Volume 621 Week 71 - Tuesday 19 October 2004 
Volume 621 Week 71 - Tuesday 19 October 2004 
[Volume:621;Page:16215] 
Tuesday 19 October 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Papua New Guinea—Minister for Foreign Affairs 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing honourable members that Sir RabbieNamaliu Minister for Foreign Affairs Papua New Guinea is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed. 
Sir RabbieNamaliu accompanied by the Hon Phil Goff entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair. 
Questions to Ministers 
Member for TamakiMakaurau—Confidence 
1. Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she have confidence in the Hon John Tamihere; if so why? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 A number of allegations have been made against Mr Tamihere. An inquiry has been set up to consider those allegations. I hope that the outcome will enable me to reaffirm my confidence in Mr Tamihere as a hard-working and conscientious Minister. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that she has been given a written guarantee by Mr Tamihere that he has done nothing that would embarrass her and can she tell the House why she is not embarrassed that Mr Tamihere has accepted a $200000 golden handshake after giving an unequivocal assurance to the public that he would not do so? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I cannot answer the first part. I am aware that Mr Tamihere certainly has given a verbal assurance to the Prime Minister who of course is in India at the present time. On the second issue the issue that was in play in 1998-99 was the extraordinary tendency of the National Government to keep paying people large sums of money to go away when they were no longer wanted. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Prime Minister recall these comments on radio on 29 July 1999 from Mr Tamihere on the question of a golden handshake: “Oh it’s never happened before so I want to make a number of points clear. As of last night there won’t be any severance pay. No there won’t be. I don’t mind. Well it hurts me and obviously if my bank manager is listening it’s going to hurt him.”? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have been reminded of those comments on a number of occasions in recent days. 
Dr Don Brash 
: Can the Prime Minister tell the House why she finds it acceptable for Mr Tamihere to mislead the country by stating he would not accept a golden handshake and then accept a payment of almost $200000 when she had earlier stated that Ms Dalziel was required to resign for misleading the public and can she tell the House the reason for her acceptance of two different standards of ministerial behaviour? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I will ignore the implication in the last part of that question which I am sure he is aware is clear to most members on this side of the House. In terms of the first part of the question I suggest the member waits for the outcome of the inquiry when the nature of the payment hopefully will be made clear. On this side of the House we prefer to see the evidence in full before arriving at judgment. 
Rodney Hide 
: Did the Prime Minister believe John Tamihere when he said he would not accept a golden handshake; if so does she believe him now? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: This question places me in difficulties because it is addressed to what the Prime Minister believes and she is in India. I am the Acting Prime Minister. [ 
Interruption 
] I believe the statement made by Mr Tamihere in 1999. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Did the member hear the Minister’s full reply? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Well that is— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I wonder whether the Minister could repeat the last part of the sentence. The member can raise a point of order when it is complete. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I was saying on my own behalf as Acting Prime Minister that yes I did believe Mr Tamihere’s comment made in 1999. We shall await the outcome of the inquiry to see the nature of the payment made. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. These questions are not asked of the Acting Prime Minister. Mr Speaker you have made it very clear when in the past we have questioned the ability of Ministers to answer that Ministers answer as if they were the Minister. Surely today Dr Cullen answers as if he were the Prime Minister. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: To be more precise for the purpose of question time I am the Prime Minister. I have the authority of Cabinet to be the Acting Prime Minister. Strictly speaking the question should therefore not be addressed to “she” but to “he”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is perfectly correct. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Prime Minister recall these comments made on radio on 29 July when Mr Tamihere said: “And as I have indicated to you this morning as of this morning it’s no longer an issue for whanau Waipareira or John Tamihere” alongside the letter he received dated 3 May 1999 from the secretary for that trust setting out the golden handshake he was about to receive; if so what did she as Prime Minister do with that information either then or later? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The information the member referred to has just been released so the Prime Minister did nothing with it in July 1999; and that payment was not received at that time. 
Dr Don Brash 
: If the Prime Minister does not believe that misleading the public failing to pay tax on $200000 of income providing an inaccurate return on electoral expenses failing to declare the gift of a motor vehicle and failing to declare the gift of a $2000 insurance premium are sufficient grounds for removing a ministerial warrant what more will Mr Tamihere have to do to justify the Prime Minister’s action? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: As I have said an inquiry is under way into these allegations. Depending on the outcome of the inquiry action will be taken as appropriate whereas the member who asked the question when one of his colleagues was convicted by a court left him on the front bench of the National Party. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Did the Prime Minister take any notice of the proceedings in  
Hansard 
 of 27 July 1999 when she was warned by New Zealand First of this and when the then Prime Minister Jenny Shipley said: “If it is as alleged and if the Waipareira Trust does not receive any income other than from Government-funded sources it may well be a significant issue. But I would not want to conclude that until I have knowledge as to whether the trust has sources of income other than Government contracts.”; if so what did the Prime Minister or for that matter the previous Prime Minister do with this very serious information? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am certainly not responsible for what the previous Prime Minister Jenny Shipley may have done with that information. All I can say is that the issue of the nature of the payment and the timing of that payment and who insisted on that payment being made is properly a matter for the inquiry; and I suggest members wait for the outcome. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek the leave of the House to table a document setting out seven golden handshakes six of which are smaller than John Tamihere’s payout headed “A decade of shame”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has had quite long enough to discuss what is in the document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Noting the Acting Prime Minister’s comments that the information about John Tamihere’s golden handshake came to light only in recent days I seek leave to table comments made on Friday by Mr Tamihere stating that information about the golden handshake was known in 2000 when he was investigated by the five organisations including the Prime Minister’s own department. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rodney Hide 
: I seek leave to table a statement by the Rt Hon Helen Clark on 5 February 1997 in which she said: “Aotearoa Television is a private television company sustained almost entirely by taxpayers’ money. The manner in which that company spends that money is a matter of great public interest and should be of great interest to the Government.” 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that statement. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a letter dated 3 May 1999 from the secretary for the Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust to John Tamihere setting out the circumstances of the payments that he was going to receive at that time. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Non-governmental Organisations—Funding 
2.  
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Is all Government funding that is allocated to non-governmental organisations including trusts conditional upon audited accounts being produced by the recipient; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Government agencies are expected to ensure accountability for public money and Government contracts are monitored for proof that public money is used properly. That information comes from a range of sources which is not limited to audited accounts. Payment can be withheld until information required under the terms of contracts is provided. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Does the Minister accept that until the capacity to monitor Government funding arrangements with non-governmental organisations is vastly improved then Pipi Foundation and Waipareira Trust - type scandals will become a recurring and painful nightmare and the people who are supposed to benefit from such public funds will continue to be ripped off? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do not accept that. I do not accept necessarily that that will always follow. I do accept the member’s underlying assertion that it is useful to revisit some of the issues surrounding what evidence is provided but I am sure he and I would both agree in the context of other legislation before a select committee that one must also be aware of not overloading voluntary organisations with compliance costs. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Is the Minister aware that the Auditor-General stated as far back as February 2003 that there are “real problems” in the capacity of agencies to monitor Government funding arrangements with the non-governmental organisation sector and that that would be treated by him as a high priority; if so why has that gaping hole in best-practice procedures not yet been plugged? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I thank the member for reminding me of that but I do repeat again that it is important not to overreact to particular circumstances and end up with an excessive range of compliance costs on voluntary organisations whereby they spend all their time meeting Government requirements for information as opposed to actually doing their work. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Would the Minister agree that the audit processes on organisations like the Waipareira Trust have been wanting especially since John Tamihere was able to say on Friday that the information about the golden handshake was known in 2000 when he was investigated by five organisations including the Prime Minister’s own department; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On the last point I think there is some confusion. An offer was made to Mr Tamihere in 1999. He did not accept that offer at that point. That has been made clear in recent times. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The comment from Mr Tamihere was that the golden handshake was known about in 2000 not 1999. It was known about at the time that the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was itself investigating some activities relating to Mr Tamihere and the Waipareira Trust. I think that is a very salient point that the Acting Prime Minister should not try to dodge. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The principal part of the question was about the auditing requirements. I would point out that even in the great United States of America massive corporates have had troubles with auditing in recent years not just small voluntary organisations. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Was the Prime Minister aware that in past times the Waipareira Trust has declared an unrealised profit on a development as being present income which is something that is totally illegal and bearing that in mind what are we to make of the inquiries that she instituted including a Serious Fraud Office inquiry and more particularly of its competence in doing the job it was asked to do? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No I was not aware of that first point. Matters relating to the trust were investigated very thoroughly in 2000. If one cares to reread those reports one sees they can scarcely be regarded as a whitewash given some of the criticisms that were made of the management of the trust. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Why when applicants are unable to access grants from the Lottery Grants Board unless they provide audited accounts and agree to provide detailed information on how grants are spent do non-governmental organisations continue to receive funds from the Government without those essential safeguards and when will such folly come to an end? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think the member raises a useful point which should be looked at. But again the purpose from the Government perspective is to make sure the money provided for a particular purpose is spent on that purpose. The other aspects of the accounts may not be relevant to the Government’s concerns. 
Gordon Copeland 
: I seek leave to table a series of documents: firstly my letter to the Controller and Auditor-General of 24 February raising an issue about accountability. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Gordon Copeland 
: Secondly the Controller and Auditor-General’s reply to me on 28 February 2003 stating that there are real problems in this area and that it is a high priority. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Gordon Copeland 
: And thirdly an extract from the annual plan of the Auditor-General for 2004-05 stating that this issue remains a matter of concern to him. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Member for TamakiMakaurau—Waipareira Trust 
3.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: What is the nature of the inquiry into allegations surrounding the Hon John Tamihere and the Waipareira Trust established yesterday by the Government and can she assure the House that all relevant matters will be fully inquired into? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 It is to be an independent inquiry by Mr Douglas White a respected Queen’s Counsel with expertise in tax. 
Opposition Member 
: It sounds like a whitewash. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I invite the member to accuse Douglas White of that outside this House; he may find himself a lot poorer as a consequence. If the Opposition member seriously thinks that Mr Douglas White is connected to this Government he should ask some of his friends about those matters. It is the intention that all relevant matters will be inquired into. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Prime Minister agree with the comments of Sir Geoffrey Palmer who stated: “I think it is also important to say that this is not a commission of inquiry. This is not a body that will hold public hearings. It does not have the power to compel evidence and to cross-examine people. It relies on the voluntary cooperation of the people about whom the inquiry is being launched.”; if she does how can the public be confident that Mr Tamihere will cooperate voluntarily when he has shown himself capable of saying one thing and doing the opposite in secret? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: On that particular matter I think it is important to remind ourselves that this inquiry is being carried out by a respected Queen’s Counsel that the two essential groups involved—that is Mr Tamihere and the trust—have both indicated very clearly that they will cooperate fully with the inquiry and that Mr Tamihere has every vested interest in cooperating fully in order to defend himself. I would of course like to refer to Mr Douglas White QC a number of matters relating to tax avoidance promotion by people like Mr Rodney Hide for example. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Would the Prime Minister expect the Inland Revenue Department to investigate a case of alleged non-payment of tax on a payment of the magnitude of that made by the Waipareira Trust to her Minister the Hon John Tamihere? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If the member is familiar with the Tax Administration Act he will know that as well as being the Acting Prime Minister I am also the Minister of Revenue. Ministers are in no position to direct the Inland Revenue Department about what inquiries are undertaken. It will therefore be a matter for the commissioner to monitor what is happening in this particular instance. In this instance the issue is: did Mr Tamihere have good reason to believe the tax was paid at source? I would suggest the member waits for the evidence before jumping to a conclusion. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Acting Prime Minister did not answer the question. The question was not whether the Minister of Finance would instruct the department. The issue was: did the Prime Minister expect the Inland Revenue Department to investigate an allegation of that magnitude? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That was the question that was asked. The Minister addressed it. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: How can the public or this House have any confidence in the inquiry when Douglas White QC has no statutory authority has no ability to subpoena witnesses documents or files has no ability to cross-examine witnesses and cannot look into any matter without the express permission of those being inquired into; and does that not lead us to assume it is a powerless toothless Clayton’s inquiry designed to whitewash the issue? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No. Of course I am sure that if the inquiry comes out arguing that the allegations are correct that will be warmly welcomed by the Opposition members who will suddenly decide that Mr Douglas White acted fully independently as I am sure he will. As I said both the trust and Mr Tamihere have promised full cooperation on these matters. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I ask the Minister if whether or not tax was paid on the golden handshake at source it is not a fact that Mr Tamihere would have been required to declare the income that he received because it would have affected his overall tax rate with respect to his primary source of income? Yes it is! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Absolutely not. I have excellent outside advice on that matter. Income incurred during the year 1999-2000 did not require a declaration to be made as long as the person who received the income had reason to believe that it was taxed at source. [ 
Interruption 
] There is the sound of glass houses cracking all over the place. There will be a vast number of members in this House who have not made a tax return for a number of years as a result of the law changes brought in in 1998 by Bill Birch. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If the tax on this golden handshake was paid at source without knowledge of the overall taxation of this one income earner would it not affect the taxation rate if it was not declared? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The income was incurred during the tax year 1999-2000. The top marginal tax rate was 33 percent on income above $38000. Therefore if there was reason to believe that tax was deducted at that marginal rate then no further tax liability would have been incurred. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Will the independent inquiry investigate the material concerning the six payments made by the trust when Mr Tamihere was the chief executive officer to five bogus companies matters concerning the vehicle made available to Mr Tamihere and aspects of his requirements to file accurate information on his ministerial interest return; and to whom will the inquiry report? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The first two matters are the ones of course that are of significant issue. My view is that the terms already cover those particular matters but if Mr White is uncertain whether that is the case—and I will make sure that the officials contact him about this—then the final terms of reference makes it possible for the Prime Minister to refer those matters off and that would certainly be done. The report of the inquiry comes back to the Prime Minister and it will certainly be made public. 
Papua New Guinea—Regional Security 
4.  
LUAMANUVAO WINNIE LABAN (Labour—Mana) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: Will the Foreign Minister consultations with Papua New Guinea today address threats to regional security; if so what are the priority areas for consideration? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 Yes. Discussions will encompass broad issues involving regional security including counter-terrorism measures transnational crime regional interventions dealing with the Bougainville peace process and the regional assistance mission to the Solomon Islands and other threats such as HIV/AIDS. 
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: What progress has been made in areas that particularly affect Papua New Guinea such as the Bougainville peace process and HIV/AIDS? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Very good progress has been made in Bougainville—in particular with regard to weapons destruction with over 90 percent of weapons now having been destroyed. The law and order situation there has also improved and New Zealand is providing support with five community police officers on Bougainville. Following final agreement on the Bougainville constitution provincial elections are expected to be held sometime after March next year. On HIV/AIDS estimates vary but the World Health Organization has estimated that between 1 to 2 percent of the population in Papua New Guinea could be HIV-positive and the threat of a serious epidemic is real and present. The Papua New Guinea Government is showing leadership in that area and is working with international organisations on preventive measures. New Zealand is providing support for that process. 
Keith Locke 
: Will the Minister be talking about the threat to regional security posed by Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua and will he be trying to enlist Papua New Guinea’s support for the UN’s review of the bogus 1969 Act of Free Choice by which West Papua was incorporated into Indonesia; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: West Papua has been part of Indonesia since 1969 albeit through a process that left many people around the world less than satisfied about its legitimacy. That is not a formal topic on the agenda but we will be encompassing a range of issues that deal with the wider region. Obviously Indonesia is a significant country in the region bordering Papua New Guinea. 
Meningococcal Disease—Vaccination 
5.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: When was she informed of the heightened concern among the New Zealand public regarding meningococcal disease and is she confident that the vaccine for meningococcal disease now being prescribed by the Ministry of Health is safe? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I became aware of the epidemic in the 1990s. The disease rates had doubled from 1991 to 1992 and again from 1994 to 1995. By that time it was obvious that the disease had reached epidemic proportions. Yes I am confident that the vaccine is safe. That confidence is based on the independent safety monitoring board’s report on the vaccine released on 15 October which found there were no issues of concern regarding the vaccine’s safety. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: On the question of safety of this vaccine is it not a fact that 80 percent of trial “victims” had a reaction to the vaccine and that no placebo tests were done—without which there is no credibility in any drug trial? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The clinical trials carried out on this test were up to international standards. There is no doubt about that. The reactions from the vaccine have all been predicted. No reactions that have been reported to the reaction centre are outside what was expected. 
Nanaia Mahuta 
: Has the Minister seen any reports claiming that the epidemic has peaked and that there is no longer any need for a vaccine; if so what is her response to that claim? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes I am aware and a number of people have claimed this but it is not a view I share. There were around 50 confirmed or suspected cases in 1990 before the epidemic began; today there are over 500. We would have to wonder at people who believe it has finished. At this stage I am certainly not convinced and neither are the people responsible for the roll-out of this vaccine. 
Judith Collins 
: Does she believe that the efforts of the Northland District Health Board to stop general practitioners displaying a vaccine poster because it had a slightly cropped picture of a woman’s head were correct; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It is not a matter of whether I think it is correct. There are— 
Judith Collins 
: Don’t you have an opinion? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Well if the member would like to wait for me to finish the answer before she starts screeching I will give it to her. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I never heard you say a thing. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I heard an interjection. I heard a reply—a response to the interjection. The response went a little far. If a person interjects then the Minister can reply to it. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I withdraw and apologise. It is not for me to decide which poster will be used. There are a number of posters that can be used and I do not mind which one they use. I am more interested in getting maximum coverage for the immunisation programme. However I have to agree with my colleague Dover Samuels who said: “There is not need to do a haka over the poster”. 
Metiria Turei 
: Why did the Minister say in July of this year that the meningococcal epidemic “has shown no signs of abating” when answers to written questions show that the number of meningococcal cases has been declining since 2001 and that as of week 38 of this year there has been a 73 percent decrease in the number of deaths compared to 2001? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member will be aware from the answers to that question—and she was also provided with this graph which shows it—that we peaked at the same amount in 1997 as we did in 2001. It dropped down and then spiked up again. To say that we are not going to continue that trend means that she knows a lot more than the experts. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree with the comments of the Ministry of Health Meningococcal Vaccine Strategy Director Dr Jane O’Hallahan that: “Amateur interpretation of complex scientific data is dangerous.” and that people in the public eye and media should not resort to emotive claims which could result in vulnerable children missing out on this much-needed vaccine? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Again on the question of this vaccine’s safety why is the ministry referring to the extensive trials conducted in Norway where the parent vaccine similar to MeNZB was trialled which was tested on 180000 adolescents yet never refers to the fact that the Norwegian Government decided against the use of this vaccine after research concluded that it was not effective enough to justify a national campaign; why did that happen? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Norway unfortunately had the experience of suffering meningococcal-B for 25 years. When the Norwegian Government trialled a vaccine on 180000 people with 360000 doses it was in the 19th year of that epidemic. A decision was taken by then based on the evidence they had that it did not stack up in terms of cost-benefit so they did not continue with it. If we have had it for 13 years on the basis of what happened in Norway we would need to have another 10 years of this epidemic with all of the consequences that come from it including 220 deaths to date and over 5400 New Zealanders affected. 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave of the House to table an email from the Northland District Health Board instructing general practitioners not to display the poster because it might be considered “culturally unsafe”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I seek leave to table a press release from Mr Heatley wanting to have the vaccine in Northland as fast as possible. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House 
Judith Collins 
: I seek leave to table a copy of the so-called culturally unsafe poster. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table the poster. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a 7 October 2004 press statement from the UK in respect of Chiron’s manufacturing site licence suspension in the UK. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House 
Member for TamakiMakaurau—Taxation 
6.  
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Is it Government policy to require all taxpayers to declare all income to the Inland Revenue Department and has she or her deputy asked the Hon John Tamihere whether he declared his reported “golden handshake” from the Waipareira Trust? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 No because the law changed in 1998 in that respect. As to the latter part of the question I invite the member to look at the press statement from the Waipareira Trust today about the nature of the payment made. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is the Prime Minister telling the House that in the year in which John Tamihere received the golden handshake he filed no tax return? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Prime Minister has no knowledge— 
Rodney Hide 
: Ah! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: If the member would like to make it that the Minister of Revenue can look at all of the tax returns of members of Parliament I suggest he asks a question along those lines. I would be quite interested to do that in some cases. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is the one and only warning today. 
Rodney Hide 
: The Acting Prime Minister never addressed the question. If John Tamihere had no obligation to declare his income then clearly he must have filed no tax return. My question was straightforward and I think it should be addressed. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The Prime Minister is not responsible for any member of Parliament filing a tax return. The person is responsible for following the law. The law is actually quite clear and not what Mr Hide has been trying to pretend it is on radio over the last few days. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Did the Prime Minister read Mr Tamihere’s recent autobiography in which on page 3 he states that at university he “concentrated on commerce company and tax law”; and does she expect the House and the New Zealand public to believe that Mr Tamihere a legally trained fellow with chief executive officer experience did not have the knowledge to know that tax should have been paid on his golden handshake? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Firstly the issue around the nature of the payment is of course one for the inquiry. Secondly the issue is not— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Oh fudge it! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Since that member got convicted he seems to have got even chirpier than he used to be. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister will withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It needs to be a matter of public record that I was never convicted. In fact if I had been your ruling would be quite different. It was a finding which is not a criminal matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I accept the member’s word on this occasion as I must and I will. Could the member repeat his supplementary question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Did the Prime Minister read Mr Tamihere’s recent autobiography in which he states that at university he concentrated on commerce company law and tax law and does she expect the House and the New Zealand public to believe that Mr Tamihere with that background and his experience as a chief executive officer did not know that he had to pay tax on his golden handshake? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: What I would expect Mr Tamihere to know is that firstly if income is incurred during a tax year in which there was no other income and he had good reason to believe that tax was deducted at source he had no reason under law to make a tax declaration. [ 
Interruption 
] That is the law as passed by this Parliament and as proposed by Mr Birch the outgoing National Party Minister. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well is this a point of order? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes it is a point of order. These are important questions and I think the Acting Prime Minister should treat them as serious questions and answer them that way. Everyone in this House knows that John Tamihere received income as a member of Parliament in the year that he received the golden handshake. It is a simple question for the Acting Prime Minister to answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The second time the Minister answered the question he most certainly addressed it and addressed it seriously. 
Rodney Hide 
: Is the Prime Minister therefore saying that in Mr Tamihere’s mind the $195000 was net of tax making this secret golden handshake which the public had been told Mr Tamihere would never take a gross amount of $320000 at the 39c rate meaning that Mr Tamihere’s secret golden handshake from the Waipareira Trust would be No. 2 in Helen Clark’s “decade of shame” that she campaigned on against the National Party? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think the Opposition has to make up its mind whether these facts were known in 2000 and whether the deal was a secret one. But let us at least get some consistency in the attack coming through in this respect. No the member is wrong again on the tax law. If the income was derived during 1999-2000 the top tax rate was 33c and the member is grossing up by the wrong amount. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Does that mean that the Acting Prime Minister is saying that the payout was received in 1999-2000? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no what is the point of order? 
Rodney Hide 
: Well it makes a difference in this way. If we are going to have this character stand up attack Nick Smith for his convictions and try to correct us he should have to justify what he is saying. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well the Minister gave an answer and he has to stand by it in this House and he does. There are ways of dealing with that if members are not satisfied. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Acting Prime Minister explain to the House if the payment was received in the year 2001 is it taxed according to the rules in 2001 or is it taxed according to the rules when the payment was first mooted; if that is the case can others forward-project their income to avoid higher tax rates? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am sorry to disappoint the member showing his natural Tory instincts but no. This is a matter in relation to when the income is derived not when the income is received. If members are going to ask technical tax questions they had better bone up on the tax law first. 
Waipareira Trust—Te PuniKokiri 
7.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Maori Affairs 
: What is the total amount of funding made available by Te PuniKokiri to Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust since 1 January 1998 and what was the purpose of this funding? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Minister of Maori Affairs) 
: 
 I am advised that the total amount of funding paid to Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust since 1 January 1998 is $1040571. The funding has been provided for a range of purposes. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister think that the Waipareira Trust putting a couple of hundred thousand dollars into Mr Tamihere’s back pocket is an acceptable way to distribute some of the millions of dollars it has received from that Government agency? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Most certainly not. 
Darren Hughes 
: Does the Minister believe that the Waipareira Trust has provided value in respect of the funding that has been provided to it by Te PuniKokiri? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Yes. For example in relation to the direct resourcing project the trust continues to develop and test an integrated whanau managed-care pilot. I am advised by officials that the strategy is proving very successful and is of considerable benefit to families in high need in west Auckland. 
Stephen Franks 
: Does the Minister find it acceptable for a Government-funded Maori trust to finance a Labour political campaign; if so why? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: No. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What did he have in mind when he stated: “There’s always those possibilities.” in response to a question asking whether it was possible that John Tamihere had done some things that “are not so honest”? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Can the member repeat the question. I cannot quite understand it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please repeat the question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Well actually we could not understand his response—that is why we asked the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member was asked to repeat the question. That is not unreasonable. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What did the Minister have in mind when he stated in a recent interview “There’s always those possibilities.” which was his response to a question asking whether it was possible that John Tamihere had done some things that are not so honest? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: I need to see the whole script and recall what that member is trying to drop in; it is just part of an interview apparently. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a transcript of a  
Nine to Noon 
 interview between the interviewer and Parekura Horomia— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that interview. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Hang on! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that interview. Is there any objection? 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Then I will withdraw the seeking of leave—it could have been for any old interview. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member indicated the actual programme. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Yes—but what day? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Carry on briefly—the date. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: It was conducted between the Radio New Zealand  
Nine to Noon 
 host and Mr Parekura Horomia and in it he was asked: “Is it possible that John Tamihere has done some things that are not so honest?” and he responded by saying: “There’s always those possibilities.” The question was what did he have in mind. 
Document not tabled. 
Rodney Hide 
: With the Waipareira Trust helping those families in high need in west Auckland does that include Mr John Tamihere and his family when he is out campaigning for the Labour Party because “someone has to pay for his mortgage and feed his kids”; and when did this Minister first learn that the Waipareira Trust had paid for Mr John Tamihere’s election campaign? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: No. I think it is despicable that that member should wax lyrical on members who are under duress and bring into account in this House their family members. It is disgraceful. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think Mr Hide whether or not it is accidental is asking a very very sound question and a very reasonable one. That response from the Minister cannot surely be acceptable. There was no attempt to attack anyone’s family at all. He is being asked as Minister whether he is happy as the head of a Government department with money going from the taxpayer towards paying for someone’s campaign. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The first word the Minister said was “No.” I thought that addressed the question. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: That is my point. He said “No.” and if he had left it at that it would have been fine but then he launched into a tirade against Mr Hide for even asking the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well that part of the tirade was irrelevant and in fact it was probably out of order. But as far as the question is concerned it was addressed and a direct answer was given. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There was also a second part of my question which I am sure the House is interested to know the answer to and it was when did Mr Parekura Horomia first learn that the Waipareira Trust was funding John Tamihere’s campaign when he was campaigning on behalf of the Labour Party in 1999. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member asked a series of questions. The member addressed one of them and that is quite satisfactory. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. So you are saying to this House that it is acceptable that the Minister answered “No.” and that as the Minister because of embarrassment did not answer the second limb of the question the Opposition has to burn another question asking it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I am not saying that at all. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: That member is making an assumption. Those matters are currently the subject of a ministerial inquiry the terms of reference of which were announced yesterday. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Hide’s question was when did the Minister learn and is he happy with what he learnt. It is that simple. He has answered one part of it but he will not answer the first part. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As far as I am concerned the Minister has now expanded on his answer. He has given two answers to that particular question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Do we assume then if you accept that answer that the Minister is saying he will wait for the inquiry to tell him when he first knew about the election expenses being paid by the Waipareira Trust? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. It is part of debate. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You might recall that during the Watergate inquiry there was a headline “What didn’t the President know and when did he know it?”. This is identical here. The Minister has been asked when did he know and first learn about this. At no part have I heard any date or an answer that states: “Well I didn’t know until later or yesterday or last month.” That would be acceptable but the Minister has said nothing at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If that had been the question then I would have expected the Minister to address it. The Minister answered the first part of the question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister accept full responsibility for Mr Tamihere’s actions as Associate Minister of Maori Affairs; if not why not? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: Within his portfolio yes. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Rodney Hide 
: There they go. Someone yells out but it does not seem to matter to you Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please sit down. I will discipline the House not the member. I first heard an interjection from this side of the House then heard one from that side of the House. I decided to ignore both. That is my prerogative. Please ask the question. 
Rodney Hide 
: When did the Minister first learn that the Waipareira Trust had paid for John Tamihere to campaign for the Labour Party and pay for his election expenses? 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA 
: The member is assuming that it paid for those. It is yet to be proved. On the other matter I learnt as much as he did at about the same time as a whole lot of other people in this House. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is one piece of progress here and it is this: clearly Parekura Horomia does not accept John Tamihere’s word either. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. I am getting tired of the member raising points of order that are not points of order. That most certainly was not one. 
Sustainable Farming Fund—Reports 
8.  
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
 to the  
Minister of Agriculture 
: What reports if any has he received on the success of the Sustainable Farming Fund? 
Hon JIM SUTTON (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 I have received an assessment of the benefits arising from the Sustainable Farming Fund projects undertaken by Business and Economic Research Ltd. It has found the actual and potential benefits to be between $300 million and $500 million per annum from a sample of projects. This makes the Government’s investment of about $10 million a year more than worthwhile. 
David Parker 
: How likely is it that those potential benefits will be achieved? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: Business and Economic Research Ltd assesses the likelihood of that as high because of the high regard in which the fund is held and the way it works—that is by requiring significant community and stakeholder involvement which is increasing producer and community capability and cohesion. The fund was established because of a Labour Party election promise and demonstrates the Government’s commitment to fostering growth and opportunities in our rural communities. 
Ian Ewen-Street 
: Is the Sustainable Farming Fund used to encourage the fencing and planting of the riparian margins of streams passing through farmland in order to decrease the impact of effluent and fertiliser runoff on water quality; if not why not? 
Hon JIM SUTTON 
: I cannot say—because over 300 projects have been funded—whether there have been projects on that specific topic but I think it quite likely that there have been. Certainly applications covering all such areas could be considered. 
Question No. 7 to Minister 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table the Waipareira Trust’s expenditure on Mr John Tamihere’s election campaign including payment for a speeding ticket he got when racing to a meeting. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: I seek the leave of the House to table Mr John Tamihere’s electoral return which makes no mention of the expenditures that the Waipareira Trust made on his behalf. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that return. Is there any objection? There is. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You are probably going to rule that this is not a strict point of order but it is certainly a matter of keeping order in the House inasmuch as Parliament should be a place where integrity is on display. The Acting Prime Minister has been out in recent days saying to people: “If you’ve got allegations about John Tamihere if you’ve got information about John Tamihere then lay it on the table. Give it to those who are investigating this matter.” Yet Rodney Hide has just tried to lay information on the Table—not some trumped up bit of stuff he has made up but actual information relevant to this investigation—and Mr Mallard wants to say that the House cannot see it. Is that open government? Is that an honest position for the Acting Prime Minister to be taking? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 It would be very helpful if it were simply pointed out that the material being sought to be tabled is Mr Tamihere’s election return. That is already available in the public arena and this side of the House refuses leave automatically for matters that are already in the public arena. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No member is obliged to agree to a document being tabled and Mr Brownlee should know that. [ 
Interruption 
] That interjection is out of order. The member is lucky; I am generous having heard his good contribution last evening! 
Question No. 9 to Minister 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is a point of order. It is not a speech but it will take a little bit of your time and I ask your indulgence to hear me out before I ask my question. It relates to Standing Order 366. On 14 October I wrote to you seeking your assistance and advice regarding the failure of the Minister of Police to answer five specific written questions on time in accordance with Standing Order 366. I now seek further assistance from you in respect of parliamentary question No. 13998 which was referred to in that letter which was lodged on 21 September and answered on 6 October. That question related to current response times to 111 calls. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well— 
RON MARK 
: I asked your indulgence Mr Speaker. In the Minister’s answer which was late he told me that the information could be found in the yet-to-be-released 2004 annual report—which as it turned out was not made available until 14 October. There are two points of concern: firstly that report does not give the current response times; it gives last year’s. Secondly I would like your ruling on the practice of deferring answers in such a manner. This sets a precedent whereby I as a future Minister might be able to tell that member in answer to a parliamentary question that the answer he seeks will be given in a report yet to be released in 11 months’ time. I am seeking your assistance to ensure that Ministers do not show such cavalier disregard for the procedures of this House and that Opposition members are protected from such delaying tactics. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A part of that was a point of order and I will certainly have a look at that matter and if necessary come back to the member. Members can criticise Minister’s practice in debate. There is nothing wrong with that. But I will have a look at the matter that the member has asked me to have a look at. 
Tabling of Documents—Fay Richwhite 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 In the interests of fairness and disclosure of documents I seek leave to table three press statements: one from the Labour Party one from the New Zealand National Party and one from the ACT party attacking Fay Richwhite’s dealings with Tranz Rail. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those three documents. Is there any objection? There is. 
Police Commissioner—Confidence 
9.  
RON MARK (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Does he have confidence in the police commissioner; if so why? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 Yes because under this Commissioner of Police New Zealand’s crime rate is the lowest since 1983 and high resolution rates have been achieved. 
Ron Mark 
: Does the basis for the Minister’s confidence in the commissioner lie also in the fact that in the last fiscal year only 76 percent of 111 calls were answered within the stipulated 10 seconds and only 71 percent of priority one calls were attended within the 10-minute deadline; does that justify the $70000 pay hike the commissioner received? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: There were 495989 111 calls nationally and of course there were also other calls. The police have been improving their performance. They are not satisfied with it as yet nor am I. 
Tariana Turia 
: Under whose instruction did the Commissioner of Police approach Dr Pita Sharples who had served the New Zealand Police for 32 years as a cultural adviser and ask him to stand down from that position; and what was the reason? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is wide of the question. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I do not have the details of the reason but I suspect that it was because of his political role. 
Ron Mark 
: What confidence can the public have in a commissioner who allows traffic patrols to silently sit idle not responding to priority one calls; and is that not one reason why one-third of all people who have had contact with the New Zealand Police said they are not satisfied with the service as reported in the Minister’s own report? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The New Zealand Police have been improving dramatically under this Government. The results are better. When one has a look at where crime was one sees that it is now down to the same rate as it was in 1983. That member should be congratulating the New Zealand Police. 
Tariana Turia 
: How long has it been Government policy that people having political involvement are asked to stand down from their positions more than a year out from an election? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I do not have that information but I think the New Zealand Police acted correctly. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek some guidance from you. The Minister said that the New Zealand Police’s performance has improved. These two pages show they have not met last year’s targets. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Ron Mark 
: The point of order is that he is misleading the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. That is a matter the member can raise with me by letter if he wishes. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table pages 44 and 45 which completely contradict everything the Minister just said. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those pages. Is there any objection? There is. 
Accident Compensation Corporation—Family Violence 
10.  
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for ACC 
: Does she stand by her statement in the House on 13 October 2004 that Mr Steve Longford “appealed to ACC because of his outstanding work in the area of family violence injury prevention”; if so why? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 Yes. I am advised that one of Mr Longford’s areas of expertise is in assisting practitioners to identify and investigate child safety issues through the use of behavioural intelligence. 
Sue Bradford 
: Is the Minister aware that Mr Longford’s profile on both the  
Bold Perspectives Shared Objectives 
 website of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and the website of Mr Longford’s own company makes no mention of his expertise in family violence prevention; if so what information does the ACC have that verifies his expertise in that area? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: That information was drawn to my attention by the member’s contribution in the general debate last week. Until then I had not checked Mr Longford’s personal website. One of the ways I can confirm his expertise or relieve the member’s anxiety is by assuring her of the validity of the advice that I received and reported to the House last week and also by advising the House that Mr Longford has been engaged by Government agencies in Australia in the area of child safety. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What is the Minister’s response to yesterday’s editorial in the  
Dominion Post  
on the matter? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I agree with the editorial’s statement that detecting fraud is part of the ACC’s job and I strongly support that role. What the editor failed to reflect in the editorial is that I was advised and reported to the House that fraud detection is not the purpose of Mr Longford’s visit. This does not undermine my commitment to the detection and prevention of fraud. 
Sue Bradford 
: Is the Minister aware that Mr Longford’s speech at the Australian Rehabilitation Providers Association conference in March this year was entitled “Detecting deception through behavioural intelligence” and can she assure the House that that will not be the primary focus of his speech to the Bold Perspectives Shared Objectives conference? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes and yes. 
Sue Bradford 
: How does it help accident victims’ rehabilitation from injury if they are living in fear that their case managers are more concerned to profile them as potential criminals or malingerers than to support them in their rehabilitation? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: They may do well to reflect on the changes in the legislation which ensure that rehabilitation is legislatively defined and does not meet the outcomes that member is alluding to. 
Sue Bradford 
: Does the ACC have any commercial relationship with Mr Steve Longford or with any company with which he is associated other than arrangements around the conference that is coming up; if so what is that relationship? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I am advised that the ACC does not have any commercial arrangement with Mr Longford. The only engagement it has with him is the invitation to the conference as a speaker next year. 
Schools—Information Technology 
11.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What steps is he taking to improve the use of information communications technology in schools? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 From the middle of next year every school in New Zealand will have access to high-speed broadband Internet through Project Probe. With the final Probe contract signed the Government has invested $48.3 million in the project. This investment will boost education and economic development across New Zealand and is an important part of our strategy to grow a more innovative economy. 
Lynne Pillay 
: How will he ensure that teachers are given the opportunity to improve their information and communications technology skills? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Through a variety of methods. Next year we will fund 10 E-Learning fellows. The teachers will be released from their teaching duties for a year to undertake research and to explore new and innovative ways of meeting students’ needs. We are also investing almost $10 million per year in information and communications technology professional development cluster programmes and around 21500 laptops have been distributed to teachers and principals through the laptop for teachers scheme. I should say that all those initiatives are in the group that the National Party has said it would scrap. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Has the Minister asked his colleague the Minister for Information Technology to brief him on the potential benefits of non-proprietary software in terms of saving for his ministry and accessibility for schoolchildren if New Zealand were to follow the lead of a number of other countries and move schools over to Linux operating systems; if not will he do so in the future? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think I have briefed that member on that issue on a number of occasions. I am well aware of it. 
Paul Adams 
: Is reducing the cost of information and communications technology not the biggest step to improve the use of information and communications technology in schools; if so what is his response to the letter he received on Friday from Mr John Needham board chair and Mr John Inger principal of Morrinsville College stating that: “The reality is that we simply cannot afford to replace or lease existing computers let alone add more to our networks without moving further into debt.” 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think that it is fair to say that I have not got to that letter yet but probably my response will be that they are substantially better off under this Government by about 10 percent real operations grant funding per student. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know that I should have raised it immediately that the Minister answered but I was just digesting his answer. I ask for clarification of his answer because I was not clear whether he was saying that he had briefed me which I do not think he has done or whether he has briefed the Minister for Information Technology. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No the member that the member referred to. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Do any of the programs supplied to schools have spellcheckers and how are they to be used? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes they do. I know that at least one of the programs does. They are relatively easy to use. I would recommend them to members of the House especially the Opposition education spokesperson who sent out a press statement last week with not one but two spelling mistakes in it—that is the party of high education standards. 
Paul Adams 
: Does the Minister agree that an important step to improve the use of information and communications technology in schools is to improve the safety of information and communications technology; if so when will he support the installation of firewalls on school computers especially in light of a recent school computer audit that revealed that one-quarter of all such computers contained inappropriate material? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do not want to accept by implication the allegations of fact in the member’s question but the question of Internet safety is something that this Government is dealing with as a matter of priority as far as schools are concerned. We have put extensive funding into the Internet safety group which is regarded as a world leader in this area and I think that some of the people who are chipping should not throw stones too far. 
Local Government—Election Results 
12.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister of Local Government 
: What advice has he received about when seven councils and 18 district health boards will get results for the local body elections that took place 10 days ago? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 The advice I have received is that the software problem seems to have been addressed and that KPMG and the office of the Auditor-General are now auditing the processes. Electoral officers will subsequently declare the final results. The first of those results is expected very shortly. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does the Minister not believe that the hundreds of candidates affected and the millions of people who are waiting to know the results deserve better from the Minister of Local Government than a statement that the results may be out soon? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Like all New Zealanders I am keen to see the results come out. But as with the results in Australia assessing the results is a complicated process. The Australians are still waiting for their results as well. 
Dave Hereora 
: How many local authorities have completed their elections? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Seventy-nine of the 86 local authorities have declared or are about to declare their final results. The 79 local authorities include three that have successfully used single transferable voting (STV). 
Jim Peters 
: Were the recent district health board elections which were required to use the STV option by Government direction meant to be a local democratic process; if so why were so many rural districts almost completely disenfranchised and why have over 100000 New Zealanders had their votes disallowed and binned? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The Government believed and still believes that STV will produce representation in district health boards that is comprehensive for the whole community. 
Larry Baldock 
: When those results do finally come out will the Minister conduct an inquiry to see whether the STV system has delivered some of the objectives that were promised of it; if not will he then consider scrapping that crazy system for future elections? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I will wait with keen interest the report of the Justice and Electoral Committee which will look at those matters. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What is the reason for the further delay when David Allen chief executive officer of New Zealand Post said that the stuff-up by Datamail was corrected last Wednesday; is it that Datamail has further failed or is there now a problem with Electionz.com? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: As I said in my primary answer Datamail has assured me that it has corrected the electronic problem. There is now a process whereby the Auditor-General’s office is checking the integrity of the process. It is very important that all people have confidence that the counting of this vote is an accurate one. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What responsibility does the Minister bear for the worst-ever local body election in New Zealand’s history when this is the first election run under the new Local Electoral Act which was trumpeted by Labour and passed in 2001? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I am confident that we will learn from the mistakes that have been made this time and ensure that a better process takes place next time. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave of the House to table the statement by New Zealand Post that the results would have been available last weekend. 
Document not tabled. 
Points of Order 
Urgent Debates—Local Government Elections 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague Jim Peters put in a letter twice last week on this very issue. I am seeking your guidance. If he puts in a letter tomorrow is there any chance of a debate—noting the Minister’s answers in question time? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. 
Urgent Debates 
Member for TamakiMakaurau—Standing Down as Minister 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received two letters from Rodney Hide seeking debates under Standing Order 373. The first relates to the standing down of the Hon John Tamihere as a Minister. The second relates to the inquiry into allegations surrounding Mr Tamihere and the Waipareira Trust. Both letters relate to particular matters of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility and I would have been inclined to accept either one. In these circumstances the application first received by me is the one that will take priority. However as the two cases are interrelated members will be able to refer to the inquiry in debating the standing down of the Minister. I therefore accept the application relating to the standing down of the Hon John Tamihere. I call on the member to move the appropriate motion. 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. Helen Clark Prime Minister of New Zealand—remember the promise; see the result. This is what Helen Clark said in 1999: “The Labour Government will set new standards”. That is what Helen Clark promised—she promised new standards and we have seen new standards. Then she said that the Labour Government would set new standards “both in terms of behaviour and performance”. It has. We have seen a whole new level of performance and behaviour from this Government. Then the Prime Minister Helen Clark went on to say “so that we govern for the people and are accountable to them.” That was the promise. Look at the result. 
Here is another Helen Clark promise from  
Hansard 
 of 8 February 2000 in her address as Prime Minister:“This Government wants to abandon the culture of golden handshakes negotiated in secrecy and”—members will love this one—“to abandon the culture of paying people for doing nothing.” That was the promise. Yet John Tamihere was paid $195000 by the Waipareira Trust which it is said was net—after tax. John Tamihere thought that the Waipareira Trust was paying the tax. So at the 39c tax rate that would make the gross amount of that golden handshake $320000. Members should remember that this is not a large Government department or some big corporate; this is a little trust which the Labour Party pretends to represent that helps the poor and downtrodden of west Auckland. 
Michael Cullen says that it might have been paid before he put up the tax rate in which case the tax rate was 33c. That would make the payment $291000 gross. Is that OK? Is that what Helen Clark is now saying? Because that is what she is telling the New Zealand people. I want to remind the New Zealand people of something else that Helen Clark put out: “A decade of shame—today’s reason why National must go.” 
Here are the golden handshakes: Bryan Mogridge $200000; Michael Wall $140000; Douglas Blackmur from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority $160000; Roger Estall $68000—that was terrible; Jean Martin $30000 to $50000—how bad was that? Then there was Ian Collinson from Solid Energy $200000. Now there is another name to add to the list—John Tamihere with a golden handshake of $320000 from a trust. 
But it gets worse for Helen Clark. She thinks it is OK to have a Minister who campaigned in 1999 on saying that he would not take this golden handshake. I warmed to the guy; the people of New Zealand warmed to this guy. Here was a politician who would set new standards along with Helen Clark. He was turning down a golden handshake and the people flocked to the Labour Party because it was a party of standards. We had heard from Helen Clark that there would be no more golden handshakes. We had heard it from John Tamihere who said he would not take one even if it was offered to him. He would turn it down as he was a man of great integrity. What do we now know happened? John Tamihere went around the back and started hassling for his golden handshake. 
It gets worse for Helen Clark. She said that it was OK. That is not contested. None of that is contested. Everyone knows that John Tamihere got the golden handshake. They have accepted that. They are only worried about whether he thought the tax had been paid and whether the amount he received was a net amount. But they all know that he had said he would not take it. So it is OK now in this Government to say one thing and do another. 
But it gets worse. We heard from Minister Parekura Horomia. He said that the Waipareira Trust should not have been spending money on John Tamihere while he campaigned for office. We heard from that Minister who said that he did not think the trust should have been paying for John Tamihere’s election expenses on behalf of the Labour Party. Well that Minister is exactly right about what happened there because as John Tamihere asked if the Waipareira Trust was not paying for him who would be paying his mortgage? Who would be feeding his kids? 
What does Helen Clark say about all that? What does the Acting Prime Minister Michael Cullen say about all that? They say that it is OK. They will keep him on the pay and perks of a Minister but remove all his responsibilities. They told him to go and hide in Henderson for a while and to bury his head—because Labour is a Government that says one thing and does another. Helen Clark said that this Government was going to close the gaps. That is why it poured money into things like the Waipareira Trust. Well—close the gaps! She has opened the gaps: John Tamihere got a $320000 golden handshake. But wait there is more. They gave him a car—oh it is tough being a Labour MP—and because he was struggling paid for the insurance on his car. When we look at that Labour Party we might say “Surely not!” because John Tamihere would fill all that out in his ministerial return—would he not? Prime Minister Helen Clark would demand that would she not? 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: It is in the  
Cabinet Manual 
. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: But if we pick up the  
Cabinet Manual 
 for that year what does it have for John Tamihere? A nil return. He put in nothing. So what is this Government saying to the people of New Zealand? It is saying that that is OK. And we learn that when it came to paying tax Mr John Tamihere was confused. He thought that the $195000 was a net amount. He must have been confused also when he filled out his election return. He did not realise that as a taxpayer it is absolutely the taxpayer’s responsibility to ensure that he or she pays income tax. 
So Helen Clark is saying that when small-business people in New Zealand get paid they should just say: “Oh I thought that that was the net amount.” It worked for John Tamihere; he did not even lose his job over it. We cannot say that John Tamihere should not understand these things because he is a lawyer for goodness’ sake! He was the chief executive officer of an organisation receiving $8 million a year and he is the Minister for Small Business for Helen Clark. 
I have no faith in Helen Clark’s inquiry because in her own words she has already done several inquiries. Mike Williams the president of the Labour Party said that this was old ground and that it had all been done over before—as though the Labour Party knew all this. Well here is something about Helen Clark. Mr Winston Peters asked her whether Mr Tamihere had disclosed to her that he had pleaded guilty to two charges of forgery and two charges of uttering and he also asked when she learnt of that information. Here is the answer. On 26 July 2000 Helen Clark told Parliament: “Approximately 5 years ago Mr Tamihere’s counsel at Mr Tamihere’s request briefed me fully on the general matters the member is alluding to and I saw the full statement of defence.” 
Well I am pleased to report—happily—that I have the full statement of defence. I also have the captioned summary for the charge that the police laid against John Tamihere. It is headed: “Forgery as per attached information x 2—penalty 10 years’ imprisonment; uttering forged documents x 2—penalty 10 years’ imprisonment—heard in the Auckland District Court on 13 September 1994.” It states: “Prior to August 1989 the defendant Mr John Tamihere on behalf of the trustees applied to the Housing Corporation for a loan and grants to a total of $160000 to enable three retirement units to be built on a reservation on part of the land farmed by the Mataroa Incorporation.” I think that Mr Speaker was Minister of Housing at the time having just taken over from Helen Clark. It then goes on to state that on 21 May 1990 the documents—namely the licence to occupy and the deed of agreement acknowledgment of debt—were forwarded to the Housing Corporation. The documents purported at that time to have been signed by the trustees as required. It was subsequently established that at least two of the signatures on each of the two documents had been forged. The signatures concerned are those of Mr Tony Paparangi and Mr Ernest Hauraki. The signatures were forged by the defendant who also signed the documents as having witnessed the signatures. At the time of the signing the defendant had no lawful authority to sign on their behalf. 
He signed two documents to obtain $160000. He pleaded guilty to that and the Prime Minister said she knew all about it in 1995 because she said she had the full statement of defence in her hand. But then again Prime Minister Helen Clark is hardly one who can make too much of a song and dance about forging documents is she. 
So now we know the standard of this Government: it is OK to forge documents and become a Cabinet Minister; it is OK to say one thing to the public of New Zealand—“I will not accept a golden handshake.”—it is OK to take money from the Waipareira Trust and use it to campaign for the Labour Party; and it is OK to say that one was confused about one’s tax and never paid it. What will Helen Clark do? She will say to go and hide out in Henderson for a while but keep the parliamentary pay keep the ministerial pay and keep the perks. That is the standard of Helen Clark in this Government. I say that we on this side of the House have no faith in any Government inquiry. 
Ron Mark 
: Tuku Morgan. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: The member is calling out about Tuku Morgan. Compared to this Tuku went shopping at The Warehouse. That is what this can be compared to. Tuku Morgan was stingy compared to John Tamihere’s having to cover his mortgage and feed his kids. Tuku Morgan was a shopper at The Warehouse—and did we not hear Helen Clark complain about that! All the accounts of Aotearoa Television had to be made public. 
 Well I say this: Tuku paid his tax; John Tamihere did not. I say to Helen Clark that this is her responsibility. It is the standard that she has set in Government. I do not have faith in any inquiry that is not totally independent of Helen Clark and why do I say that? Because as the Prime Minister said: “There have been many inquiries under me as Prime Minister and they found nothing.” I say that if we do not go looking we will not find it. I suggest to the Government that it sack John Tamihere today and send a very strong signal about the standard for any Government of this country. 
My second point is that the Government should instruct for a judicial inquiry into this matter because to date the inquiries that Helen Clark has set up have totally failed in their undertakings. Helen Clark should send a simple signal. She is the one who campaigned for new standards. Are they new standards below anything we have ever seen in the history of New Zealand or are they standards of some note? When one of her Ministers promises the electorate: “I would not take that money” and wins votes accordingly that is held to account. Every time a Minister stands up and answers a question in this House or tells the media something are we to assume that that is the truth or is it an answer like the one John Tamihere gave? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 As the member rightly said: “If you don’t go looking you won’t find anything.” and I think that one or two of my colleagues might be starting to take that advice just a bit seriously about one or two other people in the House. There might be some interesting issues around a few million shares that somebody happened to have only a short time after leaving Parliament having been here for many years. 
I do not anticipate taking my full 15 minutes today but I do want to say that if that was the best that counsel for the prosecution can do acting on behalf of the ACT party in cohorts with the Maori Party then I do not think John Tamihere has an awful lot to be afraid of arising out of this particular affair. That was one of the weakest attacks I have ever seen in these kinds of circumstances. Even Dr Brash could have done better than that and that is about as low as one can go in that regard. He rested almost his entire case apart from dredging up ancient history and reading it out in great amounts on misrepresenting almost everything said by the Prime Minister or me or the Minister of Maori Affairs. What we did learn was that the statesman role has been cast aside—well and truly. The ACT party is 2 percent in the polls. It is clear that there is only one way up—and this is the way to go because there are certain kinds of animals that go up only in that particular way. What we certainly do know is that Dr Jekyll has disappeared and the real Mr Hide has reappeared as of this afternoon. 
This Government did indeed set new standards and that is why Mr Tamihere has stood aside. Can members imagine this happening under the National Government—Minister after Minister after Minister guilty of serious offences and serious breaches of public faith not standing aside but carrying on with every excuse made about their actions? Serious allegations have been made against Mr Tamihere and they are serious allegations taken seriously by the Government but it behoves— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Aw! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I will come back to that member in a minute because unfortunately I now have the documentation on him. I will come to him a little later on. The allegations are taken seriously by the Government and it has therefore set up an inquiry. The first move by the Opposition was to try to slander Douglas White QC. I am looking at the face of the once-hopeful leader of the ACT party. He knows Mr Douglas White very well. Any notion that Mr Douglas White is in the pocket of a Labour-led Government is really so farcical as to be absolutely absurd. I just wish those members would say that kind of thing outside the House but of course they will not do that because they lack the unparliamentary word to make that possible. 
There are issues in front of the inquiry. First: what was the nature of the payment? Members are loving the term “golden handshake”. Well they should read the Waipareira Trust press statement today. It came from Mr EynonDelamere and he is not a stooge of the Labour Party. He is part of the other group within the Waipareira Trust and he has no love for Mr John Tamihere. He does not say it was a golden handshake. He does not say that. 
Hon Bill English 
: It was. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Oh! It was because Mr English knows better. That is why he is sitting where he is instead of over there. The second issue is: what was the responsibility for the payment of tax? That is as much a technical issue as any other. It is obvious that members opposite do not understand what the law is. They do not understand what derivation of income is and what year it applies to. They do not understand any of those issues. That is why we have a QC conducting the inquiry not one of the members opposite. There is the issue of the vehicle and the insurance thereon and when the payment ended in that particular respect. There is the issue of the election return. I did notice with amusement that TV3 said that the law on election returns was very clear. That could be said only by somebody who has never done one in the past. There is also the issue of payments being made by Mr Tolich and what those payments went to. Mr Tamihere assures me that he has answers on those questions. 
Rodney Hide 
: Oh you trust him? Where is he then? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I would not trust the member further than I could throw him—and despite the fact that I go to the gym five times a week I could not throw him very far. In fact when the member was speaking and I had this vision of him in boxer shorts I was inclined to leave the House and not try to speak at all in the debate. Our view is that these accusations are not to be dismissed lightly and are not to be taken as proven before all the evidence and the explanations are to hand. The Tory parties do not take that view on natural justice because there is nothing natural and nothing just about either the National Party or the ACT party. All matters will be fully considered— 
Katherine Rich 
: What about Tuku Morgan? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Well that member managed to lose her mother a job. All matters will be fully considered and independently reported on and that report will be published. 
What I hear in this House and outside is the sound of crackling glasshouses all over the place. Which party has deeply opposed the Members of Parliament (Pecuniary Interests) Bill which would require MPs to make a declaration of their other assets and income? The ACT party. Why? We know why its members do not want to declare their pecuniary interests—they have far too many of them and they do not want people to look at them. Look at Mr Hide. He was asked a straight question today and gave a curly answer. He was asked whether he had received payments from businessmen outside Parliament and he said in response: “To do anything in Parliament?”—a little innocent qualification to the question. Once the qualification was in he said: “No I haven’t.” Of course that leads to the obvious answer that he has received payment from businessmen outside Parliament. He had payments from business people outside this House while he was an MP—and this is the counsel for the prosecution! He should be the expert witness for the prosecution on these sorts of matters because that is about where he is in that regard. And would Mr Shirley care to assure us that nobody in the forest industry has given him any kind of remuneration benefit interest or anything since he has become a member of Parliament? What a stunning silence. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I remind members that points of order will be heard in silence. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I draw your attention to Speaker’s ruling 119/4 which was given by Speaker Hunt in 2000: “As long as the member who made a personal statement remains a member of the House the member’s personal explanation may not be debated or otherwise challenged even where it was given in a previous Parliament.” I have given a personal statement and stated categorically to this House that I have received no remuneration for the work I did for the international forestry sector. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That statement will be respected because the member gave that in this House. I stand by my previous ruling. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Absolutely I respect that statement that no payments were made by the international forestry sector. I ask again: did he receive any payments any remuneration or any interest from any aspect of the forestry industry since he became a member of Parliament? And he is silent on that. 
We then had Mr Hide on tax. Mr Hide’s allegation against Mr Tamihere is that he avoided tax. This man went to Fiji to instruct people on how to avoid tax. He made a crusade of defending one of the biggest and nastiest tax evaders in this country Mr David Henderson—“Hendo” to the leader of the ACT party; one of his closest mates—who ran the sex industry in Christchurch and avoided tax thereon although I am sure he got no freebies out of that. 
Then we had the issue of Dr Nick Smith. It is so terrible when people do things that get them into trouble with the law. What did happen to Dr Nick Smith? He was found to have committed contempt of court. That means that the court did not believe what he told the court. The court found that Dr Smith had not told the court what were shall we say the facts. That was the reality. Did he get pushed off the front bench? Did he move anywhere? Was he stood down? No he was praised by the leader and the rest of the National Party for his actions. There really are two rules in this country for the National Party—one rule for National Party members and one rule for the rest of the country. If people in the rest of the country are guilty they get punished but if they are in the National Party they get praised. 
How has this all come about? Mr Hide has been working for some months trawling through the records of the trust and working with individuals within it who are closely connected with the Maori Party working on behalf of the interests of those who are seeking to replace Mr Tamihere with a Maori Party MP in his electorate at the next election. The ACT party is working on the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” in this particular case. So what are the realities— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What about public accountability? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Dr Nick Smith asks about public accountability. He is the man who was found to have committed contempt of court and who was not believed by the court. He asks where the accountability is from the luxury of the Opposition front bench. 
Finally I make one gentle point to every member of this House. Before everyone in this House waxes so eloquent about severance payments whatever they may be I invite members to look at their own salary’s determination because even Dr Nick Smith should he go down at the next election—pray God that he does—will collect 3 months’ salary for doing nothing but then he has been collecting a salary for doing nothing for the last couple of years in any case. 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 In the interests of openness and transparency I seek leave to table the police caption sheet against John Tamihere. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I seek the leave of the House to table a copy of the document that the Prime Minister said she had seen which is the defence of John Tamihere in the District Court at Howick in Auckland. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Dr DON BRASH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 We are debating a very serious issue today and a series of very serious allegations. The first one is that Mr John Tamihere flagrantly misled the public. That is accusation No. 1. He had said that he would not take a golden handshake but at the same time he accepted a golden handshake that was at least $195000 and may have been closer to $300000. It was a blatant misleading of the public. That in itself should be sufficient to have this man resign from Cabinet and indeed resign from Parliament. 
The second accusation is that he may not have paid tax on this very substantial amount—an amount that if it was a gross pre-tax figure was about five times the average wage and if it was a net figure after tax it was about six or seven times the average wage. That is a huge amount of money on which he may not have paid tax. This is a very serious matter that in itself would suggest that Mr Tamihere should be out of Cabinet and probably out of Parliament. Then thirdly it is alleged that he failed to correctly file his electoral expenses return. If that is the case and if it is established that he has spent more than his statutory limit his election to the House is invalid. 
Each one of these three accusations is sufficient to have Mr Tamihere resign from Cabinet and indeed resign from Parliament. So first we have three very serious allegations made against a Minister of this Government. Then we have the matter of quite different standards being applied by the Prime Minister. This Prime Minister is someone who required Lianne Dalziel to resign from a ministerial position immediately it was established that she had misled the public. The Prime Minister said: “Off with her head!”. Now we have a Minister who on the face of it has transgressed in three serious matters and the Prime Minister seems to be saying that that is OK. 
It is the most flagrant example of this Government applying different standards to Maori Ministers than to non-Maori Ministers. That is a serious matter that I think this House should reflect on very carefully. Lianne Dalziel was out on her ear because she misled the public. John Tamihere has been asked to stand down while continuing to draw a salary and just to lie low for a time despite the fact that he may have misled the public may have failed to pay tax on a very large lump-sum amount and may have falsified his electoral expenses return. Those are very serious accusations. 
This is also the same Prime Minister who in 1999 said—when she was in Opposition of course—that Labour if in Government would apply new standards to the performance of Government and the performance of bureaucracy. Well we have new standards all right—a new low standard that exceeds anything that we saw in the previous decade. Indeed I cannot think of any case that is more serious than the one we are currently facing. It is a very serious accusation even leaving aside the fact that he may have been paid this money for doing things when he was in Parliament. 
The chairman of the Waipareira Trust has suggested that that was a misunderstanding and he was not really being paid to do things in the House and for the moment at least I accept that comment. But even without that comment there are three things any one of which would require him to resign if the Prime Minister had any sense of what was decent and appropriate for a Minister in a New Zealand Government. 
The next issue that worries me greatly is the nature of the inquiry established. I am not going to call into question the integrity of Douglas White QC but he has been asked to undertake an inquiry with very limited powers. Indeed we have the words of Sir Geoffrey Palmer a former Labour Prime Minister to confirm that. He said this morning on television: “I think it is also important to say that this is not a commission of inquiry. This is not a body that will hold public hearings. It does not have the power to compel evidence and to cross-examine people; it relies on the voluntary cooperation of the people about whom the inquiry has been launched.” 
What kind of inquiry is that? What kind of confidence can we have in the conclusions of that inquiry? Mr Douglas White QC has absolutely no statutory authority. He has absolutely no ability to subpoena witnesses or to subpoena documents or files; he has absolutely no ability to cross-examine witnesses; and he cannot look into any matter without the express permission of those being inquired into. Who does he report to? He reports to the Prime Minister and only to the Prime Minister. 
 The inquiry is effectively powerless and it is toothless. These allegations are so serious that we should have a proper commission of inquiry with the power to subpoena witnesses subpoena documents and subpoena files. This is a very serious matter. We run the risk that in 6 weeks’ time by late November we will have the results of this so-called inquiry and unfortunately we can have no confidence in the results of that inquiry at all. We need a proper commission of inquiry which has the appropriate authority to look into this very serious accusation. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Mallard may not regard this as a serious matter but it is one of the most serious accusations ever made against any Minister in this House. We have a QC who has no powers to investigate and no powers to subpoena. All he does is look at things that witnesses are willing to contribute; he has no power to subpoena at all. 
My final point is this. In response to a question I asked in the House earlier this afternoon about Mr Tamihere providing a written guarantee to the Prime Minister the Acting Prime Minister said that there had not been a written guarantee it was simply an oral guarantee that the Minister had given to the Prime Minister a few days ago. Let me quote from page 147 of Mr Tamihere’s own recently published autobiography. He states: “I gave the Prime Minister a written guarantee that I had done nothing at Waipareira that would embarrass her the party and most importantly my family. I gave her my Wanganui computer printout showing her my police record and gave her written authority to access any of my financial or employment records.” 
That is a written guarantee in anyone’s language and either Mr Tamihere was not quite fully accurate in his autobiography or the Acting Prime Minister was not quite accurate in his response to my question. On the face of it Mr Tamihere has given the Prime Minister a written guarantee that he has done nothing to embarrass the Government and it looks as if that is nothing like the truth. The public expects the Prime Minister to be consistent in her treatment of seriously offending Ministers and so far the public is seriously disappointed. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 That photographer up there has a most important photograph. He just got Don Brash talking in the House. It will be an exclusive and its value will be immense. But this is a terribly sad day for the Maori people in this country an awfully sad day for New Zealand and an even sadder day for John Tamihere. I can recall the Tuku Morgan affair and an $89 pair of underpants that he bought with his pay after having left work one night. Helen Clark said anything and everything about that as did Mr Mallard. There were four full-scale inquiries and at the end there was no sin or crime found at all. There were four full-scale inquires and no crime at all. It is actually quite amusing in a very sad way but I was the Minister of Maori Affairs once and I was sacked for trying to expose corruption. I said that the Quality Inn deal was a fraud and I was fired for it. 
Dail Jones 
: By whom? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: By Jim Bolger of the National Party. It is really a matter of great interest to me that I have not heard one word from the National Party or from ACT about Fay Richwhite’s latest deal—not a murmur not a mutter not a syllable and not a sound. Back in the days of the wine-box inquiry Fay Richwhite was doing its best to shut it up. 
Along has come a member of Parliament who is clearly in my view a goner—and I am sad to say that because I have a certain view. But facts are facts and I want to go through them. We would not be having this discussion today were it not for the fact that some time ago in July 1999 the media of this country were alerted to the facts and decided “because they wanted their party in Government” that they would do nothing at all about them. They all know that. These allegations were made in this House on 27 July 1999 and that was followed up by further radio programmes outside Parliament in which no attempt was made by me to say things in a privileged environment. I have to ask myself about the spinelessness that overcomes the New Zealand media when it does not even report what is privileged in the House let alone what is said outside it. Let me tell members this. Back then on 27 July 1999 I alleged that there would be a golden handshake. Two days later John Tamihere said when he was asked whether that was usual for the Waipareira Trust and whether it was normal practice: “Oh it’s never happened before so I want to make a number of points clear. As of last night there won’t be any severance pay.” 
Dail Jones 
: Who said that? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: John Tamihere said that. 
Dail Jones 
: When? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: On 29 July 1999. He went on to say: “As I have indicated to you this morning as of this morning it’s no longer an issue for the whanau Waipareira Trust or John Tamihere.” 
Then John Tamihere went on to say this when he was asked whether he would mind the real world of politics of being a candidate and all that: “I don’t mind that but if you are going to accept these standards of so-called party politics you’ve got to get out of the gutter sooner or later. I don’t really want to debase myself by running around in a sewer with Winston Peters.” That is what he said. Then John Tamihere went on to say a whole lot of other things and they were believed of course by the media—beloved as he was by them. I remember telling Angela Gregory a  
New Zealand Herald  
correspondent about all that but she thought she knew better than me. Five years later we know just how irresponsible she was when she was given all the facts—the whole facts and all the facts. Mr Tamihere knew it was not true because there was a meeting at Taipa up in the far north on 17 April when the first proposal of $50000 was turned down. The later proposal was for $280000 and for a range of other issues as well. I am quoting from  
Hansard 
. He also knew it was not true on 27 and 29 July because on 3 May 1999 2 months earlier in the same year he had received this letter from the trust: “Tenakoa John re your pending resignation.” It is all here; it is all out there. 
Now let us examine what has happened today. Mr Cullen got up and acted very much like Jenny Shipley did back in July of 1999. 
Dail Jones 
: Who did that? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Jenny Shipley the former National Prime Minister did not want to know. She was asked about Government expenditure; she did not want to know. Today Mr Cullen said that there are four issues involved. He asked whether it was a golden handshake. The answer to that is of course it was. That is why back then Mr Tamihere was denying it. The second issue was about tax law—was it infringed? Of course it was. That is why the Government has Rob McLeod doing the work. That self-pronounced expert—John Tamihere—has got Rob McLeod on the case. The third issue concerns vehicle insurance and of course that is an undeclared benefit. The fourth issue that Dr Cullen raised was about election returns. Now that is serious because it is an incomplete return and it takes him way over the expenditure limit for a start. That as the RegBoorman case of 1987 will tell members is a corrupt practice. That is it; good night. One cent over the top and one is gone. Now there is a funny thing about that because back in 1987 when Roger McClay myself and a man called Brian Henry were handling the Wyatt Creech case we alleged a corrupt practice on the part of Mr Boorman. Members will not believe this but we got a phone call that night from the National Party which was paranoid that we had brought that allegation. We asked why that was when it was part of our pleadings. National said Labour and National had members who were over the top and National did not want us to complicate the matter for it. That is what the National Party told me—that it did not want us to complicate that matter for it. We said National could go and get stuffed. We said it was not helping Wyatt Creech and did not even believe in the case and that we would be carrying on regardless. That is a fact members do not know but I am telling them now—and it is true. 
Rodney Hide 
: It’s the best sort of fact. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is a fair sort of fact yeah. But talk about people throwing stones or throwing pipi in a whare—this is it. 
There is the issue of the payments by Mr Tolich and where they went. I think I have a clear eye as to where they went and it will not be above board in respect of the Waipareira Trust. There are all sorts of other things like scholarships to universities—to the Auckland University of Technology and what have you. It is all there. But I want to ask this question: why did Dr Cullen not raise the question of the falsification of application numbers to tax-paying bodies involved in training and health? So the trust overstates its application numbers and it underspends and that is why it has all the profits for the Westgate investment. It is as clear as daylight. The second issue is this: here is an outfit that declared an unrealised sale profit before the sale occurred as present income. That is illegal. It was over $800000 and it took the books from the red to the black. That is serious. Then of course there are the over 30 forged cheques which the Maori Affairs Committee heard all about in the year 2000 and did nothing about—and the committee heard about it from the former Waipareira Trust lawyer. It heard about the forging of cheques and the falsification of accounts. 
All I want to say is that this is a very sad for John Tamihere and I believe for the Labour Party and for the Maori people in particular. But those are the facts—except that I would like sometime for the people on the Opposition side of the House to have the same keen interest when people who are not brown commit those sorts of sins. When they do it the sin is magnified a million times over and I sit here and I hear not a sound not a syllable. I have to ask myself— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That’s not true. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is true and I more than anybody else know it. [ 
Interruption 
] I know it for a fact. That member has a colleague over there who was prepared to defame me yet last Friday in the High Court in Auckland he said that whatever he had said about Winston Peters was not true. 
That is what he said but that member did not raise a finger about all the other serious offences that go on in the name of this country and this Parliament. If there is going to be one law for everybody then let us make sure that there is. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 A significant number of very serious accusations have been made in relation to John Tamihere’s actions both before and since he left the Waipareira Trust. It is appropriate that those be dealt with by way of a thorough investigation by someone with the appropriate expertise. The Government is therefore to be congratulated on moving swiftly to set up an inquiry on ensuring that the terms of reference cover all known and likely accusations and on the relatively tight time frame within which Douglas White QC must report. But let us face it—the Government had no alternative. 
If any of the accusations are true then they will be of great concern not only to this Parliament but to all the people of New Zealand and especially to taxpayers and recipients of the services provided by the Waipareira Trust. I know myself that it would have been immoral and totally unacceptable for me to have used my employer at the time Trade Aid to bankroll my first election campaign especially as that organisation was in receipt of Government grants to support its work with the poor and disadvantaged. But it is not for this Parliament to act as a kangaroo court on these matters. As Dr Cullen said we do not live in “Alice in Wonderland” and therefore the sequence of events should be evidence a verdict and then if appropriate sentencing. 
Whatever the outcome of the formal investigation John Tamihere has to live with having made a categorical public statement that he would not accept a golden handshake before the election and then proceeding to accept one after the election. John Tamihere has been a role model to many people both Maori and Pakeha. He has let them down and he has let himself down. Ultimately the public will judge Mr Tamihere on the morality rather than the legality of his behaviour. He should reflect on that as he makes a political decision about his future. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 As the allegations about John Tamihere have unfolded over recent days I have tried to listen to them with a degree of dispassion. That has become increasingly difficult to do because of the way that so much of the fact as it appears has been mixed with the innuendo that is fuelling a lot of the allegations that are floating around. In the time I have available to me this afternoon I want to try to separate out some of the issues if I can and then to look at the likely consequences of the actions that relate to them. I want to do that against a background of making this observation: John Tamihere may well be a big loser from this whole saga but I suspect that an even bigger loser in terms of credibility confidence and certainty is this Parliament. Yet again we will have shown—and already this debate this afternoon has shown traces of it—that when faced with a situation of the magnitude and seriousness of this one we do not debate the issue but rather we very quickly descend into a “Who said what who did what” tit for tat back and forward “If you’ve got an allegation I’ve got a better one to top it.” sort of a debate. The people of New Zealand who want to get some answers and want to get to the truth simply say: “There they go again! I’m sick of the lot of them. Why don’t they all go away?”. 
Let us get back to the issues here. I think they come into two broad categories. There are the issues that relate to Mr Tamihere and there are the issues in a wider sense that relate to the Waipareira Trust. If we take the issues that relate to Mr Tamihere we find there are about three broad headings. There is the question of whether he accepted a golden handshake having said he would not do so. There is the issue of the tax status of that payment. There is the question of any subsequent expenses paid to him or expectations made of him in respect of any payment advanced. The issue of the golden handshake is in some senses the least important of the three. That comes down to whether he stuck by his word—and the implications of that are serious enough if he is shown not to have done so but it is actually not a criminal offence to change one’s mind. On the issue of taxation it is a much more clear-cut case: was there a tax liability and if so how was it met and what steps did Mr Tamihere take in respect of his responsibilities in that regard? The third question the question of expenses and the associated matter revealed on television last night—that any payments made to him were less of a severance or a redundancy and more of a recognition of services he was going to continue to provide to the trust while a member of Parliament—is I think the most serious allegation of the lot. 
The latter two questions and the question of the golden handshake deserve the full attention of an independent commission of inquiry such as the White inquiry because if there is an allegation arising from that that criminality is involved then that is a matter for the courts to proceed with separately. I think what is happening here and what concerns me not just in this particular case but as a general point of principle is that members seem to be expecting an inquiry of some description to be the judge jury and executioner. What an inquiry of the nature of the one that has been established will do is to determine whether there is a basis for any further action whether criminal or otherwise. It is very important in these types of instances not to put carts before horses but to move one step at a time in the interests of clarity in the interests of public decency and decorum and in the interests of Mr Tamihere. While Mr Tamihere may well be down at the moment and quite possibly out he has certain rights to represent himself to have his side of the story heard and to have his explanations proffered as well. 
Alongside those issues which the White inquiry will deal with is a set of wider matters that relate to the Waipareira Trust some of which have been rehearsed in the House this afternoon—allegations such as those made on TV3 last night and those repeated by Mr Peters just a few short moments ago. I concede that it is very difficult in the heat of the moment to separate some of those things out from the particular circumstances that affect Mr Tamihere. Indeed it may well be impossible to do so because there may be such a close link. However I think the point that my colleague Gordon Copeland attempted to allude to during question time today is also relevant here. Various accounting and auditing standards have not been well applied in relation to bodies of the type of the Waipareira Trust and many others—and we are not talking solely about Maori organisations here either. The Government has been aware of deficiencies in those bodies with regard to auditing practice for many years and the Audit Office has drawn attention to them as requiring to be rectified as a matter of some urgency. But they have not been yet addressed. I think that many of the circumstances in the second set of issues—those relating to the Waipareira Trust—come down to the adequacy of our control procedures and the need to move swiftly to rectify them. Any organisation that receives any form of public funding has to accept a measure of accountability. Our standards have been variable and lax in that respect for far too long. This will not be the last such case of its type to arouse the attention of this House. 
The issue that we then need to address is what all of that does for the integrity not just of Mr Tamihere—that is a matter he has to wrestle with and reach his own decisions on in due course—but for the wider integrity of our system of Government and for the role of this Parliament. People have a right to expect that the people who serve as members of Cabinet or as members of Parliament are to the greatest extent possible honourable and honest. That is a charge we value and protect very strongly in this House. One cannot impugn a member’s integrity and that is as it should be but it carries with it the expectation that a member’s integrity is straightforward completely honest and without blemish. When we engage in a debate in this House that if we are brutally honest is far less about John Tamihere and the rights and wrongs of his actions or his case and is much more about the respective political advantage to those who may be throwing rocks one way or the other we demean ourselves totally. I do not know about other members but since this case has been in the media a number of allegations have been made to me about a number of other members in this Chamber and all sorts of things that they may or may not have got up to. All sorts of people have said to me “This is absolutely fundamentally true. It cannot be denied.”. What it actually invites if we carry on down this path is for all those accusations however unsubstantiated they are to be tossed around here under the protection of parliamentary privilege in the hope that somewhere along the way just a little bit of the mud sticks and does damage. 
I am not saying that John Tamihere should not be held to account for his actions. He should be. I am not saying that there should not be a full and proper inquiry. There ought to be. I am not saying that if matters arise from that inquiry that require further action they should not be followed up. But I am saying to members of this House that we should deal with the issue here. Let us focus on what this issue is about. This is not an opportunity for all the dirty washing and all the dirty linen and the muck that people feel somehow compelled to throw to be tossed around. If we are really talking about integrity trust and honour then let us think of the trust and the honour of this place. It will suffer and with it will suffer the individual integrity of every member and the credibility of any Government—this Government or any succeeding one—to be able to act in the public interest. That is not a responsibility I want to have on my shoulders. I want to see this place work well and constructively and I think that most members do likewise. I simply make the plea that as we go through the process of the Tamihere case we recall the wider circumstances and do our best for this country. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 The member who has just resumed his seat Peter Dunne is a person whom I have some respect for. Normally he is a man who offers this House very sensible suggestions about how we should progress issues but I think he has lost his way a little bit on this one. He is right to say that Mr Tamihere has the right to put his case and to have his side of the story heard. Mr Tamihere as a member of this House also has the right to come here the highest court in the land to tell this House what the facts are. Where is he? He is hiding in Henderson having been sent there by his own caucus because it knows that this is a huge embarrassment not only to it not only to him but also to this House. 
This man cannot return to Cabinet. He will be skating on thin ice if he ever comes back to this House because it is not credible and it lacks integrity for a member to say to the public in this country: “I will take this course of action with regard to my personal circumstances.” then do the opposite. In Mr Tamihere’s case he said that he would not take any golden handshake—the Prime Minister had said that none of her people would be taking golden handshakes—then for 2 years he sneaked around the back of that trust putting pressure on it to come up with the funds to pay him out. We know that the trust had to sell assets give up programmes and scrape to the very bottom of its resources in order to make that payment to John Tamihere. No Labour Party member can go out in the next election cycle or even the next day that he or she might visit his or her constituency and talk about Labour’s care for those at the bottom end of the social ladder in this country as long as John Tamihere remains in Labour’s caucus. Labour members know that. They know how brazen he is and what a huge problem it would be if he were to be around Parliament at the moment. 
Members should look at an article written by John Tamihere in today’s  
Dominion Post 
 in which he states: “We owe it as leaders to set some new potentials and standards for our young people coming through—”. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That’s actually right. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: There is nothing wrong with that; it is quite right. He goes on: “to appeal to their promise and potential to lead by example and not become corrupted by the iwi chequebook.” Is it not extraordinary that he should make that statement just 5 days after this little allegation was laid against him in connection with an urban Maori authority an organisation that he has argued repeatedly should have the same respect as iwi? 
We know where the Labour Party is by the way in which Dr Cullen handled things in the House today. He went on the attack and had a go at just about every member in this House— 
Rodney Hide 
: And those outside. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: And some outside. Most of us who were supposed to be cowering at the end of his words were wondering what on earth he was talking about and what planet he was on because his allegations against others today had no connection to the situation that Mr Tamihere finds himself in. We know that the inquiry that has been set up to find out what is going on supposedly and to report to the Prime Minister— 
Rodney Hide 
: A whitewash. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: —will be exactly as it has been labelled by the Opposition—a whitewash. It is unfortunate that the Queen’s Counsel conducting the inquiry happens to be a Mr White; no disrespect to him is intended but this inquiry will be a whitewash. I ask myself this question: if there was not something seriously wrong here why was Mr Tamihere stood down? If there was not something seriously wrong here why did Mr Tamihere not front up to the highest court in the land and explain himself? If there was not a problem why did Mr Tamihere not come out last Friday and say: ”Here are the tax details. It’s all sorted.”? Why did he not say: “Here’s my ministerial declaration. It’s all in here—not a problem.”? 
I want to put this little suggestion to the House as well over the issue of the car that Mr Tamihere had in his possession well after he had left the Waipareira Trust. If it was a gift it should have been included in his ministerial interests statement. It was not if it was somehow some form of recompense or income offered to him as a director of Westland Ltd then he should have declared it as income and paid tax on it. He should have been able to come along to the House and hold up documents to show that he had done just that. 
But all of this is actually not the issue—Mr Dunne is right in that regard. The issue is that the Prime Minister said she would set new standards and require new levels of behaviour from her Ministers. Well this sort of thing has not been seen from a Minister in a National Government—not ever. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Ha ha! 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: It surprises us that Dr Cullen should think that he can prove otherwise. Mr Tamihere is a man who has gone about this country proclaiming his interest in the well-being of some of the poorest and least advantaged in our communities then has shown that at the same time he is prepared to rip into their pockets take what little they have and ingratiate himself believing himself to be better than they ever could be. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: And lie about it. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Then he refuses to tell the truth about that fact. I want Labour members— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The comment made by the member—I have forgotten his name—from somewhere up north and also the comment made by the deputy leader of the National Party are out of order. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: They were out of order. A member cannot suggest that another member is not telling the truth. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I withdraw that comment and will rephrase it by saying that Mr Tamihere has refused to come to this House and put the record straight. He is happy to leave it to a Queen’s Counsel who has no statutory authority no capacity to subpoena information documents files etc. no capacity to subpoena witnesses and no capacity to cross-examine and who has the capacity only to investigate what Mr Tamihere himself will allow him to investigate and who then will report to the Prime Minister. 
There is no question in my mind that after the Government first saw this happening last Thursday it moved swiftly on Friday to get rid of Mr Tamihere. When things went a little bit quiet over the weekend it thought: “We can get through this. We can get him off this.” It thought it could come up with some weak inquiry this week and could paper over the cracks and Mr Tamihere would be back by Christmas sitting in Cabinet. Let me make this prediction: John Tamihere will never sit in Cabinet again in this country. What is more if the proper investigations are done—if all the information is made available to the public—he will not survive as a member of Parliament in this country either. I say to all those Labour members opposite who are about to leap up and defend him that they should think about what it will be like for them out on the traps telling those people whom Labour Party members like to think they represent the best that Mr Tamihere at all times had their interests in his sights. It is absolutely clear that Mr Tamihere had his own interests in his sights at all times. 
I want to suggest that it is unfortunate that Mr Winston Peters suggested in his contribution today that somehow the attack on John Tamihere is racially motivated. Let us be very clear: there would be no attack on John Tamihere if there were no problem. I also want to know why Lianne Dalziel was— 
CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 There can be no more serious allegations than the ones raised in this House today and that is why this Government has moved swiftly to initiate a high-level inquiry. At the same time though we have to acknowledge that Mr Tamihere’s years at the Waipareira Trust were a great success story. Here are the facts. Mr Tamihere started with a 12-employee organisation with a turnover of half a million dollars. He finished with over 200 employees and a turnover of $8 million. That member over there Mr Rodney Hide has never run a business—could not run bathwater—in his life. With the organisation building so quickly and so strongly were all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed? The answer is no. But few organisations with such a remarkable growth record would be able to withstand the scrutiny that Mr Tamihere has been exposed to. 
What we have seen in this House today and in the last week is a hatchet job of awesome proportions. It has brought together three vengeful groups: the trustees and staff of the Waipareira Trust; Maori Party activists—Mr Sharples has started his election campaign—and of course the leader of the ACT party Rodney Philip Hide the only by his own admission honest man in Parliament. 
The reason that John Tamihere has been attacked from all sides is quite simple: because it was he who called for greater accountability and transparency at the Waipareira Trust. That is something I would have thought the self-confessed great scambuster Mr Hide would support. For a number of years trustees and beneficiaries including Mr Tamihere have voiced concerns about the trust but those concerns have never been answered by a clique of managers and trustees in that trust. The concerns included the possibility of mortgagee sale proceedings; mezzanine finances being sought to prop up the trust’s trading; losses at its call centre in the order of $3 million and over; and the sale of major assets. These and other unanswered questions led to a special general meeting on 27 July this year. The meeting appointed an audit committee made up of John Tamihere; AiriniTukerangi; Ricky Houghton the treasurer; and Mr Joseph Waru. The audit committee was tasked with instructing Deloitte to conduct an audit and review. 
The process adopted for this was highly unusual. Despite Mr Tamihere being elected to the audit committee he was not allowed access to any of the work in progress. He was not questioned as part of the work. He was not given the opportunity to respond to any of the draft findings. In fact he still has not received an official copy of the report. [ 
Interruption 
] The fact is that member opposite does not have the gift of the gab; he has the “gift of the Gibbs”! I think it is called Alan Gibbs and we will get to that soon. The facts are that no audit and review ever took place. The media have called it an audit. Mr Hide has called it an audit. The Waipareira Trust board has purported to release an audit and review statement. That is an absolute fabrication. Deloitte itself indicated in its opening comments on page 1: “Because the procedures enumerated within the attached report do not constitute either an audit or review we do not express any assurance on any financial information relating to the items in the terms of reference of this engagement.” 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Mr Hide didn’t refer to that. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Mr Hide never referred to that. It is also clear that no real examination took place and I quote from the report itself: “This report was compiled on the basis of information gathered by trust employees and the contract accountant Mr B Bryant along with inquiry and interviews with certain people involved in the trust board’s governance and management and based on reports and documentation supplied or cited by Deloitte.” The guts of Mr Tamihere’s problem is that the people who were under investigation in the audit were the only people who were asked to supply information to it. No one else was questioned. No one else who raised complaints or concerns had a chance to respond. 
What kind of dodgy report is that? The reality is that the process was hijacked to ensure that the focus rather than being on problems facing the trust was on Mr Tamihere. In simple terms that is called payback. To further ensure that no one took any notice of the real issue of malfeasance in the trust just a few days before the report was released five trustees were sacked and three senior workers were removed—all in the same week. There are some serious questions that need to be answered by Deloitte relating to its conduct in the matter. There is also a question of whether as the auditor for the trust for the last 3 years Deloitte was ever in a position to properly accept the job. 
A gang of three was formed at the trust: the treasurer a triple bankrupt Ricky Houghton; the chief executive officer RegRatahi; and the chief financial officer Bruce Bryant. The members of that gang of three have collaborated and colluded to ensure that they cover their tracks and to make sure that there is no accountability at the trust. That is the calibre of person that that member over there Mr Hide the scambuster relies on for his so-called evidence. 
The documentation relied on by Mr Tamihere’s accusers is wrong in a number of respects and evidence provided to the inquiry will determine that. Time does not allow me to identify all of the aspects other than to say the following. It is a fact that the current chief executive officer Mr Ratahi received a major bonus package of over $60000 when he moved from being health manager at the trust. That was not disclosed. In fact Mr Ratahi’s salary has never been disclosed at all neither in the report nor to the trustees. It is a fact that the former chief executive officer for 9 months Mr Mackintosh was also paid a major package of at least $60000 for leaving. That also was not disclosed. Only Mr Tamihere’s details were disclosed and in my view the inquiry will show that those details were wrong. There are more flaws and falsehoods but I will stop there. There is enough evidence even for TV3 and all the rest of the media to have a look at except that some in the media do not want to focus on it. 
We also know that contrary to the constitution the current chief executive officer Mr Ratahi provided a letter to the chair of the audit committee Mr Joseph Waru a trustee giving him employment through the back door and buying his support in the oversight of the dodgy so-called audit and review report. Members should work that one out! Again certain members of the media did not wish to focus on that element and that is because the report is fashioned in a remarkable “Hide-ish” type of way so that it provides the reader with quotable information about Mr Tamihere—who was never meant to be the focus of the review—while of course at the same time obscuring negative findings about the current management of the trust. I have to say that the smell of the political sewer reeks around the report. 
We know that Mr Hide has been working in collusion with the gang of three since August 2 this year. When the heat was put on the gang of three through an audit commissioned on 27 July less than a week had gone by before the gang of three was negotiating and colluding with Mr Hide to become the gang of four. Why did those people do that? There can be only one explanation: to cover their own tracks. What started as a search for accountability and integrity at the trust has highlighted an absolute lack of them. For instance for a chartered accountant working for an organisation it should be unthinkable to allow an outside person—friend or enemy—to trawl through its accounts. Yet Mr Hide has for 2 solid months worked his fingers to the bone with the trust on this issue. He has sat in the accounts office working his fingers to the bone to do over Mr Tamihere. That is an unforgivable breach by that chartered accountant the consequences of which I believe are yet to be visited on Mr Bryant. 
Little did the members of the gang of three realise or know what would happen when they got into bed with a creature like Rodney Philip Hide. But it is important for the people— 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No the member cannot refer to a member of Parliament in that way. He will withdraw that remark. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I should withdraw what Madam Speaker? 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The remark he made about the member being a “creature”. Please withdraw it. 
CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I withdraw. But it is important for the record to be put straight and for the people of west Auckland and of New Zealand to know that Mr Tamihere has been the subject of a well-planned and well-orchestrated witch-hunt and jack-up. I say to one of our members that people in glass houses should not throw stones. I note with interest that Michael Cullen asked Mr Hide whether he had ever had money from outside. I remember that during the pecuniary interest debate I asked Mr Hide that question. It is not an offence or a breach of the Standing Orders if somebody who wants to go into Parliament says that the salary of $120000 or whatever just is not enough and somebody else says he or she will give that person $50000 a year. It would be a breach only if the member were motivated to action as a result of that payment. We know that Mr Hide worked for Gilt-Edged Securities for 3 years and that it was a front to set up the ACT party. We know that Mr Alan Gibbs his sort of surrogate father funded that and paid Mr Hide. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Holidays Amendment Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Holidays Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. There was a lot of debate about this bill during the Committee stage and I want to make a couple of brief comments at the start before going into some of the substance of the bill. 
The Holidays Amendment Bill amends the Holidays Act 2003. As I indicated earlier in the year the bill is about making sure that the unintended consequences of the Holidays Act which was introduced in 2003 are dealt with. It is important to say right from the start that the bill does not undermine the fundamental policy and principles of the Holidays Act. It is really important to outline what those are. There are two basic principles by and large. The first one is a commitment from the Government side of the House and from a number of other parties in the House to 4 weeks’ annual leave coming into force in April 2007. That is a very very important step forward for ordinary working people in New Zealand. The fact is that Australia has had 4 weeks’ annual leave for the last 30 years. But if people listened to the National Party they would think that it was the greatest insult ever foisted upon the New Zealand economy. 
Darren Hughes 
: I thought they wanted living standards raised. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Of course the National Party does want living standards raised and the Leader of the Opposition constantly talks about the fact that we are competing with workers from around the world. He compares us with Australia yet when we get a chance to do something that brings us in line with Australia in order to try to make sure that we are competitive with Australia he turns it down. That is strange. There is a word to describe it that starts with “h” that we are not allowed to use. 
The second point and the most important point is that the Leader of the Opposition has said that he will repeal the 4 weeks’ annual leave provision. 
Darren Hughes 
: No! 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes he did say that. That will be difficult for him because he worked as the Governor of the Reserve Bank and if one goes to the Reserve Bank website one sees that 4 weeks’ annual leave is mandated as part of the conditions of those working at the Reserve Bank. 
Brent Catchpole 
: How many? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Four weeks. The Leader of the Opposition was quite happy to accept at least 4 weeks’ annual leave when he was the Governor of the Reserve Bank but when it comes to every other working person in the country no it is not good enough and the National Party will shut the door on it because it will lead to a downfall in the New Zealand economy. There is a word for that; we are not allowed to use it here but it starts with “h”. I will not be drawn into using it. 
 I want someone from the National Party in the debate over the next little while to stand up and reconfirm that party’s commitment to repealing the 4 weeks’ annual leave provision in the Holidays Act. I just want somebody to say—yes or no—whether the National Party would repeal it. We have been asking for that. National members said it in 2002 and they said it in 2003 and I am very keen to hear what those members have to say now. 
The second thing that the bill does is introduce time and a half for ordinary working people who work on a public holiday and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with people getting a little extra for that. In fact most New Zealanders think it is fair. They think it is fair that if someone who could have been home with the family on a public holiday—which is what public holidays are supposed to be about—is called to work to pump gas serve a meal or carry bags up to a hotel suite then that person should get a little extra than those people sitting at home and enjoying the public holiday with their families. I think most people would consider that to be fair. 
What the Act was attempting to do was to address a lot of the basic rights that were taken away when the Employment Contracts Act was introduced in the year 1991. We were trying to bring a little bit back for working people in New Zealand and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact the vast majority of people think it is fair—but not those people on the Opposition benches. 
Darren Hughes 
: Ask them how many holidays they take. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: How many holidays do members of the Opposition take? Well most people would say that life is one big holiday for them given the effort that they put into this place. But the reality is that one of the things we will say to ordinary working people in New Zealand is that Don Brash and the National Party want to take a holiday—yours. I do not mean Mr Speaker’s; I mean everybody else’s. As a result of that we will have quite an interesting little bit of campaign fun as we lead in to the next election. With regard to the provision of time and a half and 4 weeks’ annual leave I will be interested to see all those members stand up and say: “We get 4 weeks’ annual leave but we’re not going to give it everybody else.” I am really looking forward to the speeches that I will hear from the National Party in a minute. 
This bill is about addressing unintended consequences. When I started to see that there were a few issues I set up a working party made up primarily of the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand but including a number of other industries as well. I say to the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand that this was a very very good effort on their part and I appreciate the fact that they worked constructively. I think it is fair to say that Business New Zealand had a grave number of concerns about the legislation full stop yet it was prepared to engage constructively. It is fair to say that the Council of Trade Unions was most concerned about a number of the provisions in the bill that came forward particularly those around medical certificates but it worked constructively as well. I think that that was really really important. I want to thank them for the effort and energy that they put into this matter. 
It is true to say that not everybody who was involved in the working party is 100 percent happy but I support what my colleagues from United Future have said because it is the honourable position. The position those members have taken is that this bill is an improvement and a step forward. What we hear from other parties is that they want to go back to the drawing board. My concern was to ensure that we fixed this matter prior to Labour weekend and I want to thank United Future for supporting that. 
The bill does a number of things. First of all it tries to make sure that people who already get time and a half as part of an agreement or whatever do not get time and a half on top of that. No one thought that was fair. It was an unintended consequence. Some people said that it was clear in the legislation and other people said that it was not. So we are making it absolutely specifically clear that if one receives time and a half as part of an agreement one does not get time and a half on top of that for working on a public holiday and that is fair. 
The second issue that came to my attention was that if someone was sick on a public holiday and took the day off that person would receive time and a half as if he or she had worked on the public holiday. Personally I do not think that that was intended either—that people who are sick on a public holiday would get the same rate of pay as someone who works on a public holiday. [ 
Interruption 
] The member might say that but in my view that was not the intention and people would not have agreed to it. The reality is that if one is sick on a public holiday one receives the normal rate of pay and as a result one does not get a day in lieu. But it is certainly treated as a sick day as it rightly should be. 
The third issue is the fact that lots of people with composite agreements did not know whether holiday pay was included in them or time and a half for penal pay so we gave them a year to sort that out. People then said a year was not long enough because a lot of the contracts go for 3 years so we have said that we will extend it out to 2007 to give them more time to sort out that provision. The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—rightly—extended that to individual contracts as well to be consistent. I think that is a very good point as well. 
Then there was the issue around medical certificates which caused some controversy. My view was that within the first 3 days the employer given reasonable grounds should be able to ask for a medical certificate. The employer is to pay for the medical certificate and that gives balance on either side. 
So I say that this is good legislation. I thank United Future for its support. I think it is the honourable position to take. I think that a number of other people were keen to support the bill but were not quite so sure and decided to vote against it. I think it is good legislation and I commend it to the House. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 This bill is a miserable and pathetic effort. That is why the employer organisations—Business New Zealand the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern)—and right across the entire country are saying no to this legislation. When we have five problems one of which is huge and the others are trivial people expect us to deal with the real problem and not to just focus on the trivial. Through the submissions process from submitter after submitter it was absolutely clear that there was one issue that was expected to be fixed up. There was one major problem with the Holidays Act and the Government has completely ignored it. 
These are the facts. For the 3 months since April 2004 the meat industry has seen its sick leave increase by 50 percent. Air New Zealand showed in its annual report that the Holidays Act has caused an increase in costs of $17.5 million. It said that the Act does nothing for productivity and growth. [ 
Interruption 
] That member should read the annual report for 2004 and he if did that he would learn something. But of course he does not. Government members are oblivious to the facts and to the owners of business and beholden only to their union mates. The reasons are simple. 
It is now possible to get more money from being sick than from working. It is not the same amount of money for being sick as for a person working but more money and that is the concern. That has caused the explosion in the taking of sick leave and businesses want it fixed up. Did they get a thoughtful hearing from the Government? No they did not. In fact they were completely and totally ignored. Now there was an opportunity in the Committee stage to restore the position back to where it was when the Government itself—the Labour Government—just a little more than 12 months ago in 2003 introduced the Holidays Bill into the House. It could have just restored it back to that. Predictably of course Labour voted against that move. United Future had its opportunity but it abstained and the employers have taken note. 
What is that party’s excuse for abstaining? What is its excuse for voting for this bill in the House today? We heard the member for United Future Mr Paul Adams talking about a meal of elephants. He said that this bill represented one bite from the elephant. I guess that an elephant contains thousands of bites. Is United Future really expecting the Government to make thousands of amendments to the Holidays Act so that bite by bite it can vote for them and finally fix them up? I guess that shows the naivety of the United Future party and the way that it is completely beholden and in thrall to the Government because it is enabling Labour to avoid the issue—that is what it is doing. It is conniving with the Government to stop the real problems being fixed. 
The real issue is “relevant daily pay”—that is the serious problem. I will talk about that issue in a bit of detail. Relevant daily pay includes ordinary pay overtime productivity bonuses and incentives. It was inserted into the bill without consultation. It came as a surprise because it was not a concept that was in Labour’s own bill in 2003. That is why it is now possible for workers to be sick and get more money than when they are working. We heard the very simple facts from the Meat Industry Association. 
Imagine this—[ 
Interruption 
]—if Labour’s junior whip Darren Hughes could do so. A chain in a meat plant relies on a number of people to work it and make it efficient. That is how people get the productivity bonuses and incentives—by putting the throughput in. If some of those people call in sick the chain cannot work effectively but the people who are sick get the effect of the productivity bonuses. The people who are working do not. So we have the absurd proposition that people who are sick get more money than people who are working. I know that the Speaker in the Chair is well familiar with the meat industry. He must surely be aware that it is an absolute absurdity and a nonsense that someone will get paid more money for being sick than their fellow employees who are doing precisely the same job and who are actually at work. That is nonsense. 
This Government and United Future had the opportunity to fix that very problem. They were completely deaf to that. Why were they deaf? That is an important question. 
We know that the Government members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee are completely beholden to unions. Every last one of them is an ex - trade unionist. We are not just talking about ordinary members of trade unions—people who might be working in the public service and who happen to pay union dues. These are the people who are the activists in the trade unions. 
Take the chairman of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. He was secretary of the Service and Food Workers Union. Lianne Dalziel is a well-known union lawyer—that was her entire legal experience. Lynne Pillay was another well-known union organiser from out west. [ 
Interruption 
] The member who is now interjecting Helen Duncan was the president of the New Zealand Educational Institute. 
All these people are completely deaf to the pleas of business. They do not understand business. They hate business. Business to them is to be raped and pillaged for the benefit of union members and they seek each and every opportunity to do so. The Holidays Act is a classic example of that. So when the submissions were made to the select committee those members were completely deaf to the pleas of business. Not a single amendment addressed those concerns. Those members voted against the Supplementary Order Paper when it was put to them but of course they were all ears for the union. They sympathised and empathised with every sad tale that was brought up because they wanted to help the unions. They asked how high they had to jump when the unions said to jump. I guess that the answer is: as high as requested. 
We are very clear on this issue. The Act needs reform. The single biggest issue that needs reform is relevant daily pay. The bill that was introduced into Parliament in 2003 by the Government had the solution with the concept of ordinary pay. It even included certain payments that were standard parts of the contract. It was an advance on the 1981 Act. As a reasonable proposition last week we asked the House to return to the bill that was introduced by the Labour Government in 2003 as a reasonable adjustment and the way to deal with the concerns raised by businesses right across the country. Labour refused that opportunity. 
Today we hear the Government saying that it is doing a wonderful thing by passing this bill. It says that it is passing it before Labour Day. Not a single employer will be able to implement it because the Act is so complex and so difficult to understand in the short number of days between now and Labour Day that it will be impossible to adjust computer programmes salary programmes and so on to take any account of this bill. 
I will close on this next point. Mr Simon Carlaw was asked a very clear question: would he prefer the real issue of relevant daily pay fixed or this bill? He said he wanted the real issue fixed because that is how business productivity and wealth are advanced in this country. 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 It is somewhat of a pleasure to speak after that member has sat down and to remind him about productivity and efficiency because I understand that the National Party policy is to get rid of 4 weeks’ annual leave. Did that member move a Supplementary Order Paper into this House to test that? Did Dr Wayne Mapp National’s latest industrial relations spokesperson get up to impress his leader who has promised if National is elected next year to get rid of 4 weeks’ annual leave? Did he? No he did not. He was probably asleep at the time and forgot. The National Party is so confused about its position on these matters that it did not even have the wherewithal to put up an amendment to this bill saying that it does not want workers to get 4 weeks’ annual leave. Why did Dr Wayne Mapp not do that if he is so productive and efficient? Why did he not follow his leader’s lead and propose it as National Party policy? Maybe it is because National is not really sure that it could get away with that. It did try to take 50 percent of workers’ wages off them when they went off sick. 
Dr Wayne Mapp does not portray the real situation for those freezing workers that he spoke of. We asked the Business New Zealand representative when he came before the committee whether he lost 50 percent of his wage when he went off sick. I am still waiting for the answer because he mumbled and jumbled around and said that if Business New Zealand required him to be productive and have such an agreement then he could expect to maybe lose that sort of money. But he was an ex - meat industry representative and he did not tell the committee that he lost 50 percent of his wages when he went off sick for a day. He proposed and the National Party proposes to get rid of the law that states that people who go off sick get the same amount of earnings as they would if they had been at work which was the law in this land for as long as I was in the workforce up until National changed the law. 
So it is quite rich for the National Party to say that workers are getting paid a heck of a lot more when in fact the evidence that I heard was that they got up to 50 percent of their normal daily pay taken off them if they should go off sick. Let us be clear about that—the National Party is proposing to take the fourth week of annual leave off workers in this country if it should ever be elected. Dr Wayne Mapp forgot to put that amendment forward last week. And it is saying that if workers go off sick under a National Government they will lose 50 percent of their pay for the pleasure. 
 That is good to be able to go out and tell the workforce of New Zealand because Dr Brash is on record as saying that we need to do things to keep New Zealand workers here instead of have them go over to Australia and create a skill shortage in this land. In Australia of course they have had 4 weeks’ annual leave for about 30 years. Workers also get their sick pay paid to them as per what they would have earned. But the National Party solution to a skills and labour shortage in New Zealand is to make it even worse for workers. Well on that basis there is no point in discussing the matter any further in a debate such as this because the National Party’s lunacy speaks loudly and people can understand it. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Maybe I can answer the question the member just posed to the National Party. I am not here trying to defend the National Party— 
Darren Hughes 
: Always sticking up for the National Party. 
PETER BROWN 
: No I am not always sticking up for the National Party but the member raised a good point and I thought I would at least like to address it at the start. When people work for wages and overtime they generally get extra for working extended hours weekends and public holidays and New Zealand First supports that element in this bill. But when an employee is on a salary as the member over there referred to that employee would not lose part or half of his or her pay for going off sick. I point out to the honourable member that an employee does not earn any more when he or she works overtime at night at weekends or on public holidays and that is the balance of the whole thing. It is a different wage-type structure which is why the employer answered accordingly at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
New Zealand First wanted to support this bill. We very much wanted to support it because the 2003 legislation in nautical language was a stuff-up. We got it wrong. The select committee got it wrong. I will be attacked by members behind me but we supported— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: So it was nautical—the stuff-up—was it? 
PETER BROWN 
: Well that is nautical language. We are very kind in nautical circles. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I thought nautical was an aviation term. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well there we are—we learn something every day. But the legislation was wrong and it needed to be corrected. This 2004 bill corrects a couple of areas. It corrects the area of sick leave as the Minister has rightly pointed out. It puts some very limited basic controls in the system. That concerned employers and I think that that is reasonable. New Zealand First would have liked that to be a little bit tighter but we can live with it. It is better than the 2003 legislation. 
It does not touch the issue of the 4 weeks’ leave and I want to make New Zealand First’s position quite clear on that: we are totally supportive of workers getting 4 weeks’ holiday a year. Indeed that provision does not come in until the year 2007 and we would have liked to bring it in earlier. I want to make that position clear. We believe that that could have been done relatively easily. I notice that the Government has brought in the Working for Families legislation and the provision could easily have been embraced in that legislation by using the tax system to bring it in a little earlier. But it is no big deal for it to come in in 2007. 
New Zealand First was also supportive of low-paid people getting time and a half for working on public holidays. We see no problem with that at all and we are quite supportive of it. But that 2003 legislation provided for people who volunteered to work on a public holiday to get time and a half on everything as well as a day in lieu if they were sick or for some reason could not work on the public holiday they had volunteered to work on. 
Brent Catchpole 
: Bizarre. 
PETER BROWN 
: My colleague says that that is bizarre. It sounds like something designed by Basil Fawlty and that had to be corrected. This bill corrects that and New Zealand First is comfortable about it. But there is a problem—and I know that the Minister knows it—with relevant daily pay. That has gone a little too far and it should have been addressed. An amendment was put forward by Dr Wayne Mapp at the Committee stage that really brought the whole matter back to what Labour wanted in the initial instance. We thought that that was the way to tidy it up but it was not to be. United Future abstained and the legislation went through. Now United Future has told us that it was eating the elephant piece by piece. We are still trying to work out why it is that in legislation about holidays we are talking about eating elephants but I am sure the member over there has a reason. The United Future position sounded to New Zealand First as if its members were kissing the elephant’s rump bit by bit because they did have a chance to tidy this bill up fairly and properly in the interests of everybody. 
Paul Adams 
: No. 
PETER BROWN 
: Yes you did. I can understand the member saying “No”— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I did not—the member will please not bring the Speaker into the debate. 
 This part is very important. It is the third reading. I am pointing out why United Future members said no—they were not on the select committee. They were not permanent members of the select committee did not volunteer to go on the select committee did not turn up in the audience of the select committee and neither did they read any of the submissions. Yet they abstained from quite a reasonable amendment and they sit here telling us that they want to eat the elephant bite by bite. 
I want to tell the member over there of another failing. United Future opposed the amendment in my name that related to this bill which would have prohibited people on a salary—I am talking about the high-flyers now—from having their salary regarded as a composite agreement as this bill allows. I trust that the National Party has done its homework. It has told us that Theresa Gattung who is on a salary of $2.8 million— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It was a calculation. 
PETER BROWN 
: It was a wrong calculation? She is on $2.8 million a year and under this bill she can have her agreement pulled apart and put together again so that if she works on a public holiday for a couple of hours it is what—$10000? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: No she can get $15000. 
PETER BROWN 
: Fifteen thousand dollars! I do not know how she will struggle through. I really do not know how she struggles through. I do not know how the United Future member can sit there. I see he is smiling now. I think he must regard it as a joke. He actually voted against an amendment that would have tidied that up. 
Paul Adams 
: My amendment did the same thing. What’s your excuse? 
PETER BROWN 
: I say to Mr Adams that his amendment did not do the same thing. The amendment that New Zealand First put in would have addressed the Theresa Gattung problem. For the member to sit over there and say that that is all OK is to treat this whole thing like a joke. 
It is regrettable that New Zealand First cannot support this bill. We know that it goes part-way to addressing the situation but we are not prepared to allow the relevant daily pay problem just to creep through the whole of society. It will have a huge adverse effect on some employment practices in this country and I believe that many small employers will be looking twice over this sort of legislation before they decide on whether to employ somebody. This will be a balancing act for a small employer to go through before he or she puts someone on the payroll. 
It is absolutely ridiculous that a person on a salary—particularly a high-flying salary—can claim something like thousands of dollars a day for working on a public holiday. It is absolutely disgraceful. I do not want to imply for one minute that Theresa Gattung will go in and pull her salary apart and then claim it but the fact that she can is beyond belief. I think the public of New Zealand when they get to know these sorts of facts will wonder what the dickens we do in this House. In two sequences we have turned a relatively untidy piece of holidays legislation—the earlier Act—into very complicated legislation. 
We went through this in 2003 and got it wrong by quite some. It was far worse than we in New Zealand First estimated and I think it was far worse than many of the submitters who were concerned by the 2003 legislation thought. Now this 2004 bill has tidied up two fairly minor parts of that legislation but we should be dealing with the whole thing. Let us do it once and do it right. This was the opportunity. I have to say again that if United Future had paid a little bit more attention to the detail turned up to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee actually got the submissions— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I let the member go the first time but I remind the member that it is a longstanding convention that members do not refer to the absence of members not only from the Chamber but also from select committees. That does not stop members from criticising other members for failing to vote failing to answer questions or failing to take part in debate. I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 23/7 a ruling of Speaker Algie. 
PETER BROWN 
: I am sure that you are correct Mr Speaker but I just point out that United Future is not on that select committee. I acknowledged that from the word go and I am trying to point out that had they shown a little bit more interest and got themselves on the committee by leave of the House Parliament might have been better informed and we would have better legislation out of it. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party continues to oppose this bill which we see as both unnecessary and in the main detrimental to workers’ interests. The main reason given by the Government in putting this Holidays Amendment Bill forward has been that it needs to address what it calls “unintended consequences” arising from last year’s Holidays Act. However we believe that this justification of unintended consequences is neither reasonable nor logical. Rather it is clear that Labour has given in to well-applied pressure from certain employer groups that were not prepared to rest easy once the original Holidays Act was passed. It is a worry that when we come to future employment relations or other social justice - orientated legislation the Government may be equally keen to backtrack if sufficient influence is exerted even after the original bill becomes law. 
The only amendment in front of us today for which the Green Party can see any justification at all is possibly the change to make sure that workers do not get time and a half on top of time and a half in penal rates on public holidays. If there was doubt about this in the wake of the original Act and there is some question about whether in fact such doubt exists we acknowledge that there is a need to clarify. We are also pleased that at least following consideration in the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee it has been made clear that penal rates do not include payments for other types of days such as for the sixth and seventh day of work. 
However the major part of this bill deals with changes around the provision of proof of sickness or injury to employers when an employer “has reasonable grounds to suspect that the sick leave being taken by the employee is not genuine.” This flies in the face of the progressive reform brought forward in the original Holidays Act that allowed workers 3 days’ sick leave before being required to provide medical evidence to their employer. Business representatives seem to have convinced the Government that there was a desperate unintended consequence as a result of the Holidays Act being passed in terms of a lot more false sick leave being taken than normal. However neither unions nor the Green Party have been able to identify substantive proof of this and I think it is a real pity that Labour has seen fit to partially reverse its original good intentions. 
It is a disgrace that the Government which has now turned its back on those intentions is now requiring medical certificates for short-term absences due to sick or domestic leave even just for 1 day. What we have ended up with is in fact a situation worse than the old 1981 Holidays Act which was silent on the issue of sickness certificates. 
This bill will now open the way for a whole lot of consequences that will potentially have adverse impacts on employees and their families. Among them is the risk that workers will have to disclose private medical information about themselves or their dependants to their employer. There is the risk that they or their children will be forced to travel to see a doctor even when they are better off in bed or when there is no reason for them to see a medical professional at all; and that workers will be forced to pay a high upfront consultation fee when they have not got the money on them at the time and with no guaranteed time frame for reimbursement. There is also no end of uncertainty about what “reasonable grounds to suspect” means—that is when an employer can plausibly make the demand on a staff member to provide proof of sickness or injury. There is also a total lack of clarity about what the consequences might be for workers who do not comply with an employer demand to provide such proof. 
This amendment is not only retrogressive in terms of going back on the originally progressive nature of the Holidays Act but it also introduces a whole new layer of ambiguity in potential compliance costs for both employers and unions. As for those workers who do not have a union to represent them in cases where they are harassed for proof of injury or illness I really fear the extent to which they might be dragged back into the dark ages by this misguided legislation. There is no need for this bill. The Green Party will be voting against it and I just hope we do not see any more legislation like this from a Labour Government in this or any other term of Parliament. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to support this legislation. By the sound of some of the speakers in the House this afternoon I should be rising to support this bill with my head held low but I stand with my head held high to support this legislation. I stand as an employer. I stand as somebody who has employed staff for in excess of 30 years and continues to employ staff. I am amazed at some of the misunderstanding about this bill that we are dealing with in the House today the Holidays Amendment Bill. This is not the Holidays Bill of 2003 which United Future voted against as I have said previously. This bill amends the Act. These are amendments that improve that Act. Many Opposition members have said that somehow United Future members had a miraculous row of choices whereby we could have chosen this or that—but we did not. I tell Mr Mapp that we need to understand that the Labour Government does not want or accept at this stage ordinary daily pay. That is why with Green support the Government brought relevant daily pay into the original bill. United Future does not agree with relevant daily pay but we are not looking at relevant daily pay in the legislation that is before the House. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: You had the opportunity. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: There was no opportunity for that. If we had been dealing with the issue of relevant daily pay let me assure the House we would not have this legislation to deal with full stop. So therefore United Future is supporting this bill because it does improve the legislation. The good news for my friends in Business New Zealand and those people who are so against this legislation is that they can give their members a choice. If they want to continue paying the rates under the Holidays Act they are entitled to do so; they are free to. Let them go on and pay their workers the extra rates. I ask those employers who choose to do that to send me an email because I would be very interested to see how many will pay the extra rates. 
This bill is an improvement. The reality is that it is good news for the many small businesses that will be able to reduce these costs because this legislation has been passed. Many amendments were brought in and United Future did bring in an amendment to cover people on commission sales and people who were employed on a retainer basis. I was interested that no other party in the House supported that which absolutely amazed me. 
The other amendment I was disappointed to see fail because of the Green Party vote concerned the rights of the Brethren Church. The Greens thought that their view on religion was greater than that of the others so they chose to vote it down and I think that was a sad day for business. Here is one of the diligent groups of employers in this country now facing huge challenges that could have been quite easily avoided. I was disappointed at that. It absolutely amazes me that Opposition parties can stand up and give United Future such a hard time for supporting this legislation that they know improves the Holidays Act. Many employer groups have rung me over this legislation but not one of them—not one of them—has not agreed that this legislation is an improvement. 
I was interested to hear my colleague Gordon Copeland speaking the other day on other legislation make a very relevant point because it brought clarity to the ground that United Future has stood firmly on and will continue to stand firmly on and that is the middle ground. 
 Our colleagues on our left in the Labour Party have members in their midst who have some views that we would see as extreme. Likewise there are colleagues on my right in the National Party who have some views that United Future would consider to be extreme. When we come to legislation such as this when one stands from a central viewpoint as we do in United Future listening to the concerns of the members of the Labour Party on the left and understanding the philosophy that they come from then also listening to those on the right and understanding their philosophies we then come back to our key word the word that they all smile about and that is the common-sense decision on whether it is better for the direction of the country whether it is better for employers and whether it will help in the production costs of the nation. The answer when we ask those questions in relation to this legislation has to be yes. That is why United Future says yes in its support for this bill. It is because it brings the legislation into a position that is closer to where we think it should be. 
The bill is not perfect. We would have also loved to have the issue of relevant daily pay dealt with but that was not a choice in this legislation. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why not? 
PAUL ADAMS 
: Because this legislation as I said would not have appeared in the House if that issue had to be dealt with at that time. So it was not a choice. Therefore United Future is supporting this legislation. I know there will be many many small-business people out there who will be thankful that we have at least one party in the House that uses its common sense and will not vote on an ideological philosophy and will not say yes because the other party says no or no because the other party says yes. We actually take the time to weigh matters up and make our decision based solely on common sense. New Zealand will be a better place as a result of this measure. Employers will have an easier time in a very challenging market because United Future has supported this legislation and we do so. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I waited to take the call on behalf of the ACT party on this legislation so that I could listen to the contribution from United Future. I was in the Chamber in the Committee stage when a United Future member made quite a point of noting the things that United Future thought were still wrong with the law in this area and complaining about the burden it put on employers then at the end of what I thought was an excellent speech saying that they would vote for it because it was better to take a step towards a target than not to take any step at all. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Adams is pleased. He says that what I am saying is so true. 
What baffled me of course was why when United Future knew that it held the balance of power it did not simply use it to stipulate what was right to do what was proper to achieve a law that actually helped employers. I am not talking about the big employers such as the employer of Theresa Gattung. I am not concerned about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that she could hold her employers to ransom for by showing that she has been working on the weekends. I am not even speaking for Carter Holt Harvey which finds that it gets employees with 100 days accrued sick leave or for the meat companies that have found that since the law was changed in April employees now take 50 percent more sick days than they did before and that because Monday is a convenient day for employees being off they sometimes cannot start the chain. No I am thinking about the ordinary backbone employers of this country such as the electrician whose wife is doing the books and keeping the wage records at night after she has done everything else for the family and trying to make head or tail of a law that the Government could not make head or tail of. 
This bill amends law that was drafted by the union because the employers business people and even the unions were silly enough to ask a Labour Government to fix a longstanding sore in our employment law. The Holidays Act had been a problem for decades. The Holidays Act had been confusing and there were anomalies in it so the employers—foolishly in hindsight—and the business people of this country said to a Labour Government: “Would you please fix it.” Well the inevitable happened. The Government turned to its union paymasters and said: “Oh here’s an opportunity. They want this on the agenda. Tell us what we should do.” So we had an amendment to the Holidays Act that included every wish list of the unions to the extent that they ended up with a de facto double-pay arrangement when people were not even working. When asked how this happened and why it was not foreseen the answer of parties like the ACT party was: “Well—it was.” It is the sort of thing we said would happen when the legislation was going through but the Government ignored it. 
When it became a gross embarrassment to the Government it said: “Oh well we didn’t think about it.” There is a simple reason for that. When one has one’s hand on the pen and one is drafting legislation it is like a crossword—one can understand the implications of all of those very complex interrelationships. But if one has just picked up what the paymaster has said to put through—if one is a Minister who has just taken what the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has designed—it is not understood. 
Helen Duncan 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I believe that the word “paymaster” in the context in which the member used it is out of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that. I am not sure that it was out of order. I invite the member to continue his speech and I will listen carefully. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: When I was a member of the Labour Party the relationship between it and the unions was one of its boasts. The union movement considered that the members were its representatives. It is interesting to me that this modern Labour Party having pushed through a series of bills to pay back its supporters is now taking objection to a speech in which I am saying that in a succinct way and it is saying that it is unparliamentary to draw the connection. I see that Mr Swain is in the House. The Corrections Bill was basically for the corrections unions. However back to where we were— 
Hon Taito Phillip Field 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member is well aware that a suggestion that any members of this House are under the influence or control of those outside is out of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is treading on thin ice. I refer him to Speakers’ rulings 47/3 and 47/4 where it is stated that it is not in order to say that a member has been dictated to dominated has received instructions or been directed. I ask the member to be very careful and I bring him to order. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I have been careful to avoid saying “directed”. I think that in many arrangements such as these it is willing on both sides but that does not take away from the fact that it is give and take and quid pro quo for favours done. I have no doubt that in this case the Labour Party would have been delighted to be able to move to a more sensible holidays law because this is a political embarrassment for it but it could not do so because it could not withstand the reaction it would get from its union backers. 
This is significant for ordinary employers because it is so complex that it changes the patterns of employment. This kind of law together with the other changes that have been made is part of the reason why we have consultants infesting so many areas. It is part of the reason why there are middlemen now living off the complexity of employment law why there are contractors everywhere providing labour-only services and why people do not do a lot of their own human resource management. It has become a job for experts. It is so hard to keep on top of Holidays Act requirements harassment law occupational safety and health requirements and all the multifarious other obligations that the ordinary employer the ordinary person who decides to start a business—the ordinary electrician as I said the person who starts a restaurant or a cafe the person who happens to be the poor part-time accountant for a charity—is starting to say: “It’s not worth it. Let’s just get a contractor. I can’t actually keep up.” 
Of course most employers have a decent relationship with their employees and they have a tacit mutual agreement to ignore the complexities of the law. They probably do not even bother with an employment agreement even though that is now against the law. They actually have a straightforward common-sense relationship between two people which has been the pattern in New Zealand for generations. But they are taking a risk. They cannot comply with the law because it is too hard so they rely on having decency on both sides. The problem with law such as this holidays legislation is that it is exploited by people who are not in that pattern. It is exploited by people who decide that cheating is worthwhile. And it is cheating—it is dishonest to take a sickie when one knows that he or she will get double pay or pay and a half. It is a form of dishonesty and it breeds in our employment environment a culture of Spanish practices as it used to be called in the days when one was allowed to be racist about it. But it is a culture where cheating and pulling little tricks like this becomes normal. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: You should not be racist. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Has Mr Swain never used the term “Spanish practices”? He is disowning his past now I take it. 
When pulling one’s weight was part of being employed one recognised that by making a sick claim or making repeated sick claims—a situation that obviously some employers are now facing—one actually cheats oneself. Many employees try to justify their sick leave claims by feeling sick. The real effect is that that kind of chiselling at the truth goes through into other things. It becomes a conniving at breaching safety regulations and avoiding a whole lot of requirements of the employer. The original intent of the holidays provision in a bill like this—which was to allow everyone a chance to refresh recharge their batteries have weekends and celebrate festival days together—gets lost in a morass of fine analysis of the rules to take unfair advantage. I was interested of course that the Greens I think are opposing this— 
Sue Bradford 
: We are. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Of course Sue Bradford’s experience of employment is with the unemployed workers union. It is very hard to know why the Greens do not see the deep irony in sending down here to talk about holiday pay for workers someone who is proud of the fact that she has devoted most of her life to people who refuse to work. Most of her experience has been with people who would not have had paid holidays because they were not in employment. What we have of course is the double whammy of a union hand on the pen on this and the Greens urging that it be made more severe and United Future deciding not to rock the boat and voting with the Government and the employer and the employers’ wage clerks paying the price. 
HELEN DUNCAN (Labour) 
: 
 Well it was interesting to hear that member speak. He has just displayed the utter contempt he has for the working people of this country. That speech was symptomatic of the way ACT thinks about the workers of this country. I found it very difficult to listen to. 
The Holidays Amendment Bill was introduced to clarify some areas of uncertainty that arose with the introduction of some provisions of the Holidays Act. It was not intended as a review of the Government’s core policies on holidays and leave entitlements. This Government believes that workers are entitled to a fair deal in their employment and that the conditions surrounding leave sick leave and holidays are an important part of their employment conditions. 
A couple of issues have come up and I want to correct some of the things that have been said. The issue of relevant daily pay has been raised as though it is some terrible bogey. Actually there would be no need for the relevant daily pay provision to be in the bill were it not for the fact that over the last decade the 1990s the provisions of the Employment Contracts Act meant that workers’ right to a reasonable living wage was eroded to the point that anyone who was off sick could lose up to half of his or her daily pay. Some people might think that that is all right. But if a person is on a low wage and sticking to a budget that is pretty close to the bone it is very difficult to go off sick—even though that person might need that sick leave—if that person knows that half of his or her pay will go. That is because basic pay was eroded to the point where it was at the minimum wage level. Everything on top of that was regarded as a productivity bonus or there was some other way of arranging it so that people did not get their full pay unless they met pre-arranged targets. It was hugely unfair to the workers. It might have suited the employers but it was hugely unfair to workers and it meant that most employees did not take the leave that they needed and were entitled to. That issue of relevant daily pay is a problem only because employers by their sharp practices have made it a problem. 
The issue of sick leave was quite difficult for the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee to grapple with. I agree with some of what Sue Bradford said as I do not think it is anything like the problem that the employers have made it out to be. Some of the figures that were shown at the select committee were somewhat spurious and I saw no proof for those figures. But I have to say that all of us who have worked know that there have always been a few people who were always off on a Monday or a Friday. Some employers’ figures did show a pattern with some employees and we thought that if there is a pattern of people taking advantage and disadvantaging their workmates as well then we need to put in a provision that will deal with that. 
I think that the committee worked very hard to put in a provision that was fair to everyone. The employer cannot just ask someone for proof of sickness. The employer has to be able to show due cause which means there has to be a pattern or something similar for the employer to be able to ask for proof of sickness and we have said that if the employer chooses to do that then the employer has to pay. I think that makes it fair to both parties. I know that workers who work with people who take advantage of their fellow workers in that way will appreciate it as well. It is not a common practice but it does happen occasionally. I think that we have put together some improvements that will make sure that the holidays legislation will function even better than it has before and will make sure that the workers of New Zealand will get a fair deal and will get their leave entitlements. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 The previous speaker Helen Duncan from the Labour Party was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and spent a lot of her time sneering and spluttering away at every employer’s submission—a more anti-employer Labour member one could not find. She is someone who has no understanding of the risks of employment and she was not interested during the select committee process in any of the submissions made by employers. 
This bill is not one that Labour wanted to bring into the House; it is a bill that it had to bring into the House after Margaret Wilson totally messed up the holidays legislation. Margaret Wilson came into the Parliament and passed one of her ideologically pure pieces of legislation around amending the holidays legislation. The National Party said at the time that it would not work and voted against it. It did not work. Businesses all over the country either closed on public holidays or faced horrendous extra costs. In some areas such as bereavement leave and sickness leave the costs and the amount of leave taken have soared. The new Minister in an attempt to quell what was a growing amount of noise around the issue decided that he would pass legislation to fix it by Labour weekend. So here we are passing this bill just a few days before Labour weekend when every employer has said it will not fix the problems. 
There are two groups in Parliament who are supporting this bill: the Labour Party and the United Future party. Labour has chosen to ignore the submissions. To give the Labour members credit I acknowledge that they sat on the select committee read the submissions and listened to the submitters whereas the United Future members did not. The Labour Party made a decision to ignore the overwhelming weight of the submissions. It decided that the Retailers Association the Hospitality Association of New Zealand Air New Zealand Business New Zealand Carter Holt Harvey the meat industry and Heinz-Wattie Ltd all of whom appeared before the committee—not to mention all the groups that did not appear before the committee but gave written submissions—were wrong and that Labour was right. We will see whether Labour is right. We will see over the Christmas holidays whether businesses do open over the Christmas and New Year period. The information we have had—and I suspect that the Minister has had as well—is that they will not. The hospitality industry has said that this bill solves nothing. The manufacturing sector in particular is worried about it. Those employers who manufacture 7 days a week are very concerned about this legislation and many of them are saying they will reconfigure their shifts so that they do not open. This bill does not solve the problems. 
The Government made the choice in its arrogance to ignore everything it was told. The United Future members have made the same choice not out of arrogance but out of ignorance. They have not read anything but at least they have been honest enough to tell the business community they did not read its submissions. They did not alert the business community to the way they would vote. They keep that secret throughout the process but they did support one group of employers. United Future did decide that the Brethren Church could have what it wants but not the Catholics the Methodists the Protestants or the agnostics. It is too bad for them. They cannot get what they want but the Brethren Church can get what it wants. So United Future voted for what the Brethren Church wanted but not for what anybody else wanted. I am not sure of the logic behind that. 
I have to say that a United Future member whose name I forget—what is his name? 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: “Grisly Adams”. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Mr Adams has at least told members of the business community that he did not read their submissions. He told them that he made his decision without having any regard to them. He has stuck to a line that basically says Labour wanted this legislation and United Future thought it would help. He has said United Future is sorry it did not talk to businesses and did not listen to the submissions but that if the legislation does not work United Future will support businesses next time around. 
Stephen Franks 
: “Come back to us!” 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Yes “Come back to us!” as the ACT member said. That is about as weak as one could get. In the House Mr Adams likened this measure to taking a bite from an elephant. So the problem he likens to the size of an elephant and the fix he likens to one bite of it and he says not to worry because business can come back to United Future! The mess regarding holidays is not fixed by this bill and I ask the United Future member how he can come into the House and give a speech like the one we just heard. Mr Adams said he is really really disappointed that people did not back the Brethren Church but is United Future prepared to back employers from other religious denominations? What is the difference? How can the member say he will vote so that members of the Brethren Church have a choice around union membership but not members of other churches? How can he say that? I do not know how he can say that. 
I do not want to rain on Mr Adams’ parade but the other reason I want to ask him how he can say that is that unfortunately for Mr Adams the clause concerning the Brethren Church is in the next bill that we are to consider. It is not in the Holidays Amendment Bill; it is in the employment relations bill. So the amendment he was talking about which he was disappointed people had not voted for actually is not in the bill. He nods and says that is a fair point. He is on to it! He is sharper than the average bear. That man did not read the submissions and did not sit on the committee but he came to the House and bleated about people who did not support an amendment that is not even in the bill but is an amendment to a different bill that is to be considered in a different debate at a later time. But by gosh has he got business interests at heart! Is he not sensitive! Is he not sensitive to their needs and concerns! That is why when businesses criticise him he gets very irate—but by gosh he is on to their concerns! I know that the members of the business community who are listening to the debate are saying to themselves that it was really worth the effort to lobby the United Future party because it really listened to them! That speech made by that member really showed that up. 
Finally I say to the Minister that there are people around this country who work on public holidays because they enjoy the extra money they get over that time. The Minister nods. I am talking about students in particular. Many of those students will now be denied the opportunity to have a job. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Why? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Because the hospitality industry for example gave us examples at the select committee whereby employers are now writing contracts that exclude public holidays. Employers are saying that they will hire people and that they can work on every day except the public holidays. I say to the Minister that that means two things. 
Stephen Franks 
: This summer! This summer they will get less. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: This summer—that is right. Employers will either close on public holidays or as they told the select committee they will pay people to work on the public holidays—and they will not be the regular staff or the students the employers have hired; they will be mates and other people—by way of something like a bar tab. We heard them say at the select committee that that was what the Government would force them to do. The Government is forcing businesses into closing or if they want to open into doing something in the black economy. Is that what the Government wants? The Government members sit in silence. Why did the Labour members on the select committee not tell the Minister that that was what people were saying? Why did Ross Wilson not explain that to the Minister when he was in the lobby? Why did he not explain it then? 
What we have seen with this bill is a hopeless process that was all about spin rather than substance. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: That’s hurtful. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: The Minister does not care I know about this stuff. But I say to the Minister that this bill does not fix the problem and he is hurting some of the very people whom he purports to be trying to help. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 Let me say to the members opposite that farmers when they get into a bit of strife threaten not to put the rams out but they do put the rams out and do members know why they put the rams out? Because their neighbours will. I have had dealings with the hospitality industry for some considerable time and I know very well that as soon as one hotel opens they all will open—on Christmas Day and on any statutory holiday. When their competitors are open they will be open and they will employ staff and they will pay them and in Queenstown right now they are paying them a premium because they need them. 
So I say to members opposite that they should stop their bleating. They are 13 points behind in the polls and here they are having a go at poor old United Future. What is the net gain of their undermining United Future? It is 2 percent. Maurice Williamson understands numbers; he knows how dumb that is. We are the guys those members should be attacking—not the United Future members. They are not National’s problem. United Future will not be the Government. We are the Government and if National members cannot take stripes off us they will never take stripes off anybody. I find the Opposition’s dealings with this particular bill to be quite extraordinary. 
The only member in the House who was happy at the conclusion of Rodney Hide’s speech as Michael Cullen was speaking was Stephen Franks. Stephen Franks had a grin all over his face when Rodney Hide was getting done because Stephen Franks knew that his time is not up yet. He has not quite joined National yet and he still has an opportunity to be ACT leader. 
I want to say one thing about this bill that is really important. I was in Australia quite recently and I talked to quite a number of members of Parliament there. I talked to Liberal members of Parliament National Party members of Parliament Independent members of Parliament—and very few Labor members of Parliament because they were all out door-knocking in the election campaign that was going on. I told them that a debate was going on in New Zealand on the Holidays Act. They asked what the debate was about and I told them that we wanted to give workers 4 weeks’ paid leave from 2007 and that the National Party over here was saying that was outrageous. They asked what planet those members were on. People over there have had 4 weeks’ annual leave for 30 years. They asked why we punished our workers so much. Even the National Party and the Liberal Party in Australia know that one should not punish workers like that. 
Leave is very important to people who work their guts out for the boss. And that is what workers do. Workers do not go to work and shirk. I worked in a pie factory on one occasion. It was great work and hard. The people there worked hard. I worked in a supermarket lumping sacks of spuds around. I was so fit—it was great. Workers work hard and they need time off. Even members opposite need time off. They probably need time off now to start door-knocking. [ 
Interruption 
] They do get 4 weeks. 
I suppose that we should not be too surprised that National opposes this measure because it is going back to its old philosophy and its old philosophy is that it would sell Christmas. The National Party would sell Christmas. Don Brash will take a holiday—he will take your holiday. He will not take Mr Speaker’s holiday; he will take the workers’ holiday. Mr Speaker will always get a holiday; we will make sure of that. National would take the workers’ holidays and that is outrageous in the extreme. 
This bill is a good bill. I am a little bit sorry that at the end of the day the Greens could not find their way clear to support it. This bill is a good bill that tidies up some areas of concern in the legislation. I suppose that if we have come to a point where both ACT and the Greens disagree with the bill we have got it right. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I want to make it clear to the drive-time audience out there listening to me tonight waiting to hear about this bill that this bill—the Holidays Amendment Bill—that we are trying to do a third reading of tonight is really what is referred to out in the business world as a fix-up of the muck-up. I accept that one has to be careful how one says that and I will not say it quickly. It is a fix-up of the muck-up. Last year this Government passed the Holidays Act and it was told at the time that it was a muck-up. That was even mentioned in the minority report of the select committee. The Government was told. United Future the common-sense party even voted against it because it was such a hopeless bill. The Government was told that there would be consequences that would be enormously damaging to business. But did the Government listen? No it did not listen. There was not a mutter not a murmur not a syllable. 
What happened is now legendary. The disastrous results for business in terms of the extra costs that it sustained from that legislation had to be addressed. Margaret Wilson got the sack because the North Korean and Cuban model was not working. Then “Swainy and the boys” were brought in to do the fix-up of the muck-up. Well we have to say to Paul Swain the Minister of Labour that this bill is a very very bad way to fix up a huge muck-up. I shall use United Future’s analogy. United Future members bless them said in the House today and during the Committee stage that they know that this bill does not fix it up properly and that frankly they saw it as taking a bite out of an elephant. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time was United Future’s answer. Well my response to United Future members in the Committee stage was to say: “How does one swallow a dead rat? Whole!”. That is what this bill is; this bill is a dead rat that we are being forced to swallow. 
What I found interesting about the analogy—to take it a little bit further—was that a member from United Future went on about the rights of Brethren about how disappointed he was that his amendment about that issue was not being supported that that was an outrage and that people should support his amendment. It turned out that that issue was not even in this bill! When United Future members took a bite out of the elephant it was the wrong elephant! The elephant that they meant to have a bite from is wandering around blissfully unaware of anything and there is another elephant somewhere with a huge chunk out of his bum that United Future took and he does not know why! That is how informed United Future is on this bill! 
Let us get serious about what this bill actually is supposed to do. It is supposed to say to somebody that if he or she is on leave and gets sick then he or she should not be getting the unbelievably stunningly weighted levels of payment that the Holidays Act entitles that person to. But the most insidious little element in this whole thing is something called equivalent daily pay. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Relevant. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I get equivalent and relevant mixed up. The Minister is correct. I tell members and the drive-time audience listening to this what that relevant daily pay means. Not only—[ 
Interruption 
] They heard that I would be on; there is a big audience out there I can tell members. Not only does a person get his or her basic pay in this relevant daily pay; the Minister says we should add on all the things that the person could be entitled to while he or she is working. I can understand why some workers get extra things. I am a big fan of bonus payments. If people turn in a staggeringly good performance of the job they are supposed to do if they produce thousands more widgets than the manager thought they would they should get a bonus because they achieved fantastic things for the company. I do not ever support some of the things that I used to get when I was a driver for Refrigerated Freight Lines Wattie’s and so on. We used to get wet money and cover money if we had to put tarpaulins on and rope money and all that. 
But this is the rub. The Government said that it would work out a person’s relevant daily pay by taking that person’s basic rate—and that is accepted—then adding on all those things that the person could get in specific circumstances. If a person was working out in the pouring rain the Government would give him or her some relevant daily pay for it—an extra bit. If a person had to put on covers and ropes or have a trailer or other extra conditions the Government would add it in. But here is the nonsense: a driver from that trucking company who is on holiday on the Gold Coast who is sunning himself in sunny Queensland could because of all those extra calculations be paid more than the poor old driver working back here where it is not actually raining and he does not have to use any covers or ropes! 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He may get sweat money. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: He might have sweat money. How bizarre is that? I want to get this clear; I think I have got this right. I understand that the relevant daily pay will be calculated based on the last 4 weeks’ pay. So the incentive is for someone to take vacation time straight after he or she has had a bonus payment. Bonus payments often come as a big spike as Mr Tamihere will tell members. A person’s wages just run along in a flat line then a big spike comes when that person gets a massive bonus. I am sure that John Tamihere as the Minister for Small Business knows how that works in small business. So what will a person do? He or she will take his or her holidays in the 4 weeks after that big spike so that his or her relevant daily pay has a big lump added into it—so the average is fantastic. Why would a person take his or her holidays 5 weeks later when that spike’s effect has gone through? How mad is that? 
Here is the rub. Labour members can go on all they like in the House—and they have—saying National Party members do not know what they are talking about are hopeless and so on. Members should forget about that. What did all of the major employer groups all the major businesses and even some of the Government-owned businesses say? Air New Zealand bless its little heart is owned by the Government because of mismanagement by Michael Cullen and so on in not allowing Singapore to lift the cap and buy in—but never mind it is a Government-owned airline now. It said that the Act was already costing it a fortune and that this amendment bill would not fix it. That is what it said. Heinz-Wattie Carter Holt Harvey—I cannot remember them all; there is a plethora of them—said the same. I would be very happy to yield my time to the Minister so that he could tell us why he did not listen to the plethora of submissions from businesses. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: He’s from the unions. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That is right. He comes from the North Korean model side of things. I think I heard him say at one stage that employers were all right but he would not want his daughter to marry one—I think that was his line. Perhaps he said that some of his best friends were employers—although he does not like to say that too often in the Labour caucus. That is what Labour members think of employers—that they are evil and are out there to drive workers into the ground. It is the old cloth-cap Joe Hill 1920s North American railway worker’s view. Well that is not how it works. 
What about the entertainment industry and the hospitality industry which made it quite clear that if this bill was the fix-up of the muck-up then they would literally not be able to open on a public holiday or they would open through the devious means of giving special payments to somebody who was not part of the normal workforce or worse still they would do what they have done up to now which is add a premium to their charges? 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek the leave of the House to table sick leave hours and wages figures from the Alliance meatworks in Nelson which are pertinent to the debate. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am delighted to have 2 minutes and 5 seconds remaining—although it will be less than that now. But I am indebted to my colleague Nick Smith for tabling those figures because they reaffirm what we have heard from a number of various industries—that the cost of the Holidays Act which was put in place by the Government the cost of the muck-up that the Government made has put prices and costs for companies through the ceiling. 
We wanted to see United Future putting the blowtorch to the Government telling the Government that unless it fixed the bill properly it would not have the support of United Future. The Greens are not supporting this legislation New Zealand First is not supporting this legislation and National most certainly is not supporting it. The only way that the Government is getting it through is by relying on United Future. So the power lay in its hands absolutely. Paul Adam’s lame analogy of taking one bite out of an elephant really should be treated with the contempt— 
Simon Power 
: What? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I hear one of my colleagues say “What?”. That is what Mr Adams said—that the whole Holidays Act is an absolute muck-up but this fix-up of the muck-up is the equivalent of taking a bite out of an elephant. Mr Adams then went on to give a long speech about how United Future members supported the view of the Brethren on this legislation and so on— 
Simon Power 
: He was speaking to the wrong bill! 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: That is right; so he has even taken the bite out of the wrong elephant! But it is sad that United Future did not put the blowtorch to the Government point out that United Future is the party of common sense—although that is very debatable—and tell the Government that what United Future wanted it to do was to fix up the muck-up not just tinker with it. 
Mr Adams used another analogy which I thought was very dangerous in military terms. He said that this bill is taking us one step closer to the target. Well one has to be very careful when one is out on the rifle range because often target ranges have been set up on minefields. If one takes one step forward that may be one’s last step. 
As far as I am concerned I have no respect for a Government that was warned of the consequences—and it was—then comes back and says that they were unintended consequences and that that is what we are fixing up. The bill is a disgrace and National is going to vote against it. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I am very pleased to support this bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Holidays Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 51; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 59 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) 
Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill (No 2) 
Human Rights Amendment Bill 
Third Readings 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Human Rights Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. The Employment Relations Bill (No 2) amends the Employment Relations Act which is by and large working well. How do we know that? Well the Leader of the Opposition Don Brash said so. Having said once that he would repeal or scrap the Employment Relations Act— 
Darren Hughes 
: By lunchtime. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: —probably by lunchtime. In fact lunchtime itself will be gone by lunchtime if one listens to what the National Party is saying. Don Brash is now saying that employers think the Employment Relations Act is a good Act so National will keep it. Now what he is concerned about is this legislation and of course it is always one more bill that he is not happy about. But we did say at that time that we would review the Employment Relations Act and we have. The Employment Relations Bill (No 2) and the other two bills before us are the outcome of that review. 
I would like to focus on a couple of issues in response to a some matters that were raised during the Committee stage. The first point concerns “freeloading” or “passing on”. If one is a union the issue is about freeloading—that is people getting the benefits of bargaining without making any contribution or as many of the delegates have said it is like someone who does not pay his or her taxes and expects to get free health-care. So the unions have most concern about that and I am hoping the member also agrees with that. On the other hand for employers it is an issue to do with “passing on”. So it is “freeloading” if one is a union  and “passing on” if one is an employer. 
One of the critical things was how we get the relationship right between those who are on collective agreements and those who are on individual contracts. It is important to say right from the start that employers are not prevented from providing all their employees with the same terms and conditions of employment so long as the bargaining has been carried out in good faith. Some of the employers were worried about whether they could have employment contracts people on one rate and individual contracts people on the other. In other words could they have collectives and individuals on the same rate. The answer is yes. We made it quite clear and specific in the legislation that one could do that provided good-faith bargaining occurs. There cannot be anything wrong with that. 
The next point is about the bargaining fee arrangement. It is not compulsory. I have heard a number of ridiculous and silly comments made in this House by people who wanted to work themselves into a lather about this found that it was not what they thought it was but continued in a lather all the same. I want to say that the contribution made by Peter Brown on this has been I think quite measured on the basis that he considered that these particular provisions were quite reasonable. The bargaining fee arrangement will happen only where there is a willing employer a willing union and an acceptance by affected employees. Unions cannot strike over bargaining fees and they cannot refuse to conclude a collective agreement just because they want the agreement to include a bargaining fee clause. The legislation is quite clear on that. Even where the employer the union and the majority of employees in a secret ballot agree to have bargaining fees individual employees can still opt out. The bargaining fee provisions give employers unions and employees another way to address union concerns about freeloading extend the benefits of collective bargaining and still protect the integrity of individual choice. So let us go through the issues again. If people want to have a bargaining fee— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: What would it be—100 percent? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is not specific but clearly when it comes to a ballot the amount of the bargaining fee would need to be included in the clause on which people are voting. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Do you agree it should be less? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I think the legislation says something like it will not be any greater than that. The point really is that first of all the union and the employer have to agree. Peter Brown is quite right when he says that no employer is going to be bullied on this sort of thing. [ 
Interruption 
] That member does not have the same view of the employers that Peter Brown has which is what I have. If people do not want to have this it will not be in it. Firstly employers and unions have to agree. Secondly there has to be a ballot of the members who are covered potentially by that particular collective. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: In many cases the majority will be unionists. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes that is potentially true. A majority could be unionists and it could expect to go through. So what did the Government do? It says that we cannot have in this case the tyranny of the majority. What we do say is that if some people want to opt out they can. It is just a simple matter of saying: “I don’t like this arrangement; I’m out of here.” I am trying to ask that member what is wrong with that. People who want to get the benefits of the collective—that is the benefits that people have paid for to get the wages and conditions improved—somehow say that people who do not have to pay anything should make a contribution. What is wrong with that? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But we have gone one step further and said that if people do not want to be part of the union that is fair enough because there is free choice. People do not have to be part of the union and the collective. They can opt out. What is wrong with that? There has been some criticism that it is a bit loose. I say to the House that— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Union mates I guess. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Well “Union mates”—this is ridiculous! We think that by and large this provision will be used quite rarely. It will be used in places where there is high unionism and where in fact a number of employers say they would quite like to have one arrangement. It will be interesting to see how the measure proceeds. It is a very gentle bargaining arrangement. Peter Brown who has just arrived says that it is quite reasonable and I agree with that. It is a shame he could not bring himself to recognise the full benefits of the legislation that the Government proposed so that he could support it in its entirety. However I do recognise that he voted for this clause and I thank him for that. 
Another important issue is the test of justification of personal grievance cases. The test now reinforces a fair and reasonable approach. Most people including Employment Court judges made good submissions on it. Employers’ actions and how they go about them must reflect what a fair and reasonable employer would have done in the circumstances. So that particular clause was improved by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. It has a lot more common sense and I thank the members of the committee for that. 
The Government supports the promotion of best practice so that employers can use the correct procedures with relative ease and avoid costly mistakes. As I stated before I will be looking at ways to give more guidance to employers and employees around personal grievance issues especially the procedural requirements for dismissals and disciplinary actions. Irrespective of what legislation we have there will always be personal grievance arrangements. There were under the Employment Contracts Act. That is just the way of things. At some stage employers will want to dismiss someone for whatever reason and the employee might say that it is not fair. There will always be some dispute. 
It is fair to say that generally speaking the provisions around all those things whatever the legislation are not particularly clear. One of the criticisms I hear from some of the employers is that a lot of people get caught procedurally when in fact it is the substance of the issue that is important. 
Finally I would like to comment on the introduction of protections for the most at-risk employees. In sale transfer or contracting-out a higher level of protection has been given to those employees who have been most vulnerable to restructuring situations in the past. Those employees will have the right to transfer to the new employer on the existing terms and conditions of employment and are those in the cleaning and food catering industries. To accommodate future change in the labour market and in employment practices we have built in a clear process for amending the groups of employees who will have a statutory right to transfer in restructuring situations. 
Other employees will be given protection though a requirement for their employment agreements to contain a provision that describes what steps the employer will take to protect employees affected by a sale transfer or initial contracting-out situation. The details of those provisions will be a matter for agreement between employer and employee. 
I acknowledge firstly the contribution of the Hon Margaret Wilson to the legislation. Both the Employment Relations Act and the Employment Relations Law Reform Bill reflect her commitment to an employment relations framework based on cooperation rather than confrontation and I salute her for that. I also thank the members of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I also thank the officials for the work they have done. They got slagged a bit in the Committee stage and I found that quite reprehensible; I thank them for the huge amount of work they have put into this legislation. 
The bills represent another step forward towards building an employment relations framework encompassing fair minimum standards and promoting productive employment relationships. I commend the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Human Rights Amendment Bill to the House. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Eighty percent of all workers in our country—1.7 million New Zealanders—have said no to unions clearly and emphatically. That is what they said. When people have had a clear choice they have left unions in droves and have never returned. There is one reason only for this bill and that is to boost union power and membership. This is Labour’s debt repayment to the unions. It is the price it paid for the support of the Council of Trade Unions. There is nothing in these bills to promote productivity or workplace harmony but there is everything in them to promote unions to boost their power and to deny choice to New Zealanders to choose their own bargaining arrangements. Instead they are forced against their wills into unions in order to have money extracted from their wages and paid to the unions for funding the Labour Party. 
I make a prediction tonight that the only parties to vote for the bill will be the Labour Party the Green Party and the Maori Party. We have heard a lot of cant from the other side about conspiracies between the Maori Party and other parties in this House but on these kinds of issues members know where Labour is looking to. It is looking to the Maori Party and to the Green Party and that is the shape of the coalition it would put up to the country at the next election. New Zealanders have every reason to be afraid. 
This legislation is a return to the bad old days. For 50 years from 1940 to 1990 we had compulsory unionism in this country. Those were the years of New Zealand’s economic failure. We were consistently below the OECD in our growth rate. We started off in the 1950s with the third-highest living standards in the world. Forty years later we were twentieth and sliding rapidly. Why did that happen? Frankly it was due to union power. That is the simple truth. Unions extracted huge monopoly payments in particular areas—the wharfs the freezing works the railways. Workforces were grossly inflated and there was appalling productivity and feather-bedding all round. 
The reality is that even Mr Swain knows the truth of that. Any fair-minded people in this Parliament across all the parties would know the truth of that. I can tell members that people actually made the choice to join labouring workforces rather than go to tertiary education. Why did they do that? They did it because it paid more. The price the country paid was lower productivity and the reality is that our country went backwards. 
I have to acknowledge that that turned around starting I guess in 1984. That party will turn the clock backwards. What it is promoting is an effective return to monopoly union power. 
We will see multi-employer collective contracts and a constant pattern of strikes. Frankly we have already seen that happen. One has only to look at the first warning shots the wharf strike at Ports of Auckland. People came from Australia and from Tauranga with the clear and total objective of getting one national award across all the ports. What followed from that was lower productivity feather-bedding practices and strikes at critical times. 
Our economy is uniquely vulnerable. We are more dependent on primary-product exports than any other developed country in the world. Everyone knows that to be true. Therefore strategic strikes paralyse our country. They are intended to extract monopoly pricing and feather-bedding practices and this Government delivers precisely that to them. Why does it do that? Because its members are all unionists including the Minister. That is the truth of it and this is their pay-off to their old ideological allegiances. 
 We have six fundamental reservations about the legislation. The first is that the collective contract processes will be used to extract bargaining fees. The Minister will deny that but the essence of voluntary unionism is such that one has to join the union. Under Labour’s approach people will now have to pull out of the union. It is a fundamental reversal of the principle of human rights whereby people join the organisations they want to join and are not dragooned or forced into them as this legislation will do and then have to pull themselves out against no doubt antagonistic union members. 
The second objection is that the legislation promotes collective contracts over individual contracts. Right through the legislation there are a whole series of measures that force employers to sit down with unions in order to negotiate collective contracts. Employers do not have the right to say they object. That is prohibited to the point of incurring a fine. That leads us to the third fundamental objection. Honest and robust negotiations are likely to lead to fines. Do members know why? Because the union will say that honest and robust negotiations are a breach of good faith. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: That’s what they all say. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: That is exactly what they will say and unions will go to the employment authority and effect fines of $10000. That is a chilling and dangerous precedent to set. No other Western country has that provision in its industrial law. This Government is sending us back to the sorts of practices we would expect to see in Stalinist Russia—the sorts of things frankly that I thought we had left behind 15 or 20 years ago. 
The fourth fundamental objection is that the authority will now be able to set the terms of employment contracts. The right of free will and the ability of people to negotiate their bargains is lost. We are going back to the old practice of national award-setting—of mediation whereby the terms of the deal are not just facilitated but are actually set. 
The fifth objection is that the legislation destroys value in businesses. This employment relations legislation can properly be called the “Business Value Destruction Bill” whose effect will be particularly acute for small businesses in the service sector. 
Finally there is a sixth problem. One would think it extraordinary that after a year of discussion on the issues of the treaty what does Labour do—a year after Orewa? The Government is bringing into employment law the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Surely the Minister cannot actually believe in doing that yet he is precisely promoting it. Maybe he is on instruction from Margaret Wilson because it is the sort of thing one would expect her to put into legislation. He is pursuing an agenda that is divisive for our country. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: “Swainy and the girls” now. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: “Swainy and the girls”! I want to say very briefly what National will do. We will stamp out union preferences in legislation. We will fix up the personal grievance procedures. We will give young workers a real opportunity to get employment with probation periods for 90 days or thereabouts. Interestingly enough Mr Tamihere supports that but his voice is about to disappear from this Government and I suggest ultimately from this Parliament. This country is faced with a very clear choice: people can vote for Labour the Greens and the Maori Party and what they will get is union power—more and more of it over time. The other choice is the choice of freedom opportunity and prosperity—that is to vote National for the freedom of workers employers and the people of our country. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 After listening to Wayne Mapp I have to say I expected him to break into something that sounded a bit like “Friends Romans countrymen” or something like that because it was such a melodramatic performance. Depicting doom gloom despondency and disaster was just a bit over the top and does Mr Mapp no credit at all. 
First of all I thank the Greens for the role they played as the legislation went through the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. They worked cooperatively to help improve the legislation so that it creates a balance for employees and employers. That is the reality of the situation without the dramatics we just heard from Wayne Mapp. The claims that National is making about these amendments leading towards compulsory unionism are just— 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Old mantra. 
JILL PETTIS 
:—as my colleague Paul Swain said an old mantra. We have heard it all before years ago. None of National’s dire predictions came to pass nor will any of the silly statements it has made during this debate come to pass either. This is good legislation and it creates a balance for employees and employers. I am very pleased to support it. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Whilst I do not agree with the member who just resumed her seat I have to say that I thought she took a more rational approach than my honourable colleague of a few moments ago. He was saying that this legislation will give unions strength to the degree that we will go back to the bad old days. I think he was referring to the bad old days of the 1960s when there was a low crime rate when we could go outside our houses and leave the doors unlocked when there was full employment— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: No productivity. 
PETER BROWN 
: —I will come to the issue of productivity—when there was no traffic congestion and when we were very much an egalitarian society. My honourable colleague said there was no productivity. Let me tell him that even in those good old days of the 1960s which I think he tried to paint as the dark old days we would handle cargo in the Port of Tauranga faster and more efficiently than in any Western port in the world. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That is actually not true. 
PETER BROWN 
: I tell the member that that is true—even in the 1960s particularly with log and timber-type cargoes that got the port into the realm of being well-known. Things have improved since then in terms of productivity. I have heard the reflection against the watersiders. I am not going to defend the watersiders who have taken a strike in Auckland for whatever they want. They are trying to address the issue of casualisation. I do not know whether they are wrong or right—I have not studied it. But I will tell members that there are no ports in the Western World that can handle cargo faster and more efficiently than—again—the Port of Tauranga. I would suggest that Auckland is not too far behind but it is behind. Some of our other ports are up with the play also. We should be proud of our productivity when it comes to ship handling and waterfront handling. No ship comes to New Zealand and gets an inferior service. There is no place in the Western World—or even in the world I would suggest—that can load ships faster and more efficiently than we can in New Zealand. So let us get a few things in perspective. 
This legislation however does concern employers particularly small employers. Large employers will take the attitude that if they do not like the country or do not get a fair go they will move to Australia or somewhere else. They are no longer at the beck and call of the New Zealand economy. Small employers do not have the same luxury. They will either continue or close and this sort of bill will make it harder for the small employer to make the positive decision of employing somebody. That is a real concern. But the concern is not because we have unions. Unions by and large are just part of society— 
Simon Power 
: Oh steady! 
PETER BROWN 
: Unions are part of society. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That might be a fair comment but what about compulsory unionism? 
PETER BROWN 
: I am not talking about compulsory unionism. I would not want that any more than I would want people to join New Zealand First on a compulsory basis. But I would not be telling the truth if I did not tell members that New Zealand First believes in collective strength. I am sure the honourable member over there wants to advance his party by getting a few more people in this place. He knows he can achieve that only by getting collective strength in the public arena. Collective strength is a very important facet of political life and industrial life. I do not think we should chastise unions or put a black mark against them because they want to have a stronger power base. That is not to say that we have to agree or roll over. That is not to say anything except that they exist they are entitled to exist and they want to strengthen their hand in the industrial environment. 
Much has been much made of the bargaining fee arrangement. I say to honourable members that first and foremost the employers have to agree to it. They cannot be in breach of good faith if they say no. If employers do not agree with a bargaining agent type of arrangement then they are not in breach of good faith. I should imagine that most employers who have a majority of employees who are not in a union will not agree. I would expect employers with a large union workforce and who have a few people who do not belong to a union to think seriously about the bargaining fee arrangement. But I am not expecting employers right across the country to agree to a bargaining fee arrangement. I do not want to insult employers by saying that they will be rolled over a barrel if they do not agree. I cannot accept that for one moment. If that does occur I will have a good career after I leave this place because there is still a little bit of steel in my backbone. 
I am not expecting any major catastrophes as a result of the bargaining fee arrangement. I believe that the moderate unionists who have spoken to me have a case. I know that they have spoken to some of my colleagues. They do the work they pay the money to set up an arrangement to do the negotiations and then they see it passed on to all and sundry. It is human nature to have some concern about that. I believe that this arrangement will help them considerably. It will help both the employers and the workforce. As I said the bargaining fee arrangement is not compulsory for the employer or for the workforce either. They will vote by secret ballot if they want to proceed and anybody who still does not want to proceed will have the opportunity and the ability to opt out. It will not be the end of the world. Ideally unions should not have the monopoly on collective contracts. New Zealanders are not inferior to Australians— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Labour doesn’t believe in that and the member knows it. 
PETER BROWN 
: I know it does not. I am saying that this is the best option we can get because Labour does not believe in what is the very best option. But New Zealanders are not inferior to Australians. My understanding is that collective contracts are working very very well in Australia where a group of working people can get together and appoint their own bargaining agent and have a collective contract. We are kidding ourselves if we think that is not occurring here. The members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee will remember several submitters telling us about independent collectives or covert collectives or some such term. In other words there are many workforces in this country where workers are all paid effectively on a collective contract although it is written into the agreement that they are on individual contracts. New Zealand First says that it is about time we were honest with our own system. We know that the Government is not prepared to officially recognise collectives outside the union movement so this bargaining fee arrangement has some merit. I believe it will be a short-term solution. I believe that in a few years’ time we will come to our collective senses and say that collective arrangements could be negotiated by whoever wants to employ a bargaining agent. I fail to understand the rationale for blocking that. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: You’ll have to have a National Government for that. 
PETER BROWN 
: I correct the honourable member. There need only be New Zealand First teamed either with National or with Labour to put a little more sense into the whole thing. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: They’re dead. 
PETER BROWN 
: I do not want to debate coalition arrangements with National—not right now. We will talk to them maybe after the next election. 
In conclusion I say to United Future that this is the debate where that party can really talk about the Brethren clause. I felt that the United Future member was a little bit confused during the debate on the Holidays Amendment Bill but this is the bill where it is appropriate to talk about that clause. I draw the United Future member’s attention to the fact that New Zealand First supported him 100 percent with that clause. I only wish United Future had supported New Zealand First and my colleagues in National on the other bill as we would have got a lot more sense into the Holidays Act. 
MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is pleased to see the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) in the House for its third reading—the original Employment Relations Law Reform Bill having been broken into three constituent bills. The bill’s progress thus far has been something of a long and winding journey and I am glad the legislation will finally see the light of day. Above all with this bill the Green Party is delighted that at last we see protections in place for some groups of particularly vulnerable workers who risk losing their jobs and built-up entitlements when the business they work for is restructured or sold out from under them. Once this bill is in place what was known as the transfer of undertakings provision in the original Employment Relations Bill will assist in the protection of cleaners caterers caretakers orderlies and laundry workers in the State sector and in some parts of the private sector. 
I commend the Government for having the fortitude to push through with this despite the scaremongering from large employers that led Labour to retreat on this provision the first time around in 2000. 
The only regret from the Green Party’s perspective is that Labour has not been willing to include caregivers in rest homes in the schedule that covers vulnerable workers. Most people in this country and MPs in this House would I believe recognise that such caregivers are one of the most hard-working essential yet exploited groups of workers in New Zealand. Their wages are often the minimum rate—around $9 or $9.50 an hour. The work they do is essential to the well-being of many of our most disabled elderly and others who need the best care and attention possible. Yet we pay these workers a pittance for work that is often physically and mentally demanding in the extreme. 
These are also workers whose workplaces are at high risk of being sold because residential care is big business in this country. When rest homes change hands the staff concerned often go through a period of extreme anxiety and distress. Workers are in danger of losing their jobs and all the long-service leave and other entitlements they may have built up. I am sorry the Government did not see fit to support a Green Party amendment that would have seen caregivers in residential homes added to the schedule of vulnerable workers. I just hope they will be the first group to be added to the schedule as soon as is practicable through the new process. 
The Green Party also put up several other amendments to the bill during the Committee stage. One of these was aimed at strengthening good-faith provisions in cases where there are serious breaches by employers. The second amendment called for the bill to be amended to allow all employees who transfer to a new employer in a “transfer of undertakings” situation the right to bargain for redundancy entitlements. Neither of these amendments was radical or out of hand. Again I am sorry that Labour has not seen fit to support them. 
I turn to an issue in the original Employment Relations Law Reform Bill which has now disappeared altogether. Part 2 as it was first drafted was devoted to amending equal pay legislation. But it was completely inadequate in this day and age because of its refusal to deal with pay equity—that is equal pay for work of equal value. It was highly ironic that at a time when the Government had just done a lot of excellent work through the Pay and Employment Equity Taskforce it should introduce legislation that covered equal pay but left pay equity out. Fortunately the majority of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee agreed with the bulk of submitters in this area and in the end Part 2 was deleted wholesale from the bill. 
It is now critical that the Government does not just use this as an excuse to abandon the equal pay and pay equity “ship” altogether but rather treats as a matter of urgency the need to draft distinct new legislation that builds on all the good work that has already been done in this area. I hope we will see as the commentary on the bill points out the development of robust equal pay and pay equity provisions being introduced in the very near future. 
With regard to the bill overall as it was returned to the House the Green Party congratulates the Government on being willing to learn from some of the weaknesses and failings of the original Employment Relations Act. We are pleased to support measures to strengthen collective bargaining to further define and refine what is meant by good faith and to tidy up matters in the area of personal grievances so that this legislation is not such a bonanza for lawyers. 
We are also pleased to see some minor moves to take stronger measures against the problem of freeloading which sadly has become endemic in many unionised and semi-unionised workplaces. The Green Party has every sympathy with workers who feel a natural resentment when colleagues doing the same or similar work in the same workplace get all the benefits of collective bargaining that have been hard won by the union without those colleagues having to pay a cent for the privilege. We have therefore been happy to support moves through this bill to prevent the overt passing on to the collective—when it is done with the intention of undermining the bargaining position of the union—with the introduction of bargaining fee arrangements when these are freely agreed to between the employer and the union. We believe that unions and employees should have the right to include arrangements within a collective agreement that will allow for non-union members to pay a bargaining fee. 
To those on the right who argue that that is a return to compulsory unionism or a replica of the closed shop system in America I say that that is total nonsense. Those agreements can happen only when both employee and union freely agree and non-union employees will still have the right to opt out of that arrangement and negotiate directly with their employer on their own behalf. That is neither compulsion nor anything like the closed shop system. In fact the Green Party would have liked to see much stronger measures taken against freeloading but we accept that the tightly argued compromise contained in this bill is probably the best that could be achieved in the current climate. 
In conclusion I would just like to note once again the way in which even the mildest of industrial relations reform seems to bring out the worst in certain parts of the business community. Although some big-business and employer submitters offered calm rational submissions pointing out as they have every right to do what they saw as wrong or right with this employment relations bill others seemed to use this legislation as an opportunity to make the wildest claims about what will happen to the economy if it goes through. Sue Bradford made the point that having been in Parliament for 2 years she was starting to get used to fact that some parts of the business world always cry wolf claiming that even the smallest change to the employment relations framework will result in businesses closing down or going off shore high unemployment and an economic disaster in general. That manifestly did not happen as a result of the Employment Relations Act and I certainly do not believe we will see a host of business closures or an unemployment Armageddon as a result of this bill going through. 
What amazed Sue Bradford most of all this time around was the way in which so many employer submitters calmly told the select committee that the Employment Relations Act is working fine and to please not change it—when so many of them had forecast doom and destruction in 2000—especially given that the industrial relations bill is very moderate amending legislation based in large part on the contribution of working-parties which included employer representatives. 
To finish I would once again like to thank the Government for sticking to its guns with this bill and for not caving in to unreasonable demands from some parts of the business community. I fully expect that when the next good industrial relations bill turns up the business community will be saying how well everything is working with this one as it turns its sights on the latest supposed atrocity from Labour and the Greens. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on this employment relations legislation which we will not be supporting. It is interesting to think of the many things that we say will happen and the things we say will not happen. It was not that long ago—probably 7 8 or 9 years ago or maybe a little bit longer than that—that we were starting to say to people that one of the biggest challenges we were going to face in the days ahead was that we would not have enough hours to work. We were going to have the 35-hour week then the 30-hour week and we were beginning to think about what people would do with all that leisure time. I think the people listening tonight will be wondering whether that leisure time is even on the horizon. 
Some of the speakers today have said that this legislation is very pro-union legislation and I tend to agree; it is definitely pro-union legislation. But I would not be able to speak strongly enough to say that I do not agree with having unions. If one says that one does not agree with having unions then on the other hand one has to say that one cannot agree with having an association like an employers’ association. Any association that represents members has to do the very best it can for its members. This is clearly payback time for the unions and the unions have been trying to get far more out of this legislation. 
I do not like the term “good-faith bargaining”. What is good-faith bargaining and who defines it? I think those are very good questions to ask. My understanding has been that when people get into a dispute only one group actually has to pay to get a decision and that group is normally the employers. The dispute will without fail end up in some type of employment court and employers will have to pay to get a result. As a consequence of that fact employers will often look at the cost of fighting a dispute and decide whether it is better to pay out. I do not like that sort of trend coming into our legislation. Workers unfortunately will always receive different rates of pay for different types of jobs. For one thing there are different profit margins in different things. Therefore we can never get to a situation—unless we go to communism—where everybody gets paid the same amount of money. 
We seem to be deregulating everything these days—except that in this legislation we are not deregulating people. We are not giving people the free right to choose. We are finding that forces are coming—whichever way we want to look at it—on to employees to toe a certain line. That is why United Future does not like this. I do not think it is a good thing to have disputes that cost one side more than the other. There is no doubt that this legislation will cost employers more than before and United Future cannot support that. 
There is much in this legislation about employers having to divulge information to employees when changes are coming in a company. I think that is a very challenging situation. There may be changes in a company—changes that an employer or a company owner is aware of—that will affect staff but it may not be in the best interests of the staff for that information to come out into the public arena too early. Firstly that could affect the very viability of their jobs and secondly it could mean that the business could degenerate because the employer does not have all the facts together about the proposed changes. Therefore I think employers must always have the ability to keep some information that may be commercially sensitive out of the sight of their employees until they get to a stage when they have some concrete evidence or a concrete process whereby they can go to their employees and say: “This is actually what’s going to happen and these will be your various options.” 
Under this legislation if one is going to buy a business in some industries one has to take on the staff who work there. That may sound fair enough but what if those very staff are the reason why the employer is having to sell the business? The poor person who takes it over will be stuck with the same problem and therefore the business will not be able to progress. I think most business owners today always say that their staff are their strongest asset. Therefore they need to have the ability to make business decisions by weighing up all the factors involved including the staff. 
I have also mentioned that I understand the principle of contributing toward collective agreements but what if an individual signing an agreement faces costs of his or her own that have arisen out of the process of putting their case to the employer? Will they be able to go the union and ask for a share of that cost? Maybe because of that individual agreement the whole of the collective agreement came up a level because that person had been able to convince the employer to pay them a little bit different. I do not think that person would have any chance of getting any contribution towards that cost. United Future will not be supporting this legislation. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to debate in this third reading the final stage of the three bills that came out of the employment relations amendment package: the Human Rights Amendment Bill the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill (No 2) which is a very small one and the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2). 
Listening to debates on labour legislation is always painful because we literally have to listen to fools—people who reason from their intentions and their wishes but not from the way people actually work and from what actually happens. We have seen an explosion of lawyers in this area. When I started legal practice I do not think that the relations between employers and employees were noticeably any worse than they are now—in fact relations were possibly better than now—but the notion that any lawyer could make a living out of employment law would have been just unbelievable. There might have been a couple of academics and a few people who practised before the Arbitration Court. 
This bill is a guarantee of profits in boarding school fees for generations of lawyers. I think it was Dr Mapp who said that this is a Government that has been so badly burned by the vague statements in law like Te Ture Whenua Maori Act and the treaty principles yet it would then go and stick into employment relations law—which affects even more people—phrases no less probably more stupidly vague and deliberately ambiguous. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Including treaty clauses. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I have just been scanning the legislation. I have not come across it but if the member can tell me where it is I would like to have a look at it. The equivalent of the treaty clauses is the “good faith” clauses. They sound as vague and silly as the treaty clauses that the Government has been sprinkling into legislation. As has been mentioned the Government has decided to introduce what is effectively compulsory unionism at least as far as the workers who object to unions—because they think they are a waste of money—are concerned. The bargaining fee arrangement means the union can have the best of all possible worlds for a lazy interfering union official. They can get paid by people who do not want to join the union and they do not have the bother of those people having votes. They can have this arrangement where they might have only 10 percent of the workforce. They can collect the fees and they do not have to provide any service. It is a perfect outcome. 
Of course the Government probably likes that too because not having to provide the service means there is more surplus left for these people to devote to their political campaigning. It would allow unions as the Engineers Union did in the last election to put up billboards that walk carefully around the electoral law restrictions on election spending. They use money supplied by members—many of whom no doubt would find that they absolutely detest the policies of the Government particularly in relation to its politically correct areas and treaty law. These people whether or not they wanted to funded the Labour Party’s political campaign. The bargaining fee arrangement is plainly a thank you and a promise that enables the union movement to fund more contributions to the Labour Party for the next campaign. 
Nobody else in this discussion has addressed the effect of the amendment to the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Amendment Bill that came out of the select committee process inserts new section 79A in the Human Rights Act. It provides that employees get a choice. Where they have something they can dress up as a human rights complaint they get a choice of taking it through employment grievance procedures or to the Human Rights Review Tribunal or to the Human Rights Commission. As far as I can see the committee did not think that was a very significant change but employers ought to think about just what that means. The Human Rights Review Tribunal is the body that decided that one of New Zealand’s most vicious criminals deserved $1200 for his hurt feelings when the prison service omitted to supply him with a copy of a letter from one of his victims or a letter from the father of one of his victims complaining about or setting out the damage that criminal had done to his daughter. 
Taking a complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal will now be a choice—one or the other—for an employee under the Act. The employer has no right to object. The employer cannot insist that it go even to the discredited processes of employment law and to that court that mock court—the Employment Court—which does not apply law but instead applies the political and ideological preferences of the judges of the day as they allocate what they consider to be the right distribution of rewards for business and for enterprise to the people they consider the subject of unequal bargaining power. 
To give employees the right to elect to go to the Human Rights Review Tribunal illustrates how unrealistic this Government is. The whole Human Rights Act jurisdiction is inflated by a body that is absolutely determined to turn every possible area of conduct that it can reach into a matter for judges and lawyers to finally decide. It is a body that does not believe there is anywhere that the law should not touch—that there are things that are just matters of good manners of ethics of custom of morality that the law should avoid. It is a body that does not understand the wisdom in saying that there cannot be a remedy for every wrong; that for many things it is simply spilt milk—get over it and go and find a better relationship. Instead that body assisted by this part of this bill can now hold out the false promise to employees of a remedy for every grievance. In this case harassment—sexual harassment and racial harassment are expressly mentioned—but any ground of complaint under the Human Rights Act whether fanciful or bogus can be taken through the Human Rights Review Tribunal process. As I mentioned that is the body that had such deep wisdom that it thought the hurt feelings of a vicious criminal were worth ordering compensation for. 
The employment relations fiddling that we are seeing is characteristic of a Government comprised of people who have never paid anyone out of their own money. This is a bill that is designed—allegedly by “Swainy and the boys” although I think it was actually “Swainy’s” predecessor but he has loyally marketed it—to ensure that the unions got a little closer to what they thought they got 4 years ago when the Employment Relations Bill went through. The Minister now for example gets a chance to gazette safety courses without having to put them in the  
Gazette 
. 
These bogus safety issues and courses are a monstrous waste of money. They are another part of the victim culture the Government is encouraging throughout New Zealand where people do not take responsibility for their own actions or for their own conduct. They always are encouraged to feel that someone somewhere is always to blame if there is an accident or a problem. Of course they are a godsend to a union when safety can be used as a trump card in negotiations where nothing else will do. The union can claim that failure to comply with the detailed requirements of safety is enough to bring a shop out or to bring down an employer who has been a little bit recalcitrant. The principles of good-faith bargaining do not apply and can be set aside because who will dare to go against the safety god—that trump card that is so often used when people do not want to argue the merits but instead want to bring in an argument that is incontrovertible as far as the PC mob goes. This bill is a bad bill and ACT will be voting against it. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I rise in support of this legislation and in particular to make a point about freeloading. As a unionist working really hard to get a pay increase nothing used to annoy me more than people like members opposite who spend their time deriding unions and running them down and running down those of us who belonged to unions and worked very hard for a pay increase. Then as soon as we had got the pay increase they would have their hands out to get their share of the increase the rest of us had worked hard for. That was entirely unfair and I think this bill addresses that point very well. I totally support this move. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the member for Hamilton East because she puts so much work into her speeches! She does an enormous amount of work on important issues before the House and that is reflected in her contribution which is always incisive and sometimes to the point. 
The employment relations law reform legislation is a disgrace. It is legislation that delivers to the trade union movement all the things that the Labour Party could not deliver during the winter of discontent in the year 2000. At about the same time as Mr Tamihere was receiving his cash payout the Labour Party was delivering through the winter of discontent a bill for the trade unions; and at about the same time as Mr Tamihere got caught it followed that up with the sequel to this issue. The Labour Party has delivered to the trade unions all the ways they can get the funding that they need to pump back into the Labour Party campaign. That is what the legislation is all about. It is effectively compulsory unionism. It is a levy. Employees who do not belong to a union have to pay a levy to the union if they want the same pay and conditions as union members and that levy of course is a ticket-clicking exercise for the Labour Party to help fund its campaign. 
I hope that the trade union movement declares to this House how much money it is putting in the Labour Party coffers unlike the Waipareira Trust which put a whole heap of Government money into Mr Tamihere’s campaign that was not declared during the process. I hope that we do not see the same sort of tactics used by the trade union movement with this legislation as we have seen with the Waipareira Trust and Mr Tamihere in relation to Government money. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: We will. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: The prediction is that we will and unfortunately I am inclined to believe that. 
The most insidious part of the legislation is the part that says to workers that if they do not join the union they cannot get the same terms and conditions as staff who belong to the union. I ask the Greens in particular as they have supported this measure but Labour members as well how they say to the checkout operator in the supermarket who is a solo mum and is working part time—and whose benefit starts to abate if she earns over $80 a week—that unless she joins the union she will be paid a lower hourly rate. How fair is that? Why is she not able to negotiate her own rate? Good God we trust her to raise her kids on her own and to do a whole lot of other stuff on her own but we do not trust her to negotiate her wage. 
Mike Ward 
: She can. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: The Greens say that she can. But the employer cannot pay her the same can they? The Greens will not answer that. 
Mike Ward 
: If she pays the fee she can. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: Mike Ward says that if she pays the fee she can get the same. I ask the Greens whether they stand in the organic line at the supermarket and say to the part-time solo mum on the checkout that she will now be up for a union fee otherwise she will get a lower rate than the person in the next aisle. Do they say that? Because that is the effect of it and they know it. They do not say it because they are not straight up enough to do so. Why do they not say that? Why do they not tell the staff what they already know? I say to this House that I fronted in a supermarket staffroom last week and the question from the butchery department was: “Why would we get different rates of pay for doing the same job just because one of us belonged to a union?”. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: How did you answer that? 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: I said: “Go and ask the Government.” It is no good asking the Greens. They do not eat meat. They do not know where the butchery department is. It is just not fair. The good old Labour Party is saying that it trusts a solo mum to raise her kids but no way will it trust her to negotiate a wage. It is saying: “We do not trust the man in the butchery department to negotiate his own salary and damn it if he does he will be paid a lower rate than someone who is a member of the union. We’re going to write and pass a law of the land that says that if you negotiate your own rate of pay for doing exactly the same job as someone in the union you are prohibited by law from being paid more. The union will put a cap on top of the wage and we will say that you cannot even be paid the same.” Well how fair is that? It is very fair for the union because it will get a captive group of people who have to belong. 
Mike Ward 
: They don’t have to belong. 
Hon ROGER SOWRY 
: They do not have to belong if they want a lower rate of pay. That is right is it not? The thing about this debate is that the good old socialist argument for collectivism is more important than individuals being trusted to do something for themselves. Goddam that we should ever trust people to do something for themselves. This Government hates that. It says that we must not empower people or trust them. It says that we must not encourage them to do something for themselves and that we must make sure that the union by law is given the best rate. Why would members opposite not support it the other way? Why would the Greens not vote the other way? Why would they not vote to say that anyone can negotiate anything but the union must not negotiate the same as an individual and it has to be less? Why do we not vote for that? What is wrong with that? They do not say anything about that. It is OK for the collective to have the advantage but my gosh we must not give an individual an advantage. 
This law is crazy. This law will be breached all over the country and some poor employers will be fined $10000 for paying their staff the same rate. I know—and other members if they are honest know it as well—that employers have said: “In my workplace everyone will get the same regardless.” They are going to ignore the law. The Greens have come to Wellington to vote with the Government for a law that will be ignored. Only a few will get picked off by this. Someone who stands up to a bolshie union official will be picked off and fined. At the end of the day who loses? It is actually the person who is the most vulnerable. It is the young part-timer—or the young and the part-timers. Those people lose because they have to pay a union fee that in many cases is more than any increase they will get. They lose. They have to belong to an organisation they do not believe in. They lose. They have to have money taken from their wages to pay for Labour’s re-election campaign just as money was taken from the Waipareira Trust—from kids’ vaccinations—to pay for John Tamihere’s election campaign. That is where the money came from. It was taken from kids’ vaccinations from reading programmes and from welfare programmes—money that was siphoned off for the Labour Party. That is what we are doing here tonight. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 After that fairly large speech which continued to talk about vulnerable employees I want to express to the House why I happen to support this bill and in particular support vulnerable employees. It is all very well talking about butcher shops—about going into the back of them and having those conversations. That actually misleads people. But in this Chamber I would like to comment on the fact that we are reintroducing protections for employees most at risk in the sale transfer or contracting out of business situations. 
Members are aware of the cleaners who work in our hospitals who work in this building and whose jobs get taken out from underneath them. They are replaced their conditions are made worse and they work for longer hours or do even more work just because a business has been sold. This bill gives a higher level of protection to those employees who have been the most vulnerable to restructuring situations in the past. Those employees will have the right to transfer to the new employer on their existing terms and conditions of employment. 
So even though we have had those most wonderful speeches from Opposition members going on about the rights of workers I say that they are the same people who have trampled on cleaners who have trampled on the most vulnerable workers in this society and who could not give a hoot as long as they continue to line their pockets. I totally support this bill. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am absolutely delighted to be able to take a call on this legislation. I want to tease out with this Government what I think is the most central difference between the left and the right in politics. When it comes to labour relations law the members of the Labour Party especially those on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—who I repeat were all members of trade unions—were actively advocating the fact that workers should have a right to organise. OK that sounds perfectly sensible. I do not have a dispute with that. If workers want to get together and negotiate collectively as a group I do not have a problem with that. But the members then went on to say that the only group that can organise and represent any group of workers in a company is a trade union. So one may have a company with 600 staff 500 of whom are in the union and 80 of whom are not and those 80 workers say: “Well look rather than doing 80 individual contracts why don’t we get together and negotiate a collective of our own?”. When one raises that with Labour Party members the answer is: “No that is absolutely outrageous.” 
Hang on! I thought Labour supported the idea of being able to organise collectively. Oh yes it does but the only way people can use a collective organisation for their negotiations is to be a member of the union. So the 80 workers cannot get together collectively and appoint an employment law specialist or an advocate of some sort and say: “We’ve had a little club together and we’d like you to negotiate on our behalf.” No the Labour Party says that that is wrong because those employees are not part of the trade union movement. So it has nothing to do with being able to organise collectively because if it were Labour members would not mind a group of X number of employees getting together and negotiating their own deal. Instead they want those employees to be members of the trade union. 
Let us tease that out. Why would Labour members want that? Well one can see the thinking behind the little deal. My colleague in the front row is doing the twitching of the fingers and that is what it is about—it is the moolah the payola. But let me explain even further how that works. The Government is now saying: “Well all right you can negotiate collectively if you’re in the union and get a deal. Those of you who aren’t can’t have the same terms and conditions as those who are.” Now let us imagine the first law case. I want to see a businessman in the dock of the High Court: “The charge against you sir is you treated all your workers the same.” The outrage that the public would feel for some evil employer who said— 
Hon Member 
: Would they agree about that? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: They will! There will be marching in the streets. These filthy employers—they want to treat their workers the same! That is what the employer will be charged with. The judge will say: “How do you plead sir? Is it true that the charge the Department of Labour has brought against you is that you want to treat all your workers the same?” That will be the charge. There might be some other questions such as: “Do you pay your taxes sir?”. “Yes I do I pay my taxes.” the employer will say. “Right are you a good corporate citizen?”. “Oh sir I am I am yes.” will be the reply. But the judge will say: “Right but the charge still stands. You tried to pay all your workers the same.” What a crime! Yet that is what this bill will do. But hang on! There will be another round in order to boost the trade union’s coffers and that is the bargaining fee. So the Labour Government has decided to do the tricky deal. It will say: “No no it’s probably a bit harsh to say you can’t all share. You can share the same as everybody else and all be on the same but you will have to pay a bargaining fee.” 
Hon Member 
: To the union? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Well that is the first point. Who does the bargaining fee go to? 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: I want to pay mine to the Waipareira Trust. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Good on that member! At least he will know where it is going. So the employee will have to pay a bargaining fee. Now there are just a few questions here. Who do the employees pay that to? Well they will have to pay it to the trade union. How much will it be? At the select committee we suggested that we should limit the bargaining fee to quite a small percentage of the union membership fee. I do not think I can live with that concept but I can live with it more comfortably than I can live with the situation as it is now. If members on the other side are saying that the only thing a trade union does in the whole calendar year is negotiate the wage round then I have to say that that is completely against everything the trade unions say they are there for. They say they are there for welfare as benevolent societies supporting education funds for the kids of the workers and doing stunning stuff all year round. In fact I think that some of the unions—and someone could help me with this—especially the teacher unions negotiate once every 3 years and the contract lasts for 3 years. So they negotiate—and the negotiations are say 3 or 4 weeks’ work—and then 3 years of union fees are paid. They are telling people who are not in the union—and who are not enjoying any of the benefits or any of the so-called wonderful things I hear people such as Andrew Little say are the benefits of being in the union—that they will pay a bargaining fee that will be the exact same amount as the whole union fee. If members of the Labour Party are saying: “Oh no it won’t be that much.” then why would they not accept amendments that limit the fee to no more than 20 percent or 10 percent of the union fee? Oh no they will not have that. They have left it at 100 percent. 
Let me make that last point clear. The people in the collective—that is the union members—pay their union membership dues of maybe $600 a year to the union. In return for that—if the rhetoric from the trade unions can be believed—they get stunning services stunning value and unbelievable quality and one of the small things that the union does along the way is negotiate terms and conditions. Now the Government has come along with a grubby little thing called the bargaining fee and if one is not in the union and one’s boss says: “All I want is to do the same for you as I’ve done for the rest of the workers in the collective.” he will be able to as long as he says “And by the way that’s 600 bucks a year bargaining fee.” The workers will say: “But hang on! This took us 2 minutes.” and the employer will say: “I know but the Labour Government has put in place a law that says I now have to extract from you a bargaining fee. It will be 100 percent of what the union dues are even though those union members supposedly get fantastic other products and services.” The poor old workers will say: “What is this but compulsory unionism by any other name?”. And that is exactly what it is. 
It was clear to see what the Government’s agenda was by the presence in the precincts of this Chamber during the Committee stage of one Ross Wilson. I do not know whether he is a relation of Margaret Wilson but I am really getting worried. [ 
Interruption 
] He could be. He could be a very close relative of Margaret Wilson. He is the head of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. [ 
Interruption 
] No Ross Wilson is not better than this. The member cannot say he is better than this. Ross Wilson is the head of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and one would expect him to have no say in— 
Judith Collins 
: Is there an office out there? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I am told that a room has been set up with Ross Wilson’s name on it and the phone extension goes through to him because he had to be right here within the precincts of this House advising the Minister. In any other political regime that would be seen as direct interference in the political process. If the Business Roundtable had an office in the lobby and was advising a Tory Government we could imagine the meltdown and the marching in the street. But here was the head of the organisation that will benefit most out of it and he was not in the gallery—he was here in the precincts of the Chamber where members are supposed to be and he was being told he was here only to give the Minister advice. Well if people believe that they believe in the tooth fairy and they believe that the Waipareira Trust does things transparently—neither of which I believe. 
I have to say that this legislation represents all that the left of the Labour Party has come to believe in. They do not trust employers. They do not trust workers to negotiate their own conditions. They put nebulous definitions like “good faith” into the legislation and—listen to this—even the Employment Court judges whom I do not have a great deal of time for came before the select committee and said that they do not know what “good faith” means. If they do not know how are we supposed to? It is an outrage. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 After that speech made by Maurice Williamson I am flabbergasted and I cannot understand why he languishes amongst the most lowly back-benchers of the National Party. That was the most talented able speech the National Party has ever put up—a classic Tory anti-union line. He compares amazingly with the lacklustre limpish wimpish front bench National has. Maurice Williamson brought out all the old anti-union bogies possible. 
It was the classic right-wing line which is to attack the union and say the union is not the appropriate thing and then to put up another organisation led by a bargaining agent. Those are known all over the world I say to Mr Williamson as stooge unions yellow unions and bogus unions and it is a classic right-wing tactic to attack workers’ conditions. 
It came from a member of the National Government that when it came into power in 1990 wrote all over the country promising workers it would not attack penalty rates. Let us listen to this. They promised they would not attack penalty rates and within months the Employment Contracts Act had been brought in and penalty rates were consigned to the dustbin of history. That is what the National Party did. 
Its sole object was to do the bidding of the bosses and the Business Roundtable and to smash workers’ wage rates. Through the 1990s this country’s workers and their families descended into poverty. Not only did the National Party cut penalty rates and wages but it also cut benefits. Let us understand who Maurice Williamson is speaking for. He speaks for the Business Roundtable. 
This Government looks after ordinary New Zealanders. We are raising wages and improving the conditions of workers and doing that at a time when unemployment is falling. So there will be better working conditions and more jobs—something the National Party could never ever provide. 
This is fantastic legislation. I want to say that the sooner the National Party promotes Maurice Williamson the better off it will be. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Employment Relations Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Human Rights Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand Labour 51; Green Party 9; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Bill read a third time. 
Parental Leave and Employment Protection mendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 I move  
That the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. The bill furthers a number of the Government’s objectives to support working parents on the birth or adoption of a child. This includes ensuring that the paid parental leave scheme is accessible to a wider number of employees encouraging female workforce attachment supporting families with leave and job protection supporting the health and well-being of new mothers and babies and improving New Zealand’s compliance with international human rights instruments that provide rights to paid maternity leave. 
The bill contains three key changes to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. First it provides new entitlements for employees not currently eligible for parental leave entitlements under the principal Act on the birth or adoption of a child. Currently an employee must be employed with the same employer for at least an average of 10 hours a week during the immediately preceding 12 months to be entitled to maternity leave and parental leave. The bill provides that employees with between 6 months’ and 12 months’ service with the same employer for an average of 10 hours per week will be eligible for paid parental leave for 13 weeks from 1 December this year to be extended to 14 weeks from 1 December next year. 
 Secondly the bill extends the duration of parental leave payments. Currently they are for 12 weeks and as I mentioned from 1 December this year will go to 13 weeks with an additional week from 1 December next year. Thirdly the bill provides a new entitlement to 1 week’s unpaid paternity leave for partners who have between 6 and 12 months’ service with the same employer. The bill also provides that employees may transfer their entitlement to parental leave payments to their spouse or partner. If that happens the bill provides that the spouse has extended partner’s paternity leave for the period of payment in those circumstances. 
The bill returns to the House with a relatively small number of technical amendments that relate to the commencement of the legislation. Amendments to the commencement provide that the Act comes into force on its assent in relation to a small range of circumstances. This relates to a small group of employees who may have an expected date of delivery on or after 1 December 2004 but their child is born early and therefore need to be able to access their entitlement to leave early or need to access associated entitlements such as 10 days’ special leave for reasons associated with pregnancy or need to apply for parental leave payments before 1 December 2004. Similar issues have also arisen in relation to the commencement of the extension to the duration of paid parental leave from 13 to 14 weeks from 1 December next year and have been addressed by technical amendments to that part of the bill. 
Most submissions generally supported the bill suggesting that the move to include a wider range of employees is positive. However a number suggested in particular that coverage should be extended to include self-employed women and also those in part-time work of fewer than 10 hours a week or short-term workers who have fixed-term jobs or are not in continuous employment for 6 months or more before giving birth. 
Our Government introduced paid parental leave in 2002 and thousands of working families have benefited with leave and a period of payment on the birth or adoption of a child. We are conscious though that some people such as self-employed people still miss out under this bill. The feasibility of extending paid parental leave to the self-employed is currently being considered. I consider this a high priority and I am committed to progressing this issue in the future as far as practicable. 
I have already released a Supplementary Order Paper setting out further amendments that I intend to move at the Committee stage. This includes an amendment to recognise that in order to complete their training junior doctors are required to work for more than one district health board. The amendment provides that junior doctors’ employment on rotation with more than one district health board be considered continuous employment for the purposes of parental leave entitlements. 
This bill supports employers by providing them with access to support to keep a staff member when they have a baby. The bill strikes an appropriate balance by enhancing this opportunity for employers through the provision of taxpayer-funded payments and providing leave to those with between 6 and 12 months’ employment. The changes contained in this bill will be reviewed 1 year from implementation. In the meantime I welcome the select committee’s report and thank all of those who took the time to make submissions. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Following on from the Minister who is promoting this bill I think that it is good for members in the House to think about the people who do not benefit from this bill—those who are ineligible for these taxpayer-funded benefits. They are all self-employed women. I know that it is very difficult for Labour Party members to understand that. They do not know much about self-employed women and they do not know an awful lot about mothers. Having myself been a self-employed woman who is also a mother I can tell members that it is a very very tough job as a self-employed woman running a business employing staff to have to go without any assistance while one’s staff gets the benefit of that particular assistance. That is the first point. 
The second point is women in part-time employment who are job sharing. They will miss out. Women in casual employment part-time or full-time will miss out. Women who cannot find formal employment or choose not to engage in formal employment will miss out including women who choose to stop work to “have a family”. These are the women who are just going about being good mums. These mums and dads will miss out but they will have the privilege of paying for someone else to have his or her particular choice to continue to work in the paid workforce. That would be fine if this bill were not so discriminatory. 
More women will miss out. Women who for many reasons have had a new employer within a very short period of time will miss out as will women who cannot have children or choose not to. Those women and men who face infertility who cannot have children get to know that they will pay for the privilege of other people—they get to pay for that—and they do not get anything off their taxes for it. 
Then there are the spouses of women who fit the above criteria and all the spouses who do not fit the above criteria. All those spouses all those people miss out. The National Party is very very pro people working very pro women working very pro men working and very pro fairness. We will not support this bill because it is discriminatory against self-employed women and all those other women and their spouses who I have just mentioned. This bill is discriminatory. [ 
Interruption 
] All those women—and I suggest that that member consider that he has not lived enough life to know what he is talking about in this area—have the joy of paying extra taxes so that they can have the joy of having to pay for locums and replacements to come into their business to cover for them and they get to pay the extra taxes so that their staff do not have to. 
This would be a great provision if it included all women in this position but it does not. It is very very discriminatory. It is completely pro union. It is against the self-employed person. Yet so many women in New Zealand are self-employed—particularly in the rural sector. About 75 percent of people working in the rural sector are self-employed. For those of us who know something about farming and farming life and having been brought up on one—and I let Mr Hughes know that—and having milked cows at the age of 9 I can tell that this particular situation will not do one thing for the farming women of New Zealand. It will not do one thing. All it will do is one bad thing and that is to get those women and their spouses to pay extra taxes but they do not get the benefit of it and that is so unfair. 
Let us look at some of the comments that New Zealand farmers have made about this particular bill. They are direct quotes. “New Zealand couples should think carefully about the commitment required to raise a family. I do not think that paid parental leave encourages careful planning and commitment. Our society is looking more and more towards Government to solve every problem that life presents—a path that is unsustainable for the taxpayer.” That is a really really good and independent attitude. 
 Here is another one: “I do not imagine that rural wives who work unpaid on the land will find it easy to access the benefits proposed.” Well that person was right. Here is another one: “We want all taxation to be lowered and let people look after themselves like we do.” That is what the farmers are saying. Here is another one: “Just another way of taxing businesses.” Farmers have a way of putting it do they not? They really do. They do not muck around they do not use all the flowery language. They just say it as it is. Here is another one: “Paid parental leave is a discriminatory provision that needs revising.” That is a very fair comment. Here is another one: “The paid parental leave payment in its current form is discriminatory against all mothers who choose to stay in the home to care for their families”—is that not right I ask United Future—“especially farming wives who are often needed to help in the smooth running of the farm.” This could apply to all wives who are part of the self-employed business. They are being doubly penalised—in that by staying in the home they are already forgoing a wage packet and now because they are not part of the regular workforce they are not eligible for the paid parental leave payment either. This bill is discriminatory. 
What did the Social Services Committee in its majority verdict say on this bill? Of course the National Party did not agree with this majority report. The only discrimination that this Labour-Green select committee wanted to be concerned about was possible discrimination and I quote from page 8 of the commentary on the bill: “Another submission raised a wider issue relating to eligibility for parental leave entitlements and sought clarification on whether the legislation could be interpreted to exclude lesbian gay or transgender workers.” That is fair comment. 
It then went on to state that because gay lesbian and transgender couples cannot at the moment adopt a child under the Adoption Act this would be something that might be discriminatory against those people. Well it might and that is certainly an issue. But what about the greater discrimination against those mothers who seek to stay at home to look after their children when they are young? I say good on those mothers. It is certainly something that a lot of us did not really want to have to do because it is a very tough tough job. Being a mother is the toughest job in the world. It is certainly the one that we are not given any assistance on except through what we have learnt from our own parents. This is an aspect where that discrimination is being carried forward in this bill. 
Why is it that we cannot care about self-employed women? Because certainly the Government’s response has always been: “Oh well there might be some problems with their taxes or something. They don’t know how much income they earn.” But my goodness that same Minister who is promoting this bill knows how to get them for their accident compensation payments. This Government knows how much those people earn for income tax purposes. It is income tax because these people actually work for their money. They do not get golden handshakes from the Waipareira Trust. They do not go around signing forms illegally. They do not do those sorts of things. They are just decent hard-working New Zealanders. They are getting the privilege of paying for this sort of discriminatory legislation which shows that this Government does not care a scrap about these decent ordinary New Zealanders. 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 There is a word that describes that contribution but I understand it is not considered to be parliamentary language. When one looks up the dictionary the word starts with the letter “h”. I think the members on this side of the House know precisely what I am talking about. 
The National Party opposes paid parental leave. It voted against paid parental leave. At that time the Ayes were 66 the Noes 52. New Zealand National had 39 members. That must have been before the 2002 election because National does not have 39 members now and it will not have 39 members after the next election if we listen to the contribution of Judith Collins. We heard that member say that the National Party opposes this bill because it is discriminatory against the self-employed. On that basis National would repeal paid parental leave for everyone so that everyone misses out. Well I want to mention that “h” word again in the context of something that might be considered to be a bit rich. Katherine Rich was perfectly happy to take her full parliamentary salary when both her children were born yet the National Party has the gall to stand here in this House and suggest that this Government does not have at heart the interests of women in this country. 
I want to quote from the report of the Social Services Committee. The Minister’s comments are actually reported in the select committee report back. This is what the Minister who is responsible for this bill stated: “As part of this process officials are considering the overall framework design eligibility criteria and payment structure that could apply to self-employed people. Policy development relating to the self-employed is a very high priority for me and I am committed to progressing this issue further in the near future to include self-employed parents as far as practicable.” I will be looking to the other side of the House for support when the Minister is able to introduce the legislation but I know that we will just see a continuation of the absolute hypocrisy we have already seen. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Who was the member referring to in that last sentence? 
LIANNE DALZIEL 
: To the National Party. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member will withdraw and apologise. 
LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. There is a Supplementary Order Paper in my name and it amends clauses 8 9 11 and 12. The bill implements Government policy to extend the duration of paid parental leave from 12 to 13 weeks at the end of 2004 and to extend it to 14 weeks in 2005 so it is done progressively over a 2-year period. It provides new maternity leave partner’s/paternity leave and paid leave entitlements to employees who have worked for the same employer for between 6 and 12 months. These employees are not currently covered by the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act. Further the bill clarifies that for the purposes of determining entitlements under the Act employment of a teacher at more than one State or integrated school is to be treated as one employment. 
My Supplementary Order Paper amends the Parental Leave and Employment Amendment Bill. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the provision of paid parental leave is extended to those who are self-employed. I stand to be corrected. I think I heard the Minister mention that the Government would certainly look at the self-employed being able to receive this benefit. New Zealand First as stated earlier supports the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill with our amendments which would assist the self-employed especially those who are parents and those who are in the position of having additions to their family through pregnancy or adoption and also taking into consideration that personnel involved are positive contributors in the way of revenue increase and employment. 
So we are looking at a sector of the community who work very very hard and contribute to the tax and employment position of our nation. The question that may be asked is this: would this be a fair and positive contribution to society and families? The situation today in many cases is that both parents are employed or self-employed. How can this Government play its part in giving assistance to those families who are in the process of adoption or natural birth? Social policies in New Zealand afford to many individuals benefits that in many cases those individuals have succumbed to or are taking advantage of. New Zealand First is taking into account the hard-working New Zealanders. 
There are self-employed people across the board. They are hard-working people who pay their taxes. In many cases they can afford accident compensation levies and in many cases they cannot afford them. But these are people who in the view of New Zealand First should be entitled to the same parental leave as the employee. In the case of self-employed people who will run the business? Who will take care of and pay those whom they might have to employ in the case of maternity leave? Where will that come from? I understand that the Government has made provision to support people in those cases. New Zealand First also takes care and is observant of the needs of people who are in the position of being self-employed. When we take their contribution to our nation into consideration we see that it is astronomical. They provide an economy that many many people would look twice at it. They provide that while taking the risks of being self-employed and in many cases they have to supply accident compensation for those who may be injured. That has happened on a farm that we know the history of. 
Self-employed people include farmers. They also include farmers’ wives because they too contribute to the agricultural sector of this nation. Why should they not be offered the opportunity of being paid parental leave? Where does the major export in our economy come from? 
Hon Georgina te Heuheu 
: From farming. 
BILL GUDGEON 
: It comes from farming. So why should self-employed people not be entitled to that same parental leave? I am sure farmers would enjoy and appreciate that very much. There are those who run their own small businesses. They have decided to do that because it is what they want to do and it is an extension of their talent and potential so why should they not contribute and in doing that why should they not be offered the same blessing of being supported in the time when there is an increase in the family? So New Zealand First supports this bill on the condition that we look very very seriously at the self-employed and the position and part they play in our nation. 
PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future which will also support this legislation. 
Hon Member 
: Family-friendly. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: That is right; we are the family-friendly party. But I must agree with Judith Collins. Motherhood is the toughest job in the world and I cannot speak from experience sad to say. I can speak from a father’s perspective but it is interesting. Mothers must do a fantastic job because I have read many a survey on prisons and there are very very few male prisoners—in fact one could count them on one hand—who have a harsh word to say about their mothers. That just shows the benefit of motherhood. 
United Future will take the Government at its word that it is working towards provisions for the self-employed. If it is said in the House it cannot be disputed. We welcome that. Of course United Future has a very simple answer to that problem. That is why we are great believers in income splitting. I think we are starting to return to seeing the benefit of both motherhood and fatherhood. Goodness knows we also need in this nation to understand the ability and the importance of fathers because—far more than we should ever be sadly—we are a nation of fatherless children. If we can come to the fact of income splitting the family will get extra income regardless of whether it is the father or the mother who chooses to stay at home to bring up the children because they will have the benefits of income splitting. 
Simon Power 
: It doesn’t exist. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: No I said United Future has been promoting income splitting I say to Simon Power. 
Coming back to the business of the self-employed unfortunately a child does not have the right to choose the occupation of its parents. Therefore if a child is unfortunate enough to be born to a mother who happens to be self-employed that poor child does not get the same care and attention over those vital weeks as does the child whose mother is in employment. 
Simon Power 
: What’s the Family Commission doing about it? 
PAUL ADAMS 
: That is a very good question I say to Mr Power. I will ask the commission members the next time I see them and I will get back to the member as soon as I can. 
The first of the two things the bill shows up is that the Government still does not fully understand as I just mentioned the position of mothers who have chosen to be self-employed and the value of motherhood as a career. Many women today feel they do not get personal self-worth or self-esteem unless they have proven themselves in a secular employed job. But I say “Well done” to mothers out there who have never been in the workforce who have laboured diligently in their homes and who have poured themselves out into their children. They have chosen a tremendous occupation. The mere fact that they do not get paid for it is secondary to the great job they do. 
If we in this place started to recognise again the value of parenthood which of course is at the core of all that United Future believes in and started to promote motherhood and fatherhood as occupations—if we want to use that word—well worthy of pursuit members would find that this nation would turn round in a lot of areas including crime burglaries and all those things far quicker than anything else we could do. We need to start to promote parenting again. 
But as I say this legislation is heading in the right direction and we welcome the fact that mothers will be able to spend time in those important first few months when their baby comes home. We have seen figures indicating it has helped with mothers who choose to breastfeed in those important few months and that is well worthy of support. United Future supports this legislation. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. I begin by acknowledging the important role women have in New Zealand when they decide it is time to have a family. Every mother will be able to testify to the fact that bringing up children is not an easy task and to the consequences of having a child stay with her for the rest of her life. Children do not go away. So we are talking about something that is very important to New Zealand—the whole business of raising our next generation. 
But the ACT party opposes this legislation. The key reason is that it is just another example of Labour progressing its socialist agenda. Here we see in a very clear way that the Government plans to try to make more and more New Zealanders dependent on the State. In this particular instance with this bill it is also taking steps to penalise small business. I will come back to that. If this Government really wanted to help new parents then the best thing it could do would be to lower taxes to give new parents more disposable income. If parents had more disposable income they could choose whether mum or dad would stay at home and raise the child or that two incomes were needed to keep their family ticking over. 
 The reality is that in New Zealand today in spite of the wonderfully booming economy we appear to have working families are probably struggling harder than in the past. The benefits of this booming economy are not flowing through to working families. Part of the reason is that with all the regulations and compliance costs that Labour has imposed out there a lot of the extra productivity generated is not flowing through in increased profitability and therefore in wage growth in the way we would hope and it is not flowing through to give people a rise in their standard of living which would enable them to choose to stay at home. If the Government really wanted to help young families get ahead why does it not lower taxes? For goodness’ sake we have a $6 billion surplus! All working families could benefit from that if this Government wanted them to. Instead it chooses to increase the dependency of New Zealand families. 
I would like to quote from the Federated Farmers’ submission to the select committee. Federated Farmers which obviously represents rural New Zealand to a large extent believes that the best long-term solution lies with empowering individuals and families to plan and prepare for the future themselves. Increasing the disposable income of working families by lowering taxes is a key mechanism available to Government to achieve that objective. 
Darren Hughes 
: 1 percent! 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Mr Hughes sits there muttering and mumbling but it would be very interesting for Opposition members if he as junior whip and on behalf of his Government could take a call and explain why his Government which is overtaxing New Zealand workers to the level of $6 billion to 7 billion a year will not even consider decreasing the tax burden when he and every Government member knows that New Zealand is one of the most overtaxed countries in the Western World. I would really enjoy hearing a member of that Government tell families who are planning to have children why this Government will not decrease the tax burden on families so that mothers can choose to stay at home and raise their families instead of having to go out to work. That is the real question. 
This bill is simply hiding the fact that this Government does not care about giving families the choices that should rightfully be theirs. Instead we have here a scheme that essentially provides welfare benefits to families but it penalises employers in the process. That is the problem. We have already heard in this debate how the bill does not even look after women in the workforce equally. It discriminates against self-employed women women who are in part-time or job-sharing employment and women who are in casual employment. Those groups of women make up a substantial part of the workforce but Labour has simply turned its back on them. We have heard members of the Government say that they will fix it. Why on earth have they not fixed it in this bill? The only reason is that the Government has not had the political will to do so. It does not care about those groups of women and that is a disgrace. I do not support the bill but in particular I do not support the Government discriminating against groups of women who for some reason it has decided are not on its side. 
A very important reason not to support this bill though is the fact that it increases compliance costs on small businesses. I refer to the submission of Business New Zealand and the explanatory note of the bill when it first came out which stated: “The proposals do not impose any material increment in compliance cost to business.” That tells me that there must be almost nobody in the Labour Government who has actually hired people because if any of them had any experience of being an employer he or she would know that women deciding to take paid parental leave after having their babies or the 52 weeks’ leave available to them creates mayhem in a small business. The situation arises where one of an employer’s extremely valuable employees decides to take leave but the employer does not know whether that leave is for just over 3 months or for a year. The difference between trying to get somebody to fill in for 3 months or to fill in for a year is huge as any member of the House would testify. Even members who have not employed anybody will know there is a big difference between those two situations. 
Darren Hughes 
: That happens now. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I ask Mr Hughes to imagine today right now up and down New Zealand that businesses cannot hire staff. There are no workers—no skilled workers no unskilled workers—largely because of the policies of this Government. 
This Government has not managed the workforce properly. It panicked on its immigration rules and the result is that it has halved immigration into New Zealand. It has failed to deal with many of the worker groups that could give this Government solutions to its problems. It has failed to listen. So we have a situation where the small employer is faced with hiring somebody part-time for 3 months—in which case the employer can go to a temp agency knowing that one has to pay a premium for somebody to come in—or hiring somebody for a year in which case he or she cannot afford to go the temp agency because it is too expensive. But the employer is not told until after 14 weeks that the employee will not be coming back. 
This bill has put a huge burden of compliance cost on small business. It has made it so that many small businesses today do not want to hire women of childbearing age. That is called “unintended consequence” which this Government is great at creating. So in its own way it ends up discriminating against every woman of childbearing age. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Unlike the previous speaker from ACT the Green Party is pleased to support this bill amending the Government’s paid parental leave scheme established in 2002—and as for creeping socialism I do not think that this legislation really counts. While we would have liked it to go a lot further it is great that paid parental leave will be extended from 12 weeks to 14 weeks over the next 2 years and that paternity and parental leave will now apply to people who have worked for the same employer for between 6 and 12 months. 
I do however continue to have some slight concern about the position for example of medical staff who move between employment with different district health boards and who do not appear to be covered by this bill. I will be consulting others to see whether anything might be done about that especially given that the bill specifically covers teachers who move between schools. It seems to me to be a very anomalous situation. 
The Green Party would also have liked to see a further extension to paid parental leave for at least some self-employed parents and that was a point of view supported by a number of submitters both to this bill and to the original bill a few years back. The Department of Labour notes in its evaluation of the scheme in 2003 that one of the most frequently mentioned suggestions to improve this scheme was in the area of extending it to the self-employed. 
It was heartening therefore to hear advice from the Minister during the select committee process that officials are currently considering the overall framework design eligibility criteria and payment structure that could apply to self-employed people and is actually committed to progressing that as a matter of priority. The Green Party will be doing its best to hold the Minister and the Government to that commitment as we know there are many self-employed people in both the rural and urban communities of our country who cannot understand why they have so far been denied access to this scheme. 
What I personally find hardest to understand is why it has been possible for some years now to devise systems to apply the accident compensation system to the self-employed—when that situation is incredibly arcane and difficult to implement and where there is no employer-employee relationship either—whereas with paid parental leave it appears to have been for some reason far more difficult. I trust that in the light of the Minister’s commitments which are recorded in the commentary on the bill we will see real progress on that within the next 12 months and that paid parental leave will be extended to at least some self-employed people. 
Other issues remain too of course including the problem of the minimum weekly hours threshold and the fact that the level of payments still falls well short of the standards set by ILO Convention 183 which states that payments should be set at a level that ensures the woman can maintain herself and her child in proper conditions of health and with a suitable standard of living. Women are still coming up to me as I am sure they do to many other MPs asking how on earth they can be expected to support themselves and their child or children at the paid parental leave rate. They have often taken a cut in salary or are on very low wages anyway and it is especially difficult to survive when they have no partner to support them. The domestic purposes benefit becomes their only option unless they come from a remarkably well-off background and at times people are forced back into the workforce before the 12 or 14 weeks are up which is a real pity. 
Another matter that some submitters raised during our consideration of this bill was the question of breastfeeding in the workplace. To me it seems logical that when one is considering paid parental leave one should also be looking at what happens when a new mother goes back to work after 12 13 or 14 weeks. If we are serious about supporting the health and well-being of mothers and babies and serious about work-life balance we should be doing everything we can to foster a culture—particularly among larger employers—that encourages and enables mothers to breastfeed at work within a secure safe and comfortable environment. Although we were advised by the Government that unfortunately taking action on that area was not within the scope of the bill I hope that the Government will be looking at what more it can do in this area in the near future. 
In conclusion I would like to reiterate the Green Party’s support for any measure that extends paid parental leave and for the Government’s willingness to engage in ongoing evaluation and improvements to the scheme. I look forward to the bill becoming law in the near future and the extension of its provisions to further groups of workers as soon as practicable. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise and make a contribution on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Amendment Bill. To start with I will make some comments on some of the things that other members have said. 
We support the exact same sentiments of the ACT member who suggested that the Government give tax breaks and return taxes to families. But it is like whistling in the wind because we are talking about a socialist Government that wants to hoard the money of taxpayers as it does not trust ordinary New Zealanders to make proper choices. That is part of Labour’s philosophy. We can stand over here and wish that the Government would do the right thing—and it is proper to raise the question—but in the end we know that it will not. It does not fit with its philosophy. 
I really am baffled by the United Future member’s contribution. United Future is supporting this bill but most of the member’s contribution tonight was about how we need to value parenthood value fatherhood and value motherhood. I do not think there is any member in this House who would not agree with that; I certainly agree with it. But if those are proper principles if those are underlying philosophies that we should all adhere to this bill does not do that. I do not understand why United Future would support it. 
 My colleague Simon Power raised the issue of what the Families Commission is doing about these things. 
Paul Adams 
: They’ve got to report it. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: It will report. Report what? Gosh that will be great because what has the Families Commission done so far? I suppose it has done research—who knows? Millions of dollars have gone into it and so many months on those member can only stand and whittle on about our supporting motherhood etc. and say we should vote for this bill. Voting for this bill is not a vote for motherhood or parenthood or fatherhood—it is not. If it was the bill would be fair. It would not be discriminatory. It would not make some in the community pay for the benefit of others. I suggest to that member that rather than support the bill he should get on and get the Families Commission into gear—whoever those people are and whatever they are doing. If there are issues around parenthood motherhood fatherhood and apple pie the commission should get cracking on them. That commission is United Future’s baby. United Future is responsible for that Families Commission. We have not seen any results yet. It might have been that party’s pay-off but taxpayers are entitled to see why their money was spent in that direction. 
I say to Lianne Dalziel that it is all very well her bringing my colleague and associate Katherine Rich into the debate but really that is no excuse for what is going on in this bill—no excuse whatsoever. If paid parental leave is a proper thing to do then we should do it for everybody. It is all very well to stand there and read what the Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) Ruth Dyson has said and to state that she will do this that and every other thing—but when? When will that be done? 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Will the member support it? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Never mind whether we will support it. The ex-Minister is standing there saying that Labour will do this stuff and we are still waiting. Until it is done our assertions of discriminatory and unfair legislation absolutely stand to be counted and are correct. The Federated Farmers submission says it all I think. 
Brian Connell 
: They are outstanding people. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: They are outstanding people. My colleague Brian Connell should know. A number of my colleagues on this side of the House know that to be true including David Carter who was here earlier. Farmers and farmers’ wives are paying for this legislation. 
Paul Adams 
: I thought the taxpayers were paying. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Well who are farmers? Who the hang does the member think they are? Are they taxpayers or not? Farmers are huge taxpayers. The rural sector is a big contributor to taxes. But does it get anything out of this? No it does not. There are basically three glaring anomalies here: self-employed women whose taxes are paying for this; the rural sector whose taxes are paying for this—farmers and farming families the backbone of the country—and those in casual labour who are paying for this too. There is a punishment here. The Government likes to laud itself for what it is doing for some in the community but in fact by doing something for some it is punishing others. What sort of legislation is that? The people who are paying for this are entitled to have the support that those others are getting because they are family-oriented too. They are looking after their families as much as anybody else is. Why should some in the population be disadvantaged? As I say this legislation does not have any integrity—none whatsoever. Some in the community are disadvantaged. [ 
Interruption 
] Who is “she”? I have a name thank you very much. This bill is typical of Labour: it loves to be generous with other people’s money including my taxes. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order Miss Dalziel please. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. It is OK; if it makes the member Lianne Dalziel happy to be shouting across the House then that is fine. But she has given her contribution and I am happy to have a little peace and quiet to make mine because I think my contribution is very valuable. 
We on this side of the House oppose this legislation for those very reasons. I just do not see how this Government can justify something that it places a lot of store in—the principle of paid parental leave—yet leave out a large part of the population. There is nothing equitable about that. There is nothing fair about that. It is totally discriminatory. If the Minister has intentions of doing something about the rest of the working population—mothers fathers—I ask her when she will do it. We are waiting for it. The Government has been dealing with this paid parental leave stuff since it got into power—5 long years. If it is worth doing then it is worth doing fairly and it is worth doing it for everybody. 
United Future members the Government’s lapdog helpers see a lot of faults in this legislation. They have got their Families Commission which costs all of us money—my taxes as well. I do not know what the Families Commission has done. Those members talk about motherhood fatherhood and parenthood; well the commission should get on and do something about that. 
Most of all though I think it is absolutely scandalous that this Government hoards taxpayers’ money just so that coming towards the election next year—maybe at the end of this year if there is an early election or sometime next year—it can dish more of it out and make more New Zealanders dependent on the Government. The Government is buying votes for the election; that is how it gets its voters. It chooses the sections of the community that are more minded to vote for it and gives out money to them. That is why self-employed women are missing out. They are too individual and they think for themselves—well no one is going to help them. But their taxes are paying for this provision. 
The National Party opposes this legislation. It is unfair and it is discriminatory. If there was any principle in it the Government would make sure that it went right across the board and would not pick just those whom it wants to vote for it next year. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I rise to support the legislation. 
Richard Worth 
: Where is the substance in that comment? 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I think it is wishful thinking by the honourable member if he thinks he will get some substance out of that Minister. Tonight the Minister opened the debate on this bill with the opening sentence that the bill makes things easier or better for working parents. She meant some working parents; she did not mean all working parents. I am sorry to see that United Future has not taken that on board and I am saddened to see that the Greens talk of doing something for the self-employed but then say it is OK if it is years away. I say to members that help is on its way. My colleague has put a great deal of effort into introducing a Supplementary Order Paper that will change this bill to incorporate and to embrace the self-employed. The amendment will make the bill that much fairer and that much more genuine. The former Minister is smiling. She knows that this is a discriminatory bill. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: It all applies to the self-employed. 
PETER BROWN 
: It is all very well reading out these nice woolly fluffy comments that the Minister has made but the member knows that it is not fair. The Government would rather give extra weeks’ paid parental leave to those who get it already than address the problem of the self-employed. The Government would rather give to people who have been in employment for less than a year than give to somebody who has been self-employed for many years. Is that fair? 
 It is not fair in New Zealand First’s view. The Government would rather give paid parental leave to high-earning people than to self-employed people. Is that fair? It is not fair in New Zealand First’s book. It is a long way from fair. I say to the member from United Future sitting opposite that I listened to him intently. He supports the bill. He recognises that it does nothing for the self-employed but he will not help the situation. He is just going to put his hand up. Is this another case of another bite of the elephant? For goodness’ sake how many bites does he want of the elephant? 
Paul Adams 
: I’m pretty hungry. 
PETER BROWN 
: I say to the honourable member that there is a little old saying that New Zealand First tries to live to—“Do it once do it right.” [ 
Interruption 
] I am sure that members do not disagree with me on that. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Can we fix it? 
PETER BROWN 
: We can fix it. My colleague has the Supplementary Order Paper. Can we fix it? Yes we can and we are going to. We are going to appeal to Mr Adams’ conscience. I know we have got him as he is wriggling in his seat. He is feeling very very uncomfortable. I know that Sue Bradford is very genuine when she says she wants to help the self-employed but she says that it is 12 months away. I say to Sue Bradford that help is much closer than that. We can fix this in 12 days. We can get the Supplementary Order Paper through that my colleague has produced. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Is it in your name? 
PETER BROWN 
: It is in the name of my colleague Bill Gudgeon. He was on the select committee he listened to all the submissions and he sat down and diligently came up with a Supplementary Order Paper that tidies up the whole thing. 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Is it within the scope of the bill? 
PETER BROWN 
: Of course it is within the scope of the bill. It is in the Minister’s wish list. We are turning this bill into a genuine fair article. The member cannot be serious when she asks whether it is within the scope of the bill. The second bullet point in the commentary under the suggestions to improve the scheme is the aim to do that and my colleague has fixed it. I say to members opposite that if they vote against Mr Gudgeon’s Supplementary Order Paper they are doing a disservice to self-employed women in particular. When did the first bill go through? Was it in 1999? 
Lianne Dalziel 
: 2002. 
PETER BROWN 
: In 2002 before the last election? 
Lianne Dalziel 
: Just before when National had 39 MPs. 
PETER BROWN 
: That is right I remember the member raising that point. National should take note of that. It will shrink another 50 percent if it does not. We tripled in number. I say to the honourable members opposite that this is the second attempt to get this sort of legislation correct and we believe that the self-employed have to be included in it. 
Another concern we have—and I do not see that this bill has addressed it—is that young women take paid parental leave and then do not return to the firm that they have taken the parental leave from. I know they are paid by the taxpayer but they leave the firm and they do not come back. 
Brian Connell 
: What’s your point? 
PETER BROWN 
: The point is that there should be a commitment to come back to the firm or at least to tell the firm before they take off that they are not coming back. That is only reasonable and fair is it not? Is that not what John Tamihere told Labour today—that he has gone for a few weeks but he intends coming back? 
Simon Power 
: He might not have a choice. 
PETER BROWN 
: No he might not have a choice but it is only reasonable that people who take paid parental leave indicate to the firm the company or whomever whether they are coming back to the firm. The firm could be left in a terrible situation. A young woman may go off for 12 weeks—it is going to increase to 14 weeks—and then disappear without trace. That is not acceptable. It is not fair to the businesses of New Zealand and we will be putting up a Supplementary Order Paper on it. I say seriously to the House that we will not necessarily support this bill unless it addresses the full problems. We will determine that at caucus. At the moment we want the bill to proceed but we want it to do so on the basis that it addresses the problems in relation to the self-employed. I am being deadly serious. I believe that Mr Gudgeon’s Supplementary Order Paper addresses that problem comprehensively. It adds amendments to clauses 8 9 11 and 12 to cover the circumstances of the self-employed. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.