Volume 643 Week 62 - Tuesday 20 November 2007 
Volume 643 Week 62 - Tuesday 20 November 2007 
[Volume:643;Page:13195] 
Tuesday 20 November 2007 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Amended answers to Oral Questions 
Question No. 7 to Minister 15 November 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 Pursuant to Standing Order 350 I wish to make a personal explanation in order to correct an answer I gave to the House last week. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would members please be quiet. We have a point of order. Members need to hear what the point of order is. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Last Thursday when answering question No. 7 I said in an answer to a supplementary question: “There is a requirement within the ministry’s operating policy to obtain at least three quotes. I am advised that that was done in this case.” That answer is technically correct. I was advised that it had been done. I am now advised that it was not done. Since that time both the chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment and I have asked the State Services Commissioner to look at the matter. A report will be available later in the day. 
Questions to Ministers 
Accident Compensation Corporation—Physiotherapy 
1. PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister for ACC 
: Has she received any recent reports regarding the way in which physiotherapy services are funded and accredited by ACC? 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 Yes I have and the report has been made publicly available. The reviews of physiotherapy services formed part of the confidence and supply agreement between the Labour-led Government and New Zealand First and I know that the previous Minister for ACC and I have enjoyed working closely on this issue with the member who asked the question. 
Peter Brown 
: When does the Minister expect the formal Government response to the report to be made public? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: The formal Government response will be made public as soon as possible. 
Darien Fenton 
: What action will the Labour-led Government be taking to ensure the recommendations as set out in the review are addressed? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: A formal Government response to the report will now be developed and considered. In the meantime the Accident Compensation Corporation will be working through the issues raised including providing more flexible guidelines on the number of treatments a claimant should have and giving providers better information about fraud and investigation processes. 
Peter Brown 
: Has any time line been developed regarding the prompt implementation of the non-fiscal recommendations of the report; if so when are the non-fiscal recommendations likely to be implemented? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Yes; and the non-fiscal recommendations are in fact being implemented immediately. 
Peter Brown 
: Has the Minister read the response of the New Zealand Society of Physiotherapists to the report; if so when does she anticipate that the chosen funding option will be implemented? 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Yes I have; and the funding options will be considered as part of the usual Budget process. 
Electoral Finance Bill—Freedom of Expression 
2.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Does she stand by her statement in relation to the Electoral Finance Bill that “This Bill does not restrict free speech. It simply restricts rights to ‘purchase’ speech through advertising.”; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Yes; this bill does not restrict freedom of speech but it does restrict the rights to purchase speech. The bill sets out to prevent any individual or organisation buying an election because it has the financial clout to do so. 
Hon Bill English 
: If the Government is serious about that definition of free speech—that is that it is still free speech despite restricting the right to purchase speech through advertising—why does it not apply to the Government and politicians the same restrictions on the right to purchase speech through advertising as it now wants to apply to private citizens and organisations? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Any member of Parliament who wants to advertise as a candidate at an election would be covered by this bill. Any member of Parliament who carries out his or her normal duties as a member of Parliament when it is an election year has the right to carry those out as long as he or she does not electioneer. The absurdity of what Bill English has been saying is that members of Parliament have $64000 to spend on promoting themselves. I do not know what he spends his money on but I know members on this side of the House do not spend their money on electioneering. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to give her answer in silence and to just address the question without any peripheral comments. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am addressing the question. It is an important question because members on this side of the House do not spend their electorate budget on electioneering. It is against the rules to electioneer and just as Tony Ryall and Judith Collins hold up pamphlets I could at this moment hold up Nick Smith’s pamphlet put out only in the last few weeks that says “Change the Government … nick4nelson.” Tell me that that is not electioneering. It is electioneering. That is not allowed under the rules and it should not be allowed under the rules. However members of Parliament should be allowed to go about their legitimate business in an election year. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Does the Minister agree that the important thing to ensure in electoral law is that the voice of the New Zealand public is heard at election time not just the voices of well-funded lobby groups? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Absolutely and it is interesting to read the press releases that have come out since the bill has been reported back by the Justice and Electoral Committee. The only negative press releases we have seen repeated every day come from the National Party. I would prefer to listen to organisations like the National Council of Women which represents many more people than the members across there at this stage. It says that this is a much better bill for the work that has been done on it. 
Heather Roy 
: How does this bill not breach freedom of speech under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when by closing third party registrations before candidate nominations a group could spend only $1000 on speaking out about a candidate whose views it opposes and is this Government not railroading this bill through the House before it can be challenged in the courts for being inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The date by which a third party can register that it wants to be involved in the electoral system—in fact wants to campaign for a party or candidate—is in this bill writ day. I believe that the date could be changed to the date for closure of nominations. 
Hon Bill English 
: More amendments! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Well I have to say that every electoral bill that has ever been before this House has been subject to amendments in the Committee stage. I ask the member to show me one time when such a bill has not. Those comments are nothing more than crocodile tears. 
Heather Roy 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I think the Minister was a little diverted from answering my question by retaliating across the House. Perhaps she would like to address my question rather than interjections. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member asked about the date by which a third party can register. I addressed the question. The fact the member asked several questions means that she probably has to sort out her questions better. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware that the new definition of “publish” in terms of election advertisements now includes any manner of bringing a political view to the public including comments on Internet forums press releases that are put out even if they are not published by the media and someone going down the street door-knocking and saying: “Vote National.”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That question borders on the ridiculous. The law of common sense applies as it always has in electoral Acts. The law of common sense applies and the member knows that. One could argue that under the Electoral Act now a press release could be covered but it is not covered because trivial matters are not taken into account. The law of common sense applies. A bit of common sense from the National Party would be appreciated. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister understand how depressing it is for the House to find that after months of listening to the last justice Minister who had not read the law and did not understand it we are now afflicted with another one who has not read the law and on her third day of answering questions is reduced to saying this law will work only if we ignore it? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Mr English might like to tell New Zealanders that they are dumb and do not know what they are talking about because that is exactly what he is saying today. Let me read to the House what the National Council of Women said about the changes that have been made to this bill. The council believes that the Justice and Electoral Committee listened to the concerns that were raised by the council and that the committee addressed those concerns and it says that the council supports the intent behind this bill. Those sorts of people believe that we got it right: that we know what is happening. Only the National Party says we have not. One has to ask why the National Party protests so much. Why is it so upset about this bill when a consensus has been built in this Parliament around what should be in the bill? 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware that if someone goes door-knocking down a street knocking on doors and saying: “Vote National.” then under her law that action constitutes the publication of an election advertisement and therefore such persons constitute promoters under the law; and if those persons are promoters then when they knock on a door they will have to give their name and address to the person they are addressing present the authorisation by the financial agent for the party for which they are canvassing and then say: “Good morning.”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: If the person were a National Party campaigner he or she would probably be told to buzz off. I say to that member—[ 
Interruption 
] I am answering the last part of the member’s question about saying “Good morning.” The member is wrong. That example does not apply. No one expects someone who knocks on the door to say: “This is an election advertisement.” That example is patently ridiculous and everyone who has listened to those examples given to the member by David Farrier off the National Party blog says they are ridiculous. 
Hon Bill English 
: Has the Minister bothered to go and read her own law which states that any expression of a view that encourages any member of the public to vote one way or another communicated to the public in any manner constitutes an election advertisement and the other part of the law which states that anyone who publishes an election advertisement is a promoter—that is in her law—and that any such advertisement must include his or her name and address which is why for instance placards must now include the name and address of the person who is holding them? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Under the Electoral Act as it stands one could argue that a placard should have an authorisation on it. But I have to say that nobody I know of has been prosecuted under the current Act because he or she held up a 1c placard that did not have his or her name on it. The law of common sense applies. I suggest to the member that he apply it. 
Hon Bill English 
: Where in the Electoral Finance Bill does it give some kind of exemption by applying the law of common sense—because I have seen no reference to it whatsoever nor any evidence that common sense has been applied? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Let me just put it to the member that the current Electoral Act has loopholes in it we could drive a bulldozer through. In fact three High Court judges said in the Clarkson case that there were huge loopholes in the current Act and that anyone who had intent could drive a bus through them. So in response to the member asking where everything is in the Act I say the law of common sense has applied and has been applied. 
Hon Bill English 
: When a well-meaning citizen or community group picks up— 
Hon Chris Carter 
: They certainly won’t be knocking for National. 
Hon Bill English 
: Well they are now. Can the Minister tell the public and the House what will happen when a well-meaning member of the public or community group looks up the Electoral Finance Bill and reads the Draconian provisions that mean that any person expressing a point of view in any form at all about whom to vote for is covered by the Act and has to comply with its regulations; and whom does that person approach to find out which rules now no longer apply because of common sense and which rules will continue to apply because Labour wants to clamp down on public opinion? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It is not Labour that wants to clamp down on public opinion. We have here a National Party that is desperate to spend the money from its mates that it has hoarded away—money the National Party thought it would be able to buy the 2008 election with. The National Party now finds that the majority of this House will not allow it to spend the money in the way that it did with its sneaky little deals with the Brethren and others. That hurts but the people of New Zealand believe that there ought to be a fair open and transparent approach to the Electoral Act. That is what they are getting. And that is what the majority of this House will vote for. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What a bunch of cheats! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Nick Smith has just made an offensive remark. I require him to withdraw and apologise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please withdraw and apologise. I did not hear the remark because of the noise. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I said that the Labour Party is just a bunch of cheats. I think that is true. If we look at the intent of the Electoral Act we see that there is no intention other than to try to favour the Labour Party. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I ask the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I reluctantly withdraw and apologise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No. I ask the member to withdraw and apologise in accordance with the rules. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Minister agree that the rules around who can spend what and who can say what during election campaigns should be determined largely by the people of New Zealand; if so does she also agree with the Greens that a citizens’ assembly a group of randomly selected members of the public resourced with independent advisers would be a much more democratic way to make electoral finance law? [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member who has just asked the question can tell from the response from the National Party that those members do not encourage democracy at all. They do not encourage it at all because as soon as the member mentioned allowing the public to have a say they all went into their position of moaning grizzling and so on. I say to the member that there is a lot of merit in the Greens’ proposal and as has already been said to the member it is something that we would consider. But the rabble over there will not consider it. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: In the light of the questions from Mr English has the Minister received any— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I would have thought that someone of Dr Cullen’s experience would know that that is not how to start a question. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: In the light of the questions from Mr English has she received any reports that National Party canvassers do not say “Hello” do not say who they are and do not say whom they are calling on behalf of; if so does that explain why National has lost three elections in a row? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Madam Speaker— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No the Minister is not responsible for National Party canvassing. [ 
Interruption 
] If this level of noise continues then I will be asking members to leave the House because it is impossible for me to hear. I could not hear any of the answer from the Minister before. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I was just about to say that— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No I am not asking the Minister to repeat that. Members are on their last notice. 
Financial Literacy—Government Resources 
3.  
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What new resources is the Government providing to improve the financial literacy of New Zealanders? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) 
: 
 This morning at Raroa Normal Intermediate School here in Wellington I launched four new books for students on financial literacy. The books with their accompanying teacher’s notes are the latest in the  
Figure it Out  
series which supports our numeracy strategy and helps to realise the Labour-led Government’s goal of ensuring students are confident and capable both mathematically and financially recognising that everyone needs to be able to make considered sensible financial decisions throughout their lives. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: What alternative approaches to financial literacy is the Minister aware of? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I have seen disturbing reports of a party whose various spokespeople have promised to increase funding for private schools to reintroduce bulk funding for all schools and to both offer and not offer 20 hours of free early childhood education at the same time. Curiously these statements come from National MPs who are also promising to slash public spending to fund tax cuts for the rich. Only this Government can be trusted to properly invest in education $4 billion extra a year; an approach supported by a majority of New Zealanders in the Fairfax poll published this weekend. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: How do the  
Figure it Out 
 booklets mesh with the new curriculum that was launched earlier this month? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: They absolutely mesh with the new curriculum. They lead to inquiry learning and personalised learning which is exactly what the Government wants to see students doing in order to equip themselves for the 21st century. I seek leave to table the four copies of the  
Figure it Out 
 financial literacy books. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Electoral Finance Bill—Election Advertisements 
4.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What is the penalty in the Electoral Finance Bill for a Government department a Crown entity a State enterprise or a Crown-owned company which publishes an election advertisement? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 The new provision in the bill as reported back by the select committee makes it clear that Government agencies are not able to electioneer. If they breach this provision the State Services Commission and the Auditor-General would be required to act. In addition nothing in the bill exempts these agencies from the penalty provisions that apply to corrupt and illegal practices under the bill. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why did the Government try to insert a clause in this bill that exempted Government departments from the electoral advertising laws and then turn round and withdraw that exemption; was she party to both decisions? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The answer to the last part of the question is “No”. The answer to the first part is that the member has just spoken a load of dishonest tripe; it was not the Government— 
Hon Member 
: You can’t say that! 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I can because it is dishonest tripe and the member knows it. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am sure I may have leapt to my feet just a little ahead of your own consideration of this matter and I look forward to your decision about whether the Minister’s answer is appropriate and whether she should be required to withdraw the comments that she has just made. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member has not sought for the Minister to withdraw the comments but I do think the Minister’s answer was going outside the scope of the question. I ask the Minister to address the question please. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am addressing the question. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That would seem to members on this side of the House to be almost a reward to the Minister for what has to be bad or at least unruly behaviour or comment in the House likely to lead to disorder. Her remark was deeply offensive to every single person in the National Party including me. I would like you to consider whether it should stand in the  
Hansard 
 record. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: If Mr English wishes the Minister to withdraw that comment then of course she should and she should apologise for it. However I will just make this other comment. If I interrupted every member who made a comment that was likely to cause disorder there would hardly be any conversation in this House today. I thank Mr Brownlee for bringing this matter to the attention of us all and I assume that questions will be asked correctly and answers will also be given succinctly and keeping to the point. Now would the Minister please just withdraw and apologise. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I withdraw and apologise. The member started his question by asking “Why did the Government attempt to insert this clause?”. That was tripe. The Government did not try to insert this clause at all. This clause which the member released in a big exposé to the public yesterday was written in the select committee to try to put in place belt and braces to show that Government departments cannot electioneer. I happen to have the clause—the big exposé—in front of me. The first of part of it takes the  
Cabinet Manual 
 and puts the rules around what Government departments can do and then—of course the member has not read it—it states who cannot publish an election advertisement and states that Government departments cannot do that. You see the part that was not straight in the press release was the second part of that amendment. I say to Mr Smith that the second part of the amendment was not outlined by Bill English. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Ministers get a pretty fair go at answering questions. Generally if they have a long answer they discuss that with you in preparation. This Minister’s answer is developing into a general debate speech. I think she needs to be brought up on that otherwise this practice will be encouraged. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member. This is a supplementary question so often it is difficult for Ministers obviously to be able to anticipate the question. The question did make a statement. The Minister was attempting to address that statement with the information she has. Normally this House wants Ministers to address the question. I would ask both those who ask the questions and Ministers who respond to them to do so succinctly. We have had some very long questions in the House today just as we have had some long answers. The two probably go together. Would the Minister please succinctly conclude her answer. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: In conclusion I say that the attempt by the select committee to write a clause that made it clear that Government departments could not electioneer should be applauded because the current Electoral Act has no such clause. It is very clear that Government departments will not and should not electioneer. They will face difficulties if they ever try to and I do not believe they would. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware that the new definition of “election advertisement” is considerably wider than when the Auditor-General drew up his rules many years ago and has she communicated to Government departments that any civil servant who signs off a publication that encourages people to vote one way or another by reference to Government policy will be guilty of an illegal practice and liable for a $10000 fine? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Any public servant or Government department that attempts to electioneer will face not only any penalties that exist in the new bill but also the State Services Commission and the Auditor-General. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware of the widespread practice of Government departments posting ministerial press releases on their websites and can she tell us whether this press release posted on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs’ website and headed “Labour committed to pay and employment equity” would constitute an election advertisement? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Press releases now under the current Act are not taken as election advertisements and never have been. I could get press releases that came out when Bill English was Minister of Finance or Minister of Health which say similar things and he has never appeared before any court or commission. Such a press release is not taken as an election advertisement. However the policy is a blimin good one I think. 
Hon Bill English 
: Now that the Minister has answered the question about the existing law can she confirm she is aware that the law is about to change under her ministerial custody and can she answer the question that I asked: would a press release posted on the Ministry of Women’s Affairs’ website and headed “Labour committed to pay and employment equity” constitute an election advertisement under the new rules? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No it would not. 
Hon Bill English 
: So is it now the case that while no one else is allowed to publish anything that might encourage people to vote one way or another by reference to an issue it will be OK for the Public Service to publish press releases like “Labour committed to pay and employment equity” and how does that comply with the new rules? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The press release is a fact. That is the policy. That is what the policy is. It can hardly be an advertisement saying “Vote Labour”. It is just a fact. 
Hon Bill English 
: What is her opinion since she is keen to give it out about a KiwiSaver ad published say a week before the election that uses the line: “The Government will start you off with $1000 and match your savings with up to $1040 a year” and does she regard that simply as a statement of fact or a week out from the election as an attempt to persuade voters how to vote? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: This is the member who claims he has read every part of the bill and knows it backwards. The member clearly knows that it would not count as it is talking about the Government. It is not telling people to vote for Labour or for National. The Government is made up of a number of parties including the Progressive party and United Future and New Zealand First are part of the support to this Government. Obviously it is not an election advertisement. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Despite the last answer will the Government give a clear undertaking that if National gives a cast-iron promise to abolish the matching tax credit in KiwiSaver the Government would make sure that there is no Government advertising pointing out that fact and simply rely upon the Labour Party to advertise that fact? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am sure that is possible if the Minister of Finance will allow it. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware that the explanation she has just given is actually wrong and that the provisions in her bill do not refer just to a particular party but to what she calls a type of party and that therefore a Government amounts to a type of party; and also that her bill does not refer just to telling people how to vote but an election advertisement can include reference to any issue not just to any party? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member is bordering on the ridiculous. The Government is a type of party! In fact this Government is a number of parties. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister aware that she is bordering on the reckless by giving civil servants the message today that they can run highly political press releases on Government websites and that the Government can say what it likes right up to the election day about how much money it is going to give people when the law is quite clear that both of those will constitute election advertisements and people who take part in them will be committing illegal acts? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The member is wrong. They do not constitute an election advertisement. They are a press release. They do not say “Vote Labour” or to vote for a candidate. That is quite patently wrong. What we have today is a National Party that is absolutely desperate to try to stop a bill that has the majority of this Parliament’s support from going through. We have to ask why it is trying to stop it. Why is it taking this approach when I can have here the press releases from people whom New Zealanders would respect who believe that this bill as it has come back to the Parliament is a far improved bill? In fact the Coalition for Open Government believes that this bill is better than the current Electoral Act. 
Hon Bill English 
: How is it that the Minister is now suddenly so sure of her opinion when the definitions are brand-new they have not been tested by any precedent with the courts the police or the Auditor-General and why is she not showing just some restraint in advising public servants that they can take actions that on the face of it break the law if they run Labour Party political messages? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: What the select committee has done to its credit is bring in a clause that makes it absolutely clear that Government departments cannot electioneer. That did not exist under the Act that the Government brought in in 1993. It is clear now. I suggest that any people who have any doubt go to the Electoral Commission for advice but I suggest they do it openly and they do not write a letter to the Electoral Commission as the Brethren did to the Chief Electoral Officer: “Give us some advice but tell us how to do it so nobody knows we’re going to spend money promoting the National Party.” 
Shared Fisheries Proposals—Maori Involvement in Working-groups 
5.  
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
 to the  
Minister of Fisheries 
: What strategies if any has he put in place to ensure that whanau hapu and iwi will be involved in a respectful and meaningful way in any working-group developing joint policy proposals on shared fisheries? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 The Government consulted extensively on proposals for shared fisheries during 2006 and up to February this year including provision for the input and participation of tangata whenua through the Ministry of Fisheries’ iwi forum network. The resulting input was carefully considered in the preparation of subsequent policy proposals. I am taking steps to advance some of those proposals particularly those to improve information on amateur catch and to facilitate better representation of amateur fishing interests in management processes. Progress in other areas such as allocation has been deferred to provide an opportunity for a cooperative initiative among Te Ohu Kai Moana the Seafood Industry Council and the New Zealand Recreational Fishing Council to develop shared fisheries proposals. If Cabinet is of a mind to proceed with any of those proposals then further discussions with tangata whenua and other stakeholders will occur before any final decisions are made. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Why is the Minister continuing to ignore in excess of 18 Maori fishing organisations—including Te Ohu Kai Moana—that represent iwi interests that have been critical of his proposals including the amendments to section 10 of the Fisheries Act 1996 which they say would not address the issue of the balance between utilisation and sustainability of fish stocks? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: In regard to section 10 which is about the precautionary principle and the utilisation principle I am staggered that a Maori party could continually contest the importance of the precautionary principle to the sustainability of fisheries. It seems to even those with the meanest of minds that if we do not have any fish left in the sea it is impossible for the deed of settlement or fisheries in general to have any value. So the precautionary principle is one of the most important principles that this Parliament could uphold. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. With respect I asked about the Minister’s view on the fact that in excess of 18 organisations have been critical of his proposals. Although I appreciate the information he gave I do not really believe that he answered the question. Could you Madam Speaker ask him to have a look at it again? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I think the Minister did address the question but if he wishes to repeat it or add anything further I invite him to do so. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I pointed out that a very significant consultation process had gone on with Maori iwi and hapu around the country as part of the shared fisheries proposals development and that Te Ohu Kai Moana was currently involved in further development of the shared fisheries proposals. 
Dave Hereora 
: What steps has the Government taken to fulfil its obligations to Maori under the 1992 deed of settlement in respect of participation in fisheries management? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: The Government takes very seriously indeed its responsibility to Maori to ensure their effective involvement in fisheries management. This year the Minister of Fisheries has budgeted $5.9 million for the deed of settlement implementation programme—up from $5.5 million last year and $2.9 million in the previous year. When this Government came into office in 1999 very little time money or effort was being invested in implementing the deed of settlement. I think it is fair to say that the previous National-led Government woefully neglected its responsibilities to Maori. Today the Government’s deed of settlement implementation programme involves 24 Ministry of Fisheries staff who are focused on liaison with tangata whenua through a range of hui and iwi forums. This year there has been a total of 62 hui including 40 meetings with 14 different iwi forums. On any given day that the member would like to name the Government is working alongside tangata whenua on better managing our inshore fisheries. 
Pita Paraone 
: Tena koe Madam Speaker. Can the Minister confirm that although involving whanau hapu and iwi in policy discussions in a respectful and meaningful way is important the primary goal of his ministry is ensuring the sustainability of fish stocks; if so why has he cut quotas while allowing foreign vessels to fish New Zealand waters to the detriment of both Maori and non-Maori in New Zealand? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I point out that the major charterers of overseas fishing vessels are Maori owners of fish quota who charter those vessels to catch the quota that Maori themselves own. If they were not doing that there would be no viable way of catching that fish for Maori. I invite the member to discuss that issue with Maori fishers if he has any doubt about it. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: How can iwi have faith in the Minister’s plans to deal with their involvement in the fishing industry when there appears to be nationwide rejection by iwi of his proposed section 10 amendments? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: No one who understands the fishing industry the customary fisheries and the recreational fisheries—in this country or in any other—can be in any doubt of this fact: the wild fisheries are under threat. They are desperately in need of protection. New Zealand has one of the best sustainable fishing management frameworks of any country anywhere in the world. We sustain those fisheries better than just about any other country I know of and that is acknowledged worldwide. Therefore those who want to see that continue should actually be supporting the precautionary principle which is internationally acceptable and required by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It is of some concern to me that there are members in this House who in order to advance some narrow sector interests prefer to ignore the precautionary principle and ignore its importance in respect of the sustainability of New Zealand fisheries. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Once again I thought I had asked a fairly clear question which was about the relationship between the plans enunciated by the Minister and the rejection by iwi Maori organisations of those plans. I am not talking about sustainability although I understand that is part of it. Could you Madam Speaker ask the Minister to please address the question. I am happy to read it out again so that he gets the gist of it. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: As the member knows no member can require a particular answer to a question. I think the Minister at some length has been addressing the questions. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: How does the Minister intend then to find a better balance between the implementation of customary fishing mechanisms and the commercial imperatives of iwi fishing organisations? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: The shared fisheries proposals which we have been consulting on widely and on which there is further engagement through Te Ohu Kai Moana the Seafood Industry Council and the Recreational Fishing Council are the mechanism by which the Government is doing this. In case anyone has not noticed it is very difficult to get anyone involved in fisheries to agree with just about anyone else involved in fisheries and that is one of the reasons why there are so many former Ministers of Fisheries around the Cabinet table. 
Electoral Finance Bill—Election Advertisements 
6.  
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: What types of material does the Electoral Finance Bill exclude from the meaning of the term “election advertisement” in clause 5(2)(c)? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 The bill makes it clear that editorials news and current affairs programmes and news media publications on the Internet are exempt from the definition of “election advertisement”. I agree with the Justice and Electoral Committee that the news media play an important role in any democracy and we consider that unnecessary restriction on news publications is undesirable. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Why is it that the exception for editorial material covers only material that is published solely for the purpose of informing enlightening or entertaining; and does that not mean that this Government’s Electoral Finance Bill has made editorials that take a political position on a party or policy and thus do not solely inform enlighten or entertain subject to regulation as election advertisements? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I do not believe that is the case. I think the law of common sense applies in this case as it always has. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: When the  
New Zealand Herald  
took a political stance on the Electoral Finance Bill last week and rightly said it was an attack on democracy was it publishing material that was solely for the purpose of informing enlightening or entertaining readers; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I believe that the  
New Zealand Herald  
thought that is exactly what it was doing. However the public must be mystified that it chose to do what it did last week—just before the select committee reported back changes made at the committee—as if the bill had not been changed at all and would not be changed. It went through scenarios on the bill as it was introduced and did not take account of the fact that the public had had a say on it—that 575 submissions had been received and that there were over 100 oral submissions—and that the select committee had gone about its work and had made changes. The  
New Zealand Herald  
chose to present it as if no changes would be made and that there had not been any changes at all. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That was a very long and diffuse response but I ask whether it addressed a very precise question. I was not talking about the process of the select committee leading up to its deliberation. I was asking a very precise question on the wording of the bill. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister did actually address the question. I listened carefully to that. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: If the  
New Zealand Herald  
decided to undertake more campaign journalism in which it took a strong view on a policy associated with a type of political party then would that be publishing material that was solely for the purpose of informing enlightening or entertaining readers; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I think that any newspaper is there to enlighten to entertain and to inform the public in whatever way it wants. However if the newspaper decided that it wanted to register as a third party and say “Vote National” then it would be caught by the provisions of the bill. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: When Brian Rudman wrote in the  
New Zealand Herald  
that Judith Tizard made a twit of herself did the  
New Zealand Herald  
publish it solely—I ask the Minister to note the word “solely”—for the purpose of informing enlightening or entertaining readers or was this a statement that encouraged or persuaded voters not to vote for a candidate by reference to one of her positions”? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I am a great admirer of Brian Rudman’s columns. He has written many stating what a pack of twits the Nats are—in fact he does so most weeks. Brian Rudman has the right of free speech. He never said “Vote National” or “Vote Labour”. He was talking about a particular issue. 
Fisheries—Sustainability 
7.  
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Fisheries 
: Does he stand by his claim that “Most New Zealand fisheries are sustainable”; if so why? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 Yes I am satisfied that most of our fisheries are managed sustainably. Of the fish stocks for which we have comprehensive information available—this includes most major commercial fish stocks—85 percent of those are at or near the maximum sustainable yield levels. Where fish stocks are below target levels measures are in place to ensure stocks are rebuilt to sustainable levels. Where serious concerns exist I have—and I will in the future—closed fisheries as I did with orange roughy fishing area 7B from 1 October this year. 
Metiria Turei 
: How has cutting the funding for fisheries research into the orange roughy stocks during his term as Minister contributed to our understanding of the state of fish stocks and the supposed sustainability of that fishery? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: The amount of funding spent on fisheries research in the term of this Government is close to over $200 million. There are further funds for such research both funded by the industry itself and by the Government but no amount of money no matter how fast one printed it would give us all of the information we need on fish in our oceans. This is literally almost a bottomless pit. We have to be careful that we do not overstate our position or over-commit ourselves. I think we are doing a respectable amount of research and it will continue but it is clear that no amount of funding that I could possibly envisage in the future would give us the perfect situation of all the information we need to know about our fisheries. 
Metiria Turei 
: When the Minister made his claim was he aware of the collateral damage whereby 58 of the 75 fisheries cause adverse ecological impacts over half of New Zealand fisheries kill significant numbers of seabirds 60 percent kill significant numbers of marine mammals including dolphins and sea lions and two-thirds cause habitat damage; if so when he said “Most New Zealand fisheries are sustainable” what exactly did he mean by “Most”? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I meant 85 percent as I said in my first statement. Again I have a responsibility as Minister of Fisheries to see that our fish stock is utilised effectively and efficiently in terms of its economic utilisation but I also have a responsibility to see that that is done without overdue damage to the environment or the fish stock in terms of its sustainability. That is a balancing act one has to do one’s best and I think the Ministry of Fisheries performs a very important task and does it well in the interests of New Zealand. 
Metiria Turei 
: Can the Minister confirm that of the 75 commercial fisheries in New Zealand 75 have no management plan one-third are overfished or have seen a substantial decline in stocks 85 percent catch too many non-target fish and fewer than 20 percent have had a full stock assessment in the last 10 years; if so again when he said that “Most New Zealand fisheries are sustainable” what part of “Most” did he not understand? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: For the benefit of the member again by most I mean 85 percent. The fishing plans being developed by the Ministry of Fisheries are an important element in the sustainability of our fisheries into the future. I have to say that the member has overstated and exaggerated all of the points she has made and they can be refuted in great detail. If the member wants a dissertation on those points then she can put it to me in writing and I will give it to her. 
Sexual Abuse Allegations—Ministry of Education Procedures 
8.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: If the ministry from this point has serious allegations of sexual abuse brought to its attention by a school seeking advice on what to do will the ministry in future advise that school to take such concerns to the police or does he agree with the statement made on his behalf that “That is outrageous.”? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) 
: 
 The 1996  
Breaking the Cycle: Interagency Protocols for Child Abuse Management 
 which I tabled in this House last week provides guidance to schools on how to handle allegations of this nature. In the case of Hato Paora College which we discussed last week the school did not seek advice from the Ministry of Education on how it should conduct the investigation it undertook into allegations made against the principal. It did however promptly report its investigation to Child Youth and Family which in turn reported it to the police as the protocols require. The Ministry of Education was also first made aware of the allegations at that time. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why will the Minister not spell out to his ministry that in the event that a staff member hears of serious allegations of sexual abuse made against a school’s principal the staff member is to advise the school to take those allegations directly to the police as soon as possible and in the event that that does not happen then alert the police himself or herself? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Schools are required to alert Child Youth and Family which is then required under the protocol to alert the police. I appreciate that the member is concerned that we have to deal with this matter in a very effective and speedy way. In the case that was raised last week that happened. These are very serious allegations. We want the safety of children to be uppermost—the first thing that happens. We have got protocols. I want to assure the member they are working. 
Katherine Rich 
: When the Government expects other Kiwis to alert the authorities about allegations of sexual abuse immediately and even to pick up the phone if they see a child being smacked in the supermarket why is the Minister adamant that it is not the role of his ministry to check that cases that come to its attention are directed to the police immediately? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The member seems to be hearing but not listening. There is a protocol in place that says that Child Youth and Family must be notified instantly and it must notify the police. The process is there and it happened. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why does the Minister stick to the position that the board and the ministry have acted utterly appropriately and followed the appropriate steps when staff loyal to the principal who were untrained and ill-equipped to carry out sexual abuse interviews videotaped interviews of boys potentially tainting evidence before the police and Child Youth and Family were alerted and involved in the investigation when they are the authorities that have the skills and abilities to carry out those kinds of detailed investigations? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: It is very easy to make allegations in this Chamber about a process followed in a case that is now before the courts. I am advised that the police have looked into the investigation by the Hato Paora College board and that they believe that the investigation was transparent and thorough. We have had that assurance from the police and they believe that the board could not have made any other decision. I repeat that the board could not have made any other decision based on the allegations that it had before it. New evidence—not available to the board at that time—was brought forward in October and that enabled the police to reach a different conclusion. 
Katherine Rich 
: Does the Minister accept that the investigation at the Feilding school is not an investigation of smoking behind the bike sheds but is an investigation of very serious allegations of sexual abuse and one that requires training understanding and knowledge of interviewing; and does he accept that in this instance the ministry should have advised the school to take those allegations directly to the police and not relied on the police finding out from the media? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Once again the member is repeating things in this Chamber that are simply not true. The police did not find out from the media; they found out from Child Youth and Family. The member knows that because I telephoned her on Thursday after question time. I wanted to talk to her to make sure that she understood what had happened. I am concerned about the effect that all of this is having on that school on the parents and on the pupils. This is a very serious matter. The school followed the appropriate protocols: it notified Child Youth and Family which notified the police. That is how the police found out. They did not find out from the local newspaper. They found out from Child Youth and Family which is required to notify them. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: As the member seems to have difficulty with this issue can the Minister once more outline precisely the protocol that the school and the police are required to follow and confirm that the protocol was indeed followed on this occasion? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The Ministry of Education requires all schools to have policies in place to ensure the safety and well-being of all students. When complaints are made about staff schools are also required to conduct a fair employment investigation and schools would be advised to seek professional advice—as indeed Hato Paora College did. Schools are required to report their findings to the police or to Child Youth and Family which Hato Paora College did. Notwithstanding that a complaint could have been made directly to the police—of course those complaining could have gone to the police themselves; they did not—the complainants went to the school. The school did all the things it was supposed to do. I remind the House that the school notified Child Youth and Family which notified the police. That is how the police found out. 
Viet Nam Veterans—Memorandum of Understanding 
9.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Veterans’ Affairs 
: What progress is being made in implementing the memorandum of understanding signed between representatives of veterans of Viet Nam and the Government? 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister of Veterans’ Affairs) 
: 
 The process of implementing the memorandum of understanding is going extremely well. I am pleased to report that over 4500 Viet Nam veterans and their families have registered themselves with Veterans Affairs. This process will assist with the research and delivery of services to them in the future. Usefully this process has also identified a number of veterans we can assist because prior to the registration process Veteran Affairs was unaware of their circumstances. The Viet Nam Veterans and Their Families Trust has been established and is now accepting applications from veterans and their families for financial assistance for conditions that are not explicitly dealt with in the memorandum of understanding. The process for a comprehensive medical check is being finalised work is under way to implement the expert panel an oral history project has begun and planning for Tribute 08 is well under way. 
Lynne Pillay 
: How many ex gratia payments have been made? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Veterans Affairs has recently paid out its 50th ex gratia payment. Of the 50 payments so far 27 have been made to veterans themselves and 23 to families of veterans of Viet Nam totalling $1.75 million. At the time of writing the memorandum of understanding it was estimated that around eight to 10 of these ex gratia payments would go directly to veterans themselves. So the number is actually higher and this is concerning but it is also gratifying that support is going to the Viet Nam veterans. In addition the House needs to remember that of the estimated 3500 who served in Viet Nam 1400 veterans are receiving a war disablement pension. 
Judith Collins 
: Why are veterans still waiting more than 6 months for their application to be processed a year after the Government promised in the memorandum of understanding to “review all aspects of Veterans Affairs New Zealand”; and what has happened to that review? 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: I am pleased to report that the review of Veterans Affairs is well under way. It is almost nearing completion. I am pleased also to report that the Government has started the rewrite process of the War Pensions Act and the integral part of the reform process. 
Bail Laws—Prison Population 
10.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: How do recent changes to bail laws fulfil the Government’s aim to “arrest the sharp increase in the prison population in recent years” and why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 The Bail Amendment Act 2007 was designed to assist the remand population by ensuring that the focus is on community safety when custodial remand decisions are made and that only defendants who pose a real and significant risk are remanded in custody. The pre-trial bail system must balance two competing considerations: the defendant’s right to be considered innocent until proved guilty and the safety of the community. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why did the Government make it easier to get bail when the new law has already allowed Reno Lunjevich a prolific burglar and drug user with a record as long as your arm to get bail despite facing 50 new additional charges thus allowing him to break into the homes of another 10 innocent families before the police caught him again? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Decisions on bail are made by judges independent of the Government. However the law was changed to make sure that references to risk were not vague as they were in the previous law—that they were clarified. Risk as it was described was too vague. It has now been clarified. I am told that the “real and significant risk” threshold which is in the new Bail Amendment Act was chosen by examining judicial decisions on the previous risk threshold especially the 2002 Court of Appeal decision of  
R v Hines 
. The Court of Appeal implicitly agreed with the High Court that to amount to a just cause for continued detention the risk that a defendant may interfere with a witness should be more than nebulous and insignificant and should be real and significant. Though this quote relates to interfering with a witness it applies equally to the other grounds of failure to appear and offending while on bail. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Is the Minister aware of any further comments on the Bail Amendment Act 2007 from the judges who have actually used the law? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Yes. In the  
R v Kahui 
 case—one of the first decisions after the amendment came into force—Justice Heath stated that the change to a “real and significant risk” threshold “does not seem to me to put the test any higher than was under the previous legislation but rather to emphasise the need for a proper inference to be drawn from proved facts; as opposed to the Court engaging in speculation or guesswork about the possibility of a risk.” 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why has the Government made it easier to get bail with the result that a man accused of murder was granted bail in October by a High Court judge who told the court that he had to grant bail because of recent changes to the Bail Act amongst other things? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have just quoted from the most obvious and public case that members of this House will be aware of which is the  
R v Kahui  
case where Justice Heath said that the Act did not do what the member said. Justice Heath said that the change to a “real and significant risk” threshold did not put the test any higher. One of the reasons why the changes were made was so that there was not a vague interpretation but a much clearer one. I think that something that members of the public might be interested in is that 30 percent of cases where offenders have been remanded in custody have not led to a conviction. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting those answers does the Minister see any discrepancy between the Government’s multimillion-dollar campaign that violence is not OK and the current bail laws and the way they are being implemented as best epitomised by the case of Jio-Pene Sauaki a violent offender who not only was given strict bail despite police opposition but breached that bail then went on to fatally stab Mr Kelly Lawrence; does she see any discrepancy between that campaign and what is happening in reality? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I think it is fair to say that all members of this House would say that violence is not OK. But at the end of the day the separation between members of this House and the judiciary is such that judges will make those decisions as to whether bail should be granted and they will make it on the information they have before them. After all judges are entitled to all information in order to make those decisions. I believe that in most cases they make the right decisions. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why did the Government make it easier to get bail when even under the previous law of this Labour Government Michael Curran was able to be bailed while on a charge of murdering Natasha Hayden despite having 22 previous convictions only to murder a defenceless 2-year-old while on that bail; surely that case is sufficient proof to the Government why bail laws should be toughened not softened as her Government has done? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: As with the previous law the new law focuses on the risk that a defendant will fail to appear interfere with witnesses or evidence or offend on bail. The new law clarifies that the level of risk is required to be real and significant. The judges have the information before them. They make the decision whether bail will be granted not this House. I could trawl through newspapers from back when that member was Minister and pull out cases where judges under the bail laws that existed then allowed people out on bail and they offended. Unfortunately at times that happens. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Have the Minister’s answers this afternoon not demonstrated two things: firstly that she is completely unaware that lawyers up and down courtrooms of New Zealand today are saying that it is much easier to get bail for their clients under this new legislation; and secondly that her legislation is all about reducing the number of inmates in jail and is not about the safety of the New Zealand public? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I do not agree. The safety of the public is paramount but the judges must take into account a number of factors when they are granting bail. They will continue to make those decisions—as we would expect. The member laughed and scoffed when I said that 30 percent of the people who are remanded in jail do not receive any conviction. That means that at least 30 percent of the people remanded in jail end up not being convicted. So judges try to balance— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Which 30 percent? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: It is not for politicians to decide that. We trust the judges to make those decisions. One would think from listening to National Party members that they would lean over to the judges and say: “Put that person in jail and not that person.” Of course they would not do that. They would also value the judgments that judges make every day of the week. 
Peter Brown 
: I seek leave to table a media report on the sentencing of the street thug Sauaki. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Building Apprenticeships—Reports 
11.  
DAVE HEREORA (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Building and Construction 
: Has he received any recent reports on apprenticeships in the building industry? 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 Yes I have seen a report on the launch of the BeConstructive programme developed by the Built Environment Training Alliance. The programme will encourage young people back into the construction sector. The alliance also reports that apprenticeship numbers in this sector have grown by 300 percent since the Government introduced the new Modern Apprenticeships scheme. 
Dave Hereora 
: How much has the Government invested in the Modern Apprenticeships scheme? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I am advised that by 2006 the Government had invested $114 million in its Modern Apprenticeships scheme since its inception in 2000. I am also advised that by 2008-09 funding for Modern Apprenticeships will have increased to $50 million a year continuing to rebuild our skill base after apprenticeships were demolished by National. 
Dave Hereora 
: How many apprentices are currently in training in this sector? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: More good news is on the way—13739 apprentices are in training across the building and construction sector. This is more than half the number who were able to be trained in the 15 years from 1992 as a consequence of Mr Bill Birch’s killing off apprenticeships. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Is it not true that if it had not been for New Zealand First there would be no such thing as a Modern Apprenticeship Training Act? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: The ability of the member to join forces with the Government to eradicate the influences of Mr Birch knows no bounds. 
Environment Ministry—Appointment Processes 
12.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Was the Ministry for the Environment influenced in its decision to employ Labour Party activist Clare Curran for strategic communications and advice on climate change by the recommendation of Minister Hon David Parker and on what terms was she employed? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I apologise for the length of this answer but members will understand that it is important to get this right. I am advised that there had been a discussion between the Ministry for the Environment and Ms Curran months before she was engaged by the ministry. I am advised that during this discussion Ms Curran outlined her previous experience working for the Australian Government to provide strategic communications advice on climate change. I am advised that after the ministry had indicated that it was actively seeking further communications advice on climate change Ms Curran was suggested as a possibility by David Parker because of her previous experience in this field. The ministry then met again with Ms Curran and inquired further as to her experience and as a result she was engaged for 200 hours at $120 an hour for a contract that ran from 22 May 2006 until 28 July 2006. I should point out to people who have made errors in this area that this was approximately a year before the Setchell debacle. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Is it not a case of blatant cronyism and politicisation of the Public Service when in May last year Clare Curran presented a paper to the Labour Party conference stating that it needs to change the language of debate if it is to win the next election when David Parker then commended her employment to the ministry and then miraculously the next month she was awarded a contract for strategic communications and when it was then made worse by his misleading the House last Thursday by stating that the contract was subject to three independent quotes when this was not true and the contract was let in breach of the ministry’s own operating policy? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I will take the first question and say yes it is not evidence and I will take the last question and say that it was in breach of the operating policy. That policy does have a fast-track approach whereby a senior—[ 
Interruption 
] I am actually trying to help the member. There is a fast-track authority method that could have been used quite properly in this case and it was not. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why when the Local Government and Environment Committee asked: “Has the ministry had contracted any consultants or contractors to provide communications media or public relations advice; if so who for what purpose and when?” did his ministry provide a list of 25 such contracts but contrary to the advice he has just given the House as to when Clare Curran was in its employ in July 2006 it did not include the contract from Clare Curran? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Madam Speaker— 
David Bennett 
: Go to the backbench now. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well that member will always be an Opposition backbencher probably until the point when Sue Moroney beats him in his seat. It is my understanding that the contract was declared in the year that the contract was entered into. If that is not correct then I will inform the member. Otherwise the member should remember too that she was contracted under a company name not under her own name. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why did his ministry in response to another question from the Local Government and Environment Committee this year a request that “for each consultant or contractor engaged and paid more than $10000 or for which $10000 is budgeted to be spent in the current financial year provide the name type details budget date etc.” provide a list of 197 contracts but just conveniently exclude the most politically sensitive contract to Clare Curran; and is this just another example of Labour covering up its dodgy dealings with the Public Service? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Because neither was she engaged nor was $10000 spent in that year. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I just note that the Minister told the House that Clare Curran was employed through to 28 July 2006 which includes the financial year so I seek leave to table the two questions that were specifically asked by the Local Government and Environment Committee both on communications contracts and on more general contracts as well as the answers that were provided by the ministry. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those documents. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 15 November. 
Clauses 1 to 3 ( 
continued 
)  
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak once again on the title of this tertiary education bill. The Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill has been called a reform bill and undoubtedly in many respects that is an enormous misnomer. I suggested that perhaps a far more appropriate title would be “The Labour Government (Let Us Reform the Tertiary System Again) Bill” because the last reforms were so bad. 
The whole essence of the Labour Government’s bringing in this bill came about through the enormous excesses of waste we have seen under Labour in tertiary education over the last 7 years. National has calculated that in the order of $419 million has been spent just on paper-shuffling for no purpose whatsoever. The OECD pointed out that on average there has been a change or a reform every 2 years. So here we are after Minister Maharey brought in the first reforms back in 2001 and we have had reform after reform and after this amazing $419 million being spent who else would bring in a reform? It was none other than Dr Cullen. 
During 2003-04 the real excesses occurred. Those were the years when a course on homeopathy for pets was broadcast over the radios and TV sets of the nation and when “pendulism” for beginners and other such vitally important and extraordinary courses were perpetrated by this Labour Government amounting to probably a massive half a billion dollars of extra expense. Something like $1 billion of good education money has been wasted over this last 7 years. 
Here is the absolute irony: now that we have had Dr Cullen as the Minister for Tertiary Education suddenly Helen Clark has come along and decided to rearrange the deckchairs. And who should come in as the new Minister for Tertiary Education but none other than the former Minister of Health whom Tony Ryall described the other day as having joined the graveyard of Ministers of Health. His task is a considerably difficult one in that he is going to have to face a bureaucracy that has mounted from 16 bureaucrats at the beginning of this millennium to 340 and is rapidly increasing by another 28 or so as 13 or 14 investment managers and 13 stakeholder engagement managers are brought in. 
One of the other possible names for this bill would be the “Let’s Add More Bureaucracy to the Tertiary Education System Bill”. That is because the Minister when he first brought in the legislation said it was going to be a high trust - low compliance bill. We know that it happens to be the very opposite. Right around the country we are getting complaints from tertiary institutions that are saying they are literally being threatened by these investment managers. They are being told that if they do not play ball with the managers their investment plans will not be sorted out. We are finding that some of the universities are in deep difficulties because the Government has even before the legislation has been put in place demanded that the investment plans must be in. Therefore though the universities have not been able to know the details of the plans they have had to go ahead. So we have places like Victoria University being millions of dollars out of pocket. We have places like Auckland University estimating that it is something like $8 million out of pocket. This bill is indeed a travesty. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I think this bill should be called the “Worst Example of Government Reform Bill” because as my colleague has pointed out this bill is one more stupid attempt to achieve the impossible vision of one of the previous Ministers which was I think that of Mr Steve Maharey. We are now 8 years on since Labour promised to reform the tertiary education system and its main achievement under the title of “Education Tertiary Reforms” has been to try to reform the legislation it put in before. For instance this bill abolishes charters and profiles. I can remember the Minister for Tertiary Education telling everyone how vital it was that we had charters and profiles on whose development millions of dollars were spent only to have them junked. 
There is a stack of documents—I think it is about this high; others would estimate it is that high—that are full of sociological gobbledegook about how the Minister can sit in his office and govern the educational aspirations of New Zealanders in the tertiary education system. It does not matter how often bureaucrats set out to write pages and pages stitching together contradictory objectives in pursuit of utopia; they keep failing and this bill will fail. 
It turns out now that 29-year-olds with PhDs who are called investment managers have a total stranglehold over the direction of the tertiary education system in New Zealand. I tell the Minister that I think the 20-year-olds who are spending tens of thousands of dollars getting their education should have more say than one of their peers who happens to land an overpaid job in the Tertiary Education Commission. I looked at the purpose clause clause 3 which states the purpose of the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill and there is no mention of students—none. One would think we are running a whole system with no people in it. The bill is about organisations plans stakeholders and bureaucrats. They do use up about half the resources but not all of them. There are still these people called students I say to the Minister and this bill should be called the “Fulfilling the Aspirations of Young New Zealanders Bill”. It should be but it cannot be because they are not mentioned in the bill. 
I have asked some of those 19-year-olds whether they have read the statement of tertiary education priorities. 
Moana Mackey 
: Since when did the National Party talk to students? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well that is the problem—the sheer arrogance of Labour believing that it knows what 19-year-olds want. I asked one just yesterday actually: “Have you read the statement of tertiary education priorities and are you aware of the stakeholder consultation plan?”. I got a vigorous response in language that I will not repeat here but it was essentially: “I haven’t read them. I’m not going to. I don’t care who wrote it and it makes no difference to me anyway.” 
So the people who are meant to be complying with all the nonsense in this bill do not know about it and even if they did they would say it was rubbish. They do not care what it is and they will do what they like. This bill should be called the “Total Waste of Time Tertiary Reforms Bill”. As my colleague Mr Hutchison has pointed out many times the people who designed it are all going. Steve Maharey Michael Cullen Janice Shiner and Russell Marshall will all be gone—all gone—when this bill comes into effect. There is no accountability. They do not have to follow through but they do have to answer to the public for this. They have spent $400 million thinking about it. This little skinny bill here is the product of $400 million of analysis over 8 years and nothing sums up better the total incompetence of this Government. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 I will follow on from some of the comments made by my colleague Bill English. Here we are some 8 years after Labour campaigned on the issue of tertiary education reform. All through 1998 and 1999 Labour talked about tertiary education reforms and what they would do for universities polytechnics and the wider tertiary education sector. Now 8 years down the track this is the bill that will fix everything. This is the bill that somehow will make a miraculous difference out there in tertiary land and ensure that the investment we make as a country will go to the right places and meet the needs of students. Well for all those students out there listening to the debate and thinking about this bill we can say one thing and that is that this bill will not deliver utopia out in the tertiary education sector. This bill is so full of jargon bumph and statements that nobody can understand that it will not have any chance of engaging students or the wider public. 
The phrase of the moment is “stakeholder engagement”. It is a very interesting phrase. It gets used around Wellington a lot but when we ask anybody what exactly it means in terms of the day-to-day workings of an organisation we find that it can mean everything and nothing depending on who uses it. We asked the Tertiary Education Commission what these stakeholder engagement managers will actually do. We were told that they will go up and down the country meet with community members and seek out the needs of local communities. We kept saying: “Yes but how will that be done?” and they said: “Well they are going to have cups of tea with local people and they’re going to hold meetings and hui and talk about tertiary education.” I go back to the 19-year-old students Bill English mentioned. Will they turn up and want to take part in these meetings? Will they want to get publicly involved? 
Moana Mackey 
: Some will. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Get real! They are more interested in other aspects. They will not be involved in this kind of consultation process. 
What will the investment managers do? Some little upstart who might have a tertiary qualification and be quite bright is currently travelling up and down the country at huge expense ringing up vice-chancellors and saying to them things like: “I’m going to visit you every Tuesday to talk about what’s going on in the university.” and of course vice-chancellors are saying: “What? I’m busy running a university. Why do I want to talk to some little upstart about what’s going on every single week?”. It is just added bureaucracy. It is bureaucracy that is symbolised by this bill. 
It has taken $420 million to get to this point. The sum of $420 million has been spent on an organisation that went from a handful of staff to well over 300 and now it has an extended network of offices up and down the country. We had one in Dunedin. It opened its doors and got involved in engagement worked with universities and polytechs to develop charters and plans at huge expense to the community only for the Tertiary Education Commission to turn round and tell communities and the Education and Science Committee that what it had set up was not quite “fit for purpose”. So they shut it all down shut down the leases—and who knows what that cost?—and did an about-face. I feel sorry for the tertiary education sector. It has got involved in this process in good faith. It got involved in writing all its charters and plans and it spent huge amounts of money to get this far only for the Government to change its strategy and say: “No guys and girls this is not what we’re going to do. We are going to go in a totally different direction.” 
The upshot here though is that a bill that says it will reduce bureaucracy and make it easier for tertiary providers now introduces more planning than we have seen in the tertiary education sector before. Tertiary education providers will have to do more planning—medium-term plans short-term plans and long-term plans—and if they want to keep their charters they can do that as well. This bill does not deliver something that will be less bureaucratic or have less red tape. It will mean more and more planning and it will mean that the focus is taken off the teaching and education of our students and put more on the management and planning. 
This bill would be better off being referred to as the “Let’s Put as Much Jargon into One Bill as We Possibly Can Bill”. It could be the “Let’s Spend a Lot of Money and Get Nowhere Bill”. I think those members over there should be ashamed that after $420 million worth of thinking and 8 years into this Government this is as far as this Government has got. It has taken 8 years to get this far and at huge expense. There are glossy documents but nothing else. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 When we listen to Labour members talking about their goals and aspirations around tertiary education we know that we cannot have any confidence in them. Basically we have the old adage that a leopard will not change its spots and once something has been made crooked it cannot be made straight. Those could be quite good lines to use in addressing the title of this bill the Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill. 
It is quite rich when we hear Labour members trying to blame previous Governments for the model that they have carried on with for 8 long years in funding tertiary education. When we check out Labour’s policy on its website we find it quite interesting to see that Labour members have been the ones who have perpetuated this low-quality visionless numbers game. Labour talks about building up to some 250000 people in industry training. At the moment we have something like 140000 in industry training and we are having great difficulty in maintaining quality tertiary education at our institutions. Today we heard Labour’s boasting about getting close to 14000 Modern Apprentices. We have to remind people that there are 140000 people in industry training. The Government has spent over $200 million on trying to get a completion rate of just under 4000. Again we would be wise to consider this bill as amounting to 7 years of going sideways—7 years of wastage. 
It is interesting when we consider the performance of the Labour Government around tertiary education especially in industry training that the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation in Auckland last year had a 9 percent completion rate of its Modern Apprentices. The parallel apprenticeship programme run out of the Manukau Institute of Technology had a 90 percent completion rate. So today we are seeing the abysmal performance of a Government flagship policy whereas the parallel programme that has been produced and developed by the Manukau Institute of Technology and all the other institutes of technology around New Zealand is outperforming this sham that the Labour Party calls the Modern Apprenticeships programme. [ 
Interruption 
] I am sure that the member who represents the electorate of Waimakariri would be very interested to know that when we look at the conduct of the Minister—and he has a big part to play in this Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill—we see that when he talked this year about setting the fee maxima he failed to gazette it. It was part of our job on the select committee to ensure that we inserted another clause in the bill so that we could enact this year’s fee maxima. The Minister had overlooked it and he failed to gazette the fee maxima. 
When we look at the purpose of the bill we see that quite iconic line that states: “… without affecting the academic freedom and autonomy of institutions preserved and enhanced by the principal Act”. We know that that was stated previously in section 161 of the Act but the reason why it was put back in was that the committee felt that the Minister had too much authority. When we go over to new section 159AC “Revocation and replacement or amendment of tertiary education strategy” inserted by clause 8 we see it all laid out there that the Minister has an enormous amount of control. All the way through this bill we see that the Minister has quite unshackled authority. That scared the institutions and they recognised that there was a risk there. 
When we look at it all we see that we have had a capped funding arrangement at the industry training end and we have had universities providing high-quality education. We have had this industry training section in the middle that has been coming to Wellington about every 5 days on its knees and begging for money. The Education (Tertiary Reforms) Amendment Bill should be sorting out the industry training section. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I am not surprised that the Labour member is very anxious to close the debate. I want to question one of the purpose statements of the bill. Apparently the bill will enable the Tertiary Education Commission effectively to monitor the performance of organisations. Just now I have been told by my diligent National colleague that this exercise so far has cost the public $420 million for nothing. Another $100 million can be added to this bill. 
Let me share this with the public. Two years ago I brought it to the attention of the Minister for Tertiary Education Dr Michael Cullen that there was a cash-back scam of senior students signing up to learn English and getting a kickback and that this scam covered about $100 million of student loans. There was not much prospect of the Government recovering that. When this was brought to the attention of the Minister Dr Janice Shiner the Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Commission said that an inquiry would be carried out. Twelve months later I asked what the result was. She said that the competent staff at the Tertiary Education Commission had politely written a letter to the 13 institutions that were suspected of being part of this scam. That letter said: “Have you been good? Did you really take part in those scams? We will come out and visit you and we will give you plenty of notice before we do so.” Those remarks were followed by this statement: “Please sign on the dotted line that you did not take part in this scam.” The commission got all those signatures and closed the inquiry. 
So it took this backbench MP with no additional resources such as the 340 staff working in the department to go to Television New Zealand’s  
Close Up 
 programme. Only then did we manage to get the Tertiary Education Commission to take another look into the scam. Files have been sent to the Serious Fraud Office so that it can consider whether to prosecute those institutions. 
It did not stop there. This is not even funny because then the chief executive officer of the Tertiary Education Commission went on television and said that a new policy had been introduced and that the scam had stopped. Well we brought the latest scam to her attention only about a month ago this year. Three institutions were still advertising for students. I was told that the commission sent a letter to one of the institutions and asked it to stop doing this. So a scam was brought to the commission’s attention 24 months ago and 24 months later a poorly resourced backbench National MP is still doing the job for an organisation of 340 people— 
Colin King 
: And growing. 
PANSY WONG 
: —and growing. 
I want the next Labour speaker who is so proud to support this bill to take a call and explain to the public why the passage of this legislation would make this organisation more effective. What would change? All we know is that it has wasted $420 million and as I have just said another $100 million can be added to that bill. I am really looking forward to the Minister in the chair the Hon Parekura Horomia who used to be very good at taking calls explaining to the public why he is so enthusiastic about backing this organisation and believing that it will be effective. We are really looking forward to the Minister taking a call and saying what the public is getting for this $420 million. There is silence. I am sure that the Minister will oblige and take a call. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Clause 2 agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 3 be agreed to. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Clause 3 agreed to. 
Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) 
Second ReadingThird Reading 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Deputy Leader of the House) 
 on behalf of the  
Leader of the House 
: I move  
That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) be now read a second and a third time 
. The bill confirms and validates 16 Orders in Council made under 10 Acts. The bill must be enacted before 31 December this year in order to prevent the subordinate legislation from lapsing. 
Of the 16 orders confirmed by the bill I would like to briefly focus on two in particular. These apply to movements in the consumer price index to the rates of social security benefits New Zealand superannuation and war pensions. The legislation that governs superannuation specifies a 65 to 72.5 percent band within which payments can be made. One of the two orders also made an additional increase to the rate of New Zealand superannuation so that the net amount payable to a couple is 66 percent of the net average wage. In practice this has meant that more than half a million older New Zealanders have been receiving $26 a fortnight if a single pensioner or $42 a fortnight if a couple from 1 April this year. This reflects the commitment that Labour made in its confidence and supply agreement with New Zealand First and I recognise New Zealand First for its support in that regard. 
It is good to see that this bill looks set to receive the overwhelming support and confirmation of this House. The bill was introduced by the Leader of the House on 8 October this year and was referred to the Regulations Review Committee on 11 October. The committee rightly asked the departments responsible for administering the legislation to explain why confirmation or validation of the orders was warranted. The committee was satisfied with the responses it received and presented its report 2 weeks ago on 7 November recommending that the bill be passed without amendment. I thank the Regulations Review Committee for its consideration of this bill and for the efficient work it undertook. I particularly recognise the chair of that committee Dr Richard Worth. I commend this bill to the House for its second and third readings. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 It is right and proper that the House be detained for a period while it considers the significance of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). As the previous speaker has said National supports this legislation. 
Generally of course Parliament does not favour omnibus bills but some specific exceptions within the body of the Standing Orders contemplate that there will be some classes of cases where that indication will be departed from. Standing Order 263 deals with this issue and it provides that there may be omnibus bills in the nature of confirming or validating actions that are “otherwise illegal” or that “validate and confirm regulations:”. It is the case also that some statutes provide for the making of regulations that will cease to have effect after a fixed period of time unless they are validated or confirmed by an Act of Parliament passed within that time. If you like that is a form of statutory sunset clause whose effect can be avoided by Parliament confirming the regulations and giving them continuing force. 
There is a subtlety in all of this: there is a distinction to be drawn between validation and confirmation. Validating a regulation as opposed to merely confirming it potentially does more than to avoid the lapse of the regulation under a sunset clause. It can also cure a defect in the regulation or in the manner in which the regulation was made that would otherwise have led to the regulation being regarded as invalid. I have said there is a subtlety. It is a subtlety that parliamentary counsel pick up following accepted practice. If we look at Part 1 of this bill we see that clause 4 “Validations to prevent expiry do not cure invalidity etc” specifically states: “In the light of their purpose the validations effected by” these various provisions “do not—(a) express an intention to give legislative force to the provisions of the enactments validated; or (b) apply to any reason for invalidating any of those enactments; or (c) override any presumption that would otherwise apply to any of those enactments.” 
When we look at the particular confirmations and validations we see that some measures are to be confirmed and others are to be validated and confirmed. As an example of the first the regulations under the Animal Products Act 1999 are to be confirmed. Other members will speak about that. An example of a validation and confirmation would be the order under the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001. 
I will say something more about the legal position here. Each year legislation is introduced to confirm regulations that would otherwise lapse. Confirmation is not an opportunity to explore issues of validity; rather it is the House’s opportunity to consider the policy that lies behind the regulations to be confirmed. So it is not an exercise confined to examining regulations for conflict with delegated legislation principles. It might well be the case that specific orders are referred to subject select committees but here because of the significant number of provisions that are the subject of confirmation and/or validation they went to the Regulations Review Committee—which has as members know a general responsibility for delegated legislation—and were dealt with by that committee not by a subject select committee. 
Before I sit down I will give members just two examples of what happens here— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Please do—more than two. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: One of the younger Ministers on the other side of the House has asked for more than two illustrations. I am certainly happy to oblige him with multiple illustrations if that is truly required. But it is probably not and other speakers will pick up other illustrations founded on what I say. I will take just one which will be of particular interest to that young Minister: the Tariff (Concession) Amendment Order 2007. As members may be aware that order amended Part II of the Tariff of New Zealand which is the first schedule to the Tariff Act 1988 by altering the tariff concession reference number 80 which allows for duty-free alcohol imported by passengers arriving in New Zealand. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: That’s something very close to the member’s heart. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: It is something close to the member’s heart. His predilection for alcohol is well known and is the subject of comment both in this House and outside it. But because that order was made under section 9 of the Tariff Act it was necessary in terms of section 11 of that Act for it to be validated and confirmed by an Act of Parliament if it was not to expire. “So what?” the Minister may ask. Well the “so what” answer is this: if the order is not confirmed it will lapse and the duty-free concession allowance of three 1125 millilitre bottles of spirit will revert to the previous concession allowance of one 1125 millilitre bottle of spirits. That was the position that existed prior to 1 September 2007. So the New Zealand Customs Service that hard-working group of civil servants would then be required to collect the duty payable on the additional two bottles that previously qualified for duty-free entry under the de minimis duty collection provision of the customs legislation. As we would all know and recognise that would create administrative difficulties and uncertainty for travellers duty-free retailers and customers. 
I will just take another example which relates to the Social Security (Rates of Benefits and Allowances) Order of 2007. That order increased the payment rates of most social security benefits by the percentage increase in the consumer price index for the year ended December 2006. Section 61H(3) of the Social Security Act provides that an Order in Council made in terms of that legislation expires 12 months after it is laid before the House under the Regulations (Disallowance) Act unless it is validated and confirmed. So it is an example of validation and confirmation by an Act of Parliament passed before that date. In this case the order was laid before the House on 5 March 2007 and if the order is not validated and confirmed before 5 March 2008 it will expire will it not? So the payment rates of benefits and of New Zealand superannuation would revert on that date to the rates that applied on 31 March 2007. That would cause hardship and inconvenience to the people who are dependent on those benefits. It would cause administration difficulty for the ministry as it would need to notify beneficiaries and superannuitants and explain that the rates of their benefits would reduce and the ministry would have to field inquiries and complaints on that issue. 
The reason it is so important that the orders that are currently detaining the House be passed in this legislation is so that a regime will be in place that will not produce inequity and unfairness. But there is a wider issue but perhaps I will deal with that very particular issue in a later call. 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 We are fortunate to have someone of the calibre of Dr Richard Worth who chairs the Regulations Review Committee. We have seen today how he has been able to crystallise and articulate the essence of such important legislation—legislation that to most minds is of a technical nature and does not really inspire many to be part of this debate. But it is important to realise that regulations and orders can expire and that they need to be rolled over. Even if we do not have an interest specifically in the regulation before us we can look behind at the policy that drives these sorts of regulations. Those who have a mind to do so will see what the policy decisions are that have promulgated the regulations we have before us. This Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) is important legislation and there is much to take in. I said that this is a technical bill but we are asked this afternoon to allow departments through the clauses in the bill to be able to operate and carry on their functions. Subordinate legislation has a time frame on it that is going to expire— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Really! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: That is why we are here I say to the Minister. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I have always said the member is a genius. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Well it is a great committee we have. The Regulations Review Committee not only has Dr Worth as its chair but has on it my esteemed colleague here Eric Roy who is the authority on fishing. He will be able to tell us what the fisheries legislation means. One of the provisions we are asked to confirm and validate this afternoon specifically talks about fishing. I know that my colleague Eric Roy will be able to do that as an expert in that area. Subordinate legislation needs to be confirmed and in some cases validated to avail the effect of what are commonly called sunset clauses where regulations and orders in subordinate legislation will be deemed to be revoked and will expire on a certain date. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Struth! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: That is important to realise and that is why we are here today. It is an annual event. I say to the Minister that I have spoken on this before—it is an annual event. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I remember that speech. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Oh it is not the same speech as last time because we are dealing with different clauses this time. These clauses will expire on a date and it is important that they are confirmed and validated by an Act before this Parliament. That is the reason we are here this afternoon. The regulations and orders that we will be validating are in Part 2 of the bill. I will go through those in a minute. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Slowly. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: Well there are nine clauses here in Part 2 where the regulations and orders are specified in the bill and to avoid revocation we must today confirm and in some cases validate those. As I said this is a technical bill so it does not have the panache or the excitement of many but it is certainly an important bill. 
I draw the attention of members to the contents page of the bill. This bill has in it the title and commencement—I do not think we in National will be commenting on those. Part 1 of the bill talks about the “General and technical provisions” and includes the purpose clause. Part 2 contains the confirmations and validations that are so important. There is the Animal Products Act 1999 the Commodity Levies Act 1990 the Customs and Excise Act 1996 and the Fisheries Act 1996 which I am sure my colleague Eric Roy will want to make comment on. Our spokesman on fishing Phil Heatley who is standing up will probably want to make a valuable contribution on this also. There is the Gambling Act 2003 which I will be speaking on. There is the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Social Security Act 1964. There is the Road User Charges Act 1977 the Tariff Act 1988 and the War Pensions Act 1954 which my colleague Dr Worth spoke about. 
I draw the attention of members first to clause 11 of this bill which relates to the Gambling Act 2003. The regulations were made under section 319 of the Gambling Act 2003. That section provides that if regulations requiring gambling operators to pay a levy are made on or before 30 June in any year the regulations would expire on 30 June of the following year unless they are specifically confirmed by an Act of Parliament passed during the year. That is the reason we are here today—so that a levy can be struck. Since 1996 successive Governments have considered it appropriate that the major gambling operators should contribute to the cost of addressing the harm caused by their products. Section 317 of the Act states that the Government may allocate responsibility for developing and delivering an integrated problem gambling strategy to a department. This responsibility was allocated to the Ministry of Health which took over the role of the Problem Gambling Committee of New Zealand from 1 July 2004. 
Section 319 of the Act also provides that regulations may be made requiring gambling operators to pay a levy to recover the cost of developing managing and delivering an integrated problem-gambling strategy. This strategy will be funded from an appropriation to the ministry and the Crown will recoup this funding from the levy. The levy which is calculated using a formula supplied in the Act provides a mechanism for apportioning the cost of the strategy between the main gambling subsectors—that is non-casino gaming machines casinos the New Zealand Racing Board and the New Zealand Lotteries Commission. 
This formula is always subject to debate. I spent much time working on it back in 2003 because it is a formula that I think does not have fairness and equity. I will not talk about that today because of course that is a policy decision. We are not talking about policy today; we are talking about the confirmation and validation of a levy so it can carry on. So I will not talk about the process which is a policy decision of the Government—I will not get into that debate. 
This levy that I have talked about the problem-gambling levy is fixed for a term of 3 years. Three years has been established as the maximum period for which the levy can be made to coincide with the conclusion of the 3-year funding round. It may be that during that period of time there are overs and unders—that the levy that has been collected has not met the budget that has been required—so there is a provision in section 318 of the Gambling Act that provides that when the next levy is going to be made under the formula those unders and overs can then be apportioned out. That is how that process will work. 
In my remaining minutes I want to talk about the indexing of the war pensions and associated allowances. This is done annually and it takes into account the percentage increase in the consumer price index over the previous calendar year. It is important for those who receive war pensions that this provision is there. Otherwise if it were to lapse it would be a huge problem and it would contravene Government policy—here I am actually talking about Government policy—and there may be the need if payments have been made for the department to ask for money back. We do not want that to happen. These people who are eligible for war pensions need to have certainty and security. One of the provisions that we are talking about here—clause 15 in the bill—validates and confirms an order in the War Pensions Act 1954. It is important that we are able to roll that over and to confirm and to validate the War Pensions (Rates of Pensions Lump Sum Payments and Allowances) Order 2007. 
If the increase in the rates of war pensions lump-sum payments and allowances are not confirmed the department that is responsible for this will be asking for money back and trying to retrieve those overpayments—and that goes back to 1 April 2007. Our committee spent much time on this. It is an important committee. We have scrutinised and analysed these clauses. National is happy to support this bill before the House. 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 Seldom in the annals of the history of this House do we have something before us as riveting and important as the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). This matter has been handled by the Regulations Review Committee. Our chairman Dr Worth gave a very full report on our activities and I am sure the House was impressed at the standard and qualities of the chair of that committee. 
This bill is actually important. Members may think I am speaking with my tongue in cheek but the Regulations Review Committee’s examination of this subordinate legislation is significantly important. Let me explain why. Any members who care to canvass or talk to businesses or organisations in their community hear the constant cry of the excessive cost of compliance. Here today we are validating the ability to charge levies and fees and that argument that we are constantly confronted with—the cost of compliance the cost of doing business—is a significant element of that. So we need to take this matter seriously. 
It is interesting that the Regulations Review Committee has had some changeover in personnel. There has been some movement shall we say in the Labour ranks; certain people have moved off this much esteemed committee to be replaced by others. I am a little disappointed that the members of the committee from the other side of the House are reluctant to take a call today to talk about the very important issues that have come up in this subordinate legislation bill. 
 You see it really fits into delegated responsibility. I think it is important that members are aware that it would be highly impractical if every time a fee were struck or a levy set a whole bill came before the House went to a select committee and came back here. So these issues are grouped and as other members speaking on this bill have said we are validating about a dozen different provisions on this occasion. It is important that we have that delegated responsibility and that we can deal with these issues in a group. 
But I need to say that one of the concerns of the Regulations Review Committee is that there are more delegated responsibilities out there than there are statutes. One of the things we are currently doing is to review the pertinence and relevance of all of those delegated responsibilities. There are some out there that do not have sunset clauses so they just carry on existing. Today we are dealing with the ones that will fall off the perch and will not continue to exist unless we actually validate them. 
Part 1 sets out the processes by which the decisions are made. That is quite clear. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Really? 
ERIC ROY 
: I can see that that Minister is also concerned that members from his team are not explaining these relevant and pertinent bits to the House at large. Part 2 contains nine different pieces of legislation that we are validating. The first one in clause 7 is the Animal Products Act 1999. A fee structure is set so that the Animal Products Act can operate. Not only are we validating the collection of these fees but also we are setting in place a process by which we can have some confidence that animal products are safe and adequate to use in a very important part of New Zealand’s industry the agricultural industry. 
I should talk for just a little bit about the Commodity Levies Act which covers the way in which— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Oh God! 
ERIC ROY 
: I can see that Mr Woolerton is very interested in this. The Commodity Levies Act sets out a process by which the people involved can be canvassed as to whether they are in favour of a levy being struck. One of the concerns I have about this process involves the people who participate. If members look at the Commodity Levies Act they will see that a number of producer groups have been canvassed under that Act like the pipfruit growers. They might strike a levy this year for all suppliers to be— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: They’ve got the pip with Labour! 
ERIC ROY 
: Do not get the pip please I say to Mr Williamson. It might be that the levy this year will be X. The pipfruit growers might have 951 suppliers—I do not know whether that is the number but it could be that—and it might be that as few as 90-odd or about 10 percent respond. We need to presume that if there were some concerns the suppliers would vote against the levy. Participation in the vote is frequently lower than 30 percent. It is about striking the cost of a levy that the various suppliers will have to fund. 
The list here includes the Animal Products Act which I have mentioned and the Biosecurity Act 1993 which has a couple of validations in here that I find quite interesting. One of them is the Biosecurity (Gypsy Moth Levy) Order of 2004. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: I didn’t know that was in there! 
ERIC ROY 
: Well exactly! Members will know the furore that took place when the painted apple moth was treated with spray in Auckland and this kind of levy allows for the management of that sort of thing. This particular levy allows for the payment of a fee to be used to set up all the little traps so that if there is an incursion of gypsy moths we are able to find out that they have come in. This levy is quite important as it provides for the first line of defence in our biosecurity so that our forests are safe. If we have an incursion then it can be dealt to. 
The second validation under the Biosecurity Act that I find quite interesting is the Biosecurity (Varroa (South Island) Beekeeper Levy) Order of 2005. Members will know that varroa came into New Zealand about 5 years ago— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Spell it! 
ERIC ROY 
: I can see that the member is also concerned that Labour members are not taking a call on this particular issue. When varroa came into New Zealand it was agreed that if it ever got to the South Island it would need to be dealt to. So all the bee-keepers in the South Island—separate from those in the North Island—struck a levy under the Commodity Levies Act that would be used to deal with the problem when it occurred. But did it— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: What happened? 
ERIC ROY 
: What happened when it was found in Nelson? The Minister for Biosecurity hummed and hawed— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Hummed and hawed? 
ERIC ROY 
: Yes he hummed and hawed and nothing was done. We have here a rollover of legislation to deal with the incursion of varroa in the South Island when it is already there! We have a Minister for Biosecurity who is doing absolutely nothing about resolving that issue. That is a fascinating little insight into the Commodity Levies Act in relation to the Biosecurity Act; it is achieving very very little. 
As I have mentioned this bill is an important part of what we do in terms of the process of striking fees and levies. We should not take it lightly. It is a significant step that takes place every year in a number of different ways and involves a number of organisations. The Regulations Review Committee provides a check and a balance; it makes sure that the proper process has been adhered to. Frequently that committee writes and ask questions to determine the level of consultation how many people voted and what the process was. Members now have to sign off that review and National is supporting this legislation this afternoon. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). Doug Woolerton contacted me about this legislation. I tell members that Doug can read contrary to some opinions in the House. He asked me to give him a brief particularly on the fisheries issues in respect of this legislation. 
Members of the House will know that in schedule 10 of the Fisheries Act 1996 there are levies and conservation orders that need to be addressed in this legislation. I recall that some years ago when I first took over the spokesmanship of the National Party in respect of commercial customary and recreational fisheries we had a massive problem with regard to the levy orders that Labour had overseen which the select committee at that time had to unwind. I recall that between $18 million and $20 million of extra levies had been collected unlawfully by the ministry and had not been spent on what they were collected for. A return of those levies had to be passed through this Parliament so that commercial fishers were not left short in the pocket in terms of unlawfully collected levies. We oversaw that legislation and we made sure that that money was returned in kind to the commercial industry. It was returned not by way of a cheque written out to the industry but by ensuring that that money was spent going forward in terms of levies not being collected that needed to be and of the unlawfully collected money being used to fill the gap. 
Here we have the Government again slipping into subordinate legislation a section to do with the Fisheries Act 1996— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: It’s an outrage! 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: I say to Mr Williamson that the Fisheries (Schedules 2 5 6 and 8) Order 2007 is confirmed in this legislation. 
 I would like to go over the specific schedules so that members are aware of what the House is doing this late afternoon. In terms of the Commodity Levies (Fish) Amendment Order 2006 orders Nos 1 to 3 were made under the Commodity Levies Act 1990. Section 12 of that Act states that the levy orders made under it must be confirmed by an Act of Parliament and that is what we see before us today. Otherwise the orders are deemed to be revoked. We do not want to see them deemed to be revoked; that is why we are passing this bill today. 
Order No. 1 extends for 5 years the existing order relating to fish. It was made at the request of the Seafood Industry Council the body that represents commercial fishers across the board and to which the levy is payable. The levy finances work on policy issues research promotion and administration for the seafood industry. Members need to be aware that this levy is not collected for the promotion of Labour Party policy during next year’s campaign. I know that the Labour Party is looking at spending taxpayers’ money and at spending all sorts of levies collected to promote party policy during next year’s campaign in order to get around the provisions of the Electoral Finance Bill. But in the case of the seafood levy that levy is collected for the seafood industry to use for its own research and promotion. It is not to be used for the promotion of Labour Party policies during next year’s election campaign. This is one avenue where the Labour Party and the Labour Government cannot use taxpayers’ money or industry levies in order to promote themselves and put themselves back on the Treasury benches. That would be illegal. We will be watching closely to ensure that the Labour Party does not use this funding to pursue its own political purposes. 
Order No. 2 replaces the existing levy order relating to southern scallops which expired in July 2007. Just then my voice cracked; it does that occasionally—a sort of second wave of puberty. The member from Kapiti has just gone through the first wave of puberty; other members like myself are going through the second wave. Order No. 2 changes the way that the southern scallops levy is calculated. In this case the levy is payable to Challenger Scallop Enhancement Co. Ltd not to the Seafood Industry Council. The company may spend the moneys collected from the levies for the purposes of enhancing and managing scallops and scallop harvesting rights in the southern scallop fishery. Over a number of years now we have seen how that enhancement company has evolved and boosted scallop production and the harvest not only for commercial fishers in the commercial fishing industry but also for recreational and customary fishers. It is a very successful fishery. During question time in the House tomorrow Metiria Turei will probably promote the southern scallop fishery as a success story in New Zealand fisheries. I look forward to hearing her do that. 
Order No. 3 imposes a single levy on farmed green-lipped mussels Pacific oysters and salmon. It replaces two existing levies on farmed green-lipped mussels and Pacific oysters. Members should get out their pen and paper and note that the levy is a voluntary levy paid on farmed salmon. It is a compulsory levy on farmed green-lipped mussels and a compulsory levy on Pacific oysters but it is a voluntary levy on farmed salmon. For the benefit of those members who are writing this down and for the benefit of Doug Woolerton who is struggling to get this down I say they should note that it is a voluntary levy on farmed salmon and a compulsory levy on the other species. It is payable to the recently established industry organisation New Zealand Aquaculture Ltd. 
So we have the situation where the levies paid in the commercial sector are not paid just to one group. The first levy I spoke about is payable to the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council. I pointed out that the levy on southern scallops goes to Challenger Scallop Enhancement Co. Ltd but this levy to do with aquaculture is paid to New Zealand Aquaculture Ltd. This will be the first time that that particular company set up only recently will be administering that levy for a full year. It will be interesting to see the company go through the process of making sure that the use of that levy is correct and that there is accountability for it. I remind the company and the House that the levy finances the work aimed at developing and managing the aquaculture industry including promotion and research. 
Once again I say that the levy is not to be used for the promotion of the Labour Party during the election campaign next year. It is to be used for the promotion of aquaculture and aquaculture research. Should we see either Helen Clark or Michael Cullen dipping into those funds or putting some sort of political pressure on Aquaculture New Zealand to use those moneys to promote Labour Party policy one day out from next year’s election then that will be illegal. Harry Duynhoven may have plans for that use. Harry Duynhoven may be the shifty character who wants to do that before next year’s election day but we will not allow that. This legislation says this money is not for the Labour Party and not for Harry Duynhoven; it is for the aquaculture industry to spend. Harry Duynhoven may very well blush because he knows that I have caught him out in this House today. He knows that I can read his mind and he may be embarrassed. The National Party will not see the use of that money by Labour happen. That money is not to be used to promote the Labour Party; it is to be used to promote aquaculture and aquaculture research only. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa. I am told that every Wednesday morning somewhere deep in the precincts of Parliament an industrious committee is faced with about a 60-minute marathon in which a demanding schedule of regulations is put through the most rigorous parliamentary scrutiny. Regulations acting as the legal instrument of Parliament are examined by the Regulations Review Committee in so far as regulations demonstrate points of detail in the implementation of policy. The bill before us is small. It has only 15 clauses all up but as is typical with subordinate legislation it contains a range of varied items of lawmaking of interest to the Maori Party. Indeed there is a smorgasbord of choice—an entrée of fish; supplemented with road-user charges animal products for meat-lovers and chancing one’s arm with a main meal of gambling. But as with every smorgasbord some items on the menu do not always please the palate. Having previously had our venerable co-leader Dr Sharples speak on this bill on 11 October and with his absence from the House today I thought I would take the opportunity to add some spice to the smorgasbord laid before the House. 
I note that the Regulations Review Committee was satisfied with the responses of officials with regard to this bill and recommended it be passed without amendment. So the menu for the smorgasbord is actually a set menu and has been confirmed. That being the case I will move directly to commence a discussion on the main dish rather than tempt the palate with the entrée. The dish I have chosen is gambling. The Maori Party is pleased that the levies imposed will assist in building capacity to deal with the ravages of gambling in our communities particularly in the communities of the poor. Let me remind us all that for every $1 received by a community group as a grant through pokie machines $3 has already been taken. We agree with the Green member Sue Bradford about the disproportionate manner in which casinos pubs and clubs are levied. We were also heartened to hear Maryan Street say that the gambling levy would be reviewed in 18 months as opposed to 3 years. 
We know that the communities of the poor are not necessarily the communities that receive anywhere near the money taken from them. If members check out who gets the bulk of these community grants they will see that it is not the Otaras Mangeres Ford Blocks Bell Blocks or Cannons Creeks of our society nor is it the service organisations or sports clubs in the communities of the poor. 
This brings me to the issue of gambling amongst Maori. We know from the work of the Problem Gambling Foundation that Maori have serious issues with gambling. I want to take this opportunity to address that issue. We know from the research that pre-European Maori society did not have traditions of gambling. It is fair to say that the early Maori experience of gambling with the settlers was generally positive. Gambling then involved group interaction with the outcome—that is the profits generated—directly benefiting the participants. The participants were in control and the profits from the activities directly benefited their marae church and community. I myself remember card games—especially euchre and 500—and housie. Those games were the special fund-raisers. Fun was had by all. The profits went to the marae choir local school or kapa haka group. Elder relatives I have spoken to do not recollect ever being aware of problem gamblers as a result of those activities. If issues arose—particularly those of child neglect—as a result of those activities group pressure was brought to bear to address the situation. 
Songs were composed. I remember very clearly a song composed by Professor Hirini Moku Mead relating to an all-night card game and a sober warning of children being neglected as a result. As some members might have heard before it goes something like this: “Tahi rua e toru roimata; wha rima e ono roimata; ka whitu ka waru ka iwa roimata; kei whea ra mama?”. 
[ 
One two three teardrops; four five six teardrops; seven eight nine teardrops; where oh where is mum? 
] 
That was a beautiful rendition I thought. What the song is actually asking—besides counting—is after all these tears where mum is. 
I also know that betting on horses was another activity where the benefits were individualised and the profits left the Maori communities in which the TABs were situated. Again this was a social activity as relatives would sit outside the TAB sharing dreams disclosing losses from the week and casting aspersions on the whakapapa of the horses that did not win. Needless to say it was great wonder—and often a misplaced sense of matakite—that led many of my relatives to go on about how they picked a winner by the interpretation of dreams. It seems that anybody’s dream counted. Some used to make up dreams for uncles and aunties. That was all part of the fun. Every dream had a winner and post-race analysis always managed to find that winner—the fault being with the interpretation of the dream. 
Although I am referring to what was seen as fun the current situation with Maori and gambling is no longer a laughing matter. Statistics from the Gambling Helpline in 2005 indicated that Maori were overrepresented—29.4 percent of new clients were Maori; 12.1 percent of significant others phoning the helpline were Maori; in face-to-face counselling 31.4 percent of new clients were Maori; 35 percent of new clients were Maori men; and 22.9 percent of significant others seeking counselling were Maori. Pokies were the prime mode of problem gambling for men at 72.6 percent and for women at 90.8 percent. In the 4 weeks prior to seeking help 401 clients spent $573125. That is an average of $1429 each which is $357 per week. That is a problem. 
It is with these statistics from the Problem Gambling Foundation that we in the Maori Party alert this House to the devastation caused by access to gambling—particularly access to pokie machines and the effect they can have on whanau. The research shows that for every problem gambler five other people are negatively affected. 
We are supportive of this bill but we caution that as is the case with tobacco smoking we in the Maori Party take very seriously the damage to whanau done by gambling and especially the one-armed bandits robbing people in the name of entertainment and for the good of the community apparently. In ending all I can say is that members should watch this space. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 It is with a great sense of humility enthusiasm duty and loyalty that I announce that I support the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). 
JO GOODHEW (National—Aoraki) 
: 
 I rise in support of the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). I do so having come to understand more about what this sort of bill is in aid of and its purpose. The Regulations Review Committee brought this bill to the House. As other speakers have already outlined a number of different confirmations and validations are in Part 2 of the bill. They include the Animal Products Act 1999 Commodity Levies Act 1990 Customs and Excise Act 1996 Fisheries Act 1996 Gambling Act 2003—which I intend to spend a bit more time on soon—New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 Social Security Act 1964 Road User Charges Act 1977 Tariff Act 1988 and War Pensions Act 1954. I intend to spend a little bit more time on some of these particular Acts and on the importance of their being validated here today in the House. I reiterate that National is supporting this legislation. But even though the whole House is likely to be supporting the legislation it does not make it any less important that we understand what the bill actually brings into play. 
One area I have a particular interest in is the Gambling Act 2003 and the levy that will be validated by this particular legislation. It seems that gambling is an area that others here in the House this afternoon are interested in as well. I am particularly interested in it because in my previous life working in crime prevention I came to understand a little bit more about the need for a problem-gambling levy. We need the levy so that we have the opportunity to put in place some element of counselling and to make sure that problem gambling is seen. This afternoon the member Te Ururoa Flavell talked about some of the gambling that we all grew up with—for example euchre and housie evenings. In fact I remember some years ago we had a gambling night when we were betting on horses that were cut out of plywood. We wound up the rope to see who could wind up the rope the fastest. 
That is the sort of gambling that for many many years people have had a great sense of fun with. They have also actually raised money as has been suggested here in the House already. That is the sort of gambling that continues and is the safe sort of gambling. In recent years we have become aware of some of the hardship and some of the significant personal social and economic costs for individuals families communities and the general public that problem gambling has wrought. 
It has a disproportionate effect on some groups and communities. Problem gambling contributes to poverty and socio-economic inequalities but that has been addressed since 1996 by successive Governments and there is now a problem-gambling levy. Other aspects have now been used. I must say that the implementation of pop-ups on the one-armed bandits or pokies—call them what you like—has been brought into play. Having talked to the owners of clubs and pubs and even the people who operate casinos I am unconvinced as of yet whether the pop-ups actually do a lot of good. After all some of the problem gamblers will simply press the button and off they go and continue. Because problem gambling is an addiction. It is an addiction that tears apart families. It is an addiction that is not cheap to treat either because as with other addictions the counselling required and the detection of people with that addiction is quite expensive in terms of personnel and being people with an addiction those people are cunning. They are very very cunning and therefore they will try to escape detection by the people running the casinos pubs or clubs. 
It is really important that we have that levy but equally the National Party’s way of looking at it will always be that there must be a very good cost-benefit analysis of how we spend the levy. Our colleague Sandra Goudie has certainly shown that in the past some of the problem-gambling services have not been doing a good job but have been spending an inordinate amount of money on counselling that probably has not been put to good effect. 
What else would happen if this legislation were not passed? In another part of the bill we need to confirm the War Pensions (Rates of Pensions Lump Sum Payments and Allowances) Order 2007. War pensions are indexed annually to take into account the percentage increase in the consumer price index over the previous calendar year. It is absolutely imperative that we do that each year. I am sure it is not something that is easily forgotten but equally it is important for those who are receiving war pensions under the War Pensions Act 1954 that it is increased and indexed to the consumer price index because those same people are often left on limited incomes. Those same people are often left with disabilities that have come about as a part of their actions in serving our country. They served it many years ago but now their health has suffered as a result of doing that. 
We also need to make sure that the superannuitants of New Zealand are looked after. That is why we need to confirm the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Act 2001 and the Social Security Act 1964. That is also indexed to the consumer price index and those people are often on limited incomes and will certainly be looking out to make sure that their income is increasing. 
In summary I would say that while being in the House this afternoon for this particular bill the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) I have learnt quite a lot about what has been described as a bill that simply passes legislation that needs to be validated and confirmed each year. The report of the Regulations Review Committee tells us that it asked the nine Government agencies responsible for administering this subordinate legislation to confirm that this action is required and to explain why confirmation and validation is warranted. The committee reported that it was satisfied by the agencies’ responses. Therefore I would just say that National has great pleasure in supporting this legislation and that I have learnt a lot about this type of legislation this afternoon. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) and I was absolutely fascinated to hear that the previous speaker Jo Goodhew has learnt a lot from this debate because I have learnt a great deal from her. I have just learnt that she cares about superannuitants. She must have forgotten about what Mrs Shipley did to superannuitants when she came into power and what happened to the payment rates of superannuation. 
I am really glad that Jo Goodhew supports Labour Government policy on this issue. It is about time that she did support it because many superannuitants are afraid. They are afraid that if Labour should ever lose the Government benches in this House their superannuation would not continue to be paid at the current rates and that the age of qualification would go up. I see members shaking their heads. I say it happened. It happened when Mrs Shipley was the Prime Minister of this country and heaven help us if it should ever happen again. That is why many older people will be really concerned about this issue and the comments that were made by the speaker opposite. So I am really pleased that we see a new caring sharing National Party. 
I also say that this bill is a routine bill. It is legislation that basically turns over many of the levies that are charged annually. I look forward to the passing of this legislation. 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I rise to talk about the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3). It is very important legislation in front of Parliament this evening. In particular I will make some comments on clause 8 in Part 2 regarding the Commodity Levies Act 1990 which is very important legislation for the rural community and also clause 13 in Part 2 regarding the Road User Charges Act 1977. 
When we look at the Road User Charges Act 1977 we see that it establishes a mechanism whereby cost can be incurred for vehicles particularly heavy trucks that are over 3.5 tonnes. The member Jonathan Coleman from Auckland would see them travelling over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. The revenue generated from these road user charges is paid into the National Land Transport Fund. It is great to see that the Labour Government has endorsed the National Party policy of 2005 by now putting all those taxes into roading instead of into the consolidated account because we all know that about 50 percent of costs incurred at the petrol pump and the diesel pump goes into taxes. 
Hon Member 
: Siphoned off. 
NATHAN GUY 
: Yes it is siphoned off into the consolidated account. So it is great to hear that the Labour Government is now endorsing the National Party policy of 2005 by putting those taxes into getting more roads built in this country. [ 
Interruption 
] 
I looked at the Act which I have in front of me for Mr Duynhoven’s information. He might be interested to learn that this legislation came into effect in March 1978 and I want to raise some particular points for Mr Duynhoven. I will talk about the number of axles permitted on the road and about the road-bearing weights on those axles as well. Mr Duynhoven would I am sure be very interested in that. We can look at what is happening in Australia where there are road trains or B trains. Australians are allowed far longer loads on their vehicles than we in New Zealand are so I think that will happen here in time. Perhaps under a National Government we could inject some more money into roading and get the Resource Management Act tidied up. 
The other aspect I want to talk about is the Commodity Levies Act 1990. When we look at this Act we see that it covers a whole wide range of primary production sectors. I will not go through all of them but I will give Mr Duynhoven a few examples. It includes arable crops and asparagus right through to milk meat maize nashi pears—I am not sure whether any of those grow up in Taranaki; it might be too cold—and through to horticultural products such as passionfruit and other pipfruit. In essence we are passing this subordinate legislation this evening to ensure that those primary sector industries have some funding to be able to get on and do market research and research and development. Some may choose through the process in the Regulations Review Committee to put it out for 5 years and some may choose to have it struck at 1 year and generally the percentages range between 1 percent and 5 percent. 
National has no issues with this legislation in front of us tonight. In fact we believe that it is very important and paramount legislation particularly for primary industry products that are covered by clause 8 relating to the Commodity Levies Act 1990. So National supports this reading of this bill in Parliament this evening. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Hon Harry Duynhoven is using his phone at the moment with an earpiece. That is inappropriate in this Chamber. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member should consider his position and take the issue outside the Chamber. Thank you. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I take it that if I adopt the practice of using a post and telegraph - type handset to listen to my messages on my cellphone that is acceptable. I take it also that if I tuck my head under the bench—as I saw a National member doing earlier in the day—to listen to cellphone messages that is also acceptable. Perhaps you could clarify that Mr Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There are a number of Speakers’ rulings on that and the Speaker has given a considered ruling on the use of electronic gadgetry inside the Chamber. I suggest members have a look at the Speaker’s ruling. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I ask for clarification on one other matter to do with this. Is it acceptable to use a laptop computer in the House? I understand it is. And is it acceptable to use an earpiece in association with a laptop in the House? 
Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Who’s doing that? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I am not doing it; I am asking whether it is acceptable. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Again I suggest that the member look at the very precise ruling that Madam Speaker gave on this. It is quite extensive and it covers the issues that have been raised by the members. 
Bill read a second time and a third time. 
Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Deputy Leader of the House) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Finance 
: I move  
That the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill be now read a third time 
. In considering what is actually quite a straightforward piece of legislation which simply extends the expiry date of the current legislative framework from 31 December this year to 1 July 2009 it is very interesting to look at who so far has spoken against the bill. This bill relates exclusively to parliamentary matters. The Opposition spokesperson on such matters is the shadow Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee. Mr Brownlee is not known around the House it is fair to say for being someone who hides his light behind a bushel. He is not known for being a shy member of Parliament. Yet despite this he has not contributed at all to the debate on this bill and there has to be a reason for that. 
The reason Gerry Brownlee has not spoken at all on the debate on this bill is that if he did speak he would have to admit not only that the National Party secretly supports this bill but actually that it was that party’s own idea. To use Mr Brownlee’s actual words from question time less than 2 weeks ago: “… National was happy for a rollover provided it would lead to a much shorter election period.” Without Mr Brownlee in the House National’s charismatic team of Tony Ryall and Nick Smith have been trying to explain this away. They have come up with all sorts of creative explanations for what Mr Brownlee meant. But his comments make the matter quite clear: National supports a rollover to the current legislative framework. Of course it does; it was National’s suggestion. The simple reason that the National shadow Leader of the House has not spoken in this debate is that to do so would be to give away National’s dirty secret. Despite that party’s bluff and bluster its members actually support this bill; they actually use it and they actually need it. 
The other reason we know that National does not really oppose this bill is that National members keep spending the money that the Parliamentary Service provides for communication services. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Get out of here—do they? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: I say to Mr Woolerton that it is terrible. We have seen the now infamous “nick4nelson” pamphlet. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Nick for Nelson? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: The “nick4Nelson” pamphlet. It is pretty rough on the eye but it calls on people to change the Government. There is only one way people can change the Government in New Zealand if they believe in the rule of law and that is to use their vote to do it. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: So who’s paying the money? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Woolerton asked if Nick Smith used taxpayers’ money to pay for it. Yes he did. It is an exceptionally revealing document because it not only says “nick4nelson” and why New Zealand needs a new Government but on the inside cover lists about 10 people who are praising Nick Smith for his work as the local MP. What is insightful about that is that for most of us who have the privilege of being constituency members simply helping people is reward enough in itself. But for Nick Smith it means going around to get quotes from people about how wonderful he is and then asking the taxpayer to pay to publicise those quotes on a pamphlet and distribute it. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Does it give membership details? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: No it does not give membership details but it does say “www.nick4nelson.co.nz” and it asks people to change the Government. Equally the chief Opposition whip Anne Tolley has sent a survey form around her electorate asking people not only who they intend to vote for at the next election but who they voted for at the last election. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Does Bill English know that? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Bill English knows all about this because Bill English knows how these rules work. He is an expert on how this bill works because he knows how to spend Parliamentary Service money for communication purposes better than any other member of this House. Bill English knew that when he was the leader of the National Party. So despite all the claims of outrage from National speakers opposite they keep spending money from parliamentary resources on the very things they say we should not be able to spend the money on. 
Given that they really support the bill they have had to come up with all kinds of imaginative reasons to oppose it. First they tried to claim that somehow this bill changes the rules from what everyone thought they always were. It does not. The bill has a very simple purpose: to extend the understanding until 1 July 2009. It shifts the date for the expiry of the rules determining what is happening right now—rules that Nick Smith is using rules that Anne Tolley is using rules that Bill English used with great gusto in 2002. We need only look at the election pledge pamphlet that Bill English issued in that fateful year when he had responsibility for the National Party together with Nick Smith and Tony Ryall when they were the young bright leaders of their party. I have in front of me a pamphlet that they put out as their commitment to their country—the pledge commitment that went out from the National Party during the year of the 2002 election campaign. There is a big House of Representatives crest on it and they used the pamphlet to communicate with voters. 
Hon Bill English 
: It was legal! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr English says that it was legal; that it was within the rules of the time. He could still go and put this pamphlet out now under the rules that he is voting against and saying are such terrible things for us to have. It was a highly political document on which Bill English set out his 2002 promises for that year’s election campaign. In fairness to Mr English it did not solicit votes it did not ask for donations and it did not ask people to join the National Party—because nobody joined the National Party in 2002; in fact people were leaving it in great droves. It was a highly political document paid for by Parliamentary Service’s money. That was the understanding that we had all previously operated under. 
The National members are now describing in the House that such action is corrupt. Bill English said it was legal back then in 2002 as though his own pledge commitment was alright. OK he does not want to talk about his 2002 commitment but let us look at what the National Party is doing in 2007. I have in front of me a 2007 publication from somebody called John Key the leader of the National Party who is borrowing Hillary Clinton’s phrase “Join the conversation.” There is a big photo of John Key the National Party logo the National Party website and on the National Party website there are media releases from people who are saying how good National’s policies are. In question time today Mr English said it was terrible that on a taxpayer-funded website there might be a media release relating to the policy of a party. Yet the very website that John Key asks people to go to is stacked full of highly partisan vote-gathering media releases from the National Party. That was funded this year by the National Party from Parliamentary Service along with the “Change the Government … nick4nelson” leaflet. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: They’re saying it’s not good for us—it’s illegal—but for them it’s great. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Duynhoven makes a good point. They want to have one law for some people; they want to be able to keep these laws for themselves and not for other people. I want to know from Nick Smith who knows a lot about judicial matters whether this is corrupt legislation. If it is not corrupt now in 2007 why should it be corrupt after 31 December? 
Hon Member 
: Because it’s an election year. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: So in election year John Key does not plan to communicate with the voters who put him into Parliament. 
Hon Bill English 
: That’s not true! 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: “That’s not true!” said Mr Bill English. So in 2008 he does not want to have to communicate with his own constituents. It is very very revealing when these things come up. I ask the National members if it was corrupt of Bill English to put out a 2002 pledge card pamphlet. Is he now saying as the National members are asserting in this debate that revalidating this law is a terrible corrupt act? Nick Smith is using his usual over-the-top phrases that none of his own colleagues believe in when he says them much less the public or other MPs. If that is the case I ask members whether Bill English should pay back what was spent in 2002 under the rules we were operating under at that time. Of course he does not think he should have to because the National members do not hold themselves to the same rules that they want to hold other MPs to in this House. 
 The other imaginative argument that National members have run is that somehow this bill has changed the rules relating to the accounting of parliamentary spending under the Electoral Act. That self-described electoral law expert—that is what he called himself to the media—Tony Ryall chaired the select committee with regard to the Electoral Act. Those members know that the Electoral Act passed by National makes it absolutely clear that communications by MPs in their roles as MPs rather than as candidates do not count towards election spending. National MPs know that—it is their law and nothing in this bill changes it. 
They have also been busy rewriting history and talking about the fact that laws relating to the electoral system have only ever progressed on a bipartisan basis. The reality is that Labour has tried to reach consensus on this bill. Indeed six of the eight parties in Parliament support this bill because we have engaged in this process in good faith. The great irony is that despite the fact that six of the eight parties are supporting the bill—and the National Party is one of the two parties not supporting it—the National Party is the single biggest beneficiary of the law that is being passed with this third reading debate this afternoon. National is the party that receives the most money from the Parliamentary Service yet National is saying that members of Parliament in 2008 should not communicate with their constituents. 
I want to hear from the next National Party speaker as to whether these surveys that are going out asking people what party they voted for at the last election and who they are voting for at the next election paid for by Parliamentary Service will be issued in 2008. I guarantee we do not get an answer on that question because National members plan to keep on doing what they have always done. The National Party needs this bill to pass its third reading more than any other party in Parliament and those members sit there with their imaginative arguments trying to argue both sides of the coin even though they cannot wait to keep ploughing into Parliamentary Service resources in that regard. 
This bill provides clear transparent and fair rules so that all MPs can continue doing their jobs. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 The only elucidation that came from that speech was the fact that we just heard 10 minutes of talk about the National Party and not one total minute about the content of this bill. This bill is all about the Labour Party being up its old tricks. New Zealanders know that the member who has just resumed his seat would not be in this Parliament if the Labour Party had not stolen $800000 of taxpayers’ money and spent it on the pledge card. Those members stole $800000 of taxpayers’ money. They had to pay it back. They had been told by the Chief Electoral Officer that if they spent the taxpayers’ money on the pledge card they would have to include that money in their election expenses. The Labour Party members said they would include it in election expenses. In the end—and it is a summary of this bill—they did not include it in their expenses and that is what this bill is all about. 
This bill is all about allowing the Labour Party to repeat the pledge card rort of 2005. Hand in hand with the Electoral Finance Bill this bill provides for the Labour Party to spend taxpayers’ money right up until election day with complete abandon and no regard whatsoever for the rules that have previously existed in Parliament. What the National Opposition has said is that we should have the rules that applied before the 2005 general election. Those rules were clear and understood. Those rules made it clear that if a party spent taxpayers’ money on electioneering that was illegal and would have to be declared in its election expense but the Labour Party ignored those rules completely. It was found to have stolen $800000 of taxpayers’ money. It subsequently stole the 2005 election. 
That has allowed Labour to get the red printing presses working overtime. We asked a number of questions in the House about this never-ending slew of material coming out of the Labour Party. We asked whether that would carry on in an election period. Here is what was amazing and this is what this bill does. If these brochures I am holding up were put out by a Labour Party MP in the week of the election they would not count as an election expense as a result of this bill. But wait for this—if a Labour Party candidate who is not a member of Parliament puts out these pamphlets they are counted as an election expense. They are counted as an election expense if a Labour Party candidate who is not a member of Parliament puts them out. Dr Cullen would not answer this question so let us hear an answer from the next speaker from the Labour Party. What is the principle that allows the Labour Party to say that because this brochure is put out by a member of Parliament it is not counted as an election expense but if this brochure together with a picture of a woman who purports to be the Prime Minister of New Zealand is put out by a Labour Party candidate then it is caught as an election expense? There is no way that that can be justified. It is Labour up to its old tricks again rorting the system in favour of its own party. 
This bill is not about what is being spent today. This bill is about what the Labour Party plans to spend in an election year and about changing the electoral law to favour Labour. Everyone in New Zealand knows that the Electoral Finance Bill and this bill are all about advantaging Labour. Labour members will do anything say anything and spend anything to win the next election. What we know is that their union mates spent well over $1.5 million at the last election by estimates in support of the Labour Party. We know they will do everything possible to secure a victory at the next election. 
Gerry Brownlee has been absolutely clear on this bill. We do not believe that this bill should be passed to allow this practice during an election period. We do not know why members of this House want to give existing parties and members of Parliament an electoral privilege that they are not prepared to give to anybody else. There is silence. Why would the Government want to give an electoral privilege only to members of Parliament and existing parties and not to other people who are standing in an election? Let us understand what that means. Labour is exempting only members of Parliament from the coverage of the Electoral Finance Bill. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: You chaired the select committee. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: That is a good point. I did chair the Electoral Law Committee—after 1993—that finalised the MMP legislation. It was done in a multiparty way and both National and Labour voted for the legislation. I know that before I was the chairman and a member of that committee the committee worked very closely with the Hon David Caygill the senior Labour member on that committee to come up with a bill that both parties could support. Members of that committee realised that if something is done to a person or party today that person or party can come back and do the same thing the next time. That is the reason why with the Standing Orders and other procedures in this House we always rely on a multiparty or all-party agreement to achieve this. Governments have almost always realised that there will come a time when they are in Opposition and they would not want the victors of each election deciding what the rules will be. That is the reason why the two main parties and others in this House have generally more or less agreed on the nomenclature of our electoral systems. They have agreed because they know that it would be bad for democracy to have a system where the victors change the rules after every election. 
It does not worry Helen Clark Michael Cullen and Annette King—all those ageing people on the Labour front bench—because they are going at the next election. They will not be standing in 2011 but I would be worried if I was one of the younger people in the second and third rows. Labour’s intent on forcing this bill says to the Parliament and the people of New Zealand that Labour is happy with a system where the victors can write the rules to suit themselves. That is a boot that can fit on two feet. 
That is the reason why parties in this Parliament have always come to a more or less multiparty agreement on important electoral law.That was certainly the case on the Electoral Law Committee when we did the MMP legislation during the mid-1990s. We wanted a law that would endure that was durable and that enjoyed the confidence of the main parties if not all the parties in Parliament at that time. We are going to end up with this bill and the Electoral Finance Bill with legislation that will not endure. This bill will not endure. The Electoral Finance Bill will not endure because we know that there are significant parties in this Parliament that do not agree with what the Government has done. The Government could have sought a multiparty bipartisan agreement as was the case when I was chairing the Electoral Law Committee. That is what we did. We worked closely with Labour members to make sure we had legislation that would endure and legislation that would not change every time a new party took the Treasury benches. That is not good for democracy. That is why New Zealanders have a sense that this bill and the Electoral Finance Bill are just not right. They are just not fair. They are anti-democratic. They are all about entrenching the privileges that Labour has as Government. 
We all know about the clause that Labour did not want the public to see in the select committee. We will hear more about that on Thursday. The public knows that law like this should be done with the agreement of the whole of Parliament in order for the legislation to endure. We do not want New Zealand to be a banana republic a Zimbabwe of the South Pacific where the victors change the laws to favour themselves. But that is what this Labour Party is doing. It is inviting future Governments to change the law to suit themselves. I for one do not agree with that. I think we should have a law that endures and is fair for all New Zealanders. It does not matter to guys on the other side of the Chamber who will not be here in a year’s time. It should matter to the lower benches of the Labour Party because they may be in a future Parliament and they will not want a future Government to jackboot over their rights as an Opposition as this Government is jackbooting over the rights of all New Zealanders with this attack on the democratic values that most New Zealanders hold dear. The few exceptions are on the benches opposite. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 That was a tired old retread from the National Party called Tony Ryall. He had the temerity to talk about people who have been here a long time and are old in face. There is such a thing called a mirror that I might give him for Christmas which is not too far away. The debate gets more and more curious the more we listen to the National members on the other side of the Chamber. The problem of course is that they have completely misread and misrepresented the bill. This is a very very simple little bill. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Simple rort; it’s a rort. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I will come on to the rort from the member called Nick Smith. We are going to talk about him in a minute. I want to set the framework here because it is really important and people at home might not have understood what this bill is about after hearing from that tired old retread Tony Ryall who spoke previously. The point is that at the moment there is a framework for spending Government money if one is a member of Parliament. It is very very simple and all members of Parliament do it. They have electorate offices public advertising in their local newspapers they put out information and there are rules around that. Basically the rules say that we are not allowed to electioneer with it which means we are not allowed to elicit a vote we are not allowed to say “vote for Labour” “vote for me” or “vote for the party”. They also say that we are not allowed to collect money or ask for money. All of these things are called electioneering. Do members know what? That appears in this legislation that we are debating. It states that we are not allowed to do those things. 
So what this legislation does is say that we tried to get some agreement on some rules about what should be spent. In fact the National Party said “Yes we’re in.” then it said “No we’re not.” We said: “Well let’s roll these rules over.” They said: “Oh yeah. We’ll do that.” Then “Oh no we won’t.” they said. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Where’s Gerry? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes Gerry Brownlee said that. So the problem we have now is that the framework expires at the end of this year. What we are doing is just simply rolling it over until 2009 until we can get some new rules in place. So the framework does not change and electioneering is not allowed. National members now are outraged by this legislation. They are appalled by it. They are outraged and appalled by this legislation because it allows members of Parliament to spend taxpayers’ money. 
There is a question I have not been able to get an answer to yet from anybody and I am going to start firstly with Nathan Guy. Does Nathan Guy support this legislation or not? We get no answer when we ask these direct questions. I assume by the outrage and appalling behaviour that those members have displayed over there that somehow they are going to vote against this legislation. So the next question is if they are going to vote against this legislation does it mean that Nathan Guy once this legislation is passed will not put out anything like this pamphlet I am holding into the letterboxes of people in the Otaki area? He says in the pamphlet “What you think does matter”. He goes on to say “Keeping in touch is important.” There is a bit of a questionnaire about all sorts of things on the back of the pamphlet. One of the other things he says here which is really nice of him is “To save costs I’m generally sending one form per household.” notwithstanding the fact that this is enormously expensive. But what this legislation does is it allows people to do this. 
I say to Nathan Guy that if he votes against this legislation he needs to stand up in this Parliament and say “As a result of my vote in Parliament I am not going to spend one single cent of taxpayers’ money next year putting out stuff like this.” If he is going to be consistent he should say “Yes I am. I am not going to put out anything next year. I am so outraged by what the Government is doing in this legislation that I have voted against it.” I do not think that will happen. I do not think he will stand up and say “I oppose this legislation and I’m not going to put out anything next year that is funded by the taxpayer.” I bet he does not do that. 
Strangely enough there is a member of Parliament up north called Anne Tolley. When I pick up this pamphlet that she has put out which starts with “What you think does matter” I wonder where I have read that before. I go back to Nathan Guy’s pamphlet which reads “What you think does matter”. Methinks that these two pamphlets are the same. I turn them over and they are. The only difference is that the names are different. I notice down the bottom of the pamphlet it says “Privacy notice. Supplying this information is voluntary. The information is being collected by Nathan Guy in his capacity as a member of Parliament”—which is what this bill does; it says that if one is a member of Parliament one is allowed to do this kind of thing—“and will be used for related activities.” I wonder what they are. It sounds sniffingly like— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Feedback. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It sounds like a little feedback and “maybe we might send you a little pamphlet about what National is going to do”. We know what that means. Nathan Guy and Anne Tolley are outraged by this legislation. They are going to vote against it but will not say whether they will do this next year when according to them this is an outrage. 
Of course there is Nick Smith who always has a lot to say about this kind of matter. Here we have a little pamphlet from him that says “Why New Zealand needs a new Government”. Of course the fact of the matter is that New Zealand has a fabulous one at the moment which is why this is probably false advertising. But the fact of the matter is that Nick Smith is going to vote I presume against this legislation. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: You bet. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Yes he is. He is going to vote against it. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: A principled man. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: He is a principled man. He is going to vote against it. I ask Nick Smith then once this legislation is passed next year is he going to put out information similar to this? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Will the member yield? 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: No I am asking the member a question. Will the member— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am very happy to answer the member’s question. There is a simple procedure in Parliament’s rules and it is for the member to yield. I am happy for the member to yield to answer his question. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: I am not going to do that. I know what the rules are. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: OK. That is fine. The member is not prepared to yield. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: The point is that the member will not answer the question. It is just a simple thing. He can just call out across the House yes or no. He will not do that. He will not answer because he knows that next year he is going to put out information like this in his electorate. So I ask the member Nick Smith if he is going to put out information like that why he is voting against this legislation that allows it. 
Hon Member 
: There’s a word for that. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: Well there is a word but we are not allowed to mention that word Mr Assistant Speaker. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Absolutely. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: That is exactly right because I know what the rules are. But the fact of the matter is that a word in the dictionary describes what Mr Nick Smith is doing. He now has said of course that he will vote against this bill but we know that next year against all the principled outrage and moral indignation that we will probably hear from him in a minute he will do exactly what the bill does; that is a strange thing. So I ask Nick Smith again. 
I have here an article about John Key’s “Join the conversation” cards. So I ask National members who are outraged by this legislation and who presumably are going to vote against this legislation whether we will see John Key putting out any information funded by the taxpayer next year—yes or no? Well is that not interesting? [ 
Interruption 
] Yes there is National’s deputy leader. He should know. You know I will hazard a guess; I will take a punt that the National Party will vote against this legislation and then—surprise surprise—will use taxpayers’ money which the legislation allows them to do to put out information like this and information as on this brochure: “My commitment” from former leader Bill English. 
Here is another one: “Ten steps National’s first Budget will take”. The leaflet is funded by the National Party. How do we know—because it has the little parliamentary crest on it. This leaflet is funded by the National Party. All we want is— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: By the taxpayer. 
Hon PAUL SWAIN 
: It is funded by the taxpayer. All we want is a simple question answered. If the National Party is so appalled by this legislation—which will have the support of the majority of the parties in the House—and it has a right to be and if it is going to vote against this legislation which it has a right to do does that mean therefore that it will not spend one single solitary cent of taxpayers’ money next year? The question simply is yes or no. All I want is one National member to tell me yes or no. Of course they will not say yes or no because we know that the answer is yes. So the public of New Zealand need to know that National is voting against the legislation but will spend the money this legislation allows. And there is a word for it that we are not allowed to mention in Parliament. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 In 1988 a Labour member of Parliament was found guilty of committing a corrupt practice. We need to be quite plain today that this law makes what was corrupt now lawful. Let me recite the offence of that period because it speaks volumes about the importance of this debate today. Reg Boorman back in the time of the previous Labour Government was trying to secure his re-election in the Wairarapa electorate and he extensively used his parliamentary budget to win that election. The judge ruled that that was a corrupt practice—that he had breached the $20000 limit in using taxpayers’ money. But this bill says that it is quite OK to use parliamentary money and more significantly when tied up with the Electoral Finance Bill it makes such expenditure outside the $20000 limit. 
Did anybody in 1988—anybody in the media or any member of the Labour Party—defend Reg Boorman and say that his rort was OK? No they did not; they said that it was corrupt. And that corrupt practice prevented Reg Boorman from ever being able to stand for Parliament again. That has been the settled law through all the period since. Yet through this sneaky dirty bill and under a fragile majority in this House we are today to make what was corrupt right. But I say that it does not; it was corrupt then and it is corrupt today. I also say that this— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: What a load of rubbish! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well I ask Mr Woolerton because he and his colleagues said to the House— 
R Doug Woolerton 
: I’m saying you are talking a load of rubbish. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well which part does the member agree with? Does he agree that Reg Boorman was kicked out of this Parliament for a corrupt practice? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: You’re exaggerating. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well no he was not? I have not exaggerated a single piece of history that has occurred. Let us take the next chapter of history. Labour in the 2005 election put out this pledge card I am holding up. It breached the law in two respects. In relation to the first the Auditor-General said it was wrong to spend $820000 of public money on this pledge card. But even more significantly the Chief Electoral Officer at that time David Henry said that this pledge card should have been included in Labour’s $2 million limit. Let me just recite those numbers. The limit that any party can spend on campaigning was $2 million; this card exceeded that amount by $800000; so Labour broke the law—broke the law—by not including it. It broke the law not just by a little bit by a thousand dollars or two but by $800000. Yet today this sick desperate Labour Party is passing a law to make both those illegal acts lawful. This bill will mean that it will be OK for the Labour Party to rort the public purse for another pledge card. That will be OK. But even more significantly the $800000 spent on the pledge card will not be included in the campaign limit. 
Mr Swain asked this question: will National use the provisions of this law to produce material next year? Let us just look at the numbers. Mr Swain is saying that $17 million—which amount is just by coincidence; Labour has increased the budget by 20 percent—can be spent and is controlled by this bill and at the same time that party is saying that I and the National Party cannot spend more than $2 million of public money on campaigning. This is about $17 million compared with $2 million. It will appal me that I will not be able to work hard with the volunteers in my electorate—citizens who want to change the Government quite legitimately. They will not be able to run fashion shows as we did this year or do as we did on this Saturday when we had a fundraiser at the A and P show. We will not be allowed to spend that money on campaigning but we will be able to spend the $17 million out of the public purse. I say to members opposite that that is a corruption of our election laws. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: You’ll have $7 million—$7 million! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: And I say to Mr Woolerton that I am damned proud of this country’s democratic heritage. I am proud of the fact that we were the first country to allow New Zealanders regardless of wealth and regardless of race to be able to vote for members of this Parliament. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: You’re in the money—you’re in the money. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am proud of the fact I tell Mr Woolerton that we are the sixth oldest continuous parliamentary democracy in the world. I am proud of the fact that we were the first country in the world to give women the vote. But today I hide my head in shame because what we are doing through this bill is not just an issue of the next election; we are undermining the democratic heritage of this beautiful country of ours. In a sick partisan act we are skewing the rules solely to help the Labour Party. 
I know that the Labour Party in Nelson is incredibly weak. I know that it has the weakest organisation ever because the people of Nelson have no faith in Labour. But Labour says that it does not care whether it has public support strong branches and strong organisation; it wants the right to be able to fleece the taxpayer and at the same time to shut down anybody else from having a say. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: You spent more than any other party. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: New Zealand First says that we need this bill to protect ourselves from the Auditor-General. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Well give us half your $7 million. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I say to Mr Woolerton that members of Parliament who are honest and decent do not need laws to protect themselves from the Auditor-General. Members on this side of the House reject this bill and we are happy to follow the rules of the Auditor-General. We think the Auditor-General’s judgment about what was proper and what was improper was quite fair. 
I say to members opposite that this bill is about giving the fingers to the Auditor-General and if members of Parliament can give the fingers to the Auditor-General on the abuse of public money then why should officials and health bodies bother considering the Auditor-General? Why should those who work in our councils have respect for the Auditor-General if we in this Parliament say we will just veto him when it suits us? Why should any of our 200000 public servants have respect for the Auditor-General when this bill gives him the fingers and says that Parliament is above the law? 
The tragedy of this bill is that it undermines not only our public respect for systems for the way in which public money should and should not be used but also the very essence of our democracy. I will be OK because I am a sitting member of Parliament; I will be able to use the public purse. But what about the average citizen who wants to compete to be a member of this House? This bill is all about creating a closed shop for Parliament. I know that the trade unions of members opposite have long been into closed shops creating a select club and grabbing the powers and privileges that go with it but we in the National Party say that it is morally wrong. It is morally bankrupt. We should not be overriding law that says that the things covered in this legislation were a corrupt practice. We say that the court decisions that have arisen out of both the Bob Clarkson case and the Reg Boorman case are perfectly able to be followed by this Parliament. We say to members opposite that they overrule the Auditor-General at their peril. 
That is what this bill does. It overrules the independent Auditor-General. Ultimately this bill says one thing: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This bill is a disdain on this House of Parliament. It is a disdain on our proud heritage as a democracy. It is solely about the crude attempts by Labour and Helen Clark unfairly to win a further term because they are not prepared to fight an election on the old rules. They are going to rort the taxpayer. They are going to cheat the rules and sadly this institution of Parliament will be the loser. 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I know that points of order must be raised at the time a matter to be raised occurs but I did not want to interrupt the speaker Nick Smith who was on his feet. During the course of the member’s debate Mr Woolerton continually interjected from an advantageous position not from his normal seat. I just bring to your attention that that is certainly inappropriate in the context of the debate. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that. Maybe he should have raised the matter during the course of the speech because members cannot move to facilitate interjection. I did call the member to order several times. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 The Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill is a very simple bill. Basically it reflects in part the Speaker’s directions. Several MPs—two from National two from Labour and I think one from every other party with the exception of Progressive—have sat down on a regular basis for quite some time and debated and discussed the Speaker’s directions and they have been amended accordingly. When they were recently signed off the Auditor-General’s opinion was sought. I am not sure whether his opinion was formally sought or whether the Speaker spoke with him privately; I understand that a National member spoke with him privately. He agrees with the sign-off— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: He does not. 
PETER BROWN 
: He agrees with the sign-off of the Speaker’s directions. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: He does not agree with this bill. 
PETER BROWN 
: I am not talking about this bill. If the member listened for a bit he might learn something because he has misunderstood this bill totally. What he said publicly in Parliament which will be recorded in  
Hansard 
 is almost 100 percent wrong. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Explain. 
PETER BROWN 
: I will endeavour to explain. 
The Speaker’s directions are reflected in this bill. This bill tells us as do the Speaker’s directions what the funding entitlements are for parliamentary purposes. I will not read that because it is self-explanatory. But the bill also goes on to explain what electioneering is in the time of an election period. If in that period a member of Parliament goes out and produces a communication—which one could say was a brochure a pamphlet or whatever—that explicitly seeks support for a party or a member then he or she is deemed to be electioneering. If a member seeks a vote for that party or that member he or she is electioneering. If that member encourages a person to become a member of a political party he or she is electioneering. It is quite quite concise and it is quite sensible. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Does Labour’s pledge card meet that definition? 
PETER BROWN 
: The member is questioning the pledge card. Now I cannot recall what the pledge card is but I have here a pledge brochure. I cannot find a great deal of difference between what I have been told about the pledge card and what I have been told about this pledge brochure. This brochure was paid for by the National Party out of its parliamentary funding. It is a huge brochure— 
Hon Member 
: So the taxpayer paid. 
PETER BROWN 
: Exactly. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What did the Auditor-General say about that publication from National? 
PETER BROWN 
: The member is interjecting to a degree his colleague has objected to. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I just asked the question: what did the Auditor-General say about National? 
PETER BROWN 
: When that member was asked a question he would not answer it. I am answering some of his questions but I am not wasting my 10 minutes on a member who is totally confused and does not know what he is talking about. 
The last time Nick Smith spoke in this House he told members and people in the gallery that he could use the $64000 he got each year to run his electorate office—or offices because as a constituent MP he is entitled to two or expected to have two—to advance himself. That is absolute poppycock and he knows it. He knows that that money is to pay for the lease of his two offices to pay for cleaning them to pay for the power they use and for the equipment in them and to pay for the surveys the National Party puts out from time to time. Those surveys are put out on an individual basis but we know they are produced by the National Party’s head office. He is also allowed to spend part of that money on advertising the fact that he is a resident of Nelson that he has an office there and that he runs a clinic from time to time. That is what he has the money for. But he has told the public of New Zealand that he will use it to advance himself totally. He knows he would not be allowed to get away with that. This bill in part stops that practice from occurring. He knows that this bill in part stops that. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Under this bill I can. 
PETER BROWN 
: No the member cannot. He should try to find it out. What I would like you to do— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
PETER BROWN 
: Not you Mr Assistant Speaker. What I would like the member’s party to do—and I might propose an amendment to the Speaker’s rulings in relation to the National Party in particular—is to present audited accounts to Parliamentary Service to see how its members use their money because it is absolutely disgraceful that the member is telling the public of New Zealand that under the bill he gets $64000 a year to advance himself. That is the impression he has given and that is not right and the member and his colleagues know it. His colleagues know that they do not get that money to advance themselves. They have to have an office they have to have all the equipment in the office and they have to have the office cleaned and what have you. 
It is legitimate for a Government to put out brochures to tell the public of New Zealand what they are entitled to do under any specific piece of legislation. That is the correct thing to do. The member or an earlier member—I think it was Tony Ryall—said that if a Labour Party candidate distributed those brochures to people he or she would be in breach of this law. That is rubbish and Tony Ryall knows it—and Nick Smith knows it. Nick Smith shakes his head but yes he does know it. He has been here 17 years and he does not know how the system works? I do not believe that. 
I have been critical of the Auditor-General and I stand by everything I said. In the document he produced early on in the piece—in June 2005 I think it was—in which he apparently was saying that he would take a tougher line on and a closer look at how we spend our money during the election period he has the heading “Complementary rules and standards should apply”. I will read to the House part of what is under this bullet point. I know I have read it before but maybe the honourable members from the National Party will take note of it. It says here that rules and standards for publication should “identify clear and workable procedures for the approval of publicity before publication takes place;”. It goes on to say a few other things. New Zealand First was caught by the Auditor-General largely because of this brochure I am holding. New Zealand First produced this brochure which outlines our policies. It does not ask for a vote it does not ask for people to become party members and it does not ask for money. It does not ask for anything. 
Hon Bill English 
: That’s fine. 
PETER BROWN 
: The brochure outlines New Zealand First policies. That is what we are meant to do. Bill English is acknowledging that and I thank him for that. 
Let me make it quite clear that our people went along to Parliamentary Service and asked whether this brochure was OK. We sought permission before publication. We went further than that and asked the Chief Electoral Office whether it was OK and we got a clean bill of health on both counts. We followed the rules that the Auditor-General recommended and then we found out we were captured by the Auditor-General’s ruling in his report entitled  
Advertising expenditure incurred by the Parliamentary Service in the three months before the 2005 General Election 
. We followed the rules we followed the procedure but we were captured. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: The Auditor-General’s report came after the event. 
PETER BROWN 
: As the honourable member says that was after the event. 
We could not have done anything other than what we did. I do not know whom we could have asked. Our people asked for permission conscientiously and diligently but we were captured. The Auditor-General told the Hon Peter Dunne that two parties in this Parliament did not break any rules. He said to Peter Dunne that those two parties were United Future and New Zealand First. I understand the Hon Peter Dunne asked the Auditor-General whether he would put that in his report and the Auditor-General said no. 
We welcome this bill because it reinforces in legislation what we have put in the Speaker’s directions. This legislation will make clear for everybody involved in the next election the terms for using parliamentary funds as expenditure. We welcome this bill and we support it wholeheartedly at its third reading. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 There is not really any alternative to this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill if Parliament is to operate properly particularly in the 3 months leading up to polling day. Every party in this House will be in the same bind which is why it is so disappointing that there is not unanimity in this House over this question. Instead it has become a political football even though we just do not have any alternative. 
On the Parliamentary Service Commission all parties including National worked as best they could to try to sort the implications of the Auditor-General’s decision in relation to spending in the last 3 months before the last election. If we do not clarify this issue through this legislation all we will be able to do in the last 3 months before an election is to sit in our offices—if we have offices in the cities outside of Parliament—and do individual casework because it is difficult to sort this out in terms of the Auditor-General’s decision without clear legislation or reference to the Speaker’s direction. At one end as the legislation makes clear we can cut out anything that calls for a vote for a person or a party that calls for people to join a party or that calls for money for that party. Those things are clearly ruled out in this legislation. We can clearly establish that if any advertising—particularly during that 3-month period leading up to the election that the Auditor-General is so worried about—calls for any of those four things then that advertising is not parliamentary business and is not paid for out of a parliamentary budget. 
At the other end of the spectrum—and some of the Auditor-General’s rulings are confusing as the previous speaker Peter Brown indicated—if we are dealing purely with policy and members of Parliament explaining policy then that should not be included in this ban. If it is included we run the risk of virtually the whole of Parliament closing down and all the staff being sacked for the last 3 months before the general election. 
In between those two poles of things calling for votes members or money and things dealing with policy there is a whole grey area in the middle of what we might call sloganeering. This includes using billboards for sloganeering that do not necessarily tell people to vote for the National Party the Green Party the Labour Party or whatever but that are sort of in a bit of a grey area in the middle. That still has to be sorted out—we still have some work to do. We have not had time to work it all through in this Parliament before establishing rules for the next election so we had to roll things over and pass this bill. 
As has come up in Parliament today the Greens have an idea of people outside of Parliament a body representing the citizenry—we call it a Citizens’ Assembly—somehow getting to grips with this issue as well. When MPs approach this issue they do so with a certain bias that comes with being in an incumbent party and a certain vested interest. It would be good to have that independent look at it. It is true and it cannot be completely avoided that incumbent parties do have a certain advantage in the election period. We have resources—communications resources travel resources office resources—based on incumbency which gives us an advantage perhaps over parties that are not represented in Parliament and are trying to get into Parliament or individuals who are trying to get into Parliament. That is a structural problem so we have to take advice. I think the Citizens’ Assembly is a way to help to achieve that and to redress some of that imbalance. I do not think it can ever be completely redressed but I think we have to proceed in an objective way. 
I think we should work together on this issue so it is disappointing that all the parties are not working together on it and that some parties in this House today are using the issue as a political battering ram when we are really all in the same boat in that respect. So hopefully we can all work together support this bill and try to fine-tune it over the next year or two. Thank you. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. A week ago today the Maori Party’s view on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill was clearly set out by Dr Pita Sharples. As with anything we in the Maori Party are involved with particularly in regard to issues in this House we take this issue very seriously as indeed we do the serious business of humour. 
Last year we received a notice that we had committed a crime. The crime was advertising and publicity expenditure deemed outside appropriation for the 3 months prior to the general election of 17 September 2005 and here is the notice. As there is no word for “guilt” in te reo Maori we could only acknowledge this and say: “Ae i raro i nga ture Paremata i he matou.”—that we were wrong. The Maori Party did not make up excuses. We did not seek legal advice on how to convince others that our wrong was in fact a right. “Fair enough” we thought and we fessed up and paid up. The crime was centred on an advertisement in a local paper and it was for the amount of $53.66 including GST. 
On 16 August 2006 we dipped into our Maori Party and staff kai kitty and duly paid in cash the amount of $53.70 for which we received a letter of receipt. [ 
Interruption 
] Thank you. This letter of receipt which was received on 17 August 2006 was headed “Receipt of illegal election advertising expenses” and it stated: “we confirm receipt of funds representing the refund of illegal election expenditure as outlined in the Auditor general’s report. Please find attached your tax receipt for $53.70. This represents $47.73 plus GST. Regards …” blah-blah-blah. 
When we discussed this crime of expenditure outside of appropriations we thought we might invoke what is normal for the Office of Treaty Settlements and this House in settling Treaty claims. We thought 2 percent of $53.70 would be a satisfactory amount in repaying the debt which would bring the compensation payment to about $1.07. We chose not to do so as we were not prepared for the outcry that would surely and rightly have followed. We imagined the headlines of “Maori Party refuses to pay in full”. So we decided to pay the paltry sum of $53.70. We decided that it did not really warrant that sort of headline so we paid in full. We congratulate the Hon Jim Anderton and his Progressive party on being the only political party in this House that did not act illegally. Most other parties have paid but there are still one or two that to date have failed to put their hands in their pockets. The interest on their debts must be building I am sure. 
What has disappointed us most is that first some people still believe that Kevin Brady the Auditor-General was wrong; and secondly even worse this House has passed retrospective legislation to make legitimate that which was illegal. We sure know how to look after ourselves and we have a wonderful ability to rationalise our behaviour. 
The question we in the Maori Party have is about the letter that refers to the refund of illegal election advertising expenses and whether the other parties have received a letter headed just like it. I wonder why it is that we in the Maori Party have not received a letter to say that all is now forgiven and that it has all been made legal and above board. As we have stated previously although this bill is portrayed as merely being a rollover of existing legislation to 2009 and although pledges have been given that what happened in 2005 will not happen again what the Maori Party knows only too well as students of history and of power is that the ends will always justify the means for those who crave power. History has shown that some people will do almost anything to retain their positions. The funny thing that I have found interesting in the debate thus far is that both major parties seem to blame each other yet they both tested the rules to the limit and were found wanting. 
Much reference has been made in this House to Nicky Hager’s book  
The Hollow Men 
 as we have debated this bill and its mate the Electoral Finance Bill which we will be debating before the House winds up for the year. Both of these bills have rightly been linked but it is the book  
The Hollow Men 
 that I want to make reference to. The book alludes to the notion of what is referred to as “wedge politics” the politics of division and fear; the politics whereby one group is cynically set up to be feared. It is a type of politics that has again been seen on our television screens and in our newspapers and this time around it has also been directly experienced by the men women and children of Ruatoki and Tuhoe. It is a sort of politics that utilises a technique called dog whistling which refers to the notion that certain messages will be transmitted and heard by a specific set of the audience. They are subliminal racialising messages that politicians use and that are the last words to be remembered by the listener. 
In the last few weeks we have been subjected to wedge politics and dog whistling straight out of  
The Hollow Men 
 which provided a damning account of gross manipulation of the public in the interests of power. By way of example I ask members to think back if they will to the press conference of Monday morning 15 October when the nation was advised of terrorist training camps in Tuhoe of Molotov cocktails of napalm bombs of military-style weapons and of threats to the lives of the Rt Hon Helen Clark the honourable John Key and the President of the United States George W Bush. When leave to lay charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 was denied the Prime Minister went on the offensive stating that those arrested were still facing very serious firearms charges. All of this happened while the issue was sub judice and while much effort was being made in this House to ensure that members of the Maori Party did not break the sub judice laws in debates. It was then announced that the Hon Parekura Horomia was also a target of assassination. 
Increasingly more and more people are coming to believe that the police raids of recent weeks have been a cynically orchestrated campaign by and for the Labour Government based on the very thing that drove Dr Brash that was practised by Mr John Howard in Australia and that has its origins in Karl Rove the brain of Mr George Bush. The irony is that this divisive and destructive form of politics when published by Nicky Hager was the object of considerable criticism by the Rt Hon Prime Minister and her colleagues who railed on Don Brash following his Orewa speech. But over these last 4 weeks the Prime Minister and her colleagues have been indulging in exactly the same behaviour for exactly the same purposes and it would seem for exactly the same kind of populist result with Labour improving in the latest Fairfax media Nielsen poll this past weekend. 
It would seem that racism despite technically being an illegal practice remains as something to successfully draw on when ratings are down. Don Brash did it to spectacular effect in the year before the last election. Could it be that the Labour Government is following suit? What sort of games will be played out before the next election? I have used this example to make the point that when it comes to power any means will justify the ends. The financial cost of such behaviour will be borne by the people as we in this House set about appropriating money for parliamentary purposes. The cost of wedge politics is always paid by the innocent. This time it was paid by the people young and old of Ruatoki and Tuhoe and those who have dared to challenge it. The question is who will be next. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. I welcome this bill and I am very very pleased. I am a person who in elections is extremely careful. I have always been very careful to comply with the provision of the existing Act that sets out the four things that I as a member of this House have always been very careful about. We do not put out anything under parliamentary expenses or using parliamentary money that says “vote for me” “vote for my party” “give us money” or “become a member of our party”. That was drummed into me and if ever I have been unclear I have rung Parliamentary Service or in the case of an election the Chief Electoral Office. This bill spells the rules out even more clearly than does the existing Act. The rules are absolutely clear and there is no room for interpretation. I have a great deal of sympathy for what Peter Brown said earlier in this debate and most of us in this House have been extremely careful to abide by these rules. 
I have in front of me a piece of information sent out by the National Party in 2002 and I understand that Bill English authorised it. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: It’s a commitment card. 
DIANNE YATES 
: It is but it is in blue. It is looks very very similar to Labour’s commitment card except it is bigger. It bears the National Party logo and the parliamentary crest which means that it was paid for by Parliament. The information was sent out in 2002 and that was OK; it complied with those four rules. It does not say “Vote for National”; it does not say “Give us money”; it does not say “Join the National Party”; and it does not say “Vote for Bill English” or anybody else. It is exactly the same in form and content as Labour’s pledge card. It was OK in 2002 but suddenly it was not OK in 2005. But I can tell the House that as a member of Parliament I have been very very careful to abide by the laws and I along with many people in this House resent being told by people on the other side and by people perhaps outside this House that we are corrupt and all sorts of things. Most of the members of parties in this House have been very careful to abide by the law. 
I have always been in a very marginal seat and I have been hypercareful to abide by the law. I have checked out that everything I put out was in compliance with that law so I resent some of the comments from the other side of the House. I look forward to the implementation of this bill and know that it will spell out very very clearly particularly for those people who cannot read the previous Act very well what those four rules are. Clause 3(2) provides that under Parliamentary Service funding rules a candidate cannot say: “Vote for me”; “Vote for my party”; “Give us money” or “Become a member of our party”. It is spelt out very clearly and I am very pleased to see it there. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 It is a shame that this debate has come to such a level of deliberate ignorance. When I listen to the Government speakers they do not explain because they cannot bear to the context in which this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill arises. I want to make a couple of particular points about that. 
The first is that we do not need this bill. Parliament has wasted its time for weeks on this bill and its predecessor legislation. We have this bill before us only because of the petulance of Dr Cullen who can never be wrong. Dr Cullen and Helen Clark got caught out by the Auditor-General for breaking the rules. They broke all the rules particularly by breaching the electoral expense cap but the police could not be bothered to investigate—in fact they could not even find the right section of the Act to apply. Dr Cullen and Helen Clark got caught out and then they said: “Well the Auditor-General who caught us out is just trying to smear the Labour Party.” as if that is all he ever did. The Auditor-General they think wakes up in the morning thinking about one thing—the Labour Party. Actually he does not. He wakes up in the morning thinking about good and proper process and how to enforce the rules that he has laid out. 
That is why we have this bill because Labour said: “If the Auditor-General says we’re wrong he must be wrong. And if he says we’re wrong then everyone must be wrong and that is why we need validating legislation.” So they passed validating legislation to validate what we always knew were the rules which we had all kept—generally—except the Labour Party. This bill is just an extension of it. Helen Clark could not stand being wrong because she believes that the Labour Party is always right; that whenever it comes to anything to do with politics the centre of the world is the Labour Party. Our constitutional conventions mean nothing; our electoral law means nothing; and our Auditor-General is on some cheap political smear just because Labour got caught out. 
This bill is a waste of time. It is unnecessary; it is before the House because Michael Cullen and Helen Clark cannot be wrong. That is why National has opposed the bill. It is nothing to do with what is required to run fair and free elections. At least the Government has admitted that the bill just re-enacts the rules as we already had them. That is the first point. 
The second point is that the Labour Party cannot understand the significance for this legislation of changing the regulated period. The laws around electoral finance are always going to have to be a balance between politicians who are dead keen to get their message out the public who must have a role in influencing an election the careful use of public money—all these things have to be balanced alongside common-sense intuitions about the public’s interest in elections and when it really matters. For decades New Zealand has had a law that balanced those out with pretty minor changes supported by all the parties. The core of it was this: for a 3-month period before the election everything could be counted as an electoral expense including that which was spent by MPs. 
What effect did that have on MPs? Well we never quite knew when “3 months before the election” was but it did mean we had to be very careful to meet not only the parliamentary hurdle for the kind of material the member opposite is displaying but the hurdle put down by the Electoral Act. That was a tougher test. So things that we did in March or April we did not do in September or October because that was close to the election that was when the definition of “election expenses” counted and if we broke those rules we were in serious trouble. For 30 years—maybe longer I do not know—that has worked. 
What has changed now is that although the definition for what MPs can spend remains unchanged from what it was traditionally there is now no constraint from the Electoral Act on what MPs do. So we have the ridiculous situation that Tony Ryall pointed out where a document published by a Labour MP that sets out Labour’s policy will be legal during the regulated period—that is all next year—but the same document published by a Labour candidate will be illegal. That means one law for the candidate and one law for the politicians. That is what is at the heart of the dispute about this bill. Parliament is passing this definition of what MPs can spend money on and alongside the Electoral Finance Bill it means that the politicians will have more money fewer rules and more say but the general public will have a lot less money much tighter rules and much less say in the election. That is what is going to happen. 
The Labour Party of course wants one law for Labour and one rule for everybody else. Let us see just how different these definitions are so that people can understand how this whole collection of legislation—the Electoral Finance Bill and this appropriation bill—is all about Labour. Helen Clark cannot stand being wrong so she has fixed that. She is trying to pass this appropriation bill. It makes no practical difference to anything; it just proves that it was the Auditor-General who was wrong not Helen Clark. She did not like people criticising the pledge card so she is passing this bill to make the card legal; she has fixed that. She does not like the idea that people might raise money to attack the Labour Party so she is passing the Electoral Finance Bill; she has fixed that. She does not like the idea that MPs’ spending might be tested by the same law that every other citizen of New Zealand is subject to. She does not like that so she has fixed that. She has passed the legislation to make sure that MPs’ spending is subject just to our own rules—not to the rules that the rest of the country will have to adhere to. 
Let us look at these definitions so that people understand the legislation. The definition in the appropriation bill is the one we are used to for MPs. It is pretty clear and we all know what it is. We can put out almost anything as long as it does not seek support for the election of a particular person or party does not ask for money—we all know that; we cannot send out a parliamentary letter asking for a subscription to a party—and does not encourage someone to become a member. We cannot send out a membership recruitment letter on parliamentary money. That is how politicians see it. They see the rule as being that we can do almost everything except those things. 
The Electoral Finance Bill which is the rule for everybody else is absolutely different. It basically states that we cannot do anything much in case—can members feel the difference—it might encourage a voter to vote or not vote for a party or candidate. It also states—and this is the new bit which the Minister of Justice does not know about because she has not read the bill; what happened to the competent Minister of everything—that we cannot do anything that encourages a voter to vote for a party or a type of party that is indicated by views positions or policies. That is almost anything. I say to the Government that if it believes that that should be the rule for the public then it should put it in this bill. The Government should put it in the appropriation bill. Why did the Government not put in the appropriation bill that an MP cannot send out anything on public money if it will encourage a voter to vote by reference to views positions or policies? We know why. It is because that would rule out most of what MPs put out. That is why it is not there. 
Parliament will pass this legislation with a low level for MPs and real problems for the public. That shows us just how Labour thinks it is the centre of the world. During the last couple of elections it introduced the “waka jumping” bill. What has happened to that innovative constitutional arrangement? It has gone because it could not stand the scrutiny. But it served Helen Clark’s needs for one election. When it really mattered it worked. Labour does not care about waka jumping now. It is the same with this bill. It is designed to serve one need which is to get Labour re-elected. Everyone else can be damned. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I rise to support the third reading of the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. I rise without any of the noise and angst of some of the previous speakers and in my final months in this House also without the personalisation of attack which is something I will not miss when I leave this House. 
This is a very simple bill. The current legislative framework governing spending by parliamentary parties expires on 31 December this year. This bill extends that expiry date until 1 July 2009. Extending the current framework will ensure certainty and transparency for all parties. If the legislation lapses then we will return to the uncertain unclear situation that followed the report of the Controller and Auditor-General last year. This legislation relates to the legislative framework in which rules relating to parliamentary spending are set. The legislation does not set out all the rules of parliamentary spending. The details are set out in the determinations and directions issued by the Speaker. New determinations and directions were issued only last month. They received praise even from the Office of the Auditor-General. That is the clarity we are seeking as we move forward. 
The proximity of the election made it impossible to reach agreement among parties on an enduring legislative framework. That is sad. For that very reason it is essential that we extend the current interim framework until 2009 when the tempers will be down and people are able to work together. This will allow parties to work together outside the heat of an election campaign and come up with some enduring rules that we can all agree on. 
This legislation is about providing clear transparent and fair rules so that all MPs can do their job—which continues right up to the election—and nothing else. I have just heard Bill English get up and say that we do not need this legislation. Colin Espiner wrote: “The second thing to point out is that Labour has no choice but to bring the companion piece of legislation”—the bill we have in front of us—“before Parliament. That is because to allow it to lapse would basically mean that all political parties would once again be breaking the law in the way they use parliamentary funding.” 
Like my colleague Dianne Yates I have tried very hard to keep to those rules. In the 2005 election I used to run an advertisement in the local Rialto Cinema which stated my name and phone number and invited people to come to me to tackle Government departments and roads—and God knows what else. I rang Parliamentary Service and asked whether I could keep doing that. It said that of course I could because I was not asking for money or votes but was doing my services as an MP which I continued to do. I ran that advertisement right the way up to the election. I therefore support very strongly this legislation which allows us to continue doing our work. For somebody like me who is not seeking re-election but who wants to make his or her services available right to the bitter end in order to help constituents this bill makes the rules very clear. Thank you. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a short call in support of the earlier speaker—my colleague who is soon to leave the House—Marian Hobbs on the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill. This bill will pass. This bill has been subject to a great deal of haranguing and misinformation. This bill is a very simple bill. All it does is ensure that established practices which unfortunately have not been allowed to proceed as a consequence of politicking from the other side of the House can continue under the cloak of legitimacy given by this House. It is disappointing that many of the points made in relation to this bill have become embroiled in debates and misunderstandings pertaining to electoral finance matters. Of course the Electoral Finance Bill which is soon to reach us will no doubt pass as well. 
A few things need to be pointed out in relation to this appropriation bill so that those New Zealanders who have not already been put to sleep by contributions from the other side of the House are possessed of the necessary facts. Firstly all parties in the House were consulted on this bill. Secondly all parties were prepared to work together in a genuine attempt to reach consensus. However it is very saddening—but accurate—to say that our friends in the National Party on the other side of the House decided to play a game of pettifogging and turn this into a petulant set of outbursts designed to score political points rather than to establish and continue a very well-tried system of funding the genuine activities of MPs. 
It needs to be pointed out that all legitimate contributions that were designed to get us over a point of consensus were tried. In early September this year the Government’s representatives were informed by the National Party’s negotiators that rather than supporting a substantive amendment the National Party would be prepared to support only an extension of the current rules. They also admitted that these rules were working well. Mr Brownlee—my fellow traveller to the United States—said also that National was happy for a rollover provided it would lead to a much shorter election period. So it remains to be said that the Opposition is purely opportunistic. That is to be expected in adversarial politics; however it is not a decision that has been arrived at by Dr Smith and others on the basis of some lofty political principle but rather on trivial miscalculated tactical point-scoring exercises in the House. That is to be expected. 
 It is important that we bear in mind that the larger debate looms in front of us as to what is to pass through this House as a reasonable attempt to ensure that money spent in the pursuit of electoral victory is premised on the principles of transparency and that people who do contribute are required to do so in such a way that they do not undermine the political process that we have every election as we saw in the last election. It is very difficult for the public actually to understand what is really happening in this short relatively inconsequential amendment represented in this bill which will pass. It is unfortunate that it has become embroiled in another set of issues. But members can rest assured; we look forward to that debate as well. 
This bill is regularising what both parties could have committed to had it not been for the main Opposition party seeing this as being a petty opportunity to score political points. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 The gentleman who spoke previously talked about a history lesson; I would like to speak to this Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill’s history by going back to 30 August 2005. There is a note of a telephone conversation that David Henry the then Chief Electoral Officer had with the New Zealand Labour Party general secretary Mike Smith where he raised with him the matter of a piece of propaganda that was being distributed to letterboxes nationwide. He asked whether it was being paid for by the Parliamentary Service and he made a note that he said whoever paid for this piece of propaganda did not matter and that it did not need to call specifically for a party vote. 
I then go on to a letter dated 2 September in which the Chief Electoral Officer David Henry referred Mike Smith the general secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party to that same piece of advertising. The section was quoted from the Electoral Act and the Labour Party was told that the advertising in the view of the Chief Electoral Officer did breach that section of the Electoral Act. He stated that in his view the statements made in the advertising encouraged or persuaded or appeared to encourage or persuade voters to vote for the Labour Party. The advertising was therefore subject to the provisions of section 221. At that stage in history anyone would ask whether the Labour Party stopped issuing electioneering propaganda and the answer is here in history in writing: no; in fact it did not. Quite to the contrary Labour put out another piece of electioneering that quite clearly breached that same section of the Electoral Act after Labour had had it in writing from the Chief Electoral Officer that that was the case. 
Finally in this correspondence we see the Labour Party accepting that it was breaking the law and saying that the party would pay for it out of its funds and declare it as part of its electioneering campaign. But we found out that after the election Labour members changed their minds and were happy to stand having broken the electoral law. 
That is the rort that has us on the path of this legislation in front of the House tonight because Labour members had to then blackguard the Auditor-General’s decisions and make their illegal behaviour legal. They did that by introducing validating legislation. They validated in retrospect the illegal activity they had knowingly taken part in despite being warned in writing by the Chief Electoral Officer. Most New Zealanders after having broken the law after having been told they had broken the law and after having been caught would change their behaviour. Most New Zealanders if they were warned that they would break the law if they continued their behaviour would change their behaviour but not this Government. This Government passes legislation to make its illegal activity legal. This was activity that those members were told in writing was illegal and for which by all that is right and just they should have been prosecuted for doing because that contributed to their stealing the election. 
Those members changed the law to make their behaviour legal but that legislation is due to run out at the end of this year 31 December. So we would have thought that Labour after having come down this road would now make every effort to reach a cross-party agreement. In fact around the table at the Parliamentary Service Commission back in May of this year the previous Minister of Justice started talking about this validation legislation running out at the end of the year. He talked about it in June of this year and again in July of this year. Did he do anything about it? No he did not. He just counted on the fact that the Labour Government would push through whatever it wanted when it wanted and in the way it wanted because it could buy the support of the minor parties and get the majority it needed in the House. The Government had done it before with the validating legislation so why would it not be able to do it again? And at the end of September the first discussions took place about the Government maybe having cross-party agreement. 
But by that stage Labour had introduced the Electoral Finance Bill which is Draconian legislation designed to shut down free speech in this country. But the National Party said that we had to look at both pieces of legislation together because they were both part of the same construction. They are both part of the same equation and we do have to look at them together. We were quite happy to discuss the two of them together but in order to do that we said that if Labour wanted to roll over that validating legislation for a couple of months then that was OK and we would support it but on the proviso that we were looking at the whole scenario—the two pieces of legislation going hand in hand. They are the facts that is the history and this is all quite clearly supported in writing. 
So here we are tonight discussing a bill that sets up one set of regulations for members of Parliament and for political parties in Parliament that have been bought by the generous finance in this bill before the House tonight in order to get votes and we are discussing another set of rules in the Electoral Finance Bill which will come before the House on Thursday for everyone else. That is why we are talking about corruption. This is a Government led by Labour designing law that suits it and nobody else. 
I will talk about a couple of pieces of propaganda I have here which were put out by Labour and which are quite OK this year. There is absolutely no problem with these pamphlets this year; the distribution time is not in the regulated period and under the old law would have been quite fine until 3 months before the election. No one could have queried that the distribution of these pamphlets did not fit the regulations. That is fine but this Government has said that it is OK for parliamentarians to put such pamphlets out in the regulated period next year. If I am an MP then I can put them out. But if I am a candidate then under the regulations being passed by this Labour Government doing that will be electioneering and it will have to count in my candidate’s $20000. That is not fair that is not right and that is not just. 
It is a very simple thing to understand. I suggest that those members opposite go away put aside their research notes read the bills and then try telling National members that they are wrong because members opposite will find that National members are not wrong; they are right. These pamphlets if put out by a Labour Party candidate in the regulated period next year will be counted as electioneering. But if they are put out by an MP they will not be so counted. MPs will be able to do that without any problem at all. If Labour members would listen and read the bill then they would understand that. 
 This bill in front of the House tonight is a travesty of democracy. This bill is appalling legislation. Its support has been bought by the minor parties for what is essentially State funding in drag. On behalf of the National Party I say that we will not support this legislation. It is appalling legislation and Labour members should hang their heads in shame. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 65 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; United Future 2; Progressive 1. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand National 48; Maori Party 2; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Bill read a third time. 
Building Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 Amendments to principal Act 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Firstly I want to point out the context of this bill which is that homeownership has become incredibly expensive for families because of this Government’s failed building policies. I note that in my own electorate the price of housing for New Zealanders has increased by 122 percent. 
Hon Member 
: How much? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The increase in the price of housing in my Nelson electorate is 122 percent. Over the whole country it has more than doubled. At the same time poor financial management by this Government has resulted in interest rates going from 6.3 percent when Labour came to Government to the latest figure of 10.4 percent. The consequence of both those high house prices and increasing interest rates is that we have seen record declines in the level of home affordability and also in homeownership rates. 
National seeks a simple test for changes to the building legislation: how will this bill help home affordability? We have heard the rhetoric from the Prime Minister that she thinks home affordability is an important issue. I remind her that during 8 years of a Labour Government we have seen home affordability in New Zealand—a country that has prided itself on homeownership—becoming the lowest in the OECD. 
I remind the Minister in the chair Shane Jones that the average mortgage as a percentage of income in 1999 was 42 percent. Today that figure is 83 percent. How many of us members of Parliament really believe that a family can afford to spend 83 percent of its average income on servicing a mortgage? It is nigh on impossible. 
What are we getting in this bill from the Government? We are getting a bill that is going to increase the costs and the bureaucracy of our building laws and make home affordability even harder for New Zealand families. 
I want to remind the House of the heritage of Norm Kirk. I grew up in North Canterbury where there was great pride in the fact that former Prime Minister Norm Kirk was able to build his own house in Kaiapoi. What does this Government do? It regulates that possibility out of existence. It will now be impossible for any New Zealander who wants to aspire to build his or her own home; that person will not now be able to do it. I ask Shane Jones whether he really wants to go down in history as the Minister for Building and Construction who took away the opportunity for the average Kiwi to be able to build a roof over his or her head. 
Then we come to the provisions on rates in this bill. We have just had an inquiry into the increased costs we are putting on ratepayers. Do members realise that under this Labour Government rates have been increasing at three times the rate of inflation? Local councils all over New Zealand are pleading with us as parliamentarians to stop dumping extra costs on them. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Why do you oppose development levies then? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: And what does Darren Hughes want to do? He is imposing increased costs with this bill. I want to know from Darren Hughes why he is going to put up the costs of rates in his electorate in Levin and the surrounding communities. Why is that member so intent on dumping extra costs on them? I will tell members why. It is because that member has no idea. He has no understanding of the building industry no understanding of the struggle of average families to be able to afford their own home and no understanding of the increased bureaucracy involved. 
I remind members what the Wellington City Council said. It said that the amount of paperwork required to get a building consent for the average home has more than trebled under this Government. Dunedin City Council has just announced that it will have to expand its building department by an extra 15 staff at a cost of $1.3 million. Who will be paying that cost? It will be those who aspire to own their own home. 
National members say that this bill should improve home affordability yet it does the opposite; it imposes regulatory constraint. I have a submission here from the Institution of Professional Engineers which is a very respected institution. The submission states that this bill will require people to get a building consent to re-putty the windows on their home. I know of red tape going mad and I know that members opposite have no appreciation for the bureaucracy and red tape they are imposing but even they must see stupidity in a bill that the Institution of Professional Engineers says will require people to go to the council for a building consent to re-putty the windows on their house. 
We hear all this garbage from the Government about sustainability. Do members know that it costs an average of $1100 to get a building consent for a solar water heater system? The Government is very generous. It will give people a grant for $500 if they meet a whole lot of bureaucratic costs but it will be imposing a cost—through this legislation—of over $1000 to get a consent for a solar water heater system. It is no wonder that Australia has three times as many solar water heating systems being installed than in New Zealand as a consequence— 
Dianne Yates 
: It’s free with at least three councils. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I say to the member opposite that it is a disgrace that in Australia three times as many solar water heating systems are being installed than in New Zealand despite all the Government’s bull and rhetoric around sustainability. On the practical elements the Government is failing. 
Does the Minister in the chair accept the view of the Institution of Professional Engineers on this bill? I put this question to the Minister: why is it proper to charge councils for the costs of his bureaucracy in approving councils as building consent authorities? The silence is deafening. The arrogance of the Minister in the chair is such that he does not think he has to answer to anybody. He thinks he can just ram legislation through Parliament increase the costs on councils and increase the cost on homeowners and there will be no come-back. Well I say to Mr Jones that there will be a come-back. It is coming in about 11 months’ time and it will be with a vote of no confidence by the people of New Zealand in the bureaucracy the Minister is imposing on the building industry of New Zealand. 
In this bill we have provision after provision that will further increase costs for councils and builders wanting to get on with business. I met with a builder last night at a Rotary club. He told me that he has had it up to the eyeballs with the Minister’s red tape such that he and his colleagues see no future but to move to Australia. We saw the figures today—more New Zealanders left for Australia in the last year than at any time in 10 years. I say to the Minister that stupid bureaucratic laws like this which he is putting through our Parliament are part of the red tape and the control-freak element of his Government that is driving New Zealanders overseas and taking away from New Zealand talented builders and those who work within this industry. It is because of the red tape he is imposing. 
Members on this side of the House say that we do not need more of this sort of legislation. We need legislation that will provide for proper business accountability by those who work in the building industry but not more and more unnecessary bureaucracy. 
The last point I want to make in this debate is in respect of the submission by the Registered Master Builders Federation of New Zealand to the select committee. The submission stated that there are unnecessary red tape costs of $30000 for each house built in New Zealand. There is $30000 of extra imposition as a consequence of the mad red tape that this Government is imposing on the building industry. 
The organisation had something else to say and I thought it was even more extraordinary. It said that it now takes longer in New Zealand to get consent to build a house than it takes to actually build it. When it said that to the select committee we thought that it could not be true and that the organisation must be pulling our leg and exaggerating a bit. So I talked to some builders in my home area and they gave me examples of where it had taken twice as long to get the consent from the council for a building than to build it. That is nuts. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is a great pleasure to follow my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith who has taken a huge interest in this building issue. I am the deputy chair of the Social Services Committee which heard the submissions on this bill. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: And a very good one too. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I thank very much the chair of the committee who is of course Russell Fairbrother. He is a very good chair. One of the points I noted is that as a homeowner I thought about how hard it was to buy our first home some years ago. What has happened in those years is that it has not got any easier to buy one’s first home. In fact it has got significantly harder. So now we have a situation where in many parts of the United States for instance people can buy homes considerably more cheaply than they can here. They can get much bigger houses in much better areas and everything else. 
I think that one of the points Dr Smith made is absolutely relevant. He said that in parts of Australia it is significantly cheaper to buy or build a house than it is here. The member Ms Yates keeps calling out: “But not in Sydney.” That has a lot to do with the cost of land in Sydney actually I say to Ms Yates which anybody who has been there would know. 
I also note that one of the big concerns has been that as the amount of red tape and bureaucratic interference has increased and increased the people who pay for it the people whose interests are supposed to be being protected are actually unable to afford the home they would like to be able to build. So for instance if people do wish to build a house they will have to build a house that is considerably smaller or does not have the same amenities that they would otherwise have if they had not had the red tape and had not been told they have to do this and that and this. 
What is really amazing is that anything that has been built in the last few years becomes absolutely suspect. So the bigger the regulation the bigger the risk. That is actually what has happened. As we have regulated and regulated our industries including the building industry we have ended up with more leaky homes. We have ended up with more people who have homes that are totally unsatisfactory. We have more expensive homes and what we do not have are more people owning their own homes. 
I can recall no time in our history in New Zealand when we have had a smaller proportion of people who own their own homes. We were a home-owning country and now we are turning into a country of flatters and renters. Why that is so important is that when people buy a home they buy into a community. As part of that their children buy into a community. They get some stability. They get the ability to be in the same school. They do not get the transience that often happens with rental properties. 
One of the problems that I see which is totally not addressed by this bill is the fact that this bill will put the cost of building up. It will not increase the quality of building. It will however put the cost of building up. As was noted one of the most absurd situations is the fact that people will have to seek consent to re-putty the glass around their windows. Why? Because of course that relates to weathertightness. The fact is that if they left it that would be fine. It could leak all it liked. But should they go to re-putty it and fix it they have to get consent because they might be disadvantaged without some sort of consent. 
What I think is really really stupid in this bill is the fact that the Government simply will not listen. We have on the select committee my colleague Bob Clarkson who knows more about building than anybody in the House and everybody in the House put together. He is the person who is the expert on building. Bob Clarkson knows building. What do the Government members do? Do they want to have a talk to Bob Clarkson? Do they listen to Bob Clarkson at the committee? No. All they do is try to score funny little points and laugh about it. 
What is very very worrying for the people of New Zealand who actually care about this issue is the fact that they cannot afford to buy their home their children cannot afford to buy their own home and that people who have worked all their lives and are in their 40s cannot afford to buy their own home. That is what concerns them. They do not think it is a laughing matter. They would like to hear from people like Bob Clarkson. They would like to know how they can get their homes more cheaply and they would like to know why it is that in this Parliament when things go wrong there is a desperate need to regulate everything. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to speak on this most concerning bill the Building Amendment Bill. It is most concerning because once again we see this Labour Government making it more difficult for ordinary New Zealanders to own their own homes and build their own homes. I note that the commentary on the bill states the most ridiculous assertion—that the 2004 Act was designed to improve building standards including work done by unqualified and DIY builders and that this bill will add clarity. That is just unmitigated tripe. Unfortunately the very opposite exists. 
We have heard the excellent arguments from the Hon Dr Nick Smith who is an engineer and who certainly knows about building. We also have in our caucus of course Bob Clarkson the builder from Tauranga who has more experience than anyone put together. 
Judith Collins 
: And he beat Winston Peters. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: He did of course. He did a brilliant job in Tauranga and he will continue to do so. 
Pita Paraone 
: What did he do? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: His contribution to Tauranga in building the stadium and giving it to the people of Tauranga was a monumental gift and much more than this Labour Government or any individual in this Labour Government has ever done. 
The National Party believes that the bill gives the Government much wider powers to bill councils for accreditation and audit them as a building consent authority and this is what is of such great concern. This bill basically shifts the system from one of fixed fees by regulation to full cost recovery. Undoubtedly it is this cost shifting by central government to local government that will inevitably drive up rates. This is what we are seeing time and time again by this Labour Government. First of all it was the power of general competence and now it is shifting every cost it can think of on to local government and from there go the extra costs to ordinary hard-working Kiwis who wish to build houses. 
I think the Hon Dr Nick Smith was absolutely right in mentioning the cost of house prices over the last 6 to 7 years. But it is not only the cost of house prices it is the cost of building as well. I myself applied 3 years ago to build an extension on my house. I could not afford to build it at the time. Now 3 years later the quotes coming in are double what they were 3 years ago just for an extension. As Dr Nick Smith said the submission from the Registered Master Builders Federation said there was on average an extra $30000 of unnecessary costs to build a house in New Zealand. That has to be a travesty for every hopeful homeowner in this country. 
Again the Labour Government has basically regulated Kiwis out of not only building their own homes but also building their own baches. It is one of the great historical traditions of New Zealand. It was pointed out that Norman Kirk that great New Zealander built his own home without all this fuss and bother. He would not have been able to build his home today; nor for that matter would Prime Minister Robert Muldoon have been able to build his bach at Hatfields Beach. It is an excellent structure which still exists today in which the family enjoyed many happy hours. 
Why can Kiwis still not have the right to do that? Why does this Labour Government insist on putting every hurdle it can imagine in front of them to prevent them from doing ordinary things that Kiwis should be able to do? I was absolutely intrigued and concerned when I heard that representatives from the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand pointed out in their oral submission that people will be required to get a building consent to re-putty the windows on their houses. This may be an extreme extension of the weathertight provisions but that is how ridiculous it has become under this Labour Government. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 Obviously the preceding three speakers have not taken the time to read the Building Amendment Bill. If they have read the bill then they do not understand it and that is an even sadder situation. They should admit to not having read it rather than to not understanding it. Nowhere in this bill or the Act it amends does the legislation prevent anybody from building his or her own home. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yes it does. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: Can the member show me where? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: OK. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: Nowhere does the bill prevent that; nor would it have prevented Norman Kirk from building his own home. There is the power for regulations— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Mr Fairbrother has challenged us to explain how this bill will prevent people from building their own houses. There are provisions in the Standing Orders for a member to yield. If the member would yield to me I would be happy to point that out to him. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I just say to the member that he is perfectly entitled to ask for that but the member does not have to yield. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: I listened to the member’s earlier speech and it had no content whatsoever. Why should I give up my time to allow him to further waste the time of this country with the inability to concentrate on the matter at hand? 
Let me repeat that there is nothing in this bill to stop a person from building his or her own house—fair and square full stop end of story. So those members should stop the fearmongering stop trying to gain votes and panic the populace and stop rushing out there with their fear—and I would say ignorance but it may well be highlighting the level of intelligence of the people opposite. 
I really want to make clear that this bill puts right that which that party on that side of the Chamber allowed to drift on for 9 long years. The rains came down and that party did nothing; houses leaked and that party did nothing; houses rotted and that party did nothing; balconies collapsed and that party did nothing. Dr Hutchison had the temerity to stand up and say that we are shifting the costs on to local government. That member should tell me about section 28 of the Building Act 1991. That section of the Act was the fulcrum of the regime that was ushered in by the National Party. That section cast upon territorial local authorities the responsibility for administering this open slather Act under the guise of free-market enterprise. It was a disaster waiting to happen and it happened with tragic consequences to so many decent and proper New Zealanders. 
There is nothing in this amending bill that further adds to the bureaucracy. There is nothing in the Act that this bill amends that makes it more difficult for homeowners to build a home or have a home built. This legislation defines and refines the areas of responsibility so that for homeowners who find they have been built a home that is not satisfactory the lines of responsibility are crystal clear. No more expensive inquiries need to be embarked upon; no more time of this Parliament has to be wasted on inquiries before our select committees; no more specialists need to be appointed to take 2 years to find the cause of the problem; no more territorial local authorities need to run for cover and blame everybody else; and no more builders need to pay off huge debts at $10 a week to couples who trusted their life-savings and their ambitions to builders who were unable to build to a building code that had insufficient regulation. 
This is remarkably good legislation. It amends a good Act. It does nothing to complicate that Act. Let us concentrate on just one aspect of this bill. Let us talk about putty. Members opposite obviously have no idea what putty is. Putty to them is probably the poor electorate constituent who comes to their offices and has fear bred into him or her by having the feeling engendered that there is a nanny State out there and that the Labour Government is responsible for it. That is the sort of putty those members know about. 
The putty that this bill refers to is the putty that used to be applied to hold windows into the window frame. These days most windows are retained by an aluminium strip. However the bill does not prevent one from putting putty into a window. If the member does not know where to look to discover this I will take him to clause 6 and the definition of restricted building work. [ 
Interruption 
] There should be restricted MPs on that site I say to Mr Henare. Restricted building work means building work that is critical to the integrity of a building. I ask members opposite to tell me the way puttying a window pane into a window frame becomes integral to the integrity of a building. I ask members opposite to tell me the way a pane of glass is critical to the integrity of a building. It may be very good to stop the draughts or to keep the rain out but it is not critical to the integrity of a building. So to fearmonger on that angle alone shows the folly of the arguments opposite. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 I stand to oppose this Building Amendment Bill. Why would that be? I see the Minister Shane Jones is sitting in the chair there with a smile on his face because he knows that he will not be sitting there for very long. This Government has no commitment at all to the building industry. In fact it has an absolutely appalling track record in doing the right thing by builders. I had a piece of paper here which I am trying to shuffle around and find that told me how many Ministers have been responsible for the building industry in the last 8 years. I cannot find that bit of paper but I am surprised because the list is very long. How many Ministers have there been in 8 years? Eleven Ministers have sat in that chair and ripped off the building industry. The building industry deserves better; it deserves a Minister who has commitment to it. But the Minister sits there with a smile on his face knowing that in 6 months’ time most probably he will not be sitting there. He will have moved on and there will be a new Minister again facing the building industry—an industry that has struggled and struggled to come to terms with the changes in this legislation. 
It is not just this piece of legislation. If I were to put together all the pieces of building legislation that have had changes in the last 8 years the pile would stand very high. Why is that? It is because the Government has had to go back to amend the legislation time after time. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: And what changes did you recommend in the select committee—zilch nothing. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: The chair of the Social Services Committee who chaired the committee on this bill is on the other side of the Chamber. Yes another amendment has gone through that select committee to correct a piece of legislation for the building industry—yet again. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Very elegantly put through too. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: Very elegantly indeed! And how much input did the building industry really have into this legislation? Did the public get to have a real say on this legislation? Or shall we go back to the weathertight homes amendment legislation. Let me think what happened there. It was the same type of legislation. Oh no—why do I not go back a little further to 2002 when we started with the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service. Then in 2004 we had the Building Act. In 2006 we had the Weathertight Homes Tribunal— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What’s this got to do with this bill? 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: It is the building industry so it has a lot to do with it. All these people reading this part of the bill will be confused because Labour has put through seven legislative changes for the building industry. [ 
Interruption 
] That member cannot sit there and deny that because it is a fact. There were no submissions on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Remedies) Amendment Bill 2007 before his select committee I do believe. In fact the bill was rushed through his select committee and the public did not even know about it until it got into Parliament. Then what happened? Is the member proud of this? Let me guess. The Government suspended the Standing Orders for that legislation—for the first time in 10 years. I hope that the legislation in Part 1 “Amendments to principal Act” does not face the same consequences as the legislation before your select committee that you put through as well. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: When the member uses the word “you” she is referring to the Chair. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: My apologies Mr Chairperson; thank you. Not only that but I think the building industry deserves better. What does this Building Amendment Bill actually do? Does it make homes more affordable? Does it? 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Yes. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: I ask the member how it will make homes more affordable. The member cannot tell me that this legislation is addressing the issues in our society today—because it is not. It is another poorly drafted bit of legislation. Does it do anything to address the bureaucratic problems of the original Building Act—does it? 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Absolutely; it does. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: There are a few bits here and there. But it has created more uncertainty— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Thank you. That’s a concession no one else has made—a few bits here and there. That’s good. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: It is a teensy concession. It has created more problems than it has fixed. Does Part 1 do anything even to reduce the rate increases that are facing— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Yes it does. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: It does not at all I tell Mr Fairbrother and he knows it. Was that matter even raised in his select committee—was it? Did the committee consider that when looking at this legislation? I doubt very much that it did. And this legislation restricts DIYers. I know that the Minister—not of course this current Minister because he was not the Minister then. Or was it two Ministers before? Was it Clayton Cosgrove or was it the Minister before that? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: No it was Margaret Wilson. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: Margaret Wilson? Was that not like 1999? If I could find that massive list of Ministers— 
BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 I would like to mention the people on the Government side of the Chamber who need to learn that they have two ears and one mouth. That is because God allowed them to listen twice as much as they talk so they should shut up a bit. At any rate that is a good start. 
In talking about the Building Amendment Bill let us start with restricted building work. Clause 16 states that such work must be carried out by a licensed building practitioner. What a lot of rubbish that is! Some of the best building work I have seen has been done by DIY builders. Basically a DIY builder can now build only a simple building. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: That’s not right. 
BOB CLARKSON 
: Hang on—in the Social Services Committee we were told what a simple building was: for example a hayshed. We were also told the NZS 3604 standard for building a wooden-framed house was deemed to be a simple specification. “Does that mean that a house can be built by a DIY builder?” I asked in the select committee. The Department of Building and Housing’s chief executive agreed that that was so. That puts the cat among the pigeons. This bill is a mess. 
Let us move to clause 27 “Buildings with specified intended lives” which states: “Section 113(1)”—gosh there are a lot of numbers here; anyone would think I was a lawyer—“is amended by omitting ‘50 years or less’ ”— 
Hon Member 
: No we don’t think that. 
BOB CLARKSON 
: —I earn more than you—“and substituting ‘less than 50 years’.” What a joke that is! If people check most building materials that have a guarantee they will see that most are guaranteed for only 15 years. In fact builders sign a permit that says the life of the building will be 50 years but the materials have only a 15-year guarantee. That clause needs a bit of explaining and I may ask the Minister to explain it later. Why are we talking about 50 years? I cannot remember any construction material that is guaranteed for 50 years. If any material is guaranteed for 50 years we could have an interesting situation. The timber frames could last 50 years—if they did not suffer from leaky home problems—but people may end up sitting in their house with no cladding on it because the cladding is guaranteed for only 15 years. But people should not worry because the Labour Government is going to bring in double glazing so they will be able to sit behind double-glazed windows. It may be a bit windy but it will be reasonably warm. 
I want now to talk a little about dams but not too much. I believe that most dams are pretty safe. I would like to mention the dams at Mangakino. They are definitely safe. My uncle was one of the bosses on those dams when they were built and members can believe this or not but I actually helped to pour the concrete on those dams 60 years ago. So I know they are built properly. 
Hon Member 
: Child labour! 
BOB CLARKSON 
: Ha ha! I helped my father. But I will get away from that. 
Let us get into “Purposes of licensing building practitioners” the heading of new section 282A inserted by clause 56 which are: “(a) to assess and record building practitioners as having certain skills and knowledge relevant to building work;”. Man that is a long sentence! Why do we not just record what the tradesperson learnt when he or she trained for the trade? I thought that when people trained for a trade— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: You abolished tradespeople. 
BOB CLARKSON 
: —the member should keep quiet and learn—and passed the exams they effectively had a licence to build or construct a building. Why do we continue to blame tradesperson builders by licensing them? I can tell members right now that the licensing of tradespeople will not fix leaky homes—no ifs or buts. 
I move on to clause 75 “Registrar must contact licensed building practitioners”—those are big words for me—“on annual basis”. That sounds like a bureaucratic mess. The Government will have to start another department. The Labour Government will love that—more control of people. It is as simple as that. 
Let us kick this bill into touch. I say this again: let us license inspectors. They have caused a lot of the problems in the past. Let us make inspectors the best and most capable people on the site. I will make a prediction: builders will refuse to join the licensing system. I tell members that at the moment about 3 percent of our builders are DIY builders. In Australia when a form of licensing was brought in builders refused to join it and now 30 percent of the builders there are DIY builders. I think the Minister should rise now and deal with all these concerns. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I want to make just a few points basically to do with the DIY industry. This nation is built—I ask members to excuse the pun—on the back of DIY work. DIY work has built some of our most famous baches and getaway homes. Our country has been built on the back of DIY— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: That doesn’t change in the bill. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Yes it does. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: It does not. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I am sorry; it does. I know that the member is under pressure from Mr Nash. I know he has to make a few inroads here in order to make sure he gets his name before the public because Mr Nash is biting at his tail but the member should not allow himself to be sidelined by that. We have to make sure that in this country the tradition of No. 8 fencing wire the tradition of the DIY man—and the DIY lady as of late—is kept. 
There is no doubt in my mind that under this bill home affordability is also under threat. The issue of affordability is that with these changes one can guarantee that the price of a house will rise. And who will bear the brunt of that? It will be our children. It is easy for us to stand up and say they will work and get the deposit they need but the more we load bureaucracy on top of young people the less likely it is they will get their own home. The Minister should know that; he has had some experience in the building industry. The more bureaucracy we load on young people the less likely it is they will be able to afford the deposit for their first home. I will give an example from the electorate of Te Atatu where I and some other people work and reside. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I thought I had a 12000 vote majority. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The member does. That is going. Like all things it will end. The average price of a property on the peninsula there is $350000-odd and it is going up. There has been a 40 percent increase in the rateable value of homes in Te Atatu this year. That is a shocking indictment and this bill adds another layer of cost on to that. 
Where are we going with regard to the DIY issues? Yes Maori love to go on to the old papakainga to the family homestead and maybe throw up a shack. We call it a home; some people call it a shack. But will this bill stop DIY people from being able to throw up a shack so that maybe one day they can move into something better? You can bet your bottom dollar it will—not you Mr Chairperson and I apologise for using the word “you”. The public can bet their bottom dollar that this legislation will stop the DIY tradition this country was built on. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Speak to the part. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The problem with regard to that member is that he is trying to play catch-up. He is trying to play catch-up in his own electorate because the Deputy Prime Minister was the one who signed Mr Nash’s nomination—and boy does he feel stink about that! 
But I come back to the bill. The last issue I want to touch on very briefly is that if we have higher compliance costs it is natural that house prices will rise. Who bears the brunt of that? It is not the local authority or the Government; it is the homeowner or the prospective homeowner. It is just another tax and we know we do not like higher taxes. 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to take a brief call in this Committee on behalf of United Future. The thing that struck me about this bill when it first came to the House was that it was progress on the Building Act that had been well consulted on by the department. A lot of work had been done bringing the department to a place on a number of issues whereby it was able to move ahead and put forward an amendment to the Building Act to tidy up areas that needed tidying up. 
It became apparent during the select committee process that a number of submitters had taken the time to highlight other issues and ongoing work that needed to be signalled and worked on for future amendments. The Building Act is the kind of Act that will more than likely be back regularly before the House for amendment in order to reflect the changing nature of the building industry because of developments in building in building materials and in building design. This bill never pretended to cover every change that is necessary to improve the Building Act but it is certainly a step forward. Those of us in the Chamber who are choosing to support the bill are doing so because it has been well-considered. Yes some submitters chose to highlight issues for further consideration—issues that fell outside the immediate scope of this bill—and they were right to do so and those issues have been noted. 
One issue that struck me was that of the PIM report and the fact that this bill includes in the list of things to signal early to people who are building the need for disability accessibility particularly to public buildings. Some of the city councils that submitted referred to the fact that the information in a PIM report is often not asked for—it is not sought—and therefore can be slightly irrelevant to building projects. Often by the time a PIM report is received plans have already been drawn up and the project is a huge way down the track. It is an issue for the future and we may need to work out a way in which the information contained for instance in PIM reports can be accessed by designers and builders earlier in the process so that the recommendations and requirements such reports contain are considered at the earliest possible stage. That is the kind of issue that was brought up for future consideration. 
United Future is very happy to give its ongoing support to this bill because certainly many of the submitters also referred to the many good things in it. Although they signalled the need for future changes they were also very supportive of the bill’s provisions. 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 I wonder what happened to the house that Jack built. Do members remember that back in August 2004 in debates on the same topic we had a bill that was 358 pages long? 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: How many? 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: The Building Bill as it was at that stage was 358 pages long. Now we have some amendments to that legislation by way of this bill which has about 30 pages. I said at that earlier stage that the regulations that would come from the legislation would be horrendous. That is what I said. I want to quote from that— 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I thought it was a good bill! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: If it was such a good bill why are we amending it today? Why are we here if we got it right the first time? You see it was not a good bill. 
We identified at that stage that the compliance costs involved in this industry—costs that Nick Smith identified in an earlier speech—were going to be absolutely horrendous and that is exactly what has happened. An article on 16 July 2004 in the  
National Business Review 
 stated “Government puts another nail into home improvement”. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Come on “Stumpy” you can do better than that! 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: At least I am standing up when I am talking. 
When we consider all the extra compliance we see that this bill will be a handicap and that it is absolute overkill. National cannot support a bill of this nature. It is a very prescriptive regime that is overkill and an overburden of bureaucracy and administration. That is what it is. 
My colleague mentioned a few facts on the question of housing affordability. I know that the Minister in the chair Shane Jones was on the Commerce Committee that has been looking at housing affordability. I am sure he will very clearly recall the submission from the Registered Master Builders Federation which made some significant and very timely remarks on the whole inquiry into housing affordability. The federation identified a number of problems issues and challenges that the building industry especially the housing industry is facing here in New Zealand—also offshore but specifically here in New Zealand. The federation said that about 50 percent of the increased cost of housing could be attributed to rises in land costs— 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What’s this got to do with Part 1? 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: It is very much to do with building. Probably the greatest asset people will ever have is their own home. So when we are talking about building I say to the list member from Napier we are talking about a significant part of people’s assets. Everyone strives for homeownership. We have gone past striving for the quarter acre paradise of the 1960s but we do want to be able to afford our own homes. 
I go back to the point that the Registered Master Builders Federation made. It said that in terms of the increased cost of housing it was quite clear that rises in land costs accounted for about 50 percent the rises in local authority infrastructure levies and fees accounted for approximately 15 percent and the increasing compliance costs accounted for 15 to 20 percent. The increases in labour and material costs accounted for approximately 20 percent. 
I come back to the very prescriptive nature of this bill that both I and Dr Smith mentioned earlier on. This bill is making the law around building extremely difficult when it could have been tweaked at the edges. You see this legislation is overkill. This is bureaucracy at its worst. What are the Government members trying to do? They are bringing in more legislation to try to fix a problem that they perceive to be there. I said back in 2004 that there was no need for the Building Act 2004. If the existing Act at that time had been tweaked at the edges and if we had been able to identify what those challenges and issues were we would not have had to have 358 pages of bill at that stage. Now here we are 3 years later trying to sort out those things that we on the Government Administration Committee at that time identified as major challenges. Three years later those challenges are coming through and here we are having to deal with those same sorts of things. 
I mentioned the compliance costs as one of the major factors. If we were to look further at what the Registered Master Builders Federation had to say we would see that it talked about the infrastructural levies and fees. I quote from page 7 of the federation’s submission: “The largest %age increase in cost has been in the rise in local authority infrastructure levies and fees—900% over five years.” Let me say that again: “900% over five years.” How does the Government account for that? Where is the justification for local authorities having to comply with the costs that have been imposed on them by the Building Act? 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: 900 percent. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: The increase was 900 percent over 5 years. 
The federation goes on to say that since the passing of the Building Act 2004 “higher levels of design detail are now required to secure building consents: 9-10 pages of plan detail sufficed to obtain a building consent in the early 2000s whereas now some 30 pages of detail are required;”. Seven years ago it was 10 pages; now 30 pages are required. The point made at that stage was that the local authorities do not have the staff to be able to implement and to understand what this all means. They do not have quality people with the expertise or the knowledge because people with these skills are few and far between. 
When we look at the costs that are being incurred we see that they are completely outrageous. The situation is overkill. It is far too prescriptive in terms of a homeowner or someone wanting to build his or her first home. That is the thing that people strive for—a stake in the ground—going back to those early days when everybody owned his or her own home. Homeownership is now outside the reach of so many Kiwis today. That has come about because the Building Act 2004 along with the legislation we are talking about tonight is over-prescriptive. This legislation does not need to happen and National is voting against it. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 With considerable care Opposition members have avoided looking at any particular clause in the Building Amendment Bill presently before this Committee. I want to bring them back to clause 12 which deals with this issue of do-it-yourself builders. Clause 12 does not prohibit do-it-yourself builders. Clause 12 merely says that a building consent will be required if the Governor-General by Order in Council determines certain work to be restricted building work. There is no such Order in Council so at the present time and with the passing of this bill into law there is no restriction on do-it-yourself builders. It is a simple clause in the bill. If Opposition members had cared to read it we would have saved ourselves 20 minutes or even longer tonight and could have looked to some substance. 
But what is the substance of this bill? Let us go to clause 19. Who in New Zealand can object to clause 19? Not even “Bob the Builder” from Tauranga. Clause 19 provides that a licensed building practitioner who carries out or supervises restricted building work under a building consent must on completion provide that the work—I am paraphrasing—meets the purpose required and he or she must give a certificate to that effect. So the licensed building practitioner is taking upon his or her shoulders the obligation of guaranteeing the work that was promised to be built. This is not loading compliance on local body authorities. This is not adding to costs. This is a simple guarantee to homeowners and people building homes that what they get is what they asked for and what they expected they would get. It is simple accountability—it asks licensed building practitioners to stand by their work. 
Then Opposition members talked about building bureaucracy adding to time delays. But the Opposition forgot to look at or omitted to look at clause 24. Clause 24 amends section 104 of the Building Act. It says: “A territorial authority that receives a copy under section 104 of a compliance schedule must within 5 working days after receiving the compliance schedule provide the owner of the building for which the compliance schedule was issued with the statement in relation to the compliance”. So this puts an obligation on the territorial authority to provide a certificate within 5 working days. How will that add to the time period? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That’s a joke. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: It is not a joke—it is in clause 24. I tell Mr Smith that he should pick up the bill and read it. He should cast his mind to the bill and read it and he will find that clause 24 answers his every concern. What do we find in clause 41? We find that territorial authorities must keep information about buildings. A territorial authority once it has supervised the procedure to ensure that the building is built as expected by the homeowner must then keep records so that if something does prove to be faulty the identification of fault and responsibility can be made quickly and economically. 
So if we look at the Building Amendment Bill before this House we see that nowhere does it limit the right of do-it-yourself builders. We see that nowhere does it add to the cost of local authorities. We see that nowhere does it extend the time span. Not one clause in this bill fits any of those three descriptions. I listened with careful attention for the last half hour or more—40 minutes—and none of the Opposition speakers could take their argument to any clause in the bill. Instead they ran off to other sources and made broad sweeping statements as they propagated fear among people out there who may happen to have been listening to the radio until this speech came along. 
The other interesting thing about “Bob the Builder”— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER 
: —the member for Tauranga—is that he took the opportunity to speak in this Chamber using prepared notes but he failed to accept an opportunity from the Minister’s office to come and discuss his concerns with those officials. No he wants to avoid the nitty-gritty to avoid getting down to the detail and to avoid addressing the issue. He saves his carping criticism for this Chamber and speaking in generalised forms again avoiding reading the bill. 
What the debate tonight has shown is that there is an abject failure to address the simple things that this Building Amendment Bill does—or a determination not to do so. The bill simplifies the process of consents. It sets up a simplified regime for licensed building practitioners so that those practitioners can carry responsibility for that which they certify. It dictates the simple way in which they must do it and it sets up a register of licensed building practitioners. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 A poll came out on Monday in which 67 percent of those people polled said that they had had enough of a control-freak Government that wants to try to regulate every single part of people’s lives. Yet the Labour members in the Chamber this evening do not get it. They do not get the basic fact that New Zealanders have had enough of the Government’s petty silly laws that want to regulate every single part of people’s lives. I want to rise to the challenge posed by Russell Fairbrother and take him through the bill so that he might understand how this is another set of petty regulations. First I refer him to restricted building work. One cannot do restricted building work unless one is a licensed building practitioner. So my question for members opposite is: would Norm Kirk in 1936 have been a licensed building practitioner when he set out to build his home in Kaiapoi? Of course not. What this bill will do is—through establishing restricted building work and saying it can be done only by licensed building practitioners—effectively kill off those do-it-yourself Kiwis with the do-it-yourself Kiwi spirit and prevent them from building their own homes. 
Then Government members ask what else in the bill will be restrictive. I draw their attention to clause 91. Clause 91 far from making things easier as Russell Fairbrother says quite deliberately sets out to reduce the exemptions from gaining a building consent. If one is doing minor repair or maintenance work one will now require a consent. Let us take what the Institution of Professional Engineers said. Suppose a homeowner discovers a small leak in the weatherboard of a house built many years ago. One board may be rotten and need to be replaced. At present without this bill the remedy would be to remove the rotten board replace it with a new one as similar as possible to the original and apply a suitable paint system. Job done. What does this bill do? This bill states that one would have to get plans and specifications drafted up. One would have to roll along and seek building consent and say: “Is the board I have had designed adequate? Am I able to get the right paint system? Have I got the right paperwork to do it?”. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Stop making it up. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Mr Clayton Cosgrove says that I am making it up. I have a question for Mr Cosgrove and it is this: did he tell New Zealanders that the Building Act 2004 would result in a 900 percent increase in compliance costs in the building industry? Does Mr Cosgrove accept that Labour’s 2004 bill banned do-it-yourself building? 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What I accept is that you made it up and you won’t admit it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Ah! Well we know Clayton Cosgrove. The great thing about Clayton Cosgrove is that his song in the building industry was “Do it once do it right.” That is what he said. Let us check out his record as Minister. Labour introduced the Building Act in 2004; it amended it in 2005. It said: “Oops we’ve got a bit of a mistake. We’ll have to get it amended again.” So it was amended again in 2006. Then hello hello here we are again tonight with the man who says “Do it once do it right.” amending 31 pages of a bill. If we look at the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service we see that he had five cracks—five amendment bills—at trying to get it right. Members on this side of the Chamber say “Clayton you are a Clayton’s Minister and we have no faith in you.” 
Let us try this one. Did the Prime Minister do it once and do it right? Well she appointed George Hawkins to the portfolio of building. He did not go so good. She then gave the job to Mark Burton. He did not go so good. So then she gave the job to Lianne Dalziel. That did not go so good either. Then she gave Margaret Wilson a try; then Annette King a try; then John Tamihere a try. Then she thought “Oh I’ll go back to Mark Burton and give him a go again.” Then she tried Chris Carter who I note is in the Chamber then Clayton Cosgrove and now we have Shane Jones. It is little wonder our building laws are such an abortion when we have had 10 different building Ministers in a period— 
Katrina Shanks 
: You have missed one. We’ve had 11. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am sorry. Would members opposite help me. I have missed one of the Ministers they have had in the last 8 years. This is from a Government that says: “Do it once do it right.” 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Dr Hutchison has had only one call. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am grateful for the opportunity to speak again on this very important but very unsubstantial Building Amendment Bill. I want to finish off the point that the Hon Dr Nick Smith was making about there being 11 building Ministers in 5 years. It is what the Labour Government calls recycling. It just recycles the Ministers. It is doing it in education in health and of course in the area of building because it has made such a disaster of the Building Act 2004 which took up 340 pages and has since been amended on a yearly basis. That is about 200 percent more than the tertiary education bill has been amended by the way. 
I wanted to talk about the fact that I flew down to the Hawke’s Bay yesterday and as I went over New Zealand’s magnificent verdant farmland I saw thousands of dams all over the country. These are the dams belonging to our farmers and which are so vital to our basic primary industry. A large section of this bill—[ 
Interruption 
] I can see a farmer who regards dams to be important to farming in New Zealand and who considers it important that we remove compliance costs and allow farmers to build the traditional dams that are so vital to feeding their stock. Federated Farmers made the point in its submission that many farmers own and operate dams as part of their farming business and as such their primary concern is with potential compliance costs. Safe farms and farmers are of real importance to the federation. It states: “We believe the safety requirements need to be balanced against the wealth-destroying effects of excessive compliance costs. The federation would like to draw attention to the impeccable safety record of farm dam owners and point out that in light of this the imposition of large compliance costs in pursuit of questionable or negligible safety gains is unnecessary and damaging.” The federation went on to say that the compliance costs for dam owners include paying engineers to certify their dam paying the council a fee to register the dam paying the cost of being accredited and paying for any remedial work required to make the dam compliant with new legislation. There are also intangible costs in having to go through the process—becoming familiar with new requirements; uncertainty; time out from the business which could be better spent farming; as well as the hassle and stress. 
Just the other day I decided that I wanted to put a small dam on my small landholding up in that excellent piece of New Zealand—Port Waikato. I did the right thing: I rang the council and asked what I had to do. The council said: “You don’t have to come to us but you have to go to the regional authority.” In going to the regional council to put in a dam that was to be 1-foot high and would probably empty out in the summer I had to go through an extremely expensive and ridiculous process. 
Hon Member 
: Wasn’t it exempt? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: This is not exempt. The regional council insisted that for this small farm dam even though it might have been used for a few Muscovy ducks which I am quite fond of as well as to feed my cattle this was going to be the sort of process—a process that this Labour Government just cannot help itself aiding and abetting. But I must say I was quite astounded when I learnt that large dams have not been regulated ever in New Zealand. I agree totally that it is high time that they were. I was intrigued to hear my excellent colleague Bob Clarkson point out that 60 years ago he helped build the Mangakino Dam—at the age of 5. That is a remarkably fine dam. 
I want to bring up one other new point if I may. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 I would like to add some clarity to this debate. There has been confusion about how many Ministers have managed to handle the building industry portfolio in the last 8 years—since 1999. Nick Smith said that 10 Ministers have been responsible for this industry but he was wrong. There have been 11 Ministers in the last 8 years. I had to think back as to what Minister was not mentioned. I found my list. I knew it would be easy to find because it was a big list. I looked back to 1999 when it was Mark Burton; in 2000 George Hawkins; in 2001 Rick Barker; in 2002 Lianne Dalziel; in 2003 John Tamihere; in 2004 Margaret Wilson; in 2005 Chris Carter; in 2006 Clayton Cosgrove; in 2007 Mark Burton; and now Shane Jones is responsible for the Building Amendment Bill. So we found the name of the missing Minister. 
It seems that Ministers are given this portfolio as they move their way through Cabinet. They start by managing the building industry portfolio. Once they have managed to confuse the public and write legislation that nobody can understand and that needs amending they move on. They move on as soon as they have managed to confuse the public. Once again this amendment bill is 30-odd pages long and it amends legislation of 360-odd pages. That means 10 percent of the Building Act 2004 has been changed. 
Now I would like to talk about one specific part of the bill. It would have been really good if some of the Labour members on the Social Services Committee had been sitting in the Chamber tonight and entering into the debate. They were part of this debate and were part of making this bill. Yet the only person here from Labour is Russell Fairbrother. Where are the rest? National has lined up to debate this bill but Labour has absolutely no interest in it. There is one Labour member from the committee speaking on this bill. Where is Labour’s commitment to the bill? It has none. It does not want anything it has to say about the bill to be recorded in  
Hansard 
. 
I will talk about clause 6. For those people who have just tuned in we are talking about the Building Amendment Bill which is an adjustment to the 2004 legislation. It is 30-odd pages long and amends an Act of 360 pages. I would like to talk about clause 6 because there was quite a lot of confusion in the select committee and amongst submitters especially the Registered Master Builders Federation. The definition in clause 6(4) states that “restricted building work” means building work that is “critical to the integrity of a building; for example its envelope and structure;”. That is all very good because the Registered Master Builders Federation came to the committee—I ask Russell Fairbrother whether that is right because he was on the committee—to say it was concerned that if one changed putty in a window one would need some form of building consent. That was its concern on reading this bill which was not clear to them. 
The select committee had another concern about the definition of “restricted building work” in clause 6(4). It states that it is building work that is “of a kind declared by the Governor-General by Order in Council to be building work that must be carried out or supervised by a licensed building practitioner …”. The definition goes on to explain what a licensed building practitioner is. 
We are creating this bit of legislation but it is actually up to the Governor-General by Order in Council to decide what type of building work should be restricted or not restricted. This bill does not tell us what building work should be restricted outside of a building’s envelope and structure. So how would we even know when putting this legislation forward whether a putty— 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I think that recent contributors are not really covering any new ground. There have been three closure motions and 18 speakers. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independent: Field. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 48; Independent: Copeland. 
Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Validation and transitional provisions 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 This part is another case of the Government imposing additional costs on our local authorities that flow through to rates. We may as well call this part the increase in rates provisions. But on top of that these provisions state that the Government made a stuff-up in 2004 in the way it struck the levy on buildings and that it will validate whatever it did wrong—make it right—so that it can still fleece local authorities for a heap of dough. That is basically what the provisions state. Back in 2004 when the original Building Act was passed the Government made a mistake in the way in which it set the building levy and in the definition of building value. 
The question is whether the councils should have to pay for the Government’s stuff-up. Let us remember that it is not the councils that pay the bill; it is actually the ratepayers. What we see in this bill is further increased costs for ratepayers. We heard Local Government New Zealand point out to the Social Services Committee how much the cost of accreditation will actually be for local councils. I give the example of the Dunedin City Council. The Dunedin City Council said that the Building Act this year will require it to increase its costs by $1.3 million a year. It will have to take on an extra 15 staff. Members opposite have said that the reason we need this bill is leaky homes. Well I hopped along to the Weathertight Homes Tribunal and checked how many leaky homes there are in Dunedin. There are three. What is the total value of the leaky homes in Dunedin? It is $930000. Why are we imposing on the ratepayers of Dunedin an extra cost of $1.3 million every year for a problem that we know started off costing only $930000? 
My first point is that we have just had a great big rates inquiry. A key recommendation of that rates inquiry is that this Parliament take far more care in imposing additional costs on ratepayers. What does the Government do? It rams through Parliament another building bill that will just add to the rates bills of our constituents all over New Zealand. 
Then we come to the issue around code compliance certificates. I was interested in the contribution from Russell Fairbrother earlier. He said that this is a great bill a really good bill because it will require the issuing of the code compliance certificate within 5 days. But do members know what? I searched through this bill and I searched through the original Act. Could I find anywhere a penalty for a council that does not issue a certificate within 5 days? No. We know that members opposite passed a Building Act that required building consents to be processed within 20 working days. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: What about Part 2? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I am talking about code compliance certificates I tell Mr Fairbrother. We know that in respect of the timing of building consents they are meant to be processed within 20 working days. Half the time they are not. The Master Builders Federation says that it takes longer to get a consent to build a new house than it actually does to build it. Why would we have any faith in the provisions that are being put in place here around code compliance certificates and the 5-day rule when there is absolutely no penalty? 
Sue Moroney 
: What has this party got against local government? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I ask Ms Moroney where the penalty is for councils that do not comply within 5 days. 
Sue Moroney 
: What has the National Party got against local government? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Sue Moroney asks what National has against local government. Has the member read the submission from Local Government New Zealand on this bill? The member opposite has obviously not read the submission from Local Government New Zealand which vigorously opposed what this provision in clause 92 is proposing. 
Sue Moroney 
: What has that party got against local government? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: She is like a broken record. I ask that member what she has against ratepayers. Why have rates gone up at three times the rate of inflation since Labour has been in Government? I ask Sue Moroney why rates have gone up at three times the rate of inflation under her Government. 
Sue Moroney 
: Why did unemployment go up so much under the National Government? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Let us talk unemployment then. Unemployment went up in 1984 under the Labour Government and continued to go up until 1992. Unemployment started dropping in 1992. It is absolutely true. It is absolutely correct. And unemployment continued to drop right through that period. I say to Sue Moroney and others on that side of the House thank goodness for the National Government and what we did in the 1990s; it provided for a sound economy that has seen a continuing drop in unemployment. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Without the puffery hot air and overexpended energy of the previous speaker Nick Smith I will address some of the issues in Part 2 of the Building Amendment Bill. 
I will start by addressing some of the points that Dr Smith raised. He talked about transitional provisions and about additional impost on local authorities. He said that this bill is basically all about leaky buildings that Dunedin has only three leaky buildings and therefore we should do nothing. It is interesting that in this debate tonight the Opposition has taken its usual stance: oppose everything propose nothing. Those members propose nothing because they have nothing and because they have no idea. 
That member Nick Smith talked about the accreditation scheme and why we are auditing and accrediting local authorities. There are a couple of basic reasons. It is because local authorities said to us and building inspectors said to other people and to me when I was the Minister that they were doing things like drive-by inspections. The Waitakere City Council was a good example of that with the famous case of the house of Colleen Dicks where the inspector signed off the house as being weathertight but there was a big yellow thing called the sun coming through the roof because a big hunk of roof was missing. To this day the builder says that he built a weathertight home because the building inspector signed it off as such and poor old Colleen Dicks wears it. The truth is that local authorities some through the best of intentions were charging for but not delivering an A1 building consent process. Dr Smith also—quite rightly fair go; I do not often give him a fair go because he does not deserve it but I will on this point—said that there are delays in building consents and a lack of efficiency. 
What we have are two alternatives. We can go to the organisations and say that they are not delivering on time. We can as Dr Smith wanted to do put a penalty on the organisations so that if they do not deliver on time we drop the hammer. Dr Smith proposed a bill to this effect. I think it was called the free consent bill or the 20-day rule. Ms Tolley will know because her chairman wrote it in a National Party newsletter that Dr Smith’s own National Party called that member and his bill “daft”. I will leave it there because I can do no better than the description Dr Smith’s own National Party colleagues called him and his bill. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Did not! 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: They did and I tabled it. He thinks he can make it up. 
What we do with an organisation is to say— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: You’re just lying like you normally do. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence at that member. He used an offensive term and I would ask for him to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence. This Minister is a guy who can dish it out but who cannot take it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: What is the point of order? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: The point of order is this. The Minister made an offensive remark about me and I would ask him to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: No I quoted a document. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: He did not quote the document. That is simply untrue. I have taken offence. I have done the honourable thing and have withdrawn and apologised. I say that the Minister should do likewise. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I think the member has a point there. Obviously on a point of order he has taken offence. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I will table a document later tonight that will prove that member for what he is. In that document is the word “daft”. It refers to his bill it is from the National Party and it was penned by the member Ms Tolley’s chairman. That is a fact. 
But moving on if we have an organisation that is inefficient we go in and we try to solve the problem. We ask whether it has enough people and resources. If it has as many local authorities have a 100 percent increase in building consents but it does not put on one more inspector or maybe one more typist to type up the consent documents so that the inspectors can go out and give code compliance and those sorts of things then it has like any organisation that does not have enough resources a problem. And yes it is true that councils like the one in Palmerston North realised they had a problem. It has new technology and it has gone from 12 to 20 staff. In Manawatu the local authority has said it is getting out of providing consents; it wants to contract to the Palmerston North Council which has the resources and the efficiency. That is what we do. We do not propose a daft bill. We look at the organisation and we attempt to deal with that. 
If one does drop the axe as that member did and say that a late consent is a free consent what one fails to understand among many things is that the costs for that free consent are not visited on the person who wants the consent to build the house they do not disappear into the ether. I know that the member has a limited understanding of cost accounting and economics but those costs do not disappear into the ether. They are visited on every other ratepayer. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member who is speaking happens to be a Minister and I have been really enjoying the opportunity to debate my bill to deal with late consents. But my point of order is that despite the fact that I would love to debate the bill that I introduced we are debating Part 2 of this Building Amendment Bill and very sadly—although I would be happy to include it—it does not actually include my bill to deal with late consents. In fact there is no mention in clause 92 clause 93 clause 94 or clause 95 of that late consents bill yet the Minister has given members a 5-minute diatribe on a bill that was debated by Parliament some 6 months ago. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: That is correctly raised on a matter of procedure in the Chamber. I did mention when we commenced this part that its four clauses are to do with validations and transitional provisions. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I would be happy to comply. I suppose what I was attempting to do was to talk about the same issues that Dr Smith mentioned in his own—as he puts it—diatribe. 
But the point about this is that yes there are costs in some of these measures and these transitional provisions will have a cost but no this is not just about leaky buildings. This is to ensure that this whole Act and the amendments to it—because we amend Acts to improve them of course—will secure good building standards and good local authority standards for homeowners so that they can rely on those standards when building what will usually be their biggest asset. 
I will leave Dr Smith with this question. I opened my address by saying that he as usual in his own bizarre energetic way—to put it tactfully—has simply opposed every clause in the bill. That is what he is good at. It is the sign of a man who is hollowed out. He has never once proposed an alternative to Part 1 or to all the things he criticises. He has never proposed one item to amend Part 2. He has never stood there and given members his policy or said what he would do in terms of the validation provisions. It is simply a sign of a hollowed out man from a hollowed out party. He is bereft of ideas but is a man who can stand up and in an energetic mega sort of fashion while going red in the face and with his hair standing on end have a go to oppose any legislation. I invite the Committee to really reflect on his contribution tonight—or the lack of it as we have seen time after time. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I seek leave to table the building amendment bill in my name that is before the House and also the building amendment bill that has been tabled by my colleague Bob Clarkson which sets out very clearly National’s propositions. I note that during the entire 1990s Labour did not table a single amendment bill as a member’s bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There is. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair for the opportunity to speak on Part 2 “Validation and transitional provisions” of this unfortunate building amendment legislation—the fourth amendment since 2004 and by golly the Building Act has needed amendment. It is somewhat ironic that Clayton Cosgrove talks about puffery and hot air; he is the man whom one could describe as a strutter and a poser. 
John Hayes 
: And a puffer. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: And a puffer. Nevertheless he admitted that these transitions will impose more costs. More costs are exactly what this Labour Government has imposed on the building industry and these transitional provisions do exactly that and also impose extra costs on the local bodies. 
I want to concentrate for a little bit on clause 93 “Transitional provision for content of project information memorandum” because that was an issue that just about all the local territorial authorities commented on. They made the point that what the Government was trying to do was absolute duplication. 
I will for just one moment look at the absolutely positive Wellington submission which says: “Council is concerned that some of the proposed amendments will not effectively address the current technical issues. Of prime concern to Council are the proposed amendments to change the definition of restricted work to the definition of owner that do not address the problems of ongoing accountability to the fee regime that do not address the key issue of appropriate cost allocation and for accessibility provisions on PIMs that are not necessary and will not address the identified problem.” 
That is what I am concerned about because it is quite clear that the purpose of a project information memorandum is to provide project-specific information that is relevant to the proposed building work. It is designed to act as a big issue. This is made utterly clear by the Auckland City Council. It says that the project information memorandum is designed as a big issue to filter covering areas such as land features district plan requirements fire evacuation schemes etc. It says in its policy analysis that including accessibility and disability requirements in project information memoranda has the potential to deliver more clarity to consumers about the standards that buildings need to meet; however the manner in which project information memoranda are provided renders them ineffective for a variety of reasons. The council points out that they are required in building consents anyway. But no this Labour Government insists on a belt and braces approach in this area of accessibility and disability requirements in project information memoranda even though every local territorial authority throughout the country pointed out that it would impose more costs. As my colleague Lindsay Tisch said: “The largest %age increase in cost has been the rise in local authority infrastructure levies and fees—900% over five years.” 
Mr Chairman I think you are wondering what this has to do with the content of project information memoranda. Indeed I am sticking precisely to that matter because I am concerned that every territorial authority in New Zealand was concerned that these requirements are being put into the project information memorandum as well as the building consent. They will impose greater time greater effort and greater costs which are the very characteristics of what permeates throughout this Labour Government amendment bill. It is such a travesty in terms of what has actually been happening in the building industry in New Zealand over the last 5 years. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JOHN HAYES (National—Wairarapa) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chair for allowing me to speak on this matter. It is of extreme importance to constituents in the Wairarapa electorate. I would like to bring to the attention of the Committee a number of examples of the sorts of costs the massive Resource Management Act brings to individuals in my community. Before I address that I would just like to say how deeply disappointed I am that the star of the Labour Party the up-and-coming Shane Jones has been made a Minister and is in charge of the Building Amendment Bill. I have to say I am deeply deeply sorry about that. This bill is poorly worded. It is a total shambles and it will do nothing to reduce the costs to individuals. 
My first example of the legislative controls concerns a constituent in Greytown a Mr Edridge. He went to the South Wairapapa District Council because he needed resource consent under section 92 or 93 of the Act. He needed resource consent to build a fowl house. It cost him $900 in fees paid to the council for a hen house for five hens. That is absolute nonsense. 
I have another example. I was phoned the other night at 10.15 by a Woodside farmer Roger Barton. Under the modular package in the legislation he had approached the South Wairarapa District Council because he wanted to tender for a sheep shed at Wallaceville and bring it across to the Wairarapa and put it on his farm. He asked what the cost would be and the council said it would be $600 for resource consent. When he actually put the tender in the council then said to him that under the modular arrangement it required him to have an engineering report done before and after moving the shed. The cost of that was $3000. The council did not stop there. Then it said that under the rules that apply in section 94 of the Act he had to take a photograph but it could not be a digital photograph. Mr Barton asked why it could not be a digital photograph and he was told that was because he might adjust it—he might adjust it! 
The point of what I am saying to the Committee is that the Government can have all the rules it likes but under the current legislation and the bill Shane Jones is now responsible for common sense has gone out the window. 
Let me give members another example from Masterton. I have a constituent who has come to New Zealand from Scotland. He has had to go to the local authority to the district council to get approval to put a temporary cover over 17000 strawberries. He has to do that because the territorial authority has to agree as per section 93(2) of the Act to that happening. Now the territorial authority has said that because the temporary cover units to cover the strawberries are coming from the UK—they are sold globally—he cannot bring them into the Wairarapa without an engineer’s report. So that poor man does not know whether to bring them into the country. If he does not bring them into the country he cannot get an engineer’s report. Why is it good enough to bring those units into Australia South Africa the UK and right across Europe yet the legislation here puts red tape in the way of making any sort of progress whatsoever? 
There is another problem with regard to this bill. We can have all the words we like as this bill says and we do not want leaky homes but what about the burst water pipes that may result from importing untested copper pipe from China? I am told by many plumbers in my electorate that that copper pipe will not last 7 years yet it is untested. Why do we have such lengthy legislation I ask Mr Jones when he has done nothing to bring the common-sense testing of materials into it? 
When we look at the whole question of land and subdivision— 
Progress to be reported presently. 
House resumed. 
The Chairperson reported progress on the Building Amendment Bill and no progress on the Human Tissue Bill. 
Report adopted. 
The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.