Volume 696 Week 65 - Wednesday 19 February 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 696 Week 65 - Wednesday 19 February 2014[Sitting date: 19 February 2014. Volume:696;Page:16057. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 19 February 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.VisitorsCanada—Minister of Foreign AffairsMr SPEAKER: I have much pleasure in informing members that the Hon John Baird Minister of Foreign Affairs from the Canadian House of Commons is in the precincts of the Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat to the left of the Chair.The Hon John Baird accompanied by the Deputy Speaker entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair.Tabling of DocumentsVeterans—War Disablement PensionsANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I seek leave of the House to table an open letter to members of Parliament from John “Doc” Mountain retired Viet Nam veteran in relation to an ongoing miscarriage of justice regarding declining war disablement pensions—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought for that document that open letter to be tabled. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Questions to MinistersSouthern District Health Board—South Link Health and Fraud Allegations1.KEVIN HAGUE (Green) to theMinister of Health: Does he think fraud in the publicly funded health sector is serious and if so would he investigate any allegations of fraud if they were raised with him?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): Yes and yes. In relation to the dispute between the Southern District Health Board and the Dunedin general practitioner organisation South Link Health this matter has been under dispute for over a decade. It involves an argument over $5 million or $6 million of savings generated through laboratory and pharmaceutical contracts during the 1990s and whether there was an agreement on how those services would be reinvested back into health services. This has remained a complex dispute. The district health board has advised me that it has received advice that it is best to pursue this as a commercial matter but it has also referred the issue to specialist forensic accountants to see whether any illegality was involved.Kevin Hague: When did the Minister first become aware of concerns that South Link Health may have misused public funds in excess of $5 million that were intended for patient services but were instead spent on other things without authorisation?Hon TONY RYALL: To the best of my recollection and the advice that I have received I became aware of that issue in November 2013 as a result of a management letter from the Auditor-General. On the wider issue of the dispute I have been aware of that for quite some time.Kevin Hague: Is the Minister quite sure that he was not made aware of it in 2010 and briefed on the legal advice that had been received by the Southern District Health Board that suggested there was the possibility of fraud?Hon TONY RYALL: I have no recollection of that and we have got no record in our office of such a briefing.Kevin Hague: Is it not true that even though he knew that the Southern District Health Board had legal advice that fraud may have occurred he as Minister personally discouraged the district health board from taking this allegation to police in 2010?Hon TONY RYALL: I do not have any recollection of being aware of it so I cannot have actively discouraged the district health board. What I would have required of course would have been for the district health board to act on whatever advice it had. I am advised that that letter of November 2010 was not clear-cut. It actually says there could be elements of fraud or there could be elements of commercial dispute.Kevin Hague: Is it not true that even though the district health board had repeatedly asked for assistance from the Ministry of Health on this matter beginning in December 2010 no ministry action was taken at all until it became clear that the Office of the Auditor-General was going to refer to potential fraud in its report on the Southern District Health Board in 2013?Hon TONY RYALL: That is not the information I have received. My understanding was that the matter was considered by the audit and compliance people at the Ministry of Health and that there were negotiations that I think the ministry was involved in trying to facilitate in 2011 but that did not go anywhere.Kevin Hague: What interactions did the Minister have with the Office of the Auditor-General over its management letter to the district health board in 2013 and what was he seeking?Hon TONY RYALL: When I received that management letter I then asked for a meeting with the Office of the Auditor-General to discuss its concerns further and to get a better understanding of the information and concerns that it had. I was able to discuss those with the chair of the district health board and as he advised the Health Committee today my strongest advice to him was that if it believed there was sufficient evidence of fraud then it should refer that to the Serious Fraud Office.Kevin Hague: What dealings has he had with South Link Health since he was made aware of these allegations of potential fraud in 2010?Hon TONY RYALL: I have no recollection of being made aware of those and there is no record of that. What I can say to the member is I have met South Link Health on a number of occasions since it is a leading general practitioner organisation.Kevin Hague: Why given that a massive question mark ought to have remained in his mind about a potential fraud did he in June 2012 describe the executive director of South Link Health Professor MurrayTilyard as having “great entrepreneurialism and innovation” and being a “prophet in his own land”?Hon TONY RYALL: The member can sort of cast as many aspersions as he likes and make allegations. When I became aware of the management letter on the issue of fraud I met as soon as I could with the Auditor-General and I have made it very clear to the chairman of the Southern District Health Board that if he believes there is sufficient evidence of fraud then that must be referred quickly to the Serious Fraud Office. And as the member will know from my earlier answer it has been referred to forensic auditors for that very purpose.Kevin Hague: I seek leave to table a page from the New Zealand Doctor website. It is protected behind apaywall so most members will not have access to it. It is entitled “South Link groups in growth phase” and it refers to the Minister’s interaction as in those quotes.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular document that is not easily available to members. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon Annette King: In this meeting with the Auditor-General did he seek at any time to have any mention of the word “fraud” removed from the Audit Office report to the select committee?Hon TONY RYALL: It is not the responsibility of the Minister of Health to direct the Auditor-General in what they do. [Interruption] No no I have no recollection of asking them to remove the word “fraud”. The member can cast as many stones as she likes but actually she was the Minister at the time that most of this contract stuff was happening.Hon Annette King: Point of order Mr Speaker—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have a point of order which I want to hear in silence.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to show that in fact this problem started in 1995-96—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! That is using the point of order system simply to continue a political debate. The member has got a question coming up shortly. She should use that opportunity with supplementary questions to continue the debate.Health Services—Funding and Delivery2.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai) to theMinister of Health: What recent reports has he seen on inadequate standards of health care in New Zealand?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): The vast majority of reports I receive on the standard of health care in New Zealand are very positive. However I have seen a recent report about a small group of women whose experiences with maternity services in Counties Manukau were disappointing. It is unacceptable if any mother feels unwelcome or disrespected by maternity services and I have asked the district health board to report to me on what action it is taking to address these concerns.Hon Annette King: Why was the so-called increase in funding to Hutt Valley District Health Board not sufficient to prevent a recent audit report showing that conditions at the maternity ward the mental health unit and the children’s ward were so concerning that they were labelled as high risk with staff shortages overcrowding and a recurring flea problem that had been there since he became the Minister?Hon TONY RYALL: Our Government has given the Hutt Valley District Health Board an additional $59 million in the last 5 years. We have also supported much stronger auditing processes in district health boards. I am advised in respect of Hutt Valley District Health Board that it is addressing the issues that have been raised. New lino has been installed and the maternity unit has apparently been fumigated. I have to remind the member that fleas were reported at another hospital back in 2007 and in a hospital facility back in 2002. Who was the Minister of Health then?Hon Annette King: Why was the so-called increase in funding to Counties Manukau District Health Board not sufficient to address the serious shortcoming in maternity care including bed shortages inappropriate care overcrowding and vulnerable women being sent home 4 hours after giving birth after his promise for longer stays for mothers in hospitals—the promise he made in 2008-09?Hon TONY RYALL: Over the last 5 years we have given the Counties Manukau District Health Board $265 million worth of additional funding. There was a major review of maternity services that was commissioned in 2012. It identified that there were significant problems with dealing with vulnerable mothers particularly newPacific and Māori mothers. This research has been undertaken to inform the district health board and I am sure we are going to see improved services as a result.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a document sent to me under an Official Information Act request from Counties Manukau showing that over 4 years there has been no improvement in the length of stay for vulnerable mothers—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Leave is sought to table an Official Information Act request that has been sent to the member—Hon Trevor Mallard: No. A reply not a request.Hon Annette King: It was a reply.Mr SPEAKER: A reply. I apologise. Is there any objection to that particular document? There is objection.Hon Annette King: Why should mental health patients in Christchurch be forced to live inPortacom and caravans which both health professionals and board members are concerned about even going—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I do not want your colleague there to continue holding up pieces of paper which is leading to disorder.Hon Annette King: We’re allowed to.Mr SPEAKER: I have asked the member to desist from doing so. That is the end of the matter.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. For the many many years that I have been in this Parliament the use of visual aids—including your allowing me to use them only a few weeks ago—was permitted. Why is it not permitted now?Mr SPEAKER: Because it is leading to disorder. A visual aid might be one thing. To hold up lots of pieces of paper—copies of the newspaper—is not helping the order of this House. I have made a ruling. If the member wishes to carry on with her supplementary questions I suggest that she do so.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. It will be heard in silence.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Could I point you to Standing Order 109—Mr SPEAKER: 109?Hon Clayton Cosgrove: —109 Mr Speaker—and it says this: “A member may use an appropriate visual aid to illustrate a point being made during the member’s speech provided that the aid does not inconvenience other members or obstruct the proceedings …”. The second point says: “Such an aid may be displayed only when the member is speaking to a question before the House and must be removed from the Chamber at the conclusion of the member’s speech.” I would put it to you that the visual aid itself was innocuous. It was directed at the member’s question that was being asked and it has been a tradition to use visual aids as long as they are removed relatively quickly after the speech.Mr SPEAKER: I invite the member to look very carefully at that particular Standing Order. What it says is that the member can use a visual aid if the member specifically needs a visual aid to help that member make a point with a supplementary question. What we were seeing was an additional member of Parliament not the member asking the question using the visual aid which was in my opinion leading to disorder. If—[Interruption] Order! If the member asking the question finds that it is absolutely critical to making the point she is making I will allow that member but not any other member to use that aid to assist the Hon Annette King.Hon Annette King: Thank you Mr Speaker. It is critical to my question. Why should mental health patients in Christchurch be forced to live inPortacom and caravans which both health professionals and board members are concerned about—even going so far as to label the proposal as a “low-life ghetto”—when he was aware ofthe unprecedented demand for mental health services in Christchurch since the earthquake and has washed his hands of the problem?Hon TONY RYALL: We have been strongly supporting the Canterbury District Health Board since the earthquake. In the last 5 years $201 million worth of extra funding has gone into the Canterbury District Health Board. There are significant housing issues in Christchurch which are being dealt with and work is under way in that area but I do welcome any thinking the district health board can have about how it might be able to provide services for some of those more vulnerable people in the community on a temporary basis until more permanent accommodation can be provided.Hon Annette King: Has he received—[Interruption] Yes yes we have just heard from the “Brains Trust”. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Does the member want to continue with her question?Hon Annette King: Has he received any reports from front-line health professionals that on numerous occasions patient safety is compromised due to care rationing patients missing out on care or having their treatment delayed and reports that reportable events are often not getting past front-line managers? Has he received any of those reports?Hon TONY RYALL: I am sure that I have read some of the newspaper clippings that the member is using for those reports but also I have seen reports of people waiting 3 days on end under bright fluorescent lights at hospital emergency departments during the term of the previous Government. Next week we will be announcing the best performance ever by emergency departments in the New Zealand public health service.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table an email I have received from a health professional working in a tertiary hospital setting out exactly what I have just put in my question. I am sure that the Minister has also received it—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Then we do not need any further explanation. Leave is sought to table an email received by the member from a health professional. Is there any objection to that email being tabled? There is objection.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I seek leave to table a set of statistics fromNew Zealand Doctor. I am advised that it is similarly limited in its availability as Mr Hague’s information fromNew Zealand Doctorwas from behind apaywall. This is a set of statistics that notes as its headline: “Labour’s King gains as Ryall slips in popularity”.Mr SPEAKER: Well I am going to let the House decide. Leave is sought to table that particular information from behind apaywall. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon Member: They don’t like it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! And I do not like the noise levels of the interjections either.Economic Programme—Social Issues and Support for Vulnerable New Zealanders3.SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) to theMinister of Finance: How is the Government balancing its focus on responsibly managing its finances with addressing some of the most challenging social issues facing vulnerable families?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Government has been clear since it became the Government that the 50 percent jump in Government spending in the 5 years to 2008 was unsustainable. In setting a path back to surplus we rejected the option of aggressively cutting spending. Instead we took the time to understand the drivers of existing spending and whether the spending was delivering results and to ensure that results were delivered. At the same time we put significant resourcing and effort into improving the lives of the most vulnerable New Zealanders particularly children. We are not doing that by throwing taxpayers’ money around indiscriminately.We are attempting to resolve the complex and persistent problems that mean some of our children have lives that sap their sense of opportunity.Shane Ardern: What are some of the social issues the Government is addressing to improve the lives of the most vulnerable New Zealanders?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has set out what it believes those social issues are but more than that it is publishing results in order that the public can hold us and the Public Service to account for achieving something for the most vulnerable New Zealanders. The Better Public Services targets are particularly challenging because they cover some of New Zealand’s most persistent problems like long-term welfare dependency vulnerable children and the amount of violence that they suffer the need to build skills and employment so these young New Zealanders have real opportunities and also crime reduction and making our communities safer. Overall we are making good progress towards meeting these results and further updates will be published tomorrow.Shane Ardern: What kinds of social issues affecting the most vulnerable New Zealanders did this Government inherit in 2008?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There were a number of longstanding social issues making the lives of New Zealanders miserable in 2008. They are set out clearly in the Salvation Army’s state of the nation report of February 2008. It said: “The social outcomes which we as New Zealanders have achieved over the past five years”—that is under the previous Labour-led Government—“were somewhat mixed and in some areas quite disappointing.” The report noted that in 2008 more children appeared to be at risk of harm more young people were engaged in petty crime there was more violent crime and the number of people going to jail was rising at a significant rate. I do not think that any of those trends could be seen as progress. The Salvation Army noted in 2008 that New Zealand households were chronically indebted.Shane Ardern: What else do reports say about the serious social challenges facing New Zealanders when this Government took office and particularly the fiscal policy approach to dealing with those issues?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Salvation Army said in its report in 2008 that perhaps the most disappointing aspect was that New Zealand had invested huge amounts of money in core areas of social spending but the spending seemed to have contributed very little to New Zealand’s social progress. This was not said by the then Opposition’s spokespeople; this was from the people from the Salvation Army. The report listed billions of taxpayers’ dollars that had been spent and then listed many indicators that were going backwards—rising numbers of referrals to Child Youth and Family Services more children in Child Youth and Family Services care rising youth offending rising teenage pregnancy and abortion rates continuing educational inequality and early childhood enrolment rates lower than 65 percent. Funnily enough in 2014 almost all of these indicators are turning positive when the Government has been very careful about its spending but instead has focused on its effectiveness.Jacinda Ardern: In light of the Deputy Prime Minister’s line of questioning around the Salvation Army report I seek leave to table a graph from the Salvation Army demonstrating—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat. That report was certainly available to all members.Commerce Legislation—Passage4.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) to theMinister of Commerce: When does he expect the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill to be passed into law?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): It is my expectation that this bill will be passed this year.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Given the serious concerns of supermarket suppliers that were raised last week in the House by the Hon Shane Jones and subsequently by the Food and Grocery Council and given that he admitted yesterday in the House that he knew of concerns regarding the behaviour of supermarkets towards suppliers well before it was raised here last week but did nothing why has he not expedited the passage of this bill?Hon CRAIG FOSS: The serious concerns raised by the Hon Shane Jones of alleged blackmail of alleged extortion of alleged retrospective payments are not part of the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Some of those allegations actually should be referred to the police as I advised the member yesterday but they are ongoing matters.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Given that he is not prepared to expedite this legislation and that he admitted and I invite him to check hisHansardfrom yesterday that he knew of these concerns prior to Mr Jones raising them in the House what is he prepared to do if anything in the interim to ensure that supermarket suppliers and ultimately consumers get a fair go and are protected?Hon CRAIG FOSS: As I have answered in this House I was not aware of any commentary about blackmail extortion or retrospective payments a week or so ago before the member raised them in the House.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Will he accept the offer I made to him in writing prior to Christmas last year and support my Supplementary Order Paper 408 to the cartels bill which amends section 36 to ensure that when excessive market power is wielded based on consequences regardless of intent it can be acted on by the Commerce Commission?Hon CRAIG FOSS: Yes I thank the member for the Supplementary Order Paper and his letter. I also look forward to him replying to my various letters to him. I am still considering advice on this one and a similar issue was raised at the Commerce Committee as this bill went through the select committee. The committee as a whole unanimously agreed with the officials’ recommendation that such a proposal as outlined in the member’s Supplementary Order Paper probably should go through a full policy process.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Given that the Minister continues to drag his feet on legislation he is responsible for such as the Insolvency Practitioners Bill which has languished on the Order Paper for 46 months the Consumer Law Reform Bill which languished for 25 months the Financial Markets Conduct Bill which languished for 23 months and the Commerce (Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill which was introduced 28 months ago and counting when can I expect a decision on a simple matter of support or otherwise for a Supplementary Order Paper?Hon CRAIG FOSS: The member mentioned the Financial Markets Conduct Bill. That was passed last year. The Financial Reporting Bill was passed last year. The Patents Bill was passed last year. The legislation on international cooperation between the Commerce Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was passed last year. The biggest consumer law reform in decades was passed last year. We are working currently on the consumer credit legislation as well as the bills the member mentioned. I look forward to Labour’s continuing support for these bills although I am not sure of that support because that member has yet to reply to one letter from me seeking Labour’s position on these bills.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Although I accept there were some lengthy examples—Mr SPEAKER: If the member is going to argue—[Interruption] Order! If the member had asked that question I could have helped him.State and Social Housing—Building Redevelopment and Maintenance Initiatives5.ALFRED NGARO (National) to theMinister of Housing: What progress is the Government making in growing the Community Housing sector and redeveloping Housing New Zealand homes to better match today’s housing needs?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Housing): We are making excellent progress in growing the community housing sector with an all-time record number of houses to be built this year. We have got projects like Weymouth with 282 homes; like theMatanikolo Housing Project which I opened last week with the Pacific Islands Minister Sam Lotu-Iiga; and around a dozen others that through the Social Housing Fund will enable us to treble the size of this sector over 3 years. Housing New Zealand’s redevelopment projects are also gaining real momentum such that the Government will this year directly build more houses than in a decade. This includes the Infill 500 project in Auckland the new developments at McLennan and Hobsonville and the 700 new houses that are being built in Christchurch over this year and next year.Alfred Ngaro: What specific initiatives is the Government taking to improve the quality and safety of homes?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Our first major goal was to insulate every State house that could be and we successfully completed that project last year with 48000 homes done. That is on top of the 244000 homes that have been insulated under the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart programme. We also last year embarked on a $30 million driveway safety programme where over the next 4 years we will install fences signage gates and mirrors on 13000 State houses to address New Zealand’s poor record of hospitalising a child every fortnight and killing a child every 10 weeks in vehicle driveway accidents. We are also trialling a Housing Warrant of Fitness scheme on Housing New Zealand homes to ensure we have a far more systematic approach to ensuring the quality of our State houses.Alfred Ngaro: How are his housing agencies assisting the Government to achieve its goal of reducing the incidence of rheumatic fever by two-thirds by 2017?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: New Zealand’s acute rheumatic fever levels are 14 times the OECD average and the rates are 25 times and 44 times higher for our Māori and Pacific Island families respectively. I noted the interjection from Labour members opposite but I note that in 9 years Labour did nothing. Poor housing contributes significantly to the risks and that is why the Government has changed the social housing allocation system to support this important health goal of reducing the incidence of this disease by two-thirds. In August we set up a fast-track system in Auckland for families at high risk of rheumatic fever. We had planned on extending it after 1 year to other high-risk areas but on Monday Cabinet decided to bring this forward. On 1 March this fast-track system will also apply to eight further district health board areas covering tens of thousands of families.Phil Twyford: What advice has he received on the number of non-functioning power points in State houses or the number of dripping taps or smoke alarms that go beep in the night and if these are in fact a problem why does he as Minister of Housing not just issue an instruction that they be fixed instead of announcing a pilot scheme; and why will he not tackle the real problem here which is substandard housing in the private rental market?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I want to say that substandard housing in the State sector was a huge problem for this Government when we came into office in 2008 and the last members in this House whom I am going to get a lecture from about the quality ofhousing are members opposite. In respect of the member’s claim that all we need to do to get quality housing across those 69000 State houses is write a letter to the Housing New Zealand actually what you need is a proper system for measuring quality. That is why what we have announced in the trial today ensures that up to 50 different areas of houses are checked on a 3-year rolling basis—so that we can ensure that our State houses are of a high quality.Supermarkets—Relationship with SuppliersHon SHANE JONES (Labour): What documentation if any did he and his office prepare prior to 12 February 2014 regarding the behaviour of supermarkets towards suppliers and when was that documentation prepared?Hon Members: Who’s the question to?Mr SPEAKER: The question is to the Minister of Commerce. [Interruption] Order! If the member wants an answer to his question then I suggest—Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I will gladly ask this question and my four other questions to the Minister of Commerce.Mr SPEAKER: No. Order! The member will resume his seat. He should have done it correctly in the first place.6.Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) to theMinister of Commerce: What documentation if any did he and his office prepare prior to 12 February 2014 regarding the behaviour of supermarkets towards suppliers and when was that documentation prepared?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I am not aware of any documents prepared by my office regarding the behaviour of supermarkets towards suppliers. However I have received reports from officials on supermarket issues. These reports did not contain information about the behaviour raised by that member alleging blackmail alleging extortion and alleging retrospective payments in the New Zealand supermarket sector.Hon Shane Jones: When he makes contact with the Commerce Commission what will he do to ensure that the Commerce Commission vigorously embraces section 98 and protects the anonymity of New Zealand - based suppliers given that they are being leaned upon over in Australia?Hon CRAIG FOSS: The Commerce Commission is perfectly able to carry out its duties as prescribed in the Commerce Act in and around issues such as confidentiality as the member raised just then.Hon Shane Jones: When will the Minister exercise his powers under section 99 and secure Australian assistance to ensure that this Commerce Commission investigation does not falter because of threats and intimidation by Australian-based supermarket owners?Hon CRAIG FOSS: Once again I understand the member has made a complaint to the Commerce Commission. I for one follow due process. I look forward to the outcome of that due process from the Commerce Commission and we will see what comes of that.Hon Shane Jones: Does he think it enhances or undermines the Commerce Commission processes if Woolworths’ Australian chairman Mr Ralph Waters is found to be calling New Zealand suppliers and discouraging them from participating in this legal process lest they face dire consequences in his supermarket in Australia?Hon CRAIG FOSS: What enhances the Commerce Commission processes is due process and not members grandstanding on issues that they will not repeat outside the House and making serious and inflammatory allegations of blackmail of extortion and of retrospective payments that quite frankly we are yet to see backed up.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was a very clear question which went to the actions of a particular individual Australian—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] No. Order! The Minister addressed that question to my satisfaction.Hon Shane Jones: Name one single action this Minister has effected to stand up for New Zealand - based suppliers in the face of adverse action from the supermarkets?Hon CRAIG FOSS: At least one: adherence to the Commerce Act in which actually the particular section we are talking about was last addressed by the Labour Government in 2001 was considered in 2008 and was actually left alone. Adherence to due process is absolute and I await the outcomes.Question No. 7 to MinisterHon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I know this question has been approved by you but I ask that you look at it carefully and see whether it does meet this House’s standards for acceptance.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think on this occasion there is a question around the wording of the question. It should have been raised with me a lot earlier and I might have made a decision. But at this stage it has been accepted on to the Order Paper and I am going to allow the question to proceed as it is written.Street Racing—Deterrents7.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland) to theMinister of Police: What results have Police recorded since new laws were introduced by the Government in 2009 to combat illegal street racing?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): More good news. I am pleased to advise that the legislation introduced by this Government in 2009 to deter illegal street racing and antisocial boy-racing behaviour is working very well. The number of infringement notices issued by police for illegal street racing has fallen from around 2700 in 2009 to 1380 in 2013. That is a reduction of nearly 50 percent—a 50 percent reduction. Over the same period the number of 15 to 24-year-olds killed on our roads has fallen from 105 to 66. This Government’s crackdown on boy racers has resulted in our streets being safer and fewer young lives being needlessly lost on our roads.Mike Sabin: What changes did this Government make in 2009 to deter illegal street racing?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: The 2009 law changes gave the courts the power to seize and destroy the cars of repeat offenders. It gave local councils greater powers to outlaw boy racers cruising in the streets and made it easier for police to impound vehicles caught racing. We made these changes to send a strong message that antisocial and dangerous driving behaviour will not be tolerated by our communities. Of the 10000 offences since 2009 only 242 offenders are now on the second strike.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How many cars crushed so far?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Just patience Mr Peters just patience—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Thirteen drivers have received three convictions and three cars have been destroyed. This shows that the changes that we made in 2009 are having a strong deterrent effect and the young drivers know that there are consequences.Question No. 4 to MinisterHon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I seek leave to table two letters. The first is a letter to the Minister of Commerce of 20 February 2013 regarding the Financial Markets Conduct Bill. The second is a letter of 9 March 2013 regarding the Commerce(Cartels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. He may want to read his correspondence file.Mr SPEAKER: Can I assume both those letters were written by the member?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Correct.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table two letters written by the member to the Minister. Is there any objection? There is objection.Question No. 4 to Minister—Amended AnswerHon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Commerce): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In light of that information if that is correct then I need to correct my earlier answer—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just ask the Minister to stick to the rules. He is asking to raise a point of order. Would he simply get on and raise the point of order.Hon CRAIG FOSS: I seek to raise a point of order regarding my earlier answer to question No. 4 from the honourable member.Mr SPEAKER: I take it that now the Minister is seeking leave to correct an answer. Leave is sought to change an earlier answer given in this House. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is none.Hon CRAIG FOSS: I thank the House. In the light of that information obviously I have received some replies from the Hon Clayton Cosgrove.Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry—Investigation into Leaked Cabinet Papers8.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) to theMinister of State Services: What was the total cost of theRebstock inquiry into the leaking of internal documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and how much of that was paid to PaulaRebstock?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) on behalf of theMinister of State Services: The Minister is advised that the cost to the State Services Commission of the inquiry is $513434.95 including litigation costs. Of this total $208916.79 has been paid to PaulaRebstock.Hon Maryan Street: Does he consider the report to have been robust and worth the expenditure?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It is important to note that the inquiry was initiated not by Ministers but by the commissioner in accordance with section 8 of the State Sector Act. As to whether the findings were robust yes the Minister believes they were because it confirmed that the leak had come from a former Labour Party staffer working for the State Services Commission. It found that person X had the papers that person X scanned the papers of the exact same size as the Cabinet papers when they were in his possession that person X could not explain what he had scanned or why it was saved into the system and when asked whether he gave Cabinet committee papers to someone who was not authorised to receive them he responded: “I don’t know.”Hon Maryan Street: Have any issues of natural justice or other shortcomings in the report been raised with him given a QC’s opinion that the report “is quite unfair from a legal perspective contains numerous flaws contains what we see as basic errors of fact is often misleading has omissions and was flawed and unjust.”?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: There have been issues that have been aired in public on those particular points which could be the subject of judicial review. The Minister is sure that the Attorney-General would feel that it would be inappropriate to answer those questions but on the core issue about politicisation of the Civil Service by the Labour Party the report is very robust indeed.Hon Maryan Street: I seek leave to table a memorandum from BruceCorkill QC to DerekLeask dated 8 November 2013 which contains all of those quotations that I just mentioned to the House.Mr SPEAKER: Just to clarify—Hon Christopher Finlayson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It would appear on the face of it that she is leaking a document that is subject to legal professional privilege. She would at least have to say in this House that MrLeask gives her permission to do so.Mr SPEAKER: I will just clarify for the benefit of the House before I put the leave to table this memorandum. Has MrLeask has given his authority for it to be tabled?Hon Maryan Street: On 27 January this year MrLeask released a public statement and attached to it was the memorandum from BruceCorkill QC.Mr SPEAKER: Then if it has been released publicly I fail to see why it is necessary for it to be tabled in the House today.Hon Maryan Street: It is not available publicly in the common understanding of things. It has been reported in the media—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The quickest way of moving this forward is to say that leave is sought to table a memorandum from a solicitor—whose name I have now forgotten—but it concerns Mr DerekLeask. Is there any objection to that memorandum being tabled? Yes there is.Hon Maryan Street: Why was the evidence presented to theRebstock inquiry by the prestigious senior civil servant SirMaartenWevers that communications from senior heads of mission to relevant departments chief executives and even Ministers was common practice appropriate and even important ignored by PaulaRebstock when the reputations and careers of two senior officials have been curtailed or seriously compromised through unfounded accusations in her report?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: It is important to note as I said earlier that this was an investigation initiated by the commissioner. It was an independent inquiry. The findings were independent. It would be inappropriate to start commenting on it. If people have a grievance then they can always seek judicial review.Hon Maryan Street: I seek leave to table the statement by SirMaartenWevers tabled to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade investigation dated 12 February 2013.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table the statement by SirMaartenWevers to that inquiry. Is there any objection? There is objection.Hon Maryan Street: Does the Minister uphold the need for free and frank advice from civil servants; if so how does he reconcile theRebstock report and its chilling impact on senior public officials throughout the Public Service with that fundamental principle and does he still believe that the report is worth the money spent on it?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Yes indeed the Minister does. The Minister also upholds the core principle that we have an independent Civil Service and it would be really good if the Labour Party could talk to its activists and tell them not to politicise the Civil Service and use TVNZ headquarters as campaign headquarters because it is their disgraceful behaviour that has caused this problem.Health Services—Patient Information Portals and e-Health Ambassadors9.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) to theMinister of Health: What announcements has the Government made about e-Health Ambassadors and their role in promoting patient portals?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health): Last night we announced seven e-Health Ambassadors and these e-Health Ambassadors are general practitioners whowill work closely with the National Health IT Board to encourage other general practitioners to establish patient portals in their practices this year. A patient portal is an online service that allows a patient to securely log in and do things like check their latest laboratory results order a repeat prescription or send a message directly to their GP—all from the convenience of their home.Dr Paul Hutchison: How will these e-Health Ambassadors assist the roll-out of patient portals?Hon TONY RYALL: All of the e-Health Ambassadors either are using a portal in their own practices or are in the process of introducing one. The ambassadors will be able to talk to fellow general practitioners about the benefits of the portals for patients in clinics and provide guidance and support to these general practitioners as they establish their own portals. Currently we know that about 15 to 20 percent of practices are offering a patient portal service and with the leadership and guidance of these e-Health Ambassadors we hope to get around half of practices offering this service by the end of the year.Internal Affairs Minister—Actions Prior to Appointment and Confidence10.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) to thePrime Minister: Further to his response of “No” as to whether he received an assurance from Mr Dunne that he had not made a copy of the draftKitteridge Report on the GCSB available to a Fairfax reporter in Oral Question No 11 on 12 February and that he “accepted him at his word” in a supplementary answer to the same question in what context did Mr Dunne give his word that he did not make said report available to the reporter?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): It is “GCSB”. I will save you having to read it out. As I advised the House last year I was aware that Mr Dunne had made statements to the media where he categorically ruled out that he played any part in leaking the report.Hon Trevor Mallard: So therefore did he rely on a media report or media reports of Mr Dunne denying making theKitteridge report available to a Fairfax reporter to establish that Mr Dunne had “given his word” on this matter; if not how did Mr Dunne give “his word”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I saw the statements the member had made to the media and in the House and accepted them as good enough.Hon Trevor Mallard: Did he say on 7 June 2013 that he could not accept Mr Dunne’s assurances made earlier that day to the media that he had not made the draftKitteridge report available to a Fairfax reporter?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Most probably but a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister stand by this statement: “I want to believe him but the problem is unfortunately the inquiry doesn’t rule him out and I can’t dismiss the possibility that he has because of the information contained in the report.”? Does he stand by those comments and what has changed now?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do stand by those statements in the same way that I want to believe all the comments the member made about the Owen Glenn donations.Hon Trevor Mallard: Did the Prime Minister decide not to seek Mr Dunne’s direct answer on the question of whether he made the draftKitteridge report available to a Fairfax reporter because if Mr Dunne told the truth and admitted making it available he could not reappoint him and if he denied making it available Mr Dunne would have been misleading him and therefore equallyunappointable; if that was not the reason why did he not ask Mr Dunne?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I say to Chief InspectorClouseau no.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does the Prime Minister stand by this statement: “He has advised me that he remains unable to fully meet the inquiry’s requests and accordingly he offered and I have accepted his resignation as a Minister.”? If he stands by that comment what has changed now?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes I stand by that statement. As I say I also relied on the assurances the member gave in the House in the same way that I am relying on the assurances that Mr Peters has given over the Owen Glenn affair.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That is the second time the Prime Minister has introduced extraneous matters into his answers.Hon Members: Oh!Rt Hon Winston Peters: No no; let me finish. Let me finish. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is a point of order. It is required to be heard in silence.Rt Hon Winston Peters: That answer does not fit the parliamentary requirement to be terse and to the point when it comes to answers. But more important as we all know he went out and made all those allegations before the 2008 election but we are back now and it is too late.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member was doing marginally well when he started his point of order; he certainly was not by the time he finished.Hon Trevor Mallard: Does he feel more comfortable having his Government propped up by a member currently before the High Court following a prima facie case of electoral fraud being established or by one who has repeatedly declined in this House opportunities to deny being the person who made the draftKitteridge report available to a Fairfax reporter because to do so would involve telling the same lie he told to reporters? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I would ask you to think very carefully about whether or not it is in order for the last part of that question to be introduced to the House. It is an unreasonable accusation. All members in this House are to be treated as honourable members at all times. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: No I do not need the assistance of the member Trevor Mallard. Because of the noise I could not actually hear the part to which I know the member is objecting. I would have thought the Prime Minister would actually be able to respond quite satisfactorily to the question. I call on the right honourable Prime Minister to do so.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I refute the assertions made in the member’s question but I do say this. At least we have actually got a Government which is a lot better than that member has in Opposition because none of them is here today. Goodness knows where they are.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. During that exchange of comments a bit prior to Mr Key answering that question Mr Banks made a thoroughly unparliamentary statement. He should be asked to withdraw and apologise audibly.Mr SPEAKER: Well I certainly did not hear any comment that I considered unparliamentary coming from the Hon John Banks.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect what has that got to do with it? We heard it I heard it this member back here heard it—we all heard what he said and you should be relying upon my complaint. If you want to get to the bottom of it I will tell you what he said but that is what he did.Mr SPEAKER: No that will not be necessary. The best way forward is that I am going to ask the Hon John Banks if he did make a remark to withdraw that remark for the benefit of the House.Hon John Banks: Definitely not. Definitely not Trevor.Mr SPEAKER: Then I can take the matter no further.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Banks called Mr Mallard a liar. We all heard it and he should be asked—Hon John Banks: That’s true.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Now he says it is true. Now he says it is true.Hon Gerry Brownlee: This clearly goes right to the point of the question. The question itself made a very similar assertion. There is no proof one way or the other. The member asking the question therefore left himself open to the same suggestion that he had just made about another member—my point I raised before.Mr SPEAKER: And I think that is a reasonable point but the more important point is that I asked Mr Banks whether he made an unparliamentary comment. He said he did not and Mr Banks’ word will be taken.Tracey Martin: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! This is a point of order. It will be heard in silence but I just want to caution the member. If we are relitigating the matter that has been discussed that is a direct challenge to a ruling I have given and the member would give me no choice but for me to then ask her to leave the Chamber. Does the member want to raise a fresh point of order?Tracey Martin: I do. Can I please seek clarification from you either now or after question time as a new member of Parliament. When a member of the Opposition rises and gives their word that a statement was made and that is not accepted yet when a member who is accused gives their word and it is—I am not seeking clarification now but it would be helpful for those of us who will be here after 2014.Mr SPEAKER: I am happy to take the member through this matter after question time.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Following Mr Banks’ interjection I called him a liar. I withdraw and apologise for that because I unlike him am an honest member.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I thank the member for trying to assist the order of the House. Question No. 11—Gareth Hughes.Gareth Hughes: It’s time to go back to the real issues eh? [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is members’ day that the members are using up. I have called Gareth Hughes.Gareth Hughes: Thank you Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can we please get back to continuing with question time.Power Prices—Electricity Market and Alternative PoliciesGARETH HUGHES (Green): My question is to the Minister of Energy and Resources and asks: does he think New Zealanders are paying too much for their power? [Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This a primary question on notice. I am trying my best to hold the Government to account and to focus on real issues to New Zealanders and no one can get a look-in.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The difficulty is—[Interruption] Order! The member is making a reasonable point. He has the privilege of asking question No. 11 today and it will be heard in reasonable silence.11.GARETH HUGHES (Green) to theMinister of Energy and Resources: Does he think New Zealanders are paying too much for their power?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources): Obviously consumers will always want to pay less for electricity but I think that prices reflect the environment we find ourselves in with increased—significantly increased—investment in transmission and infrastructure. If consumers are worried about price they should look back to the last Labour-Greens Government which saw steep power price increases that this Government has halved since taking office.Gareth Hughes: Does he support the idea of Kiwis generating their own power rather than having to pay rising electricity prices and paying for the electricity companies’ profits when bills have gone up 22 percent under his Government?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well of course solar has got its place but the reality is that the Green Party’s policy of wishful thinking just does not stack up. This is a Government that has invested significantly and seen significant investment in transmission and lines and has of course halved the steep increases we saw under the last Government.Gareth Hughes: Is he telling families like theHugheses—no relation—in Nelson who recently received a monthly power bill of $1.80 after installing solar on their roof that they have made a bad decision?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: What I say to theHugheses—I am glad they are no relation—is that if they shop around they will see increasingly sharp competition which is not reflected in the quarterly survey prices. Meridian is offering $100 credit and 10 percent to 12 percent prompt payment discounts. Contact is offering similar 10 percent to 15 percent prompt payment discounts. But I can only agree with MrBinns of Meridian when answering questions from Mr Hughes that he simply cannot follow the economics of solar and it just does not stack up.Gareth Hughes: Is this Minister who is off tonight on his oil-drilling world tour going to spend election year standing up for big oil and power companies’ profits at the expense of cleaner cheaper smarter electricity for New Zealanders and thousands of green jobs?Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sure that that outburst was entertaining for the member but where was the question? There were assertions all the way through that question that are totally unreasonable. It might be member’s day and people will waste time. Once we start these things then we seem to have trouble getting off the treadmill. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! No I do not need the assistance of the member. The question was way off the mark and made allegations that are not helpful to the order of the House. I was not and I am not going to rule the question out of order but if the Minister gives a relatively political reply I will not be surprised.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Well I am very disappointed in those snide remarks from the member given that a core value of the Green Party is to engage respectfully without personal attacks. But let me come back to those important issues that the member talks about. We have halved the steep increases in the power prices that we saw under Labour and the Greens. We have seen significant—in the billions of dollars—investment in transmission in lines and we are seeing increasingly sharp deals from the power companies which actually are not passing on their increasing costs in their prices.Aged Care Residential—Standard of Care12.BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) to theAssociate Minister of Health: Is she satisfied with the current level of care in rest homes?Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister of Health): The majority of providers do a very good job. However when issues do arise the Ministry of Health and district health boards respond swiftly to make sure that the immediate situation is addressed andthe risk of it happening again is minimised. To support the aged-care sector in providing higher-quality care today I announced that all aged residential care providers have signed up to the use of the comprehensive clinical assessment toolinterRAI 6 months ahead of the deadline. Already 720 registered nurses have been trained in the use of this tool and have completed over 10000 assessments. This will lead to more consistency and higher-quality care.Barbara Stewart: Is she aware of recent reports of elderly rest home residents in the Waikato who have received care “not more than that of a concentration camp” and have sustained “wounds conducive to physical abuse” as reported in theWaikato Times recently?Hon JO GOODHEW: I am aware of a recent article in theWaikato Times that did outline 12 complaints that had been made. I am able to say that some of those complaints were substantiated and that in fact it was the swift response on the part of the auditing agencies that actually brought about an improvement in each of those facilities. Regrettably sometimes situations that none of us would want do occur. What is important is how we respond to that and that we make sure they cannot continue to occur.Barbara Stewart: Does she agree with the New Zealand Nurses Organisation that “A lack of regulation around staffing levels was a major concern”; if not why not?Hon JO GOODHEW: No I do not agree with that and the reason I do not agree with that is that when a rest home is audited it is audited on whether irrespective of how many staff are used it is providing high-quality care to the residents. In fact that is the bottom line for these residents—whether they are getting quality of care. I can however also add to that that the Waikato District Health Board funding into aged residential care has gone up by 22 percent since 2009-10. So it appears that in fact extra money is going into the situation. But it is the quality of care not the numbers of people providing it that really counts.Barbara Stewart: Does she agree with the Service and Food Workers Union that aged care is undervalued and underfunded; if so what is she doing about it?Hon JO GOODHEW: What I am able to tell the member and this House is that spending on aged residential care since 2008-09 has gone from $744 million to $953 million forecast for this year. That is a 28 percent increase over 5 years. So what I am saying is that in the end it is the quality of care that counts because certainly any lack of quality is what causes complaints in our system.General DebateHon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Minister of Māori Affairs): I moveThat the House take note of miscellaneous business.Tēnā koe Mr Speaker.Tēnātātau. Kei tepīrangi au ki tekōrero epāana kitōtātau Reo Māorikōreroitōtātau Reonā temeanō Aotearoatonutēnei Reonātātau katoa e nohoanai Aotearoanā reiratēnei au etū atu ki tekōrero epāana kitōtātou Reo Māori.Nākuaputa mai tepūrongo Wai 262 o TeTaraipiunarai rotoitērāpūrongo kakiia kei tengaro haeretōtātou Reo. Ānākuiwhakatūtētahikomitingā tohungamatatau ki tekōrero Māori ki tewhakaakoi Te Reo Māori kia haere ki rotoingā iwi ki tekimii ōrātouwhakaaro me ahatātau ki tewhakaoraitōtātau Reo Māori.Anākuaārahinatēneirōpū eTāTāmati Reedy. Hekomititokowaru kei rotoitēnārōpū. I haererātau kingā iwi ki tekimii ōrātouwhakaaromōtōtātau Reo mepēhea kataea etātau tewhakarauoraitōtātau Reo.Ahakoatōtātau kaha ki tewhakatūkōhanga reopuna reo kura kaupapa kura ā-iwiwhārewānanga whare kuraātaarangi kura reo āPanekiretanga.Ahakoatōtātau kaha ki tewhakatūiēneiāhuatangangaro haeretonutōtātau Reo. Ka matetōtātau Reoneiitēneiwā.Nā reira katipu tepātai me ahatātau me ahatātau?Nā reira kei rotoitaku mahiMinitamōngā take Māoritukuna atutēneirōpū Te Paepae Motuhake ki tekimiingāwhakaaro ongā iwi o te motunei.Kua hoki mairātaukuawhakatakotoaiitārātaupūrongoTe ReoMauriora teingoa. Kei rotoitēnāpūrongoētahikōrero kiawhakatūtētahirautaki kiawhakaoraaitōtātau Reo Māori.Ēngarii temutungaakemehemeakāremātautātaurānei ekōrero Māoriingā whareingākāingatamaiti ki te koroua koroua ki tetamaiti kangaro hokitōtātau Reo.Nā reiratēneiahau etūnei ki tekōreropēnei ki atātau me tepātai kiawhakarau oraitōtātau Reo kei rotoitēneiwā.Nātēneipūrongo kakōrerorātau kiawhakatūtētahi waka hou ko TeMātāwai teingoa maiingā mema ongā rohe Reo. Kiawhakatūtēneirōpū kiariro te mahi o teMinita Māorimōtōtātau Reo ki arātau kiawhakahokia te manairungaakeitōtātau Reo ki te iwi Māorinā temeanō waitōtātau Reotōtātau Reo Māori?Nōngā iwinōngāhapū. Kaheke ihoingātīpuna Māorimātuaēhara nokoneiitēneiwāēngarinōngātīpunamātuaheke iho; he taongatēnei.Nā reiranākui haere ki rotoingā iwiitēneiwiki ki Te Tai Tokerau Te TaiRāwhiti Te Wai Pounamu Taranaki Parihaka ā Te Arawa.Āpōpō ki Te Tai Tokerauanō āTāmaki-makau-rau ā teParaire kia tuku atuakuwhakaarongāwhakaaro o Te Paepae Motuhake hoki ki te iwi ki te kitemēnā e tautokoanarātauitēneirautaki Māori.Ēharamāku ewhakaroatiangākōrero epāana ki terautakiheoianō kei tekōrero aumō te pai o tewhakahoki ki te iwi Māori tekīmōtōtātau Reo. Te mana kapupuritia e teMinita Māoriahakoa ko wai teMinita he Māori hePākehā heHainamana he aharānei kei a ia te manairungaakemō tewhakahaerei Te Reomō teKāwanatangaarā Te TauraWhirii Te Reo TeMāngaiPāho TePouakaWhakaata Māori meērā atu.Nā reiraākuanei kawhakahokiatēnā mana ki te iwimārātau ekawetēnei.Nā reira hetīmatangatēneikōreroi rotoitēnei Wharemōtēneiwā ātēnā koetēnātātau ewhakarongoana ki aahau.[Greetings to you and to us. I want to speak about our Māori language our language because this language actually belongs to New Zealand to all of us living here. So this is why I rise to talk about our Māori language.The Wai 262 report of the Waitangi Tribunal has been released and in that report it states that our language is on the decline. So I set up a panel of experts fluent in the language and skilled at teaching the Māori language to go out amongst the Māori people and seek out their views on how the revitalisation of our Māori language might be addressed. SirTāmati Reedy leads this panel which is made up of eight members. They went out amongst the tribes and sought out their opinions about our language and how we might rejuvenate it. Despite our efforts to establish language nurseries language pools Māori-medium schools tribal schools Cuisenaire methodology learning schools language schools and Excellence in Māori Language Institutes these kinds of institutions our language continues to decline. In time and at this rate our language will become extinct.And so emerged the question of what we should do how we address it. So in my role as Minister of Māori Affairs I empowered this panel Te Paepae Motuhake to seek out the views of Māori tribes from this nation. They have come back and presented their report calledTe ReoMauriora. In that report are some recommendations about establishing a strategic plan to restore our Māori language but ultimately if we or all of us do not speak Māori in homes and houses a child does not speak Māori to grandad and grandad to the child our language will disappear. So this is the reason why I am standing here and addressing you in this manner with the request to have some input in reviving our language at this point in time.As a consequence of this report they talked about establishing a new governance body with the name TeMātāwai comprised of members of language regions. Thisgovernance body would take over the role that the Minister of Māori Affairs has in terms of our language and returning the mandate over it to the Māori people because who does our language our Māori language belong to? It belongs to the tribes and subtribes. It was passed down to us—it is not from here and now but was handed down from ancestral fathers. This indeed is a treasure. Therefore I have personally gone amongst tribes this week to Northland East Coast the South Island Taranaki Parihaka and Te Arawa. Tomorrow I am going back again to Northland and then to Auckland on Friday to impart my views and those of Te Paepae Motuhake as well to the people and to ascertain whether they support this Māori language strategy.In regard to the strategy I will not labour on about that and instead I will talk about the positive effect of returning the mandate over our Māori language to the Māori people. That control is held by the Minister of Māori Affairs regardless of who is the Minister—be it a Māori a New Zealander of European descent a Chinese person or whatever—they have the mandate to administer the Māori language in Government entities such as the Māori Language Commission the Māori Broadcasting Funding Agency the Māori Television Service and so on. Therefore that mandate will soon be returned to the tribe for them to administer. And so this address to this House at this point in time is just the beginning. Thank you Mr Speaker and to us all for listening to me.]Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister): Twelve months on some things have not changed about the Labour Party. I think I have said this before. The leader is still called David. Most of his caucus still do not support him.Tim Macindoe: Probably more.Hon BILL ENGLISH: Probably more actually. Grant Robertson is still going around the country undermining a leader called David. But one thing has not changed: this David is a tricky David. With the other one you at least kind of knew what he was—and at least he knew. But of course David Cunliffe is not quite so sure. This is a man who is a unionist with the unions a Māori with theMāoris and a farmer with the farmers. But one thing that he tried not to be was a leafy suburb guy in the leafy suburbs. But what happened? He got caught standing in front of a yacht—a picture he could not get them to delete in Taranaki unlike the other ones. It turns out that for all of his references to large homes in leafy suburbs he has one. And of course being the working-class hero with the working class does not quite fit with being the leafy suburbs guy in the leafy suburbs.So what I thought I would do is have a quick look at the latest update on his CV because as we know that is a dynamic document to say the least. Bits appear on it and then disappear. He is the founder of Fonterra—actually he is not; he is something else now. I came across this thing called DavidCunliffe.com—a digital identity. He is a digital guy when he is with the digital natives. This is a DavidCunliffe.com website and I thought maybe I had found him. It says: “David has guided and supported individuals with matters of the soul for decades”. I thought maybe he is a monk with the monks.But then his CV goes on to say he has “become a respected figure …”—well that does not sound quite like the person we are after. It says he is “often described as a … insightful individual”—and he is in his CV described that way often. But the next one killed it: “refreshingly humble”. That was when we knew this was not the real David Cunliffe because although he may be refreshing it is not with humility. That is absolutely sure. Then I knew for sure when it said: “Surprisingly his spiritual path has remained … refreshinglyunboastful.”This is a party that cannot boast about its leader—that is for sure—and does not want to. But usually in the Opposition when the leader is having a bad patch like he is the front bench does the work. It actually took Shane Jones to show everybody just howweak and lazy the Labour front and middle benches are because when they should be carrying their leader—because he is going to need a lot of that—by running issues that put pressure on the Government and attract the public’s attention they are not doing any of that. They are not focused on anything that matters.In fact it is infecting David Cunliffe. On my little phone I got a tweet from David Cunliffe that was about a big issue of the day. It said something like: “I am very sorry to see the end of @massivemagNZ.” What the hell is that? It is the big issue—and not for just the Leader of the Opposition because he also says to refer to Grant Robertson.I think it must be a student magazine. That is the big issue of the day.I know that Grant Robertson never really left student politics so the end of Massive Magazine from Massey’s campus probably is the biggest single issue that has preoccupied him all week. But he should be doing more than that to carry his leader who needs guidance who needs to be carried and who needs a team around him to feed him issues instead of him making them up as he goes.Hon SHANE JONES (Labour): Ātēnā koe Mr Speaker. He kupu heitīmata. Ka nuinoa atutakuwhakahē ki tetū mai otōtātouMinita Take Māori meēnā kaupapaōna ka oratōtātou Reoi rotoiēneitūru ewhakanekenekehiaana e ia. He kupuwhakaritenōkutūpuna oNgāpuhi: kaotitetahi mahi ware kakainga e te hau. Mepēnātakuwhakamārama.[Greetings to you Mr Speaker. Some words to start with. I utterly condemn our Minister of Māori Affairs greatly for standing before us with those proposals of his that our language will survive in these pews that he is merely moving around. MyNgāpuhi ancestors have a saying to compare it against: when something completed is substandard the wind gobbles it up.]After having just reminded our Māori listeners that anything Dr Sharples believes he is doing to save the Reo is sadly misguided I cannot wait to have the opportunity to dismantle whatever other foolish notions he is going to proceed with. I have been accused of being intemperate. I have been accused of abusing parliamentary privilege. But I want you Mr Speaker and my fellow parliamentarians to know that this privilege is a key feature of our culture of our tradition. It is traceable right back indeed I should say to Thomas More along with our Westminster traditions. So I know it is fair enough that we must not use or abuse this position of bringing issues of significance.But it is not this side of the House that has had secret meetings with the chairman of Woolworths; it is the Prime Minister. It was not this side of the House. When the Prime Minister met with the chairman he unfortunately came home empty-handed from meeting with one of the most powerful commercial men in Australia and New Zealand. That is his problem. Our problem our challenge is to highlight issues but avoid any suggestion that we are being excessive in what we say and do under the cloak of privilege. People from Countdown went on national television last night and accused me of lacking specifics. They sought to derogate what I was saying. They know exactly whom I have been talking to. They know exactly who the shadowy characters are in that windowless Countdown room putting the squeeze on our fair-minded garden-variety New Zealand businessmen. It is not Dave Chambers; he can warble all he likes. I want to remind those people that they have managers who will face the music.Let me just give you an example of three specifics so I can move beyond these gratuitous criticisms that I lack specifics. Specific No. 1 is an email I look forward to handing on to the Commerce Commission subject to suitable anonymity protections. Countdown demanded tens of thousands of dollars from a supplier by 5 o’clock that day as payment for insufficient sales achieved in the previous month from the supplier’s product lines or it was goodnight Irene. Specific No. 2 is that my source told me that even to get into Countdown—to get anywhere near there—he had to pay 7 percent ofhis turnover back to the company. When he spoke to the Aussie supplier—to Countdown—it said it had never heard of this policy. Do not out there accuse this parliamentarian of not having detail.Specific No. 3 is a family-owned business with a $4.5 million turnover—[Interruption] Now that side of the House might sneer at these people with small businesses. I accept that National is the party of big business but do not sneer at undercapitalised small businesses trying to make an honest living and gain access into what is a tolling operation the duopoly structure of our supermarkets. The business had a $4.5 million turnover and 30 employees. What happened when they stood up to Countdown tactics? The result is that they lost their business have now moved and are living in Australia.They would love to come back but they are fearful because of the inability—the disinterest—of the Minister of Commerce to grapple with this problem. What did he say today? He has done absolutely nothing as the New Zealand Minister of Commerce in dealing with his counterparts in Australia. He did not know that sections 98 99 and 100 of the Commerce Act actually enable him to get the Commerce Commission to work collaboratively with the Australian equivalent which is now conducting that investigation. The person at the centre of these allegations fled from Australia. He fled from the investigation by theAustralian Competition and Consumer Commission. He fled into Woolworths and Countdown here in New Zealand. He is the person who has caused these dramas—an Australian merchandise manager—and I look forward to providing his identity to the Commerce Commission.Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Well we can see what is happening over there in the Labour Party. There is the true emerging leader of the Labour Party Shane Jones. Where is David Cunliffe leading off this general debate today for Labour? He is nowhere to be seen. Where are the other front-bench members? There we have—Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Repeatedly today we have had Ministers questioning the absence of other members. It is well established that that is not acceptable and I am surprised that you have not stopped them from doing it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! It has not been a repeated practice of the day at all—that is the first time I have heard it—but it is out of order to refer to the absence of any member.Hon NATHAN GUY: There we have the emerging leader Shane Jones. The person sitting behind him today and last week smiling away there was the former leader of the Labour Party David Shearer. Of course he backed Shane Jones for the leadership bid so he is loving it now. We heard that Labour had a very robust caucus this week—very intense discussions in there. We know that the blood has started dripping on the floor already. There is a lot of doubt about DavidCunliffe’s leadership already emerging and it is starting to be unpicked by the New Zealand public starting to be unpicked by the press gallery. There is a lot of doubt emerging now about tricky David Cunliffe. We now have the emerging Labour Party leader of the future and it might be this year in 2014 that Shane Jones steps up to the plate.Things are not looking good for the Labour Party. What a woeful couple of weeks it has had: a baby bonus policy where every backbench member of this House would get $60 a week—what an embarrassment that was—and of course Labour’s poll rating when we had the Prime Minister out there in a recent poll with a trust rating of around 60 percent and a likeability factor that is very similar. Is that not fantastic?But importantly today what I want to talk about is the backbone of this New Zealand economy and that indeed is the primary industries. Today I released a very significant update: a 6-monthly update for theSituation and Outlook for PrimaryIndustries report through to June 2014. What did it say? Primary industry exports are up nearly $5 billion on forecast. Is that not fantastic? Of course the heads go down on the other side of the House.Hon Annette King: Oh no they don’t.Hon NATHAN GUY: Yes they do. Those members do not care about exports because they know their policies are going to damage the productive sector of the New Zealand economy. They do not care about and do not support our dairy exports which are up $2.7 billion. They do not care about the fact that our meat industry and our meat exports are returning more to farmers—$1.2 billion. Of course logs are up $0.8 billion. Is that not fantastic news?Well what is Labour all about? National has got a plan. We have got a clear plan. The Primary Growth Partnership is investing with industry in research and development encouraging irrigation and water storage projects working hard on more free-trade access agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and lifting the performance of Māori agribusiness. What have Labour and the Greens proposed? Let us hear it. They are against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They are against water storage projects. They are already talking about capping the dairy industry and its growth. They are against the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband. They do not want our rural communities or New Zealand businesses to be able to connect not only with other suppliers here in New Zealand but also internationally. They do not have a plan for lifting the performance of Māori agribusiness. We do. We care about job creation. We care about supporting the regions. We back our exporters.Labour is just going to roll out a capital gains tax. It is going to propose this living wage of $18.80 which will lift the unemployment benefit numbers. It does not care about the productive sector. It is not interested in the roads of national significance in supporting them and getting our products through to ports and airports. It does not care about the Kapiti Expressway in my region. Labour does not give a damn. We do not even know whether it supports Transmission Gully. It does not have a clear plan for the productive sector apart from lifting tax and saddling our exporters with more regulation and compliance. We back our primary industries the backbone of the New Zealand economy.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the member. There is a Standing Order that says that you cannot move from your seat in order to get a better position to barrack. Right through my colleague’s speech Andrew Little was calling out and barracking and has actually made a change of seat to do so.Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is the general debate which is normally a fairly robust debate and to date that has certainly been the case. I will watch further the behaviour of all members.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): I am very happy to have as many interjections as that lazy Government over there can provide. I want to start off by asking why this debate included Nathan Guy today because why would you put up a loser as a member to speak—the losing member forŌtaki? I was in Levin yesterday. I went up there to service his electorate because he does not. Ten members of the public came to see me in Levin yesterday. Why? Because they cannot get an appointment with him. You see he is too important to see the people ofŌtaki. In fact he does not give a damn. To use his own words he does not give a damn about the people ofŌtaki. Byebye Nathan Guy I say to him. He reflects the week after week arrogance of the National members of Parliament. You know they are so puffed up these days.The old egos are very bloated and they are the know-it-alls of Parliament. We have Judith Collins. Judith is here to give advice on what we all should wear and what ourattire should be. She is the know-all of the attire of Parliament. She knows what makes a nice jacket and what makes an ugly one. Then we have Tau Henare. He is here to lecture us about media neutrality. The old talkback host—of course he knows a lot about that.Then we have my cousin—you cannot pick your relatives—Chris Finlayson. Of course he inherited the nasty gene of the family unfortunately. I have beaten him twice and I increased the majority last time. I gather he is going to stand against me for a third time in Rongotai. Bring it on because the majority will be even bigger. He is here to lay down the rules on where to put your commas and whether you should wear jandals.Then we have Gerry Brownlee. He places a ban on any interview with any media person who happens to question him. Then we have the junior Minister Simon Bridges who often loses his rag in this place. Now he is so important that he will not even answer questions.But the doozy of them all has to be the Prime Minister John Key. Well I have noticed over the last few weeks that he has become totally fixated manic and paranoid about the Green Party. He manages to include them in just about every sentence that he uses. But whom do National members listen to for advice? They are certainly not listening to the people you would normally expect that they would listen to. They are experts on everything! But whom are they listening to for advice? It is not the Salvation Army because John Key said it ought to get out and look at what is happening on the street. He said that to the Salvation Army. I have to say that they are not listening to the Children’s Commissioner because they are taking no notice of his ideas about poverty. They are not listening to the New Zealand Police which is telling them that it is short of cash and it cannot fund front-line police. They are not listening to health professionals who are telling them that there are problems in our health system. In fact it is reflected I have to say in an aid that I am using today.Mr SPEAKER: And the member is using it well too might I add.Hon ANNETTE KING: This aid reflects the fact that Tony Ryall is slipping in popularity with our health professionals because obviously they find his health policies very very poor indeed.So who are National members listening to? Well we now know whom they listen to. The Prime Minister told us. They listen to Cameron Slater. For those who do not know who Cameron Slater is he is that infamousblogger called Whale Oil Beef Hooked. The Prime Minister has admitted that he talks to Cameron Slater a lot about political events because he has got an insightful mind. Cameron Slater is the man who calls people “feral” when they die when they are killed in car accidents. Well he is Paula Bennett’sbestie. Here I have a little photo of them together. He has been advising Paula Bennett on her policy on children. And what does he say about children? Well here is some of his advice especially if a child dies. He calls them “SOCKs”. If you do not know what “SOCKs” are I have to tell you that it is so obscene and it is so offensive that I could not use the word in the House. But that is what Cameron Slater who advises the Prime Minister and Paula Bennett says about children when they die in New Zealand. He also says that if children have a silly first name then that leads to their death so somehow it is their fault. The last thing he says is that Māori are not caring for their kids. That advice is what goes to the National Party members from its main adviser Cameron Slater. They should be ashamed of themselves.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): That was a particularly awful and distasteful intervention from Parliament’s most prominent landlady Annette King. You know the truth is that if you cannot run your own caucus then you simply cannot hope to run the country. It is as simple as that. We on the National side of Parliament are working hard around the traps day after day and the message coming back to us loud and clear dayafter day after day is: “What on earth is Labour up to? Has it not learnt a thing since the last time it was in Government?”.At the very moment that we get a lift in the economy—and that is thanks to John Key and Bill English—Labour just wants to start spending the money all over again. So it is just a couple of weeks into the new year and Labour and the Greens have promised to spend the thick end of three-quarters of a billion dollars a year. That was just their spending promises in January—that was just January. Three-quarters of a billion dollars of extra spending—that is Labour and the Greens. But even with his rather transparent election bribes Mr Cunliffe simply cannot get it right. Do you remember his baby bonus policy?Jami-Lee Ross: Baby bribe.JACQUI DEAN: Baby bribe bonus policy—thank you. Well it certainly sounded very generous. In fact I was almost contemplating restarting my family. I mean it is never too late. I could have done with the bonus. But anyway it certainly sounded really generous and he certainly let the media think so. In fact they printed all the lines.But he got offside with them after that of course. Read the fine print and it ended up being just a little bit tricky—and then he blamed his staff. Oh what a guy. He got found out for being tricky with his policy. What did he do? Did he front up like a man? Did he front up like a true leader? Did he what! What did he do? He blamed his staff. Oh how appalling. Gosh no wonder they are all leaving. You know it must be absolutely gutting to have Shane Jones hogging the media for—how long has it been? Nearly a week—nearly a week with Shane Jones hogging the media. There must be a lot of those in the Labour caucus with absolutely sinking hearts. Do you think that in their heart of hearts they are beginning to realise that once again they have just chosen the wrong guy? Well the latest Fairfax poll has Labour at around 30 percent. That is one off from 29 percent. That is not very good. That is no better than it was under David Shearer. [Interruption] So over on the other side of the House those members must be really worried. You are right—their heads are down.Do you know what? New Zealanders are not stupid. They can see what they would get under a Labour-Greens Government. What they would get are big spending promises that mean big borrowing. That would mean big taxes which of course those members would give back to us as welfare and policies that will utterly shut down the productive sector. So mining agriculture and fisheries will all have this great big green sanctimonious hand come right down on top of them with policies that are centred around what they cannot do any more for the New Zealand economy. Both parties want less competition in the energy market. So obviously electricity prices will go up and obviously investment will go down and they will implement an emissions trading scheme that will put household energy bills up by—how much? By $500 a year.Jami-Lee Ross: How much?JACQUI DEAN: By $500 a year. What they should be talking about—what this Government is talking about—is growing the economy creating new jobs getting the crime rate down getting more bang for your buck from our public services getting more elective surgeries getting welfare dependency down and getting more kids leaving school qualified so that they can get further training and have the brighter future that they are having under this Government.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): In this Parliament today as veterans’ affairs spokesperson for New Zealand First I tabled the following letter from Viet Nam veteran and medic John “Doc” Mountain and I would like to now read this letter to the House: “The Honourable Speaker and Members of Parliament. In October 2013 party representatives stood in this House and lavished praise upon New Zealand veterans who trained to serve in the armed forces. These men and women—ordinary NewZealanders—were prepared to do the extraordinary in the service of their nation. They were proud to be deployed without hesitation into harm’s way. In October 2013 MPs promised unqualified support to war veterans. However I and many other military personnel both current and veterans express our bitter disappointment at the ongoing failure of MPs to honour this promise.Unsatisfactory outcomes include theNepata brothers’ claim for further compensation being declined and the recent unfavourable decision and despicable treatment of Jason Pore an SAS trooper disabled in combat whilst serving our nation. Jason Pore received his injuries in combat but was cast aside like unwanted flotsam without the compensation he was so deservedly entitled to. We believe that distressing outcomes such as these imply that the Ministers and members are not in possession of the full facts and are not receiving the comprehensive advice needed to provide the support veterans have been promised.The military is the only occupation where one loses basic human rights accorded to normal citizens thereby effectively nullifying any means of redress. Military personnel are required to sacrifice their lives in the execution of their military duties on the orders of an immediate superior. Surely such a profound commitment requires an equally profound response. Men and women in the armed forces must be able to have faith that no matter what happens they and their families will be looked after. We ask the House to consider the ongoing miscarriage of justice regarding declining war disablement pensions based on incomplete military medical records linking the claimed condition to the claimants’ service. This claim rejection practice continues to be applied by Veterans Affairs New Zealand (VANZ) in spite of the Crown’s formal acknowledgment that medical records were poorly maintained and that Defence let veterans down.During Tribute 08 a welcome home parade for Viet Nam veterans in a public apology by the Crown to Viet Nam veterans the then Chief of Defence and now Governor-General Sir JerryMateparae made a public apology to assembled veterans and Government visitors. He said: ‘I acknowledge here your concern about the maintenance of your personal and medical records. I believe your expectations around the integrity and completeness of your files were both fair and reasonable. NZDF let you down.’ He then went on to say: ‘You should not be concerned that this situation will affect you as you are protected by the War Pensions Act which provides that any benefit of doubt will be upheld in your favour.’ In such cases any benefits of doubt of a linkage to service are to be upheld in the veteran’s favour as provided under sections 17 to 18 of the War Pensions Act 1954.” In conclusion John Mountain said: “We implore members of this House to honour this promise and revisit these inequitable situations. We respectfully request that any such claims be reviewed and that those declined on the basis of missing medical records be accepted.”Attached to that letter was an Official Information Act response from Veterans Affairs New Zealand that showed that in the period 2010 to 2013 some 7412 claims were accepted but 6953 were declined—almost 50 percent were declined. Of those a significant percentage was declined on the basis of the medical records being inadequate missing or incomplete. Those veterans deserve better. We have challenged the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs to take this up to look into this properly and to find out why many of these veterans’ claims are being declined and why so many of them are not receiving their due entitlements in terms of additional disablement payments. New Zealand First will be following this through with the Minister and with the ministry because we do believe that there are many thousands of veterans out there who have been hard-done-by through this whole process. It is time that this Parliament honoured its promise as it has in the past and honoured the commitments that Sir JerryMateparae made in Tribute 08.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): There is something really rotten going on in the Labour Party at the moment. No I am not talking about its leadership although you do have to ask yourself where its top three are. Cunliffe Parker and Robertson are nowhere to be seen today.Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is just out of order to refer to the absence of members within the Chamber.MAGGIE BARRY: Certainly. But there is a silence from the Labour leadership which makes a change from the sorts of gaffes that it is normally associated with. I could talk today about Labour’s total lack of policies that will grow our economy. I could dwell on those members’ financial mismanagement—buying the votes with the baby bonus. It is all very fertile ground for dwelling on their failings but no. Today I am going to ask them to answer another case. It is one they are trying to duck and distance themselves from but I think they really need to stand up and answer questions about their role.I would like to ask them and especially their leader—for the time being anyway for today—David Cunliffe to explain his role as the puppet master of a Television New Zealand (TVNZ) head of department ShaneTaurima. This is a man who was head ofTVNZ’s Māori and Pacific unit and at times he was a front-line television news and current affairs interviewer. This is a series of positions that have given him unbridled power setting the agenda for news and current affairs programmes such asWakaHuia TeKarereand Marae Investigates. This is an individual whom his organisation TVNZ trusted.As you all know I think in this House at least he was the unsuccessful candidate for the by-election selection for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. Then he went back to his old job at TVNZ saying when he was asked by his bosses that he was putting journalism ahead of politics. Well that was aTui billboard moment because as it turns out that was not so. What he was doing was that he was up to his neck in organising political meetings in the buildings of TVNZ.Dr Cam Calder: Whereabouts?MAGGIE BARRY: Indeed at TVNZ in Hobson Street in Auckland. I worked there for many years myself. In fact I worked in television news and current affairs for the State broadcaster for both Radio New Zealand and television for the best part of 30 years. It would never have happened then—absolutely never. We had journalistic principles we had fair balance we had integrity and we did not overstep the mark. This man did. When he was asked by his employers at TVNZ whether he had chosen journalism over politics he said journalism. Their only mistake in this in my view is that they trusted him. They took him at his word because he had been in the job for 12 years and he was somebody whom they thought knew which way was up. Well as it turns out he did not.His staff also have a case to answer because they used their TVNZ emails to organise branch meetings in the building of TVNZ. All of this is terrible. It is a disgrace actually. TVNZ—because the Minister of Broadcasting Craig Foss has asked them as well—are calling a review into this. They are very disappointed and admit that in retrospect they should not have reappointed him to that job. But I ask the Labour Party this and in particular David Cunliffe and the leadership such as it is in Labour: what was their role in all of this? What were they doing allowing this to happen? We have Mr Cunliffe an individual who perhaps was about to be the new boss of MrTaurima. Did he give him assurances that he would get the nod at the next candidates’ selection that he was contesting? Were there undertakings given that his bosses-to-be at the Labour Party would give him favourable treatment? It could really be a battle of twoShanes could it not if he does go against Shane Jones. And he has declared prettymuch that he is going to be doing that. I think it is “ShamefulShanes” times two—[Interruption] It is all of the above Mr Calder—absolutely so.I think that when you have an individual who ought to know better who has made his living as supposedly an investigative current affairs journalist and news interviewer it is an absolute disgrace. In the 30-odd years I spent in the business somebody like him would not have been tolerated. I do not know how duplicitous he must have been or how arrogant he and his staff must have been to think that they could have got away with it.Someone like Paul Henry has been an individual who has a late-night show and it is a bit of an old chat show. He is a knownopinionator—a known guy to peddle his views and he is someone whom I suppose you could call a bit of a shock-jock really. ShaneTaurima on the other hand was a self-styled individual who had integrity and who supposedly held journalistic integrity close. I do not think he did. I think he has let his colleagues down. He has let the profession of journalism down.If Labour is foolish enough to allow an individual like that to be selected and allows someone as dishonourable as that to become a member of Parliament then it has outdone itself. I think and I put it to the House that ShaneTaurima having betrayed the professional journalism code of ethics—fairness impartiality honesty and integrity—is not a man who should be considered for higher office. David Cunliffe needs to be here to answer those questions about the role that he played in that situation. He has blood on his hands.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): You can see the desperation and hysteria setting in on the other side of the House. This is a Government whose members have become used to the ministerial BMWs and their leather seats and to the ministerial houses and they do not want to give them up—they do not want to give them up. They can see them slipping away and as they can see that the hysteria grows—the hysteria grows on the other side of the House and the desperation grows.You can see how desperate they are simply by looking at whom they are reliant upon and whom they are willing to do deals with. They will do deals with anyone if it improves their chances of holding on to the ministerial BMWs and the Treasury benches. They are willing to deal with that twice-convicted criminal John Banks. They are quite willing to take his vote. They are willing to make a Minister out of somebody who leaked Government information. What did John Key say about him less than a year ago? Less than a year ago John Key said: “I want to believe him.” He was talking about Peter Dunne. He said: “I want to believe him but the inquiry doesn’t rule him out.” He used that as the justification at the time for accepting Peter Dunne’s resignation as a Minister. There is a simple question that John Key has yet to answer: what has changed? What has changed?Peter Dunne has repeatedly been given opportunities in this House to deny that he leaked the report and he has repeatedly refused to take those opportunities. Why is that? Why is it that Peter Dunne will not stand up and say that he did not leak theKitteridge report? Why is it that John Key thinks that someone who leaked confidential Government information to a journalist is an appropriate person to have as a Minister? There is a simple answer: he is desperate. He desperately wants Peter Dunne’s vote he desperately wants to stay in Government and he will deal with anyone in the process. He is quite happy to do a deal. There will be a cup of tea deal coming with Colin Craig that homophobic misogynist who I do not think has any role in this Parliament. He wants to ban unisex toilets. That will be part of the Government’s agenda if Colin Craig gets his way in a future National Government. But John Key is quite happy to deal with him. He is quite happy to deal with anyone as long as it keeps him in Government.This is a Government and a Prime Minister that have completely lost their moral compass. There was a time when John Key did stand up and rule some lines in the sand around whom he would and would not deal with—but that is all out the window. It has all gone out the window now as long as he can stay Prime Minister. It does not matter whom he is going to deal with. As long as he can stay Prime Minister John Key will do a deal with anyone.I listened before to one of those National members over there talking about fiscal responsibility. It was Jacqui Dean the one who wants to ban water. She was talking about fiscal responsibility. I will tell you what I will not take a lecture from the National Government about fiscal responsibility. This is a Government that will leave as its legacy at the end of this term of Parliament the biggest debt in New Zealand’s history. Let me say that again: this Government has clocked up the biggest Government debt in New Zealand’s history. It is bigger than Muldoon’s. At the end of 6 years National will leave a debt for future generations of New Zealanders that will be even bigger than the debt that Rob Muldoon managed to clock up. That will be this Government’s legacy to New Zealand.I will not take lectures on fiscal responsibility from that Government because we know that the last Labour Government left New Zealand with a Crown debt that was net zero—none. The debt was gone. The last Labour Government paid it off and in a short space of time—in the 6 years that National will have been in power—it has managed to clock up the biggest debt in New Zealand’s history. National members are in no position to be lecturing anyone about fiscal responsibility.And of course we know that they have got their priorities all wrong. Take education. They want to spend more money on charter schools than they are willing to put into the State school system. That is simply wrong. They are quite happy to plough money into the ideological experiment that is charter schools as part of their desperate deal with John Banks and the ACT Party but they are not willing to put that level of funding and that level of support into our existing public school system. That is wrong and it is simply another example of how this Government is willing to do a deal.It is that desperate to stay in Government that it is willing to do a deal with anyone. There is no principle behind this Government’s decision making—no principle no moral compass. It is just simply doing whatever it takes to stay in Government. That is the John Key mantra. Whatever it takes to stay in Government John Key is willing to do it. And of course we know he is getting his advice from Cameron Slater. This is the guy who thinks it is OK to make fun of children dying—to make fun of children dying. John Key rings him up all the time because he thinks he has “great insights”. Those were John Key’s words. He thinks Cameron Slater the guy who makes fun of dead kids has got great insights that are useful for the Prime Minister. How demeaning to the office of Prime Minister for him to be ringing up someone like Cameron Slater on a regular basis to ask for advice. He should be ashamed of himself. He should be ashamed of the type of people whom he is willing to associate with.I think New Zealanders should be able to expect better from their Prime Minister than that. I think John Key should have more respect for the job and the office that he holds than that. Clearly he does not. He is simply willing to do a deal with anyone as long as he remains Prime Minister. He is willing to talk to anyone as long as he remains Prime Minister.Of course this is not a Prime Minister who has had a particularly honest or robust relationship with the truth in the past. Let us not forget about the Tranz Rail shares where John Key deliberately tried to mislead New Zealanders about the number of Tranz Rail shares he had or about him appointing his childhood friend—what’s-his-name Fletcher—as the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau andthen pretending he did not know anything about it. They get memory loss over there on that side of the House every time they are confronted with something that is a little bit inconvenient. There is the whole Kim Dotcom saga and John Key’s and John Banks’ memory lapses. Every time there is something—Dr CAM CALDER (National): It is an extraordinary pleasure to rise to take a call in this debate. We have to acknowledge—and a number of speakers have alluded to this—that the third Labour Party leader in as many years is struggling. I take no pleasure in saying that. I am not intoschadenfreude. I take no pleasure in it but he is struggling. We have noted that he has not been asked to take a call today. He has not been asked to take a call today in this debate. Instead the debate has been led off by the Hon Annette King who it has to be said is one of the better performers in the House. I think that members of the Labour caucus are probably rueing the day that the Hon Annette King said that she did not want to be leader because I think that it is possible that they are overlooking one of their more able performers because the others are in disarray.The others are in disarray and the third Labour leader in as many years made a stuttering start to the year. A Best Start? How could it be anything like that? It was nothing like that. It was a stuttering start talking about middle-class welfare. It was poorly delivered and poorly costed and of course it just goes on from there. So are the members of the Labour caucus disheartened? Well of course they are. Are they scratching their heads? Is there massive debate? Are they saying: “Shane can you take a bit more pressure off the leader?” or “Grant what are you going to do about it?”. Yes we know there are big problems.On this side of the House the Government is managing the economy in a fiscally prudent way. We have managed the recession well and now the economy is making encouraging progress and we are reaping the benefits. This is the stark decision for New Zealand. We have to have the same probity and fiscal rectitude that managed the recession to manage the period of growth that we are entering into. The economy is building good momentum. It is generating more jobs which lifts people out of welfare dependency and is providing more opportunities.Sue Moroney: Come to Hamilton. Come to Hamilton and see.Dr CAM CALDER: It is generating higher incomes and as the member across the House alludes to it is broad-based in the regions. It is broad-based in the regions and more and more New Zealanders are reaping the benefits. They are reaping the benefits from that economic growth. From September 2012 to September 2013 growth was 3.5 percent. The OECD is forecasting that in the year ahead it is going to be even better. But it has to be managed— it has to be managed.The stronger economy improving business and consumer confidence has translated into more jobs. We heard that last year in the September quarter there was a huge increase in growth with 27000 more jobs for New Zealanders—new jobs for New Zealand. The increase in jobs over the year to last September was 53700. There were 53700 more jobs in that September than in the previous September. So employment levels increased by 2.4 percent. This is at the same time as participation increasing to almost 69 percent. So we have been fiscally prudent in our management of the recession and New Zealand now needs prudent management of the period of growth.We have a plan. We have a plan for this with key inputs to lift business opportunities jobs and growth. I refer of course to the Business Growth Agenda where we are going to grow the export markets available to us. Tim Groser is doing a great job on that. Capital markets are going to increase we are sponsoring a massive amount of investment in innovation we are investing in skills and safe workplaces we are exploiting in an appropriately environmentally sound manner our myriad of naturalresources and of course we are building infrastructure. So we have a responsible plan to go forward.What about the Opposition? Well we have heard from a number of speakers that in the first few weeks Labour with its Green acolytes has been promising even more spending. It has been promising $750 million more spending. It is uncosted untargeted and it is more spending. It is ill-conceived middle-class welfare. Really it is a fantasy world that those members are living in. We are back into this tax more borrow more—GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker.Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Despite all the negative politics and despite all the doom and gloom and negativity of the National Party the Green Party has a simple message in this election: here comes the sun. The Greens want to give Kiwis energy choices more competition and make it cheaper for them to produce their own power from the sun. I do not know whether members have noticed today but outside we have seen a massive solar spill in Wellington. Unlike a deep-sea oil spill the only impact we are seeing is a lovely day and Kiwis producing their own electricity.On Sunday as you all know Green Party co-leader Russel Norman launched the Greens’ Solar Homes package to help Kiwis access low-cost loans to face the upfront barrier of the capital cost of solar panels. Solar is one of the greenest forms of generation we have and we have ample sunlight in New Zealand. It gives Kiwis independence from the big electricity companies and with no fuel cost it insulates Kiwis from relentless electricity price rises. We all know about those price rises. We all get that sinking feeling in our guts when another power bill arrives in the post.What we have seen under National is our power prices increase by 22 percent. This year despite demand going down the prices keep going up and up. It must be clear to everyone by now that National’s electricity system is not working for New Zealand and is not working for New Zealanders. Under the Greens’ Solar Homes initiative Kiwis will be able to go to the Government to access a low-cost loan to be repaid through their rates so they can purchase solar panels or batteries.The loans will be cost-neutral to the Crown. There is a small administration cost to the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority of under $1 million and the net Crown fiscal position is still neutral. Once the loan is repaid the families own the panels and batteries in full. They can make money by selling excess generation into the grid. I think that this is an example of smarter greener economics in action. I think that this is an example of energy freedom in action. I think that this is an example of new jobs and clean energy in action.We estimate that we could see 1000 new jobs created from Kiwis helping Kiwis to go solar. When you look around the world in America every 4 minutes a new home or business goes solar. Across the Ditch in Australia there are 1 million homes with solar panels on the top. New Zealand has a tremendous opportunity to grow jobs help Kiwis save money and save carbon. So predictably the Government came out with its negativity with its shrill screaming of “Subsidies!”—never mind that it is not a subsidy; it is a loan. I think the reason why the Government screams “Subsidies!” as a knee-jerk reaction is that subsidies are on its lips.Hon Annette King: So what did it give toMediaWorks?GARETH HUGHES: That is exactly right Annette King. Subsidies are on its lips—look at the $30 million it has just paid out to RioTinto despite RioTinto making a $3.7 billion profit in the last year. When I look at the $46 million in tax breaks and the $25 million in seismic survey subsidies for the oil industry or the dodgy deals National members are entertaining for the Choruses and theSkycities of this world I think the word “subsidies” is on the tip of their lips.Then they started to scream about renewables. Never mind that under National Huntly power station has just had a 25-year extension to burn more coal and gas. Never mind that under National the Prime Minister is going around Taranaki opening gas-fired peaking power stations powered by the controversial fracking practice. And never mind that the Government’s own officials advised the Government that it is not on track to meet its 90 percent renewables target. So this policy from the Greens is a good example of smarter greener politics and it is a bright start towards getting 100 percent renewables.What we know is that in terms of energy National is stuck in the dark age. But the good news for New Zealanders is that here comes the sun. We are giving Kiwis a real choice this election. Under National there are more excuses for power price rises more risky deep-sea drilling more assets flogged off. Or on the other side the Green Party is offering cheaper power from NZ Power insulation under your roof and a solar panel on the top. If National wants to be the party of big oil and big power company profits so be it. We are going to be the party offering Kiwis cheaper cleaner smarter power and we are going to give the power back to New Zealanders. We think that is the real brighter future for New Zealand. Kia ora.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): It is a great pleasure to have the final slot in today’s general debate. It has been a week of very interesting facts and quotes. The one that I was most interested in was the Fairfax poll that indicated that most New Zealanders do not want more tax and spend. Funnily there was also a poll that said that National was riding a wave of soaring optimism which I thought was rather good. The poll said that 67 percent opposed and only 27 percent were in favour of raising taxes to fund new initiatives which must have come as a bit of a shock to the Labour Party and the Greens. But what I found most interesting was the quote from David Cunliffe. He said the question was unfair because the vast majority of New Zealanders would not be affected by its planned tax rises which would include a higher top tax rate and a capital gains tax. I thought: “Well there it is. There’s the Labour philosophy in a nutshell. It is perfect: you’re going to give lollies to everybody but you’ll make only a few people pay for it. There’s the way to win political salvation.”But of course nobody believes that. They all know that we all end up paying for it in the end. We already have massive redistribution in this country where we have the top 6 percent of income tax payers paying nearly 40 percent of the tax—more when you take Working for Families into account. And do not forget that about 70 percent of taxpayers in New Zealand pay a 17.5 percent tax rate or less. So this is a Government that has been very successful at keeping taxes down and New Zealanders like it. It is interesting when you drill down to the figures. Funnily enough it is the under 30s who are strongly opposed to higher taxes and more spending and funnily enough more Māori. There is 50 percent net disapproval amongst Māori. More Māori than Europeans opposed raising taxes to pay for spending. Those with no qualifications at all were most stridently against paying more taxes and having more spending by the Government. Those with household incomes below $50000 were more opposed to paying more taxes than higher-income ones.New Zealanders have realised that they are better equipped to spend their money than the Government and that is because money is very hard to find and it is hard to earn and it is annoying to see it being wasted by councils and Governments. That is why this Government has being so disciplined in its spending has been so disciplined in the way it has gone about making sure the Public Service gets results for the best prices and that is why this Government enjoys the level of support that it has.I must say I found it positively weird listening to Mr Hipkins’ contribution on debt saying that National is being bad because it has left a high level of debt. Well he seemsto ignore the Christchurch earthquakes and the billions of dollars that were spent he has ignored the global financial crisis and he ignores the lag effect. Yes Labour inherited a well-run economy in 1999 and held things reasonably firm for a few years. But it left a country pregnant with 10 years of future deficits in 2008 and massively unfunded spending schemes which has meant that if the Government carried on the policies that we inherited in 2008 we would have massive deficits and massive debt. But National did continue spending to protect the vulnerable and to deal with the earthquake but importantly it has set a path back to surplus which we are going to achieve this year and it has got a path back to paying back debt and that is why New Zealanders trust National with the economy.It is also weird to hear from the Greens. They spend their whole time arguing for measures that will increase the cost of energy in the economy yet they jump up and down with a couple of gimmicks about somehow subsidising solar energy as if that is salvation for a problem that they have created themselves by advocating for policies that increase the price of energy.Finally I do not want to comment particularly on Mr Shane Jones’ claims. There have been lots of allegations lots of innuendoes and not many facts but I am sure there will be due process. It will be very carefully figured out. All those issues will be taken seriously to get to the bottom of them. But I must say that there is a strong anti-Australian strand coming through everything he said. He was standing there this morning in the Finance and Expenditure Committee going on about Aussie banks and he was going on about Aussie companies all the time. Well I do not think there is a hang of a lot in favour of this country taking on an anti-Australia campaign such as has been carried out by Mr Jones. There is that old saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. I have never really understood that until now but when we look at Labour when it is on to the third leader and we have got Mr Cunliffe it is a bit like the words of the singer Pink.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) BillSecond ReadingHon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): I moveThat the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill be now read a second time. Can I firstly thank all the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee for the efforts they made in trying to reach a win-win solution with this bill. I suggest it was more like a win-draw solution in the end but I do acknowledge the extra efforts they made to try to get a solution.It could be said that what goes around comes around and there are a number of lessons in this whole process for not only the Tasman District Council and its staff and councillors but also many councils up and down this country. This bill has been subject to much concern and comment—and quite rightly so—from a group of ratepayers fromLigar Bay andTata Beach who brought this issue to the attention of the Tasman District Council. I appreciate the efforts that they went toto follow through with this which is effectively leading to the bill in Parliament today.As its name suggests the bill seeks to validate a number of irregularities that occurred in the setting and assessing of rates by the Tasman District Council over a 6-year period from 2003-04 to 2008-09. In this regard I do find myself repeating the words of a colleague in the House at the end of last year. He was saying with regard to the Kaipara District Council (Validation of Rates and Other Matters) Bill that no one isa fan of retrospective legislation least of all the MP who is required to sponsor that legislation. So I bring this legislation to the House somewhat reluctantly but on behalf of the ratepayers in the northern part of my electorate.As I say it is never a good look to have retrospective legislation to rectify failures that have occurred and this bill effectively validates the actions of a council that failed to follow proper process and to meet the requirements of the Local Government Act. But it is as the member previously acknowledged regarding Kaipara the only way to make progress and give some certainty.The question I would like to see answered on behalf of the Tasman ratepayers is whether it is also the case that the overseers in the case Audit New Zealand provided proper safeguards for the ratepayers through those years when effectively it approved the process in the Tasman district. And of course that was proven not to be valid. Some would say the ratepayers of Tasman District Council had been let down. As advisers told the committee Tasman District Council failed “Rates 101” effectively and that is something of a condemnation for a council that has prided itself I guess on process. It certainly demands proper process of its ratepayers when they come to make applications so it does go as I said to the situation of what goes around comes around.In regard to the ratepayers ofLigar Bay andTata Beach I would just like to say that firstly they ended up paying a rate they considered was not valid. They have not been receiving specific water drainage services but indeed were asked by the council to pay a rate. They have been angry and frustrated. It was indeed their follow-through that alerted the Tasman District Council to the mistakes across other areas of its rate demands.Tasman District Council of course as is prone to happen in councils absolutely denied any problem with the setting of the rates and denied the fact that these rates were illegal. The origin of the dispute as I said lies with the challenge by those ratepayers. When the council denied that anything was wrong the ratepayers then took that to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman came to an interesting conclusion and there are a couple of quotes I would like to refer to: “The procedure for making a rate is set out in section 23 of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. I am accordingly not satisfied that a rate has been made.” The Ombudsman went on to say: “I am accordingly not satisfied that aTata Beach Urban Drainage Area has been established.” And finally to take a quote: “I have formed a view that levying a stormwater rate forTata Beach was based wholly or partly on a mistake of law and fact”. Effectively the rate was not properly imposed.These things may seem technical to someone from the outside but a particular ratepayer in the group decided to follow through with this and was proven to be correct. In investigating it the Ombudsman said that actually there are a whole lot of rates that have not been set properly. I would like to acknowledge MrSchmuke and a number of people who live over atTata Beach for their tenacity. They have brought this to a head and they have probably alerted a number of councils around the country to the technical challenges of setting rates.Parliament deems rates levies on industries and taxes paid to be very sacrosanct and it is important that there are protections for both the person paying the rate and those people who demand them. Unfortunately limitations around a local bill and the scope of the notices advertising meant that the request by the local ratepayers atTata Beach andLigar Bay to have clause 9 omitted from the bill was not possible. And in fact the bill put to the select committee had to be passed in its complete form or if there were to be any amendments there was a requirement to take the bill back for consultation which the council did not want to go through; I guess officials certainly did not.There was a view that even if the bill for all of the rates forTata Beach andLigar Bay were omitted it would have been a big challenge to then go and find the people who paid the rates at that time and subsequent to that and find out where they are living now and how much they had paid. So the committee on balance decided that we should proceed with the bill as presented by the Tasman District Council without any change.The people who raised the issue the people who were proven to be correct the people who still think they are paying a drainage rate when they should not be are still a bit sore about this. But I have to say that on balance we should acknowledge their efforts and we should assure them that the rates paid by them will protect their properties better than they otherwise would if there was no money. So I think that overall we have made some progress in what has been a long and tortuous process for a number of key ratepayers.I would just like to say to Tasman District Council that although I am happy to sponsor this bill and to put it forward the council should hear the lesson and that is that officials in councils should listen to ratepayers who come along with queries and with issues because often they are correct. And this is a unitary council so the normal tension between resource management of a regional council and the district council’s responsibilities does not exist in Tasman District Council. It is one council for both areas of responsibilities. That tension that often gives better accountability does not occur in Tasman so we are reliant on the wisdom the skills and the judgment of officials in one unitary council. I am not convinced that that is the best way forward. None the less we have a unitary council in Tasman in part due to the lobbying and cheap politicking of the Hon Nick Smith some time ago. But we will put that to one side and say that the passage of this bill will validate rates that have been claimed by the Tasman District Council.Without this bill’s passage those rates are effectively illegal so the council needs certainty over the income it took. It does not want to be subject to any legal challenge. But in passing this legislation in whole we should acknowledge the efforts of theTata Beach andLigar Bay residents who brought this to the attention of the council first and then to the Ombudsman. Then legislation in Parliament was required to rectify a problem that was initially denied by the Tasman District Council.Councils up and down this country should take note—there may be some technical problems with rates being set today or yesterday so double-check. And councils should appreciate the fact that ratepayers ordinary people of New Zealand can make mistakes in dealing with councils and they should not be clobbered for it just in the way that Parliament is facilitating the passage of this bill and acknowledging the mistake of the Tasman District Council but not making it pay the penalty.Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I rise to support the member Damien O’Connor on this local bill that he introduced to the House the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill in its second reading. We are certainly supporting it as a National Party team. We understand the weaknesses in the bill but then as the member so clearly put it it is a very imperfect situation there in the Tasman district. We are making it better; we are not claiming to make it perfect. The situation there is that essentially the rate setting was broken. We are cobbling together the pieces to make the best of what is a difficult situation.This bill will validate rates set by the Tasman District Council for the period from 2003-04 through to 2008-09—that 5-year period during which the council did not follow the correct process in setting rates. We want to be clear about that. This bill will also validate rates and penalties paid over the period authorise the council to recoverany unpaid rates and ratify theTata Beach andLigar Bay stormwater rate. This bill will highlight to other councils the importance of proper scrutiny when setting rates.I know that Damien O’Connor in his first reading speech introduced this legislation with some angst and he has repeated those concerns just now. I cannot do better than quote Damien O’Connor in his first reading speech where he said: “I have to say I am not overly enthusiastic about bringing retrospective legislation to the House. However I am a very proud local member and I have spoken to the Tasman District Council and agreed to sponsor this bill into Parliament where a select committee can give it due consideration.” The member Damien O’Connor said he was a reluctant sponsor of retrospective legislation as of course we all are. “The main area where we seem to have this in the House is over fisheries legislation. This is not the case here.” said Damien O’Connor. “It is local government.”—it has made mistakes—“Mistakes do happen from time to time. I know each and every one of the councillors in good faith took advice from their staff and of course assumed that they had put in place valid rating claims on the ratepayers.”I do not know those councillors. The Hon Damien O’Connor obviously does know those councillors. He felt and he was assured that they in good faith had left the role to staff of actually putting together the rates and ensuring that they were brought together properly and that ratepayers would be legally required to pay those rates. As Damien O’Connor said back then “So this is perhaps a long and drawn-out and quite expensive process but it is one that we have to go through none the less.” And that is what brings members to the House today. The National Party is joining Damien O’Connor in passing I hope when the vote goes through the second reading of this piece of legislation.It is true that we have seen issues like this arise across the country from time to time. We just recently dealt with a similar issue in Kaipara. National as the public will know has introduced Better Local Government reforms which will help make local government more efficient more responsive and better focused so that these types of issues do not arise again. They will help the National Government drive the reform process to ensure that councils focus clearly on their core business are not frustrated or in any way confused and are not led to not pay attention to the detail of their core business. The Better Local Government reforms will include a work stream to monitor and improve council performance and to prevent future procedural errors as we see in this Tasman District bill and we saw in the Kaipara bill as well. So it is quite timely for us as the National Government to drive through those reforms to get better outcomes from local government for their ratepayers.I was on the Local Government and Environment Committee which went through the process in committee of looking at the clauses one by one and discussing them with the Tasman District public and the Tasman District Council and others who had a view. We made some changes. For example for the sake of consistency technical amendments will be made to clauses 5(a) 6 and 9 to replace the statement “declared to have been” with “declared to be and to always have been”. The committee is sympathetic to proposals to delete clause 9 but found that this course of action would be outside the scope of the bill. Damien O’Connor outlined the issues there.As such the committee has recommended only the technical amendments. Clause 9 seeks to validate targeted rates set by the council for the 2006 financial year for the purposes of the stormwater works in theLigar Bay andTata Beach urban drainage areas for example. The committee also noted that there would be many practical implications of deleting clause 9 and that is why the intent of the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002 is for local authorities to address rating errors as soon as is practicable. Under that Act we are ensuring that when councils come across errors theyact swiftly and justly. Leaving those errors setting them aside and not dealing with them leads to the problems we have seen in the Tasman District. I would like to emphasise not just to the Tasman District Council officials who are listening but to those in local authorities right across New Zealand that if you come across errors in the rating orders that councils have passed historically then the council needs to address those errors as soon as is practicable not just because it is useful to face up to mistakes and in the end deal with them but because the law says that councils need to do that immediately.Given the historic nature of the rating errors in question it would be difficult without such validation. The council would need to be required to determine which ratepayers had paid the rate in 2006-07 and the amount they had paid—a very difficult task for it to undertake. It would also have to ascertain whether the current ratepayers are the same ratepayers as those in 2006-07 it would have to apportion rates if there were multiple owners and it would have to write to each ratepayer advising them of the amount of the refund and requesting bank details for repayment. So in making those changes in the bill that we have before us today if the committee had recommended that that is what councils would have to go through—not only an onerous task for the council but one that would inevitably result in mistakes and would transfer angst from one group of people to another group of people from one set of ratepayers to another set of ratepayers. It is not this Parliament’s role to transfer vexed problems from one group to another and we are making the best as I said at the beginning of my speech of what is a difficult situation. The merits of setting a stormwater rate were found to be outside the scope of this bill.So in summary this bill is needed to validate certain rates set incorrectly during the period 2003-04 through to 2008-09. Without validation the council remains vulnerable to legal challenge from ratepayers over incorrectly set rates. No one is arguing that they will. Some residents have objected to details of the stormwater rates that they were not properly consulted on and that they are being charged for stormwater services they are not using but Damien O’Connor himself acknowledges as the bill’s sponsor that he has discussed their concerns and is convinced that the select committee will provide residents with an opportunity to engage and to move on. A key part of National’s Better Local Government reforms is to prevent this from happening again. I support—reluctantly like Damien O’Connor and others in the committee—this bill in the House today at its second reading.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere):Malo lesoifua Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I note that following this bill there is a range of members’ bills including bills that have been put up by my colleagues. I would like for the House to be able to spend time on those particular bills ushering those through so my comments on this particular bill are not going to be very long.I note also the Local Government and Environment Committee’s report. I am a member of that committee. I regret however that as a new member I have not had the opportunity to sit through all of the discussion around this particular bill. I do note that the committee received 14 submissions from interested groups and individuals and it heard four. Like the previous speakers I too am somewhat reluctant. I am sort of dragging my feet on this bill. I know that my colleague Maryan Street aired it quite well when we were debating the Kaipara District Council situation. But as much as I am a strong supporter of local government as much as I value the role that local government plays in community development and in nation-building and as much as I strive and aspire to ensure that going forward there is a close working relationship between central government and local government I have to say that when these rates validatingbills are placed before the House it just makes it harder for those who do not believe in local government to come on board and support the kind of vision that the Labour Party has for local government.I note however that the Tasman District Council in presenting this bill and asking Parliament to consider it had this to say. It said that the “Tasman District Council failed to set its rates correctly across the District due to incorrect administrative procedures from 2003/2004 to 2008/2009 and we failed to include a map in our 2006/2007 Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) to adequately describe the area covered by theLigar Bay and theTata Beach stormwater urban drainage area rates.” The council admits its “procedural mistakes and are now seeking to rectify the situation through this Bill. Council is very sorry and apologises to our community for our mistakes. We are very embarrassed for the mistakes—and rightly so. We also apologise for needing to take up Parliament’s and this Select Committee’s valuable time in order to correct our errors.”I do not doubt the sincerity of those words. However what my colleague Damien O’Connor emphasised earlier in the latter parts of his speech was a call for councillors to treat seriously the roles that they play as elected representatives. Sure we can call these procedural mistakes but the fact of the matter is that if we want the public to take an active and participatory role in our local decision-making then we need to treat our stewardship of local councils with a great deal of care and responsibility. By and large if most residents are given the opportunity to see the intimate goings-on of councils—as far as the public are concerned—they can rightly make all sorts of allegations when these mistakes are made.So I recognise that when we look at the 2011 local body elections we seem to be heading into a new era a crossroads in our local government system. On the one hand you have the school of thought promoted by others of wanting to take control of local government. On the other hand there is another school of thought arising from the strong desire of the public to participate more and the public demanding their right to have a say in those local government decisions. I saw in Auckland how for example the Pacific communities put up many representatives to run in the race for those local boards and I can say that for Auckland for the Labour Party at least out of the 18 candidates who ran 14 of them were elected on either the council or the local board. Out of those 14 eight of them were brand new candidates. I think that in many ways that reflects the strong desire that is held by many sectors in our communities to participate more in local decision-making.I note that the committee when deliberating on this particular bill had an issue about clause 9. I think that there was a call—perhaps an advancing by some—for clause 9 to not stay as it is and I understand that the advice received from the officials was that by removing that particular clause they would actually be dealing outside of the scope of this particular bill.It gives me no pleasure to support my colleague on this bill. I think as I emphasise again the councillors the mayors—you know from this House at least—must look to how they can avoid these kinds of bad decision-making. And I think that Local Government New Zealand and the Society of Local Government Managers have a role to play in providing training—absolute training. I was a member of the council and I think it is quite easy for new councillors to come on board whatever the local authority is and begin to feel that as new councillors they rely on the officials that they rely on the senior councillors. That might be OK for some but I think that when you put yourself up to run for these positions you have got to be prepared to hit the ground running. I think not only do the councillors have the responsibility to be well preparedfor these roles but also our officials on local councils have a role to play to ensure that their advice is of the highest standard. So those are my comments here.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): In speaking on the second reading of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill I want to first commend Damien O’Connor for the way that he has worked with the Local Government and Environment Committee over what has been a very careful consideration of the matters raised in this bill.Members from across the House are expressing their reluctant support for the objective of the bill. I think that is the correct position to take on this bill because although Parliament is here to enact legislation I think we all feel uncomfortable with enacting retrospective legislation that picks up the pieces from a lack of due process in local government. It is important that our select committee consideration of this bill our readings in the House and the comments we are all making on this bill reflect that but also acknowledge that although you can point the finger as much as you like and point out the deficiencies what matters actually in Parliament and in the bill that Damien O’Connor has brought to the House is that we find a solution for the ratepayers. It is the ratepayers who are the ones who are feeling the impacts of deficiencies in the decision making of their local authority.I do hear the comments of the previous speaker Su’a William Sio about capability and capacity building within the local government sector and he is quite right. That is why this Government has brought in a broad programme of Better Local Government reforms to ensure that the kind of situation we see in this bill does not arise again. It is germane also to recognise that local authorities throughout New Zealand come in many different forms and many different sizes.We do know that as a result of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance after a process of a commission and then council organisation we now have I think what is becoming an effective Auckland Council. It is not perfect. Of course it is not perfect but we have a much more efficient large urban local authority—still with the same powers. It does have its own Act—yes it does—but essentially it still has the same powers as the Tasman District Council just on a vastly different scale.The Tasman District Council’s activities are Tasman’s activities; they are not Auckland activities and probably do not want to be. Those people live in a very nice rural corner of provincial New Zealand on the West Coast and none of them I imagine is going to argue that they would want their council to be any different. The reason I am talking about the differences between local authorities is that although we might have Tasman we might have McKenzie and we might have Waimate and other local authorities that are effectively tiny—there might be one full-time planner and one full-time finance officer—when the finance person for example goes away on maternity leave has to be away or goes on a course there is simply not anybody to fill the gap.So I think we need to recognise that although local governments are very very different in terms of their capacities we expect them to have the same capability in setting their rates. Why is that important? It is important because we are taking money—tax-paid money—from ratepayers to provide them with council services such as in this instance stormwater drainage and other rating matters.So we have to have every sympathy with the ratepayers of the Tasman District Council and they have to have the confidence and should have the confidence that their elected members the chief executive officer and the people who work for the chief executive officer have the capability of correctly striking the rates. In this instance they have not done so and the Local Government and Environment Committee has also dealt with other councils where that has not been done properly.I want to just talk a little further about the ratepayer. We call them ratepayers but they include our elderly citizens. We are all I guess ratepayers in this House and everybody who works here is a ratepayer. We all expect our local authorities to provide us with good services in turn for that cheque that we write out every quarter or that direct debit that we provide every quarter. We expect as ratepayers to get good value from rates—it does not matter whether we are politicians or whether we are retired and on a fixed income like my mum-in-law. She is a superannuitant so she is on a fixed income. She has got to pay rates too and it has a big impact on her life—arguably more so perhaps than on a politician’s life. But we all expect to get good value from rates and we expect absolutely that if people are going to be taking money out of our wages—our tax-paid wages—that it is done fairly it is done for a good purpose and it is done correctly.The Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill puts right those deficiencies in the decision making of the Tasman District Council. I imagine that there has been an election between now and the time when this bill was lodged and Damien O’Connor was working with the council to find a solution. So there might have been a number of changes in personnel but I can guarantee that from the mayor and the chief executive officer down they will be having a pretty close look at their rate-setting mechanisms. It is all set out for them. It is all set out in the Local Government Act and the Local Government (Rating) Act. It is all set out for them. It is incumbent on them to set the rates correctly.The Better Local Government reform package which this National Government has been working on since we came into Government 5 years ago has been introduced to provide clarity around the role of local government. I cannot help wondering whether that focus on providing good services and good infrastructure for ratepayers is long overdue. So we have done a piece of work the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Act 2012—was it in 2012 Minister Tremain?Hon Chris Tremain: The first one was in 2012.JACQUI DEAN: We are considering an amendment bill from 2013. That is before the Local Government and Environment Committee now. They are all part of that drive to provide better public services to ratepayers. It does not matter whether they are in Tasman—we are dealing with the Tasman bill at the moment but we have dealt with other similar bills. I hope that we do not have to do so in the future but we may.So the Better Local Government reforms that this National Government is working hard on—and the Hon Chris Tremain has played an important part in that work—are aimed at stronger governance in the local government sector. They are aimed at providing greater efficiencies for ratepayers more clarity for ratepayers and more responsible financial management for ratepayers—and perhaps this comes to the nub of this issue for local government. We also have a really strong desire—and let me just talk about my dear mum-in-law—to keep rates affordable for everybody in our communities.I acknowledge that it is OK for politicians—all of us politicians—because we can afford our rates. Of course we can afford our rates. We are privileged in all sorts of ways and we must not forget those people on fixed incomes. For them the rates bill is a big portion of their expenditure and they expect—and they should expect—good performance clarity and a real purpose of local government that is there to provide good service for them.I support the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I do commend the local member Damien O’Connor for bringing it to the House. And I do hope that we can get this bill through in a timely manner so that the ratepayersof the Tasman District Council can move forward with some certainty and confidence in their local authority.EUGENIE SAGE (Green):Tēnā koe. I hope that we can get the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill through in a timely manner. I will be taking only a short call. Along with others I acknowledge the work of the bill’s promoter the Hon Damien O’Connor. Like everyone else who has spoken none of us likes retrospective legislation and it is a concern that both the Tasman District Council and the Kaipara District Council have had to ask Parliament in this term for retrospective legislation because of defective rating resolutions. The Christchurch City Council is suggesting that it may need to do the same. So it certainly might assist if the Department of Internal Affairs provided templates to councils on the form of their rating resolutions so that these are made correctly and we do not have to waste parliamentary time on such matters.The Green Party supports this bill because it corrects the procedural mistakes made by the district council and it is validating something that the council could not have done if it had got the process right. We agree with the council’s assessment that its mistakes did not deprive people of any significant rights. As others have explained these mistakes were administrative errors between 2003-04 and 2008-09 and a failure to include a map that adequately described theLigar Bay andTata Beach stormwater urban drainage area. None of the 14 people who made submissions argued that it was inappropriate for the stormwater rate to apply to their properties.If we did not pass this bill then the council would be faced with the cumbersome task of unwinding that urban drainage area forTata Beach andLigar Bay and finding a different mechanism to pay for the stormwater infrastructure.As the photograph provided by the council shows it is quite a comprehensive network of about 3 kilometres of pipe and some 50 sumps in a stunning area of New Zealand Golden Bay. We want to ensure that the stormwater treatment and discharge mechanisms there ensure that water quality is not downgraded. As Mr O’Connor has acknowledged it was MrSchmuke’s unhappiness with the proposal—his work and that of others—that brought the defects in the rating resolutions to the council’s attention which led to this bill.One of the other reasons we are supporting the bill is that all of the residents and ratepayers in theTata Beach andLigar Bay areas do receive a benefit from the stormwater services even if it is an indirect benefit. After heavy rain the fact that the stormwater system exists potentially reduces the likelihood of flooding on their properties. It is because the council uses quite a progressive approach to funding the stormwater system where it charges all ratepayers the same rate per dollar capital value of their properties that you have the cost spread across everybody equitably. If the council had to unravel that then potentially it would require a much more difficult way of funding the stormwater system and the capital infrastructure improvements.But it is puzzling that because of the quite rapid growth in theTata Beach andLigar Bay areas because of their coastal location the council has not required a development contribution from subdividers and land developers to help fund improvements in the stormwater system. It has relied just on rates. This is where I take issue with the speakers from the National benches and their comments about Better Local Government. A major attack on development contributions which will have ratepayers feeling the burden that some National speakers said they were concerned about is the way in which the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) seeks to restrict the ability of councils to levy development contributions for community infrastructure. That bill has a very narrow definition of community infrastructure and will restrict development contributions from being levied for anything much beyond things likepublic toilets and planned infrastructure on council reserve land. It means that the council would not be able to levy development contributions for things like libraries or swimming pools. And that means the cost of these community facilities where you have got growth in coastal communities in Golden Bay and in towns and cities around the country potentially falls on ratepayers.So the Government members are weeping crocodile tears when they talk about protecting ratepayers because their changes to the Local Government Act by narrowing the scope of development contributions for community infrastructure will put those costs on to ratepayers or mean that infrastructure like swimming pools and like libraries is not provided by councils because it is not affordable when areas grow. So it is crocodile tears from Government members to talk about their concerns for the impact on ratepayers because councils would then have to turn to them.This bill is an unfortunate one but it is one that we will support because it does remedy these procedural errors by the Tasman District Council. But we think that the Department of Internal Affairs should be doing much more to make sure that councils have a template so that there are fewer councils making these procedural mistakes. Thank you.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I rise to speak again on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I just want to traverse a couple of things that have not been covered already but before I do that I want to acknowledge the speech of the member who has just resumed her seat Eugenie Sage. I think she highlighted in her speech some of the critical issues around this particularly vexing bill. I do not wish to relitigate that material but there are some points that I do want to make about this bill.It is now a truism to say that none of us enjoys bringing retrospective legislation of this sort before the House. I am one of those who have declared themselves to be pathologically averse to such legislation. But I do want to explain for a moment why the Local Government and Environment Committee arrived at the position it did and why I personally have come to the point of supporting this piece of legislation. Living and working as I do in the Nelson area—part of the Tasman District Council catchment covers the Nelson electorate—I have a lot to do with the Tasman District Council and the mayor and the councillors there although the particular areas of concern are in the electorate of my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor West Coast - Tasman.The controversy around this particular situation arose when the council designatedTata Beach—which is a beautiful area—along withLigar Bay as one of its urban drainage areas. The area is one of 16 settlements that have to pay towards stormwater works around the wider Tasman District. TheTata Beach andLigar Bay ratepayers discovered the change only when their rates bills soared by some hundreds of dollars a year. BobSchmuke to whom the ratepayers and certainly the Tasman District Council owe a debt is the person who brought forward the error that the Tasman District Council had made and took the case to the Ombudsman and he was successful in that effort. He was successful.But at that time the Tasman District Council said that it was going to then take this situation to Parliament to remedy. The Tasman District Council’s Chief Executive Officer at the time Paul Wiley was reported to have said in a report that was in theNelson Mail on 18 February 2010—and here we are with the second reading—that “The costs of going through a court process which we believed we would win are a hell of a lot more than the quite simple expedient of going along to Parliament saying ‘fix this technicality with some retrospective legislation’ and that is what we are doing”. That was a comment attributed to Paul Wiley the former Chief Executive Officer of the Tasman District Council. He said he did not know how much the legislation would cost.In my experience in raising other local bills I understand that there is a charge by the Office of the Clerk of some $2000 so certainly that would be all that the Tasman District Council would have to pay as far as Parliament is concerned.But I must just register that it is a somewhat cavalier attitude towards what the taxpayers pay to have this House go through all of the stages—the first reading the second reading which we are up to now the Committee stage the reporting back the third reading stage and the final Royal assent. There is a great deal of expense actually in bringing a local bill to Parliament and that falls on all taxpayers. I wanted to make that point because I was a bit concerned that there seemed to be a slightly cavalier attitude within the Tasman District Council.However I am supporting the bill and I want to explain briefly why I am doing that. It is to do with the way the Tasman District Council exercises its ability to rate ratepayers. I support the way it does it but it made a mistake in this instance and it would have been a costly mistake to the council had it not been for this legislation before the House. But the principle behind this that I support is that community assets must be paid for by all members of the community for the sake of the community whether or not one uses those assets. BobSchmuke’s particular case which gained a lot of sympathy—and certainly from me as well—was that he was not even hooked up to this stormwater system. He was not hooked up to it it did not impact on his property and here he was with these additional rates that he had not been advised about.But in the end I came down on the view that the good of the community is borne most equitably by all of the members of the community. I may not use the Nelson libraries—although in fact I do—or I may not use the Riverside Swimming Pool in Nelson but I am very pleased that the facilities are there for the benefit of all who live in Nelson. The same thing applies when it comes to drainage systems and urban drainage systems. They in the end provide a collective benefit. In this case should they have been paid for by the three houses that were linked up to this stormwater drain they would not have been affordable. By spreading the cost there is an important piece of infrastructure in place that benefits the whole community in principle. It is that principle that I support and that principle that has brought me to the position—again reluctantly but persuasively—of supporting this piece of legislation. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Maggie Barry.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Yes indeed Mr Deputy Speaker—still and always. Thank you very much. I rise to speak to the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. It is at its second reading and it is a local bill sponsored by Damien O’Connor.As other speakers have noted this is yet another validation bill. We endured Kaipara and the horrors the torture the intense discussion and the pain of the taxpayers—the ratepayers I should say. Although of course—as Maryan Street who has just resumed her seat pointed out—because this bill has to be validated through Parliament it becomes an expense that the taxpayers have to deal with. One would caution all councils as the member sponsoring this bill did in the opening call in this debate to learn from this and to listen to their ratepayers. If things are not going well and there are grumbles and complaints then for goodness’ sake address the issues before they become a problem.Damien O’Connor pointed out at the outset that one of the issues around this is that the Tasman District Council is a unitary authority so it does not have perhaps the same checks and balances as are provided by regional councils or other closer councils working alongside it. Perhaps had that occurred then this silly mistake really of not including a map with the rates and therefore invalidating them would never have occurred. I find that when I look at some of the correspondence—looking back over itnow because it was last winter when we heard many of the submissions on this bill. We heard 14 submissions in all. One of them from the Tasman District Council Mayor RichardKempthorne really does get to the heart of the matter. The council he wrote in his letter in part of his submission to us “… fully acknowledges that we made an error in setting the 2006-07 rate for theTata Beach andLigar Bay stormwater urban drainage area. We regret that the error was made.” And so say all of us and the ratepayers of the area.The mayor went on to say that “We also note that if we had included the required map the rate would have been lawfully made and the rates would have been payable.” So when you peel aside all of the other things that have been a problem in this it comes down to a basic fundamental error. It has cost ratepayers tens of thousands of dollars and endless countless hours and you cannot measure the cost of the misery that many of the ratepayers have been through in that area over this.As others have before me I would like to acknowledge BobSchmucke. Without his energy and without his determination and effort this case would not have got as far as it has. When I call it a case it almost is that because there have been so many warring parties that initially tried to say “Not my fault. Can’t do anything about this.” There has been a lot of obfuscation around the issue and a lot of other issues have come into play.I know that there are aspects of this that the Local Government and Environment Committee agonised over but we were not ultimately able to help some of the people who had issues around whether or not the stormwater pipes should have been laid in the areas that some of the ratepayers wanted them to be in. I will not go into all of the detail of that because I think others have tracked that over before me. But it is very much a warning to other councils. It is a warning to take heed of what you do to be very careful about your procedures and processes to listen to your ratepayers—as I said a moment ago—and also I think to embrace the Better Local Government reforms that this Government is putting through. Part of those reforms is that we want local bodies local councils to be really careful around their monitoring and improving of their own performances for their ratepayers. Perhaps the publicity around this bill will show other councils that their own processes may and will come under greater scrutiny. So the silver lining to this cloud that is hanging over the Tasman District ratepayers is the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) which we have started to put through.I look back at some of the calls that were taken at that time as someone who sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee throughout the Kaipara hearings and now on this bill and there are a number of issues that continue to come up. Maurice Williamson the Minister for Building and Construction took a call on behalf of the then Minister of Local Government Chris Tremain who I must say has done an excellent job of putting this through to this point. He made the point in his call that although the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) that we are talking about is not specifically aimed at these worst-case scenarios—Kaipara and Tasman District—it is really going to help out in those kinds of situations and prevent them from happening again. That is my absolute belief in this.We do not propose really to discuss the details of the particular cases but they do provide salutary lessons for us all and that informs us as legislators. The bill and the legislation that we are passing around local government will address the lessons and the changes enacted will allow Ministers to identify potential problems before they get too bad and before they get too expensive and almost insurmountable for the local people to deal with which is why they have had to come back to Parliament to be validated by us today.Our local government legislation does introduce requirements for greater transparency in the management of infrastructure and also a lot more discipline in the documentation of agreements for infrastructure that have to be provided not just by the council employees themselves and their elected representatives but also by third parties that may be contracting and may be part of the problem. So all of these things are vitally important and perhaps if the Tasman District Council had had the benefit of this legislation and the scrutiny and the requirements that come with it it might have made a better job of what it needed to do.One of the Green members took a call and said that on this side of the House there were crocodile tears being shed for ratepayers. That is absolutely incorrect. We have a genuine concern for ratepayers and for the rise in rates as Jacqui Dean pointed out in her call. She is no stranger to putting through very good local bills as a member because she represents her community and cares about what they say and that is really the purpose of local bills. So she is no stranger to that. And as she pointed out members of her own family who are on fixed incomes struggle in a big way with these kinds of rates hikes and irresponsible spending let alone problems that blow out as a result of absolute errors and incompetence in the case of Kaipara. I think the Auditor-General’s office in that case involving Kaipara as we discussed exhaustively at the select committee does have a case to answer in its very large bill which the Auditor-General said was one of the most complicated she had ever been involved with in her 20 years. The office spent a phenomenal amount of time trying to deal with the inefficiencies of a local council that kept no paperwork that did not follow due process and that did not do what its ratepayers elected it to do which is to be a good steward and a prudent manager of the funds that it was paid. So all of these sorts of things are important to keep in mind.In my own electorate on the North Shore I am very mindful that a lot of older people on fixed incomes have properties that have very expensive rates. That is the nature of the way we do the ratings—based on the land value and the improvements of course. But people are finding that they are living in places for which they are struggling to find the rates money that they need and that is why local authorities and in particular councils need to be very very careful about what they spend their money on. Spraying it around and squandering it on the four well-beings is not going to get people where they need to be. Those are the kinds of things that actually need to be addressed in legislation.This Government has the courage of its convictions and the knowledge as opposed to the wittering that is going on at the moment from the opposing benches. We have the knowledge the competence and the ability to put through decent legislation that is aimed at helping the ratepayers.Tracey Martin: How terribly sad for the people of North Shore that they got landed with that.MAGGIE BARRY: It is not aimed at puffing up local body people as that member who is interjecting at the moment very much is. She is an individual who tends to think she does a much better job than her own ratepayers allow. In fact I do not think her own mother got elected on the basis of the legacy that was left for her by her daughter. It is a sad state of affairs. I know that the member has a very high opinion of herself as a list MP but I know that that is not at all reflected by people in her own community. But there you go. We will withdraw from the petty politics and the yapping.Let us say it is suffice to say that the Local Government Act 2002 and the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) are going to work very very well to make sure that the problems that occurred at Kaipara and occur in the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill will not occur again and that isa very important part of why we as a Government will continue to put through reforms despite the braying of the opposing forces. That is why I support this local bill. I support Damien O’Connor in what he has done. I acknowledge as many have said that we are making the best of a difficult situation. We are making it better but we are not making it perfect. But we are doing our best. Thank you.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I had to pull out my handkerchief in the last couple of minutes of that particular speech to wipe away the tears of laughter. They were not crocodile tears; they were tears of absolute amazement from listening to the previous speaker Maggie Barry. It never fails to amaze me how some of the National Party MPs who sit on our Local Government and Environment Committee have so little knowledge of local government or indeed of their own electorates.It is unbelievable that the previous speaker said that because Tasman District Council is a unitary authority which is a combination of a regional authority and a territorial authority these sorts of mistakes could happen because it does not have the checks and balances because it is not a normal council. What an extraordinary statement when we have got unitary authorities around the country that have done a fantastic job over many years. So there is a total lack of understanding as to what a unitary authority does. And it is extraordinary for her to then say that all these councils like Tasman and other places are squandering money on all these things like the four well-beings.If you ask the average person in the street whether it is important that they have economic development whether it is important that they have a good environment in their town or their district whether it is important that they have social responsibility in their community and all these sorts of things the average person will say: “Actually we do want that. We choose to live here because this is the place where we want to live and these are the expectations that we have.” Otherwise as we have seen in the United States cities like Detroit end up absolute ghost towns because they do not provide the four well-beings. They do not provide that community spirit and they become literally wastelands. We have seen that in parts of New Zealand but fortunately local government is responding to the challenges.Despite this National Government trying to absolutely kneecap local government local government will persevere. Under a Government where New Zealand First has involvement and where you will have the likes of Tracey Martin with her local body experience me with my local body experience and Denis O’Rourke with his extensive local body experience we will get on and I can tell all of local government out there that we will properly support local government.I can recall that when National first became the Government back in 2008 it took it close to 12 months to have its first meeting with the mayoral forum and the Local Government Forum around New Zealand—close to 12 months before it even met with local government. It was appalling. Under the previous Government—the Labour Government supported by New Zealand First—they met every 6 months at least. But this Government—no it has no regard. But anyway back to the Tasman District Council.I would challenge the member Jacqui Dean who is having a good chat with Maggie Barry at the present time to really understand what a unitary authority is. She said these councils are small and have probably got only one staff member doing a particular function and so when they go away on maternity leave it does not get done. Well I would just inform that learned National Party member that according to the Tasman District Council website it has in excess of 200 staff. At the moment recent vacancies have been advertised for a revenue accountant a management accountant a senior management accountant a coordinator of land use consents and a water resources officer. Those are just some of the some recent appointments that it has been making.Tasman District Council is a significant council that covers a wide area. It is far from being some little council where there are a half a dozen people sitting at the top of a flight of stairs doing something and then putting an “Out to lunch” sign up when they leave. It is doing a good job and doing a very very responsible job in that part of the South Island. Having said that it has made some errors and they were very simple errors in terms of what it did with setting the rates in that period.As Maggie Barry mentioned the letter from the mayor explained it very well. He mentioned that in that particular period 2006-07 it overlooked including a map when it was setting the rates and it did not properly describe the area in theTata Beach andLigar Bay area in terms of this. The mayor went on to say: “If we had included the required map the rate would have been lawfully made and the rates would have been payable. Therefore passing the bill in its current form would validate a rate that would have been made lawfully if the map had been included.” So it is quite simple. It was a simple administrative error that needs to be rectified.The mayor went on to say—this was to the select committee: “We have explained to you that theTata Beach andLigar Bay ratepayers receive a service from the stormwater infrastructure provided in their communities and they pay for this through our club approach. In our view not only is there no legislative power to remit the rates but it would also be not equitable to remit the rates to theTata Beach and theLigar Bay ratepayers. A reason for this is that it would mean other ratepayers in the district would then have to pay for stormwater services including those atTata Beach andLigar Bay while the ratepayers inTata Beach andLigar Bay do not pay for any.”So quite obviously it was not going to be fair to do that and in the end Damien O’Connor brought this to the House and fair enough. But in so doing it is very interesting in that this opens a bigger can of worms in terms of the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 3) which is going through our select committee at the moment as well where again the National Government is wanting to do away with development contributions.We heard from the learned Maggie Barry—who is having a good chat with Jacqui Dean at the present time again—that the Government is wanting to do away with things like development contributions and all this sort of thing but she said at the same time: “But we don’t want councils to put up their rates. We don’t want them increasing their rates.” Well I have got news for that member which is that basically development contributions were brought in by the likes of North Shore City Council—which was the lead council virtually in this whole area in the last 10 years—to ensure that the growth of a city or a community or a district was funded by those who came into the club. It is like joining a golf club or a tennis club. If you are the last one in and you have already got all the facilities you pay a joining fee. You pay a joining fee to join the club.It is the same in local government. If developers want to come in and set up a whole new subdivision and they are coming into a city and they have not contributed anything at that point in time they pay a development contribution as their contribution to join the club to then provide all the services across the city. It is a total nonsense on the part of this National Government to say that things like swimming pools libraries and other community facilities of that nature should not be paid for from development contributions but from the existing ratepayer base. That is absolutely nonsense. When we on the North Shore were planning for the new Albany library to be built for a growing population we had to start taking development contributions 7 8 and 9 years ahead of when the new library was going to be required from the new subdivisions from the new sections from the infill housing and from the people cutting off their back lawns so that when the population got to that point we could build the library with the funding. You know you do not wait until everybody is there and then say:“Oh we’ve got an extra 40000 people in our city and they cannot read a book because the nearest library is 14 kilometres away.” That is not what you do.So it is interesting to hear the comments from the National Government—but we get that from them. When we went through other local government legislation last year and the year before it was astonishing how ignorant the National Party members were of most of the facts in relation to local government—totally ignorant. Even Paul Goldsmith over there who wrote John Banks’ biography seemed to have a lack of understanding of how local government operated.So basically I would suggest that many of the National members on the Local Government and Environment Committee should maybe take the next adjournment to go off and learn “Local Government 101” and find out what local authorities actually do around New Zealand. They should go and spend some time with Local Government New Zealand. They should go and speak to some local bodies. They do not like to come down off their high horses and speak to mayors and councillors but they should go and find out how local government operates in this country. We have only two tiers of government in New Zealand: central government and local government. As a result they might actually realise that central government and local government are mutually supportive of each other and that it is not central government trying to kneecap local government all the time.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I have never listened to a speech from that member Andrew Williams that has not been twice as long as it needed to be. I was not sure whether we were debating a local government amendment bill or the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill because it sounded like he was more interested in talking about local government. I was not sure from the end of that speech which certainly went round and round the mulberry bush many many times whether he supported the bill or not. That is the complication with this kind of legislation.I would make one point on development contributions which are not related to this bill but which seem to be the topic of debate in most of the speeches. We are not doing away with development contributions. We are getting some discipline around that process. It does not necessarily follow that you have to put up the rates. You actually just have to get some discipline around Government spending and that is what this Government has shown very effectively around bringing Government spending under control in a disciplined fashion and getting back to surplus. That is why this Government enjoys the support that it has.Phil Twyford: Forcing councils to put rates up.PAUL GOLDSMITH: Only if they keep on spending more and what we need is some discipline around spending.Phil Twyford: Someone has to pay Paul.PAUL GOLDSMITH: You do not have to pay great sums if a council is efficient. That is what all our local government reforms have been about. They are about trying to get some efficiency into local government. But if we return to the bill the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill—Andrew Williams: Hasn’t worked in Auckland.PAUL GOLDSMITH: Well it has not worked as well in Auckland as it could have primarily because we have had a raging leftie as a mayor who has been spending like a runaway train. It is time we got some discipline back into the council and then Aucklanders will be a lot better off.I come back to the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. It is worth going back to the details because nobody is comfortable with or enthusiastic about passing this sort of bill which validates procedural irregularitiesmade by the Tasman District Council. Let us go back and see just what happened here. What happened was that the council had identified a series of procedural irregularities under the Local Government (Rating) Act in the process used to set rates between 2003-04 and 2008-09. They were mainly in relation to failing to comply with sections 23 24 and 57 of that Act. In summary these sections required that the rates are to be set by a resolution of the council and that the resolution must specify certain details of the rates and of the penalties to be paid. But more important the resolution must be separate from resolutions to adopt annual plans and funding impact statements even when these documents contain details of the rates. It also must be that the resolution is made after resolutions to adopt annual plans and funding impact statements pertaining to that financial year.That is a reasonably clear legislative outlook and it has to be done in a certain way but unfortunately the Tasman District Council made a number of mistakes. It purported to set and assess the rates and rates penalties by way of a resolution to adopt an annual plan and funding impact statement rather than by way of a separate resolution. So it tried to get everything into the same resolution rather than by separate resolutions. It also resolved to adopt rates prior to the adoption of the annual plan and funding impact statement pertaining to that financial year. So it got things round the wrong way. It passed the resolution before the adoption of the annual plan rather than after the adoption of the annual plan.Secondly but worse than that in 2006 the council purported to set and assess a targeted stormwater rate for properties within theLigar Bay andTata Beach urban drainage areas. We listened to a number of submitters on this topic in the Local Government and Environment Committee which was very ably chaired I might say by Nicky Wagner. It enjoyed a good measure of bipartisanship as we dealt with and tried to get to the bottom of what was a tricky issue. I do want to pay tribute to the work of Damien O’Connor on this bill because no local member of Parliament particularly wants to have to shepherd a bill such as this through Parliament but he did it with good grace. We listened carefully to the submitters on each point.Getting back to 2006 the council purported to set and assess a targeted stormwater rate—[Interruption]—if you could just pay attention please—for properties within theLigar Bay andTata Beach drainage areas. However it failed to visually identify the geographical location of the rateable land to which the targeted stormwater rate applied in the 2006-07 funding impact statement as required under section 17 and schedule 2 of the Local Government (Rating) Act. So in essence it failed to produce the map. Those are the procedural irregularities made in regard to the resolutions.This is all very irritating but in essence when we were faced with the request to pass legislation to overturn some mistake that was made previously obviously the committee was not comfortable with it if there was some way in which the rates were not proper rates or they should not have been done or they were not part of the overall plan and that was never the allegation here. It was a procedural irregularity. The advice that we had from the Tasman District Council was that if the map had been included in 2006 and 2007 in the funding impact statement the rate would have been lawfully made and the rates would have been payable. So it was the absence of the map that made what were otherwise quite acceptable rates unacceptable. This piece of legislation is trying to fix the situation.What are the alternatives? The alternatives are that we could have just said: “Oh well maybe the council should just forgive or pay back those rates because they got it wrong.” But that is actually more complicated than it seems because paying back rates is not easy. There is actually no legislative power to remit the rates. The council would then have to run around and see whether it could find the people who owned the landback in 2006 and 2007 and then that would not be fair because those people who would be getting their rates back in effect would not have paid rates for that year. They would have had the stormwater coverage and the benefit of it all but not have paid for it. So that is hardly fair to the rest of the people of the Tasman District. It is an awkward juggling act that Parliament was set to deal with and on balance after a great deal of consideration we decided to come down in favour of this bill.When I come back to some of the broader issues that we are dealing with here—Phil Twyford: Talk about John Banks. We always enjoy that.PAUL GOLDSMITH: Certain members have raised the biography of John Banks. The only thing I would say in relation to that is that I do write about successful people and not failed local body politicians. Maybe there may be an opportunity for Mr Williams’ political career to take off in a very late trajectory and reach that sort of height but I am not necessarily confident that that is going to happen. As for Mr Twyford I am not sure either. But there may be an opportunity before too long with the fast rotation that we are seeing in the Labour leadership for Mr Twyford although I personally would favour Moana Mackey being a close cousin of mine. So there we have it. I think Labour does have issues but we do not want to get distracted from this bill which is very different.I suppose just in summing up the broader issues that I want to draw on are that National’s Better Local Government reforms will help make local government more efficient responsive and well focused. This bill deals with an example of when the Tasman District Council was not well focused and it was not particularly efficient and that is always going to happen. People do make mistakes. I suppose the overall lesson of having to deal with these sorts of bills is that we do not want to have a legislative set-up for local government that is so complex that people regularly make mistakes. On the other hand we do absolutely expect and require that local government does do things correctly so that ratepayers can have confidence that they are paying things legally and that all the boxes are ticked. The Better Local Government reforms include a work stream to monitor and improve council performance to help prevent future procedural errors. This bill will highlight to other councils I am sure the importance of proper scrutiny when setting rates. I have no doubt that when other councils consider this bill and others such as this one they will see it as a very powerful warning that when it comes to the time of setting and passing procedural law matters—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to inform the member but he has utilised his entire allocation of time. I am advised that this is not a split call—Moana Mackey; 10 minutes.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): It is always scary to get a glimpse of the world through the eyes of Paul Goldsmith once again. I do not think that I have ever seen a member looking so desperately for the Speaker to tell him that his time had concluded because he got to the end of the research unit notes about 2 minutes before the end of the speech and had to start repeating himself. That is quite a hefty workload in a day for Paul Goldsmith. I do not think I have ever heard him give a 10-minute speech. I hope he does not get a nosebleed from the effort.I am actually not going to take too long on the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I think that members have covered it adequately. We do not like passing retrospective legislation in this Parliament. It is the best of a number of bad solutions. We certainly acknowledge that there have been inconsistencies in the way that the Tasman District Council has dealt with the setting of rates. Unfortunately Parliament has to step in and retrospectively validate them. We have seen a little bit of this happening in recent times. Certainly members have raised issuesaround the function of auditing and picking up on these solutions so that problems can be resolved before it comes to this would be helpful.I do not think there is really anything more that I can add to the debate apart from saying that we will be supporting the bill. Unfortunately we will be supporting it but it is just one of these things that we need to do.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): I rise to speak in support of the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill. I notice that there is a theme—I am not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee which worked very hard on this bill and it is to be complimented particularly the chair of the committee.Tim Macindoe: You were a very fine chair in years gone by.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: In years gone by I thoroughly enjoyed working as the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. It was fantastic. It was a very busy committee and the second-largest in Parliament.Phil Twyford: Good times.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: They were good times—they were. But I think this bill has been very well handled by that select committee.I was interested to hear Moana Mackey who is something of a veteran politician herself say that she would rise reluctantly or sadly to support this bill. That seems to have been a sentiment that has been expressed by almost every speaker. Without having been party to the submissions and the detail of the bill I have reflected on why that might be. I reflected on the question of how this whole thing came about. I guess one could say that it was users versus non-users of a service collective benefits being sought versus individual rights and peremptory changes being made by a council versus transparent procedures.The good people who live inTata Beach andLigar Bay who are affected by these stormwater rates are strong individuals. I have met them. I know them. They are nice people. They have a fine sense of personal justice individual rights and what is right and what is wrong. Tasman District Council which I think is probably one of the country’s larger unitary councils is a council of fairly determined councillors and very experienced staff. I think there has been a case of a certain amount of antagonism if I can use that word without it affecting individuals and a certain amount of antagonistic points of view on both sides in relation to identifying the problem and then seeking a solution to it. It was a “Yes you will.” “No we won’t.” sort of job. So the councillors found themselves nonplussed.This seems to have been a somewhat long-drawn-out bill. Observers could say that there was an element of wishing that it would go away or hoping that the antagonism would stop. I understand that they have tried a variety of mediation techniques discussions and listening to individuals and to one another to seek settlement. It did not happen. So legislation became a requirement. Not to proceed would have simply passed the vexation of one group on to another group and it would have gone on. So they sought legislation.What is the parliamentary view of that? One of the things that we learn early on as politicians is the difficulty of preparing legislation and the difficulty of foreseeing unforeseen circumstances. If you look at New Zealand statistically it has its fair share of re-legislating or passing of legislation to correct things that were not foreseen. As this is a country of some speed and a very fine sense of fairness I think it is reasonable to anticipate that you will be correcting legislation for unforeseen circumstances.The difficulty with this particular piece of local legislation was that it did not have an unforeseen consequence; it was perhaps just representative of equivocal leadership. Things were not done correctly and yet people wished to hold on to what they haddone. The council’s apology has been commented on as being singularly sincere. Some of the comments that have been made today have been that this bill was in fact a waste of Parliament’s time. I do not perceive it to be a waste of parliamentary time because there was no other solution apparently available to the contestants in this particular issue. Therefore in my mind it is not a waste of time. I think it is a perfectly proper use of parliamentary time. It is necessary to re-establish confidence and certainty in the work and the efforts of the Tasman District Council.We have heard from a variety of speakers on this bill from Maggie Barry Jacqui Dean Paul Goldsmith Nicky Wagner Andrew Williams Moana Mackey and others—people who one could say are fairly experienced in the ways and workings of district councils. If we were not to pass this bill then people would be deprived of their rights and the consequences would be very long-drawn out.We come again to the point that has been made that the good of the community has to be borne by the whole of the community in order to create collective benefits. That is OK as long as the whole of the community is in a position to share the benefits. I understand without knowing the particular detail—and I have not participated in any of the select committee discussions having being engaged in other select committees—that in this case there will be people who are not really comfortable with this outcome. I think that is always going to be the case where you have this type of imposed legislation to try to sort out a problem. So they will not be particularly happy.But let us remember the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill is not to make people happy because Parliament did not make them unhappy in the first place. What we have to do is validate the rates set by the Tasman District Council for the 5-year period affected during which the council did not follow correct process in setting the rates. I think the fact that the complainants in this issue will hear very clearly that the council has acknowledged—and we in Parliament acknowledge—that it did not follow correct process is going to ameliorate a lot of hard feelings in this particular issue.The bill also validates rates and penalties paid over the period and authorises the council to recover any unpaid rates and ratify theTata Beach andLigar Bay stormwater rates. I have no doubt that that bit will stick in some people’s craw. They will feel that they were robbed and that it is not a fair way to do it. I am assured by members of the select committee that every other possibility was exhaustively examined—exhaustively examined. Having been a member of that particular select committee for about 3 years I am very familiar with the excellent advice it gets the work of the local government officials who advise the committee and the sincerity and commitment of the individual members of Parliament from all parties. I think it is one of the select committees that demonstrates a lot of bipartisan approaches to the work in hand.One of the things I take confidence in in particular is that National’s Better Local Government reforms will help make local government more efficient responsive and well focused. The Better Local Government reforms include a work stream to monitor and improve council performance in order to help prevent future procedural errors. Finally this bill highlights to other councils sadly—sadly—the consequences of not having proper scrutiny when setting rates. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Annette King—the Hon Annette King.Hon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): Yes thank you Mr Deputy Speaker and it is nice to see you too. I rise to support the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill brought inin the name of the very good local member of Parliament Damien O’Connor who somewhat reluctantly brings in this bill to validate specific rates in the Tasman District Council area. None of us likes retrospective legislation. It is necessary in this case. I support it. I congratulate theratepayer who discovered this error and brought it to attention and who has ensured that we now have legislation to fix this irregularity.It is a fantastic part of New Zealand:Ligar Bay and alsoTata Beach. You probably know it well Mr Deputy Speaker. I certainly do. I have spent holidays there. In fact my old schoolteacher MissDizren retired there and I know for a fact that she used to go swimming in the nude on a regular basis down atTata Beach such was the cleanliness and the beauty of this place. This is not quite in the bill but I thought I would get it on record that it is a pristine and wonderful place. It deserves to have proper rates struck for it and I support the bill.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Tasman District Council (Validation and Recovery of Certain Rates) Bill be now read a second time.Ayes119New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 13; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes1Mana 1.Bill read a second time.Sullivan Birth Certificate BillSecond ReadingLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): I moveThat the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill be now read a second time.Tēnā koutou katoa. This private bill allows the birth details ofRowen Sullivan to record the reality of her family. As the Government Administration Committee states in its report the bill with the amendments recommended will make “what is a matter of fact that Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields areRowen Sullivan’s parents a matter of law.”For those who are not familiar with the background this bill arose out of the fact thatRowen Sullivan cannot by law have the names of both her parents on her birth certificate. After 7 years together her parents Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields had a daughter who was born by an assisted human reproduction procedure to Diane on 23 February 1993. At that time only Diane’s name was recorded onRowen’s birth certificate as her birth mother.In 2006 Diane was diagnosed with a terminal illness and passed away in 2010 whenRowen was 17. At that timeRowen and Doreen decided that Doreen would apply for an adoption order as that was the only legal option available to them to record their parent-child relationship. But in doing thatRowen received a new birth certificate with just Doreen’s name on it and her mother Diane’s name had been removed. That was the law but it means that the reality ofRowen’s upbringing and family was not recorded and there was no ability for her or Doreen to take advantage of changes made by the Status of Children Act and last year’s marriage amendment Act.Rowen’s age and the passing of Diane meant that was not possible. A private bill is the only wayRowen’s parents can both be recorded on her birth registration details from which a new birth certificate can be issued.I particularly want to acknowledge the members of the Government Administration Committee so ably chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson for their work and the amendments to the bill that they have recommended. The amendments reflect the commitment of the select committee to understand what this bill is seeking. The amendments recommended by the select committee clarify what this bill is about. It is aboutRowen Sullivan havingthe names of both her parents on her birth certificate. The select committee has rightly renamed this private bill the Sullivan Birth Registration Bill because it is the details held ofRowen’s birth registration which currently record the adoption order in the name of Doreen Shields that are the basis for the issuing ofRowen’s birth certificate. Should this bill passRowen’s parents will legally be the two women who were her parents in true life: Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields.On a personal note I would also like to thank the members of the select committee for the manner in which they heard and reported on a matter that is extremely sensitive for the promoterRowen Sullivan and her living parent Doreen Shields whom I acknowledge in the House tonight. Doreen andRowen have asked that I pass on their thanks to the select committee. In Doreen’s words she told me: “Rowen and I had no idea what to expect from the select committee. We thought it might be quite intimidating and we wondered if maybe they wouldn’t really be very interested in the bill. As it turned out we didn’t need to worry about either of those things. We are really impressed with the care the committee took to understand whatRowen wanted to achieve with the bill and with the changes they made to it.”I am honoured to be the sponsor of this bill which I recommend to the House with the amendments proposed by the select committee. Appropriately I will leave the last word to the promoter of the billRowen Sullivan: “It’s hard to believe that I’m about to turn 21 and am hopefully very close to finally having official recognition of both my parents. I feel very lucky to live in a country where it’s possible for that to happen.”Nō reiratēnā koutoutēnā koutoutēnātātou katoa.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): In the very brief amount of time available just before dinner I would like to begin my speech in support of the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill which is set down for its second reading and sponsored very ably may I say by Labour MP Louisa Wall with whom it was a pleasure to work.The purpose of the bill is to require the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to record the details ofRowen Sullivan’s deceased mother on her post-adoptive birth registry entry. It may well be that people consider that something of a technical detail and indeed when we saw the bill before us at the Government Administration Committee we thought that it did have a very technical aspect to it. The reality was though that it also had a very very personal aspect. This is one of those occasions when the only solution available to the applicant was through Parliament. It has no effect on any other person—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time has come to suspend the House for dinner. I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m. Bon appétit.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE:Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a pleasure to resume speaking about the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. As we had spoken of earlier this is one of those occasions in Parliament when legislation can do something for someone that nothing else can do and that applies only to that individual person. In fact there are no negative elements at all associated with the passage of this bill. It requires the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to record the details ofRowen Sullivan’s deceased mother on her post-adoptive birth registration entry.We heard from Louisa Wall who introduced the bill—and I do not doubt we will hear an echo from Ruth Dyson the chair of the Government Administration Committee—that there was apprehension on the part of the applicants for the bill that they would be perceived as wasting our time or not having a significant thing for us to do and which required a bill of their own. But this is a member’s bill. This is what thesetimes are set aside for and anyone of course who knows the Hon Ruth Dyson would realise that the applicants would be guaranteed a good reception I am sure.For those members who would like to know the minutiae of how this came about we can through the good services of the sponsor of the bill Louisa Wall provide a summary of the events and I would like to read that to the House now. For members opposite I shall be conducting a small written test afterwards to see how much of it you remembered and understood!These are the complexities of the situation.Rowen Sullivan’s parents from birth were Diane Sullivan her birth mother and Diane Sullivan’s female partner Doreen Shields. Have you got that bit? Diane Sullivan died in 2010 whenRowen was 17 years old. Doreen Shields chose not to adoptRowen while Diane Sullivan was still alive as this would have required the removal of the name of Diane Sullivan the birth mother fromRowen Sullivan’s birth certificate. Doreen Shields instead applied to be an additional guardian. This expired onRowen Sullivan’s 18th birthday. Doreen Shields then applied for an adoption order following the death of Diane Sullivan. The order was made on 15 January 2013. However that order required that Diane Sullivan’s name be removed fromRowen Sullivan’s birth certificate. For those who are still travelling the journey with us all—and let us remember that this was a journey that someone actually travelled—had Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields been able to legally marry they would have been jointly able to apply to adoptRowen. If this had occurred they would both have been named as her parents on her birth record.Following the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013—which coincidentally went through the same select committee—same-sex couples are able to marry and are therefore able to apply jointly to adopt children. I think anyone would be forgiven for not completely following the intricacies of those events and it was a credit to the members of the committee. Everybody took an avid interest. The applicants for the bill gave a really useful submission to the select committee which really made things very apparent to us.Then there were the aspects that had to be considered that we required officials’ advice on. Again I really want to say to those who are watching or listening to the radio this evening that the advice one gets as a parliamentarian is first class in New Zealand—first class. I think almost every member would agree with that. Perhaps there is the odd occasion when something might not quite come up to the mark but for the most part I do not think that MPs can really justifiably say they could not find something out because we have a superb library—a superb library—and I have always found the quality of officials and the quality of official advice to be excellent. I see some nods from people whose academic background I have great respect for and they have been in a position of comparison.This was one example where I think the smaller details were taken into account so that in setting a precedent—if it were creating a precedent—there would be no harm done. As it is this bill does not set a precedent because the circumstances are almost unique. You cannot use the phrase “almost unique”. I can see Mr Finlayson bristling at the very suggestion. I would like to formally withdraw that remark. I did not intend to say—Hon Christopher Finlayson: You did. Noted and you will be counselled later.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE: Oh dear oh dear! I did not intend to say “almost unique” because that is a stupid conflict of terms. This is a relatively unusual situation and it would be most surprising if the circumstances were ever duplicated in exactly the same order. So this will not be a repeatable situation.The proposed addition of clause 4 which the select committee recommends would make it clear that Diane Sullivan and Doreen Margaret Shields are for all purposes the parents ofRowen Sullivan.It was a really interesting bill from all points of view not just in respect of the family concerned but in consideration of how we are identified as individuals. I would have thought—and I know that other select committee members shared the thought with me—that your birth certificate was it but in fact it is not. It is simply a record of what is recorded within the record system. So it was a very interesting journey through the identification of individuals and the linkage with other people through relationships.It has been a pleasure to be part of considering this bill. It has been educative and informative and from the comments relayed from the family I understand that it has been considered useful. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It gives me a lot of pleasure to speak to the second reading of the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. I want to begin by paying a tribute to the sponsor of the bill my colleague Louisa Wall and saying that yet again she has brought issues to this House that have caused a lot of interest. We have had a lot of consideration of the bill at the Government Administration Committee and I am pleased it was referred to our select committee. It was a real privilege to be part of that process. I want to pay a tribute to our select committee’s members. Some of the issues were more complex than perhaps we had originally considered and both the select committee members and the officials deserve a note of tribute for the way they gave and received a lot of questions and a lot of answers. I think that really paid respect to the bill itself and the purpose of the bill.But more than to Louisa Wall the select committee members and the officials I want to pay tribute to the three women whom this bill is about: the late Diane Sullivan Doreen Shields and their daughterRowen Sullivan. This bill is really a bit of a love story. It is a story about the relationship that Diane and Doreen had and the fact that they raised their daughter together in a time when they were perhaps a little ahead of the societal recognition of what is not an unusual practice now—same-sex couples raising children together. So I want to pay a tribute first of all to Doreen and her love—and mother of her daughter—the late Diane and their daughterRowen.Doreen andRowen appeared before the select committee. I think that most of us would recognise that a bunch of MPs sitting in a room is not an easy process. We are a little bit intimidating. We do not try to be but I think we are. The formality of a select committee process can also be quite daunting for people to go through. And that is at a time when you are talking about something that is quite theoretical. You might be talking about a tax change or you might be talking about something that is really one step removed from your life. People find that process quite a scary prospect and often get quite rattled when they come before a select committee so to have people come to a select committee talking about the very essence of their relationships and lives and why they want us to make a law change took a lot of courage. I want to particularly acknowledge the courage and strength that Doreen andRowen showed towards each other but also acknowledge that that reinforced to the committee just how important this move was.Their story said it all for us actually. We understood that this was not a minor technical issue that this really talked about the recognition of society towards their relationship and I know that all members of the select committee were very moved by their presentation by the reality of their situation and by the fact that we had the opportunity to recognise the relationship of Diane and Doreen and their legitimate—in the law—parenting ofRowen. The deputy chair Chris Auchinvole made a comment in his contribution about the fact that we thought that once we had made this clear a birthcertificate would suffice for all purposes and that was one of the many challenges that the officials threw to us: that this proof of parenthood might have to be done through some other method at some time in the future. We decided that that was a nonsense actually. I am not saying that the advice was a nonsense; we thought that the requirement to do that would be a nonsense. So we have made it clear that this is it.Once Parliament sets the seal on this then Diane and Doreen areRowen’s legitimate parents for all purposes and neither they nor Parliament will ever have to go through this again. I think that it was probably important for us to have the debate but none of us could think of one single instance in our own lives when we had had to produce anything other than our birth certificate with our parents’ names on it in order to prove who our parents were. But anyway we have put it beyond doubt I trust and in the Committee stage I am sure we will make sure that that is the case.As I said I want to particularly recognise the love that Diane and Doreen andRowen have and had for each other and say that Parliament does not often get that sort of involvement in our debates. It is a responsibility that I am sure every member of this House will take very seriously as we go through the debate and go through the voting process. I want to quote a couple of things that Doreen said in terms of how she felt. She said it publicly so I am not breaching any privacy but it had a huge impact on me and I am sure it will on others. She talked about how she felt when—following the passing of her partner and her adoption ofRowen so thatRowen would not be left as a legal orphan and so that she had a legal living parent—she saw her partner’s nameRowen’s birth mother’s name taken from the birth certificate. She said that it was horrible. She said: “Given what Diane went through and how she struggled to be there forRowen it was just obscene quite honestly.” I do not think any of us can imagine how hard it would be to watch your partner’s name being taken from the birth certificate of your child their child in order for you to become their legitimate—legitimate in terms of the law—parent. That wrench must have been huge and it is so good to be able to put what I think is an injustice right through this process.Rowen who of course is the holder of this birth certificate and the centre of attention as far as the legal change is concerned said that actually it was not about her. She said: “It’s more about my parents—having me in the ’90s when gay people having children was very uncommon they showed a lot of bravery and courage. They chose to have me together and made many sacrifices to give me the best life possible. And I want that to be recognised legally. I had two parents and my birth certificate should show that.” It does not seem to be a very big ask. I think that it is something that every member of this House wants to support and I certainly hope that as the debate progresses that is where we get to in terms of the recognition in the law of the legitimate parents ofRowen.As I said earlier this came about only because of the death of Diane Sullivan. AsRowen’s birth mother when Diane Sullivan diedRowen was legally an orphan. She had no legitimate—in the law—living parent and that was not acceptable to her mother Doreen Shields. We all know that there can be circumstances where those legitimate relationships that are not upheld in the law can cause problems so having a legally recognised relation is really important in terms of your will in terms of other arrangements such as medical decisions. There are many circumstances in which having a legally recognised relation—mother in this case—is very important and it was for Doreen andRowen. But I actually think that it was important because that was the nature of their relationship and the law was behind the eight ball. So it was only because of that situation that this really unfortunate circumstance arose.We heard a lot of concerns at the select committee—not raised in any attempt to undermine this—about whether this would set a precedent whether it would provideunfairness to other people who may be in a situation where they did not know who their birth parent was and found out at a later stage and wanted them put on the birth certificate. We had all sorts of discussions and considerations around that. In the end we came back to what I think was the correct advice—and certainly was the leadership that Louisa Wall provided when she introduced this bill. This is a stand-alone situation designed specifically for this family. It does not set any precedents. Actually if it did I would be very happy for any family in a similar situation to have the same legal recognition but it is a circumstance that will not arise in the future because of subsequent law changes and I think that that is a very good thing. I enjoyed listening to the discussion around this. I enjoyed the submissions. I am delighted to be able to support this bill to progress an injustice and to recognise the love and the relationship of Diane and Doreen andRowen. Thank you.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Satsriakaal Mr Assistant Speaker. First of all I would like to congratulate the sponsor of the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill Louisa Wall on bringing this issue to Parliament. Above all I think the biggest acknowledgment goes toRowen Sullivan because the bill shows her respect for her parents. I think that when this bill was introduced—as the chair of the Government Administration Committee Ruth Dyson mentioned just now—it looked like a very simple bill that would go through the select committee process quickly and be reported back to Parliament. But as this bill progressed many more technical issues came up which were dealt with accordingly by the select committee.I would like to acknowledge the advisers on this bill who helped us to make sure that this bill passes through Parliament with all those answers available forRowen Sullivan. This bill is a reminder that quite frequently the Government can and does have a significant positive effect on people’s lives at a very personal level. Therefore it is important that we in this House do not forget our duty to handle these cases with respect.Here I would like to also acknowledge the Government Administration Committee which has dealt with many issues in this term. Whether we are considering the marriage equality legislation or paid parental leave legislation we have learnt a lot in this term in this select committee and I acknowledge the members of this select committee from whom I have learnt a lot. I feel like every day I come to Parliament I learn something new. That is unique and I acknowledge all the members contributing in this House.The matter arises because the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act was passed after which same-sex couples were able to marry and therefore make applications to adopt children. Had Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields been able to legally marry as the law now allows they would have been able to apply to jointly adoptRowen. If this had occurred they would both be named as parents on her birth record. Here I would like to acknowledge both parents because this is about their raising of their daughter. She has really made an effort to bring this issue to Parliament so that both parents are mentioned on her birth certificate. This shows the good family culture that I thinkRowen has received from both her parents.The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013 now allows the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to record Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields asRowen’s parents. I think this is an important piece of legislation to ensure that New Zealand and its citizens keep up with the times and the reforms where there is a need to. We have always been an open-minded society. We have always listened to what the citizens of this country want. Due to our nature since 2005 New Zealand law has allowed both the same-sex parents of New Zealand - born children conceived through human-assisted reproductive technology to be named on the child’s birth record. The change was retrospective so pre-2005 New Zealand birth registrationrecords can on application be amended at any time to include both same-sex parents’ details. There is absolutely no doubt that this law change will bring a smile to the faces of the Sullivan family.Can I share that the law already contains a rule for changing a birth record in other circumstances including but not limited to situations where a parental order is obtained an individual changes his or her name by statutory declaration or an individual undergoes gender reassignment. However may I also share that this bill does not create a precedent for other individuals seeking to change their registered birth record. The bill applies only toRowen Sullivan and her situation which has itself arisen from a unique combination of circumstances including her birth overseas following a human-assisted reproductive procedure that meant her parents were not registered in New Zealand. The key consideration is that since 19 August 2013 married same-sex couples can adopt jointly. If the marriage amendment legislation had been in place before Diane Sullivan died the train of events giving rise to the bill could have been avoided. The bill does not change the adoption order itself because to do so could set a precedent for other situations where a deceased individual has not indicated an intention to adopt.Before I conclude once again I would like to congratulateRowen Sullivan on her courage and her commitment to both her parents to get their names on her birth certificate so that she can live with pride that she has in due course acknowledged her parents. With these words I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.KEVIN HAGUE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a genuine pleasure to take a call in this debate on the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. Earlier this year I had the great privilege of being able to participate in the Government Administration Committee’s consideration of the marriage equality bill and it was fantastic to work with a group of people who were committed to getting great outcomes. Today to again participate in a debate that is characterised by warm generous and kind speeches from members of that committee is a great experience. I want to thank members of the committee—in particular Ruth Dyson as the chair of that committee—and the officials who worked with the committee. I hear they did a fantastic job. I did not get the chance to experience their work this time around. In particular I want to say thanks and congratulations to my colleague and friend Louisa Wall. It is twice over a pretty short space of time that an important human rights bill has come to this House under Louisa’s name.I am one of several members of this House who is in a same-sex relationship and has children and I am sure that those of us in that situation can all think about how it would be for us in our situation if we were plunged into this nightmare scenario thatRowen Sullivan and her parents have been through. Human rights is an area that is frequently debated in this House. Typically when we talk about human rights we talk about the rights of collectives of large groups of people and the denial of human rights to a whole ethnicity to a whole gender or to a whole sexual orientation. I think that is probably the most frequent use of the idea of human rights in this House but really that relates to just one of those human rights and that is the right to freedom from discrimination.When Eleanor Roosevelt who was perhaps the most motivating force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explained the idea of universal human rights this is what she said: “Where after all do universal human rights begin? In small places close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man woman and child seeks equal justice equal opportunityequal dignity without discrimination.” This Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill is about human rights. It is about the human rights of one person—the right of that person to acknowledge their own identity and to have their parents respected by law as being their parents. I have not dealt with very many private bills in this House but I cannot think of another situation where a private bill is more appropriate.Congratulations to Louisa Wall and to the Government Administration Committee. Congratulations toRowen Sullivan to Doreen and also to Diane. Thank you.MOANA MACKEY (Labour): Kia ora. I am very happy to take a call on the second reading of the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. I congratulate my colleague and friend Louisa Wall on once again being a champion for some very important issues in this House and around the country. I also of course congratulate the Sullivanwhānau for having the courage to go out there—and I do not underestimate how difficult it must be to have a bill with your family’s name on it going through Parliament and being spoken about.Like Mr Hague I was on the Government Administration Committee for the marriage equality process but not for this bill’s process. But what really struck me about the marriage equality process was when you sat down and looked into the faces of the people who were submitting you realised that they were sitting in front of a bunch of strangers being forced to talk about the most personal aspects of their lives in order to see progress in human rights legislation. Not many of us who are just afforded these rights at birth have ever had to do that. We do not earn these rights. There is nothing particularly special about us when we are heterosexual. We just get all of these rights handed to us by the fact that we were born straight. We have never had to do that—we do not have to sit in front of a bunch of strangers and argue why we should be treated exactly the same as everyone else and why our family is just as valuable as everyone else’s families. When you go through the process of looking into the faces of the very real people who are affected by this legislation you really appreciate their courage and their commitment. So I imagine that to do that when it is only your family involved must be even more difficult. But it is just as important—just as important—so I really want to acknowledge the family that we are assisting tonight to address a great injustice.I was also on the select committee that considered the civil union legislation. The change in the tenor of the debate between civil unions and marriage equality was huge—in a very positive way. The civil union debate was very very bruising very very brutal and very very negative. The marriage equality legislation was not a walk in the park either but by comparison things had changed significantly and there was a lot more respect at the select committee for the marriage equality process than we saw for the civil union process.When we went through the civil union legislation a lot of it was about giving same-sex and de facto couples the rights of married couples without going the full way to marriage. But the stories that we heard were just truly horrific—in particular the case of the death or incapacitation of one family member where that family member was the biological parent of the child involved and where there had been a falling out with the extended family. There was a complete lack of power for the partner in that relationship to have any rights at all. So we had situations where couples who had been together for decades and decades in loving and supportive relationships and then one of them ended up in hospital. The family did not approve of that relationship so the family swooped in took over and went against the wishes of the individual who was sick in hospital. In these cases the partner had no rights—absolutely no rights at all. They had no rights in the funeral arrangements. They were not even able to see the person with whom they had been in a loving committed relationship for decades purely because theState refused to recognise in even the slightest way that their relationship had any kind of legal standing.A lot of this was addressed during the civil union debate but the one crucial part that did not get addressed by civil unions and remains an issue today is adoption. We acknowledged during that debate that the status of children of heterosexual civil union couples as well as of same-sex civil union couples remains a very grey area under law. It is one that does need to be resolved because at any time we can wind up with a situation like this where you suddenly realise that you do not have the rights that you expected you would have. I expect that a lot of heterosexual civilly united couples believe that they have those rights but in fact it is an area of law that remains very grey. My colleague Jacinda Ardern has a bill the Care of Children Law Reform Bill to try to address that. It is an area that we do need to address because when you are talking about the relationship between parents and children you are talking about something that is extremely personal. It is something that this Parliament should prioritise.One of the things that I think this bill really highlights is that the relationship you have with your parents does not end when you turn 18. Guardianship which was offered by the Care of Children Act is a very different thing from being a parent. You can say that somebody has a legal responsibility for somebody until they turn 18 but if anything I think that our relationship with our parents gets better beyond the age of 18. It stops being a kind of “You do this you do that.” mother-child or father-child kind of relationship. It becomes a friendship and it becomes a very very fulfilling relationship. So I entirely understand why it is incredibly important to have that relationship with your parents—a relationship that only gets better the older you get—legally recognised under the law. I understand why it is not enough to say “Well they are all adults and they should just get on with it.” No. I would be just gutted if the legal relationship that I have with my parents was in any way compromised by an action of the State.I want to make just two final points. I hope that this bill will have the support of everyone in the House. Given the amount of time that we spend in here and as MPs in the communities dealing with the horrific fall out from parents who do not want to be involved in their kids’ lives and the amount of time that we spend talking about parents who do not fulfil their legal responsibilities and who do not behave in a way that is conducive to a healthy relationship and a healthy child it would seem to me to be utterly hypocritical and repugnant not to support a parent who says that they want to legally be there for their child and for this Parliament to actually stand in the way and not allow that.I think that where we have parents who want to be involved in their children’s lives who want to take that legal responsibility and want the State to recognise it we should be doing everything to get the State out of the way and say: “Absolutely. We wish there were more of you.” We wish that every family had the strength and the love and the commitment that this family obviously has for each other to go through this process. Our country would be a much better place a less violent place a much healthier place if the kinds of commitment morals and family values that we are seeing in this particular family were reflected right across our society.Finally I want to end by making the point that this bill highlights a very real fact: until we get full equality under the law for same-sex couples there will always be loopholes there will always be families that fall through the cracks and there will always be sad cases like this where through no intended malice the law does something very very cruel and does something very very destructive in a family’s life. That is why full equality for same-sex couples must be the goal of this Parliament. If we truly want to see every family supported and every family recognised and to supportloving and good families then that will happen only when we get full equality for same-sex couples. Thank you.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): Thank you for the opportunity and privilege to speak on this Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill the title of which I understand the Government Administration Committee has recommended be amended to the “Sullivan Birth Registration Bill”.May I from the outset just acknowledgeRowen Sullivan and her enormous determination and commitment to ensure that this almost impossible task has actually become a reality or is becoming a reality. It was a great pleasure for me tonight to meet her adoptive mum Doreen Shields. I had not met her before. I just happened to be in the parliamentary cafeteria. It was clear from the outset what a warm and lovely person she is and how wonderful it is forRowen to have an adoptive mum of her lovely character.Of course I want to acknowledge her biological mother and also the sponsor of this bill Louisa Wall. There is no doubt as I think Kevin Hague pointed out that here is someone who has brought two really important human rights issues to Parliament in a very short space of time. It is a great contribution. Might I acknowledge the Government Administration Committee members who dealt with the bill because listening to them they all have been deeply moved by this situation and it has been hugely interesting and moving to hear their contributions.I guess in many respects the bill is driven by a young woman’s desire—in fact an overwhelming desire—to have her biological mother’s name appear on her birth certificate. That is something that most of us all of us would absolutely just take for granted. I think I heard in the first reading of the bill that her own words were: “I want my mum’s name on my birth certificate to honour her …”. That is indeed a sentiment that any child would want for their parents.I do recall in the first reading of this bill a remarkable coincidence in hearing a documentary about a young Indian man who was about the same age—about 19 or 20. He had been born in provincial India in very poor circumstances and had gone down with his brother to the local railway station to sell beads or something similar to pay for rice to feed the family. Somehow he had been separated from his brother. In a panic he hopped on a train that took him 3000 miles away and eventually he wound up in South Australia and was adopted by again some very loving people. But he had recurring nightmares about wanting to see his birth parents. He happened to be a very bright individual who was talented in mathematics and in the new technologies and particularly in GPS. For over 3 years he used to wait up until 2 or 3 in the morning figuring out the possibilities of where his biological parents came from in India.To cut a long story short after 3 years he reckoned he had cracked it. He went back to India and methodically went to the places where he had most likely been born and eventually he found his parents. This brought absolutely profound joy both to himself and his family and to his adoptive family.But the point of making this analogy is the drive that all individuals have to know about their parents and to have that transparency and ability to find them and not have hurdles put in their way. So the bill’s purpose undoubtedly would require the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to record the details ofRowen Sullivan’s deceased mother whose name is Diane Sullivan on her post-adoption birth registration entry.I note that the Government Administration Committee organised a variety of amendments to this bill. The one I mentioned earlier relates to the title that correctly is changed to the “Sullivan Birth Registration Bill” because it could have been misleading as its passage would not directly effect change toRowen Sullivan’s birth certificate.There were a couple of other amendments including the committee’s recommendation of inserting a new clause 4 which would make it clear that “Diane Sullivan and Doreen Margaret Shields are for all purposes the parents ofRowen Sullivan.”I think it is worthwhile to just make mention of the enormous transition that we have been through over the last few decades in this area of both human rights and in the area of assisted human reproduction and the huge debates that have led us to believe what 30 years ago was regarded as impossible can now be normalised.Last Friday I was at the 50th anniversary of the founding of National Women’s Hospital. A fellow by the name of Dr Freddie Graham famous for introducing in vitro fertilisation into New Zealand went through the changes in birth technology in New Zealand over the last 20 to 30 years. He explained how Professor Dennis Bonham used to secretly organise sperm donation in the 1960s. The reason for that was that the hospital board would not let it happen. He had his own private practice and they literally used to mix up the sperm so they could not identify who the parents were because of the legal ramifications that might occur in terms of making a claim through the legal process. However a young social worker by the name ofJoi Ellis persuaded the academic department that it was wrong not to be transparent. Over a period of time others joined her including Professor Ken Daniels.Today in New Zealand we are leading the world in having one of the most transparent systems of ensuring that children can identify their biological parents. So I think it is very good timing that this bill has reached Parliament in New Zealand and that we are making it possible for someone such asRowen who is so clearly driven to do what is right and to have the appropriate framework in New Zealand to enable her to do so. I acknowledge all those who have brought this bill about and indeed I celebrate the fact that I have been able to speak in this second reading.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First originally had reservations about the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. We were wary about a bill for the benefit of one individual rather than the community as a whole. But since then we have looked at the bill in much more detail. I have had the benefit of discussions with Louisa Wall who was very persuasive and also the discussions were very productive and worthwhile and I thank her for them. We are now satisfied that the bill is necessary that it is indeed the only solution to ensuring that the birth certificate concerned will properly and realistically show the names ofRowen Sullivan’s late birth mother Diane Sullivan as well as her adoptive mother. That of course is a very natural thing for anybody to want. Everybody can relate to that.Indeed it is extraordinary that it would be possible not to record the birth mother on a birth certificate. It is not much of a birth certificate when you think about it if that were the case. So this is a unique solution to a unique set of circumstances and we in New Zealand First now recognise it as such. The desired solution would not be achievable without legislation and I observe that ifRowen had been born today her parents could marry and both of them would be recorded on her birth certificate which cannot occur now of course because Diane died in 2010. However that consideration alone justifies this bill I think.We in New Zealand First also approve the change of name of the bill to the Sullivan Birth Registration Bill because in fact that is what this is really about. We also approve of new clause 4(1) which will provide that “Diane Sullivan and Doreen Margaret Shields are for all purposes the parents ofRowen Helen Louise Sullivan.” The proposed clause reinstates the legal position for all purposes including of course the law of succession and parental relationship. That is really a very importantconsideration. I am very glad to see that the Government Administration Committee has made that amendment—very worthwhile.For all of those reasons New Zealand First will now be pleased to vote in favour of the bill. Like other speakers I congratulate all concerned on bringing it to the House.MELISSA LEE (National):Ahnnyung ha seyo. On that note I would like to start by wishing everyone a happy New Year considering the lunar New Year just actually happened and we have all been around many different parts of the country celebrating the lunar New Year the Year of the Horse. Let me greet you in my mother tongue: sehaebokmanibaduseyo. It translates to “May your new year bring you lots and lots of luck.” I just thought I would start and actually have a look at the Year of the Horse. The wood horse according to the Chinese horoscope is a time of fast victories unexpected adventure and surprising romance. So if there are any single people in this House I wish you good romance this year. According to the Korean astrological chart this is the year of the blue horse. May it be significant in this election year.Let me start by acknowledging all of the speakers who have spoken on this bill the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. It is of course my pleasure to rise in support of the bill. I remember speaking at the first reading and actually mentioning my little cultural experience where in certain countries where people are born in a particular town or at a particular time and because they are worried that the children might not actually survive a certain period of time they do not register the children. They actually register them later and often the children end up with the wrong birth date. This is quite different.I have not actually been to the Government Administration Committee. I was not part of the select committee but I commend the members who have worked on this bill. Hearing them speak so passionately about this bill I commend the work that you have done because I think it is incredible to hear everyone talking about and acknowledgingRowen Sullivan and her parents. Her parents have obviously done a fantastic job in raising an amazing young woman who wants to honour her mother. As a parent of a teenage child I would only hope that one day when he grows up that he might want to honour me. I hope he is actually listening to the debate today.I was looking at the issue of identity—how a person conceives their identity and how they express their identity. Often their identity comes from their parents. Parents are the very first people who imprint the personality on their children. Children identify with their parents and their own identity is formed as a result of the education that they receive from their parents as the first educators. I also want to talk about things like national identity because it is where you come from. It is the cultural identity. It is like how I am Korean. Yesterday we had the Speaker from the Korean Parliament visit New Zealand’s Parliament. I was so very proud to have met him here and actually have lunch with him as the chair of the Korean - New Zealand Parliamentary Friendship Group because that is my cultural identity. That is where my first impressions of my own personality and identity were formed. From being born in Korea through my parents I am who I am today because of all of the influences that I have had. I thinkRowen has had fantastic parents both Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields and she wants to honour her mother.As previous speakers have said this bill requires the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to record details ofRowen Sullivan’s deceased mother onRowen’s post-adoptive birth registration entry. I was thinking about how it would feel to not have my parent’s name on my own birth certificate. I mean I would not even know how to feel about that because we all take it for granted. I know Mr Hague talked about having children in his relationship and how in the past for couples who are of the same sex who adopt it was only the one person who could adopt rather than bothparents who could actually adopt. So when you look at it that way and translating it into my own circumstances and my own life you sort of think “How would I feel if I did not have both my parents’ names on the birth certificate?”. That would really upset me very much because I am who I am as a result of both my parents—my father and my mother.ForRowen it is both Diane and Doreen who have made her who she is.Rowen’s parents from birth were Diane Sullivan her birth mother and Diane Sullivan’s partner Doreen Shields. Diane Sullivan’s name was on her birth certificate but Diane died in 2010 whenRowen was just 17. That is only 2 years older than my son who is now 15. Knowing my son and how young he is at 15 how devastating would it have been forRowen to have lost her mother and to find out subsequently that when Doreen applied for an adoption order following the death of Diane Sullivan the order required Diane’s name to then be removed fromRowen’s birth certificate and for them to consider that? And how would they have actually felt? No one in this House could possibly understand what that might have felt like. OnlyRowen knows and only her adoptive mother knows what that was like. That would have been a terrible devastating heart-wrenching experience because you would want to remember your mother.Had Diane and Doreen been able to marry as previous speakers have said they would of course have been able to jointly apply for their names to appear on the birth certificate. For someone who has actually gone through the process with some friends who have had help with human reproductive assistance where a couple who could not actually have children for more than 15 years went and had some assistance—in my culture even adoption is actually frowned upon. I remember my friend going through the whole pregnancy of her surrogate—this actually happened outside of New Zealand. But her surrogate the mother was going through the pregnancy and then the adoptive mother pretended that she was pregnant right throughout the whole pregnancy. I remember her having to actually stuff her tummy with things to make her look like she was pregnant because she did not want the stigma attached to her daughter when she finally came home as her daughter. So that heart-wrenching experience that she went through was something that made me sort of understand the kind of agony thatRowen and Doreen would have gone through.Following the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act of 2013 same-sex couples are now able to marry and can apply to jointly adopt children. So what this bill is actually doing is making a matter of fact—the fact that Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields are in fact bothRowen’s parents—just a matter of law just a record and it will make it permanent so that from now on whenRowen applies for a future birth certificate both her parents will be on that piece of paper. For me that piece of paper is very significant because that is one wayRowen identifies herself. It is a certificate basically confirming what she has known all her life which is that it was in fact both her parents—not just one not the other but both of them—who were her parents who brought her up so well to be proud of who she is and it is honouring her mother who has very sadly passed away. I wish you the best of luck and I would like to congratulate my colleague and friend Louisa Wall on bringing this bill to the House and managing the select committee process so that all your colleagues would support you in this bill. It is a great bill. I commend it to the House.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Kia orana Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia oranakotoukatoatoana rotoi tear’ama’ata o TeAtua. It is a privilege to be able to speak on the second reading of the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. I want to acknowledge the courage of Doreen Shields andRowen Sullivan and their determination to ensure that this bill becomes law. I can assure you of my total support for your achievement to this end.This bill is essentially about love—the love and commitment of two women for each other the love of these women for their child and the love of that child for both of her parents. This bill speaks to the diverse and modern way that our families are structured and the way that we should be able to acknowledge those who are the most important in our lives—namely our parents and our children.We are a modern society that has in recent years made provision for the diversity of our relationships—and here I must commend my colleague Louisa Wall for ensuring the equality of rights for all on the subject of marriage and for bringing this bill to the House—so it is a natural progression to look at the needs of families and the children in these families in the modern New Zealand context to ensure that they are catered for that their rights as well as their needs are met and that they are permitted equality as well.I want to point out to you that I too am an adoptee. This bill resonates on so many levels for adoptees and for adoptive parents—more I think than evenRowen and Doreen know—and this is my own personal view of how important this bill is. When you are an adopted child the State dictates who your parents are. When you are a prospective adoptive parent you become involved in a formal process that takes many months or often years to determine your suitability and fitness for becoming a parent and to ensure that no objections from other parties are forthcoming. I believe that that is still the process for adoption. The State then permits you to be named as a parent on a birth certificate or more specifically as the mother or father of a child. The Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages could record only the mother and father of a child—not parent. That piece of legislation—the current piece of legislation not the bill before us—does not translate well in this modern context. The requirements met the needs of a time but this is no longer the time. I strongly suggest that it is time to put it right.We have seen this House pass legislation to afford equal rights to the state of marriage to same-sex couples. I am really proud that we have yet we deny them the dignity and responsibility of shared parentage. This is the predicament we find here. When you are born into a family—not adopted but born into a family in the traditional sense—you do not need the State to tell you who you are or who your parents are. You just are and it just is. I understand the need for legal process to determine your status in legal terms and your rights for example to property or to estate that you are a beneficiary of. But in modern New Zealand where we have made huge strides in terms of acknowledging equality in marriage we now need to develop equality in parenthood.I speak as an adoptee whose 90-year-old birth father sat in the gallery just a few weeks ago to watch his youngest birth child deliver a maiden statement to this House. It has been 52 years since my adoption and I am extremely grateful for the gift that was given to my adoptive parents as their love and care has made me the person I am today. I want to just comment on my colleague Moana Mackey’s point that as you grow older your circumstances change and your view of life and family relationships changes. How powerful it is that I could now acknowledge my birth father on my certificate as acknowledgment of the gift that he made to my parents.It is not so long ago that adoption and the circumstances and reasons behind adoption were too shameful to share. There are many adopted children who are unable to trace birth families because it was not proper at the time to record those details. The process of recording and registration of adopted children in those days removed the record of birth parents.This is not the case withRowen Sullivan. However there is a bigger implication here. I want to point out to many that births to same-sex couples and the subsequent adoptions sometimes happen with the help of sperm and egg donors—surrogates—andit should be possible for those who contribute to the care and the love and the parentage and the parenting to be given the privilege of appearing on the certificate.Here I would like to note that I support the amendment of the title of this bill to the “Sullivan Birth Registration Bill”. This bill supports a young woman whose real-life experience is of being parented by two women—two women who have loved her cared for her and raised a wonderful young woman. I would like this House to now support the love and commitment it took Doreen Shields and Diane Sullivan to raise this young woman by providing them with the opportunity to both be recognised equally as the parents ofRowen Sullivan. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): Before I begin Mr Assistant Speaker I wish to advise you that pursuant to Standing Order 118(2) I will be splitting this call with my colleague from Coromandel Scott Simpson JP. Could I have a bell at 4 minutes please?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you very much for that—for informing the House. A split call colleagues.JAMI-LEE ROSS: As I was listening to the speeches from the House I was sitting here wondering whether Doreen andRowen would be watching this debate tonight and I assume that they probably are. I was also wondering to myself whether it would be a moment that they are proud of or whether it is a moment that they would be quite relieved by because I do not think we are talking tonight really about guardianship status and I do not think we are talking about an adoption order either; I think what we are really talking about is a family. I picked up on some words in the speech fromPoto Williams—it is about love and care and it is about family—and I think that this is really what the bill is all about. It is about recognising a family situation that has existed regardless of what laws say and regardless of what pieces of paper say. It is about a family and it is about recognising formally the situation that exists.I want to congratulate Louisa Wall on bringing the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill to the House. It appears based on the speech from Mr O’Rourke that she has achieved unanimity in this House. Would it not have been great if she could have achieved that on her other bill the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill? That would have been a proud day for New Zealand but it was not to be. But she has done equally well on this bill so congratulations to Louisa Wall.I note also thatPoto Williams—if I could draw from your speech again—mentioned that she was adopted. I was not adopted myself but I am also someone in this House who was not raised in your stock-standard nuclear family of mother father and siblings. I was raised effectively by my grandmother. We never went through the formal route of recognising that in law but certainly growing up I always knew that my grandmother played the role of mother father and everything else. I think that if we think back to it probably formalising that situation would have been an ideal thing to do. It is surplus to requirements for us now but I can understand completely whyRowen would want to see this situation formalised for herself.Although the details around the bill have been discussed in quite a bit of detail tonight already and I do not want to go over them again I just want to say that it is a very good thing that this House is doing for that family. And it is about the family. It is not about the pieces of paper; it is about recognising the family.I was a little bit interested in the mechanisms of private bills. I have been a member of this House for only 3 years and I have not actually seen many private bills come to the debating chamber. So I was quite interested in the history of them and whether or not this was the appropriate mechanism to be used. I found it interesting. I pulled outMcGee and had a bit of a read about private bills. There is a bit of interesting information here.If you want to find out the origins of private bills they really go back to the time when Parliament rarely passed legislation. Nowadays Parliament passes legislation on a very frequent basis but back in the day when Parliament very rarely passed legislation for individuals to seek relief for a particular matter they had to ask Parliament to pass a piece of private legislation. Ironically according toMcGee if one wanted to seek a divorce prior to 1867 one had to get a private bill passed through Parliament—to get a divorce. Parliament would be exceptionally busy these days if that were still the case. Fortunately it is not. But certainly from reading about the history of private bills I can see that this is very much a situation where a private bill is appropriate.As I come to the conclusion of the few remarks that I have to make on this bill I just want to say congratulations again to Louisa Wall and to the Government Administration Committee as well because it has made some good amendments to this piece of legislation. I just want to again say congratulations toRowen and Doreen because I cannot imagine that it would be easy to front up to the New Zealand House of Representatives to go through what I imagine would have been a lengthy process to become the promoter of the bill and to get it all going. So congratulations to them and to everyone who will be voting in favour of this—even New Zealand First. Congratulations.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure indeed to stand in support of the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill which as my colleagueJami-Lee Ross has just mentioned looks like it will have unanimity across the House. That in itself is a rare and wonderful thing. The speeches tonight I think have been generous meaningful and from the heart. I have been incredibly impressed with the personal stories of individual members but also impressed with the story on the basis of which this bill has been brought to the House by its sponsor Louisa Wall.I want to congratulate the member Louisa Wall on bringing yet another piece of legislation to the House. As a backbench MP of very short duration in this House I am in awe of her ability to bring this sort of stuff to the House in a way that is I think unifying and useful to us as a Parliament and to us as a democracy in New Zealand.Following the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act of last year same-sex couples are of course able to marry and therefore they are now able to jointly apply to adopt children. Had that been the case for Diane Sullivan and Doreen Shields and they had been able to legally marry then of course they would have been able to adoptRowen. If that had occurred then this bill would not be required.In a previous life before coming to this Parliament I had the great privilege and pleasure to be the chief executive officer of a children’s charity called Make-A-Wish. So for about 3 years I was a professional wish-granter. That let me tell you is a terrific thing to be able to do. In my maiden speech to this House I mentioned that one of the challenges I saw for myself in this House was to be able to in some way bring the job skills and transfer of knowledge from my role as a professional wish-granter into this Chamber.Tonight I have a small sense of having achieved a little bit of that by being a participant in this debate and indeed by having been a member of this House as we pass the second reading of this bill. I mentioned also when I was speaking in my maiden speech about being a professional wish-granter for Make-A-Wish that one should never underestimate the power of some magic the power of a wish and the power of small things small deeds and small actions to have an enormously important impact upon the lives of individuals. Tonight I think we are as I say having a small sense of that.This is a member’s bill. I am grateful to my colleague the memberJami-Lee Ross for giving us a little bit of history about members’ bills because indeed the House would be sitting under extended urgency very frequently if the old rules still applied.I want to thank the members of the Government Administration Committee who have considered the bill. The committee is chaired by the Hon Ruth Dyson. I of course did not have an opportunity to sit on the committee when considering the bill but I was particularly taken by speeches made earlier on in the debate from members who did participate in the consideration of the bill after its first reading. I note with interest that they have made a number of modest but significant and important changes.The Government Administration Committee has made a number of recommendations and one of them is to change the title of the bill. That seems entirely appropriate given the circumstances and the unique features of the situation that exists relating toRowen’s situation. The title of the bill as introduced the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill was likely to have been interpreted as a little bit misleading. So the suggested change is one that I support.I think that the committee has yet again shown its willingness and ability to get its head around difficult issues. Previously the committee has had to consider issues of very major significance to a great number of people. On this occasion it has been considering a difficult but problematic issue for just one family and in particular one individual. Living as we do in a small precious intimate democracy I say it is a great pleasure to see Parliament working as it should to achieve this piece of legislation. I thoroughly commend it to the House.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): I rise as the last speaker on the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. I have listened very carefully. It is a really unusual situation we are in with this private bill that does benefit a single family. It is an unusual situation that we have had such positive contributions from everybody in the House and this bill has the support of all parties. That is a very good thing and this does feel like we are making a real and significant difference to two people one of whom is here tonight. I want to acknowledge Louisa Wall in this process. I think most people come to Parliament because—and it is a rather clichéd term—they want to make a difference. Louisa has had the opportunity and the drive to do two very powerful things—quite different in their scale but two very powerful things—in recent times both with her marriage equality bill and now with the Sullivan Birth Certificate Bill. I want to acknowledge her for doing that for making a difference and for being an active MP.I want to also acknowledgeRowen Sullivan and Doreen Shields for driving this really—for having the heartfelt desire to make this so. You have done it—you have done it. A lot of people would not perhaps have gone the distance felt so strongly and decided to make this happen. I think that is fantastic. As my colleague across the House Scott Simpson has just said I also acknowledge the Government Administration Committee. I have listened closely to contributions from people on that committee and I got a real sense that that committee worked very well on this bill trying to work its way through it and of course it was very well chaired by my colleague the Hon Ruth Dyson.Others have gone through all of the detail but this bill will now allowRowen to have both of her parents’ names recorded on her formal birth certificate. I think that that is a great achievement. Effectively the guardianship that was taken by Doreen expired whenRowen turned 18 and this issue of feeling legally orphaned struck me. It must have been a deeply unsettling and upsetting situation. So this is not just a piece of paper. This is a process to respect and honour a mother who had obviously loved her daughter very much. With those few words can I just finally again acknowledge thedetermination ofRowen and Doreen. Can I say that as a family you have achieved something really important and that is great to see here tonight.Bill read a second time.Name changed to Sullivan Birth Registration Bill.Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment BillSecond ReadingPAUL GOLDSMITH (National): I moveThat the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this bill is to clarify the legal position on the time at which a contract is formed if the acceptance of the offer is sent by electronic communications. It is indeed a very important piece of legislation.If I may begin with just a quick overview of the importance of contracts—Hon Ruth Dyson: You could tell us why you thought of it too. Like where did the inspiration for this come from?PAUL GOLDSMITH: We will move on to that later on thank you. Of course contract law is one of the fundamental cornerstones of our legal system. Contracts facilitate trade and commerce as well as other business and social transactions where they are proof of a transaction having taken place for a promise to fulfil a certain obligation. A contract is important as it protects both parties from any surprises and any changes to the contract. This helps parties to avoid any type of misunderstanding that may arise and sometimes provides a mechanism for settling disputes that arise between parties. So a contract is an agreement having a lawful object entered into voluntarily by two or more parties.Typically each of these parties intends to create legal relations between themselves. The elements of the contract are offer and acceptance normally by competent persons having legal capacity who exchange consideration—which is generally in the form of money—and where the terms of the contract must be certain. So contracts are at the very heart of the market system that underpins the prosperity that we all enjoy and indeed are the foundation of this nation and our economy. Contracts may of course be formed orally. They may be formed on paper or through conduct or electronic means.As has been explained in the explanatory note of this bill the general rule is that the contract is formed at the time at which acceptance of the offer is communicated to theofferor. An exception to that was created by a famous legal case calledAdams vLindsell. Here I must impose a little bit of history on the House and go back to 1818 when the two parties in that case were involved in the sale of some wool. On 2 September 1818 the defendants wrote to the plaintiffs offering to sell them fleeces and required an answer in the course of the post. The defendants in this circumstance misdirected the letter so that the plaintiffs did not receive it until 5 September. The plaintiffs posted their acceptance on the same day but it was not received until 9 September. Meanwhile on 8 September the defendants not having received an answer by 7 September as they expected sold the wool to somebody else. Therein was the nub of the problem.The defendants argued that there could not be a binding contract until the answer was actually received and that until then they were free to sell the wool to somebody else. The judge said that if that was true it would be impossible to complete any contract through the post because if the defendants were not bound by their offer until the answer was received the plaintiffs would not be bound until they had received word and it would go on and on indefinitely. So it was decided that when theofferee placestheir acceptance in the post there was a fictional meeting of minds that concluded that the offer was done and gave effect to the acceptance. The idea was tidied further into what is now referred to as the postal acceptance rule in the 1892 caseHenthorn v Fraser where the court determined the precise time limit of acceptance—that is the moment when the letter of acceptance is posted.So the longstanding rule as to postal acceptances inAdams vLindsell is not appropriate for electronic transactions. Therein lies the background to this member’s bill.Kris Faafoi: Why take 5 minutes to explain something that takes 30 seconds? Get on with it.PAUL GOLDSMITH: I know it is difficult sometimes for these complex things to sink in on the other side of the House so I want to take my time. However be that as it may the will of this House was sufficiently favourable to pass this bill at its first reading. I think it was 83 votes to 37 so it was quite a resounding victory. It was sent off to the Commerce Committee which considered this bill in quite some detail and heard submissions. I was grateful for the work—Hon Member: You don’t have to do the full 10.PAUL GOLDSMITH: What was that? I was grateful for the forbearance of the committee and the hard work that it did in listening to the submissions and wrestling with some of the issues. It is not as simple as it seems because when indeed is an electronic offer accepted? Is it when it arrives in the in-box or is it when it arrives in the server? Sometimes there is a gap between when it arrives in the server and when it arrives in the in-box. It is not always as straightforward as it seems.The committee made a couple of suggested changes which I am grateful for. Clause 5 of the bill relates to contract formation. My initial bill introduced a proposed new section 32A to explicitly state that an offer submitted electronically would be deemed to be accepted at the time of receipt of the acceptance by theofferor. This would create a misapprehension of a hard-wired rule applying—that the offer can be deemed to be accepted electronically only at the time of receipt. The committee proposed amending clause 5 to insert a new section 13A into the Electronic Transactions Act 2002 instead of the new section 32A to make it clear that this is a default rule instead of a rigid approach from which the parties would be unable to contract out.Proposed new section 13A(1) would ensure the bill would achieve its intended effect. Section 11—Kris Faafoi: I’ve changed my mind; I want to hear the rest.PAUL GOLDSMITH: Mr Deputy Speaker there is a lot of disruption. I am finding it hard to follow my train of thought on this and I am finding myself getting muddled. I am wondering whether I should start again—go back to the start—because I really have lost my train of thought.If you do not mind I just want to touch on the committee’s proposed amendment to clause 5 to insert new section 13A instead of the new section 32A into the Act to make it clear that this was a default rule instead of a rigid approach from which the parties would be unable to contract out. So new section 13A would ensure that the bill achieves its intended effect. Section 11 of the Act establishes the time at which the electronic communication is taken to be received. The amendment would make it clear that the time of receipt referred to in section 11 of the Act also applies to acceptances of contract offers that are communicated electronically.Proposed new section 13A(2) specifies that the acceptance rule would not apply if the contracting parties agree otherwise. I think that is absolutely appropriate because if the parties negotiated specifically their own mutually agreed conditions in relation to the time and place of receipt then good luck to them. We live in a free society and theyshould be able to do that and I absolutely agree. In fact that is indeed the principle that underlies my next member’s bill which I hope to have to drawn in the next ballot. That bill is about contract formation in terms of fitting in elements of industrial relations. The committee’s amendment would maintain the freedom of contracting parties to decide the time at which a contract is formed.I also want to mention the question of the time of receipt and the designated information system. The committee considered whether the terms “time of receipt” and “designated information system” used in sections 10 and 11 of the principal Act lacked clarity. I am pleased to see that the committee was not persuaded that they lacked clarity and considered that the terms were in need of no further definition. On that score I was very pleased that the committee reported back and I do want to thank the Hon Clayton Cosgrove for all his work on the committee and the fact that he was part of the overall group who reported back unanimously that this bill be continued on in this way. So I am looking forward to the support of Labour this time round.If I did have a little bit more time—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No you have no more time unfortunately.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): There are times in this Parliament when history is made and tonight has been one of them. The member Paul Goldsmith who is the author of this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill thanked the Commerce Committee of which I am a member for its assistance. Indeed I have to say that after dealing with this piece of legislation the members of the Commerce Committee felt like the collective guys with the shovels following the elephant—big time.I have to say that I thought that Mr Goldsmith was a writer of some repute. He is a man who has penned many literary works including I think a biography—he will correct me—of Don Brash and some interesting works regarding that notable member of Parliament John Archibald Banks known to us here colloquially and affectionately as “Brown Bag Banks”. But when it came to this piece of legislation I have to say to Mr Goldsmith you would have thought it had been written by the local village idiot. This is a piece of legislation that presumably came about because the whips or somebody in the hierarchy of the National Party said: “Look we need a member’s bill. We need to throw a few in the ballot to cut Labour’s chances and the Greens’ chances down. So can somebody somewhere come up with a few pages of drivel so we can bang it in.” You know a bit like taking a lotto ticket.Kris Faafoi: And Paul said yes.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: And Paul said yes. You know there is an old military phrase: “Never volunteer.” And I have got to say that this was pure spin pure bunkum and Mr Goldsmith is right in one thing. The Commerce Committee—Louise Upston: You’re just jealous you didn’t come up with the idea Clayton.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Jealous of Mr Goldsmith? Hell no I have got to say not on this one—and a man who has on his CV the biography of John Archibald Banks. I am told he got sidetracked and that is why this bill is in trouble—because he got sidetracked. He got sidetracked because apparently he is writing the trilogy of John Archibald Banks the penultimate work. I think it is going to be entitledJohn Banks: Looking Through Striped Sunshine—or something like that—FromBehind the Wire or something like that. This will be the final chapter or the penultimate chapter in the career of one John Archibald Banks.But I have to say that when I heard Mr Goldsmith talking about this I heard three words. I heard the words “fleece” “fraud” and “the defendant” and I have got to say that I thought of John Banks again. Mr Goldsmith was quoting ancient legal cases. Mr O’Rourke is a lawyer. He will take up this point I am sure because unlike me he hasgot a legal mind—I am not a lawyer. But there was “fleecing” “fraudulent” activity and “the defendant”. Maybe Mr Goldsmith could answer this question: did the Hon John Archibald Banks act as a consultant in respect of this bill? “Fleecing” “fraudulent behaviour” and “the defendant” I think are three concepts that Mr Banks—I am sure he will take a call at some point—could give us many hours of dissertation on. “Fleecing” “fraudulent behaviour” and being “the defendant”—after all he has been the defendant three times convicted twice and is up on the third strike.Then we look at the bill and it talks about “offer” and “acceptance”. It talks about “offer” and “acceptance”. Sam Lotu-Iiga again a lawyer will know this. He will recall his stage 101 law classes on offer and acceptance. I am just wondering whether Mr Goldsmith as he put this piece of drivel together actually consulted John Archibald Banks. He had the offer he accepted and he is now the defendant. Who got fleeced? I would say it was Dotcom but who knows?I have to say that this bill should have been encompassed in a Statutes Amendment Bill. When it arrived at the select committee it even failed to clear up ambiguities in electronic contract acceptance by not defining when the contract “arrived” at the recipient’s electronic address. That is how much effort and intellectual rigour was put into this legislation. He could not even define the word “arrived”—when an offer and an acceptance have arrived. This is the drivel that was put in place.So I say to Mr Goldsmith who I know is hanging on every word that if he paid John Archibald Banks a consultancy fee to consult on this bill he should ask for his money back. He should ask for his money back because a fraud has been committed because Mr Banks was obviously offering advice—[Interruption] Well maybe he did have a qualification for it actually. Did that advice arrive in a plain brown paper bag? I do not know. So I just say to Mr Goldsmith that surely there is a lesson in here for him. Next time the whips ask for a volunteer I say to Mr Goldsmith do not volunteer because this is drivel. This is absolute drivel. It is wrongly defined badly drafted and I presume it never made its way anywhere near the Clerk’s Office for the assistance that we can obtain in drafting legislation because the Clerk would have looked at this and said: “Oh my God! How do we fix this?”. So it obviously got nowhere near the Clerk’s expertise or any legal mind or any intelligent mind of any kind. It was just hashed together as a bit of political spin that is substandard.I have got to say that I cannot recall the amount of money per hour—maybe the Speaker or somebody else could remind me—that it actually costs to run this place. Mr Goldsmith in his political career has been one who has railed against wasteful expenditure as has Mr Banks even though in his last term as mayor Mr Banks trebled the debt of the Auckland City Council the big spender.Kris Faafoi: He did what?Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: He trebled the debt of the Auckland City Council. I do not know how many dollars how many thousands of dollars it takes to run this Parliament hour after hour but it is a disgrace that we are wasting taxpayers’ money tonight dealing with a political stunt and political drivel which was so badly drafted that the Commerce Committee spent hours trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. We did our best. We shovelled behind the elephant. We tried to get something with a semblance of intelligence back into this Chamber wasting taxpayers’ money every hour that we did it. I say to the Government that I look forward to the next speaker who will get up and have a crack at this. If you cannot even define the word “arrived” in your draft legislation that goes before a select committee if you cannot define “offer” and “acceptance” you should not be in this Parliament.I got one member’s bill through. That was the boy-racer stuff. Luckily I had a lot of good sound minds to lean on both in my party in the bureaucracy and in other places.The bill was actually adopted by the Government and got through and hopefully contributed to doing a little bit of good work around the country.But I have to say that this bill is political drivel. This is a political pamphlet. But I have got to say that it is very apt when the owner of the bill the sponsor of the bill John Banks’ biographer gets up and talks about fleecing fraud and the defendant and quotes legal cases then we know he is still under the influence of that very special mind that very special mind in the Parliament John Archibald Banks. He is in the rotten pile one of two including Peter Dunne that props this crew up over there. It is very very telling that this bill deals with offer and acceptance because we know of course that Mr Banks was offered he accepted and got the brown bag and then does not want to admit it and he is going to pay a price for that.So I just say this to the National Party. Fair go. Let us treat the people out there with a bit of respect. They are not numbskulls. They are not stupid. They are intelligent in our communities and they can smell and see bull when it is put before them and this is pretty substandard stuff. Those members over there know that this bill does not make sense and know that it makes very little contribution to the body politic. But I suppose again there is a correlation with Mr Banks in that when he was Minister for Small Business he introduced a piece of legislation that abolished 31 Acts that did not exist—another classic and historic moment in this Parliament. I say to Mr Goldsmith: next time do not volunteer but I will buy a copy of the book when it comes outJohn Banks: Behind the Wire.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): Mr Cosgrove has painted a very unparliamentary picture or perhaps a metaphor of the Commerce Committee wandering through a zoo following an elephant—Hon Clayton Cosgrove: With a shovel.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: —with a shovel. Yes those were your words Mr Cosgrove. Fortunately—well possibly fortunately—in regard to the bill I was not a member of the Commerce Committee at that point in time and so I come to it with fresh eyes. I come to it with fresh eyes and a different perspective from Mr Cosgrove. I read the title of the bill—Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill—and I think about the modern economy that we are currently in. It is a wonderful economy and it is an exciting time to be a Kiwi to be a New Zealander in the New Zealand economy. It is exciting for a range of reasons.I will start with the Business New Zealand Back to the Grindstone function I attended just last night down at the Cake Tin where the speakers stood up one after another and said there were very good omens for business in New Zealand. They talked about the positive vibe that was in the business community and the way the Government was creating the right conditions to invest in New Zealand. There was a great vibe. I think that is why it is so exciting to be part of the New Zealand economy at the moment and to be part of this Government which is actually driving that economy forward. The reason why I say that in relation to this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill is that actually more and more transactions are occurring online. I do not know the figures but in fact millions and millions of transactions are being conducted every year online and that requires us to be pretty clear and accurate about when the offer and acceptance on those transactions takes place.I commend Mr Goldsmith for bringing this bill to the House. I commend him for bringing this member’s bill. Not too many members have the opportunity to get to this point in time to successfully bring a member’s bill into the House and to have it pass as I am sure it will over the next few weeks in this House. But let us be clear about what this bill does. It clarifies the legal position on the time at which a contract is formed if the acceptance of the offer is sent by electronic communication. It does take the debateforward and it actually adds to the initiatives this Government has rolled out to drive a better economy. According to those guys at the Back to the Grindstone meeting last night there has not been one silver bullet that has actually taken the economy forward; it has actually been done by a huge volume of different policies that we have driven as a Government.Just to remind you there have been four key goals of the Government. Firstly there is getting the country back to surplus. We are going to do that in 2014 and 2015. Secondly there is rebuilding that beautiful city of Christchurch.Chris Hipkins: What has this got to do with the bill?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: There are 50000 repairs that have taken place down there already. I tell you Mr Hipkins it has a lot more to with this bill than what Mr Cosgrove was talking about when he talked on and on about Mr Banks. So I will continue. The third goal is actually about building better public services and in that regard we have outlined 10 key result areas. Result 10 which is actually about driving more online transactions has a lot to do with this bill and I want to talk about that in some depth. I will come back to Better Public Services Result 10 because for electronic transactions the point at which offer and acceptance is agreed as defined clearly by this bill is going to play a big part in modern transactions going forward.The fourth area where we have tried to drive big change is through a more competitive and productive economy. That has been driven by the Business Growth Agenda of which there have been six key components many of which require changes in information and communications technology.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Can you elaborate on that?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Can I elaborate more on that? I certainly can. One of the big initiatives there is ultra-fast broadband. What will that do? It will drive more electronic transactions. It is a modern economy. This bill helps us to be clear about when offer and acceptance is achieved in those electronic transactions.I just want to be clear about what we have achieved with ultra-fast broadband because it is exciting to see what the Government has rolled out in that respect. In terms of broadband we are spending $1.65 billion or that sort of level on making sure that that electronic highway to conduct these transactions is good. The aim is to have that delivered by 2025. We have rolled it out to 40630 new end-users just in the last quarter up until 31 December. Now there are 363000 end-users around the country with ultra-fast broadband. We are 27 percent complete. That is another huge initiative. There are more than 2000 schools that are now online. They are able to connect to fibre. We have even got 39 of the most remote schools connected allowing those communities to be connected through hubs. And guess what? They also depend on electronic transactions as well.Kris Faafoi: Is that right?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: They probably even do out in that beautiful suburb that you live in in Wellington Kris. They will actually be concerned about electronic transactions as well. But I will come back to the third point which I wanted to spend some time on which is around those key objectives in building Better Public Services which this bill certainly adds to significantly. In terms of Better Public Services we had 10 result areas that the Prime Minister rolled out. Result 10 was about bringing more transactions online in a digital environment so that by 2017 17 percent of transactions by which the Government interacts with New Zealanders are online. In that regard we have brought out a basket of those transactions many of which are electronic transactions that require an offer and acceptance component.Let us go through a few of those transactions that are in the basket of 10. I will just start with applying for financial assistance with the Ministry of Social Development.Fifty-one percent of those transactions are now being delivered online. For paying individual tax 75.1 percent of those transactions are now being delivered online. For filing an individual tax return 77.9 percent are. Paying for a vehicle licence from the New Zealand Transport Agency actually requires an offer and acceptance. This bill goes to the heart of being clear about when that transaction is completed so I think it is really important and 24.8 percent of those transactions are being delivered online now. The New Zealand Police—paying for a fine on time. I accept that in respect to that it is probably not a transaction where there is an offer and acceptance. One is actually being forced to pay that one but 42.2 percent of those are delivered online.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What about for passports?Hon CHRIS TREMAIN: Passports? Well that was one that I was fortunate to have a fair bit to do with myself through the Department of Internal Affairs rolling out passports online. We now have 31.4 percent of passports being delivered online which is 20 percent more than they used to be with a turn-round time of 3 days. That is absolutely sensational. We have also got New Zealand Customs using digital transactions with 45.6 percent using SmartGate.So far from the metaphor that Mr Cosgrove wanted to paint at the start of this debate—that the Commerce Commission was following around some elephant with a series of spades—I see a totally different view of this particular piece of legislation. I see it as part of a tranche of new initiatives that this Government has rolled out. We have made it clear that we agree that there is no silver bullet for taking this economy forward. It is going to take constant and never-ending improvement and constantly lifting the bar. Even small bits of legislation like this inch the economy forward. And guess what? We are actually seeing results. Some of the best economic growth in the Western World is being projected. This economy will be back in surplus in 2014-15. We are in fantastic shape. It is an exciting time to be a New Zealander and an exciting time to be part of this Government. Thank you.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): There are some bills that this side of the House opposes when they come before this House because they are wrong because we fundamentally disagree with them or because we are philosophically opposed to them. We absolutely oppose the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill because it is not worth the paper it is written on. Quite frankly it is an embarrassment that a member has brought in a member’s bill that has wasted the Commerce Committee’s time. The Commerce Committee usually does very good work. Officials were brought in on more than one occasion essentially to tell us that this bill is a nothing bill and that it has essentially been rewritten to become a nonentity.The only thing I want to say about this bill is that the “Purpose” clause no longer has a purpose. The purpose has been removed. This is a nothing bill. We oppose it.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): When I was elected to Parliament I hoped to come to this House to really make a difference to New Zealand because I really believe in creating a fairer greener and smarter future for all New Zealanders and that is what the Green Party is working towards. I do have to say that I knew when I came here that we would have to deal with some trite and trivial details but I never really expected anything quite as trite and trivial as this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill which I had to sit through in the Commerce Committee. I do not really have much to say on it so I will stop there. Thanks.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): We are moving through this bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill at tremendous speed because members of the Opposition have very little to say. I am very surprised at that. We live in an electronic age and it is imperative right through the systems ofelectronic transactions that we have in this country that they be foolproof and that when we see areas where improvements can be made no matter how small we actually apply ourselves to that. You know there is an old saying that if you look after your pennies then the pounds will look after themselves. It is important in regard to detail that attention is paid to it and that things are improved and that is what this bill brought to the House by my friend and colleague Paul Goldsmith does.It is small but he has gone through and shown through history that moments of transactions being conveyed and completed are very important for the economy of whoever may be involved. It is nothing to be trite about. We know that businesses have been lost because of transaction failures at times. No doubt relationships have been lost because of transaction failures at times. It is important as Mr Goldsmith has identified that this is an area where clarity can be achieved and this is what we have achieved in this bill.I guess it is part of this John Key - led Government that we attend to the detail of these sorts of measures and this member of Parliament this National member of Parliament has sought to do that. We are very committed to ensuring that we have a very competitive and robust economy. So although it may be in the mind of the Opposition to mock and make trite these things we take these things as small as they are as very serious. So I would like to congratulate and commend my colleague who has brought this bill to the House.It has gone through the Commerce Committee. During that process we had eight people submit. Members of the Opposition will acknowledge that we had some very interesting discussions during that select committee process. Although on the surface it may seem to be a small measure behind it there were some very interesting philosophical discussions that I think we need to acknowledge.As I come to the conclusion of my remarks I want to just mention that we did find in our procedures in the committee that there were cases—in Australia in particular—where there had been errors and mistakes made in the transmission of information payments or bills whatever it might be that actually did cause concern. Mail servers in a particular jurisdiction of a council received information but it was not passed on to the appropriate person. In that particular case that did go to court. It was deemed that once it had been received by the server in that jurisdiction in that council it was received then. Those things do not go to court unless they really matter and they did matter. We found those sorts of cases where just a single transaction an email an acceptance a payment whatever it could be for anybody out there who uses electronic means to communicate even though it might be a small email to that person it could mean a lot. So we worked through this and we have brought our recommendations back to the House. I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill under the name of Mr Paul Goldsmith. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill is not one of the great pieces of legislation by this Government. In fact if it was it would be the only great piece of legislation by this Government. It is also not one of the many awful pieces of legislation by this Government and it has actually been crowded out by so many pieces of even worse legislation by this Government. So it is neither good nor bad; it is sort of neutral in between.In fact it is probably a piece of legislation that is not really needed at all because the general rule of contract formation is that a contract is formed at the time an acceptance of the offer is communicated to theofferor—that is when the acceptance is received. This generally applies unless there is an established exception. There is no such exception for electronic transactions such as emails. There is an exception for acceptances by post inAdams vLindsell so that the date and time of acceptance is whenthe letter is posted not when it is received. The reliability of the postal system was considered to be such that this rule should apply. Otherwise it would be impossible to complete any contracts through the post because if theofferor is not bound by their offer until the acceptance is actually received then theofferor if he wanted to avoid the contract could simply deny having received acceptance. So the longstanding rule for postal acceptances inAdams vLindsell is not applicable to or appropriate for electronic transactions.Contractual offers by telex as with the telephone are simultaneous so a contract is formed in those cases when theofferee accepts and that is accepted law. Although it is correct that there is no clear authority on acceptance by way of email there is no established exception either so the general rule applies in favour of acceptance when it is received. This effectively is at the same time as when it is sent if it is sent by an electronic means such as email. Nevertheless this bill will serve to clarify the law.I accept that the position with telex differs from emails in some respects because communication by telex is generally acknowledged at each end—the sending machine and the receiving machine. With email it is not known with certainty to the sender that an email has been received unless confirmation is received from the recipient. The sender of an email can obtain confirmation that a message has been received although that is not commonly done as we all know. It is also true that emails are delivered by a variety of servers and there is therefore not the same assurance that an email will get to the intended recipient as in the case of post. This bill therefore does deserve support as recommended by the Commerce Committee. I also support the select committee’s amendment of the bill to confirm that the contracting parties can decide for themselves when and how acceptance will occur and that the provision in the bill for acceptance as at the time of receipt will be the default position. This bill clarifies this one small area of uncertainty and would to that extent assist business in New Zealand.Given the prevalence of electronic communications in society today especially email and by smartphone and social media and so on it is useful that the current Act be amended in the way that is now set out in the amended bill. So although it is certainly not an earth-shaking piece of legislation it does have some use. New Zealand First will therefore support it.Dr JIAN YANG (National): It is a great pleasure to speak on the second reading and in support of the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill. This bill is in the name of my good colleague National MP Paul Goldsmith and I would like to thank him for bringing this member’s bill to the House.This bill amends the Electronic Transactions Act 2002 and clarifies the legal position on the time in which a contract is formed if acceptance of an offer is sent by electronic communication. This bill is a simple but good bill. It will tidy up uncertainty and offer New Zealanders peace of mind as well as increasing the flow of business. Businesses and consumers are now living in the internet age and our legislation needs to keep up with changing technology to ensure that we have consistency.The internet has already impacted the economy in a range of ways such as investment in internet-related infrastructure and creating an industry that provides goods and services that enable the internet. In 2009 Statistics New Zealand valued the net capital stock held in the telecommunications internet and library services industries at $14.7 billion or 2.6 percent of New Zealand’s total capital stock. Since then the Government has agreed to invest $1.65 billion in the ultra-fast broadband or “UFB” roll-out through to 2019. In 2009 the internet service industry contributed $4.2 billion towards GDP or 2.3 percent of GDP.The Boston Consulting Group estimated in 2012 that the internet economy contributed US$2.3 trillion towards the G20 economies in 2010 and projected that itwould reach US$4.2 trillion by 2016. It is believed that broadband will deliver $32.8 billion in benefits to New Zealand end-users over the next 20 years.The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research completed a report on the role of the internet in the New Zealand economy in 2012. The report emphasises and it is quite a long quote but a very important one that “Economists see the institutions (‘rules of the game’)—such as the legal status of different types of transactions—in an economy as vital determinants to the way it functions. The structures and frameworks must ‘suit’ (match and support) the type of economic activities that are taking place. So the wider rules of society such as laws enforcement provisions and other policies outside the internet play a role in determining its effect on the level of structural change or innovation in an economy. This suggests that for the internet to maximise its impact complementary policy and institutional settings need to be correctly set and kept up to date.”Under the current legislation when the contract is accepted by post a rule applies and it means that the contract has been formed as soon as the acceptance was placed in the post. However this rule does not cover contracts accepted electronically namely by email. So if someone accepts a job by email then there is no legal certainty over when that contract was formed.The National-led Government is focused on building a more competitive and productive economy—hence we are rolling out ultra-fast broadband and we are working hard to ensure our public services utilise online services. This bill recognises that we live in an internet age. The Commerce Committee has recommended that the postal acceptance rule be applied to electronic communications. This bill is as simple as that.I would like to talk a bit about the amendments. Firstly in the original member’s bill clause 5 which relates to contract formation proposed inserting new section 32A which clearly stated that an offer submitted electronically would be deemed to be accepted at the time of receipt of acceptance by theofferor. However the Commerce Committee felt that this could create a misapprehension that an offer can be deemed to be accepted electronically only at the time of receipt. Therefore the committee has proposed amending clause 5 by inserting new section 13A instead of the original section 32A to clarify that this is by no means a rigid approach but instead a default rule that would allow flexibility. This amendment would ensure that the time of receipt referred to in section 11 of the Act would be applied to acceptances of contract offers that are communicated electronically.The National-led Government is committed to making better online services for New Zealanders. We believe that ultra-fast broadband is vital and that it will promote innovation create jobs and grow the New Zealand economy. This is why we are investing $1.65 billion to deliver ultra-fast broadband to 97.8 percent of all New Zealanders by 2025. It will bring us closer to the rest of the world and increase our competitiveness.There are now more than 363000 end-users connected to ultra-fast broadband in New Zealand. The Rural Broadband Initiative has connected over 179000 rural homes and businesses to fast wireless broadband and over 2000 schools are now connected to fibre. Ultra-fast broadband has revolutionised the way that many businesses schools health care providers and communities operate.The impact that the internet has on us is far-reaching. It is believed that the changes that the internet has already caused could be the tip of the iceberg. Many types of commercial and social contacts are possible on the web. It is also noted that the internet’s transformational impact is not limited just to who produces what and how and where; the internet has already created new wants and the products and the markets to meet them.From day one National has been firmly focused on the issues that matter to our economy to our community and to all New Zealanders: a strong economy more jobs better front-line health and education services a safer New Zealand and rebuilding Christchurch. We have a Business Growth Agenda with hundreds of initiatives to improve the productivity and competitiveness of the economy.To conclude clear and predictable laws governing commerce are some of the foundations of the success of the modern economy upon which our prosperity depends. Clarity and certainty lead to confidence and confidence leads to greater investment so our laws need to be consistently maintained and adapted to respond to changing technologies. This bill tidies up one small area of uncertainty and will go some way to increasing the flow of business. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): I know that the country is still basking in the collective glory of our cricket result yesterday and the season that our cricketers had but what people at home are either listening to or watching tonight is not cricket in two senses. The first sense that this is not cricket in a parliamentary sense is that the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill should not even be being debated on a members’ day. This is one of those bills that the Government puts into the ballot to prevent really really good bills from this side of the House being debated so for that reason this bill is a waste of time. The second reason that this debate in the House tonight is not cricket is that the National Party members will take up about an hour of this House’s time explaining one simple thing the one very small thing that this bill does.The bill cleans up a piece of legislation that the Government has already amended. This amendment bill went to the Commerce Committee and was actually tidied up by that select committee. When it arrived at the select committee it was rubbish and then the select committee cleaned it up. This bill does one thing; it does not do all the things that the National Party members are debating tonight about the economy. All it does is clarify a rule about the formation of a contract. The postal rule which has applied for many many years is that if you have a contract offered to you then that deal is done when the letter is sent—offer and acceptance. In this digital age it is different so when someone’s server receives the acceptance that is when the contract is done. That is all that this bill does. That is all it does. And this House has spent time in this House and money—in terms of the select committee process and all of the officials—just to do one small thing. So on that basis this bill is a waste of this House’s time. It should have been put through as a Government bill and as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill and that is why we oppose it.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I was absolutely intrigued to listen to the last person speaking Kris Faafoi—I suppose that was what he was doing. He did start to talk about something extremely constructive for a moment or two—the cricket which I thought was going to be really interesting. He wavered off of course into something that the Labour Opposition since I have been in this House has spent hours and hours and hours doing: wasting the time of this House. I listened to Mr Cosgrove tonight making the same speech that I have heard him make seven times since Christmas. It is beyond me to understand how Mr Faafoi could get up there and accuse this Government of wasting the time of the House given the record of his associates.Anyway it is a privilege for me to get up and speak on the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill. I of course do not sit on the Commerce Committee and have had no part in the discussion on this bill. I sit on the Primary Production Committee with the guru from the Greens Steffan Browning who is very busy over there. The guru from the Greens is constantly on the case of the agricultural sector. I sit on that committee with him and of course we do some very structured stuffin our select committee. We pass the most important bills—bills that keep this country running—like the animal welfare legislation and the Food Bill. Of course to use one of Mr Cosgrove’s favourite terms they are pillars of this country’s economy. He talks about the pillars or whatever does he not?Anyway I listened to Mr Goldsmith tonight speaking extremely eloquently about this bill. I then listened to Jian speaking about this bill and in no uncertain terms he outlined the whole process of this bill—the process that it goes through and all of the parameters of it. I thought he did a wonderful job of it and I was impressed with his speech.I am old enough I guess to remember a time when a shake of the hands formed a contract. We have come a long way since those days of course. Now you zap your little card across the top of a machine and it steals your money very quickly. That is what this bill is all about. It is about creating the environment for us to do business quickly efficiently and effectively. I cannot help but go back to the Greens and think of the objection they have to bills like this. The amount of time the Greens spend in this House tabling papers—for a party that spends its life trying to preserve our environment it is beyond me to understand why it would consistently every day table more and more trees in this House. I think that is a great shame. For a party that ostensibly supports the environment for it to be tabling paper after paper in this House seems extraordinary to me.Kris Faafoi: What about CO2emission?IANMcKELVIE: That is a problem as well Mr Faafoi. That does create quite significant problems. Actually I do have the privilege of driving through your electorate of Mana on a regular basis and I do see there is quite a problem there. I just cannot wait for that road to get built because that will definitely lower not only the carbon dioxide emissions but a number of other emissions as well particularly the carbon emissions. From a Wellington perspective I think once we get that motorway open and operating—and there is now a fly in the Chamber and I have been here so long it is settling on me. To get that motorway open I think will be quite—in fact the fly is attacking me—a major bonus for the capital city and it will certainly help us get down to this most important place. I have got the fly. I have got it—that has solved that problem. So I am very keen to support this bill.I just want to get on to the comments of Mr O’Rourke. Mr O’Rourke believes in policies that uphold public benefits ahead of private interests. That is the statement he makes on his own website. I was very pleased to hear him tonight supporting this bill. For New Zealand First to be supporting this bill through the House with Mr Goldsmith and of course the Government I think is a pretty good effort.Tonight across the passage from here we saw people from theRiddet Institute from Massey University Palmerston North—the electorate of Iain Lees-Galloway. They live on my side of the river. They were in there tonight with some outstanding young scientists. They had six of the very best scientists who specialise as they do in food innovation and health. They were talking about things that would make this country a much stronger country. I was most impressed with the activities of theRiddet Institute and the presentations that were made tonight. Without those sorts of people working in this country practising and putting into place scientific stuff that is hugely important to us we would not make the progress we need to make in this country.Of course the same thing applies to technology. The Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill deals very much with modern technology—Kris Faafoi: This is not cricket.IANMcKELVIE: —and the way our society has evolved. Of course if you really want to get back to that cricket for those of us who like cricket the last few days havealmost been made in heaven for us. For people who are very keen cricketers like Mr King here—who in fact props up the parliamentary cricket team—the last 3 months have been bliss for us. You just cannot believe that you could have so much success. So thank you Mr Faafoi for bringing up the cricket. It has been an extraordinarily successful time for us in New Zealand. Of course the other thing about sport is that it emotionally prepares you for the dour bits of life. Those of you who participate in this House should play sport on a regular basis because it will encourage good health and make you feel an awful lot better about what goes on.I just want to get back to Mr Browning who is still in the House. I do not think he has listened to one thing that has gone on in this debate tonight. In fact I am sure he has not. I just want to get back to him for a moment because he does make an interesting contribution to this Parliament and his theories on agriculture are well worth listening to.Anyway to get back to the bill I heard Dr Jian Yang speak on this bill at length tonight. He talked about the way the bill is structured and the way it works. He talked about some of the history of it and gave me a great background on it I guess. As I said earlier I was not on the Commerce Committee which dealt with this bill and it certainly educated me as to what these sorts of things do for us.It is a very interesting place to be this Parliament and I think that members’ day particularly is an interesting time.Kris Faafoi: Not cricket.IANMcKELVIE: No. Well I will get back on to rugby now. Members’ day does give us the opportunity to bring things from our electorates into this House—things that concern us and things that concern us as members of Parliament—and to make a difference as to where we are going in the future to make a difference as to where the country goes and to have some little bit of influence on what goes on in our lives on a daily basis.This Government is committed to producing or creating an environment where we can thrive and do well as a country. It is determined to create an environment that creates less dependence and gives people the ability to make their own way in life and to sort things out for themselves. I think that we have some extremely good policies in place to achieve that. We have taken a great lead in the last 3 years or so and certainly in the last 2 years since I have been in this House we have taken a great lead in a lot of these things. I think we are really creating an environment that will make a huge difference to the future of this country.We have listened to a number of speakers tonight on this bill. Most of them spoke for a very short time which I find absolutely ironic given the amount of stuff we have had to listen to from the other side of the House over the 2 years since I have been here. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to support this bill. I want to congratulate Paul Goldsmith once again on navigating this bill through the select committee stage and getting it into the House and through its second reading in one piece. Thank you.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am advised that this is not a split call.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): As my colleagues have said Labour is opposing the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill. This is just a waste-of-time bill designed to clog up the member’s bill ballot process. If it was meaningful it should have been part of a Government bill designed to deal with e-commerce matters. If it is a very minor thing as it is it should have been part of a Statutes Amendment Bill. For those reasons Labour is opposing this bill.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): It is my privilege to stand in support of this bill. This bill the Electronic Transactions (Contract Formation) Amendment Bill is an excellent piece of work done by my colleague Paul Goldsmith. The purpose of thisbill is to provide some much-needed clarity on contracts and agreements that are accepted electronically or online. As more and more organisations look to offer their services online it is only natural that the legal agreement that two parties sign may well be signed electronically. Therefore it is imperative that the law is clear on such contracts and agreements so that the consumer is protected and the party offering the services is aware of its legal obligations.This National Government has always said that clear and predictable laws are the foundation for any modern economy to succeed. Furthermore it is no secret that markets prefer clarity and certainty from the Government in order to work with confidence and also to ensure that all parties to the transaction benefit. I congratulate my colleague Paul Goldsmith on introducing this bill and providing consumers and the market with certainty. This no doubt will increase the flow of business and make it easier for consumers to avail themselves of services. This will also attract more investment in different sectors with the clarity of this electronic contracts bill. The bill also fits in with the Government’s agenda for making public services more efficient. We have for instance initiated electronic passport renewal services electronic applications with Work and Income New Zealand filing one’s tax return online and renewing one’s worker licence online among a number of initiatives to make life for New Zealand consumers easy.We are also working proactively on providing ultra-fast broadband to all New Zealanders. This will no doubt revolutionise the way many businesses schools health care providers and communities operate. It will also overcome the tyranny of distance from the rest of the world and new applications and ways of doing things will be developed. The latest quarterly report on the Government’s ultra-fast broadband and rural broadband programme shows fibre roll-out to a further 4630 end-users across New Zealand during the 3 months to 31 December 2013. This means that more than 363000 end-users are now able to connect to ultra-fast broadband networks across New Zealand. This means that 27 percent of the project has been completed. Further fast broadband will provide prompt innovative and creative services to the consumer. It will also create new jobs and grow the economy.I would like to touch on the bill regarding the time of communication of acceptance of offer. Clause 5 of the bill relates to contract formation and as introduced it proposed inserting new section 32A to “explicitly state that an offer submitted electronically would be deemed to be accepted at the time of receipt of the acceptance by theofferor. … this could create a misapprehension that a ‘hard-wired’ rule applies; that an offer can be deemed to be accepted electronically ‘only at the time of receipt’.” The committee proposed amending clause 5 to insert new section 13A into the Act instead of new section 32A “to make it clear that this is a default rule instead of a rigid approach from which the parties would be unable to contract out.” A new section 13A(1) would ensure that the bill achieves its intended effect. Section 11 of the Electronic Transactions Act establishes the time an electronic communication is taken to be received. The amendment would make it clear that the time of receipt referred to under section 11 of the Act also applies to the acceptance of contract offers that are communicated electronically.The Commerce Committee received nine submissions and heard two submissions in person. The committee recommended that the bill be passed with amendments. The committee reported: “The bill seeks to amend the Electronic Transactions Act 2002 to clarify in legislation the time at which a contract is formed when the acceptance of the offer is communicated electronically. Contracts are generally understood to be formed at the time that the acceptance is communicated to theofferor. An exception emerged inAdams vLindsell; the ‘postal acceptance rule’ deems for offers accepted by post that acontract is formed at the time at which the acceptance was posted. Whether this rule could be extended to contract acceptances communicated electronically has not been tested in the courts. However if the ‘postal acceptance rule’ were used in an argument relating to electronic communication the bill would ensure that the general rule of contract acceptance applied.”It is the intention of this Government to provide better public services to New Zealanders and we have set a target of having an average of 70 percent of New Zealanders’ most common transactions with Government being completed in a digital environment by 2017. Ten transactions are being used to make progress towards the 70 percent uptake online. Renewal of adult passports—more than 125000 people have renewed their passports online since the launch of online adult passport renewals in November 2012. Other transactions include applying for a visa; applying for financial assistance to the Ministry of Social Development; applying for an Inland Revenue Department number; paying individual taxes; filing individual returns; paying fines like speeding tickets or any other tickets issued by the police which can be paid online; and paying a vehicle licence with the New Zealand Transport Agency. The experience of SmartGate for air travellers is a unique one. It is very convenient that you can just go to the SmartGate and you are processed without any hesitation. This has really brought New Zealand into the category of countries that have got modern technology available for their people travelling overseas.This Government wants to make sure that people have got all those facilities that they need in this modern world and we are committed to the development of this economy. We are proud of what this Government has done so far and we hope that we continue to grow this. I am really proud to be part of this Government led by the Rt Hon John Key who has ensured that in the past 5 years the economy has got back on track. When we received the economy in 2008 it was in a real shambles. We are proud that we have really made progress and we hope to continue doing this.Kris Faafoi: Now he’s adlibbing.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: Sorry? I hope that this continues for 5 more years and we will make this country the top country in the OECD. Thank you.Bill read a second time.Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)