Volume 698 Week 70 - Thursday 17 April 2014Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 698 Week 70 - Thursday 17 April 2014[Sitting date: 17 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17435. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Thursday 17 April 2014Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Business StatementHon ANNE TOLLEY (Deputy Leader of the House): Next week the House is in the first week of a 2-week adjournment. When the House resumes on Tuesday 6 May the Government will look to progress a number of bills on the Order Paper including the Veterans’ Support Bill the Vulnerable Children Bill and the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill. On Wednesday 7 May effective on the morning of Thursday 8 May and with the agreement of the Business Committee the House will sit in extended hours to progress some Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation. Wednesday is a members’ day.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): Can I just ask the Deputy Leader of the House whether it is in the intention of the Government to pass the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill before the House rises in July.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Deputy Leader of the House): July is such a long way away.Amended Answers to Oral QuestionsQuestion No. 10 to Minister 16 AprilHon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): I seek leave to make a personal explanation under Standing Order 354 to correct an answer to question No. 10 yesterday.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: In answering question No. 10 yesterday I said that I had been advised by ACC that form ACC167 had been approved by the Human Rights Commission. ACC has now advised me that the information provided to me by ACC is incorrect. It has now advised me that form ACC167 has not been approved by the Human Rights Commission. I am drawing this to the notice of the House at the earliest opportunity available to me.Questions to MinistersTransport Infrastructure—Napier-Gisborne Rail Interislander Ferries and KiwiRail1.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) to theMinister of Transport: Does he agree with all of the Prime Minister’s statements concerning transport?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Associate Minister of Transport) on behalf of theMinister of Transport: Yes.Denis O’Rourke: Does the Minister agree with this statement concerning the Napier-Gisborne rail link by the Prime Minister which was reported in theWairoa Star on 28 August 2012: “Government has some responsibility and does not want to see road as the only option.”?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am sure the Minister of Transport at the time did agree with the Prime Minister when he made that statement. We now know that there are very challenging issues with respect to the viability of that line and that it is unlikely to have any dividends. So I am quite sure that the Minister would agree with that statement if the Prime Minister were to make it today.Denis O’Rourke: Does the Minister agree that short-term financial issues are not the only consideration in deciding whether to repair the Gisborne-Napier rail link and that the security of transport links and regional development are also important considerations?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Yes I do. But I would also say that the long-term challenges are also insurmountable in that respect.Denis O’Rourke: I understand that the Minister is visiting Napier on 23 April; if so will he agree to meet local community representatives who support the urgent re-establishment of the Gisborne-Napier rail link; if not why not?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: I am unable to verify whether or not that is the case but if the member puts the question down in writing I am sure the Minister would be able to answer it for him.Denis O’Rourke: Is the very poor safety and reliability ofKiwiRail’s Cook Strait ferries a concern to the Minister; if so what is he doing about it?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The safety and reliability of the whole KiwiRail network is of concern to the Minister. Considering that this Government had to pick up the lemon that the previous Government bought and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into it as part of the Turnaround Plan I am very confident that that is on track—pardon the pun.Cost of Living—Consumers Price Index and Wage Growth2.JOANNE HAYES (National) to theMinister of Finance: What reports has he received on recent trends in the cost of living for New Zealanders?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance) on behalf of theMinister of Finance: Yesterday Statistics New Zealand released the Consumers Price Index and noted that it increased by 0.3 percent in the March quarter and by 1.5 percent in the year. This was slightly below expectations and a very significant improvement on cost of living increases that peaked at more than 5 percent in late 2008 just before this Government gained office. Prices for package holidays vegetables breads meat and poultry all fell in the March quarter. As the Opposition finance spokesman helpfully pointed out yesterday the good news for families is that—excluding excise tax increases on cigarettes and tobacco—there was actually no overall cost of living increase in the March quarter. So if you do not smoke there was no cost of living increase at all in the 3 months to March.Joanne Hayes: How do prices over the last 12 months compare with average cost of living increases in the 9 years to 2008?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The 1.5 percent increase in the cost of living over the last year compares with an average of 3.1 percent of annual increases every year in the 9 years to the end of 2008. The price of food increased 0.8 percent in the last 12 months—that is 0.8 percent for the price of food—compared with a 4 percent average annual increase between 1999 and 2008. Within this fruit and vegetables actually fell in cost by 1.7 percent in the last year compared with a 6 percent average yearly increase under the previous Government. Meat and fish were up 0.6 percent in the last year against 5 percent a year under that Government. Petrol increased 0.3 percent in the last 12 months compared with a 7.6 percent average annual increase under Labour. And importantly the price of electricity which is often talked about is up 2.9 percent in the last 12 months compared with a 7.1 percent average annual increase under Labour. We see much the same pattern comparing the 9 years to 2008 with the 5 years and one quarter that has followed.Joanne Hayes: How does the cost of living compare with recent wage increases?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Quite well over the past 2 years. Over the past 2 years as the economy has continued to pick up the average full-time wage has increased from $51700 a year to $54700 a year—an increase of $3000. Average weekly wages increased 2.8 percent in 2013. This compares with a 1.6 percent increase in the cost of living over the same period. Wages are expected to grow 2.8 percent in 2014 3.5 percent in 2015 and about 4.7 percent in 2016 driven by higher labour demand and a continuing fall in unemployment. All these figures are significantly in excess of expected inflation over the same period.Joanne Hayes: What recent reports has the Minister received confirming that the growing economy is delivering benefits to New Zealand households and businesses?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Although of course we welcome reports of a growing economy what is important for families is more jobs and higher incomes. Looking ahead Treasury’s preliminary Budget forecast shows that the average wage will rise to around $62200 a year in 4 years’ time—an increase of a further $7500 by 2018. This adds up to an average wage increase of around $10500 or around 20 percent over a 6-year period compared with forecast inflation over the same period of around 12 percent. So the message is clear. Good fiscal management is helping to deliver higher wages and a lower cost of living for New Zealanders.Justice Minister—Visit to China3.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) to theMinister of Justice: Did she meet with a senior official from the General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine also known as the AQSIQ during her Ministerial visit to China in October 2013?Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): I did not have any meetings in my ministerial capacity with any such person.Grant Robertson: Will she rule out that the official who was at the dinner she attended in Beijing was from the General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine also known as the AQSIQ?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: What I will rule out is that I would ever reveal the name or the employer of the official.Grant Robertson: Can she rule out that she was introduced as a Minister of the Crown at the dinner or that there was discussion aboutOravida and its border control issues given that she is not fluent in Mandarin which was being spoken by Mr Shi and the border control official at the dinner?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: What I can say is that it was a private dinner. There was no ministerial responsibility.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question asked the Minister whether she could rule out that she was introduced as a Minister of the Crown. That is a matter of ministerial responsibility for the Minister.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I considered the question very carefully and I considered the answer. I think the answer given was relevant to the question. If the member is unhappy with that answer which I suspect he may well be the way forward is to ask supplementary questions.Grant Robertson: I have asked quite a few of them.Mr SPEAKER: I agree; the member has. I am giving him a further opportunity.Grant Robertson: I seek leave of the House to table an email from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise dated Thursday 17 October to two Oravida.com addresses about a workshop on General Administration of Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantinestandards.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular New Zealand Trade and Enterprise email. Is there any objection? There appears to be no objection. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Grant Robertson: Does she stand by her statement yesterday that she did not know anything about the problems thatOravida was having importing products into China in the wake of the botulism scare despite her friend JuliaXu publicly stating on television that that was so in September 2013 or thatOravida was in contact with New Zealand Trade and Enterprise about the changed standards in China?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I do not believe I made any such statement in a ministerial capacity in this House. If that member wants to say that I have made that statement then I would like to see the proof of it.Grant Robertson: You said it yesterday.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Well I would like to see the proof of it. Thank you.Grant Robertson: You said it yesterday.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Then where is the proof?Grant Robertson: In light of that answer by the Minister I seek leave of the House to table the transcript of her answers to questions in the House yesterday.Mr SPEAKER: No I am not prepared—the member has made his point and I am certainly not starting to table transcripts of yesterday’s questions. The member has further opportunities I take it with supplementary questions.Grant Robertson: What discussions if any did she have after her dinner in Beijing with the New Zealand Ambassador to China about the dinner or the attendees who were at it?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: It was a private dinner. I went to bed.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I am going to invite the member to ask that question again.Grant Robertson: What discussions if any did she have after her dinner with the New Zealand Ambassador to China about the dinner or the attendees who were there?Hon JUDITH COLLINS: I cannot remember any discussions.State-owned Assets Sales—Progress Genesis Energy and Revenue4.PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to theMinister for State Owned Enterprises: What progress has the Government made on the mixed ownership model programme?Hon TONY RYALL (Minister for State Owned Enterprises): Today’s float of Genesis Energy has brought the Government’s share offer programme to a successful close. The programme has been a real success raising $4.7 billion while retaining the Government’s majority control of these companies. A total of $4.7 billion has been realised and in a world moving to a phase of rising interest rates controlling debt is increasingly important. Controlling debt while providing hundreds of millions for scarce capital for investments into important assets such as Burwood Hospital and Christchurch Hospital has been an important part of the Government’s successful wider economic programme which sees it at the top end of the developed world for actual and forecast GDP and job growth.Paul Goldsmith: How many of the five objects set for the wider share offer programme have been met?Hon TONY RYALL: All of them. The Government has maintained at least 51 percent ownership of all the companies. New Zealanders were at the front of the queue. There were 250000 people who took up shares with 110000 new common shareholder numbers issued. The companies will provide good opportunities for investors. Thefreed-up capital is being used to buy new public assets and the Government is satisfied that industry-specific regulations will continue to protect New Zealand consumers. The Government campaigned up front on this programme and the Opposition did everything it could to sabotage it. But the Government has delivered and New Zealand and our public finances are better off because of this programme.Paul Goldsmith: What other benefits are evident from the Government’s successful completion of the share float programme?Hon TONY RYALL: Apart from providing hundreds of millions of dollars of scarce capital for hospitals and schools KiwiRail and other vital public assets the Government share offer programme has also been instrumental in deepening New Zealand’s equity markets. Activity on the New Zealand Exchange in 2013 was at its highest level in over a decade and 63 percent of the capital raised was due to the Government share offer programme. It has also spurred many New Zealanders to invest in the share market for the first time. Around a quarter of a million shareholders purchased shares and around 110000 were issued new common shareholder numbers. This means that tens of thousands of New Zealanders have invested in the stock market for the first time and are now earning dividends from shares.Hon David Parker: How much has he raised from the asset sales process and is this less than the $5 billion to $7 billion he predicted; if so how can he claim that it is a success?Hon TONY RYALL: The Government has raised $4.7 billion worth of cash and when the Government was aiming for $5 billion to $7 billion of shares that included Solid Energy which has been severely affected by the collapse in world coal prices. So actually I think that to get to $4.7 billion with only four of the five companies is a great success and it means that we have money in the bank. Unlike the Opposition we do not have to go to borrow from foreign bankers.Hon David Parker: Supplementary question.Hon Annette King: Where do you borrow from if it’s not from foreign bankers?Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am just waiting for the Hon Annette King.Hon David Parker: Will he apologise to New Zealand taxpayers for the $120 million he gave away from the many to the few by underpricing the Genesis Energy shares that have listed today on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars he has already lost on asset sales and for running Solid Energy into the ground?Hon TONY RYALL: The Government ran a transparent and commercial process when it came to set the price for Genesis Energy. I have to say that the Opposition criticises whatever the price is. Over the last three floats we have had we have heard that we sold them too cheaply we have sold them too dear we have not sold them to the right people and we sold them to too many Kiwi mums and dads. The Opposition seems to have all sorts of positions on this reflecting the fact that it made this the centrepiece of the 2011 election campaign. It failed and New Zealanders have won with $4.7 billion worth of cash.Finance Minister—Manufacturing Sector Performance and Telecommunications Infrastructure5.Hon DAVID PARKER (Deputy Leader—Labour) to theMinister of Finance: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Associate Minister of Finance)on behalf of theMinister of Finance: Yes in the context in which they were made. However I do need to note that there needs to be some form of statute of limitations if the member wants to discuss economic policy from the 1970s. That is a long time ago and I may not be able to recall every statement I made when I was still at school.Hon David Parker: Does he stand by his statement that the export manufacturing sector is in good heart given that manufactured exports outside of the primary sector have declined 21.3 percent in real terms since he took office?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think that the member is once again trying to take the manufacturing statistics—he needs to tell us what sort of primary sector manufacturing which is after all weirdly a fair bit of New Zealand’s manufacturing he is removing. He pulls that statistic out and then he tries to discuss about it in real terms despite the global financial crisis. So I have no idea how he has managed to concoct this particular question but the reality is manufacturing in this country is in expansion and has been for the last 19 months.Hon David Parker: Are manufactured exports in the non-primary sector down 21.3 percent in real dollars from December 2008 to December 2013—the latest dates for which we have statistics?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well asking the same question by reading it off theBlackBerry does not change the question and it does not change the answer. I know that the member wants to talk New Zealand manufacturing down but he cannot. It is growing strongly in this country.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was a very specific question and it has not been addressed.Mr SPEAKER: The difficulty I have is that it was effectively a repeat of the earlier question and there was no doubt in my mind that that was addressed by the Minister in quite a lengthy fashion in the previous answer. The second supplementary question in my mind effectively asked the same question again.Hon David Parker: Speaking to the point of order.Mr SPEAKER: I would be grateful for the assistance.Hon David Parker: You have told members on this side of the House Mr Speaker that if a question is not properly addressed to the satisfaction of the Opposition we have to remedy that by effectively asking it again. I have done that and the question still has not been answered.Mr SPEAKER: No my difficulty is that the question in my mind was quite adequately answered in the answer to the first supplementary question. I accept that it was not to the member’s satisfaction but the Minister went through quite a detailed explanation of it—[Interruption] I am on my feet and I am saying that to me he did anyway. I will accept that he might not have done that to the satisfaction of the member but he went through quite a detailed explanation about how New Zealand is a primary exporter and therefore a lot of our manufacturing is associated with the primary sector etc. and he gave justification for that. The member then rose and repeated a second question which was effectively the same one and I ruled that it had been addressed in answer to the first question.Grant Robertson: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Every member of the House is entitled to ask the questions they want as long as they are within the Standing Orders. My colleague David Parker did that. The second question he asked was actually more specific and included up-to-date statistics. The Minister could get up and repeat the answer that he had given. Instead he gave another answer that attacked various people and did not address the question. I believe that the Minister has a responsibility to answer the question that the Hon David Parker asked. Perhaps he could ask it again and we could actually get an answer to it.Mr SPEAKER: I think the way forward—I will hear from the Hon Steven Joyce.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The difficulty that I was trying to point out to the member is that it is very difficult because he often tries to come up with different statistics that are in a different—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a point of order and it will be heard in silence.Hon STEVEN JOYCE: —area from the manufacturing sector. I am happy to repeat it again. It is difficult to know what he means by “primary sector”. Does he include for example forestry processing services—those sorts of things? If he wants to put it down as a written question I would be happy to answer it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! Well I accepted that it was a point of order. It was helping me with making further—I think the way forward is that I will allow the member to ask an additional supplementary question. I certainly hope we get a new supplementary question but I cannot instruct the member the Hon David Parker that it must be one.Hon David Parker: Are non-primary manufactured exports as measured by Statistics New Zealand down 21.3 percent in real dollars between December 2008 and December 2013?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: It depends on what the member means by “non -primary-sector manufactured exports”. [Interruption] For example if you include the construction sector which of course includes timber processing that would be one. That has actually gone down but is now coming up again.Hon Phil Goff: Just say “Yes.”Hon STEVEN JOYCE: No I will not just say “Yes” because the Opposition members think so. They need to go and have a little weekend off.Hon David Parker: Why will he not support the manufacturing export sector and the jobs therein by introducing accelerated depreciation for capital investment given that under current settings investment jobs and exports in that sector are all down?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That is where the member is incorrect. They are not down; they are up and they are growing. Employment is growing. The performance of the BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index has been in positive growth territory now for 19 months. If the member thinks that placing a capital gains tax and a higher-cost emissions trading scheme on productive businesses on the one hand and then trying to mitigate it a little bit by giving them accelerated depreciation would actually grow the manufacturing sector then he is sadly wrong.Hon David Parker: Why did the Minister of Finance criticise Steven Joyce and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment when he said regarding Chorus and broadband last week: “You’d think Government would have enough regulatory experience to understand the implications of that sort of provision and I don’t think they did”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: Well I am confident that he did not criticise the other Minister. Actually the other Minister is a very good friend of mine and I think that he does a pretty good job on behalf of the Minister of Finance.Clare Curran: Why did he as Minister of Finance think that Steven Joyce as the former Minister for Communications and Information Technology got it wrong regarding Chorus on copper network pricing when he said: “If you think the result … was unpredictable then that’s poor policy process when the provisions went in the legislation”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This is a good day to be answering questions on the Minister’s behalf and I disagree with the member’s interpretation. Actually it is a challenging policy area but it is important to point out that the ultra-fast broadband is 25 percent built now and if that member had had her way we would not have even started.Beneficiaries—Statistics6.ALFRED NGARO (National) to theMinister for Social Development: What recent reports has she received about the number of people on a benefit?Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): I am very pleased to announce that quarterly benefit figures released today show that the number of people on benefit is at a 5-year low back to where it was prior to the global recession. At the end of the March quarter there were 295320 people on a benefit. This is 15000 fewer people than at the same time last year. During the recession the number of people on a benefit peaked at 352707 in December 2010. There are nearly 60000 fewer people on the benefit today. When this Government took office the global recession was beginning to bite but we did the right thing in maintaining vital financial support for the most vulnerable. Now our welfare reforms and the strengthening economy are both contributing to significant numbers of people coming off benefit.Alfred Ngaro: What does the drop in the number of people on a benefit mean for children?Hon PAULA BENNETT: We all know that one of the best things that we can do for children is to ensure their parents are in work and not on a benefit. The Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty report said that “having a parent in paid employment is the most important way to move a child out of poverty”. That is why I am so pleased to see that there are 8600 fewer sole parents on a benefit and there are also 17700 fewer children now living in beneficiary households compared with March last year and a whopping 29500 children fewer than 2 years ago. This Government’s investment in supporting sole parents is paying off.Alfred Ngaro: What else do the figures show about how welfare reforms are helping children?Hon PAULA BENNETT: Fewer teenagers are having babies and going on the benefit. There are fewer of those beneficiaries. That means that the fewer whom we have going on now the fewer we will have in the longer term because they are the group that is most likely to stay there the longest. Teen pregnancy is falling with 3303 babies being born to mothers under 20 in 2013. That figure is down by 36 percent from 2008.Hon Anne Tolley: That’s excellent.Hon PAULA BENNETT: Yes it is. It is really amazing. The benefit figures also show a 13.4 percent decrease in young parents aged 18 and under getting the young parent payment. This is a significant policy development in this area and one that is great for teenagers and those babies.Sue Moroney: What proportion of people coming off benefits are going into paid work?Hon PAULA BENNETT: I do not have the proportion but it is the highest proportion out of anyone. What we are seeing on average is 1500 people a week going into work and so those people are going into paid jobs. Those sole parents whom we talk about are going into work predominantly and not just going off benefit.Sue Moroney: I seek leave to table answers from the Minister to questions that I have asked—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! If you are seeking leave to table answers to written questions they are freely available.Drone Strikes—Death of New Zealand Citizen7.Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) to thePrime Minister: Does he support or condemn the killing of a New Zealand citizen by a United States drone strike in Yemen last year?Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Economic Development) on behalf of thePrime Minister: The Prime Minister neither supports nor condemns the death of a New Zealander in a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen. There are two additional points Iwould like to make. There was no New Zealand involvement in or prior awareness of the operation and I would also point out that the New Zealander involved worked alongside known al-Qaeda operatives of his own free will.Dr Kennedy Graham: Just to be clear and explicit did any agency of the New Zealand Government provide information to the United States or its allies that could have assisted in the killing of the New Zealand citizen?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: The Prime Minister can confirm for the member that there was no New Zealand involvement in or prior awareness of this operation at all.Dr Kennedy Graham: Has the Prime Minister asked—and if not will he ask—the US Government whether the New Zealander was deliberately targeted or “collateral damage”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: This was not an operation that New Zealand was involved in. We did not have any involvement in it or prior awareness of it. This is a matter for the United States not a matter for us.Dr Kennedy Graham: Has the US Government expressed any regret to the New Zealand Government regarding the killing of the New Zealander?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not in a position to answer that question today.Dr Kennedy Graham: Is the Prime Minister aware that in a Pew ResearchCenter Global Attitudes Project survey 17 out of 20 countries showed a majority of people disapproving of US drone attacks including 59 percent in Germany and 63 percent in France?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not aware of those specific numbers but it is important to point out to the member that of course all weapons are lethal and all conflict is dangerous. Generally most people would prefer that it did not take place; it is just a matter of the world in which we live in terms of some of the issues that are faced over time.Dr Kennedy Graham: Does the Prime Minister agree with the opinion advanced in a joint Stanford Law School - New York University School of Law legal publication that “Unchecked armed drone proliferation poses a threat to global stability…”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I think the member is in danger of inviting the Prime Minister to offer an opinion on this particular incident and I think that that is really a matter for those who carry out those drone strikes. I do not think any member in this House is in a position to form a view in terms of the level of appropriateness or otherwise of the incident because it has taken place right outside the purview of New Zealanders.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you noticed that members of the National backbench made inappropriate and quite gross jokes about the death of a New Zealand citizen while my colleague asked his question. I ask that they be asked to be silent. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! I certainly did not hear any interjection that I would consider to be cast as a joke. This is a very serious matter and I accept that point. I think that if members are going to interject they need to be mindful of the seriousness of this situation.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would invite you to look again at the tape of this especially during the point of order that Ms Turei took where there were interjections. While you were on your feet Mr Bennett constantly interjected; he was not reprimanded.Mr SPEAKER: Thank you very much to the Hon Trevor Mallard. I appreciate his invitation.Dr Kennedy Graham: Does the Prime Minister consider extrajudicial killings of New Zealanders on foreign soil to be legitimate and/or legal?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I do not think that either the member or I is in a position to be able to characterise this particular incident in that way.Dr Kennedy Graham: Just by way of follow-up to that does he agree or disagree with the UN special rapporteur UK jurist BenEmmerson that “where no official conflict exists lethal action will rarely be lawful.”?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not going to offer a view on that particular comment from that particular jurist but it is important that we realise that addressing the threat of global terrorism is a very important responsibility for Governments around the world. We are talking about the security of countries and the security of their citizens. We in this country have had New Zealanders killed in a number of overseas terrorist incidents. I think that offering an opinion in principle and seeking to apply it to a particular incident is a very difficult thing to do indeed and invites a level of judgment that I think the member needs to be careful about making.Dr Kennedy Graham: Does the Prime Minister agree with the UN special rapporteur who said that “The single greatest obstacle to an evaluation of … drone strikes is lack of transparency” and who does not accept that considerations of national security justify withholding all relevant data?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I am not aware of those particular views but I think this is a matter for those countries that do carry out drone strikes from time to time and New Zealand is not one of them.Dr Kennedy Graham: If the Prime Minister believes that the US President should have the power to order New Zealanders to be executed through targeting or simply killed as collateral damage with no due process what power does he believe that the US President should not have?Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I go back to the initial answer and that is that the Prime Minister neither supports nor condemns the incident that led to the death of the New Zealander in a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen. I repeat for the member who seems to be seeking to conflate the New Zealand approach with the approach of the Americans that there was no New Zealand involvement in or prior awareness of that operation. Again I would point out that the New Zealander involved worked alongside known al-Qaeda operatives of his own free will and he did have known terrorist links.Dr Kennedy Graham: I seek leave of the House to table one document being the one I mentioned in one of the questions from the Pew ResearchCenter and the opinion poll headed “Drone strikes widely opposed”—Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Teachers—Initial Teacher Education and Other Development Initiatives8.Dr CAM CALDER (National) to theMinister of Education: What recent announcements has she made on further Initial Teacher Education provision?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): This week I announced that the Government will partner with the University of Auckland the University of Canterbury Massey University Victoria University and the Auckland University of Technology to provide further postgraduate-level initial teacher education qualifications from 2015. These programmes reflect our experience over time of striking a better balance between theory and practice. Improving the quality of initial teacher education provision is part of our drive to strengthen the teaching profession and raise achievement for kids.Dr Cam Calder: Why is the Government investing in improving the quality of initial teacher education provision?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Expectations of education systems are changing and teachers entering the profession need to have the knowledge and expertise to work effectively with an increasingly diverse student population. We want to drive up both the quality and the status of the profession. Postgraduate initial teacher education helps with both. Parents and their children have the right to expect quality teaching and we want to see every one of them succeed.Dr Cam Calder: What other steps is the Government taking to strengthen the teaching profession and raise student achievement?Hon HEKIA PARATA: We have just hosted a most successful International Summit on the Teaching Profession which included over 26 international delegations including Ministers union leaders teacher leaders and of course observers from our own New Zealand profession. It was truly the World Cup of education. We also held education festivals in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch—Hon Tony Ryall: Thousands.Hon HEKIA PARATA: —which received a wide range—indeed thousands—of visitors educators students agencies and community members. We are establishing a new professional body theEducation Council ofAotearoa New Zealand which will be the cornerstone of our quality teaching agenda. The Prime Minister announced a $359 million investment in professional career pathways over the next 4 years. That will support—Hon Tony Ryall: How much?Hon HEKIA PARATA: $359 million. That will support teachers and principals to lift student achievement at every school. And we have the inauguralPrime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards in June to celebrate the profession. In law in policy in practice and in funding this Government is backing our teaching profession to win.Chris Hipkins: What was the total cost to the taxpayer of the festivals of education and the hosting of the International Summit on the Teaching Profession?Hon HEKIA PARATA: We do not yet have the final cost but they were carried out in partnership with Cognition Education which was the budget holder; with the profession; and with a diverse range of education providers both nationally and internationally. It involved nearly 30000 New Zealanders coming to celebrate education. When we have the final number I will be happy to provide that because I am confident that they were dollars well spent.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is not directly related to the Minister’s answer; it is actually related to asking you to give a considered ruling on the issue of written parliamentary questions. I have put to the Minister a number of questions regarding the cost of the festivals of education. She has indicated that she will not answer them because the festivals were contracted to Cognition Education. The question I am asking for a considered ruling on is whether in fact Ministers remain accountable for how taxpayers’ funding is spent and are therefore answerable to the House even if a third party is involved in the spending of that money.Mr SPEAKER: I will consider the point the member has raised but in the answer just given by the Minister the Minister actually said that they had not yet finished collating the figures but she will be happy to tell you once they are finalised.Police Resourcing—Impact on Morale and Attrition Rates9.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) to theMinister of Police: Does she stand by her statements that police are “much happier under a National-led Government” and that “there have been no police budget cuts”?Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): Yes. This Government has backed the police and maintained their budget. Those statements were made in this House last yearin response to a question from Labour about a Police Association survey. That survey found that union police members were more concerned about front-line resourcing under the previous Labour Government than they were under this Government. This is backed up by the police’s own survey results which have found that staff engagement levels have improved significantly under this National-led Government. Under Labour in 2007 only 13 percent of police staff were fully engaged and nearly a quarter of staff were actively disengaged. Last year nearly 25 percent were fully engaged and only 15 percent were disengaged. The results speak for themselves. Under this Government crime is falling public confidence is higher and police are certainly happier.Jacinda Ardern: Has the current or past Police Commissioner expressed any concerns over the additional pressure they have faced since her Government reduced the total appropriation for Vote Police by nearly $36 million in the last Budget?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I have repeated in this House and at estimates select committees that this Government has maintained the police budget. Like any other agency the police are expected to live within their budget and police are continuing to do that.Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I asked whether or not the current or past Commissioner of Police had expressed any concerns about the change in the police budget—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member had asked that question I could assist her. She asked that and then she went on to talk about an underfunding that occurred—a reduced appropriation I think of $36 million. The Minister chose to respond to that part of the question. I invite the member to continue her supplementary questions.Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I added in the amount that it had been reduced by in order to give the context of whether or not the commissioner had raised that specific reduction in budget.Mr SPEAKER: The member has her own good reasons for adding in the amount but subsequent to adding in the amount she then gave the ability to the Minister to answer that part which she did. She frankly disagrees that there has been an undercutting to the appropriation. The answer has been relevant. It has addressed the question. The member may have a further supplementary question. I suggest she uses it.Jacinda Ardern: Has the current or past Commissioner of Police expressed any concerns over the current level of the police budget?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I do not think there has been a Commissioner of Police or a chief executive who has not said they could do other things if they had more money. However this Government has focused its resources on getting more effective and more efficient use of resources and that is what I have asked of the commissioner. Actually it has worked. We have got recorded crime at a 29-year low.Jacinda Ardern: If the police are much happier why has the resignation rate for front-line police officers almost tripled—tripled—since 2009 as shown in this chart I am holding with more than 350 police not retiring but leaving the force in the last year alone?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: We have been through a recession that has seen the lowest attrition rate from police in something like 40 years. In fact it was down at about 2.7 percent at one stage.Jacinda Ardern: It has tripled!Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Well you can hold up charts—I mean who knows what the figures are on either side? What we have now I understand is an average attrition rate of around 5.7 percent which is significantly below the average public sector attrition rate which sits at around 15 percent. Actually the police are incredibly happy. They arebetter resourced they are better tooled and they are better able to get out and prevent crime and the results speak for themselves.Jacinda Ardern: I seek leave to table an Excel spreadsheet of police resignations produced by the Parliamentary Library and based on the New Zealand Police magazineTen One which documents resignations across the force.Mr SPEAKER: The easiest way of resolving the matter is for the House to decide. Leave is sought to table a spreadsheet prepared by the Parliamentary Library. The source of some of the information was I think described as a police magazine. Is there any objection to that being tabled? There appears to be none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Jacinda Ardern: Is the Minister telling the House that a police force that has experienced a reduction in budget a huge restructure a loss of support staff a tripling of front-line resignations station closures and a loss of resources like training and vehicles is still happier under her Government?Hon ANNE TOLLEY: I am not telling the House any of that because none of it is true. What that member has done is continue to undermine the police who have produced a reduction in crime in each of the last 4 years and now reported crime is at a 29-year low. I do not know why Labour is not celebrating that.Road Safety—Initiatives10.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) to theAssociate Minister of Transport: What recent initiatives has the Government announced to help improve safety on our roads?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Associate Minister of Transport): Under the 10-year Safer Journeys road safety strategy the Government is pressing ahead with initiatives to make our roads safer. The Government announced that electronic stability control will become mandatory for both new and used vehicles imported into New Zealand with a staged timetable over the next 5 years. It was described by the Automobile Association and many road safety experts as the most significant advance in vehicle safety since the seatbelt with research suggesting electronic stability control can reduce the risk of crashing as the result of loss of control by around 30 percent.Chris Auchinvole: What other steps has the Government taken to improve road safety?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: There are many but I will name just three. We have identified New Zealand’s 100 highest-risk intersections in order that we can target safety improvements and last month I released that list. I have also asked for a special project to be started that aims to improve safety on roads in the lower South Island. This is a result of concerns about both overseas and out-of-district drivers. Furthermore I have addressed the New Zealand Cycle Safety Summit to kick off the work that the Cycle Safety Panel will be doing to find ways to make cycling safer in New Zealand. But we are approaching an extended and possibly weather-affected Easter and Anzac Day period and I want to take this opportunity to wish all road users a safe holiday. I know our fantastic police force will be out there trying to keep us safe and I urge drivers to take extra care behind the wheel.Hon David Parker: Is there any safety reason behind his Government’s refusal to drop registration fees—but not warrants—for the 600000 light trailers and caravans and given that it is just a revenue grab what sense does it make to collect $28 a trailer when 25 percent of the costs go to compliance costs?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: There are many reasons but the No. 1 reason is that this Government focuses on the transport issues that matter in reducing death and injury on our roads—not on sideshows like clip-on roads and trucks in the fast lane.Canterbury Recovery—Prioritisation of Job Opportunities and Protection of Migrant Workers11.DARIEN FENTON (Labour) to theMinister of Immigration: What steps has he taken to ensure that New Zealand workers are given priority for jobs in the Christchurch rebuild and migrant workers given temporary visas are protected?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): In answer to the first question the No. 1 priority is jobs for New Zealanders. I work with my colleagues the Minister for Social Development and the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment to ensure appropriately skilled Kiwis are at the front of the queue for jobs. We have introduced the Canterbury Skills and Employment Hub where jobseekers employers the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Ministry of Social Development all come together to make sure that New Zealanders are at the front of that queue. But there is no doubt we will also need workers from overseas. So in respect of the second question we have introduced legislation with tough new penalties for exploiting migrant workers—and I have asked officials to turn their turrets on employers not employees—and we have provided support to employers on issues with migrant workers. We are regularly engaging with migrant communities to help them spread the message that the rule of law in New Zealand is important to all workers regardless of their visa status.Darien Fenton: Why has he granted visas for migrant workers to work in jobs like forklift drivers builders’ labourers clerical administrative workers labourers painters and truck drivers when these types of jobs could have easily gone to our out-of-work Kiwi workers with minimal training?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well I repeat my answer to the primary question. We are very focused on ensuring that an appropriate number of skilled New Zealanders are at the front of the queue but the task of rebuilding Canterbury is going to be a massive one and there is no doubt that there are going to be high levels of requirements for migrant workers.Darien Fenton: Why have no prosecutions been completed in the last year under either the Immigration Act or labour laws for migrant workers despite repeated complaints of migrant worker abuse?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: A prosecution is not necessarily a sign of success. It may well be a sign of failure. I know that the labour inspectorate and the immigration compliance team work extremely hard when they receive complaints in order to solve the problem before a prosecution becomes necessary. I am very satisfied that as long as complaints are reported to those agencies that system is working. But if the member has cases where she believes action is not being taken I would be very happy to hear from her.Darien Fenton: Why does Immigration New Zealand not record the number of complaints from workers on temporary visas thus making it impossible for him to know the size of the problem or whether the problems have in fact been fixed?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Immigration New Zealand is not the only source of complaints. They come through the 0800 number on the Immigration New Zealand line. They go to the labour inspectorate. They go to the police. To simply say that Immigration New Zealand is the only source of that data would probably understate and be misleading about the scale of the problem.Darien Fenton: How can he be confident he is promoting Kiwi jobs and protecting migrant workers when Immigration New Zealand is approving migrants in low-skilled jobs not prosecuting breaches and not even collecting the data?Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: The significant data which I think was mentioned by the Minister for Social Development in an answer to an earlier question showed that there has been a significant reduction in the number of unemployed people in New Zealand since 2010 and that more than half of young male Christchurch residents now have work when they did not a couple of years ago. There is no doubt that Kiwis are getting those jobs but there is also no doubt that foreign migrant workers are going to be required to rebuild that city.Foreign Charter Fishing Vessels—Legislative Reform and Iwi Concerns12.TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to theMinister for Primary Industries: Is he aware of the concerns of the Chairman of TeRūnanga ā Iwi oNgāpuhi that the revised policy laid out in the Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill will disproportionately affect iwi owners of settlement quota who lack the scale capital and flexibility of other quota owners to make other arrangements for catching their annual catch entitlement; if so what is he doing to address these concerns?Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries) on behalf of theMinister for Primary Industries: Yes the Minister is aware of those concerns. He has had several conversations with Sonny Tau about the impact of this legislation on iwi and in particular the impact onNgāpuhi. The Minister is also aware of other iwi and non-iwi parties who have concerns over the effects of this bill and others who support it. He acknowledges that this bill will have some impact on business but he is not prepared to allow behaviour that has been described as slavery at sea to continue in New Zealand waters. This bill is an essential step to stamp out this behaviour and to uphold New Zealand’s international reputation.Te Ururoa Flavell: Why has the Minister not considered a phased-in approach which will achieve his objectives as well as minimise the loss of economic value and which this Government often provides to other sectors of the economy when making similar changes?Hon JO GOODHEW: The Government response to the ministerial inquiry is a phased-in approach. Operators have been aware of the proposed changes since 2012. Therefore the Government has enabled a 4-year transition period for operators to begin adjusting their business settings to the newreflagging regime. We have also worked closely with iwi and industry to try to minimise the impact ofreflagging where possible through streamliningreflagging processes. The Ministry for Primary Industries and other agencies will continue to support all parties during this transition period. The new regime will mean more secure market access arrangements and an improved international reputation for products caught in our waters. Ultimately this will prove positive for iwi quota holders.Te Ururoa Flavell: Bearing in mind that the ability of Māori to move into the fisheries came out of an actual fisheries claim can the Minister tell the House how this policy does not breach firstly the Treaty of Waitangi and secondly the Māori fisheries claim?Hon JO GOODHEW: I am advised that there is a clear principle that settlements do not impinge on the Crown’s right to develop policy in response to contemporary issues such as the management of foreign chartered vessels.Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment BillThird ReadingHon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister for Social Development): I moveThat the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. As the House considers our final vote on this bill I would like to ask members to turn their minds to the principles at the heart of this particular bill and to think for a moment about what it is that this bill is trying to achieve. To my mind it can be summed up in one word. It is about fairness. Welfare fraud is inherently unfair. Once someone takes money from the welfare system that they are not entitled to no one really wins. It is not fair on the taxpayers who fund the system. They give from their pay cheques money they have earned in order to allow our Government and society to function. Often I have found those most vocal and most angry about welfare fraud to be people on lower wages people who—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. I am sure members know why I am standing. Would you please show some courtesy to the Minister trying to address the business of the House.Hon CHESTER BORROWS: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Often I have found those most vocal and most angry about welfare fraud to be people on lower wages people who themselves have to work hard to make ends meet but do so without resorting to ripping off the State. It is not fair on them to have the funds they have provided taken by fraud and it is not fair on other beneficiaries. Over the last couple of years we have had just above 300000 people on a benefit at any given time. In the year ended June 2013 only 906 were convicted of welfare fraud. So we talking about only a small minority who seem to think that they can rip off the welfare system yet those few allow some people to cast aspersions on all beneficiaries—an opportunity that some people are unfortunately all too eager to take and that is not fair.At an individual level relationship welfare fraud the type of fraud this bill’s main measure is aimed at is rife with unfairness. The irrefutable fact of this type of welfare fraud unlike other kinds of fraud I can think of is that it can occur only with two people as the perpetrators. The essence of the fraud is a beneficiary receiving a benefit that depends on them being single when they are actually in a relationship. If that partner was not there the fraud could not occur.Let us step through a hypothetical example of how this happens. Most commonly we are dealing with a woman on a sole parent support benefit the new DPB. She has entered a relationship which is absolutely fine. You do not give up your right to a love life when you come on to a benefit. Communities are founded on strong relationships. Individuals and families prosper in good relationships and so we should encourage them. Later that relationship turns more serious. It moves from something casual into something that for all intents and purposes looks like a marriage. They become emotionally and financially interdependent.It is at this point whether they sign on the dotted line or not that her circumstances have changed. She is receiving money based on the fact that she is a single mother but she is no longer single. Again for the vast majority of beneficiaries at this point they have a conversation with their case worker at the Ministry of Social Development and their entitlement can be changed yet some choose not to. Time passes the relationship continues and then 5 years later it comes to our attention that she has been receiving money she was not entitled to. An investigation is carried out. The ministry establishes that she has received $100000 she was not entitled to and she has repeatedly signedforms reasserting that she is single despite that being untrue. A prosecution is commenced. It is here that our bill will make a difference.Under the law as it stands the beneficiary faces the law alone. She is liable for the entire $100000 of debt. She alone faces criminal sanctions—in the worst cases including jail—and he walks away. That is the nub of the unfairness that this bill will address. He has spent 5 years living alongside her participating in her fraud—a fraud that could not have occurred but for him—and he gets away scot-free. That is unfair—pure and simple. Unlike other examples of fraud that may be quoted he has not simply benefited from the fraud; he has been inextricably a part of it. Under this bill he will be held liable for his part in the fraud because that is fair. It is fair on the beneficiary who will not have to take the blame herself for the actions of two and it is fair on the taxpayer who has been defrauded and will now see their money recovered faster.To turn to another part of the bill it is also worth remembering that welfare fraud is not fair on those who depend financially on the fraudster. That fraud forces us to make a choice—to require the repayment of that money even if it will disadvantage those who are financially dependent on the beneficiary or to let them get away with their fraud. This bill reaffirms and clarifies the position that all money taken from the taxpayer should be recovered. That recovery should be done sensitively and carefully to ensure that no one is placed in undue hardship but it should occur.Through the debate on these measures both in this House and publicly some have said or implied that we should not recover debt at all in a multitude of situations. They would see fraudsters escape unpunished and the taxpayers’ loss remain by adopting the most cautious and precautionary approaches. Although I recognise that it is an opinion that they hold sincerely it is not one this Government subscribes to. Instead we place our faith in the skill and professionalism of our welfare fraud investigators to work with those who owe money and to recover it quickly and appropriately. It is a stance that I believe is right and I will quite happily and confidently place it before the people of New Zealand. That is the essence of this bill—fairness. I invite those parties that intend to vote against the bill to consider that before casting their votes. Whatever they think of this Government’s policies around other types of fraud or other issues of social welfare are they willing to record their vote against such a simple and such a fair change?Before I finish I would like to acknowledge those who have contributed to this bill. I would like to acknowledge members across the House who have engaged with me on this subject. It has been a robust debate. There are areas where we disagree but I appreciate the generally constructive and open way members from all parties have engaged on this bill.I want to acknowledge the officials from the Ministry of Social Development who have assisted me to develop and will go on to implement this bill. It has been my pleasure to work with them on this and on this Government’s wider fraud reform package. I have found them without fail to be a group who exemplify the highest standards of professionalism in the Public Service. So I want to record my thanks for their past and ongoing service. This bill will put right a wrong and make our system a little bit fairer. I commend it to the House.SUE MORONEY (Labour): If the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill were all about fairness then we would be talking about addressing tax fraud at the same level that this Government is prepared to deal with some of the most vulnerable people in our society by taking these measures against benefit fraud. But I want to say at the outset that the Labour Party is supporting this bill because there is one small element of fairness. I am going to come to that in a minute.In the context of this Government’s relentless beating up on people who do not have paid employment at the moment at the very time that this Government is doing nothingto ensure there are jobs for people to have here we are sitting in a period of time when in New Zealand we have hit high levels of unemployment—high levels of unemployment. The Government has sat on its hands and done nothing. We heard at question time today that Christchurch has been rebuilt primarily by immigrant labour by people from overseas while New Zealanders sit in the dole queue because that Government did nothing in the 3 years that it had to plan to train New Zealanders to be the people who rebuilt Christchurch. That is an indictment on this Government.What has it been doing? Instead of actually doing sensible things as Labour asked it to do within months of the earthquakes striking Christchurch—like training people as builders training people in the construction industry and putting its energy where a good Government would if it were thinking about the plight of the people—it has been tinkering around with bills like this. It has been tinkering around with trying to get the New Zealand public to think that every beneficiary is committing welfare fraud. This is what it has been spending its time and energy on: whipping the people who have actually lost jobs. That Government has done nothing to help them to get other jobs. The Government has done nothing. It thinks the market is just going to deliver. It is a hands-off Government that says “Too bad.” Yes we have struck hard economic times. People are losing their jobs and this is the Government’s answer to that: working on bills like this that are designed to have fair-minded New Zealanders think that beneficiaries deliberately lose their jobs in order to rip the system off somehow.I want to make it absolutely clear that in the minority of situations where people do set out to rip off the New Zealand taxpayer and commit welfare fraud deliberately the Labour Party has no truck with that—absolutely no truck with that. We will stand and vote for bills like this where they actually address those issues. But we would much rather—and a Labour Government would—put energy into ensuring that people were trained to do the jobs that are available. That is the crime that this Government has committed because it has completely washed its hands of that. We are going to be facing the remarkable situation in New Zealand of actually having skills shortages—skills shortages in quite a number of areas—along with high unemployment. That is an absolute indictment on this Government not doing its job. It has failed those thousands of New Zealanders who have ended up on the scrap heap while this Government has been in place.It is not all its fault. I am going to recognise that there has been a global financial crisis but the job of a Government during a global financial crisis is to do everything it can to help the people who are going to be most hurt in our country by that global financial crisis. So what did Government members do? They said “Let’s deal to them about welfare fraud.” That is their big answer and it works for them. Did you notice that the Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett decided last week or 2 weeks ago that she would try to get New Zealanders to think that beneficiaries by and large spend their time living the Club Med life overseas—Hon Chester Borrows: No only 21000 of them.SUE MORONEY: Well Chester Borrows says “Only 21000 of them.” Mr Borrows how many of those 21000 travelled internationally because they had given up hope of finding a job in New Zealand? How many of them Minister?Hon Paula Bennett: 4800.SUE MORONEY: No no that is not right. Can the Minister tell the House how many people of those 21000 left these shores and have not returned?Hon Paula Bennett: 4880.SUE MORONEY: No that is not the figure. I have seen the Minister use that figure and it is not correct. It is not correct. Why is the Government trying to whip up this idea of people committing benefit fraud or if they are not doing that living the Club Medlife—living the Club Med life overseas? It is completely irrelevant and it shows how out of touch the Government is with the situation that many New Zealanders find themselves in through no fault of their own—through no fault of their own. No thanks to that Government’s members either because they have sat on their hands. They have sat on their hands and said “Well look the market’s going to deliver so the Government doesn’t need to do anything.” Well guess what. That is not working.In the region I come from the Waikato region unemployment is going up. In the last quarter unemployment in the Waikato went up from 6.1 percent to 6.8 percent. It is heading in the wrong direction Ministers. It is heading in the wrong direction and that is supposed to be the rock star economy. That is the Government’s rock star economy. Well I can tell you that ordinary New Zealanders will tell you how rock star it feels—and it don’t feel too rock star at all for many of them. The people who are subject to this bill are the people at the bottom of the heap. They are at the bottom of the heap and often through no fault of their own.I will though just say for context that the reason the Labour members became convinced during the Social Services Committee hearing to support this bill is that we did have representations from many women’s organisations when they came before the select committee. They told us they had witnessed and were concerned about situations in which women—mainly—who were sole parents were put in a position by their partners of committing welfare fraud. They felt that it was unfair that it was the woman alone when the partner was complicit in it as well who actually suffered the consequences of being discovered to be fraudulent in that way.Relationship fraud actually accounts for about $20 million a year—$20 million a year. It is not great and it pales in comparison with Inland Revenue Department estimates that tax discrepancies amount to over $1.2 billion a year. It is $1.2 billion versus $20 million but this is where the Government is spending its time. However we have said in the Labour Party that in this situation we do not want to see the women bearing the brunt of something that actually two people have been complicit in. We do accept that this sliver of a bill may help to address that issue. We sincerely hope it does so we are prepared to support it.We want to see the Government be fair and deal with the big fraud issues in this country and they are clearly to do with tax discrepancies and tax fraud. This bill is small fish. It is small fish but the Government has put its emphasis here because it wants to distract from its appalling record of not creating jobs not creating training opportunities and not doing the things that a good Government would do to ensure that we did not end up as we have now in the ridiculous situation of having a skills gap in New Zealand while thousands sit on the scrap heap in the dole queue because that Government has not seen fit to help them seek the right training for the right skills.The Government has not even had a training and skills strategy in place. Christchurch is the absolute epitome of that. It absolutely shows a Government that has been looking the other way trying to create all sorts of smokescreens and distractions to distract from its very poor performance in this area. I think that New Zealanders are appalled when they learn that Christchurch is largely being rebuilt by overseas labour. It is not because they are higher-skilled technicians whom we could not possibly train here in New Zealand; they are labourers they are truckies and they are people who are doing jobs that New Zealanders could be doing if the Government had got off its collective butt and trained people in the construction industry.The construction industry the building industry tells us that right now while thousands sit on the scrap heap in the dole queue it is short of 5000 apprentices. That is right now. That is 5000 people who if that Government had been doing its job could have been in apprenticeships right now. I tell you that under a Labour Government theywould have been in those apprenticeships. Labour was prepared to invest money in actually increasing opportunities for apprentices to be taken on. Labour supports this bill but it is a sad indictment on the performance of that Government when it comes to dealing with unemployment.MELISSA LEE (National):Ahnnyung ha seyo Mr Assistant Speaker. I would like to start off my third reading contribution on the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill by saying that if the sad record that Ms Moroney talks about is in fact the reduction in percentage of people going off the welfare benefit—15000 people—because they have possibly found jobs and they no longer depend on the benefit I would actually like to take that on as a compliment. If she thinks that 15000 people last year going off welfare is a terrible record I do not know what she would call a good record. On that score I would like to congratulate the Minister for Social Development because that is a fantastic record. Fifteen thousand people going off welfare means that 17000 children are no longer living in a welfare-dependent home in that last year and that is a fantastic record.If you listen to Sue Moroney you would think that this Government is not doing anything about tax fraud. Well that is untrue because the Inland Revenue Department equivalent budget which it is spending to tackle tax fraud is $138 million. That is about five times the amount that the Ministry of Social Development is spending on welfare fraud. So it is doing something about it.This bill is about relationship fraud. Relationship fraud last year cost this country $26 million. As Sue Moroney also agreed two people were complicit in the fraud’s creation and they should both be responsible. This is about being fair. If two people are living together in a marriage-like arrangement and one is collecting a sole parent support benefit then there is clearly a fraud being committed and this bill makes spouses and partners jointly liable for debt where they knowingly benefit or where they should have known they were benefiting from the benefits. This is a simple bill. It is about making things fair and I think all New Zealanders will say that this is a fair bill and everyone will support it. I commend it to the House.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): Talofa lava Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity. I listened to the Associate Minister for Social Development the Hon Chester Borrows in his opening statements to this particular debate on the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. I like the Associate Minister. I appreciate the fact that we did have an opportunity to sit down and listen to his views on why he is driving this particular bill. Sadly I think he is being deceived by his Government. He has made statements in this House that I do not believe and do not accept. You see when National first came into power New Zealanders will recollect some of the many promises that this Government made—promises that we now know many of which have not been kept. People may remember for example the promise not to raise GST and the promise to create 170000 jobs—not kept.But there are a couple of statements that refer to this bill that I want the House to ponder on. The two particular statements were made by the Prime Minister in his prime ministerial statement when he first came into Government in 2008. The first statement was the promise that he would behave in a mana-enhancing manner. The second statement was the promise to protect New Zealand’s most vulnerable communities. Both of those promises have not been kept. Evidence of that is in this bill here before the House. This is one bill amongst many many others that are contrary to and that contradict those very statements that the Prime Minister made when he first set foot in this House as the Prime Minister of New Zealand. In fact this bill along with manyother bills before it actually compounds the suffering and worsens the situation for the very vulnerable communities that the Prime Minister promised he would protect.In fact if we go back a ways and reflect on our welfare system our welfare system was to provide a safety net for the very vulnerable communities that the Prime Minister spoke about in 2008 and said that he was going to protect. Our welfare system was intended to provide a safety net for the majority of New Zealanders who were not born into wealth or who were not fortunate enough to have $50 million in their bank account because they were able to win that through betting on the international foreign exchange markets. Our welfare system was intended to protect people and to give effect to some of the very basic human rights enshrined in international covenants—rights such as a job; rights such as access to fair decent wages to support workers and their families; and the right to be protected from unemployment. That is what our welfare system is all about.This bill is deliberately aimed at driving fear into the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable in our communities. It is designed to drive fear into the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable people in our communities the people who rely on our welfare system because of unemployment because of sickness or because a spouse left another spouse with children. For various reasons that is what the welfare system was about and this Government since it has been in power—since 2008—has deliberately and determinedly tried to remove that welfare system and slowly step by step and a bit at a time that is what it has done.We heard earlier today in question time that the Minister for Social Development prided herself on the fact that fewer and fewer people are now in our welfare system. Sure it is a good thing but here is another fact: less than 50 percent of those people are in jobs—less than 50 percent of those people coming out of the welfare system are in jobs. What is their situation Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson? I can tell you. I know many of these families in our neck of the woods—and no doubt my colleagues and other MPs in this House will also know these families—who are doing it tough because they are not in jobs and they fear going into that welfare office to try to get some support from our State. What is happening? They are reliant on church and community organisations providing them with food parcels. They are reliant on young sons and daughters who have been forced to go to Australia earn a bit of money there through the jobs that are available there and send it back here. They are putting pressure on their own relatives by sharing homes. Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson you know what I am talking about when I ask whether any of our members have seen four or five families sharing a three-bedroom house. I doubt very much whether any of the MPs on that side of the House understand the plight that many ordinary New Zealanders are experiencing today.So this bill is not about fairness as the Minister attempted to try to persuade us earlier. This is not about fairness. As my colleague Sue Moroney rightly said if this was about fairness the Government would spend the same amount of energy and time trying to track down tax fraud—the $6 billion amount of money that the Inland Revenue Department has reported goes missing as a result of tax fraud. Here the Government is leaving that $6 billion ticket alone. It is owed by people no doubt who are close to this Government as we have seen in the last few weeks. But it is putting the full force of this Government on to a group of people—the Associate Minister himself even admitted that it was a small number of people whom we are talking about. Yet it is putting the full force the full weight of this Government to go after this small group of people whom we are talking about. That is not about fairness; that is about driving fear into the hearts and minds of the most vulnerable in our communities so that they stay away from the welfare system.The fundamental reason why the Government would do that is that this Government through and through does not believe in a welfare State. It does not believe in the role of the State—period. So I get quite upset when it talks about fairness because that does not translate in so far as the communities that I represent; that you represent Mr Assistant Speaker; and that many of our people here represent are wanting to hear from this Government. It does not translate to the many promises that this Government has made. Only in 2011 it promised a brighter future. This kind of legislation does not provide the brighter future that our communities want from the Government.This is a bad Government. This is the worst Government that I have ever seen or experienced. It makes promises like it is giving candy away to kids. In 2008 it promised my community using some of our sports icons that it would invest $6 million into one of our local schools. In 2008 it made that promise. Today we are still waiting for it to keep that promise. This is the worst Government and I know that working-class communities the length and breadth of New Zealand cannot wait to see the back end of this Government because it is taking New Zealand in a direction where only its friends benefit but the rest of New Zealand does not.Last night I was atMalaeola hall and we had a performance by theTa’imuaMalaeola Youth group—young people young Catholics from all over the Auckland region. About 600 were in attendance. They put on a performance and it was an Easter performance based on the story of Easter. They will contribute the earnings from that performance to the Auckland City Mission. Why? Because those young Catholics who vote know that this Government is making things worse for not just Pacific communities and not just Māori communities but the bulk of working-class communities throughout New Zealand. That is why our communities have looked upon this Government and the promises it made in 2008 and I can tell you that this bill is a terrible piece of legislation that is being added on to the many other pieces of legislation that are designed to drive fear and to worsen the struggles of ordinary working New Zealanders. I hope come 20 September that our communities turn out in full force and kick those members out of Government.JAN LOGIE (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is with sadness that I rise again to oppose another ill-conceived piece of welfare legislation that is passing through this House. The Green Party opposes the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill without apology or prevarication. This bill essentially does three things: it creates new fraud offences it makes the partner liable for fraud debt and it requires the Crown to recover debt and reduces its discretion on how—this is the point that we find most offensive.Before anyone on that side of the House starts to yell that the Greens are soft on fraud or crime or any other rubbish like that I would like to remind the House that we already have a rigorous fraud detection and prosecution system in this country. This bill is just adding extra offences and penalties that are even tougher than in other related laws with no evidence that it will have any deterrent effect on fraud because that does not necessarily have anything to do with the drivers of welfare fraud. The Greens take stewardship of our collective resources very seriously. That is why we want to use our resources in a way that will most effectively deliver our goal of a New Zealand where everyone has the essentials so that we can guarantee the opportunities.We are working for a social security system that provides everyone with enough income to fully participate in their communities and to live safe healthy lives. This would be what a real investment approach would look like and it would save us money in the long run. We support policies that are sufficient to ensure this simple to understand and access universal in their application and equitable within a wider social context. We oppose this bill as it is not consistent with these values or this vision. Webelieve that this bill will further stigmatise the most marginalised people in this country and put more barriers in the way of people trying to get out of poverty without making any tangible difference in relation to serious intentional fraud.However there is an aspect of this bill where I believe the intention is positive and where we share the concern of submitters and others in this House. We do acknowledge that the current system of reclaiming the entire debt from the beneficiary—usually the woman—when the partner has also benefited from that money directly or indirectly is unjust. We are also concerned that currently violent partners are regularly using the threat of informing on a woman as a tool of abuse. This is easy for them because the consequences currently fall entirely on the woman holding the benefit. However we would like to see developed a policy or legislative response to this problem based on the experiences of those women and those beneficiaries who have been affected and that also involves Women’s Refuge to ensure that we have an approach that is fair and safe. This law has not been developed on that basis and there is concern that it may actually have the reverse effect.I would really like to mention that in his opening speech the Associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows spoke about the point where somebody goes from being able to be in a relationship with somebody and receive a benefit like the DPB to the point where the relationship moves over into being one that they need to report. I would like to ask anyone in this House how they know when it has reached that point. The law defines the point where you no longer can be on the DPB as when you are in a relationship in the nature of marriage. That is defined quite specifically by our courts as a relationship where—let me just find that in my notes—there is financial and emotional commitment and where you are willing to pay the other person’s bills.I have never been in a relationship where that relationship has got to a point where I have gone: “Now has my commitment reached a level where I am willing to pay their bills?”. That has never happened to me and yet we are talking about giving people criminal convictions for not identifying that point and reporting it to an agency. The supposed point of fairness in this bill is based around that expectation. It is unrealistic. That has very very real-life consequences for people in our communities. I just do not think that is good law. I do not think it is fair.The Green Party also shares the New Zealand Law Society’s concern regarding joint and several liability which means that both parties will be liable for the whole debt should both parties be accountable for the debt arising from the fraud. The New Zealand Law Society believes this may lead to unfair or disproportionate outcomes. In its view liability should be shared on the basis of attribution of benefits as per the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009. This has been dismissed as a policy in part due to the cost or potential increase in reviews and appeals. The Green Party believes it is essential that our laws are fair proportionate and open to appeal. To decide on a legislative pathway to reduce the possibility of people appealing is not founded on a strong concept of justice.This bill also creates an offence for partners to knowingly or recklessly benefit from fraud committed by their partner which is punishable by a fine of up to $5000 or a 12-month imprisonment. The Greens do not believe this is necessary and that attributing criminal liability on the basis of determinations of relationship status is—as I have already outlined—incredibly problematic and may well create perverse results and that is being kind.The aspect of the bill that we find the most difficult actually is the change in this bill that requires the Ministry of Social Development to recover debt. I need to make sure that this House and New Zealand are aware that we are not talking about fraud here. We are talking about advances that people have had to get because the benefitlevels were consciously set below the poverty line and they were not enough for people to survive on. We know that people on basic benefits cannot afford well-balanced diets and that they cannot afford to heat their houses or to stop themselves or their children getting sick. Most of them cannot afford new clothing for their children cannot afford to replace shoes when they get holes in them cannot afford to repair their bikes or cars if they break down and cannot even where I live in Porirua afford the bus or the train from Porirua into Wellington. They certainly cannot afford sports fees or club fees or being able to get admissions into places of education within our city—Mike Sabin: So that justifies fraud does it?JAN LOGIE: We are not talking about fraud Mr Sabin. This is debt where benefits are set so low that people have to get advances which they have to pay back to be able to put food on the table and to be able to put their power on through winter. I have even heard of people being refused advances to buy blankets to try to have a cheaper option to keep themselves and their children warm. The heart of the problem with this bill is that it does not acknowledge the fact that we are putting people into poverty which is harming them and their children. This bill is seeking to take money out of the pockets of those very people who are just trying to provide the very essentials of life and that is unconscionable.Hon PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei): I rise in support of the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill having considered it with colleagues at the Social Services Committee for a considerable period. Welfare will always be there to support the people in our community who need it and we have made that assurance. During the global recession this party—the National Party—in Government along with our partners made sure that there were not cuts to benefits and that there were not widespread cuts to superannuation as the Labour Party is proposing now in its policy leading up to the election. We made sure that the most vulnerable were looked after. But part of our comprehensive reform of the welfare system is clamping down on welfare fraud.I thank Su’a William Sio for acknowledging that the Associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows offered that briefing to him and Sue Moroney. William Sio attended that briefing with the Minister. The Minister acknowledges that Sue Moroney did put in her apologies because she wanted or needed to go and watch the Melbourne Cup. So she did not come to that briefing but William Sio went in her stead while she was at the Melbourne Cup and he listened to the Minister. Those two had a conversation. They agreed on many points as he acknowledged; they disagreed on some. But the reality is that while we provide welfare in this country for the vast majority who do need it we do not accept that welfare fraud should occur and that is the message that Sue Moroney would have got had she attended that meeting. She too—had she attended that meeting—would be supporting this bill as I am.Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR (NZ First): Talofa lava.Malo lesoifua. I rise on behalf of the New Zealand First Party our wonderful party to speak to the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. This bill seeks to amend the Social Security Act 1964. The aim is to strengthen measures to combat relationship fraud which is a very specific kind of benefit fraud. The bill considers relationship fraud to have occurred when a person who is living in a de facto marital or civil union relationship claims a single or sole parent rate of benefit to which they are not entitled. The Government’s proposals in the bill are designed to strengthen the approach to relationship fraud—in particular by ensuring that both parties in a relationship are appropriately held to account. The Ministry of Social Development’s chief executive would be empowered and required to recover debt from partners and spouses of beneficiaries who obtain welfare payments fraudulently. It will make themjointly accountable for repaying the debt in certain circumstances. Criminal liability will also be extended to the partners of beneficiaries who commit relationship fraud.The interesting situation right now in our country is that there are so many different kinds of relationships. In addition to the traditional married couple we now have de facto relationships single parent relationships and same-sex or civil union relationships. There are also family relationships through guardians and more. I am sure that those who are now watching these speeches in the House would know which category they come under.The Social Services Committee examined this bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. The intention of the bill will be achieved if the amendments are given serious consideration. The Social Services Committee wanted the bill to be clearer about the criteria for liability on the part of a beneficiary’s spouse or partner who knowingly or otherwise benefits from an amount obtained by fraud. It is funny that I have always wondered how some single parents can travel to various places for nice holidays with their families. They drive some fancy flash cars and wear some very nice clothes. They also wear some expensive shoes and dine in some pretty good restaurants. Yet they do not work full-time and are single parents.I have worked all my life ever since I left school—at a car assembly factory making car harnesses and in warehouse stores packing electronic goods for dispatch. I have worked at a merchandising warehouse and retail shop selling clothes for men—that includes ties jumpers shirts and more. I have also worked in a prison site operating its Wanganui computers—for those who remember them from back in the mid-1980s. I have also worked in the Ministry of Justice through its public registries—for example the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages and more. I have worked in alcohol and drug services the University of Auckland School of Medicine the National Heart Foundation Auckland City Council and later the Department of Corrections. And I must say I was still broke and unable to drive a reasonable car like theirs—clean reliable vehicles—until many years later. Yet the single parents were having better access to better resources than I was. I do not smoke nor am I able to operate many pokie machines.Melissa Lee earlier on today made a mockery of the National Government’s poor efforts to recover the $6 billion worth of tax evasion—a pathetic attempt. It would be better if she did not even go there. This legislation attempts to make accountable those who have been able to access benefits that they are not entitled to. To be liable the spouse or partner must know or have been reckless as to whether the amount obtained is in excess of what the beneficiary is entitled to and that it has been fraudulently obtained.The initial bill was not clear on whether the spouse or partner would also have to know the exact amount involved or the precise way in which it was obtained. In terms of debt recovery it was recommended that the Ministry of Social Development’s chief executive should have more scope when determining the rate and method of debt recovery. It was not enough that the chief executive’s role would rather be limited to considering only factors set out in the ministerial direction. That was not enough. This recommendation was based on the general public law principle that decision makers must take all relevant considerations into account.Among other proposed amendments to the debt recovery aspect of the bill the Social Services Committee has sought to ensure that it more accurately reflects the policy intent to collect fraudulently accrued debt at the same time also ensuring that the circumstances of the person owing money have been fully considered. It is expected that these measures will address concerns about the impact of debt recovery on individuals and their families. This is very important because we must acknowledge the risk of making families worse off by using unreasonable force. In making them pay back debtsthey have accrued it is absolutely critical that we take the right approach. The provisions of this legislation must be enforced responsibly—responsibly.We must also remember that the vast majority of beneficiaries are honest people who do the right thing. Relationships are never simple or straightforward especially nowadays. According to Statistics New Zealand there is a growing proportion of New Zealanders living together without legalising or formalising their union. Reports from 2009 show that one-third of New Zealand marriages ended in divorce which is a very sad affair. Māori women have been shown to be more likely to be part of de facto relationships than non-Māori women. It is crucial to be mindful of the possible circumstances that beneficiaries may be in when they are caught in fraudulent situations.I was reading a nice message from a friend who was having some issues with his work colleague. He said: “To be extremely happy but extremely intelligent is a task of being optimistic without being cheesy.” This legislation must avoid any attempt to encourage fraud. We all know that fraud is the daughter of greed. Let us hope that the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill will bring justice to the way we live. Thank you.Hon CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier): The Hon Paula Bennett has just tweeted that there are nearly 60000 fewer people on a benefit than there were in December of 2010—60000 fewer people on a benefit since December 2010. The National Party’s policy on welfare is working. At the same time the unemployment rate has fallen in this country. It is down to 6 percent now and I would have a pretty damn good bet that it will be down into the 5 percent range at the next announcement. I am proud of that reform package.Once again today with the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill we deliver on another commitment that we made at the last election when we committed to clamping down on welfare fraud. We are delivering on an election promise. Can I acknowledge and congratulate Minister Chester Borrows his outstanding officials and the Social Services Committee for their hard work in this process. Once again it is excellent to be delivering on an election promise. Thank you.Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour): I am pleased to take my final call on the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill which started some time ago. Certainly the debate we have had over the various stages of this bill and even today does get one to think about a whole series of things related to the subject of this bill which really is as the Government likes to call it welfare fraud.What it gets me to do is to ask a number of questions the first being: which is most important solving the real problems facing New Zealand today—and we could identify those problems we hear every day in this House about housing shortages and the difficulties of housing—or creating well-paying jobs? Is that another issue we ought to be focusing on? Or is it more important to be talking about how we might increase the size of manufacturing other than in the primary sector? Or is it more important to talk about the effects of climate change on New Zealand and the changes that are already occurring? Is it perhaps more important to talk about a better start for our young children and their parents? Another issue could be developing a better-educated workforce.Is it more important to take that series of issues talk about them and put some real effort into making those kinds of changes or is it more important to be devising a scheme as this bill does to go after those who are—in the words of this bill and in the words of Government members—defrauding the State of $20 million through a set of prescriptions this bill provides us that in the end may or may not be successful and that are more than likely to produce unintended consequences in the lives of thoseaffected? Which is more important—to go after this relatively small amount of money or to address those other major factors which are what this House should be debating? But no what this Government has been doing over the last 5½ years is devising from time to time a whole series of programmes to really vilify particular sets of groups in our society. I would go even further. For me doing the former is much more important and doing less of what we are doing now would also be important.I say that because there are as many steps as we care to take within the present system that could work effectively without this bill at all. This bill is not necessary. Work and Income could work far more effectively with these families to ensure that fraud does not take place and that where it does take place the money is recouped by its everyday interactions with these families. It does that regularly and it does that in many different ways. But no the Government chooses this particular approach because somehow it taps into a vein that runs through New Zealand society. There is no leadership in tapping into that vein.I think that the Associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows himself actually gave a very good answer when in the second reading of this particular bill he tried to debunk the figures that this side had been talking about in terms of the size of the fraud that this group is alleged to have perpetrated and the size of the amount of money that has been recovered from this particular group compared with the dollar value of fraud that takes place in the taxation system. Our argument has always been: where is the fairness? Where is the equality? How can we compare these two particular areas? One is a powerful group; one is a vulnerable group.What he began to say was that in fact no the Government actually does quite a bit to go and recoup money from those who are tax-dodgers and those who have tax debt. He said it does that and it is very very successful. He said: “Obviously as listeners would have heard the assertion has been made time and time again that the Government is more interested in chasing after welfare debt than tax debt.” Then he went on to say that “The energy put into recovering tax debt and the money put into recovering tax debt is well in excess—in fact it is nearly five times as much—of what we are spending on welfare fraud.” So what the Minister was saying to us and what I read in his comments was that the Government and the Inland Revenue Department have been successful in quietly working through the tax system to recover debt.Have we seen in the time of this Government a sustained attack on tax debt or tax fraud? Have we seen that? No we have not. There has not been one. Have we seen as much as we have heard from the Government about welfare fraud—have we seen as much about those who are alleged to have engaged in tax fraud? We have not. No new legislation has been proposed by this Government to reduce the number of tax-dodgers or tax fraud. There has been no campaign against those who are in that particular sector. If the Minister is to be believed the Inland Revenue Department is quietly going about its business identifying who these people are and in fact prosecuting some of them as well.The prosecution also is very interesting because in the tax area jail sentences have been given to those who have defrauded $800000 plus. In the welfare fraud area it is $67000. So there is another set of standards being applied by this Government to really tap into that vein that runs through New Zealand society against welfare fraud or welfare in itself. There is something disingenuous about this Government’s approach to welfare. Ever since it has come into power it has produced a whole series of terms a whole series of language and a whole series of legislation that in fact in the end will produce nothing.But I want to talk about another aspect of this bill that is as worrying and that is to do with relationships. Here we have people—men and women—who for whateverreason have found themselves on their own with children. Because they have to provide for those children they have called on our State welfare to provide them with support and we as taxpayers do that quite gladly because you never know whose turn it is next or who might need the kind of support and the kind of safety net we provide. The belief there is that here is a group of people living in luxury and just simply taking from the State without giving anything back. The work they do bringing up children and bringing up the workers of tomorrow is never factored in.Much more seriously here are individuals who are bringing up children and they will from time to time form an attraction to somebody. Some kind of relationship develops. The way this bill is crafted it appears as if it provides for anybody who sees a beneficiary and a sole parent in particular form a relationship no matter what type it is—all the chattering classes will begin talking. This will be seen as an opportunity to report and complain even more to Work and Income to say that fraud is taking place. So for a relatively small amount of money we will begin to affect the everyday lives of a very vulnerable group of people.The Government members do not care about that but in fact this is quite serious. Even those people who are bringing up children on the parental benefit—how do they feel about forming relationships with others not knowing at what point it turns into anything serious but knowing that at any time it could be seen as fraud and then prosecution will start? That begins to develop a nasty approach by the State to them and allows others to malign this group even further. We have seen the National Party do that in the past. I rememberŌrewa too and those speeches that were given at the time because there is something that this Government does not like about those who are dependent on the State. But if somebody from business demands from the State it is fine it is OK and it does that. I think that is rather unfair and something that this side of the House will want to address.On this particular occasion we are supporting the bill because we do not want to be seen to be in any way supporting fraud of any kind but there is an inherent weakness and flaw in this bill. Thank you.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to stand and support the third reading of the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. My belief is that we should have a welfare system for the people who need it. The welfare system is supported by the hard-working people who pay tax and we should not allow people to abuse the system. This bill tries to address that issue.I think the Government has been working hard to provide for people who are not in the workforce to help them to get into the workforce but they should not be fraudulently abusing the system. I think this bill addresses that issue and I commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I understand that the next call is a split call.PotoWilliams: Yes it is.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch):Poto Williams—5 minutes.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): It is my pleasure to stand and speak on this bill the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. I have had the opportunity to speak previously and I thank you for that. I would like to wish you a joyous and happy Easter celebration too Mr Assistant Speaker.Firstly I want to say that Labour supports this bill. I just want to refer to what my colleague Dr Prasad has said. We support it. We have huge reservations but we support it because we believe—and we have reiterated this many times—that people who commit fraud and commit crime should actually receive the full weight of the law andbe punished for it. So we expect people who commit crimes to also do the time as appropriate and that is why we support it.However beneficiaries it seems are easy targets. There is a populist belief that by virtue of being a beneficiary you must actually be without merit. When there are people who are down on their luck and who no matter how hard they try cannot get paid work we actually tend to kick them in the guts. I do not think that that is particularly fair. All the effort and work that go in to chasing welfare fraud when there are billions of dollars—yes billions—not collected via the tax system that could be put back in to support those most vulnerable by building our economy increasing jobs and paying people what they are worth. Because let us face it if you have enough money and resources to support your family that is what you do. But no this Government chooses to distract the New Zealand public with bills like this to convince them that it is actually doing some work so that hopefully the stories about the ineptitude of its Ministers slide under the carpet. I bet that this Government is happy that we are coming into an adjournment period.Relationship fraud costs us $20 million—criminalising people acting under duress or under the direction of others. Victoria University a very credible university says that tax evasion is 150 times more likely than benefit fraud—150 times more likely than benefit fraud. That is because in this country we have a really lax attitude to paying our fair share. When we are earning the big bucks we would rather keep that money than pay our fair share. We want to hang on to it all. For some people it is a game it is a joke. I say that that is disgraceful.This Government wants to squeeze money from already disadvantaged people. There is a part of this bill that talks about collecting from partners who have benefited or may reasonably have known they have benefited from the proceeds of benefit fraud. I have spoken at length about the impact of family violence on our communities. Here I say that there is a very real danger that we will try to extract money from people who are already in extraordinarily unsafe situations by the very nature of their relationships and that they will find themselves experiencing the full weight of the law.I also just want to refer back to the member from across the House who talked about the 60000 people who have come off benefits. Well I want to give you another figure: 285000 children living in poverty—285000 children living in poverty. It is shameful that we cannot do more to address that problem while chasing $20 million and while there are billions of dollars in tax fraud waiting to be collected.I just want to summarise by saying that my views on this bill have always been clear. It is not a great piece of legislation. Rather than providing fairness it is basically unfair and overextends the Government’s reach into the complex lives of our families. Thank you.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker.Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I am very glad to have a chance to oppose the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill. It is a proud moment because the Green Party will not support bad law. No matter how much we do not like fraud by anybody we are not prepared to put our name against a bill that we know has got some incredibly bad provisions in it particularly around debt recovery.I would like to start with a little saying that occurred to my colleagues: not all taxpayers are hard-working but all beneficiaries pay tax. So let us lay the demon to rest about the bludgers and recognise that actually people at all levels of life can commit fraud and people at all levels of life can do good things. The majority of people are morally interested in being part of society. The hardest thing about being a beneficiary is dealing with the moral exclusion and the judgment and I have heard much of it in theHouse already today. The assumption is that they are probably fraudsters and they are probably ripping us off.The powers under the Social Security Act are already extensive and there has always been a benefit fraud unit. I have had the dubious pleasure of being exposed to its practices not all of them accurate. I would like to talk about some of them because the provisions of this bill are quite disturbing. As a beneficiary advocate I had firsthand experience of just how many people some of whom could not read or write were very confused by Work and Income. If you ring up the Work and Income hotline and ask whether you are in debt the people cannot tell you or they will say “You owe us $1000.” If you ring the next day they might say “Oh no we owe you $400.” This happens to people in my family on a regular basis. The Work and Income people cannot with any reliable accuracy tell a person whether they are in debt or whether fraud may have been committed by their partner. So how is it that we are creating a bill that will make people fraudsters when the department does not know on a daily basis whether they are or not because of policy changes because of staff changes and because of an inability to give clear information to beneficiaries?Who is going to suffer from that confusion? Beneficiaries are. So one day they are a fraudster; the next day the department is in debt to them and they are trying to figure out what to do. It is very interesting. Then some cases get chosen to be carried through as fraud. Certainly some of those processes have proven to be ugly and badly done.The Green Party does acknowledge that the Associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows had good intent in trying to hold the partners of beneficiaries when fraud has been committed to shared account. We understand his intent but unfortunately it is a lot more complicated and nuanced than this bill makes it out to be. The definition of being in a relationship as Jan Logie so eloquently described is a lot more complicated. So we do not have the luxury of saying that it is a simple matter of just making everybody accountable. We cannot even get the accounts from the department. Let us get real about that.The clause that we are really appalled by is clause 9 which amends section 86 of the Social Security Act by imposing a new obligation on the Ministry of Social Development to take “all reasonably practicable steps to recover a debt”. I thought that that was just for fraud debt but Jan has explained from the Social Services Committee’s perspective that it is not; it is for all debt. If you talk to most people on benefits at some time they have at some level been in debt to the department because they have run out of food or money. That is not happening because they are bad lazy bludgers on the State but because they cannot live on the amount of money they get.Christchurch where rents have gone up or doubled is a classic case. People cannot pay for food and power as well as rent. They have to make choices so they go along to Work and Income and say “Can I have an advance for food?”. They are allowed only a certain number and then they are in debt to the department. What does this mean? What will happen in terms of “all reasonably practicable steps to recover a debt”?My other favourite—I have not got much time to speak on this; I wish I had a long time because it is important—which no one else has mentioned is that this bill will introduce a new system for working with people who have been dishonest with the Ministry of Social Development in the past. I am really keen on a new system that will do something more important. What about people to whom Work and Income has been dishonest in the past? As somebody on the East Coast who had to force the department to tell people their full entitlement—and it took 5 years to actually change the statistics on that—I know that the department is not always honest with people and does not give them full recognition of their entitlement. So I think there is a real need for this bill to be holistic instead of targeting the people who are the most vulnerable.There are many other issues that are dubious about this bill. I think it was really interesting to see the Law Society and the Women’s Refuge having real concerns about it. The Women’s Refuge noted in its opposition that the bill does not include protections for women who are victims of domestic violence. So for all the talk on the one hand about violence we are not addressing it in this bill. Thank you.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): I am very happy to take the last call on the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill and to commend the Associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows for it. Some of our friends on the Labour and Green benches would have us think that we have introduced a new class of criminal—that there is now some sort of criminal inequality because it is not actually the offence that matters; it is how much money is defrauded at the time of the offence. So if it is a small fraud committed by someone who is supported by the State then that is OK but if it is a tax fraud then they say “Oh this Government should do something about that.” What absolute nonsense. What an absolute load of rubbish and nothing—Iain Lees-Galloway: You are talking nonsense; that’s right.MIKE SABIN: Well if that member wants to worry as to why Labour’s polls were down at around 26 percent last week then the sorts of comments that have been coming from his colleagues during this third reading are a pretty good example of why. The reality is that the big difference here is that it is not an either/or situation. This Government takes both responsibilities equally seriously as the taxpayer should expect of us. If someone is supported by the State the taxpayer should rightly expect that the State put obligations on that person not to defraud their fellow taxpayers and that is what this bill is about.Lastly it occurred to me during William Sio—Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor: Su’a.MIKE SABIN: —Sio WilliamSu’a’s contribution; thank you very much—Iain Lees-Galloway: No other way round. Try again.MIKE SABIN: Well I am sure the member can assist. It occurred to me during the member’s contribution why so many former Labour Party activists and supporters in South Auckland are now signing up to National. That is because of the rubbish that comes out of that party. I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House and I am sure other hard-working taxpaying New Zealanders will also do the same.A party vote was called for on the questionThat the Social Security (Fraud Measures and Debt Recovery) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.Ayes102New Zealand National 59; New Zealand Labour 34; New Zealand First 7; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes17Green Party 14; Māori Party 2; Mana 1.Bill read a third time.Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2)Road User Charges Amendment BillThird ReadingsHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Associate Minister of Transport) on behalf of theMinister of Transport: I moveThat the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill be now read a third time. These bills are the product of the dividing of the Land Transport and Road User Charges LegislationAmendment Bill at the Committee of the whole House. The Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill correct a small number of anomalies with the road-user charges system that affect a small number of vehicles and their owners. These changes allow for the fair and practical application of road-user charges in a range of unusual circumstances. The Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) amends the Land Transport Act 1998 which provides for a range of functions relating to land transport including the registration and licensing of vehicles. The purpose of the bill is to enable annual charges in lieu of road-user charges to be collected for vehicles that are exempt from road-user charges.Mike Sabin: Interesting.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Exactly. Some classes of vehicles are exempt from road-user charges because it is uneconomic to collect road-user charges for them. Most of these vehicles also do very little travel on roads and already make a significant contribution to the costs they impose on the road network through the vehicle licence fee. However some exempt vehicles such as fast tractors do a sufficient amount of travel on roads to cause road wear so it is fair that their owners should make a contribution towards the costs they impose. The bill amends the Land Transport Act to allow for an annual charge in lieu of road-user charges for these kinds of vehicles collected through registration and licensing processes. By doing so it allows for the fair and practical recovery of costs where collecting them through the normal processes would be impractical and uneconomic.The Road User Charges Amendment Bill amends the Road User Charges Act 2012 which provides for the regulation and administration of the collection of road-user charges for the use of roads and road wear. The main purpose of this bill is to address an anomaly for some vehicle owners who are required to pay road-user charges for their vehicle but are unable to do so because their vehicle is not registered and not legally required to be. The bill also makes other minor changes to the Road User Charges Act 2012. Unregistered road-user charges vehicles that are exempt from registration are not required to be registered or operate under a trade plate in an unregistered state but are subject to road-user charges unless they belong to a class of vehicle that makes them specifically exempt.However it is not possible to issue road-user charges licences to these vehicles because the licences are linked to a vehicle’s registration number. These kinds of unregistered vehicles make only limited use of roads and it is not cost-effective to try to collect road-user charges for them. The Road User Charges Act 2012 will be amended to allow regulations that exempt these unregistered vehicles from road-user charges. This bill also amends the Road User Charges Act to add offence provisions where light vehicles conditionally exempted from road-user charges are operated in breach of those conditions.Finally the bill contains amendments of a technical nature which support the policy aims behind road-user charges and rationalising enforcement activity. These clarify that a person who has entered into an arrangement to pay overdue fees by instalment will not be subject to additional penalties allow road-user charges collectors to set a licence fee for one-off vehicles not covered by prescribed road-user charges types and make minor amendments that allow the effective functioning of the road-user charges system.In closing the changes proposed in these bills improve the functioning of the road-user charges system and allow for the fair and practical application of road-user charges in a range of unusual circumstances. I commend the bills to the House.DARIEN FENTON (Labour): It is a pleasure to take a call on the third readings of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. These are the bills that the Land Transport and Road User Charges LegislationAmendment Bill has been divided into. We have been very pleased to help the Government get this legislation through. It has been quite a long saga. I think what it shows is that the Government does not always get things right. We on this side are very generous and happy to give the Government a hand to fix its mistakes.I think the only concern I have about it though is the long period of time the length of the saga around these bills. They go right back to when the Road User Charges Act was amended by the Government back in 2009 I think it was. At that time I was on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. Road-user charges bills are always very interesting to debate and we have a range of people who come along and have views about how we should be charging for the use of the roads. There is always a great deal of interest from a range of road users and submissions can be highly technical. At the time we expressed our concern about the regulation-making powers in that bill and we did warn the Government that it could end up in some tricky territory with it. Of course that is exactly what happened.We have rehearsed the saga of the Regulations Review Committee and the disallowance motion moved originally by the honourable Charles Chauvel and then the unprecedented overriding of that by the Minister of Transport by reintroducing the same regulation the day after it was disallowed I think. Then it was back to the Regulations Review Committee which by that time was ably chaired by my colleague the Hon Maryan Street—Grant Robertson: More than ably.DARIEN FENTON: More than ably—more than ably. And guess what happened. The regulations were disallowed again. This has gone on and on.Last August in the middle of winter in 2013 we were in this House debating the first reading of this legislation under urgency. The provisions in the legislation that the Government were trying to get through by regulation—through the sneaky back door if you like—were due to come into force on 1 August. Of course that could not happen because of the disallowance motion so we ended up under urgency and I do remember very clearly that it was about quarter to midnight when I took my first call on this legislation. I found myself very bemused about why we were debating it under urgency. And could I say that I am still bemused actually given that it is now April and we have finally reached the third reading of this legislation.Jami-Lee Ross: Hurray!DARIEN FENTON: Yes hurray—it is good. As I said we have been delighted to help the Government get this right. There is no doubt about it; there were anomalies in the Road User Charges Act which was brought in by the National Government. The proposals under this legislation are mainly to exempt fast tractors. We had quite an education on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee about what fast tractors are. It was the first time I had ever heard of fast tractors. In fact I thought that all tractors were slow. I thought they crawled along. Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch you probably know more about this than I do but I had never ever seen or heard of such a thing—a tractor that could go over 40 kilometres an hour. I do remember one tractor going very slowly up the steps of Parliament several years ago driven by that very nice member Shane Ardern. What were they protesting about?Grant Robertson: It was about climate change and their ignorance of it.DARIEN FENTON: Oh it was about climate change—that is right.Hon Simon Bridges: What was the name?DARIEN FENTON: It was Myrtle the tractor. It was about climate change and carbon tax. That is right. It just really shows you I suppose how out of touch and backwards looking the National Party was back then.Hon Simon Bridges: Well “backwards” was the word.DARIEN FENTON: The Hon Simon Bridges likes to think he is forwards looking when it comes to things like carbon emissions but I have my doubts about that really particularly when we are passing legislation just before Easter to allow fast tractors to be exempted from road-user charges. Fast tractors are those that operate over 40 kilometres per hour on the road. Instead they will be paying an annual charge in lieu of road-user charges to cover the costs that they impose on the road network.The legislation also proposes to exempt all unregistered vehicles—that is vehicles exempt from registration or not required to be registered and those operating under trade plates—from road-user charges and apply to them an annual charge as well. As I said we have agreed with this. I guess our major objection has been to the way the Minister tried to sneak this through by way of regulation instead of fronting up and saying: “Look I made a mistake.” This very generous Opposition understands that the Government gets it wrong quite often actually and I think we have done our best to cooperate with this and get it through.We agree that we need a modern and simplified road-user charges system that has appropriate provisions for compliance as well as appropriate monitoring mechanisms. The history of the road-user charges system in New Zealand goes back several years—about 30 years I believe. But the interesting thing that I have discovered in the various road-user charges bills that I have been part of debating on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—and the chair over there David Bennett will agree with me on this—is that New Zealand is actually way ahead of the game when it comes to road-user charges. In fact many many countries rely on petrol and diesel tax but what is happening now in Europe is that it is increasingly turning to a road-user charges system particularly for heavy vehicles. If you think about where things are heading in New Zealand and if we think about how—Carol Beaumont: We’re thinking ahead. They don’t do that over there.DARIEN FENTON: No. Well we do. Labour is thinking ahead to what sort of transport system we are going to have in the next 20 or 30 years. The reality is that petrol tax as it is today which funds the roads through hypothecation—thanks to the Hon Annette King who actually brought that in—is declining. It is declining because cars are becoming more efficient and they are using less petrol and also car ownership is going down. So we are going to have to find a different method of funding road-user charges if you like. It may be in fact that all vehicles in the future have a system an electronic system of flagging their use and paying for it. We had a very interesting presentation last night from a company that was talking about electric cars and the future of electric cars. In my mind I thought that where we were going with electric vehicles is that we would have to have plug-in stations all around the country—a bit like petrol stations. But now what is happening with solar power and other methods of renewal energy is that people are going to be able to have their own battery charging systems at home where they will be able to charge their electric vehicle. They are going to become much more accessible to people and over time they will become much less expensive. I also believe that diesel buses and diesel trucks will over time adopt electric technology.So we are going to have to turn our minds to a new system—a completely new system of funding our roads. Certainly we in the Labour Party have been thinking about that and it is a challenging thing because we will have to think about different methods of charging for use of the roads. It is always tricky. People do not like additional charges like network charges or congestion charges. Even people who pay road-user charges on their light diesel vehicles do not like that. So it is a very challenging and demanding consideration but we are going to have to face up to it.So although I am really pleased that the fast tractors are going to be exempted under this bill that is only a temporary solution and I can confidently predict that we will be back sometime—if not us then the next generation perhaps—debating a completely different way of how we fund our roading network our transport network. We can only vaguely imagine how different that is going to be and that is the big challenge. We are happy to support this legislation in the third reading. It has been an interesting debate but I think the debate is about to get a whole lot more interesting around how we fund our transport system.DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East): I just want to take a short call on the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill because everyone has been pretty much in agreement. I was quite surprised with that last speech from Darien Fenton actually and why somebody in the Labour Party would want to talk for 10 minutes about transport after this week. I have got a lot of time for Darien Fenton. She is actually a good member of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. She is very good to work with. Actually the last minute of her speech was more insightful concise and important transport policy than anything that has come out of David Cunliffe this week.When Labour members talked here today about fast tractors why did they not make fast tractors part of their transport policy? Why did they not make fast tractors have to stay in the slow lane? Can fast tractors overtake a truck now under the Labour Party transport policy? I think they can. If you go down the Auckland motorway—all six lanes of it—you are going to have the fast tractors overtaking trucks. That is all right in the Labour Party because it is all about the ability to get from central Auckland to your holiday home like David Cunliffe wants to. That is what the policy is about. When you are on the southern motorway instead of being held up by a truck you are now going to be held up by a fast tractor under the Labour Party. David Cunliffe will not get to his holiday home because there is a fast tractor in front of him. I will have you know that that is about the only thing that the Labour Party will do for the agricultural sector—letting fast tractors pass trucks.I appreciate the Labour Party actually supporting this legislation here today. It is good to see Darien actually doing that. It is a shame that you did not have any input into your transport policy which was a total disaster and gives us so much ammunition. It is the end of the Labour Party again in transport but it is good to see. Thank you.ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): After that contribution from that member David Bennett on the eve of the celebration of the Resurrection I am surprised that he should wax so eloquently on this issue. When I look at the loudest members in the House at this very point—Mr Bennett himself Mr Auchinvole Dr Calder and even Mr Simon Bridges—the theme of resurrection is most apposite because these are careers that are about to come to an end and those members are desperate for something to bring them back. Of course they are not the only ones. There is at least one other Minister who is hoping for a miracle this weekend and of course we all know what is going to happen to her.I want to say this. With this legislation arising from the former Land Transport and Road User Charges Legislation Amendment Bill and with a fairer management of road-user charges for heavy vehicles and diesel vehicles and add to that Labour’s policy on effective management of heavy traffic on big roads I think we have the makings of something very special for New Zealand travellers and New Zealand drivers.I look forward to the day—very soon in the next few months—when the next Labour-led Government will be able to complement this legislation with its new transport policies. We will not have the freedom campers in their mobile homes and those towing their registration fee - free caravans being held up by the big heavy lorriesin the fourth lane or in the third lane of the Waikato Expressway which that member David Bennett trumpets about loud and long every opportunity he gets. I look forward to those days when we will complement this legislation with those sensible and—I might add—very popular transport policies because the feedback has been phenomenal. The feedback has been phenomenal. People love it and they look forward to it. They know that they have only a few months to wait. They will get to their Christmas holidays this year and the roads will be clearer. They will be able to move more rapidly—safely but rapidly—and with a lower breath-alcohol rating and life will be a lot better.I could not possibly let further comment on this legislation pass without mentioning what I know this House understands to be a very important piece of roading infrastructure for New Zealand and that is State Highway 3 in North Taranaki. That is a very important piece of roading. It carries a lot of heavy lorries certainly a lot of trucks—in fact maybe a fraction more than one or two—and a few heavy farm vehicles that are not routinely on the roads but move on those roads as they are moving between the very well-managed and efficient farming sector in North Taranaki. It is a very lush and green farming sector in North Taranaki and I suspect it is more lush and more green after this week too.This regime this provision in this legislation will allow a change to the regulation of road-user charges which means a fairer system can be put in place to levy those vehicles so that they are not overburdened and overcharged for the impact they have on our roads. Most important through doing that we allow ourselves to approach the issue of road funding in a way that is a little more sophisticated that is a little fairer and that buys in that consent of the Government which is so important to democratic institutions like this Parliament. It is so important too when we are considering the allocation of the resources gathered through these levies and where they should be applied.That of course is the yawning gap in transport policy at the moment because areas like Taranaki and roads like State Highway 3 are the ones that miss out. A road like State Highway 3 in particular is sadly rapidly deteriorating because of a lack of attention from this Government when it comes to the fair allocation of road funding. This Government is quite happy to plough billions into the Waikato Expressway just because it has got a new velodrome and it wants to make sure that Mr Bennett can leave the place in quick order but provinces and the regions in the country that actually generate the wealth that props up this Government—this shabby nasty grubby little Government—are the ones that miss out. We are the ones that miss out.The good people of Taranaki are looking forward to a change of Government and to a change of MP because they know that it is high time that they had somebody in this House who has a proven track record of advocating for their interests and for their key road their main road which goes in and out of North Taranaki because it is not happening now.So on that note I reluctantly conclude my remarks and my comments. I just say that this is good legislation and that it will do good things. I would like to conclude—Simon O’Connor: Wish us a happy Easter.ANDREW LITTLE: I was about to wish the House a very happy Easter but I will exclude Mr Simon O’Connor for foreshadowing my comments because that is an unkind thing to do in the House at this time. I wish you Mr Assistant Speaker and indeed all members of the House a safe Easter weekend on our roads and for those travelling on State Highway 3 north of Taranaki as I will be doing I wish them an even safer weekend. Thank you.JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill make very minor changes that we do notoppose so the Green Party will be supporting the legislation. But I think that in order to understand the minor changes it is important to understand the entire context of road-user charges and the fuel excise duties scheme. For those who are watching at home today road-user charges are charges that heavy vehicles and those that are using diesel pay. Therefore they do not pay their tax directly. They pay road-user charges instead of fuel excise duty.Road-user charges contribute about one-third of the money to the National Land Transport Fund which is used on transport projects. Fuel excise duty which is obviously levied on all petrol vehicles contributes about two-thirds of the National Land Transport Fund—$2 billion. So the total National Land Transport Fund is made up of $3 billion about a third of which is from trucks and heavy vehicles and two-thirds of which comes from light passenger vehicles. This is a change under this Government. When it overhauled the road-user charges scheme it actually reduced the contribution that was being made by large vehicles or heavy vehicles and increased the contribution from light petrol vehicles or households because it put up the petrol tax quite a bit and it basically dropped the contribution from truckies.Of course one of the justifications for the changes to the road-user charges system was that if we made it more simple then we would reduce evasion of road-user charges. But of course when submitters came and spoke to us at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee it turned out that evasion has not fallen at all. Evasion is about the same as what it was before but overall the road freight industry is paying less towards our roads than it was before the National Government came into power.One other important thing to realise is that about $1 billion of ratepayer money goes into our roads and our transport system so although there is often some idea bandied about that roads are user-pays that is not true at all. The entire system is full of indirect charges and cross-subsidies. About one-quarter of the entire transport budget is contributed to by ratepayers but they actually pay for half of local roads and local roads carry half of all vehicle trips travelled. So basically what is happening is that there are as many vehicle trips on local roads as there are on the State highway network but most of the money levied in fuel excise duty and road-user charges from motorists who are driving on local roads which are paid for in part by ratepayers is going to the State highway network not to the local roads. That is also a consequence of policy changes by this Government which has sucked most of the money out of the transport budget and is applying it to just a few very expensive projects that benefit very few vehicles and people.In 2014 you really could not think of a worse time to be spending billions of dollars on State highways because we already have a very mature road network and what it really needs is to be looked after and maintained properly. But by duplicating a few of the networks in the State highway system the Government is actually taking 75 percent of the money for new transport infrastructure and spending it on only 4 percent of the trips. I know that this is a lot of numbers and I know that that might be confusing for members opposite but ultimately it is important to understand these numbers and take an objective look at how we are spending the transport budget. At the moment the National Government is spending the transport budget in a very irresponsible way.What is most concerning is the fact that it is not only spending most of the money on a very small proportion of vehicle trips which is not going to benefit people in New Zealand when they are trying to get to work trying to get to school and trying to get to the shops but also not even going to help our exporters who are trying to get their product from the farm gate to the port because most of the time they are not even travelling on the State highways that are receiving all of the money.The National Freight Demand Study for example shows that most of the freight in Northland does not leave Northland so although the Government is trying to justify an extension to the motorway north of Auckland so that more people can live further north of Auckland and commute into the city by car it justifies it on the basis that somehow it is going to help the economy of Northland. Well thePūhoi to Warkworth “Holiday Highway” does not even go into Northland and most of the freight in Northland does not travel on that road. But it is easy for National to bandy about these slogans which are completely meaningless and say that it is for economic growth when in fact it does not understand the first thing about how to improve economic productivity or how to have a functioning transport system that is going to benefit New Zealanders well into the future.The Green Party is here to say that we actually have a smart Green vision for our country. We are going to use best-practice evidence from overseas to ensure that New Zealanders have safe affordable options for getting to work and to school because that is what is really important. The way that you do that is not by throwing most of the money at a few highways that carry 4 percent of vehicle trips. We need to invest in the City Rail Link in Auckland and finish it on time so that we can have trains every 5 minutes. That will make a real difference to commuters in Auckland. Having a train every 5 minutes will make it much more attractive to take the train and it will take cars off the road so it benefits the people using the road and it benefits those who are using the train.We want to reduce public transport fares because they are too expensive—far too expensive. When you reduce public transport fares it makes it more attractive to take the bus and it means that there are fewer cars on the road and less congestion for those who are driving. It just makes economic sense. We want to make it safe for kids to walk and cycle to school because that is their birthright. Kids are no longer walking and cycling to school at the same rate that they used to because parents are understandably afraid. They fear for the lives of their children because we have spent so much money facilitating the flow of vehicles around schools rather than putting aside safe cycle lanes and safe pedestrian ways for people to walk and cycle to school. Obviously as all New Zealanders know during school holidays there is not the same level of traffic congestion. So a very low-cost effective way of dealing with traffic congestion is investing $50 million a year into safe walking and cycling around schools as the Green Party would.While this Government is wasting most of our tax dollars on projects that are not actually going to help New Zealanders get around the Greens are standing up and saying that we believe in choice we are going to invest in smarter choices and we are going to ensure that there is a road-user charges system that is fair not one that is subsidising road vehicles and road freight at the expense of everyone else. Thank you.MIKE SABIN (National—Northland): That was an excellent speech for the National party vote in Northland. I will take the speech of Julie Anne Genter and email it far and wide because it is a very very good demonstration as to why the Greens are ranked absolutely nowhere on the political platform. If the member had done her homework she would know that $800 million of the Northland economy travels down State Highway 1 and out of the Northland district. If the member had done her homework she would also know how in Northland the idea of relieving congestion by building footpaths so that children can walk and cycle to school more safely is not going to help someone fromPawarenga get to school inKaitāia. Does the member even know where I am talking about? No because the member has no idea about Northland.I am going to make a once and once only special offer to Julie Anne Genter. I am going to build a little soapbox—I will even paint it green—for the member to go andstand on in Northland to talk about the “Holiday Highway” and how they want to get rid of it because everyone in Northland knows that it is a trade and economic highway. When this National Government fast-tracked that motorway what did they do in Northland? What they did in Northland was that everyone stood up and said “Fantastic.” Why? It is not just about safety and about the economy of that road in terms of the costs saved and the efficiencies created it is also because what that says to the people of Northland is that Northland matters and Northland is a place that this Government values and wants to ensure that the infrastructure exists for the economy of Northland to realise its true potential.During the economic summits I ran in 2012 the No. 1 piece of infrastructure that Northland wanted to see happen—and that was everywhere from Whangarei toKaitāia from Kaipara through to the Bay of Islands—was thePūhoi to Wellsford motorway. That says something. The reality is that if that member took herself out of the bustling city for a moment and came to Northland to stand on the soapbox that I am happy to provide for her she would actually find that out.In the real world the philosophical ideology that the Greens think—that everyone can unicycle their logs to market—is just an absolute load of tripe and probably why Roy Morgan Research has them on 11.5 percent today. It is probably why Roy Morgan has them on 11.5 percent. It is not because Labour has rocketed up because it is down to around 28-point-something. That is a little more than we had Labour on in our internal polling with Mr Robertson of course at around 26 percent. I wonder what conversations will be had with Mr Cunliffe now.Anyway I must wind this up because our very fine senior whip has just given me the old fine whip nod. In any event this is very good legislation because tractors and road-user charges matter. The way that this Government provides pragmatic solutions for the people who actually create the economy that this country relies on is what the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill are about. It is excellent work from Gerry Brownlee and I am happy to commend it.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First has expressed concern about a number of amendments to road-user charges made during this term of Parliament. The Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill seek to correct some of the stuff-ups made so far. We will support the bills on that basis as far as they go but there are many more stuff-ups that are not being addressed in these bills at all.New Zealand First has concerns for the 22000motorhome owners registered with the Motor Caravan Association although the total number affected is of course many more than that. Vehicle operators in that category justifiably oppose having their road-user charges increased—mostly doubled and sometimes trebled—because of new bandwidths and maximum permissible on-road weight charges when their weight is constant or in most cases considerably less than their maximum chassis weight. There are a great number ofmotorhomes that are built on chassis that have a greater gross vehicle mass rating than the actual on-road weight of themotorhome. This matter should have been attended to as part of these particular stuff-up correction bills so that the owners of these vehicles would not be required to purchase road-user licences for a greater laden mass than the actual laden mass.The purpose of road-user charges legislation is to continue the system by imposing charges on heavy vehicles and certain other vehicles for their use of the roads that are in proportion to the costs that the vehicles generate. That is the whole thrust of the system. That is not what is happening with thesemotorhomes and they are suffering huge and unjustifiable increases in charges as a result. There should be a provision to enablemotorhome-type vehicles which are never likely to operate at near the maximumpermitted laden weight to be assigned a road-user weight that would be sufficient to cover their actual laden mass. An example is amotorhome with a gross vehicle mass of 12000 kilograms but an actual on-road mass of say 8500 kilograms. Under the 2010 road-user charges their charge was $120.24. Under the 2012 changes the owner is now required to purchase road-user charge licences for 12 tonnes at a cost of $246.26. That of course is an increase of $126.02 or in other words an increase of over 104 percent. We in New Zealand First think that is absolutely outrageous.The requirement to have all heavy vehicles operating with a road-user charge licence to cover the maximum permissible laden weight as the lesser of the rated gross vehicle mass or the vehicle’s dimension and mass—referring to rule 2002—has resulted in some excessive increases in costs to the owners. That should have been put right in this amending legislation and it has not been attended to. The greater percentage of privatemotorhome owners in New Zealand are retirees as you would expect. These people have limited income and in many cases will not easily be able to absorb such large increases in their costs. This amending legislation should have included a provision to allowmotorhomes to have a road-user charge licence weight allocated that covers the actual on-road mass of the vehicle. The current regime which capturesmotorhomes and hugely increases their road-user charges liability is grossly unfair and should have been addressed as one of the Government’s many stuff-ups where road-user charges legislation has been concerned.Although these bills are supportable as far as they go New Zealand First places on record our strong objection to the waymotorhome operators have been treated. They have not even been considered as part of these amendments and we think they certainly should have been. I am glad to see that since I made my first reading speech on this issue the Labour Party has adopted New Zealand First’s policy on the issue. I congratulate it on doing that. We are always willing to share our policies with other sympathetic parties. I now call upon the National Government to do the same.CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National): This is a short call on the third readings of the Land Transport Amendment Bill (No 2) and the Road User Charges Amendment Bill. By amending this legislation we allow reasonable charges for diesel vehicles and all vehicles over 3.5 tonnes to be charged accurately. The vehicles that make heavy use of the roads usually for the purposes of a successful commerce or agricultural venture will be assured that they are paying the correct charges. Private vehicle owners will also get to share the benefits of having well-funded roads so that we can more safely and easily reach our home or holiday destinations this coming weekend.On that note as the final person to speak in the House today may I wish all colleagues a happy and holy Easter. I trust that we can all return restored regenerated reinvigorated and ready to engage again in decisive determined debate. Thank you.Bills read a third time.Sittings of the HouseThe ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Members I thank you for the expressions of goodwill that have been expressed this afternoon for the Easter adjournment. Have a safe and enjoyable period and members—LOUISE UPSTON (Senior Whip—National): Sorry I think I need to seek leave for the House to lift early if I may do so.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.The House adjourned at 5.03 p.m.