Donald Rod: Third Readings 
Donald Rod: Third Readings 
[Volume:622;Page:17957] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This legislation is better than when it started but it is not as good as it should be. I thank in particular the Clerk of the House David McGee and the staff from the office of the Auditor-General for their strenuous efforts at the Finance and Expenditure Committee to improve the legislation. It was really because of their hard work that we have the legislation before us in its current form. I will not repeat what I said during the Committee stage debate about how particularly David McGee made a big difference to the original bill but I think it is worth reflecting on a couple of the very strong statements that he made in his early submission. It is unusual language for the Clerk of the House to describe clauses of a bill as “virus-like” and as a “Trojan horse” yet he did and I think he needed to use that sort of language in order to shake the select committee out of its lethargy. Up until then the officials had done a very good job of convincing us that everything was largely technical in nature and did not involve substantive changes to existing legislation. 
It is appalling parliamentary process for legislation of such size and that has an all-pervasive impact on the public sector to be forced through under urgency in this way. I think the Government will look back on that and regret the way it has treated the public sector in Parliament in relation to this legislation. It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Government to look back because one needs only to remember that within 19 days of the foreshore and seabed legislation being passed under urgency—thanks to New Zealand First supporting the Government—the first amendment to it was before the House. I remind United Future of its complicity in this urgency motion. It is because of the United Future members that we are doing the same to this legislation as we did to the foreshore and seabed legislation. 
Notwithstanding those criticisms the Greens will support the passage of this legislation although lingering doubts remain about its intent and application. We endeavoured to improve it by a series of amendments and I acknowledge the Labour Party and the Progressive party for their support for our amendments to allow Crown entities and tertiary education institutions to bank with their local building societies. That is a first but significant step towards countering the bank-preference clauses that discriminate against building societies in New Zealand. Our building society amendments will enable the community partnership that already exists between for example the Southern Institute of Technology and the Southland Building Society to extend to banking—something that I know Mr Peck the local MP is very pleased to see. I found it extraordinary that the National ACT New Zealand First and United Future parties opposed building societies. I could not believe it when they voted against that amendment. I do not know what they have against mutual organisations that have 150000 members and that simply want to be able to provide tertiary institutions and Crown entities with a safe secure place to deposit their money in the full knowledge that the profits will remain in New Zealand instead of being siphoned off by foreign-owned banks. 
Unfortunately the Labour Party and the Progressive party joined the other parties in opposing our other amendments. I am very sad about that because I think we put up some very constructive amendments. One of the most significant amendments that we put up was a change to the good-employer clause which would have required Crown entities to have a pay and employment equity programme. It is very disappointing that for all the fine rhetoric from the Government and despite the fact that it set up a task force in 2003 and now has a unit beavering away in the Department of Labour it wants to continue the talkfest rather than to implement actual legislative change in order to address pay equity. That is a shame because the Government should be taking a lead on pay equity. Instead there is a greater gender pay gap in the public sector than in the private sector. Members need only to look at the classic example of nurses whereby a nurse gets approximately $10000 less than a police officer when starting out but at the top of the scale gets $20000 less than a bobby on the beat. Pay equity is not just a gender issue of course; there are inequities along ethnic lines as well. For example the average hourly rate for a Pakeha man is $19.88. That compares with $13.79 for a Pacific woman and everyone else sits in between those two figures. That is an amendment that I would have thought a Labour-Progressive Government would support especially given the number of former trade union officials in those parties. 
Other amendments we put up would have created a belt and braces approach in relation to contingent liabilities derivative transactions securities investments and guarantees—something I would have thought that John Key would support given his background in the area. We also sought an addition to various reporting functions particularly the economic forecast. We wanted that to include the balance of overseas trade in goods and services reserves of natural resources our social well-being and our environmental quality. Again that amendment and others relating to triple bottom lines were rejected by the Government. That is not just unfortunate but is also hypocritical because the Government has had a lot to say in recent years—at the Rio conference in Johannesburg at the Redesigning Resources conferences in New Zealand and at its own press conferences where from the Prime Minister through to the Minister for the Environment it has waxed lyrical—about the benefits of triple bottom lines. But when it came to the opportunity to incorporate triple bottom lines in the Crown financial statements the Government refused to do so. I think that is an indictment of the Government and it is something we will continue to raise with the Government because it is long overdue that those changes take place. 
Although the Green Party supports this legislation we have lingering concerns about it. Some of those concerns were expressed by a group of submitters. I have already traversed the views of the universities. I am not sure that their concerns are entirely justified. Given that the universities are protected under the Education Act and given the amendments made to schedule 6B of the original bill I think that the universities have had some significant concessions. 
I finish my speech with a small tribute to June Pellow who was one of the critics of this legislation. She died in November as a result of cancer but right to the end she continued to contribute to the debate on this legislation. She said in her closing article on it: “Contrary to the statement made by the Minister of Finance in tabling the bill we conclude that overlooking the political implications is a risk especially if New Zealand is to ‘set the world benchmark for public management’ and that politicians need to be educated in accounting matters and their significance for the democratic process. A wolf (risks to taxpayer funds) appears to be entering the New Zealand Government using innocuous sheep’s clothing (technical accounting matters).” 
I hope that June Pellow’s conclusions are wrong but I acknowledge and honour the contributions she has made to the public policy debate in New Zealand. I hope that we will be vigilant in terms of the concerns she has raised.