Volume 665 Week 49 - Wednesday 28 July 2010 
Volume 665 Week 49 - Wednesday 28 July 2010 
[Volume:665;Page:12741] 
Wednesday 28 July 2010 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Karakia 
. 
Questions to Ministers 
Income Gap Parity with Australia—Minister of Economic Development’s Statement 
1. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he agree with his Minister of Economic Development’s statement yesterday that the current weekly income gap between New Zealand and Australian full-time workers “is certainly a lot less than it was when Labour was in office”? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes and I thank the member for asking. I am advised that the gap between gross average weekly earnings in Australia and New Zealand adjusted for purchasing power parity is currently $160.25. That is certainly a lot less than it was in 2005 when it was $187.60. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why are he and his Minister for Economic Development spreading that misinformation when since the election the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand show that the gap between average weekly earnings in Australia and New Zealand has grown by more than $50 a week in Australia’s favour? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Because it is not a straightforward matter and one can use a number of data series depending on which one someone wants to use. But if I refer to the data series that I am using which the most comparable one between Australia and New Zealand’s gross average weekly earnings I might add that not only is the wage gap smaller now than it was in 2003 but it is smaller than it was in 2004 2005 2006 and 2007. Thank goodness that we have a Government with an economic plan to keep closing that gap. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Point of order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the honourable member I ask for the noise to be a little more reasonable on both sides. While the Prime Minister was answering the question I was struggling to hear the answer. Since the question has been asked I am sure that the answer is important. Likewise the members on the Government side need to be a little more reasonable too. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I seek leave of the House to table a compilation of figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand showing that the wage gap for average weekly earnings has blown out by more than $50 a week. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: A compilation—what’s that? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: To clarify that for the Minister I tell him this was prepared by the New Zealand Parliamentary Library. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: If the Prime Minister is so confident in his own figures why has he moved from saying before the election that the fundamental purpose of his Government would be to close the wage gap to more recently describing that goal as simply aspirational? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: They are one and the same thing. Now that the member has asked me that question I will run through one or two things that form part of the economic plan that will close the gap with Australia. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Resource Management Act reforms tax cuts— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is a point of order. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: The Prime Minister has clearly signalled that he is not going to answer the question but rather will go off on his own tangent. I ask you to bring him back to answering the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The House is a bit excited over this issue and I can understand that but members must obey the Standing Orders. I think in fairness that the question did not really invite the Prime Minister to go through the list of policies that he believes will close the gap. I invite the honourable Leader of the Opposition who has another supplementary question to ask it. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am still waiting to hear the answer to the last question which you said the Prime Minister had not answered. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thought the Prime Minister answered it but then went on to give further information. I cannot ask him to answer it in exactly the way that the Leader of the Opposition may like it to be answered. I think having stopped the Prime Minister from giving further information a further question is now required. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: What does the Prime Minister say to his predecessor and former National leader Don Brash who said on  
The Nation  
last weekend that New Zealand would not catch up with Australia on the National Government’s “present track” and what would he say to Alan Bollard the Governor of the Reserve Bank who said National’s posturing in this way is unrealistic? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I would say that National has an economic plan. It involves cutting taxes building more infrastructure lifting skills reforming the Resource Management Act allocating more money for science and innovation expanding our free-trade policy getting on top of the size of the Government focusing on front-line services looking at labour-market reform and having an absolutely brilliant Minister of Finance to guide us through it. All of that will help us to catch up with Australia. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why would average New Zealand workers believe that they are going to be better off when the statistics show clearly that on average weekly earnings the gap with Australia has blown out by $50 week when from 1 October they will be paying 50 percent more on their consumption tax because he has pushed up GST contrary to his promise and when workers on the average wage and below will still be paying more income tax than their Australian equivalents? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I say exactly the same thing. If the Labour Party wants to reverse the $4 billion worth of personal tax cuts that will come in and help New Zealanders on 1 October it should go ahead and campaign on that. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I invite you to examine the Prime Minister’s answer and whether he made any attempt to answer that question. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There will not be any comments while the Speaker is on his feet. The honourable Leader of the Opposition should go back over the question he asked. Certainly he asked a question but then he added a number of statements one of which the Prime Minister picked up on. One of his statements related to people not being better off because of the tax changes. The Prime Minister picked up on that part of the question and answered it which he is entitled to do. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How does he account for the fact that not only since November 2008 has the wage gap for those on average earnings increased by more than $50 a week but the same statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand show that for the last quarter the rise in Australian wages was five times that of New Zealand workers? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: As I said earlier that is one data series and to see whether it is right we would have to go and look at it. But in the data series that I am looking at the wage gap has narrowed not only compared with the gap in 2003 but compared with the gaps of 2004 2005 2006 and 2007. It took 9 years for Labour to make a complete and utter mess of the economy; it might take a bit longer than that for us to sort it out. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Is the Prime Minister concerned that New Zealand’s labour productivity growth of 3 percent between 1992 and 2000 which exceeded Australia’s then fell under the period of the Labour-led Government to a mere 0.9 percent well below Australia’s; if so is not the lesson we should learn from this that if we destroy incentives by high taxes poorly designed expenditure policies excessive regulation and ever-larger Government spending then we undermine the very basis of higher incomes for working New Zealanders? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: I think the member makes a very good point that if we want to have higher wages in New Zealand then fundamentally we have to have greater levels of productivity. That is one of the reasons why the Government is very focused on moving New Zealand into higher levels of income production so that we can earn more. I might also add that after 9 years of a National Government the gap in wages between New Zealand and Australia was $117 a week and by 2005 it was $187 a week which just shows us how much damage the previous Government did when it was in office for 9 years and what poor economic managers its members were. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Why does the Prime Minister not simply come clean and admit to New Zealanders that far from closing the wage gap with Australia he has actually made it worse? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly I have not. Secondly at least I understand what I am doing. That member does not know whether he is raising GST lowering GST or taking GST off everything from healthy food to hamburgers. That member has not come up with one policy in the entire time that he has been the Leader of the Opposition. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Does the Prime Minister— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask both front benches please to cease making that noise. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: I am happy to stand here Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: But I am not and the House will come to a little order. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that in order to lift productivity and increase New Zealand incomes we need to reverse many of the policy decisions taken by the previous Government such as free student loans and the purchase of KiwiRail; and does he agree that it would be worth taking the recommendation of the next report of the 2025 Taskforce seriously if we really want to make some progress in lifting New Zealand incomes? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: In relation to certain parts of that question no; in relation to the latter part of the question yes we will be taking it seriously. But one of the reasons why the Government is investing billions of dollars into KiwiRail is that despite the previous Government’s paying $1 billion for it we could not give it away let alone sell it. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you whether the Prime Minister when quoting statistics in his reply to my question was quoting from an official document and if so whether he can table those figures. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister appears to be happy to table the document so I take it that the Prime Minister will do that. I would appreciate that. 
Document laid on the Table of the House. 
Overseas Investment Rules—Sale of Land 
2. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he agree with the Prime Minister’s concerns in relation to foreign ownership of New Zealand land that “there is so much wealth out there that they could literally buy New Zealand’s productive base”; if so will he be tightening current foreign ownership rules around the sale of land? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes I do agree with the Prime Minister. New Zealand is a small country with a small asset base compared with any number of other countries or even very large overseas investors. In respect of the current rules about the sale of land there are a significant number of tests in the Act itself. The Overseas Investment Office tests incoming investment against about 20 factors in relation to sensitive land—and that was a piece of legislation I think that was supported by the Green Party and passed by the previous Government. In respect of our review members will just have to wait and see. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does he see any contradiction between the Prime Minister’s concerns about a foreign buy-up of New Zealand land and his meeting earlier this year with the lawyer for the Chinese company trying to buy the Crafar farms—a meeting where the Minister was seeking advice from the lawyer on changing our foreign investment rules? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No and the member has tried many times to make a conspiracy out of that particular discussion. The Government has been quite open about the fact that it was looking at whether there were ways of speeding up and reducing the cost of the approval process. We have made some gains in that respect but that was in the context of a review where we quite openly said we want to ensure that this is a process that can work for investors at the same time as addressing the valid concerns New Zealanders have about foreign investment. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: In the light of the Minister’s openness on this issue will he consider widening the list of advisers on the review of the Overseas Investment Act beyond the technical reference group given that this group is stacked with lawyers working on behalf of firms such as China’s Natural Dairy which is trying to buy the Crafar farms? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The problem with the member’s position is that he objects to the Government talking to anyone who actually uses the Act. It would be ridiculous to review the Act without talking to the people who use it. That involves lawyers investors and I might also point out a large number of New Zealanders who sell their assets to foreign owners and do so voluntarily. We have consulted a whole range of people who use the Act. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Can he provide us with the names of people he has consulted with who wish to strengthen the Overseas Investment Regulations rather than weaken them? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I have spoken with a lot of people who want to strengthen the Act—so many that I could not give the member a list of names. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does he agree that if we sign trade deals with countries such as China to get access for our dairy products into the Chinese market and then sell all our dairy farms to Chinese interests we are mugs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: That is hypothetical. As far as I know New Zealand has not sold all of its dairy farms to the Chinese Government. 
Economy—Reports 
3. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received showing progress in turning around the New Zealand economy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I have received a number of reports. It is important to remember that in 2008 the Government inherited an economy that was already in recession from early 2008 before the rest of the world and that then had a further deepening of that recession because of the global financial crisis. In the 3 years to 2008 per capita incomes in New Zealand dropped by 0.5 percent per year. By comparison other economies similar to ours—such as the Australian and US economies—saw per capita incomes rise. We have a very substantial turn-round job to do to lift incomes in New Zealand and to rebalance this economy towards exporting and earning rather than spending consumption and excessive Government spending. 
Todd McClay 
: How has the economy performed over the past year and how is this reflected in per capita income? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We would not expect a rapid turn-round after so much damage was done in the previous decade of economic management. Statistics New Zealand states that annual GDP growth has now reached 1.9 percent; per capita GDP increased 0.6 percent in the latest March quarter compared with a year earlier. That is a 0.6 percent increase compared with the 0.5 percent decrease that we saw for 3 years in a row from 2005 to 2008. It is also worth pointing out that average wages in New Zealand were distorted through the latter period of the Labour Government by very substantial increases in public sector wages. Those kinds of big annual increases are clearly unsustainable. We will now have to lift incomes with real increases in wealth through our export sector not through pumping up Government spending. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Which of his reports suggests that he supports the Prime Minister’s expectation that New Zealand would grow aggressively out of the recession or does he now think that that prediction was wrong given that New Zealanders’ incomes are falling further behind Australia’s? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There is a rather different situation in the two countries because of the mismanagement of the previous Government. New Zealand had a recession and Australia did not and we are now trying to repair the significant damage done by a recession and a fall in per capita incomes engineered by the previous Labour Government. As the Prime Minister said I suspect that that will take some time. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does he agree with  
Business Week  
that the likely increase in the official cash rate tomorrow results in part from his policies to raise GST which will flow through to price and wage expectations? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No I do not because the Governor of the Reserve Bank has been quite explicit that the Reserve Bank has the power to look through one-off pressures on inflation like the increase in GST. Of course New Zealanders will be better off because the reduction in their income tax rates from 1 October is significantly larger than the increase in GST. 
Todd McClay 
: How will the Government’s tax package on 1 October further improve the take-home income of New Zealanders? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The tax package will leave someone on the average wage about $15 a week better off after taking account of the increase in GST and an average family will be about $25 a week better off after taking account of GST. Under the changes on 1 October 73 percent of all New Zealand earners will face a top statutory tax rate of 17.5 percent—that is everyone who earns up to $48000 will have a statutory tax rate of 17.5 percent. We believe that this is vital to the incentives for New Zealanders to get ahead because after all many New Zealanders are aspirational and would like to raise their incomes. They have a Government that recognises that. 
Todd McClay 
: What impact will the tax package have on New Zealand’s competitiveness with Australia? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: There are any number of ways of measuring competitiveness with Australia. Before this tax package on a straight dollar-for-dollar basis all Australians earning up to $228000 a year were paying less tax than New Zealanders on comparable incomes. From 1 October that figure reduces to about $55000. In other words all New Zealanders earning more than $55000 a year will be paying less tax than Australians pay on the same income. Our company tax rate will also be more competitive because our 28 percent tax rate which takes effect from the 2011-12 year will be 2c lower than Australia’s for 2 years and then 1c lower permanently depending on whether the Australian Government maintains the position it has currently taken on company tax. 
Question No. 2 to Minister 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I seek leave to table two documents regarding the links between Bill English’s office and the Crafar farms. The first is an email from the Overseas Investment Office dated 5 February— 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Well a point of order is actually being heard. I invite the member to wait a moment and I will hear what Dr Russel Norman is seeking leave to do and then I will hear the Hon Bill English. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: It is with regard to the previous question. I should have tabled it at the end of the previous question but that was an oversight on my behalf. It is an email from the Overseas Investment Office dated 5 February of this year to Bill English’s office identifying who the lawyers are for Natural Dairy. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Does the member wish to seek a point of order before I seek for that document to be tabled? 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My point of order is that the member can seek leave to table documents but he cannot seek leave to make false statements like that. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I guess I made the rod for my own back there. The member should not be saying that under a point of order but I understand the point he is making. I just ask the member in describing the next document that he seeks leave to table to be careful how he describes it. Leave is sought to table that particular email. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: I seek leave to table a further email about communication from the lawyers for Natural Dairy to Mr English’s office dated 5 February about their intention to purchase the Crafar farms. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Overseas Investment—Minister’s Statements 
4. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by all his recent statements on foreign direct investment? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 Yes. New Zealand’s economy needs a certain level of foreign investment in order to grow. The figures currently are that New Zealanders are foreign investors to the extent of $55 billion in other countries and other countries have investments of around $65 billion in New Zealand. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Who was correct about the current review of the overseas investment regime: this Minister who wanted to make the sale of farmland easier or John Key who said the review was to stop the sell-off of large tracts of land to foreign buyers? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Both of those representations are incorrect. We made it clear from the start of the overseas investment review that we wanted to facilitate the flow of investment into New Zealand at the same time as protecting those things that are important to New Zealanders. That has not changed. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: What has been achieved by the first stage of the Government’s review of the Overseas Investment Act? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government is focused on administrative and regulatory changes in order to reduce the time and the cost of getting decisions because that is in the interests of both New Zealand asset owners and investors who are looking for certainty. I am pleased to say that those changes have simplified the process and played a role in reducing the average application time from 63 days in August 2009 to just 38 days over the last 10 months. We need to keep in mind that we have to strike the right balance between access to overseas investment which is critical to the creation of jobs and the payment of wages in New Zealand and making sure we protect those things that New Zealanders value about our country and our landscape. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: When he said: “We don’t want to get overly concerned about it”—the sale of farmland—“if it’s just another cycle.” did he mean he had no objection to “New Zealanders becoming tenants in their own country.”? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No I meant what I said. The fact is that New Zealand has always had an inflow of overseas investment into land in New Zealand and it continued in the 9 years under the previous Labour Government. I was making the observation that sometimes we get a wave of overseas investment. People realise they cannot make money out of farming in New Zealand and if they do not live it and love it they end up selling and going away. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: When making decisions about overseas investment rules which does he consider more important: official advice from Treasury polling data from Crosby/Textor or public statements by John Key? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: What is most important is the common sense of a pragmatic and moderate National Government that has had pretty good support from the public to tidy up this economy get their incomes up provide them with secure jobs and protect those aspects of New Zealand that they hold dear. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Does he share the Prime Minister’s lack of concern over the sale of individual farms; if so can he explain the difference between an overseas investor buying 16 Crafar farms in one transaction and buying the farms in 16 different transactions? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Act that that member’s Government wrote deals only with applications whether it is for one farm or 10 farms and it applies a range of tests including character tests and tests of benefit to New Zealand. The member was administering the Act himself; he should know how it works. 
Roading Auckland—Western Ring Route Progress 
5. 
PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What progress has been made on the western ring route Road of National Significance? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I am pleased to report that yesterday morning the $230 million duplicate Manukau Harbour Crossing opened to traffic 7 months early. Realising the benefits of this harbour crossing project sooner will come as a huge relief to the 80000 motorists using the route to travel between central and south Auckland and the airport everyday. I was pleased to have the opportunity to open the bridge on Sunday with the Prime Minister where we had the opportunity to thank the workers for a job well done. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: What effect has the Government’s funding policy had on completing projects like the Manukau Harbour Crossing? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The Government’s $10.7 billion commitment to State highway building over 10 years has provided a secure funding pipeline that has given contractors the confidence to continue investing in people and machinery which helps complete projects more quickly. The Manukau Harbour Crossing project has now finished 7 months ahead of schedule. The contractors have achieved this by using innovative construction techniques and improving their planning methods. The acceleration mirrors the southbound part of the $215 million Newmarket viaduct project which the Transport Agency announced this month would be open 6 months earlier than planned in early 2011. 
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga 
: What benefits will the western ring route bring to Auckland’s economy? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The western ring route will provide a 48-kilometre alternative to State Highway 1 between Albany and Manukau City. It will bypass the city to the west and link Manukau Auckland Waitakere and the North Shore. Completing the route is critical to Auckland’s economic transformation. It will improve growth and productivity through more efficient movement of freight and people and its effects will be felt beyond its immediate route right into the central motorway junction. The Government’s funding plan will allow it to be achieved well ahead of time and to the benefit of Auckland. 
Income Gap Parity with Australia—Figures for December 2008 and March 2010 
6. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Economic Development 
: What was the gap expressed in New Zealand dollars between the average gross weekly wage or salary paid to an adult full-time worker in Australia compared with New Zealand in December 2008 and what was the gap in March 2010? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 I start by acknowledging the very specific nature of the member’s question and its attempt to cherry-pick the measures relative to wage movements between our two countries. In making this calculation we are reliant on a number of factors so I will set out in detail the calculation for the benefit of the House. Advice from Statistics New Zealand is that the two most comparable statistical series are for New Zealand the Statistics New Zealand quarterly employment survey or QES which shows that the total average weekly earning series rose from NZ$914.05 in November 2008 to NZ$959.13 in March 2010 and for Australia the most appropriate measure is the Australian Bureau of Statistics total average weekly earnings for full-time earners series which shows that earnings rose from A$1210.80 in December 2008 to A$1290.70 in March 2010. To equate the Australian series into New Zealand dollars for comparison using the relevant purchasing power parity factor of 1.0226 we can make a conversion to New Zealand dollars. The purchasing power parity figure for March 2010 is not yet available but to be fair to the member we have decided to provide an approximate answer and we have used the same purchasing power parity adjustment figure. It should also be noted that these are gross figures which do not relate to what the average worker would receive as take-home pay. I can inform the House that the Australian figure equates to NZ$1228.16 in December 2008 and NZ$1319.86 in March 2010. This represents a fall in the relative position of the New Zealand worker of approximately 1.1 percent compared with an Australian worker over the same period of time. This means that the gap measured by these particular series on this particular cherry-picked number has gone from NZ$314.11 to $360.73. The Government has a comprehensive economic programme to address that gap. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There will not be more. The answer was quite long enough. 
Hon David Parker 
: Is he confirming that the gap grew by more than $50 a week? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That would entirely depend on which series the member wants me to answer from. If he would like to be specific about the series I will give him a specific answer. I gave him a long answer before because I know that he spent the morning poring over the spreadsheets celebrating New Zealand workers earning less than Australians. 
Hon David Parker 
: Is he denying that the gap grew by more than $50 a week? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: When the member makes it clear which series of numbers he wants me to comment on I will give him an appropriate comment. I have given him a very full answer. If he could not work out from that exactly what the picture is I cannot help him. 
Hon David Parker 
: Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister that the document that the Prime Minister tabled today shows that the wage gap adjusted for purchase price parity has narrowed since the election or has the Minister read that document properly and seen that even on those numbers the gap has grown wider? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I find it difficult for the member to make that claim when in fact the gap was $117.07 a week in 1999 had risen to $187.60 a week in 2005 and now in 2010 sits at $160.25 a week. The difference between $187.60 and $160.25 is a narrowing of the gap. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Minister confirm that in the massaged figures tabled by the Prime Minister himself the gap has actually increased from $137 a week when Labour left office to $160 a week now—a widening of the gap of about 14 percent on the Prime Minister’s own massaged figures? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: No because we are talking about a series of figures. If members want to cherry-pick and say the best that Labour ever did while in Government was get the gap to the figure he just mentioned that would be a sad indictment on that Government’s ambition for New Zealanders. 
Amy Adams 
: What impact will the Government’s 1 October income tax cuts have on relative after-tax incomes between New Zealand and Australia? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: When the— 
Hon Member 
: Oh it’s a series now is it? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is the problem that we have. We get a simple question about money going into people’s pockets and the Opposition wants to talk about— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister was asked a question and he does not need to go into talking about problems with regard to the question. The questioner was his own colleague and I am sure that he can answer her. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: It is not surprising that the Opposition does not want to hear the answer because when our tax cuts kick in on 1 October the gap between after-tax wages in New Zealand and Australia will have narrowed since 2008. In December 2008 an adult full-time worker in New Zealand received a net $726 per week compared with $964 in Australia—a gap of $238. That is net after tax. As at March 2010 these figures were $774 for a New Zealand worker and $1021 for an Australian worker which is a gap of $247. The tax cuts will shift these figures to NZ$803 and A$1030 reducing the net pay gap by more than $20 per week to $227. 
Hon David Parker 
: Which of the Government’s economic development initiatives contributed most to the widening of the wage gap: the cycleway the Job Summit the financial services hub Chinese broadband investment or mining in national parks? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: If the member had listened he would know that his question was ridiculous. But I can tell him that the wage gap will narrow because the Government has a comprehensive programme that includes Resource Management Act reform tax cuts massive investment in infrastructure considerable investment in skills and education science and innovation investment not seen in this country before free-trade agreements by the score a trade focus from our agencies such as there has never been before a focus on front-line services labour-market reform and a reduction in the size of the Government. The list could go on and on. Those are all positive initiatives and they are reasons why the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand will continue to narrow. 
Hon David Parker 
: How much more will the wage gap grow before his Government admits that it is failing to meet its election promise? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The information is all there for members to see. It is now in  
Hansard 
; there has been information tabled. The proposition being put by Mr Parker is completely wrong. He is starting to look like Don Quixote running outside and looking for a windmill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That last bit was unnecessary. 
Hon David Parker 
: Which is widening faster: the ever-widening wage gap with Australia or his Government’s credibility? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I seek leave of the House to table poll results later today to show also how preposterous that question was. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would be most interested to see the National— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will resume his seat. We will deal with the Hon David Parker first. The member was under no doubt that the Speaker was on his feet and he just continued regardless of that. I realise that members have had quite a robust exchange over this issue and I realise that the way that figures are treated can make a difference to how they are seen but when I am on my feet the member will resume his seat. If he wishes to raise a point of order I will hear it but I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour again. 
Hon David Parker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I was seeking clarification as to the poll that he wanted to table. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order because the member did not seek leave to table any particular document at all. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: He did. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member did not raise a point of order and get my approval to seek leave to table a document so no leave has been sought to table a document. The Minister as I heard him was answering the Hon David Parker’s question and I was weighing up in my mind whether what the Minister said could in any shape or form be considered to be an answer. I reflected on the question asked by the Hon David Parker and I felt that given the question maybe it could be considered to be an answer. I think that is where I will leave it. 
Alcohol Outlets Sale to Minors—Zero-tolerance Policy 
7. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Will the Government adopt a zero-tolerance policy to liquor outlets selling to under-age minors in line with the zero-tolerance policy it intends to adopt towards youth drink-drivers; if not why not? 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 No final decisions have been made on the Government’s response to the Law Commission’s report on alcohol. However good progress has been made and I expect to be able to report back to Parliament shortly. I note that tougher penalties for offences under the Sale of Liquor Act including sale to minors were specifically contemplated in the commission’s report. In the meantime the Government is focused on effective enforcement of existing law and I am advised that the number of premises visited in controlled-purchase operations such as the one in Porirua over the weekend of 24 to 25 July has increased from 991 in 2005-06 to 1547 in 2008-09. Greater enforcement has led to a corresponding drop in the number of outlets selling alcohol to minors. 
Rahui Katene 
: Does he agree that the endless creation of liquor stores makes alcohol more accessible and will only add to the binge-drinking culture amongst young people; and what advice has he received from the Minister of Youth Affairs about this issue? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: Broadly yes it has that potential. In respect of the matter relating to the Minister of Youth Affairs I have received some advice that supports moves to limit alcohol outlets because of the impact it has on younger people. 
Rahui Katene 
: Has he read the comments of Tokoroa Community Ministries manager Colin Bridle that the town is “awash in liquor” and that every day he gets to “pick up the pieces” of the binge-drinking culture; and what power can communities such as Tokoroa call on to prevent yet another liquor store opening in their areas? 
Hon SIMON POWER 
: I have not seen the specific comments but the Law Commission report made specific recommendations about local communities being able to have a much greater say on the granting of liquor licences and indeed on the grounds for objection against liquor licences. I can tell the House today that the Government is looking very closely at that particular recommendation. 
Student Loans—Prime Minister’s Statements 
8. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement about the student loan scheme that “economically it doesn’t really stack up”; if so what if anything is he going to do to make the scheme “stack up”? 
Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes. Yesterday I was referring to the fact that the Government’s student loan book is now $11 billion but for every dollar we lend we collect just 53c back. In the Budget the Minister for Tertiary Education Steven Joyce announced changes to the system to make it fairer for both the taxpayers who fund it and the students who access it. The changes included requiring students to pass 50 percent or more of their full-time courses over 2 years to be able to keep borrowing a lifetime limit on access to student loans preventing permanent residents and Australians from accessing a student loan until they have lived in this country for at least 2 years and increasing the StudyLink student loan administration fee. To help students get out of debt sooner we have introduced an early repayment bonus and we have a highly successful voluntary bonding scheme available for doctors nurses midwives veterinarians and of course teachers. 
Grant Robertson 
: When he told Victoria University students yesterday that “there has to be a better way of doing it” in relation to interest-free student loans what better way did he have in mind? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: Firstly all the initiatives that were announced in the Budget; and secondly the Minister for Tertiary Education is looking at ways to improve collection of loans from overseas-based borrowers. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he guarantee that his Government will not reintroduce interest on student loans? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: It is my intention to keep interest-free student loans. 
Grant Robertson 
: Does he stand by his statement in this House that interest-free student loans were an unaffordable and irresponsible cost to this country; if so will his Government be reintroducing interest on student loans? 
Hon JOHN KEY 
: No to the latter and yes to the former and the reason is that it is factually correct. When Labour was in Government it had the audacity to go out and tell the New Zealand public it would cost $100 million in the first year for interest-free student loans rising to a total of $300 million a year. I am advised that the current cost is $408 million and potentially rising. 
Methamphetamine—Border Seizures 
9. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
 to the  
Minister of Customs 
: What reports has he received on seizures of pure methamphetamine at the border? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 In operations for the first 6 months of this year the Customs Service reports that it intercepted approximately 14 kilograms of pure methamphetamine or P at the border involving 14 incidents. That compares with just under 200 grams for the same time period last year involving only three incidents. For all of 2009 the Customs Service intercepted just under 11 kilograms of P involving 12 incidents. 
Shane Ardern 
: What reports has he received on seizures of methamphetamine precursor at the border? 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: The situation in respect of precursor is even better. For the first 6 months of this year the Customs Service reports that it seized 630 kilograms of methamphetamine or P precursor at the border. That amount of precursor would produce up to 178 kilograms of P with a street value of around $178 million and cause around $72 million worth of harm to the community. Last year the Customs Service intercepted a record amount of 1.2 tonnes of the precursor strangling the supply to those who would peddle the P scourge to our communities. 
Employment Sick Leave Policy Changes—Unreasonable Grounds 
10. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: Does she stand by her statement in relation to the proposed sick leave changes “we do not insist on unreasonable grounds for anything”; if so does she understand the difference between insisting on and allowing unreasonable grounds? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 Yes; and yes. 
Darien Fenton 
: When she said that removing the need for employers to have reasonable grounds for requiring proof of sickness was “clarifying the law” did she mean to clarify the law so that employers will not have to have any reasonable grounds whatsoever to suspect sick leave is not genuine? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: What I meant was that the proposal is meant to clarify the law making it much simpler to understand and to implement. The requirement of reasonable grounds does not offer any assistance as to what it actually means as it is a matter of interpretation. In practice although I do not expect this provision to be used much more than it currently is it is a small change merely to clarify the existing law. 
Darien Fenton 
: Has she read the research conducted by Southern Cross Healthcare last year which found that the majority of cost incurred by employers for sickness was not from sick leave but from lost productivity from those who go to work when they are sick; if so why is she proposing to exacerbate that problem with this policy? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I do not accept that this exacerbates that problem. All this does is clarify; it is a simple change to clarify the current law making it simpler and easier to understand and to implement. 
Darien Fenton 
: Is she aware that New Zealand workers are already entitled to fewer sick leave days than nearly every other comparable country including Australia; if so how does this Government expect to stop our best and brightest from leaving for Australia where they offer both better wages and better leave? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: They will stop leaving New Zealand to go to Australia because we have the best Government we have had in 10 years and the very best Prime Minister we have had in 10 years. 
Rheumatic Fever—Cost to New Zealand 
11. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: What advice has she received about the cost to New Zealand of rheumatic fever for which New Zealand has rates 14 times the OECD average? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Rangatira. The Ministry of Health has advised that rheumatic fever hospitalisation costs are approximately $10 million per annum. The ministry is co-funding an economic analysis of cost-effective strategies for managing rheumatic fever. Those results are expected in October 2010. 
Kevin Hague 
: Does she regard her Government’s plan for dealing with rheumatic fever as outlined by Minister Ryall in this House on 16 June as adequate; if not what has been added to the plan since then especially as there is no immunisation programme for rheumatic fever even though immunisation was a crucial part of the plan that Mr Ryall outlined? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: My understanding is that the streptococci infection that causes rheumatic fever has a number of strains and this is the reason why a vaccination programme has not taken place in New Zealand at this time. 
Kevin Hague 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked whether she regarded the Government’s plan as adequate and if it was not what had been added to the programme since then. I do not believe that the answer addressed that question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: But I seem to recollect the member including in his question something specifically about vaccination programmes. I seem to recollect his including that in his question. That is the piece the Minister answered. 
Kevin Hague 
: What does her Government intend to do to address overcrowding and poverty the main contributing factors to this disease? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: The Ministry of Health is already beginning to work across the range of Government agencies because we know that the health system alone cannot address the significant issues that impact on families who have children with rheumatic fever. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: How will the increase in GST which will put further pressure on family budgets and the significant cut in the public health budget—both measures that were in the Budget this year which was supported by the Associate Minister’s party—help address issues such as our rheumatic fever rates? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: The ministry’s programme is comprehensive and seeks to address the determinants and to boost primary prevention and secondary treatment which are both important planks in managing rheumatic fever. The ministry’s programme includes providing leadership across the health and rheumatic fever sector looking for evidence and accountability looking at prevention by collaboration across Government agencies and local government to address determinants and communicating and working with communities and health professionals to improve health literacy and recognition of rheumatic fever. The ministry is rolling out the checking of throats—making it important. In all areas where we have high incidence of rheumatic fever those things are being carried out. 
Kevin Hague 
: I seek leave to table a document entitled “Why we still need to think of rheumatic fever”. It was published by the  
Best Practice Journal  
in May 2008 and sets out the problems with rheumatic fever and some successful approaches to it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Museums Regional—Support 
12. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
 to the  
Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage 
: What recent announcements has the Government made about support for regional museums? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage) 
: 
 The Government has announced a grant of $6 million for the redevelopment of the Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery and that comes after an announcement of funding for the New Zealand Portrait Gallery to help secure permanent premises for its collection of nationally significant works. The Hawke’s Bay redevelopment project involves multiple existing buildings and the construction of a new wing as well as refurbishment of the museum’s main 1936 building. I acknowledge the outstanding work of local MPs Craig Foss and Chris Tremain in advocating for the region’s interests. 
Chris Tremain 
: How will the grant support the people and communities of Hawke’s Bay? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Funding for the Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery will ensure that visitors to Hawke’s Bay and its residents have much better access to its nationally significant collections which include taonga Maori New Zealand design and fine art. [ 
Interruption 
] Oh yes I will go. The people of Hawke’s Bay have a real sense of ownership of their museum and art gallery—[ 
Interruption 
]—and I am very sorry that the chief Opposition whip is sneering at that. Families have donated objects for generations local fund-raising has been particularly effective and this grant gives their treasures the setting they deserve. I note for the record that the deputy leader of the Labour Party was sneering as well. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: What assurances can the Minister give that the Labour-established Regional Museums Fund will continue once current funding has been fully allocated and spent? 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: The scheme is a very good scheme and more would have been available this year had not Helen Clark forward-committed huge sums of money. 
General Debate 
Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. I will use this call as an opportunity to take a general look at the trade debate in New Zealand to see where we stand. If we look at this debate from the perspective of what the Prime Minister has just said in relation to productivity we see that it is absolutely clear that the only way through this is to increase our trade performance. Trade performance is linked intimately to productivity performance. It is a complicated issue about which comes first—higher productivity or exporting. 
We know from our long experience of excellence in agriculture that once we get locked into a situation where not the New Zealand domestic market but the world market is the market of great concern we are locked into a virtual circle of higher productivity increases constant innovation and world-class marketing. That means frankly a better future for New Zealand with better paid jobs which is why we have to move more and more space into that area in the years ahead. 
The Prime Minister has put this very simply in explaining the situation to New Zealanders: we will not get richer by selling to ourselves. We have taken then a whole suite of policy measures many of them going well beyond what people traditionally conceive of as the trade debate to try to move New Zealand over a period of the next 5 to 10 years into a better space. They are issues about regulatory reform and improving our infrastructure and they even involve cleaning up the tail end of our education system. In the knowledge economy we are all living in nowadays we cannot tolerate a situation where some 20 percent of New Zealanders are having 10 years of compulsory education and coming out functionally illiterate and innumerate. 
There is a whole suite of policies but given my responsibilities let me focus on the trade negotiations side. We have a situation that if we look at it at the biggest level of aggregation is truly fascinating. Basically as others have put it what is happening historically is that the world’s wealth is moving back fundamentally to where the most people in the world live. We are moving into a situation where I think that New Zealand is getting a real return from three decades of intensive attempts to try to integrate ourselves more into the Asian region and this is fundamentally an Asian story. There are the two giant superpowers emerging. China obviously is well ahead of the other India and it is very important that we are able to position ourselves with these two great countries in the most appropriate way. I acknowledge the contribution the previous Government has made to this debate. 
The basic reality is that about 70 percent of our exports are now in the Asia-Pacific region and Mr Speaker himself made a contribution to that earlier in his own career. I see now that the Australian market is part of that same triangle. Australia takes 23 percent of our exports which is about double the percentage of exports going to our second-largest export market China. I think the reason why Australia escaped the recession is fundamentally that that country too has been able to link into the Asian growth story perhaps in an even more effective way than us. But the fact is that we are able to exploit these opportunities now and we have an excellent framework for doing that. I think the chances are that we will make even more progress in the future than in the past. 
We now have an excellent trade relationship with South-east Asia and our exports to the ASEAN region are increasing at about the compound average rate of 11 percent per annum. The explosive growth in China is really exciting and a huge fillip for us. I think about some of the debates we might have had about domestic policy settings 15 to 20 years ago—for example the water debate in this country. A lot of people are quite rightly focusing on the need for us to use more efficiently the enormous amount of water that lands on New Zealand without actually contributing anything because it just runs straight off the land. If we asked anyone involved in New Zealand trade a decade ago whether it would make sense economically to invest a lot in better water infrastructure I think the answer would have been “Well probably not. We have enough trouble finding markets for our existing agriculture exports.” But the situation we face now is good it is getting better and it will involve many new opportunities and better paid jobs for all New Zealanders. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 The Government confirmed in the House this afternoon in question time that the wage gap between New Zealand and Australian workers has widened significantly. We put up a figure provided by the Parliamentary Library to show that the wage gap between New Zealand workers and Australian workers had increased by over $50 a week. John Key came back with the best-massaged figures that he could find and even his figures tabled in the House on request showed that the gap had risen by $23 per week for the average worker since the election. This is the same John Key who went to this country before the last election and promised that the fundamental purpose of his Government would be to close that wage gap. On his own admission today he has failed. 
Not only will those workers find that they are more than $50 a week further behind their Australian counterparts but on 1 October this year each one of those workers will be paying 50 percent more in consumption tax than their Australian counterparts despite the fact that Gerry Brownlee and John Key promised this country there would be no rise in GST. They broke that promise. They broke their word. For the sake of the next speaker who will try to tell us that income tax has been cut I say that that is true for Cabinet Ministers. They will be paying 33c in the dollar while their Australian counterparts are paying 45c. That is for Cabinet Ministers. Ordinary working New Zealanders on or below the average wage will continue to pay more tax than their Australian counterparts. New Zealanders have a widening gap with Australia in wages pay 50 percent more in consumption tax and still pay more in income tax than their Australian equivalents. 
We have heard all sorts of rhetoric from National about how it was going to close the gap. Gerry Brownlee came into the House and said that he had had a great idea for a step change. The Government was going to dig up our national parks. What a shambles! That Minister was absolutely humiliated last week—absolutely humiliated. His job is under threat. Members should have no doubt that his job is under threat and he is an underperformer in that Cabinet. But there are a lot of those which may help him. 
What about the Job Summit? The Job Summit was to produce a whole lot more jobs but what did we get? We got almost nothing—nothing. The Australians produce jobs; the Job Summit failed. Then of course there were the other bright ideas by John Key such as New Zealand as a world financial services hub and New Zealand partnered by the Chinese to deliver broadband. What happened to those ideas? Where have those ideas gone? They were gone by lunchtime. Then there was the 2025 Taskforce which was supposed to close the gap. The day that its report was announced it was dumped in another shambles by this Government. 
All of those things show that there is no plan. There is no plan to close the gap; the gap is widening. The Government has failed. Don Brash the former National Party leader said that. He said that on its current policy track the Government will not close the gap. Then there is Alan Bollard; he is a neutral public servant. He said that that sort of posturing from the National Government was “unrealistic”. That was the politest word he could use. 
The difference between Labour and the National Party is that Labour has a plan. We have a plan for skill training because we know that we need to upskill New Zealanders their capacity and their productivity. We will not be locking out 5000 students from tertiary education as this Government has over the last couple of weeks. We will not be running down the apprenticeship system as National is again. Labour has a plan to invest in research and development because we know that we need a smart economy. Australia has increased investment in research and development by 25 percent; this Government cut the 15 percent tax credit for research and development. It dumped the $700 million Fast Forward fund. This Government has failed on every front. It has no plan. New Zealanders deserve better. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture) 
: 
 Labour members have a plan. Their plan is about what they will not do. Will they roll back the GST increases? No. Will they roll back the tax cuts? No. Will they roll back the changes to the Resource Management Act? No. Will they roll back the changes to the Building Act? No. Will they roll back all the roads that Steven Joyce has funded? No. Will they take out the insulation and clean heating that we are going to put into about 180000 houses across the country including 20000 State houses so far? No. Will they take back the couple of hundred million dollars we have invested in schools in the last 18 months? No. In other words Labour members will not reverse a single thing that National has done in the last 15 to 18 months. That is a wonderful test of what they really think about the policies that John Key has led forward so far. 
John Key has put forward a growth enhancing tax system that rewards work rewards effort and rewards saving. He has put forward a depreciation regime whereby property investors can no longer claim depreciation to the extent that they could. I will tell the House what Labour members said when that depreciation regime came in for property investors. They said that it would put up rents and that people on lower incomes would suffer. Do members know what Labour’s answer to that was? It was a capital gains tax. Phil Goff will be campaigning on that at the next election and I am looking forward to it. He believes that a capital gains tax will be the answer and apparently that it will not put up the cost of rents for people on lower incomes. We look forward to that policy being rolled out next year for the next general election. 
Our policies include better smarter public services lifting education and skills and boosting infrastructure. As I have mentioned we have increased funding for roads State housing housing generally with the Warm Up New Zealand package in terms of insulation and clean heating and infrastructure investment into schools. These measures all stimulate the economy during a recession. 
We are cutting red tape and regulation. As I say we have made changes to the Resource Management Act. No one can experience that that change is necessary more than a marine farmer and I will spend some time on that. The previous Government decided to choose marine farming as the horse it was going to flog. The first decision Labour made when it came into Government was to have a moratorium on new marine farms while it thought about solving the problem. The second thing it did with marine farming was pass a second bill to extend the moratorium. It was flogging a dead horse. First Labour shot the horse and it fell down. Then Labour put another bullet in the horse to make sure it was dead. Then Labour passed the marine farming reforms which essentially prohibited marine farming in every area except for areas where the council designated marine farming could occur and no council in the last 5 years has found any new marine farming space for aquaculturalists. In other words Labour resurrected the horse—Phar Lap—and put it on sleeping pills. Labour shot the horse dead resurrected the horse and now it is on sleeping pills. 
This Government when it came into office began the push of aquaculture reforms that will see the industry grow to be worth a billion dollars by 2025. I do not know why Labour members say that they have policy when their only policy is not to reverse everything that National has done and simply to introduce a capital gains tax at the next election. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 If we were in Government one thing we would reverse is the movement of the wage gap with Australia which is going the wrong way. We would try to reverse that. 
Nicky Wagner 
: You had 9 years. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Actually if the member looks at the statistics she will see that we reduced the wage gap. It is amateur hour at the moment on the Government benches. One mistake after another has been made by the Minister for Economic Development and the Government’s poll-driven politics are coming apart at the seams. 
What have we seen in the last 2 weeks? We have seen the Government at last being pilloried by the media for the vacuous nature of its promise to catch up with Australian wages by 2025. Why is it being pilloried? It is because all of a sudden—we have heard all of these metaphors relating to horses from the previous speaker Phil Heatley—the stable is empty for the National Government when it comes to policy ideas that will bridge the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia. 
Let no one forget that the big mantra at the last election from the National Party was that it would close the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia. National members said that they would do it by 2025. We were always suspicious that that estimate was flaky because in 2025 those members will no longer be in this House. They will no longer be in Government. In my lifetime there has never been a 15-year Government. In democracy there is a change inside of 15 years so those members will not be here to be held accountable in 2025 as to whether they have achieved that target. 
This country deserves milestones against which the Government can be judged. Do we have any? We have none that this Government will commit to. Gerry Brownlee even admitted at a select committee a few weeks ago that the Government has none and that it intends to have none. That is why the Opposition has been asking the Government what its plan is. We have heard all sorts of insignificant ideas that have come to nothing. Some of them are good worthy things such as a cycleway. Who disagrees with a cycleway? But it will not bridge the gap between New Zealand and Australia. Neither will the next cloud that the Prime Minister hops on. Let us not forget that it was his deputy leader Bill English who said that John Key is a man who hops from cloud to cloud. Bill English said that at a National Party conference. It was taped by someone and to his embarrassment it was played back publicly. He said that John Key just flits from cloud to cloud and we know that it is true. 
John Key’s next idea after the Job Summit which did not produce anything was that we would somehow have Chinese investment in New Zealand broadband. We know that that will not happen. That will not happen. New Zealand has to pay for its own broadband. Even if the Chinese paid for it we would be paying them the profit stream. 
What was John Key’s next idea? We were to become a financial services hub for the world. The big difference between New Zealand and Australia is savings and depth of capital markets; it was never mining. Australia has far better savings than New Zealand and has bigger and deeper capital markets. If any country has the chance of being a financial services hub it is Australia not New Zealand. That is a great ambition but when we asked the Minister for Economic Development whether he had brought forward any Cabinet papers he said that Ministers are still talking about it—that is there has been effectively no progress on that one either. 
Then we had the doozy of them all: the step change that was going to come from mining in national parks. Mr Brownlee was forced to back down on that. The Government did not just scale back that ambition; it abandoned it completely. Two points can be made in respect of that. It was never going to be the step change in the New Zealand economy. According to analysts the difference between the New Zealand and the Australian economies that arises from mining is around 10 percent. He never had a plan for the other 90 percent and he now does not even have a plan for that 10 percent. It is amateur hour. 
Then Mr Brownlee came to question time. The Leader of the House was ill-prepared for questions. He could not answer the question as to what the gap is between New Zealand and Australian wages. He could not even estimate it and he could not tell us whether it was going up or going down. Actually he did tell us that. He told us that it was going down when plainly it is going up. Even on the Government’s own massaged figures where it adjusts the official statistics and tries to introduce purchase price parity the gap has still gone up by 14 percent since the election. The reality is that using official statistics the gap has gone up by over $50 per week. It is amateur hour on the National benches. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa. I wish to begin my address this afternoon by outlining the good news. The goods news we are hearing from our constituents out in the real New Zealand is that they can see that New Zealand is pulling itself out of this recession that there is hope and that what National campaigned on—a brighter more ambitious future for New Zealand—is certainly coming. Our six-point plan is our plan. 
I will spend just a moment talking about the Hon Phil Goff and his effort in the general debate this afternoon. “Labour has a plan” he said “Labour has a plan.” Well I will give him a hint. While he said that Labour had a plan his whole front and middle bench looked down because those members did not believe it nor did New Zealand. Members can ask the pollsters. They can find out what New Zealanders are saying. Labour does not have a plan and we certainly have not heard of a plan. 
But in the meantime this National Government gets on with the business of being the Government. We will have a growth-enhancing tax system and better smarter public services we are lifting education and skills we are boosting infrastructure we will have better business innovation and an ambitious trade agenda and we are cutting red tape and regulations. That is a real plan. That is real action. That is this John Key - led National Government. 
I will concentrate on two parts of the six-part plan. I will concentrate on better and smarter public services and I will also mention how we are going about boosting infrastructure. We are getting more out of Government spending. We want to improve front-line services rein in debt and get the books back into surplus. Our most recent Budget showed that we are on track to do that 3 years faster than we said we could a year ago. That is good progress here in New Zealand. 
We have capped the Public Service. It had become totally and utterly bloated under the previous Government. We have freed up $2 billion of low-priority spending in Budget 2009 in order to put it into front-line services in health education and law and order. We are seeing extra police in Counties-Manukau. We are putting more than half a billion dollars extra into health. We are seeing that almost as much again is being put into education and New Zealanders know it. Those schools out there know that they have had a 4 percent increase in the operations grant. They are not telling the Government to take it back. They know that they are getting the concentration on the teachers the nurses the doctors and the health professionals. That money is being spent on front-line services in New Zealand. 
We have moved a further $1.8 billion into front-line services in Budget 2010. Still we are managing to concentrate on making better use of the Public Service. We are reforming benefits by rebalancing obligations and support and by bringing a focus on to work which is a focus that New Zealanders are more than welcoming. We are also tackling long-term welfare dependency and we are reforming accident compensation so that it is affordable sustainable and fair. I can tell members that in answer to the surveys I sent out to my constituents they have said: “Good on you National Government. You are doing things that we really care about.” 
We are boosting infrastructure. We are spending $10.7 billion over 10 years on new highways. Work on the Victoria Park tunnel began last November a year ahead of schedule. I can only assume that those members over there wish they had managed something anywhere like that. Without extra funding that project may never have got off the ground and neither would we have the jobs and other extra benefits that that project is bringing. 
We have ultra-fast broadband. Do members know that there are dozens of schools in my electorate that are getting ultra-fast broadband? There is $300 million being spent on the Rural Broadband Initiative to ensure that those rural schools and communities have fast Internet access. 
We are upgrading electricity transmission. We are investing $3.3 billion to help ensure the security of supply and there is Transpower’s $672 million on the interisland electricity connection upgrade which was kicked off in April this year. That is just the beginning. 
There is Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart. We thought there would be maybe 27000 participants in the first year but we have had more than 50000. There are a lot of good things going on in this National Government. To finish I say ka mutu nga mihi. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 Over 90 percent of crime worldwide is committed by people who are fuelled up on alcohol or other drugs as are 80 percent of the child abuse and neglect cases. We ignore these figures at our peril. I wish to talk today about a small yet very very significant step that New Zealand is about to take in the fight against drug-fuelled crime. Next month will see the establishment of a special circumstances court in Auckland which is based on the drug court model used in parts of the United States and other countries. It is a model that has proven to be hugely successful in lowering the offending rate. The idea is simple enough: non-violent offenders in exchange for a guilty plea are sent to a drug rehabilitation programme instead of to prison. If they successfully complete the treatment programme their conviction may be dismissed. This is a separate initiative from drug treatment programmes in jail. 
I have been quite surprised to learn in researching this area that compulsory treatment programmes whether run outside or inside prisons are very effective. Like many people I thought that we can lead a horse to water but we cannot make it drink. I had thought it was even more so in regard to drug programmes and that those who do not go voluntarily do not get better but apparently that is not so. There are drug courts in more than 20 countries including Britain France and Canada. In the United States there are more than 2500 of them. As I have said one would think that addicts who voluntarily undergo treatment either outside or inside prison would have a higher success rate than those who are forced to attend but in fact the opposite is the case. The statistics all come out in favour of drug courts. The United States National Institute on Drug Abuse has reported studies that show that one year after treatment people sentenced to court-mandated treatment reported much higher levels of abstinence and had far lower arrest rates than people who voluntarily entered rehabilitation after conviction. After 5 years abstinence levels were similar for both groups but the arrest rate was still much lower for those who had been forced to undergo treatment. 
Drug courts have proven to be six times more effective in keeping people in treatment programmes long enough for them to get better. Here is the real killer: conservative estimates from meta-analyses—I am not entirely sure what they are but apparently they are very impressive—have all concluded that drug courts significantly reduce crime: as much as 35 percent when compared with the alternatives. Those are astonishing results. 
Up until the present time New Zealand has had no adult drug courts and only two for juveniles. Meanwhile our prison population continues to climb and climb. I make no apology for supporting Government policies that have cracked down on gangs and drug dealers and for being the architect behind the “three strikes” law which will put more violent criminals behind bars for longer—no apologies at all. Public safety requires that repeat violent offenders are prevented from causing harm and prison is the right place for them. It is the right place for repeat offenders violent thugs high-end drug offenders and our worst while-collar criminals. However it is entirely the wrong place for non-violent low-level offenders whose primary problems are mental health and addiction issues. 
The Auckland-based special circumstances court is a joint project run by the police judiciary mental health agencies Housing New Zealand Corporation and Ministry of Social Development. As the involvement of those participants would suggest the style will be less in the mould of an adversarial court and more focused on finding the causes for and solutions to a person’s offending. Currently the court’s budget is only enough to enable it to run for one day per month processing 10 offenders in that time. It will make a world of difference for those 10 but that only scratches the surface of our problem. New Zealand needs to have more drug courts and more court-mandated treatment for non-violent offenders and we will be lobbying the Government to ensure that there are more of them. Thank you. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 In every town and city in our country people are getting more and more confused about what the Government is doing. They are asking me and my colleagues where this Government is going where the vision is and what the plan is. Well our decisive Prime Minister John Key gives them an absolutely decisive answer. When he is asked that question John Key says: “Well yes ah maybe and no; no yes maybe.” He has absolutely no idea of where he is taking our country. He has no vision and no plan. 
That is quite different from the John Key we had in Opposition who gave a speech saying that National would give New Zealand a fresh start. He said that National in Government would be unrelenting in its quest to lift our economic growth rate and raise wage rates. Well I think that the job of being the Prime Minister is harder than he ever thought it would be. It was easy for him to make those great commitments and outline a great vision when he was in Opposition but since National has been in Government we have seen nothing at all except for great plans then oops a U-turn; then another plan and oops another U-turn or great announcements and no action to follow. 
As my colleague David Parker said who could argue with the idea of a cycleway? John Key made an off-the-top-of-his-head comment at the Job Summit where people from all around the country had given a commitment to work with the Government to get us through the recession to make sure that fewer New Zealanders lost their jobs and that more New Zealanders were able to be in paid employment. The only thing that came out of the summit was the cycleway which has produced no jobs at all. What an embarrassment! At the Job Summit key leaders from all around the country committed themselves to doing something together for New Zealand and not one action came out of it. 
What about the proposal to make New Zealand the Asia-Pacific hub for the financial services industry? That was another great idea coming out of the mouth of the Government. A proposal was due we were told in May. Now it is nearly August and there is absolute silence from the Government. There is not even a whisper about the next great bold initiative. Nothing else has come out from the Government. 
The Don Brash - led initiative the 2025 Taskforce which said that the most important thing that the Government should do is to slash Government spending blew its entire 3-year budget for meeting fees in just 1 year. Don Brash was preaching that the Public Service should cut back on excess and that the Government should cut its spending but the task force spent its entire 3-year meeting fees budget in its first year. 
Now we have resorted to that shining light from the back bench of Cabinet Kate Wilkinson. She says that the best way to take New Zealand forward is to make sure that people can be sacked in the first 3 months of their employment without knowing why. It might be for a good reason or for a bad reason but those people regardless of what they did deserve to know why they were sacked. Kate Wilkinson is taking away that very simple right particularly from young New Zealand workers. How does that feel? When people go for their first job they try really hard and they do not get everything right. Maurice Williamson is still trying really hard in his job. Clearly he does not get everything right but he deserves to be told so that he can improve rather than just being sacked as he was in the past with very little idea about what he had done wrong. All New Zealand workers should have that basic right. 
Paul Quinn 
: Who got sacked? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I was not sacked actually I say to Mr Quinn. 
The other bold initiative from the Government which John Key and Gerry Brownlee paraded around the country was that we would start mining in the schedule 4 land in our national parks. Now that plan has gone down the tubes as well. There is no vision no plan and no future for New Zealand under this Government. 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa. The Opposition members talked about a plan. That is rich coming from that side of the House. In the ebbing years of the late unlamented Labour administration the rudderless ship of State crewed by a coalition of the unclean and the unwilling was wallowing becalmed in the doldrums of doubt duplicity and despair its sails in tatters hanging listlessly. Its bottom was befouled with the barnacles of indecision and the weeds of indolence and its hull was riddled with the teredo worms of mischief misdeeds and malfeasance. 
As the tide of public disenchantment grew and grew and the spectre of imminent electoral defeat loomed on the horizon confusion and hesitancy reigned. On the chart table no course was outlined for innovation economic prosperity or growth. There was only a well-thumbed rutter of more and more ill-directed Government spending that saw the performance of our tradable sector—the sector that underpins New Zealand’s jobs and living standards—decline year after year despite the best economic conditions in decades. 
John Key’s National-led Government has careened the hull replaced the rotting timbers renewed the sails and set a course towards a brighter future for all New Zealand. This is a principled pragmatic Government that listens to New Zealanders and consistently delivers on our promises. We are committed to making New Zealand a better place and we are relentlessly focused on what matters to all New Zealanders. Our policies are designed to better educate our young people and to make all New Zealanders safer healthier and wealthier. We will help New Zealanders become wealthier by removing the cloying embrace of the widespread red tape and regulation that burgeoned under the previous Government like mushrooms on a cowpat. We are encouraging better smarter public services; lifting education and skills; boosting infrastructure; facilitating innovation in business; and pursuing an ambitious trade agenda led by our globally respected Minister of Trade Tim Groser. We are tilting our tax system to reward personal effort and encourage savings and productive investment. 
We understand that a prime duty of a Government is to protect the most vulnerable. To do this and to deliver the world-class education hospitals and other public services that New Zealanders merit we have maintained an unrelenting focus on growing our economy and jobs. The previous Government’s efforts to grow the economy were notable by their scarcity and about as useful as a glockenspiel in a pipe band or two left boots for Dan Carter—that is not very useful. 
Growing our economy and jobs whilst cushioning New Zealand from the harsh effects of the worst global economic crisis in decades has required discipline and fiscal probity. This Government has resisted calls to spend billions more in extra stimulus that would have left us with a hangover of higher debt and would have led to a credit rating downgrade that would have hurt all New Zealanders through their home mortgage interest rates or business loans. This Government has the balance right and New Zealand is better for it. 
Economic growth is not just a theoretical construct; it impacts directly on people’s lives and means an increase in people’s income which in turn gives them better choices more security and a higher standard of living. We have reshaped the mesh at multiple levels in many different areas to achieve a growing economy safeguard existing jobs and provide opportunities for new jobs. 
Following our tax reforms from 1 October almost three-quarters of taxpaying New Zealanders will pay only 17.5c for each dollar they earn. This lower tax rate rewards effort and gives New Zealanders an increased incentive to upskill and develop new products and services along the way often creating new jobs for others to get ahead under their own steam. Lower personal taxes will provide an added reason for skilled people to remain in or move to New Zealand. Lower personal taxes will encourage savings as people have higher after-tax incomes and pay less tax on their investment income. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. On Monday I was contacted by a citrus grower in Gisborne who was annoyed that he was getting 70c a kilo for his lemons and they were on sale at the local Pak ’N Save supermarket for $3.99 a kilo. That is a 570 percent difference between what he is getting for his lemons and what the supermarket is charging for them. He told me that he was getting $1.20 a kilo for his grapefruit and they were retailing at the supermarket for $6.99. That is a 582 percent difference between what the grower gets and what the fruit is sold for. Another citrus grower who contacted me last week told me he was getting 60c a kilo for his lemons and they are selling for $5.49 a kilo at his local supermarket. That is a 1000 percent difference. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Why does this member get all the citrus growers? 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I say to Mr Williamson that even if he thinks this is irrelevant I assure him that it is not irrelevant for ordinary New Zealanders. Even if we allow a generous 12 to 20 percent deduction for a wholesaler’s commission that still leaves a whopping 500 to 900 percent supermarket mark-up on lemons and grapefruit. 
When I recently released a survey of 75 growers some commentators sought to justify these exorbitant margins on fruit and vegetables by claiming that supermarkets have to transport the fresh produce and they have to store it. But in fact this is not the case. It is the growers who have to pay the costs of transporting their produce to the supermarket the costs of storage and most of the costs of promotions or specials for their produce. A 550 percent mark-up by supermarkets on lemons and grapefruit is exorbitant whichever way we look at it. Frankly it is obscene especially when we consider that these extraordinary mark-ups on fresh fruit and vegetables which of course are the very foods that we want people to eat are putting them out of the reach of ordinary New Zealanders and especially when we consider that supermarkets sell liquor so cheaply that they are literally luring teenagers and young people to purchase liquor. Therefore they are contributing to our under-age drinking culture. Last night I was contacted by someone in the liquor industry who pointed out that 70 percent of beer and wine consumed in New Zealand is sold in supermarkets and a lot of it is sold at below cost. My contact said that 2 weeks ago the local Countdown supermarket was selling a 24 pack of Tui Gold for $28.99 when the normal retail price is $42.69 and the cost price is $31. The supermarket was selling this liquor at well below the cost of production. 
On the one hand our supermarkets are making exorbitant margins on fruit and vegetables yet they are routinely selling liquor at below cost and without any mark-up at all. In other words their pricing policies are influencing our eating habits and the nation’s diet but unfortunately in exactly the wrong direction. Supermarkets are encouraging New Zealanders to buy cheap alcohol and discouraging us from buying fresh produce. Rahui Katene has a member’s bill that would remove GST from the price of fruit and vegetables. Aside from the obvious question as to how we can be sure that supermarkets would pass on a reduction in GST to consumers and not just pocket it themselves the clear implication from my survey is that the supermarket margins not GST are the real reason for the high cost of fresh fruit and vegetables. If we are serious about trying to reduce the cost of fresh fruit and vegetables which one would hope this Parliament is we need to introduce the sorts of policies that the United Kingdom has in the face of similarly exorbitant supermarket mark-ups with a code of practice an Ombudsman and a Commerce Commission inquiry. 
The price of fruit and vegetables has increased by 28 percent over the past decade yet most of the growers whom I spoke to said they were getting the same price for their fruit and vegetables as they were getting 10 or 15 years ago. Where has that 28 percent price increase gone? Has it gone into the coffers of the supermarkets? The local citrus grower whom I talked to on Monday mentioned that he had made a loss of $50000 last year. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I am not sure where to start in this general debate. We have heard about the price of lemons and barnacle-clad ships of State so we might as well start talking about some of the contributions from members on the other side of the House. It is awful—awful—to see one washed-up former Minister after another from a party that was in power for 9 years stand up to try to defend the indefensible and try to talk about the total vacuum in respect of their policy going forward. Labour had 9 long years in Government and has had 15 months in Opposition and it still has nothing to offer. 
Let us talk about what the John Key - led Government has done. Firstly let us start with the upcoming proposed and now legislated for tax cuts that every Kiwi in New Zealand will enjoy. The average wage earner will be $15 a week better off as a result of those announcements—$15 a week. When we go into electorates like the Taranaki - King Country electorate where families are at the lower socio-economic end of the income bracket $15 a week is a substantial amount. Of course it is $15 for individuals and per household it is expected to be $25 a week. Individuals and households will be the beneficiaries of those tax cuts. 
When we look at what is happening with the top tax rates we will see much greater enthusiasm from people who are at the higher end of the income bracket but who want to live in New Zealand have family ties in New Zealand and can lead the economy going forward. They want to live here instead of moving away to Australia where circumstances have been much better for them until now. 
Company tax is of substantial benefit to New Zealand. Most of the companies in Taranaki - King Country are very small. There are a number of large companies but the majority of them are small companies. That includes farmers and the trusts that go with farming and companies around farming enterprises. They will be the beneficiaries of the cut in the company tax rate. When we look at what those incentives will do in terms of lifting economic growth and compare that with what we have had over the last 9 years of a Labour-led Government then clearly we see there is a parting of the ways. Clearly there will be an increase in where New Zealand can go with that. 
It was clearly time that the barnacle-clad ship of State led by the previous Labour Government ran on to the rocks—and surely it did. I heard one of my colleagues earlier use an analogy with horses and from what I am hearing from those washed-up former Ministers over there they are clearly flogging a dead horse. It is dead it is gone and it will never return; long may that be the case. 
Agriculture will be the leader in this economic growth. The Primary Growth Partnership that was announced earlier by this Government—a $140 million-a-year investment in Government industry partnerships—is the flagship for moving the agricultural sector out of what has been basically a commodity provider into a value-added producer. That is nowhere more to be seen than in the research I see going on with the merino industry. The wool industry has been on the rocks for a long time. The industry used to be worth over a billion dollars and now it is down to about $500 million. But that is with the exception of fine wools and the Icebreaker brand which is the shining light within the industry. To give that industry the ability now to figure out a way or research how to produce fine meat from the merino breed will be a wonderful step forward for the meat and wool industry of New Zealand. It is very heartening to see that it has partnered with the Primary Growth Partnership in a $45 million investment into looking at ways to do that. This Government is forward-looking and progressive. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I call the Hon Shane Jones. 
Paul Quinn 
: Ha ha! 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 I te tuatahi e te Mangai o te Whare tena koe i roto i tenei wa o te reo Maori te wa i whakaritea ai e whakapumautia ai to tatou reo Maori hei reo motuhake mo Aotearoa. E nga mema o te Whare tena koutou tena tatou kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
Firstly Mr Speaker of the House I extend greetings to you in this time that has been set aside to celebrate the Maori language as an official language for New Zealand. To the members of the House greetings to you greetings to you and greetings to us all. 
]  
Yes the locomotive is back on the track and I assure Mr Quinn that road kill is at the upper part of my mind. This is the time in the middle of the 3-year cycle when we expect to see and to hear what the framework or the narrative put forward by the Prime Minister is for our country. But what people up and down the country are actually observing is that there is an absence of boldness an absence of courage and a fascination with visiting grandeur on small petty things. There is an inverse relationship. The Government chooses small initiatives that will not create wealth and are unrelated to jobs but with the Government’s co-conspirators in the media it talks up a story as if there is a narrative behind this Prime Minister. There is nothing. 
As he eats morning and day he sups like a fruitcake poll-driven leader. Everything that this leader takes as a sense of direction for the future is taken from polls. There is no underlying commitment as to what do we do to not only educate our children but also to ensure that families do not go to bed worried about Baycorp worried about creditors and worried about bills from schools. Why is there no sense of passion and belonging that people can see in the face of this Prime Minister? They cannot see that and it is because despite his sunny disposition he spent too long out of our country and he has not grown or lived through the organic changes that have got us to where we are today. 
We heard today a great use of the word “gap”. Well of course the previous Labour Government in our time sought to address many of the gaps between Pasifika tangata whenua and the rest of society. We had today from Gerry Brownlee a dissertation on the “gap”. The gap that needs to be lessened is the one in his head; the one in his head because it was vacuous and it was devoid of any confidence or any answer that tells an exporter a firm an investor or a schoolteacher what our country is actually doing under that Minister’s leadership and the Prime Minister’s leadership on the economic front. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Nothing. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: It is beyond nothing; it is actually a hoax. There is this great strategy of focusing on marginal issues admittedly aided by the media and turning it into wallpaper so that the underlying emptiness is plastered over. That is catching up with them and it is why they lost their courage in relation to delivering a strong message against poor drinking habits and reducing carnage on the roads. 
There is also another reason why—and the previous speaker from Taranaki Shane Ardern knows it—there is no leadership in the rural sector. The reason that the institutions pertaining to the rural sector are in disarray is that there is an absence of leadership or willingness on that side of the House to step up to the plate and rationalise those sectors in such a way that New Zealand Inc does not suffer any longer. 
Our well-being does not depend on the rhetoric of the Prime Minister; it depends on bold policies that move us from our historical sources of earnings with clever technology and a willingness on the part of the Crown to invest real money with people who are prepared to take a risk and be entrepreneurial. But what we actually have is this total unwillingness to spend any political capital. Up and down the country people ask why is it that this Government came in with such an enormous level of support but has done nothing with it. The Government is determined to try to squeeze through more miserable policies a greater level of sweat out of people who cannot afford to live on their current earnings etc. That is miserable it is sad and it is an indictment on the current Government and the Prime Minister. 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I am sure that New Zealanders out there who have been listening to and watching these proceedings must be wondering whether that is it. They must be wondering whether that is all that the Opposition—the Labour Party which was in Government for 9 years—has to offer in the great debate as to the economic future of New Zealand. 
I suppose that New Zealanders could take one or two things from this debate. The first is that they have had reaffirmed in their minds just how irrelevant the Green Party is to any debate on the future economic direction of New Zealand although we already knew that. The second thing they would have taken out of the debate is that the Labour Party has absolutely nothing to offer this country. The speakers opposite did not for one moment begin to acknowledge the serious deep economic problems that they left this country with when they were thrown out of office in 2008. Not for one moment did that party acknowledge that fact. Not for one moment has that party acknowledged the broad wide all-embracing approach that this Government is taking to moving New Zealand forward to moving us out of the stultifying going-nowhere attitude that held us back for so long. The contrast between that party and this Government could not be more marked. 
As far back as 2002 there were no net new jobs in either agriculture or manufacturing in New Zealand— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: Since when? 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: Since 2002—unbelievable! Labour tried to hide that fact by building up the Government sector. Let me tell the House what did grow under Labour from 2002 onwards until the great day in 2008 when the people of New Zealand threw Labour out of office. This is what grew: first and foremost the size of the Government grew. This Government is committed to cutting back the role of the Government and the State and to putting taxpayers’ resources into areas where they are most needed and will be most productive. Taxes rose under Labour. Many of us well remember the rush that the previous Labour Government had in 2000 to put up the taxes of the people— 
Chris Tremain 
: The top marginal tax rate. 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
:—at a time when the Government did not even need the money and we remember that much of that money was squandered. Red tape is another thing that the Labour Government specialised in and which this Government is cutting away. 
Illiteracy rates rose under the previous Labour Government. As early as 2005 that Government was being warned that a fifth of our children were not learning to read write or do mathematics. That Government was being warned about that as early as 2005. Frankly if the previous Labour speaker Mr Jones wants to do something useful with his spare time he might like to pop out to the lobby and have a look at a few  
Hansard  
volumes. I would suggest that he start at November 2005 December 2005 and the early months of 2006. In the index he should look up the name “Maharey” and acquaint himself and share with his colleagues the spin that Mr Maharey put on that figure of over a fifth of New Zealand children not learning to read and write. The first explanation was that no that was not how the situation was at all and it was actually a statement that a fifth of New Zealand children were not reaching their potential. Well that did not wash so then he tried to float the figure of 11 percent of children not learning to read and write. That did not wash either if for no other reason than that he was contradicting what his own officials were saying to him. 
At long last New Zealand has a Government that is determined to get to grips with the poor literacy and numeracy rates of this country and that effort will underpin the economic recovery of this country. The effort of putting in trades academies of widening the educational opportunity for children and of tightening up on the standards for entry to university will pay off for the economy of this country. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Estimates Debate 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 27 July on the Appropriation (2010/11) Estimates Bill. 
Vote Education ( 
continued 
)  
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Chairperson. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. Having been a student at university last year I have been pretty interested in the big changes that we have seen in the sector since this Government has been in office. We have seen essentially the Government make tertiary education less accessible and more expensive. In some ways it is making it downright impossible to even be a student in New Zealand. Today I will grade the Minister for Tertiary Education. He comes across as being a very effective Minister. He is spoken about in sort of hushed and awed terms. When we look at his record and grade what he has done in this sector we find we could give our Minister something below an A probably below a B and probably even below a C. I think the Minister would get an F. I think he has been a failure as a Minister. 
Right now if you want to study at Victoria University the University of Otago Waikato University Massey University or Auckland University the chances are that you might not get to be enrolled even if you have good grades— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I draw your attention to Standing Order 103 about the use of the word “you”. I know the member is a new member here so we can make exceptions but— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member does not have to qualify the point of order by referring to matters of age or the time that a member has been here. 
Hon Phil Heatley 
: Just sit down. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member responsible for saying that will be walking—whoever said that. I do not need any assistance. The member Ross Robertson simply raised a point of order. The point of order was a valid one. The member Gareth Hughes ought to be a bit more careful about the use of some pronouns. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. You are a very experienced Chair and you will be aware that during the time that you spent addressing my point of order there was an interjection. People should know especially long-serving members that there are to be no interjections whatsoever during the taking of a point of order. It came from members opposite. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Yes and I caution the member responsible for the interjection that if there is one more infringement like that someone will be taking an early shower. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I apologise Mr Chairperson. I would not give you an F. We are seeing our universities close their enrolments in some cases such as Massey University with only 30 minutes’ notice. I was at Waikato University this morning. This year it has turned away 403 students many of whom were school leavers who had anticipated being able to study at university who wanted to become educated and who wanted to contribute to the economy. 
Why are we doing this? It is not because of a well-thought-out policy. It is not because there are more well-paid jobs out there attracting all the potential students. It is simply because of a lack of funds. It is because the Minister would not get any more funds for the sector. Like Ruth Richardson and Roger Douglas in the 1980s and 1990s this Minister has used the crisis of the recession to ram through possibly the most fundamental changes to the tertiary education sector. No longer do we have the open egalitarian system that Kiwis are proud of; rather we are seeing a more closed system. In this area the Minister would have to get an F. 
In Budget 2010 the budget for tertiary education was $4.2 billion which is the same as last year’s budget. When we look at inflation we see that the most recent budget was essentially a cut. When we compare ourselves with Australia which we are trying to catch up to we see it is investing an extra $5.7 billion over the next 5 years. Compared with other OECD countries we are ranked at 18th out of 30 for the proportion of our population with a tertiary degree—at 27percent. Australia is aiming for 40 percent. How will we catch up with Australia if we put less funding into tertiary education? In fact we spend $3000 less per student than the OECD average and we are in the bottom quarter of the OECD for expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of GDP. 
Throughout the Budget process we have seen all sorts of “kites” floated throughout the year and some of those measures were announced in the Budget. We saw a few additional places being funded but not enough to cater for all the students who want to become more skilled and educated. In that matter the Minister would possibly get a C or maybe a B. It is good that we have a few more students there but not enough. The Minister reduced the fee maxima making certain courses more expensive. I reckon that gets a D: a D for dumb. Do members know why that is? It is because we have a doctor shortage. That initiative will make it more expensive for doctors to enrol in courses. It is bad for our economy students and our health. 
We have seen the Minister limiting access to tertiary education based on performance. I thought this Government was about incentivising people not about regulation but instead we are seeing in the tertiary education sector more punishments and regulations. The Government could have gone down an incentivised path to promote performance. It also gets a D because this approach will disadvantage minorities including migrants without English as a first language. It will disadvantage students from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds and it is not smart for the economy. 
The Minister has also introduced a lifetime limit to access to student loans. It does not matter to him that we already have a lifetime limit to access to student allowances which is already a good balance and check within the system. This Minister is limiting those people who want to do a double degree or who take a while like the Minister did to get their zoology degree. It means the system is very inflexible and very rigid and again I think we have to give it an F. 
We have also seen the Minister prevent access by Australians to student loans. I think the rest of the Committee might agree that that possibly gets a B; it is not the worst thing in the package. 
We are seeing the introduction of a $50 student loan administration fee for the 560000 Kiwis who have student loans. Of course that has to get an F. Maybe the Government gets an F for failing because the Minister and the Prime Minister would love to bring back interest on the student loans but the policy that we do not have interest on our student loans is just too damned popular for that to be done. That measure will increase the burden. Nationally the total student loan debt stands at $11 billion. We need to be reducing the burden on students. This Government gets an F for tertiary education. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairman. I am proud to stand in this Chamber as the Minister of Education in a National-led Government that has an unrelenting focus on lifting student achievement. I am very proud to be part of this Government. I am very proud to be part of a National-led Government that added $1.4 billion to the education budget over the next 4 years. It means that an extra $417 million will go into the into the education budget this year and I am very proud as the Minister of Education to be a part of that. 
I am also very proud to be part of a National-led Government that delivered to schools a 4 percent increase in their operations grant which was well above the rate of inflation and well above anything that was expected. It means that an extra $156 million is going into front-line services in our schools over the next 4 years. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: How much? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It means an extra $156 million is going into schools. 
I am very proud to be in a National-led Government that has put an extra $350 million into property development—on top of the $500 million we put in last year—for school property. Part of that funding of course is for new schools and upgrading existing schools but I am really proud that this Government has faced up to the fact that we have leaky schools. As part of Budget 2010 $82 million is being spent fixing leaky schools during this financial year but we have to spend another $22 million over the next 2 years to find out how many leaky schools there are. 
I do not know what the previous Labour Government did over the last 9 years when we all knew there were leaky buildings but it did nothing about leaky schools and we did not even have the information. I am proud to part of a Government that has faced up to the fact that we have that problem and has put some money in to start addressing it. Out in our communities there are some unsightly school buildings that have been abandoned or closed down and they drive communities crazy because of graffiti and vandalism. I am proud that we have put some money into the Budget to take care of those problems. 
I am proud to be part of a National-led Government that has put an extra $15 million into the Positive Behaviour for Learning plan which will make training available for an additional 3000 families and an extra 2000 teachers. This programme was developed by the education sector and is being rolled out across the country. It is assisting both teachers and parents to deal with unruly students and I am proud that we have found an extra $15 million this year to support that. 
I am very proud to be part of a Government that has put over $48 million into ultra-fast broadband support for schools. That increases the School Network Upgrade Project and connects nearly 500 schools to the National Education Network trial. I am very proud to be part of a Government that is putting that sort of money into making sure that our children have a modern learning environment. 
I am also proud to be part of a National Government that has put $48 million into the Youth Guarantee to give another 500 young people the opportunity for fees-free level one to three education in a tertiary environment. We have already got 2000 students this year. There will be another 2000 students next year plus 500. I think that is fantastic. It means that 2500 young people who were on the streets who were not in education work or training will have an opportunity at a tertiary institution next year. 
I am also proud to be a part of a National-led Government that has more students in tertiary institutions than ever before. We are funding more students in tertiary education regardless of the half-truths that are told out in the community by the Opposition. We are funding more students than ever before. I am proud to be part of a National Government that has put an extra $107 million into early childhood education bringing our total expenditure on early childhood education to $1.3 million and $91.8 million of that is focused on lifting participation. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is interesting to hear the Minister of Education get up to talk about all of the things she is proud of. I wonder how proud she is of the Building Act 1991 which created the problem of leaky buildings by deregulating the building industry. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Oh she says: “No”. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Oh yes it did by deregulating the building industry and allowing the cowboys to take charge. If those schools were leaky it would be interesting to see how many of them were built in the immediate period after that National Government put in place the Building Act 1991. She also talked a little bit about empty schools. I tell members that there is one time of the day now when there are a lot of empty schools around New Zealand and that is in the evening. 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: Why? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well that was when night classes were being held around New Zealand. But unfortunately in this appropriation and in last year’s appropriation there was a reduction in funding for adult and community education and night schools. 
Paul Quinn 
: Not in Wainuiomata High Grant. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Mr Quinn interjects very loudly. I ask him how many schools in the Hutt Valley where he allegedly tries to represent people are offering night classes this year. I ask him how many. I tell Mr Quinn that there are zero absolutely none because that member’s Government cut the funding. Mr Quinn can interject all he likes but in the Hutt Valley—where the people he says that he represents live—there are no night classes this year as a result of the funding cut. 
It was interesting to hear in the House today the Prime Minister’s comments on the interest-free student loans scheme. What the Prime Minister said today was instructive. He said that he has no intention of getting rid of the interest-free student loan scheme. Presumably this is a similar kind of intention to having no intention to mine national parks—“Oh no we are not sure; maybe we will; we will think about it in the future.” So it was a decisive statement from the Prime Minister today that he has no intention to get rid of the interest-free student loan scheme except that when he talked to Victoria University students yesterday he said that the scheme is a disaster economically it does not really stack up and there has to be a better way of doing it. Well if he really believes that why does he not do something about it? Why does he not actually put in front of the public the policy that he believes in? Those members across the Chamber do not believe in interest-free student loans. I know that Chris Finlayson does not believe in interest-free student loans. 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: How does the member know that? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Because I have listened to the member on many occasions. That Government does not believe in interest-free student loans but it does not have the courage of its convictions to stand up with a different policy which is what the Prime Minister actually wants. We have a lot of proof of what the Prime Minister thinks about the interest-free student loans scheme because in this House on 16 November 2005 John Key said: “What a cost to the country. What an unaffordable and irresponsible cost to the country. It is a sad day.” Then he went on to say that National members would be opposing it with every bone in their bodies. 
Moana Mackey 
: Every bone? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Well there is not a lot of backbone being shown here by Mr Key. If he really believes that interest-free student loans are such a cost on this country why does he not have the courage of his convictions to put that in front of the public? 
The problem with National’s approach to tertiary education is that it sees it simply as a sector to take money from rather than a sector to invest in for the good of all New Zealanders and for our future. I think it is very important to note that this appropriation for education covers the period in which a fundamental change will take place in universities. People who have university entrance will be denied entry to university next year. That is a major change and the Government is standing there—Mr Joyce is standing there—like a bystander at a car accident doing absolutely nothing but expressing concern and kicking the tyres. That is all that Mr Joyce is prepared to do while thousands of New Zealanders will not be able to go on to university next year. If they want to go to a polytech they will struggle to get into a lot of those because tens of millions of dollars are being taken out of the polytechnic sector as well. 
Tertiary education should be the engine room of this economy. It should be part of the plan if National had a plan but it is not. Tens of millions of dollars are out of the tertiary sector. There are cuts to adult and community education and to university funding and now there is a tax on the student loans scheme as well. It is quite clear that this Government is not interested in catching up with Australia because it has no plan to catch up with Australia. If it did it would be a plan that would involve investing at least a fraction of what the Australians are but that is not what this Government has done. We will fall further and further behind Australia if this Government is not prepared to invest in tertiary education. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: We now have a motion in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to change Vote Education. The question is that Vote Education be changed by omitting from Schedule 1 “1364193” from the item relating to “School Property Portfolio Management” and substituting “1364593” and also by omitting “17610” from the item relating to “Schools Furniture and Equipment” and substituting “17210”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Noes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Motion not agreed to. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Education Review Office agreed to.  
Vote Arts Culture and Heritage agreed to.  
Vote Attorney-General agreed to.  
Vote Parliamentary Counsel Office agreed to.  
Vote Treaty Negotiations 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 E te Rangatu Pou Mua o te Reo o te Whare tena koe. E aku koko tataki tena koutou katoa. We come to this vote in the context of a damning statement from the United Nations special rapporteur on indigenous rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples—namely that “the Treaty’s principles appear to be vulnerable to political discretion resulting in their perpetual insecurity and instability.” Of course we understand that the appropriation for Vote Treaty Negotiations is not the sole and exclusive authority of Treaty principles but it is as good a place as any in which to start. 
We join the select committee in being generally very impressed by the momentum driven by the Minister towards the aspirational goal of achieving just and durable settlements. It is very heartening that from practically the moment the coalition agreement and the ministerial warrant were signed the Minister took off at a cracking pace. Over the last 18 months this Government can now boast of having reached 39 significant negotiation milestones including seven deeds of settlement. That is something to be proud of! There are also some achievements that distinguish this vote and they include recognising the progress since the Te Kokiri Ngatahi hui held last year the Minister’s commitment to addressing issues relating to the asset value of the land bank and the investment in the rangatira ki te rangatira approach preferred by iwi. This third concept the promotion of chief to chief negotiation is something that we the Maori Party campaigned on and brought into the coalition so it is great to see that concept coming to fruition. 
With such positive progress being advanced how is it that the special rapporteur could be so harsh in his comments about political discretion? That comes down to one word: Tuhoe. Although the pace of settlement negotiations is commendable the manifestation of Treaty principles is primarily observed in practice. So when the Government failed to honour commitments that Tuhoe felt had been promised specifically in the return of ownership of Te Urewera National Park to Tuhoe many questions were asked about how genuine the commitment was to the Government’s dealing with iwi and specifically with Tuhoe. 
Anyone who has questions around the Tuhoe claim need look no further than the research of historian Dame Judith Binney who has traced the history of the Crown’s treatment of Tuhoe back to 1871 and a promise made by Donald MacLean the Native Minister for Tuhoe to enjoy a large degree of self-government of tribal authority over the area. Twenty-five years later in 1896 the Liberal Government of Richard Seddon passed a law granting a form of self-government to Tuhoe a measure that Binney described as unique. The action was in direct relation to the Crown’s confiscation of large amounts of land in the Tuhoe nation during the wars in 1866 and 1867—confiscation that was neither justified nor compensated for. Over the decades however the initiative of Seddon was gradually whittled away and 50 years later the Urewera National Park was formed out of the land that Tuhoe owned in 1896. Dame Judith Binney has suggested that the Prime Minister should have understood this history of the Urewera before talk of precedence entered the frame. The precedent that we in the Maori Party are interested in is how the Government can willingly offer up Department of Conservation estate for the purposes of mining yet deny Tuhoe claims to the Urewera. 
I leave the last word to a young boy from Kavanagh College who featured in that fine publication the  
Otago Daily Times 
 this morning. Sam Murphy a year 13 student wrote to the paper about his concerns that “in many cases the treaty has been ignored and dishonoured.” He describes some of the issues we have seen outlined in the estimates such as land claims and the foreshore and seabed dispute. He finished with a resounding challenge for this Minister this Government and this Parliament: “most of all we need to understand and honour the Treaty of Waitangi our nation’s founding document a fruit of the goodwill and hope of those who signed it.” Let us learn from the wisdom of our youth and put in place the policy commitment to ensure that the Treaty is indeed a foundation for goodwill an opportunity to promote the rights and identity of our indigenous people and a blueprint for unity. 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Heamana. Tena koutou tena tatou e te whanau Paremata. It gives me great pleasure to speak in this particular part of the debate. I first acknowledge the excellent and in fact superb work that the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Hon Chris Finlayson has done in carrying out this aspect of the Government’s policy. That work is demonstrated first and foremost by the fact that in these estimates we are now considering an extra $6.5 million has been allocated in this year’s Budget to enable the Government to meet its target of settling all the claims by the year 2014. We have for the first time seen a significant increase in the Office of Treaty Settlements budget. More important we have given a sense of purpose and satisfaction to that office in the work that it does—a sense that it has never had before certainly in the over 20 years that I have dealt with it. It has been a lost ship— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: Rudderless. 
PAUL QUINN 
: It has been a rudderless ship particularly during the 9 years of the previous Labour Government. That is demonstrated for Mr Grant Robertson’s information by the fact that during the 9 years that Labour was in Government it produced 1.6 settlements per year—1.6 settlements per year. In the short time that this Government has been in power we have already signed under the outstanding leadership of the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations—and the excellent work the Minister is doing was recognised in the speech made by my friend and colleague Rahui Katene—seven deeds of settlement 11 agreements in principle 11 deeds of mandate and seven terms of negotiation. This is an extraordinary amount of work and the people who actually understand what is involved in achieving these milestones will understand that. 
Chris Tremain 
: Do you think that requires a plan? 
PAUL QUINN 
: Absolutely. This shows us just how poor the performance of the previous administration was. That administration was supposedly into closing the gaps. Remember closing the gaps? Yet all that administration achieved was 1.6 settlements per year starting with Margaret Wilson who did nothing for 2 years. I know that because we waited for a meeting with her. We waited desperately for a meeting with her and she did nothing. We were very close to signing a deed of settlement prior to Labour coming into power in 1999 and then we sat around for 2 years waiting to get a first meeting with Margaret Wilson. She of course was followed by that wonderful chappie called Mark Burton who was even worse than Margaret Wilson—even worse. Even Shane Jones will agree with that. The Labour Government did have one or two Ministers who tried to do something including my friend Parekura Horomia. But sadly even he was ignored. 
The great thing is that we are moving on. But the one other aspect that I will cover briefly—and we will see it later on tonight when we debate another settlement bill—is not only that National in coming into power has done an outstanding level of work but that this Minister has had to clean up a mess left behind by the previous administration in a number of areas. 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call briefly to address some of the points raised by the previous speakers. I say in answer to some of the concerns expressed by the Maori Party member in relation to the UN special rapporteur that I had a couple of meetings with him last week. He had made no definitive conclusions because his report has not yet been released. He generally was of the impression that in many respects this country in a bipartisan way is leading the world in this area and that since Mat Rata established the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 and Geoffrey Palmer extended the jurisdiction in 1984 some very very good work has been done. I agree with him. He said that so many of these issues finally are determined as a result of the exercise of a political discretion but of course that has to be right. When one comes down to making decisions on pieces of conservation land or the level of commercial redress of course it will be at the exercise of a discretion so I have difficulty in seeing how that is necessarily a criticism. I think on the basis of his experience with land claims in North America that he would have a preference for more statutory-based ones and perhaps he places more faith in the litigation process than I do. He is a professor of law but perhaps he believes that litigation is a cure-all whereas I do not. But I think that his visit was a success and I very much look forward to his final report. 
I thank Mr Quinn for his generous comments. A lot has been achieved over the last year. There is a huge amount of work to be completed and that is why I am very grateful particularly to the Minister of Finance for facilitating an increase in the funding of the Office of Treaty Settlements in two Budgets and that office is indeed working very very hard. I am pleased that tonight we will have the first reading of the upper Waikato River legislation. Those iwi were very gracious after we came into Government. They knew that we wanted to renegotiate the lower river legislation and they were very patient until that could be done. I think the final product is very good indeed. When we sign the deed with Ngati Maniapoto in relation to the Waipa and when that part of the river system is brought in then that together with the clean-up fund which is a very generous sum will see some substantial improvements in that river. My impression of local authorities and the various sectoral interests is that they have put their initial fears or apprehensions behind them and are getting on with the job. 
I have been very pleased with the work done in Tamaki over the last 12 months and I am quite excited that the logjam that was created in 2006 will be broken over the next 12 months as we sign deeds with them. I am very hopeful that this time next year all the deeds with Te Tau Ihu iwi will have been signed and their legislation will have been passed. Certainly that is my hope. I have met with them today and will meet a group after making this speech to ensure that we keep up the momentum there. 
I am very hopeful given that Mr Jones is here that Te Tai Tokerau iwi will have their day in the sun very soon. The Te Hiku Forum iwi have been working very hard since agreements in principle were signed at Ahipara on that beautiful day on 15 January and I believe that a good settlement for them will release huge amounts of funds into that magnificent area of New Zealand and give them the chance to shine as they deserve. In relation to the central North Island hopefully in the not too distant future we will have legislation to give effect to the settlements entered into last year with Ngati Manawa and Ngati Whare and I am very very hopeful that the terms of negotiation that we signed with Taranaki and Te Atiawa on 17 March this year will progress very well next year. There is also the Whanganui River claim that I am keen to progress. There is a lot of work to be done and I am so grateful for the support that I have received from my colleagues in the Maori Party in advancing these matters. Yes one listens to the special rapporteur. I think it is good that we as a country expose our systems to international scrutiny but I think we can be very proud as a Parliament of what we have done in this area and in a bipartisan way I look forward to the next 12 months. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Agriculture and Forestry 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to rise and speak with regard to agriculture and forestry. The Hon Shane Jones commented earlier about a need for leadership in this area and I could not agree with him more. There is a strong need for leadership but the need for leadership is not so much in the agricultural sector as it is in the Labour caucus. I hope that the honourable member’s probation and rehabilitation period is not too long because the vacuum in leadership on that side of the Chamber is such that the House will not function unless something happens to improve that. 
In agriculture however there has been some strong leadership and there are a number of things that this Government is pleased to do. First of all I will mention in passing—because I mentioned it in my previous speech—the Primary Growth Partnership which will be a significant step forward for the agricultural sector. I am proud to be part of the agricultural team ably led by the Hon David Carter who has come forward with this major initiative. 
Science investment in this sector is essential if New Zealand’s economy is to prosper. There is one way and only one way that we can have prosperity and be competitive with the world and that is through the export of protein products—the low-hanging fruit. I acknowledge the Minister in the chair the Minister of Trade. I acknowledge the fine work that the Minister the Hon Tim Groser and his team have done internationally in opening up markets as we have never seen before and giving us the opportunities that exist for us to export high-tech smart products based on the scientific work that was part of the initiative in this year’s Budget round. That has been a wonderful step forward for the agricultural sector. 
Changes to the Resource Management Act will inevitably lead to the opening up of opportunity. One of the opportunities that is glaringly obvious to anyone who spends more than 30 seconds studying the agricultural sector is the ability to irrigate some of our drier lands particularly but not entirely the Canterbury Plains—in fact the whole of the eastern belt right up into Hawke’s Bay where my colleague the senior whip represents the Napier seat. The opportunity that that could unleash in terms of economic growth for New Zealand is enormous so the changes that have already been announced and the ongoing work in the resource management field are essential to unlocking the potential for our primary sector. 
Forestry has been on the back foot for a long long time—for 9 long years at least under the previous Government. I am pleased to see that the leadership of the Hon Shane Jones has returned because without leadership in this field—which we are now starting to see under a National Government—we are in danger of seeing our second-largest export industry disappearing over the horizon and our Australian counterparts benefiting from that. 
It always beggared belief in my view that Australia a country that took 5 years longer to grow a  
Pinus radiata 
 tree and then export it to exactly the same markets that were available to us was able to do that more competitively than we were. Given that our distance to the market was the same and that it took the Australians 5 years longer to grow the same product why was it that they were more competitive and better able to develop markets in that sector than we were? The answer simply lay in the amount of nonsensical silly regulation tax and various other policies that were put in place by the previous Labour Government which brought that industry to its knees. 
The ability to unleash potential remove some of those shackles put the right tax incentives in place and create an opportunity for the forestry industry to grow is something we should truly be proud of. I see that the Chairperson is leaning forward which probably means I do not have time to touch on the dairy industry which is the biggest industry in the country. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is always a pleasure to follow the chairman of the Primary Production Committee who I realise has a wealth of knowledge. I start by making the statement that if there is one reason why Labour members are on the Opposition side of the House it is their total failure to recognise the potential of agriculture in this country. When we look at the 9 years that they wasted in Government we will find that they concentrated on such things as microchipping dogs and that angered farmers. Then the Labour Government pushed the right to roam and that angered farmers. It closed off trade access because it had leaders who said stupid things and that also angered farmers. The Labour Government did nothing for 9 long years and that angered all of New Zealand. The outcome was that the Labour Government was tossed out. It was so preoccupied with social engineering that it did not have time to do the main things such as stimulating the economy. 
During the time that Labour members will now have to observe the Government build the country and make it prosper they will realise that the Labour Government had agriculture on the back-burner. The Labour Government obstructed progress around water management which we know is a key ingredient to growing this wonderful country’s economy. It stymied any initiative whatsoever. It did not go anywhere near the wool industry but sat on its hands and watched the industry shrink and wither. It could not organise the meat industry either and it did not go near that. During the Labour Government’s time in office the greatest deforestation occurred that we have ever seen and that is something that will hang around the necks of the Labour Opposition for many a long year. 
When we look at the challenges in agriculture that are before this Government it is very fitting that we have a very able Minister of Agriculture in David Carter. He is grounded in the farming sector has a great knowledge of the economics is highly educated and out of Lincoln College and sees tertiary education and the alignment of those aspects in the applied sciences as very important. The previous Labour Government whose members are now in Opposition failed to make it happen. There is a lot of work to do and that is why I had to articulate some of the problems around agriculture. To rebuild the communities that contribute and help to grow agriculture and make it thrive will be a demanding job but it is a job that is not beyond this Government and the Minister of Agriculture. 
We have seen the rural schools communities decimated and we have seen maternity services wiped out. Policies of this Government that support agriculture such as bonding doctors nurses and midwives will actually do an enormous amount to attract and retain the quality people into agriculture that this Government sees as necessary. Unless we have the very best and brightest working in our primary industry sectors we will not survive; we will not move ourselves forward to where we want to be. 
There is no doubt that agriculture from the point of view of this National Government led by John Key along with the Maori Party and ACT is the prime mover of this economy. We will engage with the wool industry—and we see the Minister of Agriculture doing that at the moment—to galvanise a relationship where the industry speaks with one voice. That is very important because unless we can get harmony trust and such things we will not rebuild the wool industry back to where it needs to be. 
On the subject of water one of the first activities undertaken by the Minister of Agriculture was to have a meeting of water management interests in Canterbury and to start to move towards enshrining the Canterbury Water Management Strategy in legislation so that we can get to a situation where we have a common view and a focus as a nation—a win-win situation. Again I give full credit to the Minister of Agriculture. 
In relation to trade I pay tribute to Tim Groser for his wisdom and ability. He is able to work with the knowledge of what agriculture means to this country because he saw how we lost so many of our markets. It is an absolute pleasure to be in a Government that recognises agriculture as important. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Biosecurity agreed to.  
Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Last Sunday the  
New York Times 
 ran an appropriately titled article called: “Inside the Fog of War: Reports From the Ground” describing the contents of 92000 secret US Government records dated between January 2004 and December 2009. They sketched the sad inside story of the disastrous American war in Afghanistan which unfortunately New Zealand is still a part of. I hope that some of the money we are devoting to foreign affairs in the Budget goes towards analysing these documents because they show how misguided our participation is and why our SAS should be withdrawn from that country. 
A week ago the Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully attended an international conference in Afghanistan in which President Karzai vowed that his Afghan forces “will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations in our country by 2014.” This does not square with what the leaked documents say about the Karzai Government and its security forces. According to the  
New York Times 
 the documents “recount episodes of police brutality corruption—petty and large—extortion and kidnapping. Afghan police officers defect to the Taliban with trucks and weapons” etc. According to these documents the extremist Taliban is much stronger than we have been led to believe. One report on a meeting with Afghan district officials in Paktia Province quotes them as saying: “The general view of the Afghans is that the current Government is worse than the Taliban.” 
The oldest official in the group said: “The corrupted Government officials are a new concept brought to Afghanistan by the Americans.” This is an important point. The US forces have facilitated the corruption of the regime locally and nationally as ordinary Afghans see it. The US forces have also set a bad example in the conduct of the war with large numbers of innocent civilians being killed in air strikes and many others shot at coalition checkpoints according to the documents. Then we have the newly appointed head of the US Central Command General James Mattis who said in 2005 that war was: “A hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people when you like brawling.”—referring to the Taliban. He said that the Taliban who had mistreated women: “Ain’t got no manhood left anyhow anyway so it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.” So there you have it. The United States Central Command chief who is running the war of which New Zealand is a part is a psychopath—if a psychopath is defined as someone who likes killing people which is the correct definition. New Zealand is inevitably complicit in all this. We have officers functioning in the Central Command headquarters in the United States. We have an SAS unit in Kabul and there are some New Zealand Defence personnel in Kabul Bagram and Khost helping in other ways with the US-run war effort. This creates a huge moral problem for us not least because of the clear violations of international humanitarian law by both the US and Afghan Government forces. 
In response to select committee questions our Government has admitted that: “NZ SAS personnel have been in the vicinity on 22 occasions when Afghan authorities have arrested or detained Afghans.” In effect they have been a part of the capture of those prisoners. Handing those prisoners over to Afghan soldiers does not absolve us of responsibility for what happens to them later. Our Government cannot escape being responsible for the mistreatment of prisoners against international law which commonly follows the capture of such prisoners. Replies to select committee estimates questions did confirm that the SAS will be withdrawn at the end of March 2011. We just hope that John Key will not be swayed by American pressure to keep the SAS unit in the field even in reduced numbers. Any such pressure will come from the American Government not the American people. A Bloomberg National Poll conducted this month showed that 60 percent of Americans want the withdrawal of US troops to start in July 2011 even if the war is not going any better for them. The Dutch and the Canadians are also withdrawing and other countries will follow suit. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on the foreign affairs and trade appropriations. I will start by saying what a hard-working Government this is. The work that we do is typified by two very hard-working Ministers. 
Moana Mackey 
: No one believes that. 
TODD McCLAY 
: I will mention them in a moment and talk about the work that they are doing for the benefit of the member opposite and it is hard hard work. 
Murray McCully is out there improving relationships with countries and regions of the world for the good of New Zealand. There is also Tim Groser our Minister of Trade whose great achievements in trade negotiations are free-trade agreements all over the place and negotiations that have been started. What an impressive and staggeringly hard-working Minister he is. 
On the area of trade it is worth mentioning for the benefit of members opposite who are looking very sleepy so late in the afternoon the very hard work that has been done. We have signed agreements with Malaysia and Hong Kong with regard to the ASEAN countries. We are moving towards negotiations with India the Gulf States and Korea. We have the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement and there is that wonderful trading opportunity with that country over the top of the European Union—Russia. What does this mean? It means more work for New Zealand businesses and better access to markets. The businesses of my electorate tell me that that is a great thing. 
What can a free-trade agreement do for us? Let us think about that jewel in the Crown—China. Last year the world was in a pretty bad recession and we know that New Zealand went into recession before many other countries of the world. While the world was doing it the tough way our exports to China increased by $1 billion because of the free-trade agreement with China. That was $1 billion in tough times. In two-way trade there was a 15 percent increase. Of that there was a 43 percent increase in trade for New Zealand companies and products to China. I congratulate these two Ministers and I ask them to keep up that very good work. 
As I said earlier New Zealand’s relationship with the world is improving and prospering. New Zealand aid funding has been increased to $169 million in 2010-11 and a lot more of this will be directed towards sustainable economic development. That is nothing but good news for Pacific Island countries—countries that we have a very close relationship with. It means that New Zealand taxpayer funds will be directed towards making their economies more sustainable making their businesses better and growing their economies. I recognise the work that has been put into the PACER-Plus negotiations and I look forward to more work over the current financial year. I believe that the countries of the Pacific are equally committed to making sure that we can get this agreement right as we move forward so that it will not only be a good agreement for them but also grow the relationship that we and Australia have with them. It is a very important agreement to them and because they are important to us it must also be an important agreement to us. 
I will touch on China and talk about some of the work that has been ongoing there. It is our second most important trading relationship and the potential of China is huge. It is unbelievable. I mentioned earlier that our two-way trade has increased. The Prime Minister has set out a challenge to New Zealand and to New Zealand businesses to increase our trade with China to $20 billion over the next 5 years. 
I had the opportunity to visit China and to go to Shanghai just last week with a group of Bay of Plenty exporters. They were a trade delegation that went to the expo at Shanghai to meet with their counterparts in order to promote the Bay of Plenty to them. Based upon the reception that our businesses in the Bay of Plenty got although the increase in two-way trade to $20 billion will be hard work it is more than achievable. We visited the New Zealand pavilion at the expo in Shanghai. A number of committed and hard-working New Zealanders were there representing our country. I understand that about 2.5 million Chinese people have visited New Zealand this year for tourism reasons. Well last week the 2 millionth visitor went through the New Zealand pavilion in Shanghai. The reception that New Zealand is getting is unbelievable. What a worthwhile investment on the part of the taxpayer to promote our country to that growing market in China. 
Whilst we were there a number of exporters from the Bay of Plenty used the visit to very good effect and I want to recognise a couple of them. New Zealand has potential in exporting to China in many areas. We have potential in protein and in the great products that our farmers produce for the agricultural trade in food fisheries and farming. There are New Zealand businesses like Comvita in my electorate which has brought a health product to China and there is Zespri with kiwifruit. 
Hon TIM GROSER (Minister of Trade) 
: 
 I will take a call on behalf of my colleague the Hon Murray McCully. I will focus not on foreign policy issues but on the budgetary control and efficiency measures that we are seeking to introduce into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the administration of our overseas development assistance. I know that it is a shock for some members opposite who have been used to truckloads of money pouring in through the front door to the point where core Government expenditure went from $32 billion in 2000 to $60 billion in 2009 but we are determined to get on top of this problem. 
The New Zealand public have gone through difficult times—including an anaemic 0.9 percent average growth rate in each of the last 3 years of Labour’s run in office which is one-third the level of economic growth in Australia—and we are determined to avoid a situation where more money is considered to be the answer to all problems. We have seen that once we get to that critical point that Greece Spain and other countries have got to it is an extremely hard road back. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is no exception to this. Actually I think that it has come off relatively lightly in terms of expenditure control in the course of our first 14 or 15 months in office. The budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has grown from approximately $439 million in 2009-10 to approximately $500 million in the 2010-11 allocation. The aid expenditure increases are quite considerable. They have gone from $498 million back in 2008-09 to an allocation this year 2010-11 of $525 million. That is in excess of $1 billion and I think it is a fairly generous allocation to the ministry. Having said that this Government is determined to ensure that we conduct a value-for-money exercise on the ministry as with all Government agencies because we are using other people’s money. That is called taxpayers’ money and we are determined that people get value for money out of their expenditure. 
With the situation in respect of aid for example where we have reintegrated the aid administration into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade—where it should have been all along; the idea that one could completely divorce foreign policy conclusions from aid considerations was always a fantasy—we have insisted that the administration costs be cut by 12 percent over the next few years and we are on a course of action to ensure that aid effectiveness is absolutely at the forefront of the ministry’s responsibilities. We are trying to refocus on sustainable economic development. This is the absolute key particularly in the Pacific region where the bulk of our money is spent. We are trying to refocus on that objective. 
I should also say that part of that process is to now turn the attention to adaptation and mitigation in the context of climate change. If I momentarily put on my other hat as the international negotiations Minister on climate change we are doing this in good faith. I was recently in the Maldives at a meeting of climate change Ministers. I met there the Samoan Minister responsible for climate change issues. I had met him at a previous meeting of the progressive group of countries. On behalf of the Samoan Government he put to me a very interesting proposal to use coconut husks as the input to a biofuels industry in the context of renewable energy and we were able to take that forward. There were also very interesting discussions with the young and extraordinarily able President of the Maldives. We are moving on a variety of fronts to refocus the aid. The Minister will be assisted by an independent and voluntary advisory group so we will ensure that we hear and listen to outside views as we move forward. 
Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in terms of its administration of public monies we are similarly ensuring that we will get value for money. We are doing this in a variety of ways. First of all in respect of integrated planning we have conducted the first phase of what will be an ongoing exercise. Under the title “New Zealand Inc. Strategy” we are attempting to try to join the dots of agencies that generally have worked pretty well together but not in all cases. We are trying to make it more systematic. We will be ensuring that the agencies’ chief executives are responsible for drawing up long-range country strategies and I hope that we will be able to reassure the New Zealand public in the months to come that they have achieved greater value for money from the obviously quite high expenses incurred in having our overseas diplomats represented in some 39 or 40 countries. 
We are also trialling a hubs and spokes model in terms of reducing back-office costs. We will run that out in Europe in the first instance which will be totally consistent with this Government’s insistence on cutting back back-office expenses and putting more in in terms of what the front shop operates at. I think that that will also lead in due course to improved effectiveness. There are a variety of other measures that we are putting in place to try to ensure that we get value for money out of the $1 billion - plus that this ministry is responsible for in all of its operation’s aid and otherwise. I am very confident that when we go to the people of New Zealand to seek their support for another term that on this front as on the fronts of all Government expenditure we will be able to look them in the eye and say: “You got value for money out of this Government.” 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Official Development Assistance agreed to.  
Vote Sport and Recreation 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 Tena koutou. Ki te Whare e tu nei tena koe. Ki te Mana Whakawa tena koe. Ki nga tangata o Aotearoa tena koutou. Ki nga mema Paremata tena koutou. Ki nga tangata o Wharekauri tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
I want to begin my mihi today by acknowledging the people of Wharekauri the Chatham Islands who recently hosted the Parliamentary Sports Trust for an extravaganza of sport in the Chatham Islands. Although the members of Parliament who participated in it—I acknowledge those members across the Chamber who were there as well Kelvin Davis and Moana Mackey—were unsuccessful in our sporting endeavours in the Chatham Islands we learnt much about the issues that Chatham Islanders face. I have no doubt that today as I speak in the Chamber they will be in their crayfish boats and cod boats; they will not be listening to Parliament. But we learnt a lot about the issues that they face in terms of transport energy and economic development. 
The Parliamentary Sports Trust travels around New Zealand to raise money for charity and it builds partnerships across the House. It is good to focus on what parliamentarians are doing very well. 
Aside from the Parliamentary Sports Trust I want to speak today about the Government’s plan for sport and recreation. It is more than just a plan. Minister McCully came into Government with a number of key priorities that he wanted to deliver in sport and recreation. He is not just planning for these things; he is getting on and delivering them. We have seen a number of key announcements that deliver on those priorities. We are getting on with the plan and getting things done. 
The first priority that Minister McCully had was to protect central government funding levels for sport and recreation. He has done that; in fact he has lifted the funding. The second priority was to reduce expenditure on social marketing and websites which proliferated under the previous Government. Those websites talked about getting out and doing activity as opposed to things that actually get kids active and out of the classroom which is exactly what this Government is doing. The third priority was to increase the support for sporting opportunities for school-aged children. We have done that and we are delivering on it as we go. The fourth priority was to provide greater certainty of funding for high performance and to improve systems and infrastructure to help take our athletes to the next level. Significant progress has been made across all of those priorities. As I said we are not just planning; we are getting out and delivering on our plans. 
This Government is delivering results for New Zealand. Nowhere can we see that happening more than in the area of sport and recreation. Specifically we have seen central government funding for sport and recreation increase significantly despite a recessionary environment and really tough budget constraints. We have stopped the social marketing campaigns such as Mission-On. They have been discontinued. We have reprioritised that funding to support Kiwisport which was launched by the Prime Minister in August 2009. Immediately after we came into Government we launched programmes to help kids get out there and take on sport. Kiwisport provides approximately $20 million per year directly to provide more opportunities for all school-aged children to participate in organised sport. 
Another important thing that we delivered recently is a significant boost to high-performance sport which was announced by the Prime Minister on 11 June. It included the largest increase in investment in high-performance sport which is an excellent initiative. 
Kiwisport and high-performance sports investment are excellent initiatives. There are two tranches of funding for Kiwisport. There is an investment of $12 million into primary and secondary schools and $8 million has been allocated through regional sports trusts. If organisations are out there doing great things around the country they are those regional sports trusts. They are out there in the community leveraging the taxpayers’ contribution out of communities and delivering things to schools. In my own area of Hawke’s Bay and Napier we have Sport Hawke’s Bay. It is one of the leading trusts in this area and it is doing great things with Kiwisport. Thank you. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Crown Research Institutes agreed to.  
Vote Defence agreed to.  
Vote Defence Force agreed to.  
Vote Research Science and Technology 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 One thing that both Labour and National agree on is that research science and technology is a key driver of our economy. It was with some excitement I suppose—not “excitement” perhaps; I did not get too excited about the Budget—but it was certainly with some anticipation that I heard that a special announcement on science research and technology would be made in the Budget. That was announced a week before the main Budget. I thought it would be the announcement of a key driver to really get behind the economy to be the plan and to be the strategy for the future. Well what an insipid ad hoc arrangement we saw. 
I will speak on two things. The first is that there was an increase in the Budget. I acknowledge that there was an increase in the Budget this year of $56 million. What was it to do? It was to be spent on grants and vouchers administered by the Government and given to companies. That was this Government’s answer to increasing and driving private sector research and development. We have one of the worst research and development spends in the private sector in the OECD and what do we do? We give money to the Government to sit there and ask for applications from companies to be given money. 
The research and development tax credit of 15 percent meant a change in culture in the private sector. I have been to a lot of companies around New Zealand in the last few weeks and asked all of them the same question which was what they thought about the grants scheme in the last Budget. The answer was always the same—well actually not quite the same. The big companies said that they will get $2 million or $3 million and that is fine by them. It means that they will be able to push some of the stuff that they were already going to do in research and development and buy some things that they were not necessarily going to spend our money on. But the small companies said that they are not affected because they probably will not get anything out of the new funding of $56 million. They will get nothing. Unanimously small and large companies said that they would have preferred the 15 percent tax credit because they would have taken the extra bit of risk in the knowledge that the 15 percent would be met by the Government. 
That is what the Australian Government has done. The Australian Government has just bumped up its research and development tax credit to 15 percent at the same time that we have eliminated ours. We have increased our research and development spending by about 5 or 6 percent which is just about enough to keep pace with inflation. What has Australia done? It has increased its research and development spending by 25 percent. Australia has a 15 percent tax credit and a 25 percent increase in its research and development spending and we sit in this House and hear about this Government’s plan to catch up with Australia. I ask how we can possibly catch up with Australia when one of our key drivers research and development science and technology has just fallen yet further behind where the Australians are on that. What a ridiculous insipid de facto “plan-less”—if there is such a word—Government we have before us. 
The second thing is that instead of having a real plan and a real strategy we have the merging of two departments. The Ministry of Research Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research Science and Technology will be merged together. This is shuffling the deckchairs on the  
Titanic 
; it is nothing more than that. We will spend $6 million on this exercise. It will not even return a benefit in the first 5 years. 
There is no plan. There is no strategy. If I can applaud the Government for something it is the new name that they have given this merged entity: the Ministry of Science and Innovation. To some degree I agree with that but one would think that the Government would put somebody in place to head it. One would think that this Government would undertake a really good search for the best person the best brains in the world to head it but it did not do that. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP (Minister of Research Science and Technology) 
: 
 In the very first statement that Mr Shearer made—I know he has an interest in research science and technology—he accused the Government of being ad hoc. I think it is evident by that statement alone that he was not here for the previous 9 years of the Labour Government. I say that because Labour members were totally and completely beset by adhockery. I think the biggest single judgment made by the sector about the Labour Government was the failed Catching the Knowledge Wave conference. The previous Prime Minister Helen Clark basically poured cold water on the sector and that sent a profound signal right across the science and innovation sector that in succeeding years New Zealanders could not look to Labour for a step change in this sector at all. 
That is one of the reasons why in recent times in the latter period of the previous Government there was an insipid growth rate. New Zealand went into recession ahead of the rest of the world. I will tell the House what the previous Government delivered to New Zealand. It delivered a $9 billion deficit. We have had to deal with that and we have had to build out of that. 
I want to cover a couple of points. The first point is that in the context of a significant deficit the National Government has significantly increased expenditure in this sector for this year and for the next 3 years. In fact this is the largest amount of new money going into a sector behind education and health so that is a significant change. 
It is not however just money; it is the major changes that are being done within the sector. One priority is Crown research institute reform. I know that the member and other colleagues sitting beside him know the importance of that because I am certain that they are receiving information from across the Crown research institutes as to how profound those changes will be in respect of their future performance. An OECD report stated that New Zealand had the most contestable system in the entire OECD. What did the previous Government do about that? It did absolutely nothing. It just shelved the report. This Government actioned it and established a task force and we are implementing that right now. It is to be rolled out in the latter half of this year. That is one of the fundamental differences between the previous Government and the current Government. It talked and we do. 
The second issue that I want to draw people’s attention to is the merger of the Ministry of Research Science and Technology and the Foundation for Research Science and Technology which is not dare I say it a minor move. There are two aspects to it. It is a much simpler system and it is something that the sector has absolutely been crying out for but it was falling on the deaf ears of the previous Government. We changed that by making these changes. 
The other aspect was changing the name of the ministry. This is a very significant issue because it shows the change of intent. The words “research science and technology” show a lack of connection between our research system and innovation and growth. In contrast “science and innovation” is intended to show the connections and that is why there is specific funding in the Budget of $23 million that is designed to connect directly the science and innovation system within universities and the Crown research institutes with discovery and innovation. 
The previous speaker must be going around with an approach that the cup is half empty. Well I guess to be fair that is a function of the Opposition. That is its view of life generally. I have been there; I know that. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: For 9 years. 
Hon Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: That member will be there for the same time. I guess I look at these things fundamentally positively. The sector is excited by these changes. The sector sees the changes as transformational and as setting up the conditions for a much improved connection between the sector and business and thus economic growth. 
I know that members across the House will be excited when they see and indeed have seen already the innovations within various companies. This Government is out there to make that more effective—not by a tax accountant reward system but by having effective programmes that will make a real difference. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa tena tatou e te Whare. Koinei te Wiki o te Reo Maori te whakanui i a tatou. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Chairman and to us the House. This is Maori Language Week which we celebrate 
.] 
This is a John Key - led Government that is committed to growing our economy. A key part of our plan for growth and jobs is better business innovation. Today I will speak about science and innovation. I will talk about our science investment significant as it is and the Primary Growth Partnership and I will also use a local Taupo example to show exactly how science and innovation create jobs and lead to economic growth. 
Science and innovation are at the heart of this Government’s economic growth programme. One of the six is part of this economic plan. The Government has boosted economic growth— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The vote Minister responsible for this vote is meant to be sitting in the chair while the vote is being considered. Mr Joyce has sweeping powers—I respect that—but forcing the vote Minister out of the chair is not one of those powers. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The member is exactly right. The Minister is present and his vote is being discussed. I thank the member for that. 
LOUISE UPSTON 
: The Government has boosted economic growth through a major increase in support for research science and technology with a budget providing an additional $321 million over 4 years for new initiatives. The key part of this the centrepiece is the $234 million for boosting business research and development. We are also reforming the Crown research institutes to better enable economic growth. Members will hear a repetitive theme through this—economic growth. The Ministry of Research Science and Technology will be amalgamated with the Foundation for Research Science and Technology to form a new Ministry of Science and Innovation where science refers to basic research and innovation refers to applied research and commercialisation. As a country we have a proud tradition in science; the economic opportunity lies though in the commercialisation. That is the opportunity this country needs to seize and this Government is doing something about it. 
Research funding has to be transparent and fair. This system provides a balance that will ensure that the investment goes to the areas of Government priority—and I will talk to one of those in a minute. The central element of Budget 2010 is support for business research and development. New initiatives include $225 million over 4 years for technology grants to research and development - intensive companies technology transfer vouchers and specific project grants. As the Minister spoke about there is the $24 million for support for commercialisation for university research and Crown research institute research. This commercialisation is critical. 
I will also speak briefly about the Primary Growth Partnership which is vital to electorates that are rural like my own Taupo where a significant element of our economy is forestry. There is to be a $140 million a year investment in Government industry partnerships. The first three partnerships have been announced and forestry is one of those three. That is great news for the Taupo electorate. 
I will bring it local for a minute and look at a specific example of how science leads to the creation of jobs. That is what this Government is about—creating jobs creating wealth and growing our economy not just for now but for decades to come. GNS Science is a Crown research institute and its purpose is: “to understand earth systems and technologies and to transform this knowledge into economic environmental and social benefits for New Zealand.” This company is the expert on offshore and onshore energy and mineral resources. Why is that important? Well the work that GNS Science has done in the geothermal fields of Taupo has led to the creation of jobs which has been a significant factor in sheltering Taupo from the harsh recession that has been felt across the country. Taupo has been sheltered because both Mighty River Power and Contact Energy have recently opened significant geothermal power stations and they are consenting at the moment for further developments. This is exactly how the use of science leads to jobs in growing our geothermal development which is a significant part of our economy. We are a world leader in that and it is something that we can develop further to specifically create jobs create employment and buoy a local economy—not just the local economy in Taupo but local economies across New Zealand. 
There is a whole list of things that I could speak about in terms of the things that this Government is doing in science and in promoting science such as the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser the science prizes the initiation of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases—goodness I have not even started on that one but that could have taken my entire speaking time. This Government has a plan for jobs and growth and science is a vital part of that plan. Kia ora kia mutu. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Communications 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 This is a very very important time in Vote Communications. I want to take just a little bit of the Committee’s time this afternoon to explain exactly what the Government is doing. This is a very very busy area and the Government is making significant investment alongside significant industry investment in the development of New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure. 
I would like to take the opportunity to record today that one of the aspirants for international bandwidth Pacific Fibre has taken another step forward today in terms of securing an international partner and I congratulate the company on doing that. That is what it is all about. It is a combination of private industry investment and also Government investment to speed up the development of our telecommunications infrastructure. It is all part of the Government’s growth plan to get New Zealand growing faster. 
The big one of course is the ultra-fast broadband initiative. We have now fine-tuned the request for proposal on feedback from the bidders and that request for proposal has gone out. The bidders are now putting their very best feet forward in terms of making their final bids to participate in this programme. It is a very exciting programme and we are expecting recommendations from Crown Fibre Holdings later on in this calendar year. I remind the Committee of the objectives. It will take 10 years to complete this very big project. The first 6 years will focus on core areas like education health businesses and the first tranche of homes. 
Complementing the ultra-fast broadband initiative is the rural initiative which we developed earlier this year. That is a big one as well. It is worth $300 million. It is made up of $48 million of a direct appropriation plus a telecommunications service obligation reform to create a telecommunications development levy of another quarter of a billion dollars. That is to subsidise if you like the development of some of the rural telecommunications infrastructure. The thing that sticks in my mind is the fact that roughly half of our rural areas have dial-up broadband. We cannot have that continue so there have been expressions of interest and a very high level of interest in those opportunities shown by private firms to partner the Government to improve that infrastructure. Again we are expecting further progress in the second half of this year as we get ready to select the final partners for that project. 
On the demand side we have a number of activities going on not least in the education area. There is a lot of work in trials of a national education network. We are also “snupping” the schools. School network upgrades are under way and at the end of June the Minister of Education and I announced another 239 schools that will be “snupped” over the next little while as they have their school networks upgraded. That is very important as well because the education sector is a big part of the demand side from the Government area for broadband. 
There is also the health area and I am pleased that the health information technology board members whom I have met are really grappling with the opportunities that they are presented with in health. Wider Government initiatives in other Government information and communications technology are being coordinated through the Government ministerial information and communications technology group which is putting together projects to encourage the better delivery of Government services through the online space particularly as broadband continues to develop. 
We have a number of complementary initiatives under way in the roll-out of infrastructure space. We are encouraging councils to work alongside the bidders for both ultra-fast broadband and rural projects to make their infrastructure available and to encourage the bidders to do the work in their areas first. There are also some very very good trials of innovative techniques happening such as shallow trenching and other ways of rolling out fibre broadband around the country. 
I would like to touch on a couple of issues in the policy area. We have a lot of policy development work going on in the communications space. A big one and an important one is international roaming and in particular data roaming between here and Australia. We have been working closely with the Australian Government and we have released a document in which we sought feedback on the status of international roaming particularly between New Zealand and Australia. We have had the submissions in we are evaluating those submissions and we are looking for ways in which to bring those costs down again to facilitate the development of a close economic relationship with the Australians and they are very enthusiastic about doing that as well. 
There are also other areas. One that I will not go into in great depth is the issue of mobile terminations as I have to make a decision in the next little while in that regard. But the Government is very active across a range of spaces—and the digital switch-over is still to come—in order to develop New Zealand’s telecommunications infrastructure for the 21st century. Thank you. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Transport 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koutou katoa e nga mema o te Whare i te Wiki o te Reo Maori. Tena koe e te Rangatira Mr Tisch. Tena koe e te Minita o nga take katoa nga take o te Kawanatanga a Tipene Joyce. 
[ 
Greetings to you all members of the House in Maori Language Week. Greetings to you the Chair Mr Tisch and to you the Hon Steven Joyce Minister of all matters relating to the Government 
.] 
He is the Minister of all issues confronting the Government. It is great to be able to speak on Vote Transport this afternoon. I will try to canvass a number of issues in my 5 minutes if there is an opportunity. The first issue is around roads of national significance. I will mention two and a half of those. 
The first is the Kapiti Expressway just up the road from Wellington and in the area that I am proud to be from. It is a four-lane 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway that is being built through the communities of Kapiti. It is not a road for the people of Kapiti but a road through the communities of Kapiti. It is not a road that the National Party campaigned on at the last election. At the last election the National Party campaigned on exactly the same policy as the Labour Party campaigned on: to build Transmission Gully and to build a local Western Link Road to remove a lot of State highway traffic from the State highway and feed that traffic locally through a local road. The Minister shakes his head to indicate that the party did not but it did. I was a candidate in that constituency and I know exactly what the National Party said at the last election. It was in favour of a local Western Link Road. It was even in favour of electrification of the railway system through to Palmerston North at the last election to build up passenger services. That was Labour’s policy and it was National’s policy as well. Then we wanted to see improvements to State Highway 1 so that there was a free flow of traffic and freight of course through our part of the country. 
Kapiti does have transport problems. But they are not 24/7 transport problems and Mr Joyce with his close connection to the New Zealand trucking industry has arrived at a 24/7 solution—that is a four-lane 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway through the Kapiti coast. I know that the Minister will not answer all my questions about it but I have just two for him. First if a four-lane expressway for Kapiti is such a great idea why did the National Party not campaign on it at the last election? Right now today a local Western Link Road could be being constructed. All the work was done. It was ready to go; tenders were ready to be called for. That road could have been under way giving immediate relief to the people of Kapiti. So I want to know from the Minister why if it is such a fantastic idea for traffic to race through Kapiti on a four-lane 100-kilometre-an-hour expressway at the cost of $500 million an hour he did not campaign on that. I see the Associate Minister of Transport is arriving in the Chamber. Maybe he can tell us why that is such a good idea compared with the one that he campaigned on at the last election. I would be very interested to hear his answer on that although I would prefer it if he waited a few more months before he answers it so that we can be in an audience with some more local people. 
My second question for the Minister of Transport is this: if the Kapiti Expressway is such an urgent road of national significance why have we already lost a year on it? Last week the New Zealand Transport Agency came out and said the road would be delayed by a further year. There was going to be urgency around the issue of roads of national significance and Labour would like to know why that statement is on the website of the Minister’s own agency. 
The second road of national significance that I will mention is the famous “Holiday Highway”—the Puhoi to Wellsford road—which is just a deal for the mates of the National Party because there was no way that that road had been identified as having strategic importance up until that point. That proposal did not come from the officials; it was put on the agenda by the Minister. There is no doubt that some safety improvements are needed along that route. We absolutely agree with that particularly around the Dome Valley and Schedewys Hill. There is need for urgent and immediate safety improvements which could be done now. We could get the benefits of them straight away so that more people do not have to die or be injured and also it could be done for a much lower cost. We want to know from the Minister why he has prioritised that road at a huge cost: up to $2 billion is stated in his own papers. The Government is putting that amount of money up as a comfort level for the amount that it wants to spend but the safety improvements on that road could be on much more cheaply. Then we would also be able to do other projects around the Auckland and Waikato areas using that money. 
The Minister could also explain to us why he got the figures so wrong on the Hamilton to Auckland train service but I suspect that Sue Moroney the excellent member of Parliament from Hamilton will be following that up. The Minister has had to memorise the Standing Order required for making corrections to ministerial answers in the House. He knows it very well; he is always coming back after question time to correct his answer. 
Grant Robertson 
: How many? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: He has one of the highest records of correcting ministerial answers of any Minister in Cabinet and that is by somebody who considers himself to be at the centre of absolutely everything in that respect. 
Then finally on the Waterview Connection issue the Minister delayed that project for a year and has ended up almost back with Labour’s plan although he greatly inflated and exaggerated the cost of that. There are many other issues and we have run out of time but I ask why the Minister did not change the blood-alcohol limit. Why did he run out of the courage to do that? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I will happily answer a couple of the questions the previous speaker Darren Hughes raises. I could start perhaps with the Puhoi to Wellsford motorway because somehow the previous Labour Government thought it was a very good idea to build a new motorway north from Auckland to Puhoi put it alongside the old highway and make it three lanes of traffic—disappearing into a paddock just outside of Puhoi. None of the traffic had left the road at that point but it was a really good idea to build a really long road there and then stop it where no traffic was leaving the road. It was one of the silliest roading decisions ever made in this country and it was made by the previous Government. I point out something else for the Opposition: that road carries something like 25000-odd people a day. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: No it doesn’t. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Yes it does. Between Puhoi and Warkworth the number of vehicles is around 19000 or about 25000 people a day according to—[ 
Interruption 
] The Opposition constantly says we should put that money into rail in Auckland. I think that rail in Auckland is important but I note just to get the comparator right that we currently have around 22000 passengers on the entire Auckland commuter rail network every day. The Puhoi to Warkworth section of State Highway 1 has more traffic on it than the entire Auckland commuter rail network has on an average day. That is the reality of the situation. The Opposition says we should not invest in that highway and that we should stop it in a paddock at Puhoi despite the high level of usage of that road. That is the ridiculous nature of the Opposition’s approach to transport. 
Another example of Labour’s approach is the highway north of Wellington. The previous Labour Government put its fingers in its ears and said that it did not have to worry about whether it had a plan for State Highway 1 north of our capital city. It preferred not to have to think about that because it was a bit hard and it did not want to talk to people about it. Labour members thought: “We’ll take the one highway designation that is reasonably possible north of Wellington and use it for a link road. We won’t need it for the highway. We won’t worry about the highway. We’ll just have the thundering traffic on the old road with all the access issues and we won’t even think about the future.” That was the approach of the previous Government. 
So when I went up the Kapiti coast and asked the people in the local district where State Highway 1 went in this grand master plan they said: “We really can’t tell you. Maybe there is a third designation.” Of course that is what we all had to go through last year and the reality is that there is not a third designation that is acceptable for the local community. There is a designation there that is acceptable and that should be used for New Zealand’s highway. In fact it is not just about the Kapiti coast; it is also about Palmerston North about Levin about Wanganui and about the whole lower North Island linking to Wellington. That is what is very important. 
The third thing I should draw to Opposition members’ attention is that somehow they thought they would be paying for their roading projects. They keep saying: “We were going to do that; we were going to do that.” But they cut the budget just before they left office and the Government policy statement on State highways which was signed off by the previous Minister of Transport going forward was around $650 million a year in State highway investment. It is now $1 billion a year. So Labour was going to have to delay Victoria Park. It had no plan for Waterview. It was going to borrow stacks of money for Waterview outside of the National Land Transport Fund and increase the Government’s fiscal deficit. 
Those were Labour’s plans—it did not have any and it could not afford to pay for Transmission Gully. But now we have a $10.7 billion pipeline to invest in these roads of national significance and somehow Opposition members are trying to tell us they would have done some of them. Well they would not have had the money because they were frittering money away on everything else in their classic “just throw money at whoever wants it” approach. 
National has a much better system running with the Government policy statement for the investment in the highways. I am very proud that we will see real opportunities for economic growth by investing in not just these seven projects but the projects that do not involve roads of national significance. Labour members never found the time to do the Kopu Bridge. They never had the time to do the Matahorua Gorge. They never found the time to do the Hawke’s Bay Expressway’s southern extension. All these things have been started and done by this Government and of course Victoria Park is one of the biggest overall. 
I think the problem is that the previous speaker has no understanding of the importance of prioritising and getting this infrastructure right and spending in the right places. Thank you. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a document called  
Puhoi to Wellsford: Project Summary Statement 
—one of the Minister’s roads of personal significance. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Is this in the public domain? 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Yes it is. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: It is a published document? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: It has been published by the New Zealand Transport Agency but I would not have thought it is readily available. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: It is readily available so we will not table that. 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairperson. Tena tatou e te Whare. I congratulate the Minister of Transport on the leadership he is providing in the transport area. The Government is serious about unclogging the arteries of our economy to create jobs and growth with better roads broadband rail and electricity networks. Jobs and growth are essential if New Zealand and New Zealanders are to get ahead. Development of infrastructure is central to lifting New Zealand’s productivity and improving future economic growth. The Government is very focused on that area. The Government is spending $6 billion on infrastructure projects: specifically in respect of the transport area there is a $500-million upgrade of Auckland rail and a $250-million upgrade for the wider rail network and rolling stock. There is also $10.7 billion over 10 years for State highways. State highways account for 50 percent of road use in New Zealand; therefore an advanced State highway system is essential to maintain effective linkages throughout the country. 
The money that the Government has committed reflects how important infrastructure is to the Government’s wider economic policy programme and New Zealand’s longer-term economic prospects. As an example work on the Victoria Park tunnel began last November a year ahead of schedule. Without extra funding that project might never have got off the ground and neither would the jobs or economic benefits it is bringing. More recently the Minister along with the Prime Minister opened the Manukau Harbour Crossing 7 months ahead of schedule. The crossing is part of the Auckland western ring route one of the seven roads of national significance announced in March last year. 
The Government’s $1billion boost to State highway funding has provided a secure funding pipeline which has given contractors the confidence to continue investing in people and machinery and to complete projects more quickly. Earlier this month the New Zealand Transport Agency announced that the southern half of the Newmarket viaduct on State Highway 1 will also open 6 months ahead of schedule. 
High-calibre infrastructure matters because it supports productivity and economic competitiveness. An important spin-off from this commitment is that in the deepest and most coordinated global recession since the 1930s effective investment in productive infrastructure has supported many thousands of jobs across the country. KiwiRail is a subsidiary of the New Zealand Railways Corporation. It has been a priority for this Government to make KiwiRail productive. During its last year in office the previous Labour Government spent more than $1 billion on KiwiRail an investment that plummeted in value. The Government is committed to turning KiwiRail around. 
In Budget 2010 the Government invested $250 million to support KiwiRail and its plan to ensure that KiwiRail can stand on its own two feet financially. Improving rail transport will be important in moving people and freight around. The $250 million in Budget 2010 builds on previous commitments to Auckland and Wellington commuter rail and that includes the half a billion when appropriated for KiwiRail to buy electric trains for Auckland. Efficient and effective transport links are important drivers of growth. We are committed to making economically sensible decisions and making our investments in rail deliver for taxpayers and the economy. Investing to support KiwiRail will help improve New Zealand’s economic productivity and put us on the path to faster growth. Our investment reflects the fact that the amount of freight being moved on New Zealand’s transport network will double by 2040 and all transport modes need to become more efficient to meet that demand. Achieving that will be challenging and it will require the support of all stakeholders including the Government KiwiRail customers unions and regional councils. 
Auckland is vital to the economy of New Zealand. It has one-third of New Zealand’s population and it is a major contributor to our economy. Unfortunately it has suffered for far too long with bottlenecks delays and uncompleted roading networks. The Government is creating a new transport council-controlled organisation in Auckland called Auckland Transport. It will enhance the current nine Auckland transport entities and will be responsible for all local authority transport delivery functions in Auckland including local roads and public transport. Thank you. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Courts agreed to.  
Vote Pacific Island Affairs agreed to.  
Vote Employment 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana. I am pleased to rise to speak this afternoon about employment. In particular I will concentrate on employment for our most vulnerable in the workforce who I believe are our younger people. Young people have been well and truly overrepresented in the unemployment statistics but the National-led Government has taken this bull by the horns literally. Back in 2009 it announced a significant package of opportunities called Youth Opportunities for young people. First of all was Job Ops. There were 4000 job opportunities and after that still more were announced and now that programme is up to 12000 job opportunities. The reason for that number is that the Job Ops scheme is really working and later I will give members some good examples of that from my own electorate. 
Then there was Community Max and it certainly has delivered for young people as well. There are more opportunities for young people in industry partnerships the Youth Guarantee initiative service academies Limited Service Volunteers polytech and technology institute funding boosts and summer scholarships. Boy did the students thank us for those summer scholarships. 
In the southern region where my electorate of Rangitata is as at the end of May a total of 273 employers had taken advantage of the Job Ops package. The Timaru service centre had filled 70 Job Ops positions and had a further three positions available making a total of 73. In Ashburton the Community Link office which is working exceptionally well there filled 14 Job Ops positions and had a further one available. So there are many young people being employed in the region. 
Job Ops is such an exciting opportunity. The programme was announced at the National Party 2009 weekend conference and the very next morning when I headed off to the gym—the Monday morning routine—someone tapped me on the shoulder and said: “You had a busy weekend the National Party. I really like the sound of that Job Ops and I’m going to be in on it.” That employer was one of the first to trot to Work and Income and have somebody sign up for it. 
We can talk about policy and announcements until the cows come home. What about talking about some real people? Well I will talk about them. The owner of Bloomers Florist Cherilyn Kuperus needed an extra pair of hands and turned to Work and Income and the Job Ops initiative for help. That Timaru employer received the information on Job Ops through the local chamber of commerce because I got in touch with the chamber of commerce and asked them to please push it. About the same time 17-year-old Hannah Braid came to Bloomers for work experience while she completed a floristry course. When the course finished Hannah’s tutor contacted Cherilyn to see whether there was a job opening. The inquiry was just what Cherilyn needed to commit to Job Ops. Here is what she had to say about Hannah: “She is pretty good and a lovely keen kid. She understands floristry isn’t just about playing with flowers.” So that was one really good example. Hannah is now employed full time at Bloomers having completed her Job Ops term earlier in the year. She has stayed on in that job after the Job Ops term was finished. 
Then there was 17-year-old Cassandra Hefford who left school with no qualifications or work experience but wanted a job. With the help of Work and Income staff in Timaru and Job Ops she is now employed doing something many young people would love to do which is helping to plan fun activities for children. She is working at Chipmunks Playland and Cafe in Timaru. That particular business also showed a commitment to young people and signed up a Job Ops applicant. 
In Ashburton there was a 17-year-old man who was in receipt of an invalids benefit so it is not about just those who are not in work or on an unemployment benefit. This young man was on an invalids benefit but he was keen to work. His health condition was well managed and stable so he applied for a full-time job as a workshop assistant with an Ashburton employer. He missed out on that position but the employer said that they might have some part-time work for him. He met with the Ashburton work broker—I have a lot of respect for work brokers because they help young people into work—to discuss employment options. Following that discussion the work broker approached the Ashburton employer at the business where the young man had missed out on the workshop assistant position and it was Job Ops that made the difference. The employer was pleased to utilise that funding to give that young man a chance. There is another example again in Ashburton. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. Tena koutou e te Whare. Kia ora mai tatou tena tatou katoa. I rise to take a slot in this debate on unemployment—or employment whichever way we look at it depending on whether one’s glass is half empty or half full. 
We have done a lot of work with the unemployment sector. We are set on turning around some things. Bearing in mind the situation that we find ourselves in with the New Zealand economy having gone into recession a number of years before the international recession hit the challenges have been difficult. We currently have just over 60000 people on the unemployment benefit as at May 2010 compared with 45000 in May 2009 which is a 31 percent increase in the past year. 
The challenge of unemployment are very very significant. But we are making that picture a little bit better by making some changes and providing some incentives and by putting together some packages for employers significant corporations and non-governmental organisations who are working together to assist people who find themselves in the situation of being unemployed. There are times which are cyclical where it will be more difficult for people to find employment. There will be other times of course when things will be easier. But we know that there are people out there who are very much interested in finding work. 
To its credit the previous Government managed to in good times reduce the level of unemployment right down to about 3.5 percent which was a very good situation to be in. When the cycle went around we knew that it would get more and more difficult to keep unemployment down. At the time that Labour took over Government in 1999 about 500 extra jobs a week were coming into the workforce and that trend sped up over the time that Labour was in Government. But unfortunately the wheels got a little wobbly and things started trending down. In the 12 months to March 2010 nearly 50000 people left the unemployment benefit and got into work. That is around half of all unemployment benefit cancellations. So things are looking good and positive. 
We are not at all trying to minimise our obligations especially towards people who find it difficult to find work towards 18 to 24-year-olds and towards Maori and Pacific Islanders who unfortunately are within demographics that have traditionally been overrepresented in unemployment statistics. We certainly do not shirk our responsibility to work hard to give them the opportunity to get into work. 
This Government has invested an extra $285 million in social development responding to the recession. That is a significant amount of money. Some $91 million is being focused on young people providing 12000 Job Ops as covered by the previous speaker Jo Goodhew 3000 Community Max places and 2500 extra places in the Limited Service Volunteers. It has been a real joy to visit some of those Limited Service Volunteers programmes to see the work that they are doing and to see the level of work readiness that they get young people up to. 
I am reminded of a young man from my electorate who appeared in court. He had been in and out of trouble for some time and he pushed Judge Rob Murfitt pretty much to breaking point when he was about to head off to jail. His lawyer made a plea for the judge to allow him to be remanded on bail so that he could attend a Limited Service Volunteers course. Being the creative judge that he is Judge Murfitt—unfortunately he is soon to leave Taranaki and head back to his home stomping ground of Canterbury which is a big loss for Taranaki—asked this guy how much he really wanted to go into the Limited Service Volunteers. The young fellow said “Heaps.” So the judge got the sergeant to drop off the young fellow outside of town at Normanby. He said: “OK I’ll give you 45 minutes to get back to court. If you get back to court then you can be remanded.” So the young man did exactly that. He turned up in court with his boots off and his feet looking a bit sore and tired. He was put on bail and he was allowed to attend the Limited Service Volunteers course which he did. He then joined the army and did his basic training. He is soon to return from his first tour of duty in Afghanistan. There is creativity within the community and there is creativity within Government. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Social Development agreed to.  
Vote Youth Development agreed to.  
Vote Fisheries 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture) 
: 
 We are well aware that fisheries and aquaculture is a very important part of New Zealand’s economy and it is a portfolio that I certainly enjoy holding. The economy continues to be the Government’s major focus and its top priority for 2010. The year 2009 was all about taking the rough edges off the recession making sure that businesses could continue and helping them as much as we possibly could so that employees were retained and that the impacts of the worldwide recession were not felt to the depths that they could have been perhaps if the previous Government had been in charge at that stage. Fortunately it was not and I feel that large sigh of relief from New Zealanders and from my colleagues from the Government side of the House. 
Aquaculture and fisheries are an important part of the economy. Marine farmers want to do better. I can tell the House that the National Government the Maori Party ACT and the United Future team want to see marine farmers do better. Marine farmers have a goal of $1 billion in export earnings by 2025 and we support that process. The previous Labour Government looked at aquaculture and felt that it was an industry that it wanted to support so it introduced a moratorium because that is what one does when there is an industry that one wants to support! What would Steven Joyce have done? I do not think he would have introduced a moratorium but that is what the Labour Government decided that it would do because it wanted to back this industry! 
I will tell members the second thing that Labour decided to do after it had introduced a moratorium. Do members know what it decided to do because it wanted to back this industry? It extended the moratorium. The first piece of legislation that went through the House provided for a moratorium and Labour’s second piece of legislation on aquaculture extended that moratorium because that is what one does! 
Having done that the Labour Government worked on it for a few years while the moratorium was in place which meant that no more aquaculture space was available for marine farmers whom the Labour Government supported! The Labour Government put through the aquaculture reforms which unfortunately prohibited aquaculture anywhere in New Zealand as if it were nuclear war unless a council had been through a process to say that it was OK. In other words one could not put in a resource consent application to marine farm unless it was in a specific area; it was banned everywhere else. So after 2004 no new marine farms were created under the Labour Government for 5 years. 
We have decided that we will be more helpful. What we are going to do is to allow marine farmers to apply for more marine farming space. They can put in consents. What is more we have allowed them to farm fish. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: I will continue my comments regarding aquaculture and the stagnation that the country witnessed under the previous regime. Essentially the Labour Government’s solution was first of all to have a moratorium—to stop aquaculture—secondly to extend the moratorium and then to introduce some reforms that prohibited aquaculture development right throughout the country. As a Government we have said quite clearly that aquaculturalists marine farmers and those wanting to be marine farmers can apply for space anywhere in New Zealand unless that zone is specifically closed by regional councils. They can finfish farm if they want to—switch to other species—if indeed that is something that meets strict environmental standards. In the Waikato they can extend their marine farms which they cannot do at present. 
We want to see aquaculture boom. We think it is an economic development area that fits well with what New Zealand as a primary producer can do in pristine waters right across New Zealand under the clean green label. For those members who are concerned about water-quality issues I say that nothing is more sensitive to water quality than a mussel an oyster or any form of shellfish. Marine farmers need good water-quality more than any other water user and we should not forget that. We should remember that when they develop their marine farms the maintenance of the environment is their top concern and we support them with that. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Housing 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. Tena tatou e te Whare i roto i Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori. Tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. I am happy to stand and take a call on the estimates for housing although it must be said that this year’s budget for housing was underwhelming to say the least. I am very pleased to have the Minister of Housing in the chair. The duration of my speech is roughly the length of time that he allowed himself to be questioned before the Social Services Committee at estimates this year. Guarded by the very good chairpersonship of Katrina Shanks the Minister of Housing spent most of his time recounting stuff he could see on the Housing New Zealand Corporation website and answering questions as slowly as was physically possible in order to chew up the time so that he did not have to face questioning of his appropriation from members of the Opposition. I have 5 minutes—well I have 4½ minutes now—and I want to try to make sure that we get an adequate look at this appropriation. We did not get one at the select committee this year which was a shame. 
The first thing we look at is State housing. Last year the Minister Phil Heatley made such a song and dance about this issue. He said he was going to fix it. He leapt up and down; we enjoyed the demonstrations in Parliament every single week. Where has that gone? All the money for new State houses has gone. In fact the Housing New Zealand Corporation has been told that it will have to find savings in its baseline appropriation in order to fund new housing and maintenance. I am pleased that the Minister seems to think he has fixed the housing problem in New Zealand in 1 year. The recession is over for him but I say to the Minister that the recession is not over for the 11000 families sitting on the Housing New Zealand Corporation waiting list right now—11000 families. The Minister has come up with an options and advice service. It appears that the main thrust of the options and advice service is to get people off the Housing New Zealand Corporation waiting list and push them into the private sector whether or not they can afford it. 
I have spoken to emergency accommodation providers like Monte Cecilia Housing Trust. They tell me that options and advice clients are turning up on their doorstep and they have lost everything. They have lost everything. They were put into accommodation they could not sustain they were not told that they might be eligible for a Housing New Zealand Corporation home and they ended up losing all their Work and Income entitlements in terms of advances. They lost their money because they had to leave a property that they could not afford. I asked this Minister why he does not just do a needs assessment for every person who comes into the Housing New Zealand Corporation. Those who are category C and D can be put through options and advice—fair enough—and those who are category A and B and who will probably get a State house can be put through that process. He refuses to do that. The only thing I can draw from that is that options and advice is all about keeping people off waiting lists. 
We also have a reconfiguration of State housing. The Minister has identified 20000 State houses that he thinks can be reconfigured which means sold. People from the community housing sector tell me that they believe that the Minister expects them to pick it up. A lot of them have said to me that he is in la-la land if he thinks they can afford to pick up 20000 State houses off the Government. But I am pleased to know that the Minister has promised that there will be absolutely no net reduction in State housing in New Zealand. 
This Minister has actually done nothing to address the issue of supply of housing in New Zealand. The fact is that he is building far fewer State houses than the former Labour Government did every single year yet the demand is growing. He has done nothing for affordable housing. Labour set up a shared equity pilot for 2 years. Of those 24 months 20 months were under that Minister Phil Heatley. What did he tell the Housing New Zealand Corporation? He told it not to promote the pilot and not to tell people it exists. At the end of the pilot he said he was getting rid of it because of the low uptake. Well the low uptake was probably because the Housing New Zealand Corporation was told not to tell New Zealanders that it was there. The shared equity scheme is gone. The Gateway Housing scheme that we have been promised since the election has yet to eventuate; it got no funding in this year’s Budget. The Minister has done nothing for affordable housing. 
We have been privy to wonderful displays of emotion and theatre in the House regarding State housing but the reality is that more and more people are coming through our offices unhappy with Housing New Zealand Corporation. There are Housing New Zealand Corporation staff with 1000 cases. There are tenancy managers with 1000 cases. I say to the Minister that that is not good enough. That does not mean that that front-line service is adequately serving the public as it should be. 
On the issue of homelessness the Minister has continued to block a select committee inquiry into homelessness that Labour has been calling for that the Coalition to End Homelessness has been calling for and that the sector has been calling for. He thinks it is OK that during the Rugby World Cup boarding-house tenants will be kicked out of their homes. I say to the Minister that it is not good enough. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Mr Chairman tena koe. Tena tatou katoa. One of the good things about not being in the mainstream parties is that one listens to these debates that go on and one compares the previous Government with this Government. I have to say that the performance of the previous Government in housing was not all that hot. 
Today at question time there was a debate about the unacceptably high levels of rheumatic fever in Maori Pasifika and high-deprivation communities. Approximately 146 people die per year from the complications of this condition and the majority of them are Maori and Pasifika. But although the ongoing treatment is estimated to be costing the health sector at least $10 million per year the reality is that this is a condition of poverty and also of very poor housing. It will take a lot more than just the health sector to get it right. Rheumatic fever is associated with poor living conditions socio-economic deprivation and overcrowded housing conditions. 
The case of Porirua woman To’a Finau in my electorate is a classic example of the link between housing and health. The extreme dampness of her State house’s bedrooms forced the family of four to sleep in very cramped conditions in one room. Her son is only 15 months old her 14-year-old daughter has chronic asthma and she has a chronic heart condition. Insulation was supposed to be installed in September 2009 but 9 months later in June this year it still has not happened. However I understand that in recent weeks the family has been moved. 
It is useful to see up front in Vote Housing the recognition from this Minister of Housing that many of the existing State houses are not insulated and need to be modernised and reconfigured. I believe that this Minister will do a great job. I congratulate Minister Heatley on his assurances to the select committee that another 8000 upgrades are planned and the only concern I would have is that it is hard to understand quite where the resourcing might come from when the $124 million stimulus appropriation granted in 2009-10 has come to an end. 
Of course the condition of existing State houses is not the only issue of concern. Our concern is also about priority according to the State housing waiting list. There are some huge issues for us in terms of the number of whanau in severe and persistent housing needs. These whanau are seriously at risk because of their housing circumstances. Their housing is unsuitable inadequate or unsustainable. We know that 67 percent of Maori are renting or boarding with approximately 72000 Maori occupants residing in State houses. More than 55.7 percent of Maori living in State housing are under the age of 20 and we know also that Maori are particularly prevalent amongst the homeless. We are inevitably concerned when we learn of the intention to reduce the waiting list significantly to free up spaces on the waiting lists for people with real needs. The question we ask now is how real need is defined. Is it people located in overcrowded and inappropriate housing young and vulnerable New Zealanders or those who are homeless? 
We also have some concerns about what will happen in the decision to encourage those applicants who no longer meet the category of housing need to apply in the open market for private rental accommodation. It cannot be overlooked that racial discrimination affects our access to housing. A couple of years ago the reality of racism in the housing market became known through the exposure in the media of a south Waikato landlord and a Tauranga property-owner who declared that banning Maori tenants made good business sense and should be allowed. Such comments only scrape the surface of the levels of institutional racism that other researchers have identified. In this context we would put forward to the Housing New Zealand Corporation the suggestion that it could play a role in mentoring potential tenants or by providing them with letters of reference to support Maori Pasifika and ethnic minority tenants to enter the rental market on a strong footing. 
Finally we note the minor but significant paragraph placed at the end of the report which outlines some of the great initiatives the Maori Party has been involved in. Thank you. 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I will take the opportunity to respond to the good news from the Labour Party. I was intrigued when I read the report back from the Social Services Committee on the estimates for Vote Housing. After many weeks of consideration and hours of work in the committee the report came back and we are debating it now. That report is four considered pages long—four considered pages of wisdom. At the very end there is a statement called the “New Zealand Labour minority view”—the Labour Party minority view which Labour members put a tremendous amount of work into! I think it is worthwhile reading out to New Zealand what they said. Everyone else—ACT the Maori Party the National Party and the Green Party bless them—put in four pages of thoughtful consideration. The New Zealand Labour Party said this: “Labour members are concerned”—not about housing—“that the time allocated for the Estimates hearing did not allow us enough time to adequately scrutinise the appropriation.” That is the depth of thought there! 
I decided to read the transcript of the select committee’s ½-hour interview with me. I can tell members that I spoke for three pages as an introduction and then there were six pages of questions where I was basically drilled. Of those questions 28 came from the Labour member Moana Mackey and the National members got to “mollycoddle” me three times. The question time during the estimates hearing was intense I was held to account as I should have been and Labour members had plenty of time to scrutinise the books. But unfortunately all they can do is criticise put down and produce no policy of their own. 
One of the disappointing things for me when I became the Minister of Housing was that I celebrated the fact that the previous Labour Government had increased the number of State houses. I thought that was a good thing but I discovered that the money it had used to increase the number of State houses had been taken from the depreciation fund which had been several hundred million dollars over a 9-year period. That Government had used the money that was supposed to repair existing houses to purchase new ones so current tenants are now living in houses that are in a serious state of disrepair—not insulated with no heating and falling to pieces—while Labour members are out on the streets bragging that they bought new houses. 
For the National Government John Key has said that that is enough. He has said that we will add to the State housing stock. In fact in the last 2 years as I reported to the select committee we have added about 840 extra State houses and that is net. That is not as many as Labour added but at the same time we have upgraded just under 20000 State houses— 
Hon Member 
: How many? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: Twenty thousand. The very minimum we have done to them is insulate the floor and ceiling and in many cases put in clean heating. We have done a lot more than that in most cases. We have looked after current tenants and we have new State houses for more tenants. We have thought of everyone. It is not easy to balance that. 
Another thing we discovered was that across New Zealand we have several thousand three-bedroomed houses that we do not need. The Labour Government refused to sell those and buy one-bedroomed houses because a lot of people live alone. It also refused to buy five-bedroomed houses; a lot of Pasifika and Maori families in particular need large houses. So we are sitting with a housing stock full of three-bedroomed houses. We are going to divest them and acquire one-bedroomed and five-bedroomed houses. That is only sensible. 
We will also make sure that houses are provided in areas of high need not just in electorates where Labour wants to get voted in—not just in electorates where Labour wants State house tenants to vote for it. We will provide State houses where they are needed for families most in need we will get the size of the house right and the houses will be in a decent condition so that State housing tenants no longer live in squalor. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Women’s Affairs 
Hon PANSY WONG (Minister of Women’s Affairs) 
: 
 I have waited for 2 years for a request from Labour members to ask me to appear in front of the Government Administration Committee in relation to women’s affairs but the call has never come. All I can find in the estimates report is that the committee has nothing to report and just recommends that the vote for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs be accepted. What a disappointment! 
I started to reflect that maybe there was a reason why I was not called. The Labour spokeswoman on women’s affairs kept on challenging me as Minister to close the pay gap between men and women. But there is a problem: she did not know what the source of the pay gap was. She actually filed a written question to the Minister asking what the source of the pay gap was. Well that was established long before we came into power. That measurement was established by Labour way back. It is the gap between the median-income hourly earnings of men and women. The gap had been static since 2001 under the previous Labour Government. Guess what? The good news is that after 18 months of National in Government the pay gap has decreased to 11.3 percent. But this Minister and this Government are very ambitious for our New Zealand women. 
We will not stop there. For a very long time no additional funding was allocated to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Then in the last Budget $2 million was allocated over 4 years for us to undertake a work stream to look at the pay gap issue. Women who make up 51 percent of the New Zealand population have much to contribute. We cannot afford underutilisation of our women in the workforce and the work stream will encourage more women into non-traditional areas for women. We have established the Women in Trades Network and we have looked at successful examples in the accounting profession of flexible work practices. A fantastic accounting firm in Taranaki has demonstrated that flexible work practices are good for both men and women. They increase the bottom line and we will champion that along with the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants. 
We will also look at new graduates because we want to identify why it is that 1 year after graduation there is a pay gap between young men and young women of up to 6 to 8 percent. We will conduct workshops to enable that to be examined and improved. I am also very proud to say that we are so ambitious for New Zealand women that we will challenge the low percentage of women directors of listed companies. In the top 100 New Zealand companies the number of woman directors amounts to only 8.6 percent. Our Prime Minister the Hon John Key is ambitious for women so last May we launched Women on Boards to tackle this issue. There are lots of competent women directors out there and we want to see them contributing in the boardroom. 
I close by paying a compliment to the Hon Simon Power and the Hon Tariana Turia who championed two task forces on the elimination of sexual violence against women and on the elimination of family violence. This Government is ambitious for women and it wants women to be in safe homes. I am privileged to be the Minister of Women’s Affairs and to stand up for women. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Immigration 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 One of the great responsibilities perhaps the greatest responsibility that the Minister of Conservation can have is as an advocate. Indeed the Conservation Act states that the Minister of Conservation must— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: It is Vote Immigration. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Oh sorry. Of course conservation is just as important as immigration but I am sorry. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Is the member going to continue with his call? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: No Mr Chairperson. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Conservation 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Labour—Te Atatu) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou. It is an honour to speak again on conservation this time in the right place. I acknowledge Ngati Raukawa who are with us tonight for a very important event that will be coming later. I have to say that in the 5 years I spent as the Minister of Conservation I was privileged to engage with that iwi on a number of conservation issues. 
The Conservation Act which was passed under a National Government says that the Minister of Conservation has a responsibility to be an advocate for the protection of New Zealand’s unique biodiversity to be kaitiaki if one likes of our lands particularly of the 8 million hectares owned by all of us that are managed by the Department of Conservation. I say to the Minister in the chair the Hon Kate Wilkinson who on a personal level can be very charming that I think she has neglected her responsibility to be the kaitiaki of the land. 
We had a debate in this House earlier this year over schedule 4 land under the Crown Minerals Act—land that has total protection and that contains incredibly important biodiversity and recreational sites within our national parks our scientific reserves and our nature reserves. That Minister was quite happy to sign over the access to those areas when they were being considered for mining. She now has to co-sign access into conservation land with the Minister of Energy and Resources. She has already passed over some of the powers and the opportunities she had to be the guardian of our conservation estate. 
Why are the 8 million hectares owned by all of us and managed by the Department of Conservation so incredibly important? Firstly it is our land—our landscapes our seascapes our mountains and our wetlands—that defines us as a people. Ask any New Zealander here in this Chamber tonight or anywhere in our country what it is about our country that they love—what it is that makes them a Kiwi—and they will mention some aspect of the land whether it is the mountains the beach the forests the rivers or whatever; it is who we are. Therefore protection of that land of those natural environments and of those marine areas is so critical not only for our well-being but also for the well-being of future generations. 
Protection is critical not just for the intrinsic value and the unique biodiversity of those landscapes but also for the economic values they bring to our country. Our tourism industry earns $23 billion a year. Every New Zealander and international visitor who comes to our country has the chance to have a recreational experience to have a visual experience and to enjoy the great outdoors which is so much part of that conservation estate. 
The conservation estate is also important for eco-services: for things like the management of flooding and protection against erosion which natural environments that are left undisturbed or that are recovering are able to provide. Food sources such as whitebait eels ducks pigs and deer that people are able to shoot and to hunt are all important opportunities for New Zealanders and international visitors to enjoy and to utilise within the conservation estate. That is why protecting it is so incredibly important. That is why it is the role of the Minister of Conservation to ensure that we enhance protect improve and add to the conservation estate. 
The proudest thing I have ever done at Parliament and the thing I will always remember when I leave is that while I was the Minister of Conservation 360000 hectares were added to the conservation estate. That includes places like Kaikoura Island and Waikawau Bay in Coromandel and land all over New Zealand that now belongs to every New Zealander and will be protected for ever. That is the sort of contribution we have to make and it was possible to do that only because the Labour-led Government poured millions into the acquisition of land and sites. [ 
Interruption 
] It was about ownership; it was about public ownership. It was about providing saving and protecting those spaces for all New Zealanders for ever. I think that if we make any investment in this country investing in our natural environment is one of the best investments we can make. 
Finally and I know I have very little time left I want to talk about marine protections. When I became the Minister of Conservation we had only 17 protected marine areas. Luckily when I finished there were 34. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Food Safety agreed to.  
Vote Labour 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I think that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Labour has a bit of a problem. When we had the estimates hearing at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee she came along all soothing words and platitudes. There were lots of patsy questions from the National members about how everything was going wonderfully. We had to note that the Minister had not managed to succeed in any bids to increase anything in her portfolio; in fact there was a major cut to the area of employment relations for education leave and I think that that will grow in significance as time goes on. 
Since then we have found out that the Minister had a very very sneaky plan. She was saving up for her leader the Prime Minister to announce changes at the National Party conference in front of all the National Party faithful those big funders because in the end that is what it is about. It is about delivering to those party funders the people who have been telling National that it is not doing enough in the area of industrial relations and that they want to see the Government make it harder for workers because things have gone a little bit too far. 
The problem the Minister has is that attacking the rights of wage and salary earners in New Zealand is not an economic plan. We have seen that today. There is no plan to stop the assault on the cost of living for hard-working New Zealanders there is no plan to stop the growth of the deficit and the huge debt that is mounting up for future generations and there is no plan to catch up with Australia. You know the promise that was made by this Government prior to the last election about catching up with Australia was National’s mantra and as for the other promise about keeping our children home and stopping them from crossing the Tasman what are we seeing? They are leaving in droves. Well I wonder why. 
John Key’s speech to the National Party conference was supposed to be about growing the economy. That was his big moment. But his only new ideas are actually old ideas. They are old ideas of undermining the ability of Kiwi wage and salary earners to earn a decent living in this country. The absence of any new ideas to grow the economy wages and living standards means that as we have seen today we are drifting further and further behind Australia and other countries. 
I have to say to the Minister that removing workers’ rights and allowing them to be sacked within their first 3 months of employment—unfair dismissal in New Zealand—is not a plan for growth in jobs. It simply undermines further the employment security for Kiwis when unemployment is already high and growing. Let us be honest about what has been happening in the last 18 months. Wage and salary earners have done it hard. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Less than Australia’s—90 days compared to 6 months. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Surely even Mr Mapp would agree that wage and salary earners have done it hard in the last 18 months. They have lost their jobs they have been made redundant they have had their hours cut they have had wage freezes and they and their families have borne the brunt of the economic downturn and the recession. But the Government— 
Simon Bridges 
: That’s why we’re making changes. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: No that Government does not think that is enough. It thinks that these workers these families need to be punished a little bit more. Their accident compensation has been cut their regos have gone up and their accident compensation levies have gone up. The Minister is planning to scale back meal and rest breaks she has done away with pay equity—and may I say the contribution from the Minister of Women’s Affairs earlier was just embarrassing—and the Government has cut employment education leave and health and safety entitlements. But the Government is punishing wage and salary earners a little bit more. This Government thinks Kiwi workers need to be punished because they are lazy and untrustworthy. 
I say to the Minister that one of the questions that came at the select committee was a patsy question from one of her National colleagues. It was about engagement and social partnership with regard to how often she had met with the Council of Trade Unions and so on. Well we have all heard in the last few days that the Council of Trade Unions is not all that happy with the Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister but it is interesting that the Government was really happy to engage with the Council of Trade Unions when it needed the council’s help. At the Job Summit it was all cosy. When the Government needed the talents and ideas of working people to help it get through the recession it was quite happy to pretend that it was friends with the Council of Trade Unions. But of course we have seen a broken promise to the Council of Trade Unions. The Government has acted in extremely bad faith yet I have heard the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour talking a lot about good faith in the last few days. They do not know what that means and they have made it harder for ordinary Kiwis to earn a decent living. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure for me to take a call on the labour portfolio. With regard to the recently announced employment reforms if one listens to the Labour Party one would think that it was the end of the world and that the sky was falling in. But the feedback that we are receiving is incredibly positive. If we look at the editorials and sieve out the feedback from Labour’s friends we see that it has all been positive. The reforms have been described as moderate thoughtful pragmatic and not radical at all. We are confident that these reforms strike that right balance because we are working hard to turn round the country and the economy. From the debris that was left to us by the previous Labour Government we are working hard to turn round the economy and get people into jobs. 
One of the reforms that we made was to introduce the 90-day trial employment period about which Labour said at the time that the sky would fall in. It came into effect in March 2009 and Labour said the sky would fall in. Actually I tell the Labour members that the sky has not fallen in. Do members remember that back in those days Labour said it was going to name and shame all the bad employers who were exploiting employees—and what has happened? Absolute silence. Not one employer has been named and shamed. Even during the estimates hearing at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee I was at pains to say I am conscious of the need to avoid the exploitation of workers. That is why we crafted the legislation in the way that we did at the time—to avoid exploitation and to provide practical protections for workers. 
The evaluation of the trial period was pretty positive was it not? 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: Your evaluation doesn’t count. 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: It was the department’s evaluation. It showed that 57 percent of employers had hired staff since March 2009. I think that that is pretty good actually. It showed that 74 percent of employees employed on a trial period continued to be employed after the trial period. That is 74 percent. We say three out of four is great. Do members know what the Labour members say? They say one in four does not have a job. Do members know why some people from the one-in-four group do not have a job? One of the reasons was that the employee did not like the job so he or she left. Another reason was that the employee did not find the job suitable. Another reason was that the employee’s family did not want the employee to be employed. Actually three out of four employees continue to be employed. I think that is good for the economy and good for the employment market. Not only is that the case but of those who were employed under the scheme 40 percent of employers said they would not have employed that person if it had not been for a trial period—40 percent. 
Yet the Labour members try to tell us that the trial period does not work. They tried to tell us that the sky had fallen in. They tried to tell us that they would name and shame bad employers and they have not named and shamed one bad employer. Do members know what we have done? We have doubled the penalties for employers so that if there are bad employers they will be pinged. We have doubled the penalties for employers. 
Hon Maryan Street 
: Waikanae Post-it—there’s one named and shamed. Would you like another one Minister? 
Hon KATE WILKINSON 
: I have been welcoming any feedback for nearly the past 18 months I say to the Hon Maryan Street but nobody has given me some proof. Now when we are extending the 90-day trial period to all businesses—which by the way brings us more into line with other jurisdictions internationally—is the very time when I would have expected some feedback to tell me that the new law does not work. But nobody has told me that the new law does not work. In the last 18 months nobody has said it does not work. Those members just say that the sky will fall in. Well the sky has not fallen in. 
Do members know about the Labour members’ latest bugbear? Their latest bugbear is about sickies. Their latest bugbear is a concern that in the case of someone being regularly sick on a Friday or a Monday with a hangover we might expect that person to prove that he or she is sick. That is to be done at the cost of the employer yet the Labour members think that the sky will fall in because of that. They want to encourage workers to take sickies on a Friday and Monday. They may like to think that they are pro-productivity but if we talk about people taking sickies on Mondays and Fridays then oh it is the end of the world again. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairperson and greetings to the Committee. This is a Minister who has the interesting dichotomy of having no new ideas in this portfolio but she is touting lots of old failed ideas. For the ever-increasing number of Kiwis who do not have a job or are underemployed those who are struggling on low and middle incomes to make ends meet— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I am sorry to inform the member that this is a time-limited debate and the time has now elapsed. 
The question was put that Vote Labour Vote Customs Vote Lands Vote Statistics Vote Emergency Management Vote Racing Vote Senior Citizens Vote Internal Affairs Vote National Archives Vote National Library Vote Local Government Vote Consumer Affairs Vote Maori Affairs Vote Community and Voluntary Sector Vote Revenue the preamble clauses 1 to 12 and schedules 1 to 7 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the votes the preamble clauses 1 to 12 and schedules 1 to 7 be agreed to. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Votes preamble clauses 1 to 12 and schedules 1 to 7 agreed to. 
House resumed. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I move  
That the report be adopted. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the report be adopted. 
Ayes 69 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 53 
New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Report adopted. 
Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill 
First Reading 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: I move  
That the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill be now read a first time. 
 I intend to move at the appropriate time that this bill be considered by the Maori Affairs Committee and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and to meet outside the Wellington region during a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c) and that the committee report finally to the House on or before 31 August 2010. 
Tena tatou e te W’are. Tena tatou i runga i te kaupapa motuhake o te wiki to tatou reo rangatira. Tenei au te awa o W’anganui e tuku i te mi’i ki taku moana o Taupo ki te awa o Waikato ki a Rotorua-nui-a-Kahumatamomoe ki a Ngati Tuw’aretoa ki a Raukawa ki a Nga Pumanawa e Waru o Te Arawa. Na to koutou taenga mai i tenei ra kua whaimana matou o tenei W’are. Ko Tongariro te maunga ko Taupo te moana ko Ngati Tuw’aretoa te iwi ko te Heuheu te tangata. 
[ 
Greetings to us the House. Greetings to us in respect of the special nature of the week concerning our chiefly language. I the river of Whanganui extend greetings to my lake of Taupo to the river of Waikato to the second great lake of Kahumatamomoe to Ngati Tuwharetoa to Raukawa and to Nga Pumanawa of Te Arawa. Your arrival here today has enhanced the credibility of this House. I say to you Tongariro is the mountain Taupo is the lake Ngati Tuwharetoa is the tribe and te Heuheu is the man. 
]  
I am proud to stand today as a direct descendent of Ngati Hikairo through w’akapapa that connects me through my great-grandmother’s line. I connect as I do with all river tribes to the significance we place upon our tupuna awa as the central bloodline of our tribal heart. Ko au ko te awa; ko te awa ko au. 
[ 
I am the river; the river is me. 
] 
I stand to honour the cultural historical traditional and spiritual significance of the Waikato River to the people of the iwi who are named in this bill. Hapu of Ngati Tuw’aretoa have a direct interest in and special relationship with the Waikato River. This includes the rights and responsibilities associated with kaitiakitanga. The people of Raukawa have their own unique and ancient relationship with the Waikato River. Prominent in their beliefs is the hereditary right and responsibility to protect the Waikato River. Te Arawa iwi exercise manaw’akahaere in accordance with their long-established tikanga to ensure the well-being of the Waikato River. This bill will provide mechanisms for all of them to participate in the co-governance and co-management of the Waikato River. 
It is timely to acknowledge the significant precedent established by the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010. In doing so we pay tribute to those of Te Whare o Te Kahui Ariki who played such a distinctive role in their efforts to protect and preserve their taonga—their awa—for future generations. To enact that desire Waikato-Tainui established a co-governance entity comprising equal numbers of Crown and iwi-appointed members including other iwi with interests along the river. Today this bill complements the arrangements agreed between the Crown and Waikato-Tainui by giving effect to co-governance and co-management arrangements agreed with Ngati Tuw’aretoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi. The bill provides for each iwi to participate in a co-governance framework for the Waikato River. 
It was greatly moving to read today the comments of Ngati Raukawa Settlement Trust chair Chris McKenzie who described co-governance as providing iwi “with real influence in how the river is protected and maintained.” Mr McKenzie spoke of this as a process of partnership. We might also call it the negotiation and reconciliation of kawanatanga and rangatiratanga. 
The partnership enacted in this bill is through related co-management arrangements that are specific to Ngati Tuw’aretoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi and to the Waikato River and its catchment from Karapiro up to a point known to Ngati Tuw’aretoa as Te Toka a Tia. The overarching purpose of these co-governance and co-management arrangements is to restore and protect the health and well-being of the Waikato River for present and future generations. 
All three—Ngati Tuw’aretoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi—take their responsibilities as mana w’enua seriously in upholding their customary obligations and kaitiakitanga over their rohe. It is their intrinsic duty to ensure that the mauri and therefore the physical and spiritual health of their environment is maintained protected and enhanced. 
Today is a major step forward in achieving that goal. The core elements of the co-governance framework include a vision and strategy for the Waikato River; a single co-governance entity which will be the Waikato River Authority; and a contestable Waikato River Clean-Up Trust. The co-governance framework provides for Ngati Tuw’aretoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi to develop their own objectives for the Waikato River to be considered in future reviews of the vision and the strategy. The vision and strategy will be incorporated directly into the  
Waikato Regional Policy Statement 
 and will be a statement of general policy under conservation legislation. 
The purpose of the Waikato River Authority is to set the primary direction through the vision and strategy to achieve the restoration and protection of the health and well-being of the Waikato River for present and also future generations. It is a pleasure to see the level of detail set out in the drive to promote an integrated holistic and coordinated approach to the implementation of the vision and strategy for the management of the Waikato River. The authority will also fund rehabilitation initiatives for the river in its role as trustee for the contestable Waikato River Clean-Up Trust. 
I cannot ignore the challenge laid today by Te Arawa River Iwi Trust chair Roger Pikia who told us that “For too long Te Arawa and other river iwi have been relegated to mere spectators as the river a national taonga has been polluted and been allowed to degenerate to the point where it is now not safe to take kai moana drink or to bathe in its waters.” This bill moves the power balance from spectators to participators and decision makers. 
In essence the successful implementation of co-management requires a new approach to the relationships that the Crown and relevant local authorities and agencies have with Ngati Tuw’aretoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi. The Waikato River Authority will be able to appoint iwi members to Waikato Regional Council hearing committees or nominate persons for appointment to the boards of inquiry. It is notable that the bill requires joint management agreements to be put in place between local authorities and each iwi for specified functions under the Resource Management Act 1991 relating to the Waikato River. 
Under the joint management agreements local authorities and iwi will agree the priorities and methods for carrying out the monitoring activities and activities in its catchment that affect the Waikato River. They will also jointly consider what responses should be made to address the outcomes of monitoring. The joint management agreements will provide for iwi participation when local authorities are preparing reviewing changing or varying the Resource Management Act 1991 planning documents to the extent that those processes relate to the vision and strategy for the Waikato River. They will also provide for iwi participation in the processing steps with regard to specified applications for resource consent relating to the river. 
It is a good day in this House when we see such practical and tangible measures to give effect to a partnership between river iwi and the Government in the best interests of the national taonga that is the Waikato River. So it is our heartfelt desire that this bill proceed without delay. We know that coming to this point has involved the blood sweat and tears of so many of our people some of whom have not lived to witness the significant milestone today. We think of them all today and we remember their commitment their patience and their all-enduring investment in our future. 
This bill—specifically for Ngati Tuwharetoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi—reflects a respect for the mana of each of these iwi and the fact that each iwi has its own distinct relationship with the river and with the Crown. It also reflects the unity of purpose shared by all to restore and protect the health and well-being of the Waikato River. Na reira tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tena koe e te Whare. Nga tangata whenua o Raukawa Ngati Tuwharetoa Nga Iwi o Te Arawa ki te awa tena koutou tena koutou. Nau mai haere mai. Tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to the House. To the Raukawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa local people as well as the river subtribes of Te Arawa greetings to you greetings to you and welcome welcome. Greetings to you all 
.] 
It gives me great pleasure to rise on behalf of the Labour Party in support of the Minister in her introduction of the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill. This bill is part two of a substantial process that has taken a long time. I wish also to add my recognition and that of Labour to those who have worked for this outcome but who have not lived to see it. I pay special respects to them. 
This is a very significant moment. The introduction of this legislation honours an undertaking made by the Crown in a deed of settlement in 2008 when Dr Michael Cullen had the privilege of being the Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. He negotiated this agreement and signed the agreement on 4 September 2008. The Minister who has had the responsibility of being the shepherd and the guardian of this agreement through to this point the Hon Christopher Finlayson has made some changes to the legislation that I think represent improvements. I am quite happy to acknowledge that. 
In its original agreement there was provision for a number of statutory boards and what we have in this agreement now is a single authority as opposed to half a dozen statutory boards that were going to participate in partnership with the Crown in the restoration of the health and well-being of this river. I think that is an improvement and I acknowledge the Minister for that. I think it will be important that each of the iwi who have an attachment and connection to this great river ensures that they are able to participate in the process that this legislation enshrines which allows them to indeed have that oversight of and participation in caring for this river as envisaged by this legislation. 
The Waikato River from its beginning to its end has nourished and supported countless people for numerous years. There is no doubt that it is the source of life. It runs through one of the most productive areas of our country and our country is productive because of it. To watch the gradual atrophying and pollution of this great river must have caused tangata whenua in particular some considerable distress. I welcome this deed and the structures behind it and the participation of iwi in the true partnership that will see the restoration of the health of this river. It is indeed a great taonga. 
I remember once watching a documentary made by the Topp Twins who took a trail of the Waikato River from its very beginning to its mouth. Some of it they did on a surfboard and some of it they walked where the water was not deep enough. It was a documentary in the style in which the Topp Twins make documentaries. But it was informative and spoke volumes about the significance and the contribution of this great river. 
In the course of debating the other legislation to which this relates the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act I referred to the fact that it is not beyond the wit of anybody in this country to recognise the value of such a life-giving thing as a river. It does not matter whether we come from different ontologies from different world views. It does not matter whether we see things in the same terms. The shared and common understanding is that this river is a taonga. This river carries life from its beginning to its issuing into the sea and it deserves protection it deserves restoration for all who benefit from its progress. This great river needs help and that is the great task in front of all of us who share an interest in it. This great river needs repair. This partnership in the legislation before us will provide a consistent and engaged way of making sure that this river is restored. 
Although the Minister has already quoted some of the comments from both the Te Arawa River Iwi Trust chairman Roger Pikia and the Ngati Raukawa Settlement Trust chairman Chris McKenzie it is worth recognising and repeating them because it is in this deep sense of something important happening here that we gather to support this legislation. These people who have travelled to Wellington to support the first reading of this bill understand exactly what their leaders have said today. Mr Pikia said that the first reading this moment that we are engaged in now marked the final stage of a process to give effect to a partnership between river iwi and the Government to provide protection and nurturing of the national taonga that is the Waikato River. 
This is a model that is worth repeating. This is a way forward in Labour’s view and I know that the Minister—in fact both Ministers who are here tonight—share this view that this is a way forward that this is a way of engaging in a genuine partnership with obligations and commitments that stick with goals that are shared and with methods that are participated in equally in order to recognise and carry forward the application of the Treaty of Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand. 
I welcome this first reading. I congratulate the Minister the Hon Tariana Turia on her first reading speech and the heart—the personal connection—that goes into this legislation. I can only imagine what it means for the Minister to have that very close connection with the people with the country and with the river and to be able to lead off in this debate. I recognise also the Minister Chris Finlayson who will participate in this debate I am sure and all that that represents from both of those people and the participation of the Crown and iwi in the management of this taonga. Kia ora. 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 I begin by thanking the speaker who has just resumed her seat the Hon Maryan Street for her generous comments and helpful insights; they were greatly appreciated. The Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill marks another milestone heralding the advent of a new era for the Waikato River in which the Crown iwi and local authorities will work side by side to bring about the restoration and protection of the health and well-being of the Waikato River for present and future generations. 
The particular purpose of the bill is to give effect to co-governance arrangements agreed with Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi. The bill is a companion to the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act 2010. The agreements with those iwi reflect a contemporary Treaty relationship and do not settle historical Treaty of Waitangi claims. The agreement with Te Arawa river iwi is made pursuant to an undertaking made by the Crown in the 2008 deed of settlement with the affiliate Te Arawa iwi hapu. I acknowledge and pay tribute to the representatives of those iwi who have given their support to this groundbreaking initiative and who have worked so hard to ensure the co-governance framework for the river is one that all iwi connected with the Waikato River can participate in with the Crown. 
From March 2008 when the Guardians Establishment Committee was formed to develop the vision and the strategy for the river Raukawa were at the table through Stephanie O’Sullivan Te Arawa river iwi were at the table through Roger Pikia and Ngati Tuwharetoa were there through Dean Stebbing. They joined the representatives of Waikato-Tainui Maniapoto and the Crown including local mayors and demonstrated that co-governance can and does indeed bring about some very positive outcomes. 
The river is deeply significant to Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi. Their respective relationships with the river are ancient and central to their culture and traditions and to the way they see themselves and the world. The river system is the longest in the country with the second-largest catchment comprising 14300 square kilometres. About 383000 people live in the catchment and produce about 9 percent of the gross national product of this land. The river and its catchment play a significant strategic role for New Zealand as a source of energy and as a location of significant primary industry and recreational activities. 
There are important values and relationships between the Waikato River and the people in communities including private and public interests associated with the river and its environs. Different people in the community value the river in different ways but the scoping study currently in progress has found that many of the attributes that support health and well-being values such as clear and safe water healthy ecosystems and engagement with and respect for the river are consistently shared across the whole community. Securing the longer-term sustainability and health of the river for present and future generations is vital. A new era of co-governance in respect of the river is a most effective and inclusive way to go about achieving that goal. 
The Crown has a responsibility in terms of the principles of the Treaty to provide for the relationship of Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi and their culture and traditions with the Waikato River which is taonga to them. The co-governance framework and the arrangements with those iwi provide legal mechanisms for Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi to participate in the governance and the management of the river. The provisions of this bill provide clear direction and certainty about the co-governance of the river. The framework will streamline improve and coordinate governance and management arrangements for the Waikato River commensurate with its strategic importance to New Zealand’s social cultural and economic well-being. 
At the signing of the deed with Raukawa at the beautiful Whakamaru venue George Rangitutia spoke of his dream for a healthy river. When Te Arawa river iwi signed it at the historic Orakei Korako Roger Pikia spoke of an end to exclusion and commended the Crown for its courage in providing more than words to the concept of partnership enshrined in the Treaty. 
These are words of optimism focused on the future. They are not about pessimism in the past. The past is beyond our ability to change but the future is ours to make. With the arrangements enshrined in this bill I think we have laid a stronger positive foundation for healthier relationships and a productive healthier national environment. 
The cornerstones of the co-governance arrangements are: the vision and strategy which will be the primary direction-setting document for the river; the Waikato River Authority which is the co-governance entity; the Waikato River Clean-Up Trust which will be accessible to the community on a contestable basis; and importantly the involvement of iwi commissioners on resource consent matters that directly affect the river. Local authorities and relevant agencies will continue with their existing roles and management functions in relation to the river. The bill does not change those roles and functions but it does contain provisions that will result in a hands-on role for iwi working jointly with local authorities and agencies. 
Joint management agreements an integrated river management plan and new relationships with the Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation through accords and jointly developed regulations are good examples of what co-management will mean in a practical sense for iwi. As the Hon Tariana Turia noted this bill complements the Waikato River settlement with Waikato-Tainui. It is important to achieve as much coordination as possible and to have the respective pieces of legislation that together make up the co-governance framework for the Waikato River come into effect within similar time frames. 
In closing I emphasise that I believe it is in everyone’s interests including local authorities and the community to avoid a disjointed implementation of co-governance and co-management for the Waikato River not that I believe that that will happen because I think the evidence is there already that regional government local government iwi and other members of the community will work together for the benefit of the river. So I commend those who have made such a valuable contribution to the development of this legislation. I have mentioned those representatives of iwi who have played their part. I also mention in particular Peter Buckley of Environment Waikato who has played a significant role and like him I am looking forward to seeing how this legislation will play out. I believe that it will be a very successful venture. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 A kati kia tukua e au tenei korero oku i roto i to tatou reo Maori. E te iwi koutou kua tatu nei ki Te Upoko o te Ika ki te whakarongo ki te matakitaki i a matou nga kaitorangapu i whakaritea hei whakatatu i te mahi i oti i a koutou ngatahi ko te Karauna tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. Tena tatou i roto i te ahuatanga o o tatou matua o o tatou tupuna na ratou i wawata ka oti tetahi tauira penei rawa te ataahua otira kihai rawa ratou i toe kia kite a-kanohitia e ratou enei mahi rangatira e oti ana i tenei wa. Na reira ratou ki a ratou tatou ki a tatou Te Arawa Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa tena koutou tena tatou katoa. 
Tenei pire ka nui noa atu to matou tautoko. Kei te whai mai i muri i te pire i oti i te Whare mo te wahanga ki o tatou huanga ki roto o Waikato ake. Otira ko te pai o tenei pire kei te puta mai koutou kei te whakapumautia ki roto i tenei pire nga panga i raro i te Tiriti e hangai tonu ana ki tenei awa me ona taonga katoa mo tena iwi mo tena iwi mo tena iwi. 
E toru ke nga ropu kua whakaritea hei amo hei hapai i nga panga me nga moemoea o koutou tokotoru me te Karauna. Ma roto pea i te pire penei katahi ka mau haeretia ki etahi awa ke atu ki etahi iwi ke atu. Kua pau te toru tekau tau mai i te wa i waihangatia ai te ture e kia nei ko te Resource Management Act. I tera wa o tatou matua a Bob Mahuta ma i akiaki kia puta tetahi tauira penei me te pire neki. Otira i roto i tera wa te tau 1990 kihai te nuinga o te ao torangapu i rata ki te whakaaro pera. Mai i tera wa tae noa mai ki tenei katahi ano kia rata. 
Na reira e tika ana tatou kia mihi ki te iwi na ratou i waihanga na ratou i hahau a ka taria mai ki te aroaro o te Whare i tenei po. Tera pea ka eke rawa tatou ki tenei whakamatautau ara nga ui hohonu nga wero kahore ano kia tatu ara penei me te patai nei no wai ranei te wai? Ka riro i a wai ranei nga painga me nga hua ki te whakamahia te wai hei kaupapa mahi moni. Ma roto pea i nga huarahi penei ka mama pea a tona wa te whakatatu pena he panga ano o te iwi Maori he panga ano o te Karauna e taea ranei te mahitahi kia kaua rawa atu te wai e whakamahia ka mutu kahore he hua e hoki mai ana ki te marea whanui ara ki a Ngai Pakeha ki a Ngai Maori ki te katoa. A tona wa te whakamutunga te whakautu mo tena patai ka rangona ka kitea. 
A me mihi noki ki te Minita nana tenei kaupapa i hari mai. Me te mihi noki ki a Dr Cullen engari te mihi atu ki te Minita i teneki wa. Te tauira i oti i a matou te wa i a Dr Cullen kihai rawa i tino eke ki tona taumata. Na nahau ano e te Minita i hoki ka korero tonu ki nga reo o te iwi katahi ka whakahangaitia tetahi tauira penei rawa te pai. Na reira tika ana tenei Whare teneki taha o te Whare me koutou kia mahitahi kia oti wawe wenei raruraru. Kia kaua rawa atu e waiho hei take wehewehe i waenga tonu i a tatou nga kaitorangapu otira te marea whanui o roto o Aotearoa. 
Te take e tarewa tonu ana hei akiaki ma te Kawanatanga he putea hei whakakaupapa hei whakatinana i nga hiahia kei roto i tenei pire. E hia ranei mahere e korerotia ana e hia ranei mahere e tumanakohia ana. Otira me whiwhi huruhuru kia takoto rangatira ai wena mahere kia whiwhi ringaringa ai kia whiwhi waewae ai nga mahere kia kaua rawa e waiho kia tarewa tonu me te mea nei he kohu kei runga i te mata o te wai i roto i tenei awa. Na reira e kore e kahore nui tonu nga tono nui tonu nga inoi ka taria mai ki te aroaro o te komiti uiui mo nga take pena. Otira ma te Kawanatanga ano e whiriwhiri a tona wa me nga kaunihera kia kaua rawa atu e waiho he kongakonga anake e watea ana hei muru i nga nama e pa ana ki te waihanga mahere ki te whakahaere i nga take a ki te whai haere me pehea ranei te wai e ma ai me pehea ranei ai te hunga e whakamahi ana i te wai e mau tonu ai ki te ture e tika ana mo te whakamahi i te wai hei kaupapa ahuwhenua hei kaupapa whakainu tangata hei kaupapa noki hari i te para o te tangata ki hea ranei. 
Na reira koia taku e mea ake nei ki a tatou i roto i to tatou reo Maori tena koutou tena tatou kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
Without further fuss allow me to deliver this address in our Maori language. To the people who have arrived here in Wellington to listen and to observe us the politicians who were given the responsibility to deliberate over what you as a collective completed jointly with the Crown greetings to you greetings to you and greetings to you all. Greetings to you in respect of the situation of our parents and ancestors whose hope it was to complete a paradigm as beautiful as this one. Alas they did not remain nor lived to see with their own eyes these noble undertakings completed today. So they the dead to the dead; and we the living to us the living. Te Arawa Ngati Tuwharetoa and Raukawa greetings to you and greetings to us all.  
As far as this bill is concerned we fully support it. It is a sequel to the one that the House passed for our relatives in Waikato proper. Indeed what is good about this bill is that you are coming to the fore. Another good thing is that any Treaty interests relating specifically to this river and all its properties for that tribe that tribe and that one are embedded permanently in this bill.  
Three specific groups have been settled upon to bear responsibility and to lift the interests and dreams of you three groups and the Crown to another level. Through such a bill as this one perhaps it might be possible to take it to some other river or to some other tribe and apply its principles there. It has been 30 years since an Act called the Resource Management Act today was created. At that time our elders such as Bob Mahuta and others urged that a paradigm and a bill like this be produced. But at that time in 1990 most politicians did not entertain the idea. As time passed and the present day arrived then at last they began to accept it.  
Therefore it is fitting that we recognise the people who created fashioned and brought it before the House tonight. Perhaps we are now up to this examination in terms of questions of an in-depth nature challenges not yet settled like the question of who owns the water. Who will receive the benefits and profits if water is marketed? Maybe co-arrangements like this one will make it easier over time to settle whether the Maori people and the Crown have interests whether it is possible to work together so that the water could never be marketed so that no profit returns to the public at large Pakeha Maori and everyone. The conclusion and response for that question will be heard and seen in time. 
I commend the Minister who brought this bill before the House. While I acknowledge Dr Cullen as well my congratulatory remarks at the moment are directed to the current Minister. The model that we came up with in Dr Cullen’s time did not really get as far as this. But it was you Minister who went back and maintained talks with the representatives of the tribes and came up with a wonderful model like this one. So it is appropriate that this House our side and yours work expeditiously and together through these problems. Let us not leave it to fester and become a divisive issue between politicians and the people of New Zealand. 
One issue that we urge the Government to address is to set aside funding to meet the requirements in this bill. Several plans have been spoken of and hoped for. However there must be funding to successfully implement those plans so they do not remain like a mist upon the surface of the Waikato River. I have no doubt there will be many submissions once this goes before the select committee. None the less the Government will hold discussions with local councils so that there is sufficient funding to implement management plans to clean up the river and keep those using the water in line with laws around agriculture water consumption and transporting human waste.  
So that is my address to us in our Maori language. Greetings to you collectively greetings to us and greetings to everyone. 
] 
It is Maori Language Week and for each of the last 3 or 4 years a number of us have endeavoured to celebrate the language in this week. But in order for the language to survive as our visitors will no doubt know each generation needs to use it with great frequency. 
It was 30 years ago during the process of creating the Resource Management Act based on the reform of resource management law that an attempt was made unsuccessfully to create a model such as the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato Bill. The wananga took place at the marae at Taumutu in Ngai Tahu. It was found to be too radical and it certainly did not meet willing minds or bodies at that period of time. It is an interesting observation that 30 years have passed since river management and water catchment issues were comprehensively dealt with. I would go so far as to say that the model in this bill although at one level it integrates Maori involvement represents the most significant departure from the way that rivers and water have been managed to date. 
The fear that a number of submitters no doubt will reflect on yet again is that it may prove to be too bureaucratic and that it may place a new level of cost upon the administrative regime that is designed to achieve better water outcomes. During the time we dealt with the other portion of the Waikato River we heard those very negative perspectives advanced by the Waikato people. This model represents no threat to the quality of the water or the ability of either river users or the community to enjoy the services of the river be they aesthetic commercial cultural or whatever purpose a community of interest may seek to enjoy in relation to the river. 
On this side of the House we do not share the view that this innovation represents a retrograde step in respect of statutory management of natural resources. We think it is an overdue step—and as I have said in my view it comes 30 years too late—especially when I think of the people who contributed in 1990 to that wananga searching for a way to integrate Maori involvement into the administration of water resources. As I said in Maori Bob Mahuta and a host of others who are no longer with us endeavoured to introduce those kinds of concepts in 1990. As earlier speakers and indeed the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations said the past has gone and we cannot recreate it. The future for the river I believe looks rosy and we look forward to hearing from different submitters not only those from the Maori community but also those who may need their fears assuaged during the period of time that it lies before the Maori Affairs Committee 
Let us work together on both sides of the House to “de-fang” the misapprehension fearmongering and other scare tactics that so often are visited upon such innovative attempts as this one to involve Maori and to give meaning and real effect to the principles of the Treaty. We support this bill. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Barker. I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party in support of the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill. This is a very important bill not only for the protection of the river but also for restoring the mana of the Waikato River iwi and the Green Party is very pleased to be standing tonight to support this bill. 
It is a remarkable fact about the Waikato River that there is 14 metres of visibility at Lake Taupo but by the time we get to the mouth of the river the visibility is reduced to less than 1 metre. The reason is that the Waikato River is tremendously polluted. Any steps that can be taken to clean up the river and that make any difference to cleaning up the river are tremendously important. They are important not only for the mana of the Waikato River iwi but also for the health of the river itself. 
We cannot save a river unless we start with where a river starts and a river starts in the catchment—in the soils in the land and in the treatment of that land. The vast majority of contaminants in the river do not originate from point sources. It is not the sewerage systems that contribute nitrogen and phosphorous to the river; it is the farmland. It is a simple fact that more than 75 percent of all the nitrogen in the Waikato River comes from non - point source pollution and not from point source pollution. If we want to control the pollution in the river we must have control over the activities in the catchment that are adding the pollution to the river. Overwhelmingly the pollution in the river is coming from farming and agricultural intensification and activities. That is a simple scientific fact. 
Although it is tremendously important that this bill gives the river iwi the right to have someone on the consent hearings committee the simple fact is that the vast majority of the pollution that enters the river never goes anywhere near a consent hearing because it is a permitted activity. Until we are willing to regulate intensified farming activities and make them activities that can be consented rather than permitted activities neither the public of New Zealand more generally nor the river iwi will have a say over the vast majority of the pollution that currently enters the river system. The vast majority of the nitrogen phosphorous and sediment that enters the river system enters because of permitted activities. They are not activities that require resource consents. A problem that is reflected from the top of the country to the bottom is that the overwhelming majority—more than three-quarters—of the contaminants in our river systems come from non-consented activities or permitted activities. 
If we are to address the real causes of pollution in the Waikato River and if we are to give the power to the river iwi so that they can take control of all the pollution and contaminants entering the river system we absolutely must make intensified agricultural activities consentable activities. Although it is fantastic that we are passing these bills that give co-governance and co-management arrangements to iwi there is a sleight of hand in this bill and the sleight of hand is that we are not giving full control over the catchment and the activities in the catchment that contribute the vast majority of contaminants in the river system. 
If Parliament was really serious about giving the river iwi full control to clean up the Waikato River which is something that the Green Party fully endorses we would go further than simply this bill. We would go further by ensuring control over the activities that are putting the pollution into the river system which includes the Waikato River the Waipawa River and the other river systems in the Waikato such as the Piako River and the Waihou River—all of those river systems that are terribly polluted right now from activities that are not consented. They are permitted activities under the Resource Management Act. There is no reason to get resource consent to pollute the Waikato River; it is allowed under law because it is a permitted activity. Until we get our heads round the fact that the vast majority of the pollution entering this system is from permitted farming activities and not from consentable activities such as a sewerage discharge or a dairy shed discharge we will not address the pollution in the system. 
So I say to Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi that this is just the first step. I fully understand the depth of their feeling about cleaning up their awa and their river system. Goodness knows we know that the existing structures to manage our river systems have profoundly failed to clean up this river system. All strength to their arm as they get hold of and some control over the real sources of pollution in their awa. It is only if those who love this river system and really care about it are able to get their hands on and get control over not only the resource consents around sewage but all the activities that are causing the vast majority of the pollution in the river system—all the permitted activities in the catchment—that those for whom this river is part of their identity will be able to clean up this river system. 
So although this bill is tremendously important the next step is much harder and it will require more than a small amount of money every year in terms of a clean-up fund. It will require control and regulation of intensive agricultural activities in the catchment to clean up this precious river. That is the real challenge that faces us tonight. So yes let us vote for this bill yes let us acknowledge the river iwi and their contribution but let us be under no illusions in this House that by passing this bill somehow the river will be cleaned up. 
In fact we are passing a tremendous responsibility on to the river iwi and those involved in the co-governance. The question is whether we are giving them sufficient powers to achieve what they really wish to achieve and what the Green Party really wishes to achieve which is to clean up the river system. That can be done only by getting our hands on the more than three-quarters of the pollution that comes from currently permitted activities which require no resource consent whatsoever. Those permitted activities add the nitrogen the phosphorous and the sediment into this river system that are destroying the life in this river system. Cleaning up the river system can be done only if we also give to the river iwi and the co-governors of this river system the power to have a say over intensive agricultural activities in this catchment. That is the next challenge. 
So I welcome this bill and I congratulate the previous Labour Government and the National Government which have been involved in this as well as particularly the iwi. But the challenge to clean up the river system is still great and that is the next step. Tena koe. 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 Anyone who heard my speech on the third reading of the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill will not be surprised that the ACT Party stands opposed to the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill the successor to that divisive bill. It is not I have to say a very pleasant position to be in to be the only party in the House opposing such a measure which no doubt has the utter support of all of those in the gallery. 
It is notable in listening to the speeches that have gone before that both National and the Greens have been speaking in code. National has talked about co-governance partnership and sharing. What it really means is granting iwi a right of veto over activities that they do not approve of. The Greens’ co-leader Russel Norman has talked at length but as usual not explicitly about sources of pollution and permitted activities. What he is actually intending or what he should be saying is that the Green Party seeks to make farming—the lifeblood and the backbone of our economy—an activity that farmers will have to apply for a consent for. That was what all that stuff about nitrates sulphates and sediments actually meant. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Phosphates David. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Phosphates; I thank the member. 
It is Maori Language Week as we all know so I will do my best with this one: “He iwi tahi tatou”. That is not a phrase that one will hear in the House this week. It means of course that we are one people. It is what Governor Hobson said to each signatory of the Treaty. The bill before us like its predecessor violates this fundamental Treaty principle. It establishes a precedent whereby the Crown and Maori leadership elite divide New Zealand’s key assets amongst themselves—and for what? Is it a Treaty settlement? Well page 2 of the explanatory note of the bill states: “The deeds between the Crown and Ngati Tuwharetoa and Raukawa do not settle historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Ngati Tuwhatetoa or Raukawa relating to the Waikato River.” So I guess that it is not a settlement. 
The Treaty process as it pertains to the region’s Waikato-Tainui people was settled in 1946. The Crown agreed in that year to pay an annual sum of £6000 for 50 years and then £5000 every year after that in recompense for the wrongful confiscation of lands in the 1860s. That is $2 or $3 million every year in today’s money. As Michael King wrote of the final settlement negotiations in Ngaruawahia in 1946 the Waikato-Tainui leadership was so pleased at this offer that they jumped up and accepted before the Prime Minister could change his mind. History has shown however that it was Waikato-Tainui who changed theirs. 
By the 1990s they were angling for a better deal. In 1995 they signed another full and final settlement with the then Government. That one specifically excluded the Waikato River issue until some future date thereby making a complete mockery once again of that full and final tagline because we can have only one full and final settlement. Once we have a second full and final settlement we open the line for a 22nd and a 32nd full and final settlement. 
Hone Harawira 
: Ka pai. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Mr Harawira said “Ka pai.” and Mrs Turia is agreeing.  
Hansard 
 should record that the Maori Party is acknowledging in this House that we have no full and final settlement and that the settlements will never end. Mrs Turia is laughing; she thinks it is funny that the grievances will go on for ever and that there will keep on being these pathetic misguided attempts at settlement. They will never end. 
This bill will further enshrine in law the concept of “us and them” which is a far cry from the “one people” vision that the Treaty intended. I realise that the intention of many is to have an us-and-them approach that involves working together with a shared vision and strategy. Many in this House feel that way. I am sure also—in fact I would say “for sure”—that many Maori feel a special bond with the Waikato River. It is naive however not to think that there are those who look at the river and see dollar signs. Let us not pretend otherwise. In any group there are those who seek any advantage they can find. This bill and the concept of co-governance provide those sorts of people with limitless opportunities. This is a threat we will face multiple times when this bill comes into effect—my notes state “if and when” but we all know that it is a case of “when”. 
I will ask a question that transcends even that: at what point will us New Zealanders—New Zealanders like me; I was born here and my father was born here—be allowed to claim a special relationship with the land as Maori do? Will it take another 100 years? Will it take longer? Perhaps it will be never. The latter option is how many Maori see things. Although most Maori get on with the business of living many of their so-called leaders continue to play the “we were here first” card. Those leaders claim that they have a relationship with the land and the rivers that the rest of us will never ever have no matter what we do. We will never have that same connection so they say. Thus we end up in a situation where five iwi—allegedly representing about 66000 people—wind up controlling the nation’s longest river. 
I am aware that the bill talks of co-governance but the reality will be very different. [ 
Interruption 
] I would be a little surprised if all of those grunting and making sighing noises from the other side have read all of the bill. Some extracts from the explanatory note are alarming—we need only go as far as that. For example it states: “Persons carrying out duties under sections 12 to 14 … must recognise and provide for iwi environmental plans …”. I ask what “recognise and provide” means. Further on the explanatory note states that iwi can recommend to the Minister of Fisheries that fishing be prohibited which will happen “unless the Minister of Fisheries considers that an undue adverse effect on fishing would result.” 
This bill is not about working together; it is about gifting to some iwi considerable veto power over any activity that they disapprove of. The bill is full of such examples. There is nowhere near enough time to go through all of them but they each carry serious legal and social consequences. The message to be taken away from this bill is that whatever an individual person’s attachment to the river may be the significance of that attachment will be judged by iwi leaders who have already determined their relationship to be for ever more special because they were here first. I see Mrs Turia agreeing. They are special because they were here first. 
This bill is typical of the Government’s approach to race relations: piecemeal and short-sighted. We saw it in Pita Sharples’ covert mission to the UN to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Mr Harawira thinks as do most people with any sense that far from being an aspirational document with little effect it will have a profound effect on this country. 
Hon Tariana Turia 
: That’s great. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Mrs Turia says that it is great. Just as Sir Geoffrey Palmer saw no problems in referring to undefined Treaty principles in our law National sees no risk in signing us up to a declaration that requires us to fund a separate Maori Government. If members doubt it they should read the declaration. The fact of the matter is that co-governance is a farce and anyone who has read the bill cannot fail to reach that same conclusion. The concept seems noble and low-risk but like the mistakes of the past and those National is planning to make in the near future it will further divide and hurt us as a nation. 
The social economic and legal quagmires we are heading for will be the next generation’s problem. The Treaty settlement process we are still involved in 25 years after Geoffrey Palmer said the famous words of section 9 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act will pale into insignificance compared with what our children have coming to them. The ACT Party opposes this bill. Thank you. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Kaiwhakawa tena tatou katoa. Tena koutou e nga iwi kua tae mai nei i tenei haora o te po kia rongohia i te tautoko o te Paremata nei ki ta koutou nei pire. Hakoa kua tu ke te pokokohua nei te whakatakoto i ona korero kaikiri e tika ana kia mohio ko ratou anake e kore e whakaae ki tenei pire. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to us all. To the tribes who have arrived here at this hour tonight to listen to this Parliament speaking in support of your bill I acknowledge your presence. Even though this boiled head stood and expressed his racist views it should be noted that they are the only ones opposing this bill. 
] 
David Garrett 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I find the accusation of racism deeply offensive and I object to it. I believe it is unparliamentary and it is inaccurate. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: It is unparliamentary to refer to a person as being racist. I caught only part of the translation where the member referred to racist views. I say to the member that it is not parliamentary to call the member racist. I think he is sailing very close to the wind referring to a person’s views as racist; by implication he is saying that the person is. I caution the member and I ask him to speak to the bill as intended. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Tena koe e te Kaiwhakawa tena ano hoki tatou koutou ano ra kua tae mai ki te whakarongo ki nga korero tautoko i te pire nei. Me te mea ano hoki e tika ana kia mohio ai tatou e tangi ana taku ngakau te rongohia i te korero o te kuare o te tangata e kore e matatau ana ki te tangi o te iwi mai i ra ano. Tera kia whakahokia mai te mana o te whenua i roto i tenei kaupapa kia whakahokia mai te mana o te tupuna ara ko te awa o Waikato. No reira koinei matou o te Pati Maori o te Pati Reipa o te Ropu Kakariki me Nahinara e tautoko kaha nei i tenei karanga. 
No reira me mihi atu ki a koutou i haere mai nei i tenei haora kia korero tahi tatou ki tenei kaupapa rangatira. Kia kitea a tona wa i te puawaitanga o te whakaaro ma te aroha o te iwi ki tona tupuna ka ora ai. Ma te aroha o te tangata ka kitea tatou i te kotahitanga o nga Maori me nga Pakeha e noho tahi ana ki te taha o taua awa. No reira me mihi atu ki a koutou mo to koutou aroha i roto i te kaupapa i tenei po. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to us once again as well as you who have arrived here to listen to the supporting speeches on this bill. It is fitting too that I make you all aware just how much it grieves me to hear remarks from an ignorant person who has no comprehension of why tribes have been in grief mode for such a long time to have returned the ownership of the land referred to in this bill which is the ancestral river of Waikato. This then is why we of the Maori Party Labour Party Green Party and National Party strongly support this call.  
So I must acknowledge the presence of everyone at this late hour as we address this noble matter. Its benefits will be for the future to witness and through the compassion of the people for their ancestors. Because of the regard that people have for each other Maori and Pakeha will co-exist harmoniously on the banks of that river. So I acknowledge you collectively for the compassion shown in the debate tonight. 
] 
E mea ana a Kingi Tawhiao: “Kotahi te kohao o te ngira e kuhuna ai te miro ma te miro whero me te miro pango.” King Tawhiao once said: “There is but one eye of the needle through which the white the red and the black thread shall pass.” Such are the threads taken up by the people of Ngati Tuwharetoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi in their pursuit of the sustainability and health of the Waikato River for present and future generations through this bill which delivers a co-governance framework recognising the enduring relationship of the iwi and the river. No reira me mihi au ki a koutou e nga iwi e whai nei i teneki kaupapa rangatira. 
[ 
Therefore I must acknowledge you the tribes pursuing this noble matter 
.] 
Last week Ngapuhi was privileged to host the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples Professor James Anaya. He rightly noted the vulnerability of the principles of the Treaty the lack of Maori bargaining power in settlement negotiations and the lack of outcomes that provide full and adequate redress to Maori grievances. 
I note here that despite the well-known pitfalls of Treaty settlements and the obvious element of unfairness the iwi have accepted that the sacrifices they have made are a necessary commitment to ensuring the future health and prosperity of their river through the bill. 
I again commend all those who have carried this challenge for the breadth of their vision for the courage of their long-term view for being willing to set aside commercial gain and personal glory to put aside tribal differences for pulling together existing statutory frameworks for upholding the obligations of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and for creating co-management arrangements with local authorities in the best interests of their ancestral river. 
This bill goes further than just the high-level stuff; it also deals with the detail: fishing regulations an integrated river management plan iwi environmental management plans accords between Ministers and iwi mechanisms for dealing with customary activities and joint management of resource management issues including preparing reviewing changing monitoring and enforcing Resource Management Act plans. 
The Maori Party supports this bill in advancing the aspirations of Ngati Tuwharetoa Ngati Raukawa and Te Arawa river iwi for the Waikato River; in recognising the vision and strategy for the river as expressed by its descendants; and in allowing these iwi groups to establish tikanga to ensure the well-being of their river with all the rights and responsibilities that come with the status of kaitiaki. We support that and we salute those iwi for their progress to date. We respect absolutely the patience and the commitment that the iwi have shown in getting the bill to this point and for all of these reasons we in the Maori Party are happy to support this bill at first reading. 
No reira e te iwi koutou i haere tawhiti mai i roto i a tatou o te Whare Paremata i tenei po ka nui taku mihi atu ki a koutou mo nga tupuna i whakatakotohia i te hiahia kia whakahokia mai te mana o te awa ki a koutou. Me mihi au ki a koutou i mahi i nga mahi tu te ao tu te po tu te ao tu te po kia tae mai ki tenei ra a tona wa kia whakatutukitia ai te wawata kia whakahokia mai te mana o te awa ki tona iwi. No reira ka nui tera maku engari i runga i te aroha o te Whare nei me tuku mihi atu au ki a koutou tena koutou tena koutou huri atu huri noa. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
So to you the tribes who came from afar to be with us of the House of Parliament tonight I greatly acknowledge your ancestors who wanted and sought to have the river returned to you. I commend you on your tireless efforts and the many many hours spent through nights and days to arrive at this moment a time when the desire is realised and the ownership of the river is returned to its people. Therefore that is enough from me but because of the empathy in this House I really must acknowledge everyone. So greetings to you within and throughout the House. Greetings to us all 
.] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 Tena koe e te Mana Whakawa. Tena koutou nga iwi rangatira o te awa o Waikato tena koutou i nga ahuatanga o te wa. No reira e Te Ariki Ta Tumu te Heuheu tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. E te Minita tino rawe to tiaki i nga take pire mo Te Tiriti o Waitangi. No reira kia ora mo tena. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker. Greetings also to the chiefly people of the Waikato River in respect of the circumstances of the day. Salutations indeed to you paramount chief Sir Tumu te Heuheu and greetings to you all. To you the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations what a wonderful job you are doing. So thank you for that 
.] 
As the member of Parliament for Taupo I am thrilled to stand here in the presence of representatives of Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River iwi who are here today. The settlement of the upper Waikato is significant for the communities that I am proud to represent. The National Government is delivering on its promise to complete final durable settlement of all remaining historical Treaty of Waitangi grievances by 2014. 
Settlements recognise the wrongs of the past help iwi unlock economic potential and provide a welcome economic boost particularly in regional and provincial areas. This is vital in an electorate like Taupo. It is the Waikato River that connects my constituents from Taupo through Tokoroa Putaruru Karapiro and Cambridge and that is why I am thrilled to speak on this bill. 
The purpose of the settlement is Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River iwi participation in both the restoration and protection of the Waikato River. These iwi identify with the upper Waikato River. As has been said before this bill is a companion to the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill which was introduced to Parliament in April this year. The negotiations with the iwi gathered here today have been separate to negotiations with Waikato-Tainui hence the need for separate legislation. It is also important to recognise the mana of these iwi in relation to the upper Waikato River. 
This bill gives effect to co-governance and co-management agreements with each iwi. It also importantly sets up the Waikato River Authority and the funding that is so vital for the Waikato River Clean-Up Trust of $210 million which will be distributed over a period of 30 years. This fund is contestable for iwi local authorities and the community and will be administered by the 50:50 Crown-Maori membership of the Waikato River Authority. 
I will speak about a few things in particular regarding this bill and regarding the river. It is a significant resource. At 425 kilometres long the Waikato River is not only the region’s but the country’s longest and most significant river. As Minister Chris Finlayson has said the river is important to our region’s economic social and cultural well-being. There are more than 470 resource consents accounting for nearly 250.6 million cubic metres of surface water per day. Just to give the House an idea that is the equivalent of filling about 100000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The river is used for domestic industrial and community water supplies and irrigation. It is used for recreation: swimming duck shooting boating fishing or simply enjoying being beside the water’s edge. The Waikato River also supplies about 13 percent of New Zealand’s electricity generation with eight hydro dams dotted along its middle section. The Waikato River contributes though nearly 50 percent of our total electricity generation if we include the geothermal fields and the cooling of Huntly in the mix. 
As we have heard today the Waikato River is degraded and polluted. Approximately 90 percent of the wetlands are gone. We have already started work with the Lake Taupo Protection Trust to improve the health of Lake Taupo but we now must place our attention on the clean-up of the Waikato River. We recognise the deep significance of the Waikato River to Ngati Tuwharetoa to Raukawa and to Te Arawa River iwi. We also recognise the strategic importance of the Waikato River to the social cultural environmental and economic well-being of all New Zealanders. I rowed on the Waikato River as a schoolgirl I now live by the Waikato River I am proud to say that my children play in the river and our family camps on its edge during summertime. The Waikato River is significant to many—to those who live in the region and to those who visit. 
Last year the Prime Minister chose to launch the very first cycleway on the edge of the Waikato River and I think this is significant in terms of the message of how important the Waikato River is to tourism. When the Waikato River Trail is completed there will be a magnificent walk and ride along 100 kilometres of our river. Later this year the world rowing championships will be held on the river—the biggest sporting event since the 1990 Commonwealth Games—so I know that the iwi present will join me in hoping that the Waikato River brings our team extra-special luck and brings it some gold. 
This bill produces the framework for a new era in the relationship between the Crown and Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River iwi and for restoring and protecting the health and well-being of the Waikato River for future generations. We have seen real success in Taupo with the Taupo District Council’s relationship with Tuwharetoa winning the prestigious Institute of Public Administration New Zealand award for Crown-Maori relationships at the recent public sector excellence awards. That was a night to remember. 
This Government is giving clear direction and certainty about the co-governance and co-management of the Waikato River. It is providing more than words to the concept of partnership that is inherent in the Treaty of Waitangi. This is one of seven deeds of settlement that the Government has signed since November 2008 which compares with an average of 1.6 deeds per year under the previous Government. This is a result I am proud of; this is a bill I am proud of. Kia ora mutu. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ki te Whare. I rise to take a quick call in real good-faith support for trying to get the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill through its first reading tonight so that those who have travelled so far can enjoy the fact that we have got through this momentous stage tonight in the House. 
I pay tribute to those who have come from Te Arawa. They are sitting in the gallery smiling away. They know who they are and I know that Minister Turia Shane Jones and Hone Harawira have welcomed them appropriately and with dignity to the House tonight. I also pay tribute to Timi te Heuheu who is here from Tuwharetoa. 
I say to Mr Garrett before I begin that we are a democracy and we respect his view though we differ markedly from it. By exposure to debate in this House and by association through marriage through our children and through our ancestors some of us have acquired a deep and abiding love and a spiritual relationship with the lands our families come from. In my family we share that love with Tariana Turia and the Whanganui—I am sure she wishes they had a such clean-up fund as this bill will set up tonight—with the Tongariro and the Waikato through my Tuwharetoa lines and I have to mention with the Tukituki through my Ngati Kahungunu lines. 
We all learn by association and by talking to each other about the value of being bicultural in this land. We are two people walking one pathway and we need to remember that and show tolerance in this House. So we listened to that member Mr Garrett and I felt a bit sorry for his view but it is the view of only 5 percent of the country. We have a long way to go and we are getting there. If we keep engaging in the democratic debate with those represented in this House we will get there. I congratulate the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations the Hon Chris Finlayson on carrying on and improving the Treaty settlement process. My colleague the Hon Maryan Street gave acknowledgment to that. I think that the Hon Michael Cullen went out on a limb in relation to Treaty settlements. It was considered quite a risk at the time. It was edgy territory to go into in Treaty settlements but we were delighted about the Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Act and for our 14 lakes to start to move towards a co-management model. 
I am sure that if Mr Garrett went and saw these Treaty partners working together he would see that this is not just tokenism. Local government the regional council and the people who are stakeholders in our lakes are beginning the long journey—and it will be a long journey of over 20 years—to clean up our lakes. But it takes a leap of faith and a leap of trust and then underpinning legislation that must be enabling. We cannot tell people what to do and hope it will work. We have to keep talking to each other and this is a wonderful example. 
I can remember in a little way Lady Raiha Mahuta coming into my office when I was the Minister of Conservation and saying what they wanted in terms of the conservation management plans in the legislation we have here in the House tonight. I thought: “Gosh this is new but this is the right thing to do.” I remember going off to Michael Cullen to say: “I don’t know how we do it but we do have to work with conservation coming to the party here alongside iwi and the Crown.” He said: “OK. We will try to find the right instruments.” I think we are learning in Treaty settlements from each process that has gone before. 
I thank those who have gone on this settlement journey and who have taught us that there are new ways and that there are some risks with those new ways but that when we work together in that position of partnership and trust we can get there. It is not hard and this bill underpins that approach. 
I thought we were all going to agree in the House tonight so it was with some sadness that I heard the ACT view. But kei te pai; they are a little group and they need to be awhi-ed to understand the new way of working together and we will work with them to try to show them that there are other ways. That is as nice as I can be there. 
I want to talk about the clean-up fund. I am sure that those at Te Arawa Anaru Rangiheuea Rawiri Te Whare and all of our kaumatua in the gallery know that this is something that we longed for with our Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Act. One gets the settlement amount and it is meant to be enough to clean up but it is never enough. It is really a nominal amount and we all know that. But here is a genuine attempt. Over 30 years it is a bit of a stretch and I am sure that in the future the partners will be coming back to the Crown to say they might need more. 
I want to mention here the Greens’ perspective about catchment. I believe they are right but I think that as this co-management model goes—I was going to say down the river—on this journey the Greens will see that it is logical to put catchment plans in there and they will come to say that that is how they want to manage this. But it is their right to put that on the table too because we never get it all right. 
I am pleased that there is a conservation management plan in this legislation. I think this approach is something that will be watched from all around New Zealand. In Canterbury we are looking at the Hurunui and the Mackenzie Country and the pressures of dairying there. They will be looking at managing those wonderful South Island rivers. I am sure that Tainui will be looking at this model and saying that they need to look at how they manage their precious resources in the future. 
I acknowledge all those who have gone before and thank I them for the lessons they have taught us as we have gone on this journey. I acknowledge the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations with his wonderful lofty goal of getting all Treaty claims settled by 2014. We hope that the settlements are just and durable. The Labour Party will work in cooperation with the Minister to achieve that goal. This is a wonderful evening; thanks for coming. 
PAUL QUINN (National) 
: 
 A tena koe e te Mana Whakawa. Tena tatau e te whanau Paremata i roto i tenei te Wiki o te Reo Maori. E Te Arawa Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa tenei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai ki te Whare Paremata. Kua tangihia nga mate moe mai koutou. Tatau te hunga ora i tenei po kia ora huihui tatau katoa. 
[G 
reetings to you Mr Assistant Speaker and to us the parliamentary family in this Maori Language Week. To you Te Arawa Ngati Tuwharetoa and Raukawa greetings to you all. Welcome to Parliament House. The deaths have been mourned so rest there the dead. To us the living gathered here tonight greetings to us all 
.]  
As always it gives me great pleasure to stand and speak to a Treaty settlement bill. As I regularly say it is one of the principal reasons that I was keen to enter this House—namely to progress Treaty settlements. In this particular case it gives me additional pleasure because I can claim to be Te Arawa but on the eastern coast. As my friend Roger Pikia would remind me it is a bit of a stretch to take that across to the western side of the rohe. In any event it is great to be amongst many friends and I acknowledge them—Rawiri Te Whare and others Timi te Heuheu and Eru George. I welcome them all. 
As previous speakers have said this evening the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill represents the second limb of a broader package involving the settlement of the Waikato River. It is a companion bill to the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Act and falls out of the renegotiation of the previous arrangements which have already been mentioned by the previous administration under the guidance of the then Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Dr Cullen. 
I hope members opposite forgive me but I think it is appropriate that we reflect on how we have got here today. One might think that I am being a little churlish but the difference in terms of what we have before us now tonight and what was presented to the Maori Affairs Committee in December 2008 in some ways one might say with tongue in cheek reflects the different approaches of the two major parties. In the bill drafted under the previous administration we had a multitude of bodies of administration and in this bill under the new administration we have reached a model of excellent efficiency. 
I look forward to the select committee receiving this bill and I can assure the iwi who are here tonight that this bill will be dealt with expeditiously. I assure them that the Maori Affairs Committee has worked very well together and works towards consensus. 
My concluding comments are in respect of the comments made by the Greens. I have to wonder whether the Greens have read the bill because if they read Parts 2 and 3 then they would find that all of the issues that they raised in their contribution to the debate tonight are addressed. With those few closing words I along with the National Government and most of this House look forward to approving the first reading of this bill. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 E te Whare tena tatou katoa. Ka nui te mihi i roto i te wiki o te reo Maori. Tena koutou e nga iwi o te awa Te Arawa Raukawa Ngati Tuwharetoa tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Greetings to us all the House. I acknowledge you hugely in Maori Language Week. I acknowledge you the tribes of the river namely Te Arawa Raukawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa. Greetings to you all 
.]  
It has been one of the highlights of my short time in Parliament to be here for the third reading of the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill. It is indeed a great honour to be here for the first reading of this Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill which partners that one. I say with a great sense of pride as a Waikato-based member of Parliament that our area our region will take a leadership position over the co-governance of our special taonga the Waikato River. In fact I feel so proud about this that in a recent media interview I was having the journalist thought that he would put me on the spot and ask me to name one thing—just one thing—that I thought the current Government had got right and it was this. 
Paul Quinn 
: One! 
SUE MORONEY 
: Yes I worked hard at it but I was very gracious in deciding that there was in fact one that I could name. I named the Government’s going ahead with the Waikato River settlement because I really believe that it is so important to our region that the politics have been taken out of the issue. It has been incredibly important; I do thank the current Government and the Ministers for their continued commitment to a process that was started under Labour. We did not have to think that because of a change in Government we had to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one so I offer my congratulations to the Government. I offer my congratulations to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations who has continued the good work; as has been mentioned he has refined and improved the process brought about by this bill as it has gone along. 
It would not be proper for me to make reference to the Waikato-Tainui Raupatu Claims (Waikato River) Settlement Bill without also bringing the greetings to this House of my good colleague the Hon Nanaia Mahuta who is not able to be present for the debate this evening. I know that she along with the rest of my Labour colleagues wholeheartedly support this bill which is ground-breaking. I believe that not only is New Zealand watching but the world is watching what is happening here because we are breaking ground on both a nationwide level and an international level. I feel incredibly proud as I said before that our region is taking this leadership position and taking it not only to New Zealand but also to the world. 
In doing that it is important—and I address these comments perhaps to Mr Garrett—that sometimes we need to take a calculated risk when we are in a leadership position. When one is leading and doing something different in order to improve a current situation sometimes one needs to step outside one’s comfort zone. I would encourage the ACT Party and the percentage of the population it represents to do exactly that—to join with the rest of the population and recognise that what we are doing now is not working. It has not worked. We need to look only at the degradation of the Waikato River to recognise that we need to do something different. 
Certainly from a Waikato perspective I can say that there has been very little opposition to the Waikato River settlement and I think that tells us something important about our maturity as a nation. It tells me that we are getting there. There will be some dissenting voices but I would ask those dissenting voices—and they are well and truly in the minority—whether we could do a worse job. I ask whether we could have done a worse job than what we have done to date in our guardianship of that river because I do not believe that we could have. So it is time to go forward and to look at other solutions and I believe that this is a fantastic start on finding a different solution. 
It is interesting on a number of counts that we are debating this bill today. It is Maori Language Week which a number of members have made reference to during the course of this debate. I think that makes it a special week to be introducing this bill into the House. It is also relevant because today I noticed that Environment Waikato has made an announcement that it is lifting its monitoring of Waikato dairy farms on the Waikato River from 15 percent to 25 percent each year to check compliance with dairy effluent rules. Today Labour congratulated Environment Waikato on that move and I notice that chair Peter Buckley is in the public gallery this evening. I welcome him and I thank him for the leadership that Environment Waikato is taking on this issue. We had been concerned to learn that last year’s monitoring had revealed a 25 percent increase in events where untreated effluent was at risk of entering water sources. But we are encouraged that Environment Waikato has said that in 80 percent of cases its re-inspections show that there is in fact improved effluent management on re-inspection. We in Labour believe that increased monitoring is likely to lead to increased compliance so that is some good news from today and makes the debate on this bill even more relevant. 
Earlier this evening I had the opportunity to meet with Water New Zealand. I remind members just how important and what a precious commodity water is around the world and increasingly so in New Zealand and how important it is that we take a leadership role and take our guardianship role very seriously in ensuring that we have a better quality of water. I think there has been some progress. It is not all bad news. Certainly in the last decade there has been some progress in the Waikato River. We have noticed locally that just one or two species that we had not seen around for a while have been coming back into the river. That is one of the measures but of course there will be even more stringent measures than that. 
I look forward to seeing what I might call the stocktake that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research is currently undertaking to guide us through this process to tell us where we start from now and where we go to next. I think that that piece of work will be incredibly important in informing and detailing the journey that we take together. 
There has been a little bit of debate about what co-governance means and I think it is worthwhile just reflecting on what this bill says about co-governance. The co-governance framework includes the recognition of the specific and enduring relationship of iwi with the Waikato River. I say to Mr Garrett that I do not feel threatened by that at all. It also covers the development of objectives for the Waikato River by iwi the legislative recognition of the vision and strategy for the Waikato River the establishment of and granting of functions and powers to the Waikato River Authority through legislation and importantly the establishment and funding of a contestable Waikato River Clean-Up Trust. 
I do not wish to take up any more time in this debate. I know we have further readings on this particular bill and I look forward to contributing to them. I feel it is important that as we have visitors with us as my colleague has said we give them an opportunity to celebrate the introduction of this bill into the House this evening. I think they should be celebrating it and we should be celebrating it. We should celebrate this together because it is incumbent on all of us to get this right as the legislation is for our future generations. We all have a stake in that. Thank you. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill be read a first time. 
Ayes 116 
New Zealand National 57; New Zealand Labour 43; Green Party 9; Maori Party 5; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 5 
ACT New Zealand 5. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
on behalf of the  
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: Tena koe e te Kaiwhakawa o te po. I move  
That the Maori Affairs Committee consider the Ngati Tuwharetoa Raukawa and Te Arawa River Iwi Waikato River Bill 
 that the committee report finally to the House on or before 31 August 2010 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during questions for oral answer) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington region despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
Motion agreed to. 
Waiata; karakia 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: Members I say that shows two things: firstly the fabulous acoustics in this place and secondly what a fabulously different country this is. 
Legislation Bill 
First Reading 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 I move  
That the Legislation Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Regulations Review Committee for consideration. Today is an exciting day for black-letter law. There are some people who may say this is all dullsville but I remind them that these days legislation not case law is the major source of law in this land. I can say that no better than to quote from a paper I was given today by an Australian called Wainwright who had prepared a paper for a meeting of senior officials of Commonwealth law ministries. He said: “It’s axiomatic that legislation both primary and secondary has assumed ever-increasing importance in Government and in the everyday lives of people over the last 200 years and continues to do so at what some see as an alarming rate. Even political parties committed to the ideal of small government seem unable to do without it.” I suppose that is us. He continued: “In addition to making laws in response to concerns arising within their respective jurisdictions legislatures are increasingly under pressure to do so in order to meet expanding international obligations.” So one cannot get away from legislation and legislation has to be kept up to date and it needs to be accessible not just for lawyers and parliamentarians but for everyone. 
The Legislation Bill is a central part of the Government’s response to two recent reports of the Law Commission. The first entitled  
Presentation of New Zealand Statute Law 
 was presented to this House in December 2008. I just cannot understand why the Chamber is emptying—this is so interesting. This is an important report focusing as it does on how to make our Acts of Parliament up to date and accessible so that people can easily find and understand the law that applies to them. As the introduction to the report states: “The rule of law is an important concept in most democratic societies. One aspect of the rule of law is to ensure that Acts of Parliament are accessible and available. Otherwise those to whom the law applies cannot find its content.” 
The second report of the Law Commission which was tabled in June 2009 was the review of the Statutes Drafting and Compilation Act of 1920. That Act established the Parliamentary Counsel Office and made provision for its governance and its functions. Although the role and functions of the Parliamentary Counsel Office have expanded since the 1920s the Act has remained largely unchanged. The Law Commission reviewed the status and the functions of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and has made recommendations about how its underpinning legislation might be modernised. 
The Law Commission in its first report had some good things to say about the accessibility of New Zealand’s statute law. But it also identified some problems such as the law on one topic being scattered across several statutes the practice of Parliament passing reforming laws that do not entirely replace their predecessors and the existence on the statute book of some very very old Acts. These older Acts were inevitably drafted in a style that is now quite hard to read and understand. The commission made a number of recommendations about how the current situation could be improved. Many but not all of those recommendations were accepted by the Government. Some do not require legislation. For example the commission recommended that a full collection of historical New Zealand statutes should be captured digitally and made available online. The Parliamentary Counsel Office has already started this process and certain of the repealed New Zealand statutes are now freely accessible on the Internet. Other recommendations that were accepted by the Government can be implemented only by changes to the law as set out in this bill. 
I turn now to the bill itself. Part 2 makes provision for the publication of legislation. The most significant change here is that the Parliamentary Counsel Office will be required to publish legislation electronically. Electronic versions of legislation will eventually have the same official status as the printed versions. The commission proposed that the Parliamentary Counsel Office should also be given enhanced powers of editing when producing reprints of statutes so that these versions are more accessible and easier to read. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.