Volume 686 Week 30 - Tuesday 4 December 2012 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Volume 686 Week 30 - Tuesday 4 December 2012 
[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:6993. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Tuesday 4 December 2012 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Questions to Ministers 
Businesses Performance—World Bank Report Confidence and Business Growth Agenda 
1. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received on the competitiveness of New Zealand’s business sector? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I have received the World Bank’s report  
Doing Business 2013 
 which assesses how easy it is to do business in 185 economies around the world. Overall New Zealand is rated the third-easiest economy for doing business behind Singapore and Hong Kong. We are ahead of the US; the United Kingdom in seventh place; Australia in 10th; and Japan in 24th. Through the Business Growth Agenda and other measures the Government is working hard to help New Zealand businesses be more competitive so that they can invest further and employ more people. 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: How does the World Bank measure New Zealand and other economies in assessing the ease of doing business? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Order! The Minister has not even opened his mouth. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The World Bank assesses 10 specific areas in respect of ease of doing business. They include starting a business dealing with construction permits getting electricity registering property getting credit protecting investors paying taxes trading across borders enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. The World Bank confirms that New Zealand across these 10 different dimensions has an excellent environment for doing business but of course it needs to improve so that we can provide more jobs for more New Zealanders. 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: What other reports has the Minister received regarding the performance of New Zealand businesses? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The performance of our businesses matters because the key to more jobs is businesses that are willing and able to provide those jobs. The latest  
ANZ Business Outlook 
 survey shows an improvement in business confidence in the context of a reasonably flat second half of the year with a net 26 percent of businesses expecting general economic conditions to improve. Businesses’ own-activity expectations are a bit higher with a net 32 percent of respondents expecting more activity in their business over the coming year. 
Jami-Lee Ross 
: What steps is the Government taking to help improve the competitiveness and productivity of New Zealand businesses? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government is relentlessly focused on the competitiveness and productivity of our businesses. Over the past 4 years we have reformed the tax system by lowering taxes on business and increasing consumption tax and tax on property investment. We have reduced red tape invested heavily in modern infrastructure and increased investment in science and innovation. We have set out this extensive programme in the documents published as part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda. 
Trans-Pacific Partnership—Outcomes and Scope of Negotiations 
2. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Trade 
: Does he stand by his statement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership that “It’s going to be big. It’s going to be significant and it’s going to help New Zealanders find well-paid jobs”; if so on what evidence does he base this claim? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is some Minister going to answer the question? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the Minister of Trade: Yes he stands by that statement. If concluded the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be New Zealand’s largest free-trade area. It includes four of our top 10 trading partners it is home to 650 million consumers and it represents US$21 trillion of the global economy. Collectively the group takes nearly 40 percent of New Zealand exports and of course it includes the US with which a free-trade agreement has long been a top foreign policy priority for successive New Zealand Governments. 
Andrew Williams 
: How can he reconcile the necessity for secrecy regarding the Trans-Pacific Partnership yet at the same time make claims that the agreement will provide jobs for New Zealanders? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it is hardly a secret that there are negotiations. I think there are 500 people from—how many countries— 
Rt Hon John Key 
: 11. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: —11 countries turning up in Auckland and it seems to be pretty well-known. The fact is we think a free-trade agreement would be a good idea. We are willing to conduct the reasonable process of negotiation in good faith with our negotiating partners to achieve that agreement. We understand Opposition parties are opposed to the jobs that would flow from a free-trade agreement. That is their policy position; it is not ours. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Will he have as a negotiation bottom line the protection of existing New Zealand intellectual property law and will he ensure that New Zealand’s position is not simply the adoption of the intellectual property laws of the United States of America? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That issue along with a number of others I am sure will be a matter of pretty intensive negotiation because it is pretty clear that the parties are negotiating from different starting positions. 
Andrew Williams 
: Are there any specific aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that could erode or limit New Zealand’s sovereignty; if so what are they? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No not in an unacceptable way. The fact is that when we are doing agreements with other countries both we and they often have to give up some aspect of their policy that they did think was important but they give it up in order to achieve the larger benefits of free trade. So this is a process that is not without compromise but it certainly will not be a compromise on our sovereignty. 
Andrew Williams 
: How will the Trans-Pacific Partnership affect the Overseas Investment Act in regard to prohibiting performance requirements and industry incentives for the film industry? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I am not sure whether particularly that second statement is correct but the Government is not planning any changes to the Overseas Investment Act. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Will he have as a negotiation bottom line and can he give us an assurance that there will be no erosion of Pharmac’s position in New Zealand in respect of medical drug purchase and distribution? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government’s approach will be articulated in precise terms through the negotiation but we share with the previous Government a strong desire to maintain the effectiveness and the independence of Pharmac. 
Andrew Williams 
: Is the Minister saying that the film industry will be totally unaffected and that current industry subsidies will not be affected by the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I would not want to prejudge the way the negotiations would go over the next 12 months or so but the process does allow for the kinds of arrangements that the New Zealand Government applies to the New Zealand film industry. 
Andrew Williams 
: Will the Minister assure the House that this Government will not sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement unless the US removes subsidies from its agricultural sector? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is certainly a long-term aim of the New Zealand Government to see those agricultural subsidies eliminated. The same discussion has been going on for 50 years with the European Union and at different times we have made progress. So it is very important in this negotiation that we see progress but again in the spirit of good faith with our negotiation partners I would not want to pre-empt the result of it. 
Prime Minister—Statements 
3. 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement “…You can trust us. If we say we’re going to do something we do it. If we don’t we don’t … that’s why I’ve stuck to my guns and I haven’t campaigned on one thing and done something different.”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. That is why we campaigned on delivering a whole range of policies that have made New Zealand a better place including putting 600 more police on the streets bringing in tougher bail laws increasing elective surgery by 35000 operations a year shortening cancer patient waiting-times funding Plunket 24/7 funding Herceptin and boosting front-line services including 800 more full-time permanent staff doctors and 2000 more nurses in our district health boards. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statement: “And I think New Zealanders will judge me on not just how I respond to the big issues of the day but also how I treat people who are marginalised and in need.”; if so what will he do to address inequality which has increased to the highest level ever under his Government? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes I do stand by that statement. If you look at the Government’s record despite the very difficult economic times we have actually run a deficit that has protected the most vulnerable people. That has included substantial Working for Families payments without adjustments. That has included a programme for rheumatic fever. That has included programmes in a number of areas to help those who are down on their luck. So no one can really argue that this Government in very difficult economic times has not made great strides to try to assist those who are least well off. 
David Shearer 
: Does he stand by his statement: “… I am proud to be the Prime Minister who takes responsibility for the fact that unemployment capped at 7 percent in this country” and why is he now not taking responsibility for the fact that it has exceeded 7.3 percent? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well for a start-off I do take responsibility and secondly what I can say is that we live in a world where the international conditions are difficult—we accept that. But the Government can and does do things that are within its control. As examples of the things that we have done to try to create more jobs we have brought in the 90-day trial period which has created more than 13000 jobs; we have introduced the starting out wage to lower the barrier to work for our youngest workers; we have clarified the status of an independent contractor which saw 3000 people working on  
The Hobbit 
 movies we have set a 9-month time for consenting projects of national significance we have vigorously pursued free-trade agreements we have reduced the cost to business of the emissions trading scheme we have increased investment in infrastructure we have reduced— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I think the Prime Minister has given a sufficient answer. 
David Shearer 
: Has he kept his promise on early childhood education that “We will keep 20 hours and maintain existing subsidies and controls.”? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes 20 hours remains. 
David Shearer 
: Does he regret standing in Westpac Stadium saying: “… the equivalent of this entire stadium—and more—leaves every year to live permanently in Australia … I’m convinced we can give them a reason and a purpose to stay …” given that the only stadium in the country that could now host the numbers leaving is Eden Park? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes I do stand by that. If one looks overall at migration over the period of time that National has been in office there are more people in New Zealand than there were beforehand. We are having a little bit of a flood but nothing more serious than we have seen internationally. If we do want to send a lot of people overseas I guess the way to do it is to have more inflation a capital gains tax basically give Working for Families payments to beneficiaries and have Russel Norman as the Minister of Finance which I understand is only millimetres away. The Green Party made a— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
David Shearer 
: Given New Zealand has the highest unemployment rate in 13 years with the highest emigration rate ever the worst inequality ever and a fiscal policy that is based on selling New Zealand’s assets does he stand by his statement that if he left tomorrow he will leave the country in better shape than he found it? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Yes. And a couple of things: I am not leaving tomorrow but then again I am not the one facing a vote in February. 
Trans-Pacific Partnership—Investor-State Dispute Provisions 
4. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement regarding investor state disputes procedures proposed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that “An exclusion solely for Australia and not for everybody else is unlikely to be something we would support”; if so why? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. This statement simply reflects the reality that an international trade negotiation is a reciprocal process with give and take on all parts. Negotiating parties including New Zealand are unlikely to agree that special treatment such as an exclusion from investor-State dispute settlement procedures applies to one party but not to the other parties. I would also note that trade agreements are about finding a balance of benefits for everyone and the benefits New Zealand could gain from a successful Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiation will be very significant indeed. 
Metiria Turei 
: Will New Zealand open itself up to litigation from firms based in the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries should we sign up to the investor-State dispute settlement procedures which Australia has rejected? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Well for a start-off I do not think it is actually correct to say that Australia has rejected them. What is true to say is that there are different countries bringing different perspectives to the negotiation but when a final Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is agreed all parties are likely to sign up. In terms of the first point no I do not think that is of concern because investor-State dispute settlement procedures allow a safeguard for New Zealand. New Zealand has already signed two free-trade agreements that include investor-State dispute settlement procedures. They were done under a Labour Government. They were the China free-trade agreement and the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. They include the very safeguards that would protect New Zealand under those provisions. They also I might add protect New Zealand companies when they invest overseas. That is the very purpose of the investor-State dispute settlement procedure requirements. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Prime Minister guarantee that there will be no chilling effect on New Zealand’s environmental policy from these procedures given that in Germany that Government was forced to water down environmental controls on coal-fired power stations or face being sued for more than US$2 billion for breach of investor-State provisions? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I said I think that is unlikely. As I have said in regard to my earlier answer fundamentally New Zealand does make sure that and has ensured in the past there are safeguards when it comes to investor-State dispute settlement provisions. 
Metiria Turei 
: How does the Prime Minister propose to guarantee that there will be no chilling effect on New Zealand’s health policy given that in Peru the Government is being sued for $800 million because it regulated to stop the severe lead poisoning of children by Renco Group’s metal smelter? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: I am simply not aware of the provisions in Peru but I can tell you the way that New Zealand legislates and goes about these free-trade agreements and it is very careful to give itself the safeguards that we would think make sense. I think if one goes and has a look overall and takes a step back then the purpose of New Zealand engaging in the Trans-Pacific Partnership is to sign an agreement that would lift economic growth and provide jobs and opportunities for New Zealanders. On the best forecasting that we have so far seen off a basic prediction out to 2025 that is worth about US$2.9 billion to the New Zealand economy. I think that is a prize worth going after and I think New Zealand should continue down the negotiations. The same kinds of fears that the Green Party and New Zealand First want to raise in the House are the very same ones that were argued against the China free-trade agreement. I suspect they would have been the same kinds of arguments made against CER. They were the same kinds of arguments put against the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement. Is anyone in this House other than the Minister of Finance in waiting seriously saying that we should rip up our China free-trade agreement and everything else? 
Metiria Turei 
: How exactly does the Prime Minister intend to guarantee that there will be no chilling effect on New Zealand’s health policy given that in Ecuador Chevron Oil has used investor-State procedures to stop that Government from taking action to recover clean-up costs for the dumping of 16 billion gallons of toxic waste into the drinking water of 30000 people? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: It has finally after a few months now all come clear to me: the reason that the Green Party wants to follow the policies of Argentina in printing money is it clearly gets all of its ideas from Latin America. 
Metiria Turei 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was a straight question and asked for—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! A point of order is being heard. 
Metiria Turei 
: I asked the Prime Minister how he intended to guarantee against a chilling effect on New Zealand policy and gave an example— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will let the member repeat her question. 
Metiria Turei 
: How does the Prime Minister intend to guarantee that there will be no chilling effect on New Zealand’s health policy given that in Ecuador Chevron Oil used investor-State procedures to stop the Government taking action to recover clean-up costs for the dumping of 16 billion gallons of toxic waste into the drinking water of 30000 people? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I have said in numerous answers to numerous questions from the member there will be safeguards in the New Zealand law. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Prime Minister have any concerns that Philip Morris could use the investor-State procedures in the Trans-Pacific Partnership to sue New Zealand given its actions in Australia and the veiled threats made by its spokesperson in New Zealand Chris Bishop; if not why not? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly you cannot stop anybody suing you but because someone sues you it does not mean that they will win. There are plenty of examples in this House of that. Secondly as I said earlier we are looking at and will ensure that if investor-State dispute settlement takes place as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations there will be safeguards so that will allow us to do that. I go back to my earlier point that in the end the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be a free-trade agreement that binds the same rules on all 11 countries. The member will be aware that Australia as of 1 December went into its programme of plain packaging. It is not in any way concerned about doing that and continuing to be part of the officials group and continuing to negotiate as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That tells you that it must believe that the two policies are compatible. If it did not it would not have introduced plain packaging or it would not be sitting around the table at the Trans-Pacific Partnership which just shows you that the member like Jane Kelsey spends a whole lot of time fearmongering and is fundamentally wrong. 
Metiria Turei 
: Why is the Prime Minister willing for New Zealand to sign up to the parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that our closest and largest trading partner is completely unwilling to sign up to because that Government wants to protect its rights to legislate for public health and the environment? 
Rt Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I said in numerous answers to numerous questions the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have the same rules applying to all parties. So in the end if agreement cannot be reached amongst those 11 parties in relation to investor-State dispute settlement rules which apply to every country—that includes Australia New Zealand Mexico Canada the United States Peru and others like Singapore Brunei you name them—then we will not have those provisions in there. But I take a step back and say yes of course there will be a bit of give and take on all these different rules. New Zealand will make sure it safeguards its provisions. I think we should actually congratulate the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade because in my opinion it has a world-class negotiating team which has done a first-class job for this country on numerous examples in the past and it will continue to do so in the future. And the overall prize of all of this is more jobs. I go back to what I said on TV on Monday morning—when I picked up the  
New Zealand Herald  
on Monday morning the first thing I saw was yet another Green MP Catherine Delahunty opposed to jobs and opposed to growth and that is why Russel Normal wants to be the Minister of Finance. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have repeatedly had to put up with the Prime Minister answering very simple straight questions with attacks on the Green Party. He should just answer the question. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! Which National member is volunteering to leave if they keep up that noise when I am on my feet? That is enough. The member’s complaint is not unreasonable. The Prime Minister should not have put that last bit in. We do not want to carry on down that track any further. 
Metiria Turei 
: I seek leave to table an Official Information Act response from the office of Tim Groser setting out the talking points in relation to Australia’s refusal to engage in the investor-State dispute resolution process for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Student Loans—Cost of Lending Repayment Rates and Access 
5. 
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tamaki) 
 to the  
Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment 
: What progress has the Government made to improve the viability of the Student Loan Scheme? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment) 
: 
 The Government is making very good progress. The latest student loan scheme annual report shows the overall cost of lending has fallen by 17.5 percent over the last 3 years. The cost has fallen from 47c per dollar in 2009 to 39c in the dollar in 2012 and the report projects it to drop to 37c in the dollar next year. That is a significant improvement but one we are working to improve further. The Government remains committed to interest-free student loans but it is important that the scheme is affordable long term for students and for taxpayers and sustainable for the country. 
Simon O’Connor 
: What progress is the Government making to get students debt-free faster? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I am happy to report an 11 percent increase in student loan repayments in 2011-12 to $767 million which is up from $691 million in 2010-11. Further the median repayment time for those who left study in 2008 is 6.7 years which compares with 7.4 years for those who left study in 2003. For 2008 leavers who remain in New Zealand the median repayment time is down to 5.5 years. Through Inland Revenue we are also targeting overseas-based borrowers who are not meeting their repayment obligations. To date we have gained back just under $20 million through the latest campaign which accounts for $12 for every dollar spent on the project. Those gains have freed up money for reinvesting in quality tertiary education provision and enabling the Government to improve our overall fiscal position. 
Simon O’Connor 
: How is the Government ensuring students are in the best position to repay their loans? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: As part of our changes to tighten the student loan scheme the Government has moved to ensure that student loans are used effectively by people to obtain qualifications that enable them to earn enough to pay their loan back and contribute to this country. This has coincided with a continuing uptrend in performance. Course completion rates have risen from 77 percent in 2009 to 82 percent last year while qualification completion rates over the same period have increased from 62 to 71 percent. It shows the tertiary sector is responding well to our signals to focus on performance and deliver better value for taxpayers’ money. 
Grant Robertson 
: In light of that answer what does he say to the 55-year-old woman who came to my electorate office having lost her job and who is wanting to retrain but is unable to do so because he and his Government have taken away the eligibility for people aged over 55 to borrow the living costs of their loan or does he not think she has got a contribution to make to New Zealand’s economy? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Actually that person over the age of 55 can continue to borrow from the student loan scheme for their course fees—that is correct. 
Grant Robertson 
: But not for living costs. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Not for their living costs—that is correct. Of course somebody who has lost their job and is unable to get a job is able to qualify for welfare support but they can do student borrowing through the student loan scheme for their fees. 
Work and Income—Use of Transition to Work Grant 
6. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: How many times if any has the Transition to Work Grant or similar funds been used by Work and Income New Zealand to purchase tickets to Australia for job seekers who have found work there? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 I cannot answer the question. The grant has been in place since 2007. Because it is not the policy intent or acceptable practice there is not a place to put it in our system so I would have to manually go back through the last 5 years and in the last 3 hours I have not had time to do that. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is there any way for her to know with certainty how the discretionary Transition to Work grant of up to $1500 has been used by Work and Income managers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Since September this year any decisions around grants to move people or anything else have been escalated to head office. That has happened quite recently. There are in the system places obviously where you put what the grants are for. I can give the member some details on the average grant which is $363 a week. We have had more than 500000 of them in the last 5 years so there is a lot. Some are for clothing costs; we help dress people. Some are for childcare costs while someone goes for an interview. [ 
Interruption 
] I am trying to answer this question. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is there anything in the Transition to Work policy that would rule out the fund being used to purchase tickets to Australia? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Well except that it is not the policy intent and that is very clear to staff. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Can she assure the House that the discretionary Transition to Work grant has never been used to purchase or contribute to one-way fares to Australia for job seekers who have an offer of employment there? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As I have said no I cannot particularly because it has been around since 2007. So it was actually introduced under the previous Labour Government. The legislation is actually silent on that and I cannot give a guarantee that far back as to whether or not that has happened. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Does she know what is going on with her own front-line services given that I have been informed of a meeting where Work and Income managers confirmed that Work and Income had offered financial assistance to job seekers to travel to Australia to take up employment? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: If the member has evidence of that I would be very interested in seeing it. It is not my expectation. It is not the expectation of the policy intent. However it is case managers who distribute it. It has been made very clear to them that they should not be paying for any airfares overseas and as far as I have seen to date I do not have evidence of that. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Will she investigate whether or not and how often the Transition to Work grant has been used to purchase tickets to Australia for job seekers? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Absolutely because I would be very unhappy to see that as common practice. 
Primary Growth Partnership—Successful Bids and Purpose 
7. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister for Primary Industries 
: What announcements has he recently made on boosting innovation in the New Zealand primary sector? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister for Primary Industries) 
: 
 Yesterday I announced that the Government’s Primary Growth Partnership is to fund half of an $87 million innovation programme proposed by one of New Zealand’s leading meat exporters ANZCO Foods. The programme will identify opportunities to create new high-value food ingredients and health care products. This announcement lifts the total Government-industry investment in the Primary Growth Partnership to $665 million—further proof of this Government’s commitment to lift economic growth through primary sector innovation. 
Shane Ardern 
: Why is the Government focusing on increasing innovation and improving productivity in the primary sector? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: This Government has set an ambitious target of increasing exports from 30 percent to 40 percent of GDP. As the primary sector makes up 72 percent of New Zealand’s merchandise export and is the backbone of the New Zealand economy increasing innovation and improving productivity are essential means of achieving this target. 
Shane Ardern 
: Has the Primary Growth Partnership been successful in providing innovation funding to a wide range of firms and sectors? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Yes it certainly has. Thanks to this collaborative Government-industry approach we have projects under way across a complete range of sectors from dairy to arable to red meat to wool to forestry to seafood to aquaculture and to manuka honey. Over $300 million of Government funding has been committed to a wide range of firms such as Zespri Comvita and Brownrigg Agriculture. Even the Young Farmers organisation is involved in the Beef and Lamb project.  
New Zealand - Australia Migration—Numbers Reasons and Income Gap 
8. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement regarding migration to Australia “What’s the point of standing in the airport crying about it?”; if so how many people have left permanently for Australia since he took office in November 2008? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 As I said in answer to the same question from the member on 24 July 25 July 26 July and 1 August yes. My full statement was “What’s the point of standing in the airport crying about it? We’ve just got to compete. They can pay more but it’s hot and there’s lots of flies. We pay less but you can go for a bike ride at lunchtime.” Statistics New Zealand reports 173715 people migrated to Australia in that time period. I note that in this period 59000 people migrated from Australia to New Zealand leaving a net outward migration of 114000. There are signs that this migration is levelling off. I note that in the 9 years to October 2008 despite benign economic conditions 310000 people left for Australia. 
Hon David Parker 
: Given that more than 173000 people have left for Australia since he took office in 2008 and the year to October 2012 saw 53695 Kiwis leave does he agree that his Government has failed to fulfil its 2008 promise to reduce the number of people leaving for Australia? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No. I think the reason that there has been higher out-migration has been pretty straightforward. Australia had a once-in-a-century boom in its resource prices. That means that up until recently it has been sheltered from the effects of the global financial crisis. The out-migration is directly proportional to the fact that Australia’s growth rate was higher than New Zealand’s. Over the next few years they look to be pretty similar and that is why the out-migration is likely to slow down and the number leaving Australia to come to New Zealand which was 59000 in the 4 years that the member referred to is likely to increase. 
Hon David Parker 
: Is he aware that the 173715 New Zealanders who have left for Australia represent 4 percent of New Zealand’s total population which is more than the population of Hamilton more than the population of Napier and Hastings combined and equivalent to Dunedin and Invercargill combined? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I would believe those numbers if they came from Statistics New Zealand and not from the Opposition spokesman on finance; in this case I would have to divide them by seven to get it right. But he is probably right. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does he agree that the New Zealanders leaving for Australia in record numbers are doing so because of low wages and a lack of jobs in New Zealand; if not why are 54000 Kiwis leaving for Australia every year? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As I explained to the member and which I think he knows in around 2007 Australia experienced a once-in-100-years more than doubling of its commodity prices. That gave Australia a large unexpected increase in income and that has meant high wages which have attracted New Zealanders. Over the next few years our growth rates are pretty similar around 2.5 to 3.5 percent and I would expect that those flows will slow down a bit. The main thing for us to do is to focus on the competitiveness of our businesses so that they can for instance grow their businesses and exports to Australia and can employ more New Zealanders to do so. 
Hon David Parker 
: Why has the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand continued to widen—using the purchase price parity figure that the Prime Minister prefers to use it is now $27.73 a week wider under his Government—after he campaigned in 2008 to narrow the gap? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We could argue about how to measure the wage gap. As the member will know because of New Zealand’s tax changes our after-tax incomes are actually much closer to Australia’s than those figures would indicate. Actually when you look at the Australian figures it is surprising. If you take out the Western Australia wage rates it makes a significant difference. In fact if you take out Western Australia growth rates the Australian and New Zealand economies and wages have grown at pretty similar rates through the last 3 or 4 years. Last year Western Australia grew at 14 percent. That is almost one and a half times the growth rate in China and frankly we are going to have to focus very hard on competitiveness of our businesses to be able to match the enormous wages paid in Western Australia. 
Todd McClay 
: In light of recent migration trends and their impact on the housing market what reports has the Minister received detailing alternative approaches to housing? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Migration trends do have a significant impact on housing. Just how many houses those migrants might need of course depends on whether you get your numbers wrong by 700 percent as became apparent in the answer to a question in the House last week where our spokesperson pointed out that building 100000 houses over 10 years requires one house to be built every hour night and day for an entire decade. The Opposition spokesman on finance however thinks that that adds up to 600000 houses not 100000 houses. 
White Paper for Vulnerable Children—Expert Advisory Group on Information Security 
9. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development 
: What announcements has she made on the Expert Advisory Group on Information Security who will oversee the development of the initiatives in the Government’s White Paper for Vulnerable Children? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development) 
: 
 Today we have announced the appointment of the former Governor-General the Rt Hon Sir Anand Satyanand to lead the Expert Advisory Group on Information Security. The Vulnerable Kids Information System and the new risk predictor tool are vital in strengthening protections for vulnerable children. The group will ensure these tools are secure and easy for front-line professionals to use while also balancing privacy and security considerations. 
Tim Macindoe 
: What will the expert group focus on in regard to the Vulnerable Kids Information System known as ViKi and the risk protector tool? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Well this group will oversee the entire implementation but there are particular issues with the implementation I think that I have asked them to really centre in on. When you are looking at that information it is who has access to it what kind of information is stored should you know if your name is on it or your child’s is how long should we keep it and can you access it in 20 years. These are the sorts of difficult but I think really important things that this group needs to investigate. 
Tim Macindoe 
: How will the Vulnerable Kids Information System and the risk predictor tool work to protect vulnerable children better from abuse and neglect? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: The most vital part of the whole information system is that it is putting the pieces together from different professionals so that you know what children are in there what everyone knows about them and you can put it together. For all of the cases that I have seen—whether they be coroners’ reports to the Mel Smith inquiry on children to the evidence from both overseas and locally—if you see a child who has been hideously abused or even killed if a professional had been able to put all of the pieces together I believe they would have acted differently. This tool does that. 
Schools—Food Programmes and Funding 
10. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does she agree with all of the statements the Prime Minister has made regarding food in schools? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes I do agree with all the Prime Minister’s statements as everyone does who is ambitious for this country. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Does she stand by the statement that if the Government does not take action to provide food in schools “we are effectively punishing children for the sins of their parents.” or does she stand by the alternative statement that “the fundamental responsibility lies with the parents of those children to feed them.”—the first one made before the National Government was elected and the second one made after? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: Yes both are right and I completely agree because the full statement that was made in 2007 was that we need to “challenge the business community to work with us in backing a programme of providing food in low-decile schools for kids in need.” In fact Fonterra and Sanitarium have stepped up to that challenge and provide 35000 breakfasts a week to 534 schools feeding 22000 students. Since we came into Government in 2009 we have provided $940000 of funding to KidsCan for their Food for Kids programme so both are correct. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Does she stand by the statement: “it’s a fact that kids can’t and don’t learn if they are constantly hungry. Their brains don’t develop properly and they can’t stay focused in the classroom.”; if so exactly what in addition to the funding for KidsCan has the Government done to increase the provision of food in schools? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: This Government has increased and improved the Fruit in Schools programme. When we came in Labour was funding it at $12 million of which almost $6 million was going on administration. We have made it more efficient but we have now—[ 
Interruption 
] We have made it more efficient and we are providing fruit to—let me see—480 decile 1 and 2 schools currently participating being about almost 97000 children. 
Nikki Kaye 
: What is the Government doing in this area? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: First and foremost I would like to acknowledge all the parents and families who work really hard to ensure that their children have the food that they need. What the Government does is supplement that as I have already indicated through the Fruit in Schools scheme—nearly 97000 students—since 2009 and $940000 to KidsCan for 4500 children a day in 223 schools. And we make available through the Ministry of Social Development special-needs grants for families much of which goes on food and which was $46 million in 2011 and of course our Government invests billions in the welfare system. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Is the Minister suggesting that giving a child a piece of fruit at morning tea time is sufficient nutrition for them to be able to maintain their focus on learning during the day? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: As I said this supplements first and foremost what parents families whanau and aiga provide for their children. But in some cases it might be. There are children who do have fruit for breakfast. In fact under the previous administration its Healthy Eating - Healthy Action programme was trying to make our children eat fruit for breakfast. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Why does the Government believe that spending $562000 on sports funding for private schools is more important than fulfilling the Prime Minister’s pre-election promise to provide food in schools for vulnerable kids given that the funding provided for KidsCan is barely half that amount? 
Hon HEKIA PARATA 
: It is not an either/or; we provide both. Why do we think it is legitimate? Because in fact although private schools make up 3.5 percent of our schooling system each year they contribute $168 million net to our education system. 
Drugs Control—Animal Testing of Psychoactive Substances 
11. 
MOJO MATHERS (Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: Other than the LD50 test will he rule out other animal tests for the pending psychoactive substances testing regime? 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 With regard to psychoactive substances I have directed the Ministry of Health to develop a regulatory regime consistent with international best practice and avoiding animal testing wherever possible. The standards for approval for psychoactive substances will be set by an independent expert committee to be established early next year. 
Mojo Mathers 
: Why is there not a single non-animal testing option included in the Ministry of Health’s testing regime recommendation paper dated March 2012? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: There have been a number of alternative options proposed. They are all to be considered by the expert committee. I should make the point that the material that was the subject of the release last week which got the weekend publicity was neither ministry advice nor Government policy. They were comments contained in a report from an independent toxicologist. 
Mojo Mathers 
: How does he reconcile that omission with the purpose set out in Part 6 of the Animal Welfare Act to “replace animals as subjects for research and testing by substituting where appropriate non-sentient or non-living alternatives:”? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I am not attempting to reconcile the two statements for this reason. The material that the member refers to which was the basis of the publicity at the weekend was neither official advice to the Ministry of Health nor a statement of Government policy but a statement by an independent toxicologist. The expert committee that I referred to in my original answer in developing the standards for approval will obviously be guided by all relevant pieces of legislation including the legislation to which the member has referred. 
Mojo Mathers 
: I seek leave to table the Ministry of Health report from March 2012 which outlines the proposed safety testing regime and it is called  
Regulations governing the control of novel psychoactive drugs defining parameters associated with toxicity 
. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Mojo Mathers 
: So will he now commission a report into non-animal options for safety testing of new recreational drugs? 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: Can I repeat for the member’s benefit my original answer. I have directed the Ministry of Health in developing the regulatory regime consistent with international best practice to look at avoiding animal testing wherever possible. As I said earlier the precise regime will be developed by the independent expert committee which will be established early next year. 
Canterbury Recovery—Progress on Repair and Rebuilding of Housing 
12. 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
 to the  
Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery 
: What progress is the Government making with rebuilding and repairing residential homes in Christchurch? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 The Government is making considerable progress with the repair and rebuild of residential homes damaged by the Canterbury earthquakes. The Earthquake Commission through the Fletcher programme has repaired 28058 homes. This means that nearly one-third of the homes damaged with under $100000 of value in that damage have been completed. Total payouts by the commission for building land and contents claims now exceed $4 billion. Southern Response which handles 6651 claims for the AMI bailout has settled 1838 claims. More important over 99 percent of customers’ assessments have been completed. Southern Response is scheduling 1000 builds and rebuilds in this next construction season into 2013. All land in Canterbury has now been zoned. Over 7800 properties have gone red and over 180000 properties have been zoned green. Insurers are reporting a gearing-up of resources to deliver rebuilds and repairs in the year ahead. In addition the horizontal infrastructure repair and rebuild under the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team is now invoicing $40 million a month across multiple civil construction sites. 
Nicky Wagner 
: What has been the acceptance of the red zone offer for homeowners on the worst-affected land? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: To date of the 7022 people who have received the Crown offer 6369 homeowners have signed a sale and purchase agreement with the Crown. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has already settled 5173 properties. This is a very positive and strong response. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Will he allow people living in perfectly habitable houses in the residential red zone to remain there for a bit longer given that their new properties will not be ready to move into by the final settlement date of 30 April next year—one of the requests that was made in the open letter to the Prime Minister today? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Given that to do that there would have to be maintenance of access and also infrastructure to those homes it would need to be assessed on a case by case basis but I would have to say it is unlikely. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I seek leave to table the open letter to the Prime Minister of New Zealand from the representatives of seven groups in Christchurch that rallied on Saturday. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 









Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: I seek leave to table three letters: one dated 1 November from me to the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery as a follow-up from the cross-party forum where all parties raised concerns about those in the red zone who will not have properties ready to move into by 30 April; a reply from the Hon Gerry Brownlee on 19 November; and my subsequent plea to him to reconsider of 21 November. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? [ 
Interruption 
] Order! Is there any objection? There is objection. There is objection. 
Points of Order 
Brendan Horan—Inquiry into Allegations Against Member and Expulsion from Party 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to make a personal explanation under Standing Order 354. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Thank you Mr Speaker and thank you to the House. In recent weeks a number of allegations have been made against Mr Horan most of which arise from a family matter and Mr Horan is an MP in New Zealand First. The allegations are of a nature that requires they should be treated seriously— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I apologise for interrupting the right honourable member but a personal explanation can be made only with regard to a matter relating to the member personally. If the matter that he is describing does impinge on the right honourable gentleman personally then he is perfectly at liberty to make the personal explanation but a member cannot make a personal explanation on matters relating to another member and I am absolutely certain I am right in that matter. I do apologise for interrupting but the member must relate the personal explanation to matters that affect him personally. Does the member wish to continue? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The fact is that a number of serious allegations have been made. I was required to conduct as full an inquiry as I could and I want to report the results of my personal inquiry to the House. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Because I do not want to act unilaterally I will hear the Hon Trevor Mallard. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I think there was possibly an error on the House’s part at the beginning because normally when people ask to make personal explanations they are asked for an explanation which then restricts the area on which they can comment. The problem that we have as a House is that we have granted leave—which you are now bound to protect I think—without restricting the area in a way that we now appear to be retrospectively trying to do. I think if the honourable gentleman had explained it was about Mr Horan the House would have said no. I think if he said it was about an investigation that he had undertaken we would have said yes. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Mr Speaker you are not in a difficult position. The member sought leave to make a personal explanation—that is all. If it is not a personal explanation leave is not granted. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: To go back to the point raised by the Hon Trevor Mallard he is correct and I blame myself. I should have sought from the Rt Hon Winston Peters a brief indication of what the matter was that he wished to make a personal explanation about. I failed to do that and I blame myself for that. However a personal explanation is a personal explanation and the issue around which the member wishes to make a personal explanation must relate to that member himself. A member cannot make a personal explanation about other matters and an investigation into other matters does not constitute a personal explanation. The allegation that a member is responding to must relate to a matter affecting the member personally. Even though the House may have granted leave for a personal explanation to be made if one is not forthcoming then it is not in order to proceed. There are already Speakers’ rulings that cover that issue. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have plenty of precedent for what I am seeking to do. You will recall that in 1996 I sought leave to explain the future of one of the members of the New Zealand First caucus and that was granted. It was seen as being personal enough being the leader of a party for it to be relevant and within the ambit of Standing Order 354. No one else has conducted the inquiry; I have. I am bound to report a most serious matter to this House. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 Mr Speaker I also invite you to balance the various Speakers’ rulings that there are as to what is a personal matter—and the leader of the New Zealand First Party has indicated that he is going to outline some work that he has personally been doing—with the longstanding and I think never tipped over Speaker’s ruling that leave once given cannot be withdrawn. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Can I speak to that? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear from the Hon Gerry Brownlee because I accept that there is an important issue and I certainly do not want to unreasonably constrain the rights of a member of this House. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Mr Speaker I think I will just point you to Speaker’s ruling 134/5. It is very clear what a personal explanation is and that is longstanding in the House. You are right to say that if someone proceeds to discuss something that is not personal to them and involving them personally it is not provided for in this provision. However the House is the master of its own destiny and maybe a way through this would be for the member to seek leave to make a statement on a matter that relates to an investigation into another member of Parliament. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The House is certainly the master of its own destiny and my concern about the personal explanation process is that although a Speaker in the past may have made an unusual ruling the rulings are very clear. The Leader of the House has referred to 134/5. This is a longstanding accepted requirement that a personal explanation must relate to an allegation made against the person seeking to make the explanation. I am prepared to rule that the personal explanation granted leave will not continue because it is not a personal explanation. But I am perfectly happy for the member—I am not sure how best to handle this now whether the member seeks the leave of the House. It is probably best for the member to seek the leave of the House to make a statement and the House is at liberty to grant that leave should the member wish to do that on that matter. 
Hon Members 
: Point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will hear first from the Hon John Banks as I have not heard from him. 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I would seek leave of the House for the Rt Hon Winston Peters to make a statement to the House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is—[ 
Interruption 
] I think it is probably more appropriate for the member himself to seek leave to make a statement to the House. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I seek leave to make a serious statement to the House and not a long one at that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Identifying the matter so the House knows exactly. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Identifying the substance and result of an inquiry into the allegations made about Brendan Horan MP. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I thank the House. In recent weeks a number of allegations have been made against Mr Horan most of which arise from a family matter. The allegations are of a nature that requires that they should be treated seriously. Accordingly I requested from the original complainant and those associated with him evidence to support their allegations. I also instructed Mr Horan to give every priority to resolving this family matter so that I could be assured that those allegations were without foundation. Until a few days ago we had not been furnished with any evidentiary material from any of the parties in this dispute. However substantive material has now come into my possession some as recent as 2.15 p.m. this afternoon. The information we have received leaves me in a position where I have no confidence in Mr Horan’s ability to continue as a member of Parliament and he will be expelled from the New Zealand First caucus forthwith. Mr Horan has a duty I believe to resign as a member of Parliament. Lastly this is a bitterly regrettable situation but we had to place our decision on the public record as soon as we were in a position to make it. The nature of this inquiry means that I am unable to make any further comment outside of Parliament. I seek leave to table this statement. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 






Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill 
First Reading 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill be now read a first time. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it. This bill is set down for second reading next sitting day. 
Gareth Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! I did not hear the member call. This is purely procedural. I do not think it is the end of the world. 
GARETH HUGHES (Musterer—Green) 
: 
 With the closing of question time there was all the kerfuffle in the Chamber and you could not hear. I yelled it out pretty loudly. So I urge that the Green Party vote can be recorded on this matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well the House can go back. The Speaker has already announced the result of the first reading. Does the House wish me to go back? It is purely procedural. The vote is put without debate and it is something that is standard. I think the House really can proceed. There will be plenty of opportunity to debate these issues. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member called No as the member I am assured did because he was heard by members this far away if not your distance away. I am not sure whether he called for a party vote. But given the hubbub I think it would be reasonable for a vote to be held. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I must make the point that just because a member votes No does not mean a party vote will be held. A member must call for a party vote. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Just in support of the musterer for the Greens I did see his lips moving very clearly calling for a party vote through the noise. So there is no doubt in my mind that that was his intention. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I am prepared under the circumstances to go back but I stress to the House that this is purely a procedural matter. Members have hours to debate the financial reviews. This is purely a vote to get the House in a position to be able to debate the financial reviews. If members want a party vote on that so be it. Let me go back then and put the question again. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Appropriation (2011/12 Financial Review) Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 59; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
Callaghan Innovation Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Science and Innovation) 
: 
 I move  
That the Callaghan Innovation Bill be now read a third time 
. This is a special day in a special year for New Zealand’s science and innovation community. This bill is the latest evidence of this Government’s absolute commitment to the growth and development of New Zealand’s science and innovation system alongside initiatives like the National Science Challenges increased investment in basic research increased investment in engineers and scientists—in fact 50-odd changes as part of our Building Innovation stream of the Business Growth Agenda. 
An important part of the Government’s Business Growth Agenda is ensuring that there are better linkages between business science engineering and design so that great ideas are commercialised and generate income and jobs for New Zealanders. This bill provides the legislative framework for establishing Callaghan Innovation as a high-tech HQ for New Zealand businesses. Callaghan Innovation will be a one-stop shop offering high-tech New Zealand companies the business innovation support they need whether it be in science engineering design or technology in order to become successful internationally. The organisation carries the name of the late Sir Paul Callaghan in recognition of his belief that science was not only about great ideas but also about getting value from those ideas through innovation and commercialisation. 
Alongside the passage of this bill through the House the Government is currently finalising the detailed design of Callaghan Innovation to have it under way by 1 February next year. Cabinet will shortly consider its accountability and performance framework what business innovation support functions will be transferred from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and how Callaghan Innovation will align with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to ensure there is no wrong door for businesses accessing these sorts of Government services. 
New Zealanders are great at coming up with smart ideas but we do need to be better at turning those ideas into commercially successful high-tech products that we can then sell to the world. We need science engineering and design expertise joined at the hip on product development. We must encourage an entrepreneurial spark amongst our science and research community. New Zealand is blessed with outstanding entrepreneurs and outstanding scientists but we are not yet as successful as we need to be when it comes to converting ideas and intellectual property into business success. The challenge in this case is to fire up more of our young scientists so that they see starting their own business joining a start-up team or joining an established innovation business as a viable alternative—or indeed addition—to an academic career. 
In many ways the pathway has been established with some of our top businesses coming from entrepreneurs who have over many years applied innovative thinking to home-grown science and engineering. The challenge for Callaghan Innovation will be to accelerate that activity to help more firms reach that level of success by connecting them with the know-how and the facilities that they need. 
Based in Auckland Wellington—including the Hutt Valley—and Christchurch Callaghan Innovation will be strongly business focused and responsive to commercial needs. Its initial focus will be on industries with high growth potential such as food and beverage manufacturing agricultural technologies digital technologies health technologies therapeutics and high-value wood products. Callaghan Innovation will offer value-adding services such as product testing and analysis access to specialised expertise and facilities national measurement and standards work commercialisation advice and of course its own research. 
Collaboration will be the key. As well as offering its own services Callaghan Innovation must improve connectivity between businesses and the significant but highly distributed capability that exists across New Zealand’s many public and private research organisations and within businesses themselves. It will build partnerships to maximise commercialisation opportunities and develop global connections through which New Zealand companies can access international expertise and keep abreast of technology trends and market opportunities. 
It will also manage the Government’s business research and development co-funding streams. However it will not be responsible for allocating contestable science funding. That will continue to be administered by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. Much of the foundation of Callaghan Innovation will come from the assets and staff of Industrial Research Ltd which will become a subsidiary company of the new organisation. 
The Government sees greater business innovation as a key to growing the economy. There is a big gap in private sector investment in research and development in New Zealand. Although there are many reasons for that research shows that if we can increase business research and development expenditure that will help drive economic growth. So the Government has set a goal of raising the amount that firms spend on research and development from the current 0.54 percent of GDP to at least 1 percent of GDP and we see Callaghan Innovation playing a critical role in helping to leverage that greater investment. The success of Callaghan Innovation will be measured by how many companies it helps to become research and development capable how many spend more on research and development and most of all how many it helps to innovate to become more competitive and lift New Zealand’s exports. 
I firmly believe that Callaghan Innovation will be a great step forward in New Zealand’s plan to achieve faster growth through the application of our innovation and of our Kiwi ingenuity. I commend this bill to the House for adoption. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 As the Minister of Science and Innovation said this should have been an important day for New Zealand science and for our growth agenda and for the place of science and innovation in New Zealand’s economic future. Instead what we have is an overwhelming sense of underwhelming. People see this as an opportunity lost and an opportunity squandered by this Government. A significant amount of money is being invested into establishing the Callaghan institute and we on this side of the House fear that it will fail to deliver. We are voting for this legislation the Callaghan Innovation Bill because we want to see it succeed but throughout the passage of this bill through the House and through the Education and Science Committee we have pointed to a number of flaws that we see in this model. We still urge the establishment committee which has been given an incredibly wide remit under an incredibly permissive piece of legislation to take into account some of these concerns. 
This is a National Government opposite that has since the lead-up to the 2008 election promised big on science and innovation but like in so many areas it is full of big talk and grand ideas but broken promises. Over and over we hear this that this is a Government that is committed to science and innovation and research and development. Let us have a look at its election 2008 promise where it promised to put a third of the funding that it was going to crib back by cutting the research and development tax credit into other areas of science and innovation funding. This would have amounted to around $315 million over 3 years. Well $100 million over 4 years was found but this was largely from underspends in previous years. This was money carried forward. This is a whole lot of creative accounting from the Government opposite and not only creative accounting but also the reversal of commitments. What we have seen is that this is a Government that is not committed to science and innovation. It is a Government that has slashed postdoctoral funding in this country. If anyone on the other side of the House thinks we can have an economy that is based on science and innovation without adequately funding the critical phase of postdoctoral research they are kidding themselves. 
The Callaghan institute and our future in advanced manufacturing lie in the fact that we will have the scientists and the engineers with the necessary experience to staff this institute and the Government is just not committed to that. Even worse than slashing the postdoctoral funding—and it does not get much worse than that if you want an economy based on this—the Government is going to stop that. It is going to solve that problem. People will not get to be postdocs in this country because this is a Government that will not give the student allowance for people to do doctoral research any more. It is not something that it sees as important. We can talk big about the role of science and innovation big ideas clever ideas and smart New Zealanders and what they can contribute to this country but members opposite will not even back New Zealanders to go on and do Master’s or PhD research. I would be very interested to hear how they think we can have an economy that is based on science and innovation within this climate. 
 What we have seen is that this is a Government trying to make a big deal out of a whole lot of new funding with this. It is trying to catch up and it is saying that there is $166 million going into this. The reality is that only a small fraction of this is new funding. It is about shifting the deckchairs and there has been a lot of shifting of the deckchairs in this portfolio. If we have a look at the ever-changing movement of the department that administers science and innovation in this country and we look at the cost of just one of the re-brands for the Ministry of Science and Innovation $420000 was spent on coming up with the new name and the new logo. It was all meant to be about the importance that we place on science and innovation—$420k was spent for an 18-month iteration. Is this good use of science and innovation funding? No. 
But as we have said throughout the passage of this legislation we have three main concerns with the current legislation and things that we urge to be addressed. We heard the Minister talking about the need for there to be collaboration. It is our fear that this is an organisation being set up that makes collaboration inherently difficult fraught and full of tensions and central to this is our concern over the funder/provider division. The other concern we have is that in order for this to work the right people need to be having input and giving this organisation direction. And what we have not seen from Government members is a commitment to setting up the structures that mean the right people can have input into this. 
But I think one of the most concerning things for me is that after all this time all this public relations spend and the newsletters that are going out that are meant to be informing people of what is going on we have our scientific community begging the ministry and the Government to please tell them what is going on. People within the scientific community simply have no idea what the Callaghan institute is going to be and actually members opposite will be very light on detail as well. As I said this is incredibly permissive legislation. It is going to be set up by 1 February but the detail—the incredibly important detail that will dictate whether or not this organisation succeeds or fails—has yet to be fleshed out and when we have the very scientists who are meant to be working with and in this organisation saying “Please tell us what it is” I have real concerns. We are into December. This is going to be up and running by 1 February 2013 we are told. But we are being told lots of dates for the establishment of the Callaghan institute so we will watch with interest for that 1 February date. 
We see that this is a bill that once again reflects National’s lacklustre and half-baked approach to science and innovation policy. It does not see the interconnections throughout the other parts of the Government and it certainly does not reflect a Government that is committed to taking hold of our economy being hands-on and being the force that will drive economic growth in this country. As I have talked about in order to achieve benefit to New Zealand the Callaghan institute needs to have robust and meaningful input from industry. It was a concern to committee members that really there was very little industry input into the select committee deliberation. We had one submission from the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association which was the most meaningful industry input we had and this was a submission that was negative about the ability of the structure being proposed in this legislation to deliver. It expressed extreme doubts and in fact most of the submissions supporting the organisation pointed to concerns they had and asked for changes to be made—changes that Government members have not been willing to make to the set-up of this organisation. 
The institute must be set up so that it clearly marks out the area it works in. We are not seeing that. What we are seeing is an organisation being set up that others within the scientific network in New Zealand are fearful of. They have no idea where it sits within the landscape. They have no idea what its purview is and they do not know the area in which it will be operating. We have asked for this to be cleared up throughout this legislation but we have not seen it. We heard the Minister talk about collaboration being crucial but the Minister was talking about collaboration between businesses when you listened carefully to his speech. I guess what we on this side of the House realise is that if the Callaghan institute is to succeed it needs to be able to collaborate not only with businesses—something we are committed to seeing happen—but also with the people who drive innovation in this country the scientists and the engineers and this is an organisation that is structurally not set up to address this. 
There are also grave fears within the scientific community that the research focus required for real innovation to emerge is not there and that this is an organisation that will not keep committed to the excellent research the Industrial Research Ltd is currently undertaking. This is a concern because you cannot separate out commercialisation from basic and fundamental research. This is a hurried piece of legislation about which we would have liked to see more questions answered. We want to see it succeed but Labour is supporting it with grave reservations. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak today at the third reading of the Callaghan Innovation Bill. I would like to acknowledge again Sir Paul Callaghan whom this institute is named after. I would also like to acknowledge members of the Education and Science Committee. I do believe that we worked in a collaborative process throughout the committee. We did have a tight time frame in which to turn this bill round but I was very pleased that we made a huge effort as a committee to not only write to stakeholders but also provide a very lengthy commentary on the bill. I think it is pleasing that nearly all of the submitters supported this legislation. I also want to acknowledge that this is part of our wider plan and agenda to ensure that New Zealand stays ahead of our global competition. The bill helps to unlock the world-class potential of our scientists and helps them to plug into businesses in the global market place. 
But the major purpose is to ensure that we get the best ideas out of the lab and into the market place more quickly. It will have operations in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch and the reason for this is that these operations will be close to clusters of likely business clients making them as accessible as possible especially to smaller firms. 
I want to also acknowledge the general approach of the select committee. As has already been said by a number of members we decided purposely not to take an overly prescriptive approach. The reason for that was to give the institute the maximum ability to not only move with technology but also be not overly prescriptive in terms of the people it appoints to the organisation. 
A point that I would like to raise in this third reading is that collaboration was a very important point raised by a number of submitters. So Callaghan Innovation will exist within a flexible framework that will encourage innovation but also collaboration. We all know that silos have existed in the past and that they lead to greater compliance costs and time wasted for business. A key feature of Callaghan Innovation is to foster better connections between innovation expertise and facilities that will already exist within Callaghan Innovation but additionally to link up Callaghan Innovation with New Zealand Crown research institutes polytechnics and other research organisations. During the select committee process we made a key change to the legislation to strengthen that collaboration. 
I think it is important to also acknowledge the dual function of Callaghan Innovation. The first function will be to fulfil a range of things such as helping build industry-led innovation consortia—acting as a portal through which businesses can access appropriate research and development and technical expertise being a gateway to firms to access business research and development grants and commercialisation support fostering the mobility of experts by for example sponsoring secondments between universities and developing links with international research organisations to ensure local firms can connect with worldwide experience. 
The second key role of Callaghan Innovation is to be a service provider that is going to be offering businesses technology testing applied research and development work on a contractual basis business development and technology and knowledge transfer. 
I want to briefly finish with some of the select committee changes. As I have already mentioned there was a key change in the bill in terms of strengthening collaboration. We also made a change around the term “net benefit” to be clear that Callaghan Innovation must operate for the benefit of New Zealand. Thirdly a number of issues were raised regarding the establishment board. I think it is very important at this point to acknowledge that the select committee made a lengthy commentary on the internal framework for research capacity. We outlined the issues that had been raised as a result of submissions. The Government has appointed a seven-member establishment board. The establishment board will play a critical role in making initial decisions relating to not only staffing requirements but also the exact location of the innovation centres in Auckland Hutt Valley and Christchurch. 
I think it is also important to note that this legislative framework must have funding and that is why in 2012 our Budget delivered $250 million of new operating funding and $76.1 million in capital funding for science innovation and research. This reflects our belief that science and technological innovation are major drivers of growth. I think it is important to acknowledge that we are now spending $1.24 billion which is a 17 percent increase over the last 4 years in direct cross-portfolio funding for science and innovation. There is $166 million going towards Callaghan Innovation. That is a huge amount of money. 
In summary I am very pleased to have chaired the select committee on this bill. I believe that Callaghan Innovation will help firms from a range of backgrounds be more competitive grow faster and connect them with the scientific support that they need to develop and commercialise their ideas for the betterment of our country. That is good in terms of ensuring that New Zealanders have a higher standard of living. Callaghan Innovation will support firms at different stages of development from start-ups to established research and development firms. Our Government wants to see more Kiwi businesses succeeding. We want to create a bridge between business science engineering and design. We want to help our world-class scientists and businesses turn their great ideas into valuable products more jobs and higher incomes for Kiwis. 
I want to finish by thanking the members of the Education and Science Committee for their swift consideration of this very important bill. I feel privileged to be part of a process that will help see Callaghan Innovation up and running in early 2013. I want to acknowledge the man whom this is named after because I do believe that this institute will be a great thing for New Zealand. Thank you. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Just to follow on from the end of Nikki Kaye’s speech I think everyone in this House recognises the incredible contribution that Sir Paul Callaghan made to science in New Zealand and made to innovation in New Zealand. He was a person who drew together the work of the public and private sectors perhaps in a way that few other New Zealanders have done. He was a man with a tremendous vision for what this country could be the way that it could bring together its innovation its talent and its environment and I think that that is something all New Zealanders should aspire to. 
This particular piece of legislation the Callaghan Innovation Bill the Labour Party is supporting but we do so because we have the hope that the kind of vision that Sir Paul Callaghan had could be enhanced by an institute like Callaghan Innovation. However where we stand today I have to say that I am doubtful about that given the model that has been placed in front of us by the Government. Everything about this piece of legislation everything about the process that it has gone through—with all due respect to the Education and Science Committee it was a rushed process—everything about the way that the advisory board has been set up or not set up and all of those things point to muddled confused and ad hoc thinking around research and development in New Zealand. That is what we have seen consistently from day one from this Government: muddled confused and ad hoc thinking around research and science. 
We need research and science in this country to be working well in a coordinated way and an innovative way if we are going to see our economy grow in a sustainable fashion. Everything I see in this bill points to the fact that the Government still does not get that and still has not grasped the fact that it actually needs to take more than just one-off decisions. It needs to have a greater plan for the way research and science will work in New Zealand. 
I have got two or three specific concerns about this bill that I raised in the Committee stage and that I still do not feel have been resolved. The first of those is around the question of the functions of Callaghan Innovation and the question of the allocation and administering of funding. Mr Joyce in his speech just now tried to reassure us that that would not be about contestable funding so much. Well actually it does not say that. It does not actually say that in the functions provisions. It is a very wide ambit that is now available to Callaghan Innovation to be involved in the allocation and administering of funding and I do believe that this sets up a confused picture for the role of Crown research institutes vis-à-vis Government agencies that deliver funding. I do believe that in time it could lead to confused lines of accountability and it could lead to conflict within the sector. I simply do not believe that that particular part of the functions of Callaghan Innovation should be there. 
The other thing that I do want to speak about is around the question of the stakeholder advisory group. I am staggered that this Government still has in this legislation the provision that the advisory group “may” be established. This is essential. We heard from both Steven Joyce and Nikki Kaye about the importance of getting over the silos of bringing together people from different parts of the research community and yet the body that would best do that in the form of the stakeholder advisory group does not actually have to be established. I just find it remarkable that the Government is that lax about this. It is muddled it is confused and it is ad hoc. 
More to the point there is a lot of discussion about money and dollars and we can all go back into that but one thing that we do know is that this Government told New Zealanders when it discontinued Labour’s research and development tax credit that that money would find its way back into research—$315 million worth over 3 years. Well that reality has not occurred. The Government has broken that promise. [ 
Interruption 
] It has been $100 million over 4 years Mr Woodhouse not $315 million over 3 years. There is quite a big difference between those two figures and that is a broken promise. 
But the broken promise that I want to mention in regard to research and science is about the pipeline of people who will actually be doing the research—the scientists who actually do the work. In New Zealand we can be proud of the scientists who have been produced from our tertiary institutions but in this legislation I see the Government’s wilful neglect of science scientists and the training of scientists coming home to roost. The broken promise here is around the fact that nobody went to the people of New Zealand in 2011 and said: “We will abolish allowances for postgraduate study.” There was not one political party represented in this Parliament that went to the people of New Zealand and said: “You know what? We do not think there should be allowances for postgraduate study. We think that they can fend for themselves.” No party did that yet this National Government came to this Parliament with the Budget this year and abolished allowances for postgraduate research. 
It is those researchers who will be the people who will work in Callaghan Innovation who will be the people who will provide the scientific breakthroughs and this Government is sending a message to those people: “If you haven’t got the money in your pocket if you don’t come from a privileged background forget it. Go overseas.” Day after day I get letters and emails from people who are doing just that who are saying they are giving up on New Zealand because there is no support for them to undertake postgraduate research. This kind of activity Callaghan Innovation’s core business will happen only if we have got a pipeline of scientists coming through training in our tertiary institutions doing their postgraduate study and then as my colleague Dr Megan Woods said undertaking postdoctoral research—except that we have got rid of the support for that as well. This Government has got rid of the support for postgraduate allowances and also for postdoctoral research. It is stifling and it is shutting off the pipeline of people who are needed to contribute to something like Callaghan Innovation. 
So although on this side of this House we can support this bill because at the highest level the goals are the right ones there is no point in having a Callaghan Innovation if we do not have the scientists in New Zealand who will work there if we do not support those scientists right through from school to tertiary level. Again remember that this is the Government that got rid of science advisers in schools. Not only is it taking away the opportunity at the tertiary level; it is not even investing in science at the secondary level. The Government moans and bemoans the lack of engineers and scientists but this is about a pipeline all the way from school through to work and there being job opportunities. At the moment what this bill speaks of is one small part of the equation being dealt with but the rest of it being forgotten about. It is very hard to take seriously this Government’s commitment to research and science if that is all that it manages to do. 
 This is not just an Opposition politician saying this. We have heard in the last few days the deep concern from the scientific community in New Zealand about the kinds of opportunities that this Government is providing them. Here are just some of the words used by some of our senior scientists in the last few days about New Zealand’s research and science system: “It’s falling to pieces.” “It’s an embarrassment.” “It’s a lottery.” and “It’s in crisis.” These are the words of our scientists many of whom are giving up on New Zealand. The obvious conclusion is that if those scientists feel that our system is an embarrassment that it is in crisis and that it is a lottery then they will leave New Zealand. We have seen evidence of that right around the country. New Zealand suffers economically and it suffers socially when we lose these scientists. 
I love the fact that we can stand in this Parliament and say we are going to do something about innovation in New Zealand and we are going to create a more coordinated approach. But the reality leaves that goal so far behind that it is an embarrassment. Our system is in crisis and this Government does need to step up to the mark. When Labour was in office we said that we would do the research and development tax credit because that would keep us competitive—that would keep us competitive with other countries. The National Government comes in and says it does not like that. It comes in with another ad hoc scheme that is clearly failing if the scientists of New Zealand are to be believed. 
We need a far more coherent system of funding for science and research in New Zealand. We need to invest in the people who will make New Zealand work. One of Sir Paul Callaghan’s favourite phrases was talking about New Zealand as “a place where talent wants to live”. He understood that it is the people and it is the talent that will drive New Zealand science. The institutions like Callaghan Innovation will be helpful but unless as a country we are prepared to invest in the people and the scientists we simply will not live up to those goals. 
Labour is supporting this bill but we do so knowing that we are a long way away with this National Government from having adequate support for science and research in New Zealand. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe. I am pleased to take a final call on this bill this legislation that we now will refer to as the Callaghan Innovation Bill of course. The Greens initially supported this legislation under another name for the very simple reason that we did see a need a value in establishing some sort of organisation some entity that could bridge the gap and that could be a networking organisation a facilitation organisation to inform developments both within science research and within the business community. There is a crying need for us to better develop and to turn good ideas good science and good technology into saleable ideas—saleable and ideally weightless commodities or very high value low volume commodities—that can better serve our economy. Unfortunately we were obliged to turn our backs on that support. We are now in opposition to this legislation. 
It is interesting that in my notes I have one of the words used by the former speaker our Labour colleague Grant Robertson and that is “muddled”. He added the words “confused” and “ad hoc”. Unfortunately they are fair descriptors of the nature of this legislation. 
The chair of the Education and Science Committee Nikki Kaye indicated that the Government’s choice was not to make this legislation prescriptive. That is something of an understatement. This is so permissive that the parameters within it are almost meaningless. There are virtually none. This House today will pass this legislation into law with very little idea of the outcome of the final structure of the real functions and of the powers and limitations of this new entity and that is a great shame. 
We think that in a sense it is unfortunate that Sir Paul Callaghan’s name is attached to this entity because an organisation whose genesis is confused is muddled and is ad hoc is unlikely to be the success that that name deserves I would say. This bill was rushed through and indeed the process—the very flawed process—is part of the reason that we are opposing this legislation. Not all of it—the key to it is the content what is contained within it—but the process was inexcusable. Two or 3 days after the bill was introduced we had the first reading. The report-back date from that first reading was 6 weeks which was the start of November—the 6th I think. Less than 4 weeks later we are now seeing the third reading of this bill and there are still so many unanswered questions so much we simply do not know and so much that is left to ministerial discretion that it is a misuse of the power of this Parliament to bring a piece of legislation like this to the House. 
 There was not a large number of submissions on this Callaghan Innovation Bill. Those that did come in were remarkably well-informed and coherent given how little time there was for those people and organisations to prepare their submissions. It is fair to say that most of them were supportive but it was very very qualified support. Almost without exception those who were supporting the legislation proposed amendments or highlighted shortcomings difficulties or potential problems in the bill and they were spot on the mark. Very few of those concerns have been met. It is unfortunate that the Government accepted virtually none of the amendments put in the select committee consideration of the bill. The committee itself was able to put in some somewhat better provisions but overall it is still so permissive and so unconstrained. The Minister will have such extraordinary power to direct the future of the relationship between business and science and the academic community that it is almost doomed to fail in its present form. 
As I have made the point before this new entity will almost certainly disrupt and set back some very positive and productive relationships that have already been established. The Economic Development Agencies of New Zealand the umbrella body for the economic development agencies around the country put forward a very good submission when it highlighted the danger of the very good work being done by organisations like the Economic Development Agencies of New Zealand and others being likely to be set back because this bill is so poorly thought through and so poorly drafted. Inevitably almost this organisation will come in over the top and undo some of the good work that has been done. 
The Economic Development Agencies of New Zealand pointed out that the economic development agencies are in a unique position to add value to leverage the money that comes to them through contestable funding because not only can they apply to it the limited resource that they get but also they can add it to their existing resource. It was a very compelling submission made by the Economic Development Agencies. Unfortunately it will be deeply disappointed to see that the existing relationships the organisations and the work that has been done are nowhere protected within this bill and in all likelihood the good work will be undone. 
The deal-breaker for the Greens in this bill was the very bland bald statement in the bill that the Advanced Technology Institute—Callaghan Innovation as it now is—will administer and allocate funding with absolutely no indication and no information about which funding or on what grounds. We are told that fairness and transparency will prevail. Well I have to say that one can very transparently starve critical organisations of funding. One can very fairly make decisions if you use a fairly loose interpretation of that word. It is an appallingly broad non-specific provision in the bill and that critically was one that was highlighted. The danger of funding being channelled so so narrowly was highlighted in many of the concerns of the submitters. 
Despite being described as a networking agency and despite the Cabinet papers highlighting the fact that it would be a networking agency nevertheless Callaghan Innovation is also going to have a considerable research capacity. Initially it will take over Industrial Research Ltd as a subsidiary and in time Industrial Research Ltd will be disestablished. You get the classic funder/provider dilemma. Callaghan Innovation as a provider of science and research will also be making funding provisions and that is a very very unsatisfactory outcome for this. The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand advocated for this new organisation not to have a research function saying that it should instead find the existing providers and facilitate resource and support—all of those good things that the language of the bill might allow but almost certainly will not given the clumsiness of the structuring that has been done. 
There is a major concern now for some 360 to 380 staff at Industrial Research Ltd mostly scientific and technical people who are in very short supply in this country and it is a diminishing supply. Those people go into the holiday period looking forward to the new year with considerable trepidation. What is their future? Is it secure? The likelihood is that it is not secure. We are likely to lose more talent which has been the story of science and research in this country for at least the last decade or indeed the last 15 years or so. 
 The question of the career path for science was referred to by some of the Labour speakers who have already spoken today. I would suggest the Minister have a good read of last week’s  
National Business Review 
 particularly the article from Dr Jacqueline Rowarth who is currently at Massey. She is a very well-respected scientist with a good track record particularly in agricultural science. She points to the fact that the Minister of Science and Innovation is talking about supporting more science and more engineering graduates from our universities but he is rather overlooking the fact that one can fund as many positions as one likes but one must not overlook that potential science and engineering graduates are not going to go into those fields if they cannot see a clear career path. It is muddled decisions like this one about Industrial Research Ltd that will discourage that young talent from going into science as a career. 
We know that the Minister has decreed that one of our largest universities shall have x number of entrants going into science and engineering. The rather “quaint” response from the university which I absolutely endorse—it is “quaint” in the Minister’s eyes—is that it has got this belief in something called academic freedom and that the institutions must be allowed to decide how many students they take on and graduate in time. But the key point is that there must be a career path or our science and technology capacity will erode over time as indeed it has eroded over the last several years and that is something we need to turn round. This entity could have helped that. Instead we fear that it will actually have a negative effect on that. 
Finally I would say that having established this entity this Callaghan Innovation—and I still believe there needs to be another word after that to give it a proper title—and put on it the name of one of our most remarkable scientists and one of our most remarkable science communicators the responsibility now lies with this Government to make it work. I think that will be a significantly difficult task for it. Thank you. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 It gives me great pleasure to speak on this Callaghan Innovation Bill and to take a short call. I must admit I was very concerned to hear that dreary dissertation from the Greens. They do seem to oppose anything that will enhance economic growth in this country. Of all things I would have thought it would be the area of science development and innovation and its commercialisation that this country badly needs particularly in the private sector. That is what this Callaghan Innovation Bill is all about. 
Just a few months ago the Government published its  
Building Innovation 
 report and it was particularly ambitious. It set out the Government’s determination to shift private investment in research and development from 0.5 to 0.6 percent of GDP as it is now to 1 percent within a few years and to shift the public investment from 0.68 percent as it is now to 0.8 percent. This is very important for New Zealand. The National Government under the very difficult conditions of a world economic recession has increased our investment in science research and development from $1 billion to $1.25 billion. 
We heard—again a dismal speech—Grant Robertson of the Labour Party saying how science in New Zealand was falling to bits. Shame on him. We have just had the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes and we saw the depth and breadth of science and scientists in New Zealand and the tremendous work that they are doing. Yes of course we would all like more investment in this area and again I report that in each of those areas of basic science such as the Marsden Fund the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Performance-based Research Fund each of these areas has had more investment under National and there will be more over the next few years. Of course we would like to expand this when and if we possibly can. 
The Advanced Technology Institute now Callaghan Innovation was a key recommendation of last year’s  
Powering Innovation 
 report. It points out very much that it will have a wide spectrum of activities. It will help New Zealand’s industries to carry out more research and development and to commercialise them—from food and beverage to agritechnologies to digital technologies to health technologies to therapeutics manufacturing and to high-value wood products. 
I want to just point out that the late Sir Paul Callaghan wrote in 2011: “My view is that to succeed New Zealand businesses need to be the best in the world at what they do. I do not care what they do so long as it is legal and not morally objectionable.” We heard Megan Woods and we heard Grant Robertson and others talk about this bill being too permissive. The whole point of innovation is that it has to be. In an environment of flexibility and nimbleness that is what our businesses require. So Callaghan Innovation is all about assisting our businesses to be globally competitive and innovative so that they will indeed be the best in the world. It does indeed emphasise collaboration between business universities Crown research institutes and other research institutes. 
Lastly I want to once again pay tribute to Sir Paul Callaghan and his family for the amazing spectrum of activities that he has carried out over his many many years of research not only in science and not only through being a science communicator—I think we will all remember those wonderful wonderful interviews with Kim Hill and with many other interviewers from around the world and his many books including  
Wool to Weta 
—but also his huge generosity to politicians from every side of the House. He came into this building time and time again to give us his message. Indeed this Callaghan Innovation Bill is all about carrying out his vision for the future of New Zealand in science and innovation and its commercialisation to help economic growth in New Zealand for the benefit of all New Zealanders. 
TRACEY MARTIN (NZ First) 
: 
 Kia ora. I am pleased to rise to speak on the Callaghan Innovation Bill after Dr Paul Hutchison. I think his final comments were very very interesting. They were around flexibility innovation and having an opportunity to have a research and science provider with that flexibility. So on the one hand you could say that the bill is very permissive or you could say that actually we require environments of trust with oversight. I would hope that the Government benches having reached into this area of trust of experts in their field with oversight might like to shift that view to education. That would be great—that we actually trusted the experts in our current schools and provided some flexibility and some innovation abilities inside that field. 
But back to the Callaghan Innovation Bill. I want to reconfirm again that the understanding of the Education and Science Committee was that 80 percent of the role of this institute is relationship building—that is the networking of business science and research institutes to produce commercial outcomes that will lift New Zealand’s exports. One of the intended consequences is that any sort of lift in that performance in that commercialisation and in that productivity would lower New Zealand’s unemployment numbers and I think that is probably what we are all hoping will happen. The manufacturing jobs downstream of a new commercial entity of a new commercial enterprise that had come out of this networking and this relationship between business and science would drop New Zealand’s unemployment as opposed to taxpayers’ money being expended on this research and this commercial development and then another country’s unemployment numbers dropping. 
 So one of the side effects and one of the flexibilities that we would like to see as a downstream effect of Callaghan Innovation is that when these products are developed when they are brought to a commercial point then manufacturing is considered here in New Zealand. The price of the widget or the manufacturing price of the widget is not the only consideration and those select committee members who discussed the difference between “benefit” and “net benefit” will know what I am talking about. 
That leaves 20 percent of the role as understood by the select committee that stood around direct investment by Callaghan Innovation into research funding and that was very very clear. I was pleased to hear the Minister of Science and Innovation say in the beginning of his speech that Callaghan Innovation would not be a distributor of contestable funds because it was a concern around them having two hands in the same pot. 
I guess what it does do though is it now opens concerns that the members on the Opposition benches of the select committee attempted to get some security around: the way that the institute would seek funding. It was very clear from the submissions that contestable funding is tight. We did not want to see another player in that field. The intention at least on the Opposition benches I believe was that this 20 percent would be a pool of the institute’s own money with which to invest in research and development with business that is not currently met by any other fund. So I am a little concerned that the Minister now says that it is not going to be distributing contestable funds because I believe that opens the door to it to now be a competitor for those funds and that was not what was discussed at the select committee. But at the end of the day you have to put this out there with trust but obligations and trust and oversight and there will be many of us who will be watching. 
We also had a big conversation around the duplication of research and I want to also put that on the record. It was made clear to us at select committee that not all duplication is bad that particularly in research to have the testing or the research done by another organisation completely hands-off and removed from the first one to verify results or to maximise whatever the outcomes are is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is going to be one of the things that Callaghan Innovation is going to have to work out over time. Where is that balance between productivity as in duplication of research and then actual destructive duplication? 
There is still a gap and I am pleased to see the member Colin King in the House right now because he very kindly at the Committee stage shouted across the Chamber to me—when I was looking for some assistance about whether this bill might provide assistance to Mahurangi Technical Institute and its eel-breeding programme to take it from 12 days to a commercially viable operation—“PGP” which is the Primary Growth Programme I believe. 
Colin King 
: Partnership. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: Partnership—I beg your pardon. It is the Primary Growth Partnership. 
Colin King 
: I’m here to help. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: And I want to thank him for his assistance. It is very kind of you—thank you very much. So I went away to check on Mr King’s advice and unfortunately in this instance not only has this research unit applied twice to the partnership fund but it has applied to every other fund that the Government actually has for this sort of development the last one directing it back to the Primary Growth Partnership. It was to absolute shock and horror that in question time today the Hon David Carter got up and announced that $43 million of New Zealand taxpayers’ money will be given in research dollars to a company owned by the Japanese— 
Colin King 
: Partially owned. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: —owned by the Japanese—and therefore this small completely New Zealand based New Zealand - owned New Zealand research institute cannot find $3 million from its own Government. I think that is a shame Mr King and any assistance you would like to give me and the people at Mahurangi Technical Institute in Warkworth to bring forward what will be one of the most productive industries for this country in an export market that everybody in Asia will be very keen to participate in I welcome Mr King. My office number is on your dial. 
I still want to bring up another point. There is a requirement to reimburse the ratepayers of Auckland. The ratepayers of Auckland—or more specifically the ratepayers of the old Manukau City Council—invested into The FoodBowl. The FoodBowl which is going to be absorbed by this bill is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development and it has on its books $2.5 million over the next 5 years. That is its budgeted amount obviously. That is from its 2010-11 budget going forward. I would suggest that the Government or the working party setting up the institute needs to go and have a look at the amount of money taken from those ratepayers from the 2010-11 and 2011-12 financial years. I think they need to write a cheque and give it back because this asset is actually an $18.1 million capital asset over there in Manukau City. It was developed by Enterprising Manukau which was a council-controlled organisation of that local body. Considering the drama that we had last week—and I need to ask Mr Smith actually. Does Mr Smith think that this is core business? 
Simon O’Connor 
: Dr Smith. 
TRACEY MARTIN 
: Dr Smith—I beg your pardon. Everybody wants their title. Does Dr Smith believe that this is core business that the ratepayers of the legacy Manukau City or the ratepayers of Auckland should be investing in? If not then I expect Dr Smith to go to his caucus and to fight hard to get that money given back to the ratepayers of South Auckland who goodness knows with social deprivation scores of 7 and 8 absolutely could do with some of their ratepayer money back. 
However New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. We support it on the basis of trust with oversight and we will be watching. Kia ora. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is an urgent need that this bill the Callaghan Innovation Bill gets passed and it is a pleasure to be speaking during the third reading. 
I want to just dwell on two points that have been raised. The first one is around the attitude of the Greens and Labour in their approach to this whole matter. I would like to refer to the Business New Zealand submission. Business New Zealand for instance has 14000 members and 17000 associates and its comment in its submission was that “There is a gap in the market at the applied end of the R & D spectrum which [Callaghan Innovation] is designed to fill ...”. This is something that has been overlooked as the Labour and Green members laboured the point of the submissions that came through from those people who had vested interests. In actual fact I would like to remind Labour and the Greens that they had 9 years to get some resemblance of order around the Crown research institutes around science and innovation and I would just like to have it on record that they failed miserably. 
Callaghan Innovation will be driven by the market sending signals back to innovators as they seek science solutions. From that point of view we will find that the solving of these situations will be around research and development problems and challenges and they will create the opportunities. This bill is so very appropriate in doing so. What the Callaghan Innovation Bill is designed to achieve is a robust and successful connection between the market and innovation. 
I would have to put it on record also that during the submission stage in the Education and Science Committee one detected a degree of self-interest and patch protection coming across from those people whom we laud as scientists and researchers. 
This bill appropriately puts together the essential framework in which this dynamic organisation which carries the name of Callaghan Innovation will drive innovation. It will develop and increase the confidence that we want to see within business to grow the investment because really we need to build a culture inside this country of business confidence of getting an excellent return from research and development investment. That is why it is not happening or has not happened. It will be the measure of success of Callaghan Innovation. That will be the bar on which it will be measured. 
 Although the Greens and Labour talked about the funder/provider split let me remind you that under Labour we put together the funding and provision arms of the New Zealand Transport Agency and we did that for a very good reason: so that there were efficiencies. In actual fact Business New Zealand pointed out: “We endorse this as a sensible move so that the operational side of [Callaghan Innovation] does not get politicised due to perceived conflicts of interest.” 
I support this bill wholeheartedly. It is urgently needed and it is urgently needed because we want to provide confidence to business to invest in research and development find innovative solutions and drive this country’s economy. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 We certainly do need confidence and we certainly are not going to get it from that Government over there. Under this Government—under its watch—we have lost 40000 jobs in manufacturing. Just this year alone more than 50000 New Zealanders have left for Australia. That does not exactly fill one with much confidence for the initiatives that the Government is coming up with. It is a disaster. It is a disaster and the solutions require a hands-on approach that is designed to make some brave decisions—brave decisions about economic development that are about joining up our economic development and having an actual strategy that is actually going to deliver some jobs down the track. 
This bill the Callaghan Innovation Bill is a poor effort at doing that. It is more of a wet bus ticket. We as you know support this bill with reluctance. We consider it a missed opportunity and half-baked. It is a missed opportunity to truly grow the economy. It is typical of this Government because it is not interested in meaningful input from industry it is not interested in a broad economic development vision and it is not interested in a broad set of policy initiatives that make research science and technology more accessible to New Zealand business. Instead the Callaghan Innovation Bill is a so-called grand scheme that is not worthy of the name. 
We need to create an environment where innovation is interconnected between the education sector at the primary secondary and tertiary levels but also with industry so that we are producing young people with the skills that our industry needs to innovate and then—then—we also need a robust scientific research community the science providers and we need to understand what it takes to commercialise. We need all of those things and we need them all to be interconnected and not set apart from each other. But no instead we have got here a piece of legislation that has not been properly thought out where the industry has not been properly consulted where there is not a partnership or a collaborative approach and where it has been rushed through—rushed through—in a very short space of time which has not allowed the industry to fully participate or for it to be discussed. Instead we hear on the other side of the House talk about vested interests. Well where was the proper discussion in the select committee that truly consulted the breadth of the industry about this bill? 
I am pretty disappointed in this bill especially because it has come out of the Education and Science Committee which is chaired by Nikki Kaye. For this to be a good piece of legislation it requires an understanding of 21st century learning and innovation but it clearly does not have that. It is held in suspicion by the stakeholders and I am sure that my colleagues across this side of the House have talked about that. It needs to have the stakeholders on board to make an innovation economy thrive. Those who did submit had very mixed views and reservations and I have read some of those submissions. There were many who submitted and there were many others who could have and should have submitted but were given virtually no time to do so. 
In contrast I have sat on that same select committee for the last 6 months with Nikki Kaye chairing considering another inquiry into 21st century learning and literacy and what is really needed to transform our education system to ensure that our children become the workers of the future—the workers of the future who are equipped for the jobs of the future that we need to transform our economy. That is a good piece of work but this is not. It is interesting how the dots have not been joined. This is another critical piece of the puzzle to put in place the levers that can help that innovation to occur but this bill is very unlikely to achieve that and it is as I said an enormous missed opportunity. 
I just draw everybody’s attention to part of that missed opportunity. In our technology sector which is still very much emerging and very much an important part of our future economy we need to have the flexibility to allow the small to medium sized enterprises—not the multinationals the small to medium sized enterprises—to grow and innovate. The technology sector is our third-largest export earner behind dairying and tourism. It generates over $7 billion in annual revenue. Technology touches on every other major market segment and it is our fastest-growing highest per capita - earning industry for the country. As we all know on the domestic front it contributes nearly $20 billion to New Zealand’s economy and employs over 40000 people. 
It has been identified under this very Government that innovation is one of its six priority sources of economic development but in order to make that happen it has got to get serious about the work that is really needed to make science and innovation the heart of our new economy. The submissions on this bill stated that what was needed was closer alignment with the science providers and that there were potential conflicts of interest with the funder/provider. I note that the member across the House alluded to that so clearly that is a bit of a sensitive issue over there. Overall it is a disappointment. I would like to quickly touch on how if a truly collaborative institute was being established to help grow our new manufacturing industry there would be a much closer synergy with the stated needs of the industry. 
I just want to mention our local information and communications technology industry which is a pretty important industry. It is a sector that if it was to grow to the same relative size as Australia’s would be a $4 billion industry rather than a $3 billion one. The Government with its $2 billion annual spend in this information and communications technology area could play a really key role in that industry’s development. Local IT companies are competitive. They are cost competitive. They have got a 25 percent to 35 percent cost advantage over Australian companies and a larger cost advantage compared with Australia the US and the UK. I mention this really important industry because that is what we should be thinking about. We should be joining the dots between the industries that we need to be investing in and our primary secondary and tertiary education sectors and what those industries and our tertiary education institutes are telling us. Just think what could be achieved if this Government was to actively listen to its emerging industries—not the multinationals but the Kiwi companies—and to what the Kiwi companies are saying to us. They are the ones that we so desperately need to foster and develop so that our kids have got jobs and so that our kids not only will have the jobs of the future but will actually stay in New Zealand and not be part of the 50000 people who have left New Zealand this year to go to Australia. 
I want to end on a broken promise which is just one of the many broken promises that we have seen under this Government and that this Government has become known for. It is a research-funding broken promise. The promise was to use a third of the savings from the discontinued research and development tax credit to directly fund research—$315 million over 3 years. The result has been $100 million over 4 years. This was largely from underspent funding from the previous year and reversing other commitments. Of the total new science funding spent in 2009-10 on science $44 million was unspent funding from the year before. In this bill this Government is trying to make a big deal of all the new funding but the reality is that although $166 million has been committed to develop this institute most of it came from existing funding savings. It is a missed opportunity. It is not part of a joined-up strategy. It is another example of how New Zealanders have been let down. 
SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I want to step away from this conspiracy-driven Chicken Little approach from the Opposition today and I want to particularly add voice to what is actually a very successful research industry in New Zealand realising that the research that Kiwis do already is exactly what this institute is wanting to work with. I mentioned in one of the earlier speeches around this bill the Callaghan Innovation Bill that the institute works as a conduit and that is why the bill has speedily gone through—the concepts are relatively easy to grasp—and why the fundamentals are still going to be worked out by the board. It is fairly appropriate and normal in a situation like this. 
Once again I just want to draw attention to the great research that is being done by Kiwis. I had the great pleasure of joining a friend of mine at the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes where he was awarded the Prime Minister’s MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize—Dr James Russell. Amazing stuff he does in statistics ecology and genetics. Other friends of mine are doing their postdoctoral research here in New Zealand be it in engineering electrical engineering genetics physiology or ophthalmology; these are just people whom I know—through Auckland University in particular—who are doing amazing research already. 
This is not an environment where everything is falling to pieces. These are Kiwis with great brains great minds who have taken the opportunity to study. They do not all stand there expecting the Government to hand out at every time they complain but they are people who also want to stay in this country support this country and take that innovation into a commercial sense. 
The context of this bill is positivity. This country has great researchers it has great minds it has great Kiwis and they are the Kiwis who want to stay here— 
Tracey Martin 
: Good eels. 
SIMON O’CONNOR 
: —and who want Tracey Martin to make the widgets to use your quote. They want to stay here and they want this institute. It is a great concept. It is a conduit from research into business. Let us pass this bill and get on with it. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Five minutes—Sue Moroney. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is indeed a pleasure to rise and speak to—well since I spoke to it last it has changed its name. It is the Callaghan Innovation Bill. I do just want to point out though before I speak on the detail of the bill that I think that last speech from a Government MP said it all which is really that this bill is so devoid of vision and so devoid of something that is desperately needed by this country that all the last member Simon O’Connor could do was rehearse in fact what is already happening in this country. It is already happening. All he could do in his speech was rehearse research that has already been undertaken. So I have to ask that member what he thinks this bill actually lends the situation to improve it unless that Government so lacks ambition for this country that it thinks that everything that is going on now is just fine and dandy. 
On this side of the House certainly within the Labour camp we do not want to see the continuation of a flat-lining economy that is being led by that Government. We think that we actually need to boost the economy. The Prime Minister once said he was going to supercharge the economy. That is what he once said—he was going to supercharge it. I am sorry Labour is supporting this bill but this by no stretch of the imagination supercharges the economy in the way that the Prime Minister once used to say he wanted to do. 
But then the Prime Minister once used to say and once used to promise a brighter future for this country. I notice that he has stopped using that particular phrase and so he should. He promised the brighter future not in just the most recent election but also in the one before that again; 5 years later the New Zealand public now sees that the brighter future was something of a sham because they did not expect that it meant selling the State assets down the tubes they did not expect that it meant increasing class sizes and they did not expect that it meant cutting funding for early childhood education. 
I do want to talk about Sir Paul Callaghan because he was a remarkable New Zealander. I think it is actually a little bit of a shame that something this lightweight has been used in his name because what I knew of Sir Paul Callaghan was that he was a man who was well thought through in his thinking. When he talked on an issue and saw what a future really should look like for New Zealand he took a comprehensive approach to it not a piecemeal approach to it like this bill does. It really just tries to make a symbolic attempt at making it look like the Government is doing something serious to improve science and innovation in this country when in fact all it is actually doing is establishing a new statutory Crown entity. 
In supporting this bill I guess Labour asks whether it will do any harm. The answer is that it probably will not do any harm but will it do any good? Well we do not believe that it will do much good in terms of the serious issues that confront this country at the moment. I come from a really important part of our country when it comes to science and innovation: the Waikato. In the mighty Waikato we are really proud of the science capacity and the research capacity that we have particularly with regards to the production of food because we do actually consider ourselves to be the food bowl of New Zealand and we have the smarts to go with it. 
When Labour was in Government there was a proposal that was being worked on going by the name of the smart food network which actually would have joined up a whole series of innovations across the country. It was not a new Crown entity without scientists even being involved in it which is what this bill proposes but it was actually an on-the-ground innovation that would have worked directly with small companies to join together so that they could have the capacity to actually test out their ideas their new innovations in a manufacturing sense. This bill appears to me to be an afterthought of a different attempt at doing exactly that but that attempt was stopped—stopped in its tracks—by this current Government. That was an approach that I think would have made a much quicker and more comprehensive difference to the innovation and research going on in this country. 
I am standing to support this bill. I think it is woefully inadequate and it is not the path to the brighter future. 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Callaghan Innovation Bill. The model in this bill probably could be mostly right. It would be right if it was purely the facilitator that the bill spoke of initially—a connector of both business and people who cannot find the people they feel they need to solve some solutions—but the bill as it stands does not necessarily stop there. It goes on to a little bit of an unknown nebulous area that we are yet to find out about as the institute unfolds. 
Some of the wrongs are that effectively the Minister can interfere. For one the Minister could push genetic engineering through in there. He could say: “Hey we want our friends there to get some real help.” and push that way. The institute could do other things that suit its business agenda that are not actually in the public interest using Government funding. 
We look at the Crown research institutes and sometimes we wonder whether they are quite as functional as we might like but actually they are OK except in how they are funded. How they are funded is a problem and currently the structure for funding them is a little bit of a one-size-fits-all structure. Callaghan Innovation could be a good structure as needed because it requires other institutes to contribute and there is room for that sometimes but that is actually already happening with Crown research institutes too. However it needs independence and the independence is clearly not there in this structure. It would need certainty for scientists—certainty of jobs certainty of resources—and there is no real succession in there except that it may be the conduit for emptying out from the public sector scientists into the commercial world. The governance model needs some different strength. 
Crown research institute funding on the other hand if it was far more independent where they would have 51 percent of the control over how things work for them would be a much better area. It would be a much better outcome. We actually need science here that is pure science not just being obsessed with meeting some immediate commercial reality. There will be commercial benefits but not if it is just force-fed. 
The old Industrial Research Ltd did seem to have a record of poor management at times but what Industrial Research Ltd has done over recent years has been outstanding. I note the  
National Business Review 
 reporting on Shaun Coffey’s resigning from Industrial Research Ltd pointed out that this new institute will be a major challenge. We do not need it to be a major challenge; we need it to be an effective and certain structure. 
I note that Professor Jeff Tallon a physicist of superconductivity research has pointed out that industrial research will disappear into the institute’s maw. He had a concern about that. He also pointed out that Sir Paul Callaghan would have been shocked by his name being put to this structure and would not have put his name to any institution that has lost its focus on science and research. There is an unknown future. What we do know is that this is a privatisation of public science including feeding committed pure scientists into the commercial maw. 
Funding starvation—this will be a funder as well. It will go to the companies because this is what was put at the select committee. Scientists would be seconded from the science institutions and put into companies to do the bidding of the institute. The Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand suggested that those researchers should ideally not be coming back and that the institute will receive replacements. So the Green Party will not be supporting this. We think there are too many flaws. Thank you. 
SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 What a pleasure it is to stand and take a short call on this the Callaghan Innovation Bill. What a remarkable piece of legislation by a Government that is committed to growth to industry to innovation to science and to creating high-paying jobs for honest hard-working Kiwis. 
It has been interesting to listen to the members of the Opposition flailing around trying hard to find reasons not to support this very good idea. I am very pleased that Labour Party members actually do support it although you would not feel that or understand that given the calibre and quality of their speeches. The Green Party of course is against science and innovation and it just does not want a part of it at all. 
But $166 million is going into Callaghan Innovation because we as a National Government understand that collaboration growth and science are an important mix in combination and together given the right incubator the right opportunity they can come together to create high-paying jobs and high-value manufacturing opportunities such as exist in my electorate at organisations like Triodent. There are people in my electorate like Basil Morrison for instance who understand the connection and the mix that it is important to have in science and innovation and that high-value job creation is the key to success for our country. 
Jobs depend on businesses being competitive—businesses that sell something that make something that have services and that have innovation as their very fundamental core. Those businesses need to be unique they need to be producing quality services and products and they need to be fairly priced and able to compete internationally in the global market place. 
This is a proud and historic day for this Parliament as we pass this legislation because in years to come this bill will see the foundation stone of a great new innovative collaboration in our country. I commend this bill to the House with great vigour. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Callaghan Innovation Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 105 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 15 
Green Party 14; Mana 1. 
Bill read a third time. 
Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill 
First Reading 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Acting Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
The Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill will create a modern accessible family justice system that is more focused on the needs of children and vulnerable people. It is an omnibus bill that amends nine family law Acts. The reforms the bill implements are the most significant changes to the Family Court since it was established in 1981. The bill implements the Government’s decisions resulting from a review of the Family Court. 
The changes in the bill respond to widespread concerns that the court is not able to focus enough on the most serious cases has processes that are difficult to understand and has seen its costs greatly increase in recent years. The cost of running the Family Court grew 70 percent from $84 million in 2004-5 to $142 million in 2010-11. This increase in cost is despite application numbers remaining comparatively stable. 
The Government recognises that the Family Court forms one component of a wider family justice system that needs to support families to resolve disagreements. Through these reforms the Government will provide more support for people to resolve their disputes out of court. We are also changing the role of the court to ensure it is focused on the most vulnerable people and on the most serious matters requiring judicial decisions. The bill will shift the focus of the family justice system towards supporting people to resolve their disputes about their children out of court where appropriate. 
The bill renames the Family Courts Act. It will become the Family Disputes (Resolution Methods) Act 1980 to signal a shift away from the court being the main way family disputes are resolved. Resources are being developed to help people reach agreements and settle disputes without going to court as a vast majority of families do already. For example the successful Parenting through Separation course will be mandatory before applying to court for a parenting order. These free programmes teach parents to understand and focus on the needs of their children when they separate. 
The most significant reform in the bill is the new family dispute resolution service. Parents who are not able to agree on arrangements for their children will need to attend family dispute resolution before applying to court unless an exemption applies. A person may also decide to attempt family dispute resolution for other family disputes such as disputes about relationship property. Out-of-court dispute resolution will give people the opportunity to resolve disputes more quickly and with less conflict. Research shows that prolonged exposure to frequent and intense parental conflict is associated with a range of psychological risks for children. Family dispute resolution will encourage people to focus on the needs of their children and take ownership of the agreement reached. 
Family dispute resolution will be free for those who meet the legal aid eligibility threshold. It will replace most Family Court counselling and mediation services. It is estimated that family dispute resolution will help resolve about 1200 cases that would otherwise end up in court and will keep 2000 children from being exposed to the court processes. Of course access to the court is still available if family dispute resolution does not resolve all the issues. Also people will still have direct access to the court for cases that are not appropriate for out-of-court dispute resolution. For example applicants who need the court’s assistance urgently or who have suffered domestic violence will continue to have immediate access to the court. 
A targeted form of publicly funded counselling will be retained for in-court proceedings about the care of children. A judge will be able to refer people for counselling if the judge considers it is the best way to improve the parenting relationship and make the outcome more durable. 
The bill will improve the Family Court’s response to domestic violence through three key changes. First the bill expands the definition of “domestic violence” in the Domestic Violence Act to include financial and economic abuse as an example of psychological abuse. Second it increases the sentence for breaching a protection order from 2 years’ imprisonment to 3 years’ imprisonment. Third the bill will provide for greater flexibility in the development and delivery of stopping violence programmes. Currently domestic violence programmes are largely one size fits all. 
The bill will focus the Family Court on resolving disputes that need a judicial decision. It encourages faster less adversarial resolution of family disputes and empowers judges to focus on the most serious cases. The bill targets the court’s resources towards those children and vulnerable people who most need its protection. 
Lawyers for parties will attend care of children proceedings in which they are needed. Lawyers do not need to be involved in the initial stages except for urgent cases. This reform is designed to give family members the opportunity to resolve their disputes themselves with the assistance of the judge. But if a case proceeds to a defended hearing parties may choose to have a lawyer. This is a big change and I expect it will attract a number of submissions. 
There are two areas to which I would like the Justice and Electoral Committee to pay particular attention following feedback from Family Court stakeholders. The first is the appointment of a lawyer for a child in care of children cases. Under the bill a lawyer for a child will be appointed where a judge has concerns for the safety or well-being of the child and considers an appointment necessary. I expect that a lawyer for a child will still be appointed in the majority of cases but it is important to get this test right. 
The second area is how allegations of violence are dealt with in care of children cases. The bill replaces the current process with a more flexible and proportionate response. Allegations of violence are to be dealt with in accordance with the welfare and best interests of the child. The first principle that a person must consider is that the child’s safety must be protected. 
Other changes in the bill will make the court more efficient and effective. For example if a person received a judgment less than 2 years ago they will require the court’s leave to commence similar proceedings about the care of children. Transferring relationship property cases from the Family Court to the High Court will also be eased. 
The changes in this bill are only one aspect of the Family Court reforms. The changes will be supported by a comprehensive information strategy to help parties resolve their disputes themselves or if that is not possible to help them navigate the court system. There will be amendments to the Family Court’s rules to simplify court processes and to make forms easier to use. 
This Government is committed to improving outcomes for children. It is best for children if their parents are able to resolve disputes about their care without going to court. The Family Court should be there for those cases that need its assistance and it should be able to resolve disputes in a timely and proportionate way. I commend this bill to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 There are some real problems with this legislation the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. They have been set out I think very ably by a number of groups that have great experience with dealing with the Family Court most notably the existing body of Family Court counsellors and also the family law section of the New Zealand Law Society. What I want to do is just put on record some of the concerns that I have heard from those quarters and from lawyers up and down the country with whom I have met who have real concerns about the way in which the reductions to entitlements which this bill represents to use the Family Court will affect the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. 
We have heard the Acting Minister of Justice talk about the proposed Family Disputes Resolution service. There are many things that commend themselves around that service but one of the problems with it is the cost of accessing it. There is to be a fee of $897 plus GST in order to get through the door. I know that we will hear from Government speakers that there will be waivers available for those who experience financial hardship and who cannot afford to spend the $1000 that it will cost to actually get through the door of the first basic step for the Family Disputes Resolution service. Let us just reflect on that for a moment. The fee is the fee. In order to get around it it will be necessary to apply for a waiver to go to the registrar of the court and to ask essentially for the charity of the State to be exercised in favour of a particular family or family member in trouble. Who knows how many people will have the capacity or the wherewithal to ask for that indulgence? Then when they do what guarantees exist because the statute itself is pretty scant on this as to how the discretion will fall to be exercised? 
When a single person on a benefit with one child earning at the moment $170.80 per week is faced with the need to avail themselves of the Family Court—the court that this Parliament set up in 1981 to be free to access irrespective of imbalances of power in the family relationship irrespective of whether or not children were at risk and needed the protection of the court irrespective of the income levels of their parents—how will vulnerable people be able to still feel that they can access this court with any degree of comfort? That is the fundamental issue that has to be raised right up front. Making access to the Family Court contingent on the party’s ability to pay a fee of over $1000 to get through the door in order to access the initial Family Dispute Resolution service as has been agreed will be the initial step is the first major problem that is going to be faced by people trying to use what has hitherto been a court that has been free to access and not only that has provided six free counselling sessions to people who need to use the services of the court. So if people have relationship difficulties particularly those involving children—and we all know how heart wrenching and how awful those situations can be—at the moment they can go along to the court they will be referred to counselling and they will be able to get up to six sessions without having to pay a charge. 
I want the House to reflect on what a drastic change is being made by this bill. Instead of that system being available which actually deals with so many cases before they even have to go to judicial determination we are now saying no it is going to cost over $1000 to access the Family Disputes Resolution system. It is not going to be free of charge and the reality is that that will simply be a major deterrent for many many people who otherwise would be able to use those excellent existing services. How many children will suffer as a result of being locked out of the system is the question that the House needs to be asking today. How many couples will remain in a miserable relationship situation or simply allow their affairs to lack any legal resolution and simply live in a situation that has no legal sanction to it because they have not been able to afford to go to the court or to formal dispute resolution services and have their problems resolved? That is the tragedy of this legislation. It is mean-spirited and it is unnecessary in terms of where this court needs to go. 
Early on in this process the Minister’s predecessor Simon Power referred the issue of the way in which the Family Court could be improved to the practitioners and stakeholders who had worked in the court for many years. They produced an excellent report. It was presented at a symposium held in the Legislative Council Chamber next door. The Minister at the time Simon Power said “Look this is a really good example of how we can get answers on a consultative basis from people who know the issues know what things are like on the ground in the Family Court and these are reforms that will save money and that we will look to implement.” Well that approach under this Minister has gone out the door. We have this position where the ministry and the Minister will dictate responses and what they say will go. I say that what we are going to see in response to this legislation in the event that it passes in its current form are two things: a go-slow by practitioners who are essential in terms of their cooperation to making the system work and worse a go-slow by the Family Court judges because they are simply not going to be able to cope with the pressures that are going to be put on them by this legislation. 
That brings me to the second major objection that must be taken to this legislation and that is the restriction on representation that this bill will bring about. Basically in respect of a large number of proceedings that will come before the court lawyers are going to be excluded. Everybody likes the idea of excluding lawyers on the face of it. The stereotype is that they just add cost to the system they are going to add complexity and they are going to add difficulty. The reality is that people who are represented in proceedings generally have a better idea of their rights and obligations. They present better documents to the court and they know the sorts of things that have to be said to the judge and the judge is going to have to spend less time disposing of the matter if the parties are represented. The reality is that even if the Minister’s attempts to do away with representation in many cases in the court succeed parties with resources will be able to get good legal advice before they go to the court. They will be able to apprise themselves of their rights and obligations. They will be able to get good documents drawn up—good affidavits—and they will go to the court with a very very good idea of what the process is about. Those who do not have those resources will not be in that position. The reality is that that imbalance of power that we were so careful to keep out of the Family Court will be a reality of the system again. The only way that that will be able to be dealt with in practice is by the judges themselves taking time in each proceeding to make sure that they try to redress that imbalance of power. That is going to mean longer proceedings more delay and more cost. It is not going to save money and this House should not kid itself that it will do so. 
The other major problem with the legislation that needs to be highlighted is the changes that will restrict the ability of the court to appoint lawyers for the child. That is an essential part of the system at the moment. Children do get buffeted by these proceedings. It is essential that they have their own advocate who can speak to their interests rather than the interests of the warring parents. To do away with or to restrict the ability of that appointment will cause major hardship to vulnerable children and it is something that we should be very very concerned about. 
In the context of other cuts to legal aid and in the context of court delays in the system which are now becoming chronic this legislation must be rethought. It is bad legislation for the reasons I have outlined. That does not mean that there are not good features in it—there are one or two that should be persevered with—but the three that I have outlined are major problems. What I want to say is that if the Acting Minister of Justice gets to his feet later and moves a referral motion that means that submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee will be cut off in February or late January that will make a mockery of the process. We do need to make sure that submitters have proper time—not just the January period when their offices are closed—to make submissions on this incredibly significant and far-reaching bill. 
MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on this the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. I was a bit disturbed to hear that just about the whole of Mr Chauvel’s speech was in relation to lawyers and I think that a great thing about this bill is that it is actually trying to wrap more protection and more rights around children. I think in this country there has to be a strong focus on children and children’s rights because there are some social issues that we are facing. 
The bill does aim “to ensure a modern accessible family justice system that is responsive to children and vulnerable people and is efficient and effective.” In response to serious concerns that were raised by court users including the public judges lawyers and counsellors Cabinet directed the Ministry of Justice to undertake a review of the Family Court in April 2011. The review found that “In addition to concerns about rapidly rising costs the Court lacks sufficient focus on meeting the needs of children and on achieving sustainable durable outcomes for families. The review also found complicated court processes caused lengthy delays.” It found that the Family Court is “negative for children and is not focussed enough on their needs”. It is “not focussed enough on the most serious cases”—the most serious cases normally being cases that involve family violence or domestic violence. So the bill is all about improving the court’s response to domestic violence. 
The bill better supports vulnerable people including through improving responsiveness to domestic violence and I think this is a very important part of the bill. It is expanding the definition of psychological abuse in the Domestic Violence Act 1995 to include financial and economic abuse. I think something that goes on a fair bit within domestic and family violence is people partners or parents actually using what should be financial support as a tool to try to manipulate and create even more stress within the family unit. I think this is actually something that has been overlooked in the past so I am very pleased to see that it is being addressed in this bill. 
This legislation responds to concerns raised by the public judges lawyers and counsellors during a very comprehensive review of the Family Court. I commend Minister Borrows for bringing this bill to the House. I am sure that my colleague Tim Macindoe the chair of Justice and Electoral Committee is looking forward to receiving this. I must say it would have been nice to have got it on the Law and Order Committee. I look forward to it coming back to the House. Thank you. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 In the Minister of Justice’s Cabinet paper taking this proposed piece of legislation for approval through the Cabinet process she described the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill as making the biggest changes to the family justice system since the Family Court was established in 1981. So we are talking about a huge change and because of the scale of the change the Opposition would want some assurance that this was a well-thought-out piece of legislation that it was properly researched that it was based on adequate data that it had been the result of full consultation and hopefully some consensus and that the process had been trialled. 
On each one of those counts from what I have read about this bill the National Government has once again fallen down on a piece of legislation that it has brought before the House. I base that not as a party political statement but simply on reading the regulatory impact statement and what it says about the background to this bill why we have got it and the processes that it went through. 
I base it on recent past experience. The Associate Minister of Justice who introduced this bill also introduced a new system for cases through the Family Court in Auckland and it has been an absolute shambles because the Government did not get it right. Even the Minister has admitted that it is a shambles. The Minister the Principal Family Court Judge the lawyers involved in it—everybody. I will come back to that. 
Thirdly it is based on the fact that the Government set up an expert reference group on Family Court reform. Think about those words: “expert reference group on Family Court reform”. You would think that that group would have been at the heart of this reform but what do we find out? We find out that that group was not consulted on the key proposals in this legislation Minister. The group was not consulted despite the wrongful claims of the Ministry of Justice. 
On all of those grounds there are real causes for concern that the Government once again has got it wrong in a piece of legislation it has brought before the House. Look if you took it simply on what the objectives were of this bill you would say there are some merits to it as long as the mechanism for delivering it was well-thought-out and equitable. 
 “The purpose … is to ensure a modern accessible family justice system that is responsive to children and vulnerable people and is efficient and effective.” Who could be against that? Nobody could be against that except that it is wrong. It does not make it more accessible to the vulnerable; it makes it less accessible. How can you make something more accessible to the vulnerable when you first of all put a charge of $1000 on going there when it used to be free and how can you make it more accessible and more understandable when you deny people who have trouble understanding the process access to their legal advisers? It falls down on all of those grounds. 
Let us look at what the regulatory impact statement says. Well in its opening paragraph it lets the cat out of the bag. This is not about reform of the justice system. It starts off by saying: “Given the overall fiscal situation urgent steps must be taken to lower the cost of the current justice system …”. That is what it is about. It is about cost-cutting. At least the regulatory impact statement is honest about it even if the Minister of Justice and the speakers on the National Party side have not been. 
Then what is the next paragraph headed? This is astounding. It is headed “Gaps and/or uncertainties in policy analysis”. The Government’s own regulatory impact statement talks about the serious gaps and the lack of policy analysis behind this bill which the Minister says is the biggest thing in 30 years. It says there has been limited research on New Zealand families and their involvement in the family justice system. That is not my accusation; that is the Government’s own admission. It says: “There is insufficient historical fiscal and statistical data to accurately predict the average costs of performing some tasks associated with Family Court processes.” Then it goes on: “There was insufficient time for piloting proposed processes or for undertaking” a proper look at court documents to form the databases for a new system. Here is the Government admitting that the biggest change in 30 years has not been subject to adequate research has not got adequate data and has not been piloted. What has this Government learnt from its botch-up in reorganising the court system in Auckland? It has learnt absolutely nothing. 
Finally from the regulatory impact statement have a look at this statement: “… because of the timeframe there has been limited opportunity to discuss the final proposals with stakeholders.” It has not done the research it has not got the data it has not piloted it and it has not talked about it to stakeholders. This Government is an incompetent Government that is rushing in legislation that on its admission is ill-prepared and will not do the job that it is designed to do other than one factor and that is to cut costs. First and foremost and last this is about cost-cutting. It is not going to deliver. 
Let me come back to the Government’s advisory group the expert reference group on the Family Court—top judges top Family Court lawyers. The Ministry of Justice claimed that this group approved of the proposals that the National Government has brought in. The chair of that committee said that that is wrong that is not true that is inaccurate. Actually he could have said that was a lie. He said: “We were not consulted on four key proposals in our discussions with the Ministry which if implemented will potentially place adults and children at risk.” This is from the expert reference group on the Family Court established by the Government itself saying not only that it was not consulted but that this puts vulnerable people at risk. What is it about that that the National Party members speaking on this bill do not understand? 
It goes on to talk about the parties having a user-pays system and says that they are going to have to fully fund this—$1000. What does that do to access to justice? Maybe they will help a few people right at the bottom but the people who are lower-middle income who are really struggling and are finding difficulties—all the things associated with a family breakdown—how are they going to afford the $1000 and why is it that we put a cost on access to justice when access to justice should be guaranteed as a birthright to New Zealanders? It is wrong in principle. 
The expert reference group goes on to say that parties and children will not have the automatic right of access to a lawyer. What does this mean? Mr Mahon said this means that “parents are intimidated into agreeing to settlements which disadvantage them or their children”—which disadvantage them or their children. What is it about that that the National Party does not understand? And is this going to save money? No Mr Mahon says. This is going to cost money because there will inevitably be delays in the court process because the court will not have the information it needs to go on to make a properly informed decision. That will result in prolonged cases and greater conflicts between the parties. 
I want to come to my last point and that is if you do not believe all of the things that the experts have been saying about this as to why it will not work let us look at the Government’s most recent experiment with the Family Court. It was in Auckland and it was a new system for processing Family Court cases. Well what did Patrick Kennelly say about this? He is one of the most experienced family lawyers in Auckland. He says that “the wheels have fallen off the Family Court since the new system was introduced in February as part of widespread changes aimed at making the district courts more efficient and more cost effective.” Does that sound familiar? 
The claim the Government is making for this legislation is the same claim it made for the last system change it tried to introduce just this year. The lawyers have said the new system is an absolute shambles. Affidavits have gone missing judges are not being given complete files there are delays of up to several months for hearing dates sealed orders are not being sent and emails and voice messages are going unanswered. Like other areas of Government reorganisation this has been a total shambles. 
Peter Boshier has said that something that used to take 14 days—a serious custody case involving family violence—is now taking 2 months. Is that the Government’s reform? It used to take 2 weeks; now it is taking 2 months. It is a serious custody dispute involving family violence. Did it save money? No. The cost blowout has been $1 million—far more than the savings the system was supposed to deliver. 
All of the evidence here is that this is a half-baked idea with half-baked plans to implement it. It will not succeed. The Government should go back to the drawing board. 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Although it is good to see that the Government has made some changes to this legislation the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill from its original review and proposal we are none the less opposing this bill because we think it is going to cause significant harm to families and to children and particularly to vulnerable women who are in situations of family violence. We are looking forward to seeing what changes might be made at the select committee and in the Committee stage of this bill and we certainly make no commitment beyond the first reading. 
This legislation is going to harm our people not help and this is because the safety of women and children is being placed at even further risk. The reforms as has been set out so well by the Hon Phil Goff show that they are strongly focused on saving money and much less focused on saving women and children from the risk of violence. There is an obsessive user-pays ideology that pervades these reforms and of course that is what will hurt these families. 
Not a single thing that the National Party has said about this bill justifies the extreme increase in costs—not a single thing about children about families or about simplified processes. None of that justifies the extreme cost. 
One thing that we agree with in this bill is the decision to make economic abuse part of the definition of domestic abuse. We agree with that change; it should be part of it. Economic abuse economic control by one partner over another does cause serious harm particularly to a protective parent in a family environment and to any children in that relationship. A person who is without financial resources is highly vulnerable is trapped in a dangerous relationship and is locked out from the support services they may need. 
It is therefore quite ironic to see that that same level of economic abuse against vulnerable women and children is now being played out by the National Government through this legislation. The new cost structure imposed by this bill is a form of economic abuse in my view against those people who need this system the most. You place a barrier of $1000 as an entry barrier to accessing support and dispute resolution for vulnerable families. That is a form of economic abuse against those most vulnerable people. 
This bill could have been much better. It could have been much more responsive to the needs of families and children. It could have met the principles that the National Government says it wanted to set out but instead it is imposing massive new costs and will lock people out from justice. As has been said the new compulsory Family Disputes Resolution process will cost around $1000. There is a $220 filing fee and there are also additional costs to a family—to parents—as they go through the process. For example the payment for psychological reports or for specialist report writers will be imposed on the families going through this process. The court will also decide whether to charge the parents for the cost of a lawyer for the child. 
These last two costs around report writers and costs for the child could be charged under the existing system but they seldom were because the inference was that these were services that should be supplied to families and to children where they are needed. Now they will be imposed unless the family can make a case for serious hardship and there is no real evidence as to what criteria might be applied and how that process might work. All of that is being dealt with elsewhere not necessarily through this legislation. 
If you add up all of the expected costs that will now be imposed on families and children during a very stressful and difficult time in their lives we are talking somewhere around $5000 for a family to go through the compulsory Family Disputes Resolution process—$5000. Families simply cannot afford that. I understand from what the Minister has said previously that legal aid will be available in some cases to those on very low incomes but as the Hon Phil Goff said those on low and medium incomes simply will not be able to afford it. They will not be eligible for legal aid and they will not be able to afford something between $1000 and $5000 just for those initial costs of going through the compulsory process. 
I guess it is just that maybe people in the National Party just do not understand what it is like for an ordinary family to live an ordinary life. Maybe they do not understand how much $1000 is to a family who is on the minimum wage or to a family who is on the median income. When a family breaks up and one of the partners has to go and set up a new household and make sure that they have got a big enough household so that their kids can come and sleep there on the weekends and when they want to set up a decent family home—so that in that family you now have to have two good quality decent family homes to take care of your kids in the way that you want to—the costs of that process alone can be extraordinary. But then these additional costs are imposed by the Government for no reason and for no justification. It does not help the children to charge a family $1000. It does not help the vulnerable mother to charge her $1000 for this process. It is simply a cost recovery process by this Government—by people who do not understand what it is like to live an ordinary life. 
But of course cost is just one of the major concerns that we have about this bill. The new Family Disputes Resolution process could be a good thing for some families but certainly not for all. It will be compulsory for most families unless there is some reason why you can get an exemption. Making people go through a process that could be painful and making it difficult for them to access justice is just wrong. It is just wrong. Having a compulsory Family Disputes Resolution process relies on women having the support that they need to speak up about domestic abuse in their relationships. Those women would be able to get an exemption and move straight through the court. But there are hundreds if not thousands of examples of women who are living in situations of serious family violence who because of that family violence are too frightened to speak out when it comes to the court process. They will not reveal that violence to the registrar because of fears of what might happen afterwards. So those people will not get an exemption from the $1000 charge or get an exemption from the dispute resolution process. That means that those women—and it is women in the main—who are in situations of serious family violence and are too frightened to say so will not only have to pay but also have to face their abuser in a personal dispute resolution process. 
Not only that but this legislation will make it much more difficult for parties in this process to get access to legal support. So in a situation—and there are thousands of these in New Zealand—where a woman is living in a situation of family violence has very few economic resources as part of that relationship is wanting to go to resolve some of these issues is too frightened to say so and does not have the money to afford a lawyer to prepare for her legal argument that she can take either through the dispute resolution process or through the court she is left out in the cold. She has nowhere to go. This system traps her out of justice. This is the system that is supposed to work for her and her kids. What does it do? It locks her out because there is no understanding in the way that National has written this legislation on the Family Court—no understanding of that real lived life. Thousands of women—[ 
Interruption 
] David Bennett is sneering as he does when it comes to talking about women in vulnerable situations— 
David Bennett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No that is not a point of order. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: These women are turning up to refuges every day and they are ringing up the helplines—which might still exist after funding cuts every day—asking for help and support. Now the Government is changing the Family Court system to make it even more difficult for them to get help either through dispute resolution or through the Family Court to establish their legal rights so that they can go forward and live a well life with their kids. This is a Government that would rather take $1000 from the poorest women in this country than provide them with real justice. Thank you. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. The Hon Phil Goff read from the Family Court review regulatory impact statement. He talked about the gaps and the uncertainties and the significant constraints. He also talked about the engagement with key stakeholders. What he carefully did was leave out a sentence that said this: “There has been extensive consultation on identifying the issues facing the Family Court and the options for reform. Consultation included meeting with stakeholders a public consultation paper and an online questionnaire for court users.” In April 2011 Cabinet directed the Ministry of Justice to undertake a review of the Family Court. In response to serious concerns raised by court users which included the public judges lawyers and counsellors the review found that in addition to concerns about rapidly rising costs the court lacked sufficient focus on meeting the needs of children. 
Comments were made that we members of the National Party do not know what ordinary lives are for ordinary people. I have been an advocate and a supporter in the Family Court. I have seen the heartache and the distress that that has caused. In the Family Court it has been adversarial. It has been negative for children. It is not focused enough on the most serious cases even of domestic violence. As a previous member of the national Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families and proudly wearing as an ambassador the White Ribbon I say that we even on this side do understand the causes of domestic violence and the effect that it has on both women and children. The courts are spending too much time on simple private matters that are better resolved outside the court. It is too complex and in recent years has had a huge growth in costs despite the overall number of applications. 
The purpose of the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill is to ensure a modern accessible family justice system that is responsive to children and vulnerable people and is efficient and effective. It is an omnibus bill. It amends nine different Acts. As was commented it has been over 30 years since there has been any form of review so this Government has taken that initiative. The changes in the bill will be supported by the amendments to the Family Court rules of 2002. 
There are three key provisions in this bill. The bill establishes a Family Disputes Resolution process to focus the family justice system towards supporting people to resolve their disputes where appropriate out of court. I have personally seen the heartache and the heartbreak that descends when children have been at the centre of these disputes. In the regulatory impact statement it was very clear under “Status quo” that the proposals for reform focus largely on the resolution of parenting disputes. For so long the focus has been on adults. The focus has not been on the provision to care for the needs of our young and our most vulnerable. This bill is about caring for those who are most in need. I commend this bill to the House. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 The Government was right this year to review the Family Court and the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill as we know is the outcome. It is an omnibus bill amending several Acts dealing with children and families. 
Family cases especially those dealing with the custody of children and related issues are taking up a rapidly increasing amount of court time and they are taking up a very large share of the legal aid vote. Many cases are not really suitable for the court and do need mediation rather than determination if possible—if practicable. There is very little benefit for families or children where there is unnecessary resort to the courts where the family itself can best sort out its issues with some help. Some separated spouses by the way not entitled to legal aid are being intimidated by the other spouse who can get legal aid resorting to the Family Court when a dispute can be better resolved by mediation and agreement where appropriate and practicable. 
The thrust of the bill therefore is to encourage faster and less expensive resolution by requiring parties to participate in a new out-of-court resolution process and in a parenting information programme before going to the Family Court for a parenting or guardianship order. But that will work only if these services are well resourced are accessible and in particular are not too expensive. That is the challenge for the Government to demonstrate through the next phases of this bill. 
It is wise however to focus the Family Court on matters genuinely needing a court decision where protection of vulnerable people and children can be properly prioritised. It is also positive that an objective of the bill is that Family Court cases be less adversarial in their proceedings but that is easily said; it is not of course quite so easily done. It is right and more beneficial for parties to take responsibility for their own arrangements with the assistance of the court concerning the care of children where possible and this also has upsides for the children and the family. Children never profit from sometimes acrimonious and pointless family disputes especially over parenting and guardianship. Family disputes can be easily entrenched and worsened by making it too easy to get to the court. Requiring a genuine resolution by way of mediation will help that situation but of course the court must always be there as a backstop. 
Another objective is to try to make the Family Court more responsible to victims of family violence and that is a worthwhile objective. The new requirement for a mandatory out-of-court resolution process does not apply to family violence cases so they can still go straight to the court and that is necessary and a good use of the court’s time. Also the bill expands the definition of psychological abuse increases maximum sentences for this from 2 to 3 years and improves delivery of mandatory non-violence programmes. I think those are welcome measures. 
Overall the result should be to make the Family Court more efficient and cost-effective by refocusing its resources in those ways and it should speed up court applications by reducing the court’s rapidly increasing workload. But this must never be at the expense of access to the court or because of excessive expense. 
Of the issues and matters that I believe still require discussion in the next stages of the bill the first and foremost will be the cost of the out-of-court resolution processes. As I have said this must not be an excessive barrier. It should be reconsidered by the Government because $1000 is far too much as a cost for those alternative processes even if legal aid is available for that purpose. 
Secondly the bill targets the use of professionals especially lawyers for the parties and lawyers appointed to represent children separately. That is also going to need further investigation and New Zealand First will never agree to penny-pinching resulting in lack of adequate legal representation where it is really needed. The legislation must be even-handed and not unfairly empower a party that has greater economic resources than another. I therefore welcome the Minister Chester Borrows’ commitment to get it right and I hope he will listen to some of these concerns. 
The bill requires parties to contribute to the cost of expert reports and witnesses in some circumstances and I agree that it is currently too easy for parties especially those on legal aid to get expensive and sometimes unnecessary expert reports but this has to be balanced against the cases where such reports are really needed. This too needs further discussion so that where a matter goes to the court it is not hamstrung by inadequate expert evidence. 
The bill requires the court’s leave for new proceedings where it has been less than 2 years since the last similar application. This is to discourage repeated applications for parenting and guardianship orders especially when a party can get legal aid. I am personally aware from my own experience and practice and as a previous member of the Legal Aid Review Panel that this has been a problem and so New Zealand First will certainly support this aspect of the bill. But this is a large bill with many technical issues to examine in the latter stages. 
We think that overall it is a good bill. The devil will be in the detail and in particular in the costs that it will impose for those out-of-court processes. The bill will fail if that is not reviewed because $1000 is grossly too much and that is not good enough. New Zealand First would have to reconsider its support if that were persisted with. We wish to examine all of the detail of the bill in its later stages but we are happy to support the bill at this stage because of its overall thrust. But that will be on the condition that the issues I have mentioned are adequately and sincerely dealt with by the Government which must listen to some of the concerns that we and these parties on this side of the House have expressed. So with those conditions with those reservations New Zealand First will at this stage support the bill. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 I thank the member resuming his seat Denis O’Rourke for his contribution. I cannot say as much unfortunately for the Green member Metiria Turei who makes some rather interesting submissions in regard to domestic violence. It is a little unfortunate that those over in the watermelon patch are not so inclined to support many of the measures that we as a Government are trying to put in place in regard to the criminal justice sector and ensuring that the right balance is achieved. It seems that they want to run with the hounds and hunt with the foxes on matters of this sort. 
There are just a couple of points that I want to cover off. Seventy percent of those who currently apply for a fee waiver within the Family Court system get it. Actually there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that that sort of trend will not continue under this new model. 
Andrew Little 
: Yes there is. It’s a new law—it’s a new regime. 
MIKE SABIN 
: None that I have seen but I will continue on because Mr Little I am sure will be quite interested to hear what I have to say on this one. 
I would like to commend both Minister Borrows and Minister Collins for the work they have done in terms of addressing the whole criminal justice pipeline. As a former policeman I can certainly vouch for the fact that it has many moving parts. There are many deficiencies—somewhat like a balloon full of water it is squeezed in one direction and bulges in another—and it is in the interests of all members of this House and certainly members of New Zealand society in my view that we are prepared to address these deficiencies. 
This bill really is a response as has been mentioned to deficiencies and issues that have been signalled by the court users: judges lawyers and counsellors alike. Those really are centred around the rising costs the lack of focus on the needs of children—highly ironic within a Family Court setting—and the lack of focus on durable and sustainable outcomes. Certainly as a former policeman but also as a new member of Parliament the concerns that I have seen through what can be a diabolical process are very worthy of addressing. This bill sets out to do that. 
In summary the process is unnecessarily adversarial it is a very negative experience for children and it is very broad-brush in its nature. It sort of uses this adversarial sledgehammer to crush the walnut. It is not focused enough on the most serious matters. It tends to treat private matters that could be better dealt with outside of the court in the same way as matters that need the jurisdiction of the court to oversee them. It creates many issues and I think we would all concede that. 
Just to highlight a couple of points this bill really refocuses the Family Court on matters that in fact need that judicial direction and it does it in a far more timely fashion. It clarifies the principles that are important around and relevant to children and also it provides a much greater focus on out-of-court resolutions. Although there have been some issues on that—I am sure the select committee will help tease out these processes—when you get a legally aided client and one that is not you so often see a completely different track and a protracted track in the way that that matter is carried out and some cynical people in society may see that there is a vested interest in those matters being protracted. It is in everyone’s interest that these matters are dealt with in a timely fashion and I welcome the opportunity for those to be done outside of the court. What we are looking at really is 4000 fewer court applications. This will result in about 2000 fewer children in front of the court. As I said I welcome the select committee submissions which I am sure will be very well traversed by the select committee. 
This bill is about efficiencies. It is about creating timeliness and I think it is about improving the means of resolution in a far more pragmatic child-friendly and community-friendly fashion. I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House. Thank you. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I believe that a very good process was begun by the former Minister of Justice the Hon Simon Power in respect of instigating the Family Court review but that process has somehow got sidetracked into this efficiency drive and it has become a drive to save money. The concerns I believe that we are raising on this side of the House are that in fact this may have unintended consequences so significant that they could place at risk some of the people whom we all in this House seek to protect. 
I want to read out 12 key points that were set out in a very important document and I want to explain where that fits within the context of this legislation the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill that we are debating this evening: “That the Family Court and its processes warrant review and reform is unarguable.” Everybody agrees with that. “The problems of cost delays inefficiencies and ineffectiveness are easy to identify. The Family Court of 2011 is not what was envisaged by the Beattie Commission and that model has never been effectively implemented. There is a fundamental confusion of roles. Is the Family Court a court or a social agency? This confusion inhibits a rational examination of the Family Court. The Care of Children Act 2004 is the most significant source of pressure on the court. That is where the focus of this review properly lies.” I would add to that the Child Support Act because I believe it is a silent player in all of the dynamics that occur in a breakdown of a relationship involving children. No. 6 states: “Reform does not need to jeopardise those who can be properly categorised as vulnerable. The role of the State in private disputes needs to be revisited.” When I use the word “revisited” I would say “re-examined”. There needs to be a better understanding of the role of the State in the settlement of private disputes because there is a public interest. I want to come back to the public good when I go through the regulatory impact statement which of course I want to do. 
It continues: “Reforms should be governed by an overarching strategy.” That is a very good idea to have an overarching strategy when considering reform in such a fundamental area of the law. “Focusing solely on economic fiscal factors may give rise to untended negative consequences.” I really do urge the House to think very carefully about that. “An effective simple and accessible pre-filing pre-court process is called for. Use of the court as a court of law should be a last resort and where use of the court as a court of law is called for efficiencies are available in the form of the laws of evidence Family Court rules case management programmes and assured competencies. These may need refinement but the tools are already there. Less not more process is called for.” This was from the family law symposium held in June last year by the family law section of the New Zealand Law Society. I believe that the lawyers of our country have actually come under some unfair criticism from the Government tonight in relation to this particular piece of legislation. All of the advocacy that they have put into this area of law has been firmly founded on principle in my view and I think we should be very grateful that they took the opportunity to bring together some of the greatest legal minds in this country and also some of the people involved in counselling and in the social work fields in order to debate the fundamental issues that underpin the Family Court review. So it was a very good process—unfortunately now thwarted by an efficiency-driven Government. 
That leads me to the regulatory impact statement and the agency disclosure statement at the beginning prepared by the Ministry of Justice. One of the members opposite spoke of the statement about consultation but before I get to consultation I just want to highlight for the House the constraints that were highlighted in the report. “Given the overall fiscal situation urgent steps must be taken to lower the cost of the current justice system while at the same time delivering more effective and efficient court services. This means the options we have considered must be able to be implemented quickly.” So the driver is cost. That is it and I think that the House should be very wary of the driver being costs when we are talking about such a major reform. For the sake of speed and cost and efficiency it has meant that the ministry has been prepared to accept gaps and uncertainties in the policy analysis—and a consultation period. 
I want to continue to read the section that one of the colleagues on the other side of the House referred to where he talked about “extensive consultation … meeting with stakeholders a public consultation paper and an online questionnaire for court users.” He went “full stop” there. Let me read the rest of the sentence: “However because of the timeframe there has been limited opportunity to discuss the final proposals with stakeholders. There will be an opportunity for consultation at the select committee stage of the future legislation.” Can I just remind this House that consultation is not receiving a submission in a public hearing. That is not consultation. It cannot be even regarded as a substitute for consultation. We have had hearings in front of select committees where we have told submitters that because they are an individual they have 5 minutes to present their case and could they leave a little bit of time for questions and we have had major organisations given 10 minutes maybe 15 minutes and sometimes we stretch to 20 minutes—usually the Law Society on a bill like this would get half an hour. But that is not consultation. That is about persuading the numbers of members of Parliament who are sitting there and the officials who are advising them and supporting them that their case has some merit. 
I want to remind the House what the Minister said in introducing this legislation and I am quoting now from Judith Collins who is the Minister in whose name the bill is introduced: “Our reforms will ensure the Family Court renews its focus towards those who need it most.” said Ms Collins. “The Court must put the needs of children first rather than those of private couples with relationship issues.” That is the fundamental flaw in her thinking and it is the fundamental flaw in the legislation. It explains about how we can privatise the cost because we can say that this is just about the private interests of couples. But can I say that the speedy sensitive judicious settlement of disputes that involve the care of our children actually has a huge public interest that must be met and it is not met by a piece of legislation that will drive the cost into this Family Disputes Resolution service—a solution that we support. We support the concept of the Family Disputes Resolution service. 
Can I just say what the family law section of the Law Society said in response. It was not consulted on the proposal that the parties would have to meet the full cost of Family Disputes Resolution unless they were exempt on the basis that they were eligible for legal aid and this is its quote: “Our recommendations were made on the presumption that parties would make a contribution to costs of professional services.”—so that is the profession to the lawyers—“but on the basis FDR would be predominantly funded by the Ministry.” You know it is over $900 and it is a cost to be split between warring parties in some instances if they agree. And what if they do not agree? How is that going to resolve things? I think that we have to think very carefully about the impact of this. 
I just want the House to hear another thing from the expert reference group: “Hidden power and control dynamics in relationships will mean parents are intimidated into agreeing to settlements which disadvantage them or their children … Also there will be delays as the Court will not have the proper information needed for making decisions with the result that the conflict between parties will intensify and those cases where a parent is consciously alienating a child from the other parent will be harder to resolve.” That is the problem that these hidden dynamics in these private relationships get exposed only when there are people independently acting in the interests of children. So I believe very strongly that we need to proceed with great caution but we will not be supporting this bill to the select committee and we will have to see significant change before we would change our mind further. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to support the introduction of the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill which as has already been noted will be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee if it gains support at its first reading. 
I have been listening very carefully to the concerns expressed by some Opposition members this evening. Some of them I have to say are unduly alarmist but nevertheless I have taken them on board. I am pleased that they do support some of the bill’s provisions but I just remind them that both of those aspects will undoubtedly attract submissions when the bill is referred to the select committee so they will receive due consideration. For that reason I have to say I particularly reject Mr Goff’s fairly hysterical contribution and his criticisms that this measure is being rushed and is poorly conceived. 
As the Hon Chester Borrows indicated when moving the first reading of this bill it is an omnibus bill that is aimed at ensuring that a modern accessible family justice system responsive to children and to vulnerable people who come before it will be in place to meet the ever-changing needs of modern families in our society. Those changes seem to be more dramatic each year and do put particular pressure on the courts and of course on the families themselves. So the bill unashamedly focuses on the needs of children—I think that is a good thing—first and foremost rather than of those couples whose relationships have become strained. Important that those needs are it is the needs of the children that are rightly being put centre stage when we consider this bill. 
I commend the proposed establishment of the Family Disputes Resolution process—in fact I am pleased to hear that most members seem to agree with that. It is aimed at supporting people to resolve their disputes where that is possible and appropriate out of court. It is so much better if that can be achieved out of court by agreement rather than by some sort of court-imposed settlement. Where it is not appropriate or possible of course the bill focuses the Family Court on disputes that will require a judicial decision. That is logical. That is an appropriate evolution. 
The changes proposed in the bill are designed to make the operation of the court more efficient and more effective. That has to be a good thing. They are designed to reduce or to mitigate the adversarial nature of Family Court proceedings. That has to be a very good thing particularly where children are caught in the middle of heart-wrenching and often acrimonious disputes. Where we can avoid that that has to be a good thing and particularly as Alfred Ngaro so passionately articulated during his very impressive contribution a short time ago the bill is focused on improving the court’s response to victims of domestic violence. 
I want to discuss a few of the features of the bill that may be of interest to those who are listening. What is changing here is that for some private matters people will be supported to resolve their disputes without the need to go to court. The Family Disputes Resolution process is focused on achieving lasting outcomes that the parties can accept and live by. It aims to give people the skills that they need to resolve problems. Surely that is a healthy move. It is encouraging parents to be responsible for reducing the negative impact that their conflict has on the children involved. The process is better for children than going through the court system. 
I want to conclude by assuring the House that the Justice and Electoral Committee will work to ensure that the bill’s admirable objectives are achieved. I repeat my support for its introduction this evening. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I understand the next call is a split call. I call Andrew Little. 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to stand and take a call on the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill. The thing is this: family law is as we know one of the most difficult areas of legal practice. It is not like a commercial dispute where the parties might have some money or an asset at stake. It is not like an employment dispute where somebody’s feelings might be hurt or their dignity might be attacked but they can be assuaged through reinstatement or through a compensatory payment. Family disputes go to the heart of who we are and when family disputes erupt people have a huge emotional interest at stake and they have offspring to consider often a family home and memories and all those things that go with it. These are very difficult disputes. So we need to have in place an institution a Family Court and family institutions that will help parties of all types to get through their disputes. 
It is interesting to read the regulatory impact statement—its analysis of the figures. It says that about 39 percent of the Family Court’s time at the moment is taken up with parental disputes—that would be about right—and that because they do not have accurate figures on how many disputes actually are fractious difficult and disputatious they extrapolate from the English experience and say that about 10 percent of family disputes go to court and about 12 percent of those go on to a hearing. That is what we are talking about. So all this nonsense about how we will just let the parties sort it out themselves—the parties who are capable of sorting out their disputes themselves are already doing so and they do not need to be patronised any further by an uncaring unknowing Government that does not know what it is doing and has brought this ill-thought law to Parliament because it actually does not know what is going on. 
We do not need to be patronised either. But what we do need to make sure if this Government is genuinely concerned about the children whose interests and livelihoods are at stake is that they have a means to get their interests properly and independently advocated and that they have an institution that will nurse parents who will be experiencing all sorts of levels of difficulty through a very difficult period. It will require professional reports and advice and they will require their own advocates. Some will be difficult and some will be accommodating and we need a system that can deal with all shapes and manner of those disputes. 
So the reason why we are opposed to this legislation is that this is nothing other than a cost-saving device. This idea that fractious families will go off and sort it out themselves with the benefit of a mediator without professional advice and professional reports is just cloud-cuckoo-land stuff and it will do more damage to young people to children and it will do more damage to the litigants. It is just something that we should not and cannot tolerate if we are serious about the State playing its useful and constructive role and representing the public interest in family breakdown. 
 If any political party should know about the impact and consequences of serious family breakdown I would have thought it would be the National Party because it is a party where even the party president has had to suffer the experience of the Family Court and family breakdown. The idea that it will now be assisting families and in particular the children of families in breakdown with a $1000 or more cost and fee is just absolute nonsense. So we are left with no option but to oppose the bill because it is not about reforming the family disputes procedures. It is about putting up barriers and it will not assist those families in breakdown in the period of significant need. 
It is presumptuous of the bill as it says that it presumes families can sort out these disputes themselves. It is presumptuous to do so. Families have to make the judgment. Individual parental parties have to make the judgment about when they need assistance and when they need advocacy and the court must be in a position to afford and to accord representation to children at this time. When they are at their most vulnerable when no one is thinking rationally when everybody is driven by emotions and a sense of loss and grievance that is when they need the most support and the Family Court system must be able to do that. So the idea of limiting access to legal advice and support is just plainly ridiculous. For those reasons we will be opposing this bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I call David Clendon—a 5-minute call. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 This Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill is an important piece of legislation. The Family Court plays an important part in our judicial system. It plays an important social role in New Zealand. It is a more than 30-year-old institution and so it is entirely appropriate that we should have a review of its functioning to acknowledge its shortcomings and to seek better outcomes for those who are obliged to seek out its services. 
We can modernise—yes that is a good word—and a key focus a word that keeps popping up in this bill is “accessibility”. It is important that we have access to the court processes but it is more important that people have access to justice that people who are vulnerable have access to the protection of the State to which they are entitled and that people’s well-being is protected. Access in that larger sense is something that perhaps is lacking in this bill and that is one of the reasons we are unable to support it in its current form. 
It is proposed that the court and its processes are not sufficiently focused. That is a fair criticism. The fact that some of the processes are poor—equally these are reasonable criticisms and those we can take on board and seek good solutions for. But sadly—and Mr Goff in his far from hysterical contribution made this key point—the primary driver of this bill seems to be the focus on cost-saving. We have this bald number thrown up: $84 million to $142 million without an equivalent increase in applications. That is not a trivial sum of money but there is not a lot of detail given us around that. I think if we drill into that we will find that perhaps the implication of this massive cost explosion is actually not particularly well warranted. 
But critically it is almost an inevitable phenomenon of these sorts of cost-saving exercises that you end up not saving money but simply exporting costs. You find that the money that is saved in one place will be imposed elsewhere. If we create behavioural dysfunction and social dysfunction as a result of inadequate court provision of services we will relocate those costs to elsewhere in the justice system to the education system to the welfare system. There will be no net saving in dollars and there is likely to be considerable net increase in cost imposed on individuals on women on children and indeed on fathers who are involved in these processes as well. So let us not imagine for a minute that cost-saving in itself is a sufficient reason for the level of intervention and change that is being proposed here. 
We are told that this obligation to go to a dispute resolution process will mean something like 1200 cases coming to the court and 2000 children will not of necessity be exposed to a court process which is unlikely to be a happy process for them. But again those comments are very superficial. The point has already been well made by Mr Little that there is rather an odd logic at work here. It is revealed in the regulatory impact statement the proposition that there is this flood of cases inappropriately coming to the court. We do not have the information. One of the key data sets that is missing is that we do not know what percentage of cases of separation actually come to the court but we can assume it is around that 10 percent based on evidence from the UK. So it is actually 12 percent of 10 percent. It is a very very small proportion. And to suggest that there is in fact an overwhelming default to the court that too few people are sorting out their own lives and their own business and the welfare of their kids is simply not sustained by the information. 
We have had already submissions directly from some key organisations: Relationships Aotearoa the Association of Counsellors and the Law Commission. It is unfortunate that some of those submitters have been accused of self-interest the lawyers particularly. We know that lawyers typically rate around there with politicians and used-car salesmen in public perception but I would argue that people who go into family law—lawyers who specialise in family law—are very unlikely to be motivated by personal wealth. If you want to make a lot of money in the legal profession I suggest you would not be very bright if you chose family law as your area of expertise. We have highly capable very committed people in the legal fraternity working on this stuff and I think it is a fairly cheap shot to suggest that the lawyers are simply feathering their own nests. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call in the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill in its first reading tonight. I am going to take a brief call. I think this has been well debated already in this House and I look forward to the Justice and Electoral Committee and the submissions that we are going to hear in that process. I do want to respond to a couple of the comments that have been made already in this debate. Andrew Little just before he sat down talked about an unknown uncaring Government that does not know what it is doing. Well I am just looking at who spoke on this bill tonight from our side of the House and I would just like to let him know that we had the Hon Chester Borrows who was a policeman for over 20 years and then a lawyer speak first. We had Alfred Ngaro speak. He was an advocate in the Family Court and on many task forces appointed by both Governments. We have had Mark Mitchell speak on this who also spent numerous years in the police force. Mike Sabin who also spent numerous years in the police force spoke on this as did Tim Macindoe who also has a law degree. So if we want to know about people who understand what they are talking about look at this caucus because we have got a true depth when it comes to law and order and justice. So when you say we are an unknown uncaring Government that does not know what we are doing you are absolutely wrong. I look forward to debating this further in the House and when it comes to our select committee. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Family Court Proceedings Reform Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Maori Party 3; Mana 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill. The bill proposes to amend the fiscal responsibility provisions in Part 2 of the Public Finance Act 1989. The changes proposed in the bill aim to ensure that the fiscal responsibility provisions remain a sound guide for fiscal policy now and into the future and in particular into a future where the Government will have surpluses again. 
As honourable members know the fiscal responsibility provisions of the Public Finance Act have guided the formation and disclosure of Government fiscal strategy for over a generation. The provisions require Governments to pursue their objectives in accordance with defined principles of responsible fiscal management. Among other things the principles require public debt to be reduced to and maintained at prudent levels. These provisions have served New Zealand well. It is partly thanks to the provisions that successive Governments have focused on maintaining low or prudent public debt putting New Zealand in a relatively strong position in having relatively low Government debt going into the international financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. 
However experience tells us that there is room to strengthen the fiscal responsibility provisions to encourage greater transparency around the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy the impacts of current policy on future generations and managing resources efficiently and effectively. The additions to the fiscal responsibility provisions in this bill aim to address these and other gaps. The amendment bill introduces three new principles of responsible fiscal management extends an existing principle and introduces some new reporting requirements some of which codify existing practices. 
The first new principle of responsible fiscal management proposed in the bill is that Governments should formulate fiscal strategy with regard to its interaction with monetary policy. As honourable members know the Reserve Bank of New Zealand takes changes in fiscal policy into account when it independently sets the official cash rate. The new principle will require the Government to be explicit about the interactions between monetary and fiscal policy at different stages of the economic cycle facilitating greater transparency in policy making and encouraging greater focus on and discussion of the cyclical factors impacting the economy’s performance at any given time. 
The second new principle introduced by the bill is that the Government should formulate fiscal strategy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations. Fiscal responsibility provisions currently have a focus of around 15 years. Many decisions of course have longer-term effects. This new principle will require Governments to be more transparent about any intergenerational trade-offs their policies imply. 
The third new principle is that the Government should ensure that the Crown’s resources are managed effectively and efficiently. This principle is supported by a reporting requirement for Governments to set out their priorities for resource allocation and explain how these priorities have influenced and will influence their decisions. The idea behind this principle and reporting requirement is that it is not just aggregate amounts that matter—total spending total assets total debt or total tax revenue—but also the allocation of resources within those aggregate amounts. The principle also aims to facilitate a greater level of public scrutiny of the Crown’s management of its balance sheet. 
As well as introducing these three new principles the bill extends the existing principle relating to the tax system. The existing principle is that Governments should pursue policies that are consistent with a reasonable degree of predictability about the level and stability of tax rates for future years. The bill would strengthen the principle to require Governments to formulate revenue strategy with regard to efficiency and fairness including the predictability and stability of tax rates. This extension acknowledges that there are important and desirable features of tax systems beyond the level and stability of tax rates including raising sufficient revenue to meet Government priorities minimising behavioural distortions and administrative and compliance costs and sharing the tax burden fairly in a way that is perceived to be fair. These features can be captured by the words “efficiency” and “fairness”. Although there are no universally accepted definitions of “efficient” or “fair” the inclusion of the terms in the fiscal responsibility provisions will allow the Government of the day to elaborate on what an efficient and fair tax system means for it and to bear in mind efficiency and fairness considerations when assessing changes to the tax system. 
The bill introduces a new requirement for the Fiscal Strategy Report to contain an assessment of the extent to which the fiscal performance of the Government is consistent with its own published fiscal strategy. This requirement introduces a backward-looking element into the Fiscal Strategy Report which currently is mainly about communicating current fiscal policy and its likely future effects. More of a backward-looking focus will increase disciplines on Governments to stick to announced plans and provide a platform to communicate lessons from past successes and failures of fiscal policy. 
The bill proposes to codify the established practice of including a revenue strategy within the Fiscal Strategy Report. The revenue strategy would be required to include the Government’s objectives for the tax system and tax policy. 
Finally the bill also codifies the emerging practice of publishing a Government Investment Statement. The bill would require Treasury to produce an Investment Statement describing the Crown’s significant assets and liabilities at least every 4 years. The first Government Investment Statement was published in 2010 and we consider that it was a useful tool for informing the public and the politicians in Parliament about the state of the Crown’s balance sheet. 
The fiscal responsibility provisions of the Public Finance Act are constitutionally significant. The Government recognises that any proposed change to the provisions is not to be undertaken lightly. Can I thank members from other parties of the House who have constructively discussed the issues addressed in this bill. The Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill will ensure that the fiscal responsibility provisions remain a sound guide for fiscal policy and in this context it is important to see these changes in the context of the economic cycle that New Zealand has just been through. In some respects our fiscal responsibility Act is better aligned towards Governments getting on top of difficult fiscal conditions and high levels of debt which was certainly the case in the early 1990s when the fiscal responsibility Act was first brought in. Experience has shown us I think that it has been less suited to dealing with the temptations and opportunities provided by sustained surpluses. It is certainly the wish of the Government that the House in considering these amendments bear in mind that with economic growth and continuing discipline on spending there will be fiscal surpluses in the future and New Zealanders would expect Parliament and the Government to treat that situation in a responsible manner. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to speak on the first reading of the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill. The Labour Party will be supporting this bill going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Can I thank the Minister of Finance for the consultation that was provided in respect of earlier drafts of the legislation which was proposed pursuant to the ACT Party confidence and supply agreement with the National Party. It is fair to say that the original drafts of this bill that were brought to us by Treasury were completely unacceptable to the Labour Party. They were fundamentally flawed in our opinion. I am not blaming the National Government for that; it was promoting policy that was being pursued by John Banks at a time when he had perhaps more political force than he now does. 
Amongst the proposals that were in the draft that was described to us by the Treasury officials who were sent for a discussion with us was the fiscal cap that was referred to by the ACT Party in its election materials. ACT said that the country needed to have a fiscal cap imposed under the Public Finance Act that was binding upon Parliament including future Governments. So I am pleased to hear the Minister of Finance Bill English agreeing that it is inappropriate that this Parliament try to bind future Parliaments in respect of how a country is to be governed. 
The history of fiscal caps around the world is fraught. You need only to have a look back at recent history in New Zealand to think about how difficult it would be to legislate for an appropriate fiscal cap. New Zealand came through a period of strong economic growth and a period of surplus after surplus. Really no one around the world or very few people around the world—there was the occasional person I have to say such as Mr Roubini but other than the occasional economist who thought that the paradigm was wrong and unsustainable most economists thought that that paradigm could continue for ever and that the world was on a stable growth path and did not have extreme debt problems. The global financial crisis proved that wrong and since then Governments around the world have had to increase spending counter-cyclically in order to as the Deputy Prime Minister says take the sharp edges off recession as Governments around the world are finding that in order to make their economies work and not sink into a declining whirlpool of decreasing output they have to stimulate their economies through fiscal policy. This has meant that Governments have had to increase spending at a time of recession put simply. If you had a fiscal cap the fiscal cap if it was set during the good times probably would not allow that. It would be a nonsense and it would have led to far worse outcomes than have been achieved in New Zealand without a fiscal cap. 
The other example I would use would be the fiscal cap that has been in place for some time in respect of Californian spending. California at a referendum agreed to a cap on certain levels of taxation which effectively capped the ability of California to spend. There were certain classes of taxation that by law until there is another referendum that changes that rule could not be increased. The effect of that is that the Government in California has not had enough money to do what it needs to do. As a consequence it has had failing corrections policy—it has got terrible prisons and prison outcomes. But even worse than that California which used to have one of the best state education systems in the whole of the United States of America has had a decline in its educational system because the Government has not been able to collect enough revenue in order to pay for a decent education system. 
Those two examples show just how lunatic the proposals from the ACT Party were that New Zealand’s Public Finance Act should actually include a fiscal cap. So I am pleased that that policy has been ditched and this legislation as a consequence can have the support of the Labour Party at its first reading. 
There are a couple of other points to be made. None of these changes are actually necessary for the Government to conduct sound economic policy. It is pretty much window dressing. Let us look at the first change. The first change changes the fiscal responsibility set out at section 26G(1)(e) of the Public Finance Act which currently says: “pursuing policies that are consistent with a reasonable degree of predictability about the level and stability of tax rates for future years.” It replaces it with these words: “formulating revenue strategy with regard to efficiency and fairness including the predictability and stability of tax rates;”. Is that a great change—a great significant change? I do not think so. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Tinkering. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Tinkering as my colleague Clayton Cosgrove says. I do not think there is any problem with those new words but there is not that much difference either. It is motherhood and apple pie. It is not going to change much. 
The three new principles that are added are firstly “formulating fiscal strategy with regard to its interaction with monetary policy;”. I agree that that is appropriate—“with regard to”. It does not give monetary policy primacy over fiscal policy and neither should it. If it went further and said “formulating fiscal policy so as to coordinate with monetary policy.” and had a requirement on Government that would be wrong. That would effectively be saying that Government decisions as to the management of the economy had to be subjugated to what was being done with monetary policy through the Reserve Bank. We can live with “with regard to” its interaction with monetary policy but we again make the point in the context of this debate that we have some problems with the current iterations of monetary policy whereby the interests of inflation targeting always trump other aspects of economic management. In other words other aspects of economic management like the health of your export sector are subjugated to the interest of inflation when there is a contest between the two which in our view is wrong given New Zealand’s 40-year current account deficit. 
The idea that Governments current and past have not had regard to monetary policy in setting fiscal policy is a nonsense. The last Labour Government ran surpluses. In fact one year we ran a surplus of 5 percent of GDP. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Who opposed that? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Oh that was opposed Mr Cunliffe by the National Party. That $10 billion surplus that year was one of the largest as a percentage of GDP in the Western World. At a time when other Western countries like the United States like England like most of the countries in Europe were running Budget deficits in a time of plenty the New Zealand Government under Labour’s leadership on the Treasury benches ran very very significant surpluses. They were so difficult politically to achieve because the Opposition—the then National Party Opposition—was saying: “Tax cuts. Tax cuts are the way forward.” 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: They accused us of being mean. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Yes they accused us of being mean and that we were keeping people’s money from them. In fact what we were doing was in a time of plenty putting money away. That is why when the Labour Government left office we had reduced gross Government debt from 38 percent to 18 percent of GDP and net debt down to zero including financial assets. 
The next new principle is “formulating fiscal strategy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations;. Again Governments should already be doing that and I think it is somewhat galling to have the Government saying that it should put that into the Act when it is denying the need to address the age of eligibility for superannuation. The biggest cause of increasing Government expenditure going forward—actually there are two cost centres. One is rising health expenditure and the other is rising superannuation costs. Within 4 years the cost of New Zealand superannuation exceeds the cost of preschool primary intermediate secondary and tertiary education plus trade training and the costs of the education ministry. All of those are exceeded by the cost of superannuation. If the Government cannot see that it is time to give advance notice of the need to increase the age of eligibility for superannuation then formulating fiscal strategy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations is just hot air. 
In respect of the next principle “ensuring that the Crown’s resources are managed effectively and efficiently.” who can disagree with that? Is the Government really saying that it is not doing that currently? 
This legislation is largely inoffensive. There may be some details in respect of the requirement to produce a report reporting against prior Governments’ fiscal strategies. I have a bit of a problem with that and we will be looking at that at the select committee. But in general this bill is much less offensive than if it had tried to impose a fiscal cap and the Labour Party will be supporting it going to the select committee. 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on this the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill. I am very pleased to hear the support of the Labour Party for this legislation and I would like to pass my congratulations to the Minister of Finance on introducing it to the House. There is no question that the public reporting and transparency provisions of the Public Finance Act have served New Zealanders well for more than two decades in keeping the focus on maintaining low Government debt levels. New Zealanders can quickly forget the horrors of the past when after each election the true state of affairs was revealed— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Remember Muldoon? 
PAUL GOLDSMITH 
: 1984. Yes indeed in 1984 and 1990 the situation was ugly. The Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994 which was subsequently folded into the Public Finance Act was one of Ruth Richardson’s great achievements. New Zealand’s reputation changed from the late 1980s to the 1990s from being a basket case to a country of quality public policy of a robust and disciplined Government. Successive Governments have focused on maintaining low or prudent public debt putting New Zealand in a relatively strong position going into the international financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. 
 It was interesting to hear Mr Parker talk up the record of the Labour Government during that decade and it should be commended for the surpluses that it brought through in the middle of the decade. But I am bound to say that he did forget about the fact that the decisions that were made in the third term left Government books pregnant with debt for a decade to come. That was the problem that it left us. So it may have been quite good in the first two terms but certainly not in the third. 
There is scope to make further improvements as we learn lessons from the crisis. This bill as the previous two speakers have talked about strengthens the principles of responsible fiscal management as listed in section 26G of the Public Finance Act. I will focus on what is in the bill rather than what is not in the bill. We have talked about the three additions the first principle being that Government should formulate fiscal strategy with regard to its interaction with monetary policy. That makes good sense. The second one is Governments should formulate fiscal strategy with regard to its impact on future generations. The third principle is that Governments should ensure that the Crown’s resources are managed effectively and efficiently. These are not motherhood and apple pie. They are actually very tough disciplines. I have no doubt that the Government in New Zealand will be the stronger for it. Why is fiscal responsibility important? Because quality public policy and practice and sound financial management bring confidence and confidence for the private sector to invest and to create jobs. Conversely the absence of fiscal responsibility leads to a lack of confidence and we see evidence of that all around the world today. 
There are a couple of other important aspects to the bill but I want to briefly focus on the revenue strategy in the Fiscal Strategy Report which will have to include the Government’s objectives for the tax system and tax policy. We have mentioned that this idea of formulating its revenue strategy with regard to efficiency and fairness goes some way to addressing the 13th recommendation of the recent Tax Working Group report. I will be very interested in the select committee consideration in drilling down to the detail on these two very important concepts efficiency and fairness. Efficiency talks about having taxes that are the least distortionary and introduce the fewest dead-weight costs to the economy. This bill will not stop future Governments bringing in silly taxes but it will force them to explain themselves to a greater degree. I would imagine if you were going to open up a gap between the top income tax rate and the trust rate you would have to explain how that was going to promote an efficient tax system. If you were going to start fiddling around with the GST explaining how that is efficient would be an interesting way to deal with that question. On fairness I prefer probably the concept of horizontal and vertical equity but again these are two important concepts to introduce into the tax policy and I am sure that they will encourage Governments to articulate the basis for their tax policies in future years. 
On the basis of that I think this is a very interesting bill and will make a great difference over the period of the next few decades. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you very much. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 As my colleague David Parker said we will support this piece of legislation the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. 
It is noteworthy that this is the bill that rolled John Banks. That was John Banks’ former biographer—the man who is now writing his political obituary—who got up. He must have been part of the team to roll John Banks because of course John Banks wanted a fiscal cap that bound future Governments. Even the National Party—and I give some credit to Bill English—could not swallow that dead rat. 
Old “Brown Bag Banks” a man who at the start of the electoral cycle after the cup of tea and the election win was a person at the pinnacle of his powers—the pinnacle of his powers—pushed and demanded to be the Minister for Small Business and demanded that there be a fiscal cap in a piece of legislation like this and then came a gutzer. Of course that is why we call him “Brown Bag”. We know why “Brown Bag Banks” came a complete gutzer to the point where  
Trans Tasman 
—I think it was  
Trans Tasman 
—said the following: “Banks has overseen the complete destruction of ACT’s political brand taking over where Don Brash left off.” and “scandals and police investigations over donations have left his political reputation in tatters.” Things are so bad that “Even if National did not run against him in Epsom again he would still lose.” So what we know is that a cabbage could be painted blue and stand in Epsom—a cabbage off a cabbage boat—and it would take the Epsom seat. 
What I will say and commend National members for is that for once in their political lives they slithered out of the caucus room and made a decision. They said “No this is unconstitutional this is fiscally unpalatable this is morally wrong.” and they rolled “Brown Bag”. They rolled him—they rolled him. They slithered out of the caucus room and for once in their measly political lives this Government actually made a call and a decisive one. So on that basis we look at this bill. 
You would think listening to the Minister of Finance that this was some groundbreaking piece of legislation. In fact colleagues we have been here before in the law and order portfolio and in the health portfolio with announcement after announcement—and the housing portfolio—of groundbreaking legislative moves and reforms which when you read the legislation actually come to nothing. Let me read you if I might a sentence or two from the explanatory note on Part 1 of this bill where it says: “The Government must pursue its policy objectives in accordance with the principles of responsible fiscal management”. Right? Nobody would disagree with that. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Absolutely. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Dr Smith says “absolutely”. I agree with him. I agree with him—“absolutely”. Nobody would disagree with that. Then it says: “The amendment”— 
David Bennett 
: Have you asked Russel? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Settle down. Take a powder—take a powder. Your turn will come. “The amendment extends an existing principle of responsible fiscal management and adds”—here is the good bit—“3 new principles.” Wait for it. This is probably not a bad thing. This is probably a groundbreaking reform from this tinkering Government. But then you read it as my colleague David Parker did and the new principles are the following: first “formulating fiscal strategy with regard to its interaction with monetary policy”. Who would disagree with that? Not us. Not the communities. Not people—maybe John Banks would because he wanted something different. And then you try and match that principle with the practical groundwork and the practical actions of this tinkering Government. 
Of course it does not believe that there is a problem with our exchange rate. It does not believe that there is a problem or any need for change or reform of monetary policy. It does not believe as we do that we should change the structure of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and the make-up of the board and should focus not only on inflation but also on the exchange rate as this party believes. The National Party believes as the Minister of Finance said before the Finance and Expenditure Committee that all is well that the IMF is wrong Treasury is wrong—everybody is wrong—and the Reserve Bank is wrong when all three say we are headed for the rocks with the current account deficit but that the finance Minister is right. We have got this wonderful principle that may well be chiselled on tablets of stone but actually if the bill is passed the Government does not believe the principle because it has not acted on it. It does not believe in the principle. This is a sap to buy off “Brown Bag Banks”. 
Then we look at the second principle which is “formulating—” 
Hon David Parker 
: Clayton SOE sales. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Oh and State-owned enterprise sales of course—State-owned enterprise sales. This is the Government that in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update of course banked the revenue from the sale of assets which a year later have not been sold. It is going to be another 6 months or 12 months—or hopefully by the time we get to an election the Government is gone and it will not be able to do it. It banked the revenue from sales that have not happened but did not bank the loss in dividends. That is how honest the Government is about the fiscal measures and how fiscally responsible it is. 
Then we look at principle two: “formulating fiscal strategy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations”. Well who again would argue with that? It is not a bad principle. But then you look at what the Government has done in respect of tinkering with KiwiSaver and undermining it. Then you look at its stance on compulsory superannuation. Then you look at its stance as my colleague David Parker said on the age of eligibility for New Zealand superannuation and again it denies there is a problem. It denies that future generations will be impacted on. It is all rosy out there for New Zealanders it says. So it is a great principle whittled into tablets of stone I am sure but this Government does not believe it because it will not act on it. 
Then we have the third one: “ensuring that the Crown’s resources are managed effectively and efficiently.” Well look at some of the programmes that have come a gutzer. There was the “Road to Nowhere” the cycleway which was supposed to generate hundreds if not thousands of jobs—gone. Mining of national parks a pipedream was stuffed up by this crew—gone. Then there was the financial centre of excellence or whatever it was called. That was going to be the next silver bullet. It did not happen—gone. No plan. 
What we have got here is a nice little political pamphlet which I have to say we do not disagree with in principle. These are sort of eminent principles and goals that Governments should follow. What I would put to the Government is simply this: why does it not follow them if it believes in them? It has had an adequate opportunity in respect of monetary policy superannuation and KiwiSaver etc. etc. etc. and it has done nothing because it believes that there is no problem with our economy no problem with 175000 people out of work no problem with 90000 young people not in education training or work—no problem at all. Everything is rosy and the people of New Zealand should be grateful for it. 
Well I say that if the Government believes in these principles—it is the Government’s bill after all and it has the numbers to pass it—then we await with interest to see whether it will actually act on those principles: safeguarding future generations monetary policy those key issues that will if dealt with appropriately effect Government policy. 
I have got to say when you are recasting history that I remember getting up as Associate Minister of Finance and making a speech about the surplus that Labour had—we had nine of them. I never thought in my 30 years in the Labour Party that I would stand in Parliament and be attacked by a National Party for not spending money for being frugal and for squirreling away the dollars for a rainy day. Bill English got up and said that we were mean that we were Scrooges that it was the “chewing gum Budget” and that we should spend the lot dish it out—that is what we should do. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be attacked by a National member for not spending the dough and for creating surpluses as our Government did but that is what the National Party did and now it recasts history. I just say to members over there let us compare 9 years of surpluses with National’s record—record borrowings and the second-worst current account deficit in the world which is soon to be the first the worst in the world. 
When we asked Bill English before the Finance and Expenditure Committee why he thought he was right and the IMF Treasury and the Reserve Bank were wrong in terms of forecasting how bad it would be his strategy was “I don’t think the rest of the world will allow our current account deficit to get really bad.” That is sort of like saying “Well eventually the bank manager will cut off the oxygen and stop lending us money.” That is basically what the strategy was from the financial guru the Minister of Finance: “The world won’t let us you know keep injecting the serum. They’ll stop it. They’ll cut the cable on us.” That is a wonderful strategy is it not to reassure the people of New Zealand? 
We will support this bill. We will support it but I say to the National Party that if you want to write a bill with some principle in it—after you have rolled “Brown Bag” John Banks—you have got to actually practically demonstrate that you are committed to the principles in the bill. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill. It is with great pleasure that I speak to this bill which I think is an excellent bill. I think the Minister of Finance should be congratulated on putting the bill together. It was great that we got rid of the spending caps which were a silly ACT Party intervention into the debate but now that sense has been seen and we have got rid of that one actually we have ended up with a good bill. There are a lot of good things about this bill. 
The first part is about being explicit about how fiscal policy settings will interact with monetary policy. Of course this is something that has always been implicit but putting it explicitly into the Public Finance Act seems to me a very responsible and sensible thing to do. I would argue in fact that those of us who are supportive of a capital gains tax excluding the family home would have quite a bit to say about the way a capital gains tax could influence monetary policy and actually take some of the pressure off monetary policy in terms of trying to control housing asset bubbles in the future. I would be very interested to see Treasury’s analysis given that it has for a long time been supportive of a capital gains tax of using this bill and the new requirements in this bill to look at the effect of a capital gains tax on the interaction between fiscal policy and monetary policy. We believe as Treasury does that a capital gains tax has a very positive effect on that interaction. 
Another part of this bill is that the Government must state how the Government’s fiscal policy will impact on present and future generations and it is expected to take a 40-year perspective. I think this is a very healthy development for our democracy. From the Green Party’s point of view we try to take a long-term intergenerational approach to policy—for example around climate change which is a classic if you like environmental issue but of course is a highly economic issue and social issue as well. Having the Government required to take a 40-year view to take a long-term intergenerational view seems to me a very positive development. I want to come back to that shortly with regard to public-private partnerships. 
Obviously the Government has included the principle that tax revenue needs to be raised “efficiently and fairly”. The Minister of Finance made a point in his speech that clearly this is a subjective thing—what is efficient and what is fair. But I think he rightly made the point that the Government will be required to explain what it thinks is efficient and what it thinks is fair in terms of raising revenue. Getting that on the record and getting it transparent is I think a positive thing. 
The next part of this bill is the retrospective or looking-back element. I think this is a very healthy development. Often we find when we read the Government statements that they cover the present and they have these projections and the projections are always wonderful and about how everything is going to get better. So I think it is quite good that there is an element of looking back that will be required in the reporting elements around the Budget. Having that backwards-looking element is I think a very positive development. It requires the Government and Treasury to look at what the Government said it would do then what it actually did and hopefully to make some kind of assessment about how things worked—whether they worked well or whether they did not. 
The other part of it is about instituting or formalising the Government’s Investment Statement. This was a great innovation by the current Government and Minister of Finance—to put out the Investment Statement. Obviously it was linked in part to the Government’s asset sales programme—which we do not agree with—but the Investment Statement itself is I think a positive development in terms of reporting. 
Taken together I think these provisions are really good and this is a really good bill. Obviously we still have a lot of criticism of some of the Government’s strategy and we would argue that it is not meeting if you like some of the good principles that are actually in this new bill. None the less in terms of a reporting requirement it seems to me quite sensible. 
I want to talk a little bit about PPPs and debt and how they might be covered by this reporting requirement because I think it is important. PPPs are public-private partnerships. There are many variants but we could look at motorways. The Government has got a problem with motorways at the moment. It has this extraordinarily large motorway building ambition but the revenue source for that motorway building ambition is drying off because State highway volumes have remained flat now for over 5 years. So the Government’s problem is how it funds it. Traditionally in the past it would have done it through debt and there is a very clear way to record debt on the books so we would have had a clear view of that. The Government is now exploring using public-private partnerships. So essentially if we were to look at a project—one of the motorway projects—the Government would get a private corporation to build the project and then the Government would pay it a certain amount every year to run that highway for any number of years into the future. Essentially it becomes the Government paying this private corporation this payment every year for many years. 
The Government’s and Steven Joyce’s aim in this is to sign up contracts so that future Governments cannot stop these major motorway projects. That is the political ambition of the Government. The Government wants to lock any future Government into large motorway projects whether it supports them or not. That is why the Government is going down the public-private partnership route from the point of view of a political reason. From the point of view of a financial reason and related to this bill it is to try to hide the cost. If the Government had to go out and borrow a whole bunch of money to build these motorways we could all point to the debt and say “Hey you’ve taken on this debt. There’s a certain cost of servicing that debt.” So what the Government wants to do is sign a contract with a private provider which then builds the motorway and the Government pays it an income stream over 10 or 15 years further down the track. 
The question I have is how the Government books will treat these things because it seems to me that if you borrow money and then you pay it off over a certain period you are effectively committing yourself to pay a certain amount of money every year for 15 or 20 years—however long it takes. If that is a debt trap to pay for the motorway projects compare that with a public-private partnership. Effectively it is the same thing—that is the Government is committed to paying a certain amount of money every year for a certain number of years. So it seems to me that if the Government is going to be straightforward and honest in its reporting of these kinds of public-private partnership instruments it should report them as a liability essentially on the Government because the Government has to pay these payments in a public-private partnership well into the future as if they were debt. So I would be very interested to explore in the Finance and Expenditure Committee how the Government proposes to account for public-private partnerships on the Government books. I am not sure how this bill will affect that. I hope it will have a positive effect in the Government being transparent that actually public-private partnerships are effectively the same as taking on giant wads of debt. 
The other part of it that I think is kind of interesting—it is a very interesting bill this one—is that it is like Treasury’s redux against Labour about student loans and Working for Families payments in a way. What Treasury liked about the last Labour Government was that it paid down debt and it did it in a big way. It was hard to criticise it. National was totally wrong in all its criticisms of the last Government in terms of it paying down debt. The one great thing the positive thing that the current Government inherited from the last Government was the fiscal position which gave it a lot of leeway. But what Treasury really hated was the Working for Families payments and the interest-free student loans. The reason it hated them was they did not appear on the books as debt but effectively had kind of long-term fiscal impacts on the Government books. So what they are trying to do with this bill is to lock in some kind of accountability—from its point of view accountability—for what are the long-term fiscal impacts of making decisions like interest-free student loans or Working for Families and trying to make the Government of the day account for those out-years the very significant long-term effects of making decisions like interest-free student loans or Working for Families. 
Bill English kind of hinted at this in his speech. He did not want to say it explicitly but there is an inherent criticism from Treasury in that on the one hand it liked the last Labour Government because it was responsible on debt but on the other hand it made these commitments which from Treasury’s point of view locked in future Governments and the fiscal position going forward and Treasury wants the accounts to reflect that. I think that is reasonable. Although I am a supporter of these policies I think it is reasonable that we need to factor in the long-term fiscal impact when we make decisions like that because I do believe that you know responsible Governments need to look at the impact of their decisions on future generations. I wish that the current Government would take this to heart in a lot of its decisions. For example if we were to look at the current Government’s decisions on the emissions trading scheme we see that they have very long-term and very very significant fiscal impacts on the Government. It is very hard to account for them properly and Treasury has kind of struggled to do that but even the last round of changes according to Treasury’s own Cabinet paper cost $300 million. So the decisions that the Government makes around climate change not only have very significant environmental and social effects in terms of the broader or the real world; they also have very significant fiscal effects going forward. It will be very important to us to make sure that this bill and the existing arrangements properly account for the true fiscal impacts of decisions like the Government’s decision around climate change because that has such enormously significant impacts. 
I am also interested in the concern of Treasury about pro-cyclical fiscal policy. I am also very interested to see what the matching side will be in terms of monetary policy. What are the macro-prudential tools we will introduce to prevent pro-cyclical monetary policy from the Reserve Bank side if we are going to be keeping a close eye on pro-cyclical fiscal policy? Because those two things do need to be aligned and matched together. 
But anyway it is a good bill and I look forward to the select committee hearings. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I need make only a brief contribution on this bill the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill because it is such common sense and the fact that it is being supported so widely across Parliament indicates what a sound bill it is. Just to briefly comment on the contributions that have been made it is not surprising that the media are openly speculating on Russel Norman as a Minister of Finance in an alternative Government when you contrast the speeches we have just heard from Clayton Cosgrove and from Russel Norman. It is not surprising when we contrast the sort of nasty negativity which does not speak anything of the values or vision that Labour has with yes a very different vision that the Greens have. It is a vision that I think would be a disaster for New Zealand but at least we have some idea of what the Greens might stand for. 
We need look no further than the social disaster that is unravelling in the southern parts of Europe and the fiscal crisis in the United States of America to recognise the importance of good fiscal policy to New Zealand’s future. In my 23 years in this Parliament I would say that the single most important Act that changed the prospects for New Zealand was that 1994 Fiscal Responsibility Act. In the 20 years prior to that New Zealand’s books were very poorly managed by both National Governments and Labour Governments. In the 20 years since New Zealand has moved from being one of the worst performers in the OECD to one of the better performers. 
In typical Bill English style though this bill is about making those incremental improvements in that Act and I want to comment on the three major ones. The first is that fiscal policy has got to be better aligned with monetary policy. New Zealanders have so often been punished with high interest rates not because the Reserve Bank is not doing its job in controlling inflation but because Governments have spent up big and there has been a high price for New Zealanders to pay for that. I say when I read Labour’s big-spending policies that among the biggest losers will be those New Zealand families who are aspiring to own their own home because of the interest impact that those policies will have. 
Secondly this bill makes good sense to be focused on the level of fiscal responsibility not just today but looking out into the future. When we came into Government in 2008 we were looking at a decade of deficits and I will not be lectured by members opposite about fiscal discipline given the level of projected debt and spending that the Labour Government had built into the bottom lines of New Zealand that saw ever-ballooning debt and deficits going out for 10 years. That left the Minister of Finance Bill English with a nightmare. He is going to have to spend the best part of his career actually pulling back on the extravagant spending that occurred in the term of the last Labour Government. 
The third big change in this bill is in terms of focusing on the efficient and effective spending of public money. There are so many areas in which Government money was poorly expended. I really look forward to the discipline that these reforms will apply. Let me give you just one simple area in closing. I spent the best part of the last 3 years trying to improve the solvency of ACC. It was down to 45 percent. Members opposite laugh but it was at 45 percent solvency. If it was an insurance company it would literally be broke. We have improved that up to 75 percent. Judith Collins is doing a great job of continuing that work. We are determined as a Government to get to 100 percent solvency. What worries me is that Labour’s spokesperson on ACC said Labour wants to go back to pay as you go. It wants to go back to pushing the cost out into the future. That sort of policy will be held in check by these sorts of provisions which will expose the fiscal nonsense of those sorts of changes which we would not support. 
This bill is just part of the package of the sensible financial policies that this Government is adopting which protect New Zealanders from the sort of loose fiscal policy that can cause so much social harm as we see in so many parts of the world. I urge the House to support the bill. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I take a call on the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill on behalf of New Zealand First. We will be different from the other parties in that we will not be supporting this bill. The reason we are not supporting it is mainly that we think it is irrelevant and totally unnecessary. 
This Parliament currently has something like 64 Government bills on the Order Paper—64 Government bills. It is incredible how much legislation should be coming before this House instead of irrelevant bills like this that are basically just again moving the deckchairs around on the  
Titanic 
 and tinkering around the edges in terms of finance and taxes. We believe that if the Government was doing its job correctly and as it should be this bill would absolutely be totally unnecessary. Basically this is just another waste of parliamentary time when the Government should be getting on with a lot more important things on the Order Paper. 
We have only to look back to things such as the  
Rena 
 disaster where there was legislation on the books that was sitting there for something like 2 or 3 years waiting to be put through. It had buy-in from every party in this House and the Government did not move that legislation on. And because it was tardy and did not move that legislation on the  
Rena 
 hit the rocks and we were then caught with our pants down literally and as a result it cost the New Zealand taxpayer another $30 million or $40 million because that legislation had not been put through. 
At the same time there are things such as the war pensions review which sat around for 2 years under this Government and finally has been moved on in the last couple of months. But again with our senior veterans getting longer and longer in the tooth and older and older all the time and desperately waiting for this Government to move on the 170 recommendations of the Law Commission it took 2 years to get that review finally into action. We commend the Government for doing it finally but it took 2 years while rubbish like this bill which is totally unnecessary is put before the House. If the Government was actually doing its job properly and if it was overseeing managing and governing the Public Service as it should be then this bill would be totally irrelevant. 
The bill proposes to amend the Public Finance Act to include three new principles the extension of an existing principle regarding revenue and a new reporting requirement to assess past fiscal strategy. These changes are unnecessary. The principles are in fact common sense. There is no need to write them into legislation. It goes without saying that people elect a Government to manage resources effectively and efficiently. Anything else would be wasteful even reckless. Any Government that cannot manage resources effectively and efficiently will soon be found out and punished by the electorate. 
It also goes without saying that a Government should formulate fiscal strategy with regard to monetary policy. By definition macroeconomic policy has to take into account the whole economy. There is something seriously wrong with a Government that does not see the bigger picture. In that respect we have heard other speakers tonight allude to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (Amending Primary Function of Bank) Amendment Bill which was brought to this House by the Rt Hon Winston Peters in terms of having a full review after 30 years of having the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act and seeing what other mechanisms the Reserve Bank could put in place to have our economy performing better in terms of the New Zealand dollar and the overvaluation of the New Zealand dollar. That bill was dismissed outright by this Government—absolutely dismissed outright by this Government. It did not want a bar of it. It did not even want to put it through to a select committee to consider looking after 30 years at a review of the Reserve Bank. This is absolute hypocrisy on the part of this Government. On the one hand it is not prepared to look at the Reserve Bank but on the other hand it wants to tinker around with the Public Finance Act. 
The third principle states that Governments should be “formulating fiscal strategy with regard to its likely impact on present and future generations;”. Well that in fact is an admission by the Government that it has failed to take these matters into account in the past. If it is having to put that into legislation now what was it doing before? We do not oppose the need for Governments to be explicit about any intergenerational trade-offs their fiscal policies may have. We are simply saying that it is unnecessary to write this into legislation. It is nothing more than another symbolic gesture from the National Government. 
The Public Finance Act also provides a legal framework for the financial management system of the New Zealand Government. It controls the manner in which Parliament keeps a watch on Government expenditure. This is fundamental for our democracy. It provides an essential check and balance which ensures transparency and accountability. We believe that the Act in its current present form is fit for purpose and does not need further amendment. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. 
This Government should have jobs as its priority such as the parliamentary inquiry into manufacturing. Again this Government dismisses what is a cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the manufacturing sector in this country which has seen 1300 companies go out of business in the 4 years that National has been in power and has seen more than 40000 jobs go out of the manufacturing sector while this Government has been in power. So while it tinkers around playing around with the Public Finance Act it ignores a very vital manufacturing inquiry that has been put forward by the Opposition parties to seriously look at how we can get manufacturing in this country back on its feet. 
We need policies to stimulate growth. This bill does nothing to get New Zealanders back into work. It does nothing to boost exports. Again as we have seen with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act situation this does nothing to address the seriously overvalued New Zealand dollar. 
It also does nothing to develop new industries or broaden the productive base of the economy. We had only to look at the  
Q+A  
session on the weekend and look at the suggested ideas that were put forward there. You know some of them were a little bit extreme but others were interesting concepts. But again what did we see from the Minister Judith Collins? Basically cold water poured on any good ideas that any New Zealanders who came forward put to her. Basically typical of this Government it was: “Let’s not listen to anybody else. Let’s just do what we want to do.” This bill is a reflection of that. Government members want to just tinker with an existing Act instead of getting on with new business new growth new opportunities growing the New Zealand economy and looking at real ways to improve the economy. 
New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. We think it is a waste of time. We think the Government should be getting on with some of the other 64 Government bills that are on the Order Paper that have greater impact on New Zealanders and on the New Zealand economy. This is only window dressing and another glossy attempt by National to just put nice words and nice rhetoric around a Government bill. But at the end of the day it is just plain tinkering around the edges. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I just want to take a short call. I think Nick Smith gave a very good speech outlining some of the fundamental arguments on what this bill the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill is about. But I am a little bit perplexed by the Opposition parties here tonight and especially first of all New Zealand First. It is a party based on principle I would imagine— 
Andrew Williams 
: We certainly are. 
DAVID BENNETT 
: They certainly are are they not Andrew. It is a principled party that will not support a bill that sets down the principles of how you would run the finances of New Zealand. That is something that just goes without mention. On the one hand members of the New Zealand First Party advocate principles but when it comes to the practice of actually implementing them in this House they run a mile. They just cannot live up to what they say. Then you have got the Labour and Green parties. It is very unusual for the Green Party to support a bill. This is all part of the Russel Norman approach of being seen as a moderate economic person. The Green Party finally is going to support a financial bill in this House but the Green Party and the Labour Party would not be able to satisfy this bill. Any of the policies that they have put up in the last year or so—there are not many of them but any of them that they have like their capital gains tax their emissions trading scheme reforms and their housing policies—would not satisfy this bill. The Labour and Green parties would not be able to satisfy it because they are not in the best interests of New Zealand’s position going forward. It is amazing that the Opposition parties are now supporting a bill that they would never be able to satisfy. Thank you. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker tena koe. I stand along with my colleagues to say that we will support this bill the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. Unfortunately it is a pale imitation of what it could have been. But I want to direct our attention to an irony—and hopefully it will enjoy some serious consideration at the select committee because it actually does raise some grave issues. There is an irony that part of the bill’s architecture is designed to strengthen the connection between monetary policy and fiscal policy yet this is a Government that has taken a very laissez-faire approach to the relevance of monetary policy in the operation of the economy. 
I will come back to monetary policy but before I go much further the bill talks about managing the impacts of current policy on future generations. Nowhere is that more relevant than in dealing with the difficulty of New Zealand and its roughly 4.5 million people and an ageing population. It is an ageing population that is going to create a further burden on the ability of future taxpayers to meet not only the costs of the pension but also the medical costs—and they will grow—associated with our ageing population. I bear no ill will to anyone over the age of 65. Indeed we need to cherish that part of our legacy—that we have got respect and a willingness to care for those who leave the workforce. But unless a bill of this nature impels the Government of the day to take tough fiscal stances in relation to such an issue it is a sop. Unless we deal with the age of eligibility and unless we deal with the long-term costs of our current pension policy then we are creating a set of fiscal constraints and fiscal difficulties that future generations are going to struggle with. 
Therein lies a further conundrum within this bill. The people we are asking to bear the cost of our ageing population are the very ones in many respects who have been starved by the current Government’s approach to human capital formation education training and vocational development. When we talk about the efficient and effective usage and allocation of resources the bill is totally silent on how this Government is using the levers of fiscal policy to invest in the current generation of school leavers—the current generation of as we might say in Te Ao Maori the rangatahi—to ensure that they have actually got educational attributes applicable applied skills to meet the costs of this ageing grey bomb. We cannot actually overstate the importance of that challenge which is why despite the fact that from a machinery point of view we look forward to dealing with this bill in the relevant select committee we are disappointed that actually the bill is silent on such large challenges as the one I have briefly adumbrated. 
Monetary policy is now a key battleground. Unfortunately up and down the maraes the halls the villages the shopping malls etc. of Aotearoa it does not rate very highly. But the reality is that those of us who seek to influence and transform the nature of the trajectory that the country is on are going to delve deeply into the operation of monetary policy. So although the bill correctly acknowledges that the Reserve Bank has exclusive authority there the bill avoids making an improvement that my colleagues David Cunliffe David Parker and Clayton Cosgrove have reminded me about and that is too much power being in the hands of one individual. I believe that the current co-leader of the Green Party is entitled as a parliamentarian to express his exasperation and his views about the probity the independence etc. of the current Governor of the Reserve Bank. It is not a view that I have about that individual. Mr Norman is entitled to do that but the deeper problem is not to do with the independence of the personality; it is to do with the principles upon which that person is operating and this bill is spectacularly silent on how the current monetary policy operation is imperilling our ability to grow. 
The Government whilst it makes this sop to I guess one of its coalition partners misses an amazing opportunity to point out that unless you change the parameters unless you change the writ that the Reserve Bank is required to work to then you are going to straitjacket the ability of fiscal policy to play a more meaningful role because it is going to be conquered by an unnecessarily high dollar and also a very narrow set of monetary applications. This bill either avoids that or reflects the fact that it is not part of the belief system of the current Government. Government members are entitled to run the economy in that fashion. It is a type of operation that I thoroughly disagree with that we do not endorse but as much as it pains us they currently have the democratic authority to do that. It is only a shame that employees will be deemed to be superfluous businesses will fail and exports will diminish whilst they keep going on this irrelevant and most egregious course of action. 
In relation to the impact of fiscal policy in key social areas the bill needs to ensure that it does not constitutionally condemn one Parliament to unwisely follow the fiscal priorities and the fiscal strategic areas of interest that the current Government is pursuing. Rest assured that come 2014 there will be a happier mix of policies and there will be a more vibrant mix of ideas that will comprise fiscal policy on this side of the House. Although this bill does codify a set of standards that a future Government might need to observe this bill must not defeat the key constitutional principle that in our version of the Westminster parliamentary democracy one Parliament cannot bind a future Parliament because woe betide that we should be condemned to follow on what Bill English and his colleagues are doing at the moment. We see record numbers of young people with no hope in relation to the job market. I do not need to state again how many of us have watched fellow Kiwis disappear over to Australia. A fiscal policy has to ensure that they find a reason to continue to commit to their own country. They will do that if firms invest communities are vibrant and people have an economic purpose for wanting to continue to give to their own country and find a little bit of sunshine create a family and build a better place for their children. 
 This bill says nothing about that. All this bill really does is regurgitate a whole bunch of things that Treasury does on a regular basis. Much of it is arid and likely to be of no interest to the average voter. At one level it is facile but it does remind us that the stewards of the nation in terms of fiscal policy do need to have a set of transparent standards. But that fiscal policy has to be relevant to the economic and social challenges of the time. The current fiscal policy is not driving us in the wrong direction; it is driving our people out of New Zealand. It is driving out the very young men and women who are as the Aussies would call it tradies—those with valuable skills who are disappearing over there—whilst at the same time those who are left behind and want to acquire valuable skills are being starved out of opportunity and a place in our various tertiary institutions. 
Unfortunately the bill says nothing about that. The bill however does codify a set of principles and they flow in a direction that the majority of us see as being sensible. It is disappointing only that this bill is totally silent on the issues that count. However we look forward to dealing with the bill and those redoubtable souls who might find time to come and give us their views about this bill in the future. Thank you very much. 
MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill at its first reading. This is a piece of legislation of course that is entirely consistent with this Government’s philosophy. We are all about responsibly managing the Government’s finances. It is one of our main priorities along with ensuring that the Crown’s resources are managed more responsibly which are alien concepts to the Opposition benches. 
We have outlined already the three main new principles. The Minister of Finance set them out at the outset of this debate and I will not go over those again. I agree with the other speakers that although the Public Finance Act 1989 has served us well as a nation for more than two decades now—the public reporting and transparency side of it—we do need to take up the lessons from the global financial crisis and this bill gives us further scope to make improvements. I certainly believe unlike the Opposition forces that the taxpayers in New Zealand deserve better. They need a decent report card to accurately measure what is going on with Government expenditure they want predictability and stability and they want efficiency and fairness in the tax rates. I think that our Government’s fiscal performance is consistent with its strategy but this is a piece of legislation that will ensure that other Governments in the future adhere to these principles of fairness. 
I commend this piece of legislation for all the reasons that have been outlined. I think it is important that we formulate a fiscal strategy that does recognise the likely impact on current and future generations. It is for this longer view this broader vision that cannot possibly be appreciated by the narrow purview of the opposing forces. This is the kind of long-breadth vision that National under John Key aspires to and this is a perfect piece of legislation. I commend the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill to the House. Thank you very much. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The Hon David Cunliffe—5 minutes. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill and to concur with colleagues that the Labour Opposition will be supporting the bill to go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. But the select committee will have quite a job to do because there are a number of interesting kinks in this draft that may well need ironing out. In my remarks tonight I propose to briefly summarise what is in the bill what is not in the bill what it will not do and what are some potential fish-hooks that the select committee may wish to consider. 
In line with colleagues I can say to the House that the Labour Opposition would most definitely have opposed any version of this bill that contained a mandatory or rigid fiscal cap. The reason for that is quite simple. If it were set at a level where it actually had some practical effect—that is it was able to bite against fiscal policy in the future—then it would create an ideological barrier to a potentially appropriate response to circumstances that could not be foreseen at the time of writing. Who in 2004 knew that the global financial crisis was going to happen in 2008? And who knew that the Christchurch earthquakes were going to happen before they did? Christchurch was not even considered a high-risk zone yet that is a $30 billion problem which the Government has quite rightly had to invest significant fiscal resource in solving. So the fiscal cap was very bad policy. Even Peter Dunne described it as “an unnecessary right-wing agenda” which the National Party had introduced simply pertaining to its coalition agreement. Mr Dunne in a flash of sanity and courage said he would not vote for the bill. Hence the cap is no more and good job too. 
We would also have opposed some of the language in earlier drafts of this bill. We do appreciate that the Minister did through his officials consult with the Labour Opposition and that there has been serious discussion about the content of the draft and we wish to acknowledge that. We think the current draft is much better than the early draft and I thank officials for their role. The early draft flew in the face of precedent in the UK and in Australia and contained language that would have biased the Act towards a very fiscally conservative—an unduly fiscally conservative—standpoint rather than having the degree of balance that the current draft has. We think it is a substantial improvement. That is not to say that the select committee upon taking submissions might not further improve it. 
So what is new in the bill? There are three new principles espoused for what fiscal responsibility should mean to any Government—and I mean any Government because this is a long-term piece of legislation that will guide and in fact bind both sides of the House. The first principle is that fiscal policy must have regard to monetary policy. As previous speakers have said who can argue? It is implicit anyway and it is one of the key reasons why the Labour Party has supported a capital gains tax—that is to take some of the heat out of the already re-exuberant property roller coaster and thus to take some pressure off interest rates and to allow the Reserve Bank to govern for a more appropriate nationwide cross-sectoral balance of stimulus and retrenchment. 
But beware an auto-pilot response because there are some on the far right of politics who say that whenever you cut Government expenditure GDP will increase. President Reagan imported that argument from a Professor Laffer. It was known as the Laffer curve. The monetary policy response to a tight fiscal stance would be so wonderful that cutting Government expenditure would indeed grow the economy. The problem is the Laffer curve never worked. There was no evidence in practice. 
To the second point to formulate fiscal strategy with regard to the likely impact on present and future generations we say “Exactly.” That is why we have championed the sustainability of superannuation and an aggressive long-term savings plan similar to Australia’s. 
So what if those are the three new principles are the fish-hooks? The first one is section 26G(1)(a) of the Public Finance Act. It says: “reduce total debt to prudent levels so as to provide a buffer …” and until you have done that you have to spend less than you take in taxes. Here is the problem: total debt is 85 percent private debt and only 15 percent public debt. So what this provision says is that until we get private debt down the Government has to keep cutting the fiscal spend. That is simply illogical and I commend that to the select committee—I am getting the time signal here. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Yes time is up. 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe. I rise to speak on the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill on behalf of the Green Party. As my colleague Dr Russel Norman said earlier the Green Party will be supporting this bill. He has outlined a number of measures in the bill that the Green Party strongly agrees with—namely the requirements for greater transparency of Government. These measures should broaden Government fiscal accountability to the public and require it to explicitly lay out a long-term plan and what the impact of that long-term plan will be on future generations. 
We received a briefing from Treasury on this bill some months ago. It is interesting to note that in the graph given at the briefing you could see quite clearly that during the last Labour Government from 1999 till 2008 core Crown net debt was steadily decreasing. Although we had our differences with the last Labour Government—of course we were not a part of that Government and it could have done some smarter things like introducing a capital gains tax or spending money more intelligently on transport infrastructure—one thing it did well was reduce core Crown net debt. 
Although previous National speakers have said that this bill as it is about fiscal responsibility is directly in line with their philosophy I have to say that what is becoming increasingly clear is that although their rhetoric and slogans are about fiscal responsibility their actual policies are the exact opposite and you could see that in the briefing from Treasury. Core Crown net debt is increasing even as essential social services are being cut and that is fiscally irresponsible. I mean one can blame the global financial crisis but the reality is that there are more responsible ways to respond to it that would both have a softer impact on the economy and protect the most vulnerable in our society. When the National Government came to power for example it spent billions on tax cuts to high-income earners and now it is looking to do things like cut financial support for tertiary students. So even though cutting that tertiary support for fourth and fifth year students does not make much of a big difference to Crown debt it does make a huge difference to New Zealanders who are out there trying to get educated and who are going to be massive contributors to our economy in the future. 
That is an example of a transfer of wealth where this Government has been extremely irresponsible. It is giving money to top income earners even though as my colleague the Hon David Cunliffe was explaining there is really no evidence to support the ideology that for example cutting tax rates increases economic productivity. In fact if you look around across the world the most comprehensive research shows quite clearly that there is no correlation between top tax rates and economic productivity. In fact by cutting top tax rates although you will not increase economic productivity you will increase economic inequality and that does have a definite impact on economic sustainability in the long term. 
There is one thing that I do not think is clear in this bill and that is how public-private partnerships will be accounted for. I think that is an interesting question because although the Government says that it is for increasing—and this bill will purportedly increase—the transparency around the Government’s spending in fact what we can see right now is that the Government is looking for ways to keep debt off the books. One of the ways it is doing this is by getting us into long-term contracts or public-private partnerships for some big infrastructure projects—infrastructure projects like Transmission Gully which does not have a good business case and will not increase economic productivity even though the Government says that it would like to increase economic productivity. You would have to be extremely naive or ignorant to believe that duplicating or replacing an existing road link was going to have any impact on economic productivity. So the Government is getting us into long-term financial commitments that will potentially not be recorded as debt but will in actuality require repayments from future generations of New Zealanders for projects that are white elephants. 
So we support this bill but we hope that it will bring greater transparency to some of the Government’s extremely irresponsible infrastructure investments. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 I am pleased to take the last call on this bill the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill. I enjoyed the contributions from the House today. This bill does enjoy wide support and for good reason. The Hon Shane Jones of course always makes a great contribution in the House not necessarily because it makes too much sense but because it sounds so good when he talks. He is really the sort of Barack Obama of the New Zealand Parliament in so many ways is he not? If he is tuning in now I am sure his chest is puffing broadly within his jacket. 
On monetary policy it is rather ironic that last night on TV3 there was a showcase of the stand-off between the Labour Party and the Green Party in some potential coalition of the left and the extreme left and the three-way play-off for the finance Minister’s role between David Parker David Cunliffe and Russel Norman. I know whom I would put my money on. But the interesting line-up I thought was Russel Norman—for him it would be the finance Minister’s job; for David Shearer it definitely would not be—finance; Metiria Turei social development; Kevin Hague health—a good guy—Gareth Hughes energy which would be interesting; and Catherine Delahunty taking out the prize for education. I am sure that would have had some fairly interesting impacts with viewers at home. 
This is exactly why this bill is so important. Monetary policy good common-sense policy is so important to the future financial condition of this country. This bill makes further improvement to the Public Finance Act 1989 and our having learnt many lessons from the global financial crisis and still seeing that playing out particularly in Europe it is very much a salient bill. It strengthens fiscal responsibility and encourages greater transparency in three areas: fiscal and monetary policy impacts of the current policy on future generations and managing resources efficiently and effectively. This bill enjoys wide support. I certainly am happy to commend it to the House. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Public Finance (Fiscal Responsibility) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 112 
New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Maori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 8 
New Zealand First 7; Mana 1. 
Bill read a first time. 
Bill referred to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. 
Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill 
First Reading 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill be now read a first time. 
 I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. 
There has been a growing criticism of criminal procedure in New Zealand in the last few decades. It has been described as an impenetrable maze. It has been plagued by excessive delays and unnecessary hearings and costs have been mounting. The Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and its 14 associated amendment Acts which passed in October last year modernised and simplified criminal procedure. In fact they represented the biggest reform in the modernisation of criminal justice procedure in nearly two generations. These Acts consolidated criminal procedure law and introduced a comprehensive package of reforms to make the criminal justice system more transparent understandable and efficient. The reforms are expected to result in over 31000 fewer court events per year. It is estimated that they will free up about 10000 court sitting hours each year. The reforms have the potential to take up to 9 weeks off the average time of cases that go to jury trial. The overall reforms have the potential to increase the efficiency of the courts to the value of about $15 million over a 10-year period. 
A small number of provisions including those relating to the name suppression and sentence indication provisions came into effect in March 2012. However the majority of the legislation will commence in July 2013. 
Since the enactment several technical issues have been identified in the Criminal Procedure Act and a small number of other Acts. Some may criticise the Government for needing to introduce this legislation but as members will know the bill giving rise to the Criminal Procedure Act and its associated Acts was complex and well over 500 pages in length. There is a high degree of interrelationship between the relevant legislation. Given the sheer scale and scope of the legislation some of the minor errors although regrettable are unsurprising. Further the bill was amended at the select committee and again at the Committee of the whole House to address concerns raised about aspects of the reforms. 
Some resulting minor cross-referencing and other technical deficiencies have been identified since enactment. The lead-in time from enactment of this legislation to its full commencement has provided for training and systems changes to implement the new criminal procedures and it is in that context that the need for a number of these technical fixes has been identified. The amendments in this bill are of such a technical nature that they would normally be suitable for inclusion in a Statutes Amendment Bill. However as the remainder of the 2011 criminal procedure legislation is intended to commence on 1 July 2013 these amendments must be in place by that date. This year’s stand-alone bill is not guaranteed to be enacted by that date which necessitates this stand-alone bill. 
The amendments fall largely into six categories. First there are some purely technical drafting and cross-referencing errors in the Act for example incorrect section references. Second in a small number of instances the bill enhances certain procedural provisions to ensure that they will be fully implemented and will operate as intended. Examples include the clause 6 amendment relating to the period to file a summons and the clause 7 amendments relating to the ability of a prosecutor to join charges without the court’s leave. Third the regulation-making powers in the Criminal Procedure Act are extended so that terminology and procedures in other legislation can be aligned with those of the Criminal Procedure Act by regulations. This will reduce the need for the House to devote its time to unnecessarily considering minor technical amendments. Fourth there are amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act to give effect to the intent that community magistrates have jurisdiction to receive guilty pleas for certain offences for which they will have sentencing jurisdiction. Fifth other legislation will be amended to align with the terminology and procedures of the Criminal Procedure Act. 
Finally a small number of enactments are amended to replace references to the term “crime” where that is required. Currently “crime” is defined in the Crimes Act 1961 as an offence where an offender is proceeded against by indictment. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Oh soft on the definition of crime. 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: Soft on crime that is right. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: No soft on the definition of crime. 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: Soft on crime and the definitions of crime—let us put it that way. The Criminal Procedure Act replaces indictments with charging documents— 
Charles Chauvel 
: Careful Judith is listening from afar. 
Hon CHESTER BORROWS 
: —she is away—and offences are categorised by penalty level rather than by how they are proceeded against. Accordingly upon commencement the definition of a crime will be repealed—the Greens will vote for it no doubt. Several Acts contain references to a crime—for example the Crimes Act 1961. It is an offence without lawful authority or excuse to have one’s face covered or disguised with intent to commit a crime. The bill makes a small number of amendments to a few Acts to replace the term “crime” with a reference to the most appropriate offence type in the context of each Act. In the case of a person having their face covered or being disguised the reference to a crime is replaced with a reference to an imprisonable offence. This will align with a change already made to the burglary offence in the criminal procedure reforms. 
This bill is not contentious. It is a technical non-controversial piece of legislation. It will clarify and give full effect to legislation that this House has already approved. It will ensure that the largest criminal procedure reforms in 50 years can be implemented effectively and coherently and that the benefits predicted are fully realised. The amendments will enhance operational efficiency. This legislation will provide greater clarity for defence counsel prosecutors and the judiciary who will be required to apply the legislation. On that basis I expect the bill will receive wide support from all parties and I commend the bill to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Associate Minister of Justice consulted the Opposition about the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill and we indicated on the basis of his undertaking that it would contain only technical amendments in the nature of a statutes amendment - type provision that we would support the legislation and we will do so. 
May I just take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the history of the legislation to which this amendment bill relates because that is an approach to criminal justice that we have attempted to show in good faith in this Parliament and in the last Parliament also. The Minister referred to the history of the substantive legislation the Criminal Procedure Act and he made reference to the amendments that had been made in the select committee—he will remember those well because he chaired that select committee—but also in the Committee of the whole House. It is at the Committee of the whole House that I think the House needs to just remind itself of what was done with this legislation because I think there are some lessons and if Government members want to learn them they can so that we can avoid this sort of thing happening again and again where we have to come back and repair legislation that was passed within only the last 12 months. 
The history that I refer to is this. The original legislation was a big reform to criminal procedure. I am a little unsure of the grandiose claim that it is the largest reform to criminal procedure in 50 years but I do not blame the Minister for making that claim—I see he was reading his notes and I have heard his predecessors make that claim. It certainly was though a major reform and members of the Opposition agreed in principle that we could do better in terms of the processes of our criminal courts. 
Where we were concerned was with the very sweeping nature of the original substantive reform proposals. In particular we were worried about the restrictions on the right to trial by jury and also to alterations to the presumption of innocence where essentially the original legislation would have required the defence to cooperate with the prosecution in a way that would offend that principle. I think it is instructive to remember that the Law Society was on board with those concerns as was much of the legal profession and many of the civil rights groups and eventually the opposition to the measure because of those particular proposals grew so great that the Minister of Justice at the time Simon Power lost his majority in the House as to the measure progressing. That was because the ACT Party in particular which was better represented in the previous Parliament—at least as far as numbers are concerned—withdrew its support for the legislation. It was concerned about the jury trial and presumption of innocence erosions in particular. I want to pay tribute to Rodney Hide for the way in which he dealt with the matter. Once he realised the extent of the concerns and the erosion of those fundamental liberties that the original bill would represent he did withdraw that party’s support and that did force the Minister to the negotiating table. 
As a result of that negotiation the changes that were mentioned by the Associate Minister of Justice were made in the Committee of the whole House. They followed on from some changes in the select committee process as well. 
But if we had had a process from the beginning where the Government had been willing to sit down and say: “Look this is the aim here. We want to reform criminal procedure. The current procedures are clumsy and we think we can do better.” we would have cooperated. We would have talked about the principles we could have avoided the excesses of the original bill the Minister would not have lost his majority midway through the process and we probably would not be in the position that we are in now. 
I am not saying this because I like to get up and say: “I told you so.” I am saying it because I think that if we do want to achieve some certainty in justice policy generally and in criminal justice policy in particular then we ought to try to treat this legislation as a bit of a learning exercise. It was not as if this was not foreseeable. I want to read out to the House what the president of the Law Society said to the Justice and Electoral Committee when the Associate Minister of Justice was its chair at the time it was considering the substantive legislation. He said first: “Cross-party agreement is needed on criminal justice instead of the continued politicisation of a matter that requires coherent cross-party agreement.” He went on to predict that the bill as introduced would last only around a year before Parliament would be required to review it again. So it was critical in his view that we give careful consideration to a very important piece of legislation and actually provide certainty going forward. That is pretty instructive when you think about the time that amending legislation of this nature requires to be devoted to it. 
This is not a matter where there is particularly significant political disagreement. Speeding up the criminal process while maintaining basic human rights is not something that I think is taken issue with across the House but because the Minister of Justice at the time was just determined to pursue his agenda and did so until the very last moment when he lost political support we are now in the position where the hasty amendments that had to be made as a result are now having to be repaired. 
If we are trying to learn some lessons from this then we should also think about another thing that the president of the Law Society said at the time that he made his submission and that is that we have got this process round the wrong way. We are dealing with procedure which sits in the middle of any sort of ideal reform process not at the start. There are two substantive Acts of Parliament the Crimes Act 1961 and the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 that are ancient. They have been amended many times. They need re-enactment not only because they are a minefield to try to read and construe but because they are out of date with contemporary social conditions. Anyone would think that if a criminal law reform project were being pursued in good faith if it were to live up to the claim to be the greatest reform for 50 years a Government might actually start with the substantive legislation rather than leaving Acts that are over 60 years or 70 years in vintage on the book without reform. 
They might even think about looking at the drivers of crime on a non-partisan basis. That was an invitation that my colleague and friend Lianne Dalziel made to the previous Minister of Justice particularly in respect of alcohol law reform to no avail. She received no positive response to that and if we want to consider the whirlwind that is being reaped as a result of that we need look only as far as the botched alcohol law reform exercise that this Parliament is scheduled to complete in the next 4 sitting days. 
But as I said the Law Society said this: start with the drivers of crime deal with the substantive statute and then you might be able to get coherently and rationally to criminal procedure issues. You might even then look at the evidence rules and the other rules of court that are applied. But for some reason we had this process start right in the middle on the procedural points. We had as I described earlier the political fiasco that resulted when the Minister was not able to push through the erosion of fundamental rights that he wanted to achieve and the resulting amendments which were not made in a coherent fashion which bring us back to the position that we are in tonight where we are having to do a rushed fix-up job in Parliament now. 
This approach is not limited in the justice field to criminal procedure. I mentioned alcohol law reform. I could talk about legal services and legal aid where the Opposition has always accepted that efficiencies and rationalisation should be made not on the basis of fiat not on the basis of the Minister of Justice telling the profession and consumers of legal services that she knows best but actually through sitting down and negotiating changes. We had the Family Court reform legislation read a first time today and that is another classic example of a position where the family law practitioners came up with efficiencies and a plan to reduce costs in the Family Court. They were simply ignored by the Minister who thought and still thinks that she knows better because she has the advice from the officials that she seems determined to bulldoze through. 
This is not a coherent way to run justice policy and if the Government continues this way we will simply be back here again dealing with these fix-up jobs ad infinitum. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I thank the member who has just resumed his seat Charles Chauvel for that historical discourse and in particular for his confirmation that the Labour Party will be supporting this bill the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. I also thank the Associate Minister of Justice for his very comprehensive overview of the purposes of the legislation. I have to say that I think he has left one or two of his colleagues who will be speaking later in this debate wondering just how much material is left for a fresh and exciting angle but I am sure that they will rise to the challenge when the moment comes. 
My friend and former colleague Paul Quinn once memorably thundered in this House: “Justice denied is justice not done.” Well I have to say that it is very hard to argue with the logic of that but I think the expression he was looking for was: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” And of course that wonderful “Quinnism” which I and so many of us still wish we could occasionally enjoy sprang to mind tonight as I was looking at the purposes of this bill because it is about ensuring the timely delivery of justice and all jokes aside we know that that is a very important vital feature of an effective and fair justice system. 
There are many expected benefits to this particular measure and therefore I am pleased as the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee to say that even though we have a very busy agenda over the next few months we will do our best to work through this as expeditiously as possible. I do take on board the point the Minister has made which is that although this might ordinarily be more appropriately dealt with through a Statutes Amendment Bill in fact there is a pressing need to get on with it. We will be doing our level best to ensure that that is possible and I do hope that the cooperative spirit that we have had already indicated from Labour members will be indicated by others. 
So at this point I just want to note that the changes in this bill do form another important part of the very significant pattern of justice initiatives that this busy National-led Government has been working on. We are determined to improve the criminal justice system. In particular we have been working very firmly to put victims at the heart of the process and their families to ensure that they get a much better deal under our judicial system. These are all important components of it. I look forward to working on the bill. I commend it to the House. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 My colleague Charles Chauvel has highlighted I think one of the primary lessons that we need to learn from the fact that this legislation the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill is in front of the House so soon after the original legislation was passed. If we are to avoid bringing forward amending legislation such as this to correct what could have been anticipated at the time and if we are also to avoid the now ubiquitous unintended consequences of legislation once passed then we could do much by adopting a much more collaborative approach around these issues. I think that is what the Law Society was asking of us saying that a cross-party agreement really is needed on criminal justice. Instead of politicising issues we need to be looking for coherent policy where we can achieve that. I think that that is actually the approach that we have adopted on this side of the House and both in Government and in Opposition. I just want to reflect a little on where we have missed the opportunity of doing so because a cross-party accord on these matters has a lot to commend it but it is actually quite challenging I think in the environment that we find ourselves in when we are dealing with controversial issues. 
Taking it back a step when I was the Minister of Commerce I consulted with the Opposition spokesperson on commerce who just happened to be the former Minister of Justice the Hon Simon Power. We worked together on a relatively collaboratively basis on issues that we knew were going to transcend electoral cycles and we felt that it was important that we were able to get as much cross-party accord on those issues as we possibly could. I think on commerce issues everyone would agree that they were relatively non-controversial that they were not the sort of things that excited passions and that people did not come down to the House and table-thump and do that sort of emotional attention-seeking behaviour that we sometimes see in this House—I cannot imagine why. But when I became the chair of the select committee I realised that there was a whole different relationship that you have to have with a Minister when you are an Opposition spokesperson and the chair of the select committee. It is quite a different relationship. I actually learnt a lot from having that role. I think maybe it was just the dynamics of having that role in that particular relationship on a relatively non-controversial area such as commerce and where I think everyone would agree there was a relatively seamless transition from one Government to the other from one Minister to the other and indeed from one select committee to the other. I think that we all respected each other’s roles and were able to gain a lot from that. 
We do not do that in the Justice and Electoral Committee. I think the reason that we do not do that in the Justice and Electoral Committee is that there are controversial elements that sit around things relating to criminal procedure—not so much the procedure but of course the “tough on crime” approach that one has to address as a politician as constituents obviously are wanting to hear from Governments what they are going to do to reduce crime. But I also think that this has been a really salutary lesson to all of us. If we do not actually find a way of achieving that kind of cross-party consensus on these kinds of issues then we do end up in a situation where we have to take up the time of the House and introduce amending legislation such as this. 
What I found interesting about this particular piece of legislation is that it could have been included within a Statutes Amendment Bill such is its lack of controversy. It is that straightforward that we could have put it in a Statutes Amendment Bill. But the reason that it is not in a Statutes Amendment Bill is that there is no guarantee that the Statutes Amendment Bill would be enacted by the date that it is required to be enacted by in order for this legislation to come into effect. Well I think we really do have to take stock of what that actually means. It means that we have missed a golden opportunity to sit down together and work collaboratively to find a solution to the problem rather than having to bring about individual legislation. I think that what we have ended up with is that sometimes we end up in this House debating legislation and then voting to support legislation because of the impact that we think our opposition to it would have rather than having a constructive debate about what the actual legislation should be. 
I just do want to mention the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act which is in place at the moment. When we passed that legislation I believe that we voted for it on our side of the House in good faith. I believe now that it is being implemented in a completely inappropriate manner. It is completely out of line. We are no longer in an emergency response situation. We no longer need urgent powers. It is 2 years since the first earthquake and nothing really major is happening in terms of what is happening in Christchurch. But we voted for that legislation because we were placed I believe under considerable pressure both within the House and outside the House in order to support the Government’s stated intention of facilitating the recovery. Everyone wants to facilitate the recovery in Christchurch but what we have ended up with is legislation that is now being used to browbeat people into accepting terms and conditions for the enforced sale of their properties which they really really have no alternative but to accept. That is unacceptable. So we have ended up in almost a breach of human rights situation which we would have ended up in if we had accepted the original legislation that this bill is predicated on as well. 
I just think that sometimes we need to have as a House the capacity to step back take stock. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act was legislation that was rammed through this House under urgency. I think that if we do that and the legislation has that kind of impact or potential impact beyond an emergency situation I believe we have to as a matter of urgent responsibility have a review period so that we can decide as a Parliament whether we reinstate the legislation after a particular period of time. I am deeply unhappy that that legislation sits there for 5 years without any opportunity to review the impact of what are very Draconian powers. At least in this instance the Government has taken the initiative to amend the legislation ahead of its taking effect. That is the appropriate thing to do. But I believe that the House should take warning from what we have had to confront with this particular legislation and think of it in the context of other legislation where it could actually be used in a much more appropriate manner. On that basis we are perfectly happy to support this to the select committee and we look forward to its early passage. 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. Because this is a very non-controversial bill that makes a number of technical amendments and minor fixes we have no problem supporting this legislation at its first reading. But I would like to in this speech raise two concerns. 
When the initial Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill came up in the last term of Parliament the Green Party had serious concerns about that bill in particular because it reduced access to jury trials in our view. What we have seen I think in the justice area from this Government is a pattern of restricting access to justice. Some of that was through the changes to the Family Court and the changes to legal aid. There is a definite pattern on the part of this Government to trade off core principles like fairness for cost cutting or efficiency. It is the Green Party’s view that it is simply not possible to trade off a core principle of democracy—fairness access to justice—for the sake of efficiency. It is simply not possible. 
Secondly and which was highlighted by previous speakers in particular Charles Chauvel is the poor process that has been adopted by this Government time and time again with legislation. What we have here is a bill that needs to be passed quite quickly in order to make a large number of technical fixes. Of course it is quite possible that we would not be in the position of having to take up the time of the House on something so uncontroversial and non-substantive if there had been a good process adopted in the beginning. 
Of course that is something that we have seen time and time again. One thing that has been great this year is we have not seen as much urgency as was applied in the last term of Government. But this idea that somehow you can take a heavy-handed single-minded approach—a sort of “our way or the highway; we are going to rush in and impose our view and not take the time to consult properly and to work collaboratively with members across the House” approach—actually does not save time. It does not result in better outcomes. It results in the time of the House being taken up for non-substantive legislation. 
Those would be the two concerns that I would like to highlight in speaking to this bill. The Green Party does not have any objection to the technical fixes but we are certainly concerned about the pattern of poor law-making and of restricting access to justice that we consistently see from this National Government. Thank you. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 It is a huge pleasure to take a brief call on this the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. I want to acknowledge the support from across the House on this bill. It was Earl Warren who said that it is “the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.” Although I would not want to gainsay the eminent jurist I believe we cannot dismiss form of law in such a cavalier fashion. Justice must be delivered in an efficient and a timely manner. These integrated sets of reforms will address significant problems with current criminal procedure. 
Criticisms of criminal procedure over the past 20 years can be summarised under four broad headings. The first of these is excessive delay. For example the median time to dispose of a High Court jury trial is around 16 months—an increase of approximately 5 months in the past 5 years. Another problem is excessive complexity. The main laws for criminal procedure the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 and Parts 12 and 13 of the Crimes Act 1961 have been amended numerous times over 50 years resulting as the Associate Minister of Justice said in an impenetrable maze for most non-lawyers. 
Outdated legislative framework is another problem. The current provisions were drafted on the assumption of a paper-based system creating barriers to the use of modern technology. Another problem of course is excessive cost. It is estimated that there are approximately 43000 unnecessary court appearances a year in the criminal jurisdiction and more than two-thirds of court cases that reach a defended hearing fail to proceed on the day. 
Broadly speaking these changes will lead to an estimated 37000 fewer court events 200 to 450 fewer jury trials a 6 to 9-week reduction in the average time to complete a jury trial and potentially millions of dollars of savings. I commend this bill to the House. 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. It is not one of those earth-shaking pieces of legislation that will mark the 50th Parliament nor is it a bill that the Associate Minister of Justice will be remembered for and nor is it a bill that the National Government will be hanging its reputation on. Indeed it is hanging itself perfectly well in a number of other ways. 
The nature of the amendments this bill makes to various Acts is largely technical arising from the passing of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. The amendments fall into four categories: firstly a number of cross-referencing and other minor technical fixes which form the bulk of the bill and are straightforward; secondly amendments to ensure the procedures and processes under the 2011 Act can be fully implemented to operate as intended which also appear to me to be perfectly straightforward; and thirdly there are references to crime in several statutes that need to be amended due to the repeal of the definition of “crime” in the Crimes Act 1961. Examples are clause 4 which amends section 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and concerns interpretation. The amendment adds a definition of “imprisonable offence”. Clause 32 amends section 11 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 which concerns the theft of controlled drugs. The amendments there replace “crime” with “offence”. Clause 34 which amends section 28 of the Summary Offences Act 1981 concerns being found in a public place preparing to commit a crime. The amendments again replace “crime” with “imprisonable offence”. So it is all pretty simple straightforward stuff. 
The fourth category of amendments gives community magistrates jurisdiction to receive guilty pleas for certain category 2 offences being those in respect of which community magistrates have sentencing jurisdiction. The opportunity is also taken to clarify with greater specificity other aspects of community magistrates’ jurisdiction. Those are also sensible amendments. And there are powers as we have heard to use expanded regulating powers for all of these sorts of purposes. 
The only substantial change that I can see appears to be in clause 21 which amends section 8 of the Crimes Act 1961. This concerns jurisdiction in respect of crimes on ships or aircraft beyond New Zealand. The amendments replace section 8(2) with two provisions. The first provides that if a person commits a criminal act on a New Zealand ship or aircraft to which section 8 applies and that act or omission would if it occurred within New Zealand be an offence punishable by imprisonment for life or by 2 years’ imprisonment or more then the person is liable on conviction as if the act or omission occurred in New Zealand. 
I have no problem with that but the second provision provides that if any proceedings are taken against a foreign citizen by virtue of jurisdiction conferred by section 8 in relation to a crime on a New Zealand ship or aircraft it is a defence to prove that the act or omission would not have been an offence under the law of the country of which the person charged was a national or citizen at the time of the act or omission if it had occurred in that country. There is no explanation given as to why this apparently new defence is to be allowed. Perhaps the Minister could advise us about that because as far as I could see it would simply mean that a New Zealand citizen committing a crime under New Zealand law on a New Zealand ship or aircraft would be liable for prosecution but a foreign citizen committing the same crime would have a complete defence if he or she could show that it is not a crime under his or her country’s law. Why would that defence be allowed for an offence on a New Zealand ship or aircraft? It seems to me to be inappropriate for New Zealand citizens and foreign citizens on New Zealand ships and aircraft to be treated so differently. Presumably there is a good reason but I would like to hear an explanation of it. 
With that reservation New Zealand First will support the bill which as I have already said is largely technical in nature and simply makes sensible and practical changes in relation to the operation of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call on the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill tonight. I am going to take just a very brief call. Obviously this bill has got the support of all the parties in the House. There are very straightforward amendments in this bill. 
We have had Charles Chauvel speak about the history. We have had people talk about criticisms of the current criminal procedures. We have discussed tonight the four categories of the amendments. We have also discussed the main provisions in the bill. This is a very simple and straightforward bill. 
The previous speaker Denis O’Rourke talked about maritime issues and we will debate those in the Justice and Electoral Committee I am sure. And I am sure we will be inundated with hundreds of submissions on that point you have just raised. The bill will come back to the select committee we will have a discussion around it and I am sure we will get that sorted out for you and get some clarification for you around those issues you raised. 
It is my pleasure to support this bill in the House tonight. Thank you. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 As previous Labour speakers have indicated we will be supporting this piece of legislation the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. It is a small technical bill. It is not controversial. It is not contentious. It does remedy technical deficiencies in the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill which went through just last year. I tend to agree with the Minister who introduced it Chester Borrows. We are not going to make a big deal about those deficiencies. It was a substantial bill. It was 520 pages. Sometimes Governments get those things wrong or draftspeople get those things wrong. 
But what I want to say is that this is also a bill that does not address some of the huge problems that we are seeing in criminal justice procedure at the present time. This bill for example does nothing to remedy the disastrous situation in Auckland with the new system of processing Family Court cases. That system is a system that lawyers and judges alike have said is an absolute shambles. The quote in the media was that affidavits were going missing judges were not being given complete files there were delays of several months in hearing dates sealed orders were not being sent and emails and voice messages were going unanswered. That—as Mr Borrows knows well because he was the Minister in charge of that failed experiment—has proven to be an absolute disaster. There is nothing in this bill that remedies that mess which is a mess of the Minister’s and the Government’s own making. 
Sadly there is nothing in this bill that remedies another serious problem that the Minister alluded to before about justice delayed being justice denied. The Minister will know that there is a backlog of 900 jury court cases in Auckland—900. I want to know from the Minister when he is going to bring in a piece of substantive legislation or put the resources in or make the changes necessary to address that other disaster in Auckland. So we have got a disaster in the Family Court system where procedures simply are not working because the Government has botched it. We have got a disaster in a growing backlog of jury cases in Auckland where we are denying justice. 
We had a near-disaster caused by the Government introducing legal aid legislation that would have stripped the system completely of equity. Because the other way of denying justice is not simply delaying it Minister; it is making justice inaccessible to people because of a user-pays system. The Minister knows that the threshold level for income that the Government was intending to introduce would have stripped access to justice from a whole cross-section of New Zealanders. New Zealanders regardless of whether they are rich or poor are entitled to have access to the justice system. What sort of justice system is it that is based on ability to pay? Sadly in an earlier bill today we saw more of that coming in with a proposed $1000 fee for people to have access to family dispute resolution processes. That access used to be free. It will not be free now. 
So we have this little piece of legislation it does make technical amendments but it leaves untouched the disaster that is happening across our justice system in each of the four areas that I have just talked about. 
I want to pick up some of the points that Lianne Dalziel made because I thought they were well made and one is that in a proper Parliament justice issues should be handled wherever possible in a bipartisan way. They should be evidence-driven. They should be well researched. Changes being made should be properly trialled. But sadly once again earlier this afternoon we saw a piece of legislation that did none of those things—that did none of those things. I think the Law Society—the President of the Law Society Jonathan Temm—was right in saying it is incumbent upon Parliament to pick up these issues and work to try to find a resolution to problems that are afflicting our justice system rather than being dog whistle as too much of the legislation in this Parliament has been. It has not been actually about improving the justice system. It has been about trying to scratch an electoral itch appealing to a concern in the community and that is inherently dishonest because what the Government is doing is pretending to implement a solution quite cynically that it knows will not be a solution to the problem at all. That leaves the safety and the well-being of New Zealanders at risk. 
The other part of what the Government has done wrong is that too often it has rushed stuff through. I cannot say that about the original criminal procedure legislation. That actually had its origins under Labour in 2007 in the simplification project. It was a good concept. We needed to make the procedure more efficient. We needed to make it more effective. We worked on that. The legislation was ultimately carried through by the National Government but even then it brought in things that were inherently controversial and unacceptable. We all wanted a more efficient system but too much in terms of longstanding human rights was under threat in the original criminal procedure legislation. 
I have got to pay tribute to Charles Chauvel and what the Labour Opposition did in bringing in a minority report that was persuasive to other members of the Opposition but also persuasive to the Government’s support parties the Maori Party and the ACT Party. The Government had to reverse some of the controversial measures that it was putting up there. It had to bring back the threshold for a jury trial for example from the 3 years that it was proposing to 2 years. It had to reverse its proposal that a person could be tried in their absence. God since the Magna Carta that has not been allowed anywhere else in the world and this Government was trying to do it. 
So a lot of mistakes have been made by the National Government yet the Labour Party stands ready as a constructive party of opposition not only to exercise proper scrutiny over what the Government is doing but also prepared to assist and to help to improve the legislation as we did with that Criminal Procedure Act. Without the Labour Party and the stand that Labour took it would not have been improved in the way that it was. So we certainly lifted the Government’s game in that respect. 
The amendments that we are looking at in this bill are essentially technical. It provides cross-referencing and other minor technical fixes. It ensures that processes and procedures that are necessary to implement the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 are actually in place. It deals with the repeal of the definition of crime in the Crimes Act and makes consequential amendments there. It gives effect to changes in the jurisdiction of community magistrates. There is nothing in this bill that we are opposed to inherently. 
I want to use this bill as an example that where a Government brings in a piece of legislation that does the right thing we are not going to oppose for the sake of opposing. But the Government itself needs to show the same sort of flexibility. It is sad that we are going to be looking at an Alcohol Reform Bill in 2 days’ time where National members of Parliament will be forced to vote against their own preference and their own best instincts because they are being forced to toe the party line. A little thing like having proper regulation for ready-to-drinks is something that is cross-partisan. I have talked to my colleagues across the other side of the House and they think it is necessary but they are being prevented from voting for it and that is wrong. I mention that because it is an example of a Government that is ideologically driven driven by the power of vested interest groups and does not take a sufficiently bipartisan approach to get the best out of this House to get the best legislation for New Zealand. Labour will be supporting this piece of legislation because it does the right thing. It opposed the legislation earlier today because it was ill-thought-out half-baked and bound to be a disaster in terms of its implementation and we have a requirement on us to expose the deficiencies of the Government in that regard. 
This bill will pass. It will pass with our cooperation. But the lesson that the National Government should learn is to make sure its legislation is evidence-driven make sure it is not driven by the power of vested interests make sure it is not simply ideological and make sure most of all that it is not dog whistle. Far too much of the legislation in the justice area before Parliament has been all of those things and that will be the legacy of this Government when it goes in a couple of years’ time. It will be a large percentage of justice legislation that changes nothing and does nothing. This bill however is technical. It is non-controversial. We will be supporting it. 
ALFRED NGARO (National) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. The last speaker the Hon Mr Phil Goff ended his speech with the words “changes nothing” and “does nothing”. He talked about us being a shambles and said this was rushed legislation. Well I just need to remind him that the crime rate in New Zealand is at a 30-year low. You will not hear him say that. There has been an average 15 percent reduction across all crime over recent years since we have come into office. Those sorts of statistics he does not choose to share and to talk about. But the general public have confidence now because they are seeing that there is safety for the concerns that they have had in our communities. 
The issue around the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill is dealing with some of the problems that many stakeholders have been concerned about over a number of years—in fact over 20 years. They have summarised them in a number of ways—people have talked about them and we are just reasserting them—in the sense that there have been excessive delays. National believes—and it was talked about—that justice delayed is justice denied and this bill will ensure that timely justice is delivered for victims witnesses defendants and the community. I know that those are some of the issues that we were wanting to put forward. 
Excessive complexity—for example the main laws for criminal procedures the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 and Parts 12 and 13 of the Crimes Act 1961 have been amended numerous times over 50 years resulting in a very difficult system for non-lawyers to proceed with. The proposals build on the changes already under way to improve the criminal justice system including the removal of oral depositions hearings legal aid reforms victims of crime initiatives and the roll-out of audiovisual links between courts and prisons. 
The other challenge that is in the system at present is the outdated legislative framework. For example the current provisions were drafted on the assumption of a paper-based system creating barriers to the use of modern technology. Over the last 10 to 20 years the law relating to criminal procedures has attracted increasing criticism. The principle statutes governing criminal procedures are out of date and inflexible. 
Excessive costs—for example it is estimated that there are approximately 43000 unnecessary court appearances a year in the criminal jurisdiction and more than two-thirds of those cases that reach a defended hearing fail to proceed on the day. We cannot continue to mask the delays and inefficiencies in criminal procedures by simply building more courthouses and appointing more judges. Reforming criminal procedure makes the justice system more responsive to the needs of victims and witnesses. I commend this bill to the House. 
ANDREW LITTLE (Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. This as my colleagues have pointed out is a technical bill. I am not quite sure what bill the last speaker Alfred Ngaro was referring to because I do not see a reference to the reduction in the number of prisons and the various other things he talked about. That is not provided for in this legislation. Indeed this Government is going in the opposite direction and building big prisons—very big ones—for example the Wiri Prison. The Government may have closed down a couple of older prisons but the prison population under this Government looks like it has a very healthy future ahead of it the way it is going. 
This bill is very technical as I said before. It does simple things like replace references to the word “crime” with the word “offence” because we now have offences under legislation and we do not have just crimes. That provides for some sort of flexibility. It also clarifies what an imprisonable offence is for a body corporate. This is potentially very important. If I am fortunate enough to have my Crimes (Corporate Manslaughter) Amendment Bill drawn from the ballot this week or at some point in the future— 
Charles Chauvel 
: A very well-drafted bill. 
ANDREW LITTLE 
: A well-drafted bill. A well-crafted bill I would describe it as—it goes beyond just drafting. It has been crafted. If indeed this Government responds seriously as it should to the royal commission’s report on Pike River and itself introduces a corporate manslaughter bill then this legislation here when it describes an imprisonable offence and describes what it is for a body corporate will make sense. 
The bill goes on to clarify the requirements for charging documents which as I understand it used to be called informations. But for charging documents it has actually set out crimes or offences that are being pursued particularly in relation to private prosecutions brought by an individual as opposed to private prosecutions brought by a body corporate which at least of course can happen now under the Health and Safety in Employment Act because of the changes the previous Labour Government made. Where the Department of Labour declines to prosecute then either an individual or a union can take that prosecution. This technical legislation will assist that. 
It corrects a number of numbering errors in various pieces of criminal justice legislation. It clarifies the jurisdiction in relation to offences on aircraft and ships extending the jurisdiction but providing the defence that if you are a citizen of another nation and the offence is committed in that airspace or shipping space then you can have a defence if the New Zealand offence is not an offence in that jurisdiction. So it is very helpful in that regard. One might think that these are things that ought to have been thought about in the previous legislation which this covers were it more carefully drafted. 
This bill does highlight the need when we are considering criminal justice legislation in particular that we do get it right. If there is one thing that represents the high-water mark of what this House does in terms of taking away a citizen’s liberty in terms of giving judges in the criminal justice system the power to incarcerate to punish and to penalise—it is incumbent on this House performing those tasks and passing that sort of legislation to get it right. 
Two things are required in that regard. One is that we take the proper amount of time to do that. Legislation that punishes legislation that imposes penalties—whether it imposes fines or incarcerates—must be given the proper consideration and time by all parties and by all members both in this House and in the select committee process. The House must give due consideration to the submissions it receives from organisations and from citizens whether it is the New Zealand Law Society or whether it is those with a criminal record whom we hear from from time to time. This House must give proper consideration to what those interested parties have to say when it comes to this sort of legislation. 
 The second thing that it draws attention to is the need at least in relation to criminal justice legislation for a greater degree of bipartisanship—or multipartisanship. When we are discharging our responsibilities as parliamentarians and passing laws that have what can be described only as the most deleterious effects on citizens—that is to say effects that are about imprisoning and that are about depriving people of liberty admittedly under due process—that is something that there ought to be a high degree of collaboration on between parties in this House. That sort of legislation will come under intense scrutiny by the judiciary as it should and the judiciary will always be looking for the true and proper intent of Parliament and will be wanting to know that Parliament has taken that sort of legislation seriously. When it comes to passing sentence it is one thing to secure conviction under legislation that sets out offences but when it comes to passing sentence and putting citizens through the criminal justice procedures then the judiciary needs to know that Parliament has given proper and due consideration taken it seriously and understood the magnitude of what Parliament is doing what we are demanding of the judiciary and what we are subjecting citizens to. It is very important that we get that stuff right and we can do that properly and seriously only if we are working in a more collaborative approach to do it. 
There should not be the sort of party-political division that there has been in more recent years over this sort of stuff. We certainly do not want to see the types of knee-jerk reactions that we have often seen to issues that have been raised usually in the community. Yes there will be individual court cases—criminal cases—that will give rise to concern. That is a normal part of democracy. But it should not lead this House to respond piecemeal and in a knee-jerk way to those particular concerns as we have seen for example in the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. It deals with jury lists because in one case on one occasion a defendant saw or got access to the details of a jury list and made personal contact. We should not be seeing knee-jerk reactions to that sort of instance. 
So it would be desirable if as we have seen a greater degree of cooperation over this sort of correcting legislation—no pun intended—we could demonstrate that we are capable of working sensibly and cooperatively together to make sure that our criminal justice statutes are the best we can possibly do and are a model for all other legislation not just from this House but across Parliaments in the Commonwealth generally. 
The message is that we should never take criminal justice lightly because it is serious legislation and it has serious impacts on our citizens. When we come to deal with it as we do in this legislation and as we correct things that have been legislated for incorrectly—perhaps even imperceptibly—in the past we should be bold enough and big enough to correct those mistakes and to do so in a cooperative spirit. But we should learn the lesson that we can avoid having to do this kind of reworking if we actually get it right in the first place. We will get it right when we give ourselves enough time give it due consideration and work properly together in a proper process of collaboration and harmony that is fitting not only for the legislation but also for the season as well. Thank you. 
MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) 
: 
 I am pleased to take the last call on this Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. I largely agree with the last speaker Andrew Little and I think it is fair to say that there is fairly broad support for this technical—but very necessary none the less—piece of legislation. 
When we look at the whole criminal justice pipeline if you like there is a bottleneck a very small junction when it comes to the delivery of that justice and the measures within this bill largely go towards addressing that. As a former police officer and detective having been in front of courts and taking victims through what is a very very arduous process with stays of proceedings and difficulties with witnesses getting into court and their recall I can say that the drawn-out nature of the process is often causing added hurt and delaying healing. It is a convoluted and diluted justice system in many ways in the eyes of those who are subjected to it generally through no fault of their own. 
 One of the key areas in this bill is about addressing the justice delayed justice denied notion. The key area really is about amending an Act that goes back some 60 years that has its origin some 60 years ago and that has been subject to many ad hoc additions reforms and so forth. Arguably a lot of what we do in this criminal justice space could fit into that category. It is somewhat a balloon that is full and when squeezed it bulges in different directions. It must be addressed in a pragmatic fashion. 
This bill is very much in line with a number of the other changes that this Government has been committed to right across the criminal justice spectrum that go right through to the way in which our police are engaging with our communities and making them safer places and their focus on prevention. It goes to a lot of the changes that have been very much a part of the last few years in terms of the criminal justice system how it operates its expediency and its focus on victims right through to the other side to where we deal with matters around corrections. It is all about getting the balance right across that spectrum. Right at the centre of it is very much what this bill is about—very technical but very necessary. Certainly as someone who worked in the field I can vouch for the fact that it will make a difference in the lives of many New Zealanders. I think many professionals across the spectrum would share with me in supporting this. 
It is a technical bill not a sexy bill but it is pragmatic and common sense. I think that says a lot about what we see on this side of the House. I commend it to the House. Thank you. 
Bill read a first time.  
Bill referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
Human Rights Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 29 November. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I was on the verge of taking a call on this Human Rights Amendment Bill when the House adjourned last Thursday evening. As I look up at the clock I suspect that the House may be spared the benefits of most of my thoughts on the subject again this evening. But in view of the fact that it has been several days since we began considering the measure it might be helpful if I just remind you of some of the key points that the Minister of Justice outlined about the purpose of the bill in her introduction because it is a significant measure. It is an amendment to our Human Rights Act of 1993 and it comes about in part because of a measure that the previous Labour Government took in the final months of its term in office in 2008 when it ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 33 of that convention requires States to “maintain strengthen designate or establish with the State Party a framework including one or more independent mechanisms as appropriate to promote protect and monitor implementation of the present Convention.” That is a very wordy article but the gist of it is that we need to ensure that we have a very specific designated role for somebody to look after human rights under the broader constitutional arrangements that we have. 
I see that Mr Speaker is about to stand—no I am getting a bit more time. Mr Speaker has very kindly moved an extension of my time. It has never happened before and I am very grateful for this. The changes in the bill therefore will enable the Human Rights Commission that we already have in place to look after better the very important human rights field. At the moment we have an Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner and a Race Relations Commissioner. Those roles will continue to exist but in a slightly amended form. This enables us to bring human rights up on to the same level—an equal footing. It is quite an important change to the structure. It is one that the Government is firmly dedicated to getting right. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)