Volume 681 Week 16 - Thursday 19 July 2012 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 681 Week 16 - Thursday 19 July 2012 
[Sitting date: 19 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3745. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Thursday 19 July 2012 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Viet Nam—Delegation National Assembly 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Honourable members I have much pleasure in informing the House that a parliamentary delegation from the National Assembly of Viet Nam led by Mr Nguyen Van Hien Chairman of the Committee on Judiciary is present in the gallery. I am sure members would wish that the delegation be welcomed. 
Business Statement 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 When the House resumes on Tuesday 24 July the Government will complete the Dairy Industry Restructuring Amendment Bill and a number of first readings on the Order Paper including the Families Commission Amendment Bill and the Companies and Limited Partnerships Amendment Bill. Wednesday is a members’ day. The Business Committee has also determined that the House will take extended hours on Wednesday 25 July effective from 9 a.m. on Thursday 26 July for the third readings of the Maraeroa A and B Blocks Claims Settlement Bill and the Maraeroa A and B Blocks Incorporation Bill the Ngai Tamanuhiri Claims Settlement Bill the Ngati Makino Claims Settlement Bill and the Rongowhataata Claims Settlement Bill. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Can I ask the Leader of the House two questions: first of all to confirm that those third readings will run into the afternoon of Thursday next week as well as the extended Wednesday; and also to give an assurance as far as the following week is concerned that if we do go on to the liquor legislation there will be plenty of notice because of the conscience vote nature of it? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Two things. I thank the shadow Leader of the House for those questions. It is a good opportunity to clarify that under the Standing Orders the Government by agreement with the Business Committee in this case will call for extended hours on Wednesday 25 July because what we are doing is extending the Wednesday into the Thursday. In effect we will deal with those bills on Thursday morning running through into the afternoon. There will still be a question time. I will shortly seek leave for the House to sit beyond the 6 o’clock mark should we require it to complete those third readings. 
On the issue of the alcohol bill there are a number of points in the bill that will be of interest to members across the House. I think it is desirable that we have a broad discussion at the Business Committee. My proposal is that we will have that discussion next Tuesday—and I will try to get some information to members of the committee prior to that time—when we might get some agreement on how we could satisfy everybody’s requirements around that debate. 
Sittings of the House 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 So that we get everything done in sequence I will now seek leave that should the debate on the bills that the Business Committee has agreed will be dealt with under extended hours next week progress beyond 6 o’clock on the Thursday the House will continue beyond 6 o’clock for the conclusion of the third readings. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think we also indicated that we might deal with some flexibility around the 1 o’clock time if we were coming to the end of the debate on one of those bills. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 That is true. We essentially are splitting the debate on these five bills into morning and afternoon sessions. I think the leave should be that if either of those sessions requires the House to sit for a short time beyond the normal rising time we should do so until the conclusion of the debate on the bill in progress. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection.  
Questions to Ministers 
Water Rights—Prime Minister’s Statements 
1. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by all his statements regarding water ownership rights and interests? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
on behalf of the Prime Minister: Yes. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he confirm the joint announcement he made last night with the Maori Party leadership that no matter what the outcome of the tribunal and subsequent court action he will not legislate even if that outcome was that Maori had a proprietary-type right over water? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister stands by the statements made in the statement that was released. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he confirm that his agreement to not legislate against Maori rights and interests in water has in fact already been broken by the Mixed Ownership Model Bill which has passed through Parliament and allows for the partial sale of entities like Mighty River Power that have rights and interests in water that affect all New Zealanders including Maori? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No the Mixed Ownership Model Bill does not do that. In fact it includes the preservation of section 9 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act and its references to the Treaty of Waitangi. What the Prime Minister is doing is quite different from what the previous Labour Government did and that is we are building confidence around discussion with Maori about their rights and interests rather than overreacting— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! That was beyond the question asked. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he confirm that it is his Government’s intention that no matter what the outcome of the Waitangi Tribunal and subsequent court action—whatever rights it may decide Maori have in terms of water—his Government will not legislate in that regard? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister stands by the statement in the statement that was released last night. It is the Government’s expectation that—well put it this way: the member is probably not correctly connecting any outcome from the Waitangi Tribunal with any outcome from the court action because the court action is much more likely to be focused on preventing the sale of assets going ahead rather than any particular aspect of Maori rights and interests. 
Grant Robertson 
: Does he agree with Tariana Turia that it was a misconception that this claim is about the ownership of water; if so why did he continue to make statements about his opposition to the ownership of water if not to just raise tension around the issue? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The issue of ownership was actually raised by the claimants. In fact we have seen claimants I think discussing it publicly recently. The Prime Minister stands by his restatement of the longstanding view of New Zealand’s Governments and jurisprudence that no one owns the water. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of the indemnity granted for Treaty matters to private shareholders of the to-be-privatised State-owned enterprises under the mixed ownership model legislation passed recently does that mean that all risk from court action now lies with the Crown; if so why did his Minister of Finance not record that unspecified fiscal risk as part of the Budget documentation currently being considered by the House? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It has always been the case that the risks or costs associated with Treaty settlements are matters between the Crown and iwi. But again I think this member like the other is getting ahead of himself over whether or not the courts are likely to be settling the issue of Maori rights and interests. There is a prospect of court action. That court action is much more likely to be related to injuncting the sale process. It is unlikely that the courts themselves would set out to determine Maori rights and interests. If they did that could take quite a long time. 
Grant Robertson 
: Is it correct that the reasons he raised the spectre of ownership of water by Maori were to divert public attention from his hugely unpopular asset sales programme and to inflame divisions about Treaty issues and when will he apologise for this divisive behaviour? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I think the member is overstating his case there. The fact is claimants have gone to the tribunal they have made a range of claims and some of them have expressed those claims as ownership of the water. The Prime Minister just clearly restated in the light of that action in the tribunal what the longstanding position of New Zealand Governments has been and it will remain so. Obviously there is pretty broad public interest in whether the Waitangi Tribunal is or is not going to be contesting the ownership of water. 
State-owned Energy Companies and Air New Zealand Sales—Cost as at July 2012 
2. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What has been the total cost to date of extending and implementing the Government’s asset sales programme which it calls the Mixed Ownership Model? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 As I said in answer to a similar question last month the total amounts of the contracts are commercially sensitive because the Government intends to renegotiate those contracts for each partial share offer. I can confirm that about $1.1 million has been paid out so far pursuant to communication marketing market research and advertising services. But I would say to the member that the Government has been quite open about the potential costs of the programme. These are expected to be about 2 percent of the total programme proceeds which by any market standard is quite low. Other share floats generally have costs somewhere between 3 to 7 percent of the total proceeds. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the figure of $1.1 million so far include all the costs of the asset sales policy including contracting for advertising and communications banks and sharebrokers legal advisers independent advisers policy work conducted by the Public Service and activities not covered by the appropriations within Vote Finance such as pre-sale preparation by the energy companies work conducted by Government departments other than Treasury and the Waitangi Tribunal hearing costs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No it does not. It refers to the amount that has been paid out under the kinds of contracts that the member has referred to in the past. I must say though that a good deal of the Public Service activity has been very useful because it has shown up aspects of the operations of the companies that can be improved. In the case of Maori rights and interests it has flushed out a number of issues some of which should have been resolved some time ago and have not been and others of which have been publicly discussed. So that expenditure I would regard as pretty useful even if there was no sale. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The primary question that was put down was general. It asked what has been the total cost to date. It did not refer just to the contracting costs around advertising and communications. It also referred to all costs including the Public Service work. The Minister has just confirmed in his answer there that his answer to the primary question did not include those other costs yet this was a question set down on notice. It did not specify just advertising and communication. It was very broad. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I listened to the Minister’s answer very carefully. What he said was that some of the costs relating to certain contracts were considered commercially sensitive and he did not believe it was in the public interest to identify all of those. In respect of the departmental costs it is possible the Minister interpreted those the way many would—that the departmental officials have to be paid anyhow and there is no particular additional cost depending on what work they are doing. It is not often in costing projects like this that the departmental costs are included. If the member had wanted that to be included in such a figure maybe he should have been more specific in the question. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Can the Minister of Finance then provide us with the true cost including departmental costs of preparing the asset sales programme and implementing this policy agenda from the Government? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Depending on what the member means by “the true cost”. We can certainly provide over time the direct costs of the share float. I suppose if we were going to take a broader view of what the costs are then we would need to also weigh that up against the benefits of improving the operation of the companies and getting on and resolving outstanding Maori claims that have been brought to the fore by this process because those are clearly benefits to the Government and to the country. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Given that the Prime Minister has conceded that there could be a delay in the float of Mighty River Power does he think that it is wise to continue spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars and potentially millions on the asset sales process when a change in circumstances such as a legal challenge could mean that much of the work would have to be repeated and/or amended costing the taxpayer further hundreds of thousands of dollars or potentially millions of dollars? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As the member will know the statements made by the Prime Minister indicate that it is possible that the share sales could be delayed. That is yet to be proven. We have not had the conclusions of the Waitangi Tribunal. We have not had anyone rebut the Government’s proposition that the sale of shares does not compromise its ability to deal with iwi claims. So we have yet to see whether there can be successful claims in the tribunal and then yet to see whether there can be a successful court action. The likelihood of that is there. It is probably low. We are proceeding with the pre-sale process. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Has the Minister sought any official advice on the impact on the asset sales revenue of the uncertainty created by potential court action over water rights; if so what advice has he received? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not think we have asked specifically for that advice. There has been some discussion about it. One indication of the potential impact on value I am advised is that there has been no change in the share price of TrustPower or Contact Energy both of which are operating in the same markets as the State-owned enterprises and are potentially interested in the same kinds of claims. We have confidence that the process we have been involved in for the last 2 or 3 years of discussing these matters with Maori is a process that can lead to a solution and that tribunal claims and court actions are unlikely to make solutions more achievable. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Minister concede that there could be a cost on energy companies as a result of the recognition of iwi rights to water—that there would be an impact on the profitability of those companies were such recognition to be followed through in the courts or through an agreement between Crown and iwi—and that that should be factored into how much he thinks he is going to raise by selling the companies? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No I do not concede that. The member is asking these questions as if these issues are all new. In fact they are not. One of the first actions of this Government was to renegotiate the Waikato River settlement which was a settlement of freshwater claims related to the river which has more dams on it than any other river in New Zealand. That settlement did deal with Tainui’s rights and interests and had no impact on the operation of the electricity companies that have dams on that river. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does he agree with the Prime Minister that as many as three asset sales could occur in the coming year or two in light of Forsyth Barr research showing that the asset sales would need to be spread out over 5 years to let the capital markets absorb them and to maximise the revenue to the Crown? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: People will have their own views about it. It is our view in the light of the fact New Zealanders are saving more than they have in the last 20 or 30 years and are paying down debt because of record low interest rates that there will be a large pool of cash and demand for these floats. The Government as it goes will make decisions about the timing of them but we are a bit more optimistic than Forsyth Barr. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Given that the Government has stated that sales would not go ahead if market conditions were unfavourable has the Government determined what conditions would be unfavourable; if so what are they? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No we have not determined what conditions would be unfavourable. You can imagine various scenarios—some positive some negative. The fact that interest rates are the lowest they have ever been is probably tending to increase the value of utility companies on the one hand; on the other hand if there was some serious meltdown in Europe and financial markets shut down then clearly that would be negative. But those are judgments we would make closer to the time. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Given the risk created by uncertainty over water rights the cost of an accelerated sales programme and the continuing volatility in sharemarkets is not the fiscally responsible course of action for the Government to suspend asset sales at this time? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Not for those reasons on their own. The fact is that all of those conditions apply regardless of the sale. Maori are asserting rights and interests in water. Whoever owns those companies those rights and interests would need to be resolved. If there is uncertainty generated by those claims then there would be uncertainty for State-owned enterprises or for 51 percent Government-owned State-owned enterprises. So the fact that Maori have made claims makes in that sense no difference to who owns them. If there is uncertainty there for the private investors there is uncertainty there for the Government. Those claims are ones that we are focused on resolving as we have resolved a number of them in the last couple of years and we are continuing to discuss the outstanding claims. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If he is so confident of New Zealand mums and dads having sufficient savings to take up the share offer why on earth is he floating these shares on the Australian market? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well we are not. 
Government Financial Position—Financial Statements for 11 Months Ended 31 May 2012 
3. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received on the Government’s financial position? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Earlier this month Treasury published the Government’s Financial Statements for the 11 months ending 31 May. The Government’s operating balance was about $1.1 billion better than forecast at minus $5.9 billion. This is slightly encouraging but the global environment remains uncertain and there will continue to be fluctuations in the tax take from month to month. The world situation though reinforces the need for the Government to keep a firm control on its costs. 
David Bennett 
: How does balancing the Government’s books help the economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I know that it is broadly accepted in the National Party that it is good for the economy but I would like to explain the reasons why to Opposition members because they remain unconvinced. Balancing the books is one of the most important things a Government can do to build the resilience of our economy and reduce its vulnerability to growing overseas indebtedness and take the pressure off interest rates and the exchange rate. For instance the average business lending rate has now fallen to 6.04 percent at May 2012 compared with 9.4 percent in late 2008. In so far as the Government is on track to surplus this helps make our businesses more competitive. 
David Bennett 
: How is the Government’s responsible management of its finances—[ 
Interruption 
]—helping New Zealand’s households?  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Did the Minister hear the question? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes I did. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Because the Speaker did not. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Again for the benefit of those who want to borrow more and spend more balancing the books helps take pressure off mortgage interest rates. The average residential floating rate is currently 5.9 percent compared with a floating rate of almost 11 percent in late 2008. For a family with a $200000 mortgage that is a saving of around $200 per week or more than $10000 per year since they elected a National Government. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does today’s report from Statistics New Zealand show that the Government’s finances need to provide for more than 1 million people over 65 years of age by the end of the 2020s and what changes to superannuation is he intending to make to ensure that New Zealanders have fair and sustainable superannuation? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I think the member probably put it correctly when he said the economy needs to be able to support a growing number of older people. We are focusing very strongly on reinforcing the competitiveness and productivity of this economy so that it can support an older population. As the member knows the Government’s position on national superannuation is quite clear. 
David Bennett 
: What other approaches to managing the Government’s finances is he aware of? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have heard a number of reports of propositions that would require a considerable amount of extra debt and unsustainable spending: for instance borrowing to pay for reducing the retirement age to 60 for some workers borrowing to pay for the Auckland rail loop borrowing to pay for doubling paid parental leave and of course borrowing $5 billion to $7 billion on global financial markets to buy back the four State-owned enterprises that the Government plans to partially sell. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does his Budget project that by the end of the 2016 year his Government if still in office would be spending more on superannuation than on all of education—that is more than on preschool primary intermediate secondary and tertiary education combined—if so how can he deny that changes are necessary and should be signalled now rather than sprung on people later? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That may be the case with the Budget projections; I would need to check it. As far as I know no one is proposing—or maybe they are proposing that. Maybe the Opposition is proposing to somehow reduce national superannuation so that by 2016 we are spending less on it than on education. If so people need to be told about that so that it is not sprung on them as a surprise. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why is the Minister bragging about a floating rate of 5 percent when that equivalent rate in the EU the UK and Japan is four times less than that? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government is not bragging about anything. It is simply pointing out that the floating rate of interest is around about half what it was in 2008 which is giving New Zealanders the opportunity to pay off debt and save more money and those are good things for the economy. 
Welfare Reforms—Transition Process for Initiatives Targeting Young People 
4. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: Does she stand by her statement that “you need to look at the 16 and 17-year-olds and for the very first time our focus is keenly going on them”? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 Yes and that is why we are making significant changes to ensure that we are focused on getting more 16 and 17-year-olds into education training or work-based learning and not going on to a benefit. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Can she genuinely maintain she has a keen focus on young people when school-leavers with no plans have stepped into a black hole given that she has shut down Youth Transition Services and the replacement services have had their start date changed by her yet again and will not be opening their doors until at least the end of August? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I believe that those services are continuing to work with those young people so they are getting those services. But on 20 August that will be changing. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is it acceptable for her to tell Youth Transition Services to continue operating when they have not got a contract with the Ministry of Social Development when many schools still do not know the information they are meant to be providing to them and when the legislation underpinning the whole thing including privacy issues still has not been passed? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I have a number of bits of good news for the member. The legislation will be passed this afternoon so that is going well and is all on track. Then we have a notice period where we are going to those young people and making sure they know what is happening. The other part of it is that the schools are not actually providing that information directly; it is coming from the national office with ENROL. So it is quite straightforward for us to be extracting the information we need and to be using it accordingly. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is she asking Youth Transition Services to operate without a contract and without a mandate? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: It is quite common for contracts to roll over and continue on. That is what happens quite often. There is often a gap between what was going to be an end date and then a new date. It happened under Labour. It is happening under National. It is quite normal for it to happen and that is what is happening in this instance. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Does her keen focus include her staff instructing Youth Transition Services that no matter what it cannot refer young people to Work and Income even when some youth services branches are meant to now service these needs with just one office and few experienced staff and are covering geographic areas equivalent to half the South Island? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As we go through the transition we are going to have Work and Income staff actually in those offices. So they will not have to refer them there; they will have a staff member on site who will be able to work with them. So we are obviously conscious of what the changes are that are coming up and what needs to be done. We are working closely with them. The feedback I am getting is how positive it is and how much they are looking forward to the work that is going on. 
Welfare Reforms—Reducing Long-term Welfare Dependence 
5. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: How will the Government’s welfare reforms support people off welfare and into work? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 I am absolutely thrilled that our reforms are going to fundamentally change the way that welfare is delivered. The Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill which is set to have its third reading just this afternoon means that we will be working with youth but also with predominantly women on welfare far better than we currently do. These changes will introduce greater work expectations and preparation as well as a real wraparound service for those young people who so desperately need it and in the past have not been receiving it. 
Mike Sabin 
: What are the aims of these welfare reforms? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: The statistics have been telling us for years that welfare dependence is intergenerational. One hundred and seventy thousand New Zealanders have spent most of the last decade on welfare. We simply cannot continue to spend $8 billion a year to support 12 percent of the working-age population. These reforms are aimed at addressing the causes of dependence and at having people work-ready with greater support for young people some sole parents widows and women alone. 
Mike Sabin 
: What other work has been done to date on welfare reform? 
Hon Member 
: Heaps. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Heaps as my colleague says behind me. It started with Future Focus in 2010 which we have seen a huge success with. We are now following up with this bill which as I say has its focus predominantly on youth but also on some of those on the DPB. The third bill is yet to go through this year but is well on its way I am pleased to advise the House. That bill will include significant changes that will completely reform the way that welfare is delivered. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Can she confirm based on her own department’s projections in the Budget that even after the implementation of her $287 million reforms the number of people on the DPB will be higher than when she started as Minister? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: There is no doubt that there have been tough times and that we have seen people needing to use the welfare system and to go on a benefit and I will proudly stand here and say that we provided a system that was needed by New Zealanders. What I can tell the member is that there will be considerably fewer people on the DPB than there was for most of the time when National was in Government. 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Members on both sets of front benches may have missed it but the deputy leader of the Labour Party called a point of order.  
Grant Robertson 
: I am hard to miss so I do not know about that. Although the Minister towards the end of the answer did eventually make a comment about the number of people who would be on the DPB compared with—I think she meant—when Labour was in office she did not actually answer what was a very specific and straight question about the number of people on the DPB after the reform process. That was the very specific question that was asked. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question asked whether the Minister could confirm something—two figures—and the Minister did not disagree with the proposition put to her but explained the reason for it. If the question had asked how many people are on the benefit at such-and-such date and how many on another date then I would expect the Minister to answer that given the nature of the question. Where it is asking a Minister to confirm I am not going to insist on any particular answer. 
Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—Minister’s Statements at Estimates Hearing 
6. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs 
: Does he stand by all his answers to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee Estimates hearing today? 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY (Minister of Foreign Affairs) 
: 
 Yes.  
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why was he as Minister the sole Minister in his Cabinet who refused to—in fact instructed Treasury officials not to—release briefing papers on his portfolio when every other Minister released them automatically? 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: It has been the practice of my office in previous years as well to release that information ourselves and not to leave it to Treasury to release the information. It may amuse the House to know that last year when Labour had a hard-working and diligent spokeswoman on foreign affairs— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Order! I do not see the relevance of who Labour’s spokesperson was to the question asked. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why did he delete 16 out of the 26 pages of the briefing document to him as incoming Minister only to be required by the Ombudsman to change that decision because his cult of secrecy was totally contrary to the Official Information Act? 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade made a number of recommended withholdings— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Oh it’s always the ministry. 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: Yes.  
Hon Phil Goff 
: He never takes responsibility—never takes responsibility. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member asked a question and should— 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I made it clear to the member this morning that I take responsibility for it which is why when this matter was raised with me I asked for the matter to be reviewed and further material was released as a result.  
Hon Phil Goff 
: Does he take responsibility for the fact that his botched restructuring of the foreign affairs ministry has resulted according to his own survey in 85 percent of the ministry’s employees being ambivalent or negative about working for his ministry and in the number of job losses having trebled since 2008? 
Hon MURRAY McCULLY 
: I have previously indicated to the House that there were some aspects of the original proposals in the ministry’s change programme that I disagreed with. As a consequence I wrote the chief executive a letter to rule out some of the proposals. Now that the changes are being implemented I can report that there has been a significant improvement in morale and indeed the figures that member is quoting to the House pre-date those changes taking place. 
Education National Standards—Data 
7. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does she stand by her reported comments that the Government wanted to collect National Standards data to raise pupil achievement not to rank schools? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes. I remain committed to using national standards data to raise achievement for all learners. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Why does she not want the data used to rank schools? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I am clearly committed to national standards information—which is public information—needing to be presented in a meaningful and useful way that does not damage schools and is focused on how student achievement can be raised. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was “Why does she not want the data used to rank schools?”. I did not hear why she does not want that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: With respect I heard the Minister say she believed that the important information should be used for educational purposes and not to damage schools. The member asked why and the Minister gave her reason why. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Why did her ministry write to the school boards and principals telling them to release their national standards data to journalists when under the Official Information Act the schools can decline a request if the information is going to be published soon—something you are planning to do in September? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not sure the Speaker is planning to do that but so long as the Minister takes that as being something the Minister is planning to do the Hon Hekia Parata. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: National standards data is public information. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: What is she doing to ensure that the ropey national standards data available now and the official ministry data available in September are not compiled into league tables that rank schools? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I have said that we are clearly committed to presenting this information in a meaningful and useful way. This is the first year that national standards data has been reported. Therefore it is significantly variable. But I expect that it will get better and better and be more useful over time. The focus of the ministry is how that information can be used to help parents understand how well their children are doing help the schools understand how well their school is doing and help the Government understand how well the system is doing. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was quite a specific question. I appreciate the Minister’s answer but it was quite a specific question about what she is doing to ensure that the information will not be compiled into league tables that rank schools. I did not hear that bit replied to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will invite the member to repeat her question. I have been struggling to understand the questions I have got to confess so I will invite the member to repeat it. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: What is she doing to ensure that the ropey national standards data available now— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: What do you mean by ropey? 
Catherine Delahunty 
: —ask the Prime Minister because it is his expression—and the official ministry data available in September are not compiled into league tables that rank schools? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: What I am doing is making it very clear that my expectation is that that report will be compiled in a way that the information is meaningful and useful for the purposes of raising student achievement. 
Tracey Martin 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Sorry but I need to suggest that actually the question was not answered. The Minister has still not said what she is doing to not— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The Minister answered the question. Whether the member believes that the answer given is going to be adequate to achieve the outcome that was the subject of the question is another matter but the Minister certainly answered the question. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Will she act on the serious concerns of 100 leading academics by promising the House that national standards data will not be released in a form that will allow it to create rankable league tables? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: I can talk about what the ministry does with the information; I cannot talk about what other people choose to do with the information. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Why not? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Because it is a democracy—it is a democracy. That is why. The ministry will be focusing on presenting it in a meaningful and useful way to—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the Minister. Look I say to members of the Labour front bench on this occasion that I cannot hear the Minister’s answer. In case a point of order is raised I must be able to hear the Minister’s answer. I call the Hon Hekia Parata. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Well really I had finished. I was saying to reiterate one more time—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I ask members to show some respect. There is a public interest in this issue—a serious issue. 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: What we propose to do is to publish a report that is meaningful and useful in respect of national standards data to assist schools and their communities to understand how well student achievement is being raised and to assist the Government to understand how the system as a whole is relating to raising student achievement. Kia ora tatou. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! A point of order has—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! I say to members they should listen; a point of order has been called. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: The questioner was at pains to ask whether or not the information would be released in such a form that comparative analysis of the type she did not want to happen in the public could not happen. She was seeking assurance on that specific matter— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! The member is quite reinterpreting the question as asked. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No I’m not. It’s a clear question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There must be something wrong with the Speaker’s ears—well there is something wrong with the Speaker’s ears; I accept that absolutely. [ 
Interruption 
] I asked for that did I not? In the two answers the Minister gave—because there was a part that could be heard when she was first answering the question before she was drowned out and then there was a second part—in the first part the Minister pointed out that she could not in fact control what the media did and that the Minister could control only what the ministry did in respect of the information. She was therefore answering the member’s question that there were some aspects of what might happen in the public that were beyond the Minister’s control and that was a perfectly fair answer to the question asked. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I seek leave to table a letter to the boards of trustees and chairpersons from the Acting Secretary of Education saying they must release national standards even though they do not have to. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Business Research and Development—Postgraduate Intern Programme 
8. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Science and Innovation 
: How is the Government helping innovative businesses link up with talented new professionals coming out of our universities? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation) 
: 
 Good news. The Government is funding a postgraduate intern programme for 70 students in areas such as engineering design and information and communications technology to work in some of New Zealand’s most innovative businesses. This opportunity provides valuable work experience in a commercial environment and demonstrates potential industry-based career opportunities for students after their studies. To support this intern programme the Government has dedicated $2.1 million allowing 70 businesses to employ interns for a minimum of 6 months to undertake innovative research and development work. This year 2012 builds on the 50 businesses that participated in the scheme last year. 
Nikki Kaye 
: How does this graduate intern programme fit in with other Government initiatives to improve the skill base of New Zealand’s workforce? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The intern programme is just a small part of this Government’s efforts to boost science innovation and research. In Budget 2012 we have committed $159 million to provide innovative businesses with more skilled graduates. This includes an additional $42 million funding for engineering students an additional $17 million funding for science tuition subsidies and $100 million to increase the size of the Performance-based Research Fund from $250 million a year to $300 million per year by 2016. These increases recognise how vital science and research are to innovation and in turn to stronger economic growth. To retain our competitiveness internationally we need increased investment in engineering science and research and that is exactly what this Government is doing. 
Local Authorities—Accuracy of Financial Statistics Released in March 2012 
9. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: Were the local authority financial statistics provided in the  
Better Local Government 
 paper released by the Government on 19 March 2012 accurate; if not how were they inaccurate? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 As the member was advised in answer to written question No. 4531 and in a letter of mine to her on 16 July this year a booklet was published that contained a table showing average rate increases from 2002 to 2010 for each council. This data became incorrectly correlated in the production of the table resulting in incorrect rating increases being shown for some councils. This did not affect the reported figure of an average annual 7 percent rate increase by councils over the previous decade. 
Hon Annette King 
: When were the then Minister of Local Government and the Prime Minister who released the figures at a press conference on 19 March informed that there were issues with the data both in terms of the accuracy and in terms of the picture that was being given for some councils? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: I am unaware of when the previous Minister and the Prime Minister became aware of when the information was known to be inaccurate. When I became aware I wrote individually to every council apologising for the fact that the information was not correct. 
Hon Annette King 
: Why did not the Minister of Local Government or the Prime Minister inform the public local government and the media that the data being used by the Government to justify local government reform was inaccurate instead choosing to keep quiet and let the media report the misinformation to the detriment of local government? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The reason driving the Better Local Government reforms is fundamentally that the rate of council rate increases over the last decade has been more than twice the rate of rate increases over the previous decade. That is why this Government believes that the Better Local Government reform is necessary. 
Hon Annette King 
: Can he confirm that his department in a recent briefing to him and in two recent inquiries found no evidence that councils had broadened their functions since 2002 and has he been informed by Local Government New Zealand as to what the cost of forcing councils to amend their long-term plans would be? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: To the first question yes; to the second question no. 
Hon Annette King 
: I have a number of documents I wish to table. The first one is a letter to me from David Carter dated 16 July telling me that the incorrect figures will not be replaced because the correct figures would detract from the focus of the reform. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Annette King 
: The second document is the 19 March  
Better Local Government 
 paper which has the inaccurate figures— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! That document is available to all members. 
Hon Annette King 
: No it is important that you hear both of these. I will do them together if you want me to but it does show something. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The document though is available—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! A point of order—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! There should not be interjections. The member is as I understand it seeking leave to table the  
Better Local Government 
 document which I understood has been released publicly. If I am wrong I apologise. 
Hon Annette King 
: I am seeking to table a document that is now no longer available. [ 
Interruption 
] It is now no longer— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well I will leave that up to the House. I invite the honourable member to continue.  
Hon Annette King 
: Thank you. I seek leave to table the 19March  
Better Local Government 
 paper which has the inaccurate figures in it and then I seek leave to table the March—around 24 March— 
Better Local Government 
 paper which has the figures removed from it.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those two—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! There are two documents so leave is sought to table the 19 March document. Is there any objection? There is objection. Leave is now sought to table the second document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Annette King 
: I seek leave to table a letter to me from the previous Minister Nick Smith dated 29 February with a spreadsheet containing the data that was later called inaccurate.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Hon Annette King 
: Finally I seek leave to table a briefing to David Carter from Local Government New Zealand which I received under the Official Information Act stating that the estimated cost of forcing local government to alter its long-term plans would be in excess of $20 million. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Youth Justice—Effect of Fresh Start and Trends 
10. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Courts 
: What progress has been made in the way that the Youth Court responds to young offenders? 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 A number of provisions from Fresh Start which was introduced 2 years ago have allowed the Youth Court to give more flexible and more effective resolutions and orders. This has resulted in far less churn of young people going through youth justice residences and 50 percent fewer young people going from the Youth Court into the District Court for sentencing.  
Dr Jackie Blue 
: What other positive youth justice trends is he aware of? 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: I am aware of statistics released by the Ministry of Justice earlier this year that show that police apprehensions of young people are down 22 percent and court appearances are down 19 percent—this is the group of highest-end youth offenders. I am aware that the Youth Court is making more and more use of new powers with the number of parenting education orders used tripling in the last year and mentoring orders more than doubling. I am also aware of anecdotal reports from youth justice residences showing falling numbers of residents within their secure units and the demand on those units being less and less each week. 
Water Rights—Maori Interests 
11. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Maori Affairs 
: Does he consider water to be an economic resource for Maori? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Associate Minister of Maori Affairs) 
on behalf of the Minister of Maori Affairs: Among other things yes.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does he agree with the Maori Council that water should not be used without the permission of hapu; if so how does he reconcile this stance with that of the Prime Minister who has stated that “no one can own water”? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: It is perfectly reconcilable. There are rights and interests in water that have been reflected in legislation passed through this House on many occasions over the last few years. That is entirely consistent with having legitimate rights and interests and ownership is irrelevant.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Did the Prime Minister assure him that Maori will be given preferential treatment over non-Maori in respect of water rights or was last night’s meeting with the Prime Minister a fulfilment of the old Maori proverb about the Maori sprat being swallowed by the blue shark? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: That was a meeting between party leaders for which there is no ministerial responsibility.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does he agree that Maori and all other New Zealanders are entitled to a clear and coherent statement on the fundamental principles that apply to water rather than the multiple varied and changing statements that the Government has issued to suit particular audiences? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Of course they are entitled to that and that is what they get. What people are entitled to know is that Maori have legitimate rights and interests in water and that has been reflected in the work programme of this Government—and in particular the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations—over the last 3½ years and I might add that of previous administrations.  
Hon Shane Jones 
: Why did he believe that the Prime Minister’s comments about the Waitangi Tribunal and water claims were “an insult to all of us”? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Because at the time as so often happens with the press half the story was printed not the full story.  
Hon Shane Jones 
: Does the Minister agree that his meeting with the Prime Minister shows that for him blood is not thicker than water? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: It is a shame that member did not listen to the earlier answer because that was a meeting between party leaders for which there is no ministerial responsibility.  
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Kia ora tatou. Does he support the Land and Water Forum’s recommend—[ 
Interruption 
]  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Te Ururoa Flavell start again.  
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Does he support the Land and Water Forum’s recommendations around co-governance particularly that a non-statutory national land and water commission should be established on a co-governance basis with iwi; if so what is he doing to progress this? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: The forum’s work is ongoing and Ministers are yet to make decisions on the final form of any reforms. As to what the Minister of Maori Affairs is doing the Minister always advocates for and supports what is in the best interests of Maori which is why I know that his Associate Minister thinks he is one of the best Ministers of Maori Affairs this country has ever had—much better than the chap who held the job for a few months in 1991.  
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table—because it is no longer available immediately—the 1991 Budget which shows I defended the Maori affairs portfolio and he did not.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Whereas there was some debate previously about documents that may not—[ 
Interruption 
] Order! There was some debate about documents that may no longer be available; those Budget documents are very much available to members.  
Jet Boat Safety—Driver’s Licences for Commercial Operators 
12. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Transport 
: What changes is the Government making to the rules for jet boat safety? 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I recently announced a new driver’s licence for commercial jetboat drivers operating on rivers. This industry as a whole has 42 operators carrying more than 370000— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise to the Minister. I would ask members please to show some courtesy. This is a legitimate question and I want the House to be able to hear the answer. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Because of the member’s location I think people had not picked up that he is a Minister—the people who look after the mikes. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! That was not a particularly helpful point of order. I ask the House to show some courtesy. 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES 
: I recently announced a new driver’s licence for commercial jetboat drivers operating on rivers. The industry as a whole has 42 operators carrying more than— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I say to members that I am getting serious now despite the—as serious as I can get! Please I ask the House to show some courtesy so that I can hear the answer. I want to be able to hear the answer. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can I seek an assurance that any breach of privilege letter that flows from your last comment about taking the matter seriously will not be considered by you? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am not sure that the Speaker needs to rule on that. 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES 
: I recently announced a new driver’s licence for commercial jetboat drivers. The rule gives the public added assurance that the risks inherent in jetboating are being managed appropriately and that such adventure experiences are being delivered within a strong safety framework. I was pleased with the strong and vocal support for the changes from the jetboat industry including operators in Queenstown Tauranga and Wanganui as well as from the Tourism Industry Association. 
Louise Upston 
: What other aspects of jetboat safety does the rule address? 
Hon SIMON BRIDGES 
: The rule which comes into effect on 2 August also provides for ongoing competency checks for drivers as well as making drivers subject to the requirement under the Maritime Transport Act that they be “fit and proper persons”. The rule makes driver logbooks mandatory and includes design and construction changes such as emergency exits and footrests. All these changes provide greater passenger protection and reinforce the message that safety is a top priority for operators. 
Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 I move  
That the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. Doing nothing about benefit dependency is no longer an option. For too long the system has let thousands of New Zealanders languish on benefits with no hope no support and no encouragement to live and lead a better life. In fact the welfare system itself has failed too many New Zealanders. This Government will not stand by and let that continue. The bill before the House today continues the significant and comprehensive reforms this Government has introduced to modernise the welfare system. It started with Future Focus in 2010 and we are following it up with this bill before introducing a third tranche of welfare reform later this year that will contain the most significant changes.  
The changes we are making will reset obligations and expectations introducing a level of fairness that is long overdue. The statistics have been telling us for years that welfare dependence is intergenerational. This causes a loss of hope and a lack of ambition for adults and for their children in so many ways. One hundred and seventy thousand New Zealanders have spent most of the last decade on welfare. You cannot tell me that that is good for them as individuals good for their families or certainly any good for their children. We simply cannot continue to spend up to $8 billion a year to support 12 percent of the working-age population. I cannot ask taxpayers to support a system that continually grows but does not address the causes of dependence at the expense of health education and other priorities that taxpayers might like us to make.  
I am not convinced that the left sees a problem with this level of dependence but I am convinced there is a difference in philosophy when it comes to welfare. The left creates dependence; the right creates independence. We would rather give them the tools and the support to be independent. The right will incentivise while the left are busy with sympathising. This is not about a lack of compassion. I have a huge amount of respect for people who are raising their families with little money. I just want them to have more. We could do nothing as the left would prefer and that means leaving the 320000 New Zealanders on welfare with no hope of a better life. I simply refuse to do that.  
When listening to the debate on these reforms it is clear that some have no faith whatsoever in the ability of New Zealanders to get off welfare and provide for themselves. On this side of the House quite frankly we see that as demeaning. We believe in people and their ability to succeed and better their situation and we believe in providing them with the support so that they can do so. We do not believe in leaving people on the scrap heap. To continue simply paying a 17-year-old sole mother a weekly sum of money and give her no other support would quite frankly in my view be irresponsible. We will not do that. To write off single women as unable to support themselves financially simply because they are women would be ignorant. We will not do that. To allow people to just give up and opt out of work would be a failure of any Government and we will not do that. National will modernise the welfare system with a clear work focus that applies to a far greater number of people.  
We will take a completely new approach with young people. They will be required to be in education or training to get a benefit. Their bills will be paid directly. Money for food will be loaded on to payment cards instead of giving them cash. They will have to complete budgeting and/or parenting programmes if appropriate. They will receive small cash incentives for meeting these milestones. Instead of having a solely financial relationship with Work and Income teen parents along with other young people will have a youth service provider or private worker working alongside them. That provider will help them navigate issues like accommodation bills getting access to education or training and upskilling. Teen parents will get vital childcare. We are putting aside $80 million for this so there is no barrier to them getting the education or training they need.  
This bill will require sole parents with children over 14 to look for full-time work and will require sole parents with children over 5 to look for part-time work. This bill will require those parents to start preparing themselves in advance for this change. This bill removes the sexist and discriminatory policy that has seen the women alone and widows benefits existing well beyond a time when they were necessary. These benefits effectively said that a woman could not fend for herself without a man and I think that is just archaic. We are modernising welfare. We are providing more support and we will be expecting something back. We have changed the commencement date of 30 July 2012 for the youth package changes to 20 August 2012. Changes to the widows benefit women alone benefit and DPB come into effect in October of this year.  
As I have mentioned the bill introduces a new system of support obligations and financial assistance for young people and teen parents. The aim of this is to balance support and obligations in a way that will improve social outcomes for young people. This is new; it is a different approach to a longstanding problem. Never before has anyone looked at the benefit pipeline and put such a huge investment into those very young people who are likely to go on to benefit. Currently there are around 3000 16 and 17-year-olds and 16 to 18-year-old parents on a benefit and around 14000 young people aged 16 to 17 years who are considered to be “neets”—not in education employment or training. We are determined to stop the track on to benefit. The changes in this bill will reduce the risk of long-term benefit dependency for teenagers and ensure they have better outcomes and opportunities. The best way to do this is through work and training and we are investing $148 million over 4 years for youth services to achieve this including that very necessary wraparound support.  
The left has criticised this investment a lot. I stand by it. We are going to have youth-focused providers who are the experts in working with young people motivating them and helping them to turn their lives round. We are being flexible and innovative in how we do that but uncompromising in the outcomes that we want. There has been some speculation on the next welfare reform bill. I would like to assure the House that progress is being made. As I previously have indicated amongst other things we will change the benefit categories install the investment approach and put in a regime of social obligations and drug testing for some beneficiaries.  
But in conclusion on the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill I would like to extend some important thankyous—firstly to Sam Lotu-Iiga and to those members of the Social Services Committee from all sides of the House who have worked on the bill. I want to recognise your work for sitting during adjournments for the time that you gave to people to make their submissions and for the suggestions you made for changes to the bill some of which we were able to take on board. I know that through the select committee process the committee actually found a couple of things that were slightly ambiguous and suggested we make changes to those problems. I think we see a better bill for that process so I want to thank those members of the select committee for the time they spent on the bill.  
I particularly would like to thank my hard-working officials. There have been many officials from many departments but mainly obviously those from the Ministry of Social Development who work in the policy unit who hopefully are listening out there. I just say an absolute heartfelt thank you. They really are the engine behind all of this. They take those ideas and they turn them into something real and I want to say thank you. Treasury has worked really hard. Despite the sometimes fun comments I make Treasury has actually just got on alongside of this and has been a real part of that robust debate that I think leads to a better piece of work. We have had other ministries—whether it be the Ministry of Health the Inland Revenue Department or the Ministry of Education in particular—that have helped us. Their role in this has been absolutely critical so I do say a real genuine thank you.  
I also say thank you to Cabinet. I say thank you to Cabinet because it is actually putting in that huge investment of more than $148 million. The total costs of this are $287 million. Cabinet does not do it lightly. I had to go to Cabinet and prove a really strong case of why this was going to make a fundamental difference to these young people—and it does. Change is on the way. I think this is a big part of that brighter future for New Zealand and I would like to commend this bill to the House. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise on behalf of the Labour Party and give what I think is a very considered response from our party to this piece of legislation the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill and to the Government’s welfare reforms generally. I have said it before in this House: Labour’s approach to reform around welfare has always been to look through the perception that is often perpetuated by politicians in this space—dangerously so sometimes I would say—and to look to the reality because we ignore the reality at our peril. The more that perception is perpetuated the more we risk our own ability to fulfil the fundamental principle of doing what is right and what works and that is something that I will defend staunchly in this area.  
If we were to come back to the evidence when it comes to welfare reform what is the context in which these reforms are being introduced? Well in 2009 when the Government came in if you look at the unemployment benefit numbers we were sitting at roughly 18000 people on an unemployment benefit. We are now looking at almost 50000 people sitting on an unemployment benefit. I know that on this matter the Minister and I will agree: that has not happened because New Zealanders have had a sudden change of attitude to work. There has been a change in the economic environment in New Zealand. Laying aside all of Labour’s views on whether the Government could and should have done more on that—laying that aside—there have been economic circumstances that have led to more Kiwis joining the dole queue and reluctantly so. I must emphasise that. Unemployment is currently at 6.7 percent. We need only to look in our local areas where a job is advertised and at the enormous queues that extend outside of for instance supermarkets advertising a handful of jobs to know that Kiwis want to work.  
The Minister claims that she believes that too. Why then during this debate and in the outside world have we heard statements like “The dream is over.” and members in this House in this debate talk about the lifestyle of living on welfare? That kind of language makes it much more difficult for us to get to the core of the issue and address the real barriers that exist for people moving from welfare into work because there is no denying that Labour is a believer in work—the value of work the dignity that work provides—and we will do everything we can to assist Kiwis into work.  
So what are the barriers to that? Well at the moment you cannot deny that it is the availability of work. We have touched on that. But also there was a survey conducted by the Inland Revenue Department which we have referred to consistently that demonstrated that the other barriers for people entering into work were the cost of childcare and for 64 percent of people whether they had the right training and education to move into the jobs that were available. So on those measures what does this bill do? On work and on job creation obviously it does very little. It is a social development bill. But what has the Government done on it? Again it has done very little. It has not even met its own projections on job creation that were set out by Treasury. So on that count we consider that the Government has not done enough. If you want to fix welfare fix the economy—and on that count we believe the Government has failed.  
The second measure is training and education. If you are under 19 and on a benefit—if you are a sole parent for instance—then there are some measures in this bill that are training and education focused and also if you are on an independent youth benefit. But let us put it into context. That actually equates to roughly 2500 to 3000 young people on welfare who will be affected by that. For the vast majority—for instance domestic purposes benefit recipients who used to be eligible for a training incentive allowance—that is still gone. All other incentives and support around training and education do not exist in this bill so let us be under no illusions there.  
On childcare to an extent the Ministry of Social Development and the Minister have acknowledged that this is a barrier because she has extended the childcare subsidy for 1500 people. The big question we have asked is what about the 112000 who continue to struggle with that cost? On those measures this bill will not substantively assist those who need it the most. So what if you are not 18 or 19? Well it is very easy I think to be misled by the Minister’s statement. In her last speech alone she said: “the welfare system itself has failed too many New Zealanders. The Government will not stand by and let that continue.”  
Show me how you are changing that with this bill. If you are not 18 or 19 years old and you are on welfare all you get from this bill is more work testing. We are asking what about the rest Minister? What about the rest? I understand that she is targeting 16 and 17-year-olds but there are hundreds of thousands on the benefit now who are not 16 and 17 who need that assistance. She says: “We will not let it continue. We are modernising the welfare system.” I would like to see the evidence of that for those who are on an unemployment benefit on the DPB or on the sickness benefit.  
If we are looking at those who are on the domestic purposes benefit for instance we have already had a set of reforms brought in by the Minister. We have had Future Focus which brought in extra part-time work testing and now we have this set of reforms. But even on the Ministry of Social Development’s own projections even after these $287 million reforms are brought in the number on the domestic purposes benefit is still projected to be 10000 higher than when the Minister started. Surely that raises some flags over whether or not work testing alone is going to provide what is needed to make a real difference for those women in particular because they do represent the most significant number of people on that form of support.  
So we highlight again that if you want to fix welfare fix the economy but address the other barriers at the same time. But in the meantime we do agree to the extent that the Government is targeting young people. The question becomes how you do it. Again we want to come back to the evidence and the reality on the ground for those who are already working in the space of Youth Transition Services. Now this bill will assist 14000 young people. This is what the ministry and the Minister have projected. There are over 80000 young people not in employment education or training and they are not just 16 and 17. We heard from Youth Transition Services operating on the ground that 60 percent of the young people they help actually fall off the track after they are 17 and need some kind of service that is targeted to their needs and will assist them to get back into work training education or whatever fits their individual circumstances.  
We instead have contended that the Government needed to work with more not less and I will highlight that we are spending more and working with less via this piece of legislation. We needed to give the existing providers who are out there doing a great job the flexibility they needed to take into account the circumstances of the young person. Some are exiting from school because school was a rough place for them. They were not on track educationally. The last thing they want to do is be shoved back into school. We have got to try to fit their aspirations with a programme that keeps them on track. So we wanted to give providers that flexibility. We did not want to skew incentives and we feel that that is what this bill does. Again always having the best interests and the sustainability of a young person in training in mind not just short-term gains is our approach when it comes to young people.  
I want to flag though in the concluding remarks of my speech a fundamental part of these reforms that has not been canvassed broadly and that is that this legislation means that providers in the community—some private providers—will now be administering part of the Social Security Act to a degree that we have not seen in New Zealand. If a young person in need has previously been dealt with by Work and Income—an emergency hardship grant or any kind of grant that Work and Income previously would have dealt with—that has now been contracted out to the community. Our concern as Labour members is what is next. This may be only 2500 or 3000 young people but we believe that with any partitioning off of the welfare state to community organisations to a large degree—perhaps the sickness benefit might be next the invalids benefit—we have real concerns over that kind of track. I ask the Minister if that is not part of your agenda to stand up and give this House those assurances.  
But in conclusion I say that Labour is the party of work. We are the party of opportunity. We understand the dignity that comes with work and that families will always be better off in work. For us the question is how we get there. We do not focus on rhetoric and perception in this party. We focus on evidence and the reality of what is happening on the ground and in that sense it is time we went back to true social security—a dignified system that transitions people into the work they deserve. 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I start by congratulating the Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett not just on this bill but on her courage empathy and diligence with this rather complex portfolio which she manages on a day-by-day basis. Her success and her progress is something that gladdens me. I also give credit to the chairman of the Social Services Committee and the select committee but particularly to the leadership of the select committee under the member Sam Lotu-Iiga—a first-class member of Parliament doing a great job on that select committee. 
Welfare reform is something that the ACT Party has long championed. ACT MPs and supporters have worked hard in the wilderness to bring about welfare reform. This reform is long overdue. We have made the case that our system no longer works and that too many New Zealanders are left out of work out of hope and out of dignity by a system forced upon them. The system can give somebody else’s cold hard cash but nothing more and that is the problem with socialism: you run out of other people’s money very quickly.  
ACT explained that children and young mothers need love and community—love and community that a bank transfer at midnight cannot give. The ACT Party is glad to see mutual obligation become what everyone in this House deep in their soul knows is right—mutual obligation. One hopes that one day reforming the Resource Management Act the Government spending limits become what everybody knows is right. For now we are pleased with welfare reform and welfare reform is the incremental step to progress for our country; it is taking people without hope taking people without a job removing the welfare cheque and giving them the dignity and opportunity to provide for themselves through work.  
Along the way this bill has been championed by the ACT Party supported by the Welfare Working Group and I want to thank the Welfare Working Group for the hard work that it has done to contribute to this. The group found that one in eight working-age New Zealanders is on some form of handout borrowed every week from the savings of the Swiss the Germans and the Chinese. We cannot continue to borrow on the backs of our great-grandchildren yet born for a welfare system that fails our youth today—fails dignity and fails opportunity fails hope and fails self-reliance fails self-reliance and fails self-esteem. So in this parliamentary term welfare reform is supported not only by ACT but by the recommendations from the working group and is part of our confidence and supply agreement. This Minister this young Minister who knows about these matters these complex matters has helped it by running it hard.  
It is ACT’s vote that makes the reforms possible; it is not the votes of the people opposite who will take from the Chinese the Swiss and the French and spend their money by borrowing it from them on a welfare system that fails us. It is the ACT’s confidence and supply agreement that stipulates the obligations of parents as per the Welfare Working Group—the obligations of being a responsible parent. Having children is a God-given right but an awesome responsibility and it needs to be sheeted home.  
ACT’s confidence and supply agreement also includes initiatives for better support for at-risk families. It is the at-risk families we need to target through income management and the contestable provision of social services. The contestable delivery of social services is critical to the partnership between the State which gives the hand up and the recipient who takes the handout. When I was first elected to Parliament 4 decades ago in the electorate of Whangarei the local police the local social workers and local employers knew everyone in the city. Welfare then could work because in Whangarei all those years ago we were in it together. Now the State has alienated people from the social welfare system. So this bill represents a small step towards that kind of mutual connectivity and responsibility. The community used to say to people on welfare: “We will help you but you have a few things to do for yourself.” We do not hear that any longer. Self-obligation brings self-respect self-respect brings self-esteem and self-esteem brings dignity. That is what this bill seeks to achieve.  
The current welfare reforms do not propose all stick with no carrot because you will not have reform with just stick and no carrot but with true mutual obligations. That is what welfare is about. If we are going to borrow from the savings of others we have to have a true mutual obligation that we are going to help ourselves to help those who are helping us help ourselves. They do not merely take away benefits for non-compliance but will pay extra for recipients who do comply with new obligations and incentives for new obligations because handouts always require that. If you believe in true socialism of taking from people who work hard to give to people who do not work hard then there must be some social obligation and that obligation is two ways. This sense of give and take is closer to the kind of human relationship of which mechanistic welfare has robbed us. Mechanistic welfare has robbed this country. But the ultimate dignity that a person can have is the dignity of work. Work builds self-belief. Work builds self-esteem. Think about that term self-esteem. It is not other people’s opinion of you but your opinion of yourself that builds self-esteem.  
This bill re-emphasises the importance of work. It re-emphasises the importance of work for adults and the importance of working role models for young children and working role models in the community. It acknowledges that in many families with small children both parents work at least part-time. I salute those hard-working families. We put hard-working families on a pedestal. We know it is difficult to raise kids and work around the clock for two-parent families struggling to make ends meet. We see those people as good people and if we are going to transfer at midnight their hard-earned taxes by way of a bank transfer to people who are seeking support from the Government at a time of need then there needs to be some obligation to the hard-working people who are providing the money otherwise it is called blatant socialism.  
Minister Bennett and our coalition partners are investing in the social capital of this country by realigning welfare with the notion of mutual obligation and work. This is what this bill should have been called: the “Mutual Obligation of Self-respect and Self-reliance (and Giving Back Something to the Community that is Funding the Welfare) Amendment Bill”. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: The next one. 
Hon JOHN BANKS 
: We can call the next one that. We look forward to seeing further bills and enacting further elements of our supply agreement in these coming months. We are turning the corner in New Zealand. The ACT Party has played a long role in all of this. We have long argued that this 40-year experiment in open-ended welfare has not worked because it is based on wrong values. We have argued that a culture of mutual obligation must replace a culture of entitlement and this bill is the arrival of that long march. I am glad to be supporting it as the leader of the ACT Party. 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 Malo le soifua. Thank you for this opportunity. I rise on behalf of the Labour Party and I want to simply say that the contribution and presence of Mr Banks after four decades is evidence that the right-wing ideology of the Jim Bolger Government failed New Zealand and that the “mother of all Budgets” of “Ruthless Ruth” during his era failed New Zealand communities. It is also evident that they have never learnt their lesson.  
I would say to this House that the Government’s Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill is flawed and introduces punitive measures that are similar to those punitive measures of the decades that Mr Banks hails from and that are more characteristic of underdeveloped countries than of a developed nation such as ours. Labour opposes this bill because it does nothing to address the real issues of economic growth productivity and employment. It fails to address the barriers that are faced by New Zealand communities such as the availability of jobs such as skills and education and such as the barriers that sole parents face of child care and the rising cost of early childhood education.  
This debate if we listen to the numerous submitters who came forward and provided evidence is a debate that is important and it ought to be taken seriously. However I do not think that in the period from the first reading to the select committee consideration to the second reading and even throughout the Committee stage the other side has taken seriously the impact and the ramifications of the bill and the systems that the Government is introducing in this bill. I cannot help but be reminded again and again and again by the substantial submissions made by significant organisations that service our community and that deliver and are engaged at the coalface of our communities the length and breadth of New Zealand. Significant organisations such as the Salvation Army the Child Poverty Action Group the women’s organisation the Human Rights Commission the Children’s Commissioner the Families Commission all of them raised concerns and all of them did not support the bill that is here. The Salvation Army—and I remind members on the other side—said succinctly that we are moving away from the fundamental purpose of the Social Security Act of 1964. I want to repeat it for the sake of this House. The purpose of the Social Security Act which this bill now amends is “(i) to help people to support themselves and their dependants while not in paid employment; and (ii) to help people to find or retain paid employment; and (iii) to help people for whom work may not currently be appropriate because of sickness injury disability or caring responsibilities”—for young children or those who are elderly or sick—“to support themselves and their dependants:”.  
I also want to remind this House that as a developing nation we are a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and above all we should be the shining example in this region of upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I draw your attention to article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “(1) Everyone has the right to work to free choice of employment to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone without any discrimination has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity and supplemented if necessary by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests.” Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.” Article 25: “(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate to the health and well-being of himself and his family including food clothing housing and medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment sickness disability widowhood old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children whether born in or out of wedlock shall enjoy the same social protection.”  
I think we have drifted as a country so far away from the fundamental principles and values that we as a country signed up to. We have drifted so far away with this bill from the fundamental purpose of the Social Security Act 1964 which established our system. No person I have ever met no one in my community no one in the schools I visit whether they be in my electorate or in other electorates ever talks about how it is their lifestyle choice to be on a benefit. That is not a lifestyle choice contrary to what the other side believes. Jobs jobs jobs are what this Government fails to deliver. I think that this Government here has mastered the act of appearing to be busy while actually doing nothing—I have got it wrong—the art of looking busy while achieving nothing because so far this Government seems to concede the fact that it cannot deliver jobs for the country and is simply sitting on its hands allowing thousands and thousands of New Zealanders to leave our shores for the safety of Australia for the jobs and the quality of life that Australia seems to offer them.  
As I said the whole bill is very reminiscent of what Mr Banks’ era delivered which we as a country suffered for many many years. In fact in 1999 when Labour came into power we were challenged with the high unemployment that National had left this country with. In 2008 when we left power unemployment was relatively low at 3.5 percent. We are now for women at 7.1 percent. While 160000 unemployed New Zealanders continue to look for work this Government introduces a bill which will introduce sanctions or threats as I have called them because if they do not do what the department will force upon them then they will be faced with sanctions. My greatest concern is that despite the intention the Minister for Social Development had in drafting this bill those individuals who will suffer as a consequence—whether intentional or not—will be children and young people because when they are 5 years old their mum or their dad will be forced to go out to look for work. If they do not find a job they will be sanctioned. At 14 years old that young person will be left at home because their mum or dad will be forced to go find a job.  
I want to say to this Minister that sole mothers do not have a choice. That is not a lifestyle choice. Sole parents want to be able to provide for their families and want to provide for their children and what this Government is doing by introducing sanctions on sole mothers really is a kick in the guts for them. At the end of the day it will be the children who will suffer and I will point my finger directly at that Minister as responsible.  
JAN LOGIE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party— 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think you were busy but on two occasions in the last minute the Minister for Social Development used the words “it is a lie”; one when the member was speaking and one just then. May I ask you to ask her to withdraw and apologise? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have to say I was actually busy calling the honourable member Jan Logie but if the member did use that word then she should withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: I didn’t call him a liar. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: All I can say is that all members are honourable members; their word is their bond. If members are found to have not honoured that then there are repercussions through the Privileges Committee.  
Hon Paula Bennett 
: I certainly did not call him a liar. What I did say is I felt that there were lies but I did not call him a liar so I did not besmirch the member by calling him a liar.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I thank the Minister for explaining the situation. Nevertheless we have a rule in this place that no one is called a liar because indirectly you are not actually calling the person that; you are insinuating that the whole Parliament is like that. So in that case I would just ask the Minister to withdraw and apologise.  
Hon Paula Bennett 
: I certainly can withdraw and apologise if that is your ruling. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you—much appreciated. 
JAN LOGIE 
: The Green Party as stated several times already will oppose the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. We will continue to offer alternative solutions and we hope that after the next election we can be part of building a society that has a strong foundation based on a Kiwi sense of a fair go and community. We have many specific concerns about the content of this bill and many concerns regarding the context within which it is operating. We have many concerns about what we see as some pretty fundamental inconsistencies within this bill and many concerns regarding the underlying values inherent in this bill. Ultimately we have a different vision for our society and a different view of our fellow New Zealanders. I would like to speak to that a little bit more. 
Last night I went to a presentation by a great organisation called KidsCan which is working in New Zealand to provide raincoats for children who do not have them shoes for children who do not have them and food for children in lower-decile schools. This group is not a political group it is not advocating for structural change but what it described is absolutely relevant to our sense of social security and welfare. It described children who do not know when their birthday is because their parents have not got enough money to be able to put on birthday parties. It described little girls who are getting their heads shaved because the cost of buying lice treatment is half of the family’s income. It described children who are going to bed in raincoats that were given to them by this organisation because they are the warmest thing they own. The people from this organisation were very clear that it has not met one parent who does not want the best for their children. They have not met one parent who does not try their hardest for their children. That is the context we are living in. This is not about poor parenting; this is about inadequate income. Two out of five families living in poverty are working families. Pushing people off welfare into work will not solve the problem of poverty in this country. What we need to do is increase our base income. This bill does nothing to achieve social security. 
Now to speak a little bit more around the content of this bill and the points that we oppose. We oppose the contracting out of services. The Minister for Social Development talks about a wraparound service for young people and the need to care. I absolutely wholeheartedly support that. I have worked in the community with a lot of young people in that situation and I really recognise that when they do not have family to stand by them support is important. However we cannot support this model when we are undermining the value and the functioning of the community as opposed to the State. That is what this bill does. It puts community organisations into the role of the de facto State. That compromises the ability to build relationships and undermines the organisations’ ability to respond to their community needs. 
We do not support the starting point of controlling every young person’s finances and putting them on payment cards. The Social Services Committee had very strong evidence from some young people—and from young people I spoke to as well—about the need for flexibility. In actual fact many of their living situations tend to be quite tenuous and they need to be able to respond quickly and get out of bad situations. This provision is not going to help with that problem. In fact having automatic payments—things out of their control—may well put them into more precarious situations. 
We support aspiration for our young people. We do not support a one-size-fits-all solution which National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 as an aspiration for all young people is. It is a one-size-fits-all solution. It does not recognise the needs of young people with learning disabilities. It does not recognise the needs of young people who are refugees who do not even have literacy in their own first language. It does not follow best teaching practice which is that you focus on the students and their learning pattern not the teachers or some external goal. 
We do not support the information-sharing provisions in this bill which are not consistent with the Privacy Act. They are an experiment. We actually believe that the right to privacy goes over and should go beyond the Government’s experiment. We also have concerns that were brought up with us by young women around education. We really support that model in terms of young women being able to go to schools and have their kids in the same place while they are learning. But we do not have many of those schools in our country so the chances are that a lot of these young women are going to be sent to courses that are not going to provide childcare onsite and they are going to be separated from their children. There is real potential that that is going to have an impact on their bonding. We do not believe that that is good for the country. 
In terms of the provisions in relation— 
Mike Sabin 
: There’s a lot of good bonding going on within the dryer. 
JAN LOGIE 
: If that member does not think these young women want to bond with their children he has obviously not met many or had many discussions with them. The DPB— 
Mike Sabin 
: Well I’ve got six children; I’ve probably got some idea. 
JAN LOGIE 
: Are they in that situation? For the DPB we do not support the work testing at all actually. We believe that the evidence supports that when women are ready to go back to work and when their children are ready for them to go back to work they start looking for work. We do not believe they need to be pushed. We believe that their individual situations and reasons for being on the DPB in the first place actually often mean they should be there with their children putting their children first and in many cases healing from what have been some very traumatic experiences rather than trying to juggle the needs of their children and juggle the needs of a job travel and life. We believe that that is unrealistic. 
I would like to speak to some of the inconsistencies in this bill. One is that the intent we are told of this bill is to take an investment approach a really radical approach. The Minister has said that she makes no apology for the cost of it that it is going to be expensive but it will be worth it because it will pay off. Yet the Government used its financial veto to rule out my Supplementary Order Paper which would have extended the training incentive allowance to higher-grade courses which we know are the courses that will enable women to get off the DPB 6 months earlier and enable them to stay off the DPB for longer. We have got clear evidence on that. The cost of that provision was only $5 million to $15 million. 
I would also like to draw attention to the inconsistency where the Government purports to want the best for children yet again it used its financial veto against Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper which would have provided the option for discretion when officials gauged that sanctioning a parent would make it difficult to feed clothe or care for the well-being of a child. The Government said that that would cost millions of dollars—hundred of millions of dollars—because it had budgeted for those sanctions. The needs of the child obviously do not figure in its considerations. For us that is a fundamental inconsistency. 
I would also like to talk to some of the values. The Government talks about the importance of work and we also heard this from the ACT Party. We share that. Absolutely work is important. Parenting is work. Actually contributing to our community is work. And most people want to work in paid work or otherwise. Part of the way we shape our society is by valuing work—not by valuing just the things we say are work and not valuing what other people consider to be work. We would also like to say that our understanding of a fair go is the understanding that everyone has—that we give our children a place to start in life that is comparable so that they can get ahead and everyone has the chance of getting ahead in life. We know that when children are living in poverty it means they are going to have poorer life outcomes poorer educational outcomes poorer employment opportunities—a whole range of really negative things. This bill is in fact entrenching that inequality in our country and I do not believe that inequality is a New Zealand value. 
MELISSA LEE (National) 
: 
 Ahn nyung ha se yo Mr Speaker. It is a great pleasure to rise to make a contribution on this third reading of the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill but before I go on I would just like to make a comment about something that Jan Logie has spoken about. I cannot believe that any good parent would let their child go to bed in a raincoat because that was the warmest thing they could possibly find. You can go to an op shop and buy a warm jumper for 50c. You know I cannot believe that a Green member would actually talk about spending a lot of money on hair lice treatment. I mean you can actually wet the child’s hair and use a fine-tooth comb to actually get them out. It is called elbow grease. It does not cost very much. As a mother I know what that is like.  
Over the course of the debates in the passage of this bill I have to say I have become more convinced how important this bill is. It is exactly where we should be as a nation and I commend the fortitude shown throughout the process by the Minister for Social Development the Hon Paula Bennett. I also take this opportunity to thank the officials for the hard work that they have done in assisting the committee and the members of the Social Services Committee for their hard work. We have all heard the statistics during the debates about the number of young people on benefits in this country and about the number of young people who leave school who are not employed and are not in training of any kind whatsoever. We have also heard—and this is something all sides of this House agree on I would think—that when people end up on the benefit at a young age the likelihood of them staying on the benefit for longer than those who come on to the benefit later in life is high.  
Is this the kind of future that we want for our young people in this country? I certainly do not and I am sure that all in this House do not either and this bill provides a way out of the statistics for our young people. The wraparound service for at-risk youth who otherwise would end up going down the path of long-term dependency on social welfare is what I am passionate about because to me welfare cannot become a way of life. It cannot go down through the generation of families and it cannot be an acceptable way of life. It is purely a safety net for people who find themselves in difficult times to assist them until they get back on their feet again. That was the intention of social welfare.  
During the course of the debate it was a Green member—I think it was Jan Logie—who said that we needed to go down the path of a strength-based approach. I just wanted to comment that writing off young people as being unable to participate in the workforce cannot be the strength-based approach she is talking about especially when members opposite talked about National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 being too high a mark for them to achieve—that these young people could not possibly meet that goal. I say there is nothing wrong with backing our youngsters to have a goal and to achieve it.  
I want to see a welfare system that does more than just hand out money. I want to see a welfare system that encourages young people to aspire to be great and to do greater things—to be greater than what they are. I want to see a welfare system that utilises the expertise of youth support providers who actually know what they are doing in terms of young people to wraparound the service and to tell young people that they can do better and that they are in fact capable. Our welfare system over many Governments over the past has failed our young people. This John Key - led Government is doing something about it.  
Finally many members opposite have spoken about the work-test obligations in the bill as though they are a punishment for women. I have to say that at times during the debate I was made to feel guilty that I am a working mum—a working solo mum of a 13-year-old child. Would it not be fantastic if everyone who had a child could stay at home? I certainly feel guilty when I am not at home due to work commitments and miss significant events in my son’s life but it was a decision that I made to provide a better life for my son. It is time for all to realise that taxpayers should not be burdened for lifestyle choices and I am in no way suggesting that people choose to be on benefits. Some do; most do not. But helping people on benefits get out of their situation and to be work-focused and work-ready is what we are doing with this bill instead of simply giving them the money and leaving them to it.  
This change is long overdue. I commend the Minister for guiding this bill through its passage through the House. It is a great bill and I commend it to the House. 
Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First) 
: 
 Talofa lava. Malo le soifua ma le lagi e mama Mr Speaker.  
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Malo le soifua.  
Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR 
: Fa‘afetai mo le avanoa. Thank you for the opportunity. Kia ora tatou katoa. I rise on behalf of the New Zealand First Party to provide a realistic viewpoint to this debate in the third reading of this so-called Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I am somewhat stunned by the contributions from John Banks and the former speaker and I suggest perhaps Melissa Lee needs to stick to motorway debates. That is where she can do better.  
Let me be real here. There is no question surrounding the argument that New Zealand needs to address the key issue of welfare reform or welfare dependency. However the bill does not guarantee this. In fact the only thing it can guarantee is that our children our youth are being used as guinea pigs in a reform system. This Government is also too keen to rush in a Trojan Horse you might call it which allows this Government to implement other legislation. Perhaps the next one would be a youth rate. The youth rate will be coming up next at $10.50 or even less. 
There is nothing wrong with dreaming a fantastic dream and those who dream do recognise the importance of dreams that bring about positive aspirations. We all agree on that. In my previous role as a facilitator for professional development and of course with the Department of Corrections I often talked to the participants about dreams and their relevance to life. I believe that this bill was meant to be the link between our youths’ dreams and achieving positive goals in life. After all the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. However as we all know although we acknowledge those who dream of a better future it is also fair to say that where there is a dream there needs to be a vision—because the dreamer can dream the most fantastic dream but only a visionary can make that dream come true. That is what New Zealand First believes in.  
I do not know about the members on that side of the House especially the only ACT MP John Banks. From where I sit this bill is much more suitably called the “Missing in Action Benefit Bill” or let me say the “Missing the Point Benefit Bill”.  
Mark Mitchell 
: That’s silly. 
Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR 
: Of course it is not silly. You should know that. People up in your electorate Mr Mark Mitchell are also in that area. A lot of them are actually in this category. The Government has failed to put in place a strategic plan on job creation for those who would be affected by the introduction of this bill. If I could ask this: are the Minister for Social Development and the National Government actually concerned about our youth or are they happy to sit back and use the estimated $520 million funding not for our youth but to fund the information technology package to run the reforms? And that is not to mention the additional cost to keep it operating. If paper shuffling were a job the Nats would be darn good at it. I ask how we can guarantee what this Government believes and I emphasise the word “believes” because it means we will rely on the right interpretation for youth.  
Yes job training programmes are essential. By the way can the Government confirm whether it is receiving funding from the Australian Federal Government for this Government’s proposed training programmes because the Australians are certainly going to be the beneficiary of this bill? Our tertiary students are actually already on a one-way ticket to Australia. Instead this Minister is proposing to boost the growing exodus. The National Government is doing very well as an employment agency for Australia. We can all recall a former National Government Prime Minister who once said that New Zealanders who emigrate to Australia raise the IQ of both countries. It is sad that the Government is pushing this bill forward. It is a speedy implementation of legislation in order to avoid close scrutiny and it deprives ordinary New Zealanders of a fair opportunity to have their say. The chairman of the Social Services Committee and the National members of the committee put forward an unrealistic time frame when calling for submissions.  
Although reducing long-term welfare dependency is something that this Government needs to address so must be the schemes to provide realistic solutions for jobs. I can tell everyone in this House and those who are listening to this debate right now what this bill is a solution to. It is merely a sugar-coating. That is what this is all about and New Zealand First is concerned about a number of changes proposed in this bill. These include the use of the private sector to find jobs information-sharing provisions within the bill the wider welfare reform package and of course the tax to the taxpayers. Why is that? There is no saving to the taxpayers. At the end of the day when you look at this bill there is absolutely no saving to the taxpayers. The most appropriate title for this bill then should be the “Political Cronyism Benefit Bill”.  
Under this bill the cost to the taxpayers is not only not reduced but the paying out in administration of the benefit just shifts from Work and Income to the Inland Revenue Department. The bill does not give the opportunity to our youth to learn how to be independent and that is the crux of this debate.  
Then there is the second phase of this bill which really gets me. The bottom line is whether this Government will provide jobs to widowers to those on the DPB and women living alone receiving the benefit. Some of those people did not have the choice of becoming solo parents. For some of them their partners died for whatever reason and so they were put in that position not because of their choice but because of the facts of life.  
 In respect of the provision relating to the use of the National Student Number we support that totally. We understand the need for that to happen. We also agree with the Privacy Commissioner that the changes in this bill target a group for whom trust in authority may already be in short supply. 
New Zealand First has some serious reservations about increases in the use of the private sector for finding jobs. The goal is to pay private companies or organisations for every person that comes off the welfare. The underlying principle is fine; we all agree with the underlying principle. The approach and the implementation of the bill are what we need the Minister and the Government to perhaps hear in terms of what we are trying to say they need to fix. Women for as long as we can remember have always had an important role in our community. Having a child or becoming a housewife is not a matter of choice; it is actually a duty. It is a duty for some of our women. It is a duty that is willingly accepted by many and is in some circumstances compulsory. Extending work availability expectations and pre-benefit activities to this category is simply government formed on an impetuous nature. By nature the Government is again putting into action privately run bureaucracy firms. This should not be a shortcut to creating jobs. This is about getting people off the benefit and into jobs. My challenge to the Government is to put in place a strategic plan that will realistically and genuinely provide jobs for our community. Thank you. New Zealand First does not support this bill.  
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 This is an important day for our country and for our history. It is an especially important day and a very positive one for young people who are at risk of leaving school without qualifications who are struggling to find work who are unlikely to acquire a range of vital life skills without much more active intervention and support and who are ultimately in clear danger of being welfare-dependent possibly for a lifetime. That is the reality for far too many young New Zealanders under existing legislation and circumstances. That reality is a tragedy for them it is a constant worry—or at least it certainly ought to be—for all who love and care for them it is a huge cost to our economy and it is a major blight on our society. I am proud to be part of a Government that is determined to tackle this issue at its core. This is one of the most important and compelling issues that made me want to commit myself to a political career. For me therefore this is a very significant day.  
I am proud to have played a full part as a member of the Social Services Committee in developing and working on this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill to the point where its significant provisions are about to be passed into law. Contrary to the confused and dogma-ridden assertions of Opposition members this bill is not punitive; it is liberating. This bill does not bash beneficiaries. It shows very clearly that we believe in them and that we want the very best for them. It is not heartless and cynical; it is positive and aspirational. It is a measure that is desperately needed and whose time has well and truly come. Our Government has demonstrated this conviction by investing $287.5 million over the next 4 years into practical support and a range of programmes that will assist New Zealanders out of welfare and into work.  
Our opponents have claimed that they welcome that principle but their speeches their votes to date and their intentions as to how they will vote this afternoon show that they clearly believe the opposite. Several Opposition members have worried that young parents covered by this bill will not have access to childcare. That is false and a clear case of cynical scaremongering as $80 million was allocated in this year’s Budget for extra early childhood education childcare places and those who are the focus of this bill will enjoy a guaranteed childcare assistance payment. That is because we want the best not only for those young people but also for their children. For every one of those young people for whom the intergenerational cycle of welfare dependency can be broken life will improve considerably. They will secure the brighter future that this National-led Government wants for every New Zealander.  
Opposition members should support that goal and endorse these measures to achieve it. But instead they have resorted to dogma and negativity refusing to acknowledge the problems and instead saying to those who are in this position: “We’re sorry but for you what you have now is as good as it gets.” Well what have those defeatist merchants of doom told us? Mr Sio seems obsessed with the notion that beneficiaries will be forced into work and then will not be able to live on their wages. Well if they move into low-paid work it is true that for a time life will be difficult and that some tough choices will be needed.  
But that is the reality for them right now because their income is currently welfare-dependent. Their financial circumstances may not improve dramatically but they should improve. They certainly will not decline. Over time the future for them will be much brighter. Being back in work will be a benefit to them and to those who are dependent upon them especially in the longer term. Mr Sio also appears to believe that mothers of young children who enter paid work are guilty of neglect and bad parenting. Well that notion is as ludicrous as it is offensive.  
Members opposite also bleat repeatedly as they have throughout this debate that there are no jobs. Well if that is true in some areas then nothing will change. That is what the unemployment benefit is for. No one can be forced into a job that does not exist. But those who receive the unemployment benefit must be prepared to make the transition when work becomes available to them. In many cases that claim simply is not true. In recent times we have seen that many who have been asked to reapply for the unemployment benefit have instead cancelled their benefit. More people than ever before are currently in work and many of those who were asked to reapply actually did not do so because they had already found work or in some cases they had gone overseas. Many vacancies are now advertised and for reasons that escape many of my constituents quite a number of them are never taken up. Nobody is appointed to them. Many employers especially those providing seasonal work cannot attract workers. Sometimes the issue is not the absence of a job but a reluctance to take it and that too must change.  
I salute the hard work of our Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett and thank her on behalf of all New Zealanders who want to get ahead in life for her courage and determination in facing up to this challenge and for steering this bill through to its expected enactment today. I acknowledge Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and my colleagues on the Social Services Committee. We have worked hard on this bill. On this side of the House we care passionately about the issue and all who are trapped in welfare dependency. We want so much more for them and this bill contains vital measures to help them to break the cycle and to fulfil their potential. I am proud to have played my part in progressing this bill. I am happy to be held accountable for it and to be judged on its success. That is how confident I am that this bill will achieve its objectives.  
I have always argued in favour of a welfare system for New Zealand that responds as generously and as compassionately as possible to the many thousands of people of all ages who need that support. Many of them have been dealt one cruel blow in life after another. Their stories are often distressing and it is our collective obligation to assist them. How privileged we are to be able to do that. That is what Michael Joseph Savage and his colleagues had in mind back in 1935 and perhaps even Richard John Seddon and others before them. But welfare has got out of hand and now penalises and traps many of those whom it ought to liberate.  
This bill is an important step in refocusing the system and getting our beneficiaries back on track. That cannot happen soon enough. I encourage everyone in that position to embrace the opportunities that this bill presents to them and I offer them the assurance that this Government believes in them and backs them to the hilt. Kia kaha. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I wish I could say it is a pleasure to take my last call on this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill but I do not think it is a pleasure. In fact it is with some sadness that I get to speak on this particular bill in its third reading.  
From the time that this bill has been in the House we have looked for some kind of logic that it was trying to present that we could agree with and that we could relate to and that could relate also to the reality of what we find out there. We searched we examined and we listened very carefully to the thinking of those who are experts by anybody’s calculation who presented to the Social Services Committee. They were people who have researched this field who work in this field every day and who came to the select committee with a lot of thinking and a lot of experience behind them to tell us what they saw in this bill and what the gap was between what ought to happen and what was being provided in this bill. What we found was a big gap between all the factors that needed to be taken into account to make life better for our children for our mums and for our families and what the provisions of this bill provide. For us there was a real disconnect between what the Government has said it is trying to do and what this bill will produce from our perspective.  
Government members are convinced that these are the only provisions that will reduce welfare numbers and this has been their driving goal throughout this—what will reduce welfare numbers. Those who submitted told us that they are wrong—that they are absolutely wrong. Yes we did work hard at the Social Services Committee and I wish we had worked hard to understand what they were telling us as well. In fact in my view members of the select committee from the Government side have actually not argued their points with any rigour particularly in the third reading debate where we went clause by clause. The rigour was not there.  
Tim Macindoe 
: We’re in the third reading debate. 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: It was left time and time again Mr Macindoe—time and time again it was left to the Minister for Social Development to take call after call from the chair and simply explain the same logic the same things that will happen. There will be wraparound services this will be great etc. That happened time and time again. Members obviously were not that convinced. They were very ready to clap when the Minister gave one of her 5 or 10-minute renditions from the chair during the Committee stage but certainly they did not expand rigorously their arguments. They were not convincing.  
But let us be clear. Labour believes and this side of the House believes passionately in investment—in actually investing in those who are likely to be caught and who are likely to find themselves on their own caring for young children or adolescents for that matter. We agree that we ought to invest in that particular group. We would invest in helping young people prepare much better for their adult lives and their early adult lives. We would provide sole parents with real opportunities to prepare for work through programmes like the training incentive allowance which the other side does not believe in. We know they work because they worked for the Minister herself. She is our best case in point if you like. But that is all gone and what we now find—what the Government members put in place of that—is the rhetoric of investment. The rhetoric of investment is hollow because it somehow takes a word that has positive connotations and imposes that on the logic of this bill trying to make it good.  
It is quite interesting: when Labour spends money on social services and on welfare then it is welfare dependency; when the Government spends money then it is investment. That is intellectually dishonest. It is quite amazing that Tim Macindoe gets up and talks about this side of the House being dogmatic in terms of dogma. Well that is exactly what that member is doing and that is exactly what the Government is—absolutely dogmatic. And it is absolutely unfounded by research and by anything else. Dogma does not need that kind of logic. I thought this Government was going to use research that was evidence based and evidence led. Well it is not.  
We have said throughout this debate that the Government is focused only on getting people off welfare and it seems that it is at any cost—and it is at any cost. The Government denies this but this is its only motive. The Government tries to mask this in the language I have talked about—the language of investment etc. and the language of wraparound services. Who argues against wraparound services? Of course we should have wraparound services; that should be there now. There is nothing radical about that. But the Government has not given us the logic of how that is going to be done. What it really has done is it has really been narrow in its analysis. For one member it was that these young women have made a lifestyle choice. For another it is about hope and ambition. For another it is just a new system. What is it? Why do the members opposite and the Government not get their way round? My friend and colleague Mr Macindoe tells me he came to the House just for this purpose. I want to ask Mr Macindoe why he bothered. If this was to be his finest hour why did he bother? Because I do not think this is going to do that. Of course for the Minister it is a bit like the cavalry. She said “Change is on its way.”—the cavalry is coming.  
When we examine the arguments the members opposite have presented we have exposed all of them. They say that work is the best way; therefore we must have work testing. Well of course work and creating work is the best response to welfare; we have heard enough about that. But this is not what they have been saying. There is no real plan to create that work only a concession that if there is no work there then this will not apply. Why bother? Why do we not focus on wraparound services? Why do we not focus on getting those who are on benefits in the best place possible to enter the workforce? This is what the previous programme did which is what the Minister herself is the beneficiary of—and good on her. I have congratulated her in other speeches on taking the opportunities that were made available then and finding her way through. And why do we now pull the ladder for others? It seems as if this whole bill and this whole area of welfare reform is designed to pacify a group of their constituency who really believe that the problems of New Zealand can be traced to those who are on welfare and if we did not have that then everything else would be fine.  
It is the same when we get to their arguments about parenting. This is an anti-parenting bill. A mother of a 1-year-old now has to be work tested and if there is a 5-year-old as well then that mother will not have the time that she needs to care for the child. 
Hon Amy Adams 
: Rubbish! 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: It is in the bill Amy Adams. That is in the bill. Read the bill Minister because that is in the bill. That is the argument. I wonder whether members opposite and members of the Cabinet really understand what this bill is about. They are saying that for a mother with a 14-year-old under this Government the 14-year-old is on their own—I say to that member. They are on their own because there will be no protection if their mother happens to be a welfare beneficiary. That is what this Government has produced and yet we know from all the evidence that that young age and that older age are exactly when the caring abilities of the parents are needed for those children.  
This side is passionate about this bill because this Government is destroying family life. It pretends to be family orientated but it is destroying family life. There is a bill next week that will do it as well. We will argue the same argument next week. That is what this Government is doing. Then it brings on people like John Banks who tells us in his sycophantic way that this is the best thing since sliced bread. When did John Banks become relevant to this Parliament? All he has done is make inane calls on points of order about somebody using a particular word. There is just so much wrong about this bill. From the get-go to the closedown now we have argued consistently that it is bad. We have also looked to see what could be salvaged and there is not much. Thank you. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 Can I just make it quite clear to the members on the other side that this party—and actually most New Zealanders—values working mothers. If you are working it does not mean that you are letting your children down. We back them and fundamentally that is what these members’ argument has been about—they are not prepared to back the people whom this party will.  
Before I go on I just want to commend the Minister for Social Development on this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill for the hard work the compassion and the enthusiasm that she has shown with it. I also want to extend thanks to Mr Lotu-Iiga the chairperson of the Social Services Committee for his chairmanship and also thank fellow members on the committee from across the political spectrum. I have enjoyed the experience of working on this bill. I think it is fair to say that we do not always agree on things—and that is healthy—but I think it is also fair to say that we all do very much care about this particular issue for New Zealanders. 
Su’a William Sio 
: You’re such a greaser Mike. 
MIKE SABIN 
: Yes I have often been called that.  
The core focus of this bill is really around young people and the manner in which we can support them because the reality for thousands of young people—young teenagers—who are currently in that pipeline is that they are staring down the barrel of a collision with an adult benefit and certainly experience tells us that they will be there for a very very long time.  
Like all of us these young people have dreams hopes and aspirations and often through no fault of their own they find themselves in very challenging situations where they will struggle to achieve those things. It does not mean they do not have those dreams. The challenge for the community—indeed the challenge for us as legislators—is to actually find ways to address that issue. The burgeoning problem with welfare is something that has concerned not only New Zealanders but everyone in this House and this political spectrum for many years as $22 million a day is not financially sustainable but more important the human cost the human collateral is substantial.  
At the core of this bill we are looking at three major planks. The first is a stronger work focus. The focus is about enabling these young people to find their way into work. We have heard much from the other side about the fact that there is no work which I find amusing when the Opposition will rail against every single policy and every single bill that this Government has put forward to grow the economy. So if they were genuine about supporting work growth and job creation then they might find themselves supporting what we are trying to do to grow this economy in very challenging times.  
This bill also provides a mechanism to build capacity for work in these young people. It is a major cultural shift in the way that we have addressed welfare in the past. A very good example of that is the incentive payments that form part of this bill. Sanctions have long been a part of the Social Security Act but incentives providing encouragement and promoting behaviour by way of financial incentives is something new and I think something we have not spent enough time focusing on.  
Beyond that the payment card and the assisted management of essential bills I think will provide a number of these young people with an opportunity to step back from the stress that their lives are under and focus on what we want them to do—to be able to get control in their lives again to be able to develop the skill sets that will match them with employers who I know want them. Certainly in my electorate they are saying to me “We will employ these young people. We just want them to come here and show us they are prepared to work and prepared to learn.”  
I believe that this suite of changes will make a huge difference in the lives of these very challenged young people who are at a very difficult stage in their life notwithstanding their circumstances. The other important thing is the monitoring and guidance that the youth support providers will give these young people. I think this is very important. For many it will fill a gap that is lacking in their own family.  
Changes for teen parents are again another very very important focus of this bill. The work focus must be there with them the same as it is with other people on welfare because they also will have dreams wants hopes and aspirations. When the work is suitable and when they reach an age where their youngest children are 5 or 14 or their second and subsequent child is 1 then we expect them to be available for work and we will support them with childcare to ensure that. Being in work does not impede a mother’s relationship with her child; if anything it will enhance it. It provides a platform for far greater choices for that mother and a sense of pride and something in her day that she otherwise would not get while she is sitting at home waiting for crumbs from the State.  
This bill is the first step in fundamentally changing a culture that I believe has been very disabling for people on welfare for some time. This is about enabling. This is about supporting. It is not about just giving them money and leaving it up to them. You can give a little dollar here and an extra one here or there but ultimately that has not worked and this bill is about doing what will work: providing management incentives and support and preparing them for the world of opportunity and the world of work that actually they should be in they should want to be in and we certainly want them to be in.  
This bill goes where the Opposition parties certainly would not and certainly not over in the Greens that is for sure. This bill is about investing in and backing young people believing in them to have a dream and actually backing them to get on and achieve it and ensuring that we have got the right balance between obligations and responsibilities. And we should not forget that—it is about achieving the right balance. What is the reward for the young people? The reward in my view is a little more than just being prepared to be and actually being in work. It is actually about having a purpose. I think it is about having opportunities. I think it is about having self-esteem and a sense of self-respect in oneself and we all get that when we feel as if we have done something to contribute to the world each day.  
This bill is the first step in the long overdue changes that New Zealanders want and need. The Opposition will oppose it but we have come to expect that from them. Deep down I suspect that they quite agree with a number of these changes. It is just that this Government got on with doing what has needed to happen. We are walkers not talkers. I want to commend the Minister once again for the work that she has done and I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I understand that the next call is a split call. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I can assure the member opposite that deep down nowhere does Labour secretly agree with the measures in this bill the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. I am happy to stand here and take my final call as part of a Labour team that has consistently opposed the reforms in this bill. Labour believes that we need a set of mechanisms that will address the barriers to getting people off welfare and into work. Those barriers are the availability of work. Another one of those barriers is the availability of childcare and quality and affordable childcare. And the third barrier is the issue of skills and whether people on benefits have the requisite skills to get back into the paid workforce.  
Let us first of all briefly look at the issue of the availability of work. Throughout the passage of this legislation members opposite have tried to appease their own conscience by hailing to the maker of the welfare State Mickey Savage and somehow making themselves sleep at night by saying Michael Joseph Savage would approve. Well what they are doing is a whole lot more Margaret Thatcher than Mickey Savage. That lady is not for turning when it comes to these welfare reforms. Michael Joseph Savage believed in a social security system where there were a set of rights and a set of obligations for those on welfare but there were also rights and obligations on the State to create jobs for people—that an active State and an active Government did not leave its citizens to languish in the way this Government is prepared to do.  
New Zealanders want to work. The household labour force survey tells us that. We saw that when Labour came into power in 1999 it faced an unemployment queue of 162000. When Labour left office in 2008 there were 17700 on the unemployment benefit. This had not been achieved by punitive measures; this had been achieved by economic development and the creation of jobs. We did not just muck around playing around with cycleways; we actually created jobs.  
But the issue that I really want to focus on today is the issue of young people and skills training. We are told that this legislation introduces all kinds of incentives to get young people back to work. There are all kinds of financial carrots and financial sticks so there are punitive measures if they do not turn up for training. I want a National member to take a call and to tell me why they voted against my amendment to this bill which actually offered an opportunity for real jobs matched with real skills training. Why is it that National would not match up the opportunity the genuine and real opportunity we have to train our young people to be active in the rebuild of Christchurch? Why would they not explicitly put the opportunities that are going that are languishing and are not being taken up in terms of the $42 million that is being allocated for the rebuild of Christchurch in skills training? Why did they vote against this? It is because this legislation is nothing but a dog whistle to their constituency. They are more interested in punitive measures rather than real opportunities for our young people—real opportunities matched with real jobs that will offer them a lifetime of employment. But no what we can talk about is “building capacity for work” and other rhetoric like “work focus” like the member we just heard from. How about just plain old-fashioned apprenticeship skills training and then going into a job? This is not something that members opposite believe in. This is not something that members opposite are willing to vote for and it is certainly not something that this legislation does anything to achieve.  
This set of measures this so-called welfare reform does nothing to address the underlying causes of why people are on benefits. Members opposite cannot sleep at night by telling themselves repeating over and over that Michael Joseph Savage would approve. He would not. They have failed to address the core reason of welfare dependency in this country. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou. The Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill is the unlovely love child of the Welfare Working Group and the National-ACT Government. It is a polite description to call it misguided. I would like to go back to Michael Joseph Savage and the 1964 original Social Security Act which emerged from the realisation that some people at some time in their lives need State support. Statistics make it very clear that it is often for a matter of months rather than years so I am not sure what this beat-up is all about.  
It is clear that the original Act recognised terms that we might now find archaic like “woman alone” “disabled” and “invalids benefit”. Some of those names are disempowering in contemporary terms but what was behind them was the recognition that the State has a role in supporting people who are sick who are caring for children or who are caring for other people and that that is actually a valid thing to do. In the case of a woman alone it was a recognition which is now denied by this bill that in fact women who care for others end up on less income when they are older. A simple fact of pay inequity and the voluntary work they do often means they have less money. That benefit is gone. There is no guilt if you are a working parent but equally there is no guilt if your work is at home. So let us forget about guilt and get real about what is going on for parents.  
What was proposed in the original Act sounds like common sense decency and human dignity and it is especially true in a recession when our society has become one of the most unequal in the OECD. The Government says and I have heard it a lot this afternoon that it wants to help people on benefits—I think the word used was “liberation” which was kind of ironic—by giving tax cuts to the top 10 percent and then sanctioning the poorest people. I find that term “liberation” rather fascinating. It is a little bit like the George Orwellian quote that the louder you make it the bigger the lie. However I would like to go back to the work of my own colleagues who have done a great job on this bill.  
I would like to go back to the work of Holly Walker and her Supplementary Order Paper on the need for a child impact assessment. What Holly was talking about was the need to recognise that this entire bill impacts on children and that if a thorough assessment had been done on that impact it would be a very different bill. It would be a very different bill if it was a child-centred bill and if it was going to recognise that existing poverty should never be exacerbated for our children. The Government’s decision to veto our amendment to give Work and Income the discretion not to apply a sanction if it was detrimental to child well-being is effectively an admission of how harmful this bill will be to children. It is shocking that the Government is already banking on the savings of hundreds of millions of dollars by imposing sanctions and it shows you what the attitude of Work and Income staff will be when deciding whether to sanction or not. The Government has already banked the kids’ lunch money.  
It is also really really disappointing to see that the Government would not support Jan Logie’s amendment. A drop in the bucket of $5 million to $15 million would have made a huge difference. The mother’s education as we know from the evidence is the best predictor of the child’s outcome. So if you want children to thrive you support their mothers to get an education. You also make sure children have access to their parents rather than making sure their parents are out being work tested or walking the streets looking for jobs. They need their parents to be around. Here is the opportunity for the Government to talk about an investment approach. However it has failed.  
During every recession there is a tiresome and damaging beat-up and it is always beneficiaries. No one pretends that living on a benefit is easy even in the good times. The Green Party believes in job creation and educational opportunity not work testing for non-jobs and cuts to what is currently a pittance. What saddens me about this bill is that children women disabled people and others who are under attack and can be sanctioned cannot actually fight back. They cannot get up and say: “We are decent people who would love the dignity of work when it’s workable not the stigma and sanction that the powerful will now take their opportunity to impose upon us.”  
The bill is unworkable in parts of the country. Work and Income already knows that it is unworkable so really the whole thing is what I would call a giant non-step in the wrong direction. It is a fiasco. Thank you. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 I am proud to take the final call on the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill. There has been a lot of talk about evidence. It is not hard to realise that you do not need a lot of evidence to know that the longer people are on a benefit the more harmful it is not only for them but also for their family their community and the country as a whole. There is enough evidence that says that if you go on younger you stay on longer.  
The key aspect of this bill is the word “focus”. There has been a lot of talk about where the jobs are. This bill is not about jobs because that would be about numbers and outputs. This bill is about outcomes. Yes the numbers are important because they indicate change but the most important thing this bill is focused on is improving outcomes. This is the difference because it changes the words and reframes them in a way that gives it a sense of vision. Previously in the welfare system everything was worded with the word “benefit”. What this bill is doing is changing that and using words such as “future focus” “youth support” and “work focus”. What that tells us and tells people who enter into support that is absolutely needed at a time of need is that while they are there there is an opportunity for reprieve but that at the same time they should not lose sight of the hope they have to achieve their dreams and their vision—hence the reason for the term “Future Focus”. That is the difference we are making.  
We have been accused of many things. In fact people have used the words “benefit bashing”. I think the only people who have been bashed around are the members on either side of the House. Also there has been a little bit of drama. I think there have been drama classes in some of the caucuses across the way. We have heard words such as “genocide”. We have heard words such as “putting the boot into beneficiaries” and that could not be further from the truth. We have had accusations and finger-pointing at the Minister for Social Development herself and even at other members who have been here. It was highly offensive when Mr Prasad assumed that young mothers and mothers would not have the sense of wanting to be a working mother—to have their children and work at the same time. It was offensive to members on this side of the House and I imagine it was offensive to many many women in our communities.  
This bill is the first stage in welfare reform. I just want to tell the other members that there is much more to come. So the Ginsu knives are coming. The Opposition will have you believe that people will be forced into work. This is not true. The expectation is that people will be available to work. Let me just say that word again—available. You see it is a future focus. It is about being available for work. There will be no sanction and that is fair and reasonable. The bulk of people affected by this bill are young people and the focus is on training and education. This is a stepping stone. I will repeat it again so that the Opposition members understand: this bill is a stepping stone. Why? Because evidence shows that when you go on a benefit younger you stay on it for longer. The providers that will be there to provide support are called—and here is another key word—navigators. They are not enforcers of the law or of a system; they are navigators to help our young people find the opportunities that are there.  
This is an active system not an inactive system. Here is the interesting thing because a previous speaker Ms Woods asked “Where are the jobs?”. Let me just tell you this. If that was right if there were a plethora of jobs available under the current system which were there under the Labour Government there were no obligations. People did not have to look for a job and 79 percent of those on a benefit prior to Future Focus being implemented had no obligations to seek work. This is an active system. This system provides greater flexibility. It introduces greater flexibility into the hours of work for part-time work and full-time work. Tests for beneficiaries are subject to work-test obligations. This is not a mean-spirited bill. All it does is extend the opportunities that are there.  
This bill also authorises information sharing. It authorises information to be shared between the Minister of Education and the Minister for Social Development in order to allow the provision of services to young people between the provider and the organisations. Why are we focusing on young people? Again because we know that when you enter into the system younger you stay in it for longer.  
This bill is also about educational benchmarks. What concerned us was that on the other side of the House there was the dumbing down of expectations. It was said that NCEA level 2 was a bridge too far. [ 
Interruption 
] It was a bridge too far. We are not about that. We are about setting educational benchmarks because you see Ms Woods Mr Prasad surely you would know that you would not set those expectations for your children. What right do you have to set expectations lower than those you would have for your own children? Under this bill this Government sets out the same expectations that we have for our children. It increases work expectations. Again prior to the National Government’s Future Focus changes 79 percent of beneficiaries had no work-test obligations. This figure is now 64 percent and with the implementation of this bill we believe it will decrease to 60 percent.  
My final words are these. Many members over there have asked us how we will sleep and I end with this: all of us who come into this House and have the opportunity to make a change do so with a conscience. We have to because one day we will all be held accountable for that which we have supported. I support this bill; we support this bill. It is a bill that gives a sense of vision. It creates a sense of focus. It creates flexibility. It sets a benchmark of expectation that we all have for all our children. This is a bill of opportunity and we will see the results and the outcomes that will truly make a difference to the young people of our country. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Social Security (Youth Support and Work Focus) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 59; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1. 
Bill read a third time. 
Biosecurity Law Reform Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 18 July. 
Part 1Amendments to Biosecurity Act 1993  ( 
continued 
)  
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I will take an opportunity to lead in again on Part 1 which is basically the big part of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill—the significant part of it. It sets up requirements around pest-management strategies which are the plans I guess to get rid of or manage diseases that are already here such as tuberculosis. Strategies for others will be developed. Ones around rabbit calicivirus disease or the rabbit as a pest hopefully will be developed further down the track.  
Can I say on behalf of my electorate in particular that one of the obligations in this bill that I have to endorse and applaud the Government for is the good neighbour obligation in here. It does place upon the Crown as the neighbour of many farmers and private property owners an obligation to engage with them through these pest-management strategies and to be a participant just like every other private farmer and landowner. I applaud that initiative.  
At the same time I have to go back and alert anyone who might be listening to this debate to the fact that although Labour supports this bill we have some serious questions. In regard to the Government-industry agreements what I must point to—and there will be a lot of people out there who have not read the report—is the review of the import requirements and the border process in light of the entry of  
Pseudomonas syringae 
 pv.  
Actinidiae 
 into New Zealand. One of the recommendations in that—and I hope it is not taken up—is that the Ministry for Primary Industries needs to look at the relative cost-benefit ratios of reprioritising its resources towards managing risks for economically significant industries. One of the concerns of the small sector groups—the likes of hothouse growers; pipfruit is not a small one but summer fruit is and avocados—is that they do not think that under the Government-industry agreements they will get a fair go and an opportunity for them to negotiate an affordable deal to manage any risk incursion or in fact to have input into the preventive measures at the border. The point being that here is a recommendation that points to the insufficient resourcing in biosecurity and says: “Well if you do not have money reprioritise and forget about the small sectors.” That is effectively what it says.  
There may well be net benefits in reprioritising the Ministry for Primary Industries’ resources away from smaller less strategic industries in order to ensure the risks to high-value sectors are appropriately managed. What that says is that we will put the resources into dairy kiwifruit pipfruit and meat and we will forget about the rest. Well those sectors need to be well aware of the dangers. Under the current Government’s management of biosecurity there is insufficient resource to have a proper system and the shifting around of those resources may very well mean that they miss out.  
The recent incursion of fruit fly is a classic example. I guess it would have been the whole fruit sector engaged under an MIA—a GIA sorry; I am getting my MIAs and GIAs confused here as it is not the Meat Industry Association but a Government-industry agreement—then I am not sure how we would engage. Thankfully there was quick action on that—the one fly—at a cost of $1.4 million. That issue was addressed. We did not have a wider spread of the Queensland fruit fly thankfully. But you have got sectors here like summer fruit that are crying out for the ministry to X-ray all incoming baggage into the country because somehow that larva got into this country and we did not pick it up at the border.  
There are hundreds of thousands of containers coming into this country every year and they are not checked. There are hundreds of thousands of visitors coming into this country each year and they are not checked. Direct exit means that those people go out without any physical check whatsoever. The vague hope the vain hope that the dogs are around to check it out in fact does not apply to Wellington—has not applied since October last year—and there have been serious shortages of dogs around the ports and airports of this country for some time. I understand that the ministry might be upping it by four in Auckland but we have a serious— 
RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the New Zealand First Party. We are opposed to the passage of this bill the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill in its present form. New Zealand First is strongly committed to the promotion and preservation of New Zealand’s biosecurity. We understand that the intention of this bill is to enhance and improve the level of that biosecurity and we support the amendments that it will bring to several other pieces of legislation namely the Maritime Transport Act 1994 the Ombudsmen Act 1975 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and the Wildlife Act 1953. We see the bringing together of relevant legislation under a single umbrella as being a positive move in terms of the imposition and enforcement of measures intended to safeguard the biosecurity of New Zealand which is undeniably of crucial importance to our agriculture and to tourism and thereby to our economy and way of life.  
We acknowledge the work done by the previous Primary Production Committee and appreciate the lengths and detail to which that committee went in order to ensure that what has been presented to the House is a far more workable bill than that which the committee originally found itself tasked with examining. Indeed in reading the  
Hansard 
 from the previous Parliament it is apparent that members from both sides of the House found immediate and obvious faults in the bill as it had been prepared. The committee made nine substantive changes and recommendations to the Government all of which were accepted.  
From this I am given cause not only to be reassured as to the commitment of the committee to achieving workable and practical outcomes but also to wonder why and how such an important piece of legislation could have been so flawed to begin with. It is this inherently flawed nature of the construction and more important the focus of this bill that forms the basis of the New Zealand First Party’s opposition to it rather than the detail of its application which has already been addressed. In addition given the bill’s focus as we see it combined with the concurrent adoption of certain new technologies and existing budget-driven contemporary practices at the border it is our view that these elements will in fact work together in our estimation not to strengthen New Zealand’s biosecurity but indeed to weaken it.  
There are five key areas identified in this bill: border risk management marine biosecurity readiness and response pest management and compliance and enforcement. In terms of marine biosecurity the New Zealand First Party is encouraged by the inclusion of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone within the boundaries of the bill’s jurisdiction. We believe that this will enhance the safety of the existing fishery as well as contributing to the minimisation of other risks associated with sea traffic and further risks with a potential to impact on the New Zealand mainland and major outlying islands from other marine-based activities including those associated with offshore mining and oil exploration.  
We are pleased also that the bill facilitates the implementation of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments 2004. This convention aims to minimise the potentially negative or deleterious effects of ballast water carried by cargo ships generally collected in or near the coastal waters of one port and discharged at the next and often including real and possible contaminants such as biological materials including plants animals viruses and bacteria. These materials can include non-native species which may impact on aquatic and marine ecosystems causing a variety of negative effects ranging from civil nuisance value through to serious ecological and economic damage.  
Likewise New Zealand First welcomes the provisions in this bill that enable a national policy direction to be formulated and imposed with regard to pest management and control. New Zealand First believes that a collective strategy coordinated by Government will enable all individuals and agencies involved in or responsible for the control destruction or other management of existing and potential pests to work to a known standard in the formation of their operational plans and methodologies. We believe that this will greatly assist in the eradication or effective control of pests that may exist or cross between regional and jurisdictional boundaries.  
We are also pleased that the Crown as a landowner will be included in regional pest-management rules under the provisions of the bill correcting what we see as the anomaly of its present exclusion. Land not currently required to meet regional pest-management rules includes not only that managed by the Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand but also that controlled by the Defence Force the Department of Corrections the Ministry of Education the Ministry of Justice the Crown Forestry Group and the New Zealand Transport Agency.  
So there are good things in the bill and the stated intent is a good one with which we agree. As I have said we acknowledge the good work that the previous committee has done on a cross-party basis towards bringing the provisions of this bill into line with that stated intention. However where New Zealand First sees the bill as failing is in its approach to the remaining provisions not yet addressed—those of border risk management readiness and response and compliance and enforcement. We appreciate that the aim of the bill’s authors is to include some carrot along with the stick to reward those who have a good track record with regards to upholding and improving biosecurity as well as punishing those whose record of performance is poor.  
But it is in the relaxation of inspection-based activities and the change in focus away from direct and intensive governmental involvement in the process of ascertaining the presence of risk factors and organisms which is an essential element of the reward side of the equation that in our view places the biosecurity of New Zealand at greater rather than lesser risk. I note from the second reading of the bill that the  
Hansard  
contains references of concern from some Opposition MPs that the move towards greater industry self-regulation may be driven by a desire to ease and accelerate the movement of goods in line with the requirements of the World Trade Organization. Be that as it may it is of great concern to the New Zealand First Party that removing the direct involvement of inspection and enforcement of regulations for any industry coupled with an increase in penalties for those subsequently found to be in breach of them is not a formula that has proven to be successful in New Zealand in recent years. It is somewhat akin to putting an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than a fence at the top.  
I would suggest to members that both leaky homes and Pike River came about under regulatory regimes that had been relaxed in a similar manner. Although a desire to speed the process of importation and international travel for those who have not transgressed against the requirements of the border may be of honourable intent we are acutely aware that our primarily agrarian economy is but one mistake away from disaster. The most careful of frequent travellers could very easily bring in a threat inadvertently and unintentionally the consequences of which have the potential to be dire for the nation as a whole.  
We have seen the effects of the  
Pseudomonas syringae  
pv.  
Actinidiae  
disease on our kiwifruit industry and the varroa mite on the bee-keeping and honey industries. And of course we all know that New Zealand lives with the constant spectre of foot-and-mouth disease the repercussions of which have thankfully yet to be visited upon us. I can tell this House that the root virus phylloxera arrived in Central Otago during my time in the wine industry there and that was with all the necessary protocols in place around movement. Without them it would doubtless have made its appearance decades earlier and had it done so it is doubtful the New Zealand’s reputation as the producer of the world’s finest Pinot noir could ever have been established.  
A piece of fruit or a jar of honey accidentally left in the luggage of a business traveller with a hitherto unblemished record could have consequences for this country that no fine or monetary penalty could possibly hope to address. Similarly an insect or animal pest slipping through the net of an importer with previously impeccable systems and credentials could likewise impact on the nation beyond the ability of any punishment to deter particularly when any such transgression is likely to be entirely unintentional. In either event without recourse to complete inspection—certainly by new technological means as far as is possible—the adoption of this bill in its present form will mean that New Zealand has no means at all of intercepting or preventing such threats.  
That is a risk that I would suggest to members is too great to be countenanced. The SmartGate may not seem so smart after all if we allow it to let in a virus that devastates our pork industry or a moth that wipes out our pine forests. For these reasons New Zealand First cannot support this bill. Thank you. 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is also unable to support this bill the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill. The Green Party is very very concerned about biosecurity and we often and for many years have been pushing the issue of inadequate biosecurity by successive Governments. We have seen pest after pest come in affecting different industries and affecting biodiversity in this country.  
I was part of the early consultation on this bill and it is clear that Biosecurity New Zealand as it was then was really looking to see whether it could have some better systems and some better processes to look after biosecurity and in some respects the bill does address that. It is looking at how to do it in maybe a more user-pays way which unfortunately leaves some glaring gaps but not only that it actually impacts on industry in a very—how would you say it—hodgepodge way. It is a mix and match all over the place way of doing it. It is going to be inadequately resourced under the Government-industry agreement system when it is implemented and that is being attempted to be implemented now under duress in most of the industries.  
Most of the changes may seem to be able to enhance biosecurity outcomes in New Zealand but that would be only if biosecurity was significantly better resourced and there is no intention of that. The Government has not done it and it did not do it in the last Budget either.  
The distributed responsibility for biosecurity management is we say a brave new adventure for the Ministry of Primary Industries but it is one that will blur the lines of responsibility for biosecurity breaches. It is a more cooperative approach and you might say that will lead to some better biosecurity outcomes but it is actually blurring the lines of responsibility and we see that as a very big risk. We see that as actually quite sad.  
I want to look at the real problems with biosecurity in New Zealand. The Minister for Primary Industries has said it in this House in recent months a couple of times: do we want the same approach taken by our international markets the importers of our produce into other markets? That was in response to the pig endogenous retrovirus more recently the pig issue—the thing that is in front of the court because it is so contentious. The Minister expects that we will accept greater risk into this country because of some of our purported better exports. He says that we need to prioritise that we will take up the recommendations from the  
Pseudomonas syringae 
 pv.  
Actinidiae 
 investigation and that that will prioritise where biosecurity goes depending on the importance of a particular sector. That is a very narrow way of looking at it. It is a very risky way of looking at it because it puts it down into just a few sectors that are seen as the sectors where our economy is based. But that is our economy at the moment on a really slack commodity level. We have got pines we have got dairy and if that is all we are going to rely on and we look the other way and not at the depth that we need to around biosecurity risk we are not looking to the future for New Zealand.  
I note that John Lancashire the immediate past president of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science in its recent publication lambasted the Government—and previous Governments as well I must say—for the neo-liberal approach that it has been taking to trade and biosecurity. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: What’s that mean? 
STEFFAN BROWNING 
: That means that in recent years both major parties have said they will do a little bit less regulation and they will do freer and freer trade and that means we are taking more risks about growing biosecurity threats. The slight loosening of border controls has led to some very expensive search— 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call on the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill a substantial piece of legislation that seeks to amend the Biosecurity Act of 1993. Essentially one of the things that this bill seeks to do is to bring the legislation up to date with the technology that is available in terms of biosecurity in New Zealand.  
As my colleagues have talked about at length Labour does support this bill although we do have a couple of concerns which we have outlined one of which my colleague Damien O’Connor talked about earlier today. It was the Government-industry agreements and this is a concern for us. The other concern for us is that you can have the best legislation in the world but if you do not properly resource it it is not going to work.  
One of the things that my colleagues have talked about while we have been debating this bill is the lack of resourcing that we are seeing in this area of biosecurity. We are seeing that Wellington Airport has not had a sniffer dog working there since October last year. We are seeing that there are cuts and this is of concern to everybody. We support the efforts to increase our biosecurity because like most people or like everybody really in this House and most New Zealanders we know that historically New Zealand’s biosecurity and our protecting of our land-based primary production—our agricultural our forestry and our horticultural industries—is absolutely crucial to our economic survival and indeed our economic development. Not only has it been incredibly important to us historically as a nation but we see in Labour that it is still important to us today. It is very much part of our present.  
This bill does recognise the vital importance of biosecurity to our marine environment to our indigenous flora and fauna and to human health. I think it is interesting that we started debating this bill last night immediately after the reading of the exclusive economic zone legislation where we were seeing the House talking about how it is that we could control our exclusive economic zone. What we have here is a piece of legislation that seeks to extend into that exclusive economic zone. So the purpose of this bill as I said is to bring biosecurity up to date to take into account the technologies that are available and had been there since the passage of the legislation that was passed in the 1990s.  
The present bill that we have before us now really goes back to when Labour was in Government and the scare that the varroa mite posed to an entire industry. And sadly since we have seen the scare that the varroa mite posed to the honey industry we have seen several other scares which members have talked about during this debate. We have seen the  
Pseudomonas syringae 
 pv.  
Actinidiae 
 (Psa) incursion into the kiwifruit industry—a $75 million problem. We have seen the Queensland fruit fly in Auckland. All those actions posed significant threats to New Zealand’s economic well-being.  
The fruit fly alone could destroy a $3 billion a year horticultural industry. So these might be very small organisms or very small insects but they are not very small problems. These are things that we need to protect against. This is why Labour more than doubled the spending on biosecurity between 1999 and 2008. We raised that spending from $94 million to $187 million.  
Then in 2003 Labour initiated the  
New Zealand Biotechnology Strategy 
 and this was a very good piece of work. This strategy emphasised the critical role and this is what is really important for me. This is a strategy that emphasised the critical relationship between science and biosecurity and that science needed to underpin what we were doing in the area of protecting our borders and in terms of our whole biosecurity system.  
This strategy identified four expectations of science in the field of biosecurity. It emphasised that the science should be closely involved in the development of any strategy that the purchase of science should be integrated across providers who are working in this field that the investment in science should be long term to ensure maintenance of key capabilities and that the priority for research to improve biosecurity is understood. As someone who has worked in the research industry before entering this House I have seen very much that biosecurity was at the forefront of thinking in terms of our horticultural and our primary production industries.  
New technologies—many of which have been developed under this increased funding that I have sketched out—are now being used in defending our borders and the legislation that we have before us now actually will enable us to make greater use of these new technologies. It will ensure that a secure biosecurity system from pre-border management to pest management must be underpinned by this science that I was talking about to support the social the cultural the environmental and the economic values that are important to all of us as New Zealanders and that we must ensure that science continues to underpin our approach to this system.  
Our science in this area has a very strong international reputation in fruit fly protection in eradication techniques the use of baggage-securing X-ray technologies in fumigation technologies in pesticide technologies and in molecular diagnostic techniques. These are all things that New Zealand scientists excel at and that we do very good work at. We need to be able to use these technologies in the defence of our borders. We have examples of these technologies being used to protect our borders but we also have examples of these technologies being commercialised and that is a spin-off economic benefit to the New Zealand economy.  
We have SniffertechTM which was developed by the Crown research institute AgResearch and it went on to be a very useful technology. Biosecurity is a really salient example of the importance of investing in science to our economy right across the broad spectrum of how it is that we look at our economy. Our economic future is dependent on this and we must continue to innovate in this area. As I said the purpose of this bill is to enable us to use these innovations these new technologies and these new bits of science.  
The Biosecurity Act as it stands now does not reflect these significant advances in technologies that have taken place over the past decade and that we anticipate we will continue to make greater advances in. The present legislation requires that some of the acts be carried out in a manual way when time has moved on and we actually have technology that could do a better job at this and actually do more to protect our borders.  
For other functions there is uncertainty about whether the available or future electronic technologies and systems can be used to support the prevention of biosecurity risk. We must tidy that up and one of the reasons that Labour is supporting this bill is that it does precisely that. We need that legal certainty over the use of technology and over the use of electronic devices in defending our borders. The Ministry for Primary Industries needs to have that certainty to improve target and manage the risks at our borders. Visual inspection as required in many ways now will not pick up the organisms that pose the threat whether they are bacterial or viral such as Psa. We must have a way to detect these. We have the technologies and we must be able to use them. That is why Labour is supporting this bill at this reading. Thank you. 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I am pleased to make a contribution to this Committee stage of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill. Before I go into talking around Part 1 I will say that biosecurity is critical to our prosperity as a nation. This bill is all about protecting our pa protecting our industries and our livelihoods protecting our brand protecting our resources and protecting our mana. So Labour does support this bill. We have supported it right since its introduction but we do have some reservations over a couple of aspects to the bill particularly around the Government-industry agreements which my colleague Mr O’Connor has touched on. 
I want to just take this opportunity to talk on Supplementary Order Paper 88 which Te Ururoa Flavell has tabled. The proposed amendment is to insert new clause 8A which inserts new section 5A “Principles of Treaty of Waitangi” into the Biosecurity Act. Labour supports this Supplementary Order Paper and the inclusion of this new clause. As we all know the genesis for the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi came out of the Treaty of Waitangi Act its architect Matiu Rata and the Labour Government of those days and it has been central to the whole modern-day era of the past 30 years of Treaty settlements. There is a long line of Treaty jurisprudence around the principles of the Treaty but in terms of its inclusion in this bill it is very important in recognition of Maori iwi and Maori as the tangata whenua and as kaitiaki for our natural resources and the partnership between Maori and the Crown. So we do support the inclusion of this clause. 
It is unequivocal in terms of the wording that “This Act must be interpreted and administered so as to give effect to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.” I know Mr Flavell has tabled another Supplementary Order Paper but I believe that it might come under a different part. We will discuss that at a later time. But in terms of Part 1 and new clause 8A we support this Supplementary Order Paper. 
Returning back to the thrust of this bill we do support the measures—for instance the new tools for more effective and efficient border biosecurity placing more duties on importers to take more reasonable steps in terms of their importation and compliance with health standards the modern-day framework for the use of information on risk profiling; and one that was endorsed by my colleague Ms Mackey which she spoke to last evening and that is the expansion of the Biosecurity Act and its application to the exclusive economic zone. So those are commendable measures in the bill. 
I said that it is all about protecting our pa. Having worked with Maori economic interests I know that Maori are significant stakeholders in our primary industries whether it is our agricultural industries our farms our orchards our marine farms fisheries or forestry. In fact the bulk of Maori assets are in the primary sector and therefore our trade and our ongoing viability in those industries are really critical in terms of our biosecurity. We are in terms of the Maori sector very very keen to see boosted protection of our pa. 
That leads me on to the Government-industry agreements. This is an area I know where Labour does have reservations. It is a classic example I guess in terms of the inequity between big industries and very small industries and the resourcing that is required but also the fact that these agreements are between two parties. We are seeing it with the New Zealand pork industry at the moment. It is taking litigation against the Government over the non-recognition of the scientific evidence that the industry is putting forward in opposition to the lowering of the import standards for the some 800 tonnes of pork that comes into our country every week. That is a critical issue for the pork industry and in terms of these Government-industry agreements I think that it is a classic example whereby the industry itself cannot even get the Government to pay recognition to its own scientific work. This is a Kiwi New Zealand industry our pork industry. I think we need to give a lot more consideration to the Government-industry agreement provisions to make sure that there is a greater equity and not too much cost borne. There is a disproportionate cost when the industries are so small when it is a small fledgling emerging export industry. We all know that we want to broaden the base of our exports sector of our tradable sector so I think it would be good to just focus on the Government-industry agreement area and make sure that that is tightly drafted and meets the interests of the industry itself. That really concludes my contribution at this time. Kia ora.  
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 As I was pointing out with the neo-liberal approach which is saying more and more free trade and sell out biosecurity for free trade John Lancashire was absolutely correct in pointing out that that is actually the critical thing the philosophical thing that is allowing biosecurity risks to be increased. As I have said the Minister has repeatedly said that we need to be open we need to be accepting more and more stuff coming in and more and more risk if we want to be trading freely. But just today the World Trade Organization (WTO) came out and has pointed out that for just that material that is coming in there are actually gaps around it in terms of how it is being managed. The WTO is saying that that needs to be looked at. The different agencies internationally the WTO and the other agencies need to be working better to make sure that biosecurity works and that it is not seen as that trade barrier. Instead of taking the approach that it is always a trade barrier we actually need to look at biosecurity almost first. We definitely do need to look at it first but this Government has been saying: “No no. We want to open up let more in and take more risks.” So it is very interesting that that came out today while we have got this bill the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill in front of us that is quite shaky in terms of looking after biosecurity here.  
The other thing that has just happened of course—and a colleague mentioned this before—is the four new dogs which is very very good because he and the Green Party had been repeatedly saying that there are not enough decent inspections at our ports so it is good to see that there has been a media advisory out to say that there are four new dogs out and the breeding programme is expecting to see 11 new Labradors graduate from training this year as part of a move to bolster biosecurity in this country. That is absolutely fantastic. There is no doubt about it. There are some major gaps and they are being filled. But I would ask how many more staff are going to be coming back into MAF Biosecurity New Zealand. How many more dollars and how many more resources are going to go into making sure we can do an adequate job? Will the increased staffing assuming there is a handler for each of those dogs because there needs to be exceed the successive losses from successive Governments in successive years of backtracking around biosecurity investment in this country?  
I will just point out some of the losses that we can expect to get if we carry on down this track of liberalising and loosening biosecurity by not resourcing it properly. Horticulture New Zealand a couple of years back did a look at what would happen if fruit fly got into various regions and pointed out that in the Bay of Plenty the loss would be $820 million and 3430 jobs lost Hawke’s Bay $390 million and just over 3000 jobs lost and in Nelson $265 million and 1945 jobs lost. Yes the Government did jump when a male fruit fly sprung up in Auckland. We also know what the cost was of that. That would not have happened if we had better port controls. Pysllids are another one affecting the spud industry tomatoes capsicums and tamarillos—the  
Solanum  
family industry. It has cost the industry already something like $250 million in lost production markets and production costs yet there is no more money and there is nothing happening really in terms of reducing those risks. Yes there are some dogs—that is a little bit of catch-up—but there is no more loot going in there to make this better.  
I come back to the aspect that I touched on earlier in terms of the prioritisation of biosecurity in New Zealand. Instead of a serious blanket approach of dealing with biosecurity fully from a Government approach we have got a bundle of industries that will all suffer significantly. We have got the forestry industry which is incredibly vulnerable particularly with its monoculture. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 59; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 88 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to insert new clause 8A be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 52 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 87 in the name of Te Ururoa Flavell to clause 37 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 52 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 8; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Amendments not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 27 in the name of the Hon David Carter to Part 1 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 98 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 23 
Green Party 14; New Zealand First 8; Mana 1. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments relating to ballast water 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 I have to acknowledge my good colleague Rino Tirikatene there. I slightly misled him on a debate. I am sure he will have the chance to put his views to the Committee on this part. 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Do you wear that tie on the West Coast Damien? 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Absolutely. It takes more than clothes to maketh a man down there.  
Hon Annette King 
: That’s why he never made it. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is right. As I said Labour is supporting the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill but we do have some major problems with it and with the resourcing of biosecurity across this country. In speaking to the next part of the bill and particularly in regard to the formation of pest-management strategies— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: No. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Clause 76? Sorry Mr Chairman I am— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Ballast water and the marine environment. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Ah yes. Going back to the marine environment clauses— 
Hon Craig Foss 
: Loosen the tie. Come on—loosen the tie. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: That is what a pink tie does to you. 
Can I say we actually welcome having provisions in the Biosecurity Act finally around ballast water. It is a situation that I am familiar with because going back some 20 years in fact there was an application in South Westland to export fresh water. That was out of Jacksons Bay. Anyone who has been down there knows that it is a pristine environment. I know that the Chairman Mr Roy has been down there many times. One of the issues that arose then—and it has not come up that often—was ballast water and what the potential impact could be of ballast water being tipped into Jacksons Bay by boats that had set out from Singapore or some Middle Eastern port gone down there and put that water out there bringing with it all the pests and diseases. At that time no one had really identified the risk. It was put up as an argument primarily by the green movement at that time—way before the Green Party. But there were environmental groups that were concerned legitimately about what might happen down there through ballast water being put into that bay. I have to say that was one of a number of arguments and issues that actually put that whole project on hold. I am sure that at some stage we probably will be exporting fresh water from this country as its value increases. 
The issue though is ballast water the management of it and ensuring that we do not bring pests into this country unnecessarily. I do not think we can ever guarantee that we will not bring in something or that we have not brought it in.  
Undaria 
 which is a seaweed that has some commercial uses but has been deemed a weed was mostly brought in through the ballast water of boats. The question I have in this area—again because we have a Government that refuses to properly resource MAF Biosecurity New Zealand—is whether with all these regulations and these improvements that we accept are needed effectively we may not offer any more protection for the New Zealand marine environment with the passage of this bill than there was before and that would be a problem. We have here in clause 76 new Part 19A “Protection of marine environment from ballast water”. Ballast water means as we know anything picked up to stabilise a boat on its way to New Zealand with a cargo. Cargoes change in weight and obviously the ships need to take on board water to make sure they do not tip over. What we have done here is put in place defences for people who think they took all reasonable steps to minimise any potential risk to New Zealand as the other part of the bill is quite prescriptive. 
I have to say that we hope we have got it right because as good as the chair of the Primary Production Committee is I am not sure—maybe he will take a call. I hope he will get up and explain. I know he has been fairly diligent all the way through this process and he probably has read this bill a number of times so he would be able to get up and explain each and every single part of it. 
 Can I say that what we do have in there as well under Part 3—I am sorry we going up to clause 78 only. I apologise for that Mr Chairman. I was just trying to rush the bill through. I do not want to prolong it any longer than necessary. The clauses up to clause 78 deal with marine pollution as well which is another serious issue. It is one that has been overlooked internationally I would suggest. I am not sure whether this provision puts us at the forefront of ballast water management internationally but if we have a stricter regime for boats coming into our territorial waters then so be it. There are we are told ways of flushing ballast water as ships are in transit. As to whether that occurs or not I am guessing there is probably an offset in energy use and maybe the speed of the boat in doing that and we are concerned that in fact it might not occur. Hence the heavy fines of up to $200000 or imprisonment for up to 2 years. That is quite a penalty for someone who discharges ballast water in breach of the regulations that we are allowing to pass here. I think it quite rightfully says to each and every ship owner to the people in charge of those ships: “If you come into New Zealand we want to keep our marine environment free of any unwanted pests and organisms. So we will pass this bill we will allow regulations to be put in place and we are going to hammer you if you don’t do it.” 
I think this part is a good part of the bill—we acknowledge the Government for it—and that is why we will support it. But again if we do not have the resources to properly police and implement these regulations then they effectively mean nothing. In this area it is not going to be easy. In spite of I guess the ship companies’ determination to reduce the number of ports their ships come into there will be ships in our territorial waters over our fisheries areas that may not abide by these regulations. So we welcome this part of the bill. 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 I am so excited to talk about this bill the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill. I am going to confine my comments to new Part 19A in clause 76. But before I do so I want to tell you why I am excited about Part 2 of this particular bill with reference to ballast water. The other day my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor took us to a dairy farm and he had us stand in front of this big huge open septic tank. There were two or three of them and he said to us: “Now boys have a sniff of that.” So we took deep breaths and then before we knew it the Hon Damien O’Connor said to us: “That’s the smell of money.” I could not believe it at first because I just thought it was the smell of cow poop but I now recognise that the point he was making was the value of our agricultural industry. What I noticed was that they had the cow waste go from one septic tank to the next—there are three or four of them—and at the bottom they then recycle the clean water. What they would normally do is disperse that throughout the farm.  
In terms of this particular bill in regard to ballast water “Ballast water means water with its suspended matter taken on board a ship to control the ship’s trim list draught stability or stresses.” The big question is where that water comes from because if it is water that comes off the final open septic tank then there is going to be concern particularly if it is coming from another country and we may have to ask questions about who owns the water who has the rights to the water that goes on these particular ships. We may even have to have a secret meeting to decide who has the rights to the water that comes from that ship.  
I am particularly pleased because in new section 246B it states: “(1) ballast water may be discharged from a ship only in accordance with the applicable marine protection rules.” I believe that the farmers our aquaculture sector our forest sector and our wine industry are going to be quite excited about this particular bill—all 264 pages of it—because they are going to have to hire employees consultants and other people to try to make sense of what is in this bill. 
 Do not get me wrong. At the end of the day as the Hon Damien O’Connor says we support the bill. But in terms of having the measures that will enable us to hopefully protect and continue to safeguard our borders for the sake of our valuable industry we really cannot have the Government shirk its responsibilities. So I suppose with the farmers who would be listening in to this debate the responsibility still falls on them to hold this Government to account. At the end of the day when Mr Damien O’Connor says with reference to our agricultural sector that that is the smell of money it underlines the fact that we have got a very valuable industry that we have to be protective of. [ 
Interruption 
] At the end of the day I agree that the penalties that have been imposed of $200000—“a fine not exceeding $200000; and … if the offence is a continuing one a further fine not exceeding $10000 …”—send a clear signal. It imposes responsibility on the importers but it still should not allow this Government to shirk its responsibility because ultimately the Government is our representative and has the duty to protect and safeguard our borders. If that does not happen—and we have already seen examples of what has occurred. I will give you just some examples in terms of what has happened. The latest independent report on the  
Pseudomonas syringae 
 pv.  
Actinidiae 
 disease shows it will cost our border— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Order! I am having difficulty following the member’s logic but this is quite specific. So I ask the member to contain himself to clauses 76 to 78. 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO 
: The point that I am making in terms of the ballast water clauses is that there are serious concerns about ensuring that the ballast water is not released in our shores. I will give you another example. In 1990 a ship by the name of the  
Naomi 
 travelled between the islands of Samoa and American Samoa. Because they did not ensure that there were safeguards and protection on what was carried on that cargo ship— 
RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 We have now moved on to Part 2 of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill and we are dealing with the marine environment and biosecurity. As my colleagues have mentioned we support this part and the provisions that are contained in it—in particular the fact that there are stern penalties imposed for breaches of conditions in terms of discharge of ballast water. 
 Having worked at one stage in the fishing industry I know that there is a lot of activity that goes on with those vessels and the vessels are not contained purely in the New Zealand 12-mile or exclusive economic zone. We do have a lot of ships that go up to the Pacific out of zone and that does not even mention the amount of merchant trade ships that go into our ports each and every day—the lifeblood of our main port towns—and the emerging and burgeoning tourism cruise ship industry. It is very positive actually that we do see so many more cruise ships coming in during the peak summer periods.  
It is commendable now that we have some biosecurity provisions in relation to ballast water and I would just like to say that perhaps Te Ururoa Flavell could have put in some conditions around consultation with tangata whenua given that we have large investments in the marine industry and there is a lot of the Maori asset base that is dependent on the marine environment. Perhaps he could have extended those consultation provisions he had in his Supplementary Order Paper which we did support but obviously it was not agreed to. But we do support that idea that there be greater consultation with tangata whenua particularly around things like the national pest management strategy regional strategies and the like. 
Progress reported. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 5.55 p.m.