Volume 701 Week 3 - Thursday 6 November 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 701 Week 3 - Thursday 6 November 2014[Sitting date: 06 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:693. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Thursday 6 November 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Business StatementHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):Next week the House will go into a 2-week adjournment. When the House resumes on Tuesday 25 November the Government intends to progress a number of bills on the Order Paper including the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill and the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour):I have two questions for the Leader of the House. The first is I wonder whether he could indicate whether the Government intends to progress the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) prior to the Christmas adjournment. The second is I think he had something that he was hoping to do in respect of seeking leave around Wednesday 10 December. I was wondering—[Interruption] He was about to get to that.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):It is always the Government’s intention to progress legislation when it is on the Order Paper at some point.Business of the HouseHon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House):I thank the shadow Leader of the House for noticing this had not been done. Following discussions at the Business Committee I seek leave for the general debate on Wednesday 10 December to be replaced by an adjournment debate commencing at 4.30 p.m. on that day.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. Such action will occur.Questions to MinistersJob Creation and Unemployment—Statistics1.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East)to the Minister for Economic Development: What reports has he received on job growth in the New Zealand economy?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development):Yesterday the household labour force survey for the September quarter was released. It shows steady job growth over the quarter. There are 18000 more people in employment than 3 months ago and there are 72000 more than 12 months ago. New Zealand’s unemployment rate is now down to 5.4 percent. It is the lowest unemployment rate since March 2009. Even with more Kiwis voting with their feet and staying home we are matching the influx of new people with more jobs. A growing economy is getting more New Zealanders into work and we are going to keep focusing on creating the conditions for the economy to grow through our consistent macro-economic policies and the Government’s Business Growth Agenda.David Bennett: How many new jobs have been created in recent years compared with previous forecasts and how do the latest average wage increases compare with cost of living changes?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: As some members of the House will recall in Budget 2011 Treasury forecast 171000 jobs to be added to the economy by mid-2015. The latest household labour force survey confirms there have been 159000 new jobs created since Budget 2011. That is actually 12000 jobs ahead of Treasury’s projections which is great for New Zealand. In terms of average wage increases the quarterly employment survey released yesterday which is the official measure of wage movements shows average hourly wages rose 2.3 percent over the last year. That is 2.3 percent over the last year. It also shows that average weekly wages grew by about 1.8 percent compared with inflation of 1 percent so on average New Zealanders are receiving wage rises ahead of the cost of living which is helping them get ahead.David Bennett: How does the employment picture vary across New Zealand?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: What is really pleasing about the data released yesterday is that in the year to September unemployment is down in all regions but one. However there are some interesting regional variations. For example of the 72000 more people in employment across New Zealand in the last year 41000 of them over half are in the South Island. In fact the North Island’s unemployment rate is significantly higher than the South Island rate. The North Island is at 6.2 percent and the South Island is down 1 percent to 3.4 percent. It is not just the Christchurch rebuild. I am pleased to advise some of the members opposite who are concerned about a particular region that unemployment in Otago continues to be in the threes—3.8 percent down 1 percent from a year ago and in Southland it is 3.3 percent down from 5.4 percent a year ago.David Bennett: What other reports has he seen on unemployment?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: A couple of reports. This afternoon Australia released its unemployment data. It shows an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent across the Tasman as compared with 5.4 percent in this country. Our comparative strong economic performance and as a result emerging skill shortages is one of the reasons why we are planning a series of job fairs across a number of key Australian cities to attract Kiwis back and also to attract skilled Aussies to support New Zealand’s growing economy.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order is that there is no ministerial responsibility in this House for a report out of Australia.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The question asked: “What other reports” and the Minister has every right to address that in his capacity as Minister.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I have also seen a second report from a new-generation commentator with strong links to the Wellington beltway who said: “While it is good news that unemployment overall has fallen it only benefits those lucky enough to find jobs.” Let us think about that for a minute.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just complete the answer.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It is a reasonably self-evident point but I think it is a very insightful comment from Mr Robertson.Dr David Clark: Six years on how long does he think it will take unemployment to fall from 5.4 percent now to the 4.5 percent he inherited from Labour?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I thank the member for drawing attention to what we had to deal with that we inherited from Labour including a domestic recession ahead of the global financial crisis which of course arrived—Dr Clark might have missed it. He also may have missed the impact of the Canterbury earthquakes on our second-largest city. My understanding is that Treasury expects unemployment to be around 4.4 percent at the end of the current forecast period and of course we will be working hard to get it below that. It is one of the lowest rates of unemployment in the OECD today.Dr David Clark: Given that answer is he sticking to his target of reducing unemployment below 4 percent by 2025 14 years after the earthquake and 14 years after the end of the global financial crisis or does he think it is time to be a little more ambitious?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Certainly I as Minister have no target that the member has described. I would be interested to see it. I have a sneaking suspicion he is talking about an ongoing Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment target. He can feel free to tell us a bit more about it if he would like.Housing Auckland—Supply and Affordability2.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū)to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he stand by his statement on the National Construction Pipeline report on residential construction that “in Auckland it equates to about 30000 houses over the course of the three years”?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister)on behalf of theMinister for Building and Housing: Yes and I presume the member is going to compare it with the target set for the Auckland Housing Accord which was 39000 sections. One is a measure of sections; the other is a measure of houses built.Phil Twyford: Is the reason the National Construction Pipeline report boosts the value of residential construction by a factor of 1.82—and he is reduced to counting empty sections to meet his Auckland Housing Accord targets—that he is so depressed at the failure to achieve a housing boom that he feels he has to artificially inflate the numbers?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well the member is completely wrong about that. In fact the Auckland Council report itself shows that we are in for the most sustained construction activity for 40 years. That is the longest period of the highest rates of growth in construction and that is because we have to catch up from all the damage done under the previous Labour Government where housing consenting slowed right down in Auckland and that is what has forced up rents and house prices.Phil Twyford: How does he explain that Labour consented over 30000 houses a year a decade ago under the same regulatory settings that he now blames for the collapse of his own 6-year housing programme which consented only 7300 houses in Auckland last year—4 years after he declared that the recession was over?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member is talking nonsense. The Government set out to undo the problem created by Auckland Council limiting the amount of land available for new growth not for previous growth. The impact of that member’s policies is that almost no lower-value housing was consented in Auckland up until a couple of years ago. That is the real problem we need to fix—that is the access of lower-income New Zealanders to housing they can afford in New Zealand’s biggest city.Phil Twyford: Is he aware that the head of Auckland Council’s housing project office confirmed this week that only five houses have been completed under his accord and only 18 are expected by the end of the year; and is he proud of this spectacular achievement when people are living in cars and garages and caravans in Auckland?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Bill English—either of those two supplementary questions.Hon BILL ENGLISH: We are aware of the report of the Auckland Council on where the pipeline is up to bearing in mind special housing areas were put in place by agreement with the Auckland Council so we could not go faster than the Auckland Council—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member but the level of barracking coming from the member who is asking the questions is unacceptable. I ask the Minister to resume.Hon BILL ENGLISH: The combined efforts of the Government and the Auckland Council in dealing with the very tricky planning environment are that we are heading into the most sustained period of growth in house building that New Zealand has seen in 40 years. That will be of great assistance to New Zealanders who have found that under the previous Labour Government house prices doubled their debt went way up and interest rates reached 10 percent. That certainly will not be happening on our watch.Phil Twyford: Has he considered approaching TV3’s The Block NZ for help to fix the Auckland housing crisis given that they have built and completed more houses in two seasons than he has built in 1 year of his housing accords?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The houses are more than a million dollars apiece and I know that is the bit of the market that Labour is interested in but we are interested in what normal households can afford. Secondly they were built on land that had already been made available. We had to actually make 39000 sections available that did not previously exist. We are very proud of the fact that in the next 5 or 6 years tens of thousands of new houses will be built in New Zealand that would not otherwise have occurred.Electricity—Solar Energy3.GARETH HUGHES (Green)to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Is solar energy part of his plan to reach the “ambitious but achievable target of 90 percent of electricity generation from renewables by 2025”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development)on behalf of theMinister of Energy and Resources: Of course there is a place for solar energy in New Zealand but we have to remember that solar generation is at this stage anyway a lot more expensive than other forms of generation—about three times the cost of grid-scale geothermal or wind generation which of course are also renewable.Gareth Hughes: Does he support decisions made in the last week by Contact and Meridian Energy to cut buy-back rates for new solar by between 50 and 72 percent?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Of course that is something for the companies to determine but I note that the Greens and others are on the one hand encouraging energy companies to lower their prices and in fact at one stage were proposing regulation to lower their prices and now they seem to be concerned that they are not paying enough for the prices of electricity coming into them. You cannot have it both ways. My understanding is that Meridian Energy for example is saying that its input prices that it is paying for solar is roughly equivalent to what it pays for other renewable resources.Gareth Hughes: Does the Minister think it is fair that families in small businesses who invested in solar to escape rising power bills are dependent on the power companies which can and do keep changing the rules on them?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do have some trouble with the member’s logic because if he is concerned about rising power prices then saying that power companies should pay more for the electricity that they buy to sell on to consumers is a little contradictory to say the least especially in the case of Meridian which is 100 percent renewable electricity. So the member seems to be saying that Meridian should go out and deliberately pay more for more renewable electricity and then go out and sell it somehow cheaper to consumers. I would argue that it should be doing its best to keep its costs down and keeping the costs down for consumers.Gareth Hughes: Does the Minister agree that a reliable non-subsidised buyback price between electricity companies and solar homes that does not keep changing at the whim of electricity companies would assist in providing greater certainty for all participants?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I would not agree necessarily that companies should be forced to pay more for one form of renewable generation than they would pay for another form of renewable generation. If we are excited about renewable generation—I think we should be—then saying to Meridian Energy that it should pay more for a particular type of renewable generation because Gareth Hughes says so seems to me a slightly strange way of going about keeping the price of electricity down for New Zealand consumers.Gareth Hughes: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Under Speaker’s ruling 153/6 the Minister has no responsibility for the Opposition. He seems to be putting words into my mouth and to clarify I am not arguing for subsidies or higher prices; I am arguing for certainty and a fair go between the company and the participant.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member when he gets a chance to reflect on the question that has been asked and then on the answer that has been given. On this occasion the Minister has addressed that question. I accept it may not be the answer the member was expecting but the question has certainly been addressed.Gareth Hughes: So why is the Minister leaving up to the market—which is so imbalanced and sees the big power companies exercise dominant power over Kiwis with solar panels on their roofs—to set the price the terms and the length of contract; and why did the Government not apply the same principle to Rio Tinto and Meridian Energy?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well let us just go through this for the member. It does not make any sense except perhaps in the Greens’ view to say to electricity companies: “You should pay more for some element of your electricity.” and try to consider that that is some way of keeping the price down for consumers. Meridian Energy for example is 100 percent renewable energy and if you are suggesting that it should go out there and pay more for one type of renewable over another because of a policy whim well that is fine but it can lead to only one thing and that is higher prices for consumers.Gareth Hughes: Will the Minister consider empowering an independent umpire such as the Electricity Authority to set a fair reasonable and non-subsidised buy-back rate which would increase certainty for solar homes and small businesses investing in clean energy like solar energy?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No. I think we have an independent arbiter now which is called consumers who want to keep their energy prices down and I would note that the energy component of electricity decreased by 0.7 percent in the last quarter because of the competition that the member decries. Solar does have a place but there is no doubt that currently it is more expensive than other forms of renewable energy and I just cannot see why the member wants to promote that at the expense of say geothermal or hydro. I mean he may have his views on that but actually at this stage anyway it is fine for some people to go out and do it if they want to but actually it is more cost-effective to do things like changing some incandescent light bulbs for some cheaper light bulbs which will reduce the cost of the energy in your house.Marama Fox: Is the Minister aware of the impact of the solar power installation at the Waikaraka Marae in Kaihu which has had dual benefits of saving costs and being environmentally responsible; and what support is available for other marae to take up solar energy as part of the push for renewables?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not aware at this stage of any Government involvement in the installation at Waikaraka Marae. But again I think we have got to be careful in pushing consumers into solar energy at this stage because other forms of renewable energy are less expensive at this time. So I am not sure that it would be an appropriate policy solution at this point to be further subsidising solar when actually we are seeing increased use of hydro and geothermal which are at considerably lower prices currently. In the future that may change—the cost of voltaic cells is coming down—but right now it is not necessarily something that the Government would want to encourage further.Pest Control—Aerial Use of 1080 Poison4.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First)to the Minister of Conservation: Does she stand by all her statements?Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation):Yes in the context in which they were made.Richard Prosser: Will she provide the House with the credible evidence that she has seen supporting her statement in answer to question No. 8 on 23 October that “Early monitoring has shown that numbers of rats which had been up to 25 million have now been knocked down to zero in places where 1080 has been used”; if not why not?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: If the member is asking whether the update that we gave on the 1080 aerial drop in the Battle for Our Birds has proved effective in bringing rat rates down to zero proportions the answer is yes.Richard Prosser: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. No I was not asking that. The question was: will she provide the House with the evidence?Mr SPEAKER: I will invite the member to ask the question again.Richard Prosser: Again? Thank you Mr Speaker. Will she provide the House with the credible evidence that she has seen supporting her statement in answer to question No. 8 on 23 October that “Early monitoring has shown that numbers of rats which had been up to 25 million have now been knocked down to zero in places where 1080 has been used”; if not why not?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The answer to that question and the proof that it is true lies in the results that the Department of Conservation has now come up with as of yesterday. Over 600000 hectares of aerial spray of 1080 have been dropped. In the areas where rats had been measured to be at 77 percent they are now at levels that we would consider very acceptable at around 2 percent. So that evidence has been in the evaluation of monitoring traps where rats have been found and the numbers have dropped significantly and those are the figures that the Department of Conservation has used.Richard Prosser: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Not to labour the point but the question is still: will she provide the House with evidence?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The point is now being laboured. The member has asked the question twice. He may not be satisfied with the answer and I can understand why that may be the case. The way forward is that I will allow the member an additional supplementary question if he continues with his line of questioning.Richard Prosser: Why was her assurance about the safety of eating trout based on a misleading assessment of the pathway to 1080 toxicity?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: I refute the implication behind that question. It was not misleading at all and the Cawthron Institute has provided evidence which is contained within a report that backs that up.Richard Prosser: Why did she give the House an assurance about the safety of eating trout that had eaten mice that had eaten 1080 based on a test that at the time had not been done?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: In fact the data and the evidence had been gathered at that time. It has not changed. The Ministry for Primary Industries has analysed the data that was put together by the Cawthron Institute and has found that the findings are accurate. The use of 1080 has not harmed the trout—they survived—and the amounts of 1080 within the trout are not harmful to human beings. That was the conclusion of the Ministry for Primary Industries when it analysed the data of the Cawthron Institute.Richard Prosser: Given that the test on trout that have eaten mice that have eaten 1080 has still not been done is she still prepared to stand by her statement that an average adult would have to eat in one sitting many times their body weight in trout that had ingested mice that had ingested 1080 in order to experience any health ill-effects whatsoever?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: I go back to the Ministry for Primary Industries’ assessment that was released last month which indicated that at the peak levels of 1080 that were temporarily recorded in the force-fed laboratory trout—it was not some kind of bush experiment; this was a scientifically conducted experiment in a laboratory situation where trout were force-fed extreme amounts of 1080—there were no ill-effects on the trout and there were no residues. This evidence was examined and interpreted by the Ministry for Primary Industries which is the expert toxicologist as meaning that it has no harm or risk to human life. I am happy to provide the member with the Cawthron Institute’s uptake and if the member would choose to go on the website you can certainly see the Ministry for Primary Industries’ conclusions contained there.Richard Prosser: Is the Minister maintaining the position that the tests were done on trout that had eaten mice that had eaten 1080 rather than on trout that had eaten 1080 directly?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The trout in a laboratory situation were force-fed extreme amounts of 1080—far more than they would ever have been likely to find in a field situation. The amounts of 1080 that they were fed—vastly more than they would find in the field—did not affect the health of the trout and nor were the amounts of 1080 in the trout which dispersed over time deemed to be at any level that was a risk to human life.Richard Prosser: Given her statement that “there is more 1080 in a cup of tea” will the Minister give the House an assurance that she is just as happy and willing to eat a 1080 poison bait as she is to drink a cup of tea; if not why not?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The claim that 1080 poisons our waterways is not true and I used the cup of tea example to really try to make that apparent to the member of your party who asked me this question a few weeks ago. Let us be very clear on this. The fact is that 1080 breaks down very quickly when exposed to water. Five hundred water samples have been taken from 1080 aerial operations over the past 5 years. No trace of 1080 has been found in the samples taken from drinking water catchments. Only 2 percent of other samples had any detectable level and all were less than one-tenth of the tolerable exposure limit of 3.5 parts per billion. To put this in perspective which is what I was trying to do for the member 1080 naturally occurs in your everyday cup of tea at levels above 10 parts per billion. So if the member wants to call for a moratorium on 1080 perhaps the member might also like to call for a moratorium on cups of tea.Schools—KickStart Breakfast Programme5.TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland)to the Minister for Social Development: What impact has the Government’s KickStart Breakfast programme had on improving the lives of New Zealand kids?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development):Since the Government began partnering with Fonterra and Sanitarium last year 3 million additional breakfasts have been served through the KickStart Breakfast programme. Schools report that KickStart Breakfast is having a major impact on the well-being of their children. Seventy-three percent of schools surveyed have seen improvements in general health and well-being 72 percent reported better concentration amongst students 59 percent saw behaviour improvements and 37 percent believe it has improved academic performance. KickStart Breakfast is a brilliant example of partnership between the Government the private sector schools and communities and is delivering practical help directly to children so they can focus on their education and have a brighter future.Todd Barclay: How has the Government assisted with the expansion of the KickStart Breakfast programme?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Budget 2013 set aside $9.5 million over 5 years to expand the KickStart Breakfast programme. This additional funding has seen the programme expand from two to five mornings per week and includes all primary and secondary schools that want and need it regardless of their decile. As a result there has been a 37 percent increase in the number of schools taking up the programme from 573 to 783. Of these schools 79 percent are now providing breakfasts for more than 2 days a week and 54 percent are operating the KickStart Breakfast programme for 5 days a week. The programme now reaches more than 26000 children throughout the country improving the lives of these students and making a real difference where it is needed.Islamic State Conflict—Government Response6.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill)to the Prime Minister: When he says “I am ruling out New Zealand sending SAS or any troops into combat roles in Iraq” for how long can New Zealanders rely on him to stick to this guarantee?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House)on behalf of thePrime Minister: Yesterday I ruled out sending SAS or any troops into combat roles in Iraq and I do not see that changing.Hon Phil Goff: Will this guarantee be more permanent than his last guarantee when on 16 June of this year he ruled out the SAS going to Iraq in any capacity only to reverse that position on 20 October after the election saying that the SAS going there was definitely an option?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Cabinet determined on Monday of this week a decision that we would engage in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on four aspects: diplomacy intelligence humanitarian aid and capacity building for Iraqi forces if requested by the Iraqi Government.Hon Phil Goff: When on 16 June of this year he ruled out New Zealand special force soldiers being deployed to Iraq even in his words “in an advisory capacity” does he stand by that promise or is that promise already past its use-by date?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There are no SAS troops planned for deployment in Iraq.Hon Phil Goff: When he said yesterday that New Zealand military personnel deployed in Iraq would be “behind the wire” and limited to training local forces did he not previously use exactly those words about New Zealand troops in Afghanistan when we know that the training and mentoring role of the SAS actually involved combat roles in which two special force soldiers were killed in action?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: There are two very distinct situations here that are not alike. In Afghanistan our troops were involved in roles to advise assist and accompany. We are not intending that they will be involved in any of those aspects in Iraq.Hon Phil Goff: Prior to the Cabinet decision on Monday did the Government send any New Zealand Defence Force personnel or members of the SAS to the Middle East in relation to the campaign against ISIS in any capacity; if so when and in what capacity?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The New Zealand Defence Force is engaged in a number of posts in the Middle East as the member well knows and has been for many many years. We have for example been for I think 34 years involved in peacekeeping in the Sinai. The real point here is that some of those personnel will likely be involved in the exploratory work that the military has now been asked to do. They were in that area beforehand but they were not authorised to do that beforehand.Hon Phil Goff: Why does he imagine that a small group of New Zealand Defence Force trainers will make any difference to the quality of the Iraq army when more than 10 years of intense efforts on a massive scale by the United States in training that army failed to produce anything like a quality army?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: No decision has been made about the capacity-building exercise that we may consider. That is why we have personnel there at the moment looking into what may be done. We are setting our own conditions around that and when we get all of that we will be able to make that decision.Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was very carefully worded and you will note that the Government has said that sending trainers there is an option. My question was not about whether it had made the decision but about why he would imagine making that decision would make any difference. That is quite precise. It was not answered at all.Mr SPEAKER: The honourable Minister wants to further his answer.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I say as the Leader of the House that the Prime Minister does not go around doing things based on imagination. He does it on clear facts and that is what he has the group to go and find for him.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can the Prime Minister confirm that members of the SAS are in Iraq now and have been for some time—yes or no?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: That is not my information.Financial Markets—Legislative Reform7.BRETT HUDSON (National)to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs: What recent announcements has the Government made regarding financial markets?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs):I recently announced that the second phase of regulations for the Financial Markets Conduct Act will come into force in December of this year. The National Government passed the Act better to regulate how financial products are offered promoted issued and sold to support confidence and inform market participation. This helps New Zealand businesses to fund growth and helps Kiwis to reach their financial goals. The approval of these regulations is the last major step in a once-in-a-generation reform of our financial markets.Brett Hudson: What key changes will be implemented as a result of these regulations?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: The phase two regulations cover a range of governance issues for financial products including licensing requirements and conduct obligations. A key change is the introduction of a new disclosure regime. This will mean that disclosure documents such as a prospectus for a share offer will be shorter clearer and more tailored to investors’ needs. We are also creating a new online register that will allow investors easy access to greater information on financial products and managed investment services. Our growing economy needs strong capital markets to maintain momentum and support growth.Islamic State Conflict—Government Response8.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “Should New Zealand military personnel be deployed in Iraq they would be behind the wire and limited to training local forces in order to counter ISIL and legitimately protect innocent people”; if so why?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House)on behalf of thePrime Minister: Yes; because that is the Government’s position.Dr Kennedy Graham: Will he rule out any possibility that military training by New Zealand forces in Iraq will escalate into active combat there?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Consideration of what that sort of capacity-building deployment may look like is clearly being done at the moment. We will need to get all of that information consider how it comes together as a mission and then make decisions about whether or not we are there.Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question did not pertain to the considerations relating to a decision to deploy—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I invite the member to ask that question again.Dr Kennedy Graham: Thank you Mr Speaker. Will he rule out any possibility that military training by New Zealand forces in Iraq in the event that it occurs will escalate into active combat there?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Given that the Government has not make its decision yet about what type of capacity building if any we may engage in the question put by the member is entirely hypothetical.Dr Kennedy Graham: In light of the likely deployment of military trainers on what evidence did the Prime Minister base his claim that the risk of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) becoming stronger is greater than the increased risk New Zealand will face by becoming part of the coalition in that event?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I would have thought that it would be evident even to the peaceable Green Party that if the world is going to be confronted by a terrorist State that respects no boundaries and no other position than its own then that is a threat to every country that values freedom.Dr Kennedy Graham: In light of the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003 which was basically supported by this National Government at the time does he consider that there is a political case for avoiding military action against ISIL now?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I note that it was the Green Party propping up the Labour Party in 2003 that saw New Zealand’s involvement ratified by the Government at that time.Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand the difference between points of order and debating points but that reply stretched I think the Standing Orders—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I can assist the member. In actual fact the question asked and the connotations of the question asked in itself stretched the Standing Orders.Dr Kennedy Graham: Given the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday that New Zealand supports coalition air strikes because “we believe that is a legitimate way of seeing a containment and hopefully the long-term destruction of a threat from ISIL.” will he ask the Attorney-General to table a written opinion affirming that there is a sound basis in international law for that action?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Firstly I think it is disappointing that having gone out yesterday and laid out very clearly the sort of threat that New Zealand could face we get questions in the House today attempting to deny that circumstance. This is a terrorist organisation—Dr Kennedy Graham: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I am answering his question but he is fairly upset by the answer.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has a right to raise a point of order but I will be disappointed if it is another attempt by the member to say he is not happy with the answer.Dr Kennedy Graham: My question did not pertain to the degree of threat; it pertained to whether the response to it was consistent with international law. He is misdescribing my question.Mr SPEAKER: The question was not as clear as that at all. There was a lead-in to the question. [Interruption] Order! The question then asked whether the Prime Minister will be asking the Attorney-General to table a legal opinion from memory. The question was not a clear question in my mind; it may have been in the member’s mind. The Minister is attempting to address it and I would be grateful if the House would allow the Minister to complete his answer.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Post the clarification by way of point of order can I suggest that the member looks at article 51 of the United Nations Charter to come to his own understanding that the airstrikes are in fact legal.Dr Kennedy Graham: I seek leave to table a Security Council document recording the statement of one of the permanent members that Resolution 2170 cannot be seen as approval of the use of military action.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table a United Nations document—I think it is Resolution 2170. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is not. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Given the Minister’s comments on the question of risks to New Zealand how many of the 30 to 40 people of concern in the foreign fighter context that the Prime Minister referred to in his ministerial statement yesterday fit a certain profile and what are the main features of that profile?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I am not giving that information this afternoon.Pacific Peoples—Economic Inequality9.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere)to the Minister for Pacific Peoples: Does he stand by his statement “that Pacific people are attaining success and achievement under this Government”?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister for Pacific Peoples):Yes I definitely do.Su’a William Sio: Why is he trying to bury the fact that Pacific unemployment was 7.8 percent when his Government took office and is now 11.7 percent a more than 50 percent increase; that Pacific youth unemployment is now at 26.7 percent the highest of any ethnic group; and that Pacific unemployment is rising again because the recovery has already come and gone for most Pacific people and that this is all happening under his Government’s watch?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: It is true that Pacific unemployment is 11.7 percent but it is also true that in quarter 1 of 2009 the Pacific unemployment rate was 13.1 percent. So I say to that member that Pacific people are doing better under this National Government than they were under Labour at quarter 1 of 2013. Furthermore in the last year alone 10100 more Pacific people have been employed so they are better able to look after their children their families and their communities.Hon Members: Shame!Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Those members may say shame to the 113000 Pacific people who are currently employed today but I say shame on them as a Labour Government.Su’a William Sio: How can he claim Pacific people are attaining success and achievement under his Government when median incomes for Pacific people adjusted for inflation have fallen by $52 a week from $512 in 2008 to $460 in 2014?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I do not have those figures to hand but what I can say—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. If I get that level of barracking from members to my left-hand side they will immediately be leaving the Chamber.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: What I can say and I—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I apologise. I have a—well I hope I have a point of order.Rt Hon Winston Peters: You have a point of order and it is this. If that was a fair warning to this side of the House why was there no admonition to that side of the House when he finished his last answer?Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. The level of interjection coming from a particular member here was totally unacceptable to me and to this House. I have made my ruling. I hope it is clear even to the senior member.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The figures I have to hand say that average hourly wages rose 2.3 percent over the last year and average weekly wages rose 1.8 percent compared with inflation of only 1 percent. Pacific people are beneficiaries of that increase in average wages.Su’a William Sio: I wish to table a document that shows Pacific median weekly income—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just describe—[Interruption] Order! The member has described the document enough. I now just need to know where it is from and the date and I will put the leave. It is not an opportunity to make a political statement.Su’a William Sio: I was about to.Mr SPEAKER: I am pleased the member is getting on to it.Su’a William Sio: The source is a 2014 New Zealand income survey from Statistics New Zealand and it is not readily available. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am going to accept the member’s word that it is not readily available. I will therefore put the leave and the House can decide. Leave is sought to table that particular hard-to-find Statistics New Zealand information dated 2014. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I would like to table a document that shows that the unemployment rate—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I equally need to know the source of the document.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Oh it is Statistics New Zealand but it has gone down under our Government.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not think the Minister is going to claim that it is hard to get hold of that information.Su’a William Sio: I tabled it because he did not know the answer.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Throughout this week we have had very unhelpful starts to some supplementary questions from a number of members to my left. I have warned that in future if it continues I will just cease that line of questioning. Since it is Thursday and we are about to embark on an adjournment I will give the member the benefit of the doubt on this occasion.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I acknowledge the ruling that you have just made. I will certainly be talking to my colleagues about ensuring that that is complied with. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order.Chris Hipkins: What I would like to suggest to you Mr Speaker is that you apply a similar ruling to Ministers who begin their answers with an insult to the member who has asked the question.Mr SPEAKER: And I do.Su’a William Sio: Does the Minister’s definition of success and achievement for Pacific peoples include the 30 percent of Pacific children living in poverty under his Government’s watch?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: My definition of success for Pacific children includes the increase in the number of Pacific children participating in early childhood education from 84.4 percent in 2008 to 89.9 percent in 2014. My definition of success includes National Certificate of Educational Achievement level 2 achievement which under Labour was 51.3 percent and under National is now 71.4 percent. I go further. I go further. One more please Mr Speaker—one more. I have got a long list here but I just want one more.Mr SPEAKER: Just quickly finish.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: The number of Pasifika students enrolled in qualifications at bachelor level or higher has increased 41 percent from 8935 to 12650. Clearly—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer was long enough.Su’a William Sio: How will outsourcing Pasifika programmes and making about 40 Pasifika broadcasters redundant from Television New Zealand (TVNZ) attain success and achievement for Pasifika broadcasting?Mr SPEAKER: In so far as the Minister has ministerial responsibility.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: My learned colleague the Hon Amy Adams answered this question last week but for the member’s benefit today: TVNZ has made assurances that staff jobs are not on the line. It is an operational decision. Independent production shows that this is an excellent opportunity for our talented Pacific producers to maintain and grow content for Pacific audiences. I also understand and the member knows this that New Zealand On Air funding is still available for these types of programmes. The member knows that production is possible by Pacific producers. We know that funding is available. We know there is talent out there and Pacific television production companies can deliver the content.Su’a William Sio: How will empowering employers to legally opt out of bargaining and not negotiate in good faith and removing smoko breaks attain success and achievement for Pacific women who are in casual part-time jobs and earning the minimum wage?Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: I fundamentally disagree with the assertion made by the member in that question. But what I can say about Pacific women is that the unemployment rate for Pacific women fell 6.2 percentage points from 24.5 percent to 14.3 percent and 3700 fewer Pacific women are now unemployed. That is what this National Government is doing for Pacific women.Cricket World Cup—Government Support10.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill)to the Minister for Sport and Recreation: How does the Government plan to support the Cricket World Cup?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister for Sport and Recreation):Today marks 100 days to go until the start of the Cricket World Cup. The Government is providing comprehensive support to ensure the success of the tournament with 23 games in New Zealand at seven venues over 6 weeks. A number of Government agencies including Sport New Zealand the New Zealand Police the Customs Service and the Immigration Service are working closely with the local organising committee to ensure coordinated delivery of essential services and support. The Government will provide $5 million of funding to support regional hosting of the tournament. This funding will be applied to a range of other initiatives around the other host cities. It is going to be great.Sarah Dowie: What are the wider opportunities for New Zealand that the Cricket World Cup presents?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The Cricket World Cup is a huge opportunity to showcase New Zealand. It is the third-largest sporting event in the world with an estimated global reach of 1.6 billion people and with 3500 media personnel covering the event. The opening ceremony and first game of the Cricket World Cup will be the first global sporting events that Christchurch has hosted since the Canterbury earthquakes. Christchurch will be a key focal point of the tournament domestically and internationally and we are expecting a huge turnout there for the opening ceremony and the games at the new Hagley Oval.Māori Development—Policies and Progress11.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga)to the Minister for Māori Development: Does he stand by his statement “I am also determined that we uphold the momentum and the priority of some key strategic statements established by my predecessors”?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Associate Minister for Māori Development)on behalf of theMinister for Māori Development: Yes.Rino Tirikatene: Does he agree that strategic statements made by his predecessors have done nothing to bring down Māori unemployment which is now rising and near double the national rate?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: No.Rino Tirikatene: Does he agree with his predecessor as Minister for Whānau Ora the Hon Tariana Turia when she said: “I think that it was just very poor it was a poor rolling out of Whānau Ora and a lack of understanding or belief that Whānau Ora could work actually.”; if not why not?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Yes.Rino Tirikatene: How will the $1 million grant for the Xin and Tāne stage production get more Māori into decent employment and assist whānau into warm dry homes?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well it will not but it will do a lot to advance arts and culture for Māori.Rino Tirikatene: Does he support the target of his colleague Steven Joyce to raise median incomes for Māori to that of the overall population by 2040; if so does he think that 200 years since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is an acceptable time frame for Māori to achieve parity in this country?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Yes I support the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment target that has been outlined.Dairy Products Contamination Incident—Outcome of Government Inquiry12.JONO NAYLOR (National)to the Minister for Food Safety: What recent announcements have been made regarding the recommendations from the Government Inquiry into the Whey Protein Concentrate Incident?Hon JO GOODHEW (Minister for Food Safety):Last week the Minister of Science and Innovation and I jointly announced that Massey University has been selected to host the new Food Safety Science and Research Centre which is expected to open in mid-2015. The centre was a key recommendation from the inquiry and is part of an overall Government package of improvements to ensure New Zealand’s food safety system remains amongst the best in the world.Jono Naylor: What is the Food Safety Science and Research Centre expected to deliver?Hon JO GOODHEW: The centre will promote and coordinate food safety research across New Zealand leading to less duplication and more efficient investment in research between Government industry and research providers. The centre will enhance New Zealand’s international visibility for food safety science and research capabilities. It will support the scientific expertise we rely on to uphold our international reputation and ensure we can meet the challenges and opportunities ahead of New Zealand.Sittings of the HouseHon SIMON BRIDGES (Deputy Leader of the House)on behalf of theLeader of the House:I move That on its rising on Thursday 6 November 2014 the House adjourn until Tuesday 25 November and on its rising on Wednesday 10 December the House adjourn until Tuesday 10 February 2015 and the sitting pattern for 2015 be as follows:February 10 11 12 17 18 19 24 25 and 26;March 10 11 12 17 18 19 24 25 26 and 31;April 1 2 28 29 and 30;May 5 6 7 19 20 21 26 27 and 28;June 2 3 4 16 17 18 23 24 25 and 30;July 1 2 21 22 23 28 29 and 30;August 11 12 13 18 19 20 25 26 and 27;September 8 9 10 15 16 17 22 23 and 24;October 13 14 15 20 21 and 22;November 3 4 5 10 11 12 17 18 and 19;December 1 2 3 8 9 and 10.It is a good sitting pattern indicative of a hard-working Government and Parliament working for all New Zealanders.CHRIS HIPKINS (Senior Whip—Labour):I want to take this unusual step of congratulating the Leader of the House on being so efficient in getting the sitting schedule for next year out so early. I think it is actually a much better precedent for the Parliament to be determining the sitting calendar for the following year earlier on rather than in the adjournment debate right at the end of the year which we have traditionally done. I want to just alert members to the fact that the leave that was sought and obtained earlier today prior to question time means that we will still have an adjournment debate at the end of the parliamentary sitting year but we are getting this out of the way earlier. It gives members and all of the staff in the building certainty and the ability to plan for the following year. Labour will certainly be supporting this motion.DAVID CLENDON (Musterer—Green):I would like to take just a brief call to express the Greens’ support for this motion. We also thank the Leader of the House for having put this draft programme out in a timely fashion. It does assist our planning both for the end of the year and for the New Year. We look forward to the work of 2015 and we are sure that this Government will give us lots of opportunities to prove to New Zealanders the value and the importance of a well-informed active Opposition. Thank you.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First):New Zealand First opposes this motion. We have hardly had an election and the National Party members want a long tea break for 6 or 7 weeks. We have got a housing crisis we have got an export decline crisis we have got a debt that is going up seven times which they inherited and they want to have a holiday and escape scrutiny in this House. They should be here all the way to 24 December. I know they are tired. They look tired. In fact they are so tired they have run out of ideas but there is no reason why they should have a long tea break when the public want some fundamental issues to be decided.The National Government has an agenda of denial but New Zealand faces profound problems and a whole array of them. There are thousands of New Zealand families in caravans and in all sorts of unsatisfactory housing who would want this Parliament in the 10 days after 10 December all the way to 24 December to make it a priority. But no no the National Party members want to go and have a long holiday. Mind you it is not the kind of thing they think the ordinary workers should get. It is not the kind of thing they want the middle class to get.Tim Macindoe: Talk to your whip.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Oh here we go. No no unlike the National Party we do not have a little convenient committee to decide what is going on. The rather excited gentleman who after all this time in Parliament has got a job as the whip—Tim Macindoe: Go on—insult me. Don’t deal with the issue. That’s your usual style.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well I struck a nerve obviously. Can you hear that noise? It is the greatest and longest speech he has ever made! And I can see why he cannot bear the consequences. That is the kind of Stasi behaviour we expect from National today. In short if we do not take what he recommends he gets upset. Where does he sit in this Parliament? Well he has finally got to the whips’ office—and that is about as far as he will go. They in National want a prolonged holiday. The timetable for parliamentary business as set out in the motion is in many respects an insult to hard-working New Zealanders who send us here to do our job; not to have long interminable holidays. But you see that is the way National organises things. Everybody but four in the National Government now has a job. Everyone but four now has a job.As for consultation did it consult any other party about being a chair of a select committee? A deputy chair? Not one job! This is so unique. This is so unique. I can recall when National would give other parties a chance to chair committees like the Regulations Review Committee and others. But you see the hysteria from the backbench having been here 5 minutes—and most of them will last only that long. They will be gone so fast we will not see them for dust and small pebbles. But there they are shouting like the storm troopers that they are trying to complain about someone asking for longer harder working hours for MPs. I know what their wont is. Most of these guys are Tea Party - type operators. That is how they got here. Oh yes they did. Oh yes they did. I can name the people across here who tea-partied their way into this Parliament. Whilst people like Hutchison were doing a great job in their electorate they were carefully undermining him to the extent that one day he turned around and lost his seat. Not just one but over and over again.Now I want to know why the issue of massive debt is not going to be debated for the rest of this year. The man who is looking in the mirror over there Simon O’Connor is from Tāmaki. Remember Tāmaki used to have a dynamic member called Muldoon. Look what they have got now. They went from the sublime to the ridiculous. And he has gone as far as he will ever go. He has been made the chair of a select committee. Gentlemen at the back here be very careful here—Simon O’Connor: More votes than your whole party put together.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: These words are to help you. Look they are here for your survival. Do not listen to what these guys are saying over there. They want to go home so that you cannot ask any more questions at caucus. They want to run things by Cabinet. That is why New Zealand First says this motion should be rejected. We should be here all the way to 24 December 2014 because we face in social and economic areas the greatest crisis we have in modern times.Hon Member: Name your MPs.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Name our MPs? I do not have to name my MPs.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party):Kia ora Mr Speaker. We in the Māori Party are grateful for the consultation that we have had and for our participation in the meetings when all of these matters were discussed by all of the parties who were present at the time. We are grateful that the recognition has been given to the 100th anniversary of the war next year. In fact we are going to have a 4-week sitting term you will notice from March all the way through to April.I am also grateful that I am able to take the advice of the National Government in supporting me to be the deputy chair of the Māori Affairs Committee. However given that I am an independent person and have my right to free thinking in the spirit of kotahitanga I was quite happy to concede that position to the Hon Nanaia Mahuta given the way the Māori Affairs Committee has worked in the past.I would just like to note that we support this motion and we are happily looking forward to a hard-working term because we work very hard in the Māori Party—[Interruption] Yes that is right—I have just started and have not had a break yet. I have been home once in 3 weeks and my 3-year-old fell asleep on top of me. That is the world I have lived in for the last—how old am I now—44 years thank you very much. Anyway we are grateful to be working hard no matter whether we are sitting here or in adjournment because that is just how we roll. Thank you.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the motion be agreed to.Ayes110New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes11New Zealand First 11.Motion agreed to.MotionsWork and Income Ashburton—Deaths of EmployeesSUE MORONEY (Labour):I seek leave to move without notice members’ motion No. 8 in my name without debate.Mr SPEAKER: In relation to?SUE MORONEY: It is in relation to the deaths of two Work and Income employees in Ashburton in September.Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.SUE MORONEY: I move That this House note the tragic deaths of Peggy Turuhira Noble and Susan Leigh Cleveland at the Ashburton Work and Income office on Monday 1 September 2014 and extend to their families the deepest sympathies of this House with our heartfelt acknowledgment that they died in their public sector workplace while serving in the interests of their community.Motion agreed to.Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3)First ReadingDebate resumed from 4 November.Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Internal Affairs):When I was speaking at the adjournment the other night I was talking about some of the provisions of the new bill in so far as they relate to conflicts of interest. I had spoken about the need to capture people who might be at the periphery of a venue’s operations but have a significant role within it. I had also talked about key people who might be in a position to receive benefits from any of the organisations in which they were involved.I want to move on from there. One of the more significant changes that this bill introduces is the prohibition of any money gifts or benefits between societies and venues aside from those legitimately paid through the venue cost payment system. The bill is intended to help clamp down on unhealthy competition for high-turnover venues around the country. In fact societies for some time have been accusing each other of offering these venues various sweeteners over and above what is legally payable in order to persuade them to sign up to host their gaming machines and this bill seeks to address that concern.The bill also makes a change in the area of compliance costs by allowing the Secretary for Internal Affairs to issue licences for gambling operators that last up to 3 years rather than just the current 18 months. The less frequent requirement for renewals will act as a reward for compliance and it will also help to reduce operator costs. I think that has the potential to be a benefit to the Department of Internal Affairs in its role as the regulator because its workload on licensing renewals could well substantially reduce as a consequence.The bill also removes the requirement for societies to publish grant information in at least one newspaper which can be costly. I am sure we all recall those big full-page spreads in national newspapers on occasions. But today information can be far more readily obtainable and available and it can be more comprehensive and more accessible if it is published on a website and so the changes that the bill contemplates will encourage greater flexibility in the publication of grant information to better meet the changing needs of particular stakeholders.The final part of the bill is to streamline the appeals framework under the Gambling Act. Societies have the right of appeal to the Gambling Commission against the department’s decision to suspend cancel not issue or not renew class 3 and 4 licences. When the commission was established back in 2003 one of its purposes was to be a specialist body that can consider appeals. What the bill does is uphold that by allowing an affected party to seek a judicial review but only after that party has exercised its right of appeal to the Gambling Commission and that appeal has been finally determined.I said at the start of the first reading the other night that this bill is an important step in an ongoing series of measures to restore greater public confidence in the gambling sector. We know that class 4 gambling generates many hundreds of millions of dollars every year and most of that money is ploughed back into the community. What this bill is about ensuring is that the maximum amount of money is ploughed back and that it goes to the right places. We are also therefore looking in the bill at decision-making and grant-making processes and at tightening up parts of the Gambling Act that potentially allow the opportunity for dishonest arrangements or where personal gains from gambling are sought. Both of those activities are clearly unacceptable. The bottom line very simply is that when the public of New Zealand pay their fee to take part they need to be assured that those who are involved in operating this type of gambling are doing the right thing and that the gambling funds are being used for what they were intended—namely the community need. So I am very comfortable commending this bill to the House and I look forward to the House’s support for it.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Can I commend the Minister of Internal Affairs for his contribution to the House and also for the legislation that he is presenting to us. Labour is very happy to support this legislation’s referral to a select committee and we will see how we go after that. But certainly the intention of the legislation is admirable and it is something that is necessary. Should the bill be shown at the select committee to be able to deliver those objectives we will certainly support the further progress of it.I want to just take a step back in terms of the gambling regulation and regime that we have got in place before us. When we were in Government in the 2002 to 2005 period—Labour led the Government then—we introduced a major piece of gambling legislation that really set for the first time in over 29 years some fundamental objectives for the regulatory regime and that also recognised the changes that have taken place over the years in terms of gambling. This legislation does not really confront that. I have not got the answers to that actually and I would be happy to admit that but I would certainly be very happy to be part of the solution. I think there are challenges in terms of access to worldwide gambling institutions that we have not been able to regulate satisfactorily. I suppose that before we do that though we might want to consider what harm is being done and then we would have a better idea of the scale of the problem that we might need to face if indeed we do have a problem.The legislation that was introduced in 2003 introduced major reforms. We had a moratorium on casinos—of course that has been in debate over the last couple of years in relation to Skycity—we had a reduction in the number of class 4 gaming machines in new venues and we had a significant shift in focus. The debates in this House on the gambling regulatory regime were much more about the minimisation of gambling-associated harm so the public health recognition of gambling finally came to fruition in the debates in Parliament. When those changes became fully operational in July 2004 that really was a huge step for the New Zealand Parliament and I want to commend the people behind that consideration and also those who contributed to the debate at that time. It is very interesting to read the debate in the 2003-04 period and see how much things have advanced over just a decade and probably that would alert our Parliament as to how we need to keep on our toes in this regard.I think the Minister probably is ensuring that Parliament keeps on its toes given that we have got two gambling bills before Parliament at the moment. We had been debating the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) earlier in this session of the House and now we have got the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). It does puzzle me as to why we could not have waited until the No. 2 bill was concluded. It was only a matter of another few hours to go before the third amendment bill came through and it does raise the question I guess about whether there is consistency in the portfolio in terms of taking a strategic look at the entire industry. It has been a little ad hoc.I know that some of the changes that have come about were the result of the National Government slashing Te Ururoa Flavell’s member’s bill. He had a very comprehensive member’s bill the Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill which he had introduced. Unfortunately it got hijacked by National which refused to support it unless he made substantial changes to it and I think that we lost an opportunity really to stand up to some of the lack of transparency in the industry. It was not entirely of my making—in terms of the bill I would not have supported every piece of it—but I was certainly disappointed that it was watered down to the extent it was.The aim of this bill is to provide greater transparency and that is certainly needed. The Minister gave one example of cost—but retaining transparency or perhaps even enhancing it—by using the example of the full-page ad in the paper that we have seen. All of us would have seen it; probably very few of us would have read it. Electorate MPs tend to read those things with a little more care than perhaps other members of the public because we are interested in what organisations in our electorates have received funding. Then we are able to link in with what activity they are going to use it for. The Minister noted that that information could now for example be available on a website. I will just raise a note of caution. I think the theory sounds great but actually how many people would think to look at a website unless they were triggered by a particular occurrence? Whereas when we look through the newspaper we see a full-page ad. We do not think to look for it; we just turn the page and there it is. So sometimes having a change in the way that information is made available does not always mean having the same sort of transparency. I am not opposed to it; I am just raising that as one of the cautions that I would like the select committee to consider.We would certainly support the point—improving transparency. This is particularly around grant-making which I just referred to in terms of the full-page ad; the grants from the class 4 gaming machines which are the non-casino gaming machines so the pokies that are in clubs or pubs or bars not the casino ones. This is about transparency and the grants where the pokie machine money is given to the community. We have also got in the legislation the purpose of trying to reduce the potential conflict of interest situations. It was a big concern when we were debating Te Ururoa Flavell’s bill at the Commerce Committee. I do not think that there is enough recognition of potential conflict of interest and declarations in the industry. So improving that in the legislation is certainly something we would support.Another purpose is that of improving transparency surrounding the management companies that provide the societies with service and the contract negotiation with venues is one such example. I am not aware of any particular issue that has been raised that has caused this to be addressed in the legislation but I am sure the officials or submitters will give us a bit more clarity around why the lack of transparency or apparent lack of transparency has caused any concern. As for simplifying compliance costs and reducing costs for society and venue owners how could you argue—how could anyone argue; not you Mr Deputy Speaker; I am sure you would not argue—against reducing compliance costs or complexities? We have to make sure that the accountability for those organisations is not reduced by any reduction in compliance costs but that the principle certainly will be strongly supported. As the Minister mentioned there is also the purpose of ensuring the efficiency of the appeals process is not undermined.So those are some of the key points of the legislation. As I said we have two gambling bills going through Parliament at the moment both of which I think would be quite widely supported by the community who are increasingly recognising that gambling is a public health issue and is one that you do not clamp down on to try to stop but that you have a regulatory regime that protects our citizens from harm. That is the importance of it. It is also to make sure that a significant amount of money is not used or abused. That is the responsibility of this Parliament as well.Having a debate as open as this and obviously having the bill go through a proper select committee process soon does bring it into sharp contrast with the way the Skycity legislation was rammed through Parliament where basically John Key and probably Steven Joyce did a dirty deal with Skycity and enabled it to break the agreement with the Auckland City Council in terms of reducing the number of pokies—a huge increase in the number of pokies in Skycity in Auckland in a convention centre that would be able to be used by the public. The deal was sold to New Zealand by the Prime Minister as us getting a convention centre for free. There was no regard for the democratic process that Auckland City Council went through in terms of determining the limit of pokies in its community—and that is something that is its right and it was undermined by the deal that John Key did—let alone the actual harm that is done by pokies. That is why we had a commitment by this Parliament in the earlier gambling legislation to reduce the number of pokie machines. So the deal that John Key did went straight against that.I notice that the Minister who has got his name on this bill did not comment on that but I have seen his writings on this subject. He seemed to be singularly unimpressed at the time with the deal that had been done by John Key with Skycity. He wrote some unfavourable comments about it but I am pretty sure that when he came into the House he was supportive of the deal. So I was puzzled by what happened between one statement and another. The Minister is looking puzzled now. Did he not support the Skycity deal? Yes he did—that is right. He did say that it was not a great deal; it was a dodgy deal. I could probably table the comments he made if he wants. But there was an inconsistency there. It is always a puzzle to me and to others on this side of the House when members of Parliament make a comment about an issue and say one thing and then when it comes to voting do another.I am pleased that we are debating this legislation. I think it is a step in the right direction. Again I commend the Minister for bringing it to the House and I look forward to the debate at the select committee.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill):I too would like to commend the Minister Peter Dunne for bringing this bill to the House and I am looking forward to hearing submissions in the select committee. Even though this bill is quite technical in nature and makes technical changes the broad purpose is of course to minimise the harm of gambling and to make sure that the funds are filtered back into the community to obviously minimise that harm. The bill simplifies streamlines and makes provisions more transparent. As the Minister said there are large amounts of cash at stake here and they do need to be filtered into the community. The community needs to have a stake in that and through that transparency there are checks and balances that guard against any dishonesty.In particular I would like to highlight two changes. The first is the grant process—making that more transparent by putting in place reporting measures to make the criteria for grants more clear. The second part of that change is to make societies that obviously operate these pokie machines more accountable to the public by having them report as to their operational efficiency. I think that is a great way to keep the societies honest and to keep the community involved in how this funding is to go back into their community. The second change I want to highlight is that there is a change in the definition of “key person” and that is to reduce any conflicts of interest and deal with any indirect conflicts of interest where there could be some benefits derived in an improper manner. That obviously means again that communities have a greater input to make sure that that abuse is minimised.In short this bill goes toward a balance between allowing people to have a flutter and minimising the harm of gambling by putting those funds back into the community. I certainly support this process. I look forward to the select committee consideration to hearing people’s views and to striking that balance. I definitely look forward to hearing the submissions on this bill.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I am very happy to take a call on the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). I certainly hope that I will have the opportunity to see this bill through to its final conclusion. Of course if it follows the passage of the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) I will need to be re-elected at least three more times in order to see this bill through from start to finish. I hope that the Government has more success in passing this bill than the last three Governments had in progressing the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2). The Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) incidentally was one of the first bills I spoke on when I first became a member of Parliament in 2008 and by then it had already been sitting on the Order Paper for several years. So I hope we get to see this bill through much more promptly than that. In fact I hope we get to finish progressing the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2) quite quickly as well.I think one of the things that struck me about the first of the bills I have just mentioned is that this is an incredibly heavily regulated area and it is incredibly technical. However an awful lot of technological change takes place in this area and keeping on top of it is very very important. That is actually one of the reasons why I hope we will be able to expedite this bill and the process around the other bill. When we talk about the technology involved in pokie machines for example the technology that is used to hook people in and get them addicted is heavily regulated. Unfortunately I suspect that those regulations are now quite out of date because the law that enables them is also out of date. It is important that we get this legislation through so that we can keep on top of this and deal with the issues around problem gambling.I want to be really clear here. For most New Zealanders gambling is a bit of fun. They go to a casino and they might walk in with $50; they either walk out with $500 or walk out with nothing. In my case it is normally the latter of the two examples. I walk in with a certain amount of money and walk out with nothing—but it is a bit of fun. Then you might be in a pub and put $2 into a slot machine and that is a bit of a laugh and then you go. But for a smaller number of New Zealanders it is not like that; it is much much more serious. It is a big problem. I see those examples in my own electorate. They are tragedies and we should be taking all of the steps we reasonably can to ensure that we minimise the harm from gambling and that we minimise the potential for people to get hooked in that way. Basically we should put some fences at the top of the cliff rather than dealing with the problems when they arise. I know that that is some of what this bill is all about.The societies that administer class 4 pokies—class 4 pokies are the ones that are not in casinos but are in the pubs and the clubs—have changed quite dramatically over the last 10 to 15 years and that is a good thing. With regard to pokie machines we saw a massive increase in the number of pokie machines and the number of venues between 1994 and the passage of the Gambling Act in 2003. We have seen a steady decline in the number of pokie machines since then and that is a welcome thing. We have also seen a steady decline in recent years—probably since about 2005 when we had the peak when gambling turnover was over a billion dollars in pokie machines in class 4 pokies—and I think that that is a welcome trend as well. So those are good things. We have also seen the sector clean up its act a lot as a result of the passage of that legislation but there is still a way to go.I think back to the wild west days when I was president of the Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. Some of the big sponsors that our University Games team used to have were the local pubs which would take the money from pokie machines and effectively use it as an incentive to lure people in. They sponsored our University Games team but a lot of mutual back-scratching went with it. So they would say: “We’ll give you a certain amount of money from our pokie machines but we expect you to come into our bar with your whole team and divert a certain portion of the money we are giving you back across the bar or back into the pokie machines.”Ian McKelvie: That’s fair enough.CHRIS HIPKINS: Well no no—the member says: “That’s fair enough.” It is actually against the law now. That is quite a corrupt practice because it means that the proceeds from the pokie machines are not actually being applied in the way they are intended. The proceeds from pokie machines are designed to be used for charitable purposes and if a business is applying them in such a way that it says “Well you can have the money as long as you give it back to us.” then it is not actually applying that funding for genuine charitable purposes.That has changed a lot. We have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of societies that are involved in this process. We used to have a situation where every pub would set up its own little society. The pub manager would run it it would be done out of a back room and there would be all sorts of interesting exchanges going on. There is a lot less of that now than there used to be and that is a good thing but there are still some areas where improvement is required and it is often within those less formal settings—the sports clubrooms—where there might be some issues that need to be addressed.I think there are some pragmatic and sensible changes in this bill that will help to address the remaining issues that exist around that and there are also some anomalies that this bill starts to correct which I also think are very sensible. It has always irked me a little bit when you pick up a copy of the Sunday papers to see full-page advertisements printed in a very tiny font listing every individual grant that some of the societies have made. When you think about the cost of the advertisement—to be transparent about it—it often adds up to more than what many of the grants were. That is if you took a chunk of the grants and totalled them up. I would rather see that money going into grants. If we can ensure that there is transparency by having the information available electronically online and at a much much cheaper price than sticking it in a newspaper advertisement—thereby enabling those societies to make more grants—that is common sense to me as well as and that is a sensible thing. So I think that is one of a change in this legislation that is important.Of course my colleague Ruth Dyson also made a very valid point about this though in that it is important that this information is not just buried. So it has to be readily accessible. People have to know where it is and they have to be able to access it. But I do not think that organisations need to spend large amounts of money in order to make that information accessible. In fact I would argue that putting it online in a searchable form is a far more accessible way to make that information available than putting out a full-page newspaper advertisement with tiny little letters that you need a magnifying glass to be able to read. So those are some relatively sensible provisions in the bill which I think will certainly improve the situation enormously.The Labour Party has been very supportive over a long period of time—since 2003 when the Gambling Act was first introduced and passed. There is a long history about that piece of legislation. My colleague Grant Robertson would wax lyrical about that for many hours given the opportunity because of course the legislation started as the Responsible Gambling Act but after it had been though the process the word “responsible” was dropped and the legislation became the Gambling Act. But I think there has been a real drive over a period of time since then to ensure that we do put “responsible” into responsible gambling legislation and the Labour Party has supported this right the way through. So each time there is an opportunity for us to go a little bit further to refine the system further to increase transparency and to reduce the potential for gambling to become a problem we are going to be very supportive of those things. So this legislation certainly makes some of those things better.I mentioned before the societies involved. The changes to conflict of interest provisions in this bill will help to stop the situation where somebody who is involved in the administration of one of the societies or in the running of the pokie machines can eventually end up being a beneficiary of the grants. I think the conflict of interest provisions in this legislation are a big improvement on what we have now and I think that will be very welcome.The final point I want to make—and I think it is a more difficult issue to deal with; it is not dealt with in this legislation but I think it will need to be dealt with by Parliament—is about ensuring equity in the way that grants are applied in terms of the communities that they are drawn from and the communities that they are invested back into. There is too much potential in the legislation now for pokie machines to be located in poor communities for them to take money out of poor communities and then for them to redistribute the money in the form of charitable grants to middle-class or higher -income communities. Taking money out of a very poor community and giving it to the local golf club is probably not going to benefit the people who are most likely putting the money into the machines in the first place. So I think there does need to be further discussion and further consideration of how we can ensure equity in the distribution of grants. I want to acknowledge in my own electorate the Rimutaka Licensing Trust. It has a conscious policy of saying it will reinvest this money only in the communities that it comes from. I think that is a very sensible thing. It means that the local schools in its catchment area do very well out of it because it is investing that money in education. It is going back into the community it is drawn from and I think that is positive. I would like to see that principle applied much much more widely through the class 4 pokie sector.So with those thoughts in mind we will certainly be supporting the bill to the select committee and I look forward to seeing it progress more expeditiously hopefully than the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 2).MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney):I am very happy to take a call on the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). I was surprised to hear the comments from the previous speaker Chris Hipkins. It sounded like he was not very confident that he was going to be returned to Parliament to see the passage of this bill. I did not think things were as bad as what they really are over there if those comments are indicative of the current situation. I am sure that he will see the passage of this bill this term.I want to acknowledge the chair of the Government Administration Committee the Hon Ruth Dyson and the newly appointed deputy chair Sarah Dowie. Like her I look forward to receiving this bill at the committee. It is a good bill. Of course I want to acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne as well the Minister of Internal Affairs.It is a good bill. I do not have much time to go into it. However I do like the fact that this bill has got some very strong provisions around reducing conflicts of interest. We have seen some major issues arise because of conflicts of interest. The Gambling Act currently has two conflict of interest provisions with associated summary offences. The conflict of interest provisions are important because they help to ensure that gambling is undertaken for the benefit of the community rather than the benefit or personal gain of an individual.The bill’s amendments strengthen the conflict of interest provisions in the Gambling Act by changing the definition of a venue “key person” so that indirect interests and relationships of venue operators to grant recipients are captured. The bill is simplifying the test for determining whether a person has an interest in a venue such that he or she is in essence a venue “key person”. It will prohibit payments gifts or benefits between societies and venues when there is no condition attached to the payment gift or benefit. There are several other very good clauses but like I said I do not have time for a lengthy speech. I am certainly looking forward to receiving this bill at the select committee. Thank you.KEVIN HAGUE (Green):I rise to give this speech on behalf of Denise Roche who handles the gambling portfolio for the Green Party. The Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) deals with class 4 gambling—pokies in pubs and clubs—and it is the result of changes that were suggested during the submission process on Te Ururoa Flavell’s bill the Gambling (Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. Sadly that bill was essentially gutted before it passed last year. The bill generated around 30000 submissions because the pokie industry had mobilised and it would be fair to say that the industry achieved what it wanted—an Act that does essentially nothing. Actually the speech notes that Denise has given me do not say “essentially nothing”; they use a different phrase. I will spare the House from that today. This bill tries to address some of the issues raised during that process.In this bill the distribution of community funds is a key issue as is trying to ensure that there are fewer dodgy people and practices involved in the distribution of funds. There is still real concern that the industry is full of rorts. Any Google search will result in numerous examples of the corrupt distribution of money. Class 4 gambling is still raking in the money. Department of Internal Affairs’ results show that $808 million was lost in pokies in the year to September. That is equivalent to the cost of running six or seven district health boards the size of the one that I used to run. That is a very very large amount of money indeed. Although it is good to see that in that same year there was a 1.4 percent reduction that still equates to a very very large amount of money—almost $1 billion. Those statistics do not include losses to pokie machines in casinos; that nearly $1 billion in losses pertains just to the pokie machines in pubs and clubs. That is of course what this legislation deals with.Public health workers and problem-gambling service providers estimate that around 40 percent of the money lost on pokie machines comes from gamblers with little control over their gambling behaviour. I would endorse that from my own experience. I was a consultant hired to scope out the health services that would be required to deal with the issues associated with problem gambling if the responsibility for dealing with problem gambling were to be transferred from the Department of Internal Affairs to the health authorities. Certainly what I found is that most of the losses were concentrated amongst people who essentially had no control over their gambling behaviour. Interestingly when I recommended what health services would be required to deal with the problem I reported back to the committee that controlled problem gambling for the industry at that time and my recommendations were found to be far too excessive. That is the problem is it not with the fox controlling the hen house.We never seem to factor in the costs that come with the proceeds generated from pokies. As well as the costs to the victims of crimes there are the legal bills and the potential prison costs that are also associated with gambling harm. It would be good to see those figures stacked up alongside that $808 million. We do not have to create so much misery from gambling. Pokie machines can be made safer to use with the introduction of real-time player tracking and pre-commit cards. I am sure a lot of people would feel much better about the proceeds from pokies going to good community organisations if there was more of an effort made to curb the social harm from them.Most of the changes in this bill are reasonable or benign except for one and that is the provision that will remove the prohibition on paying venues on a commission basis. We oppose this change for two reasons. Firstly commission-based payments for venues would act as a disincentive for venue operators to monitor problem gambling. Yes they have host responsibility programmes but currently they are paid the actual and reasonable costs associated with hosting the machines on their premises. If they get paid a commission it will be in their interests to ensure that there is a high spend on each machine in order to maximise their percentage payments. Secondly the only reason we have class 4 gambling in the first place is to fund community activities—“for authorised purposes”. That is the only reason in law. Once we move to a commission-based payment system for venues we start to further eat away at the funds available for those community activities.The new commission structure proposed in this legislation for pubs with pokie machines is actually a giant leap backwards. The move to a commission system announced earlier this year by the Minister of Internal Affairs Peter Dunne overturns a section of the Gambling Act 2003 that prohibited commission payments for pokie operators because of the reasons I have given—because they give publicans an incentive to promote gambling particularly problem gambling. Instead publicans and other venue operators have been allowed to claim only actual reasonable and necessary costs up to a maximum of 16 percent of their proceeds. Before we had the current law some venues were receiving commissions that were wildly outside costs. According to those who work in problem-gambling areas there was a pub in South Auckland that was getting $500000 a year in commissions from its pokies.The move to return to commissions is a kick in the teeth for those who battled to get rid of them back in 2003. It is actually a huge bonus for those in the gambling industry. Interestingly the bill repeals the prohibition on commissions but does not specify a commission structure. It is simply not good enough that the details of this will be negotiated with the industry. Last September a consultation document proposed paying venues on a sliding scale ranging from 40 percent of the first $1750 of pokie proceeds a week down to 8 percent on proceeds above $15500 a week and nothing at all above $30000 a week. It is unsurprising that those who stand to make the most out of this retrograde move are fully supportive. According to news reports Community Gaming Association director—I always smile when I hear those words—Brian Corbett has those in the industry welcoming a commission-based system. The reason given for this is that evidently the current system is “clumsy unwieldy and very difficult to process”.Despite the current system apparently being so clumsy unwieldy and difficult to process we still have hundreds and hundreds of pokie machines scattered throughout New Zealand pulling hundreds of millions of dollars from communities. This move will give those with pokie machines even more incentive to maximise those profits. It is simply living in cloud-cuckoo-land to believe the Minister Peter Dunne when he states that this move is unlikely to see any increase in the level of reimbursement to venues. Those who stand to gain will do so for the simple reason that their profits will be maximised by commissions. Given this legislation does a number of positive things the Greens will support this bill to the Government Administration Committee but we do so with grave reservations regarding the potential weakening of the controls on gambling. This clause about commissions which I have spoken about mostly will be the deal-breaker for us.CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First):I rise to speak for New Zealand First and to oppose these amendments in the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). We are not here to promote gambling or to say that we are advocates for gambling but it is important to know that we are looking for a common-sense pragmatic approach to gambling throughout this country.It is interesting today to hear some of the comments that keep being brought up with regard to gambling and harm minimisation. It is interesting to note that nobody is actually talking specifically about those statistics that show it is less than 0.03 percent of people who gamble who make up those problem gamblers. The very interesting part that I find difficult to swallow is that we do not have a mechanism to find out what sort of harm minimisation we need to implement because we do not know what sorts of people have problems with certain aspects of gambling. We have 14 percent of the country spending money on racing with regard to gambling. We have the New Zealand Lotteries Commission with a turnover of $947 million. We have gaming machine income at around the $800 million mark and casinos which account for only 26 percent of the total machines at $520 million. We do not have a mechanism to actually identify what specifically people have difficulties and gambling problems with directly or indirectly.We have had a proud history for many many years of being a society that has allowed people to gamble whether it be a friendly game of poker or back in World War I playing two-up in the trenches with their diggers and mates. I am concerned with the devils that are in the detail of this bill. When I read the bill it does not sound particularly harmful until I actually delve into it in its entirety. This legislation is I think at best quite vague and it is going to enable our Department of Internal Affairs audit people to actually get a big stick with which to beat this industry over the head—an industry that is already under large amounts of pressure with the amount of legislation that is against it.I also think that this industry does far more good than it does harm and it needs a little bit more of a common-sense approach with regard to the legislation that it brings. Currently class 4 gambling brings in around $300 million to our communities from Invercargill right through to Kaitāia. Those people who are somehow involved with sports clubs community groups churches schools and arts culture and heritage groups have all had the pleasure of actually facilitating the money that comes out of class 4 gambling to build their community. The difficulty we are going to have is that if we tighten up the legislation even more we will see vast droppings in the number of machines and the turnovers coming down.Iain Lees-Galloway: Vast droppings?CLAYTON MITCHELL: Thank you—those droppings will have a negative impact specifically on those people who are looking for help and support in the community.Iain Lees-Galloway: Are they elephant droppings?CLAYTON MITCHELL: They will be much like elephant droppings—big droppings.The issue I have is that we now have councils making a lot of inroads into decision making on sinking-lid policies with regard to gambling and they do not realise the negative impact that this legislation is going to have on communities throughout the country because those communities rely heavily on that support specifically from class 4 gambling. In comparison Skycity Casino put only $3 million back into the community with its grants. I am still struggling to find specifically where that money went to as opposed to the near $300 million that class 4 gambling has brought in.Some of the issues that I have concerns about in relation to this class 4 gambling legislation reading through some of it is that it says here in the purpose and overview of the bill: “The Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) makes a small number of important improvements …” which I would suggest would have a large negative impact on class 4 gambling societies and venues as well as the recipients of those grants. The bill’s policy objectives are to make five basic changes: “increase transparency of grant-making from the proceeds of Class 4 gambling; reduce potential conflicts of interest situations between Class 4 gambling operators (societies) venues and grant recipients; improve transparency surrounding management companies that provide societies with services (for example contract negotiation with venues administrative and financial management or grant application processing); simplify compliance and reduce costs for societies and venue owners in some areas; and ensure the efficiency of the appeals process is not undermined.”To talk to a couple of those provisions it states in new section 4 that a gambling society key person cannot be a key person in relation to a class 4 venue licence held or applied for. They cannot be a society key person a trustee a director an officer a chief executive or a person who exercises significant influence in management of a gambling society which under the proposed changes in the bill extends to management services providers. Also under the bill’s proposed changes it extends to a person who has the ability directly or indirectly to exert a significant degree of influence over the management or operation of the venue operator or who may reasonably be perceived to have that ability. That could extend to relatives. The concern relates to amended section 4(2)(ivb) which states this. This is specifically the kind of subjectivity I am speaking about which is in my view going to give the Department of Internal Affairs the stick with which to hit those people over the head.I think one of the changes we need to make with regard to section 110 is to rename the bill and call it the “Six Degrees of Separation Amendment Bill”. It actually covers just about every person likely to apply for any grant throughout this country. It states that no proceeds committee members can have direct or indirect interests in any successful application by a grant recipient. Interest is defined as deriving a financial benefit or having a financial interest in the recipient; being a relative of the recipient; being a member or other of the recipient where the recipient is a club; being a relative of a member or officer of the recipient or having been the recipient’s lawyer or another professional capacity; being or having been employed by or being indebted to—which I underline—the recipient; being involved in the business or financial dealing of the recipient; or being otherwise connected or otherwise involved with the recipient in a way that can reasonably be perceived as having influence in the decision to make the grant to recipient. This I call to rename it the “Six Degrees of Separation Bill” because this just about covers everybody in the country. Everybody knows somebody. It could be a second cousin twice removed who is connected in some way by family or a sporting connection. I do not think this provision should be allowed to be put in.I have had a lot of involvement with the gambling industry specifically with class 4 gambling through my business in hospitality. We are a large employer of people in the business and despite what people think we are not making the money out of those gaming machines that people think. In fact I get a site rental of about $100 per machine. We all know the stories and have seen the headlines that make the newspapers—specifically in the early 2000s when there were episodes of people taking full advantage taking money and popping it away for their best use and benefit. However this practice has largely decreased.With regard to the decreasing of the number of machines that are throughout our country at the moment we have come from 27000-odd machines in 2003 to 16800 in July of this year. That is a 30 percent drop in the number of gaming machines which is obviously a drop in revenue which is a drop in what we can afford to put into our communities.We are opposing this bill. I think it needs to be very very seriously thought out. The select committee needs to be looking at the devils in the detail because there are so many. I believe this will be the nail in the coffin for an industry that is already under siege. Thank you.BRETT HUDSON (National):It is indeed a good thing that this bill provides provisions to take care of conflicts of interest. I rise for a short call to support this bill. The reforms in it will deliver a simple more transparent system providing in fact more funds back into our Kiwi communities. There are large sums of money at stake in the class 4 sector and it is important to ensure that as far as possible the maximum amount of gaming machine funds is returned to the community and in particular to the communities where the gaming activities occur. This bill will very much see that come about.We are also giving local communities better information about grant-making decisions. One particular measure is to report on whether the grant decision-makers have any direct or indirect interest in a successful grant application. I believe that will give members of those communities far greater confidence in how those funds are distributed.I would just like to conclude by saying that I commend this bill to the House. I look forward to dealing with it in the Government Administration Committee.ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru):It gives me great pleasure to join my colleagues in supporting this bill in its first reading. I want to acknowledge the work done by the Taumata Hauora Trust when I was a trustee on that trust for the gambling initiatives to work with problem gambling. I want to acknowledge the former chief executive officer of that organisation Jo Hayes who is now a member of Parliament sitting on the opposite side of the House. Today I find myself supporting the same bill that both she and I worked on in that sector so I just want to acknowledge her.I also took the opportunity to contact those who are still working in that sector in my electorate. Last week a number of organisation providers working in that sector were meeting in my electorate so I took that opportunity to talk to a few of them. They are really keen as I am to make certain that there is more transparency which is provided for in this Gambling Amendment (No 3) Bill. I think we have all heard lots of stories about how things really do happen out in the communities. There are some practices—and I think some people in this sector make the most of those opportunities under the current legislation—so it is very good that we have some transparency in that sector.Reducing the conflicts of interest is also a really important area. I have had the occasion of being part of an organisation and going through the process of applying for funds to support the activities of that organisation. You know there were some subtle hints about what was expected in return. I think we need to make certain that there is clear separation between the roles of the people involved in this process. That is a very good thing that is addressed through this bill.Also I support the contribution of Chris Hipkins about the best way of getting information out to the community. Maybe having full-page advertisements is not the best way of transmitting that information. I think there are social media in particular and the internet that would be better used for that purpose.I am taking only a short call on this bill but I look forward to it coming to the Government Administration Committee of which I am a member. I look forward to having more contributions in the future. Kia ora mai tātou.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei):I will take a brief call on this Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). The great thing about this country is that much of what is good and bad can be sheeted directly back to this very place we are standing in this afternoon. I guess although I have some sympathy for the arguments of New Zealand First I do think that the tidying up of this class 4 gambling is certainly overdue. I think it has had an interesting past and I think this bill will go a long way towards I guess what I think are the last steps required just to tidy this thing up. I think many of the trusts and those associated with the distribution of funds in this industry or business are doing really well with it now. I think to a large extent it has already been tidied up but there are just some last little pieces that need to be dealt with and I think this bill deals with them pretty well.There is one thing I want to caution on when it goes to the select committee and that really is the interests of our clubs throughout New Zealand. Many parts of New Zealand—and in my electorate certainly in the north—are heavily affected by the way those clubs look after their communities and the way those clubs are situated in the communities. We have a historical licensing issue in the north of my electorate which has led to a predominance of clubs in that area. Those clubs have relied on this type of income and they operate in a very well-controlled environment. I think as we go through the select committee process on this bill we need to pay a little bit of attention to them and have some sympathy for them because I think they are extremely capable and worthy operators. Finally I just want to say as I said earlier that I think many of the trusts and charitable organisations responsible for the distribution of funds in this area are doing a very good job. I think we have got a much better direction for those institutions now. Some of the organisations that receive those funds certainly need them. I have got no problem with commending this bill to the select committee stage. Thank you.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):It is a pleasure to speak on the Government’s Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3). It is very pleasing to see that the bill is receiving wide support from around the House. This bill has some provisions in it that are worthy of consideration by the Government Administration Committee. I should think given that most members support improving transparency and improving the regulation of gambling it will be something that has very constructive consideration at the select committee. I was somewhat disappointed with the contribution by the New Zealand First member Clayton Mitchell. I thought it was full of droppings to be honest. I was very very disappointed because he was bordering on misleading the House when he said that we do not know about the impacts of gambling and who is affected by problem gambling. I appreciate what the member said—that the vast majority of people who gamble do so in a safe way just as the vast majority of people who drink do so in a safe way. Yet we have a very very tight regulatory system around alcohol. During the last term of Parliament a lot of the time was spent on passing new legislation to regulate alcohol despite the fact that the vast majority of people can use alcohol quite safely. But we do need to legislate for the fact that it does have a harmful impact.We know that gambling has a harmful impact on our communities. Every day New Zealanders lose $5.5 million on gambling—$5.5 million every single day. That is not insignificant. It is about $2 billion a year and half of that $2 billion a year—I think Kevin Hague pointed this out—goes on the pokie machines. The pokie machines are probably the most insidious and nasty and most addictive form of gambling that there is out there. Of course the pokie machines are one of the primary forms of gambling that occurs outside of casinos. They are a little bit more hidden away in darkened rooms usually out the back of the pub where people just quietly spend hours and hours and hours spending their pay cheque—Denis O’Rourke: Why shouldn’t they if that’s what they want to do. It’s personal freedom.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: It is personal freedom says Denis O’Rourke just as it is personal freedom to go down to the pub and spend some money on drinking alcohol. Yet I know that that party voted in favour of legislation that was designed to reduce the harm caused by alcohol because families lose an awful lot of money to alcohol addiction just as the lives of families the most vulnerable families that that member should be standing up for—the most vulnerable families that that member should be standing up for—are ruined by problem gambling. This is the “member for problem gambling”. This is the member who wants to see vulnerable families harmed to see children not have food put on the table to see people miss their mortgage payments and to see people indebted to finance companies because they have lost their money on gambling.That member should be ashamed. That member should be absolutely ashamed for standing up for the gambling industry and for not being prepared to stand up for vulnerable families. The New Zealand Health Survey—Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: He’s lost it.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Again if the Minister Jonathan Coleman does not think that MPs should get passionate about the most vulnerable people in our society—I know what that member gets passionate about. He gets passionate about tax cuts for the rich he gets passionate about ensuring there are plenty of loopholes and he gets passionate about corporate boxes and smoking cigars. He gets passionate about a lot of things but he obviously does not get passionate about the most vulnerable. So if he thinks I have lost it because one of the things that annoys me the most is when members of Parliament are prepared to defend industries that prey on the most vulnerable people in society then I think that tells you a lot more about Jonathan Coleman’s values than it does about mine.The New Zealand Health Survey reported that 3 percent of adults about 87000 people experienced problems due to someone’s gambling in the previous 12 months. A lot of the harm caused by gambling is not just to the person themselves. It is not just to the gambler. It is to their wider families and their wider society and community. Two out of five regular pokie players are likely to have a gambling problem. I hear the members in New Zealand First saying: “What about the sports clubs? What about the community and voluntary organisations?”. Like Chris Hipkins I have been involved with organisations that have relied on donations and funding from organisations that raise their funds through pokie money. But of course the only reason—the only reason—we are reliant on the funds from gambling to support community and voluntary organisations is that we are not prepared to fund them in some other form. That is the only reason.So I do not have any truck with people who say: “What’s the impact going to be on voluntary and community organisations?”. If members of this House are so concerned about those organisations that do good work in our community and support youngsters to get involved in sport and all the myriad things that these organisations that rely on the funds from pokies do then we should establish a fund to make sure that those organisations can be funded without the need for gambling money. Because what it is essentially is a tax on the poor and the vulnerable. It is a tax on the poor and the vulnerable in order to fund organisations that should be able to rely on more reliable and more seemly forms of funding than a tax on the poor and the vulnerable which is essentially what gambling is.I am no prohibitionist. I am no prohibitionist and members around here will know that but we do need to make sure that we have a transparent and conflict of interest - free regulatory system to ensure that those proceeds that are collected from gambling are appropriately deployed.I have to say I got a lot of those statistics that I used to demonstrate just how harmful gambling is in this country from the Health Promotion Agency website because the Health Promotion Agency is of course the Government-mandated organisation to deal with and try to reduce the effects of harmful gambling just as it is involved with trying to reduce the harmful effects of other addictive activities and other health issues.I have to say that the information is very useful and it does a very good job but if we are going to deal with reducing conflicts of interest in the regulation of gambling then I think that the Health Promotion Agency needs to get its own house in order by dealing with the conflict of interest that Katherine Rich has. She is on the board of an organisation that is supposed to reduce the harm caused by alcohol and that is supposed to reduce the harm caused by diabetes and obesity and heart disease. Yet with her other hat on—and we know about the difficulty that the Prime Minister has with his multiple hats and the conflicts of interest they can create for him—she comes along to select committees goes along and lobbies Ministers talks to bloggers—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well you know this is an important component—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): It’s about gambling.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: This bill is about reducing conflicts of interest and the organisation that is mandated with reducing the harm associated with gambling which is what this legislation is all about is the Health Promotion Agency which has to deal with an enormous conflict of interest in its own house. This is the situation for Katherine Rich who lobbies for the alcohol industry who lobbies for the sugar industry who lobbies for so many businesses that cause harm and yet she is there on the Health Promotion Agency supposedly doing the exact opposite meanwhile funding who knows who to attack anybody who speaks out against the alcohol industry or speaks out in favour of greater regulation of food that causes harm.Gambling is something that people can enjoy. I put some money on the Melbourne Cup the other day. It was the first time I have placed a bet in quite some time.Ian McKelvie: Who’d you back?IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: Well I went for the box trifecta and I had Red Cadeaux and I had Protectionist. Silly me I did not back the New Zealand horse and I do not want to dwell on how that impacted me financially. But anyway $10 was spent for a bit of fun and that is probably my gambling for the year. But that is not the story for so many people. That is not the story for so many people. For so many people the day the pay cheque arrives they are on the pokies spending money that should be spent on their rent that should be spent on their mortgage that should be spent on food and that should be spent on their children. Gambling can be addictive for a significant proportion of the population; therefore we need to have good regulation.We do need to have good regulation and so that is why Labour supports this bill and that is why Labour MPs such as myself get passionate about issues that affect the most vulnerable in society.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany):After the very impassioned speech from Mr Lees-Galloway and the interjections from the “Letter-box Man” in New Zealand First I do not feel there is much more I can add. There is a bill here that addresses some important issues that the House and the select committee should consider. I commend the bill to the House.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the Gambling Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time.Ayes108New Zealand National 60; New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes11New Zealand First 11.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Government Administration Committee.Health (Protection) Amendment BillFirst ReadingHon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health):I move That the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. This bill will amend the Health Act 1956. That Act is a very longstanding piece of legislation but although excellent in many respects in some areas it has not kept up with the times. In October 2013 the Government decided to improve the range of measures in the Health Act in two areas: measures to protect the public from the risk of spread of some infectious diseases and in the case of people under 18 years of age measures to protect them from the harm associated with artificial UV tanning. The bill will protect people from these preventable harms. It will do so through measures proportional to the risks faced.As we know some infectious diseases can spread very quickly and sometimes with alarming results. New Zealand has recently experienced another preventable measles epidemic. We all recall the tragic outcomes associated with outbreaks of meningococcal meningitis. New Zealand and indeed the rest of the world is also deeply concerned by the unprecedented outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa.We should never take highly infectious diseases lightly. Fortunately the Health Act does already provide for a range of measures to address serious disease threats such as Ebola. These include in particular the quarantine powers for use at the border and the special powers. These latter provisions which have never been used are effectively the Act’s emergency powers. The Health (Protection) Amendment Bill does not amend these quarantine or special powers. Rather the bill provides for a greater range of intermediate but still potentially significant interventions to assist with the day-to-day management of endemic infectious diseases in the community.The bill has three broad objectives designed to strengthen protection measures for New Zealanders. Firstly the bill adds new provisions for the surveillance and management of infectious diseases. These measures will improve the availability of information for certain conditions of public health significance provide for more effective management of behaviours that put others at risk of infection and strengthen legislative provisions for contact tracing. Secondly the bill streamlines the legislative framework for all infectious diseases by including tuberculosis in schedule 1 of the Health Act “Infectious diseases notifiable to medical officer of health and local authority”. Tuberculosis will be treated in the same way as all other notifiable infectious diseases. This measure allows the historically separate Tuberculosis Act 1948 to be repealed and the Tuberculosis Regulations 1951 to be revoked. Thirdly the bill prohibits for health reasons the commercial provision of sunbeds and other artificial ultraviolet tanning services to those under 18 years of age. These measures have been carefully considered to balance health protection and individual rights. For example the bill will protect people from infection risk while protecting privacy to reduce the risk that people will not seek treatment.The bill provides for the notification on a non-identifying basis of three additional infectious diseases: HIV infection gonorrhoeal infection and syphilis. None of these are notifiable at present despite their serious long-term implications for health. The bill provides for a series of incremental steps when people do not change their behaviour voluntarily to reduce the risk of spreading an infectious disease of concern. New management options include directions issued by a medical officer of health and court orders. Voluntary compliance is our preferred first approach. In the majority of cases people do comply. However in a few cases each year people do not agree to modify their behaviour to reduce the risk of harming others by passing on significant infectious diseases.The provisions in the bill allow for incremental interventions that are appropriate to the circumstances of each case consistent with human rights protections. Directions for example may require an individual to undertake counselling or testing or to accept restrictions on travel or place of residence. In very serious cases courts may issue detention orders to detain a person in a health facility or other place of quarantine until they no longer have an infectious disease and in some instances to order a case to accept treatment. However the bill makes clear that mandatory treatment is not to be physically enforced.Contact tracing is an important and internationally recognised public health strategy as it helps reduce the risk that an infectious disease will spread. The bill strengthens the legislative basis for contact tracing by establishing obligations in respect of contact tracing. Currently contact tracing is voluntary and relies on the consent of the individual with the infection. Some people do not cooperate unfortunately and that can place other people at significant risk of serious harm. The bill places on people who have or may have a notifiable infectious disease the obligation to provide information on their contacts if requested by a contact tracer. Such a provision is essential for effective public health protection measures. This is because people who are contacts but who are not yet showing symptoms of illness may still have the infection and be able to pass it on so posing a risk to others. This situation is already recognised and provided for in the Health Act where people may be detained whether or not they have a confirmed infection.To protect against the harm of tanning services for those most at risk the bill introduces a ban on the commercial provision of artificial UV tanning services or sunbeds to people under 18 years of age. Although this provision in the bill discriminates on the basis of age international evidence of harm justifies the Government’s position. Artificial UV tanning is associated with an increased risk of developing skin cancer and evidence shows that younger people are more vulnerable to this risk. There is strong evidence that people who use sunbeds increase their risk of malignant melanoma and other more common skin cancers. The greater the exposure the greater the risk of skin cancer. Voluntary standards and guidance on operating sunbeds exist. However repeated surveys have consistently found variable compliance with those voluntary steps designed to minimise harm despite considerable effort to educate operators and to encourage their compliance. The Government considers that the evidence of health harm gives sufficient justification for intervention particularly in respect of controls to protect young people from exposure to sunbeds.Finally the bill also streamlines current legislation by including tuberculosis as a notifiable infectious disease under the Health Act. This allows for the repeal of the historically separate Tuberculosis Act 1948. I consider that this bill provides a balance protecting individual rights while still protecting the health of the wider public from risks arising from significant infectious diseases and from risks from sunbeds. It gives me great pleasure today to speak on this important piece of health legislation. I commend this bill to the House.Hon ANNETTE KING (Acting Deputy Leader—Labour):Labour will be supporting this legislation today. Can I congratulate the Minister on bringing forward his first piece of legislation as the Minister of Health and in fact on holding the position of the Minister of Health. It is one that I was privileged to hold for 6 years and I have to say that of all the portfolios I had in my 10 years as a Minister it was my favourite and that remains still the case today. In congratulating the Minister I have to say there have been many Ministers associated with amendments to the Health Act 1956. In fact these amendments were first proposed in work that I did as the Minister way back when. The Public Health Bill that contains these changes was introduced into Parliament in November 2007 by my former colleague—Hon Ruth Dyson: 2007?Hon ANNETTE KING: In 2007 it was introduced into Parliament by the Hon Pete Hodgson. We had the first reading on that bill in December 2007 and it was referred to the Health Committee which reported back to Parliament in June 2008. So since June 2008 the Public Health Bill which amends the old Health Act has sat gathering dust on the Committee table with no action at all. So 6 years on congratulations Minister on getting some of the amendments through. There is still more work to do and I think perhaps this is going to be done in episodes because it appears to be—Iain Lees-Galloway: A continuing story.Hon ANNETTE KING: It is a continuing story—an ongoing matter it appears. But good on you for bringing forward these changes and they are ones that are necessary. I think it is appropriate that we have them now although as the Minister said we do not need them—with Ebola now in the media and of great concern to many people we have very good measures available now—but the measures that have been proposed in the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill will help strengthen the existing measures that we have.The old Act that we have got is a very fragmented one and it does need to be updated. It is outdated and one of the things that was very clear in it was that it needed to have greater provisions around contact tracing and I will talk a little more about that in a moment. When you look at the regulatory impact statement that the Ministry of Health has put forward it has made it very clear that it wanted these sorts of changes over a long—or in fact it calls it a sustained—period of time and it has been concerned that we needed to include these new measures. It recommended that we improve notification of infectious diseases and also the framework for notification. It pointed out that this is of interest to main stakeholders who are of course the public but also to doctors to laboratories and to district health boards. And it made it clear that this is not an issue of cost so it was not ever going to be a problem in terms of cost. It said that the cost of these changes is relatively minor. The regulatory impact statement also shows that the ministry has had a look at the bill in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and it has found that the provisions in this bill on balance “represent justifiable limitations on rights and freedoms under the Bill of Rights Act 1990 given the importance of protecting the public from significant infectious and the safeguards provided.” So it has had a pretty good passage in terms of looking at the clauses that are to be changed and at whether it meets obligations.The problem with what we have got now in the current Act is there is a risk that the members of the public who are infected with an infectious disease spread this disease and that it remains unknown and is not able to be managed and of course that is of great concern to New Zealanders. It would also probably be of great concern to the person themselves if it was unknown to them. Also currently the comprehensive and timely information on the rates and trends of sexually transmissible infections is lacking and I found that really interesting—that we do not collect good information on some very old infectious diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhoea or of course on a newer one HIV. So it is interesting that for these diseases—and HIV has been around for quite some time now—we have lacked comprehensive and timely information on the rates and trends. Collection of this sort of data is incredibly important in managing infectious diseases and also for looking at trends and at where it is happening—age groups and so on—in making policy decisions. The other limitation of course is in tracing and contacting people who may be the source of the infection.This bill goes into three main areas. The Minister has set them out pretty clearly and I will just quickly go over them. The first area is the tracing of contacts as I said who may have an infectious disease or who may have been exposed to one. It is called contact tracing and what it does is move from the current reliance on a voluntary involvement to specific measures on contact tracing which will improve the public health ability to be able to identify isolate and test the sources of infectious disease in the community. What it says is: “Where voluntary consent is not gained the Bill introduces a duty on a person who may have an infectious disease or may have been exposed to one to provide prescribed contact information. The Bill also places a duty on public health staff to keep patient and contact information private to the fullest extent possible.” and I think that is really important. Throughout these changes protecting private information is one of the requirements and often it can hamper information if people are scared that things are known about them that will be provided in a public way. The bill also has an offence: “An offence is introduced of failing to provide the prescribed contact information. There is a fine of not more than $2000 upon conviction” and there is an ability to appeal those convictions.The second area of the bill is that it increases the range of infectious diseases that are notifiable and I have already talked about them. They are gonorrhoea HIV and syphilis. So that is the second area where changes are being made. The third area of the bill “provides a series of incremental options for the management of individuals with significant infectious diseases whose behaviour puts other people at risk of contracting a disease.” and it puts in place additional management provisions within a human rights framework using principles of risk management and proportionality.The fourth part of this bill is measures to ban the “commercial provision of artificial UV tanning services to young people under 18 years of age.” and I think the Minister set it out pretty clearly that this is a risk to a small group of people but it still is a risk. Also it does not stop with the approval of a medical practitioner the use of UV tanning services should that be prescribed. So it is not an offence if a practitioner was to prescribe it for medical purposes but for those operating commercial artificial UV tanning it will be an offence.Finally this bill does streamline a number of administrative changes as well and the Minister mentioned that at the end of his speech. The most notable is the inclusion of tuberculosis as a notifiable infection in the Health Act as opposed to it being in its own Act where it was for so long when we had high levels of tuberculosis in New Zealand.The bill goes to the Health Committee. We are very short of work there in the Health Committee so we will be looking forward to having a bill to get our teeth into and we will be looking forward to hearing submissions from the public. The Labour Party supports this bill.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):I am very pleased to take a call on this bill. As the member who has resumed her seat Hon Annette King has noted this will be a piece of legislation coming strangely enough into the Health Committee meeting. I am happy to report to the House that 3 weeks in I think there is a collegial conviviality and we are working very hard on the matters in front of us although I will not illuminate the House on some previous matters we discussed. Although they may be of great importance I am not sure that everyone will want to necessarily know about particular prophylactic elements that we have been exploring. This is a very important bill and I am very pleased that the Minister of Health has brought this to this House for its first reading. I am also very pleased as the chair of the Health Committee to be working with a fine team of people on both sides of the House in order to help facilitate this bill through. As this is the first bill I do want to acknowledge Barbara Kuriger who is the deputy chair and Scott Simpson Jacqui Dean and Shane Reti from the National side whom I am very much looking forward to working with and of course led by the previous speaker and others in the House on the other side I think we will make good and productive work of this bill the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill.There are three broad areas to the bill. The first which was noted is around the whole Tuberculosis Act and integrating that into another piece of legislation. I think that reflects the National Government’s approach to keeping things simple and not having multiple bills when you can put them into one.The second area is around UV rays particularly through the use of these tanning beds. It has been a discussion point for a while. In fact I think the previous chair of the Health Committee Dr Paul Hutchison was quite keen on this topic. It is one that strikes me as quite important and it is very prudent too that the Government is targeting particularly those under 18 in order to assist them in their decision making. When I worked within the health sector prior to coming into Parliament I used to do quite a bit of work around the plastic dermatological side when it came to melanomas and other skin cancers. Although I would not know whether those were caused directly or indirectly by sunbeds the damage that UV rays can do is very very clear so it is really important that this bill provides some structure and guidance around that.The most important aspects of the bill though are of course around infectious diseases and the notification thereof. This bill is increasing the number of those infections that can be notified. The Minister has mentioned those and they are around gonorrhoeal infections the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV as we most commonly know it and syphilis which is still around in society. Up until this bill basically there has been a voluntary system or obligation of notifying. We are basically ramping up this in a series of steps where a duty is rightly and positively imposed to use a technical term on the person to provide their details to their doctor or to their health professional. In turn actually as well those health professionals—nurses doctors caregivers—are under a duty too now to collect that data. So this has been discussed around contact tracing. Those who are familiar with epidemiology will know that tracking down the source of a disease or infection or some health issue is vitally vitally important not only for that person and their immediate family but for us as a society as well.This bill is a response to those exceptions where as the Minister was referring to people refuse to give over their information. Their choices around their infectious disease have a consequence for the rest of us. We have heard from the Minister as to how that will be a graduated response. Again we want people to voluntarily provide their details and to notify the fact that they have an infectious disease but where necessary we will impose a positive duty that that must be done. Where people then refuse to take the treatment that is required—be that something as simple as counselling discussion or testing—more and more pressure can be applied for what is basically the common good of society.So there are three very important aspects brought into this bill—a triumvirate of factors if you will. I am looking forward to this bill coming before the Health Committee. As I said at the start it is a hard-working committee and we are going through quite a range of petitions at the moment. All are quite important. I think it was quite striking the other day that we had people come before the committee to share their personal stories and it was important for us to hear and acknowledge that. In acknowledging them I will also acknowledge the work that will happen through this Health (Protection) Amendment Bill and I commend it to the House.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East):Kia orana. It gives me pleasure to rise to take a call on the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill in its first reading. It will come to the Health Committee for discussion which is great. I am also a member of that committee and I look forward to doing some further work on it.Firstly I just want to talk about the timeliness of this bill. Obviously there is a lot of public interest around the notification of infectious diseases with the recent events that have happened overseas around the Ebola virus. So I think it is very timely that we are looking at the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill which I understand from my colleague the Hon Annette King was really a piece of work that started some 7 years ago. So it is great that we have finally got this into the debating chamber.I want to start by looking at the increase in the range of infectious diseases that are notifiable. I spent a little bit of time today looking through the Ministry of Health’s website for the current list of notifiable infectious diseases. Obviously on that list are things like H5N1 or avian flu the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus and Ebola in terms of the viral haemorrhagic fevers. It is really interesting that this is obviously a list of notifiable diseases that changes and grows as the needs demand.On this list it is very interesting that it talks about hydatids disease. I do not know whether many of you know this but I recall as a younger person—a much younger person—that we used to have to take our dog to the dosing centre to have it treated for hydatids. I was talking to a young colleague of mine today Kurt McLauchlan about hydatids and having to take the dog along to the hydatids treatment centre to get him dosed. He did not have a clue what I was talking about. It was quite bizarre. My point about that is that times change and the way we treat diseases and the treatments available change as well. So I am very pleased to see that this bill makes provision for allowing the notification of other infectious diseases as we become aware of them as they become apparent in our communities and as our ability to treat them occurs.I ask myself the question: what is the purpose of updating this list of infectious diseases that are notifiable? And it is obvious that the reason is that as we become a more global society as we travel the world more the issues around diseases becoming more problematic for our populations and progressing around the globe become more apparent. We do need some other tools to deal with ensuring our population stays safe and healthy. This bill makes a very salient point around the traceability of contacts of people who are exposed to infectious diseases or who have contact with others. It gives some very clear directions to medical officers of health to make public health orders through the District Court.In light of the recent events that have occurred in the United States for example discussion about what is required for public safety has to be balanced against what is reasonable in order for people to be able to carry on with their lives normally. I know that in terms of what has happened around the recent Ebola events of course many of the issues that have occurred have been around breaches of standard infection control procedures and the measures that are required for specific diseases. This bill talks about the medical officer of health being able to give certain directions and those directions of course are that the individual who is infected must participate in counselling and must refrain from carrying out specific activities. There are restrictions about where the individual may go and with whom they may associate where they are specified to reside and who may be required to supervise them.The bill also provides for adding some other notifiable infectious diseases to the list. We have already heard that that includes gonorrhoeal infection HIV and syphilis and that means that we will also be able to collect information on and track the prevalence of these diseases better. Also under the provisions of this bill around the contact traceability of folk exposed to these diseases there is a very important provision around ensuring that the information of the individual is kept private because one of the barriers to people coming forward when they are infected is the fact that they will be exposed to public scrutiny. So it is really important to note that one of the important provisions is around ensuring that the information on these individuals is kept private.The third aspect of this bill which is very important relates to the use of artificial tanning providers and services. We are talking about sunbeds and other UV tanning services not being able to be provided to people under the age of 18 unless by a specific prescription. We have had voluntary regulation in place up until now and that does not seem to have had an awful lot of uptake. Many of the services have not complied. Given our attitude in this country to the outdoors we would do well to ensure that when we are exposed to sunbeds and tanning clinics which provide a very heavy dose of UV light in a short period of time—it is quite an intense light. In this country given that so much of our recreation is in the outdoors we are exposed to an awful lot of UV light anyway.I am reminded of a story that a friend of mine talks about where every summer he exposes his children to at least half an hour to an hour of sunlight in the summertime before he puts sunblock on them because he wants them to brown up before they go out and play. I think our attitudes in this country towards exposure to sunlight and UV light are not in line with the detrimental effects that overexposure can cause. We do spend a lot of time in the summer outside in the sun. Often our children are running around with their unprotected skin. We often do not think to put sunblock on. We have a culture in this country around it being permissible to tan and even to burn and that is not good in terms of our rates of skin cancer.In Australia on a visit recently I had the chance of visiting some health organisations that talked about what employers have in place in terms of their employees who work out in the sunshine. They provide personal protection equipment for their employees that includes long-sleeved shirts and long trousers. If those employees were here in New Zealand they would generally be out in the sun working in all sorts of weather in shorts and T-shirts. So the Australians have taken a much more useful approach I believe to supporting workers and just being really smart about being out in the sun. We should match that real attention around being out in the sun and exposure to UV light. It would be really useful in terms of going to sunbeds and tanning clinics if we make some regulation around ensuring that our young people are not overexposed to UV light.Just to sum up Annette King was involved I think in the introduction of this legislation in 2007 and it has taken the Government a long time to get this bill into the debating chamber. I am sure that the Government takes infection control seriously. I believe that responding to pressure from Kiwis in relation to recent events regarding Ebola has potentially pushed this bill into the House but I look forward to having this bill come to the Health Committee. Thank you.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country):Where health risks are identified and voluntary measures are not working it is important that more effective actions are taken to protect people from harm and that is the underlying purpose of the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. As we have heard the bill has three broad objectives to strengthen a range of health protection measures for New Zealanders.The bill will add new provisions for the surveillance and management of infectious diseases. As previously noted these measures will improve the availability of information for certain conditions of public health significance. They will provide for more effective management of behaviours that put others at risk of infection and strengthen legislative provisions for contact tracing. Also the bill streamlines the legislative framework for all infectious diseases by including tuberculosis in schedule 1 of the Health Act “Infectious diseases notifiable to medical officer of health and local authority”. This measure allows the separate Tuberculosis Act 1948 to be repealed.Really importantly the bill prohibits for health reasons the commercial provision of sunbeds and other artificial UV tanning services to those under 18 years of age. The provision of artificial sunbeds and tanning services such as commercial solaria or sunbeds will clearly impact on the rights of these younger people to access such services. However there is strong evidence that people who use sunbeds increase their risk of melanoma and other common skin cancers. The greater the exposure the greater the risk of skin cancer. Studies have suggested that using a sunbed before the age of 35 almost doubles the risk of melanoma compared with those who have never used sunbeds. There is also further evidence that children and adolescents are more sensitive to UV light from any source.So although voluntary standards and guidance on operating sunbeds exists repeated surveys by Consumer New Zealand and health authorities have consistently found variable compliance with these voluntary steps designed to minimise harm. Compliance is improving only very slightly over time. On balance officials consider that the evidence of health harm gives sufficient justification for intervention particularly in respect of controls to protect young people from exposure to artificial UV tanning devices. The bill provides a balance on all of these matters protecting individual rights and privacy while still protecting the health of the wider public. Thank you.KEVIN HAGUE (Green):I would like to start off where the previous speaker Barbara Kuriger left off on the issue of balancing rights or balancing harms because all law is in some way a restriction of personal liberty. That is the point of law. When we pass a law we have to be confident that that restriction of liberty is justified by the protection of the person whose liberty is thus constrained from harm or detriment or harm or detriment to some other person or people. In this House what we need to consider is that balance between the protection from harm and the restriction of liberty. So I want to pass that test over the various provisions of the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill at this point.I want to come first of all to this issue of UV tanning. Paul Hutchison may well be watching this debate and if he is I extend my best wishes to him. We could actually frame this clause in the bill as the “Paul Hutchison clause”. I was going to say “memorial” but that would be wrong. The provision in this bill is at the most timid level imaginable. I was intrigued to hear Jonathan Coleman in his contribution to this debate saying that the age limit of 18 was struck because there was evidence of disproportionate harm to persons under the age of 18. I would be very interested indeed to see that evidence at the select committee. I was intrigued that there was not—as we usually have actually in the case of age limits on behaviours—a case made based on maturity or otherwise to make a decision about the harm that is being incurred with an activity. That was not the Government’s case. It was instead a case based on disproportionate harm. So I am going to be very interested to see that.I would argue that the evidence actually is that there is significant risk of harm at every age. That is the evidence I have seen and that would also be consistent with the point that Jonathan Coleman made about the fact that the voluntary code of practice that his predecessor put in place has not worked. The industry has not complied with the voluntary code—what a surprise. That is usually what we experience with these voluntary codes of practice. The fact is that people who use these UV tanning beds or salons incur significant risk of skin cancers. They do so in a situation where the information that is available to them is insufficient for them to form a reasonable view and make an informed decision about the level of risk that they are incurring. That is a case for not allowing these to exist at all. I will be very interested to hear the evidence at the Health Committee. It is particularly important because at least three states in Australia are now banning these things altogether from the end of this year. What that means is that a substantial problem we currently have which is that some of the equipment that is available in these tanning salons is already second-hand and of substandard quality is going to get worse because there will now be a glut of second-hand machines from those states in Australia that are banning this altogether. We will get the cast-offs from those Australian states which will pose a greater risk that the New Zealand public and the customers of those salons will be unaware of and uninformed about.I will come now to the communicable disease provisions in the bill—the obvious companions to UV tanning facilities in this bill. These are around contact tracing notifiable diseases and the restriction of liberty. Members may be aware that these are provisions that I have considerable familiarity with in relation to my previous work with the New Zealand AIDS Foundation. Again there are various balances to be struck. When contact tracing becomes compulsory as it does under this bill then there certainly is a restriction on the liberty and rights of the person who is being required to for example reveal who their sexual contacts have been.There are potentially also some problems with revealing who those sexual contacts have been—one that is familiar to contact tracers in the public health field—but in relation to the balance that this House must strike there is an issue also with whether in fact we enhance or inhibit our ability to actually contact trace by making it mandatory. A previous speaker has already alluded to that that if someone knows that they may be required to reveal who their sexual contacts have been they may not present for treatment. They may not present to health services; that has been our experience. Striking the balance correctly is going to be very important. Also making a disease notifiable—clearly that can be useful. But again if a person knows that this bill provides—as it does—for the medical officer of health to be able to require a testing laboratory to reveal the identity of the person who has just tested positive for HIV syphilis or gonorrhoea what may happen in that situation is that the person may not present. I believe—and I would be interested to hear the evidence—that it may be better to provide for anonymous testing as we do for AIDS which is a notifiable disease. The select committee needs to consider that.The balance around the restriction of liberty and the public good that is gained is particularly apparent in the new powers of medical officers of health to compel various levels of behaviour. As I say I was at the AIDS Foundation and had to use all of these provisions from the existing 1956 Act an Act that came into place largely reflecting the experience of New Zealand in managing tuberculosis. We needed to deal with modern disease and modern circumstances such as the HIV epidemic with powers that were created for a different bygone era and a totally different kind of disease. We found them all to be inadequate for the purpose. That is why we were strong supporters of reform of the Health Act back in 2001 when I had to deal with the Christopher Truscott case which some members of this House may recall using these archaic powers.The AIDS Foundation has been a strong supporter of the Public Health Bill and I am grateful to Annette King for outlining some of the history of that bill. Annette King did not mention that the bill introduced in 2007 was merely the latest attempt to have a public health bill and that previous attempts had also foundered. As she said this bill which was reported back from the select committee to this House in 2008—and members of the public have already had a chance to express a view about many of the provisions in relation to that public health bill—has languished near the bottom of the Order Paper since that time.It would have been much better to simply advance the Public Health Bill further up the Order Paper. We would have had cutting edge legislation that was able to deal with these issues much more quickly than we will have with this bill had we done that. Why have we not done so? We have not done so for the reasons that National outlined in its minority view in the select committee’s report back of the Public Health Bill. Essentially it opposed the provisions in that bill that dealt with non-communicable diseases and it opposed them because of its proximity to the very industries that drive the epidemics of non-communicable disease in New Zealand. The conflicts of interest that were apparent in National’s opposition to the Public Health Bill are the very conflicts of interest that are now coming back to bite it over its management of the Katherine Rich - Health Promotion Agency issue. It has to figure out where it stands.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First):I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call on the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. New Zealand First supports this bill. We believe that the changes that the bill makes are very timely. The bill makes a great number of changes that are needed to the public health system. We knew that there were concerns about the way the current legislation was not meeting the needs that health professionals were identifying so this is very timely. Of course like others on the Health Committee I am looking forward to working further on this bill.Firstly I would like to speak to the first section of the bill which deals with tracing people who have an infectious disease or who may have been exposed to one. There is nothing surer than the fact that we need timely data on this. It will reduce the need for people to wonder about whether or not they have actually contracted a disease. We know that the voluntary involvement in reporting is not really good enough. We know that people are travelling far more than they ever have and if there is a disease that they may have been exposed to or have picked up and brought back to New Zealand we need to know fairly quickly. We have got the example of the Ebola disease. We appreciate that the Ministry of Health is focusing on this and taking measures to try to ensure that New Zealanders are not exposed to it and that if somebody comes into the country who has contracted Ebola we have got some system in place to actually deal with it. That is what needs to happen.Previous speakers have listed the wide range of diseases that are contactable to the Ministry of Health. We believe that some people may consider these rules too strict but they are essential to the health of New Zealanders which we totally support. In particular the bill requires that medical health professionals keep private the details of all of those with infectious diseases to the fullest extent possible. We believe that this will be a real challenge but we appreciate that New Zealanders definitely need certainty with their health care. So we will be interested through the select committee process to see exactly how this is going to happen. In New Zealand First we support preventative measures rather than reactive measures and this is really a good start in this field. We are pleased that this bill is one of the first on the Order Paper—or pretty soon in the first bracket of Parliament—because action needs to be taken.Again we are very happy to see that the Government has decided to take some action on tanning salons tanning services and sunbeds. We can credit that to Dr Hutchison and timely written questions from New Zealand First. We believe that it is timely to ban sunbeds for people under the age of 18. I recall a few years ago going to a tanning salon trying to get the golden tan that New Zealanders like. The lady told me that no I would not get the tan that I thought I was going to get; that I would stay instead with my vegetable tan—red as a beetroot and peeling like an onion. I did not expect to get that from a tanning salon. So we think that this is a small step forward and we welcome it but we do not think it really goes far enough because every Australian state has now either banned or is planning to outlaw these commercial sunbeds. We know that Australians have one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world.We previously asked the Hon Tony Ryall whether or not he planned to follow the Australian example. The answer that we got back was no he had no plans at that particular time. So we are very happy to see this coming through. We know that there is absolutely nothing in New Zealand that checks and regulates these sunbeds apart from voluntary guidelines. We know that there needs to be monitoring of sunbeds as to the intensity of the light that the beds are emitting and the length of time that people actually spend in them. But nobody has ever measured the light so whether or not they are at the recommended rate or higher than that rate is totally unknown.The total registration rate for melanoma has decreased in New Zealand by 13.4 percent between 2001 and 2011 but unfortunately the mortality rate has increased by 12.3 percent. We know there needs to be more action to reduce this number and banning sunbeds would be a very significant step towards that. Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in New Zealand and we all need to be taking action to help reduce that particular rate. I know that when we were over in Australia as a previous speaker has mentioned we were surprised to see that all of the workers outside were totally clothed. There was no bit of skin exposed to the sun over there. It is something that perhaps we may need to consider here in New Zealand.The bill also makes a number of administrative changes that will streamline legislation. Most noticeable of course is the inclusion of tuberculosis as an infectious disease under the Health Act 1956 and the consequent repeal of the Tuberculosis Act 1948. The facts show that cases of multidrug-resistant TB have been trending upwards for some years—the last 15 years in fact—largely driven we believe by the increasing number of migrants who are coming into New Zealand and the fact that there is no real check on whether or not they have this multidrug-resistant TB. So we would be most interested to see whether streamlining and repealing the Tuberculosis Act have any positive changes on the TB rates in New Zealand.In New Zealand First we have always been supportive of ensuring the best possible health care for New Zealanders. We believe of course as I said earlier that preventative measures are better to achieve this than the reactive measures that we have come to expect from successive Governments. So New Zealand First will be supporting this bill as it is working towards protecting the health of all New Zealanders and we look forward to hearing the submissions at the select committee and working further on this particular bill. Thank you.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel):It is a pleasure to take a very brief call in this introductory debate on the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. As a returning member of the Health Committee it will be very good to sit on the committee and get into the two main issues that the bill confronts. These issues are to do with the spread of infectious diseases and as other speakers have noted the UV tanning issue for those who are under 18. One of the interesting things that we found when the committee toured to Australia late last year was that although Australians have a higher rate of skin cancer than New Zealanders do we have a much higher mortality rate so there is clearly something that the Australians are doing better than we are. I hope that by introducing a measure to prevent those under 18 participating in the use of UV tanning clinics and things of that nature this bill will help in some way. I commend the bill to the House.MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to take a call on this bill. Can I start too by acknowledging the newly appointed Minister of Health the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman. I wish him well in his tenure as the Minister of Health. Health for many of the people whom I represent from Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is very very important along with education jobs and housing so I am happy to stand in support of this bill in its first reading.I want to acknowledge the origins of this amendment bill which came from the Public Health Bill introduced by the Hon Annette King some 7 years ago. I want to acknowledge the fine role the Hon Annette King has played as a Minister of Health. There is not a place that I travel to up and down Ikaroa-Rāwhiti—be it hospitals community health providers or Māori and Pacific communities—where the people do not know and acknowledge the work that Annette King did in her time as the Minister of Health so I do want to acknowledge and mihi to Annette.I am glad even though it is 7 years on that we have this bill before the House. Of course the problems that this bill is attempting to address have been canvassed by previous speakers: infectious diseases and UV tanning devices. I want to talk about the problem around infectious diseases and what this bill is attempting to do in mitigating how we deal with that. There is a risk that members of the public are affected by serious infectious diseases and that the spread of these diseases remains unknown and is not able to be managed. So that is clearly the intent of this bill.We are also trying through this bill to create comprehensive and timely information on rates and trends of sexually transmitted illnesses which is lacking and which hampers appropriate policy development for reducing and managing these sexually transmitted illnesses. We also through this bill are trying to address the lack of immediate options for effective case management—that is either voluntary compliance or detention—which means that in practice usually only limited action is able to be taken to manage and assist people whose behaviour puts other people at risk. Fourthly we are also trying to trace and contact people who may be sources of infection and who require treatment. If treatment is not undertaken in many situations it will result in the infection further spreading. Again we do not want this in our communities. As such the Government needs to do more to help stem the spread of infectious diseases and I acknowledge that the introduction of this bill is clearly attempting to do that.There have been comments on the UV tanning. As some of us start approaching the warmer months of summer some of us do not need to be tanning perhaps as others feel the need to but it is a serious matter. Tanning does cause harm particularly to young people and to perhaps many people in this House bar some of us. I guess it is both a privilege and an advantage of being of a certain ethnic background—we celebrate that some of us do not need to use tanning. But to get back to the serious nature of it there are people who suffer severely through UV tanning and this bill is attempting to make sure that we are managing that in order to prevent further harm particularly as previous speakers have mentioned to under-18s.So what is the bill about? It is trying to give effect to the Government’s decision from October 2013 to improve the range of measures available to protect the public from harm associated with both infectious diseases and with artificial UV tanning. Improving like I mentioned the tracing of people who have infectious diseases seems pretty reasonable. It sounds pretty straightforward. But the end point for me is the fact that we need to protect our communities from the further spreading of infectious diseases and therefore we need to make sure that we have a facility that registers people with those types of diseases.It is important that we create the opportunity to ensure that people are registering. I see in the bill that there is an expectation that all information will be confidentially held. That is perhaps one of the scary points that some of the previous speakers have made but I also know that it is vital for many many people. We have read stories in papers about people having maliciously gone on to spread infectious diseases and the harm that has been caused to many innocent people throughout the country. I just want to ensure that when we are putting this through the select committee process people who may have a concern—and I do want to acknowledge the Green member talking about getting the balance right between liberty and public good—can raise their concerns and I think the select committee process is where that can happen.As a member from one of the largest electorates I do need to pass on some comments to members of the select committee. In relation to a lot of the health policies and health legislation that we pass in this House I do want to put in a plug for rural communities and I do want to put in a plug for isolated communities simply because they do not have access to a lot of the services that those who live in more metropolitan and larger provincial towns enjoy. There are communities up and down my electorate—just the logistics of implementing a registration like this and managing the unintended consequences of UV tanning devices. Can I leave it to the great members of the Health Committee to ensure in their deliberations that in passing this bill we are able to ensure that all New Zealanders no matter where they live no matter how far they live from centres are able to access the benefit of this legislation and the intent behind it.I do join with others in this House in standing in support of this bill. I look forward to the report back that will come from the Health Committee. Kia ora.Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei):I had the privilege of practising dermatology for 20 years in Northland so I have seen some of the damage that sunbeds can do. I commend this bill as a timely and important bill.The Health (Protection) Amendment Bill is about protecting health. Previous speakers have set out clearly why the provisions in the bill are necessary and I want to discuss matters of compliance. Failing to comply with an infectious disease direction failing to comply with a public order and failing to provide contact tracing information is an offence. In all cases a person committing an offence under the infectious disease provisions of the bill is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $2000.The bill also introduces an offence for providing UV tanning services to a person under the age of 18 years. The offence would also apply to the owner of the business as well as to staff who undertake the supply of services. This is a strict liability offence. In other words the bill reverses or modifies the usual burden of proof for an offence or a civil pecuniary penalty proceeding and requires the defendant to prove they did not commit the offence.Again this has been reviewed by the Ministry of Justice against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act requirements and has passed the test. A person or a body corporate has a defence against the charge of providing UV training services to a person under the age of 18 if they can show that the contravention occurred without their knowledge and that they took reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to prevent that contravention. For example a person who sold a sunbed session to someone under 18 years of age may have a defence if they can prove that an approved evidence of age document was provided prior to the service being provided.This is an excellent piece of legislation in totality. I commend its referral to the Health Committee.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):I am very pleased to support this legislation because I always support Labour policy. This is a good bill that implements Labour policy that has been around for a very very long time. Other speakers have referred to the fact that the bulk of this legislation comes directly out of Labour’s Public Health Bill but of course the National Party vehemently opposed it. I believe it got reported back from the select committee sadly on 26 June 2008 which was right before the 2008 election and of course the National Party could not help but play politics with a piece of legislation that was designed to improve the health and well-being of New Zealanders. Of course what term did National use? Well it was nanny State—nanny State nanny State nanny State.What I found really interesting was reading through the minority report that the National Party wrote on the Public Health Bill—probably written by Chris Bishop. He is having a good old grin. I do not know whether he was in a National MP’s office at the time but it certainly looks like it was written by a communications person not by a member of Parliament sitting on the Health Committee.I read the section entitled “Not so voluntary codes of practice” in which National Party members wax lyrical about their concerns about how voluntary codes of practice that could be used to ask different industries to adopt practices that support the safety and well-being of New Zealanders could ultimately turn into regulation or even legislation. Of course you have just got to grin when really that is exactly what this legislation does. It takes a voluntary code of practice that the people who operate UV tanning devices were asked to implement. They spectacularly failed to do anything that was in the interests of the health and well-being of New Zealanders and so this National Government is in fact doing exactly what it warned the terrible Labour-led Government back in 2008 it was going to do by implementing voluntary codes of practice.I see the former medical practitioner over there—sorry I have not learnt your name yet; I will eventually. But he is having a wry grin. He knows what I am talking about. Usually the medical practitioners in National side with Labour on this stuff. I remember when Paul Hutchison crossed the floor of the House to vote with Labour on its tobacco legislation. The medical practitioners in the National Party always get this stuff. It must be painful being in the National caucus having to deal with the silly political rhetoric that those members engage themselves with when it comes to health legislation.We could have been doing this. We could have got this in place 7 long years ago but thankfully because of the Ebola crisis in West Africa the National Government sees fit to pass this legislation at this point in time. I have to say it is a little bit disappointing that National has chosen to use the Ebola outbreak as the catalyst for introducing this legislation. The bill itself says that National made the decision back in October last year to pursue these regulations but it seems that it sort of waited until there was an appropriate moment in the media to say that it is doing something to protect the health and well-being of New Zealanders.I attended a briefing with ministry officials that the Minister of Health organised for Opposition health spokespeople to talk about what the response is to the Ebola outbreak. One of the things that they were at pains to get us to understand was that the last thing they wanted to do was for people’s vigilance to suddenly improve during the outbreak and then fall away again if and when the outbreak is finally over. Actually there are real risks to New Zealand of people carrying communicable diseases into the country from overseas every single day. In fact even today we are more at risk from malaria than we are from Ebola because malaria is much more communicable much more infectious and actually people coming in—the chair of the Health Committee is looking perplexed and bemused. I encourage the chair of the select committee to talk to the health officials about this. They said that people coming into the country with a heightened temperature from West Africa are more likely to be carrying malaria than they are Ebola.But of course there is a range of other diseases as well that could be brought into the country by people from elsewhere so these provisions actually are necessary all of the time and have been necessary for the entire last 7 years since National made politics out of the provisions of the Public Health Bill. It is really good that National is finally charging ahead with this now but we could have done it much sooner.Speaking of “much sooner” I note that the World Health Organization recognised tanning beds as a significant carcinogenic threat back in 2009 and recommended that Governments should implement legislation to do exactly what this bill does—to ban the use of tanning beds for people under the age of 18. With its usual haste and enthusiasm a mere 5 years later we see this Government finally implementing the recommendations of the World Health Organization on UV tanning beds.This is the problem with National. It is slow to act. National usually lets Labour Governments take the progressive stance to actually do things. National members jump up and down and squeal at the time they tell everybody how their rights are going to be taken away from them and then when they do get into Government of course they do not repeal any of it; they just carry on with business as usual. But it is always left to this side to make the positive change that actually improves the health and well-being of New Zealanders. The sky is always going to fall when National is in Opposition and then when it gets into Government of course it repeals absolutely none of it. So it is no surprise that it took it a mere 5 years. In fact we should be really quite impressed that it took it just 5 years from when the World Health Organization first recommended legislating against the use of UV tanning beds for under-18s to when the National Government finally gets to the point where it legislates for them.I do take the point the Green member Kevin Hague made that the evidence that the age of 18 is the appropriate age is probably not strong. I heard from one of the members opposite—the deputy chair of the select committee—that the recommendation is not to use them before the age of 35 but there is always a balancing act with these things. I think that most of the evidence tells us that the use of alcohol before the age of 25 probably is not that good for the development of the young developing human brain yet we have made 18 the purchase age for alcohol. Again I actually applaud the Government for achieving what is probably an appropriate balancing act by finding that age and 18 is of course the age of eligibility for a range of things that we deny to young people. It just seems appropriate that that would be the age at which you become able to use a tanning bed if you feel so inclined despite the fact that the evidence against doing so is getting stronger and stronger every day.It is important to be able to improve the tracing of people who have or who may have an infectious disease or who may have been exposed to one. Certainly the measures that are already in place for tracing people who are identified as being at a risk of carrying Ebola or any other infectious disease from overseas are quite sound and I think New Zealanders should feel satisfied that their Government and the Ministry of Health are taking appropriate action to ensure that the community at large is kept safe and that the risks are managed. In fact the current legislation really does allow for that and I am pleased that in this country we have not really seen too much fearmongering around the risk associated with Ebola and other communicable diseases because that risk is very real every single day. Just because we have got an issue that is getting a lot of media attention does not mean actually that our vigilance should go up. We should remain vigilant at all times.This is good legislation. It implements what has been long-held Labour policy. We look forward to the discussions at the select committee and a robust and constructive debate around some of the finer points. We commend this bill to the House.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National):What a great contribution on the National Government’s Health (Protection) Amendment Bill from all members. It is my pleasure to rise to conclude the debate by commending the bill to the House. Thank you.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Health Committee.Parole Amendment BillSecond ReadingHon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):I move That the Parole Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill demonstrates the Government’s ongoing commitment to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the justice system. It also underlines our commitment to protecting victims and putting them at the heart of our justice system.Can I firstly thank the Law and Order Committee for its consideration of the bill. The committee received 29 submissions and has recommended that the bill proceed with some amendments. Three-quarters of the submissions received expressed clear support for the intent of the bill. The committee has recommended several largely minor and technical changes to the bill and the changes recommended will help ensure that the bill achieves its intended purpose.The bill makes changes to the Parole Act to implement the Government’s policy to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings where the offender has little prospect of release. The reduction in hearings will reduce unnecessary stress for victims of crime while also providing incentives for offenders to address their offending behaviours. The bill also improves the efficiency of the parole system by simplifying pre-hearing processes and clarifying issues around attendance at hearings conducted by the New Zealand Parole Board.The board currently holds around 6000 parole hearings each year. Release is approved at about 25 percent of those hearings. On average each offender has three hearings before release is approved. In a third of cases there are four or more hearings. Currently the Act provides that offenders must be considered for parole at least once in every 12 months after they become eligible for parole.This bill gives the Parole Board greater flexibility in scheduling future hearings. It does this by increasing from 12 months to 2 years the maximum interval between parole hearings where a postponement order has not been made. The change is intended to reduce the number of unnecessary parole hearings but not to increase the length of time offenders serve in prison. The bill also gives the board the power to identify any relevant activities relating to the risk the offender poses to the safety of the community that it expects to be achieved before the next hearing. Offenders as well as the Department of Corrections can notify the board where there has been a significant change in the offender’s circumstances relating to release on parole. There will be provision for a scheduled hearing to be brought forward when all of the relevant activities that the board has identified as necessary to make the offender suitable for parole have been completed earlier than expected.The bill also makes significant changes to the provisions relating to postponement orders. The board can make one of these orders to set a longer interval between hearings where it decides that no significant change in the offender’s circumstances is likely to occur in that time. The increase in the maximum interval between hearings to 2 years means that postponement orders are unnecessary for offenders serving sentences of less than 10 years. The bill therefore restricts the imposition of a postponement order to offenders serving indeterminate sentences or determinate sentences of 10 years or more. The maximum term of a postponement order will be increased to 5 years for all eligible offenders. As with other parole cases the bill gives the board the power to identify relevant activities for offenders to complete for their hearing to be brought forward when imposing a postponement order.The bill also makes amendments to procedural steps for hearings when the offender is not present and clarifies that an offender or other authorised person can attend any type of hearing other than in person—for instance by telephone or video link. This can of course be a more efficient way to conduct some of the hearings. In addition the bill amends the Parole Act to ensure that standard release conditions automatically apply to all offenders released on parole. A default period of 6 months for those conditions is provided for offenders on determinate sentences.These amendments are all aimed at streamlining and simplifying processes. It is intended that there will be savings made as a result of fewer hearings being held each year and importantly that reducing the number of hearings will benefit the victims of imprisoned offenders in many cases. There is little sense in holding hearings when the offender has not addressed the reasons for their offending and remains a risk to the community. Furthermore we need to keep in mind that these hearings do cause unnecessary stress and anxiety for victims as they are forced to relive the offence over and over. This bill is another step in our commitment to putting victims at the heart of our justice system. I commend it to the House.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):The Labour Party supported the first reading of the Parole Amendment Bill when it was introduced to the House and we followed the submissions through the Law and Order Committee very closely. They were interesting submitters because they ranged on one side from the Sensible Sentencing Trust—and the Sensible Sentencing Trust basically does not believe there should be any parole at all; everybody should serve the full sentence to the last day of the sentence and then be let out—to other groups like Rethinking Crime and Punishment with Kim Workman a former deputy head of the Department of Corrections. It is fair to say that they wanted probably a much more liberal approach of allowing people to be released as quickly as possible.Among the submissions I think the most important submission was from the Parole Board itself. The Parole Board provided a private submission. I want to thank Justice Gendall and Marion Frater for appearing before the select committee. But I want to thank them for something beyond that. They issued an invitation to us to sit in on parole hearings at prisons around the country. In 6 years as the Minister of Justice I had never done that and I have to say that for those of us on the committee who sat in it was a fascinating experience. I was at the Auckland women’s prison and there were people there who were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. It was interesting to see the way in which the Parole Board operated and I have to say that it gave me some confidence in the Parole Board. I have to say that everybody who appeared before the select committee congratulated the Parole Board on the way that it conducted its hearings and the way it did its job.So I want to put this on record in the House. It is not an easy job being on the Parole Board. If you get it wrong—and inevitably when you hear thousands of cases from time to time you will get it wrong—you cop a lot of flak. But I believe from what I saw it did its job very professionally and in a humane way—but it was not a soft touch having said that. As a result of those hearings the select committee was in support of the thrust of this bill with some changes that are significant but not major and also Minister Adams with a recommendation to you. I hope as the new Minister of Justice that you will look at that.The recommendation related to a particular area that the Parole Board brought to our attention: that it often did not get information from civil courts on civil protection orders that were relevant to their hearings. That was a real worry to us because the Parole Board is only as good as the information that it gets before it. We have thrown the ball back into your court Minister. We have not held this bill up but I would urge you to consider very seriously the recommendations of the select committee—which were bipartisan recommendations—so that there is an automatic provision to the Parole Board of civil protection orders where that is relevant to the cases that the Parole Board is hearing. I think that would help them and it provides as you mentioned additional protection to the victims and we should always be doing that.It is a controversial area parole and it is controversial because there are people who when given parole will reoffend. Occasionally they reoffend seriously and whenever this happens the natural reaction of all of us is to say: “How the hell did that happen?” and to ask whether the parole system is working. We have to make the system as good as possible and minimise the risks that are posed. It is not an alternative simply to say that there should be no parole. Why is it not an alternative? Well it would be an alternative if the Government wanted to spend hundreds of millions or maybe billions of dollars forcing everybody to serve their full sentence. And that would mean this: it would mean the majority of people who are released on parole who do not reoffend would be required to serve their full sentence and that seems to me to be reasonably futile.But there is an even stronger argument than that. All of the international studies that have been done on parole demonstrate quite clearly that if a person serves their prison sentence to the last day and is then released they are much more likely to reoffend. The best way to minimise reoffending is to release early and to release on conditions. So people have to turn up to their probation office they have to meet conditions about where they live who they work with and who they associate with and they know that when they are released if they do something wrong there is that power of recall. It is almost automatic if you offend seriously.So the parole system by and large does work. But I have to say that when I looked at the parole system as Minister of Justice in the early part of the last Labour Government I was really unhappy about the level of reoffending on parole and we made major reforms. The Parole Act 2002 really did turn the system round. I was very pleased to pick up the regulatory impact statement for this bill to see what it said about a piece of legislation that was my baby more than 10 years ago and actually I was really pleased because it said that it had been particularly effective as a piece of legislation. It acknowledged that what we did was to make the safety of the community the paramount consideration for the Parole Board—and that should always be the case. We said: “Don’t keep people locked up who do not need to be locked up but your paramount consideration is the safety of the community.” We put in a particular clause—I remember debating it with the Ministry of Justice at the time—that the release of a prisoner must not pose an undue risk to the public. That is the principle that the Parole Board works on.As a result of those changes yes there have been a greater number of individuals serving a greater proportion of their sentences. That put a bit of pressure on our prison system—as some of my Cabinet colleagues from those days will remember—but what did it achieve? This is where the regulatory impact statement on this bill is particularly interesting. It said that “the number of offences committed by prisoners in the period between release on parole and sentence end date has halved.”—the number of the people who offended halved—and on a different measure it said that the harm done by that offending also more than halved. So I can stand up in the House today and say with a great deal of pride that a piece of legislation that I sweated blood over at the time has been effective and by and large it has stood the test of time.However over a 12-year period of course you learn something from the experience of the Act. I think it is sensible to review any piece of legislation and the Government has done that. The recommendations of the Department of Corrections were to change one aspect of the Act that says that when you come up for your parole date if you are not given parole on that occasion then you have to be seen again within 12 months. There were problems with that and the first problem was that most people have to do three parole hearings before they are released and actually often the first one or two of those parole hearings are just formulaic. Everybody knows that the inmate is not going to be released.Let me give you one other statistic. A third of the inmates have at least four or more parole hearings before they are released. What does that do? Well first of all it takes up a lot of time from the Parole Board and adds to the cost but to me that is not the major element. The second thing it does is that if it is a serious offence for the person who is the victim of that offender—who is notified as they should be which was part of my legislation—it causes in some cases concern and in other cases major trauma. So if you are not going to release an inmate and everybody knows it why put the victim through that process?For the offender himself or herself it means false hope because you are not going to get parole and that just leads to frustration. It is estimated that this legislation will cut parole hearings which reached about 8000 a year last year by about 800. The important thing is that the Department of Corrections has said that this will not increase the length of time people spend in prison. Minister Adams might be interested in what the Parole Board said because it ventured the opinion that this change will actually cut the amount of time people spend in prison because often you go up to the Parole Board but it is simply just an interruption in your programmes for rehabilitation that you have not completed. Until you have completed them you cannot do parole and that means you are turned down and you have to wait a further full year. Under this legislation when you have completed your programmes to the satisfaction of the department the Parole Board has the power to bring the Parole Board hearings forward and you can be released earlier.I think that is a really sensible idea and I think that this will make the legislation work well. The report back to the House sets out the changes that we have recommended. They have been agreed by everybody I think they should go through and the Labour Party will be supporting the second and subsequent readings of this piece of legislation.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland):I will just acknowledge the contribution of the Hon Phil Goff who is obviously someone very experienced in this place. But I will also just acknowledge some of the comments that he made which do give a very good insight I think into some of the complexities we are dealing with particularly with the nature of reoffending.The reality is that most people—the very vast majority—who go to prison will come out again. Really the challenge for parliamentarians authorities and the wider community is I guess to ensure that when they do come out of prison they do not go back in. So much of where we have failed not only in New Zealand but around the world I think is in the fact that prison in itself is not the answer; it is what goes on inside there and what goes on in terms of rehabilitating the individual. Obviously there is a degree of punishment involved in it but it is actually the opportunity to have essentially a captive audience—literally—in order to try and remediate and address the issues that have seen those people enter into the prison environment.There are a multitude of reasons why people will find themselves in prison. Fundamental to the ability to prevent reoffending is the role that parole has in that by setting the appropriate incentives if you like and by also ensuring that the message can be sent about what expectations there are on an individual to actually engage in rehabilitative behaviour and programmes that are going to ensure that there is a high probability that they will continue a lawful life thereafter and not end up back in the facility.I was not on the Law and Order Committee when this bill was going through the submission process being new to the committee but I have been impressed by the work that has been done to look at this very very important nexus. In terms of where this bill actually goes there needs to be a degree of flexibility that reflects not only that it is important that victims are not continually revictimised by arbitrary time lines and parole hearings where it is very unlikely that an offender will actually be released—and that is obviously a very very important consideration—but that it is just as important that it sends a message to the individual.I am reminded of the film The Shawshank Redemption and I am sure most members in this House will know of that movie which is one of the greatest movies about hope that has ever been put together. On the one occasion when the subject of that movie said “Well don’t waste your time with me. You put your rubber stamp there and away you go.” he was granted parole. There is some sort of truth in that—and Mr Goff mentioned something about it—because to some extent the Parole Board has to get a sense of where the individual is before it can make a confirmed judgment that it thinks the risk-reward ratio is in the right balance. So there is an element of that. But by having a degree of flexibility so that when you can see that someone is actually engaged in a rehabilitative process and is genuine and motivated to get themselves out of that environment the Parole Board can actually bring forward their next parole hearing as a result of that. Or conversely the board can extend that period if it can see that it clearly has not reached that point with an individual so it does not waste its time and its money and more important it does not cause feelings and emotions of revictimising in the victim by putting them through that process.There is to some extent I guess a carrot-and-stick component to that. I think that is going to be very very important because the crux of what this whole parole system is about is ensuring that it is fit for purpose to ensure that there is the very best opportunity for re-engaging that individual either in rehabilitation programmes that will ultimately resolve their propensity to offend or by ensuring that their engagement in the community is going to support them to not reoffend. In introducing an element of flexibility—and I pick up on the point that Mr Goff made—this will not extend the amount of time that people are spending in prison. It could very well actually reduce the amount of time by getting those settings right.I think this is a very important piece of work. I think it is reflective of a justice system that understands that there is not one shoe that fits all feet here—[Interruption] Ha ha. These shoes are made for walking walking right out of prison hopefully in most cases. That is what this bill is really doing. It is making the parole system far more fit for purpose far more efficient and far more user-friendly for the victims of crime. Thank you.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston):I was not on the Law and Order Committee for the Parole Amendment Bill but I may be at some point—who knows? I am interested in the bill. Labour is supporting this bill. It is always good when we have agreement across the House that something is worthwhile supporting. We do feel that victims of crime can often feel unnecessarily stressed dealing with the prospect each year that their offender may be released when in reality there is little prospect of that. So extending that period of time between parole hearings—from 12 months to 2 years—is a good idea. The justice system must work to support and protect the victims of crime. Maybe this is not entirely the answer to doing it but this is one way in which we can do that.Our vision is of a New Zealand that guarantees civil and human rights provides equal and full access to justice and achieves real public safety rather than delivering just immediate punitive measures. Currently the parole board is required to consider at least once every 12 months every offender who is eligible for parole. As I said where there is little chance that an offender might be released this causes unnecessary harm to victims and slows down the hearing process. We must have a fair parole system for offenders who have accepted their actions and who are ready to be rehabilitated; however where they are not accepting of their actions or able to be rehabilitated the parole hearings really are a waste of time.This bill builds on previous work done by Labour and I do want to acknowledge the former Labour speaker the Hon Phil Goff—the Parole Board as we know it today actually comes from the work of Phil Goff. There do need to be assurances that suitable candidates for parole are not being detained for longer than necessary although changes at the select committee with the insertion of new section 21A by clause 10 address this. The select committee also said that in its consideration of the bill it became clear that information on civil protection orders was not automatically available to the Parole Board. The select committee said it “saw value in the Board having access to information on civil protection orders which may be relevant to their decision making.” and “raised this issue with the Minister of Justice for her consideration.” It is hoping the Minister will look at this.So there were changes made at the select committee by a majority of the Law and Order Committee. The majority recommended that the bill pass with the following amendments. The first is to replace the term “risk milestone” with “relevant activity” as it was deemed “more neutral and does not imply a measure of potential risk.” Another change was inserting clause 5A “so that standard release conditions applied automatically would be treated as if they were imposed by the Board.” The third change was “changing references to the Department of Corrections in clauses 10 11 and 12 to ‘the manager of the prison in which the offender is detained’.” We support this bill. We support the changes that have been made at the select committee. I look forward to hearing more speeches in the House on this particular bill.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 6 p.m.