Volume 697 Week 67 - Tuesday 11 March 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 697 Week 67 - Tuesday 11 March 2014[Sitting date: 11 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16461. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Tuesday 11 March 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Amended Answers to Oral QuestionsQuestion No. 6 to Minister 5 MarchHon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment):I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct an answer to question No. 6 on 5 March.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I stated to the House on that date that the number of Māori students enrolled in qualifications at Bachelor’s degree level or higher had increased to nearly 29000 in 2012. That was incorrect. The correct figure is nearly 22000. It remains an increase of 25 percent on 2007 numbers.Questions to MinistersCost of Living—Wage Growth Power Prices and Affordable Housing1.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Leader of the Opposition)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “for most New Zealanders an indicator of how well the economy is doing is whether or not they can keep up with the cost of living”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):I think the word was “indicator” but yes and we have official statistics that regularly measure those things. Last year average weekly wages went up by 2.8 percent compared with inflation of 1.6 percent. The year before that average weekly wages went up by 2.9 percent compared with inflation of 0.9 percent. The New Zealand income survey shows that the median personal income from all sources went up by 2.7 percent in the last year and median household income went up by 4.1 percent. So although people’s circumstances are all different it is very clear that on average cost of living increases have been quite modest and New Zealanders and their families have been getting ahead.Hon David Cunliffe: What does he say to the West Coast family who say that their power bills are bleeding them dry to the point where they have had to switch off their hot water or the elderly couple who say that they like hundreds of others are dreading the winter months to come and the power bills that go with them? Is this how we want New Zealanders to live?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I say to those families that they should follow David Cunliffe on Twitter when he managed to deliver an own goal that showed how electricity prices skyrocketed under Labour actually but have not been going up nearly as quickly under National.Hon David Cunliffe: How does the Prime Minister expect everyday New Zealanders to keep up with the cost of living when many of them will be paying 7 or 8 percent more for their power and some face increases of up to 24 percent in this year alone?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: One of the hallmarks of this National-led Government that is in contrast to the previous Labour Government is that in fact wages have been going up faster than the price of inflation. It is worth remembering that in terms of electricity prices they make up less than 4 percent of the CPI. So in overall terms when one looks at the CPI some things go up and some things go down. For example car prices went down clothing and footwear prices went down and household contents went down. So in many categories lots of things went down; the odd things went up. Overall most consumers have not actually faced power increases of that level.Hon David Cunliffe: If that is all so rosy why did the Prime Minister try to blame Transpower when Transpower’s charges make up less than 10 percent of electricity prices and Transpower stated that its increases are likely to be less than $1 a month on average; and is not the truth of it that the power price increases are going to the privatised companies and enriching the foreign buyers that he is in league with?Hon Bill English: What a load of nonsense.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: To quote the Deputy Prime Minister what a load of nonsense. If you look at what has been driving up power prices insomuch as there have been rises at all for consumers it has been a combination of Transpower increases and lines companies if one looks at those two together. Interestingly enough though if we look at say the last 5 years of power price increases—Dr David Clark: Out of touch—5 long years.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well 5 long years with half the power increases because they have been 19.7 percent as opposed to 39.1 percent for the 5 years under Labour.Louise Upston: Do official measures of the cost of living include electricity prices and what does this tell us?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes a very good question. The electricity prices in the CPI differ slightly from those that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment produces but they tell the same story. Over the last 5 years going back to December 2008 electricity prices in the CPI rose 19.7 percent and in the 5 years before that they rose 39.1 percent. So it is no wonder people think that power prices are high—in 5 years under Labour electricity prices went up by 40 percent. That is why you cannot trust Labour when it comes to power prices.Hon David Cunliffe: When will the Prime Minister listen to New Zealanders who are facing median house prices that are up by 8.6 percent on last year when first-home buyers are now being shut out of the market which he has made safe for speculators?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: One of the things that the Government has been doing is working hard to ensure actually that first-home buyers can get into the market. There are a few ways of doing that. Firstly the release of land will have a substantial impact. But let us just ask any first-home buyer we like what they would prefer to pay for their floating mortgage rate. Would they prefer to pay around 5 percent at the moment under a National-led Government or 11 percent under Labour which is what it was when we came into office?Hon David Cunliffe: Speaking of interest rate rises given that wholesale rates appear to be on their way from 5.75 percent to 8 percent can he confirm that a household currently paying $500 a week in mortgage costs will face another $136 a week by the time that mortgage hits 8 percent?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For a start off it is likely—I think the interest rates will make a gradual return towards a slightly more normalised level but it is worth understanding that we have interest rates that are on a 50-year low. Secondly if we want to talk about individual consumers I am surprised that the Leader of the Opposition is worried about them at the moment because he showed absolutely no worry about them when interest rates were at 11 percent. When the Government was putting so much pressure on spending it was forcing up inflation and forcing the Reserve Bank to raise rates. In fact let us just take that household that has a $200000 mortgage. That household in comparison is paying $200 a week less today than when Labour left office. You see when we go to the polls on 20 September and the voters ask themselves who they can trust with the economy it certainly will not be Labour that will be the answer coming from their TV sets.Hon David Cunliffe: When the Prime Minister said in 2008 that New Zealanders should “not be fearful of their next bill” why are so many people now fearful of their housing power and other bills under this uncaring National Government?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: For a start off the member is wrong. I did not make that statement and he will never actually be able to demonstrate that I did. I was asked about the definition of poverty and I said that the definition at least of being well off is that you are not fearful of a bill. But if it comes to bills then I say this to New Zealanders. What would they rather have: a 19.7 percent increase in power prices under National or a 40 percent increase under Labour over 5 years and 72 percent? Would they rather have interest rates at about 5 and a bit percent or would they rather have them at 11 percent? Would they rather have an economy under a National-led Government that is growing in excess of 3.5 to 4 percent with 1500 people a week coming off welfare and going to work? Would they rather have an economy that most people around the world have envied? And would they rather have an economy that is actually going to be back into surplus?Mr SPEAKER: Order!Hon David Cunliffe: I seek leave on this occasion to table media reports from 2008 that quote the Prime Minister—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Media reports are freely available to members who want them.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I accept your general ruling and am ordinarily respectful of it but on this particular occasion the Prime Minister disputed the quote which came directly from a media report. I therefore seek leave to table the report—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is not what I said. I made it quite clear that the Leader of the Opposition applied the quote—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order. I have given the Prime Minister the floor to speak to the point of order.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The Leader of the Opposition if he wants to go and check his Hansard applied a quote to something I did not say.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I now accept we are moving into the area of debate. I am going to let the House make a decision on this. Leave is sought to table this particular document. Is there any objection? There is objection.Economic Programme—2014 Plan and Results2.Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri)to the Minister of Finance: What will be the focus of the Government’s economic programme going into the election on 20 September?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):The Government will focus on building on the recovery that is now under way to support New Zealand households and businesses to create more jobs and to earn higher incomes. Now that we have been able to manage through a very significant recession and the impact of the earthquake and clean up some of the damage done by the last Labour Government we will look forward to helping New Zealanders organise the capital and the skills required to take advantage of the very substantial opportunities offered by a growing Asia-Pacific region.Hon Kate Wilkinson: What progress is the Government making with its economic programme and how is this helping households and businesses?Hon BILL ENGLISH: First of all the recovery in the economy is principally the work of New Zealand’s households and businesses supported by Government. Government policy that has helped to support that has been to get the Government finances under control and get back to surplus; and to focus on all those areas across the economy that support growth such as better infrastructure investment a tidier more effective and more efficient system for giving young New Zealanders skills reducing welfare dependency re-regulating the use of our natural resources so that we can be a prosperous economy as well as a clean green economy and of course there are many other ways we have been supporting New Zealand households and businesses.Hon David Parker: Why is he claiming that everything is going swimmingly when the $1 billion deficit to 31 January in his Government’s accounts is $637 million worse than he forecast in just December?Hon BILL ENGLISH: As I have pointed out regularly in this House we can control expenditure to a significant extent but revenue can fluctuate. In this case—Hon Members: Ha ha!Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well bear in mind that in the previous financial year we finished about $3 billion ahead of budget. On the most recent figures in this year tax revenue is about $800 million behind budget. The people who should take the most notice of that are the Opposition parties because it makes it pretty clear there is not room to splash cash everywhere in election year.Hon Kate Wilkinson: What are some of the ongoing economic challenges the economy faces and how will the Government work to overcome them?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Probably the main economic challenge is to manage our way through the next growth cycle avoiding the excessive damage created during the last growth cycle under the last Labour Government. For instance it is inevitable that interest rates will rise some time this year according to decisions of the Reserve Bank. We want to make sure that interest rates are not driven to 10.5 to 11 percent by bad Government policy and excessive Government spending. That is probably one of the best things we can do to support New Zealand households.Hon David Parker: Is it correct that having inherited close to zero net Government debt he is soon to clock over $60 billion of borrowings; and is this more than any other Minister of Finance in New Zealand’s history in nominal terms and the worst in real terms since Muldoon?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No but it is another symptom of “Planet Labour” a place where the global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes never happened. Voters will increasingly see a party marooned on “Planet Labour”—1970s Fabianism at its worst.Hon Kate Wilkinson: Going into the election on 20 September what economic policies will this Government reject because they would impose costs on households and cost jobs?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is pretty clear from lessons learnt from the last cycle through the early 2000s up to 2008 what policies to avoid. One of those is a sharp increase in Government spending because that will push interest rates up much faster than they need to go. The second one would be imposing a costly emissions trading system which is guaranteed to put power bills up by around $500 per year and in combination with a single-buyer electricity authority would make household electricity bills significantly more expensive not cheaper as the Opposition claims.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would ask you to reflect on the question that was just asked there to the Minister of Finance in terms of ministerial responsibility by the way the question began with reference to the election. I know that in the past when the Labour Party has tried to raise matters that were talked about in an election campaign we have been told that that has not necessarily been the responsibility of a Minister. I just wonder whether those sorts of questions are actually in order.Mr SPEAKER: And in this case I think it was a line-ball call by myself at the time. The question went along the lines of what economic policies the Government would reject in the lead-in. I think on that basis it was enough to get it across the line for the Minister to address it as a responsibility of the current Government. But I will be mindful of these sorts of supplementary questions between now and 31 July.Justice Minister—Compliance with Cabinet Manual3.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First)to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in all his Ministers; if so why?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes; because they are competent and hard-working and they are working for a brighter future for all New Zealanders.Rt Hon Winston Peters: How can he have confidence in Judith Collins when she chose not to visit some of the many other Kiwi businesses in Shanghai but just so happened to pop in to her husband’s company for a cup of tea?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not think it is quite correct to describe it as her husband’s company. Her husband is a director of Oravida. My understanding is that on other occasions she has popped in to promote other New Zealand companies.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Does he believe that Judith Collins should have reported her visit to Oravida in her travel report to Cabinet; if not why not?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think that as a general rule a Minister actually would not record all of the visits they make on a particular trip because that would include an excessive number of visits that people make. They are very busy. Generally those travel reports cover the main things and the main purpose of the trip was in her capacity as Minister of Justice.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Has Judith Collins produced evidence to him that she informed Oravida that it may not use any photos or publicise the event as an endorsement of its products as stipulated in paragraph 2.89 of the Cabinet Manual?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No but I have not asked her for that. I have accepted the member at her word.Rt Hon Winston Peters: In the interests of transparency how is Judith Collins’ behaviour not in direct contravention of paragraph 2.87 of the Cabinet Manual “No Minister should endorse in any media any product or service.” and why unlike Richard Worth and his case is this not a sackable offence?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: It is actually quite clear. The Cabinet Office advice is the same as it was under the previous Government and that is that it is quite—Hon Trevor Mallard: No no.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Actually yes it is identical to that under the previous Government. It is quite possible—in fact it is quite within the rules—for a Minister to be involved in the promotion of a company but not the endorsement of a company. For an endorsement to take place a Minister would actually have to say the words themselves produce those words or put out a statement or a speech. And they actually would probably have to do that in isolation for one company over another. None of that actually occurred.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is it a fact that this issue of the different treatment of a former and now a current Minister is explained only because he is gravely concerned that if he is unable to do negotiations with other parties Judith Collins and other MPs in his caucus are very prepared to do them instead?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.Grant Robertson: With reference to the Prime Minister’s answer to the supplementary question before last when he said that an endorsement would require the Minister to “say the words” is he aware of the statement on the Oravida website where the Minister said depending on the translation that she was either full of praise or endorsing the products of Oravida?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well I am certainly aware of reports that that was on the Chinese version and taken down but what is quite clear from the Cabinet Office—Grant Robertson: Why is that not an endorsement?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well as the Cabinet Office would tell the member—and it has been true for successive Governments—in fact just because a company says something just because a company makes a comment just because it writes it down it does not count as an endorsement; it counts as a promotion.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek the leave of the House to table a record of the New Zealand companies that have an office in Shanghai—none of which got a visit from Judith Collins.Mr SPEAKER: What is the source of the document?Rt Hon Winston Peters: An impeccable source: the Parliamentary Library.Mr SPEAKER: Well then it is available to all members if they want to see it. [Interruption] Order! The member will resume his seat.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I requested this information. It is not available to all other members. It was sent specifically to me. That is why I wish to table it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! It seems to me that if any other members wanted it they could get it but on this occasion I am quite happy to put the leave. Leave is sought to table this particular document prepared for the Rt Hon Winston Peters by the Parliamentary Library. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There is none.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Power Prices—Increases and Electricity Market4.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green)to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his Government’s policies?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister):Yes.Dr Russel Norman: How can he stand by his policies when it is his policies that have driven up the average yearly household power bill by $360 a year since he became Prime Minister or as he said in his earlier answer by 20 percent?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think it is firstly important to understand what has been driving any increase in power prices and it has largely been expenditure either by Transpower or lines companies. The member may not like that and I actually accept that consumers will not necessarily like paying a little bit more but I also remember the howls of anguish and concern from Aucklanders for instance when essentially Transpower failed because of the problems out in its station. So in the end we do have to spend money upgrading our infrastructure. What I do know though and what I have seen are reports on how much more consumers will pay under a Labour-Greens power policy and that is provided by analysts who have looked at their policy.Dr Russel Norman: Does the Prime Minister realise that in fact most of the power price rises are coming from the big electricity power companies—the five big oligarchies—that are controlling the electricity sector; and why is the Prime Minister so vehemently defending the big power companies and their price hikes when around the country families are receiving letters in the post telling them that their bills are about to go up even more sometimes by as much as 24 percent?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I will start off I think by saying that the member himself would have to accept if he is being objective that a 24 percent increase was because the consumers were on the wrong tariff rate and on the same basis some have gone down. But if he wants to talk about the five oligarchies if he ever got to power there would be only one oligarchy and that would be a very interesting place for competition.Dr Russel Norman: Why does the Prime Minister so vehemently defend the big power companies that are driving up the price of power for ordinary New Zealand households?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do defend the rights of Transpower and the lines companies to invest in their infrastructure. I think in the end we can either have a grown-up debate about the fact that we need a stronger infrastructure or not. But in fact there is no evidence to support the claim that the power companies themselves are making excessive profits. If they were their share prices would be responding in that direction.Dr Russel Norman: Why is the Prime Minister protecting the big power companies that are stifling innovation stifling competition and blocking lower prices for ordinary Kiwi households?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Far from blocking competition this is the Government that has introduced a system that allows consumers to switch with great ease and hundreds of thousands have. It is very interesting—the co-leader of the Greens seems to be rewriting his energy policy on his feet because if anyone wants to stifle competition and drive up prices the way to do that is to create one single buyer of electricity which by the way the analysts think will massively drive up prices. And if that is not a wedge through their hearts attached to it may as well be the bill for $500 for his emissions trading scheme—but by the way they will have plenty of time to look at the bill because they will not have a job under a Greens Government.Dr Russel Norman: If the Prime Minister is so convinced that the current market is competitive why are people all around the country receiving notifications in the post that their power bills are set to rise again sometimes by as much as 24 percent even as overall demand for electricity is falling; is this not a classic example of abject market failure?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No and the fastest way to have market failure is to not have a market which is what the Greens are proposing. Secondly I go back to the points I made to the Leader of the Opposition as inconvenient as they were for him because they tell such a good story. Last year average weekly wages went up 2.8 percent and inflation went up 1.6 percent. This year average weekly wages went up 2.9 percent compared with inflation of 0.9 percent. Correct me if I am wrong but that member Russel Norman was happily supporting the Labour Government while it was producing this chart which David Cunliffe helpfully sent to everybody because I am sure everyone is following him on Twitter. So that is what they got to see—this massive line that looks like I do not know the number of people who want to vote National. It looks like our polls. That is actually the price increases under a Labour Government.Housing Affordable—First-home Buyers Mortgages and Government Policies5.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū)to the Minister of Housing: Does he believe the Government is making it easier for young people in the regions to buy their first home?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Housing):Yes because house prices in the regions have risen more slowly under National because interest rates have been significantly lower under National and because housing affordability has improved in every region under National with National’s policies of expanding the Welcome Home Loan expanding the KiwiSaver first-home deposit subsidy and introducing the FirstHome initiative. Let me give you the specific numbers for a region like Hawke’s Bay. Between 2000 and 2008 house prices went up 116 percent and interest rates went from 7 percent to 11 percent meaning the cost of the average mortgage trebled. Under National in contrast house prices in Hawke’s Bay have gone up by 3 percent not 116 percent and interest rates have come down from 11 percent to—Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Point of order Grant Robertson.Grant Robertson: My point of order was that that answer had been going on very long but I could add to it that the Minister stayed on his feet for an extensive period after you—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The answer was very long. I was hoping it was coming to an end and kept thinking that it was.Phil Twyford: Is he making it easier for first-home buyers in Napier Hamilton and Rotorua where the proportion of first-home buyers has dropped by more than double the national average since his Government signed off on loan-to-value ratio lending restrictions and when will he concede that his housing policy has failed ambitious young New Zealanders trying to buy their first home?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: If you want to know what a failing policy is around house ownership let house prices more than double as they did during Labour’s period. The best way we can help Kiwi families be able to own their own home is to keep interest rates low and to constrain house price inflation and that is exactly what has occurred under this Government.Phil Twyford: Why did he agree to the Government signing off on loan-to-value ratio lending restrictions being applied to the entire country when 95 percent of house price inflation is taking place in Auckland and Canterbury incomes are flat-lining for most people housing costs are soaring and interest rates are heading north of 8 percent according to the banks or are they just scaremongering too?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The first point is that interest rates today are 5.85 percent. When we came into Government they were 11 percent. So even if the Reserve Bank moves by the odd point later this week interest rates will still be significantly lower than they were after 9 years of a Labour Government—[Interruption] Nine long years as my colleagues point out. I would further make the point that the idea that the Reserve Bank can apply its monetary policy on a regional basis is the sort of loopy lunatic economics that we expect from members opposite.Tim Macindoe: In what regions has there been an improvement in housing affordability under this National-led Government?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The data from the independent Roost Home Loan Affordability Report make for interesting reading. In Northland housing affordability under this Government has improved by 49 percent. In the Waikato where the member comes from housing affordability under this Government has improved by 39 percent. In the Hawke’s Bay housing affordability has improved by 42 percent. In the Manawatū it has improved by 49 percent. In Nelson and Marlborough my home community it has improved by 37 percent. In Otago and Southland it has improved under this Government by 37 percent. The message is very clear—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Phil Twyford: Will he admit his mistakes and change his policy to support the regions being exempt from loan-to-value ratio lending restrictions; if not how does he justify making regional New Zealand pay the price for his failure to deal with property speculators in Auckland?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It has been a long-established consensus across this Parliament that the Reserve Bank is independent. I still would love to know—and I am sure electors would love to know as they reflect on the sort of interest rates they might pay in future—just what is the policy of members opposite. But I say again: the idea that you can have different monetary policy in different regions of New Zealand is just loopy economics.Phil Twyford: How can he continue to claim that his policies are fair and even-handed for all New Zealanders when he continues to shut first-home buyers out of the housing market in parts of New Zealand where house prices are static or even declining?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The policies that this Government has adopted of ensuring lower interest rates for longer; of increasing housing supply; and of initiatives like the Welcome Home Loan expansion the first-home deposit scheme and the FirstHome scheme all ensure that New Zealanders get a fairer crack at home affordability than they ever got under the previous Labour administration.Manufacturing Sector—Performance and Reports6.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei)to the Minister for Economic Development: What recent reports has he received on the manufacturing sector?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development):Thank you for the question. Yesterday Statistics New Zealand released its Economic Survey of Manufacturing for the December 2013 quarter. I am pleased to report to the House that the total manufacturing sales volumes rose 5.7 percent in the quarter. This is the largest seasonal-adjusted increase since March 1995. Meat and dairy product manufacturing rose 15 percent which is obviously good but what is really good is that the whole sector of manufacturing expanded. Sales for eight of the other 12 manufacturing industries rose in the quarter. For example transport was up nearly 6 percent furniture was up 6.2 percent and seafood was up 2.7 percent. It is fair to say this is undeniably very disappointing for those trying to manufacture the manufacturing crisis.Ian McKelvie: What other reports has he seen on the manufacturing sector?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well I have also seen the most recent BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index—Hon David Parker: Non-primary exports are down.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —somebody should give this guy a question so he can ask about the crisis—which measures whether the sector is expanding or contracting. The index currently stands at 56.2. It has now been in expansion for 16 consecutive months. I have also seen a survey of small and medium sized manufacturers by Mind Your Own Business. Its latest research shows that in the last 12 months manufacturing small to medium sized enterprises have seen more revenue growth than any other sector and in 2014 “they expect to do even better.” With a continuing high New Zealand dollar and a fragile global economy it has undoubtedly been difficult for some manufacturers and exporters so the continued growth in the sector is a real testament to manufacturing businesses and their workers. Sadly I think the Opposition—Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am loath to interrupt the Minister but there has been something of a habit in this question time for a range of Ministers to drone on and on and on in a seeming competition to give the longest answer to a parliamentary—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I thank the member for his very helpful comment. Some answers have been significantly longer than they need to be in answering the question.Ian McKelvie: What steps has the Government taken to further grow the manufacturing sector?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This is a very important sector and we have a remarkable number of innovative companies in the high and medium-high technology industries that are carving out market share on the world stage in tough international markets. The Government’s Business Growth Agenda—Hon David Cunliffe: The what?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —contains something like 58 separate initiatives. You might learn something Mr Cunliffe; I will slow down for you. There are 58 separate initiatives to encourage greater business investment in research and development which is at the heart of the sector’s success. This includes establishing Callaghan Innovation; lifting research and development co-funding to $142 million a year; the introduction of repayable funding for start-up technology companies distributed by new private sector technology-led incubators; new grants to help companies take on—Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I can anticipate the point of order and it is that the answer is going on too long.Hon David Parker: This has happened all question time and every time it has taken a point of order for you to agree—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I will make a decision as to when I think the answer has gone on too long. I think the member has on both occasions recently raised the question. I am always eternally hopeful that answers are about to come to an end. I am inclined to think they are and then the Ministers get a second breath of wind and continue. It is not helpful to have long answers and members should take note that lengthy answers do lead to the possibility of disorder in the House.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I would certainly accept your point. It is just that in this particular instance the Leader of the Opposition was declaring his lack of knowledge of the plan and I thought it was important—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not helpful. I do note that in that very lengthy answer the Minister did get his second breath of wind when there was an interjection. If members want shorter answers that is helped if they do not interject during question time.Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It may assist the Opposition if the length of answers is deemed to be appropriate by your good self if we were to ensure that our questions were of a similar length. That would rebalance things between the Government and the Opposition but it might not lead to good order in the House.Mr SPEAKER: One of the problems today is that some of the questions have been quite long as well.Freshwater Management—Reform and Water Quality7.EUGENIE SAGE (Green)to the Minister for the Environment: Will she strengthen the proposed water quality national objectives for human health so that New Zealanders can safely swim in our rivers?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment):Consultation on the amendments to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management and the creation of the National Objectives Framework has recently closed and no final decisions have yet been made. What I will say to the member is that the proposals will help to improve water quality across New Zealand particularly through the national bottom lines and a collaborative option for water management. Many of the attributes necessary to meet bottom lines will be attributes that will also improve water towards swimmability. As I have said before where a community determines that particular rivers or lakes are valued for swimming the National Objectives Framework provides a robust scientifically backed set of attributes that help communities to plan to meet that objective. These are bottom lines not targets and they do not limit the ability for communities to set an objective of swimmability. In fact they make it easier to do so.Eugenie Sage: Is the Minister saying that New Zealanders just have to give up on central government taking the lead and ensuring our rivers are clean enough to swim in?Hon AMY ADAMS: No. Central government has finally under this National-led Government stepped up and shown leadership through the creation of a national policy statement through the creation of a National Objectives Framework through the creation of community-led collaborative planning and through the institution of water metering and water management techniques. Finally they are getting some action from central government.Eugenie Sage: Does the Minister agree with the Otago Regional Council’s submission that the Government’s proposed national bottom lines for water quality would result in water bodies that are unsafe for swimming recreation and food gathering including water that is potentially toxic smothered in periphyton unable to sustain sensitive fish species unsafe for swimming unsafe for allowing your dog to swim in and unsafe for stock consumption; if not why not?Hon AMY ADAMS: Absolutely not because it is finally the decision of each community as to what objectives they want for their water quality. For the first time ever those communities will not be allowed to choose toxic unhealthy water levels because the National Government is insisting on national bottom lines. Above that it is for each community led by their regional council to choose their objectives and to work towards them. So if the Otago Regional Council is concerned about it they are in exactly the right position to address it.Health and Safety Workplace—Legislative Reform8.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National)to the Minister of Labour: What recent progress has the Government made on health and safety reform in New Zealand?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Labour):The biggest health and safety reforms of the last 20 years were brought one step closer yesterday when I introduced the Health and Safety Reform Bill to this House. The bill is part of the Government’s Working Safer reform package which will improve health and safety throughout New Zealand and play an important role in meeting our target of reducing workplace injuries and fatalities by 25 percent by 2020. I look forward to wide support in this House for this legislation.Chris Auchinvole: What does the bill specifically do in order to improve the health and safety culture in New Zealand?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The bill repeals and replaces the current health and safety legislative framework. It will beef up penalties for non-compliance including new enforcement tools and court powers place more of an onus on managers and directors to manage risk and require greater worker participation so that workers are more involved in health and safety in their workplace. The bill will be supported by two tranches of regulations as well as codes of practice and guidance. Achieving the step change we need to see in health and safety is not something that the Government can do alone. Business and workers must all share responsibility for sustainable change.Darien Fenton: What extra resources will be available to enforce the new obligations on worker engagement and participation under the bill and how will the training of workers be funded?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: It is a good question from the member. She will be well aware that a significant—and perhaps the most important—part of the Working Safer reform package was the establishment of WorkSafe New Zealand. The funding for that body has gone from $50 million as a regulator to some $80 million and I expect within that it will be putting resources into worker participation issues.Hon Damien O’Connor: In regard to accountability and penalties for health and safety breaches that the Minister is referring to who was Judge Farish referring to when she said that the decision not to proceed with the case against Peter Whittall was made “at the highest levels”—was it the Minister of Labour or was it the chief executive of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I played no part in the decisions in relation to Peter Whittall and his prosecution.Power Prices—Increases and Electricity Market9.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert)to the Minister of Energy and Resources: What is his Ministry’s best estimate for the percentage increase in retail electricity prices for the period 1 February to 1 August this year for a household of four persons averaged across New Zealand?Hon SIMON BRIDGES (Minister of Energy and Resources):Firstly can I congratulate the member for asking me his first ever question—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister will simply stand and answer the question that has been asked.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Grant Robertson: You have now had cause to intervene in every answer from a Government Minister today to a question from an Opposition member where they have breached the Standing Orders. I would ask that we be granted an additional supplementary question in light of that.Mr SPEAKER: I will consider that when I hear the quality of the supplementary questions that are being asked. The Hon Simon Bridges will now rise and answer the question that has been asked.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The ministry’s best estimate based on increases in transmission and line charges is an average increase—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am having trouble hearing this answer and I think it would be helpful to members if we could have—Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You are quite right to point out that there is some noise coming from the Opposition benches behind me. But you may wish to note that that occurred after the previous exchange of points of order where you ruled that it was a matter of the supplementary questions and not the Minister’s original answer that—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I think the House needs to settle down. The question has been asked and I require the Minister to now answer that question. Where we go to with further supplementary questions is a matter I will consider.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The ministry’s best estimate based on increases in transmission and line charges is an average increase of 2.6 percent from 1 April. Advertised price increases tell only of course part of the story. There are sharp deals for customers who shop around. For example discounts of between $80 and $300 are available effectively reducing a power bill by up to 13.8 percent for an average consumer. I would also remind members on that side of the House that this Government has halved the runaway price increases that they sat back and did nothing about on their watch.David Shearer: Does he stand by the Prime Minister’s statement that electricity increases “are a result of the increasing costs they face because of the upgrade of the grid by Transpower” or that of Transpower itself which said that “transmission charges made up only a small part—less than 10 percent—of … power bills” and therefore could not possibly be responsible for those increases?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: I agree with the Prime Minister.David Shearer: Can he fall back on the consumer price switching model as he calls it when the agency Covec on behalf of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment produced a report that said that the switching had no significant effect on retail prices or on competitiveness?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: That is not quite what it said. As I said in the answer to the primary question people who do shop around can see some $80 to $300 discounts. We are seeing increasingly sharp discounts for paying online paying on time and so on. Of course those discounts I talked about are in the vicinity of being much higher than the overall price increases that we are seeing from 1 April.David Shearer: Why does he tell the people of New Zealand many of whom have written in to me—with price increases of up to 20 percent—that their prices are going up by only 2.6 percent when at the same time the prices of electricity here in Wellington are going up by 7 percent and only less than half of that can be attributed to Transpower and lines charges?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Obviously at 20 percent—24 percent I think the member has talked about—they are absolute outliers. I have already given the average which is much lower than that. But it is hard to take a lecture on policy from the Labour Party when David Parker and Russel Norman last week would not answer any more questions on the detail of their so-called NZ Power plan.David Shearer: Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister that the electricity market is “operating effectively and transparently”; if so why is the Electricity Authority investigating it for a lack of transparency?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The reforms of this Government have halved the steep power price increases we saw in a tweet from David Cunliffe last week when he railed against price increases. We believe we have got a competitive market that is becoming more competitive and where there are a lot of options for customers who shop around. But I happen to agree with the Electricity Authority that transparency is something where there is room for improvement and that is why I am focused on that and am making sure that it is focused on that and that it is working on that issue vis-à-vis power bills.David Shearer: I seek leave for the Electricity (Transparency) Bill—in light of his answer just now—in my name to be introduced as a member’s bill and set down for first reading on the next sitting day.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is objection.Waitakere Hospital—Emergency Department Upgrade10.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua)to the Minister of Health: What investment is the Government making in improving health services in West Auckland?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health):Waitematā District Health Board will invest $10 million to upgrade and expand the emergency department at Waitakere Hospital. The expansion will see the department almost double in size to 19 new cubicles four new rooms and better facilities for patients and whānau. This investment will contribute to the significant improvements that people in west Auckland have had over the last 5 years in terms of health services.Dr Paul Hutchison: Why are the improvements to Waitakere Hospital’s emergency department needed?Hon TONY RYALL: Over the past 8 years the number of patients presenting to the department has increased substantially. I have to say that health services at Waitakere have improved significantly since 2008 when the emergency department was regularly closed it was not operating 24 hours due to a lack of staffing and newspaper headlines shouted “Hospital emergency department in ‘crisis’ ” and “Hospital staff shortages cut emergency care”. Meanwhile the local MP and Minister of Health David Cunliffe was famously running the show back then.Freshwater Management—Pollution11.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green)to the Minister for the Environment: Does she think that companies should be allowed to pollute our rivers for an unlimited amount of time using section 107(2) of the Resource Management Act 1991 or does she think that the use of “exceptional circumstances” should be time limited?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment):Despite the allegation in the member’s question companies are not allowed to pollute our rivers for an unlimited period of time. Section 107(2)(a) of the Resource Management Act which the member refers to has been used on only rare occasions which have been subject to stringent oversight and control by the Environment Court and never for an unlimited period of time. I note that the Local Government and Environment Committee has considered and rejected the member’s proposal to amend that section and in my view rightly so.Catherine Delahunty: So will she support my member’s bill which would limit to 5 years the amount of time companies can pollute our rivers without impacting on current consents; if not can she explain why not any further than she already has done because it was not a good enough reason I am sorry.Hon AMY ADAMS: Well I am devastated that the member did not like the answer I have already given to that question but I can tell her that no I will not be supporting it for the same reasons that the select committee has recommended that the bill not proceed: it is not necessary and it is not helpful.Catherine Delahunty: Is she saying that the majority of New Zealanders—in fact 92 percent in a recent poll—are wrong to expect our rivers such as Tarawera to be clean enough to swim in?Hon Gerry Brownlee: No; just that your bill’s hopeless.Hon AMY ADAMS: Well I am not sure that I can improve on Gerry Brownlee’s answer to that question but I would certainly dispute the finding that she has reported as giving that example. But what I do say to the member is that there is no evidence that her amendment to section 107(2)(a) of the Resource Management Act is necessary or helpful.Justice Minister—Compliance with Cabinet Manual12.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central)to the Minister of Justice: Did she note her visit to the Shanghai offices of Oravida Limited in her report to Cabinet on her Ministerial visit to China in October 2013; if not why not?Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice):As that member knows from the information provided a month ago the answer is no. Just as when Labour was in office Cabinet reports do not include every minor stop on a trip. In the same way my stopping off at Cafe Flat White in Beijing was not included in the Cabinet report. As that member already knows I agreed that I would call in to see Oravida’s Shanghai office if time allowed. I will continue to do everything I can to support “New Zealand Inc.” especially when I am overseas.Grant Robertson: In light of that answer why did she name the businesses that she visited in her report to Cabinet on her June 2012 visit to China but failed to do so for her visit to Oravida in 2013 which was the subject of a formal invitation?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: The member must be referring to my visit to the Red Pear Company in the Yunnan Province. Primarily because it took about 3 hours to get there have the visit and then go back again. It was a very long visit. It was not a 20-minute stop.Grant Robertson: After receiving the invitation on 9 October to visit Oravida in Shanghai from the chairman Stone Shi did she discuss the visit with either of the other two directors of Oravida Ltd?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I had already spoken to the chairman and the managing director on 7 October when they invited me and I have said that any request like that I would normally like to have in writing so that I could release which of course I did.Grant Robertson: What does she say to former National Party president Michelle Boag who has described her decision to go to Oravida as naive?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Judith Collins in so far as there is ministerial responsibility.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I would say that that was very sweet that she feels about me like that. It is very sweet of her.Grant Robertson: Given the condemnation of her visit from the editorial writers of the New Zealand Herald the Dominion Post theSunday Star-Times and numerous political commentators will she now admit that the visit to Oravida did give rise to a conflict of interest and that she should apologise to New Zealand taxpayers for making that visit on a taxpayer-funded trip?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I am always very concerned when I have any editorial that agrees with me in any way because I represent the people of this country.Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table the trip report provided to Cabinet by Judith Collins on her June 2012 visit to China that lists companies she visited.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table this particular Cabinet document. Is there any objection? There is objection.Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table the trip report to Cabinet by Judith Collins on her October 2013 visit to China which did not name Oravida which she visited.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to also table this particular Cabinet document. Is there any objection? There is objection.Points of OrderEarthquake Commission Minister—Apology to Christchurch Labour MPsHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I raise this point of order to seek your advice. Last week in the House the Hon Amy Adams on behalf of the Hon Gerry Brownlee said this: “the Minister unreservedly apologises and will be writing personally to those MPs with his apologies.” He was referring to the Christchurch Labour MPs. I have received an undated written apology but my colleagues have not. I seek your assistance in getting Mr Brownlee to—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is a matter for discussion between those members and the Minister if they so choose. It is not a relevant point of order.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Before I hear the Hon Trevor Mallard I just want to make sure that he is not in any way questioning the decision I have just made regarding the validity of that point of order.Hon Trevor Mallard: Well no I cannot give that undertaking.Mr SPEAKER: Well then the member had better sit down because he is questioning my ruling.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: If the member is raising a fresh point of order I will hear it.Hon Trevor Mallard: It is a fresh point of order.Mr SPEAKER: And it is not contesting my ruling?Hon Trevor Mallard: No Mr Speaker it is asking you to explain it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. I have said that it is not a valid point of order. The member has had the opportunity of making a political comment. That is not what points of order are for. If those particular members feel aggrieved they have got every opportunity to take it up with the Minister involved. It is not something that concerns the order of this House.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. What remedy does a member have when an undertaking to this House has been breached? In the past if an undertaking has been made to table a document the Speaker has helped. My question is what remedy does a member have?Mr SPEAKER: I have already explained it to the member and I do not want to have to do it for a third time. There was no undertaking given. There was certainly a statement made. If members feel aggrieved that they have not been suitably addressed they should in the first instance take it up with the Minister concerned.Electoral Amendment BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 4 March.Part 1 Amendments to principal Act (continued)The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): When the Committee last considered this bill we were debating Part 1 and the Hon Maryan Street—[Interruption] Order! If members are leaving would they leave quietly please. The Hon Maryan Street had the call and has just on 4 minutes remaining if she wishes.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour):When we left off the debate on this bill the Electoral Amendment Bill—it was interrupted by the close of business last Tuesday night—I wanted to make a couple of points about the Supplementary Order Papers that are on the Table in respect of this bill. When the bill first came to the Justice and Electoral Committee it had in it substantial clauses—between clauses 24 and 38—that really put into the law what was until then and is still now an administrative practice. It was an administrative practice that we have come to know as the EasyVote card. The clauses were about the enrolment confirmation card popularly known as the EasyVote card and they allowed for the administration of that to be written into the legislation. Instead of being just an administrative convention or a practice the clauses actually gave a purpose to the EasyVote card—the enrolment confirmation card as it is referred to—in the struck out parts of this legislation.There are three Supplementary Order Papers in front of us at the moment. The one in the name of Holly Walker seeks to reinstate clauses 24 to 28 31 to 34 37 and 38. So Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper 420 simply seeks to reinstate those struck out clauses. Our further consideration of this bill and of the Supplementary Order Papers that have come up have caused us to think it would be a good idea to do what the Minister of Justice originally intended. We would like to know why the Minister is now not supporting a Supplementary Order Paper that basically reinstates her original proposal. I do not know why that is. I cannot imagine that the Minister of Justice Judith Collins is routinely rolled by her caucus on any matter but if that is the case then I would appreciate it if she advised the Committee of that or at least if one of her colleagues got up and explained to the rest of the Committee—particularly those colleagues who are on the Justice and Electoral Committee—why the select committee struck out the things that the Minister originally intended. It was for a range of reasons which elude me now.On reflection we considered that clauses 24 to 36 relating to the enrolment confirmation card should be retained. I would like to see Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper pass. I have a feeling—more than that I have had an indication from the Minister—that that is unlikely to happen. I regret that because the Labour Party now finds itself in the position of wanting to oppose this bill. Having supported it because these kinds of measures ought to be multipartisan and ought to be supported—these kinds of proposals around electoral law ought to be presented and passed in this House in a multiparty way. But if this continues to be excised from the original text and Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper is not approved by this Committee then the Labour Party has now reserved unto itself the right to vote against this legislation. That is a shame. The rest of the bill is OK. The rest of the bill is fine particularly now that the silly bits about rosettes and streamers have been taken out of it because there was no good reason for having those there in the first place.Anything that puts an easy way for people to vote into the law and makes it more certain ought to be encouraged by this Committee. It ought to be encouraged. I cannot think of a reason—unless it is something that serves the National Party’s interests only—why the EasyVote card or the enrolment confirmation card process should not be written into the legislation. It is convenient. There was no evidence given at the select committee in my recollection of any wholesale fraud. There were one or two instances of fraud around the use of EasyVote cards but the system caught them. It worked. Those instances that have happened on behalf of both the Labour Party and the National Party were caught in the process so wholesale fraud cannot be a reason for the deletion of these clauses.If that Supplementary Order Paper of Holly Walker’s goes too far then I suggest that Andrew Little’s Supplementary Order Paper 417 which tries to reinstate only clauses 24 to 27—again the Minister’s original intention but not as far-reaching as all the clauses that Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper covers—should be accepted. If that is not acceptable to the members opposite then please tell us why. Why is it that the enrolment confirmation card cannot be cemented in law? It is an administrative practice it is true and it will continue to be an administrative practice because there is nothing in the original legislation that this bill amends that refers to it. It is an administrative practice but why not cement it in the law and make it a legal right that people have an EasyVote card that they can present to a returning officer or polling clerk who then takes it from them so that it cannot be used again and there is no mistake about who that person is? It covers off issues of disability. It covers off issues of ethnicity of people with English as a second language of names not being able to be understood or interpreted correctly by a polling clerk. It covers off all of those issues and I cannot understand why this should be deleted and not reinstated.If Holly Walker’s Supplementary Order Paper is defeated by this Committee and if Andrew Little’s Supplementary Order Paper is defeated by this Committee I commend my own Supplementary Order Paper 416 to the Committee which simply allows by the amendment of clause 24 for somebody to verbally give or confirm their name or present an enrolment confirmation card. So they can say who they are or give over an EasyVote card. At the moment the bill says they have to do both and that begins to present a barrier. That begins to present a barrier for people with all kinds of disabilities and for people whose names are difficult for polling clerks to understand—that kind of reason. It would make absolute sense for this to became an “or” and not an “and” because the bill as it stands says that electors have got to verbally confirm their name and give such other information as is necessary to find their name on the roll. Those two things and those two things combined can be a disincentive and can disadvantage voters.HOLLY WALKER (Green):I am very pleased that this debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill was carried over until today so I can have a chance to make a substantive contribution and to reinforce the contribution of my colleague Metiria Turei when this debate started last week. I want to thank the Hon Maryan Street for her contribution just now in defence of my Supplementary Order Paper 420 which seeks to reinstate the clauses of the bill that were deleted by the Justice and Electoral Committee relating to the use of the EasyVote card. There are three key things I want to say here. The first is that the Green Party is generally in support of the provisions in this bill and we have undertaken over many years—and including in this process—to work constructively towards sensible modernisation of our electoral law and to do so wherever possible by consensus.I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee which undertook the review of and inquiry into the 2011 general election which gave rise to the process that has become this Electoral Amendment Bill currently before the Committee. That select committee undertook an inquiry into the election. It heard from a range of submitters about all aspects of the 2011 general election and by consensus we worked on that committee to come up with a number of recommendations to put to the Government where we thought there needed to be changes in time for this year’s general election 2014. One of those changes that we recommended after hearing evidence from the Electoral Commission was that the EasyVote card should be allowed to be used as a confirmation that a voter has cast their vote. That was recommended to us by the Electoral Commission. It outlined to us how that would streamline its processes on polling day how that would speed up the process for its staff and how it would make for a smoother and better experience for voters. And the select committee by consensus adopted that recommendation when we were hearing evidence in the inquiry. Therefore the Government responded to those recommendations.Amongst many other things in this bill that we support one of the recommendations was that that be written into law and that is what was in the first draft of this bill which we passed in this House at its first reading. The bill was then referred back to the same select committee to consider the details of the bill itself. Unfortunately I was on parental leave while the select committee considered this bill. If I had been here I think I would have argued very strongly against the select committee’s decision to delete the clauses relating to the EasyVote card. I was not present for those discussions so I cannot speak specifically to the concerns raised but my understanding—and certainly it is reflected in the select committee’s report—is that members were concerned about electoral fraud and that “We consider that the proposed provision for a new process known operationally as EasyVote Express would in effect lower the threshold for casting a vote increasing the potential for fraud and harming the integrity of the voting process.”What I think has happened is that some very well-intentioned members of that select committee have under a misapprehension become concerned that the provisions in the bill that my Supplementary Order Paper reinstates would in effect make fraud more prolific with the EasyVote card and would make it easier to access one or easier to use it. I am not sure exactly where the concern stems from but there seems to be a concern that somehow it would make it easier for people to pretend to be someone they are not when they go to cast their vote and that that might increase the risk of electoral fraud. That is a legitimate concern and it is a concern that I understand and I share. Certainly we should be concerned to minimise the instances of electoral fraud wherever possible. But that concern has in my view manifested itself in a very harmful and unhelpful mechanism whereby the select committee seems to have agreed to delete all of these clauses related to the EasyVote card and I would put it to the Committee and to the Minister of Justice that we are really throwing out the baby with the bathwater here.If we go back to first principles we look at what an EasyVote card is and what it is for. It is simply a card that contains the name and address of the voter and the page number and line in the electoral roll where their name can be found. It makes it easier for the staff at the polling place to find them on the electoral roll and issue their ballot paper more quickly. It is not an ID card. It is no different in any mechanical sense from turning up at the polling booth with no ID at all and simply saying your name and your address. It just makes it quicker and easier for the polling booth staff to look up your name. It does not make it any easier to record a fraudulent vote. For example if somebody took it upon themselves to vote in someone else’s name they could go along to any polling place and do that by giving that person’s name and address. There would be no difference whether they had their EasyVote card in their hand or not. The EasyVote card neither increases nor decreases the risk of electoral fraud taking place. I think that is something that is really important for this Committee to understand when considering the amendments on the floor today.I think that the Justice and Electoral Committee has been labouring under a misapprehension and has got it wrong here. As a consequence we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We are throwing out the ability for the Electoral Commission to make a change that would make it much easier for it to run things on election day. What it would like to see is not a mass expansion of the use of the EasyVote card it is not making electoral fraud any easier; it is simply adding a scannable code to the EasyVote card that would allow Electoral Commission staff to scan the card after the voter has handed it in as a record that that voter has voted. In fact it would make it easier to catch out instances of fraud because instead of waiting until the electoral roll could be manually collated and could have people’s names drawn off with a ruler it would electronically record whether someone had voted yet or not. So if someone attempted to vote twice or someone else attempted to vote in their name it would show up much more quickly under the proposals before the Committee than under the status quo. So the Electoral Commission had a very sensible idea to have scannable cards in order to collate the roll electronically to make it much easier to tell whether someone has voted twice and to make it happen much more quickly and the select committee has essentially thrown that out.As Maryan Street pointed out in her contribution just now to the Committee the fact that the number of parties in the House have now identified this as a problem and are suggesting reinstating these clauses should not be controversial for the Minister of Justice because all we are seeking to do is reinstate exactly what she initially proposed in the bill. The select committee members thought about it. They made a recommendation. A number of parties in the House now consider that recommendation to be wrong and they are asking that we simply revert to what the Minister had in the bill in the first place. It should not be controversial for the Government to adopt the changes that a number of the Supplementary Order Papers on the floor of the Committee are recommending.I really implore the Minister and Government members to take this seriously and to listen and let common sense prevail because actually we could have consensus across the House as it is always best to do on electoral matters if they were willing to return to the bill as originally drafted. I think that that would be a significant improvement on what would pass if we allowed the bill to pass without these amendments.The Electoral Commission was a long way down the path of its planning for the 2014 election and it was planning that election on the basis that it would be able to use the EasyVote card with a scannable code on it to electronically collate the roll. If we do not allow it to do that I put it to the Committee that that is a missed opportunity to streamline electoral processes and it is based on a misapprehension—an understandable fear about electoral fraud but fundamentally a misapprehension—because there is nothing in the proposal that would make it any different from a user perspective to use the EasyVote card to cast the vote. It would not change that. It would not change the risk of electoral fraud one bit. So all we are doing is throwing out what would essentially be a really useful streamlined mechanism for the Electoral Commission based on an unfounded fear about electoral fraud. I think that would be a real shame. So I really implore members across the Committee especially Government members and especially the Minister in the chair to consider this seriously and to consider reverting to the bill as was originally drafted which is what my Supplementary Order Paper 420 would achieve.The other concern we have is around the inadvertent disenfranchisement of disabled voters by another change that was made by the select committee. These are the changes referred to by Maryan Street in her Supplementary Order Paper 416 and by my colleague Mojo Mathers and that is the idea of asking a voter to verbally confirm their identity at the polling booth. This again was a late addition to the select committee and it was born out of concerns about electoral fraud. But it appears that very little consideration has been given to the impact that this would have on voters with speech impediments with hearing impediments and on voters for whom English is a second language. We consider that for many people it would make it difficult or impossible for them to comply with the new requirement. The flippant response that seems to have been written into the bill is that they can confirm their identity with a gesture if they are not able to do it verbally. I put it to the Committee that that is very disrespectful for people in that position.CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka):I would like to turn to the sections of the Electoral Amendment Bill that deal with donations to political parties and donations to candidates.Paul Foster-Bell: What about the leaders’ campaign?CHRIS HIPKINS: If the member would just hold his tongue for a moment I could elucidate for him the aspects of this that I wish to talk about. I want particularly to talk about contributions to candidates and political parties or donations to candidates and political parties that are made up of contributions. To put this into context this would be a situation where one person goes around and collects from a number of their friends a whole lot of cheques and then presents those in a bundle to a political party. There are a number of ways they could do this. They could for example host a dinner. They could host a dinner and they could collect from all of the people who attend their dinner—Kris Faafoi: This is a hypothetical right?CHRIS HIPKINS: —it is a hypothetical—some very large cheques. Let us say $5000—let us just say that they take $5000 from each of their friends who attend the dinner and they say that that is the ticket price for attending the dinner. They bundle all those up and they donate those to a political party. What is very clear from this legislation is the principle—let us say that they held it in 2010. Back then for instance the disclosure threshold was $10000. What is very clear from the law both in the provisions of this bill and in the principal Act the Electoral Act 1993 which it amends is that if any one person paid for more than two tickets then they would have to be declared separately. They would have to be itemised out because the bill is very clear that contributions have to be identified. The people contributing to that have to be identified as well not just the person who is making the overall donation but the people who are contributing individually to that if it exceeds the threshold. So anybody in say 2010 buying more than two tickets at $5000 each to a dinner would have to declare it. It would have to be declared.I want to know whether in fact the Government is willing to live up to that because it is very clear that exactly that happened. A dinner happened in 2010 where people paid $5000 per head to attend. Any person paying for more than two tickets—any person paying for more than two tickets—would have had to be declared to the Electoral Commission. If they were not then there was a clear breach of the electoral law. The law has been broken—the law has been broken—because nobody other than the person who collected the donations was declared on the National Party’s return of electoral expenses. So if the National Party knows that one person paid for more than two tickets it is clear that it has willingly and knowingly broken the electoral law. If somebody for example bought a table at that dinner and their name was not declared alongside the name of the principal donor then the National Party has knowingly and willingly broken the electoral law.Of course this matters. This matters because we have a situation where we have a Prime Minister—who is also the leader of the National Party of course—who believes that anybody who tries to conceal where their money is coming from is being tricky. Well the same standard applies to the Prime Minister. He is being very tricky when he tries to duck for cover and says that he is not going to reveal where the National Party gets its money from but he thinks that the Labour Party should reveal where every cent that it gets is coming from. That is an absolute double standard. It is a very tricky double standard.I want to know whether the National Party is going to live up to its commitments and the values that this bill represents because this bill and the clauses around contributions to candidate and party campaigns are very clear. It is about transparency and it is about making sure that the public of New Zealand know where political parties are getting their money from. But we do not know where the money that the National Party gets is coming from. So John Key on the one hand says that he thinks anybody who tries to conceal where their money is coming from is being tricky even if in fact they do front up in the end and say where the money has come from. If they front up and they say where the money has come from John Key still wants to attack them and fling mud at them but he is not willing to front up and say where the National Party’s money is coming from. That is a clear double standard. I want to see the Prime Minister live up to his own standards—something that thus far he has proven unwilling to do.The principle here again is transparency. It is a level of transparency that the Prime Minister is not willing to live up to. Under these rules—Part 1 clause 46 for example which deals with the return of candidate donations—it is clear that where somebody submits a donation that is made up of contributions and any one of those contributions exceeds $1500 the person making the donation has to identify the name of each contributor the address of the contributor the amount that they have contributed and the date on which the donation funded from the contributions was made. That same principle applies to donations made to political parties. Therefore if somebody knowingly submitted to the National Party a donation of let us say over $100000 and that person knew that any individual contributor had contributed more than $10000 to that overall donation then they must have listed down the name address contact details etc. of each contributor who gave more than $10000 to that donation. If they have not done so then they have clearly broken the law.I want to know from National Party members whether in fact that is the case. I want to have an absolute guarantee from National Party members that no single contributor—no single person attending that dinner—paid for more than two tickets because if they did pay for more two tickets the National Party has knowingly and willingly been a party to the breaking of electoral law. I look forward to full disclosure from National Party members and absolute assurance that nobody paid for more than two tickets because if they are not willing to give that it clearly means something is not right. It clearly means that they are now aware that they have broken the electoral law and what are they going to do to put that right? If no National Party member is willing to stand up in the Chamber and give us an absolute assurance that nobody attending that dinner paid for more than two tickets everyone in New Zealand has an absolute right to ask why that is. Why is it that no one from the National Party is willing to give an absolute assurance that nobody paid for more than two tickets? If National Party members are not willing to do that they are clearly not willing to stand up and say the party did not break the law because they know that it would not be true—because they know that it would not be true. In the absence of that reassurance in this Chamber the public of New Zealand are left with no other conclusion than that the National Party has broken the law.The National Party broke the law and now National Party members are not willing to front up. Not only are they not willing to front up and adhere—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am listening very carefully to the member and he has really launched into what might be a general debate when he should be talking about the principles of the bill. By all means he can make comparative illustrations but he has gone beyond that.CHRIS HIPKINS: In that case I will talk about the penalties for knowingly participating in breaching this law because there are penalties in this bill for people who knowingly file false returns and knowingly do not submit the information that they are due. If anyone in the National Party was involved in that then the penalties that they would be subject to are clearly spelt out in this legislation—clearly spelt out in this legislation. That is of course probably one of the reasons I think in the case of candidate donations—if it was a candidate donation it would be $40000. That would be the penalty that they would be liable for. I am not entirely sure where the section is—a party secretary who without reasonable excuse knowingly filed false information would be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $40000.Clearly if the National Party again under this bill was aware that one person paid for more than two tickets to that dinner then it is now liable under this bill for a fine not exceeding $40000. I am not surprised that no one from the National Party is willing to open themselves up to that by basically standing up and giving the reassurance that in fact the National Party did not breach the law because increasingly there is evidence to suggest that that may well have happened and they are not willing to deny that. So I am looking forward to the rest of this debate. I am looking forward to hearing those reassurances from National Party members although of course I will not be holding my breath. I will not be holding my breath because it is clear that John Key and the National Party are not willing to adhere to the standards that they have set for others. They are not willing to adhere to those standards themselves.Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri):I move That the question be now put.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Can I endorse the comments made by my colleague Chris Hipkins because what we see in the Electoral Amendment Bill are provisions that are designed to bring more openness and integrity and transparency to the making of donations yet either the bill fails to guarantee this or National has failed to live up to the requirements under the old legislation let alone under the new legislation that is being introduced. The point of the Committee debate is to have the Minister in the chair answer questions. So questions have been raised by Chris Hipkins and I would invite Craig Foss to answer those questions. They are valid questions. They are integral to the bill that is before the Committee which is designed to bring honesty and integrity around the question of donations to parties. But there are two other questions that I would like Mr Foss to address specifically. They are quite straightforward.The first question Mr Foss is why does this bill which came into the House with specific provisions that would provide statutory underpinning for the EasyVote card that were endorsed by the Justice and Electoral Committee which did the inquiry into the 2008 election and that were endorsed by the Minister of Justice in her first reading speech—why were those provisions relating to the EasyVote card removed from this bill on the instructions of the Minister or of Cabinet to the National members of the select committee? We have had no answer to that question. The EasyVote card according to the inquiry done by the Justice and Electoral Committee had considerably improved the efficiency of election day processes. It said that there was no risk that this would facilitate dual voting because there were safeguards against dual voting. So it cannot possibly be an argument that the EasyVote provisions have been removed because they would facilitate electoral fraud.The committee made it clear that we should make the changes in this electoral bill that were recommended in the bill as introduced to this House. Then the Minister endorsed it herself. She said it was “Another important change”. That is what she called it in the first reading debate. She said that “Another important change enabled by this bill is the greater use of EasyVote cards during the voting process.” Then the Minister Judith Collins set about explaining why the EasyVote card was so important. It was a record that the ordinary vote had been cast. It allowed the cards to be used as a declaration for special votes. She said: “This new use of EasyVote cards will simplify and speed up the issuing of ordinary and special votes.” The Minister of Justice was quite straightforward when she came into the House—we needed these provisions. The provisions have gone Minister so I ask Minister Foss why those provisions have been taken out because no clear explanation has been given.In the absence of a clear explanation we must assume that the Republican Tea Party faction has started to infiltrate the thinking of the National Party. The EasyVote card as the Minister said in the first reading debate makes it easier for people to participate and it improves the efficiency of the system. Does the National Party not want more people to participate? Does the National Party realise that more people participating counts against the self-interest of that party? Is the National Party putting the self-interest of its electoral benefit ahead of the right of people and the encouragement and promotion of people to perform their civic duty of casting a vote? If that is not the explanation Minister Foss what is the explanation? Throughout the Committee stage of this House the Minister has not risen to give an explanation on that point. What is the point of having a Committee stage like this if valid questions are raised that the Minister refuses to answer?There is another question I would like the Minister to address when he takes the call and that is the question of why this bill omits any provisions relating to coat-tailing of MPs into this House by a party that fails to reach the 5 percent threshold but does get one member elected from a seat. When we introduced the MMP system in this House we set a threshold of 5 percent for a reason—that you needed to achieve that level of support to be represented in the House. Included in that was that if you had one member of Parliament elected from an electorate seat then they could get the proportion of votes that their party overall achieved translated into further MPs. That might have been well intended but what the initiators of the MMP system never imagined was that one party would rort that system to get people into this House with greater numbers than can be justified.Hon Dr Nick Smith: What about Jim Anderton?Hon PHIL GOFF: I ask Nick Smith why it is so right that the ACT Party in 2008 got five members of Parliament elected on 3.65 percent of the vote and the New Zealand First Party which got more than that with 4.05 percent of the vote got no members. That destroys the principle of proportionality. That undermines the electoral system. In the referendum at the last election 58 percent of New Zealanders voted for a continuation of MMP but they voted for a continuation of MMP on the assumption that the Prime Minister would keep his word have a review of the electoral system and act on the recommendations of that review. So I ask the Minister when the independent Electoral Commission recommended that the coat-tailing provision be removed because it was rorting the system why the National Party has ignored that advice from the independent Electoral Commission.Why has it ignored constant public opinion that has consistently said that this ought to be removed? When it polled people time and again people said that the one thing that they thought was wrong about MMP was the coat-tailing provisions. Why is the Electoral Commission’s recommendation to remove coat-tailing not included in this bill? It is a fair question. It deserves an answer. I challenge the Minister in the chair not to sit there silent with his head bowed but to get up and answer the questions that are validly asked. It also rorts this parliamentary system when we have a Committee of the whole House—where the point is to go through clause by clause and to have the Minister answer questions validly raised—and when the Minister stays stuck in his seat. My challenge to the Minister is to answer those questions.How does he prevent the rort that is going on with electoral donations? These provisions in the bill do not seem to be enough to stop what the Waitematā Trust has been doing—for example giving $1.25 million each election to the National Party with no identification of the people who benefit from National Party policies being direct recipients of what is effectively a bribe by way of an election donation. It should be transparent; it should be clean.Why have the EasyVote card provisions been removed from this bill when the Minister of Justice herself said it would strengthen the democratic process? I ask why the Government has refused to act on public opinion and the independent Electoral Commission’s advice that coat-tailing should be removed and with it the likes of Rodney Hide and John Banks who take their place in this House only because they were gifted their seat by the National Party—the National Party that has rorted the system in order to maintain itself in power. It is that straightforward. It is that dirty. Those coat-tailing provisions should have been removed and Nick Smith should take the call if the Minister in the chair remains silent and he should explain why those provisions have not been included in this bill.Why does the National Party want to rort the system? Why does the National Party want to stop the EasyVote card provisions designed to encourage New Zealanders to get out and do what they ought to do which is to cast a vote to participate in the democracy to have a stake in the democracy? EasyVote card provisions were included in this bill as introduced. The National Government overrode the select committee system and instructed the National members on the Justice and Electoral Committee to take those provisions out and not a word of explanation or justification to this House was made about why they did that. Electoral law reform is special. It should be aimed to get consensus—JOANNE HAYES (National):I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. Party vote? The Clerk will conduct a party vote.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. New Zealand First has not yet had a speaker in this debate and it—The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Order! I am on my feet. There have been over 20 calls. During my time and the time that I watched it there was no attempt by New Zealand First to take a call. That may not be the case. The Committee will now determine whether it wants the debate to continue. [Interruption] I have already ruled. The member will—[Interruption] I have ruled. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member did not listen and I have ruled. [Interruption] No I do not need any assistance. The Clerk will now conduct a party vote.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Because this is an electoral matter something which is constitutional I move That the Chairperson report progress to obtain the Speaker’s ruling regarding the acceptance of a closure motion by the Chairperson.Motion agreed to.House resumed.Speaker RecalledThe CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Mr Speaker the House in Committee has moved that you be recalled to determine whether my judgment in accepting a closure motion was an appropriate course of action. The debate on Part 1 of the Electoral Amendment Bill has been in progress over two sessions and by the records I have in front of me there have been 19 calls on the bill itself plus four closure motions. I have taken care to ensure that everybody who has a Supplementary Order Paper to the bill has had as many calls as they desire. I would just say that the debate had tended in my view to move away from the principles of the bill to a looser more general debate and so I gave one caution and I determined that in fact the principles of Part 1 of the bill had been well and truly debated. On top of that there was a claim by Denis O’Rourke that New Zealand First had not had a call in this debate. It had the fourth call in this debate so in fact that was a claim in error. On reflection I am quite convinced that a satisfactory debate on Part 1 of this bill has taken place.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):Mr Speaker I moved to have you recalled. The reason for so moving was a very simple one. There was a suggestion from the Chairman that Mr O’Rourke had not sought the call. Mr O’Rourke had sought the call. That was part of the judgment the Chairman gave in making his decision. In my view he was wrong. There is a supplementary point that flows from what the Chairman said. This is not a debate about the principles of the bill; this is a debate about the details of Part 1. Mr Goff the previous speaker spoke extensively on the details of that part over a 10-minute call. If he had not been speaking on the details of course the Chairman would have given the call to someone else after 5 minutes.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):Just raising a point out of the commentary the Chairman made he said that every member who has a Supplementary Order Paper in their name had been given every opportunity to speak to that Supplementary Order Paper. My colleague Maryan Street has certainly had one opportunity to speak but she was seeking further calls.Louise Upston: No she’s taken two calls.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The senior Government whip is interrupting me. I point out that every member has the right to up to four 5-minute calls on each part of a bill. Maryan Street was seeking further calls in order to speak to her Supplementary Order Paper 416. There were also a number of questions raised to the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce none of which has been addressed. The issues the Opposition members are raising are around changes that have occurred to the legislation with little or no explanation. The Committee of the whole House is the opportunity for the Opposition to ask for explanations of the Minister and thus far none has been forthcoming so it seemed appropriate to us that the debate continue.LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National):In the original point of order raised the member Mr O’Rourke said he had not taken a call in this debate. According to our records he did take a call in the first part of the debate which was not today but on a prior occasion. So I do not believe that the facts that were put on the table in the point of order were correct.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):What has just been said is completely incorrect. It is true that I took the fourth call but today I sought another call. What the Chairman said was that that had not happened—that no such call had been sought. I did immediately before he ruled seek to speak. I wanted to speak about some of the detail of the bill. In my first call I had talked only about some of the general issues concerned. So what has been said is not correct and I think what Mr Mallard said was correct. This debate should not have been curtailed at this stage.Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation):I have been in the House since the Committee resumed on this bill after question time and I think the Chair of the Committee has diligently carried out his duties. When he said to the House that Mr O’Rourke had not been seeking the call there had been a number of closure motions. On several of those occasions two or three members rose to take the call. Mr O’Rourke was not one of them until after Mr Roy had accepted the closure motion. That is where I thought Mr Roy the Chair of the Committee properly presented the case. He quite properly reported to the House that had Mr O’Rourke been repeatedly seeking the call since the Committee started after question time he might have a fair point but he had not been. It was only at the very last opportunity that he sought the call and that is when Mr Roy quite properly represented the events that occurred in the Committee in his justification for accepting the closure motion.Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South):It is just a straight matter of fact. Dr Smith said that Mr O’Rourke did not contest the call before the Chairman ruled; he did.Mr SPEAKER: I thank all members for their points. I am going to refer members to Speakers’ rulings 64/4 and 64/5. In essence what those Speakers’ rulings say is that it is not for me as Speaker to second-guess the Chairperson’s acceptance of a closure motion. I was not in my office listening to the debate but I am mindful of the point that Eric Roy made as Chairman of the debate that he felt that the debate was already getting loose and that he had taken the opportunity of cautioning the Committee that if members wanted to further debate it they needed to tighten it up. In this particular case the Chairman has made a decision that there have been 19 calls and a number of closure motions. He is the person who is listening to the debate. He has decided that the matter has been adequately debated. On that basis I am accepting the position of Mr Eric Roy as Chairman. I therefore declare the House returning to Committee.In CommitteeDebate resumed.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 412 in the name of Mojo Mathers to Part 1 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes59New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; Mana 1.Noes61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 416 in the name of the Hon Maryan Street to clause 24 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendment be agreed to.Ayes49New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; Mana 1.Noes71New Zealand National 59; New Zealand First 7; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Brendan Horan to clause 24 be agreed to:replace this clause with the following new clause:24Section 167 amended (Issue of ordinary ballot papers)(2)The elector must identity themselves to the issuing officer(2A)The issuing officer may take such steps so as to be reasonably satisfied as to the identity of the elector(2B)Nothing in section 167(2) or section 167(2A) requires or allows electors generally to be required to produce photo identification.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 417 in the name of Andrew Little to Part 1 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 420 in the name of Holly Walker to Part 1 be agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the amendments be agreed to.Ayes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Noes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 415 in the name of Brendan Horan to clause 55 be agreed to.Amendment not agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Consequential amendments to other enactmentsHon MARYAN STREET (Labour):Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill as it stands simply seeks to bring into line other pieces of legislation that are affected consequentially by the passage of this bill. They are the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000 the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011 and then there are amendments to the Electoral Regulations 1996. I wonder whether I might prevail upon the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce to participate in this debate and simply explain whether at the end of the bill in Part 2 where the amendments to electoral regulations are outlined there have been any changes to this provision since the enactment of the Legislation Act of last year—in fact of 2012 but which became effective in 2013. The Electoral Regulations 1996 are I presume disallowable instruments. I would just like that confirmed because here Parliament is talking about and considering electoral regulations and amendments to them in front of the Committee rather than having regulations go through Order in Council. So I ask the Minister in the chair just to clarify that point for me as to whether these come under particular provisions that are provisions of the Legislation Act which would make these disallowable instruments and not legislative instruments. I can only assume they are legislative instruments because we are addressing them in the Committee of the whole House in Parliament.I wish that the legislation in Part 1 which we have just passed could have been amended and that it could then have enjoyed the support of all of the parties in the House. It is a shame that part of this bill has not enjoyed the full support of this House. This legislation is too important. Any legislation around the electoral provisions that we have in law in this country ought to be passed not by just a simple majority of 61 to 59 which is about as slim as one can get it should enjoy the support of the vast majority of parties in this House. If the Government had seen fit to accept some of the amendments that were put up in the last part then this piece of legislation could have enjoyed that support. As it is we will support these technical bits in Part 2. There is no point in opposing them. It would be simply not only churlish but a bit stupid to oppose them. But what this does then do is make the passage of this bill problematic. If we pass these technical bits in Part 2 as a Committee of the whole House but we cannot bring ourselves to pass as a Committee of the whole House the essential and substantive parts in Part 1 then this Electoral Amendment Bill is a farce.It should not be this way in this Committee. It should not be this way in a democracy like ours which has the benefit of being a small democracy and is therefore transparent by necessity and also by convention. It should not be that we have a piece of legislation amending our electoral laws that does not enjoy the full support of the Committee in all parts. It is not impossible for a piece of legislation to enjoy the full support of this Committee. If the bill were fair and it did not put up barriers to people participating in the voting process then it could have enjoyed the full support of this Committee. As it stands we will support clauses 57 58 and 59 through to 64 because it would be silly not to. But if only the same courtesy had been done to the Supplementary Order Papers in Part 1 then we might have had a logical and consistent piece of legislation that we could then say is the electoral law of the land as supported by all parties. As it is we will be compelled to go out to electors to the people of New Zealand and say that the Electoral Amendment Act—as it will become—did not enjoy the support of all the parties in Parliament. That should have been front and centre of the Minister’s intentions. We will support Part 2 because it is silly not to but we wish that the members opposite had been generous enough to seek multipartisan support for electoral amendments that were provoking some disquiet and concern on this side of the Chamber.So it is with reluctance that we support Part 2 but we will make it clear to the people of New Zealand that the electoral legislation that we have was not as well supported in this House as it could have been and that in fact it was only marginally supported by a majority in this House. That is not good enough. When it comes to electoral legislation the Government should have tried harder to get the consent of all parties. It was not beyond its wit to do that. I hope it finds that Part 2 is a great trophy for it. This part is the administrative rats and mice. It makes other pieces of legislation consistent. It amends them because they are affected by this one. If that is the sort of achievement that the National Government takes pride in then God help all of us because it is not good enough when it comes to electoral legislation. We will support Part 2. There are no Supplementary Order Papers on it to my knowledge. There is no need for any. In supporting Part 2 we reflect on the wish that we might have been able to support in full Part 1 of this bill.ALFRED NGARO (National):I rise to take a call on the Electoral Amendment Bill—Part 2 “Consequential amendments to other enactments”. Can I make just some brief comments about the comments that were made by the Hon Maryan Street. I have the honour and privilege to have been part of the Justice and Electoral Committee since 2012. The committee had the Hon Lianne Dalziel also Charles Chauvel from the Opposition present as well. I can say that I am one member on the committee who has been there for some time. We went through the process of the inquiry as one would normally do. We heard a number of the submitters who were there. Can I say that over that journey over that process there were a number of issues that were controversial and that were issues of contention amongst the deliberations of the committee. However over that period of time the roles and positions of Government members have changed. Previously the chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee was Tim Macindoe and now it is the honourable member over here—Scott Simpson of Coromandel. There have been changes on the Opposition side as well. So Opposition members may not be aware of that journey and the sorts of contentious issues that were there. There were issues around for instance the balloons and logos and tags and so forth.However we got to a point where I have to say that it was this year as we deliberated at the select committee there was unanimous—can I repeat that unanimous—support for the bill as it currently stands. So one must question the reasons why we now have opposition why we now have Supplementary Order Papers that have been introduced. There were none in Part 2—yes in Part 1. One can only query that maybe there was an ability to say yes we agreed in the select committee but when Opposition members went back to their caucuses there was concern. But then as you know even with Part 2 Part 2 went back along with Part 1 and that was deliberated on in caucus. It was brought back again to the select committee and again I must confirm that at the committee it was a unanimous decision to support all parts of the bill even Part 2 where it is technical—“Consequential amendments to other enactments”. All parts of the bill were supported.The New Zealand electoral system has a very high level of integrity. Part 1 has minor changes to the legal framework. Then in Part 2 there are minor changes and amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act amendments to the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act amendments to the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Act 2011 and amendments to Electoral Regulations as well. All of these were debated rigorously over 2 years to the point where again even in respect of Part 2 with no Supplementary Order Papers there was unanimous support. I do not want to prolong this debate because the debate has been lengthy in the select committee. On all of the issues even the ones of contention that will be raised again here can I just say—and I may sound like a broken record—that all parts of the Electoral Amendment Bill were supported by all of the committee members. The Labour New Zealand First and Green Party members all saw this as a good bill an important bill and an amendment bill that will ensure that we have a democratic election come 20 September this year. I support Part 2 amendments to the Committee.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):I would like to pick up on a number of the issues raised by the member Alfred Ngaro in his previous contribution because I think he has raised some important issues that the Committee needs to consider and needs to debate. First of all he raised the fact that there were a number of changes in personnel on the Justice and Electoral Committee and that there were a number of controversial issues that were considered by the select committee at length. He is absolutely right. These matters are controversial and that is why the Committee of the whole House is asking for some explanation around some of the issues. What I have not heard yet from either Mr Ngaro or the couple of other of his colleagues who have managed to get to their feet and speak or anybody else for that matter is some explanation around some of the controversial matters that Alfred Ngaro referred to. It is true that there were members on that committee who represented the Labour Party who have actually now left the House. They are no longer here for us to actually ask them what their view was. So this is the place this is the time where we get the opportunity to consider all those matters.What I really really want to know and what not a single National member who was on that committee and neither the Minister in charge of the Electoral Amendment Bill the Minister of Justice nor the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce has explained is at what point in the select committee process the decision was made to remove the legislative requirement for voter identification cards. That is one issue that I am really interested in. As Alfred Ngaro raised in his previous contribution that was one of the controversial issues where there may have appeared to be consensus at the select committee but where there certainly is no longer a consensus around it. All we on this side of the Chamber are asking for is an explanation. Where did that idea to get rid of the voter identification cards come from?The reason why I am asking that question is that there is an extraordinary coincidence going on right now. Coincidences do happen. It is a big world and so I accept that coincidences can happen. But what is extremely coincidental is that right now in Canada the Conservative Party of Canada is pushing through the Fair Elections Act which is incredibly analogous to what the National Government is doing with this legislation. Those members have gone quiet have they not? Is it not strange that conservative parties around the world are using these so-called fair election changes to suppress democracy? Because that is actually what it is about. The changes they are making in Canada are around the use of voter identification cards. It is that similar—it is that similar. They are suppressing the use of voter identification cards to make it harder for voters to identify themselves at the polling booth in exactly the same way that the National Government is doing here in New Zealand. It is a mighty coincidence and one has to wonder what Crosby/Textor’s role has been in bringing these sorts of changes forward.You know they are even using the same argument over in Canada which is that there is widespread potential for voter fraud. However there is also in Canada absolutely no—[Interruption] Well Mr Chairman I appreciate that this is Part 2 but I am simply responding to the contribution made by Alfred Ngaro. What this Government has managed to do in Part 2 is get consensus around some of the “adminis-trivia” that is in Part 2. That is not exactly a high bar. Well done National you have got consensus around that. But what National has not managed to get consensus on is the bill as a whole and what it has not been able to answer either in Part 1 or in Part 2 is the question of where these ideas came from. Where did these ideas come from? That is what we want to know but nobody has been able to answer that question. I just find it remarkably coincidental that at a time when the Conservative Government in Canada is pushing through exactly the kinds of changes that are being made with this bill this legislation which was introduced before that got changed.HOLLY WALKER (Green):Apologies to my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway but I also would like to take a call on Part 2 to address some of the contributions made by Alfred Ngaro. Like him I have been involved in the Justice and Electoral Committee on this particular matter for some time starting with the inquiry into the 2011 general election. As Mr Ngaro will recall we spent a long time on that inquiry—some would say perhaps too long. There was at one point a question mark over whether there would even be time for this Electoral Amendment Bill to come before the House and be passed in time to put its provisions in place for this year’s election because we took so long over the 2011 general election inquiry. But I am not ashamed of the fact that we took a long time on that inquiry because it was a very robust process we reached consensus and we worked very hard to do that. I was proud of my work on that inquiry. It was my first experience of real genuine cross-party collaboration on a select committee item of business where I think we got a really positive result.One of the outcomes of that process was the recommendation that changes be made to the use of the EasyVote card to include on it a scannable code so that it could be used as a record that a vote had been cast in the election. That was what we went round in circles actually about for a while during the general election inquiry because there was concern about the potential for voter fraud. We heard from submitters who had that concern we heard from members of the committee who had that concern and we heard from the Electoral Commission which gave us evidence about why that concern was unfounded. We listened and we concluded that it was an unfounded concern and that we could include a recommendation to allow the EasyVote card to be used in this way. So we did and that is what appeared in the first draft of this legislation. So as we now debate Part 2 and the consequential amendments to what has just passed by a very slim majority in Part 1 I think it is important that we consider why it is that we have departed so far from the original draft of the bill which was what the Minister of Justice brought to this House and was what the Justice and Electoral Committee recommended after its inquiry into the 2011 election.I was not present for the select committee discussions on this bill. I would venture to say that if I had been I might have made these arguments in person in the discussions. Unfortunately I was on parental leave and I could not do that but the same arguments that applied when we were talking about the election inquiry and about the EasyVote card apply to this bill. Those concerns which may well have been raised by members of the committee during the discussion of this bill about the potential for increased electoral fraud are simply unfounded. From a user perspective—from a voter perspective—going along to cast their vote in the 2014 election on 20 September this year there would be no difference if the bill as originally drafted were to pass. Their use of the EasyVote card would not change. It would not make it easier for them to use the card. It would not make them more likely to commit fraud. It would not make them less likely to commit fraud. There would be no difference. They would simply take the EasyVote card along to the polling booth present it to the polling place staff member and get their voting papers. So those concerns that somehow there is an increased chance of fraud taking place from this are simply unfounded. From the user perspective there is no difference. You get the card in the mail; you take it to the polling booth.Where the difference comes is that after the vote has been cast the scannable code on the EasyVote card allows the Electoral Commission staff to scan it so that the casting of a vote is electronically recorded against the electoral roll. That is the difference and that is what we have inexplicably deleted from this bill which has broken down the consensus that was achieved over a very long period of time when the committee originally considered these items in its 2011 election inquiry. I think that that is a real shame because all it is doing is making it more difficult for the Electoral Commission to do its job on election day and it is missing the opportunity to streamline electoral processes and to actually continue to modernise and update our electoral law.There are a number of consequential amendments in Part 2 that stem from what we have debated in Part 1. Again we will support those because we do generally support the tenor of this legislation. We supported all of the recommendations that originally prompted this bill. We were very excited about modernising our electoral law and it is a great shame that some unfounded concern about voter fraud which if you take a cynical view as my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway has—KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):It is a pleasure to take a call on Part 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill. Unlike with Part 1 the Labour Party is going to support Part 2 so this part of the Electoral Amendment Bill will go through with quite a sizable majority. As previous speakers have said Part 2 does make technical amendments to a number of other pieces of legislation. There are consequential amendments to them as a result of Part 1 of this bill. I would also like to take some of this call—I will refer to Part 2 very soon—as a chance to speak to some of the issues that Alfred Ngaro made reference to in his Part 2 speech.I understand that Mr Ngaro is a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee and I think that that committee does need some praise and Mr Ngaro actually needs some praise for taking a call in this debate at all. The Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce has sat in this Chamber and has been requested to answer a number of questions about the changes that have been made to Part 1 of this bill not Part 2 but as of yet Alfred Ngaro is the only National person who is willing to take a call. He did not address exactly why the changes that have been made in Part 1 have been made and some questions need to be addressed there because there are some controversial issues as Mr Ngaro said. My colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has already pointed out many of those but one change that has been made in the bill which I think Mr Ngaro mentioned in his Part 2 speech was around what I thought was a silly amendment that was in an earlier version of this piece of legislation around the use of ribbons and logos on election day. Earlier in this debate I think it was in the first reading I accused Scott Simpson the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee of suffering from I think the term is kordéllaphobia which is a fear of ribbons. I praise Mr Simpson because he has gone away during the select committee process he has realised that this particular piece of legislation was a silly amendment to the bill and he has struck that out of the bill. I do praise the work of the Justice and Electoral Committee.But there is a serious side to this which some members have already addressed and that is around the electoral confirmation cards. Most New Zealanders would know those as the EasyVote cards. Certainly in my electorate when constituents get those cards they know that they are ready to go and vote. Although this piece of legislation had that written into it at the very first stage the Minister of Justice has asked that this be removed. For what reason we do not know. Can I also point specifically to clause 57 in the bill which refers to amendments to the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act. Subclauses (2) and (3) refer to the deletion of the signature of the Minister of Justice in the schedule form 2 and the schedule form 2A. Of course we know that our current Minister of Justice is the Hon Judith Collins. This clause 57 asks for the deletion of the signature of the Minister of Justice. I guess you could call that—[Interruption] No the signature of the Minister of Justice—you are getting to my point—would be an endorsement of whatever that signature pertained to. We would hate for the Minister to be getting a bit of a reputation around the deletion of her endorsement on things given recent events. But let us not cry over sick milk.These amendments to Part 2 are technical amendments but as the Hon Maryan Street said although we apply principle to this on this side of the Chamber we are quite keen to modernise our electoral system to make sure it has integrity to make sure it is efficient and to encourage participation. We believe that Part 2 does do that. We are concerned with what is contained in Part 1 but we on this side of the Chamber do encourage support for Part 2 because we know that in order to make Part 1 work even though we do not agree with all of it Part 2 does have the support of the Labour Party.Part 2 agreed to.Schedule agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North):This has been quite an extensive—well not as extensive as some of us would have liked in the Committee of the whole House and that is because there are a number of issues that have been raised with this legislation the Electoral Amendment Bill. Given that there is concern on this side of the Chamber that this bill does some things that we think are detrimental to our electoral law but also misses out a number of things that we think would make important improvements to our electoral law that the public desperately want Parliament to actually get on with doing I think a very appropriate name for this legislation would be the “Suppression of Democracy Bill” because it suppresses democracy in a number of different ways. First is the obvious which is that by removing the legislative requirement that the voter identification card—the EasyVote card is what most people would know it as—in combination with this new requirement which again came out of nowhere that a person must verbally confirm their identity to the person in the polling booth those two things combined is a very very dangerous situation for a lot of people who will find it more difficult to identify themselves when they get to the polling booth.It is known around the world that voter identification cards like the EasyVote card that we have in New Zealand are a facilitator of higher voter turnout. They know that in Canada research has been produced in recent days to counter its Conservative Government’s argument that the use of voter identification cards in Canada should also be suppressed and that changes should be made over there as well to the way a voter identifies themselves when they present themselves at the polling booth. Frankly the legislation that the Canadian Conservative Party is proposing is considerably worse than what the National Government is proposing here in New Zealand. What I think the National Government has done is it has seen what the Government is doing in Canada and it has tried to do some catch-up with some of the changes that have been made as this legislation has been making its way through Parliament. There has been much more public outcry in Canada about what its Conservative Government is doing and in fact an extensive filibuster by Opposition members in Canada where they have a system that allows for much more extensive filibusters than what we can do here in New Zealand such is the concern about the detrimental impacts on democracy and voter turnout of the legislation that the Canadians are promoting.I think what the National Government has done here in New Zealand is it has looked at that and thought: “You know what? There are a few ideas that we can take out of that and there are some ways that we can use the changes that are being made to electoral law here in New Zealand to suppress turnout and suppress democracy.” We know—it is just a known fact—that all around the world the progressive parties the parties of the left do better when there is a higher turnout and the conservative parties do better when there is a lower turnout when more people feel they cannot go to the polling booth or they do not want to participate in the election or when they show up at the polling booth some reason is found that their vote does not count. This is always done in the name of eliminating electoral fraud. Every time some party uses the excuse that by opening up the electoral process so that more people can participate it potentially opens up opportunities for electoral fraud the argument that is used against that is that electoral fraud is almost non-existent. That is certainly the case here in New Zealand. There is no documented evidence of electoral fraud occurring at the polling booth. When somebody shows up with their voter identification card or without it there is absolutely no example from any member of the Government or any example that I have been able to find in researching this legislation of electoral fraud at the polling booth occurring in New Zealand. So what is the problem? What exactly is the problem that the Government thinks it is solving by removing the legislative requirement for the EasyVote card to exist and by requiring voters to identify themselves verbally?That may not seem like such a big deal but we know that one of the most marginalised groups in New Zealand one of the demographics that is most likely not to engage in our electoral processes is new migrants—usually people for whom English is a second language. When those people are asked to identify themselves verbally it is absolutely possible that the name they have and the way they pronounce their name may not be entirely obvious to the person checking their name against the roll. That person may find it extremely difficult to find that person on the roll and that may be used as a barrier to that person being able to vote. But just the act of actually having to engage verbally rather than presenting your EasyVote card that has been provided to you in order to facilitate you casting your vote may be off-putting—in fact it probably will be off-putting—for a lot of new migrants who struggle to engage in everyday activities in New Zealand because of the language barriers they have.I think particularly of the former refugee communities that I have in Palmerston North and I know that other members represent those kinds of communities right across the country. The older generations in particular who have spent many many years of their lives in refugee camps have not had the opportunity for education and certainly have not had the opportunity to learn English whilst they have been living in those refugee camps. Their knowledge of English is extremely limited but I can tell you this. They are desperate to vote but they do not want any barriers put up in front of them. I wonder why exactly it is that the National Party seems so hell-bent on putting barriers up in front of people.I do see this as a “Voter Turnout Reduction Bill”. I do see it as a “Suppression of Democracy Bill”. I think actually frankly what we have discovered—because this is going on around the world—is that this is just another Crosby/Textor special. It has advised the parties of the right around the world of another way they can rig elections and rort the elections in their favour. But the biggest rort of course is the thing that is missing from this legislation and that is the abolition of the coat-tailing provisions. Seventy-one percent of New Zealanders want the coat-tailing provisions to go. There was no good reason for them to have been put into our electoral law in the first place.Hon Maurice Williamson: I’ve got two words for you: Jim Anderton.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: The member brings up Jim Anderton. You could have put a small thermonuclear weapon under Wigram and you still would not have got rid of Jim Anderton. There was no coat-tailing involved in that. The people of Wigram loved Jim Anderton and they kept returning him. That was the situation in Wigram Maurice Williamson so please do not try to compare John Banks with the situation down in Wigram with Jim Anderton. No that is not a valid analogy to make at all.What is happening right now is that the National Party is making deals with the likes of ACT. Peter Dunne did not used to have to rely on a deal with the National Party but now he does. And of course we do not know what is going to happen with Colin Craig. Maybe Murray is going to have to give up his seat to Colin Craig to make sure National gets itself over the line. New Zealanders are sick of this. You gave them the review then you listened to what everybody had to say but you did not like it so you said: “No we’re not going to continue on with that.” even though the vast majority of New Zealanders wanted the change to happen and the National Government promised them that when the review happened changes would be made to MMP. That is what New Zealand expected. That is what New Zealand was promised. But because of its own self-interest the National Party has failed to deliver on the promise it made before the last election.I do hope that this Parliament gets the opportunity later this year to consider the bill in my name that would get rid of the coat-tailing provisions. I do hope that we get far enough through the members’ orders of the day in order to debate that before the election because I want to hear why the National Party thinks that it is the right thing to do to block the logical change that New Zealanders are asking for. We have a party vote threshold. If parties can get to that threshold they can be represented with list MPs in the House. That is what New Zealanders want to see happen. That is what is missing from this legislation. The reason it is missing is that the National Party wants to rort the electoral system in its own interests which is the same reason it is trying to suppress voter turnout with the changes that were made—KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Simply put the title of the Electoral Amendment Bill should be changed to the “Electoral (Diluting Democracy) Amendment Bill” because that is exactly what it does. The first substantial sentence on the front of this bill says that “The Electoral Amendment Bill seeks to make amendments to the Electoral Act 1993 to improve services to voters candidates and parties in time for the 2014 general election.” It is our argument on this side of the Chamber that because of the way that the Government has amended this bill since it first arrived in the House for its first reading it will in fact make life harder for voters in the 2014 election.A number of our speakers during Part 1 of this debate asked why the Minister responsible for the bill the Minister of Justice is making the changes around the enrolment confirmation card which most New Zealanders know as the EasyVote card. I do notice that we have got a new Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration who I have found in the past to be quite reasonable in the fact that he wants things that we put in legislation to be evidence-based. I know that in other parts of legislation such as the breath-alcohol limit he has asked this House that everything be evidence-based. So I ask the Minister in the chair what the evidence base is for the National Party to remove from this bill at the select committee stage the EasyVote card which most New Zealanders have relied on for a couple of elections now to ensure that when they go to the ballot booths on election day—most Kiwis go to the voting booths on election day—the experience they have has integrity and is efficient and that they can exercise their democratic right to vote in a general election.My experience has been that when constituents receive their EasyVote card—or as it is called within the legislation the enrolment confirmation card—that is their tick-box to say they are ready to go and are enrolled to vote in the election. I know that if a number of people in my electorate of Mana do not get that card this time round because it is not being protected in this legislation they will be confused as to whether they are good to go and vote. Why would you want to cause confusion out there amongst the voters 6 months out from a general election if you want your democratic process to have integrity and to encourage people to go out there and vote?I do not expect to hear a response from the Minister in the chair even though I would like to but I guess the answer would be that the Government wants to discourage people from voting. You have got to ask what kind of Government that would be if it does not want people to take part in the democratic process. What kind of Government do you have when it discourages people through legislation and through mechanisms in legislation like an EasyVote card from voting? You have got to ask the question and the question has been asked here many many times why this piece of legislation has changed or morphed into what it is now compared with what it was at the first reading when the Minister of Justice said that the EasyVote card part of this bill was a key part of this legislation. What has happened between the first reading and the select committee stage for that to be removed?The EasyVote card is something that is pretty simple. It has someone’s name on it. It has someone’s address. As Holly Walker has said to help the people officiating on election day it has the page number and the line number of that page so they can be easily identified to go and vote. What has this Government got against that? If it has got a problem with that it needs to tell us. Nowhere through this Committee stage nowhere through the select committee stage and I guess nowhere in the third reading stage will we get a justification as to why this Government is diluting democracy. That is why I argue that the title of this bill should be amended because that is exactly what this Government is doing.Iain Lees-Galloway has raised a number of examples as to why the EasyVote card encourages participation. If you have got a strange-looking or strange-sounding name the EasyVote card can help because the person officiating in the booth or at the ballot box that day has to go through the electoral roll and recognise you. I know that in my electorate there will be some people who because they do not have that card and struggle with English will not go and vote. We need to encourage every New Zealander not only to be on the roll but to go out and vote. But this particular deletion from the bill which so far has not been explained to us will discourage New Zealanders from going out and voting. I do ask the Minister in the chair in the closing stages of this Committee debate whether he can give us some idea—evidence-based—as to why this is happening. The excuse of voter fraud has been bandied around but there does not seem as Iain Lees-Galloway has said in his speech to have been an outbreak of voter fraud in the last two elections. I certainly have not experienced it in my electorate. So can the Minister in the chair please give us a justification and an evidence base as to why this has changed in this legislation?In other parts of this legislation the evidence-based approach has worked. I did—I think comically—refer to a part of the bill that has been removed. That was around the use of rosettes on election day. There were a number of submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee that I have read that said that bringing in that piece of legislation would make no difference. So I think that on that occasion the Justice and Electoral Committee made a very wise decision. It realised that having that particular thing in this piece of legislation was a silly thing so on evidence it decided to remove that. I think that is something that the select committee needs to be praised for. But there does not seem to be a very uniform approach to use an evidence-based approach to this bill when it comes to the removal of the enrolment confirmation card.Hon Maurice Williamson: How many calls have you had? This is getting boring.KRIS FAAFOI: I can take another one if you want Mr Williamson. Just in conclusion if the Minister in the chair could change the tactics of the National Party and take a call to justify why the EasyVote card has been removed maybe we will have some justification for something that the Government is doing which I think is really being designed to suppress democracy in our country.HOLLY WALKER (Green):In what will be my final substantive contribution in the Committee stage debate on the Electoral Amendment Bill I would like to propose an alternative title for the bill and that is the “Electoral Fraud is a Red Herring Amendment Bill”. Fraud is indeed the excuse or the reason that has been given for the removal of the clauses related to the EasyVote card which we have largely been debating for most of this afternoon.I want to quote from the Justice and Electoral Committee report. The committee gave its rationale for the removal of those clauses. This is what it said: “We consider that the proposed provision for a new process known operationally as EasyVote Express”—i.e. the scannable EasyVote cards—“would in effect lower the threshold for casting a vote increasing the potential for fraud and harming the integrity of the voting process.” I just want to drill down into that a little bit more to see whether we can as a Committee begin to understand what that increased risk of electoral fraud supposedly is because it is my contention that it is in fact a red herring and that is why I am proposing an alternative title for this bill.Let us have a look at what voter fraud might actually mean in practice because we have been very short on practical examples in this debate. From my understanding of the possibilities for voter fraud and the concerns that may have underpinned the removal of these clauses the concern is that somebody may find or steal the EasyVote card belonging to another person and take it along and impersonate them at the polling booth which may increase the risk of electoral fraud. Well first of all I would say that that is equally as possible under the status quo where we have EasyVote cards that are not electronically scannable as it is if we make them electronically scannable. The risk of that happening neither increases nor decreases as a result of removing the clauses from this bill.Secondly I would say that it is pretty unlikely that that would happen. Most people do not leave their mail lying about in the street. They do not leave EasyVote cards on their front lawn or on the berm in front of their house for people to collect. But if somebody was so exercised and so desirous of committing electoral fraud that they were going to go and steal somebody’s EasyVote card out of their letterbox knowing that what they needed to do was look for an Electoral Commission - branded envelope with the orange guy on the front of it in the letterbox and steal it so that they could commit electoral fraud then they could do that.Actually they could also steal the enrolment confirmation letter that the Electoral Commission sends to every voter because it looks the same. It is in the same kind of envelope and it would provide exactly the same information that somebody who was hell-bent on committing electoral fraud by stealing an individual’s EasyVote card out of their letterbox would need to go down to the polling booth and commit that fraud.So the EasyVote card neither increases nor decreases the risk of somebody doing this incredibly bizarre and incredibly unlikely action of stealing an EasyVote card out of somebody’s letterbox. But let us say that they did do that and they got hold of somebody else’s EasyVote card and they took it along to the polling booth to try to commit fraud by voting in somebody else’s name. If the person in whose name they were attempting to vote had already voted that day then they would not be able to do that because the Electoral Commission—at least under what is proposed—would have scanned the EasyVote card and it would show up that that voter had already voted. So a question mark would immediately be raised through the electronic system that there was somebody who was coming to vote for a second time.Actually under the status quo where the card is not scannable that would not show up in the system until much later. So the people at the polling booth would have to allow that person to vote because they would not know that they had already voted at a different polling booth. So the proposal to make the card scannable which has now been deleted from the bill would actually decrease the chance of that happening.But let us say that someone manages to cast a vote in somebody else’s name and the true voter has voted already at a different polling booth. When the Electoral Commission staff collate the rolls at the end of the day they see that the same person has apparently voted twice. That flags for them that there is a problem there—either someone has erroneously voted twice or there is an instance of potential fraud. If they ring up the voter and ask: “Which polling booth did you vote at?” and the voter says: “At Pētone Central School” the Electoral Commission staff would then say: “That’s funny because somebody tried to vote in your name at Wilford School.” The voter would then say: “No it wasn’t me. I definitely voted at Pētone Central School.” and therefore the Electoral Commission is able to determine and cross out the vote that was erroneously cast. That is how it works at the moment.Making the EasyVote card scannable as the proposal was in the original version of this bill would in fact make it faster and easier for that to occur by making that an electronic process not a manual compilation later in the day so it actually decreases the risk of electoral fraud. It is nonsensical to me to remove that provision and that is why I am proposing the title “Electoral Fraud is a Red Herring Amendment Bill”—that would be the risk on which the decision to delete these clauses would be based.The other way that somebody could commit electoral fraud does not even involve the EasyVote card because you do not need the EasyVote card to vote at present. You can just go to the polling booth and give your name and address and they look you up on the roll. All the EasyVote card does is make it faster and easier for the staff in the polling place to do that. But if I was hell-bent on committing electoral fraud like all these thousands and legions of fraudulent voters who are apparently desirous of doing then all I would need to do is go and give an erroneous name and address of somebody I know who lives in the electorate and try to vote in their name.I could do that without an EasyVote card and perhaps more easily because I would not even have to erroneously pass something over. I could just say that yes my name is Joe Bloggs and I live at that address. If that was the name of a voter on the electoral roll I could vote in that person’s name. That is no different under the removal of these clauses from how it would be otherwise. The risk neither increases nor decreases with the use of an EasyVote card. Yet again we have that excuse of the potential of increased fraud being held up as an example.In fact the Electoral Commission gave very clear evidence on this when the select committee first did its inquiry into the 2011 general election. The Electoral Commission knows when this happens. It gets a flag because it sees that the same voter has apparently voted twice. It rings that voter up to find out where they voted and it discards the irrelevant vote. It prosecutes any cases of electoral fraud. It has very clear processes to do that and they work very well. So there is no need for this exaggerated fear about voter fraud that has resulted in the removal of a number of very useful clauses that would allow the EasyVote card to be scanned and used as a record that a vote has been cast.If we take a cynical view which I am increasingly inclined to do like my colleagues in the Labour Party you could argue that electoral fraud actually is a red herring here. It is not about electoral fraud. We have had very clear evidence that there is no increased risk of electoral fraud. Electoral fraud is not an activity that is undertaken on a widespread basis in New Zealand. When it is it is easily caught. The very few cases that we have had have been prosecuted. In fact this is about trying to reduce the use of a card that maximises people’s participation in our democracy.The EasyVote card streamlines the process of voting for many people particularly for those for whom English is a second language for those who have impairments and for those who may be new migrants. It makes the process less intimidating and much easier. And for the staff in the polling booth it makes the process faster and smoother and allows them to get through the very busy and important work on election day in a more efficient manner. And we are throwing all of those things out because of some beaten-up fear of increased voter fraud which is not borne out by any evidence of reality. In fact the risk of fraud is neither increased nor decreased by the use of the EasyVote card.So I think it is a real shame and I am increasingly inclined to take the view as my colleague Mr Lees-Galloway has that there is some ulterior motive at work here. If the Government was listening to reason and listening to common sense it would have allowed the bill to be amended and to revert back to the way it was when it was first drafted to ensure that the EasyVote card provisions which would enable the Electoral Commission to make the card scannable and use it as an electronic record of a vote cast were included. That is a sensible and smart modernisation of our electoral law and that is what should have happened.There would have been consensus across this Committee albeit that the select committee did not recommend it. Upon closer consideration in the Committee of the whole House which is the proper place for that to happen there would have been consensus to make those changes or to leave the bill as it was originally drafted to allow the Electoral Commission to make those changes. And it is a real shame that that has not happened. So my proposed title for the bill as it now stands is the “Electoral Fraud is a Red Herring Amendment Bill” and I invite listeners to consider the Government’s motives carefully.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National):I move That the question be now put.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes64New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Clause 1 agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question that clause 2 be agreed to.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): To the member who is just arriving Brendan Horan because you are now in the Chamber you are required to vote. I will just ask the Clerk. We are voting on clause 2 of the Electoral Amendment Bill. The Clerk is going to call for your vote.A party votewas called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes65New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 3; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1; Independent: Horan.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Clause 2 agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.Families Commission Amendment BillIn CommitteePart 1 Amendments to Families Commission Act 2003JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my privilege to take a call in the Committee stage of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. Up front I want to point out that the Labour Party did support this bill at least it being debated at the Social Services Committee. We have always been very clear about no longer seeing a place for the Families Commission in the current political environment. There are a number of reasons for that not least is the fact that over time it is our view that the Families Commission has become increasingly politicised.Sue Moroney: Has it ever.JACINDA ARDERN: As my colleague chimes in it reminds me that she is right to say “Has it ever.” based on the fact that the recent appointments to the Families Commission board have made it literally the family’s commission—that is the family’s commission of the National Party’s family. I think that some of the last two appointments have included Amy Adams’ sister. She is a Families Commission board member. She was a temporary fill-in and then took on a permanent role at the Families Commission. Hekia Parata’s husband is also on the Families Commission board. There is no doubting that if someone has good credentials and there is a relevant role there might be a place for them.Tim Macindoe: Does the member behind you know anything about it?JACINDA ARDERN: I do not believe that Rajen Prasad was related to any of the Ministers who appointed him at the time. I do not believe that Rajen Prasad was related to any of the Ministers at the time he—Hon Member: He was.JACINDA ARDERN: Married to Steve Maharey at any point—no Rajen Prasad was not. The point that we are making I think is a very fair one. If there is a background that makes it relevant for an individual to be appointed perhaps someone could make a case. But I think that having not one but two members of National’s Cabinet with direct family members on the Families Commission means it is only fair that we raise eyebrows about that particularly when the sister of one of those National members was previously a political ministerial appointment.So it is only fair I think that we therefore raise also the point that this bill dilutes the advocacy role that the Families Commission has had. One might question whether or not that advocacy role has really existed properly for some time. There is no doubt that in the past the Families Commission has held the Government of the day to account. It has raised issues of the day. It is my recollection that during Rajen Prasad’s time I believe there was an important piece of work done around paid parental leave if I recall. It was a very comprehensive report about the importance of paid parental leave.Fast forward to now and we have a case where the Families Commission has no view apparently on the importance of paid parental leave. The Families Commission has no view on whether or not it is important for families to have more time together at the most important developmental stages of a child’s life. That is absolutely extraordinary. Not only does this bill remove the advocacy function for the Families Commission but we would argue that it has been long gone. It has been long gone. That is why that although Part 1 of the bill focuses on reducing the number of commissioners—so having one commissioner and not having multiple commissioners and it is fair to point out that that may have caused some confusion—it actually in our minds does not go far enough. In our minds this bill should remove the Families Commission entirely. That is the conclusion that we have come to.That is not to say that there is not a role for advocacy on behalf of families and children. Indeed we think there is. But sadly the Families Commission is so far gone that we do not think it is the one to perform that function anymore. In fact it is our view that both the functions performed currently by the Families Commission and the proposed functions within this bill should simply be transferred to the Children’s Commissioner. We think the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has done some very very good work has a very strong advocacy role and has conducted itself with the level of independence required particularly in the research that it has done and the ability of the commission to bring together expert advisory panels specific to the areas that it determines need to be focused on—in this case child poverty—and to even bring together funding to enable it to do the work.In Part 1 clause 11 of this bill there is a specific establishment of a social science experts panel with a specific allocation of funding. We believe that that is inappropriate. We believe that the kinds of pieces of research that we were told at the Social Services Committee would be conducted by the Families Commission actually should be carried out by the Ministry of Social Development in its day-to-day work anyway and that to claim that having something independent would add something—well actually this social science experts panel would not be independent anyway so why not have it as part of the Ministry of Social Development?There is one specific piece of work as well that this piece of legislation sets out that the Families Commission will conduct—even though it has been basically gutted except for a couple of little things a few little jobs to do. One is a state of the nation sort of report for families the families status report. Well one could argue that that is essentially the social report that the Ministry of Social Development previously did annually—Sue Moroney: Under a Labour Government.JACINDA ARDERN:—under a Labour Government but when this Government came in no it was not interested in hearing about the social status of New Zealanders on an annual basis. No it was much more convenient to deal with that 3-yearly—I believe outside of the election year—rather than have that yearly. So the fact that it has now created this families status report just rings hollow to us given that something that was comparable and already existed has been gutted since National has been in office.Equally the household income survey a fantastic piece of work that was very comprehensive and unfortunately undermined by Treasury’s—I believe Bryan Perry’s report may have been influenced by Treasury’s inability to count how many children are in poverty. But we do have other reports that do provide us with a useful snapshot. I think that the Salvation Army state of the nation report produced truly independently of the Government has become a useful resource. The Children’s Commissioner’s Child Poverty Monitor if provided with accurate figures from Treasury will be a useful resource. So to claim that the Families Commission needs to do this report and to say it is independent but actually then have the people as Part 1 sets out on the board producing the report not be independent—it just strikes us that what the Government is doing here is acknowledging that there is not much of a place for the Families Commission anymore but there is still a little sort of tether of a coalition over in the corner between Peter Dunne and the National Government which it is going to pay a little bit of lip service to and it is doing that by allowing the Families Commission to exist in virtually name only.So it is our contention and our proposal that in spite of this little bit of reduction in size of the Families Commission let us start over. Let us subsume all of those functions into the Children’s Commissioner and give the Children’s Commissioner more independence—not just actually the advocacy role that it plays now which is gutted from this bill but the kind of independence that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has. The Children’s Commissioner has exercised to a certain degree that level of independence but there have been times when it has obviously been difficult. So we would like to see that role enhanced.Coming back to Part 1 which is the significant part of this piece of legislation—there is not much in Part 2—the first thing that it does is repeal the definition of commissioner and consolidate the function of the commissioner. It really loses the sense of the defined purpose of the commission which is unusual. Most commissions have very strongly set out mandates. After this bill is passed the Families Commission will not really seem to have that beyond publishing its annual families status report. There is an advocacy function—and I am quoting from Part 1 clause 6(4) which inserts section 8(2)—but it “does not include acting as an advocate for the interests of a particular family or particular families in connection with a particular case or issue.” Well actually really the advocacy functions go almost entirely as far as we can tell from our questioning at the select committee and based on the evidence of what we have seen. So the functions are basically that it is not allowed to do anything individual it is not really allowed to push too far beyond doing its families status report conduct a bit of monitoring evaluating—SUE MORONEY (Labour):I want to come in and support my colleague Jacinda Ardern and her analysis of the reasons why Labour is opposing the Families Commission Amendment Bill. It is a sad day when the current Government has brought the Families Commission into such disrepute that the Labour Party which actually when in Government established the Families Commission to start off with is now of a mind that it serves no useful purpose for families in this country. I think that is a really sad indictment on what the Government has done to a unit a commission that actually did have a genuine reason and a genuine purpose.But as we have just heard from my colleague that has been somewhat diminished—in fact to the point where already in the last term of Parliament the Labour Party had come to the conclusion that children’s interests would be better served by disestablishing the Families Commission and using that funding instead to support the development of a Ministry for Children and a Minister for Children. What the Labour Party said at that stage and this remains its policy today is that we would prefer to have a senior Minister around the Cabinet table whose job it was to advocate the interests of children rather than have the Families Commission which as Jacinda Ardern pointed out had got to the ridiculous stage in its development where it would not support extending paid parental leave.I want to just revisit that for a couple of minutes. I am the sponsor of a Labour Party bill currently before this House to extend paid parental leave to 6 months the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill. Imagine my surprise when I read in one of the Sunday papers—I think it might have been the Sunday Star-Times actually—where the Families Commissioner launched an attack on a piece of research that had been done by a previous Families Commissioner. That previous research had argued very thoroughly on behalf of families to ensure that we valued—what was it called Dr Prasad? Was it “Time to Deliver” maybe? Because that is certainly what it is. It is time to deliver. It is time to deliver on paid parental leave by the way. But there was actually a very thorough piece of research done that put forward the argument on behalf of families that paid parental leave should be extended to 12 months in fact.Certainly that is Labour policy as well. We think that that is not quite achievable in the current climate but we do believe that 6 months’ paid parental leave is entirely affordable. So imagine my surprise to read the very person who I thought would stand up for families and the very person who should have stood up for families saying that they thought that the previous report from the Families Commission was gold-plated and not necessary.I think that that story probably tells New Zealanders all they need to know about the worth of the Families Commission these days. If the Families Commission was really advocating on behalf of families then the commissioner would understand the stress that families are under presently and that mean they would be looking to the Families Commissioner to stand up for their needs in terms of their ability to spend more time at home with their young babies in those precious early months. But no it was not the Families Commissioner who was prepared to stand up; it was the Labour Party that has been the organisation prepared to stand up for those families and those parents and their day-to-day stress and their need to make sure that their children get the best start in life. Of course I imagine that the Families Commissioner was probably feeling somewhat nervous about commenting on the issue of paid parental leave because National had voted against the paid parental leave bill at its first reading. National voted against it like it has done actually for years now. Ever since paid parental leave has been on the agenda in this Parliament—since 2002; it was probably voted on in 2001 actually—National has consistently voted against it.But that is the point: we should not have a Families Commissioner who feels nervous because of a vote that the Government MPs have taken in this House. The role of the Families Commissioner is to be neutral to be independent and to advocate for families. That clearly is not the case any longer. As Jacinda Ardern said has the National Party not taken the name of the Families Commissioner far too literally? It is not the commission that you appoint your own families to National; it is actually the commission that should be representing families.Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):I rise to take a call on Part 1 of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I do so with a lot of sadness because of my historical links to the Families Commission as its inaugural chief commissioner. I want to talk about some of the clauses in quite some detail but first I do want to thank my colleagues for the quality of some of the work the commission did when I was there—in fact two pieces of work in particular: the paid parental leave work and the work on elder abuse. Both were seminal pieces of work.As far as the paid parental leave work was concerned I believe it was the best work that the commission did—reviewing the literature looking at the international work on it developing a 13-month plan and a 7-year transition programme economic modelling and for each of the financial years calculating the amount it would take. That was all in that particular report. There was some sadness when the last chief commissioner then resiled from the view of the commission—actually resiled from it. To argue now about the commission in the way that we are from this side of the Chamber is a matter of some sadness to me.The changes in Part 1 of this bill really are very cynical and I want to expose that in the calls I want to take on this particular bill. I want to talk first about clause 5 “Section 7 replaced”. This clause transfers the monitoring and the evaluation functions for social sector programmes to the Families Commission. Here are the monitoring and evaluation functions which are really mainline State organisation functions taken up by organisations via contracts. But here they are being transferred to a second-tier independent commission. To do it in that particular way is really quite cynical.Much of the approach taken here is well known. The strategy is well known. It is an old strategy—tie down an organisation by prescribing it so much work that is not really germane to its goal that it is unable to fulfil the very purpose for which our Crown entities of this type were established. Can you imagine if we did that to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner? It would disable it from actually carrying out its functions. But the changes here in paragraph (b) of the replaced section 7 will actually tie down the commission into simply being a monitoring and evaluation commission because it is being given the role that ought to belong to those agencies that let the contracts and understand why they let them out and so on. That is what they are there for.The decisions are dripping with cynicism. The National Party really never supported the Families Commission when it was first established. It never did. It did not support it in the early stages when we were setting it up. If National had its own way it would close the commission down tomorrow but it has a coalition partner who is an advocate for this commission. I do not think the Hon Peter Dunne has fully realised how these changes actually denude this commission from doing the very work that he advocated for in conjunction with Helen Clark who when she was Prime Minister developed this particular commission and gave it the resources and responsibility over time to develop that particular role. This is completely at odds with the role of a commission of this type. Here this Minister and this Government are through the back door denuding this commission.I am going to look now at clause 6. The Minister for Social Development knows and the sectors outside know that the major strength of the Families Commission is its ability to advocate for the interests of all New Zealand families and to do that based on its consultation with New Zealand families of every type based on its examination of the research that is available and based on its examination of current programmes and their effectiveness and what advice it might give and what position it might take. That advocacy function was its particular strength.In clause 6 there is an advocacy function but it is confounded and denuded of its real power by loading on to the commission in subclause (3) a requirement to produce an annual family status report. This idea is something that comes out of mid air because one of the seminal pieces of work and one of the repeated pieces of work that the Ministry for Social Development does is produce the Social Report. The Social Report has been produced over a period of time based on a lot of data and with a lot of sub-categories to it. It is a wonderful piece of work—a world leader. Anybody reading it can understand how powerful this work is. That either has stopped being published or is published very very rarely now. In its place is this particular social report—and here is the first one from the Families Commission.So here is the Families Commission redoing the work. I have read this. Much of what this first report does is basically this. It tells us how to define family it tells us about the importance of families and things like that and it gives us the demographic data. That information was put together in an expensive and major founding document for the Families Commission—all that data currently exists. So here we are; we are doing it again. It is cynical because this is not going to add anything to the life of any New Zealand family or children at all. But here we are—clause 6 does that.So here we have two clauses that really say to me that the changes proposed are cynical. These provisions are trying to do something to the Families Commission that is unnecessary and they have now risked the Families Commission even existing in such a way. I will come back and speak to the other clauses because they also add to this cynical approach of trying to destroy a commission that was never supported. The Minister is not able really to tell us why these changes are important. We have gone through the select committee process—the bill was referred to the Social Services Committee—and we have tried to find the kinds of reasons behind these changes. In fact there was not much there.The argument for these changes is not compelling. There are huge resources bound up in the Ministry of Social Development and to take the social sector evaluation responsibility and base $3.5 million or so on it and say the Families Commission will now do that and the State sector will evaluate only the programmes it lets out—what is that about? This is not setting up an independent commission of a Crown entity type. We have developed a system of three types of Crown entities. This is the middle type not like the Children’s Commissioner. It is at arm’s length from Government but it is independent. It is able to do its own thinking.By circumscribing the commission’s role in this particular way—and other clauses will show this as well—the Government actually says to me that it has no appreciation for this commission has never really supported it and does not show any real understanding of the work of the commission. Now it is really politicising it beyond belief. We will talk about that as well because the politicisation of this commission is also painful to watch. There is no need for that. It should have been a commission that would serve Governments forever in New Zealand and serve New Zealand families forever in New Zealand but for short-term gain this Minister has reduced the effectiveness of this commission by loading these kinds of responsibilities and others in this particular bill on to it and destroying its ability to do that.I cannot see how the Hon Peter Dunne can actually support this bill because it is the death knell of this commission. We are now compelled to ask whether this is the best way of doing this. Ought we not to have a ministry for children and really make it function like that? Ought we not to strengthen the Children’s Commissioner—would that not be a better way? That is where the energies of this side of the House will go so we can produce good evidence to inform good policy as we move forward. Now I want to move to talking about clause 7. Here also there is more—Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Acting Minister for Social Development):I want to acknowledge the contributions of the previous speakers who spoke passionately against this piece of legislation the Families Commission Amendment Bill—and that is not surprising. The contributions from Sue Moroney Jacinda Ardern and Dr Prasad have indicated the long history they have had working in this area particularly Dr Prasad as the inaugural Chief Families Commissioner. It is not surprising that he is concerned about any change. Although he says the bill is dripping with cynicism in actual fact it is really the different view of a different Government at a different time in our evolution as a State dealing with the problems of young people. I have heard him on a number of occasions—through the select committee process for instance—speak to the Families Commissioners as they have appeared before the Social Services Committee and his passion is obvious.But I think what the Government is doing is recognising that there are times for changes as there are in the work of any Government entity. I cannot help but note that although we know that Labour believes that the proposed changes continue an agenda to fundamentally alter the commission so it becomes something closer to a Government ministry—which is pretty much what Dr Prasad has said—that seems a little inconsistent with Labour’s own policy which is to replace the commission in order to create a “Ministry for Children”. The concern is about doing away with the commission and doing something more in line with a Government department but is that not exactly what Labour would intend to do by dissolving the commission and turning it into a “Ministry for Children”? It is important to note that nothing in the bill changes the commission’s status. In fact it extends its powers and functions in order to make it more relevant.New Zealand First has indicated that it has concerns and believes that the commission’s work will duplicate research carried out by the Ministry of Social Development and yet there is a very clear delineation between what the ministry and the commission will be working on. They will work together to ensure that their research activities complement each other’s. The ministry’s functions focus on welfare reform and those requiring access to confidential in-house data. The commission’s role is to focus on being able to independently evaluate policies and programmes that it does not fund or deliver.New Zealand First has also indicated that there is a lack of consideration that the commission reports to a single Minister but the bill recognises that by explicitly extending the new research and evaluation functions across the broader social sector. It has also been a hallmark of this Government that ministries work together in clusters related to their portfolios. So although the commission would report to one Minister in actual fact the work would be scrutinised by a team of Ministers.In relation to comments made in respect of the new additional functions in clauses 5 and 7 Dr Prasad has been concerned that new section 8A(1)(a) tasks the commission with identifying “evidence and research that will assist in determining or achieving the Government’s policies and priorities in the social sector:”. The new function though is designed to ensure that the commission’s work is relevant and of use. I quote the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga who noted during the second reading that “There is no point in having research sitting on a shelf” in Wellington. The commission is to actively identify and move forward on areas where research will assist. An example is the social services policy round table discussion which the commission has facilitated on 17 February to strengthen links between the academic social sciences and the Public Service. It follows from Sir Peter Gluckman’s report on the role of evidence in policy formation. The commission remains an autonomous Crown entity and must have regard only to Government policy.Labour has also indicated that it has concerns that the new research and evaluation function reduces the commission’s advocacy role and resources but it is important to point out that the research and evaluation role and the advocacy role are not mutually exclusive. Often the best way to advocate for families is to identify what works to address the issues facing families. Funding for the commission’s core advocacy function is still sufficient—more than $3.5 million per annum to carry out this role—especially as the commission has adopted a leaner structure and is being more effective in how it uses its funding. The commission is also gaining significant additional funding against which it can leverage $1 million over 3 years for youth mental health.The Green Party has expressed concern that the White Ribbon Day campaign will be undermined to the point where it will be hard to see any action whatsoever but it is important to note that the White Ribbon Day campaign is something that has grown legs of its own through the community. The website hits have increased significantly in November 2013 to 45777 compared with the 2011 record of 31000. The pledge page received 4081 visits with 1040 of those visitors going on to complete the pledge form—an uptake rate of 25.5 percent—and Facebook “likes” rose from 8200 to 14700 in November. This shows that indeed the White Ribbon Day movement has grown a life of its own which is exactly what the promoters of it would like it to do.There has been concern expressed about a lack of independence and the fit with the social report but the commission is confident that the usefulness of the next report will be self-evident. It considers it an improvement on the 2013 report which will identify useful areas for further work. Minister Dunne is to be briefed on this and hopefully he will speak to it at some stage during the course of this Committee stage.There have been concerns from Opposition parties that changes being described in clauses 10 and 11 are confusing and poorly understood. Labour has claimed they will result in power effectively residing in the chief executive but it is important to point out—and there is a need to emphasise—that apart from changing their title for all but one member of the commission nothing else in the legislation changes. The number of members remains the same—between three and seven—and duties and responsibilities are also unchanged from those set out in the Crown Entities Act. The main effect of the change in the title is that it reiterates that members of the commission are to concentrate on their board member role. This has been happening for a number of years with most current members averaging less than 30 days a year on commission business compared with up to 100 per year when the commission was established in 2004.There has also been concern expressed that the process for specifying the additional duties to be carried out by the new sole commissioner is to be determined by the commission but a proposal that the board collectively determine what additional powers and functions are to be delegated to the sole commissioner is the norm for Crown entities. Under the Crown Entities Act all power rests with the board and it is up to it to decide how these are to be delegated between meetings.There has been concern expressed about the panel of four not having skills across a broad range but we need to note that the bill was changed at the select committee stage to provide for a minimum of four members. I also emphasise that the panel will not work in isolation and that its function will be complemented by the skills and experience of the members of the commission the various reference groups put in place by the commission and steering groups put in place to support specific projects.DENISE ROCHE (Green):I would like to respond I think to some of the comments that the Minister in the Chair Associate Minister for Social Development Borrows has just raised particularly around the fact that the new legislation for the Families Commission is being enacted in order to make the commission more relevant. What I have seen through the select committee process was that this was something that was not that broken to start off with. In fact the Families Commission was acting quite well it was commissioning research that was incredibly useful and it was able to provide its functions and carry on and do the work that it was set up to do.During the select committee process we heard from submitters who were actually really concerned about the role of research and that this research would be taken over and directed towards the purpose of the Government’s policies. The Greens maintain that we have not seen any changes to the bill as it has come back to the House now and for its third reading that address those issues. The development of the social science experts panel—essentially it is the Government and Government Ministers who determine who will be the members of that panel—means that there is the risk of research being developed that does not really offer free and frank advice to Ministers. We are seeing that more and more. Dr Prasad started to talk about the politicisation of the Public Service and that is the risk that we see as inherent in this bill—that is that the advice given is the advice that the Government wants and is not the full advice that the Government should receive to make good decisions. Basically it just stacks up the cards to reinforce the Government’s position. From our point of view that would be a major undermining of the functions of the Families Commission as it has acted to date.There are clues throughout the bill around the removal of the Families Commission’s ability to provide free and frank advice. One that I can point to I think is in Part 1 new section 7 where the word “independent” has been removed. It says that the commission’s main function is to “act as an advocate for the interests of families generally …” and to “monitor and evaluate programmes …”. In the words “to provide independent monitoring and evaluation” “independent” has been removed from the bill. This is the main reason I think why the Greens still have quite a lot of hesitation about supporting the bill. In fact we are quite clear that we are opposing it. We have seen the commission provide very good solid research that backs up good policy. An example of that is the research that was done around paid parental leave. With a new commissioner we suddenly saw quite a comment from that commissioner saying basically that paid parental leave should not be a priority and that it would cost too much which was a direct contradiction to the previous research that was undertaken independently and with a wide range of views incorporated into the final research that was put up on the Families Commission website.We are concerned that this legislation takes away the functions from the ministry towards the oversight of an advisory panel that is hand-picked by the Government. We are concerned about this tendency towards using advisory groups. We have seen it before with the Welfare Working Group we are seeing it with the welfare reform board and we are seeing it now with the social science experts panel. We are alarmed at what sort of impact that is going to have on the quality of research that is commissioned. These were the concerns that were coming through time and time again from organisations that have contributed in the past towards research that looks after the well-being of women and children and families.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East):It is actually a great honour for me to be able to speak on the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I share my colleague Dr Prasad’s sadness in our getting to the point where we are looking at the demise of the Families Commission and of lots of the exciting and wonderful work it has done over time and I commend you Dr Prasad for your work in your time at the Families Commission. In a former life if there is any such thing prior to coming to Parliament I worked for many years in the family violence sector. I have to say that the Families Commission as it was particularly under Dr Prasad’s watch was a strong advocate for the work that we were doing in the family violence sector.One of the things that I particularly lament is what is likely to happen to the White Ribbon Day celebrations. Many of the gentlemen on both sides of this Chamber actually wear a white ribbon to signify their support in encouraging men to take responsibility for their actions with regard to violence towards women and children. I have to say very clearly that wearing the white ribbon is not a gimmick; it is actually a very strong statement about your intent in terms of not staying silent about violence towards women and children and actually wanting to speak up. The Families Commission had done an awful lot of work to ensure that the White Ribbon Day celebrations the White Ribbon Day ambassadors and all of those programmes not only—to quote your words Minister—had “legs” and developed within the community but actually stayed strong.The community cannot do this work on its own. With the many hundreds of thousands of call-outs for the police every year for family and domestic violence it is a requirement that the Government steps in. Something that I have seen over my time working in the family violence sector is that to encourage the community to be a participant in this was one of the key tenets of the Families Commission. I am very sad to see that that particular event will probably suffer some demise because it will not have the support of the Government.What it is that we really require to support our families is what the Families Commission was originally set up to do. Families are wonderfully diverse and are made up of all types of components. The Families Commission really honoured and respected the difference and diversity that families bring and the types of support that are required for that diversity as well whether it be supporting young people through teenage pregnancy or supporting parents through difficult times or looking at how children could be better supported.Of course what I was particularly pleased to see when I was working in the sector was that the Families Commission was an independent voice for all of those different sectors that wanted to participate in supporting families. Here I refer to supporting district health boards and other health boards and supporting social service providers and private individuals to actually make a difference in families’ lives. Families need a lot of resources in order to function well. They also need to have a lot of work in terms of supporting all those conditions that the Government can provide to help families in need. This is where the Families Commission had a particularly strong approach.A few years ago I first heard of the demise of the Families Commission and that it was likely to become more of an evaluation and research institution. Although on the one hand information and research on families is really important and useful for me it signalled that we were moving away from our commitment to families and towards actually seeing them in terms of research and evaluation and I do not think that that is particularly appropriate for us. I was quite sad to see the number of commissioners reduced to one and that their major function would now be in evaluation and research. So when we think about the work—ALFRED NGARO (National):I move That the question be now put.CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):I want to join my colleagues in explaining why Labour opposes the Families Commission Amendment Bill. Can I also start by acknowledging the contribution that Dr Rajen Prasad played as a Families Commissioner at a time when the Families Commission was actually playing an important and useful role. We did support this bill through to the Social Services Committee because we wanted to look at it closely—we did not want to make any rash decisions on it—but having done that we do oppose this bill for a number of reasons. Essentially we are concerned that as proposed in this bill the advocacy function of the Families Commission will be significantly limited. We believe there is a need for strong independent advice. The Minister in the chair Associate Minister for Social Development Borrows mentioned that he thought our position was somewhat inconsistent because we were saying we would get rid of the Families Commission and set up a Ministry for Children with a senior Minister. But in fact we are also saying that we would seek and continue with the idea of an independent Children’s Commissioner. So we do see that the independent advocacy role is very fundamental.Indeed what could be more important than our families and our children and having people willing to speak up on some of those issues? My colleague Poto Williams has spoken about the area of domestic violence as being one of those critical issues. There are a number and I want to come back later in my contribution to talk about paid parental leave as being one of them.We are concerned that this bill limits the advocacy function of the commission. We are also concerned that with the establishment of the social policy evaluation and research unit within the Families Commission which is proposed in this bill that unit will be very closely linked to what the Government is doing and will further eliminate the independence of the commission to undertake research in areas that it might consider necessary for children—like poverty like financial literacy like family violence and like paid parental leave.Also this bill significantly alters the governance arrangements of the commission and we think that it actually ends up creating a confused governance structure where the power will effectively lie with the chief executive and make the Families Commissioner role fairly redundant. So we are worried about who will actually determine and set the work programme of the commission and that is important. I think for many of us the concern has been highlighted by the way that the commission has abandoned its role as an independent commission recently and agreed for example—as my colleague Sue Moroney talked about—with the Government on paid parental leave solely based on what the Government said it could afford or not rather than on any evidence-based policy assessment of the importance of that policy. I do not think it is possible to talk about paid parental leave without looking at the many dimensions of how that will support our families and why it is such a significant initiative. I am pretty astounded that members opposite will be voting down Sue Moroney’s bill—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!CAROL BEAUMONT: —to extend paid parental leave. Paid parental leave Mr Chair is something that you would expect a Families Commission to be promoting. My concern is it has already evidenced by its actions in lining up behind the Government on this issue a lack of independence and this bill in our opinion will further reduce the independence of the Families Commission to be able to do things like advocate for paid parental leave. Why is paid parental leave important to families? Obviously it is important from the point of view of ensuring that households retain some income at a time when families are under financial pressure—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This bill is not about paid parental leave. You can talk about that and mention it. This is about restructuring the commission. Although you can mention paid parental leave—that is fine—you cannot get into the substantive matter of the values or otherwise of paid parental leave. You can mention it as you have done but you cannot get into the detail of it.CAROL BEAUMONT: What I am trying to illustrate though is the importance of having a Families Commission that has an independent advocacy role in relation to an issue like paid parental leave. And if you are going to have an independent advocacy role which we believe is compromised by the structures that are being put in place here with a change in the advocacy function actually limited by this bill—Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):I wanted to come back and address three further aspects that are on my mind in terms of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I want to respond to the Hon Chester Borrows who believes that members on this side of the Chamber are inconsistent in the position we have taken when we talk about a children’s ministry and strengthening the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. In fact I say to the Hon Chester Borrows that I think he has missed the point.The very thing we are arguing is that the changes in this bill are a travesty of the autonomous Crown entity model. What these changes do is anathema to that particular model and that is the bit that we are really objecting to. We would rather strengthen the Families Commission and let it go but because this bill is a travesty of that we have difficulty.I also wanted to express my concern that the White Ribbon programme would be transferred out of the commission. I thought that Mr Alfred Ngaro might take a call and defend that particular programme rather than taking a closure call—we did hire him to do some work for us when I was in the commission.Coming back to new section 8A in clause 7—this is about the commission’s monitoring evaluation and research function—really those functions are being delimited in this particular clause and I will explain why they are being delimited. New section 8A adds managing contracts to the list of functions. Here is an autonomous Crown entity being asked to manage contracts on behalf of the Government. Why are those contracts not being managed by Government departments and Government ministries? This is an autonomous Crown entity. To use it in this particular way as new section 8A does is a travesty of that particular model and it actually delimits the commission from doing the advocacy work for which it was designed and that work still needs to be done because many of our families are not doing that well.Roles that the Ministry of Social Development had—appropriately as the Ministry of Social Development—are now being transferred into the Families Commission and there is no real explanation for that; for putting it in this big area of evaluation etc. When you give the commission these kinds of functions then it actually delimits the role. What is the gain? What is the gain from asking an autonomous Crown entity designed to advocate for families to manage contracts of this type? Where is the gain when there is so much to be done in this particular area? So again this bill is really a downgrading of the particular functions of the Families Commission.I want to go now to clause 11. This is about the membership of the commission. I thought the Hon Chester Borrows skipped through this very very lightly because this really is quite germane and I believe officials have also skipped through this very very lightly. Although I appreciate the work of officials and their advice to the Social Services Committee in this area I do not agree with them. There is no strong argument to replace commissioners with members. One member of the board which is appointed by the Minister will then be selected as the Families Commissioner. What is the role of that member? Oh that is whatever the commission decides it is.Can you imagine the role of the Children’s Commissioner being put through that kind of process? It is just not going to happen. So here we are—there is a major change here and there is no reason. If the Government wanted to drive through a different corporate model then it ought to have done that much more clearly but the bill actually does not really reflect the real nature of Crown entities of this type. When will the Minister or somebody explain why we have a Families Commissioner in the bill—why? There is no justification now for having a person on a governance board—because that is what this becomes—having the role of the Families Commissioner. It becomes window dressing. I would like the Minister to explain to us why we should have one at all when at the moment there actually is a wider provision for a—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): The House in Committee has resumed. The House in Committee is considering the Families Commission Amendment Bill and is debating Part 1. Dr Rajen Prasad had the call. He has a small amount of time left.Dr RAJEN PRASAD: Thank you Mr Chairman. I hope I will get to finish my last call after this. I wanted to also talk about another provision in this bill which is new section 18B in clause 11. What new section 18B does is establish a social science experts panel—MELISSA LEE (National):I move That the question be now put.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to take a second call on the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I want to point out of course that the most substantive part of this bill is contained in Part 1 and I imagine therefore that that will be where the most robust part of this debate sits. I want to come to new section 7 in clause 5 which talks about the commission’s main functions. In my opening address I did refer to what I thought was diluted advocacy. That is not necessarily strictly as is set out in the bill. The bill purports that the Families Commission will maintain an advocacy function but our concern has been based on the reality of what we have seen. In the bill itself it states in section 7 that the commission’s main functions will be: “(a) to act as an advocate for the interests of families generally … and (b) to monitor and evaluate programmes and interventions in the social sector and provide social science research into key issues programmes and interventions across that sector …”.I have two quick concerns. When the last time the Families Commission came before the Social Services Committee the question was asked of the Families Commission: “What do you perceive to be the most significant issues facing New Zealand families today?”. Interestingly there was a very long pause from the commissioner who was present there that day a bit of fumbling around occurred and then the main objectives for that year for the Families Commission were plucked out. From memory they were things like adolescence issues alcohol issues—clearly a list of things that the Government has taken an interest in rather than necessarily what the Families Commission itself had determined to be issues that needed to be advocated for and on behalf of families based on families’ needs. If they had been issues based on New Zealand families’ needs I would have expected the response from the commissioner or at least the head at that time to be much more intuitive and to be based on the conversations they had had the research they had done and the knowledge they had in those roles. Not so. They went directly to a set of objectives that were clearly established by an outside entity.Secondly with regard to paragraph (b) of the commission’s main function the monitoring and evaluation role there is no doubt that there is a need for that kind of function within the Ministry of Social Development. You constantly hear from NGOs of the requirement that is put upon them—and rightly so—to provide robust evaluations of the programmes that they offer. The issue is that some of the contracts that the ministry holds with organisations are not significant contracts. In fact you could soak up an entire contract with the cost of doing proper research and evaluation. So these organisations are left between a rock and a hard place. They do not have the funding to do a proper evaluation and yet their funding is contingent on it which has always led me to think that it would make sense to have within the Ministry of Social Development a pooled resource that would enable it to then allow NGOs that could not meet that threshold to access that research and monitoring arm to ensure that their programmes and interventions were working and delivering what the ministry wanted them to deliver.To me the fact that the commission has this as one of its secondary functions is problematic for two reasons. Firstly I do not think that a commission is the right place for it because actually we need this beyond just Families Commission issues and programmes. We need it much more broadly for the social development sector. Secondly the funding that the Families Commission has will not be sufficient for it to do this job as adequately as required. It still has a quite small budget when you think about the kinds of things that could come under paragraph (b). So those are the issues that I have with section 7(a) and (b) in that regard. As I say that is not to discount in particular the importance of paragraph (b) but why would we want to compartmentalise it in that way? Why is it not within the Ministry of Social Development? I would be interested in the view of the Minister in the chair Associate Minister for Social Development Borrows on that.I want to come to clause 6 relating to the commission’s additional functions. I touched briefly on the don’ts of the commission. Of course the clause sets out that it is not meant to act as an advocacy model for individual families. That is the kind of work that MPs presumably do themselves. But it then sets out in that section the additional functions that I have already talked about. Under new section 8(ba) it is to prepare the annual families status report but it is also—TIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National):I move That the question be now put.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Transitional provisionsDr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):I am talking to clause 12 which is the transitional provisions. This is the clause where the current Chief Families Commissioner is anointed the new Families Commissioner and the deputy’s role is looked after as well.Clearly here is a commission that is trying to reset itself up and reform its governance arrangements. We on this side of the Chamber wonder why it is that the present roles are simply being rolled over when we know that there is some idea that here is a new governance model and that the new governance model will make the commission that much more effective. We do not think that it will. We think that there is now no need to have a Families Commissioner. With the way in which this bill changes the governance arrangements of this commission there is no need to have these transitional arrangements. There is no need now to have a Families Commissioner because there is no role for the Families Commissioner. There is no role that has been defined.We were advised in the Social Services Committee that indeed the Crown Entities Act enabled these kinds of things to happen. Well I do not think that it does. Like commissions are the Office of the Privacy Commissioner the Human Rights Commission the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Families Commission. These are like commissions and in each one of them the public acceptance is that there is a person or persons who carry the pre-eminent roles: the Chief Human Rights Commissioner the Race Relations Commissioner etc. and indeed the Privacy Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner. It is embodied in a person. That person is accountable to the public goes to places and does things and people know what that role and that person is trying to do.But the reforms here actually do away with any role for the Families Commissioner. Clause 12 gives that role back to the present commissioner whereas it would be more honest and more appropriate to start again. If there was a real commitment to this start again. Re-advertise the position and say very clearly what kinds of people are required. All that the Minister is trying to do here is set up a traditional governance operational split.This Government has been trying to do that elsewhere with the Human Rights Commission as well getting rid of very very useful and iconic roles like the Race Relations Commissioner and the equal employment opportunities position. Look at what it did with that. So this bill does away with a particular role embodied at the moment in the Chief Families Commissioner and other families commissioners. It brings in board members whose roles are simply governance. They do not need to know anything about families provisions research and advocacy etc. They simply are going to sit there and accept the advice of I suppose the Minister but there is also an advisory group that is set up here. That advisory panel also is an expert advisory panel within the commission.So fundamentally the commission’s governance structure has changed. The roles no longer make sense now and yet these transitional provisions actually protect them. Why? I see no reason why they should be protected. I see no reason why we need these transitional provisions. The Government should have the conviction now to draw a line start again and say: “We are really morphing the Families Commission into something quite different.” But in fact it is not doing that. It is simply taking something that works very well and cynically is trying to change that.Now that parliamentary counsel is here I want to acknowledge your work in helping the select committee at least take out the clunky bits of this legislation particularly where we needed to ensure that at least there was some genuflection to the notion of independence. I thank parliamentary counsel for doing that and for at least bringing us a bill that may work somewhere. But certainly at the moment these transitional provisions are not necessary because the very nature of the commission is being destroyed and the very nature of its governance arrangements are destroyed. Why? Because the present incumbent is protecting her role. There is no need to do that. Thank you.SUE MORONEY (Labour):I rise to take a call on Part 2 of the Families Commission Amendment Bill named “Transitional provisions”. I guess it will be no surprise to anyone who was following this debate before the dinner break that the only transitional provision that the Labour Party thinks should be in this bill is the one that actually sees the Families Commission out of business. We do want to not have the Families Commission. We do not think it is doing the job that it was set up to do. We think it has become very politicised. We think that it has not done the job that families would expect it to do—advocating for their interests and doing that independent of Government. So actually it is part of Labour’s policy to replace the Families Commission with a Ministry for Children and a Minister for Children.I think that is the correct thing to do because one of the things that the transitional provisions do here is take the Families Commission from being the way it was set up under Labour which was as an advocacy body to represent the interests of families and transitions it to this new beast created by the National Government which is diminishing its advocacy role. National is now doing it formally. We think it has happened informally under this Government anyway but now quite formally it is diminishing the commission’s advocacy role and giving it some research responsibilities that we believe properly belong in a very very well resourced department like the Ministry of Social Development. That is the organisation that has the capability and the capacity and should have the responsibility to be providing the sort of research that is now surreptitiously being created as a research unit by this Families Commission Amendment Bill. The only fit and proper transitional provisions that we would be able to support as a party would be the one that sees the Families Commission fold in favour of a children’s ministry because that is where some decent work would in fact be done that would be advocating for the interests of families.As I said in my speech on Part 1 of this bill the reality is that even before we were debating this amendment bill this commission had been hamstrung. It had been politically hamstrung from advocating for families properly and so therefore what is the point? What is the point of having a Families Commissioner—who will under Part 12 cease to be called the Chief Families Commissioner and will be renamed the Families Commissioner to hold the office of chairperson—in that office if they cannot even back up a report done by their own commission supporting the extension of paid parental leave? What is the actual point of fiddling around and changing the title of this person when really their whole purpose has become defunct under the current Government’s regime in the way that it has treated this commission and has disabled it from doing its core function?I also want to point out in debating Part 2 that the National Party has taken the title of Families Commission far too literally. If it is going to have some transitional provisions then maybe what it should be considering is ensuring that it is not the families of National Party MPs—and National Party Cabinet Ministers in particular—who are appointed to this commission and who get to carry the title of currently Chief Families Commissioner but to be renamed the Families Commissioner. The Deputy Chief Families Commissioner is to cease to be called that and instead is going to be called a commissioner. The commissioners cease to be called commissioners but get to be called members of the commission. This is revolutionary stuff quite clearly. I cannot understand what the revolution is that is taking place here but it has seen fit to take up parliamentary time with the National Party changing these titles as it transitions the Families Commission from even pretending to have an advocacy role for families and asks that commission to take on with very small resources the sort of research capability and capacity that really should sit with the Ministry of Social Development.Just as we did with Part 1 we will be opposing these transitional provisions because they do not transition this commission to anything useful on behalf of New Zealand families. To continue to use the title of Families Commissioner we believe is a complete misnomer when that is not in fact what they are able to do.A party votewas called for on the questionThat Part 2 be agreed to.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Part 2 agreed to.Clauses 1 and 2JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to give a contribution to the debate around the title and commencement clauses of the Families Commission Amendment Bill. I think that gives us an opportunity to get back to the core of the bill. If this was a well-functioning bill if the Families Commission was structured in a way to deliver what its title implies which is advocacy for families what would the bill in itself need to have entailed? I touched briefly in Part 1 on the debate around the advocacy function. Having a Families Commission because all commissions through implication by the fact that they are a commission implies that it does have a strong advocacy function. We can think of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment which is probably one of the strongest advocacy functions and that is probably determined by the separation that it has from the Government in its advocacy role. Think of the Children’s Commissioner—again a very strong advocacy function. So the use of the word “commission” in the title implies that you would expect the same.My concern though with the advocacy function of this bill is that it is quite narrowly defined in Part 1 thereby challenging whether it should be a bill that refers to a commission. The advocacy function is defined in new subsection (3) of section 8 inserted in clause 6(4): “In performing its advocacy function the Commission must identify and have regard to factors that help to maintain or enhance either or both of the following: (a) families’ resilience: (b) families’ strengths.” It is quite tightly defined but even under those headings you would think we would have a Families Commission that would be willing to talk about a family’s resilience being affected by for instance the high cost of living. We know for instance that research tells us that you are likely to see considerable dysfunction in families where financial stresses start to compound. So we know that there is a correlation between things like the cost of living and how functional our families are. Those economic stresses are really important.Why have we not heard the Families Commission talk about that in recent times? Resilience—why have we not heard the Families Commission talk about the strain on families in Christchurch? We have heard children’s advocates talk about those issues but we have not heard the Families Commission. So it seems to me that if you were defining families’ resilience and strengths there are plenty of advocacy roles that the Families Commission should be playing currently that we are not seeing. That is what you would expect from something that holds the title of “commission” because that is the kind of advocacy role that we are used to seeing.So if we are not calling it the Families Commission Amendment Bill what would we call it? Is it the “No Family Advocacy Bill” the “Token Gesture to United Future Bill” the “In Name Only; After the Election We’ll Get Rid of it Bill”? There is a whole list of things but the title Families Commission Amendment Bill is I think an unfair representation that probably sullies the name of other commissions that are already in operation and that do very very good work. So I do not think the title Families Commission Amendment Bill is quite right.Think about though for instance what differentiates a household with a couple of adults living in it from a family. Actually one of the defining features although New Zealand families classify themselves in a diverse range of ways and that is to be celebrated is often the presence of children. That is one of the often-used defining features of a family—the presence of children young people or infants in that environment. You can have all sorts of make-up around their caregivers but often the consistent thing is the presence of those children. So you would naturally expect a Families Commission to be quite focused on those younger vulnerable people in that arrangement.Why then do we need a Families Commission and not just a Children’s Commissioner? What is it that it represents that is different to the Children’s Commissioner? I do not believe that that has been adequately answered by the Government or even by this bill. What is it that the Families Commission adds on top of what the Children’s Commissioner adds? A Children’s Commissioner who advocates well for children also advocates well for families. If you look after the youngest and most vulnerable in our society you do not actually end up looking after just the family; you look after the society as a whole. This bill seems to ignore the important role of those children and the fact that—Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour):I am pleased to take my last call in the Committee stage of this bill the Families Commission Amendment Bill but again still with a heavy heart. You would expect the title of a bill to give you some idea of what is in the bill. Simply calling it the Families Commission Amendment Bill tells us nothing so clearly the title is inappropriate because the bill does a number of things that ought to be reflected in the title. The one that comes to mind is that this is clearly actually the “Doing Away With the Families Commission Bill” because it effectively does away with it. The bill has got an organisation with board members run by a chief executive with one person called the Families Commissioner and there is nothing else in there that requires it to be in the form that it is. So the title of this bill would be far clearer if it was the “This is How We Get Rid of the Families Commission Bill”.We know that the Government has not liked the Families Commission—it did not want it established; it never supported it—but it is quite interesting why now it is forced into a position where it has to support the Families Commission but morphing it into its own image. It is only because of its coalition partner. So it could then be called the “Saving Our Coalition Arrangement and Using the Families Commission to Do It Bill” because there is no other reason for this particular bill. There is no problem it actually solves that is a problem in the Families Commission today except the ones that the Government and the Minister for Social Development have created. So this is saving the coalition. That is just all it is. It takes away really the opportunity to as my colleague Jacinda Ardern was saying really strengthen even further advocacy for our children and our families but it does not do that. It could easily be called the “Saving Our Coalition Partners Bill” or the “We Don’t Like It But We Have to Have It Amendment Bill”.But it does something far more serious than that. It actually takes away the most powerful function of the Families Commission. That was advocating for families through consulting with them; doing the research finding out what programmes there are and what is working and what is not working and what changes ought to occur; and then advising the Government and providing public education on those findings. That is what it was designed to do. But here we have a commission that although it has been given an advocacy function has actually been given the job of doing a Family Status Report. If you read the Family Status Report it is not a Family Status Report; it is a hash of things that have been written before around families. I invite listeners and members to read it because that is all it does. Everything that is there has already been said. So maybe it should just be called the “Doing a Family Status Report Bill” because it does nothing else. It does not add anything of value. The Ministry of Social Development is already producing a social report. It is only a small jump for it to tweak that to actually address families but it does not bring that in.But the other one is that it actually brings in is a social sciences expert panel. This is probably the real bite in this particular bill because here the Minister will appoint the social sciences expert panel. At the moment the Families Commission has access to all of the experts in the world all of the experts in the private sector all of the experts in our universities and all of the experts in our various agencies that deliver this. All of that is gone; this minimum of four people will now become the experts panel. They will provide advice on what work is to be done and they will monitor the quality of the reports coming out. What is this about? This is a sham. So it is the “Don’t Trust Anybody Bill” because it actually does away with the very intelligent resources that are already available that the commission has been using. But no the Minister plus one or two others will appoint four people who will be given this job.This is corralling the Families Commission which is why this is a cynical bill. That cynicism ought to be reflected in its title because here is a Government being as cynical as it can be trying to hide it in all kinds of lovely sounding terms. But in the end it is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Maybe that is a good title as well. Thank you.A party votewas called for on the questionThat clause 1 be agreed to.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Clause 1 agreed to.A party votewas called for on the questionThat clause 2 be agreed to.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Clause 2 agreed to.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) BillIn CommitteeTIM MACINDOE (Junior Whip—National):I seek leave for all parts of the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill to be taken as one debatable question.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): One debate and questions separately. Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There appears not. Leave is granted.Parts 1 and 2 schedules 1 and 2 and clauses 1 and 2Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs):I will take only a very brief call at the beginning of this because I am forever hopeful that this will be one of those bills going through the House that most people will not be discussing at their breakfast table tomorrow morning.Hon Members: No no!Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well methinks my colleagues give this too high a level rating. I think that people will probably be more likely to be discussing the flag than they are likely to be discussing this bill tomorrow. It is trying to bring the customs and the biosecurity systems into the modern era. As most members know there is a major big development of computer systems going on called the Joint Border Management System. The Trade Single Window part of that is almost complete; there are a few more modules to finalise that are in the testing phase. What the Trade Single Window will do is allow for both exporters and importers to be able to work with one screen and file their documents electronically. Those documents will then populate all of the databases in the network that are required—a food safety database or a biosecurity database or whatever.Currently the Customs and Excise Act 1996—again this will not be a surprise to members because I think the internet was actually declared as only 22 or 23 years old yesterday—Tim Macindoe: Twenty-five yesterday.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Twenty-five yesterday—OK that is all right. We did not get it in Parliament till about 1993 or 1994. When the 1996 Customs and Excise Act was going we still had green pixilated screens and dot matrix printers so what this bill is to do is to bring the legislation into the modern era.I will not go through it all unless members are quite concerned about specifics. It includes technicalities about giving the Chief Executive of the Customs Service the right to cancel registration of users because a new registration system will be required so that users can identify themselves from remote locations and do their transactions. There is quite a lot to this bill in terms of technical and basically computer-based systems but in the end I think it can be summarised as just bringing the Trade Single Window bit of the Joint Border Management System into this legislation so that it can be done. I understand that when we get to the end of the third reading we will split it so that people will be able to follow the two bills. I will wait to see what members have got to ask.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):As Labour has previously mentioned this Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill is a bill that had its origins at the time of the last Labour Government. Therefore it is the intention of the Labour Party to support the bill. I think the reasons for that are important. This bill is about facilitating the movement of goods across the border. To have an efficient system is obviously to the benefit of the economy it is to the benefit of the consumer and it helps New Zealand to become more internationally competitive. So for all of those reasons we are in favour of the concept of this bill.It deals also with the Biosecurity Act and we have raised concerns that although this bill probably cannot deal with the other problems of biosecurity there are significant problems in biosecurity. We are a country that is dependent on our trade. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease would just destroy our economy. It would make the global financial crisis look like a minor technicality. Although this bill may facilitate the transfer of information about biosecurity it does not solve the problems of the growing concern about incursions into New Zealand like we have seen most recently with Psa. So we have questions about whether the system is adequate to deal with that.The concerns I have are not about the concept of this scheme; they are about the implementation of the scheme. And I do have some questions that I hope the Minister of Customs will address. This scheme with its single portal relies on an information technology system. It replaces the current system of providing information about movements across the border and it integrates the border clearance processes. It is a good thing to have the Customs Service and the Ministry for Primary Industries working as one on that.We heard during the discussion of the bill in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee that tranche one of this bill has already been put in place and we actually had the opportunity to go down to look at the operation of the scheme down on the Wellington waterfront. But I have some concerns about the reports that I am hearing about how well that system is working and I would like the Minister to reassure the Committee that the problems that have occurred are being properly dealt with are manageable and are not seriously undermining the system. So what I would like the Minister to do if I set out the questions very clearly is to respond as he normally does. He is one of the few Ministers in the House who does respond when in the chair. Most of them sit there like stuffed dummies and ignore the debate but this Minister actually does make an effort. So I am putting the questions—serious questions—and I am putting them in a way that the Minister can provide information to the Committee on which it can make its decisions.So the first question is a general question: what difficulties have there been with the technology in the implementation phase of tranche one? Secondly how big have those problems been? Are they minor technical difficulties which is usually the answer that we get when there is talk about significant problems of implementation? What have been the consequences of the glitches in the technology system? What is being done to address those problems? I imagine that the Customs Service and the Ministry for Primary Industries will be looking at how to address those problems. Have those problems been resolved? Which problems are still outstanding? And what additional costs have been incurred because of the implementation problems? I hope that I have not run through those too quickly but I notice that the officials are taking notes and the Minister will be fully briefed to answer those questions.Those questions are important because we have seen before efforts to introduce new technology that frankly have been disastrous. You and I Minister were I think both in the House at the time the INCIS system was being introduced. Interestingly INCIS was a project that involved the same technology company IBM that we are involving with the single portal here. We know from INCIS that we poured $100 million into it and in the end the system had to be scrapped. I do not believe that the problems faced in this area would be anything of that magnitude but I certainly need reassurance about it.I need reassurance also because a more contemporary information technology system that we have been working on is Novopay. Novopay of course has been a disaster and I would not want to see this replicated in the critical area of customs and goods going across the border. We had the original Minister in charge of Novopay Associate Minister of Education Craig Foss sacked. We had “Mr Fix-it” Steven Joyce brought in as Minister responsible for Novopay but “Mr Fix-it” has not fixed it and that is a real problem. I was at a school in my electorate just last week where they said that the problems are immense and they are not going away. I want to know that we are not being undermined in this very good concept of the Trade Single Window by a technology system that is having the same sort of difficulty. So I think it is really important Minister Williamson that you do take a call and you outline just what those difficulties have been and that you make sure that the Committee is well informed about how you have sought to resolve them.It is good to have the single portal because it means that business and industry can minimise their dealings with different departments—minimise the bureaucracy in dealing with arrival and departure requirements of customs and the Ministry for Primary Industries. I believe that the legislation does meet those needs. It provides the very basic things that need to be in place for this system to work—the registration of users of the Joint Border Management System. It sets out the forms and requirements of registration. It sets out the grounds on which the Minister can refuse to register somebody who wants to work through this system. Perhaps the Minister could explain to the Committee what the grounds might be for the Minister to determine whether a person may not be registered and use this system because that would have fundamental effects on their ability to import or export.The bill sets out consequential changes to offences. That is pretty straightforward. I think that what we are quite pleased about is that this bill is compatible with the World Customs Organization so it is part of globalisation and it means that New Zealand can work effectively with other systems around the world.The other point that I want to raise in this initial call is to do with biosecurity. As I mentioned before biosecurity although it is expensive is nowhere near as expensive as the costs of biosecurity not working. I am aware that there have been significant cutbacks in the last Budget. I think that about $6 million was cut out of it. I am aware that we cleaned out I think about 54—if I have got that figure right—biosecurity offices. I want to be sure that while we introduce this new system to facilitate going through the biosecurity process the system is adequate to provide the protection that New Zealand needs. I have been talking to kiwifruit farmers in the Bay of Plenty. They say that the costs of Psa coming into New Zealand run into hundreds of millions of dollars. I would hate to see us nickel-and-dime a system of biosecurity only to pay out far more money in terms of the disastrous consequences of the incursion of pests into New Zealand.Although our Trade Single Window is a symbol of globalisation another symbol of globalisation is that goods can move much more readily across our borders. We need to know that this system and the resources applied to the people who work in this system can ensure New Zealand’s security against an incursion of a pest or a disease. We saw quite recently the discovery of one fruit fly in Whangarei. We are always curious about how one fruit fly can arrive in the country. If there are two and one of them happens to be female then we have got a real problem. That is a discussion about the birds and the bees and I am sure the Minister is appreciative of that problem.These are significant problems; they are not theoretical problems. This bill relates to biosecurity and what the bill does is not bad. But we have to ask the question of whether we have sufficient resources behind the bill and behind the new system to ensure that it is a smooth system and also an effective system. The Minister has often spoken about when he comes through customs how good it is to go through SmartGate. I came back from the United States over Christmas and the system was very quick. Nobody checked my bags and that is because they probably thought I was a reputable person coming from a country that was not a problem. That might surprise the Minister too. I need some reassurance from the Minister on that point as well. But I would really like the Minister to focus in his answers on the IT problems.RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First):I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a short call in this Committee of the whole House stage as we debate the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. Focusing on the Minister of Custom’s proposed amendments as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 419 I have to say that New Zealand First is pleasantly surprised and somewhat encouraged by the direction the Government appears to be taking with regard to biosecurity at least to the extent that it seems to be addressing it as far as this particular bill is concerned.At the second reading we expressed a concern that this Government might choose to follow a path that does not afford sufficient regard to the importance of biosecurity—or that it might not. There was perhaps some lack of clarity if not actual ambiguity as to the Government’s intentions or indeed the potential lack of them in so far as its intended way forward under the regime that the passing of this bill would bring about. We are pleased then and tentatively encouraged by the Minister’s desire to split this bill into two bills the Customs and Excise (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Bill and the Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window) Amendment Bill. This will afford greater attention to biosecurity and widen the ambit of the bill so as to secure consistency with other relevant pieces of legislation as they relate to the biosecurity agenda.The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper still delays the implementation of the legislation for another 2 years which we do not necessarily see as being ideal. We understand that key stakeholders in industry and indeed the departments concerned will need sufficient time to familiarise themselves with the changes to procedure that this legislation when it becomes law will bring about. But we are duty-bound also to ask whether 1 year would not provide a sufficient period within which the stakeholders and interested parties could bring themselves up to speed. Two years may err on the side of caution and that may be no bad thing in some circumstances but again New Zealand First wonders whether it might not be advantageous to importers and exporters alike as well as of course the vital biosecurity considerations of many sectors to make the benefits of the Single Trade Window available to all those interests in 1 year rather than 2 years.The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper brings the second of the two bills that this bill will become the Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window) Amendment Bill into line with a number of important pieces of legislation: the Biosecurity Act 1993 the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act 1997 the Animal Products Act 1999 and the Food Act 1981. We understand as I am sure the rest of this Committee understands that the Food Act itself is likely to be very much amended and in many regards superseded by the Food Bill which is currently before the Primary Production Committee. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper brings the new bill the Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Act 2014 as it will become in line with the Food Act. The Supplementary Order Paper also aligns the bill with the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 and the Wine Act 2003. These are regarded as being eminently sensible additions.In closing I will reiterate that New Zealand First regards this Government’s track record on biosecurity as being nothing short of woeful. We are encouraged by the attention this Supplementary Order Paper appears to be bringing to it and we are happy to support both the Supplementary Order Paper itself and indeed the passage of the legislation through the House and on to the statute book. Thank you.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):I will take just a 5-minute call in this debate on the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill because I see that the Minister of Customs wants to respond to Phil Goff’s questions and I think that is only right. I want to reiterate what Phil Goff has already said which is that obviously we are supportive of the principle of the Trade Single Window. It is important for New Zealand to have this hub of information that will enable our importers our exporters and people moving across our borders to be able to access technology in a way that will make that movement more safe and better.But my questions are really about where Phil Goff was going before as well. I want to ask a couple of additional questions because the word that I am hearing out there is that the Trade Single Window has been successful but this has been the only successful part of the roll-out of this IT system. At the moment a lot of finger-pointing is going on between the Customs Service and IBM about how much it has been able to complete and how much it is going to cost to complete it. Right now there have also been accusations as I understand it of taking IBM to court. Obviously this is an election year and we do not want to see that happening so what is going on instead is that we are redefining success. Redefining success is a little bit like a cricket game where you go out there and you aim to hit 200 and when you come in and you have hit only 35 everybody says: “Well done. We were successful.”—except we were not successful. We did not get to where we wanted to go and instead we are accepting something that is way less than what we anticipated when we set out.My understanding of this system is that the Customs Service wanted to retire the old CusMod system and institute this new system. My understanding—and I would very much welcome the Minister’s reflections on and answers to this—is that instead of retiring it we have got some way down the road and that includes the Trade Single Window but we have not got to the point where we can say that the IBM-initiated system is going to be able to achieve what we set out in the beginning to achieve. Not only that but IBM is now saying to the Customs Service that it is going to cost tens of millions of dollars more to be able to complete that job.We have been reminded by Phil Goff about Novopay. We reflect back on the INCIS programme back in the 1990s. We now have a process in place called the Gateway process with the implementation and roll-out of these particular schemes. My understanding is that this has gone through some of that Gateway process but has not got through a lot of the others.So I am here alongside my colleague and I would like to know the answer to exactly what is going on with regard to the IT system. The concept in itself we are completely and utterly in support of. As Phil Goff said we initiated this process. We want to see it through because it will be helpful to all of those people who are involved in importing and exporting. We have seen that the submissions that we received—only a small number—have been very much in support of it. The issue here is that we are very unclear and would want to have much more clarity over where the Customs Service’s IT system is at at the moment and whether it will be able to achieve what the Government has said initially it will want to achieve or whether in fact it is redefining its success in a much smaller number of objectives. If that is the case—and I am not saying it is; I am waiting for Mr Williamson to respond to this—then we have wasted an enormous amount of money getting way less than we wanted to get which is very much reminiscent of Novopay and of INCIS.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs):I will take a brief call just to answer some of the issues that the Hon Phil Goff and David Shearer have raised. First of all I have got to be careful because a lot of what they raise is not actually part of this bill the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. This bill is about implementing the law around how people can be registered for systems and so on. This is not about the contractual obligations for implementing a computer system.But I do want to give those members some assurance along the way. First of all if you are going to start a comparison between the Joint Border Management System and Novopay my view is that the comparison that is best—for the audience out there—is building one huge big manufacturing processing plant compared with buying a carport because this is an enormous system across a whole range of Government agencies with moving parts and with functionality that will be rolled out in tranches and was always planned to and it will take some years as it already has done to get operational. I gave the Customs Service and in fact the whole implementation crew some very strict instructions that I would be allowed to give as Minister—because I cannot get involved in the contractual obligations; that is between the Ministry for Primary Industries and the suppliers—and one of the things I said and I think this was the case with Novopay was that I did not want to pull the plug on the old system until all of the functionality had been tried and trued and had been used for some time.That is still the case. CusMod still runs today. It still functions and some people are still on it but we are migrating people across quite rapidly. We have trialled some of the biggest of the cargo operations out there from Mondiale Freight Services to CargoWise and FedEx and so on which have been involved in trialling the Trade Single Window and they love it. So unlike other computer systems where you will hear from the users: “This is a dog and you shouldn’t have it and we don’t like it and it’s not working.” I challenge members of the Committee to find anybody who is involved in the use of it who does not like it and who does not love the speed that it processes at.But again if you are building some massive big warehouse operation you will know for sure before you start that there will be elements of it that do not quite work to start with. The big roller doors jam and need the motors changed or the conveyor belts are not fast enough or whatever—the temperature of the air conditioning. The same thing applies to this system. Because it is so big defects will by definition occur as you start to begin the testing phase of it. I have been around the computer industry long enough to know that that is always the case. When trialling big computer systems as I did in my job before I came here we always ran the duplicate system on another machine. If it was not working on the night we switched over we flicked back to the old one. So those are some assurances that members need.Yes there has been a little bit of creep in the budget but that is because we have sought two major modifications two variations on the contract of additional stuff. That is because if you are developing a system over the years that we are taking to develop this big system you know that your requirements when you set out will have changed over time. One of those is to bring us into line with the World Customs Organization WCO Data Model 3 and that was a variation of contract that we negotiated and so on.So let me give Phil Goff and other members of the Committee a little bit of surety here. The vast bulk of the system is working well. The defects are being managed and being identified as to what they are and are being fixed as we go to a point that I think is acceptable. There is a contractual obligation that was well negotiated at the beginning of this process between the suppliers and the Government agencies that contracted to it and people can be held to account for it. And no we are not scaling back expectations—no we are not. For a whole range of the facilities that are yet to come in tranche two we expect that the contract is well written and they will be delivered. There will be as always in any big process like this disputes about the minutiae. But it is not a Novopay. It is most certainly not an INCIS where the thick end of $100 million was delivered and nothing came back. This system is working well. I am happy to give members some names of a number of the cargo operations out there that love it. In fact I have been to dinner with a few of the chief executives and they are screaming about getting more of the tranches delivered quicker because they cannot wait to come into the new world. But I do not believe I need to carry too much of this debate because it is not part of the legislation.The second thing I think members raised was whether we are cutting back on biosecurity at the border. That is most certainly not part of this legislation and I suggest that members take that up with the Minister for Primary Industries by way of question time or the select committee and so on. Nothing about biosecurity staffing and operations at the border is to do with this legislation.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green):It is interesting to hear the Minister in the chair the Minister of Customs say that this is nothing to do with biosecurity and is nothing to do with the issues surrounding IBM and the roll-out of it; this is just the legislation the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. The legislation? Fine. We will be supporting the legislation. But what does that mean with biosecurity? What does that mean with the debacle that seems to be happening with the roll-out of it? These things do come into it and I will speak to both of them to some degree.It has been noted that the contract for $75.9 million in 2011 for the first phase is now expected to be over $200 million when subsequent phases are completed. There was a budget blow-out to $90 million in August 2013 for the partial system. There has been hold-up after hold-up as this has been rolled out and it is good that there has been a partial roll-out at least and the people have been able to test it but there is something else going on. The Minister might be able to tell us when we will hear about the level of mistake and error that has gone on to the point that we do effectively seem to have a type of Novopay situation. We know that you looked at it from that point of view to see whether there were many comparatives and it appears that there might be.The core of the system for smarter targeting of people and goods is still not in place. It is still not in place. It has been quite some time and we are not there. One million dollars per month in lost revenue was suggested at one crisis meeting. I do not think you can gloss over it Minister quite the way you do and expect us to just accept it like that. Sure there is no one single cause for delays. This integration with existing systems—there is always going to be some hiccups there and it be more complicated than expected. I think when something like this is being set up when something is being costed out there is normally a contingency level for those sorts of things. Something bigger has gone wrong and I think you need to be upfront and tell us to what degree that is as soon as possible.In terms of the biosecurity part of it this system ideally will enhance detection and risk management around biosecurity. We might be able to show up the likelihood of some biosecurity incursions but we are having them time and time again. I have spent a fair bit of money to check into one of the more recent ones—the theileria Ikeda strain that has come in. It is one of several that have come in with animals. This can be the only way. Either a tick was imported that was infected or a cattle beast was imported that was infected and has come through whatever systems. Another one that I mentioned last time I spoke on this issue here is horse herpes. There is a new aphis in willow and still the great white butterfly—there are tons of things. But not only did this Government let this Ikeda in but it then sat on its hands effectively and mapped Ikeda’s progress. Now even I who have a lot of optimism and understanding of these things and would think that we might be able to get rid of it give up on it too. This Government has allowed something in and to get away that is costing us millions in our dominant primary production and dairy sector. That is just one strain. There have been strains around for a long time but this strain is costing and it is costing dearly. One farmer said he lost over $80000 from the disease—a disease that is present in over 400 farms and they expect it to double by the end of the year.So is this system going to stop biosecurity incursions coming in? It is absolutely appalling what seems to be the case time and time again with the theileria which has moved through the country where we have had other systems. Novopay has crapped out. This system appears to be ineffective. We have had—Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I would like to go back to the questions that I asked the Minister in the chair the Minister of Customs because although I appreciate that he attempted to address some of them I think his answers have left more questions than I began with.The Minister said that the IT is sort of off to one side with regard to this legislation but that is not strictly true. This legislation the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill implements the Trade Single Window. The success of the Trade Single Window depends on the IT system that operates it. So if the IT system is not working then we are legislating to implement something that is not going to succeed for New Zealand and may cost us.There are a lot of things out of what the Minister said that I think we need to ask more questions about. Minister you talked about contractual obligations and the implication of your comment about contractual obligations was that the party that we were contracting to has not met them. In fact you said that people can be held to account. I want to know the extent to which that party—I presume the Minister is talking about IBM—has not met the contractual obligations on it. The Minister said that yes there had been a little bit of creep in the budget. That is not an accounting term that I am aware of—“a little bit of creep”. Would the Minister quantify for us the cost that this system has gone up by and say whether further increases in costs are expected that were not anticipated at the beginning.Minister you also said that there are elements that did not quite work to start with. I would really like to know what those elements are. Are we talking about elements that are fundamental to the system? I know that the advantage we have in this instance is that the CusMod system was designed to keep going for 6 months—I think it was 6 months—as a parallel system in case it broke down and to that extent we are different from Novopay. It must be close to 6 months if not over 6 months since we implemented tranche one and therefore we should be talking about phasing out CusMod. Can the Minister tell us whether we are actually phasing it out or whether the problems are such that we are going to have to keep on implementing that dual system.The Minister also mentioned that there were two variations in the contract that were causing problems. Can you be more specific. What are those variations to the contract? Why are they needed? What is it costing the New Zealand taxpayer to have those variations? And in what respects is the system not delivering? Excuse my cynicism. Early on I started asking questions about INCIS. No not the thing that the ACT Party is crusading on but INCIS the police IT system. It has got nothing to do with the family. I started off asking questions about INCIS and the Minister of Police at the time gave me the very answers that I am hearing now. “No it is a small problem—minor. We’re going to just spend a bit more money do a bit more. We’re going to require IBM to do this.” The problem did not get resolved. It got bigger and bigger and bigger.I want to know more specifically what the dimensions of this problem are. I am glad we have had an acknowledgment from you Minister that there is a problem with the IT system. I have seen no press statements from the Government saying that there is a problem with the system. So I want to know if there are problems with the system why the Government has not been more up front about it because we are talking about taxpayer money. But for the fact that people in the Customs Service have talked to various people in the Opposition and said “Oh this is bad. This is not working the way it should.” we would not have had that information. That is not the way to explain that there is a problem. If there is a problem be up front honest and transparent about it. Tell us what the dimensions of that problem are. Tell us what the causes of that problem are. Tell us the extent to which you have been able to remedy that problem and the extent to which that problem is ongoing.They are all critical elements to our support for the introduction of this system which is meant to do a better job than before. If the IT system fails we will be back to where we were and we will have expended a lot of money. So let us be a little bit more specific than “a little bit of creep in the budget”. What has been the creep in the budget? What are the anticipated additional costs? Will IBM meet the contractual obligations on it? What is the Government intending to do if we do not do that?Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs):I want to try to get this resolved because this is not the forum for the detailed questions about the contractual obligations. There will be select committee hearings on this which I am sure those members will want to have me at to ask me specific questions. This legislation the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill does not include the contractual obligations for delivery.Let me just say to Mr Goff the previous speaker a couple of things. The original budget when first envisaged was around $76 million. The current expenditure looks to be around about $89 million. That is because of two quite significant changes in the requirements that we requested as part of the process. That is what I meant by “some creep”—some scope creep because over the years some new technologies like the World Customs Organization Data Model 3 come into play. I just want to repeat to the member that I have not said the system is in trouble. I have not said that there are problems with it other than those technicalities you get whenever you implement a brand new computer system including data problems and defects that need to be looked at and what is going on. All of those are being managed well.I repeat again: it is not like INCIS which never got started so do not start doing a comparison with INCIS. It never got started.Dr David Clark: Novopay—more like Novopay?Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: No it is not like Novopay at all because they pulled the pin on the dual service while it was not working. This is working fine and for me the real test out there is whether the users of the system are happy with it. If the member can—instead of going through some sneaky little gorse bush and saying he knows somebody in the Customs Service who reckons there are troubles—show me one company out there that has currently been migrated on to it that does not like it that is the real test. I mean if you take Novopay I can show you lots of teachers in my electorate who do not like what is going on. Show me one company that has migrated on to it that does not like what is currently operational. That is the test. Oh there is a lot of silence now—a lot of silence now. I would look forward to learning that company’s name.I am not even going to address the issues of the Green member Steffan Browning. I do not know what planet he is on but I did not even understand half of what he was talking about. If you think that some—what was it? “Tee-cha-lee-dee”? I do not know what it was but it was some tick on a horse that was called “tee-cha-lee-dee” and somehow that was my fault. I am sorry but different planet could not understand need to get an interpreter.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):Thank you for this opportunity to speak. Labour supports the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. We should say there are plenty of reasons that we would want to support it. The general principle of supporting the Customs Service and other border agencies on the front line is something that is hard to disagree with.I want to pick up some of the points Mr Williamson raised and also Mr Goff before him. I too have had people express concerns to me about the customs system and its adaptability. I guess the test will come in the next days because this work is supposed to become available in early April. According to the regulatory impact statement here the 15-year-old system for customs and biosecurity has a process that is under way in terms of repairing things. If I can read it for the Minister in the chair the Minister of Customs “The [Joint Border Management System] has been approved to address these issues and will be delivered in two tranches.” as agreed in November 2009. Tranche one “is planned to be available by 1 April 2013”—ah this is a year ago as I read it more closely—“after pilot-testing.” So these things are supposed to already be in place. There has obviously been a bit of slippage since this regulatory impact statement was issued. So an update on time lines from the Minister would be appreciated because we are told that this legislation is enacting it but we are told in the regulatory impact statement that it was to have been implemented already. There are in there some references if the Minister refers back to some of the challenges that are being faced by those border agencies and the cost of upgrading the system. So I would welcome any further comment from the Minister on that.We know that there is under this Government this track record of IT systems that have not worked. We have seen the ACC privacy breaches. The Minister himself referred to Novopay. In the Inland Revenue Department—the agency with which I am most familiar—we have had $50 million spent in the last year on international consultants to get to an in principle agreement that there is a problem. It is the same problem that this Government was informed about when it took office 5 years ago. The department has known for years that it has been a problem. Why it needed to spend $50 million on international consultants to tell it that there was a problem and that it needed to spend some more money on consultants to develop some business cases to show how the problem should be addressed is beyond those of us on this side of the Chamber.IT systems are bugging this Government. This Government does have a track record with these kinds of privacy breaches. They are in the Inland Revenue Department as well. There have been stories each year about the number of privacy breaches. In fact the number of privacy breaches in the Inland Revenue Department has gone up nearly 400 percent in the last year. So to say there is not a concern here about technology beggars belief when Mr Goff has sources. I have also had the same concerns raised with me Mr Goff. I am more inclined to accept your view of events on these things than a member opposite representing a Government that has an appalling track record with the implementation of IT systems. So perhaps Mr Williamson can update us on the time line and the addressing of these issues because that will be of concern to New Zealanders who are worried about our borders.The cuts in biosecurity monitoring clearance and so on are putting our borders at risk. Other speakers have referred to some of the things that have happened as a consequence. Sophisticated computer software will enable border agencies to identify relationships between people and goods by linking travel and trade data and so on. We approve of the principle of it; it really is the implementation that is the thing in question and the time frames around that. But I guess the proof will be in the pudding.RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga):I know we have been at cross purposes with the Minister of Customs in relation to his reluctance to expand on contractual matters in relation to IBM but I think it is very clear that this legislation the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill underpins the implementation of the Trade Single Window. If we look at clause 16 which replaces Part 11 of the principal Act it does talk about the Joint Border Management System being a computer system. That is defined in the Act as “designed” so it is a designed system that enables entities to transmit information and receive information through systems such as the Trade Single Window. Actually central to the bill I think is the fact that the system has been designed for and is the actual heart of the Joint Border Management System. It is absolutely on point for us on this side of the Chamber to be asking the Minister to provide a bit more information as to the contractual arrangements and the implementation of the Trade Single Window.If we look at the list of consultants who have been involved in this project it is the single biggest project that the Customs Service has undertaken for the past 3 years at least; 85-plus percent of all its consultants have been used on the system and some $40 million has been paid out to IBM to build this system let alone the literally numerous contractors who are invoicing eye-watering amounts amounting to tens of millions of dollars over the past couple of years to build this system. The Minister says there is a little more testing to be undertaken and we can understand that a computer system of this complexity and of this size covering multiple Government departments and different users is a big project—no doubt about that. But I believe that is why we need to have the confidence that this system is robust that it is actually performing to standards that the contractors are not just stringing the project out and that there is actually a tight governance of the project. I know that the Customs Service has been quite meticulous in terms of its governance its executive and involving senior management on the oversight of this project so it is perfectly on point for us to be asking the Minister these questions around the contractual arrangements which do underpin the actual legislation that we are discussing here in the Committee at the moment.I would like to also add something new to the debate to talk about another matter and I would welcome some input from the Minister. It is in relation to clause 15 and the de minimis thresholds. I know that the ability is being put in to the bill for regulations to I guess set whatever the threshold will be under which no duty will be collected. I know that for the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee—and I am not a member of the committee but I was fortunate enough to sit in on a couple of meetings and we did the field trip to the Customs Service offices to see the working demonstration—the de minimis threshold was an issue of great concern to everyone. We know that the New Zealand Retailers Association is advocating very strongly that there is unfairness in terms of collection. I am talking about the GST component but it all fits around online purchases and crossing of goods over the border which is a big issue.We all purchase goods online I would imagine. Online purchases are so pervasive these days and the use of the internet and the growth of online purchases are just going to get bigger and bigger. We know there is an issue around the de minimis threshold in terms of not only maybe forgone duty that could be collected but also lost GST that could also be collected and put into the Government coffers. The issue really is that according to the New Zealand Retailers Association there is unfairness towards the New Zealand retail sector. We know that it is struggling and that people are using online purchases practically daily but there seems to be a simple solution.I do a bit of purchasing online myself. Yes I am old-fashioned; I still get just CDs. I am not into digital music; I like the tactile CD. Unfortunately there are no more record stores so I cannot actually find what I want. The only way I can get it is overseas. As you click through to make any purchase these days you go through the PayPal sites or you go through using your credit card companies. It would be very simple I would imagine. It would be just an automatic little calculation that they would probably be able to do pretty easily it would seem to just add a GST component on that or automatically add an assessed duty amount. There are no qualms about it—if you really want the product you just click on that extra amount. It is all there in black and white it is all laid out for you and bingo there you go the GST is paid and duty collected. So I would just like to invite the Minister in the chair Maurice Williamson to shed some light on that for us because I know that under the bill there is provision for the de minimis amount to be set at any level.We know from the Retailers Association that in other countries such as Canada I believe and the UK—I may be wrong—the thresholds are very low. They are very low and are set around $27 equivalent to an online purchase. It would be good if the Minister could shed some light on that. We understand that there are some 50 million mail pieces that come across the conveyor belt every year. I can just see those little beagles—that was just for my colleague Ms Darien Fenton; she wanted me to mention the beagles—as they do their best on the conveyor belt to try to sniff out all the illicit materials or whatever they sniff for. A significant bulk of those 50 million items would be purchases under the de minimis or $400 amount. That is duty and GST as well that could be collected on some of those items and it just seems that it could be just a click away and a way of making it a bit more of a level playing field for the struggling retailers out there. So I just invite the Minister to shed a bit of light on that. Kia ora.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs):Again I am going to try to be very brief and cover a couple of issues that the member Rino Tirikatene just raised about GST. But first of all I will just go back and say to members that I think I have answered as fully as I am prepared to as part of the details of this legislation the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill about the implementation of the Joint Border Management System. I am actually pleased with where it has got to so far I am pleased with the defects management I am pleased with the functionality we have got now.I know that we have slipped by a month or 2 months in the implementation of a couple of modules but in a project of this size that is something that is absolutely standard. Name any of the biggest commercial companies out there in the world that implement computer systems of this magnitude that do not see that happen. So this is not nuclear meltdown and this is not the end of the world. We are actually getting a damn good system to the users out there. But we have some shadowy name in a bush—and we cannot even get from the Opposition who it is—saying “I’ve heard that …”. I do not know whether the Opposition has got some Government Communications Security Bureau implant or something out there but I actually say that I do not respond to “I’ve heard from someone that….”. I am actually quite pleased with it.I will now talk about the GST issue and the threshold. This is probably going to be one of the most taxing issues—and I use those words guardedly—that this Parliament and this nation will always have to deal with. It is not as simple as the member makes out—that you just go to your form when you are buying goods and you click it. First of all you are buying from overseas websites. They are not going to have New Zealand GST if you are buying from Amazon for example. They are not going to say: “Oh you’re a New Zealander.”Dr David Clark: Why not?Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: Well because I do not think that international websites will give a damn about what New Zealanders are buying or not with regard to this. Secondly sometimes people’s credit cards are used while they are overseas so you cannot actually put the charge on to the credit card. If you happen to be in London and buy something and then get back to New Zealand you do not want to see that there is GST on it because you were actually there as opposed to buying it online.I am not saying to this Committee that there are not answers. What I am saying to the Committee is that they are very complicated issues that are going to tax us for some time with regard to the digital economy and the whole way in which people pay for things as bitcoin and its equivalents start to become the way of the future. All that this legislation is doing is allowing the Government to set whatever that de minimis threshold may be into the future. I can tell the member that there is a long way to go before there are any decisions about what that regime may look like—or if it is possible at all. I will repeat that: if it is possible at all because you may actually set up an account overseas with an offshore bank transfer your money into that account and then buy off that credit card and still not have any transactions out of a New Zealand bank account showing it.So I warn all members who think that this is simple. I know that the Minister of Revenue and the Minister of Finance would love to clip that GST ticket simplistically but the reason for the de minimis threshold is to say to ordinary New Zealanders that if they are bringing in something of a modest sum we do not want them to have to go out to DHL at the airport and pay $3.50 GST and $4.60 customs duty. So the reason for having that de minimis amount is to say that if it is below a certain amount we will let you off it altogether. All this legislation is doing—which is what we really should be concentrating on—is allowing those systems to set those targets in the future.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):I just want to start off by saying that I appreciate the Minister of Customs answering the questions that we have raised on the Joint Border Management System and particularly on the IT component because as my colleagues have said the IT component is actually at the guts of what we are trying to talk about here in relation to the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. So if we do not talk about the IT component there is no other component in large effect. So I appreciate the Minister making an attempt to answer those questions but I do take real exception to his accusing us of being sneaky. I say that for two reasons. One is that I did not get this information from anybody within the New Zealand Customs Service; I got it out there in the wider IT industry where it is well known—Hon Maurice Williamson: Name them.DAVID SHEARER: —well I am not going to come on—that there are serious problems with this IT system. It is well known there that there are serious problems with this IT system. That is the first thing.The second thing is that we have just heard today—just here in this Chamber today—that there has been a 17 percent increase in the budget for this system. I have put it in written questions to you Minister. We have asked during the expenditure session of the select committee and not once did we get any information that there was going to be a 17 percent increase in the budget for the Trade Single Window system which you have been talking about. There was absolutely nothing. So do not come to us with this sneaky stuff. It is our job as the Opposition to understand what is going on.My question is whether—and it comes out in the questions that have not been answered today in the Chamber—there are going to be further delays from IBM into the future. What else is not going to happen as a result of the dispute that I understand is happening between IBM and the New Zealand Customs Service? Are further tranches going to be delayed? Are the expectations for this system going to be reduced as a result of the fact that IBM is not going to be able to meet that without extra cost and what other extra costs in addition to what has already been expended are going to be required? What you told us about Minister is what was needed in order to get the Trade Single Window through its legislative stages. That is only one part of the entire roll-out of the entire IT system within the Customs Service.I congratulate you on not closing down CusMod before the IT system has been established. But that is something that in a sense any brain-dead person frankly would be able to work out after the eventuality of Novopay. They closed down Datacom and then threw it over to Novopay and Novopay fell on its face.Keeping CusMod in place is fine but CusMod was always meant to be retired some time ago. It was meant to be retired. In fact what we have got now is a system that was started 2 years ago and is now 17 percent more expensive in just the area of the Trade Single Window. What we are looking at now is as I understand it a great deal more than that in order to be able to implement the system that was initially foreseen at the beginning of this project. What I want to know is whether there are any variations on the contract that was begun 2 years ago whether there are any changes in the parameters of what success might be—not just for the Trade Single Window but beyond that—whether there are any other little bits of creep that might be coming into the project and what additional costs beyond the Trade Single Window there are likely to be in order to roll out the system.I am afraid that what I am hearing both from obviously my colleagues but well beyond them is that there is a serious problem looming. It has been pushed under the carpet swept under the carpet so that it will not emerge before an election but we know how the public feels and how taxpayers feel about their money their taxes being wasted on IT systems that fall over. We might want to get all the bells and whistles and everything that we need to get and we all might want it to succeed perfectly well and it is obviously in all our own interests but this smells like there is something wrong. The Minister’s answers to questions and his selective answers to questions about one component of a much bigger system do not leave me with a great deal of confidence about the future of it.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):The Committee has discovered two things tonight. Firstly it has discovered that there has been a budget blowout from $76 million to $89 million. That is a 17 percent increase. I would like the Minister in the chair the Minister of Customs to tell the Committee whether he thinks that is the end of the cost increase. Is he prepared to guarantee to the Committee that this budget will not keep blowing out? It is a 17 percent increase Minister. When did you find out about that increase and why has it been only tonight that we have been able to extract that information from you?Hon Maurice Williamson: It’s been answered at the select committee.Hon PHIL GOFF: I was at the select committee. There was no talk there about an increase in the budget. There was no talk there about any problems. There was no talk there about the process having been delayed as you said a moment ago by a further 2 months. Why did it require us to extract this information now from you when in anybody’s terms a 17 percent blowout in the budget is significant? It is not minor.I want to pick up another point that the Minister made. He said that there were two significant changes in requirements that led to this. Actually I have a little bit of institutional memory Minister. I remember exactly those words being used in regard to INCIS. Why did INCIS costs go up and balloon and blow out and why did INCIS then fail? It was because the Government kept requiring of the system new things that it added on to the original requirements. And now you have come into the Chamber and said to us as I understand it—but correct me if I am wrong—that the Government has made two new significant requirements of the computer system which it did not require in the first instance. That is the path to IT failure. That is the path to a ballooning-out in the costs of any project. That is exactly how INCIS began and you are telling us that that is happening now.I do want to take exception to your comments about being sneaky. You know it is not sneaky for people to be up front and honest and tell us that there is a problem with the system—people in industry or people in the Customs Service. I will tell you what is sneaky. Sneaky is a Government that is not up front honest and transparent about the fact that it has got a major problem and you have got to extract the truth out as if you are pulling teeth one at a time in a very painful process—and we still have not got the truth.I want to know what those two significant changes in requirements were. Was that as a result of a failure of the Government to anticipate what was needed or was that a result of the failure of IBM to deliver what it promised? We are told that IBM has to meet its contractual obligations. They are the terms the Minister used. Using those terms implies immediately that IBM is failing to meet its contractual obligations.I think you have an obligation Minister to tell us why IBM is failing to meet its obligations. Look Hansard will show it. I took a note of the words the Minister used and they were: if they do not meet their contractual obligations then they will be able to be held to account. I am paraphrasing perhaps but that is the message that the Minister gave. So I want to know where the problems originated. Did they originate in the inability of the Government to get it right or in the incompetence of the Government or is it the failure of the IBM company to deliver what it promised to deliver? It is a fair enough question. It is pretty fundamental pretty basic and that is one question that the Minister should be able to give an answer to in the Committee tonight.I want to know what elements of the system are not working. The Minister has talked about “defects”—that was his word—in the system. What are those defects? What impact are they having on the ability of the system to deliver? Is it correct that CusMod was due to be retired by now but is still being kept going because the new IT system will not work on its own and cannot be relied on? That is another straightforward question Minister and it is one that the Committee deserves an answer to tonight. What are the defects? How much longer will we keep CusMod going? What is the final cost of the budget blowout going to be? Is the $89 million the full and final cost of this venture or will it go up each time we ask questions about it? Will there be ongoing problems? [Bell rung] Mr Chairman?The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No the member has had four calls. I am going to call Paul Goldsmith.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National):I move That the question be now put.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):I feel that the questions that Phil Goff has raised must surely need to be addressed by the Minister in the chair the Minister of Customs. Mr Goff has raised some serious issues in pointing out a 17 percent blowout in costs. The Minister has not addressed the question I raised about the regulatory impact statement and the fact that a 15-year-old system that is needing replacement and upgrading appears to be a year behind schedule. The Minister says that it is only a couple of months but the regulatory impact statement—and I am not clear as to when it was released because I cannot see that on the paper—indicates that the whole thing would have been live a year ago. That is not just a few months and if that is not sneaky nothing is. Twelve months is stretching “a few months” a long way.Mr Goff has raised a very serious issue about the blowout in costs and the fact that this was not raised in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. He has raised the issue about add-ons—adding on one part here one part there—and he points out quite rightly that that is how INCIS started. That is how INCIS started. We have seen it in the Inland Revenue Department. I have related the story of the $50 million that was spent last year on international consultants getting to a point where there was in principle agreement to proceed but the thing that I did not cover in my previous contribution was that there was another $23 million spent previously trying to get a student loan add-on off the ground that was cancelled and probably rightly so in that instance. The department realised that it was not going anywhere.But here again we have something that does seem to be on the roll and that does seem to be moving. The word that we are getting back is that it is not working properly and the Minister is trying to talk it down. He is fanning—he is fanning—but he is actually fanning the flames as he tries to blow things out of his way left right and centre. With a 17 percent increase in spending two new requirements sound like a growing problem not one that he is going to put out with a few kind words. I believe that to have any credibility the Minister must address the issue as to why this slippage has happened—this is significant slippage—and why the Government is not holding the contractors to account. If he says that a few months’ slippage is quite understandable I think that that is a pretty lax standard. The kinds of contracts that would be signed that said that a year’s slippage is acceptable would probably not be ones that the taxpayer would regard as sound or in their interests.This is a Government that is responsible for spending taxpayer money on systems that are put in place to serve the taxpayer and yet we hear story after story after story of the ACC spillages of private information. We had Ms Collins of “Ovida”—how do you say it—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Hon Member: Oravida.Dr DAVID CLARK: —Oravida fame and you know the leaks out of her office—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Dr DAVID CLARK: Well this is to the point Mr Chair—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No it is not.Dr DAVID CLARK: —because it is about privacy breaches which comes back to IT systems that are not up to the task which is a repeating issue under this Government and is the precise thing that we are dealing with in this bill. The Inland Revenue Department example is by no means an isolated one. The ACC ones and—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Look I have mentioned to the member that this is not in the bill. You must confine your comments to the subject matter of the bill.Dr DAVID CLARK: Well I come back to the bill which talks about implementing a new computer system. That is important to the front-line border security of New Zealand. Novopay might not be the name of it. It might not bear a name like those other ones that I have previously mentioned whose names have become taboo words in this Chamber but it is a system that needs to work for taxpayers to have confidence in the Government’s ability to manage IT projects and the Government’s ability to implement this initiative. We on this side of the Chamber support the principle; we are just concerned that this Government has no track record on delivering it.We are also worried—certainly in the other areas that I dealt with but also here—about the job of the House. It is expensive to pass legislation through this House. All of the officials who sit here are paid reasonable salaries. All of the members of Parliament are paid reasonable salaries to get on and represent the people in the electorates who put them here. But it is not a good use of taxpayer money to have legislation returning to the House to be corrected because it has not been able to implement the things that the Government has sought to put through and that is a pattern again. Certainly in the student loan area which I mentioned earlier that has happened already—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of the bill.Dr DAVID CLARK: —and if that were to happen here with border security it would become something that I think would be unacceptable to taxpayers.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National):I move That the question be now put.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.The result corrected after originally being announced as Ayes 64 Noes 56.Part 2 agreed to.Schedule 1 agreed to.Schedule 2 agreed to.Clause 1 agreed to.Clause 2 agreed to.The Committee divided the bill into the Customs and Excise (Border Processing—Trade Single Window and Duties) Amendment Bill and the Biosecurity (Border Processing—Trade Single Window) Amendment Billpursuant to Supplementary Order Paper 419.Bill to be reported without amendment presently.Trade (Safeguard Measures) BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 18 February.Part 2 Miscellaneous matters (continued)Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):This part addresses really the miscellaneous matters so I shall keep my comments necessarily short. But it is a pleasure to rise and support the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill. Labour of course supports trade safeguard measures.Hon Phil Goff: It originated under a Labour Government.Dr DAVID CLARK: As my colleague the Hon Phil Goff points out the bill originated under a Labour Government. We want to build a future for all. We want the kind of economy that works for all New Zealanders we want to have a fair and just society where all can live in dignity an environment that we can protect is something that we all want and we want a nation that we can be proud of. All of those things align with having these safeguards in place. There is nothing too controversial in that respect. We think that the temporary safeguard authorities being abolished with no compensation for loss of office as put forward in clause 26 and following is therefore not something that particularly warrants a great depth of debate.The transitional provision on the other hand is noteworthy I guess for the fact that this legislation has taken a while to get through the House. The existing Act the Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act goes back to 1987 I believe. It was subject to review under the Labour-led Government and the wide consultation that went with that. Of course the bill as we know is the result of that work—for those who have just joined the debate. It produces compliance with the World Trade Organization obligations and it streamlines the process of responding to allegations of dumped subsidised goods on the New Zealand market which is something that I guess will be welcomed by New Zealand manufacturers across the board. I mean it is pretty hard to disagree with that stuff. The transitional measures provision will be enacted to try to make sure that the necessary powers are in place that the temporary safeguard authorities have all the powers that they would have if this Act had not been passed and that that all works into making I guess an orderly transition—the kind that we need as we shift from one set of rules to the other.The bill is timely because it is important that it comes at a time when domestic spending is constrained. New Zealand needs to have the right tools to protect its businesses from globalisation and increasing competition where appropriate. We heard yesterday the fact that non-primary exports are down. The Government produced figures showing that the domestic market is booming and part of that of course is to do with the rebuild after the earthquake. There are some positive news stories there for the Government but all the while our exports in the non-primary sector—you know outside the dairy sector—dropped 6.5 percent in real terms last year and that will be a worry for the Government whether it is up front about that or not. It is a concern for any Government to see manufactured exports dropping.The measures here in so far as they protect against businesses losing out in the trade arrangements have got to be a good thing. New Zealand businesses do need a fillip. They need all the support that they can get particularly in a system and a regime right now where we know that those multinational companies that deal in New Zealand get away with so much. We know for example that Google declares less than 5 percent of its revenues out of New Zealand for tax purposes. Those multinational companies have at their disposal the tools that enable them to leverage their advantage their existing scale and so forth. New Zealand businesses need to have the kinds of provisions that make for a level playing field and that ensure that trade is undertaken in a way that is beneficial to New Zealand. Trade safeguard measures are something Labour will support so it is my pleasure to have had the opportunity to take a call on this bill.Labour wants to build an economy that works for all New Zealanders and a fair and just society where all can live in dignity. This is a small step towards that and that is why I am happy to support this bill.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert):I began speaking on this bill the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill some time ago. It is a very uncontroversial bill and certainly the second part is uncontroversial. It is largely technical in its nature. It is really to replace New Zealand’s current safeguards regime with a new regime that is consistent with the World Trade Organization (WTO). That is something that we have been a vanguard on as a country in terms of our policies on free trade. In fact we have eliminated pretty much all of the various tariffs and restrictions in order to enable people to trade into New Zealand. It stands us in good stead with regard to future free-trade arrangements that we might be making with other countries in that we in many ways have already taken the tough decisions that have gone on in the past. So in the future it will be other countries that will have to be making those tough decisions rather than ourselves.However as this bill quite rightly points out there are some issues even within a free-trade environment that we want to be able to protect ourselves from and make sure that we are properly safeguarded from. The existing Act the Temporary Safeguard Authorities Act 1987 has served us well. It has not needed to be implemented or enacted very frequently. That Act was subject to a review under the Labour-led Government. I think it was Lianne Dalziel from memory who enacted that and it included quite a large amount of public consultation. This bill is really a result of the work that went on in that consultation.Not only does this bill produce compliance with the WTO rules but it streamlines the process of responding to allegations of dumped or subsidised goods that might hit our shores. This is really the guts of this bill—in the first part but also of course in the second part which we are talking about here. It ensures that we are well protected against that happening. Of course we have a relatively open border that enables trade to occur. We would like to see free trade occur right across the world. If we had free trade across the world we would not have many of the Third World poverty problems that we have at the moment—if those Third World countries were able to get their goods into developed markets. But we also want to make sure that we safeguard New Zealand our manufacturers and our producers against the dumping that could occur by a less-scrupulous importer that might want to bring in goods that would undermine our market. That was not what we intended our free-trade agreement to stand up to.The purpose of this bill is to make sure that this precaution is put into place. It is more cost-effective. It removes the requirement to establish a temporary safeguard authority. Instead it rolls that in as part of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment—“MoBIE” the long acronym—which is headed by the “Minister for Everything” Steven Joyce so that the ministry now takes that role instead of the quaintly coined temporary safeguard authorities. Instead we use that expertise inside the ministry so it enables it to be more cost-effective.The bill is timely. It is important at a time when domestic spending is constrained that New Zealand has the right tools to enable our ability to expand into markets and ensure that we are well protected from less-scrupulous players that might want to come in here and dump their goods inside our relatively open borders.This is a good piece of legislation. It is something as I said before that was initiated under a Labour Government. It was picked up by Simon Power many many moons ago. Simon Power has left this place and gone on to other things. It has now been picked up finally in the sixth year of this Government—I do not know what else it has been doing—and we welcome its introduction and the need for this piece of legislation.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South):I must commend my colleague David Shearer over there for his politeness on this bill the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill because 6 years is exactly right—that is when this bill first came before Parliament. I guess what the passage of this bill through the House shows us is how long a piece of legislation can get stuck in the Parliament. I think this is the third Minister who has had charge of it. It started off with Simon Power it went through John Banks and now we are up to Craig Foss. I would challenge Minister Foss to get up and give us an exposition on what the bill is about and whether he has actually read it. Nothing personal Mr Foss but the fact is that this bill has taken so long to get through the House through all its stages.In fact I was just looking back through the speeches in the Committee stage when this bill was interrupted which was in 2012. I was reading the speech by our former colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel. The bill was actually introduced by her in the former Labour Government back whenever it was—2008. The bill was actually introduced by her.It is quite a simple bill—it is quite a simple bill. You have got to ask yourself why and what does it take to actually move a bill like this through the House quickly and get it off the Order Paper. We support it. We all support it—well actually I am not sure whether everyone in the House supports it. But it is no real drama. The question really that has to be asked is how this happened. The other question that has to be asked is how much it has cost. What has the cost been not just through the processes of getting the bill through the House—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We are on Part 2.CLARE CURRAN: We are on Part 2 but I think it is a pretty important question given that we are now in 2014. The last Committee stage reading was in 2012. The bill was introduced in 2009—well its first reading was in 2009. It was actually introduced in 2008. I mean seriously. It is a bit of a joke. It is a historical bill. It is a historical bill and actually you have got to wonder whether it is out of date and whether anyone has actually bothered to read it tonight to work out whether it is still relevant.Let us look at what the bill does in Part 2 because that is what we are discussing. It removes the requirement to establish temporary safeguard authorities. They are not very temporary are they if the Government has taken 6 years to remove that. It also enables the existing expertise of get this the Ministry of Economic Development—well that ministry does not even exist any more.I think you have got to ask yourself whether or not this bill is still relevant. In all seriousness I do ask the Minister to comment on that on whether or not the bill has been looked at for relevance tonight and also whether or not anybody has looked at the cost—whether it is in monetary terms or otherwise—of not enacting this bill in a timely manner. Surely if you are putting a bill through the House that actually removes temporary safeguards then you would be thinking that you would have to do that reasonably quickly and that if you do not there would be some impact. So I would be interested to know just what the impact has been of not moving this bill through all of its stages in the House.We are still in the Committee stage on Part 2 of this bill. I have to ask whether we are really going to get to the third reading this year or whether it is going to be another year or two before we actually get through all the phases of this bill. I think it is a good example of just how long it can take for a piece of legislation to get through the House under this Government.JAMI-LEE ROSS (Junior Whip—National):I move That the question be now put.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The question is that the question be now put. Those of that opinion will say Aye to the contrary No. The Ayes have it.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. New Zealand First has not had the right to speak on this bill at all yet.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not so because this bill has been before the Committee before. We have already done Part 1. We are on Part 2. I have been presiding the whole time that we have been on this debate. The member has not taken a call. The Committee will decide whether a closure motion is accepted or not. We had a closure motion and I have put it to the Committee. I will put it again.A party votewas called for on the questionThat the question be now put.Ayes63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes56New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 7; Mana 1.Motion agreed to.Part 2 agreed to.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I just want it on the record that for the second time today New Zealand First the fourth-biggest party in this House has been declined the right to speak on a bill—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That is not a point of order. The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. That is not a point of order. The Committee decided that a closure motion would be accepted. It was voted on and it was passed. The Committee decides not the Chair. The Committee decides whether a closure motion is accepted. That is the process of this Committee. That is the process we have just gone through. That is why I have just put it and it has been passed. We are now moving to the clauses.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I stood as the Labour member was sitting—as she was sitting—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): The member will sit. That is irrelevant. The next speaker who got to have the call was a Government member. A Labour member was speaking; the next call went to the Government member. I accepted the Government member. He moved a closure motion. I put it to the Committee. The Committee decided that the closure motion would be accepted. We have moved on. That is the process. We are now on the clauses.Clauses 1 and 2Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Labour supports this bill the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill although it does raise the question of why we are still debating this bill 6 years after it was first introduced by Lianne Dalziel. If the measures in this bill are truly significant and important one would have expected that the Government would facilitate the passage of this bill well before a 6-year intervening period has passed. That intervening period creates additional difficulties when we come to look at the commencement clause and what this bill is about.The title suggests quite accurately that this is a bill that enables New Zealand to apply safeguard measures and provisional safeguard duties at the border. I am a free-trader. This measure actually is consistent with the World Trade Organization but it is consistent with the measure that was passed by the organisation in 1994 at the end of the Uruguay round which made safeguards permissible. What do we mean by “safeguards”? You put safeguards in place to provide temporary protection to a domestic industry from serious injury that is being caused by imports and you put them in place to facilitate adjustment in a domestic industry to increased competition from imports from outside.But I have some questions to ask of the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce about why we need these. When was the last time that we employed a safeguards measure Minister? Has the Minister got that information? Yes this bill is about safeguard measures but when did we last apply them? Which industries might they still protect? As we have done away with most of our import protections apart from residual tariffs and have entered into a range of free-trade agreements where this will not apply are these measures 6 years after the bill was introduced still relevant? If they are relevant to which industries are they relevant? If they are relevant when was the trade safeguard measure as set out here actually utilised?There are some aspects about trade safeguard measures that are important. There are legitimate trade remedies that we have against certain imports that cause injury to New Zealand industries but they are actually applied in other areas. The Dumping and Countervailing Duties Act 1988 for example allows us to stop people dumping their goods in New Zealand where they are selling their goods in New Zealand for less than they would be selling them at home. That is a legitimate trade safeguard measure.That same Act—an Act that is interestingly 20 years older than the trade safeguard measures legislation that this bill is amending—also means that you can put countervailing duties on where a Government is actually subsidising the product and therefore that product is competing unfairly against New Zealand producers. So there are limits to free trade and that is why the trade safeguard measures that title is about are necessary but I would like the Minister to address the particular point about the normal run-of-the-mill protection against imports that are neither being dumped nor being subsidised. Is there still a need 6 years after this bill was introduced for those sorts of protections; if so in what areas are they needed?The commencement clause clause 2 states that this bill comes into force on the day after it receives the Royal assent. My real question is this: what is the Government’s intention in terms of putting this bill to the Governor-General for the Royal assent because if it has mucked around for 6 years to get the bill even to the Committee stage is it really intending to put this before the Governor-General for him to sign? If this bill was really significant—Dr David Clark: Or her.Hon PHIL GOFF: —would it not have moved much more quickly? Yes—or her because there may be a new Governor-General by the time the Government takes it to Government House. It is a fair question. Why has there been this delay? Once we know the reasons for the delay we might have some inkling as to whether the Government intends to put this bill to the Governor-General for the Royal assent or whether we are just going through the motions here in the Chamber.Why was this bill delayed for 6 years? When clause 2 was put into the bill nobody imagined it would take 6 years to get the bill through the House. So it is a fair question—why has there been a delay? Is it incompetence? Was it a lack of confidence in the previous Minister? Or is there some other reason that led the Government to delay the progressing of this piece of legislation? I would argue that the Government should move quickly to put this bill to the Governor-General for the Royal assent. I said at the start that I am supporting the bill. I cannot understand why the Government has delayed it for so long. Is it still relevant? Those are particular questions that the Minister should address.The reason I support this bill is the reason why Labour introduced it into the House. I support it because it streamlines the process of responding to allegations that goods are being dumped or subsidised. If there is a genuine breach of fair and free trade then obviously you want to deal with that as quickly as possible. The bill removes the temporary safeguard authorities. I think that is actually quite a good thing because I think that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment can now deal with this directly. It does not need to go to a temporary safeguard authority. I do not know whether the temporary safeguard authorities are actually costing us any money but if they are that is another reason why the Government should move with all haste to seek the Royal assent to this bill.I think the bill does something else that is important and that is it creates a more realistic time frame for the investigation of the need for a trade safeguard. At the moment it is something like 35 working days and I think anybody who has worked in this area appreciates that what is proposed in the bill—a 75-working-day period and on some occasions an 85-working-day period—can be justified.I think the other reason why this bill should be put forward for the Royal assent is that it does clearly set out the criteria for ministerial decision-making. In an area like this where you are alleging that there has been dumping or that there has been subsidisation of the product or that the competition is unfair because of a sudden surge of imports you do need to have clear criteria that the Minister acts to. Those criteria include that there is a serious injury to the industry; that the importing of the goods against which safeguards are being sought was an unseen development; that the safeguards are in fact appropriate in their extent in their duration and in their nature; and that the safeguards are in the public interest. It is also important that these safeguards are compatible with the other free-trade agreements that we are in the process of negotiating.I do not know whether anybody can remember when the bill went before the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. It was many years ago. But the committee made some important changes narrowing ministerial discretion—making it clear but narrowing it—to increase certainty on the part of those who are appearing before the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment seeking a safeguard or opposing a safeguard. I think it is important that where a provisional safeguard is put in place but no final duty is levied there be a refund of the duty paid and the select committee made that adjustment. And I think the most obvious and most important thing is that countries may be exempted from provisional safeguards where the World Trade Organization and trade treaties require that.But now that I have got the Minister’s attention again—he was distracted when I raised the questions with him before—in terms of the safeguards applying in instances other than where the product has been subsidised or the product is being dumped when was the last time Minister that a trade safeguard was used? If we are going to pass this legislation we need to know that there is still a need for it. When was the last time that the trade safeguard was used? And what industries today given our low level of protection does he think might need trade safeguards simply because imported goods are causing injury to that industry? Yes if it is dumped and yes if it is subsidised by a foreign Government there is no problem with the safeguard being applied. But in those other instances where those factors do not exist which industries does he think we might need to protect?I think those are important considerations before the Committee in passing this legislation. We need to know that the 6 years that the Government has dawdled over this bill have not made at least some of the provisions in this bill redundant. Why did the delay take place over such a long period of time? Will the Government when this bill receives its third reading actually put it before the Governor-General for the Royal assent? Those are significant questions. I think the Minister should not just sit there silently. He should make an endeavour to answer those questions which are genuine questions.Debate interrupted.VotingCorrection—Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) BillThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Just before I call Andrew Williams there is a correction to the vote on the closure motion on the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill. The Ayes were 63 and the Noes were 56. This correction is not for the bill that we are currently on; it is for the previous bill.Trade (Safeguard Measures) BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed.Clauses 1 and 2 (continued)ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):Thank you very much for the call on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill which was introduced in 2008. Can I also on behalf of New Zealand First just reassert the fact that this bill was brought to the House during a sad dark time in Parliament—when New Zealand First was not in this House between 2008 and 2011. The bill has taken close to 6 years now to be back in this House. But now that we are back in the House in a more enlightened time with New Zealand First here to represent the interests of New Zealanders first I am very pleased to speak on this bill.It is somewhat ironic that I sit on the Local Government and Environment Committee. The Government is very quick to criticise local government for supposedly having what you could regard as being inadequacies in terms of its efficiency according to the Government’s agenda. To therefore see a bill like this which has taken 6 years to get to this point would actually raise the point that if central government takes 6 years for a flimsy bit of paper—a bill that is only 23 pages long—to get through this House then much of the finger-pointing from central government at local government for not doing its job adequately is certainly not founded on any fact at all.This bill is about putting in place safeguards to basically ensure that there is not dumping on our market. It is basically an anti-dumping bill so that if an international organisation were exporting to this country and were seen to be dumping goods here in this market the Minister would have the right to intervene. This is in accordance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and to meet WTO recommendations and standards that this be implemented. Therefore New Zealand First supports it because we do feel that is right and proper. If New Zealand is seen as a dumping ground—and there have been instances where because we are an island nation and because we are away from many of the major markets we have on the odd occasion been seen as a place to conveniently move goods to to get rid of them because we do not have common land borders with other countries. Therefore goods can be offloaded into this market and got rid of without too much effect on any other neighbouring markets. Therefore it is a good measure to give the Minister the ability to move in with safeguards if such an occurrence occurs.Having said that the question does have to be asked whether if this was such a good measure—and it was brought in by the Hon Lianne Dalziel introduced in 2008 under the former Labour Government obviously with the support of the New Zealand First Party at that time—why has the National Government taken all this time to bring in something that basically does safeguard local industry in New Zealand from dumping? It is a sad indictment on this Government and that is no criticism of the current Minister of Commerce because he has obviously been given a hospital pass on this one and he has picked up the ball and is running with it and good on the Hon Craig Foss for doing that. But it is an indictment on his predecessors whoever those Ministers were that this bill has taken this amount of time to get through the House.This measure does give a level of protection to our industry to our manufacturers to our local producers in New Zealand to stop international dumping on our market. New Zealand First has been very adamant that we do have to ensure that this Government does protect what happens here with our industries in New Zealand. It is surprising that this Government has paid lip-service to that by not bringing this bill through the House much quicker than it has. It would be interesting to have this quantified and it would be very interesting to see what instances may have occurred in those years intervening between 2008 and 2014. It would be very interesting in terms of this to see what effects there may have been on some industries. We have seen industries close down in this country and move their manufacturing offshore. We have seen companies in New Zealand sail close to the wind in terms of their economic viability. It would be interesting to see whether in the 6-year period had this bill been in effect in 2009 or 2010 when the National Party which by that stage was in Government some of the trade and industry in New Zealand would have been better protected as a result of having this bill in place.New Zealand First has always said that we will support good policy and we will oppose bad policy. In this instance we believe that this is good policy. This is good for New Zealand and this is good for the economy of New Zealand. We believe it is in the interests of our WTO commitments globally in terms of ensuring that the right rules and protections are in place on the global stage. New Zealand First will therefore be supporting this bill and commending it to the Committee.Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North):I was rather hoping the Minister in the chair the Minister of Commerce would beat me to my feet to answer the questions put to him by Phil Goff around the commencement date—David Shearer: He’s not that quick.Dr DAVID CLARK: My colleagues are making sport with that statement but it was a very real hope. Really it has to do with the date of Royal assent because the point that was very well articulated by Phil Goff was that when this bill the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill has been around for 6 years and purports to deal with an issue—products being subsidised or dumped on the New Zealand market—we need some examples of when this has happened or where it has happened or what industries are under threat currently.Why is it that the Government has introduced this legislation now at this point in time again to the Committee? It has been in abeyance I think for a year since it was last here since Andrew Williams last had the opportunity to speak on it. I heard his concern that this is a different time and the issues need to be raised again and rightly so. The Minister has the opportunity to inform the Committee which industries are under threat and when safeguards were last used as a method of dealing with subsidised or dumped goods. The safeguards are an emergency measure that is applied at the New Zealand border. It is not something that is used from day to day as I understand it but the Minister ought to be able to tell us in that instance—because it will not be an often occurring thing—just which industries are under threat.The pair of shoes that I commonly wear is manufactured locally in Dunedin and is from a small company and I would hate to think that it was being undermined by dumping. It is the last one in New Zealand. McKinlays Footwear is the last company making shoes in a factory on a reasonable scale in New Zealand. It makes a high-quality product. It is not going to be undermined if there are hundreds of faux Italian shoes on the market; it is going to be undermined by a particular type of dumping. Is it under threat? Is it under threat?Non-primary manufactured goods went down 6.5 percent in real terms last year in the 2013 year—David Shearer: What?Dr DAVID CLARK: They went down 6.5 percent in real terms—non-primary manufactured goods.David Shearer: That’s a collapse.Dr DAVID CLARK: That is a collapse. The Minister keeps trying to say there is no crisis in manufacturing. We are not wanting to overstate it but there is a very real issue in terms of the balance of New Zealand’s trade that has not been addressed by this Government. It has not managed to find that balance to get New Zealand into the right space and still we are running up debt. I mean this Government has had 5 years where it has not run a surplus. Labour ran a surplus for 9 out of 9 years. This Government does have a problem balancing the books and it has not found a way of doing that.Presumably these safeguard measures are designed to ensure that small and medium sized enterprises that are manufacturing and exporting—for example like the shoe company I raised—ought to be protected in some way. These rules are designed to bring us into compliance with the World Trade Organization rules that allow the kind of fair trading across borders that protects us against malicious kinds of behaviour designed to undermine competitiveness through one-off dumping manoeuvres.So we support this bill but we are concerned about just what is being protected why and when and whether in fact the Government has any urgency on this at all or whether we are going to see this bill further postponed and pushed out potentially to after the election because the Minister has not given us that comfort around what the urgency is now 6 years on. The bill originally was introduced by the Hon Lianne Dalziel who is now the Mayor of Christchurch during the last Government—Carol Beaumont: A fine woman.Dr DAVID CLARK: A fine woman as my colleague Carol Beaumont says—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.House resumed.The Chairperson reported the Electoral Amendment Bill without amendment the Families Commission Amendment Bill without amendment the Border Processing (Trade Single Window and Duties) Bill without amendment and that the Committee had divided it into two bills and progress on the Trade (Safeguard Measures) Bill.Report adopted.Amended Answers to Oral QuestionsQuestion No. 10 to Minister 6 MarchHon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Pacific Island Affairs):I seek leave to make a personal explanation to correct an answer in question No. 10 on 6 March.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? There is not.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: On 6 March in response to question No. 10 I stated to the House that course completion rates for Pasifika students at all levels were up to 74 percent in 2012 compared with 54 percent in 2007. The correct figure for 2007 is 58 percent.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The record will stand corrected. That ends the day’s business.The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.