100 million over 5 years into dental care. That is the kind of investment we have had to make to offset the dumbing down the shrinkage and the attempt at private provision by the last National Government. It is a big job. We are committed to doing it properly. I think we have done an exceptional job and we will continue to do so for a long time into the future as a Labour-led Government with the assistance of our wise coalition colleagues. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote Health be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; United Future 3; Progressive 1. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 48. 
Abstentions 8 
Green Party 6; Maori Party 2. 
Vote Health agreed to. 
Vote Maori Affairs 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
 Tena koe. It is a privilege to speak to the Appropriation (2006/07 Estimates) Bill particularly in terms of the bill asking that $156.990 million be appropriated for Vote Maori Affairs. I want to preface my contribution to this debate by making mention of former colleagues of mine in the Department of Maori Affairs because this will provide the tenor of my contribution to this debate. In that regard I want to mention Jim Pou Herepo Harawira Oti Te Rangi Hilda Busby Hei Rogers Taku Trotman Barbara Devonshire Matarehua Wikiriwhi John Dargaville Moana Raureti Boy Tomoana Anne Delamere and Bill Herewini all former Maori welfare officers who I believe would be turning over in their graves if they could see the plight of Maori in the year 2006. 
A recent report entitled  
New Zealand Living Standards 2004 
 published by the centre for social research at the Ministry of Social Development highlighted the plight of many New Zealanders not least of all Maori. It makes for sobering reading even though some in this Committee proffer the excuse that the report is somewhat dated in that it covers only the period 2000-04. However the events of recent weeks—in fact recent years—with regard to the abuse and eventual death of young children suggest that the period of 2005 to the present is no better. Sadly the situation is more pronounced among Maori. A cursory glance at the social indicator statistics confirms that Maori are still clustered at the bottom of the heap. 
I would like to reflect today on the sad reality of 21st century New Zealand and suggest some ways that those statistics might be turned around. Maori social statistics are an embarrassment to New Zealand and until they improve we cannot in all honesty say that we live in an egalitarian society. Overall it is a pretty grim picture. The reasons for this are complex and cannot be separated from the wider context of economic and social conditions. 
Employment tells a similar story. Recent employment figures show a disturbing disparity between ethnic groups. At the present time 2.5 percent are unemployed in the European-Pakeha group while the unemployment figure for Maori is 7.6 percent. That of course is 7.6 percent too much. I remember some of the employment programmes during the 1970s and 1980s under the responsibility of the then Department of Maori Affairs that were successful in training young unemployed people and many young Maori in skills that employers were looking for. Such programmes I believe offered the salvation from long-term unemployment and all the negative consequences of that. We need more of them. It is not good enough that in times of high employment significant numbers of people are missing out. The unemployed need to be encouraged into the Modern Apprenticeships programme and more programmes need to be implemented to ensure that none of our young are left behind. 
There has been much ado about the Minister of Maori Affairs not seeking extra funding in this year’s Budget and I ask myself why. For me what was more important was the suggestion that this signals. Is it because his ministry underspent last year or because there are no new programmes intended for this year or is there a failure of the current projects that his ministry is responsible for? What happened to the programme Local Level Solutions? I understand that this is now being replaced with a new programme called Realising Maori Potential. What about those Local Level Solutions projects that were considered commenced and not yet completed? 
What has become of the findings and recommendation from that much-touted gathering here in Wellington that was to provide economic policy for this Government in terms of Maori development? I believe the Hui Taumata itself was a good thing. But what has come of it? It was a good thing for Maori to be able to participate and to express their views. Unfortunately the results have meant a request for extra funding of just over $2.5 million to allow a group to travel around the country reporting to Maori the outcomes of Hui Taumata. I tell the Minister that there are more important issues confronting Maori than having a small and well-paid group repeat what was said at that Hui Taumata. While it may have seemed laudable for Maori to have this Hui Taumata the fact is that people were asked to pay to go to that hui to give their advice and so many months down the track we have yet to see the fruits of that hui. 
What needs to be considered is a return to the old programmes that were once the responsibility of the Department of Maori Affairs. Therein we had a programme called “community services” where experienced staff were allowed to go out amongst the community to make contact and deal with the issues that were confronting Maoridom at that time. 
Hon Member 
: Back to the old ways. 
PITA PARAONE 
: I heard the comment “the old ways.” Well perhaps if we look at the old ways we will get the answers for the issues that are confronting Maori today. I want the Minister to seriously consider the programmes that once were the responsibility of the Department of Maori Affairs to address the social and economic issues that are confronting our people today. 
As has been said in this Committee earlier today any criticism of the social indices that affect Maori not only bears some weight on members of the Government but all Maori members of this Parliament. I am sick and tired of being tarred by that brush when in fact I know that the solutions facing our people can be well dealt with in a way that was once a successful and very profitable programme for our people. Serious consideration needs to be given to revisiting those programmes but I believe there has to be a political will and I ask the Minister to consider those programmes seriously. I am glad that the Minister also now has an Associate Minister to help him with the problems that are confronting the Maori people. Kia ora. 
SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairperson. Obviously I stand to speak in favour of the recommendation in the appropriations in respect of Vote Maori Affairs. It is good to see that the Ngati Hine health budget is working because although there was some physical distance between my whanaunga from Ngapuhi and the Minister and I talking very quietly up here while he was on his feet he heard part of what we said. However the part of the Ngati Hine health budget that deals with his sight needs improving because he mistakenly referred to our other Ngapuhi whanaunga Mr Simich by the wrong gender term. 
I follow on from Pita Paraone and his words about Te Puni Kokiri and this particular vote. Firstly let us bear in mind that the Maori population is comparatively speaking a youthful population. As we wander forward as a country never quite knowing where we will end up on race relations we are being dragged to the side and dragged backwards by the Opposition which has no clear sense of where it is taking the country. Unfortunately a large number of confused voters belonging to the Brethren church and other such obscure sects fell for the rhetoric. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: They didn’t vote. 
SHANE JONES 
: They did not vote but who did they fund? Did they waste their money funding a leader who today decided that because he cannot make any traction in here he will go out and insult every democratically elected local government official? I will have more to say on that later. We have a very clear policy. The policy is in relation to the advancement of our people—Maori voters; iwi—who are going forward economically speaking and are major and welcome contributors in relation to identity. That is something we have never heard from Opposition members. 
Where do they want Maori to fit in relation to our overall identity? They want them in the outhouse. They do not want them to enjoy a position of pride or a position showing forward thinking—no they want them to the side and forgotten about. Fortunately a vast number of voters saw that this was a backward divisive stigmatising negative way to think about the future which is why those members are in Opposition and long they will be there. They sought to demonise the most vulnerable members of our modern society of our modern economy and they were tossed out. 
Opposition members have been unable to recover from that mortal blow. They have fallen upon themselves. Not only are they destroying the person who thought he could idly walk from the Reserve Bank into this House and claim the top prize but also they have taken the toki to him. He is history and now they have got the mere out—no the mere is for the high chief and there are no high chiefs over there. They have taken a bit of four-by-two—[ 
Interruption 
] Yes Pita Sharples gave them a manuka stick and our voters will have much to say about that in the future. They will regret the day they gave a sliver of support to Pita Sharples who immediately raced over to that side of the House and signed an ill-fated document of which we have a copy. They seek to deny it but it will surface in good time. 
But let us go back to why this is a reasonable programme. Although it is attacked by Tau Henare and others it shows that the officials and the Minister in particular were willing to get a better return for the same amount of money. That is excellent thinking that is reflective of a very prudential approach to using the available amount of money. 
While members opposite rail about wastefulness the Minister has come with a programme that is a reprioritisation. The first one is rawa. Rawa means resources but rawa also means to choke and Opposition members are choking on it. The second thing is whakamana which means to uplift and to ensure that people enjoy self-esteem and are held in a position of esteem which is something that members opposite have failed to advance. Fortunately the result of the election demonstrates that they have much more heartache to come. 
Matauranga is the name of our vessel. It is the third point. Matauranga knowledge is the final reprioritisation. Who with a sliver of intelligence could argue against the Minister’s fine reprioritisation in giving knowledge and education top billing? Not only is it education that will enrich the whole country but we must focus on young people. By and large they will be a hugely more important proportion of New Zealand’s working population in the future. Knowledge will ensure that they are not trapped in the Kahui end of town. Rather they will enjoy the fruits of bilingualism they will have enterprise and industriousness and they will be supported. That is why the manaaki tauira reprioritisation was very clever thinking. Mr Ron Mark had a fantastic success for the Wairarapa landless natives or whatever they are called in that part of the country. They have a fantastic scholarship scheme; they do not need to fall back on the taxpayers and get further money. 
So the manaaki tauira was reprioritised to deal with the third-formers the fourth-formers the fifth-formers and the sixth-formers because unless we prevent them from slipping through the cracks there is no point in just growing the number of university students. 
 So I say to all the people who unwisely unfairly attacked the Minister over the reprioritisation of manaaki tauira that we are investing in the area of secondary school students which is where unfortunately we have all inherited an enduring problem. Nigh on 30 percent of all Maori school leavers continue to leave without adequate qualifications. I say to our Maori and Pakeha colleagues on the other side of the Chamber that such a statistic must not be used as it was in the recent election as a device to divide people. We should all join in common purpose to ensure that young Pacific Islanders and in particular young Maori men are not only adequately skilled but are endowed with the right education so they do not represent a social problem of the future but are a key economic ingredient. 
I think it is a very sad day whenever we proceed to talk about Maori affairs or race relations. The standard response from the Opposition is a very negative one. It is based on a rather devious and quite sinister agenda which is to choose people who can be demonised and stigmatised and make them and the population feel that they are responsible for a whole host of amorphous ill-defined woes. I am happy to say that this approach—not only through Te Puni Kokiri but at a wider level throughout the Government—is challenging that and is going to stand against that. It was a bleak day when our political opponents chose a type of politics—I understand that it is called wedge politics—to drive a wedge between good keen hardworking Kiwis and tried to convince everyone that Maori are the authors of their own problems that Maori have nothing constructive to contribute and that the sooner that both the Treaty and Maori are moved by them to the margin the sooner the country will be enriched. That failed; it always will fail. The Minister has brought a very clever reprioritisation forward. Admittedly the budget is not as large as the Maori Party would like but there are significant resources available through other Government departments to deal with the enduring problem of Maori under-achievement. Kia ora tatou. 
Vote Maori Affairs agreed to. 
Vote Justice agreed to.  
Vote Local Government 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 The current leader of the National Party went along to the Local Government New Zealand conference on Tuesday this week. He suggested that there was a crisis of confidence in local government. He is right in one respect. Immediately after Dr Brash’s appalling performance the description from one of the mayors present—and I can tell the member that mayor was previously a member of the National Party—was: “He treated us like a bunch of dicks. He told us we don’t know what we’re doing.” Frankly if that is an example of the way the National Party believes it should engage with local government then I think local government got the clear message as to where the future rests for it. I say to members that I am looking at sending my diary to Dr Brash in order that he can attend every conference I am going to speak at and speak immediately before me because anything will look good after Dr Brash’s performance. 
In every respect Dr Brash gave a disastrous performance. I can only conclude that given the factual inaccuracy of his speech its appallingly poor delivery and its content absolutely missing the target audience he must have been heavily assisted in preparing the content of that speech. The only question is whether it was Bill Gerry or John who helped him to write it. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: My money’s on Gerry. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: I think the member may be right; Mr Brownlee has a particular turn of phrase. However the speech lacked any of the energy in terms of content that I think we have all come to expect from the deputy leader wannabe. The myths that were peddled at that conference by Dr Brash fell on stony ground and it was a stony reception. I have never seen a National Party leader so dealt with by an audience. There was polite applause at the end of the speech. The only thing missing at the end of the speech was a plank for Dr Brash to exit the stage. I tell members a plank should have been there. He did not need the stairs; he should have had a plank to exit the stage. 
But in order to put the record a little straight here I tell members that one of the suggestions Dr Brash made was that central government has abandoned local government—left it with all the responsibility. The truth of the matter of course is that the level of direct support from central government to local government has gone up from about 8 percent to over 13 percent of total local government expenditure. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It’s roads. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: I am very pleased that Dr Mapp brings up the question of roads because I say to him that in addition to that $650 million or so which constitutes over 13 percent of local government expenditure there is the $1.3 billion of additional funding for roads over the next 4 years. The 13.3 percent does not include the money for roads or the $150 million over the next 5 years that has been put into water schemes and a myriad other things. If we add those in then frankly I say to Dr Mapp that central government support would be a great deal more than 13.3 percent. 
 By any measure it may be seen that the relationship between central government and local government is on a footing it has never been on before: one of mutual respect cooperation and collaboration. The difference now is—[ 
Interruption 
] Here we go! We have got a rise in rates of what percentage? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: 10 percent. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Let us look at that. One of the member’s own colleagues is a councillor with Environment Canterbury. I understand that councillor supported a 21 percent rates increase. I do not think that was bad. [ 
Interruption 
] The member interjects about percentages. When one plays silly games with percentages one loses track of the fact— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: The Auckland Regional Council is getting it down to 5 percent. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Does the member have any idea that that 21 percent represents $1.10 per week to an average ratepayer in that area? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: The Auckland Regional Council has set its rates increase at 5 percent. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Percentages mean nothing unless one applies them to dollar terms. That increase represents $1.10 per week on average per ratepayer. 
The fact is that there is a fundamental difference between Labour and National. I was very pleased to sit and listen to the appalling contribution made by the Leader of the Opposition at the Local Government New Zealand conference. During Dr Brash’s contribution the difference between Labour and National became very very clear. This Government is committed to New Zealand’s transformation into an inclusive and a growing developing nation whereas if National were in Government it would slash and burn at every turn. What did Dr Brash have to offer? He attacked the sorts of subsidy schemes that the Labour Government supports. 
Contrary to what the National Party seems to believe New Zealanders will not tolerate Third World conditions. They expect First World water supplies. They expect First World general hygiene and food hygiene. They expect the quality of the services and facilities provided to them to be that of the First World. Of course the sort of nonsense that we heard from Dr Brash is mirrored by the nonsensical member’s bill we have seen from Mr Hide. It may be populist policy to talk about putting an inflation cap on rates but that denies the facts that the population is growing and New Zealanders aspire to have a higher quality of life and of services and facilities. Those improvements require financial investment and they require cooperation and collaboration between central government and local government. 
One of the highest achievements for the local government sector over the last 6 years has been the central government - local government forum. It provides an environment in which central government and local government can work together. That stands in stark contrast to the absolute shambles that would be visited on the local government sector by Dr Brash in the unlikely event that he were ever to become the Prime Minister. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: The sector knows that too. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Does it ever! It saw Dr Brash’s performance on Tuesday at the Local Government New Zealand conference. 
There was one thing that Dr Brash got right in his speech to Local Government New Zealand when addressing the mayors and councillors of this country who by and large do an outstanding job for the communities they serve. He was right when he said there was a crisis in confidence. I tell him that the crisis in confidence is in his National caucus and in the incompetence of National’s leader. The crisis in confidence among the good leaders of local government is in the National Party which once had the pretence of supporting local government but now has abandoned even that. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote Local Government be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; United Future 3; Progressive 1. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 48. 
Abstentions 6 
Green Party 6. 
Vote Local Government agreed to. 
Vote Treaty Negotiations agreed to.  
Vote ACC agreed to.  
Child Youth and Family Services agreed to.  
Vote Labour 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The core of the Government’s approach in this area is to boost New Zealand’s productivity. I guess we would all agree that that is a laudable goal. But the Government’s approach is to have working parties conferences meetings innovation strategies and much talk about the transformation of the economy. 
Shane Jones 
: The OECD like it. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Talk talk talk is what the Government is doing and indeed we have just heard Mr Jones exhibiting exactly that characteristic. 
I remind members opposite of this fundamental fact. Despite all their talk New Zealand’s productivity is lower than that of every other OECD country that is better off than we are. We might say that is logical—if they are better off than we are clearly they will have better productivity. But the real point is that we cannot progress New Zealand’s fortunes up the OECD if every country ahead of us has better productivity. The only way we can do that is to have higher productivity than at least some of the countries in front of us. I know that Mr Shane Jones the chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee would agree with that logic. It is clearly logical that in order to grow we have to have a higher productivity gain than the countries ahead of us. It is simple mathematics. The problem—and the OECD has pointed this out—is that New Zealand is not willing to take the critical steps that would make a difference. 
In the employment law area the OECD said in 2004 and 2005 that the one critical missing element in New Zealand’s employment laws was the lack of a proper probationary period. Every other developed country has probationary periods as a normal part of its workplace law. Britain for instance has a 12-month probationary period. Australia has a 6-month period for larger companies and a longer period for smaller ones. In Canada it is 3 months. Throughout all of Europe it is 3 to 12 months. 
I say to the Government that there is a clear lesson in all of that. If we want to have competitive laws if we want to reduce compliance costs if the Government wants to deal with the serious problem of youth unemployment—it is still at 12 percent—and Maori youth unemployment which is at 18 percent and rising then we have to give employers an incentive to make the employment decision. We are after all a nation of small businesses—perhaps more so than any other developed country. The strongest recommendation to the Government by its own Small Business Advisory Group is for a probationary period in employment law. 
In another week or so the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will start to hear submissions on the bill that I promoted which provides for a 3-month—90-day—probationary period. It is a modest and reasonable measure. It is one-quarter of the length of the probationary period in Britain. The Government says there already is a probationary period under section 67 of the Employment Relations Act. But the problem is that in Britain in Australia in Canada and in Europe that does not mean automatic recourse to the full personal grievance procedure. It means that employers can make a simple decision in a costless way as to whether a person is working out and essentially say that the contract will terminate if the employment is not working out. In truth of course that does not normally happen. Employers want employees to succeed. They want to train them; they want to get a return on all that effort and so does the person who has taken the job. 
I tell the Government to stop listening to the rhetoric and the misinformation of its union mates even though they provide nearly all of the Government’s funding for its election campaigns—that is when it is not looting the public purse as well. It is time for the Government to step back act like a Government and basically introduce laws that will make New Zealand competitive. That would be the most important thing Labour could do for the New Zealand economy. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Vote Labour be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 50; New Zealand First 7; United Future 3; Progressive 1. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 48. 
Abstentions 6 
Green Party 6. 
Vote Labour agreed to. 
Vote Senior Citizens agreed to.  
Vote Conservation agreed to.  
Vote Housing agreed to.  
Vote Courts agreed to.  
Vote Emergency Management agreed to.  
Vote Internal Affairs agreed to.  
Vote Veterans’ Affairs agreed to.  
Vote Employment agreed to.  
Vote Environment agreed to.  
Vote Social Development 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Mr Chairman— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: The cover girl! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Thank you very much. At least I am not part of a “plug and grow” outfit like the member is. The other point if the member opposite wishes to talk about my cover-girl day is at least they did not have to airbrush me like they did a certain person from his party. 
One of the points I want to make here today is that we have been waiting for the single core benefit from Labour since 1989—that is 17 years. After 17 years Labour which has been so good at promoting a single core benefit says it wants to introduce it. Who wants it? Anybody who wants to hide what is happening with the invalids and sickness benefits. 
One of the problems of the single core benefit is that a couple of different MPs are on the record speaking about it. The Prime Minister Helen Clark has said there will be no losers under the single core benefit. She said that—she said there will be no losers. Then David Benson-Pope said earlier this year that he could not actually confirm whether anyone would be worse off that some people might be but that was still to be decided. David Benson-Pope said further again earlier this year that the Government would have the legislation in by the end of the year—that is the year 2006 for those who are interested. And just recently we have heard that maybe it will be introduced in another 18 months. 
The fact is the Government is all in a pickle and Steve Maharey has left David Benson-Pope trying to deal with the single core benefit. I would like to put on record that Steve Maharey is not all bad. Actually he can be a bit of fun when it comes to stuff like this—putting in place a massive bureaucratic change for no particular reason other than that it is a better way to hide the facts. And we know that this Government has been very good at hiding the facts. One of the facts the Government does not like coming out is that we now have about 123000 working-age adults who are too sick to work. The Ministry of Social Development and its Minister David Benson-Pope make interesting statements like “The number has always been going up and has never come down.” Well it actually did. In the last couple of years of the National Government in the 1990s the figures for sickness and invalids beneficiaries started to decrease because a little bit of rigour was put around getting people on to those benefits. 
One of the problems that Labour created when it came into Government in 1999 was that it instantly took off restrictions on the sickness and invalids benefit designations which meant that numbers on those benefits suddenly went through the roof. Strangely—lo and behold—the unemployment numbers came down and the number of sickness and invalids beneficiaries went up. Today someone is three times more likely to be on a sickness or invalids benefit than on an unemployment benefit. So after all the money that as we have heard this afternoon has been poured into the so-called health budget—the one that now has one bed per bureaucrat in the health system in this country—people are now about three times more likely to be on a sickness or invalids benefit than on an unemployment benefit and that is something the Minister has been a total failure at dealing with. 
We have been told by the Minister that the growth percentage is not as high as it was last year. Well what does that mean? Does it mean it has gone up slightly less? No it does not mean that. It actually means that the core figure is now so high that only a couple of percent means a huge increase—and every year it keeps going up under this Government. 
Labour has yet another new scheme to deal with it and of course like its other schemes it is voluntary. So it will not be much use. We are told by the Minister that it is a new scheme that has never been used anywhere else in the world—oh except for the United Kingdom; oh except for most countries which have had something similar but some of them have had a little bit of courage and done something and made the schemes compulsory. The Government was able to put the Working for Families project through the Ministry of Social Development and it is quite right that the package should be in the area of social development or in other words social welfare. The reason for that is it is welfare; it is middle-class welfare. There are now families in this country earning $130000 $140000 or $150000 a year who are beneficiaries of the taxpayers. 
Hon Member 
: What? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes they are. Those people are supposed to line up with their little hands out asking for a teeny-weeny little bit of their money back for being good people and voting Labour. Well that is not going to work. One of the interesting facts we do not hear too much crowing about is the number of people taking up that brilliant opportunity to go and stand in line and ask for a little bit of their money back. The reason we do not hear about that is basically people who are earning reasonably good money want to get ahead. They do not want to be classed as beneficiaries because being a beneficiary is a pretty tough time for many people. They do not want it said that they are part of the 300000 working-age adults in this country who are on full-time benefits which is the number we have at the moment. 
Over the last few years some good things have happened in New Zealand. One of those things has been that we have had very good export prices for our exports. There has been a commodity shortage of the things we sell and that has been fabulous but it is not something we can simply rely on year in year out. We are now seeing oil prices going up and petrol prices getting higher. Those of us who do our own grocery shopping for our own families—and I am very proud to say I am one of those people—know that the price of fruit and vegetables has gone up hugely. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What a humanitarian contribution! You go to the grocer’s yourself—what a saint! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I know that that is something the member for Waimakariri may not know much about. He knows about “plug and grow” but he does not know much about fruit and vegies. We know the price has gone up very high and that has made it very difficult for families to cope. Those families who have trouble coping do not want to have to turn up to the Working for Families people of the Inland Revenue Department and say: “Give me some money back.” because it is actually tough out there. It is all very well for a party like Labour which does not have a family-friendly focus as we do in the National Party—we understand what it takes to look after children— 
Georgina Beyer 
: Get up the families! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is no good Georgina Beyer calling out about this matter. It is just no good at all because frankly it does not help families to be told to go and line up like everyone else and ask for money back. This country needs more people working better but at the same time it also needs to have people earning decent wages and keeping enough of their money so that they do not have to go cap in hand asking for a benefit. That is what this country needs. Why has that side of the Chamber suddenly gone so quiet? Well those members have gone so quiet because they know that that is a bit of common sense which is something they are not very good at connecting with. 
We are told by the Minister that we will have some new approaches. Well we will have some new approaches all right—once National gets into power which hopefully will not be too far away. We will certainly have some new approaches. The Minister has told us for instance that Pacific people have been doing really well. We have been told that there is a strong focus on reducing the number of Maori and Pacific people who are unemployed. That is just great! They happen to be on the sickness benefit instead. We also happen to know that real poverty in this country has increased under the Labour Government particularly amongst Pacific New Zealanders and Maori New Zealanders. We know that because the ministry’s own hardship survey showed exactly that. The Labour Government’s answer to that problem was the Working for Families package. Well I am sorry but the Working for Families package does nothing to get people into work it does nothing to help the poorest people cope it does nothing to help them learn to budget and it does nothing to help the children of those people. 
Shane Jones 
: The member is looking backwards. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I know that it is all very well for those millionaire types over in the Labour Party who are brought in to try to show that the party has a business background. Oh Shane Jones is very keen on doing that and of course so are the other millionaires in the Labour Party. They may not know about this but unfortunately it is— 
Shane Jones 
: There’ll be two sides to that sort of story. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I thought people were not supposed to be able to move from the back bench up to the front as Mr Jones has so they can shout out better. Is that not against the Standing Orders? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: No. I am certain he has not moved for that purpose at all. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Has he not? All right. Thank you Mr Chairperson. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to really paint a little of the wider picture of social change in New Zealand between 1995-97 and the current period. I am really pleased to say as I did in the House 2 days ago that the overwhelming improvement in the social indicators in this country should be something that all New Zealanders are only too happy about. I will deal with those in general terms and then come back to the specifics if I may in a moment. 
First of all over that 10-year period there has been a marked improvement in the affordability of housing. That should be a great concern to all of us of course and it is still an issue for us in Government. One of the reasons for that issue of course was that our predecessors in Government sold in excess of 13000 State houses so we should not— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What did they do with the money? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: They mostly gave it to their mates or privatised for their mates—just as they do with so many things unfortunately. So we should not be surprised as a community that there are still issues around the affordability of housing in this country. But that is just one indicator. 
The second of the half dozen I will read out concerns a massive reduction in the share of households with low incomes. That is really good news for all New Zealanders— 
Judith Collins 
: Let’s talk about the vote. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
:—and I can come back to the specifics of the unemployment shift by ethnicity if the member is really interested in the facts. 
There has also been a most significant improvement in market income per person with an increase in real gross national disposable income per capita from around $23000 in the mid-1990s to around $29000 in 2005. So that is a significant movement. It is rather ironic that as I came into the House today I heard after the demonstration at lunchtime of course Dr Wayne Mapp giving as his answer for the real issues we have about productivity in this community a further attempt to force down the wages of New Zealanders. Like most New Zealanders and certainly like members of the Government and its support parties I am concerned it has taken as long as it has for the increases in real wages for people to flow through into our economy. It is so ironic that that is happening just as the Australians are finding that the kinds of policies that that degenerate party National applied in the 1990s are starting to bite the Australian workforce is facing exactly the same quite corrosive policies that the National Party has historically introduced and is trying again to introduce. 
Judith Collins 
: What’s this got to do with the vote? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am not going to take a point of order but I say to the member that it would be better if she articulated better. I do not mind her trying to interject because she just makes a rather sad fool of herself. I say further that that sort of behaviour will never get that member any respect with her constituents or her photo on the front page of the  
New Zealand Woman’s Weekly 
 or even of  
Investigate 
. 
The other indicator among many that have improved is an extraordinary improvement in employment participation. That has increased by over 5 percentage points to 68.5 percent in March this year which for New Zealand is an all-time high. Let me dwell for a moment or two on the reduction in unemployment. Unemployment was over 6 percent in 1995 it rose to 7 percent in 1998 and now it is 3.9 percent—the second lowest in the OECD after Korea whom we were ahead of last time. The reality of unemployment—all working-age unemployment—is a nearly 30 percent reduction since the last time National was in power. So Mrs Collins can play whatever games she likes with her interpretation of the facts but the reality of the figures is that if we take all working-age benefits there has been a startling reduction in unemployment in this country. 
 I also say to the members of this Chamber that very few people—only one in 11 I believe is the figure—move off the unemployment benefit and on to the sickness benefit. I also say before I come back to the raw unemployment figures that I do not apologise for being part of a Government that provides a benefit for people who get sick. One of the realities of the world that so few National members opposite realise is that sometimes people actually get sick and sometimes people are invalided. There are plenty of sick people—for different reasons—sitting on those benches. I am really proud to be part of a Government that makes no apologies and no bones about supporting people who need that support. 
Having said that the fact is that when this Government took power in 1999 there were 161000 people on the unemployment benefit. That figure is now for the first time in 24 years less than 40000. That is a remarkable achievement. The sorts of policies that this Government is espousing and driving will make sure that that sort of support for working New Zealanders will continue. 
There has also been a really welcome improvement in tertiary education. Around 11 percent of the population aged 15 years or over enrolled in tertiary education in 2005 compared with only 8 percent in the mid-1990s. There has been an increase in the share of school-leavers with higher qualifications with over 70 percent of school-leavers having greater than level 1 National Certificate of Educational Achievement in 2004 compared with around 65 percent in 1996. Most important if we are genuinely interested in the future of our country we should be delighted at the huge increase in expenditure on early childhood education—from 91 percent in 2000 to 94 percent in 2005. 
The prime focus of this Government has been twofold. It has been firstly on getting people into work and doing things like expanding youth transitions services and so on—I have talked about those numbers—and secondly on supporting people in work and incentivising work. I want to talk in some detail about the Working for Families tax relief extension. Because we are so committed to ensuring that families have every opportunity to give their children the best start they deserve we are continuing to roll out the Working for Families package. That package is delivering $1.6 billion of targeted tax relief and social assistance through Working for Families. Eighty-five thousand more families get additional tax relief through family assistance. By 2007-08 350000 families will be getting support from the Working for Families package. 
The Working for Families OECD data confirms that for a single-earner family with two children on average earnings Working for Families tax credits have taken New Zealand from having the eighth-lowest tax take to having the fifth-lowest tax take in the OECD. Under Working for Families a family with two children on an average income gets a further $90 a week—further to the original instalments they received—which makes them in total roughly $116 a week better off since 1 April 2005. The new in-work payment is worth up to $60 a week for families with up to three children plus an additional $15 for each subsequent child. Under the Working for Families package paid work offers families the greatest opportunities to improve their financial circumstances. 
I say to colleagues that one of the somewhat unexpected but welcome facets of the Working for Families introduction has been the choices that people are making. This Government has been criticised unfairly and inappropriately for forcing people into work. The reality is quite the opposite. The childcare assistance and the support for working mums and dads who want to do that have been extended enormously. Fascinatingly since the last instalment of the Working for Families package a number people have written to us saying that this is a fantastic social initiative that they can now make do on one salary and that they can look after their children. 
So the support that this Government is putting into the community is the sort of support that empowers people empowers families and communities and assists them in making the best choices for them and their conditions. 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Vote Social Development. This is the vote that represents 27 percent of total appropriations across all votes and has enjoyed a 5.8 percent increase in this financial year. It lists four key priorities. It refers to the work of Work and Income and Child Youth and Family Services and to work around aging issues. What really interests me and what I have a bit of a question mark over is the fact that one of the four priorities for this immense vote is “strengthening social development leadership”. I find that a bit nebulous and I would like the Minister David Benson-Pope to refer to what that is all about. Eighty percent of proposed departmental expenditure is dedicated however to two major areas. One is the benefit area and the second is divided between students and seniors. 
One of the things that concerns me—and I have not heard anybody mention it so far—is the merging of the two entities of the Ministry of Social Development and the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. This is something that happened for reasons that none of us have ever had clearly explained to us. In fact when we talked to the Ministers about this they said it was done “because the stars were in alignment”. They then referred to the competency and skills of the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development Peter Hughes which I accept. He is a very competent person and nobody is doubting that. 
But I think we have to be honest about the fact that this has all come about because of the departure of Paula Tyler back to Canada. This was a huge disappointment to myself. She was employed because she had previous experience in the differential intake that Child Youth and Family Services were implementing. That idea was shared with the Minister by United Future in the last Parliament and we were pleased to see some uptake on it. We are a little concerned. We were assured that it has not stalled but to my understanding there are currently two pilots running. 
 I want to talk about this because this differential intake is the opportunity for the very very competent non-governmental organisation sector to contract to the Government to do the medium to low risk cases that Child Youth and Family Services is drowning under. Notifications to that department go up 15 percent a year. They went up 30 percent after the death of Coral Burrows. A great way to relieve the pressure on the department and to allow it to focus on the very good statutory empowerment work that needs to be done in the high-risk cases would be to give the medium to low risk work to the competent agencies in the community. 
If we read some of the comments made by COmVOices which is an organisation comprising groups such Philanthropy New Zealand and Volunteering New Zealand we will see its calculation that for every dollar value of social services those organisations provide in the community it would cost the Government between $3 and $5 to replicate that work. We have a huge capacity of social services in the community right now that United Future would like to see the Ministry of Social Development take a much stronger interest in. 
One of the problems community groups have is that when they take on Government contracts they sometimes feel that the obligations that come with the contracts kind of rip the soul out of their organisations. We are not against the ministry requiring accountability from those organisations for how they spend the money for the services they deliver and for the outcomes they get—of course they must be accountable for those—but sometimes the ways and means the organisations have of being effective can become undermined when they have to take on a Government contract. So I encourage the Government to consider seriously firstly looking at better utilising those groups in the community and voluntary sector that are already delivering cost-effective and fantastic services. If they were allowed to build capacity and get some good Government contracts then they could deliver even more substantial outcomes to New Zealand society than they are currently. Secondly I would like to think that the Government would consider looking very carefully at the kinds of demands it puts on those contracts—demands that could actually destroy the ethos and effectiveness of the organisations that are getting them. 
An example I had recently was of a provider in Christchurch that provides employment and accommodation for people coming out of prison. That provider has a phenomenal success rate but it is scared to take on a Government contract because it knows that the Government would then require it to take on anybody the Government asked it to. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 5.56 p.m.