Volume 657 Week 25 - Tuesday 22 September 2009 
Volume 657 Week 25 - Tuesday 22 September 2009 
[Volume:657;Page:6697] 
Tuesday 22 September 2009 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Points of Order 
Amended Emissions Trading Scheme Legislation—Availability 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have waited for the Clerk to indicate to you whether there are any bills for introduction. I understand from media reports that the House will once again be going into urgency this Thursday to consider the amended emissions trading scheme legislation. I wondered whether the Leader of the House could give us an indication as to when that legislation might be available for the public the media and members of Parliament to consider it before it is debated in the House on Thursday just in terms of good process for our Parliament. Clearly it will not meet the 3-day rule. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 As I told the honourable member last Friday it will be available as soon as possible. 
Questions to Ministers 
Financial Situation—External Position 
1. CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received on New Zealand’s external financial position? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Today’s data shows that the balance of payments deficit for the year to June narrowed to $10.6 billion or 5.9 percent of GDP in the June quarter. This represents a narrowing of the deficit from the recent range of 8 to 9 percent the record high levels that it has held since 2005. The decline would have been greater than it has been but for the 9 percent decline in the terms of trade in June the largest quarterly fall since 1975 and the largest quarterly fall in export prices since 1951. 
Craig Foss 
: What consequences will the improvement have for the economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Mr Speaker— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Pay more for the house in Messines Road. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: This is the bit where Trevor yells for the TV camera. 
Hon Member 
: Every day. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes come on Trevor. [ 
Interruption 
] It is the same script. Today’s adjustment is what one would expect during a recession. The falls in imports interest rates and profits are all to some extent temporary and as the economy improves each of them will tend to reverse. The need to rebalance the economy towards investment and exports remains as important as ever. That rebalancing is critical to creating sustainable jobs. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: If the Minister is encouraged by the reduction in the financial and trade deficits when can the struggling families who are currently having trouble meeting their power and grocery bills see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel and something extra at the end of the week? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Families particularly those families who are struggling with the loss of jobs must be concerned that despite the best economic conditions in a generation that member’s Government so badly mismanaged the economy that thousands of Kiwis have now lost their jobs. 
Craig Foss 
: What other assessments of New Zealand’s external financial position has the Minister seen? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have seen some quite knowledgable comments from the Hon Phil Goff when the current account deficit was last a significant issue. He said we had got into the habit of borrowing from overseas effectively relying on the savings of foreigners to pay for our consumption and invest in our businesses. Given that Mr Goff identified the problem correctly it is hard to understand why his Government managed to make such a mess of it once Labour got into power. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Will the Minister join the Greens Treasury the Reserve Bank manufacturers and exporters in admitting that we need to change the taxation treatment of investment properties if we are to rebalance the New Zealand economy away from debt-fuelled consumption towards productive enterprise? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Treasury and the Tax Working Group are working through those issues and will provide advice to the Government at some stage. 
Emissions Trading Scheme—Costs to Taxpayers 
2.  
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: When he said last week in the House that the Government was interested in “making sure that our scheme is affordable.” what is the estimated cost to the New Zealand taxpayer over the life of the scheme of the changes he announced to the emissions trading scheme? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 As the Prime Minister said last week over the next 3 years the revised scheme will cost around $415 million to halve the petrol and electricity price increases that were inherent in the scheme that was already on the books. It is more difficult to estimate the costs past 2013 because the international rules are not known. However Treasury’s mid-range estimate is that the revised scheme will actually save $493 million during the period 2013 to 2018 so over the next 9 years it will cost taxpayers less than the existing scheme. That brings into question some of the claims that have been made about huge industry subsidies. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How can the Acting Prime Minister make that comment when the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development which represents about 43 percent of the gross domestic product of this country says: “Capping the price on emissions and delaying the phase out of assistance for major emitters could cost the taxpayers billions of dollars”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The advice that we have been given by Treasury which has had many years to work out how to calculate these things simply contradicts the claims by that council and contradicts the claims made by the member. In the interests of broad agreement about the scheme it should not be too difficult to get to the bottom of what drives the numbers. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why in making the changes to the emissions trading scheme has the Prime Minister transferred billions of dollars of costs for carbon and methane pollution from those causing the pollution to ordinary hard-working New Zealand taxpayers? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government simply disagrees with that description. It does not matter how many times that member uses it; it does not make it right. We have balanced up our environmental responsibilities with our economic responsibilities. The member ought to bear in mind that Labour’s scheme was going to impose very significant price increases on electricity and petrol and very significant job losses for the hard-working New Zealanders whom he pretends to represent. 
Chris Tremain 
: Is the Government still open to discussions with Labour on changes to the emissions trading scheme noting that Labour’s opposition is based on a flawed assumption that these changes will cost taxpayers a whole lot more over the next decade? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Minister for Climate Change Issues Dr Nick Smith has said he is open to talks at any time. It seems to me that in light of the advice from Treasury it should not be too difficult to get agreement on the numbers about what the scheme is costing but I understand that those are not the principal issues that Labour is concerned about. We are open to further discussion on the issues that Labour is concerned about. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask whether the question you have just allowed from the National whip about the policies of another party and the assumption he made about what the effect would be of the policies of another political party are now in order. If they are the Labour Party cannot wait to start asking those sorts of questions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I assure the honourable member that he ought to be pleased that I do not apply the particular Standing Order because more than half the questions his colleagues ask would be ruled out. What is good for the goose is good for the gander and that is why— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: That’s good. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I just alert members to the fact that if they put those kinds of assertions into questions they will not get the answers they expect— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: About things they have no ministerial responsibility for? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Members will not interject while I am ruling on the point the member has made. If those kinds of assertions are put into questions members can expect the Minister to respond to the assertion not to the question. At the end of the day I have to make a judgment about whether to rule them out. I do not want to intervene all the time. If I were to rule out that particular question from the Government member—certainly it was not strictly in order and I accept that—I would have to rule out many questions from the Opposition. I have to try to play an even hand. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: In response to the statements made by independent economic commentators about the billions of dollars of cost that this scheme will impose on the taxpayer will the Prime Minister release to the public and to Parliament a breakdown of the cost of subsidies that he is making to a range of multinational companies that will continue to emit for much longer such as Rio Tinto Holcim Cement BlueScope Steel and Methanex; if not why not? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The information concerned will be covered by the same rules as every other bit of policy advice that the Government gets which means that it will almost certainly be released. But I stress to the member that there will be plenty of access to the information if we can have a reasonable environment in which to discuss it and that would mean that the member would need to correct some of his more outrageous claims. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Why does the Prime Minister think it is affordable for New Zealand taxpayers that just one firm—Methanex—will benefit by $74 million a year more in free credits when it expands production as it is planning and that that level of subsidy will hardly reduce over three generations? If he disagrees with those numbers will he release his analysis? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I would have to go back and see whether the member’s analysis is correct. In the broad approach to this scheme the Government has balanced up its environmental and economic responsibilities. We have been quite upfront in expressing our objective of wanting to reduce the cost. In fact we have halved the cost to consumers of electricity and petrol—which is most New Zealanders—and we have made sure that successful industries are not exported overseas taking with them thousands of well-paid jobs. I accept that other parties might have a different view; that is our view. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does the Minister agree with the Minister of Agriculture David Carter who said last week that polluters will not face the full cost of their emissions for 90 years; if so does that mean that New Zealand taxpayers will continue to pick up the bill for polluters until 2099? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We have made decisions that balance up the needs of the economy the needs of the environment and costs for everyday New Zealanders. It is a bit difficult to speculate 90 years ahead because past 2012 the international rules are not known. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why is the Government prepared to spend what other independent commentators have estimated as billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to subsidise polluters when it is going to slash adult education by 80 percent for the sake of just $16 million? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is one thing for the Opposition to make extravagant claims which I guess is the job of the Opposition but if Labour members really are putting a priority on getting a broad agreement on the emissions trading system then they need to put up their propositions which I presume would take billions of dollars off these industries and export the jobs that go with them. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Supplementary question— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the honourable Leader of the Opposition I say to members that if they want to hear an answer to a question then it is not helpful to interject quite so intensively. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If Ministers give political answers that are provocative to the Opposition then clearly there will be interjections. You have ruled in that particular regard. The Acting Prime Minister who spoke about making extravagant claims should have chosen slightly shrewder words that he did. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has just highlighted the problem of when members asking questions insert claims into their questions. The Acting Prime Minister in responding commented on the Opposition making an extravagant claim and thereby invited lots of interjections. The House would do so much better if members would simply ask clear hard-hitting questions instead of making claims and allegations about things. Please understand that that statement applies to both sides. I guess by and large most of the questions are asked by the Opposition. I urge members to simply ask clear hard-hitting questions. We can see the problems that come when statements are made instead of questions being asked. We get this kind of unhelpful interaction. I am sure people would have struggled to hear the answer. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Following your advice Mr Speaker I ask what the deal to get Maori Party support for the emissions trading scheme will cost the taxpayer and who will benefit from that expenditure. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As the member knows there are ongoing discussions with the Maori Party. But I make the point that if the member really is interested in considered discussion about the emissions trading scheme he has every opportunity to take part in that discussion. That might be better for the country than making extravagant— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: On this occasion the Leader of the Opposition asked a perfectly straight question. The Acting Prime Minister in responding either has information about the cost of an agreement reached or he does not. The House would appreciate receiving information about that cost and certainly does not appreciate a lecture being given to the questioner who asked a straight question. I invite the Minister to provide the answer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I will just repeat the first part of my answer which was that there are ongoing discussions with the Maori Party. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Clearly that answer did not answer the question which was about what the deal will cost. The Prime Minister in negotiating the deal must have some idea of what it will cost otherwise he would have been totally irresponsible in making the deal. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear the point the member has made. Either the Acting Prime Minister has information about the cost of an agreement entered into or no agreement has been entered into. Either way the House deserves an answer to a straight question. I have been trying to encourage straight questions. A straight question has been asked and the House deserves an answer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I can only repeat the answer I have already given: there are ongoing discussions with the Maori Party. There is no final information about cost. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave to table a number of documents. The first document is from the  
Taranaki Daily News 
 in which the Minister of Agriculture says that it will take 90 years of subsidies before the emission— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave to table a media release from the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development on 14 September which sets out how this scheme will cost the taxpayer billions of dollars. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave to table an article by Brian Fallow a respected economics journalist for the  
New Zealand Herald 
 where he makes exactly the same point: that the purpose of this scheme is to transfer the cost— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is this a recent edition of the  
New Zealand Herald 
? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: It is from 17 September. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a recent edition. I will put the leave but I ask members in response to recommendations from the Standing Orders Committee not to take the time of the House to table recent newspaper articles from major dailies that members see regularly. I am obliged to put the leave. Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There is. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave to table the analysis by Treasury that shows that in the first decade following the changes to the emissions trading scheme it will actually cost $100 million less than the scheme proposed by Labour. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Waitakere City Council—Gaming Consents 
3.  
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
 to the  
Minister of Internal Affairs 
: What advice has he received about the actions of Waitakere City Council which has decided to stop granting consents for more gambling venues and gaming machines and is its new “sinking-lid” policy likely to have implications for local government policy at a national level? 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 I am advised that a number of territorial authorities have adopted sinking-lid policies. The Waitakere City Council policy appears to be an example of a territorial authority using the provisions of the Gambling Act to help to achieve outcomes that reflect its own community views and its own circumstances. If this policy is adopted widely by local authorities then it is likely that the number of venues and gaming machines will remain steady and may gradually decrease over time. 
Rahui Katene 
: What work has been undertaken to support councils to continue funding vital community development when they have decided to cease receiving socially destructive gaming revenue in their commitment to address problem gambling? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: In reviewing their gambling venue policies councils need to weigh up the potential benefits and the negative impacts of gaming machines in their districts. Of course councils determine these local policies to suit their own respective communities. 
Rahui Katene 
: Is he aware of the finding of Judge Somerville in the Westport District Court last week who told a Reefton woman that she was a victim of a Government-sanctioned industry that encouraged people to gamble; and what actions will he take to review the explicit connection between Government policy and gambling addiction? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: I am indeed aware of those comments. Government policy is governed by the Gambling Act. The Act takes a balanced approach and aims to ensure as far as is practicable that gambling-related harm is prevented and minimised. The number of people seeking help for the high-risk forms of gambling has dropped significantly over the last few years. This suggests that the measures to prevent and minimise harm are working. 
Government Expenditure—Criteria for Reprioritising 
4.  
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What criteria if any did he establish for Ministers when they were reprioritising expenditure in their portfolios? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 As we set out in the Budget our priorities were to ensure that we protected the most vulnerable met the Government’s pre-election commitments brought soaring debt under control and took the sharp edges off the recession for New Zealanders. This freed up $2 billion to invest in front-line services like hospitals and schools over the next 4 years. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is the Minister aware that his criteria have led to funding being stopped for speech and lip-reading courses in Wellington from December 2009—courses that have helped hundreds of deaf and hearing-impaired people stay in jobs and have a quality of life? Will he face those people and tell them that it is OK for him to ask for more assistance from taxpayers for himself but that they must accept a closure of assistance that is vital to them? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am advised that if the member is talking about courses for the deaf that are funded through adult and community education then she is wrong. She should get better information before she causes more concern among the deaf community. 
Hon Annette King 
: I seek leave to table a letter from Hearing Association Wellington saying that it has been told that its funding will cease from December 2009. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: What are some examples of previous spending that this Government has discontinued? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: In the Budget round this year we found that the previous Government had left so many loose ends and unfunded commitments that the incoming Government was able to save around $2 billion over the next 4 years with no change in front-line services. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is the Minister aware his criteria have led to English literacy programmes for new migrants to New Zealand being cut when these are the very programmes that help migrants settle quickly and find employment? Will he front up to our new Kiwis and tell them that his priority is to fund $400 million for big polluters of our environment and they must accept that they will miss out? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I would be happy to front up to the community the member refers to and say that the Government has committed $120 million over the next 4 years to adult and community education and that the priorities of that funding are literacy and numeracy. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: What criteria if any was Mrs Tolley abiding by when she cut funding to night classes a decision that will directly result in the cancellation of New Zealand sign language courses at Mairehau High School Taieri College Kelston Boys High School and Tamatea High School? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Opposition needs to sort out the facts of the matter. This looks like one of those campaigns where Labour went around saying that would happen and then people wrote to the Government saying that they had been told that is what would happen. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Does the Minister accept that given the magnitude of the fiscal problems we face the solution is not simply playing around with some low-quality spending that Labour left to the Government but cutting entirely some of that spending so that eventually he can ease the tax burden that keeps New Zealand’s households poor; if so when does he intend to start? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The member is right to identify that there is a fiscal problem on a large scale. New Zealand is looking at 10 years before it can achieve surpluses. At the moment we are borrowing $400 million a week to continue with a whole range of public services and to continue with investment and infrastructure. However eventually that tap will have to be turned down and the money will have to be repaid with interest. That is a challenge that will take 15 to 20 years to get through. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Did the Minister provide the Minister for Tertiary Education with any advice on priorities for education funding and did that advice prioritise funding for private schools over funding for high school - based adult and community education classes or savings over accessible lifelong learning for people of all ages? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As the Minister has pointed out the Government has focused on one top priority: the large number of young New Zealanders who either are losing their jobs or when they finish training cannot get a job. We have decided that investing in those young people to ensure that they stay connected to the world of work is a top priority and I have not found anyone who disagrees with that. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: What are other examples of previous spending that this Government has discontinued? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There have been a number of particularly useless programmes that have been stopped but they tend to be small in scale. The biggest problems the previous Government left us were a multibillion dollar problem in the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC)—the liabilities and costs in ACC have blown out by billions of dollars—and other assets that are virtually worthless such as KiwiRail for which the previous Government paid $1 billion. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: In light of the Minister’s earlier answer will he give an undertaking that he will come with me to talk to the Auckland Regional Migrant Services Charitable Trust to find out why cuts are being made to courses that are vital to enable new migrants to settle in the community and learn to speak and write English properly so they can find employment and about why those courses and assistance are being cut? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As we have said we have yet to establish whether the allegations the Opposition has made are correct. If courses are not being cut there is no point in going. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: Has the Minister seen any reports on alternative policy approaches? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes I have. New Zealand is currently borrowing $400 million a week but that has not deterred the Labour Party from promising to provide welfare for millionaires to reverse the KiwiSaver changes and to increase the size of the Wellington-based bureaucracy. That list of promises adds up to $6 billion on top of the very substantial increase in debt that New Zealand is already incurring. 
Education National Standards—Consultation with Parents 
5.  
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What reports has she received on consultation with parents about national standards? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 On Sunday I released a report that included the results of consultation with parents and family members on national standards; 2000 attended meetings and over 3000 provided written submissions. From next year schools will be required to report in plain language to parents on their child’s progress. Parents have overwhelmingly told the Government that they want to know more about their child’s progress so that they can support their child’s learning and this Government will deliver on that. 
Allan Peachey 
: What other feedback has the Minister received from parents about national standards? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Parents strongly support national standards and getting good information from schools about their child’s progress. As one parent said in the consultation round schools need to provide “Honesty plain language and no surprises.” As another parent said “Honest reporting; tell me how he is really doing. I want reality—the good the bad and the ugly.” That is exactly what national standards in literacy and numeracy will provide for New Zealand parents. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Can the Minister explain to the House the effect of her decision to cut by 100 percent next year science advice to schools on national standards for science going forward? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: People in the education sector told me quite clearly during the election campaign that they were sick of the Labour Government which had given them a whole number of initiatives without sufficient resources so we have reduced the number of initiatives and focused the resources on those remaining. National standards in literacy and numeracy are the top priority. They can be taught right across the curriculum—in science geography history or whatever. We are focusing our resources on supporting schools to implement national standards in literacy and numeracy. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that somewhere towards the end of that answer the Minister mentioned science but it was a pretty direct question on the effect on science standards of the 100 percent cut in science advice to schools. That question was not addressed. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I listened carefully to the Minister’s answer and it seemed to me that she implied that that programme was one of the initiatives that the Government was not supporting. I cannot ask her to further answer it unless the member wants to ask a further supplementary question. 
Unemployment Assistance—Government Programmes 
6.  
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he agree with the Prime Minister that “we do not believe that any Government programme will be able to prevent a significant rise in unemployment”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes but alongside that the Government has introduced a rolling maul of programmes to assist people where possible with unemployment. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: How can the Minister maintain that view when the OECD has credited Australia’s fiscal stimulus with having saved up to 200000 jobs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We believe that the fiscal stimulus in New Zealand has saved thousands of jobs as well. In any case the Australian economy was in a better position to start with because for the last 10 years it has been managed well whereas ours has been managed badly. 
Amy Adams 
: What forecasts has he seen on unemployment? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: For New Zealand the forecasts are showing that unemployment may peak lower than the 8 percent that was estimated in the Budget. Compared with many other countries such as the UK the US and most of Europe our unemployment is low. In fact only a handful of developed countries such as Australia have a similar or lower level of unemployment. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does he agree with the Secretary-General of the OECD who said: “Employment is the bottom line in the current crisis”; if so why does he not do more earlier to prevent New Zealand’s unemployment rising as Australia has done—holding unemployment steady for 3 consecutive months? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do agree with the OECD Secretary-General that unemployment is No. 1 and I wish that Labour did too because then it would understand the decisions that were made about the emissions trading scheme which will help keep thousands of jobs in New Zealand that would otherwise be exported to China. 
Amy Adams 
: How do the unemployment forecasts compare historically? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Of course New Zealand has had a combination of its own recession starting at the beginning of 2008 followed by the global recession. Compared with other recessions it looks as if New Zealand is now reaping the benefits of being an open and resilient economy because unemployment is forecast to peak somewhere between 7.5 and 8 percent whereas in previous recessions it has reached over 10 percent. That is a huge benefit to the thousands of New Zealanders who will keep their jobs instead of losing them. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister confirm that he said on Radio New Zealand today that “for most people the measure of the economy is whether unemployment is still rising” and given that it is does he not now regret doing so little to keep Kiwis in jobs and prevent the erosion of living standards in families? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No. What I do regret is that through some of the best economic conditions that the globe will see in a generation that member’s party wasted the opportunity and thousands of people have lost their jobs. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I imagine you can anticipate the point of order Mr Speaker but every time that Minister is under pressure in an answer he resorts to quoting history and reciting Labour Party policy—or at least his version of it. Is there no way you can encourage him to talk about his Government rather than make up stories about somebody else’s? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The honourable member might recollect that when his leader asked a straight question I sought and he got an answer from the Minister. The member may recollect that in his own question he asked whether the Minister regretted something. When a member puts that kind of part into a question it invites all kinds of answers because it is seeking an opinion—whether the Minister regrets that bit or regrets something else. I cannot pin the Minister down on that kind of question. I invite the member to reflect on the question that his leader asked and on the question he asked and I think he will see a difference. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance in interpreting your learned remarks made previously. In my supplementary question I simply quoted the Minister’s own words and asked whether in the context of his answer he now regretted them as they seemed to contradict his former point. How can that be grounds for him to depart from talking about his own Government and spend the whole of his reply talking about Labour? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Because very clearly to ask whether the Minister regrets some remarks is to seek an opinion. Once the member invites the Minister to give an opinion it is far more difficult to be precise with answers. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Very generous. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member needs only to look at  
Speakers’ Rulings 
 to see all the rulings around opinions and it is difficult. It is difficult for the Speaker to ask a Minister to answer more precisely when an opinion has been sought because often the opinion will not be what the member wanted. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: When the Minister of Finance claims credit for a low level of unemployment in New Zealand does he believe that that low level of unemployment has happened in just the last few months or was there a low level of unemployment relative to all other OECD countries for almost the whole 9 years of the previous Labour-led Government? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Opposition members need to decide whether they are attacking the Government for unemployment being low as that member was or for unemployment being high as the previous questioner was. The facts are pretty straightforward. We went into this recession with relatively low unemployment and it will peak significantly lower than for other countries and significantly lower than in other recessions. 
Vehicle Fuel Economy Standard—US Standard 
7.  
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Will he reconsider his decision to stop work on a vehicle fuel economy standard for New Zealand in light of the recent US Government announcement that all new vehicles will have to meet 156 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2016? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 No. I think that adding up to $1500 to the price of a vehicle is counter-productive when the average fuel economy of vehicles entering our fleet is already steadily improving and is currently much better than that of vehicles in the United States right now. That is all happening over time without any legislated fuel economy standards. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is he aware that even at US petrol prices which are much lower than ours the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that its new standard will save motorists US$3000 in fuel costs over the life of a vehicle after paying back the increased purchase price and why does he not think New Zealand motorists should benefit from similar savings? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: There are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly New Zealand fuel economy standards are already about 23 percent better than current US standards and secondly New Zealand fuel economy standards are on track to become more efficient than US standards by 2016 without any intervention whatsoever. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Is his decision in respect of fuel economy standards more in line with the policies of George W Bush or Barack Obama? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Here we go again. I point out to the member that New Zealand’s fuel economy is already considerably better than that in the US market so I would say it is definitely more in line with Obama’s policies although I would not want to make that comparison. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does he not think that if the US which is the home of large gas-guzzlers can achieve an average of 156 grams a kilometre New Zealand could do somewhat better than its current 210 grams which is actually rising with every new import? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The current New Zealand number is less than 200 grams I understand. But more important the US number by 2016 translates into a European Union standard of around 175 grams. I understand there is a difference between the way that the European Union and the US measure it. On current trends New Zealand will be below that by 2016 once again without the Government having to intervene and legislate in a heavy-handed manner as the Green Party would suggest that we do. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Will New Zealand not continue to become an international dumping-ground for other countries’ dirty inefficient second-hand cars as the US the European Union and even China set more stringent fuel economy standards for their vehicles? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I can only refer the member to the answers to her earlier questions. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: What other ideas does the Minister have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport to meet even this Government’s pathetic 2020 target if improving fuel economy in vehicles is not one of them? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: New Zealand’s fuel economy in vehicles is improving. We also have the road-user charge exemption for electric vehicles we have the New Zealand producers of bio-diesel eligible for a subsidy and we have bio-ethanol subsidies. I just do not understand the member’s rationale. New vehicles now have a better fuel economy than older similar-sized vehicles. If we increase the cost of new vehicles we will lower further the sales of new vehicles and increase the age of the fleet. That will damage the cause of improving fuel economy standards. I just do not understand where the member is coming from. 
Emissions Trading Scheme—Costs to Taxpayers 
8.  
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Climate Change Issues 
: Have officials advised him that the changes to the emissions trading scheme transfer the costs away from polluters to taxpayers? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 No. In fact Treasury estimates over the first decade of the emissions trading scheme with our changes actually show a saving of about $100 million. The irony of Labour’s cries of billion-dollar subsidies for big polluters is that for the first 10 years of the scheme Labour had bigger subsidies. That is because our scheme starts phasing out industry support in 2013 whereas under Labour those high levels relate all the way through to 2018. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Does he agree with the comment from David Carter last week in relation to the phase-out of allocation units that “We are proposing to move it at 1.3 percent over 90 years.”; if so what is the fiscal cost of extending the phase-out for allocation units for the agriculture sector to 2099? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am ambitious for this Government and I know that it will be a long Government; I am not sure whether we will be here for 90 years! What I do know is that in the foreseeable future between 2012 and 2018 Labour’s scheme provided no reduction in allocations at all whereas under the revised scheme we are starting to phase out that support for industry from 2013. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Has the Minister seen the recent environment report from Methanex the world’s largest supplier of methanol which shows that its New Zealand plant has the highest emissions intensity per unit of output of any such plant on the planet; and what financial benefits will Methanex receive from the proposed changes to the emissions trading scheme—in particular the switch to an intensity-based allocation with no cap? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: One of the changes we are making to the emissions trading scheme is to allocate on industry averages rather than as under the existing law just 2005 figures. There is a good reason for that. Some companies out there that have invested in new energy efficiency will be disadvantaged by Labour’s scheme. With our approach those industries that are better than the industry average will get higher allocations and those that are behind the pace who have not invested in any efficiency will be worse off. That makes common sense. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I go to the next member it would be helpful if the Minister if he is able was to answer some aspect of the question about Methanex. I invite the Minister to do so. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Methanex is just one of a number of companies in terms of the issue of industry allocations; there are about 80 of them. I do not have specific information about that company any more than I do about the other 79. 
Hekia Parata 
: Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena tatou e te Whare. How does New Zealand’s revised emissions trading scheme compare internationally noting that Jeanette Fitzsimons has said in response to the changes that when she goes to Copenhagen she will wear a sign around her neck stating “Ashamed to be a New Zealander”? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Jeanette Fitzsimons needs to consider the facts. On 1 July 2010 New Zealand will have the first emissions trading scheme up and running outside Europe and it will cover more sectors than the European scheme does. We were also the first country in the world to include forestry in 2008 and we were the very first country in the world to have a plan for introducing agriculture in 2015. If we can settle our emissions trading scheme by December we will be at the front end of international action on climate change and will actually have the most comprehensive emissions trading scheme of any country in the world. 
David Garrett 
: Does he classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant; if so on what scientific grounds? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: As with all things it depends on its concentration. Carbon dioxide is absolutely required for life but as its concentration increases it has the potential to destabilise the climate. That is why there is international concern and international negotiations to limit the amount of carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere. 
Hekia Parata 
: What reports has the Minister received on the claims made by Phil Goff that the taxpayer will hand over $2 billion to Rio Tinto’s Bluff smelter? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Those numbers are a nonsense. I would point out that of the more than 100 aluminium smelters in the world the Bluff smelter on 1 July next year will be the very first to face a carbon price for its pollution. The European scheme excludes aluminium smelters until 2013 the Australian scheme excludes them until 2011 and the Waxman-Markey Bill in the United States excludes them until 2012. Let me tell members how much aluminium would need to be produced at the smelter for Mr Goff’s figures to be accurate: all of the aluminium produced in the whole world from all 100 smelters would need to come out of Bluff. I do not think that is a reasonable scenario I say to Mr Goff. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call Charles Chauvel. [ 
Interruption 
] I have called Charles Chauvel. [ 
Interruption 
] I ask members to please cease conducting a debate across the Chamber and to show some courtesy to Charles Chauvel whom I have asked to ask a supplementary question. 
Charles Chauvel 
: How long will Rio Tinto receive taxpayer funding to offset its emissions under the proposed changes to the emissions trading scheme and what is the fiscal value of that increased taxpayer subsidy to Rio Tinto? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Let me make the point again because it is important. On 1 July next year the Bluff smelter will be the very first aluminium smelter of the 100 smelters in the world to face a cost— 
Charles Chauvel 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a very simple question with two elements and no political spin to it: how long will the subsidy last and what is the fiscal value? The question is not being addressed. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the Minister to answer either one. He does not have to answer both bits but I would ask him to answer at least one of them. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The level of allocation made to the smelter in Bluff at 90 percent of its production levels will provide a level of support no different from what Labour provided under its legislation and the reality of the changes is that it will get a lesser level of allocation between 2013 and 2018. The idea that I have specific figures for every one of the 80 industries— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Oh well you had them before. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I can say this to Mr Goff: it is less than what was provided under Labour’s scheme. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Question No. 9 Shane Ardern. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Cunliffe who seems to be getting a bit agitated about this issue— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I would ask members when raising points of order to please not use that kind of language. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Cunliffe made false claims saying that I was misleading the House that I was shifty and that I was not telling the truth. I take offence at that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister has taken offence at an interjection made across the House. I would ask the member who made the comment to withdraw and apologise for it. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: First a correction— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. Offence was taken and I have asked the member to— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I apologise. Point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: But I have asked the member to withdraw and apologise for the comment. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I have Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: OK. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would simply contend that in light of the Minister’s answer which—following your ruling—refused to provide information— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to resume his seat and reflect on whether it is helpful to the good order of the House for him to carry on in that way. I asked the Minister to answer the question asked which not too many Speakers have done. I believed that it was in the interests of the House. It is not helpful then to have insulting accusations made across the House. The Minister took offence. I asked the member to withdraw and apologise and that should be the end of the matter. 
Primary Sector Innovation—Primary Growth Partnership 
9.  
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister of Agriculture 
: What steps has the Government recently taken to further primary sector innovation? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 Last week the Prime Minister was able to officially declare a major innovation fund the Primary Growth Partnership open for business. This is an ambitious and far-reaching partnership. It will play a significant role in delivering the step change in economic growth and productivity that New Zealand so badly needs. The Government has made this an absolute priority. 
Shane Ardern 
: Why has the Government made such a significant investment in primary sector innovation in this challenging economic environment? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: We have worked very closely with industry in developing the Primary Growth Partnership. We have put together a board that is already reviewing several applications and we see this as being a potential transformation of innovation projects. The Government has always made it clear that the Primary Growth Partnership should be industry-led and it is for this reason that the industry has been so closely involved in the partnership’s development. I am extremely confident that the Primary Growth Partnership will have good sector buy-in. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: How many research project proposals and of what value had the Primary Growth Partnership received as at 1 September the date the Minister gave to the Primary Production Committee as the time by which he was confident research project proposals would be received? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: As I have just outlined to the House the project was finally launched as open for business on 16 September. It is close to receiving a very significant number of good-quality projects which the board will be able to review and then it will announce funding decisions. 
Question No. 4 to Minister 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 Earlier in question time the Acting Prime Minister questioned whether the facts that I was putting to him were correctly based. This was about cutting English language services to migrants. I seek leave to table a letter to me from the executive director of the Auckland Regional Migrant Services Charitable Trust dated 27 August where she talks about the very significant impact that funding cuts will have on the ability of migrants and refugees to settle by not allowing them to get access to these courses. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Road Safety Education—Community Involvement 
10.  
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Does he believe that communities must be involved in road safety education and activities to help prevent injuries and accidents particularly for children? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Yes I believe every New Zealander has a role to play in improving road safety. That is why we are currently consulting with the public on Safer Journeys which is the road safety strategy for the next 10 years. It is of course available on www.saferjourneys.govt.nz. 
Darien Fenton 
: Why then is the Minister’s Government cutting funding for community transport safety education programmes in the National Land Transport Programme and what effect will this have on communities that are having to revise school and workplace travel plans cycle-safe programmes drink-driving programmes at-risk driver programmes and safety-belt education programmes and a host of other safety initiatives up and down the country or does he not care? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I understand that the New Zealand Transport Agency under its own initiative has decided to undertake a value-for-money exercise on the demand management and community programmes activity class of the National Land Transport Programme to which that member refers. That class had increases in expenditure last year of 45 percent on the previous year and that year was 23 percent higher than the year before that. I think it is entirely appropriate that with Government funds and road-user funds involved the agency be very careful and ensure that every activity it undertakes has good value-for-money criteria. 
Darien Fenton 
: Can we expect to see further cuts from the value-for-money review that the Minister is conducting in demand management and community education programmes and should communities be preparing to cut the walking-bus programme and other programmes that keep children safe and encourage active and healthier modes of getting to school? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: It is important that the member does not unnecessarily scaremonger in these matters. The Transport Agency has allocated $120 million for demand management and community programmes over the next 3 years. It is a considerable sum of money and it is important that from time to time the agency reviews that expenditure and ensures that it provides value for money and achieves the outcomes we were seeking. I note that despite the best efforts of the last road transport safety strategy our road toll has not dropped significantly over the last 10 years with the exception of a few months last year and the number of injuries on the road has actually increased. Of course if you keep doing what you have always done you will keep getting what you always got. 
Adventure Tourism Sector—Review of Safety 
11.  
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: Why is the Government undertaking a review of safety in the adventure tourism sector? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 Recently there have been a number of concerning cases in the adventure tourism sector. Tourism is critically important to New Zealand and we must do all we can to ensure visitor safety. Tourists and New Zealanders expect that high standards will be in place from adventure operators and it is timely to take a broader look at how well the industry is meeting its safety obligations and at what it could do better. 
David Bennett 
: What groups will be involved in the review? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: Many firms in the sector already have comprehensive safety systems and I want to make sure that we learn from their experience by consulting the industry. The Department of Labour will also be seeking input from the Civil Aviation Authority Maritime New Zealand the Ministry of Transport the Ministry of Tourism local authorities and other groups that may be relevant. 
Ministerial Accommodation—Homes Leased from Family Trusts 
12.  
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Ministerial Services 
: Further to his answer to the House on 10 September who decided the criteria that must be met before it is permissible to lease a home from a family trust for use as a ministerial residence and when was that decision made? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Acting Minister responsible for Ministerial Services) 
: Ministerial Services determines the criteria that must be met before a property is leased for use as a ministerial residence. It does that consistent with the determination that is in force at the time. In this case the determination was brought down by the Rt Hon Helen Clark in 2003. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: On what basis does the Minister advise the House that Ministerial Services determines the criteria when the document I have here dated 3 February 2009 and between an official in Ministerial Services and the chief executive of Ministerial Services reads as follows: “We sought advice from the ninth floor whether leasing from a family trust was appropriate and we were advised that it was given the following stipulations:”; why does the Minister say that it was Ministerial Services that set the criteria when the proof surely is that the ninth floor did? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Prior to coming into the House before question time today—and I answer on behalf of the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services— 
Hon Annette King 
: You are the Minister responsible. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: You are the Minister. He’s out of the country. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Very good; thank you for that Trevor. It was very helpful; I never noticed! 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In both that answer and the answer to the primary question the Leader of the House made reference to his answering on behalf of the Minister responsible for Ministerial Services. Mr Key is out of the country as everyone knows so there has to be an Acting Minister. That is either Mr Brownlee or Mr English. If the Acting Minister is actually Mr English who is present in the House then he has to answer these questions. It would be good for us to know who the Minister in charge of all this mess really is. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I am. Why do we not start again Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I believe that it is not a crucial matter of order. It is totally the Government’s responsibility who answers questions. I have called the Hon Gerry Brownlee to answer the question and I see no reason given that he is the Minister designated to answer it why he should not. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If he is answering on behalf of someone else I think it behoves the House to know on whose behalf he is acting. It is clearly no other front-bench member because they are all present—other than Mr Key. Either a very junior Minister—and I cannot see that even any of those is absent—is the Acting Minister or in fact Mr Brownlee is the Minister responsible at the moment. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The only relevant issue I can see is the basis of the Minister’s answer and maybe he can clarify that in proceeding with this answer. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Speaking as the Acting Minister responsible for Ministerial Services prior to— 
Hon Members 
: Ah! 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That was a big revelation; I am sure it is. When one is scraping the barrel one will take what one can get! Prior to coming into the House today I had discussions obviously with relevant parties that related to all the material provided to the member in an Official Information Act release some time ago. They made it very clear to me that the communication may imply something that is not in fact correct. It is Ministerial Services that makes that decision based on the determination that applies at the time. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I seek leave to table the memo which seems to mean something else other than what I say it says so that the Minister can take another look at it— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Is the Minister aware that two pecuniary interest tests are under current circulation: the first contained in the email of 3 February on the advice of the ninth floor which I am about to table and the second in a Gazette notice of 26 May of this year? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Yes. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: If there are two pecuniary interest tests in circulation is the pecuniary interest test he spoke of in his answer to the House on 10 September a simple pecuniary test as written in the email of 3 February which I will table presently or an expanded personal familial or association test as gazetted by the Minister on 26 May? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Two things are important here. Firstly the determination made in February was on the basis of the Ministerial Services determination of 2003 promulgated by the Rt Hon Helen Clark. The difficulties that have arisen since then have caused the Prime Minister to make some changes but at all times Mr English has complied with the requirements of the determinations. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Supplementary question— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise to my colleague. Again there are political implications here. The question was a very straight question as to which test was applied. Although the Minister was very good at describing both tests he did not say which test was applied. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not sure that members can expect exactly the answer they want. I think the Minister was pretty clear about the test that was applied. His answer may not have been exactly the answer that the member was seeking but he can ask further supplementary questions if he wants to further elucidate that. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Can the Minister confirm that the 2003 determination of which he speaks contains no criteria for the leasing of a home from a family trust for use as a ministerial residence because no such occasion ever arose? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I can confirm that. The most extraordinary arrangement was in place. All I can say is goodness knows what the previous Labour Government Ministers were up to. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Why did the Minister just confirm to the House that there were no criteria in the 2003 determination whereas earlier in this questioning it was apparently those precise criteria on which he had relied; what is true here? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I think the questioner is scraping the bottom of the barrel a bit here. I made it very clear that the 2003 requirements were met in the early part of this year. It is quite simple. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Supplementary question— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: My advice is that all supplementary questions have been exhausted. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I seek leave to table the aforementioned email of 3 February between an official from Ministerial Services and the chief executive of Ministerial Services speaking of advice from the ninth floor. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave was already granted. The member has already obtained permission to table that document. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I seek leave to table the 2003 ministerial determination that the Minister refers to which has no pecuniary interest in it— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker tena tatau e te Whare. Tena koutou kua hara mai nei ki te tautoko i tenei ahuatanga i tenei rangi tena tatau. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Speaker and to us the House. Greetings also to those of you who have come here today in support of this matter greetings to us 
.] 
I move  
That the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill be now read a second time 
. I am grateful to the Maori Affairs Committee for its work in considering the bill and for its report on the bill and I acknowledge all the submitters who participated. There can be no doubt that the subject of the bill has captured the hearts of many a tourist historian archaeologist and writer. The brilliance of the geothermal landscape; the legacy of the late guides Sophia Hinerangi Rangi Dennan and the more recently departed Bubbles Mihinui; the mighty Pohutu Geyser; the unique fact of approximately 500 hot springs; and the spectacular displays of geothermal resource are all features that make Whakarewarewa a living thermal village that is on a par with the natural wonders of the world. 
A debt of nationhood is seen in the bill which finally gives effect to the deed entered into by Ngati Whakaue Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao Te Pumautanga trustees and the Crown. The deed entered into on 5 August 2008 transfers three areas of recreational reserve lands—the Southern Arikikapakapa Reserve and the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve which together make up the Whakarewarewa Valley land and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve—to the iwi of Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao. The reserves have the status of recreation reserves and are currently administered by the Ministry of Tourism under the Reserves Act 1977. 
I emphasise from the start that the bill is not part of a Treaty settlement. It was deemed appropriate for the Minister of Maori Affairs to progress the proposal outside the Treaty settlement framework because it was considered to strengthen the Crown-Maori relationship generally and it was not providing any settlement redress to Ngati Whakaue. 
I spoke earlier about some of the distinctive history attached to the area. The leadership of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao and Ngati Whakaue approached the Government back in April 2008 with a proposal to vest the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve into a new joint trust once they had transferred to the affiliate Te Arawa Treaty settlement entity. But there is a particular story that I must tell which helps to explain something about why we have come to this point today. In order to do so we must travel back to the decade between 1883 and 1893 when the Whakarewarewa Valley was subject to no less than three Native Land Court hearings. The absence of fairness and transparency in the courts processes in establishing ownership over lands held according to Maori custom is now generally accepted. Suffice it to say history reveals that the court originally established that ownership was to be shared by the hapu of Ngati Wahiao and Ngati Whakaue. 
Halfway through this time a remarkable event occurred. The eruption of Mount Tarawera brought forth a torrent of mud ash and steam. A series of violent earthquakes occurred and the settlements of Te Tapahoro Moura Te Ariki Totarariki and Waingongongo were either destroyed or buried. In the wake of the eruption Tuhourangi evacuated from Mount Tarawera and were welcomed into Whakarewarewa where they settled and married into Ngati Wahiao and remain there to this day. 
Yet the outcome of the Native Land Court hearings continues to be hotly contested by the iwi parties today. As a consequence of the court’s decision the land surrounding the village passed into Crown ownership. But despite the Crown’s administration of these reserve lands initially by the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts and more recently by the Ministry of Tourism the whenua itself has never ceased to hold immense significance to the iwi. It has always been and always will be central to the identity of Ngati Wahiao Tuhourangi and Ngati Whakaue. 
Today I remain absolutely confident that all iwi and mana whenua interests in the reserves will be able to participate in the arrangements for their management and allocation in the future. The recently concluded facilitation process conducted by Te Ururoa Flavell and John Clarke—whom I acknowledge for their hard work—and the staff of Te Puni Kokiri allowed iwi and mana whenua to discuss future management. I am pleased to hear that the four koromatua whakapapa lines will be the basis for mana whenua settlement. 
The Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill supports cultural identity in so many ways including the fast-emerging trend of iwi management of critical cultural assets self-determination by Maori over the activities undertaken on and around the iwi kainga and the accompanying realisation of tino rangatiratanga. 
This bill also reflects the fact that the iwi parties have agreed to initiate a process after the bill becomes law that will allow iwi to determine the allocation of mana whenua interest in the land. The bill itself does not provide for this process to occur; this is a matter for iwi parties to determine. I understand that this process will be undertaken in accordance with tikanga. The mana whenua process may result in the reserves being administered by the hapu in whom the Native Land Court originally established ownership. This is exactly how it should be because at the end of the day mandating and management issues are always the domain of iwi and hapu to sort out. We all await the results with great interest. 
I remind the House that many of these issues have endured over generations and no doubt will continue to be the subject of debate amongst the people. I think that a comment from Ngati Whakaue might apply more broadly to all hapu and iwi implicated in this bill: “Hei aha noa ake i mate ai au ka tipu aku pakarito. It does not matter if I die; I am survived by my descendants.” We know that matters of land ownership and tino rangatiratanga are the issues most passionately contested jealously guarded and vigorously upheld by the people and they will continue to be so after this bill has passed. However I am absolutely confident that the iwi have the capacity within themselves to manage the mana whenua process in a way that reflects their tikanga and enhances the taonga associated with this land. There is no one else better and no one more capable than tangata whenua to manage their own whenua and the taonga associated with that whenua. 
I note that the iwi have agreed to maintain the reserve status which creates an ongoing relationship with the Minister of Conservation. It is a manifestation of their rangatiratanga their noble commitment to the Crown-iwi relationship; I am humbled by their graciousness. 
He tika tonu te whakamihi ki nga kaumatua o nga iwi nei kua ngaro i te kitenga kanohi. Moe mai ra e koro ma e kui ma i te po. Ka mihi hoki ki nga uri e whai tonu ana i nga moemoea o o ratau kuia o o ratau koroua mo te whenua tipuna nei. E hika ma tenei ka whakatutuki haere i te kupu a te Karauna i ki ai no koutou tenei whenua ma koutou e whakahaere. Kei te whakamihi au ki te wahanga o tenei pire e ki ana ma koutou ano e whakariterite te mana whenua i runga ano i o koutou tikanga. Kia kaha ki a koutou. Tenei ka tuku i te pire nei ki mua i te aroaro o te Whare.  
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
I 
t is appropriate to acknowledge the elders of those tribes who have departed this life. Slumber there in the night ancient menfolk and womenfolk. I also acknowledge the descendants who are giving life to the dreams and aspirations of their old womenfolk and menfolk for this ancestral land. People this fulfils and gives effect to the commitment of the Crown that this is your land and it is for you to administer. I acknowledge the section of this bill that states that you the people alone will determine authority over the land according to your customs. Be strong in your endeavours. 
] 
I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon MITA RIRINUI (Labour) 
: 
 Otira kei Te Kaihautu hei tuatahi maku e tika ana kia mihi atu ra ki te riu o te waka o Te Arawa kua tatu mai i roto i te Whare i tenei ahiahi. Na ratou i haere tawhiti mai runga ano i te tumanako te tutuki pai ai te kaupapa i haria mai e ratau mai i te hau kainga tae noa mai ki te Whare Miere. No reira kai oku papa kai oku tuakana rangatira tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Indeed the first thing for me Mr Assistant Speaker and appropriately enough is to acknowledge the bilge of the Te Arawa canoe which has landed here in the House this afternoon. They have travelled some distance in the hope that the matter they have brought here from home to the Beehive will be successfully completed. So greetings to you my fathers elder siblings and chiefs greetings to you all 
.] 
I briefly take this opportunity to acknowledge the presence of esteemed kaumatua my kaumatua from Te Arawa who have on many occasions travelled from their homes to support legislation to transfer iconic assets and iconic korero by way of legislation. It probably would suit them better to do it a different way without the need for parliamentary interference but we do not live in that type of society. So here we are today ensuring the passage of this particular vesting legislation. 
I also acknowledge the person who is not here in the House today the previous Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Parekura Horomia and his determination to see Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke returned to its rightful owners the iwi that has been mentioned here today. I thank the current Minister of Maori Affairs Dr Pita Sharples for the historical overview he gave in terms of the importance of Whakarewarewa and the lands around Whakarewarewa and also for his support of the passage of this legislation. The Minister of Maori Affairs made a number of references to history but I do not particularly want to go into the history. It is a very emotional history. It is a history that goes back several decades to some tragic circumstances that happened to the people of Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao including Ngati Whakaue and this brought about a particular relationship that cannot be severed by this House or any future generations of Ngati Whakaue Tuhourangi or Ngati Wahiao. I will speak specifically about the technical aspects of the bill because it is less emotional and it is more appropriate for the second reading debate on this bill. 
To make my point obvious I support the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill and in doing so I declare as I did in the first reading debate on this bill a vested interest in it. In other words I am associated with this settlement. I also want to acknowledge the collective efforts of those members of the Maori Affairs Committee who over a long period of time heard submissions and went through a very difficult process to attempt to listen to all the views that were expressed particularly the concerns from a number of groups who attended the hearings in Rotorua. Having said that I think the Minister of Maori Affairs made a very very relevant point which was that some issues that were brought before the Maori Affairs Committee were best resolved by the iwi themselves. There is no way that this House can interfere or attempt to interfere with decisions that were made by the people the leaders of Te Arawa some several decades ago particularly at the time of the Mount Tarawera eruption with all the devastation that took place as a result of that. There was the loss of life loss of estates loss of communities and the displacement of people. 
As I said early on this is a very very important transfer. I also wanted to say that this is not the first time that this type of arrangement has been entered into particularly by the previous Government. As the Minister of Maori Affairs highlighted this is not a Treaty settlement; this is basically a transfer of assets to their rightful owners. 
I want to congratulate the Minister on acknowledging that point and also I want to acknowledge the Government for supporting the Minister with this legislation because it is a better way of settling longstanding grievances between iwi and the Crown. As I said earlier on this is not the first time this has happened. I recall that only weeks before the first reading debate on this legislation we also had in the House the third reading of the Mauao Historic Reserve Vesting Bill which basically ensured the return of the iconic maunga to the people of Tauranga Moana and the fee simple title to those people. This of course protected the iconic sites around the maunga and the history of the maunga by way of the Reserves Act. I congratulate the Minister and the Government on supporting him in that. 
Having said that I point out that there are other iconic places around the Bay of Plenty that deserve the same sort of attention and the same sort of treatment. I hope the Minister of Maori Affairs is able to persuade the Government to look at for instance the issues of Tuhoe in particular Te Urewera forest which is an indigenous forest that is probably recognised internationally as being one of the finest indigenous forests in the world. This is an issue for Tuhoe particularly in terms of the return of the fee simple title of Te Urewera forest to Tuhoe people. If the Government trusts Maori people to manage Whakarewarewa and Te Roto-a-Tamaheke and Mauao in a way that is of an acceptable standard—and I do not see any reason why it should not—then surely it can have enough trust to trust Tuhoe and other iwi around the country that want the same sort of settlement arrangements. 
So we are entering into a new approach. That new approach is one where iwi and the Crown sit down and ask each other whether they trust each other. They ask each other whether they can do this without having to open the history books and prove that they have an association with this particular piece of land this particular piece of forest these particular lakes this particular foreshore and seabed or these particular iconic sites. If both parties can say to themselves that there is a need for both parties to demonstrate trust then I am sure that all the issues that the Maori Affairs Committee has had to hear to deal with and to instruct officials to facilitate a positive outcome on will not necessarily need to happen. You see this process was delayed and I believe it was delayed unnecessarily. However there were those who felt that they were not part of the process or that their interests may not necessarily be protected or represented through this legislation. Therefore the Maori Affairs Committee had no option but to listen to and respond to requests by the Minister of Maori Affairs to allow in this case the member for Waiariki accompanied by Office of Treaty Settlements officials to facilitate meetings to progress the next important stages of this legislation. 
One thing we need to acknowledge is that although there was a positive outcome there was also an issue that was best dealt with between the respective iwi. If we can as I said earlier on develop a high level of trust between Crown and Maori we may overcome all those issues. In most cases and this legislation is one of those cases I think there may have been times when there was very little trust on either side of the table. As a former Associate Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and having been involved in negotiations for this particular transfer I know that that was the case. 
There is always room for improvement and I have said to the member for Waiariki on many occasions that we can only get better at doing this. This particular method of transfer in terms of Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke is another case where trust has eventually been shown—I repeat eventually shown. 
I do not have much more to say. The Minister of Maori Affairs rightly highlighted all the technical aspects of this particular bill. I had intended to do so but I find myself running out of time. I say to those representatives of Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa who basically drove this process and the return of these iconic sites that I once again acknowledge their efforts particularly the difficult issues they had to deal with in terms of criticism ridicule and some very very uncomplimentary remarks that were made to them. They stuck with it; they did not run away or drop the ball. There were no hospital passes. They kept on with it and they made sure it came to a satisfactory conclusion. I acknowledge their presence here today. Kia ora. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I will not take up much of the House’s time. Suffice it to say that I support the second reading of the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill and I support the job the Minister of Maori Affairs and the Maori Affairs Committee did. I congratulate Te Ururoa Flavell and John Clarke for their hard work in trying to get a couple of the sides together. I also acknowledge the representatives of the Pukeroa-Oruawhata Trust and Te Kotahitanga o Ngati Whakaue and those who represented Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa Trust. 
I leave for the last my views about Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao but I put them in this light. As someone who is Ngati Hine-Ngapuhi I am Ngati Hine through and through. I whakapapa to Ngati Hine but I also whakapapa to Ngapuhi. Just because one is bigger than the other maybe in genealogical ties that does not mean the other organisation cannot have its place in the sun. Ngati Hine and Ngapuhi are moving this coming weekend to break away from one another. I hate to use the words “break away” because how can someone break away from an ancestral tie? One might establish a new regime but certainly someone cannot break away from his or her genealogical ties. My wish is that Tuhourangi would put in a comma in reference to Ngati Wahiao. I hope that one day that tie will move by and that the people there will realise that the issue was about nothing more than placing the mana where it would do the most good for both Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao. To me the argument was never about one being put over the top of the other; it was always about identity whakapapa and people generally wanting to be who they were just as lots and lots of people want to be Ngati Hine but not necessarily stop being Ngapuhi—if members understand what I mean. 
Hon Dr Pita Sharples 
: No! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The member does not understand? Well that is the Maori Party. 
I finish by saying that for any transfer of goods or services that the Crown can make happen must happen as soon as possible. To have to wait around for the economic development but not to have any tools to do the job is a bit much to expect of people. For the local people at home and those at Whakarewarewa I hope the transfer of assets can open up some new doors or avenues to economic development. Thank you. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 Tena koe. Tenei e tapiri atu aku nei whakaaro aku nei mihi ki a koutou o Te Arawa waka kua tae mai nei ki te tautoko te panui o tenei wahanga o te pire nei. Me te whakaaro ano ki a ratou e matakitaki mai i enei korero i runga i te pouaka whakaata. No reira tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to you. I add my thoughts and acknowledgments to you the canoe of Te Arawa who have arrived here in support of this stage of the bill. I am mindful as well of those watching these addresses on television. So greetings to you all. 
]  
Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I join with my colleague Mita Ririnui in acknowledging those who have travelled from afar from Te Arawa to listen to the deliberations on the second reading of the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. I acknowledge the previous Minister of Maori Affairs Parekura Horomia and the previous Maori Affairs Committee for their work with the negotiators to ensure that the passage of this bill indicated a clear intent to resolve some of the historical grievances in this area. I acknowledge those who have negotiated long and hard to ensure that this transfer takes place. I also acknowledge the current Minister of Maori Affairs Pita Sharples and the current Maori Affairs Committee for their work. 
I will make a few contributions. I start by saying the passage of this bill has not been delayed by any decision on this side of the House. That has to be clearly stated. In fact within the context of moving forward Labour acknowledged that this transfer is in the Treaty settlement and that this is a step of goodwill and good faith taken within the context of the broader negotiations that were happening in the region of te Waiariki and certainly in the central North Island with regard to the larger central North Island collective of negotiations towards Treaty settlements in the area. I make the observation that when we can take a step of goodwill and good faith towards the bigger picture of addressing some of the historical injustices that have occurred to iwi throughout our whole country Parliament is taking a very clear and deliberate step that says it is absolutely necessary to continue to go down this path so that people can look forward. This bill is about more than just the transfer of land; it acknowledges the past. This is about ensuring that the future will remain intact in terms of how these iwi want it to look. This is an opportunity for all parliamentarians to say we actually think this is a good road to go down. With all those sentiments I am certainly very supportive of ensuring that this bill continues its passage to its final reading. 
A number of issues were raised by the Maori Affairs Committee one of which was the decoupling of Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao. Far be it from me to recite the histories that lie behind why that has been the case. In fact for my part I would like it to be recorded in  
Hansard  
that the history around the Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao relationship is best told by those people themselves. If at any point in the future people want to come back and use the passage of this bill as a reason for or against certain propositions let it not be on the basis of what parliamentarians say; let it be on the basis which I certainly support of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao and Te Arawa telling that story. It is inappropriate from my point of view for a Maori MP to put somebody else’s history in this House and use that as the absolute record. 
The second point that I would like to refer to is the general recognition that Te Arawa is no stranger to the opportunities of the present and of the future. They have demonstrated over time that they are entirely capable of managing their economic base of being able to provide for their people and of being able to look to the future. This is another small part of a bigger opportunity that is ahead for the people there. And so it should be because from my previous experience as Associate Minister of Tourism I know that the people of Te Arawa reflect who we are in terms of our identity as Maori people within New Zealand. They have a strong role to play and will continue to have a strong role to play in terms of how our identity as Maori is reflected within our own country and how it is perceived within the global community. I certainly want to acknowledge that because if we look at some of the further consequences of that and if we look at the role that Te Puia plays in its investment in Maori arts and crafts we see that historically and right up until this current day many of our own iwi are able to point to the opportunities that have been opened up to us by the old Maori Arts and Crafts Institute and now by Te Puia. 
The third point that I would like to make is raised with the greatest of respect to members of the Maori Party. It concerns the role that they took by appointing a Maori MP as a negotiator in this particular instance. I have a concern about where that leads the thinking of this House with regard to the absolute right of iwi to have a direct relationship with the Crown in their negotiations. There is a difficulty with Maori MPs acting as negotiators albeit they represent a constituency. We should not really take the role of a conduit and stand in the way of iwi having a direct negotiating role with the Crown. I believe that in principle. This puts us in a difficult situation because a precedent has been set by the Maori Party. But I am absolutely clear that in my rohe the Maori Party does not represent the Maori people. I say with the greatest of respect we should cautiously walk down this road before we start to say Maori electorate MPs can have a role in negotiating with regard to particular interests that we might have as our own hobby horses in our own electorates. We all have the same scenarios happening. Tau Henare raised one and we can point to the fisheries issues there. We have some issues too. But I hesitate and err on the side of caution in favour of a direct negotiating relationship between iwi and the Crown. Maori MPs per se should not be taking on that role. I caution future thinking in this regard with the greatest of respect. 
The bill is a clear signal that there is an optimistic future ahead for Te Arawa. The bill is a starting point; it is part of a bigger picture. I am absolutely confident that the people of Te Arawa will continue to walk down their path of self-determination opportunity economic benefit and growth for the well-being of not only their own people but also their region and certainly those of us at large amongst other iwi. I commend the bill to the House. I hope that its smooth passage to its third reading happens forthwith in a speedy way. Finally to the clerks of the committee and to all the advisers who provided advice to the Maori Affairs Committee tena mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora mai tatou. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. Tena koutou katoa. Tena koutou Te Arawa iwi and hapu katoa. In acknowledging the travellers who have come so far and are still travelling on this journey towards resolution the Green Party supports the second reading of the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. We appreciated Dr Pita Sharples’ historical korero regarding the whenua of Ngati Wahiao - Tuhourangi and Ngati Whakaue. It is very important to acknowledge the issue that Dr Sharples raised about the bill not being a Treaty settlement but a vesting law based on transferral of assets to their rightful owners. 
As a Pakeha I acknowledge that these matters belong to tangata whenua. It is through their generosity that the land itself in this case has also been given some reserve status. But I also feel whakama speaking about these matters when I do not know the place intimately as tangata whenua do. If we do not know how the land is how it smells at dawn and how the rivers run we do not understand what we are talking about when we talk about the return or the transfer of assets. Many of us grew up knowing very little about the realities for mana whenua of places such as Whakarewarewa. We went for our holidays and we enjoyed the visit but we did not even know how to pronounce the names. We learnt about the eruption of the maunga Tarawera without understanding the displacement effects not only of colonisation but also of the eruption and the complexities that it has led to. So it is really important that we now do some learning about these issues. I see these bills as opportunities for Pakeha to do some learning and to do some listening so that we understand a little about what people have been through in this country and what they are trying to achieve through these negotiations and engagements in terms of their whenua. 
I tautoko the Labour MP Mita Rirnui in regard to the issue of Tuhoe and the Urewera forest of which I also have a little knowledge and the importance of ongoing work to find positive ways to address issues of ownership and relationship. As we know justice delayed is justice denied. So we tautoko this bill through its second reading and we look forward to supporting it through its third reading. We honour all of the people on the Maori Affairs Committee both the current and the past and all the MPs who have been engaged with the bill but mostly the people themselves who continue to work through their issues. It is through a negotiation outside this place that the issues of mana whenua land and how it should be managed will be settled between the parties. It is not the role of us as Pakeha to decide on these matters but merely to offer our support to positive process. We support this bill through its second reading. Kia ora tatou. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Koutou o te kainga tena koutou katoa i hara mai i te ra nei. I am pleased to take a call in the second reading of the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. As we know this bill gives effect to an agreement negotiated by the Crown with Ngati Whakaue and the collective of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao on the basis of a proposal that was presented by them to the Crown on 1 April 2008. I would like to acknowledge the initiative shown by the representatives of these groups—namely the Pukeroa-Oruawhatu Trust Te Kotahitanga o Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao representatives on the Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa Trust—in developing the proposal and approaching the Crown. 
This bill provides that the people of Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao will be the owners of the Whakarewarewa Valley lands on the enactment of the bill. The fee simple estate in the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve the Southern Arikikapakapa Reserve and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve will vest in the Whakarewarewa Joint Trust which holds the titles on behalf of the beneficial owners. The reserve lands will be held by the joint trust until they are vested in iwi or hapu in accordance with the beneficial entitlement determination procedure which is set out in the trust deed establishing the joint trust. The joint trust will manage the leases of land to the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute—Te Puia—as the administering body of the three recreational reserves as provided for under the Reserves Act 1977. 
The Waitangi Tribunal referred to the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve as a taonga of great importance to the Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao and Ngati Whakaue people. It will be a great day to witness the return of this taonga to the rightful owners. 
This bill comes out of agreements reached by the previous Government in the passage of the Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa settlement through this House. When the iwi mentioned earlier brought their proposal to the Crown they asked that the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve land on-vest from the Te Pumautanga settlement legislation and together with the adjacent Southern Arikikapakapa Reserve be vested in a joint trust of the iwi partners. This was partly because of the Waitangi Tribunal’s finding that Ngati Whakaue who were not included in the Te Pumautanga settlement should be recognised as owners in common with Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao of the valley. This bill achieves that purpose. 
The matter of coupling of iwi was one that the Maori Affairs Committee heard a lot about in the Pumautanga settlement over a year ago. Some of Ngati Wahiao for example made their concerns heard about being coupled with Tuhourangi not just in terms of the Te Pumautanga settlement at the time but also knowing its relevance to this particular bill which followed closely behind it—on 23 September 2008 to be precise. 
This bill was referred to the Maori Affairs Committee. Sixteen submissions were received and 14 of them were heard. I believe that the people definitely want settlement but the key issues again related to the coupling of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao and therefore mandate issues and the process to be used to determine mana whenua over the Whakarewarewa Valley. No such issues were raised for Te Kotahitanga o Ngati Whakaue or the Pukeroa-Oruawhata Trust and I hope representatives of these groupings will forgive me if I do not spend too much time on their part of the discussions. Dr Sharples himself having heard the issues during the Te Pumautanga settlement and with those same issues again being raised in the select committee process as Minister of Maori Affairs wanted to be assured the resource itself would end up in the hands of the appropriate koromatua the appropriate hapu. The Minister as other speakers have said despatched Mr John Clarke and myself to facilitate discussions between all parties involved. As the select committee noted this was “to seek assurance that Ngati Wahiao may participate in the structure set up to receive the … lands … and … are appropriately represented in the Beneficial Entitlement Determination Procedure …”. 
Can I firstly acknowledge those of the Pukeroa-Oruawhata Trust Te Kotahitanga o Ngati Whakaue Te Pumautanga and their representatives from the collective of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao as well as those of Te Maru o Ngati Wahiao for contributing to the process. It was very much appreciated. After initial discussions with all parties the main negotiations were between Te Pumautanga represented by Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao representatives and Te Maru o Ngati Wahiao. The following matters were considered and general agreement reached and I might also advise that the following discussions were presented to the Maori Affairs Committee. The committee’s report back to the House was based on the facilitation process. 
There were two ways of providing the assurance the Minister was after. Firstly there was a commitment to complete the process to fill the vacancy on the Whakarewarewa Joint Trust. Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao are represented on the Whakarewarewa Joint Trust by three trustees and Ngati Whakaue are represented by four trustees. There is one remaining vacancy for Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao which could be filled. I am pleased to report that it was agreed that a hui will be held at the Wahiao meeting house where nominations for the vacant position will be taken from the floor. A vote will also be taken at the hui to elect the fourth representative on the joint trust. Eligibility to vote will be according to those registered with either the Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa Trust or the Tuhourangi Tribal Authority or by signing a statutory declaration at the hui. I believe that there was a determination to complete this as soon as is practicable. 
The other way was to predetermine the process to decide on negotiators who would determine mana whenua issues as required under the beneficial entitlement determination procedure which is set out in the trust deed establishing the joint trust. I am pleased to report that in terms of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao there was clear agreement from the parties that the mana whenua matters should be negotiated by representatives of each of the separate koromatua hapu in the bill—namely Tuhourangi Ngati Hinganoa Ngati Tukiterangi and Ngati Huarere—when in discussions with Ngati Whakaue and the Pukeroa-Oruawhata Trust. This is an important principle that will ensure that the negotiations will be done by elected representatives of the original owners. 
The expectation as set out in the deed of trust is for “kanohi ki te kanohi discussions with each other with a view to reaching agreement as to the ownership of the Lands” to be guided by agreement on the tikanga to apply to the process with an expectation of korero rangatira—namely “open principled trustworthy dialogue by rangatira with authority to commit their hapu;”—to attain consensus and for mediators to be appointed at any time if required to assist. 
The great thing about this was that there was prior general agreement to the process and this has given the Minister of Maori Affairs confidence that the beneficiary owners will determine their negotiations. Even minor details were set out such as Te Puni Kokiri managing the agreed process and acting as independent returning officers and independent scrutineers being available during the registration nomination and voting stages of the agreed process. 
In brief the process would possibly look something like this. A newspaper notice would invite registrations by Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao people for the purpose of electing mana whenua representatives. This registration was to be for that purpose only. Beneficiaries would nominate their main whakapapa line and also note their own whakapapa connection. The whakapapa would need to be endorsed by any two of four agreed whakapapa experts. Once the registration closed the publicly notified hui-a-iwi would be held at the Wahiao meeting house to decide the process for electing the mana whenua representatives. The question in the end was whether beneficiaries could nominate their main koromatua line and vote only once under that line or vote under every koromatua line to which they affiliate. That vote would determine how the people voted and the whole election process could then kick in. 
The fact that the Tuhourangi group and the Te Maru o Ngati Wahiao group stayed with the discussions for some 3 months might indicate a commitment to find a way forward and I acknowledge them for that. Was it all plain sailing? No but the parties stayed with the task almost to the end. I can say that we as facilitators and indeed the Te Puni Kokiri officials were so convinced that we had reached agreement that the bill was reported back to the House on the assumption of agreement resulting from the process. An agreement as such has not been agreed to date but the Minister is clearly happy to advance the bill on good faith and the integrity of the parties that an agreed process will be followed and to that end the bill should advance. At a recent meeting with the Minister of Maori Affairs I understand the Tuhourangi trustees have agreed to have a hui-a-iwi that will confirm an electoral process. 
In closing I am sure that the Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao and Ngati Whakaue people will administer the reserves in a way that ensures they can be enjoyed by generations of New Zealanders and overseas visitors for years to come. I thank Mr John Clarke for his quiet wisdom his thoughtful consideration and his guidance of the facilitation process. We were ably assisted by Jonathan Easthope of Te Puni Kokiri. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou. We had advice from Dr John Tamahori and Tom White when needed. I thank them all so much. I commend the bill to the House. No reira tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa. 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. Tena koe e te Whare. Tena koutou nga rangatira o Te Pumautanga. Nau mai haere mai. Haere mai ki te Whare. Tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
I will take just a short call on the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. Much of what I was going to say has been covered by the previous speaker Te Ururoa Flavell so I look forward to covering the more technical aspects during the Committee stage. 
I acknowledge the previous speakers. The Minister of Maori Affairs and to a lesser extent my cousin Mita have covered some of the history so I will not do that. I was disappointed by the contribution of Nanaia Mahuta who chose to play politics on this issue. She was way off line with her facts and for someone who seemed to fly in from nowhere in the select committee deliberations which I cannot recall her sitting in I thought that her contribution— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If the member is so concerned about tikanga he might care to reflect on the Standing Orders stating that members cannot refer to the absence or presence of members in the House or in select committee proceedings. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The member is quite right. I did not pick up that the member who was speaking had done that. I was still engaging with the points he was making in relation to the debate. The member must not refer to the absence of any member. 
Hon John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think there may have been a misrepresentation by the member who made the point of order. The fact was that the member on his feet was not referring to the absence of someone currently on the select committee but to a historical select committee process. That is quite a different issue and the point of order needs to be taken in that context as I understand it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: It is out of order to refer to the absence of a member from a select committee. I have made the caution and I ask the member to continue. 
PAUL QUINN 
: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. The honourable member from the other side of the Chamber has drawn attention even more so to the fact that the contribution of Nanaia Mahuta was very poor indeed leading him to support it in some way. It demonstrated a clear misunderstanding of the issues discussed and the excellent work done by my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell. She called him a negotiator when in fact he facilitated a very tight process following the very untidy issues left by the previous administration. That deserves credit. 
One of the things I want to highlight here is that this is the second of three bills put together by the previous administration in the rush of its dying days to pass some Treaty settlement legislation. It left a lot of loose ends that of themselves may well have appeared small but the reality is that they were very contentious. We saw that in the last settlement bill that went through this House the Port Nicholson settlement in respect of Ngati Poneke and we have seen it again in this one. My learned colleague Te Ururoa Flavell has outlined in a lot more detail the technical aspects around that settlement. The reality is that there had to be some work done. A considerable number of people were concerned about one particular aspect of the bill and his support in working through those issues to get agreement with all the parties concerned deserves mention. I think also the genuineness with which Ngati Whakaue Tuhourangi and Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa entered into the spirit of cooperation to resolve this particular issue also deserves recording. 
I also take the opportunity in this second reading to thank the chairman of the Maori Affairs Committee who guided us through this thorny issue keeping in contact with the Minister and trying to find a pathway through. I think the work he was able to achieve in pacing the committee to ensure a solution was reached reflects well on him. With those few words I do not have much more to add other than to commend this settlement to the House. I look forward to debating the technical aspects during the course of the Committee stage. Thank you. 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 Te mea tuatahi maku e mihi kau atu ki a koutou e nga whanaunga i takahia mai te huarahi mai i Te Arawa. Ka nui nga mihi atu ki a koutou i tae mai ki konei ki raro i te maru o tenei tuanui hei whakarongo ki te panuitanga tuarua o tenei pire. Na reira tena ra koutou. 
[ 
The first thing for me is to extend fond greetings to you the relatives who travelled here from Te Arawa. I appreciate your presence greatly beneath the haven of this roof as you listen to the second reading of this bill. Therefore greetings to you indeed 
.] 
Being a new member I found it an immensely humbling experience to be part of the Maori Affairs Committee which heard the submissions on the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. We flew up to Rotorua there was a packed house and we heard a number of emotional submissions regarding this bill. It is indeed an honour and as I say humbling. There was also a bit of sadness in realising the extent to which our iwi have been deprived of their lands over the last 200 or so years. Our whanaunga from Te Arawa Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao in the day would have owned all the land—[ 
Interruption 
]—much of the land that we could see as we were flying into Rotorua airport. But we saw that we were talking about a very small parcel of land. It is a story that has been repeated across Aotearoa in all iwi. It is very sad to see that this has happened over and over again but it is also a joy to be part of a select committee that is looking to return land to our iwi. 
When I go to Rotorua in my role as tourism spokesperson for Labour I see everything that is on offer around Whakarewarewa Village and its surrounds. It brings to mind the reason why tourists come to New Zealand. They come to experience our landscapes—and Rotorua has beautiful and unique landscapes—and they come to experience our culture. What binds our landscapes and our culture together is our people. The people of this area are not just telling their story; they are living the story. They are living their story and they are sharing it with the world. For that I thank them. 
A number of people have spoken about the technical side of this bill and I too will go over it. The Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill gives effect to the deed to introduce vesting legislation in relation to the Whakarewarewa land and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve signed on 5 August 2008 by the Hon Dr Michael Cullen the Hon Parekura Horomia and the Hon Damien O’Connor on behalf of the Crown and representatives of Ngati Whakaue Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao and Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa. In simple language this bill enables the transfer of the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve and the Arikikapakapa Reserve currently vested in the Crown to Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa Trust. This means the iwi partners of Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao collectively will become the landowners of this area. For clarity the area comprises the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve the Southern Arikikapakapa Reserve and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve. These lands surround Whakarewarewa Village. 
The village itself has always been in Maori ownership and is not affected by the bill. The lands include the Pohutu Geyser and other iconic tourist attractions. As agreed by the iwi parties the Whakarewarewa Thermal Springs Reserve and the Roto-a-Tamaheke Reserve will transfer from Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa trustees to the Whakarewarewa joint trust the day after the affiliate Te Arawa iwi and hapu legislation passes. The bill recognises the cultural traditional historical and spiritual importance of this area to the iwi. The Whakarewarewa joint trust has been established for the purpose of administering these lands as well as providing for the more generalised interests of all New Zealanders. It is really important to note that all New Zealanders can enjoy the wonders of this small piece of land. 
The bill continues the positive progress made by iwi across the Bay of Plenty region in strengthening the Crown-Maori relationship through both Treaty settlements and contemporary initiatives like this one and I applaud everybody who has been part of making this happen. My genuine hope is that we can settle these land issues as quickly as possible so that iwi can have the land returned to them and we can set about being successful as Maori with our taonga intact—or as intact as they can be considering the amount of land that we have lost over the years. The lands will retain their recreation and reserved status under the Reserves Act 1977 the leases to the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute will continue and the protections of conservation values contained within the Reserves Act will remain. 
A large number of hapu and iwi entities were involved in this initiative representing a diverse range of interests. This meant that the negotiations for the transfer of these lands were always going to require the determination goodwill and generosity of those iwi and hapu representatives. The bill represents more than a simple land transfer from the Crown to Maori subject to the provisions of the Reserves Act 1977. The wider motivations for the Crown and iwi negotiators included an agreement to vest the fee simple estate in those reserve lands outside the Treaty settlement process. By doing so the mana of the land of the people of Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao will be recognised and a stronger relationship can continue to be built. 
As we have heard some submitters requested that Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao not be coupled together but that they instead be represented separately. They felt that their mana whenua and rangatiratanga status over the Whakarewarewa Valley land were quite separate. The reference to the Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao affiliate of Te Pumautanga is well established and has been accepted by the Crown throughout the various mandating processes managed since 2003 by the Kaihoutu Executive Council and Te Pumautanga. Although the bill could be amended to reflect a decoupling of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao this would not properly address the concerns of submitters and it would affect the underlying relationships between the Crown and Te Pumautanga and between Te Pumautanga and its affiliates. An amendment to the trust deed to allow decoupling would require a unanimous resolution of the trustees a general meeting of the beneficiaries to approve the trustees’ resolution and an approval resolution passed by a majority each of Ngati Whakaue and Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao present at that meeting. The Maori Affairs Committee did not consider it appropriate to use legislation to provide for separate representation in relation to the bill because the decision of Tuhourangi Ngati Wahiao to form a single affiliate of the joint trust Te Pumautanga was made by iwi members through a mandating process. 
I acknowledge again the people from Te Arawa who have come to listen to this debate on the second reading of this bill. I thank them for their patience over the time taken for this settlement to draw to its conclusion. I sincerely hope that the return of this land enables Te Arawa whanui Ngati Wahiao - Tuhourangi and Ngati Whakaue to forge ahead for the benefit of all members of the iwi so that they may continue to move ahead as an iwi for the benefit of nga whakatupuranga kei te haere mai. Na reira huri noa i te Whare tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill today and to take part in this debate as the member of Parliament for Rotorua. I want to recognise for a moment the people of Te Arawa who have travelled from Rotorua to be here today. It is a significant day. I say kia ora to them. They are very welcome here; this is their House. 
I recognise that a lot of progress has been made in a very short period of time and that the agreement locally and in this House has been possible only because of the commitment of a number of people. In saying so I recognise the leaders those who are mandated to negotiate and those who offered the mandate to iwi in Rotorua to recognise Ngati Whakaue Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao. I recognise Te Ururoa Flavell the member of Parliament who represents this area and John Clarke for their work and I also acknowledge the previous Government which started this work. It is important for us in Rotorua to recognise the work of those who have played an important part in getting us to where we are at today. 
The land that we are talking about as part of this process is an important part of Rotorua’s history. It is the basis for Rotorua’s culture and it is an important part of Rotorua’s future. I also recognise and remember that people lived on this land long before the city of Rotorua was founded. The Whakarewarewa Valley and its surrounding land is beautiful and in light of my visits there I say that the valley is as rich as the people of this land are generous. I recognise the great welcome that my colleagues and I have always received when going to that part of Rotorua. I was there earlier this year with our Prime Minister John Key and we visited Te Puia. Quite exceptional things have always happened in this valley and the situation today is no different from that. I also had a wonderful opportunity earlier this year to visit the Whakarewarewa Village on Waitangi Day when the gates were open for thousands of people to come and celebrate that great day for New Zealand and also to learn about culture and history. It was a privilege for me to be there. I believe that all the people of Rotorua will share in the benefit of this land transfer. I acknowledge the importance of this debate today and what it will mean when this legislation passes into law. 
Often we focus too much on the past and look too much behind us but I will address for a moment the opportunity that this bill will provide. I recognise the importance of tourism and of Maori tourism in particular and the role that this valley will play in empowering the local people. Many many years ago on this land in Rotorua lived a guide who was really famous if we read our history books—Makerete Papakura or Guide Maggie as she was known at the time—for the work that she did at the time. Her descendants still live in this area and in this place. Guide Maggie or Makerete said a people is a great and living people only as it is mindful of its heritage and this bill today is about recognising that heritage. I support this bill and I look forward to the day when the gates between the Whakarewarewa Village and Te Puia are again open so that people can walk freely through the valley and enjoy its great beauty as they were able to many years ago. It is a privilege to be able as the member of Parliament for Rotorua to support this bill. Thank you. 
HEKIA PARATA (National) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa huri noa i to tatou Whare tena koutou katoa. Huri hoki aku mihi ki a koutou e tautoko ana i nga mihi kua mihia ki a koutou Te Arawa waka i hara mai nei mai i Te Puku o Te Whenua ki Te Upoko ki te whakarongo i nga korero e pa ana ki te whanuitanga o te pire i tenei wa. A e tautoko ana i runga i toku whare tamariki aku tamahine me o raua honotanga ki nga kawai whakapapa o Te Arawa. Tena koutou tena koutou tena rawa atu koutou. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to you all throughout our House greetings. My acknowledgments turn to you as well who supported the greetings bestowed upon you those of the canoe of Te Arawa who travelled from the Abdomen of the Land to the Head to listen to speeches relating to the bill broadly at this stage. And I endorse that because of my children my daughters and their genealogical ties to Te Arawa. Greetings greetings and fond greetings to you collectively 
.]  
I stand to speak in support of the second reading of the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. I acknowledge both the previous Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Parekura Horomia and our current Minister of Maori Affairs the Hon Dr Pita Sharples as well as the Maori Affairs Committee members who have worked together on this bill to bring it to this stage of its consideration. Many speakers before me have already rehearsed the details that are contained within the bill so I shall not do that again. But I will talk about the core purpose of this bill which is to restore mana whenua. Its purpose is to provide a base back to the people to whom this whenua belongs and to whom it has always belonged. That is so whether or not there was legal title or recognition because it is through the actual lineage that there is relationship with that land. The purpose is so that we might start to see again the practice of rangatiratanga. 
We can talk all we like about rangatiratanga whether of the tino variety or the ordinary variety but unless we have whenua and we have whanau hapu and iwi connected with that whenua we really are talking only. So I am delighted that this bill the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill takes another step towards that because it is important that iwi—and the ones we are talking about today are Ngati Whakaue Tuhourangi and Ngati Wahiao—are able to govern and manage their own affairs to work in the development of their own whenua and own businesses and to create wealth for themselves and for their future. That is what is important in part about the restoration of this mana whenua. 
We have seen not only in the bill itself but in the processes around it that the objective of the Crown and the iwi in this legislation is to engage in a healthy relationship and that is a very important thing for this House and for Te Arawa. It is equally important that the iwi themselves are able to engage in relationships with each other with their hapu and with their whanau and I think the bill provides certain procedures to ensure that that occurs. But the real work will be done by Te Arawa people themselves because members of Te Arawa must go on and live with continue to invest whakapapa relationships in—intermarry and have children—and go on to create the stories of the future around that whenua. Even though it is important that there is a Crown-iwi relationship it is almost more important that there are iwi to iwi and hapu to hapu relationships. I hope the procedures set out in the bill are simply that and that the real work is done amongst and between the people. 
I will respectfully disagree with our colleague from the other side of the House who talked about the concerns around the involvement of the member for Waiariki Te Ururoa Flavell in this process. It is entirely appropriate that the Minister of Maori Affairs should place so much importance on getting these matters right that he asks a member of this Parliament and therefore a representative of the Crown to be involved in Crown-iwi relationships. I acknowledge the facilitation work carried out by my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell and I acknowledge the Minister of Maori Affairs for considering that it was of such importance that he should ask a member of this House to be involved. 
As I have already said—and I will not talk for very much longer on this bill—I think it is important that we have the opportunity to practise rangatiratanga with mana over our whenua for all of our people so that we might build our own businesses create our own wealth and practise the self-determination that I understand to be at the core of rangatiratanga. I am delighted to stand in support of the Whakarewarewa and Roto-a-Tamaheke Vesting Bill. No reira tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatou katoa. 
Bill read a second time. 
Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill was one of the first to be introduced by the National-led Government. It amends the Domestic Violence Act 1995 the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Bail Act 2000 in order to strengthen the responsiveness of the criminal justice agencies to victims of domestic violence. The Justice and Electoral Committee received 63 written submissions and heard 19 oral submissions on the bill. I take this opportunity to thank the committee members and in particular the chairperson Chester Borrows for the work that they have done on this bill. 
The most significant proposal in the bill is the introduction of police safety orders for which there was broad support from submitters. However submitters also suggested improvements that could enhance the implementation of these orders which were then picked up in the recommendations of the committee. The committee recommended requiring the person whom the order is issued against to surrender any firearms licence held by him or her. The bill originally proposed removing the person’s firearms only for the duration of the order but this would not prevent the person from using his or her firearms licence to legally buy another firearm. The amendment that removes and suspends the person’s firearms licence will reduce the alleged perpetrator’s access to firearms and enhance the victim’s safety. 
Another recommendation was made to amend the title of the order from “police order” to “police safety order” to reflect the purpose of these orders and to distinguish them from the protection orders issued by the courts. 
I was particularly pleased that the committee endorsed the Government’s policy that an order could be issued for up to 5 days. That will be critical if such an order is issued over a long weekend or in other situations where access to the courts may be limited. 
With regard to enforcing a police safety order the committee noted that there were no consequences for the alleged perpetrator if he or she failed to stay at the scene while the order was being issued and served. The committee recommended including an offence provision for those who flee the scene while the police are preparing to issue an order for arrest without warrant. 
The committee recommended a number of other amendments to clarify how the authorities will deal with a person who fails to comply with a police safety order. As introduced the bill provided that if a person who was subject to an order did not comply with the order then the police could take the person into custody and bring him or her before the District Court. If that could not be done within 24 hours then the police could release the person and summons him or her to appear before the court at a specified date and time. The committee recommended providing powers that will enable the District Court to issue a warrant to arrest a person who is subject to an order when he or she does not comply with the order or does not attend the court at the time and place to which proceedings have been adjourned. It is important to note—this is similar to the provisions of the Bail Act—that the warrant will permit the police to enter any premises by force if necessary in order to give effect to it. 
Other recommendations define the judicial officers who can hear cases involving the breach of a police safety order and provide further detail regarding the court processes associated with the issue of a temporary protection order as a penalty for the breach of a police safety order. 
Another important feature of the bill is the proposal to amend the Sentencing Act 2002 to enable the criminal courts to issue a protection order on behalf of the victim in cases where an offender is sentenced for a domestic violence offence. I understand submissions were very supportive of this proposal. The committee recommended enabling the criminal courts to issue a protection order even if the victim has also applied for a protection order in the Family Court or the District Court. This is to ensure that the victim may be covered by a protection order from the time that the offender is sentenced for the offending. 
The bill also amends the offence provisions in the Domestic Violence Act by removing the two-tier penalty structure for breaches of protection orders and leaving only the maximum penalty of a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years. The bill also provides a specific penalty of up 6 months’ imprisonment for failing to attend a court-ordered programme. Submissions suggested that if the offender is also directed to attend a stopping violence programme the judge or registrar should explain that programme attendance is compulsory and that consequences will follow if the offender does not attend it. The committee agreed with that and considered that such an amendment would help offenders to understand the importance of attending stopping violence programmes. 
The committee also recommended changes to the provisions that apply to the Bail Act 2000 to allow the police to impose any conditions considered reasonably necessary to protect any particular person who resides with the victim such as a new partner or elderly parents. The bill originally proposed that conditions could apply to any child who lives with the victim. Submitters raised the valid point that a victim may also have other family members living with him or her who require protection from the person against whom the order was made. 
I have read the minority report on the bill from the Labour Party and I acknowledge its concern that other recommendations from the review of the Domestic Violence Act were not included in this particular bill. As I said at the time this bill is focused on the criminal justice sector’s response to incidents of family violence. Since the select committee reported back to the House on this bill I have introduced the Child and Family Protection Bill which picks up on some proposals that are centred on child welfare and reconciling the Domestic Violence Act and the Care of Children Act. The introduction of the Child and Family Protection Bill was delayed because I saw an opportunity to include a new offence of improperly inducing consent for the adoption of a child. That bill will enable New Zealand to finally ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children child prostitution and child pornography which New Zealand signed in 2000. However I am unapologetic for prioritising the changes proposed in the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill which will provide for the immediate safety of those who are under imminent threat from domestic violence. 
I recall that when I introduced this bill it was one of the occasions when I asked the select committee to take into consideration one or two factors and to offer up amendments where it saw that it would be appropriate to do so following receipt of submissions. In this case it seems to me that the select committee process has worked particularly well in terms of the number of recommendations and practical amendments offered up by the committee. This legislation was a core part of the Government’s 100-day programme following the general election. I am pleased that progress has been made on it. The bill is an initiative that is particularly important to me and I intend to see it make its way through all stages as soon as possible. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 Although the Labour Party will support the passage of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill we do remain disappointed in the Government’s decision to introduce two bills as opposed to the omnibus bill introduced by the previous Labour Government as the Domestic Violence Reform Bill. That bill is still on the Order Paper admittedly at the bottom of the Order Paper in the name of the Hon Annette King. The use of the two bills actually disguises the decision the Government has taken not to proceed with certain elements of the previous Labour Government’s bill and now that this second bill has been tabled we can see exactly what they are. The most significant differences that still remain absent from the two bills appear to be first the changing of the definition of “child” from under 17 years of age to under 18 years of age in the Domestic Violence Act. This would not only have allowed further compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child but would have aligned the Domestic Violence Act with the Care of Children Act. It makes no sense that the Government still leaves this out. 
The second difference is that the decision was made obviously by the Government not to require reasons to be given in writing when a “without notice” application for a protection order is declined by a judge. Again we have had absolutely no explanation from the Government as to why it has made the decision not to proceed with that recommendation. 
The third difference is the decision not to introduce information sessions despite all of the evidence around the fact that protection is best given in circumstances where an individual knows what he or she can access by way of support and if the person understands the nature of the threat that he or she faces. That is the one message that I do not believe that this House has actually picked up on yet—that most women who die at the hands of an intimate partner do so not knowing the nature of the threat they face. Sure they were frightened but did not really believe that their husband their partner their former husband or former partner would actually take that final step and kill them. And even if the women had been saying “I think he’s going to kill me.” deep down in their hearts they find it hard to believe that somebody who loved them once—and said that they loved them and continued often to say they loved them—would take their life. The Government’s decision not to introduce information sessions for the victims of domestic violence is a very dangerous decision to make and I hope that it is able to reflect on that when we get to the Child and Family Protection Bill—the second bill. 
The Government’s decision not to introduce funded addiction treatment services again despite all of the evidence around the association between domestic violence and drug and alcohol abuse— again I cannot understand why the Government would not proceed with that provision but that could be dealt with in the context of the second bill. 
Obviously Labour fully supports the provisions relating to police orders although I did think it was interesting that the Government decided to change the name of them to something based on the person who grants them as opposed to their purpose. They were called “safety orders” under the previous Labour Government’s bill and I think there is an important distinction and it explains some of the reason why there was concern about the orders being introduced in the first place. 
I do not think there is much difference in the time frame of them. Our bill said the duration period may not exceed 3 days; the Government’s bill says 5 days. We are happy to support that proposal. It is important for the House again to understand that this provision was not universally greeted with enthusiasm when it was first proposed by Labour in Government. I was the Minister of Women’s Affairs at the time and the women’s refuges and other groups were very concerned about the risks that these orders might pose. If I could just summarise their views—and I hope I do them justice because I do this by way of recall rather than having a particular document in front of me—one was about the victim’s consent to the order not being required. There was a real concern about the question of disempowerment: whether this was going to disempower people in terms of their ability to take control of what was often when they were victims of domestic violence a lack of control. 
There was a concern that police would not be sufficiently well-trained in the dynamics of domestic violence to assess the circumstances in which orders should be made. I know that the Government has said that it will put a lot of emphasis on training police to deal with these situations and we certainly look forward to seeing that happen. The third reason they were concerned that men would claim that women had been the instigators of the violence and would seek instant protection orders from the police and then coupled with the lack of training around the dynamics of domestic violence there was a concern that that would be a genuine fear to have. 
As a result of these concerns when I was Minister of Women’s Affairs I personally visited the police in Tasmania when I was over there for a meeting and I was very impressed with the approach that they had adopted. Interestingly in Tasmania it was an Attorney-General who spearheaded the law change which actually enables a police protection order to stand for an entire year and it does so for very good reasons. She had been determined to get this change in place because she had seen the horrific consequences of the failure to act even when the police had been involved. I know that representatives of Women’s Refuge visited another Australian state around the same time and gained a similar level of reassurance from the advice that it received. That is why when we started to talk about introducing these provisions the issue was a lot better received than it had been originally. The issue certainly has been thought through but these police safety orders will not protect people who do not come into contact with police. They just simply will not. I think everyone understands this and they also will not be effective if they are not backed up by realistic levels of support. 
My electorate has been shocked by the events of the past few weeks culminating in the death of Rebecca Somerville caused by her husband and the discovery of the body of Tisha Lowry a neighbour who had been missing for just over a year. I went with the community to the tapu-lifting ceremony before the police cordon was lifted the Monday before last. Can I say that the Christchurch police have been absolutely amazing. They have worked really closely with the community. They have been very respectful of their needs despite a detailed double-murder investigation and members can imagine how much effort has had to go into that. I went into the house with the floorboards gone in the kitchen where the bodies were found and the soil that had hidden those bodies—one for over a year as I say—lay very neatly arranged below us. It was deeply upsetting and I really cannot tell members how upsetting it was. I felt actually no comfort in being there but it was important to be there with the community with the mayor with the local councillor Chrissie Williams and the leaders in the community who were there to lift the tapu and to make the community whole. Can I say to the neighbours that it is right that they do not return to the house where a wall separates the house but not what was a grave but please respect the grief of the families of those who have died. Let people assist you but quietly and behind the scene because yours is not the most pressing need. 
I have already spoken to individuals about identifying the wider victims of crime in a situation like this. Neighbours are the victims of a crime such as this and it is important that we find ways to ensure that the news media are not the first people to notify neighbours of such tragedies. But the most important focus of our consideration and in the context of the bill is the question that must be how we stop these deaths from occurring. I am strongly of the view that we have to learn the lessons of the lives that have been lost. A police order would not have saved Rebecca Somerville’s life unless she had called them to her house to ensure her immediate safety. For the kinds of intervention we have to put in place we have to learn from the experience of the police who have been going to these kinds of cases over and over again. I have seen the checklist that the police have put together. It shows that there are signs that can be looked for that show increasing levels of violence and the much higher likelihood of them leading to death. We have to learn these lessons or we will be condemned as a community to continue to see them being repeated. 
It is absolutely critical that the bill strengthens the sentencing provisions for breaches of protection orders but I come back to the fact that courses for the offender for stopping violence are not the most effective intervention; it is empowering the victims of violence so that they are able to have the strength to get away from a situation that will clearly be more dangerous to them than anything else they could have imagined. It is very important that we take a holistic approach to domestic violence. I am hoping that as a Parliament we can make these changes but it is not just the law that will do that. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 As the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee which considered the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill I commend the bill to the House. I thank the members of the committee who took part in the discussion process and the deliberation. It was a very interesting and moving experience at times to go through the hearing process. Each member of the committee brought his or her own view and own experience to the table in discussing how the bill would work out in a practical way. 
A number of changes were made as have been outlined by the Minister of Justice and others in respect of how the mechanics of what is written down in black and white will work operationally when implemented by the police. A number of points made by the previous speaker Lianne Dalziel were a fairly true reflection of those submissions. One of the most interesting points was the conflict between those groups representing women that were making the argument that the views of victims—and frequently the victims are women—should be considered as to whether they consent to the imposition of a protection order and those who argued that those women should not make that decision on the basis that a number of them are disempowered and therefore they will not or cannot make such decisions. At the same time it is disempowering for women to have these decisions made without their discussion or consent. Initially the second point was made by Women’s Refuge but as I understand it at the end of the process it was happy with the law as it has now been written and accepted that the courts are the best place to make the decision. 
Some other changes were made and one that I was particularly pleased with was the ability for the police to issue a police safety order even when they make an arrest. In the bill as introduced a police safety order could not be issued if the offender was arrested for an offence disclosed on the property. That change is a good move and it reinforces the fact that a piece of paper will never protect anybody when there is a mixture of alcohol emotions inflammatory comments or whatever occurs around domestic violence. A piece of paper will not stop anything but it flags in advance where these things may happen. It brings them to the immediate attention of the authorities that will have to intervene—and thank goodness they do. 
A number of points have been made too about the previous Labour Government’s bill in respect of domestic violence. A number of its provisions that are uncontentious were not brought forward within this bill. I can understand the reasons why those comments have been made. I am pleased the committee drew this situation to the attention of the Minister who quite quickly has brought before the House a second bill. The undertaking has also been given that that bill will come before the same committee so in many ways we will not have to hear the same evidence twice or at least the members of the committee who go through the hearing process will have at the front of their minds the concerns already raised. A number of the submitters on this bill had appeared before the select committee considering the previous bill so there was a common ground and understanding of the issues involved. 
The extension to 5 days from 3 days for the duration of the police safety orders was a bit contentious. My personal view is that it could have been longer. It could have been 5 working days or it could have gone to 7 days. We have isolated areas around our country where legal counsel is not easily available and where it is not easy for people to avail themselves of these services especially if they have been through a violent domestic situation. A number of particularly tragic examples of these events occur in quite remote circumstances. If we think about where we have had explosions in family violence that have resulted for instance in multiple deaths or particularly tragic deaths we can see that a lot of them are in communities that are a long way from anywhere as far as accessing legal counsel is concerned and the demographics of those involved are that they frequently are those who do not have access to finances to be able to contact and deal with lawyers quickly or to access them by way of transport. 
I bring those points to the House. I thank the committee again for the process. I thank the officials for the advice they gave us. Most of all I thank those people who took the time to make such valid submissions before the committee. I commend the bill to the House. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to stand to take a call in the second reading of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill. I am very pleased that at last it is being debated. I will go through the positive parts of the bill of which there are many but I also join my colleague Lianne Dalziel in voicing my disappointment that the bill is not as comprehensive as Labour’s Domestic Violence Reform Bill which is currently on the Order Paper albeit towards the bottom. 
I note that the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill does not comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child—an issue that was raised during its first reading. With Labour’s bill we had the ability to change the definition of a child from someone under 17 years to someone under 18 years thereby increasing the age limit at which minors can apply for protection orders in their own right. That would have given a lot of younger people so much more protection. Along with Lianne Dalziel and my Labour colleagues I am very disappointed that it has not been incorporated into the bill that the Minister has signalled will have a reading in the House hopefully very soon. 
It may seem a little negative to talk about this but domestic violence is a cruel vicious situation. Every day that we cannot provide enhanced protection and safety is a day too long. I note that the Justice and Electoral Committee reported back the bill on 29 June 2009. I along with my colleagues certainly would have been very happy if the bill had gone to the top of the Order Paper so that it could have been enacted by this stage. It saddened me to see urgency taken last week on the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill which with no ill effect could have had enhanced debate and closer scrutiny. It was a bill on which there was not a meeting of minds and there should have been more debate on it and the public should have had a chance to have more input. I think putting the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill through under urgency would have served a far greater purpose but that did not happen. Certainly as I said before I am very pleased that this bill is now before the House and is being progressed and I look forward to further protection for victims in the future. 
This bill is about safety. It ensures that a violent situation is calmed as soon as humanly possible. It is absolutely untenable that in situations of domestic violence it frequently is the victim and young family members who have to leave the family home for their security and safety. I pay tribute as Chester Borrows did before me—and he did an excellent job chairing the Justice and Electoral Committee—to the people who came and spoke to the committee. An impression of “like minds like message” came through from the vast majority of submitters. I think there were over 20—from memory 22 or 24—oral submissions the majority of which were very very clear and very very consistent in their support for the bill. Many submitters raised adding the provisions relating to particularly the protection of children that are in Labour’s bill. We took advice on that matter but unfortunately those provisions were outside the scope of this bill. But the vast majority of submitters were very very clear that this bill did give enhanced protection and the sooner the better. 
A minority of submitters and I stress that it was a very small number of submitters felt that it was unreasonable for the partner to be removed on the chance that issuing the police safety protection order may in the future be deemed to be an unjustified action on the part of the police—I should have said police safety order; we had numerous discussions about what the order would be called. But the members of the committee had all agreed by the end that that view was not reasonable and from the outset I certainly did not hold it. It seemed to me to be completely unreasonable if one balanced the very rare potential instance where an order is given and it is then deemed inappropriate—and I do not believe that would happen—with the paramount issue of the safety of predominantly women and children and removing the risk of extreme violence against them. That far outweighs any argument about an unjustified protection order. I am really pleased that all the members of the committee agreed with that position. 
There was also considerable discussion about the 5-day duration of the order versus a shorter period. A few submitters wanted to see the period extended in case it was not long enough to allow for public holidays. Again a very small number of submitters believed that 5 days was too long and that 3 days would have been preferable. There was complete agreement from all committee members—and I thank the officials who gave us very sensible advice—that the period should be up to 5 days. That is the most sensible way to go if we are concerned to ensure safety and security. 
We also had considerable discussion on the need to explain the protection order. After a protection order has been issued it must be made very very clear to the person—and generally it is a man—what the order means and what the consequences are of failing to comply with it. We improved the bill by including a requirement to attend a stopping violence programme and by specifying the consequences of failing to attend that programme. 
I believe that the committee worked very constructively and that the changes that have been made have considerably improved the bill. I am very pleased about that. I take this opportunity to again acknowledge all of the submitters who came and told us in many instances incredibly painful stories about their own personal situations of stress anxiety and fear. To do that was a very brave act. I think this debate is a great opportunity in this House to acknowledge women and families who have gone through that situation and to acknowledge the support that is given to them by the refuges and other organisations that work in this field giving support to victims of violent crime. Those organisations ensure that those victims are supported and have a safe haven. 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I rise to support the second reading of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill. As the Green Party indicated in the first reading debate we are prepared to support the bill. We have no serious difficulties with it. The general thrust of the bill is entirely laudable. It reflects two of the Green Party’s four main principles—namely social responsibility and non-violence. 
Let us acknowledge that we are a violent nation. We chalk up an average of 222 violent family events each day which is one every 7 minutes. The purpose of the bill is therefore to ensure that a vulnerable partner in a domestic relationship—whether it is a woman or as we heard from our ACT colleague earlier a man as it is in many cases—can receive greater protection through enhanced police procedures. 
Specifically we support the proposed power for the police to issue a police order on the spot. That should avoid the delays involved hitherto in extending protection to a vulnerable partner at a time of crisis. We agree that the Justice and Electoral Committee’s recommendation to use the term police safety order in order to distinguish it from a similar order from the Family Court is well placed. We think as the committee recommends that 5 days is the appropriate period for such an order to be in force. 
We support the altered powers for a constable to issue a safety order for the proper protection of a vulnerable partner even if there is insufficient evidence to justify an arrest. We support the extension of an order to encompass previous partners as well as current partners. We support the change that will remove the need for a constable to obtain the explicit consent of a vulnerable partner before issuing a safety order. Too often the understandable reluctance or even hesitancy to give such consent has hampered not only the interests of justice but also the imperative of immediate protection for a potential victim. We also support the option for the criminal courts to consider a protection order for a victim at the time of sentencing the offender. 
For all of those reasons the Green Party will support the bill going through to the third reading. The bill is a step forward in strengthening the domestic protection regime. Whether the bill goes far enough is another matter. I note the lament of the Labour members in its minority report that at least six elements in Labour’s original bill—the Domestic Violence Reform Bill which is also on the Order Paper but so far has been allowed to languish—have not been included in the Government’s legislation. The Government says that it will address such issues separately but it has not met its intended deadline yet. 
We certainly believe that it is incumbent on the Government to proceed on the other issues which reflect considerable work done by the previous Labour Government in consultation with concerned groups. We look forward to seeing the fruits of that endeavour in the form of further draft legislation by the Government hopefully before the year is out. Thank you. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 Domestic violence is one of those bizarre features of the system of gross domestic product in which the more GDP rises the better the overall health and well-being of the nation is assumed. If we were to examine the trends in domestic violence one would think our well-being assured in terms of the consistent rising impact of the violence statistics yet it is killing us. On average every year 14 women 10 children and six men die as a result of family violence. 
The 2006 figure for family violence - related offences represents a 54 percent increase on 2001. In real terms the figure rose from 21205 offences in 2001 to 32675 offences in 2006. In the notifications to Child Youth and Family for those same years there was a massive increase of 161 percent rising from 2636 notifications to 68819 notifications in 2006. In the courts prosecutions for males assaulting females increased 30 percent from 3307 in 2000 to 4285 in 2006 while in women’s refuges the number of services and programmes delivered to women and children experienced a 55 percent increase between 2002 and 2006 from 18628 services and programmes to 28845 services and programmes in 2006. 
Those statistics make up the cold hard face of violence that diminishes the potential of our families and damages the optimism for generations to come. It is the ugly reality of life for far too many New Zealanders and it is the call for help that we cannot ignore. There is no question that the Maori Party will stand in the way of any interventions that might help to protect the safety of women and children and the decency of life that every family deserves. Let us face it—there is a lot that can be done. 
One of the most disturbing of the 66 submissions received by the Justice and Electoral Committee was from Heather Henare of the National Collective of Independent Woman’s Refuges. Its information in direct contrast to the rising volumes of domestic violence incidents revealed the declining number of applications for protection orders. The collective advised the committee that women who have experienced violence are losing faith in the system due to the cost; due to the difficulty in obtaining protection orders; due to the notice order and because of the failure to follow up arrest and prosecute breaches of protection including non-attendance at respondent programmes which means the orders do not work to protect women. The collective also noted that psychological abuse is not taken seriously when granting a protection order following up breaches determining the care of children and discharging orders. These are all serious issues and ones that require further consideration than this bill is capable of. 
The Human Rights Commission also endorsed this view noting the research and the recent review of the Domestic Violence Act report that improvements are needed to ensure that the Act is implemented to its full effect. This view is endorsed by a recent report entitled  
Living at the Cutting Edge: Women’s Experiences of Protection Orders 
. The issues identified in the report suggest that the Domestic Violence Act 1995 has failed to realise its promise. Interestingly very few of the key informants in that report have problems with the Act as it is written. Overwhelmingly the analysis of the case studies and decisions reflects not inadequate legislation but inadequate implementation. The key problem has been getting protection orders upheld by the police and the courts. Quite simply putting more laws in place will not address the problems with implementing the law. If we were to think that this bill is the one-stop shop to solve all issues relating to domestic violence we would be wrong. But it is a step along the way. 
The key initiatives that will be advanced with this legislation are in relation to protection orders and in particular the introduction of on-the-spot police orders which can be made where there is insufficient evidence of an offence to make an arrest but where police believe domestic violence is occurring. This is an intervention that has been widely supported across the land. We all know that with incidents of violence delay can be deadly. The problem with protection orders to date is that victims must apply to the court for orders and often do not because of fear of repercussions because of cost because of a lack of trust in the system and because in the cold light of day the process seems to be another hurdle acting against the desire for peace no matter what the price. So we applaud the move to issue immediate temporary protection orders which will have the effect of removing the alleged offender from the home for a period of up to 5 days. Our caucus was absolutely unanimous in our support for this initiative which in effect removes the problem from the home. 
I remember the advice of Moana Jackson at the whanau support workshop held at Hopuhopu last year. His view was “Stop the hurt explore the reason deny the presumption and address the causes”. Outsiders often look at situations of family violence and express frustration even contempt at the way in which family members will continue to return to the family home and be accepted within the folds of family—the family in which gross violence has occurred. In my work with Te Ratonga Ture and with Women’s Refuge I know it was common for women to return seven or eight times to a violent situation before enough was enough. The point is that these women love their partners. It is the violence they hate. The same thing can be said for families who welcome home an offender. Men who have come home straight from prison after serving a sentence for violent assault are embraced as fathers and husbands despite the fear and devastation created from their lack of control. We support the move to implement police-issued protection orders which have the effect of removing the problem from the home in order to allow the hurt to stop and to allow time and space to explore the reason. We also support the intention to make it an offence to contravene a protection order and believe that a breach can lead to an immediate arrest. This must be explicit in the legislation. 
This bill achieves progress in amending the Domestic Violence Act 1995 the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Bail Act 2000. It strengthens the response of the police and the courts to acts of domestic violence in order to enhance safety of whanau and victims and this is a good thing. But we must not stop just at this legislation in isolation of the wide-ranging approach we can take and all should take to stop family violence in our midst. I was greatly moved by the wise advice of one of my aunties from Christchurch Aunty Kiwa Hutchens who told the select committee: “Kaua e utua ki te kino me haere ano i te rangimaria.” Do not punish wrongdoing with unkindness; seek peaceful solutions. 
We are obviously concerned about the potential damage to our tamariki and our whanau if our children are to be separated for any great time from their caregivers their mothers and their fathers. I am mindful too of the guidance from the Nelson Rape and Sexual Abuse Network which reminded us that violence is not likely to be an isolated incident but rather a part of a long and insidious build-up generally over months if not years where the alleged offenders slowly but surely through threat fear and other tactics including actual physical or sexual violence isolate the women and the hidden victims the children. We must take a proactive and comprehensive approach that supports and nurtures family and whanau to take collective responsibility for each other. We call that approach whanau ora. It is singularly the most significant step this Government can take to create futures free of harm. Finally then the Maori Party will support this bill as a move towards whanau ora. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to stand here this afternoon and take a call on the second reading of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill. First I acknowledge all the hard work that the Justice and Electoral Committee did in bringing this bill back to the House and the adjustments it made through that process. The select committee was chaired by Chester Borrows MP for Whanganui who is unique in the experience he brought to that committee. He was a policeman—a detective—for 20 years and then he was a lawyer. The experience and first-hand knowledge he brought to this bill was pretty significant as was his understanding of how domestic violence impacts on individuals and the victims themselves. He has seen so many of those victims himself having gone into houses as the first policeman on the job. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a victim of domestic violence—I really cannot. It must be a horrific experience. The fear must be incredible and to live like that day after day and year after year as some of these women and their children do is pretty incredible. It is hard to believe that in New Zealand there are 80000 domestic violence cases a year. That is just incredible in a population of 4 million. Over 200 women and children have been killed as a result of domestic violence over the last 12 years and in fact in the last month two women have been killed by domestic violence. That is absolutely appalling and there is no excuse for that in New Zealand. 
This legislation is not a silver bullet because there is no silver bullet for domestic violence. There has to be a holistic approach one that looks at all parts of our society. It is not just the responsibility of the Government to have an answer to this; people need to take responsibility for what is happening in their homes their families’ homes their neighbours’ homes and the communities they live in. If we all tackle this issue together then we will start making some difference. It is not just that; the Government has a responsibility to those women and children and it has to ensure that when they are in trouble or when there is violence and the police are called the police can do something. That is what this legislation is about. It is about giving the police some more tools in their tool box to make more of a difference. 
I believe that the big part of this legislation is the on-the-spot protection orders. They allow the police to go in and give a protection order to women and their children on the spot for a period of up to 5 days against the person who is doing the domestic violence. Also the police themselves can make the decision that the protection order needs to be put in place because many women and their families are totally dominated by the males in those houses and would not do that out of fear. I understand that in 2005 this issue was discussed in some workshops and there was a strong view from Women’s Refuge that the police should not be giving protection orders and we should not be increasing those powers because police do not enforce them—they are so busy doing other police duties and actually need to enforce the protection orders that are out there. But I think it is good we are increasing protection orders and it is also good that we are increasing police numbers to ensure that those orders are enforced. 
I wanted to take a short call on this today. I believe that this is strong legislation that will help women and their children out there and the other legislation that will come through later in the year will go hand in hand with this. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 On Saturday New Zealand celebrated 116 years since women won the right to vote in this country and it was a hard fight to win. I have been sitting here listening to the debate on the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill and wondering whether Kate Sheppard and the other suffragettes would have anticipated that some 116 years later these issues would be before our Parliament. I imagine that they thought that having women involved in the political process able to vote and able to influence political decision making leading to women gaining roles in Parliament and becoming Ministers of the Crown would enhance the status of women and perhaps level the power balance and influence ideas about how women would be treated in New Zealand. I imagine that they would be somewhat devastated to listen to the debate we must have in this House today. 
I think it shows just how far we still have to go in terms of levelling the power imbalance. Although I do not want to diminish any sort of domestic violence whatsoever no matter who is involved the amount of domestic violence targeted towards women is much greater than that targeted towards men. It is a fact that not only the numbers but also the nature of the violence targeted towards women has more extreme outcomes than it does for men. Therefore I am pleased to rise to speak in support of the second reading of this bill because this is an issue that sadly primarily affects women in this country. 
When we hear as we did from the Green Party that there is one domestic violence event every 7 minutes in this country it is very sobering. It is shocking but I venture that perhaps there is a silver lining in that the police are called to a domestic violence event once 7 minutes in this country. I do not imagine for a minute that domestic violence was not a feature of New Zealand in Kate Sheppard’s day. I imagine that almost certainly it was a feature but that it was OK for that to happen in those days. 
The very successful campaign that has been running here in New Zealand with a range of community leaders saying that domestic or family violence in any form is not OK has I believe made a real difference. It has meant that women and others in family violence situations have been able to blow the whistle. It has given them the confidence to stand up and say that what is happening behind closed doors should not be happening and they are calling the correct authorities to have those issues dealt with. 
This bill is important in dealing with that situation in that it gives some more tools to those people primarily women who are in that situation. I particularly want to commend this bill for bringing forward the concept of police safety orders being able to be issued basically on the spot by police for issues of domestic violence. It has long seemed quite ironic to me that in a situation where domestic violence has occurred or where a woman more often than not has been beaten up it is the perpetrator—the violent offender—who gets to stay in the family home. The victim the woman who was being beaten is the one who has had to leave the family home sometimes with her children in tow. She is the one who has had all the inconvenience caused to her and who has moved out of that situation and into a women’s refuge. 
I do not suggest for a minute that that will not continue to happen because of course the primary concern is about the safety of the victim. In many circumstances the choice of the woman will be to seek refuge in a place apart from the family home but this gives another option for women—to choose to have the violent offender removed from the family home. It seems ironic that in a domestic violence situation the perpetrator of the violence gets to stay in the family home get up in the morning shower and go to work as if nothing has happened. It is the victim who has been completely removed from her natural environment and who has to make that readjustment through no fault of her own. I think this gives another option to that situation. 
It has also been really sad to hear through the course of this debate about the number of submitters who were concerned to increase the amount of days that the police safety order would continue in force. I was not on the select committee but having listened to the debate this afternoon it seems to me that many of the submitters were concerned about extending those days because of public holidays. That is a very sad commentary on what is happening in some of those homes. I think those submitters quite rightly pointed out that there was a spike in domestic violence around times that ought to be happy times for our families: public holidays Christmas New Year’s Eve and those sorts of celebrations. In fact what ends up happening as anyone who works in this field knows is that incidents of domestic violence go up at a time when our families should be happy in their own company. Although I applaud those submitters for bringing forward that issue and arguing for the extension I think the reasons why they brought that forward are a very sad reflection on our society. 
I think that this bill could have been stronger and it could have gone further. If this Government had picked up the work that the previous Government had done—in fact the work that is still sitting on the Order Paper and which the Government could choose to pick up right now—then we could have had an even better bill before Parliament and I would have felt even better about getting up and supporting this bill at its second reading. The big gap in this bill concerns the information sessions on gaining protection orders. Of course protection orders still remain and they should be pursued by people who are in a situation where the police safety order has already been put in place. But they still need information in order to learn how they can pursue a protection order which is not such a temporary measure and which can give them even more protection in that situation. 
This bill has also removed an issue that Labour wanted to pursue which was that victims would also receive advice on social assistance that they could seek in that situation. This is all about education and education is about empowerment. Because domestic violence is about power and control empowerment of the victim I believe is fundamental in helping to resolve this issue. 
I hope the Government will also reflect on what it has done in the education sector which I think will take us backwards in this area. Some of the cuts to adult and community education funding actually take us backwards in this area. For example in Hamilton the Alternatives to Violence Project is a very very good programme that has worked with violent offenders to get them to change their views and behave in a different way. It is one of the programmes that will be cut as a result of the adult and community education funding cuts. Yesterday I visited the Christchurch Women’s Centre and the staff there told me that every single one of the programmes that they held in order to empower women and raise women’s self-esteem were being cut through the adult and community education cuts. I think the Government should really reflect on not only this legislative measure but also the empowerment of women and what that means for reducing and stopping domestic violence because it seems to be going backwards on that front at the moment. 
As domestic violence increases in this country—or at least as the notifications increase—additional pressure is put on social services. So again I take this opportunity to ask the Government to reflect on its decision to stop the Pathways to Partnership funding which goes to those organisations that are at the front line in dealing with domestic violence. Those organisations are dealing with these increased numbers but the rug has been pulled out from underneath them with the cutting of funding for Pathways to Partnership which ensured that they had sustainable services going forward. 
In conclusion I support the words of my leader Phil Goff who said at our conference: “I will make it a priority to improve the quality of life that kids will have. Labour will support good parents and we will expect parents to do their bit too. I want more children to grow up in stable loving families with good parents with a steady income a good home and health care when they need it.” That is the sort of vision that we need going forward. We need to not just say it in words but also support it with the programmes that we are prepared to fund. We need to support it by supporting the social agencies that are working in this area. Certainly this legislation is one of the pathways but the speakers— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but her time has expired. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the second reading of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill. I am happy to say that ACT members fully support this bill and that we will be voting for it right through. This bill is another tool in the Police’s kit for dealing with serious offenders. Let us be clear that when we are dealing with domestic violence every offender is a serious one. 
In my short time here I have tried hard and until my naivety and greenness go I will continue to try to find something to agree on with speakers on the other side of the House. I came into the House to hear Ms Moroney’s speech and it is not hard to agree with something that she said: the ability to issue on-the-spot protection orders will be a godsend to victims of abuse. Sadly though I do have to disagree with Ms Moroney to an extent in that she focused very much on violence against women and suggested I think that it was always a male on female thing. 
In my first speech on this bill I touched on my own family situation and I thought long and hard about whether to do that again and I decided that I would. My own family situation was one in which there was very little violence but the violence that there was was from my mother. I recently saw a poster at my daughter’s school. I cannot remember the exact wording but the gist of it was that psychological abuse is abuse too. If something like this bill had been in place in 1973 it would have been my mother who would be removed from the home and who would be subject to on-the-spot protection orders. 
I can recall as a child the police being called to the house quite frequently normally by my mother. The police would get there and listen to the sorry story while the children were sadly also listening. The police never arrested my father; it would have been an injustice if they had done so. I say that now as a man of 51 but it was obvious to me then as a young child of 8 or 9. My mother was an evil toxic woman. She subjected my siblings to a toxic environment that continues to affect all of us to this day to some degree or other. Sadly I have very personal knowledge of the reality that abuse as a broad term is not always a male on female thing. 
This bill gives the police more flexibility to deal with those crimes or those situations through the issuing of on-the-spot protection orders. As I said in my first reading speech a police officer on the scene—as I saw as a child—will often be a better judge of a situation than a judge hearing an affidavit written by lawyers who have been coaching the deponent. Anyone in this House who is a lawyer who has practised in a firm that has a family law department will know very well the truth of what I am saying. Frequently affidavits not only by women contain words that the deponent cannot pronounce let alone spell. Allowing a qualified constable to assess a situation to determine whether there is a threat to someone’s safety and to act to mitigate that threat cannot be other than a good thing. 
I agree that today my own situation would still be a minority and that sadly it is probably mostly men who are guilty of this behaviour. They say there are two sides to every story and perhaps in some situations an order that requires either party but usually the male to be absent from the house for a while would be a better way of handling it than an arrest. I think in the last 20 years the police have moved very strongly and firmly to a situation where if there is any real damage done particularly physical damage arrests are made and I do not think anyone would or should disagree with that. 
I note that electronic messages are also included in protection orders and that has to be a good thing also. It removes the ability of offenders to exploit a loophole and harass their victims through mediums that are becoming more and more mainstream. Just in the very short time I have been in this House I have heard of Twitter which thankfully I have no knowledge of how to use and I do not intend to try but it is an illustration of how things are moving in that regard. 
Another important change that ACT firmly supports is the widening of the scope of the bill to include partners from previous relationships. Sometimes breaking up with someone does not put an end to the violence and abuse and I am glad that the bill now provides protection from those who simply will not let go. In a similar vein being able to issue on-the-spot protection orders without the consent of the victim is another necessary and positive amendment and there I think the speakers from the other side of the House epitomised by Ms Moroney have it 100 percent right. Sadly the victims who are intimidated whether emotionally or physically into forgiving the abuser are probably mostly if not always women. From the outside looking in it may make no logical sense but clearly often it is too easy for the victim to be intimidated or emotionally blackmailed into allowing violence and abuse to continue. 
I am disappointed though that the police are still not allowed to issue protection orders against children. I was reading my first reading speech this morning and noted a line in it that may have been thought to be facetious. I said that many of my 16-year-old Tongan relatives are larger than me and that is just the female ones. But that is in fact correct. “Children” these days can be pretty darned big. In my youth the word “child” conjured up images of meekness and innocence. Of course that is not true in all cases—perhaps then and certainly not now. It is a sad reality that teachers now report children of 15 or 16 coming up to them “in their face” as the youth say and saying: “You can’t hit me but I can hit you.” and normally adding an epithet at the end. This kind of bullying happens in the home also and I find it strange that both Labour and National have been eager to ban light smacking but will not do anything to protect parents from being hit themselves. 
Overall though both I personally and the ACT Party are pleased to vote for this bill and its provisions. As I have said it gives the police greater ability and power to deal with serious issues of domestic violence—and they are serious. In turn I hope this will give greater ability and power to victims to get away and to offenders to break their offending cycle. Thank you. 
HEKIA PARATA (National) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Ano nei nga mihi ki te Whare. Tena koutou katoa. I rise to support the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill 2008. The bill will enable the police to issue on-the-spot protection orders for a period of up to 5 days. It will ensure that the safety of children in a domestic relationship with the alleged victim and/or offender is more explicitly considered when setting the conditions of police bail. It will provide that when the criminal courts are sentencing a defendant who has been convicted of a domestic violence offence they must consider whether a protection order should also be made on behalf of the victim. The bill will repeal the criteria for arrest without warrant for breach of a protection order and it will amend the structure and penalties for the offence of breach of a protection order. 
As my colleague Katrina Shanks said earlier this is not a silver bullet. But it is starting to take us along a path of giving real practical attention to an everyday scourge on the population of New Zealand. Women and children are being beaten and killed in homes—homes that are supposed to be the sanctuary of families—up and down this country every day and we must take urgent steps to stop this occurring. We must create an environment not only where the police must step in but also where we as citizens of this country consider it unacceptable for this to go on in our society. 
This bill is part of a series of measures that we as a Government are committed to taking—not just talking about dealing with this issue but actually getting on and doing something practical. The police are called to 80000 domestic violence cases a year and over 200 women and children have been killed in domestic incidents in the last 12 years in New Zealand. This is an utter shame on the record of our country. We call ourselves civilised while we continue to allow domestic violence to occur in our country. We must take urgent and real steps to stop it. 
I take the point that my colleague David Garrett made today. Domestic violence is not always men against women but in most cases it is. Whether it is men against women or women against men domestic violence is unacceptable. The act is unacceptable in itself and it is certainly unacceptable for the heritage and the legacy that it imposes upon children that they carry into their adulthood. The cost is not just the bruises the broken bones and the blood shed by the victims at the scene. Domestic violence as my colleague said goes on to haunt the lives of people who have experienced it and that too is a cost on our society and a shame that we should put to rest. We must take action against it. 
Although the number of reported assaults has gone up by 21 percent since 1998 Family Court statistics show that the number of protection orders has decreased by 30 percent. Not surprisingly many victims simply do not apply to the court for a protection order either because of the associated delays and costs or because of a fear of repercussions. The on-the-spot protection orders give victims the opportunity of 5 days to be rescued from the situation they are in so that they are able to take time to think about the course of action that might be available to them. As our colleague Sue Moroney on the other side of the House mentioned it is an utter and bitter irony that usually it is the offender who gets to stay in the home and it is the women and children who have to seek refuge elsewhere. It is important that we lay the responsibility of the assault at the foot of the perpetrator and that we make it safe for women and children to stay in the only place they know. They should not have to struggle with being in strange surroundings while also dealing with the bruising and the battering that accompanies domestic violence. 
While I am on my feet I would like to pay tribute to Women’s Refuge which by the way is opening its new office here in Wellington in a couple of days’ time for all the work it does every day 24/7 up and down the country. This organisation and other such organisations are to be applauded for the work they do in such a sensitive area. I believe that when it is passed this legislation will give greater support to the work those organisations do for women and children. 
We think that empowering the police to take immediate action will ensure potential victims are protected until the courts are able to fully deal with the matter. In turn it is incumbent upon the police to treat breaches of protection orders with the severity they deserve. This Government is working hard to bring down violence in our society but it cannot do so alone. The Government needs the help of all New Zealanders to lead by example to take personal responsibility for their actions and to report any incidents of violence to the police. 
I take up another point made by my colleague David Garrett. Violence is not just the actual act of physical assault upon another person which itself is unacceptable. Psychological and emotional violence is also equally unacceptable and is another area where when we see that occurring we need to stand up and take action. We need to create a culture of unacceptability of any kind of violence in our society so that legislation such as this and the police executing it become only one part of the equation. The actual taboo of allowing it to occur is something that all of us can be soldiers in the cause of. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I too am pleased to take a call on the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill and particularly as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee to comment on some of the recommendations and changes that have been made by the committee. 
I think all the speakers who have spoken before me have highlighted the importance of this bill. The statistics that we have heard reported are an indictment on this country and also an indictment upon all of us if we do not act in our roles as politicians and community leaders in doing what we can from a legislative perspective to address the issue of domestic violence. It is true that there have been 80000 recorded incidents of family violence per year and 39 percent of our homicides are related to family violence. This bill is intended to go some way towards acting as a preventive tool in addressing that issue. 
Before I continue I thank the officials who were involved with the work of the select committee particularly because the select committee chose to take a very pragmatic approach in the way it discussed the bill. Committee members wanted to know how it would work in practice and to test whether the various layers we were adding in would complicate the way this process would be used in a practical context. It was very important for instance that we had the input of the police and front-line workers to establish that we were going down the right path. Equally I acknowledge all of those who submitted to the select committee. Their submissions added the detail the knowledge the understanding and the perspective that we needed as members of the select committee to make sure that we were addressing all variations that manifest in domestic violence situations. I also thank very briefly the chair Chester Borrows. He managed the select committee well; we had robust discussion and most important he chaired it in a very constructive way. 
I want to highlight though those areas in which we in Labour continue to feel some disappointment and some disagreement with the Government on the way it has chosen to progress this particular part of what is a much wider package of policies to address the issue of domestic violence. I think we have lost an opportunity despite the assurances given by Minister Power—for instance in the application of the rules on age as they relate to children. We continue to advocate that the definition of a “child” be 18 and under as opposed to 17 and under. We have always pointed out that this is not only a consistency issue but an issue of international obligation. I find it ironic that Minister Power explained that the reason for the delay of the second bill the Child and Family Protection Bill was so that the Government could ensure that it used that opportunity to make sure the legislation was compliant with the optional protocol to the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child. Why then are we ignoring the fact that we are not compliant with that convention? It is entirely inconsistent that this is a reason to delay one bill but not on the other hand a reason to address an ongoing issue. We continue to call for that consistency. My second disappointment is as my colleague Lianne Dalziel pointed out the lost opportunity around the compulsion of addiction programmes. She has already highlighted the linkage between domestic violence and substance abuse. Again this was a prime opportunity to add an extra layer into this Government and this country’s policies on domestic violence. 
Having said all of that I think it might be helpful if I spend a little time going over some of the more significant changes and the issues that the select committee addressed in order to give some context particularly to those who later on will be implementing these new provisions in the field. The select committee chose to change the name of the safety orders that we were looking at which are brand new powers given to the police. We chose to call them police safety orders. We wanted the distinction to be very clear. We wanted to be clear that these are not long-term protection orders. We wanted to ensure that was clear also through highlighting the need for these orders to be explained at the time they are issued. I highlight again the importance of distinguishing between these orders and the longer-term orders. 
The length of the orders also consumed the select committee for quite some time. Previously Labour when in Government had looked at a period of 3 days. We resolved at the end of hearing all of the submissions from different organisations that up to 5 days was a better length of time. The primary reasons for that resolution were twofold. One was to ensure that women had the opportunity and the time to seek additional support advice and access to the courts if required if they wanted to put in place a more enduring order to ensure their protection. But also it was an acknowledgment of the fact that New Zealand is a rural and provincial country. Access to some of these services is limited particularly over weekends and public holidays as my colleague Sue Moroney has pointed out. The issues that we discussed around timing highlighted again for the committee that although the purpose of these new orders is to provide an intervention to provide a tool for prevention to allow a cool-off and to allow women to consider their options and seek further assistance there are still significant barriers for rural women in that regard. We discussed this with Women’s Refuge and it too acknowledged that there is a need for its service provision to be much broader and much wider and it is looking at ways to do that. I think this highlights that we do not just have legislative tools available to tackle this issue; we have community-based ones and they need our ongoing support if they are to plug the gaps that legislation can never fill. 
I want to cover off three other quick issues. They are addressed in the commentary on the bill by the select committee. One is the fact that the committee grappled with the issue of who these temporary protection orders could be issued against. We decided that for the sake of consistency we needed to amend new section 124B(1) to include partners from previous relationships. That brings this bill into alignment with the Domestic Violence Act and I think that is important. We also removed one of the conditions when issuing one of these temporary orders which was the word “immediate”. We felt that two words in this legislation—the words “immediate” and “serious”— were very imprecise and potentially very very subjective and may mean that there would be confusion for those constables issuing the orders which may mean they miss opportunities where in fact an order might be necessary. Let us be clear. When it comes to the police they will be the ultimate arbiters of who may receive these orders. They hold one of the most critical roles in the implementation of this legislation. We discussed as a committee the importance of the police having adequate training to identify aggressors and to identify whom it is most appropriate that these orders are issued against and in what situations. 
We have to remember that we are implementing here as a Parliament a preventive order. A crime in itself will not have been committed when one of these orders is issued; it is a very different tool. That fact provided the select committee with quite a lot of discussion around not only how we empower the police to make sure they get this right but also how we deal with the spin-off. How do we make sure this legislation is implemented properly when we are requiring the creation of offences—new offences—if the provisions of these orders are broken? Even if the police safety order is not issued for a criminal offence a criminal offence would be committed if there was non-compliance with that order. That was quite a tricky issue for us to deal with but I think we got it right. 
I finish by again highlighting that we cannot stop at legislative tools alone when we address issues of domestic violence. We have a long way to go and it will include further policy but also it must include further empowerment of those community groups working in our communities who are ultimately the ones ensuring that women in particular and children have the support they need to rid this country of domestic violence. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 With my arm in a sling I imagine I may look a little bit like a victim of domestic violence at this moment but I do not wish for one moment to make light of a very serious topic that touches on a disturbing feature of our society and perhaps even of our national identity. I sometimes worry that Alan Duff’s  
Once Were Warriors 
 is celebrated as a literary and cinematographic achievement in New Zealand without it being seen as the alarming reflection of the all-too-prevalent attitude that it was and is. Violence is not acceptable and too many New Zealanders live in fear of it. Yet a worrying aspect of our cultural identity often tolerates it and sometimes even encourages it in others. 
As others speakers have done I commend the officials and the Justice and Electoral Committee members who have worked hard on the bill. I also commend those who had the courage and the concern for others to make submissions on the bill. I did not have the privilege of hearing them but I always admire those who make the effort to submit to select committees especially when they do so on a topic so distasteful that for some I imagine it evoked awful memories and personal distress. 
As has been a feature of most of the new Government’s justice initiatives—and I am proud that there have been so many of them in our first 10 months in office—this bill again places the interests of victims at the forefront of our justice system with the ultimate aim of trying to reduce the number of victims in our society. I welcome the broad support for the bill that has been indicated by the speakers from various parties who have preceded me. 
It is sobering and dreadful to note that our police as we have heard from previous speakers are called to about 80000 domestic violence incidents each year. That figure in a country of just 4.5 million people defies belief and is truly horrific. It is a shocking and disgraceful statistic. I have no doubt that alcohol and drug abuse are closely linked to much of the problem so I am very pleased that this House will soon be turning its attention again to those matters too. I am holding public meetings on proposed liquor reforms in the Hamilton West electorate this month and I know that the police representatives who are speaking at those meetings will be tracing the link between alcohol abuse and domestic violence. 
For too many New Zealanders the most dangerous place they can be in is their own homes. In the last year for which statistics are available violence accounted for approximately 39 percent of homicides 42 percent of kidnappings and abductions 44 percent of grievous assaults and 64 percent of serious assaults. I pay a sincere tribute to those who work at the front line of this issue on a daily basis whether running women’s refuges or working for the Salvation Army the police the Child Youth and Family agency or one of the many other wonderful support groups and agencies in our society that are there to help in the most challenging and distressing of circumstances. I say “Kia kaha!” and offer my warm thanks to each and every one of them. 
I endorse the concerns and convictions of those who have spoken before me in this debate. As my colleagues Katrina Shanks and Hekia Parata noted earlier there are no easy solutions and a holistic approach is vital to make a real difference. But we can and must all play a part in saying no to domestic violence and in modelling the type of behaviour that impressionable young people need to see if they are not to go down the awful path of intimidation bashing and an absence of self-control that this issue throws so sharply into the national spotlight. Let us stand united in this House against this scourge. In passing this bill we will certainly be taking a significant step in that direction. 
Bill read a second time. 
Immigration Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 15 September. 
Part 5 Refugee and protection status determinations 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take part in the debate on Part 5. I was not a member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in the last parliamentary term. I think this part might be a little bit contentious. But first of all I will give some background to Part 5 and talk about the types of refugees that New Zealand does accept. 
The most common route is through the United Nations quota system. New Zealand accepts 750 refugees each year. These refugees are vetted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and on their arrival they spend several weeks at Mangere where they are orientated and have further checks. As refugees accepted through the quota system those people are automatically given permanent residence. 
As a signatory to the 1951 United Nations convention and the 1967 protocol on the status of refugees New Zealand is obliged to consider all claims for refugee status or political asylum. The second group of refugees are asylum or convention refugees who claim refugee status after they arrive in New Zealand at the border or when their temporary permit expires. There are an estimated 300 asylum seekers per year and of those who go through the review or appeal process approximately 50 percent would be accepted. Many of these people arrive at our borders having destroyed all documentation so proving who they are and the situation in the place where they have come from can be very difficult and time consuming. However while they are making a claim for refugee status and are waiting to be verified they are able to use the public health service their children go to school and they are entitled to benefits. 
In New Zealand all claims are considered by the refugee status branch of the New Zealand Immigration Service. If a claim is unsuccessful there is an appeal process. People can lodge an appeal against the New Zealand Immigration Service decision to the Refugee Status Appeals Authority or RSAA which is an independent body. In fact there are four review bodies: the Refugee Status Appeals Authority the Removal Review Authority the Residence Review Board and the Deportation Review Tribunal. It is important to note that all four appeal processes will be put into one body called the Immigration and Protection Tribunal thus making it a much simpler process for all. 
While refugees wait to be verified they can generally get a work permit while their claim is being determined. Asylum or convention refugees might be in New Zealand for 2 or 3 years before their status can be determined so it is quite a long process for many of them. Of course they have to prove that if they go back to their country of origin they could be persecuted tortured or under imminent threat of death. 
The third route is the family unification category which I will not go into. 
It is important to note that Part 5 does not affect our refugee quota programme at all—it is not about changing that—and that the bill upholds our international refugee and protection obligations. But a new framework is being created for refugee and protection decisions. It incorporates all the conventions and protocols that we subscribe to. In relation to the changes in this part that could be contentious it is important to note that often over the last few years we have had examples where asylum seekers have come to New Zealand are going through very much a good-faith process with the Immigration Service to prove their claims but start using the media to put out information whether or not it is correct. In that way it becomes a bad-faith process. They are able to say that because they are in the media now they cannot go back to their country of origin as the authorities there know that they are here and they will be persecuted if they go back. That approach is not acting in good faith. To give the Immigration Service some balance the bill now provides for an implied waiver of confidentiality in refugee and protection decisions where a refugee protected person or a claimant puts information about his or her case in the public realm. It provides the Crown’s perspective on an individual’s case. If individuals choose to go to the media the Crown should have the right of reply in that instance. None of this will be done lightly. It is important to stress that the process is a good-faith process and if individuals choose not to follow that good-faith process they will suffer the consequences. 
Another change on Supplementary Order Paper 32 provides that refugee and protection decisions can be released where it is in the public interest and it is safe to do so. Again this has not been done lightly at all. It would be a last resort. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Time is almost up so I do not think I will begin a speech. I might just tell a story. We are talking about refugees so I will tell a story about a couple of guys from West Africa. They got into trouble with their President because the President in their view had overturned a mayoral election in a major city so they started a general strike. The local cops and the special cops came after them. They fled to a neighbouring country. They got on board a ship to go to Europe or so they hoped and one of them was imprisoned and tortured in the meantime and escaped through a roof. But the ship never went to Europe. It went via the Philippines and Australia to Port Chalmers in Dunedin where they passed a note out through their little prison within the ship to a watersider who gave it to the  
Otago Daily Times 
. It was reported in the newspaper and then my phone started ringing. After a couple of days I got them off the ship which is just as well because it was due to go on to Korea Alaska and who knows where after that. They had been on this thing for about 3 or 4 months. 
They stayed at home with us for 4 years so we got a bit of an insight into what being a refugee looks like. They waited 22 months for their first interview under the New Zealand system. That is just a matter of fact. They were accorded refugee status and if you like I will tell members the rest of the story after dinner. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The Hon Pete Hodgson has roughly 3½ minutes left to speak and we look forward to hearing some more of the narrative. 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: Thank you Mr Chairman for your request that I complete the story and I will be happy to do so. So these two refugees from a West African nation having spent some years at our place then went on to make their way in the world. One of them went to Australia. He became a bank manager and in fact he was appointed as a bank manager about 3 months ago. He was married about 4 months ago in Melbourne and I was his best man. The other one stayed in Dunedin. He ended up as a caregiver of intellectually handicapped folk and in that role he is particularly able. He is just very good at his job. He married a woman from the same West African nation but that is another story. They have a child aged 17 months and that is another story as well but she was out at our home on Sunday. She is a delightful child but she wrecked the place and then went home again. I suppose the point of the story is that I and I am sure many other members have firsthand knowledge of refugees. 
I do not wish to finish the story on a bad note but it is a matter of fact that when I was trying to get them off the ship one weekend in early January 1997 I was trying to get hold of the necessary folk from the Immigration Service and I put to officials some questions to which I already had answers and I caught out an official misleading me. I said: “I’ve now caught you out. Now you have to help me.” I give no names and no pack drill; it is just what happened. As it happened we were lucky enough to find a French-speaking police officer who interviewed these guys put the right questions to them in terms of our international obligations and on that basis their lives were able to be restarted in New Zealand. 
So that will do for the story. It is a story that finishes with great success if indeed it has finished at all. It is a story about how New Zealand finally did gather round these guys and make them welcome and it is a story about how they have made their way in life and are now contributing back to society. Refugees and issues around refugees are like that. Those issues are not straightforward. It is hard stuff and it is hard stuff for all manner of reasons. I think every member of the House will have come across a refugee and will have gained some idea of the torment or difficulties they have moved through and the strength of purpose they have had to show. 
Of course the other side of the story is that from time to time people who claim refugee status do so spuriously and from time to time they try to rort our system and take advantage of us. Somehow we need law that has the wisdom to tell the difference between one type of refugee and another and that is not straightforward. I know that too from personal experience. So there is the end of my story. My story is a happy one and it is a story that I am sure this Committee will enjoy. 
But now I will resume my seat and we will come to the difficult issues around Part 5 and some of those will be opposed by members on this side of the Chamber for reasons that my colleagues I hope will explain. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 There have been some improvements made to Part 5 through the good work of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Some of the concerns raised by groups like Amnesty International were addressed. One of the things that was rather disconcerting was the wording of clause 122B which will now be omitted and which said that persons could claim protective status only if they could show they faced the risk of harm “in every part of his or her country” and that the harm “is not faced generally by other persons in or from that country.” Of course one of the things about persecution is that it is often quite targeted. If people live in Iran they are subject to some general persecution but if they are a Baha’i or a Christian convert from Islam they face specific persecution. The idea that some parts of the country are safe and some parts are not is a difficult one to apply. It is good that that provision was taken out of the bill by the select committee. 
The provision that is related to that clause is now in new clause 120 which states that the application of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to such claimants requires “the existence in the country concerned of a consistent pattern of gross flagrant or mass violation of human rights.” That just makes clear what is at issue here in terms of determining refugee status and the persecution that results from that status. 
Another improvement is made in clause 125 which states that if we send the person to another country where the refugee convention the convention against torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights apply there must be “appropriate processes”. The words “appropriate processes” were added so that countries cannot just sign up to these agreements; they have to actually put them into effect. There must be appropriate processes. So that is an improvement. 
In clause 127 there is an improvement in that a decision would be invalid if we sent a claimant to another country where they might be safe for example to Fiji Malaysia or wherever which was thought about for some asylum-seekers but that particular country then sent the person back to the country of persecution and we in New Zealand had some knowledge that that might take place. Clause 127 requires the refugee tribunal to really have a look at that. 
There is also an improvement in clause 133 which relates to the cancellation of a person’s recognition as a refugee or protected person. It is true that a lot of refugees embellish their stories and that there is a bit of falsehood in them and sometimes other members of the community slander them in one way or another so it is often a very murky business trying to establish exactly to what degree refugee claimants have lied. They may have gained refugee status and it is a big step to cancel their refugee status. This provision means that it is not just up to someone in the refugee status branch of Immigration New Zealand; the tribunal actually has a role in the cancellation of someone’s refugee status. That is a step forward. Those are some improvements and I appreciate that the committee has done good work along those lines. Thank you. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 When I became the Minister of Immigration under the previous Labour Government there were 3000 people waiting for their first-level determination for refugee status. That was because the refugee status provisions of the legislation of the time were being abused. They were being abused by people who came here from significantly Thailand probably more than anywhere else and who used the fact that there would be a lengthy delay for the consideration of their first-level claim—essentially for up to 3 years—to get a work permit to live and work in New Zealand for 3 years before they would be sent home for having no claim for refugee status. 
The issue is that that abuse did not mean every single person from Thailand who lodged a claim did not have a claim for refugee status. But 99.99 percent of those people did and the question is how we change a system to ensure that the one person in a million is able to have his or her case determined appropriately. That is what Part 5 does and that is why I am very supportive of the provisions in this part. It ensures that we have an opportunity to hear cases that are genuine claims for refugee status and at the same time to move on those people who are seeking to abuse provisions that are designed to offer protection for people who come to New Zealand. 
I should say before I move on from talking about what I inherited that when I stopped being the Minister of Immigration there were about 300 people waiting to have their claims heard. So we managed to make quite a significant difference in that period of time. 
I know that my colleague who has just resumed his seat has made the comment before that we should not be happy with the very low number of people who claim asylum when they come to New Zealand now but I am actually very happy about that because the rate of approval of refugee status on a percentage basis has gone up. That is because the vast majority of people who now claim are genuine claimants rather than those who sought to abuse the provisions of the law in the past. 
There has been a really good change in what we do when determining refugee status for those who do not come here under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees quota programme. But I am concerned about the changes that the Supplementary Order Paper makes and we have discussed this with officials. I understood that the Minister was going to provide us with some background on how the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had responded to these particular provisions. My understanding of our conversation was that there would be feedback to members of the Opposition about what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had said about these particular provisions. We had quite a lengthy discussion about it. I am looking around for my colleague the immigration spokesperson but that is my very clear recollection of the discussion that we had—or maybe it was with the officials rather than with the Minister. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Oh OK! 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: It is very important that we get some feedback on what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said about these particular provisions. 
The concern is when we make changes around the implied waiver of confidentiality and I know that it already exists. But having been a Minister in the position where there is no way that one can talk publicly about a particular case I am very worried that this is being put in the context of refugee decisions whereby the matter may be put in the public arena in a way where the waiver would operate perhaps in a different way from what the person has disclosed. So what we are told in this Supplementary Order Paper is that “the chief executive may publish the decision of a refugee and protection officer relating to the claim if the chief executive determines that in the circumstances of the particular case it is in the public interest to do so:” and “the Attorney-General may subject to any orders of the Tribunal publish the decision of the Tribunal relating to the claim if the Attorney-General determines that in the circumstances of the particular case it is in the public interest to do so.” 
The Refugee Status Appeals Authority already publishes decisions but it does so without any names or features of the case that might be attributed to a particular individual. This clause does not do that and I am deeply worried about the impact that that would have. Certainly in some of the cases that I can think back to at the time I was Minister we would not want to publish any aspects of the decision even if somebody had put his or her case in the public arena in a self-serving way and quite frankly how else would one want to have it put in the public arena. It may well be that by putting something in response to it that in fact it may jeopardise others and may put at risk other people as a result of the whole case being put in the public arena. 
I have had some concern that the way this bill has been drafted it does talk about publishing “the decision” and it may be in the interests of everyone that certain parts of a decision are put in the public arena rather than the whole of a decision. I am a little bit concerned about this. I think what people will not look at is the fact that these clauses are gone through in fine detail by lawyers representing individuals in particular cases and the dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s are very important in this regard. 
The other point is that at the moment this bill allows the publishing of a decision of a refugee and protection officer. I have real doubts about whether that is in the interests of anyone. The initial decision that is made is often not particularly detailed and it is often quite different information that is put before the Refugee Status Appeals Authority. I know that we have changed the question of appeals in this legislation to have a unified tribunal but I am a little bit worried about having this information in the public arena. The reason for it is that a lot of the protections that might exist at the tribunal level just simply will not exist at the level of a refugee and protection officer who is just sitting there in the room hearing the case with a particular individual. 
I am aware of a number of cases where the particular decision has gone in favour of the individual and that is fine but I would not really want anyone to have access to that information afterwards. I do not know what the public interest might be to have a particular case referred to. Perhaps the issue would have been raised by a politician who would want to take a populist position and oppose somebody having refugee status or the right to remain in New Zealand so the politician would go public with it. Does that then give the chief executive the right to put in the public arena a response to show that it was a responsible decision? If it was not the person who raised it in the first place do we think that that is a responsible position to take? 
I have real doubts about this area. I think that the law may say this but I do not think it will ever offer any particular comfort because there are so many risks associated with expressly or impliedly waiving the right to confidentiality. I have personally experienced that and I think it would be a high risk for this Government to go down the track of writing this into the law. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on Part 5 “Refugee and protection status determinations”. In doing so I want to make two statements of the obvious to start with. The first is that there has been a strong tradition of bipartisan support for refugee policy in New Zealand and largely for protection policy. Refugees are amongst the most vulnerable in our society. Many of them come here having endured things that most of us could not imagine and their challenge of adapting to a new society is made all the more difficult because of the scars that they bear from their former experience. 
Refugee policy is too easy as my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel has said to play politics with because the level of resources that is invested in the settlement of refugees is sometimes considerable. For that reason I am pleased that across the major parties we have maintained a steady quota of refugees and a good bipartisan approach to this policy; long may it continue. 
The second statement of the obvious is that much of Part 5 is very very positive. It represents the bipartisan contributions as I said in the Part 2 debate of several Ministers and Governments—that the history of this Act reflects the need to strengthen border protection and then to balance those protections with improved human rights protections. I will give a couple of examples but I do want to state at the outset that the Opposition is opposing the Supplementary Order Paper provisions for Part 5 and I will outline why. 
Several of the things that we think are very positive in terms of this part reflect the travel of this bill through first the executive and then the select committee. The bill extends protections to include the Convention Against Torture—the so-called CAT—and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This is something that both Governments have strongly supported and I welcome that. The select committee has further amended the wording of the bill so that as reported back the wording of the claims under the Convention Against Torture are more accurately representative of the convention and that is to be welcomed. The requirement has been removed that a protection claimant must show that torture arbitrary deprivation of life or cruel treatment is not faced generally by other persons in the claimant’s home country in order to be granted protection status. The burden of proof was always very high in that regard and on balance it is a good thing that that has been removed. 
Also in Part 5 there are changes to the roles of determination officers. A determination officer may not in the bill as introduced consider a subsequent refugee or protection claim unless satisfied that there has been a significant change in circumstances or that the change was not brought about by the claimant for the purpose of creating grounds for recognition. That has been amended by the select committee. A refugee and protection officer may not consider a subsequent refugee claim unless satisfied that those conditions apply but it now does not apply to a protection claim. That amendment liberalises the legislation somewhat and is to be welcomed. 
Now we get to the slightly difficult bits. First the bill as reported back from the select committee recommends that refugee and protection officers make first instance decisions on refugee and protection claims using classified information. That seems to me to be at odds with the structure of the more general provisions of the bill for the use of classified information which hold that where they are used without corroborating open source evidence a special process must be set up and special protections applied including an advocate and so forth. In the bill as introduced the protection existed that the use of classified information under this part had to be done by a tribunal. I fail to see the rationale why that has now been generalised to allow any front-line refugee and protection officer to gain access to and use classified information apparently without open source corroboration in the absence of those special procedures. I welcome the Minister’s clarification on that point. 
Now we come to Supplementary Order Paper 32 on Part 5. Taken as a group four important amendments are proposed in the Supplementary Order Paper which Labour believes have been generated mainly as a response to certain individual cases. Cases like the Ali Panah case and perhaps the Thomas Yadegary case—both cases are of Iranian Christians—spring to mind. We are firmly of the view that hard cases make bad law. It is just too clumsy to write into the principal Act a specific set of prohibitions that would get around the particulars of one or two difficult cases. This has all the hallmarks of ensuring that no one gets it over the department again like those two did. That is not a first-principles argument and I do not think it is worthy of the level of thought that has gone into other aspects of the bill. 
Here are the substantive problems with it. Firstly the Supplementary Order Paper states that an implied rather than a stated waiver of confidentiality in refugee and protection decisions exists where a refugee protected person or claimant puts information about his or her case in the public realm. There is not an express but an implied waiver. The difficulty with that is that there are many ways—Lord knows politicians should be aware of this—in which things can reach the public realm not always with a great deal of forethought sometimes without knowledge and certainly without malice. The problem with an implied waiver is that it is subjective. It is the officer of the department who is making a decision that something is implied and it lacks the due protections that should exist. 
If that clause did not raise enough risk on its own when it is put together with the clauses that follow in the Supplementary Order Paper refugee and protection decisions can be released. It is not OK for the claimant to put his or her information in any way in the public domain by accident or design without a waiver of his or her rights but it is perfectly OK for the department to do it. What is fair about that? The bill lacks protections and it impinges on human rights. 
The third clause states that where a foreign national creates the grounds for a refugee status claim in bad faith his or her claim can be declined for consideration. Who decides whether something is in bad faith? And how is bad faith defined precisely in the Act? I know who is making the judgment; the refugee and protection officer is making the judgment. I know—and I think I acknowledged in the earlier part of the debate—that departments of State are not perfect. Most of our individuals get up every day and they go to work to do the best job they can but they make mistakes. This is a subjective test. It is one thing to decline after consideration but this provision declines for consideration. If the refugee and protection officer gets out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning and thinks someone has acted in bad faith because the officer does not like the cut of his or her jib his or her case will not be heard. The case will be declined for consideration. Of course he or she could appeal but that is a difficult process and there is only one shot at it. That makes the protections so much weaker. 
The fourth clause states that it does not matter whether any number of people deemed to be the claimant’s friends or supporters stand up and say that the person is a wonderful person. Take the Yadegary case which I was involved with as a member of Parliament before having to recuse from it as a Minister. There was no end of people—if I recall correctly—in the Catholic Church who said that the young man was a genuine convert had been for years and was active in the church long before his case was held. This amendment states that that material could not be considered. Well how on earth is that fair when the original officer is making a subjective decision when the claimant has no rights because anything he or she says implies a waiver of confidentiality and when any supporter he or she may have cannot be taken in account because he or she is a priori excluded? 
I understand why these provisions are here but I think they go too far. They expose the department to risk and they expose the Minister of Immigration to unnecessary risk. I ask that the Minister in the chair Dr Jonathan Coleman reconsider the amendments. Labour will not be supporting the amendments to this part. Thank you. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I will carry on from the argument my colleague David Cunliffe made because he started off with the point that perhaps I had overlooked which was that hard cases make bad law. We have a really high risk of doing that with the series of changes to the refugee and protection provisions of the Immigration Bill. I think the Minister wants to make the changes for appropriate reasons so I am not having a go at the Minister for making these changes. But the changes will not act in the way he thinks they will and they will not offer protection in the kinds of examples we have already had put before us. The reason for that is that there is a high risk that other people could be involved in putting things in the public arena. There is a high risk that others could suffer the consequences of information being disclosed in the public arena within New Zealand. Of course any information that is publicised in New Zealand is automatically available internationally within seconds as we know in a whole lot of different areas. 
The Minister may have wanted to see changes in this area and they may not look like they are much of a change. We need to put it on the record that the bill as it stands states: “Nothing in this section applies to prevent the disclosure of the fact that a person is a claimant a refugee or a protected person or the disclosure of particulars in relation to a claimant a refugee or a protected person to the extent that the person concerned has expressly waived his or her right to confidentiality under the section;”. 
The Minister’s amendment to clause 140(5) in Supplementary Order Paper 32 has now been extended with “by his or her words or actions impliedly waived his or her right to confidentiality under this section.” The amendment is not needed. If the implication is of sufficient weight then it will fall within the express waiver of the right to confidentiality. Many court cases have upheld the right to do so. Adding “impliedly waived” gives incredible authority for the Minister of the day to just basically draw the line wherever he or she wants to draw the line. It is a very dangerous provision. 
I do not think it would stand up in any international jurisdiction. That is why we have been waiting to hear what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had to say about the provision. We find it hard to believe that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would say that it is a good change for us to be making to our law. When we had our meeting with officials we certainly made the point that we did not agree with the particular change to the law but we did understand that we were going to get some feedback about what the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees thought about this. We would really appreciate the Minister providing us with some explanation as to how the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has responded. 
I think the implied waiver is an extremely risky track to go down. I am urging this Committee to think very carefully about supporting this amendment. This amendment has high risk for people whose very lives may be at risk. It is all very well to say that because somebody has dared to suggest to a journalist on the way to a hearing that he or she has a genuine case that that suddenly gives the Minister the right to put everything in the public arena. One has to be extremely careful about that. There are so many instances that I can think of where it may be thought that there is an implied waiver but in fact there is no waiver intended. Indeed the involvement of third parties as my colleague David Cunliffe has said may lead to people inadvertently creating the implied waiver situation because it may be regarded that in advising someone else of their circumstances they have impliedly waived their right to confidentiality under the section. 
That provision is in section 129 of the Immigration Act 1987 and as a former Minister of Immigration I was very very mindful of my obligations to keep confidentiality. I think the Government needs to rethink this provision. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 One of the saddest things about the Minister’s amendments is that they weigh against—and to some extent they undo—so much of the good work that the select committee has done to ensure an appropriate balance is taken for human rights and civil liberties. Four amendments were mentioned by my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel New Zealand’s finest Minister of Immigration—she has paid me again to say that; no she has not that would be treating and would probably be against some law or other. There you go that may be taken as an implied waiver of confidentiality! 
If one were getting political about that issue one just for a moment could observe that the current Government is getting a little bit of a name for waiving confidentiality. The Minister for Social Development— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Look at Paula Bennett—outrageous! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Exactly. We never hear from the MP for Waitakere when it comes to protecting the trees in the Waitakeres but as Minister she is busy releasing the personal details of beneficiaries to the media. That cannot be right. It just cannot be right or decent. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: What has that got to do with this? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It is a waiver of confidentiality that was implied by that Minister in that case. The point is that it is a conflict of interest if we really want to come down to it. The decision maker who has a political interest in the decision is the person who judges whether confidentiality has been waived. As my colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel has said let us suppose a refugee claimant makes a statement to a journalist but in doing so does not appreciate what it will lead to. He or she makes the statement on the way to a hearing. The Government thinks it then has the right to waive all confidentiality about the case. Thereby apart from anything else it opens up the possibility that the person’s personal details are released and that actually makes the whole situation worse. 
But for the life of me I cannot understand why the Government would make this change. It is against the run of the current of the rest of the bill. The Government has every reason to be proud of the rest of the bill proud of the select committee process proud of the thoroughness of the drafting and proud of the fact that it has incorporated the recommendations of the select committee some of which it would have thought very carefully about. This is very very good legislation. It is a shame that its international reputation will be sullied by these amendments which run against the current of adequate protection of human rights. The Minister has probably weighed this up. He has probably thought through this. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: We don’t know; we haven’t heard from him. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: We look forward to hearing from him. He is a Minister of some substance; I am sure he could put a case to the Committee. We do not want the public to think the worst of it—well actually Labour would want the public to think the worst of the Government in all truth in a moment of reflective honesty there. Let us presume the Minister does not want the public to think the worst of him and that he wants it to think the best of the Government’s rationale for these changes. 
There must be a logical reason that transcends simply one or two cases of Iranian Christians whose details were put out in the media and who had a pretty strong track record of support from the churches into which they were integrated. In the Yadegary case the Refugee Status Appeals Authority said the claim was valid on its merits and that refugee status should be awarded. In the Panah case refugee status was granted to him because the situation had become so complex in the media. It was a difficult case. He was on a hunger strike. It was right that he was released into the community in order to get him off the hunger strike; otherwise he would have died. The blood of that refugee would be on the conscience of the Crown; that is what this came down to. 
But what would that case have been like under this bill? Would Ali Panah have released himself into the care of the church to face a further rigorous appeal process if this clause were on the books? No he probably would have starved himself to death which is what he was very close to doing before a peace was brokered. 
I ask the Minister to think in very good conscience about the unintended implications of this clause. It is bad for the Government’s reputation and as Lianne Dalziel said it is bad for the country’s reputation. This is a jolly good bill. It balances necessary border protection with admirable human rights protection; these amendments do not. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I am surprised that the Minister will not take a call because we are raising— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I will take one. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I am yielding to you. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member has sat down so that is the end of that call. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh hang on! 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No I need to tell the honourable member that there are only four calls per part. That is her fourth call. She has sat down and the yield has not been taken up. The Standing Orders stipulate that that is the member’s last call but I will give the member the opportunity to resume her call. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Thank you for your assistance in that regard. I am disappointed that the Minister has not taken a call on this part because it is a serious set of issues we have raised. My colleague the Hon David Cunliffe has reminded me of why I would not trust this Government with the particular provisions that it wants to put into our law. The Minister for Social Development and Employment went public with the personal details of two individuals who dared to challenge the Government about its particular approach on the training incentive allowance. The funny thing is that if the Minister had actually read the interview given by the individuals she would have found that they said they were extremely grateful for the money they had received on the domestic purposes benefit but they needed a little bit extra to assist them to get off that benefit. 
The only reason the Minister went public with their names is that she thought I had given their names to the media when in fact the media had worked out all by themselves who those beneficiaries were and had approached them directly. The Government allows a vindictive approach to be adopted against particular individuals when it does not like what those individuals are doing in particular like challenging the Government. 
This amendment would enable the Government to speak publicly about a particular immigration case whenever it feels like it because it will always be able to satisfy itself as the Minister for Social Development and Employment did so unfairly to those two particular individuals. The Government will always be able to satisfy itself that individuals in question had impliedly given their consent. 
I do not think that people on the other side of the Chamber are taking this seriously enough. The previous Labour Government got rid of the vast bulk of the manifestly unfounded claims. They have gone from the system. As I said earlier I inherited 3000 claims when I became the Minister of Immigration and that was down to 300 by the time I finished being Minister. We addressed the problem. The vast majority of the claims being dealt with now are genuine claims for refugee status. 
The risk that is taken when one plays God as it were with this particular situation of identifying individuals is that if they were returned to their home and the Government was wrong to release that information the consequences are lethal—they are fatal. I think that the Government is playing a very very dangerous game by writing this into the law stating that implied consent would be sufficient to allow that information to be released. I simply do not think that it does. 
The other thing that we have not mentioned in this particular part is that Supplementary Order Paper 32 inserts new subclause (2A) of clause 125: “A refugee and protection officer must decline to accept for consideration a claim for recognition as a refugee if the officer is satisfied that 1 or more of the circumstances relating to the claim were brought about by the claimant—acting otherwise than in good faith; and for a purpose of creating grounds for recognition …”. How on earth will a refugee and protection officer know to decline a case on the basis that it was brought otherwise than in good faith? 
The bottom line is that this is again a section that is being written into our law on the basis of one or two very hard cases. As we have said before hard cases make bad law. We think there is a very high risk for the Government to go down this track. We will not be supporting the Supplementary Order Paper unless the Minister suddenly gets up and surprises us all with a very clear basis for doing so. We think there are high risks with the Supplementary Order Paper and we think that the amendments ought not to be supported. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 People sitting at home listening to this debate will probably wonder what it is all about. In essence Part 5 means that refugees who are seeking refugee status must tell the truth and act in good faith and then they will be fine. I think we all agree that New Zealand has a world-class refugee system. António Guterres the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was here a few months ago. He was certainly very fulsome in his praise of our system. 
I think we agree on the parts of the bill that codify elements of procedure and rights of refugees under the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But clearly there are points of difference relating to these bad-faith provisions. We are essentially saying that if refugees lie about their background and why they are claiming refugee status they probably will be exposed in the course of their dealings. Up till now that provision has not been there. 
Opposition speakers have said that hard cases make bad law. They say there have been only three of those cases. If we look back since 2002 there have been 20-something cases where elements of bad faith have been a factor in applications. When we are talking about confidentiality and the ability of the Attorney-General—not the Minister I say to Mr Cunliffe—to put decisions into the public arena when he thinks it is in the public interest there are very good reasons for that. 
We had a case with a judgment in February of this year for an individual who has been mentioned in this debate who now has refugee status in New Zealand. He is living in New Zealand and probably will remain here for the rest of his life. When we read this judgment which could not be released with the claimant’s full name it tells us some very interesting facts about this individual. If we look at paragraph 100 of the judgment the judge who wrote this said that this man deliberately misled all those who have taken up his cause in the belief that he has been sentenced to death. If we go over to paragraph 105 it says that he is a manipulative and opportunistic individual who is indifferent to his sworn obligation to tell the truth. Tell the truth! In paragraph 121 it says the untruths told by the appellant the false documents he has produced and his general lack of candour in dealing even with those who are his strongest supporters is evidence of the underlining utilitarian nature of his belief in the absence of a true commitment to his new proclaimed faith. This is a gentleman who became a refugee in New Zealand because he claimed he had converted to Christianity when in actual fact there was no way that he had and the judgment fully illustrates that fact. 
So we are saying that people might be acting in bad faith but if they convince people around them who are acting in good faith—maybe supporters from their church—to take up their case in public the good-faith actions of those third parties will not be of any help to them. Mr Cunliffe was complaining that it was not appropriate that classified information should be available to refugee and protection officers in the first instance. I remind him that this was a change that Labour members proposed at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. So perhaps he should have spoken to his own members in refuting that particular point. 
The bottom line in Part 5 is that if refugees act in good faith and tell the truth throughout they will be fine. If they manipulate their circumstances and lie to try to claim refugee status that will not help them and they will be exposed. Quite frankly if one goes out there and talks to the public this is the right side of the argument to be on. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: If one misrepresents the situation like you’ve just done now. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: No. There is no misrepresentation there I say to Ms Dalziel. That is absolutely the case. The member said that hard cases make bad law. There are plenty of hard cases out there which mean that the amendments in my Supplementary Order Paper are absolutely needed. The National Government and our coalition partner— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: You’re vindictive bullying and nasty. 
Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: This debate has been very good-natured till this point. Now it is getting personal. We have had an attack on the very very good Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett and now I am being attacked personally for an excellent Supplementary Order Paper. The Government stands by this. I think this will be a good thing for New Zealand it will clean up the process and certainly we fully support it. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I have to respond to that contribution from the Minister of Immigration. I have been listening to the debate and I have to say that I am not convinced. The State will always have the upper hand in refugee decisions. In the end the decision is one that the State takes. If the State does not think that it can deal with the occasional bit of criticism then it needs to grow up a bit and grow broader shoulders. 
In the end the State’s will will prevail and the State will win if it is acting legally. If in the meantime the State suffers a bit of criticism through interest groups advocating on behalf of someone whom they feel sorry for then that is the price of an open democracy. I cannot see why that is a terrible thing. Those who cannot stand criticism should not be involved in democracy. We all have to put up with criticism. At times that criticism feels unfair but in the end we rely upon the media to get a bit of balance. In respect of the immigration cases that have been discussed I think that the media largely does provide balance in those situations. 
The idea that the Crown should have some superior right or a sword of Damocles hanging over the neck of anyone who is brave enough to criticise poor decisions or poor process is wrong. I do not think we should support that particular amendment to the bill that is proposed in Supplementary Order Paper 32. What is wrong with people criticising the Crown or arms of Government? There is nothing wrong with that; that is what we are talking about. 
I do not think that the previous Labour Government was particularly damaged by some of the accusations that were made by people who were claiming refugee status even when those claims were wrong. Lots of claims are made in society that prove to be wrong but none the less people have the right to make those claims. 
Let us say that in the future we have a Government that approaches these refugee decisions wrongly it starts to move away from the cross-party position that we have had over many years in New Zealand and for reasons of political gain it decides to act unjustly. I am not saying that the National Government would do that but there is always a risk that a future Government would. How do people protect themselves against the inappropriate use of governmental powers? Effectively Governments can stack refugee appeal panels with people who will find against refugees in a way that I would find abhorrent. In that situation I think I would want the media to be able to get close to those refugee claimants and to expose the situation for what it is. I hope it will never come to that but I certainly think that the fourth estate in league with people who are involved in refugee claims should have the right to make those accusations in the future if that circumstance arises. 
I do not think that the proposed amendment set out on the Supplementary Order Paper should be countenanced. From a matter of principle it should not be countenanced. Is it necessary? No. The prior law has not had that level of protection and Governments did not fall because of it. When I was a member of the previous Government at times the rule annoyed us but in the end it did not bring down the Government. In the end there were plenty of countervailing forces in society that were willing to argue against the rights of refugees and to put the other side of the debate. I do not think any injustice was caused to the Government as a consequence of the prior rule. 
I am completely unconvinced by the justifications the Minister in the chair gave and I encourage members of the House to vote against this proposed amendment on the Supplementary Order Paper. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise in support of my Labour colleagues in terms of the Minister’s amendment. I think it is very bad to have a subjective term such as “good faith” scattered throughout the Supplementary Order Paper. There are a couple of factors that I think we need to bear in mind and they follow on from what David Parker said. 
One thing to bear in mind is that when refugees make their applications they are often desperate. They see it as a matter of life or death for them and their families—sometimes wrongly but that is often the attitude. As anyone who has been involved in this field knows they sometimes embellish their applications. Refugees in that situation could be seen as operating in bad faith and they could easily be swept aside if this Supplementary Order Paper goes through in its present form. I think that refugee authorities generally take into account the fact that one does not hang everything on whether a person says something that is not entirely true. 
The other factor is that there is unfortunately—partly through the wrongful efforts in my opinion of a previous member of this House Winston Peters and his party—a widespread prejudice against refugees. I was brought up in the tradition that Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany etc. are people who have suffered and need our support comfort and compassion. But there is because of the efforts of certain politicians a feeling that somehow refugees are spongers. There is not a full understanding of what refugees are and how we must support them. 
The case the Minister just quoted is interesting. It is a case I know quite intimately. When that case was put on the Refugee Status Appeals Authority website in February the lawyer for the person involved made it quite clear and went to the media to clarify the situation. The lawyer made it clear that many people who knew that person—workmates parishioners priests the lot including myself; I did not make a submission but I can testify about this person—testified that the person was a genuine Christian convert. The people who convinced me the most were his workmates because he had no reason to try to convert them to Christianity. He is one of the most religious people I have ever met and he could quote the Bible backwards. 
That report on the Refugee Status Appeals Authority website does not mention that every single person who knew him and testified for his conversion to Christianity said he was a dedicated Christian. Nobody made a statement to the contrary but the Refugee Status Appeals Authority did not even mention that. In my opinion an injustice was done in that respect although he now has refugee status for other reasons. 
If we add an amendment like this which adds a subjective element like good faith where are we going with that? It could create terrible problems. Thank you. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 Let me contribute to this debate by saying how easy it is for a refugee to be tricked into telling a mistruth. This is an honest straight story from my own experience. It is those same two guys I mentioned in an earlier speech. When I got to the ship the captain assured me they were Liberian. He had no written record and he had no reason to mislead me. He was a Chinese national who spoke perfect English and he told me they were Liberian. They were not. The two guys in question had papers to say they were Rwandan. The papers came from a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Libreville the capital of Gabon. They were not Rwandan. 
The reason they carried papers to say they were Rwandan was that when they fled their country Cameroon and crossed the border to get away from the secret police they spent 6 months in Gabon. The secret police came after the six of them. One of them disappeared the other five fled and two of those five ended up in Port Chalmers Dunedin. Before they fled they went to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Libreville and were advised to be Rwandan because Rwanda was hot. Do members remember? So they got Rwandan papers with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees certification that they were from Rwanda their names etc. and carried the papers with them to New Zealand and presented them to me. They then said through an interpreter “We are not Rwandan.” I was pretty confused. So back again through the interpreter the cop I was telling members about I came to a deal. I said I would back these guys if they did two things: never run away and always tell the truth. That deal was struck on the night I got them off the ship and they have never broken it. 
The next morning the first question I asked them was their nationality. Through the interpreter again they said “Cameroonian”. I gave them the subscriber trunk dialling for Cameroon—0237. I told them if they had a phone number of anyone at home—these guys had been missing for 9 months altogether—they could ring someone and tell them they are still alive and here are the digits they need to get into their country. They rang the number and I waited in the next room. Of course all hell broke loose with the joy from one of those guy’s mothers. 
That is how I learnt their nationality and that they had told the truth even though they had papers telling me something else. That is how easy it is to make a mistake when someone is a refugee and I say to the Minister that I think this is wrong law and we should abandon it. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Firstly I acknowledge my colleague the Hon Pete Hodgson. For one thing his was an amazing story that not only was he able to get those two Cameroonian gentlemen off that boat but also he took them in to his home for 4 years. I would like to publicly say that that tells us something about the man as well as the former Minister. 
I will divert slightly and recognise the immense courage of the refugee community. Many of us have been to a refugee and migrant day for example at one of the Auckland festivals. I remember going to one early in my time as Minister of Immigration and coming away thinking that it was we who are privileged to have that body of people in our country because most of them are amazing individuals with incredible qualifications. The fact that they have survived what they have been through to get here tells us that they have amazing character as well. 
On that note I will come back to the points that my colleague David Parker made with great eloquence. The State has immense resources. Two gentlemen who were traumatised who were cooped up in a cabin for 6 months who could not speak the language who had false documents and who had no friends and no phone numbers had the whole power of the State the ministry and the Minister arrayed against them. The State of New Zealand does not need these illiberal clauses for truth to prevail in refugee decision-making. 
The Minister said that if refugees act in good faith and tell the truth then they will be fine. I am sure he believes that. We would all like to believe that that would always be the case but here is the rub: usually telling the truth is not good enough in the law. It was not good enough for the mums on the domestic purposes benefit when the Minister’s colleague the Minister for Social Development and Employment outed their personal files. That action was deplorable it was unethical and it should have been and may be illegal. It was not good enough for the prison officers who testified at a select committee recently and who were told by the prison service which was backed up by the Minister’s colleague the Minister of Corrections that they stood to lose their jobs if they dared speak out against a provision of the Government. We live in a democracy and we ought to treasure that. We ought to at least offer some rights to have the considerations of democracy extended to refugee claimants. 
Going back in history a way it should not have been the case that Robert David Muldoon outed Colin Moyle in the Chamber not because he was allegedly gay but because Robert Muldoon was violating his sworn duty as the Minister responsible for the Security Intelligence Service and in the Chamber used as a political debating point information that came to him by law in a different capacity. 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member is a senior member of the House; he knows that we are debating a particular part of the bill on refugees and he is using the debate to go way outside the scope of the bill. Can I ask him to come back— 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I will come back to the bill Mr Chairperson. I take the member’s point. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Righto. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The reason why I brought up those unsavoury examples is very very closely related to the bill. In all cases the judgments of the three Ministers concerned—Bennett Collins and Muldoon—were arguably outside the law and they argued against the rights of the individual. What it boils down to with the Supplementary Order Paper—which runs against the swim of the rest of the bill which has a good balance—is that refugee claimants cannot even inadvertently have their information going into the public domain without being liable to be deemed by a desk officer in the Immigration Service to have acted in bad faith. Therefore they are prevented from having their case heard. It will not be the case of a decision being found against them or there being a bias against them; they cannot even have their case heard because they are judged to have waived their rights and thereby all their defence. The State does not need that power. 
In regard to the other clause in the Supplementary Order Paper about the supporters of a claimant refugees deserve to have referees if they have them. There is alpha and beta risk here. Yes it is true that it is possible in some cases for referees to be duped but it is equally true probably more often true that there can be valid referees whose appropriate testimony is disallowed under this provision because somewhere along the process in circumstances such as those that my colleague the Hon Pete Hodgson outlined somebody is deemed to have told an untruth or supplied a document that may not be accurate in all respects. Anyone who is familiar with refugee claims knows that after the hell that claimants go through somewhere along the line that situation is not uncommon. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 32 in the name of the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman to Part 5 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 58 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 5 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Part 5 as amended agreed to. 
Part 6 Deportation 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of Part 6 of the Immigration Bill. Part 6 provides for a streamlined deportation process that balances efficiency with fairness and that is really the thrust of the whole bill. The deportation process as outlined in Part 6 brings together numerous provisions from the Immigration Act 1987. Words like “removal” “revocation” and “deportation” itself are put into an ordered framework that sets out a person’s rights and just as important a person’s obligations. The deportation thresholds broadly reflect the status quo with enhancements to ensure that they are up to date and that they enable New Zealand to remove people who are not New Zealand citizens who do the wrong thing. A sovereign State must always have the right to remove people who do the wrong thing—in this case those who do not comply with the New Zealand immigration system or who do not comply with New Zealand law. 
A key change is that in most cases the bill allows a person with the exception of a foreign national who is unlawfully in New Zealand to remain lawfully in New Zealand while that person’s appeal against deportation liability is being heard. This means that if the conditions of that person’s visa allow it he or she can continue to work or study until that time—that is fairness. The bill allows for liability for deportation to be cancelled or suspended at the discretion of the Minister of Immigration and the Immigration and Protection Tribunal can suspend a deportation liability of residents. However a suspension may be used where the Minister wants to put a foreign national who is liable for deportation on to a form of good behaviour bond. Again there is fairness and balance. 
The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which held hearings into the bill—although I was not a member of the committee when those hearings were held—recommended an amendment to allow the cancellation of a deportation order of a foreign national unlawfully in New Zealand. This will facilitate the voluntary departure of foreign nationals. The ability to cancel a deportation order has some protections built around it so that it does not become another avenue of appeal for foreign nationals seeking to defer their departure from New Zealand. Again this is balance and fairness. 
One change the Government is making is the provision that the Minister can order the early release from prison of any foreign national offender who is liable for deportation after having considered the safety of the community that the offender will be deported to. When an offender has been sentenced to 2 or more years in prison he or she may not be released for deportation until he or she has served the lesser of a minimum of 2 years or one-third of the sentence. The requirement that an offender spend a minimum of 2 years or one-third of his or her sentence in prison in New Zealand is a clear signal about the desirability of offenders serving their sentences. But in exceptional circumstances such as where the offender may have a serious medical condition and is being deported because of excessive cost to the health system or there are scarce flights available to deport an offender about be released such as during a busy holiday period the Minister has a discretion. I commend Part 6 to the Committee. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise in support of Part 6 covering deportation. It is probably appropriate to begin by relating to the Committee the process that the Minister will be all too aware of concerning the difficult decisions that Ministers and officials face in relation to what was formerly known as removal and deportation and is now known as deportation. When a migrant has been accorded residence but that status is removed from the migrant typically because he or she has committed serious criminal offences the decisions concerned are always very very difficult—well not always but they are often very difficult. Although the migrant may clearly have done wrong very often he or she has a family that has not done wrong and who will be fundamentally affected by the decision to deport the family member. 
I guess the first thing I want to do is to acknowledge that those decisions are not taken lightly; they are not taken lightly in any case. Ministers rely heavily upon the advice and good offices of the department which prepares extensive and thorough briefings and particularly in difficult cases thanks are due to the department’s legal service which can offer helpful advice at the most crucial of times. I would also like to acknowledge ministerial office staff who provide invaluable assistance in helping Ministers to make those difficult and life-changing decisions for the people who are potential deportees. 
We come to the provisions in Part 6. The essence of this part is to streamline a system that was more complex and more difficult to understand into one that is more easily understood and implemented. It takes what were known previously as removal decisions for people who were not residents and deportations for the revocation of visas and permits of non-citizens and streamlines them all into a process called deportation—one word—for people who have visas; one word. That irons out in and of itself undue complexity. It also introduces more flexibility because rather than being a win/lose pass/fail it is easier to have gradations of decision making that are appropriate to the nature of the particular case that comes before Ministers. 
The next clauses of the part are around the deportation by Order in Council of non-citizens who are a threat or who pose a risk to national or international security. This part of the bill tightens the requirement that a Minister cannot make such serious decisions on his or her own; the Minister must go to Cabinet and on Cabinet’s recommendation go to the Governor-General for an Order in Council. 
I am sure there are many reasons why I cannot go into the details and probably the official secrets legislation is but one but I can clearly recall one case and probably some of the officials present will remember too when there was a grave risk concerning an individual who had allegedly—we think almost certainly—been proximate to the 9/11 bombings. Without breaching any secrets or going into the details of the case it was possible fully in compliance with the law and the Order in Council process while preserving all of the appropriate legal rights of the individual to have that person removed from New Zealand inside 48 hours from discovery of the circumstances. It was a proper thorough and expeditious process that protected the citizens of New Zealand. An Order in Council process was used. It was appropriate because it was a serious matter and it was done quickly. There is no reason why that should not be the requirement for the exercise of this very strong power. It requires Cabinet scrutiny it requires the Governor-General’s final check and it requires an Order in Council process. 
It is a new provision of this bill that residents are liable for deportation if within 5 years of residence being granted new information relating to character applicable at the time of residence being granted indicates that the person would not have been granted residence if the information had been available. That is to say if new information comes to light that changes the original decision to grant a residence permit that information can subsequently be brought to bear upon the case to allow deportation to be effected. The types of cases that that might apply are where somebody has clearly lied to a very serious extent to falsify the conditions under which he or she gained entry. When that lie is discovered clearly that person would not have been granted the original decision and that decision can be reversed and the person is subject at that point to deportation. 
I also want to mention that flexibility has been introduced in terms of the post-deportation re-entry bans which were previously set at a 5-year bar for deportees. The new system allows the re-entry ban period to be graduated according to the circumstances of the case. In my view that is both humane and ethical and it is also good because it provides an incentive for compliance by the deportee—firstly that he or she should leave New Zealand before being deported; and secondly if the worst comes to the worst and the person has to be deported that the full circumstances of the case can be applied in determining what the re-entry period should be. 
Those are just a few of the issues that occur in Part 6. In general the Labour Opposition believes that this part is well crafted it is well-thought-through and in contradistinction to the amendments to Part 5 that it does offer an appropriate balance between the protection of the citizens of New Zealand the ability to hear complex cases thoroughly and the ability to move expeditiously when national security is threatened. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I have an amendment to Part 6. It seeks to omit clause 152 “Deportation liability of persons threatening security”. That is a very short clause but the key point is in subclause (1): “Where the Minister certifies that a person constitutes a threat or risk to security the Governor-General may by Order in Council order the deportation from New Zealand of that person.” That gives quite extreme powers to the Minister under the vague definition of a threat or a risk to security. This provision as expressed in the previous Immigration Act was applied to one person and it may be the person that the previous speaker was referring to a person by the name of Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali. 
I want to talk about his case because I think it shows the injustice of that clause in the old Act and the similar one in the new bill. This person was Yemeni but he went to school with one of the September 11 bombers and one of the September 11 bombers flatted with him in the United States. When the September 11 event took place he went directly to the FBI and voluntarily told the FBI everything about the situation. The American Government—he was married to an American woman—said he could stay in America. If he had been a danger to security he would have been kicked out of America but he was not. He was told he could stay in America. 
After some time in America he got so sick of the witch-hunt against Islamic people that he left voluntarily and went back to work in his parents’ business in Saudi Arabia. Then he decided to continue his flying lessons and he came out here. There was no prima facie case or any obvious case that he was a danger to the security of New Zealand but he was picked up under the provision existing in the previous Act and by Order in Council was kicked out of the country. He had no legal representation. 
When he arrived back in Saudi Arabia where he had been living peacefully with his family and working in his family business he was thrown in jail. He was thrown in jail because he had been expelled from liberal New Zealand. It was considered that someone who was expelled from liberal New Zealand must be a danger. His family visited him in jail and now he is in the community and no danger to anyone in Saudi Arabia. That is his history and it can be checked; he is a real person he does live and the Government can check. The Government made completely the wrong decision in that case and that can be proven by facts. That is where this legislation is so bad. 
Interestingly enough this person’s name and picture were flashed on the news on Television New Zealand last night during a special item about biometric testing relating to this bill. It stated that somehow if we had had biometric testing Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali would have been picked up and would never have got into the country in the first place. That would have been an injustice too because he was not associated with September 11 and that is easily proven. His name ended up in the 9/11 commission report because all sorts of names were just chucked in that report but he was cleared. That case shows that we have to have a due process. We cannot have a Minister just throwing people out of the country willy-nilly. 
The other point I want to make is about an improvement brought in by the select committee under clause 168 which gives discretion to the Minister. Clause 168(1) states: “The Minister may in his or her absolute discretion reduce or remove altogether the period of prohibition on entry that would otherwise apply to a person under section 167(1).” It gives the Minister power of discretion. Often when a person is living illegally here and an MP is advocating on his or her behalf there is a certain justice in the person staying here. We want to remove the prohibition on entry. Thank you. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I want to make a couple of brief comments on this part as we have an alumni of former and obviously current Ministers of Immigration. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: It’s a big club. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is a big club as my colleague says. The issue of deportation is dealt with in Part 6 and as a former Minister of Immigration I participated in and I believe signed off a few deportations. I say to Keith Locke that every immigration decision—and I am sure the Minister will agree—is a unique decision. None that I dealt with was a mirror copy of another. 
When it comes to deporting human beings in respect of national security I have to tell that member that I support the clauses in this bill. And if it came to a decision—and I was party I think to one—I would err on the side of the defence of our country even if I got it wrong. The worst that could happen I have to say in deporting a person where there was evidence—and the member cited a case that he believes was wrong—is that somebody an individual is deported. I recall the case the member was talking about and I do not believe the decision was wrong. But let us just for a moment say hypothetically that it was wrong. Well when it comes to the balance between minimal damage to an individual or his or her reputation and protecting the people of this country I know where I stand. I put New Zealand before that person. 
The member says that it is possible even with the safeguards of going to Cabinet and to the Governor-General for an Order in Council—and I sat in on one of those particular cases—for a decision to be wrong. Politicians and departmental officials are only human so it is possible that information may be wrong. Information provided by intelligence agencies to officials to the Minister or to Cabinet may be wrong. But somebody at some point I say to that member has to make a call. 
I say again to the member Keith Locke that he ought to think very very carefully about the comments he makes. Maybe one day in the future he will be placed in a position where he is required to make a decision and have a role in such a case. I have to say to that member that if it came down to it again I would not change a thing. A Minister is reliant as is a lay person on the information provided. I do not think that many former Ministers of Immigration have ever been experts on immigration. In fact I suspect that many of us have never been experts in either the portfolios we hold now or the ones we have held previously. We have to make decisions—and when it comes to the national security of this country I would not change a thing. I would not change a decision I have made. 
The counterfactual is pretty simple. If a Minister does not believe the intelligence or the advice from officials who generally are the specialists and the Minister lets a person stay and the decision goes wrong who pays for that? I suspect that it will not be Mr Locke me or the current Minister. Nobody in this Parliament would personally pay for that decision. It would be the innocent folks outside this Chamber the innocent families outside this Chamber who would be on the receiving end of potentially a terrorist act. 
So although I respect Mr Locke’s view I have to say—as one who has sat in the Minister of Immigration’s seat along with colleagues who are former Ministers of Immigration and Minister Coleman who sits in the seat now—that these decisions are not made lightly. These decisions generally take an exhaustive amount of research and we have to rely on the intelligence we get. I again ask Mr Locke to think through the practicality of his stance on this issue. 
I recall speeches made by Mr Locke after 9/11 and I recall saying to Mr Locke that I would have liked him to just occasionally make comments in remembrance of the 3000 innocent individuals who died at the hands of terrorists. I challenged Mr Locke at the time— 
Keith Locke 
: I did—several times. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The member said he did; I take him at his word. But I ask him to put himself in the shoes of the people who are on the receiving end. 
I conclude by saying again to Mr Locke that if I was in the seat that Minister Coleman is in now and if I received evidence and intelligence that I believed was credible and if it was a decision about removing somebody on the basis of the information I was given and protecting the citizens of this country I know where my duty lies. I know where it lay and I know where it would lie in the future. The duty of every politician in this Chamber is to protect New Zealand’s citizens. If that means getting it wrong because we are human so be it. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 in the name of Keith Locke to clause 152 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 32 in the name of the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman to Part 6 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 6 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Part 6 as amended agreed to. 
Part 7 Appeals reviews and other proceedings 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The debate on Part 7 includes debate on clauses 169AA to 239A and schedule 2. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I propose several amendments to this part and I will go through them quickly. I will make a general comment which flows from the previous part. The question here is justice. 
Hon Member 
: We’ve moved on. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: The question in the bill as a whole is justice and justice requires legal representation—a fair go. This should apply— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: We are on Part 7. I ask the member to concentrate on Part 7. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: Thank you Mr Chairman. The first clause I want to amend is clause 174B which removes the right to appeal in relation to transit visas. It is quite an extreme clause in a way. The clause states: “(1) No appeal lies against a decision of the Minister or an immigration officer on any matter in relation to a transit visa whether to any court the Tribunal the Minister or otherwise. (2) No review proceedings may be brought in any court in respect of any decision to refuse to grant or to cancel a transit visa.” It is just too extreme to cancel that appeal right even to a court because there can be injustices in every area of immigration. Sure transit visas might be the lowest level of visa in the sense that a person might be just passing through briefly but to rule out appeal rights entirely is not correct. 
I have had complaints about the existing provisions on transit visas where sometimes people from Australia or India have had to pass through New Zealand quickly on their way to a funeral or something like that. They were not granted the transit visa or else it was too difficult to get one and it caused great problems. I think that there has to be a provision for appeal rights. 
The next amendment is to clause 195(1)(b) which relates to the membership of the tribunal. The problem with this clause was illustrated by a number of people who made submissions to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. They said that because the tribunal is merging a lot of authorities the specialist experience of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority could get lost. The authority was a specialist tribunal established under the 1951 refugee convention. My amendment will try to reinstate some of that specialist experience in the new body. My amendment states that “at least one of the members of the tribunal has to have extensive experience in refugee law:”. I think that measure is fair enough and it fits into a lot of what was said in the submissions to the select committee. 
People also made submissions to the select committee about the Refugee Status Appeals Authority being viewed as a very respected body that contributes to international jurisprudence on refugee law. It is very hard for the tribunal to do that unless at least one of its members has refugee law experience. There is clause 195(1)(c) where a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees can serve as an ex officio member on matters relating to refugees. But the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees may not take up that role and it does not have a permanent officer in New Zealand anyway so I think that we need more than that. We need somebody with expertise in refugee law on that tribunal. 
The next clause I want to amend on behalf of the Green Party is clause 231(2). With the present wording of that clause the chief executive of one of the relevant agencies—14 different agencies can provide classified information in relation to the immigration processes including to the tribunal—which might be the Ministry of Fisheries or whatever it might be has the power of veto over the tribunal as to whether classified information that has been provided should be released. The chief executive has the power of veto over even the Supreme Court. If we follow the cases that have taken place in our courts we see that often there is a contestation between those who have classified information and the complainants and the court adjudicates on this matter. 
In the Ahmed Zaoui case the Security Intelligence Service was gradually forced to give out more and more information as part of the risk certificate process. In the Aziz Choudry case back in 1996 the court required the Security Intelligence Service to give out certain information into the public realm because in effect it was part of the court case. I do not think that we can override the courts and my amendment is intended to prevent that from happening. 
My amendment to clause 231(2) states that the chief executive is to be consulted on the question of classified information not that the chief executive has to consent to the release of the information—that is the chief executive of the relevant agency would no longer have a power of veto but has to be consulted before the tribunal releases information that the agency deems to be classified. The next amendment relates to review provisions and it amends clause 234. That clause limits reviews on the use of classified information. I think that if members read it they will see that it is fairly clear there should be a proper ability to review the use of classified information. 
My final amendment relates to special advocates. There is a whole section on the role of special advocates and the use of special advocates has been very controversial around the world. So far we have had only one experience of special advocates in New Zealand and that was Stuart Grieve who was appointed by the Government in the Ahmed Zaoui case. He gave quite a detailed submission to the select committee that was considering this bill. He said that most of the so-called classified information he received was out in the public space anyway on the Internet or wherever. A lot of it was wrong and a lot of it was presented out of context. I think he showed the importance of having some independence in the process. 
The big problem with clause 238 as it is at the moment is that special advocates may not communicate with the people for whom they are being the special advocates after they have received the classified information. Even though a special advocate is the legal person appointed effectively by the Government to represent in Stuart Grieve’s case Ahmed Zaoui no real dialogue can take place between that advocate and the person after the advocate has received the classified information. My suggestion is to eliminate that restriction so that clause 238(1) will simply state: “The special advocate may communicate with person A or person A’s representative.”—that is the client in the immigration case. My amendment would omit the rest of subclause (1). I think we have to trust that person to not convey unnecessarily detailed classified information. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Part 7 of the Immigration Bill is very large. It covers appeals reviews and other proceedings including as my colleague Keith Locke has said the use of special advocates and classified information as part of the appeal process. Why is this part here? Well let us begin with a short homily. Imagine refugee claimant X loses a claim then goes to appeal and loses the appeal. Then he or she goes to the Removal Review Authority and loses the second appeal. On the way to the airport he or she thinks of a new ground for a fresh appeal and the whole process goes back virtually to the beginning. The process can take years and can cost the taxpayer millions of dollars. Usually it does not change the outcome. 
I have spoken on a number of occasions to say that collectively we have worked hard to make sure that there are sufficient human rights protections in the bill and this part is no different. It has appropriate human rights protections but my goodness we needed to streamline the process. It was getting rorted—I think that is the technical term. 
There is no justification for repeat appeal processes that are or appear to be designed simply to elongate the time the claimant can live in the country no matter how often or how decisively the various appellate bodies say he or she has to go. The system has been open to abuse and the taxpayer has been footing the bill. We have had enough and the system is being changed. It is being changed in a thoughtful way not a thoughtless way because the provisions of Part 7 amalgamate the appellate bodies into one tribunal and give the claimant one shot to make a thorough and comprehensive appeal both on points of law and on humanitarian grounds. The appellant loses none of his or her substantive rights under the law and it can be argued has a better chance of success by being able to deal with all the grounds in one process. Refugees’ rights are not being curtailed but what is being curtailed is the abuse that has too often occurred and of which I think the public has had a gutsful. 
Administrative efficiencies are made by joining the various appellate bodies into one. It was almost unbelievable that as a Minister I would get quarterly or monthly reports from each of the appellate bodies that appeared to be identical. We could hardly tell one from the other but they were all covering separate matters and the whole process was done in quintuplicate to make each one comply with the reporting provisions. It is much better to have them confined— 
Amy Adams 
: Quintuplicate. How many is quintuplicate? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Five but I am taking the odd liberty with the English language as the member from “The People’s Republic of Canterbury” has pointed out. 
Amy Adams 
: You need a visa to get in there David and you wouldn’t get one. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I thank Ms Adams very much. I grew up there. Part 7 is a good part. It has been well-thought-through. Very few changes have been made by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. That is the other thing the Committee needs to record and I think it goes to the original drafting of the bill Several of the particular changes that the select committee has recommended are about an appeal to the tribunal against a declined refugee or protection status claim combined with lodging a humanitarian appeal being allowed against removal—that is the humanitarian appeal and the refugee protection status claim can be combined against a declined claim. That extends slightly the opportunities that were in the earlier provisions of the bill as introduced. The changes reported back from the select committee have been relatively minor. 
The final point I will touch upon very lightly concerns the aspects of this part of the legislation that are about classified information. I note for the record that an enormous amount of time and effort has been put in by various agencies of the Crown to find a formulation here that is duly respectful to human rights yet is effective when necessary. That has involved a lot of consideration and some negotiation and there is some extension from the select committee around for example clauses 239 and 239A on the appointment of an amicus curiae by the tribunal or a court in addition to the role of a special advocate. I believe and it may be contained elsewhere in the bill that the use of classified information is limited if a summary cannot be produced and the appropriate safeguards of the special advocate cannot be effected. In that case the ability to use the classified information is restricted or not used at all. That is an even tighter formulation than in the bill as originally introduced and I have no problem with that tightening. 
In summary taken as a whole—and the Minister may wish to comment on this—Part 7 ends a well-known loophole in the system whereby refugee claimants could make successive fresh claims every time an appeal was found against them. That process could take years and after 10 or so years they could make a claim on the grounds that they had been here for a decade—because they had lodged 15 different appeals—and were well settled and now their children were settled in school. The process cannot be so open to abuse. Now we have one combined process involving an appeal on the law and the facts as well as a humanitarian appeal with full consideration of all of the relevant legal rights in one process. The case is heard and a decision is made and the decision is final on appeal. That is as it should be. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I want to finish explaining my amendment to clause 238 in Part 7 on the issue of special advocates. I think those members who have followed criminal trials particularly the David Bain case which was one of the most recent will be able to understand how complicated it is to get to the bottom of what happened. Often context is everything. In that case David Bain and his lawyer conversed about the context of the case and the Crown evidence. It went to and fro more witnesses and evidence came forward etc. and it was very difficult to get to a resolution. We can see the problem with special advocates who are appointed by the Government and represent a complainant in an immigration case. The special advocate gets all this classified information and does not quite know the truth or falsity of it or the context of it and needs to ask some questions. Perhaps those questions will be put in an indirect form so as not to disclose the sources of the classified information but the special advocate needs to get more of a context of that information to properly represent the complainant in an immigration case. That is all the amendment is about. We just have to trust the lawyer appointed by the Government not by the complainant in these particular cases. 
Finally I will explain a bit further my amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 31 to omit clause 234 “Restriction on appeal and review” so that appeals may be taken in cases involving classified information. Clause 234(1) states: “No appeal or review proceedings may be brought in respect of classified information” under the Act. Clause 234(2) states: “no appeal lies and no review proceedings may be brought in respect of—(a) a determination of the Minister” using classified information. That is out of bounds. It may not be done in respect of “(b) the form or content of a summary prepared”—that is the summary of the classified information or in respect of “(f) a decision to withdraw update or add to the classified information.” None of that is subject to review. My amendment would at least allow a review to take place. In any case new subclause (2A) has been inserted and it is a good clause. It states that no appeal under section 219 may be brought before the tribunal unless the tribunal has issued its final determinations. That means one can get to the end of a process but there can be some appeal or review process beyond that point. I think that is important for justice. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I will touch on Part 7 in respect of a couple of comments that my colleague David Cunliffe made in terms of the amalgamation of the appeal processes and I will reinforce the point that this does not mean the removal of people’s rights to have their case examined. With one appeal to one tribunal with the same individuals sitting on it there is actually an advantage in that the same individuals on that tribunal will hear the case and will be briefed on it. That is preferable to having several layers of appeal over several years in many cases where other individuals will come and listen to that case. 
Hon Member 
: Tell a few war stories. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: My colleague says I should tell a few war stories but I do not think I will. 
I recall another issue that these amendments in Part 7 will deal with. It relates to the sorts of cases that have happened all too often where individuals have launched multiple appeals and publicised their cases to the point where ultimately the final appellant body rules that they cannot go home because they have raised the awareness of their cases to the point where they fear reprisals from the authorities in their own country. In one case I recall that somebody converted to my own religion of Catholicism via the airport in Seoul. The person was from Iran or it might have been Iraq; I think it was Iran. The person arrived in New Zealand having somehow had—and I can say this as an Irish Catholic—a road to Damascus experience or an airplane from Seoul experience and had seen the light and converted. The person publicised the case over many years to the point where it could be argued that a return home was not possible because all the authorities in the country of origin would have taken reprisals against that person whereas had the person returned quietly that may or may not have been the case. 
What an amalgamated tribunal will do I hope is deal with that issue because my colleague David Cunliffe is right. I have experienced it myself time and time again and I know about the time wasted the money wasted and the energy of officials wasted. The politics—I do not mean in this Chamber but outside it—are often erroneous and community stakeholders are led down the garden path where people bluntly as my colleague said attempt to rort and often succeed in rorting the immigration system. 
This is a cold hard fact that Mr Locke may want to take note of: there are many occasions when people arrive illegally having converted as in the case I mentioned in a miraculous way that goes beyond the good book in biblical proportions to a religion—I suppose it happened to the saints in that people do see the light and do the right thing—and they attempt to rort the system by throwing their passports away. Those cases need to be tested on fact and evidence. They need to be tested on fact and evidence not on whether that person is a good bloke or a good woman whether he or she is a good cook or whether he or she might from time to time have cooked for the odd President but on whether the case is genuine. If cases are dealt with on evidence and fact often that will lead to a decision sad though it may be that people have rorted the system and that they should shuffle off and go home. When those decisions have been made they protect the credibility and integrity of the decisions that rule the other way and say that because of people’s circumstances—for instance genuine fear for their life or their family’s circumstances—there is a genuine case for those people to be retained within our borders in New Zealand. That protects the credibility and integrity of the genuine cases. 
I remember saying as the Minister of Immigration that people will believe that our immigration decision-making processes have credibility and integrity and that the right people are being allowed to stay or allowed to be let in only if they also believe that our processes have credibility and integrity and that the bad guys or the rorters are being bluntly booted out. If the last part does not happen then the genuine cases are not protected and the credibility and integrity of the process is lost. 
We have seen in this Parliament instances where the notion of immigration over many years has been used by the odd MP as a good little fuse to light generally 6 months or so before an election. That is a shame because it calls into question all immigration decisions. But it must be the case just like in any criminal case for instance that a wrongdoer faces the consequences whatever they may be. It must be the case that if somebody comes to take advantage of our social systems our quality of life and our environment and does that on false pretences then hard though it may be that person should then return home and the process should be expedited. It should be done after a fair hearing of evidence and it should be done in an efficient way as Part 7 as amended is promoting. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 32 in the name of the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman to Part 7 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 in the name of Keith Locke to omit clause 174B be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 in the name of Keith Locke to clause 195 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 in the name of Keith Locke to clause 231 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 31 in the name of Keith Locke to omit clause 234 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The amendment in the name of Keith Locke to clause 238 is ruled out of order because it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 7 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 43; ACT New Zealand 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 14 
Green Party 9; Maori Party 5. 
Part 7 as amended agreed to. 
Part 8 Compliance and information 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 8 of the Immigration Bill. Part 8 is an interesting part and it absorbed quite a lot of time of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee because of the clauses around the powers of immigration officers. In fact there were a large number of submissions on that issue and a great deal of concern and suspicion about it although I think and I hope that the select committee’s recommendations have managed to allay those concerns. 
Part 8 is a heavy-handed part of the bill—it is about compliance and information—although I have to say that many parts of the bill sound pretty heavy-handed when one reads them. When it comes to immigration there are some things we have to do that maybe do not always sit comfortably with us all and much of the debate tonight has been around that. 
The purpose of Part 8 is “(a) to confer on immigration officers the power to obtain information in order to allow the Department to—(i) detect immigration fraud or misrepresentation: (ii) identify persons failing to comply with immigration-related obligations including by breaching the conditions of their visas: (b) to confer on immigration officers the powers to assist in locating persons who are or may be liable for deportation: (c) to authorise the Department to share information with other persons and agencies to enable those persons or agencies to effectively administer and comply with legislation or to check eligibility for publicly funded services: (d) to confer on members of the police the powers described in paragraphs (a) and (b).” 
As I said the amendments sound fairly heavy-handed but they are absolutely necessary and they build on previous legislation. In going through the select committee process for the bill we saw that many of the things people were feeling fearful about are actually not new but are powers that have been described in previous legislation. 
One of the parts of Part 8 that I will talk about is clause 244(3) which states: “An immigration officer may—(a) enter any part of the employer’s premises in which the officer reasonably believes a wages and time record or any other document referred to … is kept; and (b) require the employer or the person appearing to have the record or document under that person’s control to produce that record or document for inspection; and (c) copy or require a person to provide a copy of any part of any record or document that is required to be produced to the officer.” 
There was a lot of discussion—and I think it comes further on in the bill—about the responsibilities of employers in employing people whom they may well in good faith have taken on to their payroll believing that they had the right to work in New Zealand. There was a lot of feeling from employers that the sorts of powers whereby immigration officers can come in and search their premises and demand wage and time records are a bit unreasonable. We had a lot of discussion about that issue in the select committee and we looked at a whole range of things we could try to implement to make it easier for employers to find out whether people they are employing are legally in New Zealand. We looked at whether the Inland Revenue Department could offer some sort of complementarity and so on. I support that idea. I do not want to see employers being punished unnecessarily but this is a very important part of Part 8 because we do not want to see in New Zealand the rise of illegal immigrants workers being exploited in workplaces workers being taken on by employers and not being paid the minimum wage and other requirements of New Zealand law and workers who are not being treated properly. We have seen a little bit of that— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Like cleaners. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Yes we will talk about cleaners tomorrow; it will be very interesting. It is a good day tomorrow to talk about cleaners. 
We have had some instances of underground sweatshops in New Zealand. We have had some examples of that in the past. We do not want to see sweatshops growing in New Zealand. We do not want to see a situation where workers are taken on by employers and used because of their vulnerable situation. We are at risk of that at the moment because we have many migrant workers who are in a very vulnerable position whereby they have had work permits they have been made redundant they have been given a month or whatever it is to leave the country and they are waiting to hear whether they are able to stay in the country. Many of them are saying: “I would rather work underground in New Zealand than go back to my country because I left my country some time ago. I gave up my job. I gave up my family. I have set down roots in New Zealand and my children are at school.” In those circumstances workers are very vulnerable. I would hate to see a growing underground sweatshop economy develop in New Zealand. 
I support Part 8 of the Immigration Bill. Even though it might be inconvenient for employers to have to go through the process of having to prove that workers are here legally and are able to work I think that inconvenience in the end is for the good of the employers the workers and New Zealand as a whole. Thank you. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Part 8 is an important part of the Immigration Bill. It applies to the powers of immigration officers required to undertake enforcement duties and also deals with certain aspects of the provision collection and sharing of biometric information. I wish to briefly discuss both aspects. 
Firstly I acknowledge the work of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and the officials who serviced it. They did a very thorough job and it is quite instructive to read the committee’s report in particular pages 25 to 27 where the committee notes the need for adequate protections in avoiding the overextended powers of immigration officers. A series of recommendations follow which extend those powers somewhat further. I compliment the officials who served the committee; that must have been some discussion! They are trying hard to keep a straight face. 
These are important provisions. I think we are all aware of the fact that immigration officers have a difficult job to do. They need to be empowered to do it but they also need to have appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that those powers are not abused. The Minister may wish to take a call because one of the issues that confront every Minister of Immigration is how to appropriately draw the line between ministerial accountability and the operational independence of the enforcement arm of the department. I still have a lingering suspicion that on occasions where somebody did not particularly want to write a report to the Minister about a particular issue the issue of operational independence was raised as something of a smokescreen for “I was playing golf” or something. That might be a bit harsh but I can think of one or two examples where the “head” of the department was pointed in the appropriate direction and the “tail” did not wag at the right time. 
I say to the Minister that I think he should take a call to reassure the Committee that nothing like that has ever happened on his watch and that he is entirely satisfied with the operation of the department’s enforcement arm. Sometimes the enforcement arm operates rather too much at arm’s length from the department head office shall we say. That is why it is very important that the extension of powers given in this bill to immigration officers on the front line is not extended past the point of good sense. 
The Minister has introduced by way of a Supplementary Order Paper certain further amendments to Part 8 around information matching and sharing. The Labour Opposition will support those amendments on the grounds of the assurances we have received from the Minister’s officials that these amendments have maintained a clean New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet and have the support of the Privacy Commissioner. We wish to record that we do so only on the basis of those assurances. And further in respect of the sharing of biometric information there is the explicit assurance of officials that some of the safeguards negotiated in the earlier version of the bill around on-passing that information to third parties have remained and will be effective in this bill. 
If a non-citizen goes through an airport check and has biometric information taken such as face patterns fingerprints and iris scans perhaps it is recorded on a database and matched against information on a partner country’s database for example Australia the United States or the United Kingdom. That information is shared and may be retained for some period but only for the purposes for which it was collected. The understanding that has been reinforced by officials and that is part of the protection which is a condition of our support is that sufficient protections exist to avoid the on-passing of that stored information to third countries or to third parties in those countries beyond the purpose of legitimate immigration or perhaps police activity. It is very important that this measure is not an open-ended opportunity for officials the world over to swap individuals’ private information beyond the reasons for which it was legitimately collected. 
We are also interested in the amendment around information matching for health provisions. We think this is more sensible because we have probably all heard stories about members of the community who may have fronted at a hospital—some of whom by accident or design may not have been entirely clear about their immigration status. Further there may have been language problems or it may have been such an emergency that it was not possible to ascertain whether they are legally entitled to receive free hospital treatment in this country. The information-sharing provisions here will help to iron out any inconsistencies and any lack of clarity—in the end to the benefit of potential migrants and the hospital system. I say that for two reasons: firstly there is a significant loss of funds to the health system when ineligible people claim health benefits in New Zealand. That is not appropriate and we do defend it. Secondly where individuals who are either unclear or possibly untruthful about their immigration status do get treatment and incur debt it can be a terrible burden for them and their family to have to work their way out of it. It is better to know at the start and information matching can assist both the hospital and the claimant to clarify the situation if clarification is required. 
We want to underline too that the provisions around biometric information are different between citizens and non-citizens. We emphasise that it is a condition of our support that the biometrical information of citizens cannot be stored or used for purposes other than for the departure they are undertaking and that sufficient privacy protections apply. We are reassured by the officials that the Privacy Commissioner is happy with these provisions and that is and remains a condition of our support. 
So to sum up these amendments provide what we think are necessary powers. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has warned against them being taken beyond the purpose for which they are intended and has introduced some safeguards in that process. Some extensions have been included which we are comfortable with and the Minister has included further extensions through his Supplementary Order Paper that take us to the limit of what we can support. But we do so firstly on the basis of the assurances that we have received from his officials that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has been respected and it has been approved under the Act and secondly that the Privacy Commissioner is happy. 
Finally I 
repeat my exhortation to the Minister to confirm to the Committee that he has never had cause for concern that any of the enforcement arms of the department may ever have been operating at should we say it somewhat further than at arm’s length than he might like. I look forward to his assurance in that regard. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I want to refer for rather unusual reasons to clause 251 “Power of entry and search of craft”. I do this for a couple of reasons. One is a sad reason. I recall when I was Associate Minister of Immigration going to Auckland Airport to meet—I ask members to forgive me; I forget the designation of this individual—Carl Manning who sadly is no longer with us. He was a superb public servant a person who was taken from us and his family earlier this year. He was a person whom I rated when I was Associate Minister as someone who could have gone all the way in respect of his career. 
Mr Chairman before you ask me I will relate this meeting back to the bill. I recall visiting Auckland Airport as I was wont to do—although I think Ms Thompson the then deputy secretary of the Department of Labour did not like me going around and asking officials what they thought; it could have been hazardous to their health. I visited the airport and asked Carl Manning what he thought needed to be changed—and I suspect this change may have originated from Carl Manning. I did this with the Minister’s leave; he was generous enough to allow me to ask the officials a question and I did. Carl Manning told me that apparently way back in times gone by immigration officials could not search a ship. Everybody else could search a ship. The Customs Service could search a ship the police could search a ship and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all could search a ship. But even if it was docked at the harbour the poor old immigration officials could not without a series of permissions search a ship if they felt there was nefarious or illegal activity going on in respect of immigration. I remember sitting and having a coffee with Carl Manning scratching my head and trying to work out why this had occurred. I think he did give me from his history a rationale for it. So to go on the record Mr Chairman with your indulgence I wanted to mention that. 
More important I wanted to pay tribute to Carl Manning and to extend belatedly my sympathies to his family. This guy was initially in charge of the border at Auckland Airport. He was also in charge of some pretty heavy-duty crisis situations and I know he was respected by the department at the highest level. As a border control officer he demonstrated integrity and legitimacy in terms of the operation and execution of his duties. We talk about the powers of the officials at the border and Carl Manning exercised incredible integrity and professionalism in every case that he dealt with. Indeed he was not afraid to make the tough decisions. But he was a person in my view whose opinion one could always count on and have huge confidence in when it was put before one. In this short call I wanted to place on the record in this Chamber my sadness at Carl Manning’s passing. The department and the country have lost a superb public servant who exhibited all the good things that are reflected in the ability that we give our immigration people to exercise their powers at the border. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I am taking a call on Part 8 of the Immigration Bill because I want to ask a question about clause 245 “Powers of entry and inspection relating to records of education providers”. I want a bit of clarification about one of the paragraphs in subclause (4) which refers to the exercise of powers by immigration officers. It provides that an immigration officer may enter any part of an education provider’s premises in which the officer reasonably believes that information or a record is held that would enable the officer to identify somebody who should not be in New Zealand. Subclause (3) states: “The powers in subsection (4) may not be exercised in relation to a person undertaking compulsory education or any member of the family of such a person.” 
Given the provision that enables the Minister of Education to intervene under the Education Act to allow access to education for the children of overstayers I ask whether clause 245 in fact lets all secondary and primary schools off the hook as far as the power to inspect their records is concerned. It is expressed not in relation to the provider but in relation to the person who is undertaking compulsory education and I ask whether the child of an overstayer is undertaking compulsory education. I ask whether the language used here is sufficient to provide the level of protection that is needed. A lot of schools are nervous about enrolling children who are not legally allowed to be enrolled even though at the moment schools have Cabinet authority to do so and under this new legislation would have authority to do so as long as the Minister of Education addressed that issue. The question I am asking is this: is the wording of clause 245 strong enough to provide protection from a school being used as the place where someone who is looking for overstayers and their family members goes to access information on their children? That is one of the fears that people have. 
I watched a television programme a few weeks ago that interviewed an overstaying family and in particular the children about how they felt about not being at school. The thing that came up for me was the sense of fear in the family that if they sent their children to school that would somehow be a means by which they would be caught out traced back to where they were staying and sent home. I just wonder whether the language of clause 245 is sufficiently strong to send the message that the issue is not just about a person who is undertaking compulsory education. We are actually talking about our compulsory education facilities and about anyone who is of an age that means that person would otherwise be in compulsory education if he or she were a New Zealand resident or citizen and entitled to use our education facilities. I think that the language of clause 245 may not be sufficiently strong to give people assurance on that issue. 
The second point I want to talk about is the health issue. The health rules were introduced as a result I think of decisions that were made when I was the Minister of Immigration. They were very important in terms of sending a very clear message about what it was that was acceptable by way of an application for residence to New Zealand in terms of the applicant’s health status and also his or her disability status as well. Again that issue links into education because we had a large number of people coming from a particular country. Parents from that country would get residence come to New Zealand and essentially one parent—normally the father—would go back to the home country to continue to run a business there while mum stayed here with their child and enrolled that child in a special school in Auckland. A significant number of such children were in that particular school. The school was designed specifically for the purpose of ensuring that there was not the issue of gaining access to taxpayer-funded institutions; it was designed essentially to get around the immigration rules by taking advantage of that situation. 
The difficulty with regard to this issue though is that the quality of information that is gathered and the decision that is made will sometimes be two different things. Somebody may not be entitled to access the public health system when he or she arrives— 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.