Volume 698 Week 72 - Tuesday 13 May 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 698 Week 72 - Tuesday 13 May 2014[Sitting date: 13 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17729. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 13 May 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Speaker’s RulingsJudicial Proceedings—Sub Judice Rule and Notification of SpeakerMr SPEAKER: Last Thursday a member asked that I reflect on a ruling I gave concerning the sub judice rule when ruling a supplementary question to question No. 9 out of order. I have done so and looked more widely at events that led to more general disorder during that question time. The purpose of the sub judice rule is to safeguard the interests of justice. What is before the courts ought not to be discussed in the House from the time a charge is made until the verdict and the sentence is announced. The fact that someone may have pleaded guilty does not alter this. The House is not in the same position as the media. The House has set itself a higher standard having regard to the constitutional relationship between Parliament and the courts. Furthermore Standing Order 112(2) now requires a member who intends to refer to a matter before the courts to give written notice to the Speaker in order that the Speaker may consider whether to exercise discretion on these matters. That certainly did not happen last Thursday.Questions for Oral Answer—Imputations of CorruptionMr SPEAKER: Issues of ministerial responsibility and the inclusion of statements in questions arose in relation to questions Nos 4 and 12 on 8 May. The lodgment of both questions was the subject of considerable debate and their subsequent acceptance involved some give and take. Question 12 addressed a meeting the Minister of Immigration had held and contained a statement about a donation to a political party. The question as reconsidered was accepted. The statement was authenticated and given that there is nothing improper in making donations to political parties the question was allowed.However I accept that some may have seen an imputation in the question as a whole. I have reflected on this. What is not in order is to impute that members or Ministers have been offered received or solicited inducements. Supplementary questions to both question 4 and question 12 strayed into this territory. Members must not make veiled suggestions of corruption or impropriety across the floor of the House such as cash for access - type allegations. Where they do so they will be asked to withdraw because such suggestions are offensive to the House as a whole.This House takes corruption very seriously. It is well established that any such allegation must be raised as a matter of privilege by writing to the Speaker. That is the proper way for such matters to be raised. They must not be raised on the floor of the House by way of interjection or in questions or debate.Questions to MinistersUnemployment—Current Rate1.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition) to thePrime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “In the end we need to get the unemployment rate down”; if so why is unemployment still at 6 percent five years after the recession?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes; we are actually 3 years out of recession and the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 7.2 percent to the current 6 percent. The labour market is definitely strengthening. The number of peoplewith a job increased by 84000 last year which was the strongest employment growth in a decade. Currently 69.3 percent of people aged 15 and over are in the labour force which is the highest participation rate since the household labour force survey began in 1986. As I said yesterday Budget forecasts will show the unemployment rate dropping to 4.5 percent by the end of 2017.Hon David Cunliffe: Given that answer and despite the only 8000 jobs added the year before why will his Government not work harder and match Labour’s commitment to reducing unemployment to 4 percent—4 percent—by 2017 or is he and his Government no longer ambitious for New Zealand?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I can see an insight into the personality of the Leader of the Opposition which is that clearly he writes to Santa and still hopes for the Easter bunny.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I ask the Prime Minister to refer to Speaker’s ruling 176/3 where it says that starting an answer to a question with a political attack will lead to further disorder in the House.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition came out with a wish—a wish that unemployment was lower. It was not a policy not a plan but a wish. So I say to the Leader of the Opposition that if he wanted to join and support National with the reforms to employment law that we have undertaken if he wanted to support the Government on oil and gas exploration if he wanted to support the making ofThe Hobbit movies in New Zealand if he wanted to support the speeding up of the Resource Management Act if he wanted to support the capping of the public sector administration and if he wanted to support the special housing accords—all of those things—then I might take his wish seriously. Otherwise he should stick to Santa Claus and the Easter bunny.Hon David Cunliffe: Why does the wannabe All Black not put 4 percent unemployment on his wish list when Labour achieved 3.9 percent on average over 5 years when last in office; I ask him again—has he given up being ambitious for New Zealanders?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is one thing to have a pipedream it is another thing to have a plan. The Government has a plan for New Zealand which is working.Hon Members: What plan?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I know that the members get a little bit excited but a wish does not make a plan and never will.Hon David Cunliffe: Why will the Prime Minister not show us the plan when there are still 31000 more people unemployed today than were forecast in his own 2011 Budget which was of course handed down after the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am more than happy to table the Business Growth Agenda which has—how many points—350 individual points. The second point I would make is there are more people in employment in New Zealand today than ever in the history of this country and thirdly every time the Government comes up with a proposal to help people in work it is rejected. Yesterday the Labour Party did not come up with an alternative Budget. It came up with a wish list of two things. Labour hopes the surplus will be lower and it hopes the unemployment rate will be lower. Well there are a whole lot of people who hope David Cunliffe will no longer be—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Order!Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Hon David Cunliffe: The Prime Minister has no responsibility for Labour Party policy however he may wish he had a plan like it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The difficulty I have with that point of order is that in an earlier supplementary question the member himself brought in the Labour Party’s plan of action.Hon David Cunliffe: What use is his glossy Business Growth Agenda when unemployment is still 50 percent—five-zero percent—above pre-recession levels when other developed countries like Germany and Japan now have unemployment lower than it was 6 years ago when he and his unambitious Government took office?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It may come as a great shock to the member but there has been a recession which we actually inherited from Labour a mess in terms of the spending we inherited from Labour and the global financial crisis not to mention Christchurch. Again if the member wants to just imagine things he should keep going. But if he wants to be taken seriously on economic policy and have that debate during the campaign he is going to have to trot along to Television One with a lot more than a wish list.Hon David Cunliffe: Which of the following best describes the so-called mess he inherited from the last Labour Government: was it “net debt equals zero” was it “the lowest unemployment rate in the Western World” was it “some of the lowest inequality since his previous Government took office” or in fact is the $60 billion that he slapped on the country’s credit card his responsibility and his responsibility alone?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: If the member wants to look at responsibility for a lot of that debt he should just pick up a mirror because in reality the Government inherited a whole bunch of programmes and expenditure that were either poorly targeted or unaffordable. The member just needs to go and look at the record. For the last 5 years of that Labour Government it increased expenditure by between $2.7 billion and $3 billion a year. The simple facts of life are that more people are in employment in New Zealand than ever before and the Labour Opposition is opposed to every pro-growth initiative that is out there.Justice Minister—Declaration of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests2.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to thePrime Minister: Is his expressed confidence in the Minister of Justice because he has confidence in all of her statements made around the Oravida issue?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I have expressed confidence in the almost 6 years Judith Collins has been a Minister. She has made a significant contribution to the Government and New Zealand in the portfolios she has held. I have also expressed my disappointment in the Minister that the cumulative effect of her interactions with Oravida in China may give rise to the perception of a conflict of interest. It was unwise for the Minister to have put herself in this position. I made it clear to Ms Collins that she needs to better manage any situation that could give rise to a perception of a conflict.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If that is the case Prime Minister and that is all it is why did Judith Collins fail to honestly disclose the benefits she received which she is required to do under our law?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have no responsibility for that. If the member is implying that she has some benefits that she should have put on her pecuniary interests that is a matter for the member.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Then why has he publicly and in this Parliament hitherto expressed confidence in Judith Collins when she has concealed pecuniary interests—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is exactly the sort of question I referred to in my substantive ruling. [Interruption] Order! The member will sit down.Rt Hon Winston Peters: This is an outrage.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will stand withdraw and apologise for that remark.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I will withdraw and apologise. Point of order—Mr SPEAKER: And he will now resume his seat. That question is a direct reflection on a member of this House and I am ruling it out of order. The member may have further supplementary questions he can use but if that tone of questioning continues I will move to the next question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why did Judith Collins according to this document here which is from the Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament in her declaration fail to declare pecuniary and other specified interests—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think we are going—[Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] Order! I fear we are going down the same track but I am going to invite the member to ask his question again. Again if it has a personal reflection on a member of this House I will rule it out of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in Judith Collins when under this document—which I am happy to table and which you as Speaker would have read—she failed to declare pecuniary and other specified interests in her declaration to the registrar as were not disclosed in the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament 2013? I seek leave to table—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before I ask the right honourable Prime Minister to answer the first part of the question—why can he have confidence in the Minister—which is perfectly in order I will say that if the member is making those sorts of allegations I remind the member of the proper way to do so and that is in writing to the Speaker at the earliest opportunity.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member is obviously making some sort of allegation which he would need to substantiate. I have not seen any and he needs to show us.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in the Minister when as disclosed in this document which I am going to table the Minister failed to disclose as required by law substantial benefits and yet over 2 months earlier confidentially disclosed them to him as Prime Minister?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is the same answer as the one before.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I wish to table two documents. One is Judith Collins’ return to the Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament 2013—Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no need to do that because that has been tabled.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Apparently there was.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That has been tabled already in this House. The second document?Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek to table a report to Cabinet signed off by Judith Collins dated 7 November 2013 where she refers to confidentially—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The document has been described. It is obviously a Cabinet report a travel document. Is it a Cabinet travel report?Rt Hon Winston Peters: It is a report to Cabinet. That is what I said at the start.Mr SPEAKER: That is right. So the document—Rt Hon Winston Peters: And I want to describe—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The purpose of tabling a document is to inform members. The member seeks leave to table a document. He gives a brief description so that members know what the document is. It is not the opportunity to make further political statements. It is the opportunity for me to decide whether that information would be valuable to members and then I put the leave. Leave is sought totable that particular Cabinet document. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can the Prime Minister make that previous answer—that he had no knowledge—when under the document I have just tabled dated 7 November 2013—Hon Tau Henare: You said it was secret.Rt Hon Winston Peters: It was a confidential report to Cabinet—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Would the member carry on with his question.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can the Prime Minister claim to have no knowledge when the Minister of Justice advised him on the date I gave of the following: that the Chinese Government had provided to use her words “substantial support for all meetings accommodation in Beijing and transportation and facilitation …”—all of which are required to be declared to the Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We would have to go and check with the pecuniary interests register but if the member is basically making the allegation that because she was on a visit where there was a private meeting she used basically Government-funded things and that that is a pecuniary interest then my understanding is that amongst other things one of the dinners was actually in the hotel and she did not use any transport.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order is that I made no mention of any dinner or anything else. I am talking about substantial support—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member is now disputing the answer that was given by the Prime Minister it is my job to rule here and in that case the Prime Minister addressed the question. The member will resume his seat. On that occasion the Prime Minister addressed the question—maybe not to the satisfaction of the member; that is very possible. The way forward is not to dispute the answer that was given by the Prime Minister but to ask further supplementary questions.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why has he claimed no knowledge of Judith Collins receiving the benefits that she referred to when she wrote to him months before the declaration giving evidence of benefits that are required to be declared and yet she did not publicly declare them when she returned that report at the end of 2013?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is not what I said. What I made quite clear was that I do not understand the information the member has got of the allegation at the time he actually asked that specific question. As I said he should have made those allegations. If there is some irregularity with her pecuniary interests we will have a look at them. On the face of it it does not actually sound like it to me but we will go and check it. From what I can see if the member could just speak a bit more clearly it might help everyone including the media.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If it was good enough for other Ministers—and they all did including Mr Coleman—to declare such travel and hotel payments by other Governments because it is required under the law of this country to declare them why did that Minister not declare them and more important why when he found out much earlier that she did not declare them has he not sacked her?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: We will need to check the specific details around the pecuniary interests. There are a whole lot of different rules that govern this area but I would not be entirely surprised if Mr Peters is completely utterly wrong like normal.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Having received a copy of the pecuniary interests declaration which does not show these benefits required by law and knowing that on 7November the Prime Minister received a report of those benefits why was Judith Collins engaging in a cover-up and why did he as Prime Minister with that foreknowledge join that cover-up as well?Mr SPEAKER: That again is a very marginal question. I will leave it to the Prime Minister.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: There is no cover-up but because the member is I think actually failing to make much coherent sense at all maybe I will take the unusual step of asking the question and answering it. If the member is asking whether she should have included something in her pecuniary interests declaration the answer is that I do not know but guess what I will go and check.Mr SPEAKER: Supplementary question—Brendan Horan.Brendan Horan: Thank you Mr Speaker.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! If I could have some assistance from David Bennett I would be grateful. Is this a point of order?Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes it is a point of order.Mr SPEAKER: Then I will hear the point of order first.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I came to the House today with a copy of the 2013 pecuniary interests declaration that the Minister of Justice had completed. I came also with information that the Prime Minister knew months before that date—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can the member come to the point.Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point is in the interests of fairness why on earth did you stop me from asking legitimate questions?Mr SPEAKER: I am very tempted to ask the member to leave the House for that inference.Brendan Horan: If the leader of a party had a leader’s budget of say $2.5 million the equivalent to seven MPs and he used it as a private slush fund—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please resume his seat. There is no prime ministerial responsibility for the budget of a political party. That question is out of order.Grant Robertson: In light of his statement to the House last Wednesday in reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade papers released about Judith Collins’ trip to China that “all the way through it talks about a private dinner.” how does he explain the email exchanges as late as 16 October where the Minister’s office is asking why the dinner is not included in the official visit programme?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It was a generalisation. Maybe I should have said “most of the way through”.Grant Robertson: Are all of his answers about Judith Collins generalisations or does he actually have to answer the facts—that this was until 16 October an official dinner not a private dinner and that actually he misled Parliament last week?Mr SPEAKER: The Prime Minister can answer any of those questions.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is quite wrong. In my opinion it has been a private dinner the whole way through.Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table an email from the Minister of Justice’s office to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on 16 October asking why the dinner was not part of the visit programme.Mr SPEAKER: Before I put the leave is the member aware of whether that document has already been tabled in this House? [Interruption] Order! The member is seeking leave to table that particular email between the Minister of Justice’s office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think it is worth noting—and perhaps you might like to clarify for members—that if members find that someone has done something that is irregular and is outside the Standing Orders for example matters relating to pecuniary interests the first point of call should be to the Privileges Committee not necessarily for the House at a much later time. The same would apply to the document that Mr Robertson received under the Official Information Act release some weeks ago.Hon Trevor Mallard: Point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: No I do not need assistance from the honourable member. If there are any suggested irregularities with the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament then the first port of call is actually to the Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament and that is to be undertaken as a confidential matter. As I pointed out in a substantive ruling earlier if there any serious allegations of potential corruption etc. then the way to raise those is directly with the Speaker at the earliest convenience.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was involved in the drafting of the Standing Order that you are referring to. Members have two choices. They have a choice of bringing something up for correction with the registrar and through the Privileges Committee through that route or all members have a right to bring up those matters in the House. But if they do they exclude their ability to take it to the Privileges Committee. They have always been left with the dual track.Mr SPEAKER: I thank the member for his contribution.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can we have your view on that because you just got up and gave a ruling and said that MPs were prohibited from raising those issues in this House. Mr Mallard has rightly put what I understand to be the correct position and you have just previously warned members they cannot do that. He has put to you an alternative view that I think is correct. I want to know what your view is on that before someone else has to put up with wrong rulings from you as a Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: The member will stand withdraw and apologise for that.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I withdraw and apologise.Mr SPEAKER: Thank you. I invite the member to look at page 139 of the Standing Orders and it is in Appendix B from memory and to read clause 17. There he will see the procedure where there is any doubt around the way a register of interests has been filed by a member. The best course of action is to take it up with the registrar himself and we have that case with a report being tabled in this House I think at the beginning of last week on the first such investigation that the registrar undertook.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I make this comment only because I think it is starting to feel like you are being dragged into an arrangement where—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I wonder why.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Rt Hon Winston Peters will leave the Chamber immediately. The member will leave the Chamber.Rt Hon Winston Peters withdrew from the Chamber.Hon Tau Henare: Pick up the smoking gun on your way out.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Does the Hon Gerry Brownlee wish to continue with his point of order?Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes. It is certainly making the point that—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am listening to a point of order at the moment.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Given that the line of questioning related to information that came from a Cabinet note about a Minister’s travel I think it is important to get on the public record so that there is no lack of clarity among those who might be reporting this afternoon that Ministers are not—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! If I have to ask another member to leave the Chamber for interjecting through a point of order I will not hesitate to do so. Would the member please carry on with his point of order.Hon Gerry Brownlee: The point is that Ministers are not required to declare ministerial travel on their private pecuniary interests. That is accounted for in another way and that is exactly how Mr Peters came by the information that he tried to suggest today was in fact a breach by the Hon Judith Collins. It was not.Mr SPEAKER: I appreciate the point that the member has made.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think the Hon Trevor Mallard and the Rt Hon Winston Peters are correct. Looking at page 138 Standing Order 16(1) it says that a member—Mr SPEAKER: Sorry can you give me that reference again?Hon David Parker: Standing Order 16(1) states on page 138: “A member who has reasonable ground to believe that another member has not complied with his or her obligations may request that the Registrar conduct an inquiry …”. It is not a must; there are alternatives.Mr SPEAKER: I accept the point that the member is making.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you for fairness. You asked the Rt Hon Winston Peters to remove himself from this Chamber because he shouted out during a point of order. I ask you to remove the Hon Tau Henare for exactly the same reason when he shouted out across the Chamber while you were still on your feet.Mr SPEAKER: I think the member raises a fair point. The Hon Tau Henare does not help the situation by interjecting on a point of order. The right honourable member Winston Peters was not ejected from this House for speaking through a point of order; it was for the very derogatory comment he made with his interjection. [Interruption] Order! I will hear from Tracey Martin.Tracey Martin: The Rt Hon Winston Peters shouted out: “I wonder why.” Is that any less offensive than: “Pick up the smoking gun on your way out.”?Mr SPEAKER: On reflection I think the member makes a good point.Hon Tau Henare: If it helps I’ll go.Mr SPEAKER: And the Hon Tau Henare has beaten me to it.Hon Tau Henare withdrew from the Chamber.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just speaking to the point of order that Gerry Brownlee raised earlier I want to make clear that in terms of what material that Ministers do have to place on their pecuniary interests I think it is interesting to note that the Prime Minister and others have declared on their pecuniary interests register where a foreign Government has contributed to travel costs for instance whereas I think Mr Peters was making the point that Ms Collins did not do that.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: This might help clarify things. If one goes to the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament it quite clearly states in the overseas travel section: “You do not need to include overseas travel in this section if the costs were incurred by yourself a close family member the Crown or by agovernment a parliament or an international parliamentary organisation as part of an official parliamentary visit overseas.” It is not required.Mr SPEAKER: And there is one more point that is important here. There is not a prime ministerial or ministerial responsibility for a member’s failure around an inaccurate declaration of pecuniary interests. All members of Parliament here have a responsibility to fill in their pecuniary interest forms. That is their responsibility; it is then not a ministerial or prime ministerial responsibility.Economy—Financial Statements and Budget Provisions3.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) to theMinister of Finance: What trends are emerging in the Government’s spending and revenue and how will these be reflected in Budget forecasts on Thursday?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Last Friday Treasury released the Government’s financial statements for the 9 months to the end of March. The operating deficit before gains and losses was $1.66 billion for the 9 months which was $199 million larger than forecast in December. Core Crown expenditure was $423 million below forecast at $52 billion for the 9 months. Revenue in the 9 months was $2.6 billion higher than at the same time last year but around $800 million below forecasts in December. The Budget on Thursday will confirm that we are on track for a small surplus next year followed by increasing surpluses.Maggie Barry: What do the Crown accounts tell us about the growing economy and how will the Budget this week build on recent gains in supporting more jobs and better wages?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Crown accounts show that although Crown tax revenue remains below that forecast by Treasury 5 months ago it is $2.6 billion higher than at this time last year or 6.3 percent reflecting a growing economy. It is the result of more taxpayers in more jobs earning higher wages. This is in line with strong recent employment market data. The Budget this week will confirm that the Government remains on track to surplus. However getting back to surplus is not the end point. We want to continue to support the strength of the economy with more people getting more hours of work in more jobs. This will help to ensure surpluses in the future.Maggie Barry: What steps is the Government taking to ensure that New Zealand families share in the gains of a growing economy and that everyone pays their fair share of tax to fund Government programmes?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The families whose members are one of the 84000 New Zealanders extra in employment compared with a year ago are benefiting from the momentum in the economy. Average weekly wages increased by 3.2 percent in the past year well ahead of inflation; 15000 New Zealanders came off welfare and into work; and 29500 fewer children are living in benefit-dependent homes compared with 2 years ago. Everyone is paying their fair share of tax. As the Prime Minister announced yesterday the Inland Revenue Department will receive $48 million in the Budget over the next 5 years to boost tax compliance. This builds on the Government’s wider programme which has allowed the Inland Revenue Department to collect more tax from the hidden economy the property sector and aggressive tax planning and fraud. So far this has increased the Government’s gross tax revenue by around $500 million over recent years.Maggie Barry: What recent statements has he seen about the improving Crown finances?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I saw some statements last Friday claiming that core Crown expenses were $423 million higher than forecast and that tax revenues are falling. These statements are actually the opposite of what is correct and I was pleased to see that asecond press release was made to correctly reference the $423 million of spending. Unfortunately the press release still got the second statement wrong by claiming that revenue had fallen. Numbers are clearly not the author’s strong suit but that was Mr Parker from the Labour Party.Question No. 2 to MinisterGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise to my colleague David Parker. I just want to make a point of order in reference to the Prime Minister’s point of order referring to what does not need to be disclosed under Appendix B clause 8(2)(e) of the Standing Orders. It says “any government parliament or international parliamentary organisation if the primary purpose of the travel was in connection with an official parliamentary visit.” Ms Collins was on a ministerial visit of course so she should have declared it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Points of order should not be used for that. That is very much a debating point.Finance Minister—Statements4.Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour) to theMinister of Finance: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes in the context they were made. I particularly stand by my answers to the previous question when I said that numbers are not the member’s strong suit after two glaring errors in a press release last week. I guess that is why Labour produced an alternative Budget with no numbers in it because Labour does not even rely on its own numbers.Hon David Parker: Does he stand by his 2010 Budget statement that “Unemployment has already fallen to 6 percent.”; if so why is it that 4 years later the unemployment rate is still at 6 percent?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes I do stand by those statements. As members will recall if they remember the 2010 Budget it forecast 174000 additional jobs in the economy by mid-2014. That forecast is pretty much on track. Of course the job market has had to absorb a fast turn-round in New Zealanders leaving for Australia. Fewer and fewer New Zealanders are going. In fact they are staying home in large numbers. The job market has had to absorb them and that has meant the unemployment rate has not fallen as fast as we would have liked it to.Hon David Parker: Does he stand by his 2011 Budget statement around asset sales that “The expected revenue from offering minority stakes in these five companies is between $5 billion and $7 billion.”; if so did he raise $5 billion to $7 billion from the sale of State assets?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is overlooking the numbers as you might expect. We sold four State assets not five. For the four we got $4.7 billion and we are very pleased that we are able to put that cash in the Future Investment Fund a fund that we can now use to build more schools renew our hospitals and underpin our infrastructure investment. The member will be hearing more about that over the next few days.Hon David Parker: Does he stand by his 2012 Budget statement that “New Zealand’s household savings rate is positive for the first time in a decade and is forecast to increase to almost 4 percent by 2016.”; if so why is the household savings rate now negative?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do stand by the statement. Of course any forecast has to be borne out by what actually happens. But it is worth noting that the member usually ties savings rates to the current account deficit and the current account deficit is nowrunning at less than half of what it was when he left office. We owe the world a lesser proportion of our GDP by quite a significant margin. When we came in our international obligations amounted to about over 80 percent of GDP and they are currently 65 percent.Louise Upston: Does he stand by his previous statements about forecast job growth and how has the employment market performed against those forecasts in recent years?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Any forecast of jobs is dependent on the confidence of businesses to invest more capital and employ more people. That is where new jobs come from. They do not come from the Easter bunny. In New Zealand in Budget 2010 the forecast was for 174000 additional new jobs by mid-2014 and Budget 2011 forecast 171000 jobs would be added by mid-2015. The latest household labour force survey essentially confirms that those forecasts have turned into reality but what lies behind that reality are businesses and workplaces willing to invest another dollar and therefore employ another person not just have wish lists.Hon David Parker: Does he stand by his 1999 statement as Treasurer that Labour’s then promise to get unemployment to under 4 percent was impossible on which he was proven wrong by the Labour Government having an average of 3.9 percent unemployment for 5 years?Hon BILL ENGLISH: At least the member has moved on from relitigating the 1975 election. Now he is relitigating the 2008 election. Labour still believes that the public got it wrong in throwing out that Labour Government which did so much damage to the economy. Well we never quite got to test that theory but many New Zealanders are pleased that the country’s economic management has become more steady and more prudent. It has taken a longer view and supported the people who actually make the decisions about jobs which are businesses and workplaces not Governments.Question No. 2 to MinisterHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I seek leave to table a document that defines an official parliamentary visit as meaning one that is part of the approved official travel programme administered by the Office of the Clerk.Mr SPEAKER: What is the source of that document?Hon Trevor Mallard: It is the Registrar of Pecuniary—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That information is freely available to members.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: This is a point of order. Order! [Interruption] Order! This is a point of order. It will be heard in silence.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This sort of thing is going to go on and on so I would suggest that those who are interested in this story take a look at page 12 of the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specific Interests of Members of Parliament clause 8(1)(a) and then the notes under (i) through to (iv) which makes it very clear that “You do not need to include overseas travel … if the costs were incurred by yourself a close family member the Crown or by a government a parliament or any international parliamentary organisation as part of an official parliamentary visit overseas.” Mr Speaker—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough. What we are now seeing from both members is the use of the point of order system to seek leave to table a document as a means of continuing a political debate.Green Technology—Investment5.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Finance: Will he have any specific initiatives to support investment in green technology in his budgeton Thursday given a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise that shows the potential market share that New Zealand could capture of the green-tech industry would be worth between NZ$7.5 billion and NZ$22 billion to the New Zealand economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The member will have to wait for the Budget on Thursday. If he visited businesses around New Zealand he would see them investing in green technology all the time. The largest freezing works in New Zealand in my electorate has spent tens of millions on a plant that recycles all the waste dries it and then burns it to meet the energy needs of a very large industrial site. It did not need a green bank or any other particular subsidy to make a sensible investment decision. The Government of course funds research which is under way in areas of new technology vehicle fuel-economy labelling improved efficiency of commercial fleets encouraging alternative forms of transport that are less carbon intensive—among any number of other initiatives. This is all part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda which is supporting businesses to take advantage of New Zealand’s green growth opportunities.Dr Russel Norman: Has he heard as I have heard on my many visits to businesses around New Zealand support for a green bank initiative and will he adopt the Green Party’s Green Investment Bank initiative to establish a fund to partner with the private sector so that we accelerate investment in green technology and pave the way towards a smarter greener economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There are any number of businesses that would be quite happy to I think play with taxpayers’ money at low or subsidised interest cost and quite possibly lose it because it is not their money. No doubt the Greens are being lobbied by those businesses and in fact probably have received a large donation from a member of the public who is advocating—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That will not help the order of this House.Dr Russel Norman: With regard to having large amounts of taxpayer money to spend on its favourite projects how is the Government’s $400 million irrigation slush fund going? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I will allow the Minister a fair bit of licence.Hon BILL ENGLISH: The irrigation fund has I think made a commitment of some $8 million to the irrigation company out of an appropriation of around $400 million and that $8 million is subject to some pretty strict commercial terms. We would expect to get the money back.Dr Russel Norman: Does he think the Conservative Party Prime Minister of Britain David Cameron made an error when he set up a green investment bank which has over £3 billion to invest in green projects?Mr SPEAKER: As far as there is ministerial responsibility the Hon Bill English.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Of course it is up to any other Government to follow its own policy. But I think I would say to the member that in the first place where these investments add up New Zealand businesses are making them all over the place. The Green Party does not have any monopoly on environmental efficiency. Good straightforward New Zealanders do these things when they make sense. Secondly we would be quite wary of setting up some kind of bank subject to political direction because the track record of those things and the track record of so-called higher-profile greentech investment seems to be pretty poor and you would almost certainly lose the money.Tim Macindoe: What reports has he received on recent investments in so-called green technology companies?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I see a range of reports but one could characterise Meridian Energy Mighty River Power and Genesis Energy as companies that have invested intensively in renewable electricity to the point where New Zealand has one of the highest rates of renewable electricity in the world and around about 200000 people took the opportunity to buy shares in those companies. That has been a very positive report—much more positive than what I see is a notably risky investment done by the Green Futures Superannuation Fund. It is allowed to take its punts like everybody else. Unfortunately by investing in Windflow Technology we are told it lost most of its money. That is not to say that every green investment loses money. Many of them are quite successful. It just seems to be that those that have the most political advocacy tend to be the riskiest.Dr Russel Norman: Is he aware that Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation which has nearly half a billion dollars invested in low-carbon energy projects is getting an average return of 7.3 percent over the life of the projects it is investing in?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No I was not aware of that. I would agree with the member that investment in renewable energy for instance can yield significant returns. That was part of what attracted 200000 new shareholders to our renewable energy companies. The point I suppose I am making is that the high-profile symbolic greentech investments with political support tend to be very risky. I would also point out that some of those investments in Australia will be made for instance in wind farms. In New Zealand we have I think the only unsubsidised wind farming industry in the world which operates very successfully generates returns on investments and certainly meets the member’s criteria for green technology investment but does not need a Government subsidy to succeed.Dr Russel Norman: Can the Minister explain why it is OK as the Government has promised to spend $400 million subsidising irrigation projects but the Government does not wish to provide any support in the form of a green investment bank or anything else in clean technology which is not only good for us economically but good for us environmentally?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I simply do not agree with the member’s assertion that the Government provides no support for green technology. We have an extensive science and research programme that is publicly funded and a significant chunk of that spending is precisely on better environmental technologies and understanding the environmental impact of current or new technologies. So the Government is quite open to better suggestions about where more money could go for environmentally balanced economic growth. We have just found that the track record of some of these more politically driven greentech investments is pretty poor. In fact if a politician strongly backs them it is almost certainly the case that they will lose money.Dr Russel Norman: Why is the Government subsidising the oil and gas industry to the tune of about $46 million and subsidising the irrigation industry to the tune of about $400 million?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I think I pointed out before the actual amount that has been invested in irrigation schemes is $8 million and that investment has been done on a commercial basis. In respect of the oil and gas industry it is actually fairly significantly taxed and I am not sure what subsidy the member is referring to. That tax is paid by every household in New Zealand. I am sure that it would prefer that it was not penalised as an industry with significant taxes on its products but we believe that reflects the right balance of user-pays for roads and pricing the environmental externalities of those products.Employment and Job Creation—Progress6.Dr CAM CALDER (National) to theMinister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment: What progress has the Government made in lifting employment in the New Zealand economy?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment): Very good progress. The household labour force survey that came out last week showed that 84000 more New Zealanders are in work compared with 1 year ago. This represents a 3.7 percent increase in employment in the last year which is the largest annual increase since December 2004. The labour force participation rate is now up to 69.3 percent which is the highest participation rate in the New Zealand labour market since records began. Wages are also rising significantly faster than inflation. Over the past year average ordinary weekly earnings rose by 3.2 percent as compared with CPI inflation of 1.5 percent.Andrew Little: No you’ve got that wrong.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: And the member opposite hates that but it is true—a 3.2 percent increase in ordinary-time weekly earnings compared with CPI inflation of 1.5 percent. Average hourly earnings rose by 2.5 percent.Dr Cam Calder: How are the job projections made before the 2011 election tracking?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Very well. Budget 2011 projected job growth of 171000 people over the 4 years from 2012 through to 2015. I am pleased to report to the House that we are currently running almost exactly on track to achieve that target with employment growth of 131000 jobs to date since then. The Government’s comprehensive Business Growth Agenda to encourage investment in the New Zealand economy is working. Growth is increasing jobs are being created wages are rising and business and consumer confidence is at record levels. People are moving to New Zealand and far fewer people are leaving.Dr Cam Calder: What reports has he seen about risks to further job creation in the New Zealand economy?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have seen a variety of reports on policies that could be proposed that would cost New Zealanders jobs because they would discourage investment. Such policies could perhaps oppose international investment free trade the dairy industry oil and gas exploration expanding aquaculture expanding irrigation or faster resource management decisions. I have seen policies that would force up wages artificially and cost tens of thousands of jobs. I have seen policies that would introduce big new taxes on a productive industry which provides jobs and wages for Kiwis to subsidise unprofitable companies. All of these approaches would cost massive numbers of jobs and reduce investment and they completely contrast with a wish to grow the number of jobs and sustainably reduce employment which is completely impossible if the policy ideas move in the wrong direction. Of course one person did know that: Shane Jones and that is why he has left.Wage Rates—Growth Inequality and Employment Relations Legislation7.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) to theMinister of Labour: Is he satisfied wage and salary earners are getting a fair share of the economy?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour): Yes. Growth in our economy has been strong over the past year. The latest quarterly employment survey shows that wages are growing around 1 percent higher than inflation and the average full-time wage over the past 2 years has increased around $3000. This Government is committed to continuing to grow the economy ensuring everyone gets a fair share.Andrew Little: What practical measures will he take to avoid a repeat of the situation of 46 percent of wage and salary earners nearly half the workforce not receiving a pay rise last year during a period of economic growth as confirmed in last week’s labour market statistics?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We have raised the minimum wage every single year we have been in office. We have made sure that we have got employment reforms—the starting out wage and the 90-day trial. We know that the policies of the other party on that side go in exactly the opposite direction. For example its increase in the minimum wage overnight to $15 would see 5000 people out of jobs. What we also know is that we have 2.5 percent average wage growth; weekly earnings are much more than inflation. Strong results under this Government.Andrew Little: Can he confirm that the increase in the labour cost index which measures the change in the price of labour is 1.6 percent—about the same as the rise in the cost of living—meaning that the value of wages did not improve at all last year?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We know that that is not the figure that his party used when it was in Government and for very good reasons. Under the quarterly employment survey numbers it is very clear that average weekly earnings rose 2.5 percent and we have seen inflation go up 1.5 percent so that means real Kiwis are earning more real money. [Interruption] I know the member does not like that. I appreciate he is channelling Arthur Scargill. But on this side of the House we see wages going up and more people 84000 more people in jobs.Andrew Little: Does he think his measures to curtail collective bargaining are consistent with his claim that wages are rising and his aim to raise them; if not why is he pushing ahead with that measure despite receiving more than 10000 submissions opposed to the changes?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: We are making law fairer more flexible and pro-jobs. I appreciate bargaining has a part to it. But actually wars of attrition between parties which ultimately are fruitless do not do employers or workers any favours. On this side of the House we know that the 90-day trial period the starting-out wage and various other reforms we have made are making a real difference and the proof is in the pudding with 2.5 percent weekly average wage increases higher than inflation and last year 84000 more people in jobs.Andrew Little: In light of growing expressions of concern from workers such as those at Steel and Tube and the Canterbury District Health Board who cannot get a decent pay rise except with industrial action and from the growing army of chief executives such as those from the The Warehouse and the BNZ who complain that their pay is too much does he accept that income inequality in New Zealand is now intolerably extreme and what is he going to do about it?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I appreciate that averages are average for a reason and there are still people doing it tough. But the member opposite is denying the objective facts that actually his party relied on in office—earnings rising 2.5 percent a percentage point higher than inflation and 84000 more jobs. So that there are more real people getting more real money under this Government.Grey Base Hospital—Redevelopment8.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) to theMinister of Health: What recent announcement has the Government made about the redevelopment of Grey Base Hospital?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): Last week the Government announced that the business case for the new $67 million 60-bed hospital facility on the West Coast has been signed off and the project is now moving to the final design phase.Virtually the whole hospital will be new. Grey Base Hospital will be the biggest hospital investment per head of population in the country’s history and the Government is committed to futureproofing health services on the West Coast.Chris Auchinvole: What facilities will be provided at the new hospital?Hon TONY RYALL: The redeveloped hospital facility will have a bigger maternity unit a new emergency department an intensive-care unit and three state-of-the-art operating theatres. There will also be an integrated family health centre on the Grey Base Hospital site. This modern facility is great news for the people of the West Coast and I would like to acknowledge the member for his support and encouragement throughout the process.Prime Minister—Attendance at Fund-raising Events9.HOLLY WALKER (Green) to thePrime Minister: Did he discuss matters relating to his official prime ministerial role when he attended a fundraising dinner at the Museum Hotel in September last year?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): No because I did not attend a fund-raising dinner at the Museum Hotel in September last year.Holly Walker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance. In the situation where a question has been accepted by the Clerk’s Office with authentication as worded is it appropriate for the Prime Minister to then question the factual basis—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not need assistance. The question was asked; the Prime Minister answered it.Holly Walker: Does he see a problem with the Prime Minister being a drawcard at fund-raising events that explicitly charge for entry at a price that ordinary New Zealanders—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I suspect that this is a question that I am going to rule out of order because it is heading in the exact direction of what we had last week. But I could not hear it well enough to rule at this stage. I invite the member to ask it again but if she is implying that members of this Parliament are being induced to offer favours by collecting money that question may well be ruled out of order.Holly Walker: Does he see a problem with the Prime Minister being the drawcard for an event that explicitly charges for entry at a price that ordinary New Zealanders could not possibly afford?Mr SPEAKER: I will allow that.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I wear a number of hats. One of them is as Prime Minister but equally I can attend fund-raising events which I do for numerous causes and charities and also for the National Party. When I do that I am quite free to do that acting as a member of the National Party and a member of Parliament. TheCabinet Manual makes that quite clear. One thing I am sure of though is that I have never gone to a fund-raising event that includes Kim Dotcom. He is too busy organising his—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Holly Walker: Does he stand by his own statement that “being Prime Minister is really a 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year job” or does he now wish to add that National Party fund-raising events are the exception to this rule?Mr SPEAKER: The right honourable Prime Minister—either of those questions.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Of course in one context it is a 24/7 job but theCabinet Manual makes it quite clear that Ministers and the Prime Minister can go to these types of events. I can assure the member for the good order of the House that on Saturday night I will be taking my wife out for dinner and I will be going as a loving husband not as Prime Minister.Holly Walker: Has his chief of staff WayneEagleson ever accompanied him to a National Party fund-raising dinner in a work capacity; if so what was the work-related purpose for that visit?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Wayne Eagleson my chief of staff operates in a number of capacities. One is as chief of staff to me as Prime Minister; the other is to me as leader of the National Party. His pay is actually split for that reason. Therefore he is quite entitled and free to come to these events. I do know though that he does not go with Russel Norman up to the Dotcom mansion and he would never go to—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption]Grant Robertson:Thanks to the Attorney-General for that interjection. In light of the Prime Minister’s answer I seek leave to table a document entitled “Chinese National Party donor emerges as biggest shareholder in Dotcom’s Mega”.Mr SPEAKER: The source of that document?Grant Robertson: It is theNational Business Review but it was—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now trifling with the Chair and will resume his seat.Brendan Horan: Has he had any discussions at fund-raising dinners about public funding being used as a personal slush fund by the individual with responsibility for administering such a fund and what would he think of an individual who did use public funding for that use?Mr SPEAKER: In as far as there is ministerial responsibility—I am struggling to find it but I will allow it. I hope the Prime Minister can assist.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No I have not and I would be very very surprised if they did. If they did that person might need to amend their pecuniary interests as Winston Peters did in 2007 and as David Shearer did in 2012 and as 12 members of this House did in 2012.Schools—Treatment of Head Lice10.MELISSA LEE (National) to theMinister for Social Development: What recent announcements has she made about helping parents deal with the nits epidemic?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): There are some odd days in Parliament. Thanks to nearly $1 million in Government funding KidsCan will be putting special chairs in 117 low-decile schools and then funding combs treatments and specialist nit-busters—Hon Annette King: What a nitwit policy this is.Hon PAULA BENNETT: I cannot hear you. Spit it out. Come on. What is your problem?Mr SPEAKER: Order! That just shows the difficulty we get into with this constant barrage of interjection coming across the floor. Would the Minister please complete her answer.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Sorry Mr Speaker. So we have got 117 low-decile schools and then funding for combs treatments and specialist nit-busters to treat the kids for nits. Kids will be treated as many times as they need to be treated to get rid of their nits and their parents and siblings can also get treated in order to eradicate the pests from the whole family if necessary.Melissa Lee: Why is treating nits so important?Hon PAULA BENNETT: It is more than just a hassle. It is more than just a hassle. Some children are getting serious infections due to untreated nits which can require hospital treatment. I heard the story last week of two young 6-year-old girls who actually had their heads shaved just to get rid of them. This new programme will reach24000 children and their families and will go a long way to helping those low-income families.Sue Moroney: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In the answer to that question the name Judith Collins never came up once. The Minister is—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the member please learn a bit about the Standing Orders. That is not a legitimate point of order.Melissa Lee: What kind of response has she had to the announcement?Hon PAULA BENNETT: What I get are constant cries that we are not helping out those lower-income people who actually have got real problems and this is a problem where we are helping. Labour now does not like it yet a week ago we were not doing enough to help those people. We have had a fantastic response from parents. We have had a fantastic response from beneficiaries who want to become nit-busters. We keep hearing from hairdressers. Schools are lining up to get this initiative into their school. If anything we are getting a cry for it to go wider.Sue Moroney: Why is the Minister trumpeting this nitwit policy which required Russell School to rip out a disabled access toilet to install the nit chair she used as a publicity stunt which is funded from money she took from the food in schools funding which was not even discussed with schools as something they wanted and in which she hopes the nitpicking will be done by beneficiaries?Hon PAULA BENNETT: Well to address that schools have actually been crying out for assistance to work with those low-income families. They do see it as an epidemic. In regard to the disabled toilet there is another disabled toilet at the school and neither has been used for more than 8 years. Actually the member should listen to families out there who are embracing this initiative and if anything would like it to be going wider.Question No. 11 to MinisterGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): This question No. 11 was originally set down for the Minister of Tourism and we would regard this as a question that he should be answering so I seek leave of this House for this question to be transferred back to the Minister of Tourism rather than—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member is now wasting the time of this House. [Interruption] Order! If the member wants to stay for the balance of question time he had better start behaving himself. The Speakers’ rulings in this regard are quite clear. The Government can put the question to whom it thinks is the most appropriate Minister and that has been done on this occasion. Question No. 11—Darien Fenton. [Interruption] Order! Both sides of the House need to settle down. [Interruption] Order! And that includes the Hon Annette King for the second time today. Would the member stop barracking across the Chamber.Adventure Tourism Sector—Safety11.DARIEN FENTON (Labour) to theMinister of Labour: Is he confident that the risks and safety of participants in adventure tourism activities in New Zealand are being appropriately managed?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour): Adventure activities are inherently risky and the safety of those who take part is an absolute top priority for this Government. We put in place the adventure activities regulations that require all operators to have safety audits in place by 1 November this year. I am confident that this will lead to a stringent best-practice safety regime in our adventure tourism industry.Darien Fenton: How is he fulfilling the promises he and the Prime Minister made to grieving families to clean up safety in the adventure tourism industry when progress has stalled around safety audits because of his failure to properly resource safety audit providers?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The resources are entirely appropriate for the job at hand. We are ensuring that we meet 1 November by having auditors put in place to do an excellent job in this area and also ensuring that tourism operators are supported by WorkSafe by making contact with all of them and that they are audit ready and motivated for the task that they must fulfil to bring this industry to world’s best practice.Darien Fenton: Will the outstanding safety audits be completed before the deadline of 1 November this year given that Outdoors New Zealand is the only provider left and has no money left to conduct the rest of the audits?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I am confident of that. I characterise it as an initial slowing of the auditing system prior to speeding up again.Hon Members: Oh!Hon SIMON BRIDGES: And if members want to hear I am very happy to outline the position. Of course Outdoors New Zealand has transferred its audit business to another operator but there are other auditors coming into place through the recognition process—Darien Fenton: That’s not true.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: —at least two Miss Fenton—and I am very confident both that the auditors are in place for the job and that the operators are motivated and supported to do this job to ensure that we have world’s best practice.Darien Fenton: How can he get more than 400 audits completed in less than 6 months even if new providers or funding are available?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well as I have said by having excellent auditors who are going through the recognition process at the moment and by having motivated and supported providers of tourism activities. All of those things are in place. We have got the regime and we have got the resources the auditors and the operators so I am confident we will meet 1 November.Darien Fenton: Will he allow adventure activity operators to take the risk of operating their businesses beyond 1 November if they have not been audited for safety and if there have been no audits to ensure they meet the standards he implemented under the health and safety adventure activity regulations?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well given all of the answers to the previous primary question and supplementary questions I am confident we will meet 1 November so that question does not arise.Tax System—Compliance Activities12.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) to theMinister of Revenue: What recent announcements has he made regarding this Government’s ongoing tax compliance work?Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): Yesterday the Government announced an extra $132 million for the Inland Revenue Department to bolster its tax compliance activities and for chasing up unfiled returns. This is on top of the nearly $200 million investment already allocated through Budget 2010 and Budget 2012 for tax compliance and debt collection work. It is conservatively estimated that the new funding will generate a gross increase in Crown revenue of around $300 million over the next 5 years which builds upon the extra $106 million already generated through the focus on unfiled returns since July 2012.Jami-Lee Ross: What have been some of the results of the Government’s investment in tax compliance to date?Hon TODD McCLAY: It is important to note that the vast majority of New Zealanders voluntarily and responsibly pay their fair share of tax. However the Government is determined to catch up with those who do not by going after debt outstanding returns hidden economy activities aggressive tax planning fraud and property compliance. The results of this work have been nothing but spectacular. In 2013 $45 million of additional revenue has been collected through hidden economy tax-avoidance initiatives a return of $5.60 for every $1 invested. In the area of non-compliance through property speculation the taxing of capital gains identified $53.8 million—that is $8.42 for every $1 invested. In going after aggressive tax planning—for instance the use of dodgy leadership trusts—we identified $206 million in discrepancies a return of $42.90 for every dollar spent.Jami-Lee Ross: What other reports has he seen regarding this Government’s focus on people paying their fair share of tax?Hon TODD McCLAY: I have seen reports in the media from the Opposition that claim the Government has been going easy on tax dodgers—Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are now straying into an area where that is a media report. It is not official. There is no ministerial responsibility.Points of OrderChamber Lobbies and Galleries—Use of Social Media in ChamberHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am asking you this question more for you to reflect on than to give an immediate answer. I have become aware that during the course of the afternoon there has been a disreputable reference made to you via Twitter. That tweet had to have been circulated by the person who owns the account whilst seated here in the House. Clearly if someone stood up and made such a reference then the whole House would have quite a condemning approach to that being done. The question becomes one of how you deal with people making disreputable comments by way of Twitter. Should we in fact pursue it with the Privileges Committee so that we can get a ruling on this at some point or could we perhaps discuss it later this afternoon in the Business Committee? I think it would be a very unfortunate trend if members thought they could sit in this House and commentate on proceedings in a way that was derogatory to the Chair.Mr SPEAKER: The Minister raises a very interesting challenge I think for this Parliament. This would not be the first time that I have seen a Twitter comment expressing some unhappiness with decisions that I have made. My job is to attempt to maintain the dignity of the House and I assure all members that I do this to the best of my ability in a completely unbiased fashion. I think the member’s suggestion that it is a discussion worthy of the Business Committee is one we should follow through with. It is probably something further that the Standing Orders Committee could also look at before its review is finalised. There is a difficulty there in interpretation of the current Standing Orders and the ability of members here to use relatively modern technology throughout question time. I will give it further consideration.Urgent Debates DeclinedFlooding Christchurch—Government ResponseMr SPEAKER: I have received a letter from the Hon Ruth Dyson seeking to debate under Standing Order 386 the Government’s response to the flooding situation in Christchurch. For there to be an urgent debate there must be a particular case of recent occurrence that involves the administrative or ministerial responsibility of the Government and requires the urgent attention of the House. An urgent debate is a way of holding the Government to account for an action for which it is responsible. There must be distinct ministerial responsibility for the particular case that it has sought to debate.There is no ministerial responsibility for a report released by the Christchurch City Council Mayoral Flood Taskforce in Christchurch. TheMayoral Flood Taskforce Temporary Flood Defence Measures: Technical Report undoubtedly addresses issues of importance but the urgent debate procedure is a means of debating matters that have occurred for which Ministers are responsible. It is not a means for debating matters where the Government may or may not respond in the future. The application is therefore declined.Food BillSecond ReadingHon NIKKI KAYE (Minister for Food Safety): I moveThat the Food Bill be now read a second time. Food safety laws play a very important role in New Zealand. This Food Bill has been under development for over 10 years and it will be a very important milestone for our Parliament to pass this bill. I want to acknowledge Shane Ardern chair of the Primary Production Committee for his important work on this bill and all other committee members.As consumers our food safety regime enables us to buy food with confidence and to do so safely through shops cafes and restaurants around New Zealand. As a nation that relies heavily on food exports the credibility of our food safety system is hugely important because it helps our exporters have access to overseas markets and sell our products at the premium end of the market. Events within the last year have served to underline the importance of our food safety system and legislation such as the Food Bill underpins this system.As other countries like China work to lift their food safety laws so must we. The whey protein concentrate incident disrupted exports to several markets and raised questions about our food safety system both domestically and internationally. In response the Government moved to restore confidence and initiated an inquiry to provide an independent assessment of our system. The first part of the inquiry was asked to consider the regulatory arrangements that govern various aspects of the dairy industry. The inquiry reported in December last year. It found that the regulatory framework for dairy food safety in New Zealand is fundamentally sound consistent with internationally recognised principles and is considered among the best food safety systems in the world.The focus of the inquiry was on the Animal Products Act which covers most dairy products for export. The inquiry outlined the key features of the Animal Products Act regime which are making food businesses responsible for having systems in place to manage food safety risks using accredited verifiers to audit the operations of food businesses and the use by the regulator of the balance between prescriptive and outcome-based standards.The Government announced a package of support to strengthen our systems. This included a food safety science research centre a traceability working group and very importantly it included the reform of recall provisions in New Zealand. The inquiry recommended that further work on the Food Bill be considered promptly and that the enactment of the bill not be delayed. The history of the Food Bill can be traced back to a review of New Zealand’s food safety legislation which started in 2003. The current regulatory regime is based on a one-size-fits-all approach. It applies a very rigid set of rules which focus on the premises of food not the risk of food. This is out of step with other jurisdictions and given that 50 percent of our exports are food it is very important that we pass this bill.I want to remind members of this House of some of the key reasons for this legislation. As I have said the bill is currently based on the premises not the risk of food. Secondly the current Act places an estimated $40 million of unnecessary compliance costs each year on new businesses and those wanting to expand. This stifles start-ups growth and innovation in our food sector. Thirdly over time the current Act will make it increasingly difficult if it stays in place to secure recognition with systems including overseas markets. This will make it less advantageous for us to get access to these markets.The Food Bill puts in place a risk-based approach where regulatory requirements are based on the extent and nature of the food safety risks associated with particular kinds of businesses. A number of different kinds of businesses will have more flexibility and lower compliance costs than they currently face under the current regime.When I became Minister for Food Safety I ensured that this bill was considered by the Primary Production Committee and passed with various amendments. The bill had been the subject of some serious criticism. Some of it was based on misunderstanding and some of it was based on real issues that needed closer consideration. I decided the best way forward was to prepare a Supplementary Order Paper with proposed changes to the bill which have now been considered by the select committee.The bill was referred back to the Primary Production Committee in July of last year and I provided the select committee with Supplementary Order Paper 278. Supplementary Order Paper 278 addressed the issues with the bill and added greater clarity in a number of areas. For example the Supplementary Order Paper recommended that low risk and community-related food activities such as sausage sizzles are able to continue under the bill provided that the food meets the general requirement that it is safe to eat. This is an important example of the balance shown in the bill between the risks of food versus not introducing unnecessary compliance costs. The Supplementary Order Paper also added a very new and important clause to provide a clear immunity from liability for people who donate food in good faith for a charitable benevolent or philanthropic purpose. This will help food banks around New Zealand help more disadvantaged New Zealanders who need access to food.Once the Government announced the whey-protein concentrate inquiry I asked that the select committee pause its consideration of this bill. This was about recognising that the inquiry’s report could have implications for the bill. I am very grateful to the select committee for its understanding of the need for this delay. Once the inquiry had reported on and endorsed the Food Bill the select committee process was resumed. At this time I also asked the select committee to consider some further amendments to this bill such as the recall provisions that had emerged from the whey-protein concentrate incident.The Primary Production Committee received several hundred submissions and I want to thank the committee and its able chair for its consideration of the issues raised. I also want to thank the many organisations and New Zealanders that submitted to thisselect committee process. I am pleased to see that many of the proposed changes in Supplementary Order Paper 278 were well supported. I also welcome the work that the committee did to achieve a report that is supported by all members of the committee. I note that the committee has recommended some further changes to the purpose statement in clause 4 and the key principles to guide regulators in clause 14. I am supportive of the signals that these changes will give to those who are responsible for administering the new legislation.The enactment of the Food Bill will not be the end of the law reform process. After enactment there will be a period during which a package of regulations and other instruments will be developed and consulted on.It has been a very long journey to get the Food Bill to where it now stands. Several Ministers for Food Safety including the Hon Kate Wilkinson whom I want to acknowledge have worked on this bill. I am very confident that the select committee process has tested the bill well and has provided a good foundation for progressing this important legislation. I want to acknowledge the strong cross-party support for this bill. I thank again all of those who have worked on this bill over the years and I particularly want to thank the Primary Production Committee for its thorough work on the bill. I commend this bill to the House.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): It is with much pleasure that I rise to speak on the Food Bill. It has been around for some time and I think the Minister for Food Safety rightly points to approximately 10 years I guess. It arises from the good work of my colleague who will speak after me who initiated a review of the pieces of legislation that govern food production sale and exporting in this country. As a country we are entirely dependent upon our ability to do this and to produce safe reliable high-quality food for consumers all around the world as well as for people who buy and consume or are given food here in this country. So it is indeed a very very important piece of legislation and it did take some time to develop. In fact it was almost there prior to the election in 2008 and then it sat around for a while. The National Government then did introduce the bill on 26 May 2010. It sat around for a wee while and the Government was a bit unsure as to whether it should take on the bill. Again it took some time until we now have a piece of legislation that I believe is real progress.The Minister did of course raise what has been the primary driver of the National Government of course and that is reducing costs. Everyone thinks that is a great objective because the Government knows the cost of everything but it does not realise the value of some of these pieces of legislation. In fact the integrity and reputation of New Zealand as a producer of food is probably the most valuable and most important thing that we as a country can uphold. So this piece of legislation has to firstly uphold that reputation.In fact the Primary Production Committee in looking at Supplementary Order Paper 278 realised that we actually needed to emphasise even more the primary purpose of the bill in that Supplementary Order Paper. So we stated or had put into the commentary of the bill the words: “to maintain New Zealand’s reputation as a producer and exporter of safe and suitable food.” I think it was absolutely essential that we did that because the Minister as she said could imply that it was about reducing costs for industry. Well no Government wants to add costs. But we do not want to deregulate as the National Government did in housing mining banking and electricity because the results of that were disastrous. Alongside this bill the National Government is deregulating meat inspection. So although we are moving to incorporate a robust system here in fact alongside it we are creating some risks—but more about that later.As I say this bill does amend not just one piece of legislation but a number of them that go back some time. They are certainly due for a once-over. I would like to work through I guess as the commentary does and just outline some of the focus points of the legislation. The sale of food by small producers was a very topical political issue both with the previous Government—and I can remember having a discussion in Cabinet about it—and the incoming Government where people involved primarily in fund-raising activities sausage sizzles and such like I guess you could say were concerned that they were going to be regulated out of existence or have to meet such costs and compliance that they would not be able to do that activity. The previous Labour Government and the National Government now supported by all members of the select committee realised that that is not what we want to do. We cannot have that happen and I believe this Supplementary Order Paper clarifies that. I acknowledge the Minister’s efforts in this area.The second area of scrutiny for probably about the third time I guess was that of food recall. Where there is a suspected problem with food the ability of the director-general to step in and recall food is essential if we are to prevent any further reputational damage to our country or indeed to that of public health or anyone who might consume unsafe food. We have clarified that and I guess the onus of proof was the point of debate. We believe that if there is a reasonable belief that the food is unsafe or unsuitable or contaminated then that should mean that the director-general should be able to recall the food and I think that that is a fair threshold. I have spoken about the purpose of the bill. We must keep that in mind as we move through there with food safety being the greatest priority along with public health.One of the other issues raised was the clearance of imported food. With the high dollar in more recent years we have been bombarded and some might say flooded with imported food products and the issue of how that should be cleared was one of some debate at the select committee. We have a biosecurity system that in my view is not entirely up to scratch. We have a system that allows products to come into the country to be then cleared in most part by biosecurity officials and then to be distributed through the country. With that imported product comes some risk. With food there is an additional risk. The pork industry is having to face up and try to manage that risk as we speak because of an adjusted import health standard which I will not go into at the moment.On the clearance of imported food because we have the new electronic Joint Border Management System there are some issues and some questions that I think still need to be asked as we move forward from this legislation. The bill as amended will now allow food to be cleared through electronic assessment and approval. That is I guess part of the streamlining process but it does raise questions through the whole area of biosecurity as to whether that is sufficient. The Opposition puts on the table our commitment to scrutinise this and follow very carefully the issues of biosecurity because I personally am not convinced that we might have this absolutely right. There were issues around search warrants and the ability to move in and seize product that might be contaminated and I think the select committee across parties has attempted to get that right.If I can go on to an amendment that I will put before the House in the Committee stage on this bill—tomorrow I believe—and that is the one of country-of-origin labelling. There has been a huge amount of work to progress as I say the integrity of our food safety systems and often to put more burden on the growers and the processors of our food to ensure that if we export we can say to our consumers: “This food is safe. It is high quality and you can be guaranteed of that. We have certified this food and there is no harm possible from this.” In doing so we have the contradictorysituation where we share most standards across the Tasman through the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code but New Zealand has sought an exemption to the country-of-origin labelling provisions.There will be people who might stand up and say that it is complex because we have mixed products and ingredients in food. I accept that but most of the countries throughout the world have a standard mandatory country-of-origin labelling regime and it is time that we implemented that for ourselves. If countries like Argentina Brazil Greece Hungary Japan Mexico and the list goes on can have country-of-origin labelling of their food and consumers know where their food is coming from then why not New Zealanders? Why not New Zealanders? So I am asking all parties across the House—and we have had positive indications from some thus far that they will be supporting the amendment that I will bring to the House tomorrow. I ask the Government to reconsider its position because it is not a trade barrier at all. It is not giving huge advantage to our producers. It is saying that if you grow and produce this food in our country then you should be able to label it and anyone else who is not doing so should have to say where their product came from. It is a fair proposition and I hope that the House will pick that up.Can I say before I finish that there is an overarching concern that the Opposition lays on the table and it is that this National Government removed the Food Safety Authority as an entity and merged all our expertise into the Ministry for Primary Industries. Labour puts on the table now that we will set up an independent food safety authority once again with the expertise with the focus and with the ability to implement this piece of legislation when it passes through.SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a privilege and a pleasure to speak on the Food Bill today. This bill as the Minister for Food Safety outlined and as others have said replaces or amends a number of Acts: the Food Act 1981 the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974 the Animal Products Act 1999 and the Wine Act 2003. So it is a very significant piece of work.As others have said it had a very very long gestation period but the issue at stake here and the reason why as much attention has been paid to it over such a long time is reputational. New Zealand is an export nation of food. In fact we are unique in the world in terms of the dependence on protein food exports and in terms of the size of that export return on our economy. I do not know of another nation like that and we are unique in the world in that regard to the best of my knowledge. Reputation is absolutely essential and solid legislative protection around the quality and the guarantee of that quality is absolutely essential to that reputation.The Primary Production Committee was faced with an enormous task of trying to balance on the one hand the major export companies that export food and on the other hand the small fund-raising calf days Lions and Rotary Club fund-raisers with sausage sizzles in front of The Warehouse farmers’ markets and other such. Even marae derive a fair amount of their income nowadays from the sale or the preparation of food. So a wide sector of society is concerned about what needed to be put in place in regard to having some certainty that food was safe but on the other hand one would not want to be over-bureaucratic and require the high level of food handling certification that is necessary obviously for a commercial restaurant or other food outlet.The committee was charged with the task of how you come up with something that covers that whole area of concern and I think on balance that we have arrived at a place that is far better than where we started in regard to that. So small outlets or small organisations that are fund-raising such as voluntary groups church groups marae etc. will now be able to sell food with a far lower level of compliance and have a far lower level of cost than they have had in the past and at the other end of the spectrumparticularly in light of the whey protein concentrate case the regulatory framework and the power that the director-general has in regard to recall has been enhanced. So there has been a substantial I guess piece of movement in regard to where we were prior to that.The clearance of imported food has been something of a debating point in New Zealand in recent times in the media particularly with the growth in our exports to Asian areas and China so being able to create a regime where foreign nations have total faith that our systems are robust and our traceability is second to none—and that traceability stems right back to the farm gate or to the origin of the food—has set us aside as world leaders. So this piece of legislation will when it is enacted enhance that. I have no doubt about that. It will be and is being looked at as other international jurisdictions look to enhance their own food safety legislation as something that will be seen as a leading area for people to go and look at.The committee was provided with the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister spoke of Supplementary Order Paper 278. This Supplementary Order Paper was bigger in size—in fact I think it was over 400 pages—than the original bill itself was. You would have to sort of wonder at how the original drafting could lead to such an outcome. Well as the previous speaker Damien O’Connor said the original drafting of course started under the previous Government so that may shed some light on the explanation for that. But equally it has been a fast-moving vehicle you might say in terms of where our trading has moved from and to the kind of extra testing that is now required and the more sophisticated testing systems we have that are able to pick up different contaminants that we were not able to pick up 100 years ago 50 years go or even 10 years ago. This is an area where technology absolutely comes to fore. Science is a leading area. The number of ingredients that now can go into some of the more finely processed nutraceuticals pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs is such that no one would have dreamt of it so many years ago. To be able to keep pace with that is always going to be a challenge for this Parliament. I think to a large extent this Food Bill has achieved that.I also want to place on record our thanks for the forbearance I guess of the officials who certainly were worked hard through this process. Every time they came back we had another series of questions for them so I want to acknowledge the work that they did. Also I want to acknowledge my parliamentary colleagues on the Primary Production Committee. There was very good cross-party support to make progress on this. The Hon Damien O’Connor mentioned the bipartisan—you might say multi-partisan—approach that was taken to this. I will be interested in hearing the contribution from the Greens in a few moments. But overall there was support from the Greens on most aspects of the bill. There were some concerns raised. I am sure we will hear about them in a moment. Overall the committee worked very well together. Of course there was a member from the New Zealand First Party there Richard Prosser who was there by leave of the committee and he made a sound contribution during the process also. I acknowledge them and thank them.My own colleagues of course—Ian McKelvie and Colin King—were both substantial contributors to the process. Our select committee has the unprecedented situation in Parliament in the time I have been here of having a Deputy Speaker as a member of the select committee. Of course he is someone who has served in Parliament for a long time and brings a lot of parliamentary experience to it. I think the bill will enhance New Zealand food safety and I look forward to its passage through the House.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): Today I feel a little bit like a mother about to give birth after an abnormally long gestation period because I need to tell youthat this is even longer than an elephant’s this one. We are talking years and years and years. As the Minister for Food Safety said it has been over 10 years. In fact the Food Bill started between 2002 and 2006.At that stage I was responsible for food safety in New Zealand as the Minister for Food Safety. I am sure Shane Ardern will commend me for the work that I actually undertook because it was during that stage that I undertook a domestic food review. The consultation for it took place between 2002 and 2006. That domestic food review did take 4 years and it documented a number of problems with our food safety regime in New Zealand including the significant and rising incidence of food-borne illness. This was of particular concern because it affected the New Zealand population. It also identified three different food regimes and three different regulators operating simultaneously with resulting poor lines of accountability and unnecessary confusion inconsistency duplication and complexity.What we were told was the cost of the food-borne illness and it was considered to be at that stage around $86 million a year. Approximately 90 percent of this cost was attributed to the loss of productivity due to the absence of a workforce when somebody is affected by a food-borne illness. It also identified a number of confusions about when the Government is involved. There were a significant number of businesses that were unaware of the legislation they must meet to ensure that the food they sell is safe and suitable and certainly regarding who administers the legislation. These factors alone did lead to non-compliance unnecessary regulatory costs and significant and unnecessary compliance costs.That was the beginning of the whole process for this legislation. It was really important that we got it right because food production in New Zealand stands out among food-producing OECD nations as a dominant contributor to the country’s manufacturing production gross domestic product import intensity export intensity and trade balance. It also employs an awful lot of people—around 35000 to 40000 businesses depending on the definition and up to 200000 additional part-time food premises. It accounts for about 20 percent of the working population in jobs. It has a real value at the time that this work was done of around $13.6 billion. So you can see it was a very very significant sector—it still is a very significant sector—and we pride ourselves on the food safety of this country. We live and fall by the food safety of the food that we export and eat in this country. We are judged as a food producer by how well we perform in this area.So 10 years ago this started. We now have this bill and all I can say to the members of the Primary Production Committee is thank you for the work that you did but now we want to see this Parliament pass this bill before the general election of 2014. It should not end up being carried over to the next Parliament for those members to finish it. It must be finished in this Parliament. I urge the members of the committee—the influential members of the committee Mr King and Mr Ardern in particular—to make sure that the Minister gets this bill through the House before we rise for the election. I am sure it would be a legacy from the members of the select committee two of whom are retiring at this election. They would like to see this bill passed and to say that after 10 years we finally got a bill in place that had agreement from this House and we have put in place the best possible food regime for this country.Labour supports the bill. Our main comment would be that it is 4 long years since the bill was introduced. The bill was first introduced in May 2010. It had its first reading in July 2010 and look we are in May 2014 and we are having our second reading. That is an awful long time for a bill to sit around and for things to be considered. The committee in fact got 527 submissions on this bill. Only 19 of them were actually heard. The bill is actually quite a different beast from when it was introduced. Therehave been some things in here that I think greatly improve on what was originally put into the bill.I think there are perhaps a couple of things that I would like to talk about and one of great interest to the public and perhaps the only thing the public ever remembered about the Food Bill was the public outcry about the “sausage sizzle clause”. If you were to ask people what was in that Food Bill that Parliament introduced 4 years ago and did the work on 10 years ago the only thing they will remember is the “sausage sizzle clause” which meant that good folk raising money for charity were not going to be able to have their sausage sizzle because they would be ruled out through over-regulation of food safety. I am pleased to see that this has been amended and made sensible in this bill. So those who are acting for a charitable purpose will still be able to have their sausage sizzles and their bacon sandwiches and their whitebait patties I imagine are another very important thing that will be able to be done under this exemption. That is very sensible. It was never intended that this would stop sausage sizzles. It was about how you got the food plans properly organised and who should have a food safety plan and so on. This exemption makes that clear and I am very pleased to see it happen.Another area that I think is important is where you make changes to ensure that no one can say a food is unsuitable on grounds of moral religious or ethical aversion to that food. You would have mayhem if somebody for some moral or religious reason said “We can’t have that food on the shelf because we don’t agree with it.” So this in fact is made clear in the bill—that it would not make a food unsuitable for consumption on those grounds.The last thing I will mention—and my very good colleague Damien O’Connor who has been carrying on with this bill mentioned it—is the great sadness I had when the Food Safety Authority was dumped by this Government. It went in the total opposite direction of the rest of the world which had been setting up independent food safety authorities—separate from industry and separate from Government departments that deal with industry. The Food Safety Authority had very high recognition very high acceptance. In fact its reputation was an international reputation and it developed that in a very very short space of time. It was led ably by Andrew McKenzie and a wonderful team of people who specialised not only in domestic food but in the export of our food. They did much of the negotiation around our food when it came to our free-trade deal with China. They were world class. I think it was a philosophical burp for National to get rid of it. There was no reason to get rid of the Food Safety Authority. What happened was that it led to an error very early on where it changed from the Food Safety Authority to—what is it called now—the “Ministry of Food” or “Ministry of Agriculture” or whatever the name of it is now. National mixed it up again with industry.We will have an independent food safety authority. The rest of the world believes that for the safety of the public for honesty openness and transparency you should have an authority that is separated from industry. So I just wanted to put that on the table. I am sure that although the members opposite may not say it publicly those members who are well-informed on the Primary Production Committee know that that was a very stupid mistake. It was a political error that was made and has been to the detriment of New Zealand.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to be speaking on the Food Bill. It has certainly had a long history and I have been involved with it from its gestation as the previous speaker Annette King termed it. Something like 10 years ago I was on the Food Safety Authority’s consumer forum when the bill was being introduced then. The Food Safety Authority under Andrew McKenzie and some other longstanding staff there put it to us as to what they wanted todo to modernise the Food Act. The primary part of that was admirable. It was to get a risk-based approach to food safety and there are some very good aspects in the bill around that. However the bill does go much further. It has to go further and it must have some variations from just the risk-based approach to food safety.I agree with the previous speaker that it has been a loss to have the New Zealand Food Safety Authority disappear into the Ministry for Primary Industries effectively out of sight for so many people. When I was spokesperson for the Soil and Health Association on that consumer forum we were concerned even then at the lack of independence that we saw in that Food Safety Authority and its absolute trade focus as opposed to having enough emphasis on the food safety of regular New Zealanders. But that has deteriorated by going back into the Ministry for Primary Industries. In time certainly the Green Party wants to see the Food Safety Authority be pulled back out of the Ministry for Primary Industries and be made even more independent than it suggested it was.When I came in as a member of Parliament in November 2011 there had been a very vigilant community watch on the progression of the Food Bill. There was huge concern. Some of it seemed to be misguided but it certainly was not all misguided. There were mistakes in the bill and there was certainly room for improvement. So in that summer of 2011-12 when I probably should have been taking a deep breath before Parliament started in February I was bombarded with emails from people with serious concern and I have done my best to follow through with them since. In fact when we had 500-odd submissions to the second Primary Production Committee consideration with the Food Bill and we did hear 19 of them some of them were seen as representative of much greater groups but there were some that still wanted to be heard. I met with nine of the 10 of those to make sure their voices were heard.There has been big concern and I am very pleased to see that at this point the Green Party will be voting for the Food Bill because of the significant changes that we have been able to have through good negotiation and discussion. I agree with Shane Ardern that the officials certainly worked hard having to accept and listen to our changes and suggestions. I met with successive Ministers like Kate Wilkinson on the bill. We discussed a number of things and she listened well. I was concerned about one change she was not going to make and it was good that with the following Minister we have managed to get some breakthrough. But between the two Ministers—Kate Wilkinson and Nikki Kaye—we have had some significant changes. One of them was that genetic modification which had been removed from the bill the first time round at the select committee has been reinstated into the Food Bill as a food safety issue and it seriously is a food safety issue. I will address that further at some stage.Food safety is now the overriding principle of the bill instead of just one of the factors to be considered because this seriously is a strongly trade-focused bill. But the fact that food safety is now the overriding principle we feel really helps in terms of protecting our sovereignty because sovereignty and the aspect of having international regulation landed on to New Zealand consumers and producers without coming past Parliament for example was a major concern for many of the submitters. One way of addressing that is ensuring that food safety has primacy. So it was great to see that change.However this bill is certainly not just about exports and high-volume trade. In saying that we do need to recognise that agriculture is 56.4 percent of our export value and we certainly need to make sure that food safety of those exports is held in absolute high regard internationally. That is also obviously a strong part of the bill. But it is not just about those. This also covers the sale swapping and gifting of food and we have achieved some changes to ensure that there is an expectation that the regulators—theMinister for Food Safety the Ministry for Primary Industries the local territorial authorities and other administrators—will be exempting from unnecessary bureaucracy the smaller producers who may have otherwise been caught with the bill.We have made sure that expectation is in the report from the select committee. The Minister has also agreed with me to meet and to look at how these exemptions might be done in the future to make sure there is not a ridiculous amount of bureaucracy on people who could not afford realistically even to pay the maybe $150 to the local territorial authority. You see there are people who may sell only a few garnishes. They may have some trees that come ripe once a year. For a couple of weeks they are picking apricots or apples or whatever they are doing and selling them at the gate but they also have a little bit of surplus and they want to sell that at the corner dairy maybe the organic store or maybe to a restaurateur. The bill actually catches them and says that they would have to go on to one of the food plans be audited and pay that basic fee—a bit over $100. But if they are selling only a few hundred dollars’ worth maybe even a couple of thousand dollars’ worth that is clearly a mischief and nonsensical.As I put to the Minister and as I put to the select committee friends and others our lives would be the lesser for it if we actually stalled people who supply those fantastic garnishes those extra herbs and those novel salad ingredients that make our restaurant experiences and our farmers market experiences somewhat more. That was a very important aspect to have sorted out in the bill. Right back in 2011 those were the sorts of things that people were concerned about. Home gardeners who bartered or swapped food or sold food directly to consumers and small growers felt that they were going to be wrapped up in the bill and as I say they would have been. Barter was a big issue and of course barter is a sale. That has been sorted out and there have been some major achievements there.I will also be introducing Supplementary Order Paper 449 to do with one aspect of the bill that was not caught up and that is regarding country-of-origin labelling as well. It is really good to see that the Labour Party after a long long time has come and acknowledged and seen that the international call is for country-of-origin labelling and New Zealand is one of the outliers from that. My Supplementary Order Paper 449 will be pointing out that single-component foods must have country-of-origin requirements. But any labelling laws and existing labelling laws must require regular monitoring and enforcement and we do need that to be enshrined in this legislation. I use as an example genetic-engineered labelling which has not been enforced for more than 10 years. We look forward to the Committee stage of this bill and we have certainly got with this great tome of a bill a lot to go through. Thank you.COLIN KING (National—Kaikōura): It is a pleasure to take a call during the second reading of the Food Bill. In doing so it brings to mind one of Churchill’s great statements where he said: “Never … was so much owed by so many to so few.” Of course he was referring to the Battle of Britain. I use that comment with regard to the Food Bill because every man woman and child in New Zealand now living and in future generations will rely on the protection that that bill gives this country.The previous speakers have certainly drilled down into the character and nature of the bill. The members of the Primary Production Committee are certainly confident that we applied ourselves as a select committee in the very best capacity possible. I want to pay particular respect to my Green colleague Steffan Browning. He certainly took up the cudgels for the small operator and he asked questions. Many of those questions did have very sensible arguments and reasons why but I would like it put on record that he did contribute to the finality and the accuracy of this particular bill. I also want to pay respects to all the other members: Ian McKelvie the chair as well as Shane ArdernDamien O’Connor over on the other side of the House there and also the member from the New Zealand First Party.It was a great effort but again I just want to leave the House during the second reading with the very structured comment that this is incredibly complex. You are dealing with the massive organisations that produce food—immense in New Zealand—but you are also dealing with the farmers markets and the small trading activities. There is also the requirement to have similar processes within the animal products bill as well as the Food Bill. I am delighted to see the bill at this stage and I share too the feeling of the House the Parliament here that we can progress this matter through to conclusion for the benefit of all New Zealand. Thank you.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the second reading of the Food Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. This is an enormous bill and it is perhaps somewhat ironic that it has taken Parliament a very long time to digest it. Four years ago almost to the day the first version was introduced to the House and referred to the Primary Production Committee. The committee reported back in December of that year and in July of last year the bill was again referred back to the committee for further examination. The bill has altered greatly over that time and as it stands there are now nearly 400 pages of Supplementary Order Papers.The Primary Production Committee on which I am privileged to sit as an observer has dedicated a great deal of time and effort into the bill we now have before us. Under the very able chairmanship of Mr Ardern the committee has listened to countless submissions and wrestled with the vagaries of law and life that they have thrown up. As such I am doubly privileged to be able to make New Zealand First’s first contribution to this bill coming through as it has from the 49th Parliament from which New Zealand First took a short sabbatical thanks to the misunderstandings of 2008. But enough of that. We are back now we are here now and we are supporting this bill through the House.The bill provides a regulatory framework to enable businesses to take primary responsibility for the sale of safe and suitable food. Food businesses will be regulated relative to the degree of risk posed by the food selling activity that they are engaged in. A number of risk management tools are included in this bill. They include food control plans for high-risk businesses such as restaurants; national programmes for medium to low risk businesses such as horticulture producers; food handling guidance and the educational information for low-risk operators such as those engaged in fund-raising activities like cake stalls and sausage sizzles which probably every member of this House has been engaged in; and monitoring programmes set by regulation to impose measures in specific circumstances for determining the safety and suitability of food.One of the issues that comes up all the time is that very issue of the school barbecue the fund-raising event the cake stall and that kind of thing. The committee members endeavoured to ensure that they were thorough around food safety and the marketing and sale of food both domestically and internationally but without putting in place a whole lot of costly compliance and regulation and unintended consequences for those who want to be involved in community activities such as the school barbecue or in the rural electorates the school calf day.Unfortunately the State has a bit of a reputation for being heavy handed and over the top you might say and sometimes ridiculous in the compliance requirements that it places on those people. Putting in place a framework that can accommodate both that and also imported and exported food so that we absolutely guarantee our “100% Pure New Zealand” brand which is so valuable to us is an essential piece of work for Parliament and the select committee to carry out. I am confident that the committee hasgot it right on this one that it has found the middle ground between the absolute need to make our food safe in every regard and the need to preserve the traditions that make our Kiwi way of life special. Under the auspices of the law that this will bill become the Rotary Club will still be able to sell sausages for a dollar each outside the supermarket on a Saturday morning the primary school will still be allowed to run a cake stall to pay for new volleyball nets and Biddy from Manawatū will still be able to milk her four cows and make her cheese—her famous cheese I should add well known to more than one of the honourable and erstwhile members of the committee.The committee is very much driven by consensus and I think that is a good thing because food safety—the safety of the food that we eat and the safety of the food we export—is of paramount importance to everyone in New Zealand. So much of our economy is based on the export of food as part of our primary production sector that the economic impact of a failing in export food safety standards would impact on everyone in this country. This is a reality not lost on any party in this House and I am gladdened that all parties are on board with this bill and that we are all on the same side. There has been criticism of elements of the bill as presented to the committee by submitters. I do believe that the very great majority of these concerns have been satisfied by the changes that the committee has recommended and by the substantial Supplementary Order Paper 278 which the Minister for Food Safety has proposed. In particular there was criticism of the perceived focus of the bill which in the minds of some gave a priority to commercial concerns over and above those of absolute food safety. In clause 4 of the preliminary provisions of the bill the purpose of it is stated as to restate and reform the law relating to how persons trade in food and achieve the safety and suitability of food for sale provide for risk-based measures that minimise and manage risks to public health and protect and promote public health and provide certainty for food businesses in relation to how the requirements of this Act will affect their activities and to require persons who trade in food to take responsibility for the safety and suitability of that food.With reference to this purpose the report of the select committee states: “Primacy of food safety. The bill as introduced does not in our view give enough weight to the principle of food safety. To maintain the primacy of food safety as the overriding principle of the bill we recommend adding subclause 14(2) to ensure that in the event of conflict in the decision-making process between the principles in clause 14 the Minister or chief executive must give the greatest priority to that of food safety and the protection of public health. We also note that the risk factors referred to in clause 14(e) are not specified and we recommend that the clause be amended to include a list of all the risk factors to be considered.”The changes to clause 14 also address concerns raised by some submitters that the introduction of international agreements and treaties could put at risk the primacy of food safety in this legislation and could undermine New Zealand’s ability to set its own food standards. New Zealand First is confident that this recommendation will satisfy the concerns the quite legitimate concerns of those submitters who raised this possibility.It is not possible to comment on all aspects of this bill. It is simply too large and too comprehensive and there are simply too many of them. Suffice it to say that there will be plenty of opportunities to expand on what we have examined individually as members and collectively as a Parliament through the remaining stages of this bill. For now New Zealand First is glad that this bill has reached the stage that it is at after 4 years of gestation. We are glad to be in a position to contribute to it. We will support it and we will also be supporting Supplementary Order Paper 440 in the name of Damien O’Connor regarding country-of-origin labelling and I commend it to the House. Thank you.IANMcKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It is very good to see a fellow food producer and hunter-gatherer in the Chair today Mr Deputy Speaker. The Food Bill was introduced to the House in 2010 by the Hon Kate Wilkinson. It has gone through two different select committee processes two Ministers have put a huge effort into this in the interim and 4 years later we are back in the House for the second reading of a very large and complex piece of legislation. When this bill was first promoted by this House I was in fact involved in local government. I know that local government was absolutely terrified of the potential ramifications of this bill and spent a lot of resources time and energy—and frittered a lot of it away as it turned out—in raising objection to it.None the less it got to a very satisfactory spot in the world and it has come back into the House from the Primary Production Committee in very good form. I think as almost all the other speakers have agreed really that it is a piece of legislation that is essential for New Zealand. Firstly it protects the safety of our own people and secondly it protects our reputation in the market place and goes a long way to ensuring that continues. The select committee deliberations were a fascinating process. We heard submissions from many of the bigger operators in the country and some of the very smallest. I heard the submissions and took the opportunity to traverse the ranges into the Wairarapa and visit Biddy Fraser-Davis and her four cows. Interestingly they were called Dizzy Holly Patsy and Isobel. She made cheese from each of them on a daily basis by hand—Shane Ardern: Did they vote Green?IAN McKELVIE: I think they voted Green as the chairman of the Primary Production Committee says. But that is a fascinating thing to do. When you think about our opportunities for tourism that we have in this country and the new opportunities that we have got through cycle trails and walking trails this kind of small cottage industry is going to be a very important part of our future tourism thing. This bill has enabled this to take place with a lot less cost involved than what was envisaged when the legislation was first promoted to the House.We did consider a lot of issues in the course of this and the select committee process was a fascinating one I thought. Also I think we have a pretty good select committee in the primary production sector led by our dairy-farming colleague from the King Country—I was going to say Taranaki but I had better say the King Country—Shane Ardern. Of course we get on pretty well as a select committee and I think we came to some pretty good conclusions. So despite some interesting discussion the committee—under Shane Ardern’s expert leadership and with some very good input from all of its members—came to a conclusion that I have got much pleasure in supporting as the bill traverses its way through this House. Thank you.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to add my contribution at the second reading of the Food Bill. Although I am not a member of the Primary Production Committee I do want to acknowledge the work that has gone into the bill at the committee level by colleagues from all around this House. This is a significant piece of legislation. It is a good 470-odd pages thick. As other speakers have noted it covers the broad spectrum of food businesses—from our small coffee cart operator right through to our multinational major food industrial production export companies. So it is a significant piece of legislation.It has been a long time in the making. We have heard some profound quotes from Churchill this afternoon. We have even had ourwhaea Annette King evoking imagery of giving birth. I would rather not go there but I would like to add my own contribution that this legislation is like the good old Mainland cheese ads from about the 1990s in that good things take time. Just as we can picture the beautiful mainland of Te WaiPounamu my wonderful electorate the beautiful alps there and the wonderful old karauas there who were there talking about their cheese-making abilities indeed this piece of legislation is the same. It is long overdue. But it has had a very good once-over. It has been well scrutinised by the committee. There have been a number of very thoughtful submissions made and they have resulted in some positive amendments being made to the bill.In thinking about this although I might not be learned in all of the aspects of this bill I do think of the times that I have worked in the food industry. I worked for an iwi export fisheries company—my own folks whānau down there in Ngāi Tahu. I know the amount of work and effort that goes into the export industries and the seafood industries in terms of the licensing that they have to maintain—the very strict highest international standards that our exporters have to meet to be able to comply and to sell our produce around the word. So I am very well aware of the great level of work and effort and cost that those businesses incur in being able to trade our wonderful seafood our bounty from the sea and from right across the land overseas.I am reminded that when I was in the seafood industry we followed a consignment of lobster—what we might call crayfish. It is actually a delicacy I guess but those who enjoy their recreational fishing and can put a pot down or dive can enjoy a good feed of crays. A lot of effort goes into the export of that product—from potting it in places like maybe the Chatham Islands or down in Fiordland way where we are from. That product goes all the way through our export facilities. It is packed out chilled down and put on to the big aeroplanes flying all the way over to Hong Kong. From there it goes into some what they call grey channels and it is sped through under the cover of darkness into some ports in southern China. All that effort went in with all the care and attention we paid to getting our product in pristine shape to the market and then when we saw it arrive on the other side it was almost heartbreaking because it just got ripped open and dumped on the concrete floor. That is what our customers chose to do with our product but at least we made sure that we upheld our reputation—that we supply the finest food products to the world to discerning customers and to high-paying discerning markets worldwide.Getting back to the bill we do see that we are improving the food-handling practices and the food control through the implementation of food control plans and national programmes. I like the focus of the bill that it is all around risk management rather than the 30-year-old regulations around food hygiene where inspectors would check whether a wall was clean or check the premises. This is all about the practices. This is all about the handling of food and making sure that the practices are compliant and that they all fall under the umbrella of the relevant food control plans or national programmes.We know we are dealing with a whole raft of all different types of businesses that trade in food as I mentioned earlier. Of course no one size fits all but we do not want to add overly cumbersome bureaucratic requirements on small operators especially. I am pleased that the select committee and the Minister for Food Safety’s Supplementary Order Paper 278 have made some common-sense amendments that will mean that the likes of the Kiwiana sausage sizzle and the good old bring a plate to the local whatever it is club or any other social occasion that people go to—those good old traditions that we hold dear—Carol Beaumont: Not bring a plate.RINO TIRIKATENE: Well yes bring a plate with some lovely home-cooked kai on it. Those good old traditions are being excluded from the full ambit of this legislation because we would not want to go down that path of regulating the good old traditions of the Kiwi sausage sizzle.This is as I mentioned a very sensible piece of legislation. There are also many other aspects in the bill around the monitoring of the different types of food businesses because of course there are also the medium to higher-risk businesses based on the types of food that they produce and sell and therefore there would be more compliance more regulation I guess and stricter standards that they would have to abide by. This legislation allows for that. It allows for the smaller operators and right through to the higher-risk operators the bigger more industrial producers to also be regulated in the right fashion.I just want to touch on another point that was an issue that has been raised by my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor through his Supplementary Order Paper 440 which is around country-of-origin labelling. We are disappointed that country-of-origin labelling has not been included in the legislation. If we are so proud as a nation to be selling our produce and supporting our way of life here it should be a requirement that we put our country-of-origin label on our produce. I know we do that on the export side but I think Kiwis want to know not only that the food has been made in a safe way and that people are not going to get sick but also where that food has come from. I know that my colleague Damien mentioned that other countries have followed suit and they do apply country-of-origin labelling.As I have mentioned in other debates I was surprised to learn that the vast majority of the pork that is consumed in our country is not New Zealand pork. It actually comes from Canada. I do not think the average Kiwi would know that the bacon sausages or other pork-related products that they consume come largely from Canada. But if there was country-of-origin labelling that we were required to abide by then I think it would be good for educating the public as to where their food is coming from.Apart from that I just want to conclude by briefly mentioning that this piece of legislation is really good for Māori. There are stepping stones for Māori to improve their food safety systems. I know there isTe Kai Manawa Ora the programme that started off from the new Food Safety Authority which label we will be bringing back. But also it encourages Māori and maraes especially to go into food and trade. I commend all those aspects of the bill and I look forward to it progressing through this House. Kia ora tātou.JOANNE HAYES (National): This is going to be a very short call in support of the Food Bill at its second reading. Lots of good words have been said today in the House and as a food producer—both my husband and I are food producers with sheep meat exports—I am really proud to stand here and support the bill.I congratulate the Primary Production Committee on the great work that it continues to do. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call—5 minutes.MOJO MATHERS (Green): I am very pleased that we are supporting this bill the Food Bill. Back in December 2011 just after this 50th Parliament had started the first mass emails were from people who were extremely concerned about the Food Bill. We were literally inundated with hundreds if not thousands of emails due to a very effective social media campaign that expressed significant concern that this bill had far too far-reaching powers. You could sort of understand the concerns that people were expressing because the ability to grow our own food to share the surplus with our family and friends and to contribute that surplus to fund-raising events is a fundamental part of our Kiwi identity. It contributes to our own sense of well-being to our sense of security and to our sense of community resilience and independence.We are talking about things like the fruits and vegetables from the garden jams and pickles surplus eggs that a few of our chooks may have laid baking heritage seeds trading these heritage seeds and trading these heritage foods amongst people and so on.People were very very concerned that this bill might be unduly restrictive and discourage people from undertaking these activities. That of course was extremely concerning for us in the Green Party because we strongly believe that we need to be doing everything that we can to promote and encourage independent food production amongst families and at the local community level.For me personally this was really highlighted during the Christchurch and Canterbury earthquakes. Soon after the February quake the roads to east Christchurch and in particular to the New Brighton strip were cut off. The supermarkets were closed. There was nowhere where you could go and buy food. I biked over there and what we saw were people who had surplus in their gardens and so on putting their surplus food on to the pavement in plastic bags with signs saying “Please help yourself”. It was an absolute saviour for people—that the communities would get together use their collective goods and their surplus produce from the gardens and the food that they had in their cupboards and so on and share it amongst each other. Since the Christchurch earthquakes because of the incredibly important role of being able to grow your own there has been a renewed interest in things like community gardens and in growing your own. Whatever happens we do not want to be imposing in the name of food safety restrictive controls on that ability at that sort of very grassroots level and that extends of course to fund-raising and so on.So it is fantastic that we are now supporting this bill partly due to the fact of my colleague Steffan Browning’s tremendous work on articulating the concerns of small producers of local food producers and so on and watching out for their interests. We are very pleased that the Primary Production Committee has listened to these concerns and the Minister for Food Safety as well and has come back with a bill that seems to strike the right balance between ensuring food safety and protecting our international reputation but not being unduly restrictive on local food producers. Thank you.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Food Bill. This is an important piece of legislation. It is also—for people listening to this debate—a very substantial piece. It is one of the biggest bills I have ever seen. But it is important work. It has taken a long time to get to this point. Labour is supporting this bill. Basically it makes substantial reforms to the regulatory regime for the safety and suitability of food and it will eventually fully replace the Food Act 1981 and the Food Hygiene Regulations.I am speaking on this bill for two reasons really—first of all because of the importance of the food industry for our country. I think everybody in this House would recognise just how important the food and beverage sector is for our country and how important it is that we get it right in terms of making sure that there is confidence that the food produced in this country is safe. We have seen very recently what happens when that is threatened in any way. Our livelihood as a country is entirely—or very substantially anyway—dependent on the success of this sector.Certainly I think there is a lot more that we need to be doing and I would make the point that in terms of our economic development there is a lot more that we could be doing with the food and beverage sector to ensure that we create more value-added products and that we create better jobs in the food sector that are better paid. But this Government of course seems to be completely blind to the idea of looking at economic development looking at strategies that do create good and sustainable manufacturing and processing work in this country. That is possibly another story for another day but it is really important for our country to get it right.Of course as consumer affairs spokesperson I also want to say that this bill is important because consumers want to have confidence that the food they eat is safe and that it is not going to cause risks to their health. Of course it is pretty fundamental: whatyou eat is a very important thing. So from that point of view as well this bill is important.I do want to say that the missed opportunity is one that my very good colleague Damien O’Connor has picked up on and that is that we need to add country-of-origin labelling into this bill. There is a real missed opportunity here and we know that New Zealand consumers increasingly want to see that information. You can see already in our supermarkets that in the produce area in particular there is already voluntary country-of-origin labelling of produce. I know that many people do effectively choose to buy produce that has been grown in this country.I think that from a New Zealand point of view that is important. We want to support our producers. We want to be confident and the thing about the New Zealand industry is that—as anybody who has studied it at all or been involved in it will know—we do have very high standards. We need to maintain those standards. But consumers can be confident about New Zealand food generally and that is why many New Zealanders apart from wanting to support local producers want to buy New Zealand food. The hoops that we have to jump through as a country in exporting our food mean that we have got high standards.Certainly when I was on a task force the Food and Beverage Taskforce we looked at the degree of traceability for example that was expected of New Zealand food. Japanese consumers in particular were the example I can recall looking at. They wanted to know about traceability of the lamb they were purchasing in their supermarkets.Country-of-origin labelling—I am very glad to see that Damien O’Connor has got Supplementary Order Paper 440 on this issue. It will amend the bill “to require the responsible Minister to adopt Food Standard 1.2.11 of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code 2002 which would introduce mandatory country of origin labelling for some foods manufactured or prepared for sale or sold in New Zealand or imported into New Zealand.”I do hope that members opposite will take this opportunity to listen to what consumers want and support that Supplementary Order Paper and ensure that we do have country-of-origin labelling. Thank you.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): I commend the Food Bill to the House.Bill read a second time.Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga BillThird ReadingHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage): I moveThat the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill be now read a third time. This bill repeals and replaces the Historic Places Act 1993 and seeks a better balance among the different interests in New Zealand’s heritage. It is a bill that retains and indeed renews the spirit of heritage advocacy and it makes bureaucratic requirements less cumbersome for New Zealanders wanting to get on and do something with their houses and land. It recognises the Historic Places Trust’s longstanding role in ensuring the protection of New Zealand’s heritage but it also looks forward ensuring that the organisation has the appropriate structure and processes to meet the needs of heritage advocacy and property ownership in the future.I was very pleased with the wide support the bill received both at the second reading and in the Committee stage and I think that reflects the positive and workable nature of what we are trying to achieve here. Shortly I will say something about Supplementary Order Paper 444 which was developed after the second reading but first a quick run-through of the main aspects of the bill. The initial driver for legislative change was the need for structural reform of the trust. The bill replaces the three elected board positions with two positions filled by ministerial appointment and disestablishes the branch committees. These changes will remove any confusion between the trust’s statutory and advocacy responsibilities and it will allow advocacy groups to campaign freely without the constraints of being part of a Crown entity. In reflection of its changed status the trust is also renamed Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. Indeed it has recently begun trading under this name as a first step in establishing its new identity.The 2005 amendments making the trust a Crown entity were frankly sloppy and piecemeal—changing its legal status yet leaving vestigial remnants of a voluntary organisation fettering local heritage advocates and confusing the trust’s purpose. But I would like to think that this bill has tidied all that up and importantly I can assure those concerned with preservation of New Zealand’s historic heritage that the bill will retain existing protections. However as the consultation phase of the bill demonstrated heritage preservation is an area in which sometimes people disagree so it is important that the organisation and all its processes are as fair and transparent as possible and that decisions are made taking the full story into account—in particular the effects a decision may have on property owners. The bill therefore requires Heritage New Zealand when considering an archaeological authority application to modify or destroy a site to take into account the same matters as the Environment Court does. These include the interests of any person directly affected by the decision and any ways in which protection of the site may prevent or restrict the reasonable use of that site. When undertaking their advocacy roles both Heritage New Zealand and the Māori Heritage Council will need to recognise landowners’ interests.The bill also introduces a speedier archaeological authority process for applicants. This importantly aligns it with the Resource Management Act reducing the frustrations and hold-ups that people are experiencing when they want to develop their property. A lot of work has gone into that and also into emergency authorities because those dreadful earthquakes in Canterbury actually occurred when the bill was in the early stages of development. It was immediately clear that the bill would need to respond to the potential for future disaster so the bill recognises the need to be prepared for disaster and all its repercussions. It introduces a number of measures such as an emergency archaeological authority and it seeks to strike a sensible balance that minimises hold-ups while still protecting that vulnerable heritage.Through this bill there is a National Historic Landmarks List established which is a first. It is a definitive list of New Zealand’s most important historic places. It is a very positive step for heritage protection nationwide. It will have an agreed set of national priorities and it will be a strong statement about the value the Government and New Zealanders place on heritage.Now I turn very briefly to Supplementary Order Paper 444 which is mainly about tightening up language in order to make the bill a clearer document. I acknowledge the good work of the officials in achieving this aim. I quickly want to summarise just some of the changes. I acknowledge Catherine Delahunty for her help in what is a very important one. When Heritage New Zealand appoints an archaeologist to work on a site of interest to Māori it must be satisfied that the archaeologist has the requisite competencies for recognising and respecting Māori values and has access to appropriate support—a constructive amendment that will ensure that this work is undertaken with sensitivity and appropriate focus. A key policy intent of the bill is to achieve better consistency with provisions in parallel legislation particularly the Resource Management Act. This Supplementary Order Paper has achieved this consistency. So for example the bill amends the time period for which an archaeological authority iscurrent aligning it with the Resource Management Act so Heritage New Zealand can give people the time they need to undertake large-scale projects. The provisions regarding liability for offences are also further aligned with the Resource Management Act.The changes I have outlined will contribute I believe to a strong and a well-targeted bill that will serve the interests of all New Zealanders. We are already seeing some of the provisions of the bill beginning to be played out and I am very pleased that so many new advocacy groups have formed and are working constructively with Heritage New Zealand. I have also been very encouraged by the level of engagement during the development of the bill and the broad support it has received. I want to place on record the tremendous effort by the officials. I particularly refer to Peter Richardson and also to a Wellington lawyer David Cochrane who did a huge amount of work on the bill to polish it and make it fit for purpose.It is interesting to note some of the great New Zealanders who have served on the Historic Places Trust over the years: the most recent chairs Judge Shonagh Kenderdine and before her John Acland; and current members including those who have sat on the Māori Heritage Council Naida Glavish Ian Athfield—a noted New Zealand architect—Dr Apirana Mahuika and Sir Tumu te Heuheu. In earlier years trust members have included Judith Binney Merata Kawharu Dame Cath Tizard Professor David Hamer Alan Talbot Keith Sorrenson Māui Pōmare Ken Gorbey Sir Alister McIntosh and “Duff” Daysh. This has been an organisation that has had some wonderful people working with it over the years and I am sure that will continue in the future.Can I conclude by thanking Heritage New Zealand and the new groups for their commitment to making the bill as effective as possible. I certainly want to acknowledge the current director Bruce Chapman. I also want to mention John Daniels who was the trust’s director for many years and since his retirement has retained a great interest in heritage matters. I want to acknowledge all those who have been members of branch committees. Their hard work and strong advocacy have made a very important contribution to New Zealand. For 60 years the trust has played a vital role in the protection of New Zealand’s heritage. I am delighted to give it a new name and statute and a new lease of life. I look forward to a new era for Heritage New Zealand positioned through this legislation to meet the needs of heritage and the people of New Zealand for many years to come. I commend the bill to the House.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is not often unfortunately that we are able to debate issues around arts culture and heritage in this House so I really relish this opportunity. I am sure you will forgive my indulgence if I traverse very briefly some of the wider issues that sit within this incredibly important portfolio. For Labour it always has been an incredibly important portfolio. That was probably recognised the most when Helen Clark decided to take on that portfolio as Prime Minister of New Zealand because she recognised that the arts and in particular heritage were part of our national identity. It helped us create a sense of who we are and heritage is intrinsic in that. In particular Helen Clark’s passion for the history around our Anzacs behind our participation in World War I and in World War II drove a lot of the projects she championed and she remains a great advocate in that regard.I think it is really important to recognise that the arts culture and heritage portfolio does not sit as a passive portfolio that just needs to tick along in the status quo. There are so many things that we can be doing to support grow and ensure that that sector is flourishing. Actually in recent times unfortunately the sector in many ways has been somewhat diminished by choices the Government has made. We need only to look at what has happened in public broadcasting. We have lost the charter. We have lostTVNZ 7. Yes ensuring that we have an appreciation of our heritage is encapsulated by buildings is important but it is also encapsulated by our stories and our storytelling.Beyond that there are things like for instance appreciation of music in New Zealand. It is New Zealand Music Month. It is very important to acknowledge that. It was started in 2000. Those are ways we can celebrate New Zealand music not only domestically but internationally. Yet at the same time we seem to have ignored that we have a quota in New Zealand for New Zealand music. If we ignore what is a voluntary quota we run the risk of again seeing a lack of commitment to ensuring that we are supporting our local artists first domestically so that we can ensure they succeed internationally.There are also things like the Large Budget Screen Production Grant Scheme introduced by New Zealand to support the film community in New Zealand. It was just left after Labour introduced it by this Government and not looked at closely enough in terms of bolstering that fund until it was almost too late. This is not a portfolio that can just be left as the status quo with fingers crossed that everything will be OK and yet that has happened far too much I fear within the arts culture and heritage portfolio.A perfect example as well I think where not enough attention has been paid is heritage issues in particular. We absolutely accept that in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake when the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act was introduced there was a great need for safety reasons to ensure that assessments were placed on buildings with an eye to ensuring that the city and its inhabitants were safe. Section 38 meant that we saw some vigorous demolition but the time has come for that provision to be removed. We have already seen 50 percent of central Christchurch heritage buildings gone—144 heritage buildings in the central business district alone. We are not arguing that there will not be cause for some of those buildings to come down in the future but surely we can now rely on the robust process around the Resource Management Act to determine that rather than fast-tracking those demolitions through the arbitrary process engaged in by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority for these buildings—Maggie Barry: What’s this got to do with the bill?JACINDA ARDERN: —and that is what we are calling for. It has got plenty to do with heritage. We are debating heritage and I think the survival of heritage buildings in Christchurch has got everything to do with the bill we are discussing now the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill.When we look at what has been proposed by the Government around the Historic Places Act I do not think we can underestimate what a fundamental shift this is for the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. I concur with and would like to reiterate the vote of thanks the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage made to the many many serving board members and volunteers who over the years have contributed to the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Labour joins in thanking all of them for their service in the past and their ongoing service to heritage in New Zealand.This bill has tackled a few issues around things like archaeological consenting processes. It has ensured that there is not duplication when it comes to the Resource Management Act. It has put the new organisation of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga on a statutory footing forms a new governance structure around that body and establishes transition provisions between the bill disestablishing branch committees removing three positions for elected board members and instead creating two new positions for board members appointed by the Minister. All of that is articulated by this bill.We did express some concerns during this process around ensuring a proper transition from the Historic Places Trust to these new arrangements. We were concerned that the transitional arrangement proposed in one of the clauses could be stronger. It wasa clause added by the select committee. We thought it could be made stronger by including support for the society’s incorporation of a branch and by providing standard or template rules to assist branches. I think we did that with a mind to the fact that volunteers have been involved in these organisations for so long that surely lending a hand in that regard could only have been helpful.Ultimately though it has been our view that there were grounds for these changes. We did support them but we also want to make sure that we put on record the ongoing issues around heritage protection in New Zealand that are significant fraught and not easily resolved but unfortunately go un-debated in this place and have gone un-debated for far too long. I want to traverse a couple of those now. Obviously the issue post the Christchurch earthquake has been increasing insurance premiums around heritage buildings. That is an issue on one level obviously when they are Crown-owned buildings for the Crown to cope with. But often of course we are seeing heritage buildings that are in private ownership where owners no longer see the fiscal gain in their owning a building that perhaps they might lease but now has a significant insurance cost attached to it.If you were to take this example for instance and apply it to a small town like Te Aroha—[Interruption] I am not sure how many buildings they have that might be listed but in Te Aroha there are a number of beautiful historic buildings in that place. Many of them will be in private ownership and with insurance premiums being what they are their ability to bring in rent to cover that is significantly diminished. So what are we likely to see in those cases? Well—not necessarily through any desire by a building owner—we will see I am sad to say demolition by neglect. What provisions are there to try to prevent that from happening in some of our towns and indeed our cities? Another challenge we consistently see is planning laws not meeting the public’s expectation around heritage protection. There have been countless examples in Auckland where we have heard the mantra again from heritage groups “This must never happen again.” and yet it does time and time again. The process of proper listing of heritage buildings comes up every time there is a review of a unitary plan in our city in particular as well.All of this must surely lead to the conclusion that it is time for a national statement on heritage issues. That would be the way that we could set out the parameters the guidelines and the public expectations around heritage in New Zealand. Labour has called in the past for a select committee to review this issue and all of the tangled web of heritage issues that at a local level we continually come up against. Unfortunately that was voted down by this Government. But I say again: yes we support this bill but we support a wider review of the considerable heritage issues we continue to face which are particularly stark at present and that will be only to the benefit of New Zealand’s future heritage and preservation of heritage.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): I rise to speak on the third reading of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill. As the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage who has shepherded this through the House Christopher Finlayson noted earlier this is a new era for the Historic Places Trust. He paid tribute to the people who have served loyally in all the branches and in the management structures of the trust over some 60 years now. The names of Judge Shonagh Kenderdine Naida Glavish Ian Athfield and Sir Tumu te Heuheu—these are people with enormous integrity who have put a lot of energy and time and effort into ensuring that the old Historic Places Trust did its job very well. But the purpose of this bill is to make the job of that trust—and it is a misnamed thing to call it a trust because it does not accurately represent its role.The purpose of this bill is to streamline specifically the archaeological authority process. That is a consent process for applicants under the New Zealand Historic PlacesTrust. When we look at some of the things that have been brought in as a result of the Local Government and Environment Committee process—and I was just reminding myself of it because this bill had its first reading on 8 May 2012 and the submissions closed on 19 July. We took about 30 oral submissions on the bill and they were very well considered. They were very well debated within the select committee process at the time when they were thought about and included and the Minister’s own rather large Supplementary Order Paper 444 has taken due note of them. The aspects that make the role of archaeological consent more workable have been reflected in the changes the select committee made.We have made practical and helpful suggestions—for example ensuring that non-invasive activities such as walking across a site are not going to be considered as exploratory investigation. There were quite a few submitters who said to us that the idea that you could not even walk across a site was very unworkable because how on earth do you do your job properly to actually assess what is there. We suggested clarifying that Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga access to sites with any assistance that is deemed necessary is also allowable—that is vehicles machinery and equipment—but these are to be used sparingly and not of course in any way likely to damage the site.I think that increasing the time that people are allowed to consider general policy statements from 12 to 18 months is also a very good thing because these things need to have that time and need to take that time and public consultation needs to be part of it. That was a message that came through very loud and clear.I think as well when you are clarifying the limit for the National Historic Landmarks List—initially it was thought that we had only 50 of those places in this country and there was a lot of debate around this—how do you deem one building or one site to be more worthy than another of historic protection at the highest level? Eventually the limit on numbers was thrown out and places will be assessed on their own merits. For example this building that we are in now is a precinct and it will be taken as one place and not as a series of buildings. So I think that there have been some very practical suggestions that have been listened to and will make the working of this piece of legislation all the better.The other elements that have had to be duly considered and perhaps the reason that this particular piece of legislation has taken such time are contained within the bill and within the Supplementary Order Papers—and we reflected Catherine Delahunty’s Supplementary Order Papers 372 and 373 as well and they were incorporated as part of this legislation. I think that it is another good sign that there has been a degree of cross-party cooperation and a willingness for politicians to put aside the petty politics and concentrate instead on what needs to happen for this bill to be workable for the sake of preserving our heritage. It was important that the Resource Management Act measures and the changes there have been aligned within this piece of legislation. Otherwise it might not be a workable thing.It seems to me that one of the great strengths of what this bill is doing is that it is making the process more transparent and easier to follow and therefore making it more likely that our heritage sites which are so precious to all of us will be protected in perpetuity. Also I think aligning things with the Environment Court is a very important thing. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.A lot of people have talked about the support and encouragement that they have drawn from that support for heritage. To me this has been a rallying bill. It has brought people together. There was initial discomfort around the disestablishment of the branches but it is now very apparent that people in various groups have welcomed the opportunity to examine what it is that we feel is important within our heritage and tounderstand the processes through which we need to go if we want to protect those heritage sites.So as the Minister said earlier it is a new name a new statute a new lease of life and a new era. That is why I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I rise to support the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill as other speakers from the Labour Party have done as well. I do support the notion previous speakers have mentioned that this is a bill that has gained widespread support from around Parliament and indeed in the community. That is actually a tribute to the Local Government and Environment Committee to those who have submitted to the select committee and to the Government and the Opposition politicians who have been part of that. It is not an area where today in contemporary New Zealand there should be I believe any particular dispute about the importance of having an organisation within the system of government that does protect enhance and advocate for our heritage.It was not always so. As I commented during the Committee stage of this bill it is great to see within this bill the strong support for for example the importance of the protection of wāhi tapu wāhi tūpuna and historic places and historic areas of interest to Māori. The National Party in the Don Brash era during the political correctness eradicator times—Dr Wayne Mapp that was Mr Goldsmith if you were wondering whatever happened—Darien Fenton: The MP for North Shore.GRANT ROBERTSON: —that is right the MP for North Shore—to the political correctness eradicator. During that period the National Opposition as it was then was not all that keen on recognising things like wāhi tapu and sacred sites for Māori. So I think it is a good advance that this piece of legislation does that very clearly and very specifically. I point particularly to clause 7 which gives a special acknowledgment to the way in which this legislation gives effect to the Crown’s responsibilities under the Treaty of Waitangi. I welcome that change of heart from the National Government and the fact that we can now have a piece of legislation that gives good recognition to those matters.Ultimately what this bill does in addition to some of the specific points that have been raised by the previous speaker Maggie Barry is create a new entity. It creates a governance arrangement for historic places in New Zealand that changes from the model that many New Zealanders have known well: a Historic Places Trust where there are local branch committees that played an important role in the actions of the trust which fed through to a national body which in turn played an advocacy role at the national level in terms of historic places and heritage. The recognition is that by changing this to what is effectively a Crown entity—what is effectively a Crown agency—it makes the local branch committees inappropriate. It is not really possible for there to be voluntary branch committees that would feed into a Government entity in that way. So despite some reluctance on this side of the House I would say in seeing branch committees disestablished we understand that the changed governance arrangements do make them inappropriate. I too want to place on record my thanks to all of those New Zealanders going back many decades who have contributed to the branch committees of the Historic Places Trust.Many cities and towns in New Zealand would not be the places they are today were it not for those committee members. As I think I said in the Committee stage debate I grew up in Dunedin and anyone who visits the city of Dunedin can look around on a day-to-day basis and see what an amazing impact local people had on the cityscape and on the fact that those buildings have been preserved. I was actually in the city of Dunedin on the weekend and I walked past one of the great historic buildings there theold National Bank on Princes Street. In the building beside it someone had put a sign up that said: “Sustainability begins with preservation”. I thought that was a very very good statement of the kinds of values that lie behind the protection of heritage in our historic places. We will not be a sustainable community if we do not preserve what is around us and that counts for historic buildings as much as it counts for our natural heritage as well.So I do want to thank those branch committees. However I do not think that we are here to pronounce the end of local advocacy and representation on heritage issues—far from it in fact. I note that right around the country historic places trust branches have been re-establishing themselves as part of—I think the organisation is called—Historic Places Aotearoa which is bringing together groups from right across the country. There is one in Napier there is one in New Plymouth and there is a very active one in Christchurch given the issues that that city is facing. It is fantastic that those individuals and communities can come together and still be advocates for their local heritage even though they are not officially members of the trust any longer. So I look forward to seeing the advocacy and support for heritage from those local committees when they are re-established as they are now.When we look at the bill it is important to look at the purposes and functions of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. In particular I do want to note the fact that it still has an advocacy role and that it is not just a body there to monitor and receive applications and to make reports. Under clause 11(1)(b) of the bill one of the purposes and functions of Heritage New Zealand is to advocate the conservation and protection of historic places historic areas wāhi tūpuna wāhi tapu and wāhi tapu areas. So I want to make sure that we do not suddenly believe that advocacy is over by creating this Crown entity.One of the criticisms that this side of the House has had of the National Government when it comes to the Department of Conservation is that the Government does not want to hear from the Department of Conservation about its advocacy role. It would rather that it went away—need anyone mention the Ruataniwha Dam if they want an example of that. I want to put on the record of this House that the Labour Party recognises that part of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga’s role will be to advocate and we support that role. It may mean that when we are in Government we may have some disagreements but we welcome that. We welcome the fact that there is an organisation that has got a specific responsibility to advocate for conservation of historic areas. That is important in our society.I want to refer to a couple of other areas. We have already had a reference by Jacinda Ardern to I guess in many senses the relationship between this organisation and the legislation that sets it up and the Resource Management Act. There was a lot of discussion at the select committee process as I understand it—I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee—about aligning those two regimes. In fact a chunk of the Minister’s very large Supplementary Order Paper 444 is about exactly that. That is important. We have seen too many examples in this House of legislation where alignment with the Resource Management Act has been forgotten about and here I am thinking about the exclusive economic zone legislation. That is a very good example of that. So it is important that we align them.But I think that what it draws out and there were submissions—and I remember Federated Farmers getting quite upset about this bill at one stage although it ultimately supported it I think—in which there was concern that there was not enough of a partnership approach in how we support historic places and sites. I guess representing farmers that organisation was concerned about where those historic sites may be on particular farms. I welcome the idea of a collaborative and partnership approach butthere need to be clear rules and guidelines around that. I do support the idea of some kind of national policy statement around heritage so that local authorities and those in the community who have to work in these areas understand the expectations at a central government level about the protection of heritage. I think it would be useful to do that.One of the problems with the implementation of the Resource Management Act over many years is the absence of national level guidance in terms of national policy statements and national environment standards. In the absence of those it has been up to local authorities to come up with decisions. That is where some inconsistencies have grown up. That if anything is what needs to change about the Resource Management Act not the fundamentals of it and not tearing down the fact that it is about sustainable management as this Government would do but rather actually giving the national level guidance that allows local organisations to make their decisions. That applies as much to heritage as it does to any other topic.So I think that is a conversation that we need to have but this bill at least gives us an organisation that is now well founded within Government to provide support and protection for our heritage going forward and therefore the Labour Party can support this legislation.HOLLY WALKER (Green): The Green Party is pleased to add its voice in support of the others who have expressed cross-party support for this legislation the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill in the House this afternoon. It is good to see a piece of very significant legislation like this proceeding with such a high degree of support across the House.It is very timely because this bill is passing through Parliament at a time when heritage issues have probably never been higher in the public consciousness particularly of course following the devastating Christchurch earthquakes which as the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage pointed out had not yet taken place when the bill was first contemplated but have certainly provided a backdrop for much of the discussion particularly about built heritage that has taken place with this bill. Also of course legislation that straddles the very fine line between heritage protection and the need for earthquake strengthening is also currently before the House. So these issues are very current and of great concern in the public consciousness.In New Zealand we have a unique heritage. Our built heritage and indeed many of our other historic sites are a very vital and important part of our national identity. Sadly we often perceive just how important they are only when they have been lost to us as we have seen in the case of so many buildings in Christchurch. What makes us who we are and what identifies us as New Zealanders as Cantabrians or as people belonging to a particular place or site is often inextricably tied up with buildings with heritage sites and with archaeological sites and their preservation is very important.Heritage issues obviously stir the passions of many New Zealanders because they are controversial issues—witness the strength of debate in Christchurch about the future of the Christchurch Cathedral for example—so it is important that we get the legislative framework right for having these debates and I think we are pretty close with this bill.Just as our built heritage is an important part of our national identity so of course has been the iconic Historic Places Trust which has been a very important membership-based advocacy organisation for many many years and I think that every member of this House and many members of the public will have positive associations with their local Historic Places Trust organisation. Largely thanks to the dedicated efforts of passionate volunteers at the branch level many many buildings have been preserved many sites have been saved and many iconic sites have been brought to public attention and promoted to be enjoyed by members of the public as a result of the work of the branch committees of the Historic Places Trust. So it is with somesadness—and it was with some degree of misgiving when this bill first came into the House—that we witness with the passage of this bill the disestablishment of branch committees of the Historic Places Trust.We understand of course that this change has not been uncontroversial particularly amongst local members of branch committees around the country and the Local Government and Environment Committee heard from a number of these people who were concerned that their hard work in the past might not be sufficiently recognised under the new model or that their voices and advocacy might go unheard in future. That is a real concern. However we do acknowledge that under the current soon-to-be-past model there was a mismatch between having the Historic Places Trust as a Crown entity and having a branch membership structure at the local level. So there is some logic in the changes that this bill makes. But I think it is going to be very very important to keep a close eye and to ensure that local membership of heritage advocacy committees under the new model will continue and that these groups will be able to focus very strongly on their advocacy role. The Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage has indicated that he hopes that will happen as well. Of course for them to be able to do that they do need to have the right level of support and we are pleased to see that some transitional financial support has been made available to local organisations. The Green Party along with our colleagues in I think the Labour Party argued at the select committee that we would have liked that support to be greater and we do think it is a shame that it is not. But we will watch this area closely.I would like to echo the comments of my colleague Grant Robertson who has just spoken about the importance of advocacy. Although the Minister has indicated that he thinks that the new heritage advocacy committees at the local level will be able to focus their efforts on advocacy and rightly so there is still an important heritage advocacy role that the new Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga organisation can and should fill. We have seen of course a parallel with the Department of Conservation which also has an advocacy role as a Government department that in the past has exercised that advocacy role completely independently and free of any political interference. We in the Green Party are concerned and I know that many others are concerned that that independent advocacy role of the Department of Conservation has been recently eroded somewhat and the Ruataniwha Dam is a good example. So we think it is going to be very important that although we still have heritage advocacy committees at the branch level to do advocacy it should not be siloed to just those groups. If there is a significant heritage issue that Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga should be advocating on then it will and should do that in the future and the Green Party will certainly be watching very closely to ensure that that happens.Similarly we think it is very important that although the interests of landowners obviously need to be considered very carefully in any heritage decisions they also need to be considered alongside the interests of others and alongside the interests of heritage so that greater weight is not given to landowners’ interests over the interests of other stakeholders.One of the other things that makes our heritage in New Zealand so unique of course is our tangata whenua and it was always going to be vital to ensure that tangata whenua and mana whenua are adequately involved in heritage decisions on land in their rohe and indeed over historic sites that relate to Māori history. So we were pleased to see the select committee recommendation to widen the range of parties that Heritage New Zealand must work with to include tangata whenua as well as Government agencies.One of the major areas of change in the bill of course is around new archaeological authorities for the exploration of a potential new heritage site. I would like to join others in acknowledging the work of my colleague Catherine Delahunty for her constructivework with the Minister to ensure that when a new architect is appointed to work on a site of significance to Māori mana whenua have a say in that appointment. That is a very important and significant change which was made in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 444 during the Committee stage of this bill. We are very pleased to see that change was made and very pleased that the Minister was able to work constructively with our colleague Catherine Delahunty to make that change. It will make a big difference for many mana whenua who are dealing with archaeological sites in their rohe.The other major new initiative of this bill is of course the creation of a national register of historic sites. That is a new and potentially very useful tool for people to engage with our history and to understand—and visit perhaps if they want to—sites whose names are collected and published on that list. I think there was a great deal of concern expressed by a number of submitters about the idea of limiting the number of sites on that list to only 50. It was quite an arbitrary number and unnecessarily prescriptive when we have such a rich vein of heritage in our country. So we are pleased to see that that was abandoned and now there will not be a limit to the number of sites that can be declared to be on the national register of historically significant sites but each site will be considered on its merits. That was a sensible change.In conclusion we in the Green Party have had some concerns about the role of branch committees and local membership in heritage advocacy about the importance of a Crown entity continuing to exercise some advocacy over heritage in the future about alignment with the Resource Management Act—which I have not spoken a great deal about but which will also be very important—and about the ability of mana whenua and tangata whenua to have their concerns and their sites of significance rightfully taken into account in heritage decisions. Some of those concerns remain for us. We are not 100 percent comfortable with every aspect of this bill but we think that by and large the Supplementary Order Papers and the select committee’s constructive deliberations have got it right and we are pleased to be able to support this bill.I would like to conclude with a whakataukī which seems appropriate. It is: Puritia ngā tāonga tuku iho a ngā tūpuna heitiki huia mā ngā uri whakatupu o Aotearoa. Translated it means to keep the treasures handed down by the ancestors as an adornment for the descendants yet to be born in New Zealand. It seems an appropriate sentiment on which to conclude.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I acknowledge some of the disquiet that was felt about the disestablishment of branch committees. I just note that as part of the review of the Historic Places Trust there was found to be a lack of clarity around the organisation’s statutory role and also its membership role which led to the disestablishment of the branch committees. However I would say that out of the ashes of the disestablishment have grown some pretty good strong groups that have become good heritage advocates on behalf of their communities.This is no more so than with the Ōāmaru Whitestone Civic Trust which is based in North Otago in Ōāmaru. The Ōāmaru Whitestone Civic Trust is the owner of a number of heritage buildings in and around Ōāmaru and North Otago. As well as being the custodian for the buildings themselves and getting involved in the upgrading and earthquake strengthening of those buildings it has a wider role that it has assumed with the demise of the local committee. It has incorporated many of the local committee people and is an incredibly strong positive group that has a very strong role in the preservation of the heritage of both North Otago and the wider country.The Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill is a good bill. There were a number of provisions brought in by the changes made by the Local Government and Environment Committee but it serves for me only to commend this bill to the House.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I rise to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill in its third reading. New Zealand First does have some real concerns in relation to this legislation and we will not be supporting it.We concede that some aspects of the Historic Places Act did need updating. That Act was originally drafted in 1975 and amended in 1993. As time has marched on what has not been regarded as historic under the Act—that is being post-1900—is now becoming of significant heritage and historic value as we move well into the 21st century. For instance the World War I centennial era is now upon us and we must be mindful of the importance of such important periods in the history of our country. Important structures to commemorate that Great War are most certainly now being regarded as having historic importance. Likewise architecture from the 1930s such as art deco in Napier is now coming into that same category of unique historic significance.However putting those positive aspects of amendments to the Act aside the most controversial focus of this bill—the area where New Zealand First has grave concerns—is the change of the name and complete restructuring of the Historic Places Trust. Its name in itself has historic heritage value. The Historic Places Trust has been known to us all over many many generations. That iconic name the Historic Places Trust will become Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and with it the whole structure will be radically changed.New Zealand First does not agree with the proposed changes that will see the disestablishment of the local branch committees. I think that that is one of the fundamental problems that many New Zealanders and many who submitted to the Local Government and Environment Committee have in that this bill is taking away that whole volunteer side of the Historic Places Trust. Committees throughout New Zealand have laboured long and hard over many many decades to ensure our heritage is preserved.We all know of sites in our own communities where such volunteer branches have raised money worked hard and put in a huge amount of volunteer labour to preserve sites buildings or special areas of historic interest. Those people have put a great deal of their own personal time money and effort into that. Effectively what we are now seeing under the bill is that volunteer system which New Zealanders are famous for—and New Zealand has the honour of being a country that is seen as having one of the highest levels of volunteers in the developed world; we are renowned for our level of volunteering—being undermined and the effective corporatisation of our New Zealand heritage.The bill also sees the removal of three positions of elected members of the trust board. In the past the people who were most involved in historic places and heritage were able to elect members to represent them on the board. It is most disappointing that that will no longer be the case. Again that in effect is a removal of the democratic principle and we do not support that. What it says now in the bill is that the governing body will comprise eight persons appointed by the Minister one of whom is to be appointed as the chairperson of the board.The persons appointed must collectively have the appropriate skills knowledge or cultural background to assist Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga to perform its functions. At least three persons must be appointed who in the opinion of the Minister after consulting with the Minister of Māori Affairs are qualified for appointment having regard to their knowledge of Te Ao Māori which is the Māori world view and tikanga Māori which is Māori protocol and culture. The appointments must be made in accordance with the Crown Entities Act 2004.Effectively this is the corporatisation of the Historic Places Trust and it is taking it from all those many limbs all around New Zealand and all those many volunteer branches around New Zealand and giving it back to the control of the bureaucrats and central government here in Wellington. That to our mind to New Zealand First’s mind is not a good thing and it undermines the very reason that so many of us cherish and give such great presence to our historic places all over this country. They are there on behalf of the people; they are not there on behalf of a bureaucracy in Wellington that is administering them.The Historic Places Trust comprised volunteer committees and communities all over New Zealand that have provided invaluable time energy and local knowledge to maintaining and protecting the history and heritage of New Zealand. As dedicated guardians of much of our most precious history they represent all that is good at grassroots level in New Zealand. These volunteers are being ungraciously moved aside in favour of a more centralised corporate model run from Wellington.The Local Government and Environment Committee heard from many branches and individual members who felt they were being sidelined by the whole process. They felt it was detrimental to the heritage movement across the country and will result in fewer people taking the trouble to volunteer their time and money to this most worthy endeavour of protecting the history of our nation. That will be a result of this legislation. There will be a reduced level of interest. Volunteers will not continue to offer their services in the way they have in the past simply because the rug has been pulled out from underneath them. They felt aggrieved that their annual fees will continue to be taken but with greatly reduced representation within the restructured organisation.This is not what New Zealand is about. The history of our country is not about another piece of Government property that it can corporatise and commercialise. It is therefore with grave concern that New Zealand First opposes the intent of this bill because it certainly does not put New Zealand heritage and dedicated volunteering New Zealanders first.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I would like to support the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill which delivers on National’s promise to improve governance in the arts and heritage area.I just wanted to draw attention to what is obviously a very significant place in our nation’s history and our heritage. But we do have to be careful to strike a balance between our heritage concerns and the broader social and economic objectives. This legislation I think is better because of the select committee process. There were a lot of submissions from a number of people. A number of people were very concerned about the costs added on to landowners as a result of this work in heritage. They wanted to make sure that we were careful in how we managed it. Clause 12(3) says: “No interest in land may be regarded as having been taken or injuriously affected and no compensation is payable by reason only of any provision of this Act.” It is quite a remarkable thing and there is no question that there are some landowners whose property is very significantly affected in its value by things that happen in this Act.So it was very important that we added in a new clause 12(1A) which notes: “In exercising its power under subsection (1)(a) Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga must recognise the interests of an owner as far as those interests are known in a particular historic place historic area wāhi tūpuna wāhi tapu or wāhi tapu area.” I think that with that clause in there landowners can have a greater confidence that when we are striving hard to maintain the heritage values of New Zealand we are also aware and cognisant of the costs that we put on landowners so as to minimise those and to achieve a greater possible heritage effect as we possibly can at a realistic cost for thosepeople who are just wanting to renovate their house or make some improvements to their property. On that basis I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.DARIEN FENTON (Labour): I am very pleased to take a call in the third reading of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill. I have followed this bill with some interest even though I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee. That is because I think that most Kiwis and most people who live in this land believe that heritage is about our collective cultural memory. It is important to us all and it affects us all in different ways. It has been interesting to hear the contributions from members of the select committee. Overall from what I can see I think the committee did quite a good job.I understand the concerns about the local committees being abolished. I can understand that because I have been involved with local committees that have worked very hard to try to save something they see as part of their heritage whether it be in a small town or a suburb and so on. I hope that this bill does not mean that we will see the end of that kind of organisation where people gather and rally round to mark something that actually means something to them—their history their ancestors their whānau and so on.The only criticism I have with the select committee is that the bill was introduced before the 2011 election. It has taken some time. It is good to see it back in the House. Some listeners may be wondering why we are doing this 2 days before the Budget and why it is so important so I thought I would just try to expand a little bit about what the bill does and what it actually means to the places that I know in Auckland where I live. The purpose of the bill is “to promote the identification protection preservation and conservation of the historical and cultural heritage of New Zealand.” So I went looking for what that actually means. We have all been aware of battles over buildings and seen the destruction of buildings and the sad state of affairs in Christchurch where so many heritage buildings have been lost and where we have seen things torn down when they should not have been.There is quite a long list of New Zealand Historic Places Trust category I listings in the Auckland region. Other people I am sure can follow and look around and see what there is in their region. I have to say that there is a large number of churches. I suppose that that is to do with our colonial history whenPākehāpeople came to New Zealand and decided that they had to have churches everywhere and try to convert the natives. Some of those churches are indeed very very beautiful.We in Auckland are all familiar with the Auckland Civic Theatre for example. That is a magnificent piece of artwork. I always get a thrill going into that theatre. I remember as a child going in and seeing the Wurlitzer organ that it used to have in there which would come up before the movie started. The theatre has a great history in our city not only of movies but also as a place where people could go to dance and go to balls. Another one that I picked out is a place called Kinder House which is in Parnell. Kinder House was built by one of the early settlers. It is a stone building and it is quite beautiful. It is in Parnell. Why it is important to me is that it has a lot of artworks and books in it from the period of the time. Kinder House is also important to me because I have a partner who is an antiquarian book collector.Clare Curran: As well.DARIEN FENTON: As well. He is also a jazz collector. He is an antiquarian book collector and he was part of a group called Slightly Foxed (But Otherwise Fine) after the famous Ronald Searle bookSlightly Foxed But Still Desirable. This group collected antiquarian books and it used to meet at Kinder House. It still does I think but my partner has gone on to other things like jazz and music. It was a wonderful experience particularly for my young son to be in a historic building surrounded by art and booksand people who valued books and who put them within the context of heritage in many ways. So Kinder House is special to me.I also want to mention Alberton which is also a special place for all of us. It is a beautiful old building in Auckland and is famous for being the home of suffragettes so it is very special.Carol Beaumont: That is right—a very strong women’s history.DARIEN FENTON: It has a strong women’s history and certainly women I know in the Labour Party often recollect that history and meet there to celebrate it particularly around Women’s Suffrage Day.But there are also some interesting places. Our heritage is not just about beautiful buildings. When you cross the harbour bridge you see this big old orange building. That is the Chelsea sugar refinery. That has been there for quite a long time and has a wonderful history actually of people who performed the work and who should be celebrated for the work they do—and those who still actually work there. There is a wonderful poem from James K Baxter that came out of that place. The story is that James K Baxter went to work at the Chelsea sugar refinery and got the sack after not being there for very long. He wrote a rather unrefined poem to express his disgruntlement which if you bear with me I shall read:I had the job of hosing downThe hoick and sludge and gritFor the sweet grains of sugar dustThat had been lost in it …For all the sugar in the landGoes through that dismal dumpAnd all the drains run through the worksInto a filthy sump …Is that not quite wonderful? That is called the “Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works”. A copy of that is actually in the Chelsea sugar refinery library and the Birkenhead Library on the North Shore where I worked.There are some wonderful parts of our history in places where we like to visit and play. I am thinking here of North Head. If you have never been to North Head in Auckland I recommend that you do because it is a collection of artefacts from our war history. I think that is very very appropriate in this centenary year. It goes right back indeed to the 1800s when we thought there was going to be a Russian invasion so there were tunnels built. Remember the story about a plane being underneath North Head—a plane that was built by one of the very very early aviators—and it was hidden in one of the tunnels under North Head? People looked for it and put little things down to see whether they could see into it. But what it is now is a place of memories. It is a place that reminds us that we have been engaged in many wars in this country. We have been under threat in the past—in the First World War and the Second World War. It is a wonderful place to visit. It is a little old volcano on the tip of Devonport. It is a wonderful place to walk and play and I have spent many a wonderful time with my children and my family at North Head.I was also interested to see that the Northern Club is a historic place in Auckland. Why does the Northern Club ring a bell? Why does that ring a bell? OK we had something happen in the Northern Club quite recently as I recall. I am not going to lower the tone of this debate by referring to it but I found it very interesting that the Northern Club is there as well.There are many other places I could name but I know I am running out of time. What I want to say is what I said at the beginning. It is not just about buildings that arebeautiful and old it is also about our collective cultural history. And that can be an industrial site. It can be a place where people worked. It can be the Auckland waterfront which has managed to continue to keep the remnants of the work—the fishing boats and the rust and the red of the buildings—in a beautiful way. It can obviously be a beautiful piece of land that means something to us. It can bewāhi tapu. It can be a battle site from the many many wars that we saw in the early part of our history.I am really pleased to support this bill. I think it is an important bill albeit 2 days before the Budget. I am pleased that we are actually getting it through. I take on board the concerns that people have expressed about some of the changes but I do not believe for a minute that New Zealanders will stop fighting for our history and stop wanting to remember it and wanting to fight at a local level and a national level. So I am really pleased to have had the chance to speak on this bill.CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): Ka whakatūria Te Pouhere Taonga hei tiaki i ngā wāhi nui tae atu ki atu ki ngā whare tawhito.[Te Pouhere Taonga was established to protect significant places including ancient buildings of significance.]This Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill is not just about bricks and mortar; it is also about earth and sea where these totally suppressed or invisible taonga these stories can now come to light—the protection and registration ofwāhi tapu by putting a historic context to these sites as a result of the strengthening role of theMāori Heritage Council. It assists the development of bicultural governance—identifying gaps in information at manaaki whānau where they have been impacted—and advocacy which gives effect to our words and our world.Ka tautoko ahau i tēnei pire ki te Whare nei.[I endorse this bill to this House.]Kia ora.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a call on this the final reading of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill which creates the new Heritage New Zealand body. I guess it is the progression of the Historic Places Trust into this new body. I remember speaking on this bill at its first reading and it was so long ago I think we were all just beginning MPs and trying to find our way through. But it is nice to be slotting in here at the end at its third reading. I want to make just a few remarks. I would hope that we do support the intent of this bill which is to improve the governance of the Heritage New Zealand body and to strengthen the partnership which we do commend around the Māori Heritage Council and its alignment with the governing body. We also support moving it into an autonomous Crown entity but notwithstanding that it is good to see the local branches around the country that will no longer be members of the Historic Places Trust still continuing on their important local community advocacy work.We also do commend the fact that there is still the advocacy role contained within Heritage New Zealand. Let us hope that come Thursday Mr English has a few more dollars to spare for Mr Finlayson on heritage protection. We will wait and see but it would be nice to launch this new body with the resources so it can do its important mahi. It is important that we do recognise and protect historic places our buildings and the wāhi tapu of our country because they make up the identity of us as Kiwis as New Zealanders.Just reflecting on heritage and I recognise the contribution from Miss Hauiti I say that it is not just about buildings but about places and especially for us as tangata whenua fresh in our minds are the recently commemorated sesquicentennial battles of Ōrākau Rangiriri and Pukehinahina. Shortly there will be one in Tauranga. The coverage of these commemorations which has been received on Māori and mainstreammedia has been encouraging. I do not recall ever seeing the marking of those milestones ever across our mainstream media. There is so much more to our rich history and we definitely do want New Zealanders to know all about that because everyday Kiwis pass by within metres of historical sites and they never realise it. In towns cities and rural and coastal areas history is all around and it is ready to reveal its secrets and all it takes is recognition and an information board of some description.But I am also aware of the difficulty some hapū and iwi face when dealing with wāhi tapu especially on private land. Sadly as more and more Māori became alienated from their land many of the sacred sites of our people became locked up in private ownership so it will not come as a surprise to this House that not all private landowners care as much for wāhi tapu. But indeed wāhi tapu are very important to the tangata whenua and it is encouraging that in this legislation there is a strengthened role for the Māori Heritage Council to be working alongside and I recognise the contributions from I believe Miss Delahunty in terms of the amendment that was made to beef up the expertise for tikanga and Māori matters through the archaeological sites. All of those elements to this bill are encouraging to see and it is going to be good to see the new organisation carry on its new task under this piece of legislation. But it is not only about the wāhi tapu and about Māori winning battles even though we were outnumbered seven to one; there are also significant buildings that have historic significance that require the statutory umbrella of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.One case in point which has been in the news recently is the Harcourts building just several blocks from here. From memory the landlord wants to pull down that building because it is deemed an earthquake risk he cannot afford to have it strengthened to the required standard and it is easier for him to build a new building that will be fully tenanted. So there are those catch-22 situations that arise and hopefully there can be some wise judgments given to those sorts of cases through the work of Heritage New Zealand.Lastly I am aware of the impact of the Christchurch earthquakes. They have had a big impact on the mahi of the Historic Places Trust. We know that its resources have been stretched in all areas and those people at the trust have been charged with saving much of our historic heritage in that fine city but they also face some serious dilemmas over building integrity versus the safety of the public. So let us hope that by strengthening the statutory powers through the creation and the governance of this new body Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and also hopefully by strengthening its budget the good work of this small—now a Crown—organisation will be able to continue in our communities across the country. Kia ora.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Bill be now read a third time.Ayes113New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Bill read a third time.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Just before I move to the next item of business can I just remind members that if they want a party vote they must challenge the Speaker at the time when the vote is given. I just remind members thatthey must challenge me and ask for a party vote. A party vote does not just follow automatically because a party votes no to the question.Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 8 May.Part 2 Amendments to Financial Services Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act 2008(continued)CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): As the Chair has said we are in Part 2 of the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. This is probably the smaller part of this bill. Part 1 included all of the new provisions around repossession enforcement and penalties as well as the responsible lending provisions and other changes that we support. This particular part includes provisions around the Financial Services Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act and requires that financial service providers including people providing credit under a credit contract be registered.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.CAROL BEAUMONT: We are speaking now on Part 2 of the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. This part is the amendments to the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act. I am going to just talk specifically about the provisions in this part. I also note that in Part 1 there is a provision now around requiring registration so if a person is not registered as a financial service provider then they will be unable to collect fees or interest. That will potentially and hopefully improve the current situation where the level of registration is—and it certainly was in 2011 when people started looking into this—actually potentially pretty low particularly in the third-tier or fringe lending market that many of us are so concerned about.This part focuses really on the provisions around the reserve scheme. It removes the requirement for a Government-sponsored reserve scheme. Also and probably most significant in this part it also has clause 98 which provides for the jurisdiction of dispute resolution schemes to be increased so that they can deal with all of the matters under the legislation. Potentially if we had informed consumers that would mean that a number of the matters that are raised in the more substantive parts of this bill could be matters that are dealt with by the dispute resolution scheme which would be an improvement on the current situation. But of course like the other provisions in this bill my concern is that many consumers will still be unaware of their rights even though under responsible lending and all of the disclosure provisions they will potentially be aware of the dispute resolution scheme.We have got I think some way to go before we see fully informed consumers who will be willing and able to take up matters and there will no doubt be many many matters still left to take up because none of us I think would think that the passing of this bill by itself is actually in the short term and possibly even in the medium term going to change some of those dodgy practices that are out there. Of course when consumers have to enforce or take action themselves then it is necessary for that person to know their rights to have the confidence to take actions.I guess one of the things that would be very good to hear from the Minister of Consumer Affairs is that once this bill is passed and comes into effect—and there is a staggered process there which we will talk about later this evening—the Government will invest some money in ensuring that the legislation is understood and that there ismore information and support for consumers put in place. We all know—and I am sure many of us in this Chamber will have experienced directly—of the sorts of rip-offs and the shoddy treatment of many of our particularly vulnerable consumers by many dodgy lenders out there. So I do hope that the dispute resolution schemes are used well. It is good that they can cover the full range of issues in the legislation.Another area that is quite positive in this part is clause 100 where it is now a requirement for the dispute resolution schemes to communicate with the Commerce Commission if they are aware of a series of complaints about a particular creditor or type of creditor. I read that to mean that if there is a company called x y and z that comes to their attention on numerous occasions—or indeed if the whole category of say pay-day lenders truck shops or some of those other delightful creatures that are out there does—they can then pass on that information and in fact will be required to tell the Commerce Commission. This is where I think the rubber will really hit the road in some regards: whether the Commerce Commission itself is going to be resourced to really keep an eye on what is going on and to ensure that provisions that have been passed in this bill are in fact utilised effectively. I would like to see—and again I would like to ask the Minister about this—some sort of baseline if you like. In the very delayed passing of this legislation we should make sure that we have our baseline of how things look at the moment and that we actually do actively seek Commerce Commission monitoring of what happens out there. I think that also needs to include interest rates.The reason I say that is that the one area that this bill is particularly deficient in is the failure to cap interest rates and the failure to stop people lending money with really extremely high interest rates often in the hundreds and sometimes the thousands of percent. We know that most people try to pay back the loans that they take out including that interest. That is money they can ill afford to pay and yet that was not dealt with in this bill. So in having the dispute resolution schemes being required to inform the Commerce Commission my view is that the Commerce Commission should actually start with some baselines.To all of those who have argued including members opposite that the other provisions in this bill—the responsible lending requirements and the disclosure requirements—will start to drive down interest rates I say let us get our baseline now and let us actually measure that because that will be where we really see whether or not this is effective. It is a great disappointment that amendments that were put up to bring in interest rate caps and add them to the tool box of tools to try to control some of the things that go on in our consumer credit area particularly in that third tier have not been done. So I think that it is fair to say that the purpose clause for financial service providers inserted by clause 72 in this part new section 2A includes the requirement “to promote and facilitate the development of fair efficient and transparent financial markets.” I want to know what people think fair efficient and transparent financial markets are. I challenge anybody to stand up and say that interest rates of 50 percent 70 percent 100 percent or 200 percent are actually fair. They are not fair.I think that there is a real need and there is still an opportunity potentially for the Government to say that it wants the Commerce Commission to measure the whole playing field as we start down this track to particularly look at whether or not interest rates are affected by this legislation’s other provisions and if they are not to actually do something about it. We should have done it now; we have not. But there is still an opportunity for the Minister to say that he would expect that that is something that the Commerce Commission informed by the dispute resolution schemes could still do. Although it would not make us as happy as actually having interest rate caps in the legislation it would at least show some willingness on the part of the Government toactually deal with what we all know to be a real issue out there. So I hope the Minister will get to his feet. I hope the Minister will deal with those questions around how we are going to inform consumers and how we are going to make sure that the Commerce Commission is adequately funded to be actively out there looking at what is going on.Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Consumer Affairs): It is a pleasure to continue speaking on this very very good bill the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. This once had cross-party support. I will be interested to see whether New Zealand First has come to its senses and will now be voting for the bill. We will wait and see.The member who spoke previously Carol Beaumont raised some interesting points. Part 2 really deals with the financial dispute resolution services even though she started to talk about some other matters that were in the earlier part. But she did raise a couple of points. It came out in a recent study that the awareness of dispute resolution schemes amongst the general public amongst users and even amongst suppliers actually was lower than desired. There is work going on by those various services and others to raise the profile of dispute resolution schemes because they do play a key part in consumer dispute resolution of course in the life cycle of a consumer credit contract.I just note that the bill deals with that kind of life cycle: the information disclosure the responsible principles that must be adhered to the stand-down period the signing of the contract and what can happen after that what can happen during the life of the contract if problems occur and of course what can happen if the borrower has some complaints or some issues. It is important to note I think that the financial dispute resolution services are paid for by the industry. They are very very low cost for the borrower or for the user. They are paid for for the good of the industry. As the member noted earlier if any entity that tries to engage in commercial ending activity is not a member of a dispute resolution scheme it cannot charge interest—it cannot charge interest. It is somewhat of a pretty good and sharp economic incentive for those organisations to belong to an accessible low-cost dispute resolution scheme that by and large does a very very good job. I agree that the awareness of them will increase.The member asked about the Commerce Commission’s information and the sending out of the changes and new obligations to the sector out there. I can assure the member as I did on Part 1 when I spoke that yes I have asked the Commerce Commission and it has assured me that it is taking this kind of new retail-facing part of its work very very seriously. It has already hired from the Māngere Budgeting Services Trust a person who is like a community liaison officer a community adviser. That is something that the Commerce Commission has never had before. As members noted in the previous part that adviser is on the ground gaining knowledge and raising awareness in community groups of what they can do if something goes wrong—such as talking to the financial dispute resolution services.This is a pretty confined part of this bill—clause 71 through to clause 90-odd I think. But there is just one quick point. There are some changes in the bill that the Financial Markets Authority can make changes to. Sadly—and this is why we have such complex legislation that goes across many pages as always—there are some people out there trying to exploit the holes in legislation. There have been some people within New Zealand and from afar who have tried to exploit the good reputation that New Zealand has as a fair and just place to do business backed up by robust regulation and a justice system that has integrity.Some of the changes in those clauses as you will note give powers to the Financial Markets Authority to deregister various people and to services to not accept registrations from particular individuals. Sadly some individuals with ulterior motives of essentially trying to rip New Zealanders and others off have actually tried to use thatstamp of approval of being a New Zealand financial services provider and belonging to one of these dispute resolution services and the procedures probably were not as good as they could have been as we have found out to disallow those people from exploiting New Zealand’s very very good name. It is very important that we maintain our reputation around the world as a good place to do business and domestically for New Zealanders—particularly for vulnerable New Zealanders but of course across the country.So this bill closes some of those opportunities that individuals could have used to exploit our regulatory environment for their own commercial gain where in fact they have no standing whatsoever to do that. As I said earlier often their motives were not good and they may have been convicted or have had actions taken against them in overseas jurisdictions and this part of the bill addresses those particular holes.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to Part 2 of the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. Can I thank the Minister of Consumer Affairs for making a substantial contribution to the debate. Can I also take this opportunity—I did not get the chance during the debate on Part 1—to thank the officials who are in the Chamber tonight. This as the Minister said was—[Interruption] I will get to you soon. Do not worry. You will get your day in the sun.I thank the officials who helped us with this bill because as the Minister did say it is a complex bill but it is a bill that deals with the nitty-gritty of what a lot of our constituents face in our communities when they are dealing with the likes of second and third-tier lenders. So thank you very much because I think we have made some substantial changes that will help many people in communities right around New Zealand. Thank you because you made it into plain English for those who did not understand the legalese of it. There you go Jonathan.To the other members of the Commerce Committee there were a few points of difference around interest rate caps which I will get to in my contribution. But on the whole the length of time that we spent on this bill and the nature of the way in which we worked on it in the select committee meant that we have got a bill that we will support. We do have some concerns about the length of time that it took to get here and some things that have been omitted from the bill but on the whole it is a good piece of legislation that we will support. It will make a difference to people’s lives.The Minister in the chair the Minister of Consumer Affairs did mention the Commerce Commission and certainly during the submissions process in Auckland we sensed some frustration that the Commerce Commission was not doing enough at the business end of the formation of credit contracts in terms of policing what was going on there. Certainly I think the Bankers’ Association in its submission sensed a level of frustration that the Commerce Commission was seen to be not doing enough to keep an eye on some of the behaviour of certainly the third-tier lenders who were giving the whole industry a pretty bad name.I do acknowledge that the Minister said that the Commerce Commission has taken on one employee from Māngere to assist in the understanding of what is going on at the grassroots level in the communities. But I would suggest that that is far from enough. Maybe the Minister could let us know as he has told us what has happened so far whether there are any more plans for the Commerce Commission to extend it well beyond Auckland because this is not just an Auckland issue. It needs to be spread right throughout the country and be resourced properly because this is a big issue and there are two very important Es that need to be considered here: education and enforcement. We need education so that everyone knows exactly what is happening in this bill and the rights that it gives to consumers and we need to make sure there is enforcement.There is no use in our passing this law if no one is going to police what is going on with our second and third-tier lenders.I hope that the Minister gets back on his feet and suggests whether there is a plan for the Commerce Commission to go beyond just the one person it has employed and to employ people right around the country in order to have enough resources to make sure that what we have done in this piece of legislation is effective. As he pointed out just with the financial disputes resolutions system there is not enough awareness of what you can do if you think you are being ripped off. Certainly we would want to make sure that there is enough education and enforcement out there so that this piece of legislation will be effective. It is good to put measures into law but it is another thing to make sure that the legislation is effective so that the families we are worried about the vulnerable families who do not have that information and do not know which avenue to go down can get the help they need. They are people whom this legislation is there to help.My colleague Carol Beaumont pointed to clause 100 in the bill which I think is a good one. It carries on a theme with the Commerce Commission because if through a number of complaints the dispute resolution scheme sees a trend with a particular type of borrower it is able to notify the Commerce Commission. I want to use the example of truck shops which certainly go about with their guerrilla tactics in my area of Mana. If they are out there trading in a way that is against what we have passed here and the dispute resolution scheme notices that trend it is able to pass those issues on to the Commerce Commission. I think that is a good thing. But again we need to make sure that the Commerce Commission moves away from the high-level thinking and enforcement that it does at the moment and gets down to the nitty-gritty of what is actually happening in the communities.I do not think that the likes of the budget support organisations in our communities have the support from the Commerce Commission to be able to enforce what we are passing here today.The people at the grassroots who are helping these families day to day—the likes of the Porirua Budget Service and the Kapiti Family Budgeting Service; we have all got budget advisory services in our communities—would certainly want to know that they have got support from the Commerce Commission to be able to put the kinds of powers and the advantages they get from clause 100 in this bill into practice. They want to be able to make sure that if they do see a trend developing with a particular type of borrower they can certainly crack down on that.The kind of instance I am talking about with the truck shops is the kind of what I would call dodgy behaviour where we have customers incurring a debt—say a credit of around $1000. The customer pays it off and instead of saying: “Your bill is paid.” the truck shop says: “Well you’ve got another $1000. Go for it.” I think that kind of behaviour is encouraging people into even more debt. I would hope that through the code we have in this legislation we will see much more responsible behaviour from the likes of those truck shops because I know that their behaviour has certainly not been responsible to date. That kind of behaviour is off. There are people who are working their guts out. Yes they got themselves into debt but they are working their guts out to make sure they can pay it off and the message they get back from the truck shops is: “Well you can spend up again because you’ve got $1000 because you’re back to zero.” I do not think that kind of behaviour is on. Hopefully that is the kind of thing that we will see the Commerce Commission cracking down on more if as the Minister says it is putting more resource and focus on dealing with grassroots issues that pertain to this bill.My colleague Carol Beaumont also talked about clause 72 in Part 2. In Part 2 we are dealing with amendments to theFinancial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Act. Clause 72 inserts into the principal Act a new section 2A about thepurposes of the Act. If I can take the opportunity to read it: “The purposes of this Act are—(a) to promote the confident and informed participation of businesses investors and consumers in the financial markets; and (b) to promote and facilitate the development of fair efficient and transparent financial markets.” Basically it is marrying up the financial service providers purpose of that Act with the bill we are dealing with tonight.I think that one of the disappointments with Part 1 of the bill now that we have got that Act and this bill married up is that we have not been able to pass Carol Beaumont’s Supplementary Order Paper 430 in terms of interest rate caps. I think that that Supplementary Order Paper would have made a huge difference and sent a message to those third-tier lenders that they cannot get away with offering those ridiculous exorbitant interest rates. This Committee had the opportunity to do that.I know that there are arguments across the Chamber but I think we have missed an opportunity to send a message to those vulnerable families that it is not OK to charge 100 200 or 700 percent interest on loans. That is just outrageous and we needed as a House to take steps to make sure we stop that kind of behaviour. That was a missed opportunity. There was a degree of bipartisanship around this bill but I think that in a political way that side of the House missed an opportunity to help those vulnerable families who are getting absolutely ripped off by those sharks in our community. It was something simple—it was something simple. It was something that would have just capped the interest rates but that side of the House—and unfortunately Peter Dunne who said he would support such a move 3 years ago—decided not to support that and that is a disappointment. Maybe in this part of the debate the Minister in the chair the Minister of Consumer Affairs could explain why that was not taken up.Part 2 does deal with those dispute resolution schemes. On the whole they are good changes. As the Minister said we are preventing overseas organisations from coming over here and joining this to take the good name of our dispute resolution schemes around the world and trade on that. I also think that it is a good change. To make sure that the dispute resolution scheme extends out for everyone is a good thing but again I would hope that the Government would back it up with resources and educated enforcement to make sure that this piece of legislation is not something that is just going to hold the door back but is going to be effective.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): It is good to be able to speak again in this debate on the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. I would like to start by acknowledging and thanking two very special people in Dunedin who work at the coalface of people who are low-paid vulnerable and dealing with huge budgetary issues in their lives. Their names are Shirley Woodrow who is the front-person for the budget advisory service in Dunedin and Ngaire Duke who fronts the team at the Dunedin Citizens Advice Bureau. There are other people who work with both those services but they are both really tiny little teams that make a huge difference in our community. It is one of the many communities throughout New Zealand that are grappling every day with the effects of bad practices on the part of organisations that are lending money and charging exorbitant interest rates and undertaking very dodgy practices that are having huge ramifications. Yes there is a responsibility on the people who are taking out these loans and who get themselves into these situations but to be frank I think that everybody across the Chamber tonight would acknowledge that there are very very strong reasons for the terrible situations in which people find themselves in this country.As the Minister in the chair the Minister of Consumer Affairs himself acknowledged before New Zealand does have a reputation for being a good place to do business a transparent place to do business and in general a corruption-free place todo business but if you scratch the surface of that reputation underneath you do find practices that are not good that have been endemic in this country and that need to be sorted. Labour is supporting this legislation though we believe there is a really key part missing and I am sure you will not have missed that message tonight. We support it because it has to get passed. I am acknowledging tonight the efforts and the daily grind of these small organisations which are underfunded and that struggle but carry on because they know that the work they do is really important. Alongside them in Dunedin is the community law centre and also the Dunedin Council of Social Service. I could go on and on about these small organisations which often are staffed partly by volunteers because they are people who care enough about their communities to do this sort of work.I would like to make the point to the Minister tonight about the words he used about the work that is being done to raise awareness of financial literacy. I would like to see the facts and figures around how that is being increased and where that is being increased because we are not seeing any increase in Dunedin. I would imagine that a number of my colleagues who have spoken tonight and who will be speaking on this bill would say that they do not see any increase in the resources that are being put into improving financial literacy and upskilling people in knowing how to manage the small amounts of money that they are then forced to live on and to be able to make the choices that are going to enable them to carry on without having to apply for these loans and find themselves in this downward spiral of despair which is one of the reasons we have got this bill in front of us tonight.If we want to talk about resources we have talked about the resourcing for the Commerce Commission. Well having one person in Māngere is not going to solve this issue and it is not going to help with the enforcement of this issue. I would like to ask the Minister respectfully when he says that he has been given guarantees by the Commerce Commission—which as I understand it is already fairly stretched—whether there are any further guarantees that it is going to be looking at how the enforcement and the monitoring of this law is going to be carried out in other parts of the country. Are we looking at extra resources for financial literacy in schools throughout tertiary education and throughout other parts of the community where we need this to be embedded in our culture in terms of how we manage our money? Especially if you are on a very low wage and especially if you find yourself in circumstances not of your own choosing where you have lost your job you have got a mortgage and you find yourself ending up needing to get access to money and then finding yourself again in this downward spiral of despair and debt with high interest rates.There is a financial literacy and financial awareness gap in this country. I have sat on the Commerce Committee for nearly 6 years and I have heard countless submissions from individuals from organisations and from Government-attached organisations saying that what lies beneath the reform in this area in terms of financial regulation whether it is for mum and dad investors or people taking out loans is financial literacy. That is one of the issues in our country that is at the heart of these problems. We can as a Parliament introduce laws like this bill which we are passing through the Committee stage tonight but we need to address the underlying issues.The financial issues do not just stop there either; the resourcing issues also go to the regulations how the regulations are developed and how quickly they are able to be developed to enact this bill. It is my understanding that this bill even though it may get passed in the next short while may not come into effect for 12 months. It may not come into effect for 12 months if the regulations have not been developed or have not been developed in a way that is robust. In order for that to happen there needs to be adequate resourcing within the ministry. Mr Chair through you I would also respectfully ask theMinister to address those issues and to give an indication of the expectation of how long it is going to take for those regulations to be developed so that the country can be reassured tonight that we are not going to have to wait another 12 months before this legislation can be enacted and actually be law. We have waited for years. Before this Government came into office at the end of 2008 this legislation was in development. The bill comes out of very good work that was being done by the previous Minister of Commerce—or one of the previous Ministers of Commerce; there have been a few in the last 6 years—the Hon Lianne Dalziel who should also get a mention tonight with regard to this bill.I said in the first part of this Committee stage debate that the Government has a number of levers it can use in this area. In this bill it has introduced a number of those levers which include the Responsible Lending Code the disclosure requirements the clearer tests for unreasonable credit fees and the licensing of repossession agents etc. But the missing link—the absolute missing link—is the cap on interest rates. We are seeing that being introduced in other jurisdictions throughout the world but is New Zealand doing it? No. Why is New Zealand not doing it? Well it appears either for ideological reasons because perhaps the Government could not have got the support if the ACT Party had not supported it—and we certainly know that one of the previous Ministers of Commerce Heather Roy was opposed to interest rate caps—or there could be other reasons that perhaps involve lobbying from organisations. The fact is though that interest rate caps have been introduced in many other jurisdictions. They have been named. They include Canada Mexico Japan Singapore most African countries most South American countries most European countries South Africa and Australia. They all have interest rate caps and they have all done a substantial amount of work in this area. Why can New Zealand not do that too?ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. I understand that before I came into this Chamber the Minister of Consumer Affairs Craig Foss questioned why New Zealand First is not supporting this bill although other parties are. We have already spoken in this Chamber in the last week on this particular bill at the previous Committee stage debate and said that yes it had great purpose it was an opportunity to rectify some serious situations with credit and loans of money in this country and it had significant potential. However what it did fall short on badly was the opportunity to put caps on interest rates from loan sharks and lenders who operate in an unscrupulous manner. I will repeat that: this bill had the opportunity to put a limit put a cap on interest rates from unscrupulous lenders and loan sharks and this Government has chosen not to do that. This Government has chosen to block any of the Supplementary Order Papers and any attempts by the Opposition to put in place such caps.We simply ask the question why. Why would any responsible Government looking to protect its citizens looking to protect the most vulnerable people in society and looking to protect those who are borrowing money not protect them by putting in some form of protection in the form of caps on interest rates when other jurisdictions as we have heard such as the UK the United States Canada Japan Australia and most European Union countries have? Why would New Zealand know so much more than these other developed countries? Why would we think we are so smart? When all these other countries can put caps in place why would we not do so? So New Zealand First will not do this—we will not support a bill that leaves New Zealanders vulnerable in this manner.It does boil down to the fact that this bill will be passed and New Zealand First will be the only party voting against it but those Supplementary Order Papers could have brought that protection about. They were lost 61 to 60 on the one vote of the Hon PeterDunne the former Minister of Revenue. We again ask the question: why did the Minister not vote so that his one casting vote would have allowed those caps to be put on interest rates? The fact is that this bill emanated from 2010 in the days of the Credit Reforms (Responsible Lending) Bill a member’s bill from Carol Beaumont which was originally put together by Charles Chauvel of the Labour Party and which back then was requiring caps on interest rates. Back then the Minister Peter Dunne voted in favour of those caps. In fact not only did he vote in favour of them but one of the people responsible for devising the bill the Hon Peter Dunne—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! Can the member talk about Part 2.ANDREW WILLIAMS: No I am talking about the whole bill.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No well we are on Part 2.ANDREW WILLIAMS: Well yes but the Minister referred to us—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No look we are on Part 2.ANDREW WILLIAMS: Sure but the Minister made criticism of New Zealand First in terms of Part 2.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): This speech is terminated. Is anybody else seeking a call?KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): I moveThat the question be now put.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If the Minister is going to criticise New Zealand First—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I have already ruled on that and I made it quite clear that the member should be speaking about Part 2. [Interruption] I have ruled on the point of order. If the member is seeking to redress that he is on dangerous ground.Andrew Williams: I do not like threats thank you Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The member will now leave the Chamber.Andrew Williams withdrew from the Chamber.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes78New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes41New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7.Motion agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 79 Noes 41.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 442 in the name of the Hon Craig Foss to Part 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Amendments agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 113 Noes 7.Part 2 as amended agreed to.Schedule 1The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 442 in the name of the Hon Craig Foss to schedule 1 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Amendments agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 113 Noes 7.Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.Schedule 2The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 442 in the name of the Hon Craig Foss to schedule 2 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Amendments agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 113 Noes 7.Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.Schedule 3The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 442 in the name of the Hon Craig Foss to schedule 3 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Amendments agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 113 Noes 7.Schedule 3 as amended agreed to.Schedule 4A party vote was called for on the questionThat schedule 4 be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Schedule 4 agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 113 Noes 7.Clauses 1 and 2Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Clare Beaumont.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): Carol.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry. I keep doing that—my apologies.CAROL BEAUMONT: You do. You are kind of merging us.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: You should not sit together! Carol Beaumont my apologies.CAROL BEAUMONT: That is all right. Speaking on the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill I want to talk about the missed opportunity here—the missed opportunity we had to get cross-party consensus as others have talked about in this Chamber and to put in place a really strong bill that actually would have seriously amended legislation in this area and reformed it properly to give us a full range of tools that we could have used to deal with some of the practices that happen in consumer credit. That is not to say that there are not many good features in this bill and we have worked constructively as the Commerce Committee to improve the bill as introduced into the House—and as others have noted and I noted in earlier contributions with really solid assistance from officials; thank you again for that.We have improved the bill over what was introduced into the House and yet we have failed to make a particularly important addition to this bill. To me that has been driven solely by ideology. In the end right across a number of years now we have had the same tired old reasons trotted out as to why we cannot have interest rate caps: because of potentially unintended consequences because it will drive some of these third-tier lenders out of business potentially and because it will become the target rather than a cap. These are the same tired old reasons trotted out year after year and actually it is not good enough. We have not had a robust analysis of what happens in other jurisdictions where in fact increasingly those jurisdictions are adding interest rate caps. They are saying that this is the only way.The UK is the classic example where the Tory Government there was vehemently opposed to interest rate caps—vehemently opposed—and had to do a U-turn at the end of last year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer I think it was actually said: “We have come to the realisation that this is the only way to deal with the problem of interest rates being charged by pay-day lenders.” Here we think that we can just trot out the same tired old reasons and not put something into this bill alongside the other provisions. Alongside the responsible lending principles; alongside the responsible lending code; alongside the disclosure provisions and the controls of fees or the clarification at least on fees charged; alongside improving the hardship provisions; and alongside all of the other positive elements of this bill we could have put another tool in that toolbox.We are meant to take it as a matter of faith almost from some across the Chamber anyway and from the Minister of Consumer Affairs that interest rates will be dealtwith as a consequence of these other provisions and as a consequence of the responsible lending provisions—that this will suddenly mean that the lenders in this third tier will suddenly realise that the types of abhorrent interest rates the sorts of rates that the community finds offensive are no longer suitable. Actually I think that this is going to be a fallacy. The Minister did not in the last part answer my question about getting information now as a baseline and getting the Commerce Commission to actually measure and then reflect as this legislation comes into effect whether or not interest rates are being reduced.That is what we are being told—that these other provisions will have a downward pressure on interest rates. Well let us actually measure it then. Let us actually put that to the test. Because otherwise what will continue to happen are the sorts of examples that I gave the House in my contribution last week and those were examples that I had got that very week in Palmerston North where we got given examples of interest rates of 552 percent or for a pay-day lender 1080 percent. Those are two real-life examples from Palmerston North a week or so ago. They will continue without actively seeking to reduce them which is what an interest rate cap would have done. So I urge the Minister to say: “OK we will put this to the test. We will look at what’s out there now. We will measure it in a year. We will measure it in 18 months. We will measure it in 2 years and see whether it does make a blind bit of difference to this really serious issue.”The fact of the matter is that if you ask budget services they will tell you that these extremely high interest rates are very commonplace and people are doing their best to pay them back and often do. So it is a question of whether that is fair and reasonable. We talked in Part 2 about the purpose provision around financial services providers registration and disputes resolution schemes and so on and it says in new section 2A that the purpose of the Act is “to promote and facilitate the development of fair efficient and transparent financial markets.” How can interest rates like those I have just given examples of—552 percent or 1080 percent—be claimed by anybody to be fair? They are not fair. We all know that they are not fair. So why as a Committee are we not addressing this issue? Why is it that the Government has been just so ideologically opposed to this question that it has turned down an opportunity for us to pass a piece of legislation that we have all wanted unanimously to see for a very long time? We could have had a piece of legislation passed unanimously. The Government has failed to do that. It seems to me that it would have been a very very strong message indeed to those that behave badly in the consumer credit area if they knew that Parliament was unanimous about dealing to their issues.We are supporting this bill without question because as I said at the start of this contribution there are many good features to it. But it is with a great deal of anger really that we are having to accept that at this stage there will not be interest rate caps put in place when they should be. It is certainly something that Labour has a policy in favour of doing and we would do it because we do not think that those interest rates are fair. We do not think that it is right that the most vulnerable—the families that are struggling the most—should pay excessive interest rates and pay them at the cost to their own families and to the cost of their own children often in terms of other things that they cannot spend that money on.This is a very serious matter and I think that perhaps this legislation should be called something different. Maybe this bill should be the “Credit Contracts (Opposition to Interest Rates) Reform Bill” or the “Credit Contracts (Ideologically Opposed to Interest Rate Caps) Bill” or the “Credit Contracts (New Zealand Obviously Does Not Have a Problem Compared With the Rest of the World) Law Reform Bill”. Why is it—and we have not had this answered and the Minister has not even attempted to address the question—that elsewhere countries have recognised this need and have put in placeprovisions for interest rates caps but here we say: “No we will do all these other things but that’s the thing we’re not going to touch.”? What is different about our markets? Why is it that the Government is so totally opposed to this question? It still does not make any sense to me. It would have been a sensible thing to align all of those different tools in fact and to actually address the various concerns at the same time.I ask the Minister to get up and answer those questions. What is different in this market from overseas jurisdictions? If it had been so bad and if it had become the target rather than a cap why is it that Canada has not repealed its legislation in over 8 years? Why is it that a Tory Government in the UK vehemently opposed to interest rate caps has accepted that it is the only option that it has got to control interest rates? What is different here? I urge the Minister to get up and answer that question. I also remind him of the question I asked in Part 2 around actually taking some baseline measures and effectively putting the Government’s money where its mouth is in terms of actually seeing whether all of the other provisions of this legislation do have the effect that the Government is saying which is that the bill will drive down interest rates through things like the responsible lending provisions. I urge the Minister to get up and address those questions. Thank you.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): I apologise for the interruption to this debate but I have just become aware of an email that was sent late in the dinner adjournment as a result of which I seek leave for all the votes that I have cast since the dinner adjournment on behalf of the Māori Party to be adjusted from three to two.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears not. Leave is granted. The record will show that.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): There is no doubt that the majority of this debate has focused on what is missing in this bill the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. Mark my words and my prediction tonight to everyone in this House is that we will be back in this House within a short time in the next Parliament revising this bill to include caps on interest rates.There is well-documented evidence of the importance of an interest rate cap in legislation such as this. There is well-documented evidence of the extent of the issue in New Zealand. I would just like to quote some research tonight that revealed that between 2006 and 2011 there had been a 60 percent growth in the number of third-tier lending outlets up to 40 percent of them were flouting the law by not registering as financial service providers and 127 new lenders had entered the market. In July 2013 which was just last year a new law took effect in Australia that capped interest rates at a maximum of 48 percent. The lending sums in the US of between $100 and $4000 for short terms at high interest rates have been regulated in 37 American States.This is not us making it up. This is a real issue. My fear is that this otherwise pretty reasonable piece of law will be flawed—deeply flawed—without that extra important control and extra important lever. I think we are doing a disservice tonight to the people of New Zealand by not including it. I also feel I guess disheartened really given the extent of the work that has been done in the Commerce Committee on this and the work that has been done by the officials who should be acknowledged again tonight and all the members on that select committee which was chaired by Jonathan Young over there. But yet where is the debate? Where is the discussion? Where are the explanations? Where is the argument that is the counterargument which is to put the other point of view rather than to have speaker after speaker on this side of the Chamber getting up and saying what is wrong with the bill and what it is missing out? Instead we just have this deathly silence. I think we do a disservice to the people ofNew Zealand by not having that discussion and by not having that debate so that people can actually hear what the counterargument is. Instead it is just deathly silence.All too often in this House this is what happens. Through really important pieces of legislation where there has been a big point of contention instead of having an actual debate and a discussion of ideas—which is what I thought this Parliament was supposed to be about—we end up having a string of speakers putting a point of view and a deathly silence from the Government which can pass the legislation because it has got the numbers. Well that is not good governance. It is not good governance and it is not what I came to Parliament to be part of and I doubt that many other people on this side of the Chamber particularly came to be part of that either.There are some very good parts to this legislation. I do want to mention some of them because there has been so much work put in to try to get good law coming before this Committee tonight. The introduction of the Responsible Lending Code I know is going to take some months to be developed and that will be done through regulations. I have already mentioned tonight that we hope that it can be done as quickly as possible but in order for that to be done as quickly as possible the ministry needs to be well resourced to do it. In order for that to be enacted so that there can be a good communication of such a code out to the community—because it is all very well developing a Responsible Lending Code but if it is actually not being communicated and if there is not that interface for people who are looking for ways to get access to extra money and who also need the good advice about how they could be borrowing in a more responsible way and how they could ensure that they can pay the money back.That exchange of information before the lending takes place is incredibly important. We have heard in debates on other legislation that has come before the House around investment and around mum and dad investors about the importance of being fully informed about the investments that you are making so it is sort of looking at it from the other perspective. The key to it is good financial literacy and the ability that is being put in place for that financial literacy to take place. So the mark of good governance around the implementation of the bill that we are discussing tonight in its Committee stage will be how it is communicated to people; how the codes are developed how they are communicated and how they are enacted; whether the Commerce Commission is actually going to be able to do the monitoring and enforcement that is required and that is needed across the whole of New Zealand—not just in Auckland with one extra staff member but across the whole of New Zealand—and how that monitoring will be reported; whether there will be a review done within a shortish period of time or certainly within the next couple of years I would assume it would be needed to see whether it is actually making any difference; and whether or not the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment is adequately resourced to develop what is needed to be done to make sure that this law comes into practice responsibly.Once again and I just reiterate I predict that we will be back in this House within 2 years introducing interest rate caps. Would that not have been a good thing to include in this bill tonight? Would there not have been the ability for all the budget advisory centres across New Zealand all the citizens advice bureaux and all those other small organisations staffed by those really dedicated people—many of whom are actually doing voluntary work—to actually see that there is a whole suite of levers that are going to be used to stop this irresponsible loan shark behaviour which is causing a cancer throughout our low-income communities? So we will support this bill but we reiterate how important it is for those interest rate caps to be introduced.Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Consumer Affairs): This will be the final time that I rise in the Committee stage on this bill the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill. Members have asked a few questions. I think it is importantto note that in addition to the National Government targeting dodgy behaviour and targeting loan sharks as we are in this bill and in other consumer affairs bills actually just in the last couple of weeks we have announced microfinancing under the Hon Paula Bennett’s portfolio. That is about bringing in good shepherds—the Bank of New Zealand—to offer very very very low-interest loans to those who are stuck in a spiral of debt and whom the Ministry of Social Development is working very hard with to assist them out of those circumstances.Members have also asked about the resources for budgetary services around the country in addition to those in Auckland. That is a fair question and I am sure that they will be pleased to know that Minister Bennett recently announced that an increase from $13 million per annum to $22 million per annum will be going in to assist those same budgetary services.Interest rate caps have been mentioned a few times in this last part and I will address those because something demonstrates how hard and complex they can be. No one has actually talked about the total cost of finance caps; they have talked about interest rate caps. Yes there were two Supplementary Order Papers in that space. Well one of them would have given the humble Minister of Consumer Affairs more power than the Minister of Finance and it would probably be up there with Dr Bollard essentially setting interest rates. Another one actually had the totally unintended consequence I am sure of totally contradicting itself and basically giving second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers absolutely unlimited fees charges interest rates—you name it. So that was the consequence of that Supplementary Order Paper.But I really want to talk to those who are voting against this bill. I do thank and acknowledge members across the House for their acknowledgment of what has been going on in dire situations across this country in many many tragic circumstances. However those who are voting against this bill and against this protection are voting for uninformed borrowers and uninformed lenders. They are voting for irresponsible behaviour from lenders—predatory behaviour. They are voting for a continuation of some in our community carrying out exploitative behaviour towards some of the most vulnerable in our community because that is what has been going on and that is what those members are voting for if they in fact vote for the status quo. If those members are voting against this bill they are voting for having no principles of responsible lending no consideration of the circumstances of the borrower no Responsible Lending Code no pre-checking and no understanding of what the obligations are that a guarantor might be taking on if English was their second language and if they did not actually know what was going on.I have had members in this House come to me about issues that in fact this bill would fix and they are now voting against this bill. I cannot understand it. If they vote against this bill they will be voting for the status quo of arbitrage and whole exploitation in rules and regulation across this land. That is not right. That is not fair. That is not the Kiwi way. If those members are voting against this bill they will be voting for embedded fees ratcheting costs and selling insurance to beneficiaries who are taking on loans that they cannot afford to pay back in the first place. That is what they are voting for if they vote against this bill. They if they are voting against this bill will be voting for unlicensed repossession and predatory behaviour carried out by some in our country. They will be voting for people to go into other people’s houses and take possession of things that have not been borrowed against and have not been listed and they will be voting for them to use leverage extortion and even blackmail—even running down the road with a machete to chase down some of our vulnerable New Zealanders.I do not for the life of me understand why some members in this House are doing that. They can make their political point but they are putting New Zealanders at risk. They will be exposed and I think that they will be judged accordingly. Those who are voting against this bill will take no allowance of the hardship they will take no allowance of the oppression clauses in the bill and they will take no allowance of the changes to the dispute resolution services. As is evidenced by those good members across the Chamber who are voting for vulnerable New Zealanders and for fair play yes some members are putting New Zealand first but some other members in this House are not. I think that that will play back very badly for them because they are allowing a continuation of bad dodgy predatory and exploitative behaviour within our community. I am proud to stand with the other MPs in this Chamber to address that exact matter. Thank you.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): Well finally—finally someone from that side of the Chamber has shown some passion about this issue. Congratulations to you Minister Foss on getting up and having some passion but where was that 4½ years ago when this process started? Where was that passion when you started out on this whole process to make sure that the people whom you are talking about those vulnerable borrowers out in our communities were getting protected? This was such a priority when it started in 2009 and here we are in May 2014 and finally we are getting something done about it. So thank you for getting passionate about it but on this side of the Chamber we are not quite believing how much of a priority you have made this piece of legislation the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill for all those vulnerable people you claim you want to protect.If you did want to protect them you would have done something about this a long long time ago. This is a debate on the title and commencement date. This piece of legislation could have commenced 2½ to 3 years ago if this Government really prioritised the needs of the vulnerable people whom the Minister was just a little bit passionate about before. This process started in 2009. Then Simon Power had a summit in 2011 and then a Cabinet paper was presented to Cabinet and came out in October 2011. It has been sitting and doing nothing—nothing—until now. So I say to the Minister that he should not get up and puff his chest out as though this has been a priority for him. It has not been Minister. It has not been a priority for this Government at all.If it were a priority you would have looked with a bit more passion at the Supplementary Order Papers regarding interest rate caps too but you have not done that. The Minister in the chair the Minister of Consumer Affairs put his arms up and said it was all too hard. Well it was not too hard for the UK it was not too hard for the US and it was not too hard for Canada but here in New Zealand it is all too hard. The Government says: “Oh we can’t do that. It’s impossible.” Listen to what the Minister said when he spoke up: “We can’t do it. It’s too hard.” Well why can other countries do it and we cannot? Why can Australia do it and we cannot? If you are really serious about protecting the people whom this bill pertains to Minister you would have done something about this a long long time ago and you would have looked at those interest rate caps.That Minister can get up there and all of a sudden get passionate because one party is not supporting the Government all of a sudden but that just does not wash with us because 3½ years ago you guys could have got off your chuffs and actually done something. In those 3½ years a whole lot more vulnerable families have been affected by loan sharks and you guys sat on your chuffs doing nothing about it. We started this process at the end of the last Labour Government because we knew it was becoming an issue but you guys sat on it and you did nothing. Then all of a sudden it became a bitmore of an issue. Simon Bridges made a few noises and then it went quiet again. Then it comes back and all of a sudden this is the best thing since sliced bread 4 months out from an election. Well it does not wash with us. You could have done something much much sooner.We have talked about different titles for this bill. I think we should change it to the “Credit Contracts and Financial Services (Blame Peter Dunne) Bill” because Peter Dunne had the one vote that could have changed this bill to make sure there was a protection for those vulnerable families we were talking about by introducing those interest rate caps. But he turned again and now that measure has not gone through just like with the asset sales legislation. Peter Dunne had the vote that changed that. Here we have a piece of legislation that would have protected vulnerable families from those loan sharks who are charging up to 700 percent interest—not 30 not 35 not 40 but in some cases 700 percent we are led to believe. But that is OK with Peter Dunne. That is OK with the National Party: “We don’t need to do anything there. That is fine.” Well it is not fine with us on this side of the Chamber.If you thought about it and listened to a lot of the people who came and made submissions—and I know that some people on that side of the Chamber might get up take a call and say there are reasons why they did not do it. If you listened to the submissions of the people working at the grassroots you would have looked at it a lot more seriously than you have. It would have been a real protection in this bill for those vulnerable families. It would have sent a pretty good message to those third-tier lenders that we do not like what they are doing that they have been ripping off people for too long and that we are cracking down on them. But this Government did not do that. It did not make it a priority. It did not make this bill a priority and then all of a sudden we get a passionate speech from the Minister in the last reading of the Committee stage. Well thank you very much Minister but it is all too late. It is all too late. It is 3 years too late.Again I want to say about Peter Dunne that he turned on this big time. Carol Beaumont introduced a piece of legislation in the last term of Parliament that would have essentially introduced interest rate caps. Peter Dunne sent a letter to someone who was behind the scenes helping with that bill and he said: “I was happy to support this bill and was very sorry that it did not proceed past first reading. I hope that further progress will be made on this issue in the future.” That bill that Peter Dunne was talking about essentially would have introduced interest rate caps. So on 28 July 2010 Peter Dunne was all good with interest rate caps: “Sign me up.” He was ready to go. He knew that the interest rates were unfair. But all of a sudden he has changed his mind. And why? Does he think all of a sudden that it is OK to have 500 600 or 700 percent interest rates for the most vulnerable people in our communities for those who cannot afford that? Is he OK with that? Is the Government OK with that? Something changed between 28 July 2010 and when this piece of legislation came into the House. He did a complete U-turn and all of a sudden it is OK for those third-tier lenders those loan sharks to charge exorbitant interest rates.So if you are looking for an alternative title add “(Blame Peter Dunne)”. “(Blame Peter Dunne)” should be added to whatever is the name of the bill that we are debating. He was the one who made sure that something that would have been a massive protection for those families out there was not included in this bill. So I say to Peter Dunne that he has a lot to answer for: asset sales and also making sure that these families are not protected from exorbitant interest rates.We have also heard from the Minister about extra resourcing for the Commerce Commission. He mentioned some extra resourcing that the Minister for Social Development may have announced earlier around budgeting services. That is good buthe did not actually answer the question about the resourcing for the Commerce Commission. As I said in an earlier speech in this Committee stage we want to make sure that the Commerce Commission has resources on the ground right around New Zealand to make sure that what we are putting in this bill is effective. He may have skirted around that and some other funding for budgeting services.We want to make sure that the Commerce Commission which has not really made this a priority in the past is on the ground and has got people in there who understand these communities and are doing work to make sure that they understand who is still acting badly who are the loan sharks who are still doing dodgy deals who are those affected and who is being educated about this new code of responsible lending. That is what we want. We want a commitment on that to make sure that the Commerce Commission does not just have someone who is well meaning who is based in Māngere and who is the only poor sod doing this. There need to be people right around the country working with that one person to make sure that the communities in Invercargill in Dunedin in Christchurch in Wellington and in my area of Porirua—which is affected quite a lot by loan sharks and those truck shops that we are talking about—are getting the information and the help they need. I know that the Minister in the chair said that his previous speech was his last contribution to the debate but maybe he could make one more and specifically talk on that issue of the Commerce Commission getting the right resources and changing its attitude from being a high-level regulatory body to getting down there and getting stuck in the weeds with people to find out what is going on with these truck shops with these third-tier lenders in order to make sure that it is making a difference to the people on the ground.This is a good piece of legislation but it is a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity because we could have supported Carol Beaumont’s Supplementary Order Paper 430 to bring in interest rate caps. That side of the Chamber is OK with interest rates of 50 and 100 percent and beyond. We are not OK with that. That is why we introduced this Supplementary Order Paper. We thought the Government might have given it a lot more thought than it did but it did not. It is a lost opportunity. I think we should blame Peter Dunne for that because he was OK with it 4 years ago and all of a sudden he is not.TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First): I take this opportunity to rise to speak to the Minister’s statement previously around parties that are opposing the bill. New Zealand First is opposing the bill; the Minister in the chair the Minister of Consumer Affairs is quite right. He is however quite wrong in everything else he had to say at that time. New Zealand First is opposing the bill because New Zealand First does not do half jobs.Although there are many positive reforms inside this bill there are practicalities and realities of the people who have come to talk to us—the people actually affected; the people whom the Minister stood up and passionately professed to care about. They have come to see us and talk to us about the fact that although all those other protections are there and they can use them in a legal sense they still have to take somebody through that legal process. They still have to make sure that that person follows the rules as opposed to a very very simple mechanism which is to place a cap on interest rates. That is all that those people asked for.So if we were going to rename this bill possibly what we should rename it to is—actually National members do not really like getting their hands inside business and this is business as far as they can see it. So although they put in all these other supposed safeguards the poor consumer—poor consumer in the fact that they are borrowing money from unscrupulous people who have no conscience whatsoever about the waythat they prey on these families—and those families will still have to go and see an agency. Those families will still actually have to fight to make sure that if the rules are not followed they then have to go through that process. It still puts a burden on the borrower.How much better would it have been for this Committee to truly stand up for the borrower and say: “Over this percentage of interest rate is exorbitant.” If the Government had been able to truly participate in a practical way to support those families and to support Ms Beaumont’s Supplementary Order Paper 430 New Zealand First would be voting for the bill. But New Zealand First will not do a half-pie job. New Zealand First will not put through legislation merely because it upsets the Minister when it does not truly address the issue and truly help the people at the bottom of this bill.So if the Minister wants to know—actually we are not at all interested in what the Minister wants to know. If New Zealanders out there want to know why New Zealand First will oppose this bill in the same way we opposed the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill it is because we actually listened to the people it would have an effect on. We represent them here in this Parliament. This bill does not go far enough and we will not just tick it off for the pleasure of the National Government.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes78New Zealand National 59; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes41New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7.Motion agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 68 Noes 41.A party vote was called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes112New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes7New Zealand First 7.Clause 1 agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 442 in the name of the Hon Craig Foss to clause 2 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.Clause 2 as amended agreed to.The Committee divided the bill into the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Amendment Bill and the Financial Service Providers (Registration and Dispute Resolution) Amendment Billpursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 443.Bill to be reported with amendment presently.Vulnerable Children BillIn CommitteePart 1 Cross-agency measuresThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): This debate includes schedules 1 and 2.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure to rise and speak in the Committee stage of the Vulnerable Children Bill. As has been discussed in earlier readings of this bill there has obviously been a long process that has led us to this point beginning with the Minister for Social Development’s green paper and then the white paper and the Children’s Action Plan. This bill is the first attempt to entrench within legislation elements of that action plan so it is therefore an omnibus bill.There are many elements to Part 1 that I would like to touch on in my address. The first is the reference to the Government’s priorities for vulnerable children and the framework that the bill sets out around establishing a Vulnerable Children’s Plan. In clause 4 of Part 1 it states that the “purpose of this subpart is to—(a) support the Government’s setting of priorities for improving the well-being of vulnerable children; and (b) ensure that children’s agencies work together to improve the well-being of vulnerable children.” It may appear from that purpose clause that the Government is establishing an action plan for children.I want to be really really clear here though. The Children’s Commissioner when he presented to the Social Services Committee was still calling for a children’s action plan because the commissioner did not determine the clauses and the framework within this bill to be a general action plan around children’s well-being. I think it is really important that we distinguish between what the Government plans to do here and what is being called for by experts and advocates in the field. Just today in fact we had the Child Poverty Action Group again calling for a broader children’s action plan that is focused on general well-being.What have we seen from the Government to date in terms of its priority setting for vulnerable children? We have seen things like social obligations targets around rheumatic fever and immunisation patchy provision of insulation and initiatives like the Minister’s nit treatment programme. All of these are often isolated projects that are not currently part of a coherent plan; nor do they address the underlying issues around child vulnerability and child well-being. In fact if we really do want to target what we loosely call “vulnerability” which is a very fraught phrase in itself we actually should have an action plan that is focused on children’s overall well-being. That is the way that we can lift both those children and many children who are at risk of vulnerability.What do we have with the framework of this Vulnerable Children’s Plan? What is the Government setting out here instead? It sets out in clause 7 that the plan must be used to set the Government’s priorities for vulnerable children. The use of the word “priorities” is I think really important. We have seen in the past that when the Government really wants to achieve something it will use a target. It will be very specific about what its expectations are for chief executives and departments. Here though in setting out its action plan it is much more focused on a much more generic notion of priorities—things it wants Government departments to focus on for children. I think unfortunately that that is not pitching it as high as we need.It has also set out the priority areas that an action plan may or may not address and that is set out in clause 6. I want to list what they are because it says in clause 6: “In this subpart improving the well-being of vulnerable children”—not all children but vulnerable children—“in relation to the setting of Government priorities … and the preparation of the vulnerable children’s plan … means promoting the best interests of vulnerable children …”. Again this is the Minister’s deliberate targeting of particularchildren. It goes on to say: “(having regard to the whole of their lives) including (without limitation) taking measures aimed at”—I want to emphasise that “whole of their lives” statement; that is important—“(a) protecting them from abuse and neglect: (b) improving their physical and mental health and their cultural and emotional well-being: (c) improving their education and training … (d) strengthening their connection to their families … (e) increasing their participation in decision making about them and their contribution to society: (f) improving their social and economic well-being.”There is an enormous amount of potential in that last part in “(f) improving their social and economic well-being.” Our hope would have been that that element of the plan was firstly much more specific; secondly much more of a priority in the list; and thirdly that it actually set out first of all that in order to improve the social and economic well-being of a child it is important to know what some of the general statistics affecting these kids are. This is where we come back to the notion that if we want to improve something we need to fully understand our starting point. So we have continued to advocate that as part of these plans what we should have had was an official agreed measurement targets and then reporting on those targets so that we know what progress we are making.Of course I am talking about child poverty. We know that we have 285000 children living in poverty. That is a Treasury number. I see the Minister for Social Development is shaking her head but that is a Treasury figure. We know that because Treasury had to revise it. We are not saying that just the measurement is important; we are saying that actually the goal-setting around it is. That is exactly what they did in the UK. Their plan did not amorphously say: “We are kind of interested in economic well-being.” It said: “Let’s get real about this.” It said “Let’s set out what our targets are for improving the economic well-being for these children.” because when you get as specific as that you really start getting accountability. The UK Government reports back to Parliament on progress and that is what we would have liked to see here as well.We have got a point of comparison because Labour already has a bill that does that very thing. It is called the Child Poverty (Reduction and Eradication) Bill. It sets out a similar notion as this bill but it is much more specific in what is required of the Government. It says that you must have a Minister for Children you must have a board with all of the relevant heads of department who are accountable for the plan that is established and you must set targets that cut across all of the areas where we see the effects of poverty: health education housing and social development. Let us not set just priorities; let us set actual key performance indicators. Our bill goes a step further than this framework does. It says that it must be reported against as part of the Public Finance Act requirements. At Budget time we want to know what progress is being made on behalf of children.I have Supplementary Order Paper 436 which would make an amendment to clause 9 and would add in those additional requirements for the plan. It says that periodic targets must be set around economic well-being mechanisms for monitoring must be put in place and we want to see those wider socio-economic indicators. It is about not just measurement but about setting targets to reduce those harmful statistics that we already know about.That is where we felt a little bit disappointed. We felt that the bill could have gone that much further. We have offered a solution on how it could go further and that may notably fulfil some of the requirements that have been asked for by the Children’s Commissioner. The report of the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty set out what it thought a children’s action plan should look like. That is actually very close to what Labour’s bill mimics and we have plucked outelements for the Minister to implement in her bill if she would like to be able to tick off that extra recommendation from the Children’s Commissioner.Moving on to Subpart 2 which covers child protection policies I think it is important that we note when discussing this element of the bill that many Government departments or State entities already have child protection policies in place so I would not want to leave that view hanging. District health boards in particular—various health authorities—do have very robust child protection policies in place that include training their staff to adequately recognise child abuse and neglect. But what this bill does is that it embeds it in policy. There was some debate over whether some of this should be mandatory. I happen to agree with the place the Minister has got to in at least requiring that we see some of those Government entities embodying these policies without going that extra step further. Our position on that was simple: we did not believe that we could move to a place of mandatory reporting without having established robust training in place for those State agencies and indeed beyond State agencies to community organisations who are working with children as well.Secondly we fear that without proper training we would see potentially over-reporting and false reporting and our social services are not equipped to deal with that demand right now. They are virtually unable to deal with the demand they have currently without that kind of additional pressure. So we are not fundamentally opposed to the notion but preparatory work is required.Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I am going to make it absolutely crystal clear in this Chamber right now that the Vulnerable Children Bill is about children’s protection and it is for those most vulnerable children who are being abused and neglected right now. If you want to cut to the facts of it we get over 150000 notifications to Child Youth and Family. In the last 12 months there have been 61000 notifications with further action required and over 21000 substantiated cases of abuse and neglect. That abuse and neglect has been increasing over a period of time because we have more notifications which means we are getting to more of those children. It equally means if you are asking for my opinion that we are getting to about a third of them so that means we have at least another 40000 kids in my opinion who are out there and who are quite frankly living little lives of daily hell that we are not addressing as we should be as a Parliament. So this bill goes some way to addressing that.That member Jacinda Ardern can talk about broadening this discussion out to all of those children who are purported to be living in poverty but I can tell you that we would not be addressing those most vulnerable children if we did that because there is a need right now for these kids to get the kind of response that they need. They need child protection policies in schools in NGOs and in Government departments which have much better training behind them so people know where to go to. We know perfectly well that there are cases right now where children are being abused and neglected and there are professionals who are turning a blind eye because they do not have the right policies and the right training in place and they are not doing the job that they should be.So that member can get up in this Committee and take her little call about how she thinks this bill needs to be broader and reach all of these hundreds and thousands of kids when the reality is to this country’s shame we have kids who need us performing better now and this bill goes some way to achieving that.It has to go further. It has to go to what is happening in our communities in our streets in our households. It needs child protection policies that actually go across it. It needs chief executives who are standing up and taking a stand against child abuse. That member just needs to spend some time out there talking to some of these children whohave been sexually and violently and emotionally abused and then she needs to ask herself about standing up and talking about a measure of poverty at this time when you have one of the most critical bills in my opinion going through the Committee of the whole House on this day. That can be where the debate wants to go for that member but actually this is what this bill is. I have always owned that this is for the protection of our most vulnerable children of which there are tens of thousands whom we have a responsibility to stand up and address in this House.Le’aufa’amuliaASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the Vulnerable Children Bill and I want to acknowledge that we support the intentions behind this bill. There is nothing wrong with the intentions but the children out there are hungry. The reason why they are hungry I say to the Minister for Social Development is that they are in the hands of those who do not care about their welfare. They are not being well looked after. They are hungry because their families are actually struggling. My speech will be focusing very much on Part 1 which is related to the Supplementary Order Papers that I have put forward. On behalf of New Zealand First there are two separate Supplementary Order Papers although they have been put into one paper and our support for this bill will depend on the support that we get for those Supplementary Order Papers.The first thing that we have to mention here is that the evidence of child abuse in New Zealand is tragic. I acknowledge the speech by the Minister talking about child abuse. Yes there are a lot of those cases and many of those involve children who have been abused by those who are working with the children either on a voluntary basis or as paid workers indirectly and on a regular basis. These abuses come in many forms. There is physical abuse mental illness emotional stress developmental instability and neglect. Then there is the tragic issue of hungry children. I know that the Minister did not want to acknowledge that earlier on. All these disadvantages paint a picture of horrific environments for all—absolutely horrific.It is ironic though to think that although the Government has championed this bill it is the same Government that is responsible for the so-called economic policy that has contributed to poverty in this country. Many have struggled due to financial issues. They have struggled due to financial issues. The bill aims to reduce the risk of harm to children by requiring people employed or engaged in work that involves regular or overnight contact with children to be screened. These people ought to be screened for any safety concerns that may pose or will pose severe issues for our young children.I worked in the Department of Corrections. I have seen so many people imprisoned because they were involved in abuse cases involving children. It is not a very interesting topic to discuss. But I know that most people actually ignore the fact that we have grassroots knowledge and experience in these cases. I have been the chair of a board of trustees for 19 years at a Catholic school. I am familiar with the situation here. I have also been in charge of early childhood education where our local community played an important role in the programme.At the Social Services Committee I asked questions about security and safety checks on volunteers who are engaged with children on a regular basis. I was astounded with the response I received to my question. One answer said that some groups were not comfortable with my amendment because it could discourage much-needed volunteers from working at schools clubs churches and early childhood education centres. I hear that quite a lot. The other answer was that we must also acknowledge how much non-profit organisations working with children rely on volunteers. Yes I acknowledge that too. We are aware that without volunteers many will struggle. I acknowledge that volunteers do fantastic work for many groups. However it was an interesting response and one that was given casually without any serious thought. I believe that most peoplewho are genuine about the service that they provide for our young children will be supportive of security background checks because they will have an appreciation that children will be safer. It is not easy coming from a community where our children are subjected to these kinds of situations. It is a safety net for our tamaiti and our fanau.The issue of alcohol and drug abuse in New Zealand is worsening and often children are affected by it. Drugs like legal highs highlight major issues in our country. Of course children are often the victims at the end of the day. In recent months legal highs have become the new evil that the parents of some children or even the carers for children have been taking and they have ignored the welfare of the children whom they were in charge of. There are more people changing the types of drugs that they do take. A lot of those who do take these drugs become easily annoyed impatient and lack tolerance. That is why I have put forward a Supplementary Order Paper hoping that it will close the gap and provide a safety net looking at the loopholes that this bill currently has.Fear makes children suppressed. I have been in a position where some children in a family were too scared to speak up because some of the people involved in the case happen to be family. For a lot of children who have been affected it is mainly by those who were under the influence of alcohol drugs or of course gambling most of the time. A new generation of young people in this country are getting the wrong message about how to behave around alcohol and drugs. Exposing young children to environments where drugs and alcohol are used excessively and irresponsibly can be considered a form of child abuse.My Supplementary Order Papers focus on ensuring that security checks can be carried out for volunteers on a regular basis. The first one Supplementary Order Paper 447 is about those who volunteer on a regular basis because volunteers often have connections to drug and alcohol abuse and more important sexual abuse. Those are the areas that we believe Parliament often ignores. Parliament often forgets to take them into consideration. I am asking the Minister and the people in this Committee to do something about this area. Let us have a look at how we can improve the safety of our children and reduce the risk associated with having them being connected with volunteers who have a history of alcohol or drug abuse and also have a history related to sexual violence.Police estimate that only 18 percent of domestic violence incidents are reported. That means 82 percent of unreported domestic violence incidents can never be addressed which could lead to severe cases. The second part of my Supplementary Order Paper 447 is about those who are paid workers not just by organisations but also probably by parents and other people. That refers to taxi drivers or bus drivers who often transport children to and from the organisation. They ought to be screened and they ought to be followed up to ensure that they are safe to have anything to do with our young children. Too often we read in the media or watch on television about these kinds of cases. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye.I should also point out that parents and caregivers who gamble away the futures of their children through Skycity and through pokie machines are the ones who are also in need of being made accountable. They ought to be responsible for the risks that they are causing to their children and to their fanau.Pasifika people have actually become one of the most at-risk ethnicities for developing compulsive gambling behaviour. By the fact that they are gambling so much they are spending the money that they should be spending on their children. Of course domestic and family violence is the result of a situation where financial literacy or debts become a problem within the family. We have seen it so many times where the children end up being the victims in those cases.So New Zealand First would really like the Committee to consider the Supplementary Order Papers that it has put forward. The first part of Supplementary Order Paper 447 is about protecting children from volunteers who work with children on a regular basis. The second part of Supplementary Order Paper 447 is about safety checks of those taxi drivers or bus drivers who often transport children to and from an organisation. Thank you.VotingCorrection—Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform BillThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Members during the last debate on the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill the votes on the closure motion to clause 1 should read 78 in favour and 41 opposed. The original figures I gave were 68 and 41; they should be 78 in favour and 41 opposed. The record will be amended accordingly.Vulnerable Children BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed.Part 1 Cross-agency measures(continued)Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I just wanted to respond quickly on Supplementary Order Paper 438 and Supplementary Order Paper 447 by the member who has just resumed her seat Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor. I just want you to know that whether to include volunteers or not was extensively canvassed. I have not got the number right in front of me but over 200000 people—I think it was 375000 people actually—need to be vetted and screened through all agencies and Government departments.So when we really got down to it some of your argument is valid. There is no doubt about it. There is evidence of people in volunteer organisations and in volunteer roles sexually and violently abusing children in the past. When we looked at it there is absolutely nothing stopping those organisations from screening volunteers and a lot of them do it now voluntarily. I do not really want to name those organisations because I think they are doing a great job and I do not want to give them undue notice in this Chamber that they do not deserve. But there are a whole lot of volunteers who are screened and vetted who are working with kids.We felt that we had literally hundreds of thousands to get through to make sure we had it all right. I have got to say that if the argument got to a point where we were ready to take on that next lot which is the volunteers and we had all the structures up then I personally would be very keen to take that to Cabinet and see that happen. I do think that it is perhaps the next step but I do not think we are quite ready for it.I just wanted to clarify that bus drivers and taxi drivers as well—anyone who is contracted by for instance the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Social Development through disability or vocational services would be included because they are contractors.I hear what you have said. I want you to know that we really did. We went back and forth about three or four times on it. Where we landed was: let us get it right for Government departments and those whom we contract with and if the will is to take that next step then I think you would find that we would be well ready to have that debate.SUE MORONEY (Labour): I am pleased to take a call in the Part 1 debate on the Vulnerable Children Bill. It was actually a very civilised debate until the Minister forSocial Development got up on her feet and attacked our spokesperson on children Jacinda Ardern for daring—daring—to raise the issue of child poverty and the need to deal with that in this country. I want to put it on record that the Labour Party supports this bill and therefore did not deserve that unwarranted attack. But does it not tell the country everything it needs to know about how much this Government despises people who have not got the means to get by and how much it does not want to debate those issues? I think that was a disgraceful performance by the Minister attacking an Opposition spokesperson for daring to raise the issue.Although we support this bill we wish that it went an awful lot further—we do. I think that is right and proper for there to be debate in this Committee and I regret that the Minister went on the attack. It should be a civilised debate—Mike Sabin: We’re going a lot further by trying to ensure the economy is performing—everything that that member votes against.SUE MORONEY: It should be a civilised debate Mr Sabin when we talk about children and their needs.Mike Sabin: Don’t stand up there and go on talking about poverty and then don’t vote for Government bills that support economic growth.SUE MORONEY: Pardon?Mike Sabin: I said don’t stand there and talk about poverty if the member is not—SUE MORONEY: Oh I am not to stand here and talk about poverty says another one of the MPs on the Government benches. Well there we go. This is a debating chamber on behalf of all the other people of New Zealand and the Labour Party will talk about the needs of all of the people of New Zealand not just your rich mates in your Cabinet club Mr Sabin. That is what we are here to bring to this debating chamber. Please do not tell me that I am not to get up and speak about child poverty in this Chamber. I know it harms you to hear it because it is your Government’s track record but please Mr Sabin do not try to shut down debate about an issue that is very important to this country and certainly very important to the people who are listening to this debate. They will recognise even if the National Government does not that we have growing inequality in this country and going into denial about that as the Minister did when she spoke is not going to address those very real issues.And yet we stand here supporting the Minister’s bill. That is right Minister. We are supporting your bill because this is an area that we do want to see progress on. [Interruption] Mr Sabin is still yelling and bellowing. He does not want to understand that we are ambitious about actually getting a whole range of other issues dealt with when it comes to vulnerable children.But Mr Sabin I do want to speak about one particular part of this bill and that is the part that the Minister actually did rise and speak in a civilised manner about and that is the issue of volunteers. Although I am sure the Government did think about this very seriously it needs to think about it even more seriously. The reality is that the statistics tell us that sadly it is more often the people in the unpaid workforce who are guilty of abusing vulnerable children than it is the people in the paid workforce. The Minister talked about the 375000 people who will need to be vetted under this bill who are in the paid workforce. Well that is useful but all the evidence tells us that the more likely problem is in the group that will go unvetted under this bill. I do think that is a really serious issue. If we are serious about addressing the needs of vulnerable children then we do absolutely need to take that on board. I do not think the Government has given that enough consideration. We will be pleased to support the amendments coming forward on this bill that attempt to address that.I was very saddened to read in the weekend about a case of a carer for Child Youth and Family who had been found guilty of abusing children in his care and the verydifficult situation that the family had had to address. In fact they had had great difficulty finding out that this had even happened. They had great difficulty finding out that it had happened and therefore what steps could be taken to protect their children who were in the care of Child Youth and Family. The reason why I raise that in the context of this debate is that the checks and the vetting that are required by this bill had taken place in that case. So I think we need to be really clear that some of what is proposed in this bill happens already and has happened for quite some time in a number of these Government departments but they have failed to keep children safe.So we should be under no false illusion that the bill that we are passing through its Committee stage this evening will be the silver bullet that addresses children who are vulnerable to being abused by adults in whose care they are placed. We have children who in that case were required to be in the care of that adult—they did not just choose to be in the care of that adult but were required to be in the care of that adult—and these vetting and police checks could not keep those children safe.I think it is sobering for all of us to know that this legislation while taking some steps will not prevent these situations and certainly it quite deliberately as the Minister described before will not prevent them from happening in a situation where the adult in charge of that child is in a volunteer role. As I said at the outset of my contribution to this debate—actually it was not quite at the outset; I had something to say about the tenor of the Minister’s contribution. But shortly after that I referred to the fact that it is more often people in volunteer situations who take advantage of vulnerable children than it is people in the paid workforce. I do think there are things that we need to consider in doing this.My colleague Jacinda Ardern spoke I thought very thoughtfully and without controversy about the need for a children’s plan. This part of the bill brings into place the Vulnerable Children’s Plan. My colleague was quite rightly pointing out that if it was actually dealing with the needs of the vulnerable children of this country it would also deal with the issue of poverty. It would recognise that children living in poverty are vulnerable as well and that it would take steps as the Children’s Commissioner has asked for it to do to address those needs. I do not think that is something that should invite a tirade from the bill’s sponsoring Minister. I think that is something that should be debated in this Parliament genuinely and in a civilised manner for the sake of the children.It is the intention of the New Zealand Labour Party to ensure that those voices are heard as well as the voices that have been heard through the Minister’s process which was carefully harnessed through a green paper and a white paper. I am not sure if it was in that order. It might have been the white paper first and then the green paper. I get confused about which one comes first. But it was a very carefully managed process and I congratulate the Minister on it. But a lot of the people who made submissions to that process in fact said exactly the things that Jacinda Ardern just articulated on their behalf. She just articulated those very things on their behalf around the importance of understanding that children are vulnerable when they are placed in poverty. They are placed in poverty because of the policies being pursued by this Government. I think it is very right to raise those issues. They do not deserve to have their views which were being articulated by my colleague face a tirade from the Minister.I hope that the Minister will take a different approach to the debate for the rest of the Committee stage on Part 1. I hope the Government members on the Social Services Committee will take some calls on this as well and will acknowledge that the role of the Labour Party and I think of all members on the select committee were very positive and proactive in terms of trying to get the best possible solution to this bill. It was the Opposition members who ensured thatchild harm prevention orders were taken out ofthis bill because they were going to be unworkable. That was not argued for by the Government members on the select committee; that was a really valuable contribution finally picked up by the Minister from the Opposition members on the select committee. So I think it is important that all the voices on these issues are heard and that there is no attempt by the Government to shut debate down because we are talking about the needs of children and I think we ought to do that in a civilised manner.JAN LOGIE (Green): I welcome the opportunity to speak on Part 1 of the Vulnerable Children Bill which unfortunately the Greens are unable to support. The Greens believe that New Zealand can provide a society where every child can thrive and for us this bill and the process of the White Paper for Vulnerable Children and the green paper were an opportunity for public debate on how to deliver that society for our children. We know that many of the NGOs and advocates for children participated in that process with that vision as well. We are a wealthy country in effect. We have a lot of resource in this country. We can actually afford to deliver that vision for every one of our children.The end result of delivering that for every one of our children will be a society that can grow that can respond to the challenges that are in front of us and that can be the best that it can be because our children are in a sense our future—as has been said in many a pop song. This bill sadly does not deliver that vision or that opportunity. In fact we are worried that the narrow scope of it will actually interfere in the ability to deliver for the children—the very few children—whom it is named to deliver for.In effect this part of the bill is saying that it will “support the Government’s setting of priorities for improving the well-being of vulnerable children;” and gives the Government the ability to define vulnerability for the purposes of this work. We have had indications from the Government that its definition and understanding of vulnerability is quite narrow and we are being told that that is about us having limited resources and needing to channel them to those most in need. We challenge that premise and we—Hon Paula Bennett: I didn’t say that.JAN LOGIE: That has been said throughout the process Minister. You may not have said it yourself in this debate but it has been said. And if it is not the case then why are we not broadening out and actually putting in place what Regional Public Health has noted in its submission is a much wider approach in terms of taking a public health prevention approach which has been proven internationally to be the most effective approach at delivering for children who are at risk?Why are we implementing a policy and a process that are in conflict with the basic principles of Whānau Ora and a public health prevention approach? Why are we doing that Minister? I am hoping you can explain that to us because I have not heard through any of the submissions or the discussion why there is this need to focus on such a narrow narrow group which has so much risk of missing so many children and misses the fundamental causes and drivers of harm and does nothing to create safe environments. We know that actually creating safe environments is going to be what delivers for our children in the long term. Just leaving it up to the State to intervene when there is harm already is basically saying that we give up. We do not give up and there is no need to give up. This country can afford to deliver a different future for our children and sadly this bill does not do it.I also note that Otago University’s public health department noted a deep concern that the definition of vulnerability will lie in the hands of the responsible Minister rather than our having a broader definition that is based on community analysis. We have heard from many submitters that actually there is an understanding that all children are vulnerable. By their nature they are dependent on others and it is up to usto create that safe environment and those safe families for them to be able to grow and thrive in recognition of that vulnerability.I would also just like to take issue a little with the Minister’s response to Jacinda Ardern. I get the passion that the Minister conveys around the importance of addressing sexual abuse and physical violence against children. That is an issue I am deeply passionate about and have spent much of my life working on as have others in this House. But I will point out that in effect the Government has edited out through this process any mention of domestic violence.We know there are different understandings of domestic violence and incorrect understandings of the nature of domestic violence across our different ministries including Child Youth and Family. The Family Violence Death Review Committee noted in its submission that there is an issue within our systems of recognising lethality. There is another issue of passing on the concerns that are there and then yet another issue about getting a response even when those concerns do manage to get passed on. That committee works with Child Youth and Family a lot and it finds it very difficult due to a lack of resources. It believes that it needs more time and training and more staff. We have not heard of any extra resourcing in terms of supporting it. It has said we need to fund time to meet and build trust.This approach from the Government talks about a lot of collaboration between the ministries which is essential. We need to have that. I really think that the State Sector Act needs a review in terms of breaking down those silos across the Government but we also need to fund that time to build trust and understanding between those agencies so that everyone is talking the same language and is able to go to somebody when they have a concern and there is nothing we have heard that is saying that that is going to be delivered. When we are not funding the delivery of the core mechanisms that are in this to ensure that they are going to work then actually it is hard to see how it is different from window dressing and our children deserve better than that. We have enough resource in this country to deliver a better future for them and it is not OK that so many of them are at risk at the moment.I do want to go back to the point around domestic violence in particular because we have seen a reduction in funding for the core response agencies. We know we have Minister. Figures from the Parliamentary Library show that the funding for Women’s Refuge has dropped by just over 30 percent over the last 3 years. We have seen that the funding for stopping violence programmes for typically fathers who are seeking to get treatment has also dropped by 16 percent over the last 3 years.Minister this is around the point of vulnerability and the point of domestic violence. Over half of the children who have Child Youth and Family notifications attached to them are coming from families that are violent where there is domestic violence present and yet this bill does not acknowledge that reality. Unless we acknowledge that reality and actually take on domestic violence head on name it and get the understanding of it shared across the relevant ministries then actually we are in danger of putting these kids at risk because we are in danger of taking them away from protective parents which is happening all too often. Sadly we are still hearing stories coming out of the community of children losing both of their parents because the State cannot understand and support the role of the protective parent. It is so hard for those fathers to access the support that they need to change their attitudes behaviour and beliefs to become good fathers and this bill sadly again does nothing to deliver on that.Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour): I am pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Vulnerable Children Bill. I would have thought that addressing the needs of vulnerable children would not be a matter of intense contest—that it would be an area in which thisParliament would come together and work collectively to find the best solutions possible that are consistent with the nature of knowledge the nature of science and the nature of practice to make those kinds of changes. Whenever over the 6 years I have been in this House this Government has come up with any sensible idea to do with addressing the needs of the vulnerable and the not so well off this Opposition has supported those ideas—always supported those ideas.However that is not to say that the proposals that the Minister for Social Development brings before the House are perfect. We will support the good projects—and we support this particular one as well and we have supported it throughout the process in the first reading and the Social Services Committee consideration and now in the third reading—but this approach has major shortcomings. We want to expose those and by exposing those shortcomings and attempting to improve the bill we ought not to be subjected to the kind of personal attack we got from the Minister a little while ago in response to the speech given by Jacinda Ardern.I want to remind the Minister of a story because it fundamentally shows the Minister’s own shortcomings in her thinking around this. The officials know what the knowledge is about and could give her a lesson on what that knowledge ought to be and where it leads. There is a man fishing and as the man is fishing by the riverside he sees a child drowning. He jumps in and saves the child—resuscitation and the child is fine. The child is on his way and the young man starts fishing again. In a little while there is another young person a young child coming down the river in the same state. The man saves that one as well. Then there is a third one and then there is a fourth one. What the man does is find somebody else to save the ones who are coming down the stream but he goes upstream. The people watching ask him what he is doing and he says he is going to go upstream to stop the person who is pushing these children into the stream.That is a very simple analogy that explains the views that Jacinda Ardern was stating. Is the Minister incapable of doing both—rescuing the children who are the most vulnerable and at the same time going upstream and stopping those processes that are pushing these children into the stream? Any sensible policy would do both things. That is called primary secondary and tertiary intervention. It is well written about Minister. And yet in the Minister’s own response to Jacinda Ardern what she was showing was the politicisation of this particular issue that this Minister and this Government have done. They have politicised these issues in this way. They have simply looked at the headline-grabbing events the headline-grabbing kinds of ideas that would somehow show to the Minister’s own supporters that they are doing a great deal. In fact they are not doing a great deal. These policies will not fundamentally change the outcome for vulnerable children.What Jan Logie Jacinda Ardern and Sue Moroney have just been talking about is that there is a whole complex of factors that have to be addressed. Part 1 does not address that complex of factors. That is what we are trying to point out Minister and that does not deserve those kinds of personal attacks by you. It is not sexy to talk about the fundamental causes that lead children to vulnerability. It is probably sexy in her frame—that actually gets others to somehow see that they are making a fundamental difference. In fact they are not. It is much more integrated to look at both the provision of services to those who are most vulnerable right now and to ensure that those who are becoming vulnerable or are at risk of becoming vulnerable are also prevented from entering that stream. This bill does not do that.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National): I moveThat the question be now put.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is a shame that my colleague Rajen Prasad was unable to finish his address but I am very pleased to take another call on Part 1 of theVulnerable Children Bill particularly so we can speak on child protection policies which are a significant part of the bill. But before I go on to that it feels like it would be remiss of me not to respond to the Minister for Social Development’s contribution after my address. If I did not make it absolutely clear in that first part of my address let me do it now. Labour is supporting this bill. We have even said that when this Government is removed in September we will continue with the Government’s Children’s Action Plan. We have acknowledged and seen the work that has gone into the green paper process and the white paper process. All of the input that has come from this sector into this piece of work has been considerable and we are not willing to walk away from that. So for the Minister to try to somehow imply that we have not supported elements of her work is not only misleading but also a politicisation of what otherwise was a reasonable contribution of how our position differs in some areas from this Government’s.Yes we support the Vulnerable Children Bill but do we think it goes far enough? No. We have said that clearly all along and it is a reasonable point to make because child poverty is not to ignore child abuse. But if you ignore child abuse then you are ignoring wider fundamental issues around child well-being. In fact the Government has been at great pains to separate out the issues of child abuse neglect and vulnerability from issues of child poverty. We have consistently argued that all of the research and all of the evidence says that you cannot separate out issues that cannot be separated out. In fact we would never ever in this Chamber—you will never hear one member of this side of the Chamber ever say this—argue that because you are poor you hurt your children. Of course not—that is a despicable implication to make. But nor can any Government that is responsible and looks at the evidence and research ignore the role that poverty plays in vulnerability and that poverty plays in abuse and neglect issues. You cannot separate issues that cannot be separated out. To ignore one is to patently ignore the other.If the Minister wants to get angry about that get angry about it. Get angry about the situation—fair enough. We should all be angry about it. But do not get angry at the Opposition for raising what research and evidence inconveniently has told this Government and what it does not wish to be inconvenienced by. They are the cold hard facts of the matter. But we still support this bill because at least yes the Government is doing something. We would just like to see more. That is what we would like to call being ambitious for children.Speaking directly on child protection policies I am pleased that New Zealand First raised some of the issues around how far those child protection policies should go. What about when it comes to vetting and screening the children’s workforce? It was something rigorously debated by the Social Services Committee. It was a hard point to come to—whether or not for instance we should say “Look the State should look at who is contracted and who is required by Government to provide services as a children’s workforce and then should not go any further than that. Let’s leave it to voluntary organisations to put in place their own policies.” To a certain extent you could argue that but we actually had voluntary organisations that said “No we would feel more comfortable if we were covered as well.” We did ask for some advice on what that would look like if that extension went that far and what kind of burden it would place on those voluntary organisations—would they have the capacity to carry that out? They were vulnerable questions. I never felt entirely satisfied by the answers that we were able to produce through that process.So whilst I can understand why the Government has come to where it has come to in this bill I do think that there is some merit in what New Zealand First has said around applying one narrow element of these provisions and just saying “Let’s make sure thatthe safety checks and vets at least apply to the voluntary children’s workforce where they are engaged frequently in that kind of work.” I think it is fair for them—JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa): I moveThat the question be now put.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 435 in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett to Part 1 be agreed to.Amendments agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 436 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 9 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is just to enter one correction with regard to the Minister’s Supplementary Order Papers 434 and 435. Mana records a negative vote in both cases.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We have the Minister’s amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 435 and the other one was—Dr Kennedy Graham: Four hundred and thirty-four I think.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That one was agreed to on voices. So the Minister’s amendments—just one moment. The Minister’s amendments as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 435 were agreed to on voices. There was no party vote called for so we cannot record a party vote because I have already announced the result.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 447 in the name of Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor to insert new clause 27A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 447 in the name of Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor to insert new clause 27B be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes41New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; Mana 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.Part 1 as amended agreed to.Progress to be reported presently.House resumed.The Chairperson reported the Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill with amendment and that the Committee had divided it into two bills and progress on the Vulnerable Children Bill.Report adopted.The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.