Volume 649 Week 82 - Tuesday 5 August 2008 
Volume 649 Week 82 - Tuesday 5 August 2008 
[Volume:649;Page:17667] 
Tuesday 5 August 2008 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Timor-Leste Democratic Republic—President 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that His Excellency Fernando Lasama de Araujo President of Parliament National Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair. I am sure the House would also wish to welcome members of his delegation present in the gallery. 
Australia—Hon Dean Wells MLA Queensland 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in further informing members that the Hon Dean Wells from the Legislative Assembly Queensland is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed. 
Privilege 
Members’ Pecuniary Interests—Gifts and Donations 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have received a letter from Gordon Copeland raising as a matter of privilege the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ failure to disclose a gift. I have also received a letter from Rodney Hide raising as a matter of privilege the Rt Hon Winston Peters’ failure to disclose a debt and the name of the person who discharged it. 
These are the first matters of privilege raised with the Speaker relating to compliance with a member’s obligations under Appendix B of the Standing Orders dealing with pecuniary interests. Standing Order 400(g) and (h) establishes that the House may treat as a contempt a member knowingly failing to make a return of pecuniary interests by a due date or providing false or misleading information in a return. 
In considering a matter of privilege the Speaker is required to determine whether the facts alleged could if true amount to a contempt of the House. The Speaker does not inquire into the validity of the evidence presented and does not hold a full inquiry to establish the facts. The Speaker examines the facts presented by the member raising the matter of privilege and must determine whether the allegation as explained by the member who is the subject of the complaint might reasonably lead to the inference that a contempt has occurred. 
The allegations are serious ones and the standard of proof required reflects this. Knowingly providing false or misleading information is a significant test. A member’s return must be inaccurate in a material matter that the member knew to be incorrect at the time or at least ought to have known. 
The Speaker in considering a matter of privilege is also required under Standing Order 394(2) to judge the degree of importance of the matter raised whether it is technical or trivial and whether it warrants the full attention of the House. 
The facts presented in the two matters raised are similar but two different allegations have been made. It is not disputed that legal fees were incurred and defrayed. Firstly what is in question is whether a debtor-creditor relationship actually existed. If it did then it is not unreasonable to assume that the member knew or ought to have known and should have disclosed the debt and the name of any other person who may have discharged it. Secondly if a debtor-creditor relationship did not exist was a gift received and was the name of the donor known or reasonably discernable or was a donation made that covered expenses in an election campaign? 
These matters are technical but of vital importance to a proper understanding of the rules for the disclosure of pecuniary interests. They require investigation. It is not the Speaker’s role to investigate. That is the role of the Privileges Committee. Accordingly I have determined that a question of privilege is involved. Consequently the question of privilege stands referred to the Privileges Committee. 
In doing so I inform members that Mr Peters provided me with a very full and compelling explanation of his position. I was persuaded to determine that a question of privilege was involved because of the high public interest and the implications for the reputation of members and of the institution of Parliament. The issues raised are not peculiar to Mr Peters; they have the potential to affect members generally. The rules need to be clarified to assist members in making judgments about what is required to be disclosed as a pecuniary interest and what is not. 
The House has the exclusive right to control its own proceedings. The Standing Orders are a matter for the House alone to determine. Members themselves must take responsibility for the rules for the disclosure of pecuniary interests. In determining this question of privilege I trust that the Privileges Committee will examine the rules and make recommendations for the future that will ensure that the House is not brought into disrepute and thereby impeded in the performance of its functions. 
Copies of my ruling are available in the Bills Office. 
Questions to Ministers 
Pacific Region—Electoral Systems 
1. R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs 
: Has he been involved in discussions on electoral systems in the Pacific? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Minister of Foreign Affairs) 
: 
 Yes. There have been several discussions relating to constitutional reform in Tonga. There have been discussions relating to electoral petitions in the Cook Islands and Samoa and there have also been discussions about the international community’s call for fair open and free elections to be held in Fiji by March 2009. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Has the Minister held any discussions about compliance with electoral law in the Pacific? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes I have. I have had cause to have several discussions about a particular case. During an electoral petition hearing a claim of organised push-polling was conducted on behalf of a candidate involving the Exclusive Brethren church and scores of workers which because of the nature of push-polling was an election expense. The allegation of push-polling was denied in the court yet the candidate himself admitted at the weekend’s National Party conference receiving the help of 150 Exclusive Brethren members. This means that the National Party committed perjury which is a serious offence. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Is the Minister aware of other incidents in the Pacific that contravene electoral laws? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes there are a number of cases. But one case in particular involved an undeclared cheque of $250000 from Fay Richwhite to the National Party in 2002. A second case reported was that National Party money was funnelled through a law firm’s trust fund controlled by a former National Party president. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Are there any cases in the Pacific where misrepresentation has caused particular concern? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes there was the case in 2005 where the candidate had described himself as a New Zealand sporting representative which could be true only if New Zealand fielded a pocket billiards team before the First World War. 
Rodney Hide 
: In light of the Minister’s expert knowledge of electoral discussions in the Pacific involving the Exclusive Brethren— 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That member is old enough and has been in this House long enough to know that starting a supplementary question with the words “In light of” is not appropriate. He should start with a question and leave it at that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thank the member and I am sure all members will take note. Would the member please ask his question. 
Rodney Hide 
: How come the Minister of Foreign Affairs is such an expert on electoral systems in the Pacific that he knows all about what the Exclusive Brethren were doing with Mr Clarkson and all about the funding of New Zealand First and other political parties but cannot take the opportunity like he promised to do in this House to explain what happened to the cheque for $25000 that he solicited just before the election in 2005 from Sir Robert Jones that was then deposited in the Spencer Trust—administered by that member’s brother—which hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone through; he cannot tell us anything about what happened to that $25000 but he is an expert on everyone else? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I tell the member who is dressed as a cockatoo every day in this House that the evidence given by Malcolm Wright as eventually published by the  
New Zealand Herald  
when it finally got its mind around it said three things: first I was not there when the subject was raised; second I was annoyed and angry when it was raised; and third I was not there when any money was paid over to a trust. Those three critical factors are the total answer to this question but I say that a member who has failed to declare an office expense in Wellington of $20000—for which today I will table the landlord’s letter showing 9 years’ free rent was paid for by the head of the Business Roundtable in Remuera—should not be asking any questions in this House and better still—[ 
Interruption 
] I say “Over here Rodney; don’t look over there but over here.” I say to the member that better still he should go and get some legal advice from Stephen Franks but I know that he has left the party. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. That was all very interesting but why does not the Minister just explain what happened to the $25000 which was the question I asked. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister addressed the question and as members know they may not always like the answer. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. During my answer I heard a call from the back of the House and I recognised the voice. It is the one who told his campaign team and his legal advisers that he had no knowledge of the Exclusive Brethren. However of course he told the National Party in a flippant moment of honesty over the weekend that he did. So perhaps the perjurer can get up now and apologise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member please be seated. That is not a point of order. If members could please when they raise—[ 
Interruption 
] That was not a point of order. If members wish to raise points of order they must relate to what is in the Standing Orders to some breach of the Standing Orders. They are not used for speeches and comments. That is not what question time is for; it is for questions to be asked and addressed. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. He made a totally unparliamentary and above all untrue comment. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Is the member then asking for it to be withdrawn and apologised for? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Then the member should ask for that without a large explanation. The member has sought that it be withdrawn and apologised for. Would the member who made the comment please do so so we can move on. 
Bob Clarkson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member who made that comment please withdraw and apologise before I take the next point of order. I did not hear who the member was. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Point of order Madam Speaker— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. While I am on my feet members are to be seated. Now would the member who made that comment please withdraw and apologise. No one will own up to it. OK we have a new point of order then. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Mr Clarkson made the comment. We all heard him. Now will he please withdraw and apologise. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No we did not all hear him and that was the point. It was why I said that I did not hear who made the comment. I asked the member who made it to withdraw and apologise. Would the member please do that. 
Bob Clarkson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Can I speak to that? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Will the member withdraw and apologise. Then we will take the point of order. 
Bob Clarkson 
: I will not withdraw; I want to explain. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Thank you. The member will not withdraw and will not apologise. 
Bob Clarkson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. You allow this member to tell lies in this House— 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Bob Clarkson 
: He did tell a lie; I am sorry. He is listed in the papers in Tauranga as a liar— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry would the member please be seated. This is equally not a point of order. If members wish to have this exchange then they should have it outside this Chamber or in the context of a general debate. Now we will move on. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I have asked you to ask the member to withdraw and apologise. He has indicated that he is the party who is the subject of my complaint and the Standing Orders require him to withdraw and apologise or you will treat him accordingly. Please I am asking you to apply the Standing Orders and the Speakers’ rulings. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member knows that when in fact the member asks for a comment to be withdrawn and apologised for then the member should do so. I ask the member once more to do so. We would like his continued presence in the House. 
Bob Clarkson 
: Madam Speaker I am sorry; I am not withdrawing and apologising. If the Minister is allowed to be corrupt in this place then that is all there is to it. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Then I ask the member please to withdraw. Thank you. 
Bob Clarkson withdrew from the Chamber. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. While we are being sticklers for these sorts of things you will have heard during the exchange of points of order that the Rt Hon Winston Peters referred to the exiting member as a perjurer. That is totally unparliamentary. It does not require the member to be offended; it is an offence to the whole of Parliament when that sort of abuse is hurled around the place. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry I did not hear that. I will ask the member to withdraw and apologise if he used that term. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I withdraw and apologise. I seek leave to table a document. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table a document— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member has withdrawn and apologised. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: No he cannot table a document—we do not know what it is. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Please be seated. Will everyone just settle. The member asked for a point of order and he wants to table a document. Would he please now explain what the document is. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is a letter from the landlord in respect of the ACT party’s taking $20000 per annum and failing to disclose it. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Government Borrowing—International Situation 
2.  
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by her statement yesterday in relation to Government borrowing: “Oh I just think it’s mind-bogglingly stupid to go out and be borrowing in the time when the international markets are in crisis”; if so why? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes in respect of increasing debt to GDP ratios to pay for tax cuts as appears to be the National Party’s policy. 
John Key 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that the Government is currently borrowing $32.5 billion and that over the next 3 years it intends to increase the level of this debt despite the worldwide credit crunch; and does she consider this to be mind-bogglingly stupid? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The key issue of course is the debt to GDP ratios. I notice that contrary to the National Party’s intention to increase these ratios over the forecast period of the Budget that the Labour Government has delivered these debt to GDP ratios are consistently falling. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Can the Prime Minister remember other instances in the past of Governments raising debt levels and can she tell us who did it and what the result of that policy was? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Probably the worst example was the National Government of Sir Robert Muldoon which went into huge borrowing—Think Big—which caused this country a lot of grief with a blowout in fiscal deficits. I expect that is why some of my colleagues have labelled the Leader of the Opposition “Muldoon’s mokopuna”. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that what is particularly mind-bogglingly stupid is borrowing for white elephant new motorways when we have totally run out of cheap oil vehicles on State Highway 1 in Auckland are down by 8000 a day on last year and overall public transport use is up 9.4 percent in Auckland or does she not agree because Labour is throwing billions at new motorways too? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The situation that the leader of the Green Party outlines certainly justifies the fact that the Labour Government has increased spending on public transport more than 15 times over what it was when it was elected in 1999 but one might take a little more interest in the National Party’s infrastructure plans if its leader were able to give the slightest idea what he was borrowing the money for and he has not been able to come up with a single example. 
John Key 
: If that is how the Prime Minister describes an Opposition party that would want to in Government raise its debt to GDP target by 2 percent how would the Prime Minister describe a Government that raises its debt to GDP target by 5 percent? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am looking at tables from the Budget documentation here that show net core Crown debt including the New Zealand Superannuation Fund financial assets to be absolutely stable at around 6.1 percent over the forecast period—positive. 
John Key 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I asked the Prime Minister how she would describe a situation where a Government raised the debt to GDP target by 5 percent. I wonder whether the Prime Minister could address that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thought the Prime Minister did address it. 
Peter Brown 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that any party that seriously contemplates borrowing for road funding as has been reported would at the very least have supported legislation that ensured that all the revenue collected from the petrol motorist went into the transport account as the recent amendment to the Land Transport Management Act does—$570 million per year? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The member raises a good point because I understand that the National Party voted against that very sensible legislation and of course past National Governments have been perfectly happy to take money off the motorist and use it for everything else but the transport system. 
John Key 
: Would it be helpful for the Prime Minister if I reminded her that when she came into office in 1999 the first thing her Government did was raise the debt target from 25 percent of GDP to 30 percent of GDP and when she was asked why that was she said that it gave Michael Cullen the option of using additional debt to finance the Crown’s activities? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I know that the facts are going to hurt the Leader of the Opposition but I am looking at debt to GDP ratios from 1999 35.6 percent; year 2000 the first year of the Labour Government 32.9 percent; 2001 31.4 percent; 2002 29.1 percent; 2003 27.7 percent; 2004 25.3 percent; 2005 23.5 percent; 2006 21.6 percent; and 2007 18.2 percent. What about that does he not understand? 
Gordon Copeland 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that it would be prudent and desirable to borrow for roads hospitals rail upgrades port upgrades schools etc. provided that a source of funds were available to repay those loans—for example the sell-down of about 20 percent of our State-owned enterprises to Kiwi-only investors—and would that not be the right thing to do if for once we put the interests of this country first rather than socialist ideology on the part of the Labour Party mixed with timidity on the part of the National Party? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I suggest to the member that the relevant issues here are around the debt to GDP ratios but I know that the member has given his vote to the National Party to cast except for confidence and supply which I thank him for and therefore I assume he has some insight into the National Party’s real plans to sell our State-owned assets like Kiwibank. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Prime Minister have any reports that would give her a sense of déjà vu that this is a case where the Opposition is prepared to borrow and hope and hopefully work it out sometime after the election if it can fool enough people before it? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It seems to me that the Opposition achieved the incredible triple whammy at its conference of stating it was quite happy to borrow much more at a time of international financial turmoil quite happy to cut spending in core areas and quite happy to privatise. Let us campaign on those things now! 
John Key 
: Does the Prime Minister recall seeing a statement from the Leader of the Opposition back in 1994—one Helen Clark—when the debt to GDP ratio was at 56 percent in which she made the comment that the Government was putting an undue emphasis on debt repaying it at the expense of our failing services and infrastructure demands in New Zealand? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Of course in the 1990s National managed to run high debt and cut public services and start charging ordinary Kiwis to go to a public hospital and State tenants market rents for their houses and cut superannuation and introduce an extortionist student loan scheme. That Government certainly sold the people of New Zealand down the river just as Mr Key’s private plans would sell the people down the river. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Prime Minister received any reports from someone no less than the deputy leader of the National Party who suggested that his leader does not quite “understand” and how is it likely— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: He never said that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Well he did on the secret tape. 
Hon Member 
: No he didn’t. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Oh yes he did. And what are the chances— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Do your homework 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I don’t have to. We have the tapes. What reports does the Prime Minister have from no less a person than the deputy leader of the National Party Bill English that says his leader does not “understand”; and what is the likelihood of a leader ever defending a policy that he cannot understand? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I did indeed see those comments reported and I have to assume that because Mr Key did not understand Working for Families he went without Mr English’s consent on to  
Agenda 
 and just said: “No no I’m not going to change that.” So his having said he would not change that his having claimed he would resign if he touched New Zealand superannuation it seems to me that the obvious target for his savings is the roughly $1.5 billion a year he would save by wiping the tax credits for KiwiSaver and the $2 billion a year that goes into the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and I expect that Mr Key will be under a lot of pressure to explain why he would weaken the savings and superannuation position of ordinary Kiwis in order to pay for tax cuts for his rich mates. 
John Key 
: Could the Prime Minister explain why it was a good idea in 1994 when debt to GDP was 56 percent not to repay debt but to invest in infrastructure but it is not a good idea to invest in infrastructure now when according to Treasury we are in recession when 80000 people left New Zealand last year to live in another part of the world when our wages are in the bottom third of the OECD when the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia has blown out to 35 percent and is on its way to 60 percent and when—quite frankly—New Zealanders have given up confidence in her Government’s economic plan? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: It is such a good idea to have good plans for infrastructure—not no plans like that member has—that this Government has doubled the amount it spends on roading every year has increased by 15 times per annum the amount spent on public transport and in nine Budgets has committed three times as much to the public health infrastructure as National did in the previous nine Budgets. No amount of shrieking from the rattled Leader of the Opposition and his deputy can take away the fact that he committed tremendous tactical and strategic errors at his conference by wanting to go out and substantially lift debt to GDP ratios and cut spending and privatise. 
John Key 
: Can the Prime Minister answer the question since we are all ears and we are happy to have the discussion: when is the election date? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I suspect that the Leader of the Opposition is starting to hope that the date is as far as away as possible. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave for the House to adjourn to proceed immediately to a general election. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought; is there any objection? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: That was last week’s plan! Is it a fact that the Working for Families and KiwiSaver schemes are so complex that an ordinary member of Parliament could not understand them as suggested in a secret tape recording we heard over the weekend; and again how is it likely that a leader would defend those policies if they are too complex for him to understand? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Mind boggling as it is apparently what the member says is true because we have it on the authority of Mr English who said: “If you push something up it’s gonna drop. If you give people cash they have high marginal tax rates. OK that’s it. You can’t get round that. Don thought he could but he couldn’t. So did John actually—but you can’t.” 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave for the Standing Orders of the House to be put aside for a 1-hour debate so that Mr English can explain to Mr Key what these issues are about. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Last week Mr Brownlee was pretending the Government was trying to put off a confidence vote. Now he is trying that yet again by wanting to take an extra hour’s debate. 
National Debt—Comparison with OECD Countries 
3.  
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What is New Zealand’s national debt and how does it compare with other OECD countries? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I thank the member for his excellent question. It was such a good question that the National Party tried to adjourn the House for the general election to avoid it being asked—only a minute ago. As at 31 March 2008 New Zealand’s national debt as measured by a negative net international investment position was 86 percent of GDP. Only Iceland had a higher level of national debt on such a measure and with the decline of the value of the New Zealand dollar we can expect to see New Zealand’s national debt increasing as a percentage of GDP. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Can the Minister explain the consequences of this high national debt and what the Government is doing to address this problem? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: New Zealand’s high national debt reflects a very long period of very low savings by New Zealanders and that means we have structurally high interest rates which increase the cost of living for New Zealanders and the cost of capital for New Zealand businesses. Irrespective of the stage of the monetary policy cycle we have structurally high interest rates in New Zealand. To tackle that high level of indebtedness this Government has introduced KiwiSaver which is leading to a major shift in the savings pattern of New Zealanders—some 750000 New Zealanders have now joined KiwiSaver. We have also introduced a task force on strengthening the capital markets to build stronger capital markets for New Zealand’s future. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister explain why when Government gross sovereign issue debt was 30 percent he said it was prudent; when it was 27 percent he said it was prudent; when it was 25 percent he said it was prudent; when it got under 20 percent he said it was prudent; but when someone says it might be 22 percent he says that is hilariously ridiculously reckless? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: It is clear that the member does not understand this—as he does not understand Working for Families which is “communism by stealth” we learnt from Mr Key not so very long ago. What of course this Government has not done is to borrow for tax cuts which Mr English is promising to do. The last time we saw a Government promise to lift debt in order to pay for the groceries was under Mr Key’s self-professed adolescent hero Sir Robert Muldoon. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I asked a very specific question related to a series actually of statements made in Budgets—which are documents tabled in this House so the Minister would know about them—about why he said debt was prudent at 29 percent at 27 percent and at 24 percent but was reckless at 22 percent. It was quite a specific question and he did not even bother to try to address it. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Does the Minister wish to add anything more to his answer? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am proud of the fact that we have under-promised and outperformed on every occasion. That member continues to over-promise and underperform. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: Is there any difference between an ordinary person who sells his or her house to pay off the mortgage and ends up with nowhere to live and a country that sells all its assets to pay for tax cuts and then after the assets are all sold cannot afford to continue the tax cuts because there are no further assets left to sell? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No essentially not. When assets are sold then of course the future revenue stream is also foregone which is the answer to the question that Mr Copeland was trying to raise previously. It is extraordinary that Mr English should have mused about the desire— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Who sold Air New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Who bought back Air New Zealand is this Minister of Finance; the member seems to have forgotten that. In fact I am the Minister of Finance who bought back Air New Zealand bought back New Zealand rail and helped to set up Kiwibank—and those members over there dribbled with envy and spite about that reassertion of the role of the Government in New Zealand’s sovereignty. 
Hon Bill English 
: I seek leave to table the list of 17 State assets sold by Labour when Michael Cullen and Helen Clark were in Cabinet. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Charles Chauvel 
: Madam Speaker—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would members please keep the level of noise down. It is very difficult to hear. 
Charles Chauvel 
: What other reports has the Minister seen on New Zealand’s debt position? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have seen a report that argues that even though New Zealand has the second-highest national debt in the OECD it does not have a debt problem. The report calls for more borrowing and high deficits and it foreshadows the sale of Government assets. Of course in respect of that last part National did not count on resistance; hence the forced confession outside the National Party caucus room today. What New Zealand needs is not that kind of programme but more savings and more investment that is funded out of our own savings. It does not need National’s one big new idea after nearly 9 years in Opposition for economic growth: more borrowing. That is the one idea it has thought up in nearly 9 years. 
Election Advertising—Parliamentary Funding 
4.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Is it Government policy that election advertisements can be paid for with parliamentary funding; if so why? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 It is Government policy to follow all appropriate legislation in relation to electoral financing and parliamentary spending. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister concerned that the New Zealand Labour Party appears to be using large amounts of taxpayer-funded Parliamentary Service money to pay for election brochures like the one entitled “A fair economy for a strong future” which on Friday last week was declared an election advertisement by the Electoral Commission; if she is not aware of that why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The Labour Party is following the rules as they are set out and they are open and transparent. I would put that up against the over $700000 of parliamentary expenditure by the National Party—more than any other party in this Parliament—in 1 year on activities that it did not declare and that were hidden. Nobody knows where the money has gone except as Nicky Hager said Crosby/Textor has certainly got some of it. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: In respect of the advertisement referred to is it possible that sometimes a party in the words of the National Party’s spokesperson on finance released this morning “does not choose its words well”; if so is it more serious to say publicly what one’s party intends to do or to say privately what one intends to do and then deny it publicly? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: We have had months of that sort of cant from the National Party. Of course there are times when members and parties do not choose their words well. Sometimes they are even forced to go outside the caucus room and apologise. The deputy leader of the National Party said today that he did not mean to suggest that he would sell Kiwibank if elected and that he did not mean to undermine the credibility of his own leader when he hinted that his leader did not fully understand. What the National Party does constantly is to say things behind closed doors in secret and do things differently in public and we know what the word for that is. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister of Justice tell us whether she means that this election brochure now declared to be electioneering by the Electoral Commission will count as an election expense for the Labour Party or will Labour do what it did last election which was to promise to count the pledge card before the election only to remove that undertaking straight afterwards? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have no doubt that the Labour Party will do what is right. I stand by the Labour Party’s record of repaying money to the Parliamentary Service—unlike the National Party which still has not paid back its GST. National is the outstanding party in this House that has not honoured what it ought to have done. It has been given an easy ride in my view by the media which have not looked at National’s behaviour. The media have criticised every other party in this House except the National Party which should have known about GST—it claims to have experts over there on all matters financial but obviously it did not understand it. 
Hon Bill English 
: Has the Minister seen the letter dated 26 June 2008 from Mike Smith the general secretary of the Labour Party to the Electoral Commission about this pamphlet that says that it is an election advertisement for the Labour Party and that he is entitled to promote it; and why is it that her law allows the secretary of a political party to have unlimited access to public taxpayers’ money which is meant to be in the charge of the Prime Minister’s office? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I do not believe that situation would be any different from Mr Key having a say over the parliamentary money that he is doling out to secret consultants pollsters Crosby/Textor and other agents of the 36 staff whom he employs—unaccountable not known by New Zealanders. Labour is upfront about what it is doing and it declares what it is doing. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister tell us whether when the Prime Minister said on Radio New Zealand after the pledge card debacle: “There will be no more pledge cards.” that what she actually meant was that instead of Labour producing a small card with promises on it using taxpayers’ money and trying not to declare it it would in fact produce a large brochure without promises on it using taxpayers’ money and try not to declare it? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I would like to remind this House that Bill English was once the leader of the National Party. I wonder whether members know that he used taxpayers’ money—parliamentary money—to put full-sized hoardings up and down New Zealand promoting National’s policy. It was OK for Bill English to do that yet he criticises every other party. I draw the member’s attention to this document which was put out by the ACT party. It has the House of Representatives crest on it it is authorised for election purposes and it is about what the ACT party will do—it was allowed to do that. Let me look at this one—the  
Green Times 
 put out by the Green Party. It was authorised and bears the House of Representatives crest—it is allowed to do that. It is honest and open and shows people what the party is doing. I compare that to the National Party which is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money and not disclosing it to the public. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Members are reminded that the questions are meant to be succinct as are the answers. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does the Minister not understand that the difference between those documents from ACT and the Greens that she just produced and this one is that the Electoral Commission has said that this one is an election advertisement; is that kind of misunderstanding the reason why all four parties that supported the Electoral Finance Act have now been found to have breached it and why three of them are being investigated by the police—including Jim Anderton and Winston Peters—and can she give an undertaking that the supporters of the Government will show up for the police interviews and answer the questions honestly? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The last part of that question is nothing but an insult to the integrity of members in this House. To imply that those members would not face up to the police and answer questions honestly is an insult and it is not worthy of that member. Maybe he would like to tell the people of New Zealand who paid for this pamphlet. It says: “You stay we pay—National.” It is an election advertisement; National just happened to put it out last year so it did not count. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister aware that failure to pay GST is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and second that the reason Macalister Mazengarb was not giving the money over in 2002 was that it was told not to hand it over until the National Party replaced Bill English as leader? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The second part of the question is not relevant but the first part is. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: In relation to the first part of the question I believe that is correct. I am not sure about the second part but another National Party leadership change is on the cards especially when we look at the way the leadership team is performing at the moment—the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. 
Waste Disposal—Policies 
5.  
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
on behalf of 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
to the 
 Minister for the Environment 
: What assurance can iwi have as a result of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report on the Levin landfill that waste disposal policies will not create new environmental hazards? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I regret I am unable to answer the member’s question because until 2 o’clock today a copy of the report was not available to me. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Does the Minister believe that the concerns of Muaupoko and Ngati Pareraukawa were ever properly recognised concerns which they raised over many decades about the longstanding pollution caused by the sewage discharge that has compromised the health of their streams affected their marine environment and poisoned their tuna; and what practical difference will the report make to tangata whenua? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Again I regret I cannot give an informed answer to the question. The normal— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. It is a somewhat perplexing situation to have a Minister stand up and say he cannot answer a question that was lodged this morning after some 2½ hours—at least—of his knowing that the question was to be asked when in fact the lodgment process requires documentation to support the question. The question refers directly to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report on the Levin landfill. Clearly the report was sighted this morning when the question was lodged. What is it about the Minister’s office that makes it so useless that it cannot get hold of this report to give him a bit of a briefing so that he can come to the House and say more than: “I’m sorry but I can’t answer that.”? 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: That air-laden load of bluster had absolutely nothing to do with the Minister’s answer. The Minister made it clear that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment had not sent a copy of the report to his office. It may strike Mr Brownlee as very very strange but Mr Mallard and other Ministers have a tendency to read reports before answering questions about them. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Speaking to the point of order Madam Speaker I can tell the House that it is my understanding from the brief time I have had available to consider the matter that this report relates to the Horizons Regional Council and the local district council not to the Ministry for the Environment. That is the reason why the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has not sent me a copy. Of course the report was not tabled until 2 o’clock today and therefore was not generally available until that time. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: That is just not a credible position for the Minister to take. He knew at 11 o’clock this morning that he had to answer a question about this report. Is he honestly telling us that he sat behind his desk and said: “Oh well I haven’t got the report so I can’t answer any questions on it.”? Would we not expect a Minister of the Crown to work out that it might be a good idea to ask for it? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We have a process in this Parliament—the member will get to it at some stage—and it is that we have parliamentary officers who table reports. It is their choice to give reports to people beforehand if they are affected. In this particular case we understand from checking with the Office of the Clerk that the report relates to a regional council and a district council and not to my ministry. That is why I do not have the report. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I understand the Minister’s explanation. Although I am sure that Mr Brownlee pursued the matter in a far better way than I can I would like to seek the leave of the House to hold over our question until tomorrow. We submitted the question on the basis that the Minister had the report; the rest of the questions are almost irrelevant in this context. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you might consider your own authority in this matter. It seems to me to be fundamentally unacceptable for the Minister to say that because the relationship between his ministry and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is very bad he cannot pick up the phone and ask for a report a couple of hours before it is tabled in Parliament—bearing in mind that we are looking at changes to the Standing Orders that will mean that documents are often given out before they are tabled and published in Parliament. You Madam Speaker are in a position to be able to say that this question should be answered and that it can be answered tomorrow. You can rule in that way. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I do not know why Opposition members are now trying to filibuster in the House their having said that Government members were trying to avoid any votes! The question the member now raises would set a very very difficult precedent. It would mean that anybody could put down a question about any document whether or not the Minister had access to it on the assumption that the Minister then would have to rush out and find the document in order to be able to give an answer at 2 o’clock. That would be an impossible and stupid position to put any Government in. 
Hon Members 
: Madam Speaker— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No no. I am sorry; I have heard enough on this. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Point of order— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No there have been— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It is a new point of order. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Well let me rule on the other one and then I will take Dr Smith’s new point of order. The Minister was entitled to answer the question in the way in which he did. As members know the document was tabled and it referred more to local authorities than to the Minister. But the Minister was perfectly entitled to answer in the way in which he did. Also he is not responsible—no Minister is—for the actions of local authorities. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The House needs to know that the report was placed on the website of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment at 9 o’clock this morning when it was provided to me. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: That may well be true but it does not alter the point of order. [ 
Interruption 
] No I have ruled on this point of order. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. In doing some of the research for this question today my staff advised me that the report about the environment management review was actually released yesterday— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Well that is all very interesting but as I have said—I am sorry; please be seated—the Minister was perfectly entitled to answer in the way that he did. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Is it still possible despite the discussion earlier to seek leave to have the question moved to tomorrow—to have another shot? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: You have sought leave; you may seek it again. Is there any objection? Yes there is objection. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What penalties exist for local authorities such as the Horowhenua District Council which was found in the report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment on the Levin landfill to have a history of resource consent condition breaches on the site some of which have been recurring? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: If the member cares to put that question down as either an oral question tomorrow or a written question I would be happy to answer it. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What does it say about the Government’s priority for the environment when the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment releases a substantive report on the poor management of a landfill for which the Minister has responsibility but after the lodging of a question and after the report being available on the website the best answer the Minister can give the House is “Oh I haven’t seen the report yet.”? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: This Minister was out of the building at the time. In fact I rang your office Madam Speaker in order to inquire about this question and even then I was not informed that the report was about to be tabled. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What confidence can Ngati Pareraukawa Ngati Raukawa and Muaupoko have in the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for them to be formally included in the neighbourhood liaison group when the local authorities were found to be non-compliant by failing to convene meetings of that same neighbourhood liaison group—at least one a year—and by failing to provide members with a copy of the annual monitoring reports? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Far be it from me to take any responsibility whatsoever for local authorities which of course I cannot. I think the answer is “Not much.” 
Corrections Department—Confidence 
6.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Does he have confidence in his department; if so why? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Corrections) 
: 
 Yes; because of the significant improvements that have occurred in the Department of Corrections compared with what occurred 10 years ago when National was in Government. The escape rate has fallen by 84 percent positive random drugs tests have fallen from 34 percent in 1998 to 14 percent last year serious assaults on staff are down by 90 percent and much more is being done in terms of providing employment training and dealing with drug and alcohol addiction in order to assist inmate rehabilitation. 
Simon Power 
: What does he say to the victims of convicted murderer Antonie Dixon given that he has been able to post entries and photos on to a website from behind bars including comments about attacking two women with a samurai sword and photos of his “Gangster Killer Club” tattoo; and is the partner of Dixon’s victim not right to conclude that for a murderer behind bars Dixon is still able to get exactly what he wants? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No absolutely not. The very fact that he is behind bars means that he is removed from being a threat to public safety. Let me pick up on the member’s point about the photographs on the Internet. They were not posted from within the prison because prisoners do not have access to the Internet as the member knows. However it is my understanding that the photographs were taken within the prison probably by a cellphone. The member is well aware of course that this Government has made huge advances in preventing the use of cellphone technology within prisons and in preventing the entry of contraband into prisons. In fact this Government’s record as I think even the member would acknowledge is far better than the record of the Government he was part of in the 1990s which failed on all of those fronts. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Can the Minister give us more detail of the progress that has been made in cellphone blocking and the monitoring of prisoner telephone calls from pay phones? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There has been excellent progress. In fact I was at the corrections Ministers conference in Australia a couple of weeks ago and I found the Australians were very keen to be briefed by New Zealand on its progress because they said they have not been able to make any progress in this regard and they thought New Zealand was the most advanced corrections jurisdiction anywhere in the world. We now have in place three prisons where cellphones cannot be used because of jamming technology. We have the other prisons where jamming technology will be rolled out by February of next year. That puts New Zealand ahead of any other Western country in terms of cellphone jamming. 
Simon Power 
: Does he agree with the statement made by the Prime Minister 2 years ago when an inmate was found to be writing letters and getting someone to post them on a weblog: “It used to be that when you were put away you were put away from society.”; and what has changed from the prison system that the Prime Minister described to the one that he runs which seems to allow inmates to get information on to the Internet for social networking? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: What have changed are all of the things that I set out in my primary answer to that member. When people are put away from society and jailed in a prison now instead of about 80 prisoners a year escaping that number has fallen to one-sixth of that level. What has changed is that instead of contraband once being so easily able to be smuggled into the prison that system has been tightened up with a change to a single point of entry the use of drug dogs and so on. A whole lot of positive things have been done since that member was in Government when the Department of Corrections was so bad that the National Party’s only answer was to privatise it in the hope that the private sector would do better all the while running down the public sector so that it performed very badly. The department has improved vastly since then. 
Simon Power 
: Does he agree with this statement: “The point I am making is that it does not matter a damn whether one has private or public prisons in that sense. What really matters is the way in which those prisons are operated.”—a statement he made in this House on 9 November 1994? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: As it happens in preparation for a discussion earlier in the day with the member I went back and read all of those speeches. What I am saying today in opposition to the privatisation of prisons is exactly the same as what I was saying 14 years ago when the member was still at school as I recall. 
Simon Power 
: Can he confirm that some of the country’s worst offenders are planning to sue his department for distress and humiliation because it lost a file containing their details in the street; and what about the distress and humiliation experienced by victims when over $35000 has been paid out in compensation to inmates so far with over $4 million in claims to be adjudicated under the law that he said would stop such claims? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Before that law was put in place—the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act—prisoners did sue routinely and the money was not able to be recovered from them at all. I think the biggest payments were made as a result of the behaviour management regime that was put in place when Nick Smith was Minister of Corrections. The Act states that any money that is payable first goes in terms of outstanding fines and reparations secondly goes in terms of the cost of any legal services provided and thirdly goes to victims if they claim for it. 
Simon Power 
: What does it say about his department that the first it heard of Dixon’s MySpace page was when it was approached by the media and the first it knew about losing a file on the street containing details of serious offenders was when it was approached by the media? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: What it says in terms of the information on the website is that Department of Corrections staff do not sit around all day doing nothing but following the Net. 
Human Rights—China 
7.  
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: What concerns if any has her Government expressed to the Chinese Government about its continuing clamp-down on dissent contrary to promises made to the international community to improve human rights by the time of the Olympics? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 The Government regularly raises the issue of human rights with the Chinese Government at all levels of government—most recently in July. I personally raised with the Premier during my visit in April the issue of human rights and the need for restraint and dialogue in respect of Tibet. 
Keith Locke 
: Does she think that brave pro-democracy campaigners like those attacked by police near Tiananmen Square yesterday deserve the support from democratic nations like New Zealand; and what is her Government doing to support such people at such time of the Olympics? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have heard only media reports of the particular matter to which the member refers. I will obviously seek further official advice on that and then a judgment will need to be made as to whether this is something the New Zealand Government would specifically wish to raise with the Chinese authorities. 
Keith Locke 
: Has the New Zealand Embassy in Beijing experienced any delays in getting approval for its diplomats to visit China to assess the human rights situation there; if so what was the nature of the delays and problems that the embassy experienced? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I do not have any recent advice on this. I have some recollection that it has not been easy for diplomats to be able to enter Tibet but I have no other recent advice. 
Keith Locke 
: Will the Prime Minister be advising New Zealand’s Olympic athletes to wear face masks in the lead-up to their events as the US Olympic team is doing in order to protect them from air pollution that is well in excess of World Health Organization standards? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No I will not be offering that advice. I was interested to see on media reports at the weekend that for whatever reason—perhaps stronger winds or perhaps the fact that factories have been closed for some time—the air did appear to be clearing and there were even signs of blue in the sky. 
Keith Locke 
: I seek leave to table a recent report on the China Olympics Human Rights Act passed by the US Congress recently which asks the US President to publish strong statements condemning China’s human rights abuses. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Keith Locke 
: I seek leave to table an item from Sky News yesterday about the dangers of asthma attacks skin conditions infections and sickness— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Tuhoe Treaty Negotiations—Hongi 
8.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
 to the  
Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: What did his hongi with Tame Iti at the signing of the terms of negotiations with Tuhoe last week symbolise? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 The fact that Mr Iti came to Parliament as part of a 400-strong delegation from Ngai Tuhoe to sign terms of negotiations with the Crown. He was of course one of the signatories. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does he recall the comments of the Hon Trevor Mallard earlier this year when he stated “I cannot believe that any responsible politician in New Zealand would endorse Tame Iti in the way that John Key did …” and has he heard what Mr Mallard thinks of his endorsement of Tame Iti by not just one hongi but in fact a trio of hongi last week? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am sure that the member will find out sooner or later in his life that after the first time it is much easier. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does he agree with Trevor Mallard when he stated in the same speech: “any decent leader would have had the backbone to turn round go the other way and not greet Tame Iti”; if so does his trio of hongi with Tame Iti last week indicate that he is not a decent leader and has no backbone because he did not take the strongly worded advice of his wise colleague? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I do recall that earlier in the year Mr Key was wandering around the Treaty House grounds at Waitangi looking for a friend and found one. Mr Tame Iti was the only one available at that time. I was standing in a formal line for a formal powhiri. To have declined to hongi in that situation when reconciliation was the purpose of the entire function would have been grossly discourteous in my view. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister think that his explanation about these two situations—first John Key going to Waitangi and being greeted by Tame Iti by way of a hongi then Tame Iti coming to Wellington to be greeted by Dr Cullen by way of a hongi not just once but three times—is in essence the same thing; if so will he now apologise to Mr Key for the injudicious remarks of the Hon Trevor Mallard? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: There is only one deputy leader in this House who needs to apologise to Mr Key every day and it is not me. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Is not his justification of his trio of hongi with Tame Iti and his condemnation of John Key’s singular hongi with Tame Iti another example of one standard for Labour and another standard for everyone else just like the Rt Hon Helen Clark’s saying that tax cuts were the promises of a visionless and intellectually bankrupt people until of course she herself decided to announce tax cuts and just like the Rt Hon Helen Clark lecturing Fiji about free speech and human rights until she unleashed on the New Zealand people the Electoral Finance Act which is designed to shut down anyone who wants to attack Labour; and will he not finally admit that Labour members’ positions are constantly riddled with contradiction and the use of facts designed to suit themselves? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: In the member’s case his wind fills the room not his sneeze. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I would take a point of order to ask the Minister to give an answer but I guess that when one is caught one is caught. I instead seek leave to table this very fetching photo of Mr Iti greeting by way of a hongi Dr Cullen. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I’ve sought leave. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have already put it and it was declined. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Before granting leave—and I am happy do so—I want to be sure that I will not have a question from Mr English tomorrow claiming that the photo is an advertisement under the Electoral Finance Act. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: It is impossible to hear. I will put the question again. Leave is sought. Is there any objection? 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table another two photographs of Dr Cullen hongi-ing Tame Iti. 
Documents not tabled. 
Working for Families—Reports 
9.  
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What recent reports if any has she received on the Working for Families package? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I have received a press statement from the National Party finance spokesperson Bill English saying that the Working for Families package would remain unchanged if National became the Government so that families would have “certainty about their incomes.” 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Has the Minister received any other reports on the Working for Families package? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I have received a subsequent report from Mr English saying that National actually wanted to change Working for Families but it could not do it “without taking money off them.” He continued: “punters are keen to keep it. … The last thing we want is to spend the whole election campaign with families of four on TV saying ‘Mr Key’s taking money off us’. You can’t do that. … So later on we’re gonna have to have a bit of a sort out. Yeah we’re gonna do something but we can’t do it now.” And he has just confirmed it in the House. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Has the Minister received any other recent reports on the Working for Families package? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I have seen transcripts from Television One’s  
Breakfast  
programme and the  
Agenda  
programme where the National leader Mr Key also gave conflicting statements about the fate of Working for Families should National become the Government. So far from National providing certainty for families the signals from Mr Key and Mr English are that the fate of Working for Families would be extremely uncertain under a National-led Government. 
Health Ministry—Staff Numbers 
10.  
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: How many fulltime-equivalent staff were employed by the Ministry of Health in 2000 and how many are employed now? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I am advised that as of 30 June 2001 there were 1007 fulltime-equivalent staff employed by the Ministry of Health. As at 30 June 2008 there were 1430 fulltime-equivalent staff. Directly comparable information on staff numbers prior to 2001 is not available as it was prior to the Health Funding Authority and Health Benefits Ltd joining the Ministry of Health. However I have signalled to the director-general that future output gains should be driven by reprioritisation rather than through significant further fulltime-equivalent staff growth. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Why is it that under Labour the growth in bureaucrats at the Ministry of Health and district health boards is higher than the growth of front-line doctors and nurses in New Zealand public hospitals and should not the priority be in getting more care for New Zealanders instead of more money into the bureaucracy? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The member opposite often misrepresents the statistics. Let me reclarify for the member that the growth in front-line medical staff—doctors and nurses—has been higher than the growth in support staff across the system since Labour took office. 
Lesley Soper 
: Can he confirm that the overall proportion of health spending that goes to the Ministry of Health has actually declined under this Labour-led Government and does he agree with suggestions that public servants employed by the ministry could be sacked in order to pay for tax cuts? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: In answer to the first part of the question absolutely yes. I can confirm that the overall proportion of health spending that goes to the ministry has remained consistently below 2 percent during Labour’s time in office and is lower today than it was when it took office in 2000. We can only assume that the National Party wants to discredit the Ministry of Health so that National can justify savage cuts to employee numbers in order to pay for its massive tax cuts. I also note that health appeared nowhere in John Key’s list of top 10 priorities and in fact the only mention of it at the National Party conference that I saw appeared to be National’s commitment to privatise more of it. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Is the Minister’s admission in the House today that he has asked the Director-General of Health to prioritise future needs of the ministry within current staffing levels an admission that under the failed leadership of Helen Clark and Annette King the Ministry of Health bureaucracy has grown like Topsy sucking financial resources that should have been going into the front line to deal with the endless waiting that New Zealand patients suffer under? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Between 2001 and 2006 staffing numbers grew hardly at all. I am absolutely unashamed to say that this Government remains committed to value for money for the New Zealand public just as it does to increasing the level of services provided free or at low cost to New Zealanders through our fine public health system and that will continue to be a priority for this Government unlike the Opposition that could not get health anywhere in its top 10 list of things to do even after Bill English’s apology. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: With the Government’s own data showing that the Ministry of Health has grown by 182 percent in the time of the Labour Government is his admission today that he has raised this issue with the Director-General of Health not an indication that Labour has put too much priority on growing the bureaucracy at the expense of front-line services for New Zealanders? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: This member is just slippery with figures. The only way he could possibly construct 182 percent out of the facts in the health system is if he added up a whole lot of entities that were formerly outsourced from the ministry counted that as the baseline and after they were absorbed compared the total. The New Zealand public deserves a whole lot better disclosure from the National Party than that member’s slippery figures secret phone books of policy and the truth slipping out in inadvertent conversations. 
Katrina Shanks 
: Did any of the Minister’s many bureaucrats tell him how bad it is for mums on the West Coast when recently a West Coast woman who was having contractions 5 to 10 minutes apart and was 34 weeks pregnant was asked to drive herself over Arthur’s Pass in winter with a $40 McDonald’s voucher to Christchurch Hospital because the West Coast District Health Board is once again experiencing staff shortages and cannot provide specialised maternity services? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It is a really good idea for members if they want to talk about maternity services to put it down in the primary question. However I will address that question. Labour’s primary concern is for the health and safety of mothers and their babies. Therefore it is important if a particular pregnancy is high risk that delivery take place in a hospital with a full range of back-up services. Right at the moment it is deemed that the safest place for that to be is Canterbury. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: She had to drive! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: It is not the mother’s fault and no one other than that member has suggested that. It is also true that this Government is working with district health boards to form strong regional clinical networks to ensure that we have a full range of increasingly specialised services available all the time. That is the right and responsible thing to do. What this Government will not do is to try to cover up issues by prejudicing patients’ safety. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Is the Minister saying that even though he has over 1400 staff in the Ministry of Health not one of them drew to his attention the story in the Christchurch  
Press 
 today that a West Coast woman who was having contractions and who was 34 weeks pregnant had to drive herself across Arthur’s Pass to Christchurch Hospital and was discharged with a $40 McDonald’s voucher having been told that that would feed her and her husband for 3 days and was then sent back to the West Coast and told that a rental car would be the best option—he has 1400 bureaucrats and not one of them drew to his attention what was a leading story in the Christchurch  
Press 
 today; is that the reason why he has spoken to the Director-General of Health about reprioritising those 1400 people? 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The questions get more and more desperate. Of course I heard about the woman which is why I was happy to answer the question. The point is that it bore no resemblance to the primary question. The health system in New Zealand is appropriately extensive. It involves over 60000—60000—front-line and support health workers nationwide it delivers nearly 20 percent of the Government’s budget and it provides tens of thousands of procedures every week to New Zealanders who need them. The difference for the public to understand this year is that under Labour it is the size of the need that counts not the size of the wallet. 
State-owned Enterprises—Performance 
11.  
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for State Owned Enterprises 
: What reports has he received on the performance of State-owned enterprises? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister for State Owned Enterprises) 
: 
 I have received a report that shows that at the end of the 2007 financial year the total revenue from State-owned enterprises was $7.8 billion. One example of a successful State-owned enterprise is Kiwibank which has nearly 600000 customers. These are great results and show that Kiwis are switched on to Kiwibank because it is New Zealand - owned and is supporting its local community by paying its tax here and keeping its profits here in New Zealand. 
Sue Moroney 
: Has he seen any other reports on the value of State-owned enterprises? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes I have. I have seen conflicting reports on the merits of ownership of State-owned enterprises. On the one hand I have seen public reports saying that there are no plans to sell State-owned enterprises while on the other hand I have seen reports of private conversations with conservative activists that suggest that Bill English would seek to sacrifice the kiwi to the dingo eventually. What is clear is that the secret agenda of the National Party is slowly unravelling and Bill English needs to come clean both to the New Zealand public and evidently to his leader. As recently as this morning he did not know what he had said and he was apologising shortly after 10 o’clock for something that at 8 o’clock he said he did not say. 
Gordon Copeland 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I just wonder whether the Minister could think again about the response he gave when he said that the revenue from State-owned enterprises last year was $7.8 billion. Revenue normally means the profitability after tax etc. of those companies. Did he mean $7.8 billion or $780 million? Could he just clarify that please. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The member I understand is an accountant. If he cannot tell the difference between revenue and profit he should hand in his certificate. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: When the Minister said on the  
Agenda 
 programme on 17 June 2006: “something that we could do and something that I’m quite keen on is that as the SOEs develop the new businesses especially those that are done in partnership with people in the private sector we could well have floats of the subsidiary … that could help give a bit of depth to our capital markets and get some transparency around those companies and I think that would help.” was he in fact indicating that a post-election Labour Government—God forbid and most unlikely—would put on the block for sale the DHL - New Zealand Post courier business? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: If the member had read further into the transcript he would have found that I am absolutely committed never to sell part of the core business of our State-owned enterprises whereas National Party members have said: “It’s all on the block; it’s a question of when not if.” 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a document showing that when Michael Cullen and Helen Clark were in a Labour Government they sold New Zealand Steel for $327 million. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a document showing that when Michael Cullen and Helen Clark were in a Labour Government they sold Petrocorp for $801 million. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a document showing that when Helen Clark and Michael Cullen were in a Labour Government they sold State Insurance. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I will cut things short. I assume there will be objection to all of the 17 documents on this list which show some $9.5 billion of asset sales while Michael Cullen and Helen Clark were in Cabinet. 
Immigration New Zealand—Confidence 
12.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
 to the  
Minister of Immigration 
: Does he have confidence in Immigration New Zealand? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Yes but there is always room for improvement. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is it correct that the group manager of service international Mr Kerupi Tavita a personal friend of Mary-Anne Thompson and headhunted by her to oversee the Pacific and refugee operations of Immigration New Zealand signed off $30000 of fraudulent claims for his executive assistant; and is he the same Kerupi Tavita who worked in Helen Clark’s prime ministerial department and who later failed to blow the whistle on the activities of Taito Phillip Field when he was in receipt of significant information passed on to him by the Apia branch of the Immigration Service? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I can confirm that Mr Kerupi Tavita was indeed the person who signed expenses outlined in the media. I cannot confirm the latter; I do not have that knowledge. The member will have to ask the Prime Minister. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Buddle Findlay Chemis inquiry into a possible conflict of interest resulting from Mr Tavita appointing Ms Mai Malaulau to head the Pacific division of the immigration service when the two had been involved in a private company together found that that Mr Tavita had not only authorised the $400 gift for himself against explicit departmental policy but also was approving significant expense claims by Ms Malaulau when the $1000-a-day contract he had given her specifically ruled out claims for expenses? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I can confirm that in essence the Buddle Findlay report of— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: What’s the badge? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Is the member OK? It is not a McDonald’s badge. I think Gerry has had his baked beans this morning. In essence the Buddle Findlay report found the following: at all relevant times Mr Tavita had no interest in Pacific Edge International the consultancy firm in which Ms Malaulau and Mr Tavita’s wife were directors and in which Mr Tavita had until recently been a director; the relationships between Mr Tavita and Ms Malaulau and others involved were fully disclosed at all relevant times; Ms Malaulau had the right experience and qualifications for the work and her pay rate was within the range typically charged within the Public Service. However the report also found that because of various relationships and the potential for perceived conflicts of interest it would have been more prudent and appropriate had Mr Tavita played no role or a lesser role in the negotiations between the department and Ms Malaulau. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. The Minister shared all sorts of interesting information with us but I actually asked him whether Mr Kerupi Tavita authorised a $400 gift for himself against explicit departmental policy and also authorised expenses for Ms Mai Malaulau when the $1000-a-day contract he had negotiated with her specifically ruled out claims for expenses. The Minister did not cover any of that. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The member knows he can ask a question but cannot require a specific answer. All the Minister is required to do is address the question and he did. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Could you please explain to the house how the Minister addressed that question? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: As I heard his answer to the first part addressed it and then he went on to explain the knowledge he in fact had. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. This is an important issue. I asked the Minister very explicitly about the approval of payments. The Minister totally ignored that in his answer. I recognise he does not have to satisfy me in his answer but he does have to address the question. The question had nothing to do with the answer he gave. The question asked whether Mr Tavita approved explicit payments. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The member has now relitigated twice your ruling. You rule on whether a question has been addressed; it is not for you to get into a debate with members about the basis on which you arrive at that decision. This is not a debate between members and the Speaker. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I have ruled on the matter and I did listen very carefully. The Minister did in fact address the question and the way he did that related to the question that was asked. As I said if members want specific answers I am sure any Minister would be pleased to enforce that if the Standing Orders which members are responsible for said that. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is it correct that convicted fraudster Pelesa Visesio-Skelton testified that her boss Mr Kerupi Tavita never questioned her fraudulent claims including overseas travel expenses accommodation at luxury hotels and hiring rental cars not to mention a flat-screen TV and DVD player; and why would any responsible senior manager not question the need for his assistant to buy herself a flat-screen TV and DVD player at the department’s expense? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: The events the member speaks of occurred around 2005 I believe and were investigated and the person— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: When David Cunliffe was Minister. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I ask the member to just be easy. In respect of Ms Skelton the member will also know that within 10 days of the department starting an investigation into inconsistencies with her accounts her employment was terminated matters were then investigated and placed before the police and she was indeed convicted. I will say though that there are currently four separate reviews and the matters the member discloses are indeed less than appropriate professional management. Of course when senior managers sign off accounts they should indeed check those. That is why there are four inquiries. I am assured by my chief executive who like me was not around at the time that these processes will form and are forming part of the Pacific division review and proper and strict processes will be investigated and put in place. Equally if the member wants to pursue these matters he has I believe four lines of inquiry that he can place matters before. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Will the Minister now answer the question I asked him before: can he confirm that the group manager of service international Mr Kerupi Tavita authorised a $400 payment for a gift for himself against explicit departmental policy and also approved significant expense claims by Ms Mai Malaulau when the $1000-a-day contract that he had signed with her specifically ruled out claims for expenses? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I do not have the specifics in front of me but I believe I can confirm that there was a gift—I am not confirming the amount—that was signed out to that individual. I agree with the member—[ 
Interruption 
]—I was not in place at the time nor was Mr Blake—that those processes were not as professional or as strict as they should have been. What is occurring now is that the chief executive has assured me that as part of the Pacific division review he is looking at those various processes to ensure that they are strict professional and appropriate. If there are further questions as to the efficacy of accounts that were signed off that were not dealt with in the police investigation and the court judgment then there is an Auditor-General’s inquiry a State Services Commission inquiry and a Pacific division review and the police are involved in a fourth investigation. 
Question No. 5 to Minister 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 I seek leave to table a letter from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment dated 4 August stating that the report was to be tabled in Parliament yesterday. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Estimates Debate 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 31 July on the Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill. 
Vote Community and Voluntary Sector ( 
continued 
)  
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
: 
 When we concluded the earlier part of this debate I had followed Judy Turner the United Future member who had followed Paula Bennett who once again told the Committee a completely different story about the National Party’s policy on social services affecting the community and voluntary sector. This is the only consistent thing that we can expect from National members—that they say one thing to one audience and another thing to a different audience. National members will say whatever they think the audience they are speaking to wants to hear. It does not matter whether it is about Kiwibank and whether it will be kept as they say to one audience or sold as they say to another. It does not matter whether it is about Working for Families about which we have now had two entirely different stories from John Key and two entirely different stories from Bill English peppered with an apology from Bill English. It was not an apology for gross offence and insult to his leader nor an apology to the public of New Zealand for threatening to take away the money in their pockets that they deserve but an apology for being recorded and using words that he had not chosen carefully. 
This is another demonstration of one set of words for one audience and another for another audience. It is the same with accident compensation. National members have tried to tell the public of New Zealand that their policy on accident compensation is now full and open and is not about privatising; it is about competition. We know that it is about privatising in the same way as their industrial relations policy is. The community and voluntary sector policy that Paula Bennett talked about last week is not a commitment to Labour’s Pathways to Partnership funding where we have committed ourselves to fully fund essential social services over the next 4 years. We have put on public record the 850 community organisations that provide those essential social services and that will benefit from that funding. 
Paula Bennett’s commitment is not to support Pathways to Partnership. It was put on the public record by her leader John Key that National would encourage community organisations to put in a bid in a competitive tendering round at a fully funded rate. We know what that means. It means that that organisation would not win the contract because its bid in the competitive tendering round would be too high. That is not a commitment to Pathways to Partnership from National. It is not a commitment to the community and voluntary sector. It is not a commitment to building the capacity and recognising the support that our community and voluntary sector needs. 
I know that the public of New Zealand will see through the different speeches that are given to different audiences. Mr Key Mr English and Paula Bennett need to understand that New Zealand is a small country. We are a country that communicates listens to what is said and understands the implications of the policy. The community and voluntary sector deserves better. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Employment agreed to.  
Vote Senior Citizens agreed to.  
Vote Social Development 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 This is a massive vote. It is almost $18 billion so I will not be able to refer to all of it in this speech which I have only 5 minutes for. I will deal with a few issues that I think are really really important. 
On the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald  
today is a story about a 4-month old baby who is in critical care at Starship hospital. The baby has very young teenage parents aged 18 and 19 and they are from Papakura in my electorate. We have yet another story that seems certain to involve the police the courts and who knows what else. It is another tragedy for those of us who live and work in South Auckland. 
Is there very much in this estimate about such matters? I have some notes that the select committee has made about South Auckland. The South Auckland MPs asked for a meeting with the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development to find out why it is that at 2 o’clock in the morning nobody from Child Youth and Family is available to pick up the kids who wander around the streets of our South Auckland towns. Why is that? We have not had that meeting. We have now been promised that he will turn up tomorrow to our select committee and talk to us. We asked for that meeting weeks ago and nothing has happened in that time. Instead we are told by Child Youth and Family that it is an organisation that can only react to complaints. Well it certainly has a lot of them. 
I do not understand why we have a huge Government department—there are over 3000 staff at Child Youth and Family and they are all part of the Ministry of Social Development which has over 9000 staff—yet we know that at around 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning around Manurewa and Papakura and Randwick Park there are young people out of control and wandering around with nowhere to go and when the police pick them up and take them home so often no one is home. No responsible sober adult is home and nobody cares. I would like to hope that maybe someone is out there looking for them but someone is not in most cases. 
All we hear from the Ministry of Social Development and its Minister is how wonderful everything is. Well it is not. I have said time and time again that these bureaucrats will never make a difference until they get off their bottoms and get out there with the Mayor of Papakura and pick up these kids. 
What we also see here are all sorts of things that the ministry is talking about. I am pleased to see that the ministry is now going to fund a bit more of the Home Interaction Programme for Parents and Youngsters which we have in Papakura and that works really well. We find that the ministry had not changed any of that funding since 2003-04 but now we are being promised a bit more. 
I do not understand why we cannot do more of this. Why can we not simply take the families who really need the help give them the skills teach them a bit of self-esteem and let them show how wonderful they can be instead of waiting until it is too late and throwing up our hands in horror and saying “Oh gee. I wonder how that happened.”? Instead we have seen an absolute fixation on saying that all families need to be treated the same when actually they do not. Some families need a huge amount of extra effort and they should get it. At the end of the day what we have is children who miss out. The children I am thinking of in my electorate are the children who have nothing except what they can get from a benefit-dependent family and what charitable organisations can give to them. They need the extra help. Yet we see more and more for the ministry. There is a massive bureaucracy. We now have 60.5 fulltime-equivalent communications staff in the Ministry of Social Development. 
Nathan Guy 
: How many? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: There are 60.5 fulltime-equivalent staff—that is three times the number when Labour first came into office. Considering the fact that there are supposed to be fewer beneficiaries one has to wonder who the staff are communicating with. There are 60.5 fulltime-equivalents in such senior roles. There are over 370 policy analysts now. The fact is that the ministry is just bloated with bureaucracy. In the meantime front-line staff have been cut under this Labour Government: 450 case managers—front-line staff—have been cut. The Government is telling us that this is because there is less unemployment but there has been a huge increase in the number of people on sickness and invalids benefits. Those people need to be helped to get back into wellness and helped to find work if it is possible yet the Ministry of Social Development is cutting the front-line staff and bloating the bureaucracy back at head office. Well there is a word for that and it starts with “h.” 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Chairperson. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. Electricity bills are skyrocketing food prices are increasing house prices are at the highest level they have ever been and petrol prices are sitting at record levels. So telling us that Vote Social Development has gone up by a miserly 4.6 percent will bring no comfort to those people in my electorate who are struggling to survive the recent thunderstorms in places like Te Hapua Panguru Kaeo Moerewa Waitangi Whangarei and Pouto and to survive the ongoing economic cyclones that continue to bat our region. 
When visits to the doctor or the dentist buying warm clothes fixing the washing machine or getting the car registered are seen as luxuries for people members can start to get a picture of the level of poverty that many of my people are having to deal with. Last month five community organisations were forced to meet in Whangarei to deal with the growing levels of desperate need. The fact that food bank use in Whangarei has doubled this year and that the status of child poverty is worsening—including the fact that kids from poor families are getting sick three times more often than kids from families on higher incomes—means we know that something is seriously wrong with the priorities this Government has for running the country. 
Even though the Social Services Committee report states that “the appropriation for the unemployment benefit is less than last year” “we expect the number of sickness beneficiaries to decrease by about 5 percent” but that “the number of people seeking budgetary advice is increasing.” it is not too hard to work out that if there are fewer benefits available but more people struggling with debt then we have a national scandal on our hands. And let us get one thing straight: just because many Maori people are forced by economic circumstance and racism to survive on benefits it does not mean Maori Party members support the kind of intergenerational dependency on benefits that Labour uses to control Maori people because we do not. In fact we hate it. We hate the way in which benefits have been used to reduce Maoridom to a level of subservience that bleeds the soul sucks hope out of people destroys community initiative and devastates our people’s future. When we get the chance we will put in place the economic programmes that will allow our people to contribute fully to our country and to do so on a decent living wage. 
We should judge a nation by the way in which it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Catholic Communications put it pretty clearly in its recently released statement entitled “Poverty in an Affluent Society” 
 
 which describes poverty as “an evil when it is forced on people through oppression or disadvantage.” It goes on to state: “When a section of our society is allowed to fall into poverty and hardship everyone is at risk from the symptoms of that economic violence. The diseases that thrive in conditions of poverty threaten the health of everyone; the violence that accompanies economic stress does not confine itself to the poorest suburbs; and the uncertainty of those living with insecure work is exposed in mental illness and suicide rates.” 
Again although the estimates report of the Social Services Committee on Vote Social Development states: “The ministry aims to achieve further productivity and efficiency improvements.” I also note that Grey Power is saying that 75000 old people are living in poverty and another 230000 are living just above the poverty line. The Child Poverty Action Group tells us that 230000 kids are denied benefits simply because their parents cannot get a job. 
We know that productivity and efficiency improvements will neither feed nor clothe nor pay the power bill for those sectors of our society whose needs are greatest. I ask this simple question: how can the Ministry of Social Development talk so blandly about its role in detecting snooping preventing and investigating benefit fraud and achieving further productivity and efficiency improvements while our nation’s most vulnerable citizens continue to suffer? 
The ministry can prattle on about the confidence it has in falling benefit numbers but our interest is not in crystal-ball gazing; our interest is in the right for all people in this land to lead a positive and dignified life not just a life in which simple survival is the primary focus. The Maori Party wants to see communities where neighbours care for each other where the immediate needs of hardship are addressed immediately and where the State plays its proper role in ensuring fairness justice and equity for all of its citizens. Kia ora tatou. 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I certainly support the comments made by Hone Harawira in his contribution to the Committee in respect of the latter part of his speech. I am sure that he is as pleased as I am that our policies in the area under discussion social development mean that 130000 fewer children in our country are living in poverty now. We talk about poverty in New Zealand only now because the Labour-led Government for the first time ever in our history publishes an annual report on all the statistics which allows us to measure poverty and measure the success or failure of all our social policies right across the spectrum. Public accountability from central government for delivery of its policies is new and has been established only in the last 8 years so that we can see what areas we have made progress in and what areas we still need to continue to work on. 
Clearly in the area of poverty there is more work to be done but the work that has been done in the last 9 years has had a lot of success. From 2004 to 2007 median household incomes grew by 6 percent in real terms—in real terms not just in total. Over the same period income inequality in our nation reduced for the first time since it began to rise in the late 1980s when literally the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. From 2004 to 2007 that inequality reduced for the first time ever. Income for low to middle income families grew much more rapidly than it did for average-income households and much of that is attributable to our Working for Families package. 
Overall poverty fell from 19 percent in 2001 to 13 percent in 2007 and that represents 190000 fewer New Zealanders living in poverty. At the same time relative poverty fell. Over that same period—2004 to 2007—child poverty rates fell on all standard measures and that is something we can be proud of. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: What about now? What about 2008? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: If Nick Smith knew anything about social reporting and measures he would know that those figures are not available yet. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: You don’t want them to be either. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Oh yes we certainly do. We certainly do because for the first time our Government published those figures and every year they have got better. That member should hang his head in shame that under his watch under his Government and under his Cabinet child poverty increased every single year. Every single year that that member was in this House as a Cabinet Minister the number of children in our country living in poverty increased. That member should hang his head in shame. 
Benefit numbers have reduced dramatically since Labour has led the Government. If we add up all the benefits—invalids benefit sickness benefit domestic purposes benefit and unemployment benefit—the total number of working-age people on benefits has decreased from 1999 to June of this year by 36 percent. All main benefit numbers have reduced from 401415 when Nick Smith was a Cabinet Minister—I am sorry if I have just put anyone into the position of needing to be on a sickness benefit with that thought—to the current level of 258317. That is a reduction of 36 percent. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How much has it gone up on the sickness benefit? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I say to Mr Smith that there has been an increase of 41 percent and there has been an 89 percent reduction in the number of people on an unemployment benefit. The best way of giving people their self-esteem their confidence and their independence and of reducing poverty and giving them a brighter future is to support them into paid work. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: You’ve just changed the label! 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: There has been not one single change in measure—not one single change in criteria. The only reason the figure between 1999 and now is looking good is that we had a change in Government. That is the difference between then and now. There has been no change in criteria no fiddling the books and no telling one story to one audience and another story to another audience. There has been a 36 percent reduction in the total number of people on a working-age benefit and the only change is that Mr Smith is no longer in Cabinet. That might now make people who previously thought about Nick Smith in Cabinet and needed to go on a sickness benefit feel a little better and be able to go out and get a paid job. Every week that Labour has led the Government there has been an increase of nearly 1000 jobs in our economy—an additional 1000 jobs in our economy—and we are supporting people to get into that work and off benefits. 
The other point that I want to make during this debate is that as well as moving people from a benefit into a paid job the other substantial contribution that we have made to eliminating poverty in society is the introduction of the Working for Families package. The reason I am keen to talk about it is that a lot of people in New Zealand have benefited from it. Thousands and thousands of people have benefited from Working for Families and those same people are now very nervous about the future because they have heard John Key and Bill English make completely contradictory statements about the future of Working for Families. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: They have not! 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I just happen to have quotes in case Nick Smith does not watch TV does not read the paper and never goes on to the Internet to see what is the favourite story on Stuff and Scoop most days—it is the contradictory statements from John Key and Bill English. 
Bill English put out a statement a little while ago saying that Working for Families would remain unchanged if National were the Government. Then over the weekend he decided that National cannot have a family of four going on the TV during the election campaign and saying “John Key will take money off us.” He is not stupid; he knows that that would not be a good look for National. People who are dependent on Working for Families to be able to afford the additional things in their life do not want to know that National will take that money off them. Bill English said “We can’t do that. Later on we’ll have to do a bit of a sort-out. We have to do something but we can’t do it now.” As David Henderson would say—and I would not quote him terribly often—be afraid;  
Be Very Afraid 
. The National Party has said that it will borrow money that it will privatise the services of our nation and that it will cut the Working for Families package. It has also hinted at hocking off Kiwibank and at getting rid of the employer contribution and the Government contribution in KiwiSaver. 
So who is affected by those changes of policies? Who feels the effects of no increases in the minimum wage of cuts in benefits of cuts to Working for Families of ensuring that the employer contribution and the Government contribution to KiwiSaver go and of hocking off Kiwibank to yet another Australian bank? Who feels the impact of those policies? We know who would feel it: the most vulnerable members of our society. These are the people whom Labour has put the strongest focus on to ensure that people who are on benefits Maori and Pacific Islanders people who are brought up in dysfunctional families and disabled people have the support that they need and deserve to be able to move from a benefit into a paid job or if they are not able to do that to receive the level of financial support that they need. That is the commitment that our Government made prior to 1999 and has delivered on year after year—increasing support and ensuring that people do get the support that they are entitled to. 
Those same people now are feeling very threatened not just because they can hear Nick Smith’s contribution in this House—he is chipping away—but because they have read the contradictory statements made by John Key and Bill English. They know that those members will say one thing to one audience and another thing to another audience and they know that if Bill English and John Key lead the National Party into Government in the future their lives will be significantly and negatively impacted upon. 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Over the last 6 years United Future has been the proverbial dripping tap in the ear of the Minister for Social Development and Employment on the issue of grandparents raising grandchildren and of kinship caregivers. We were absolutely delighted when it was announced in the Budget that with the aim of achieving better outcomes for these families an additional $24.6 million will be given to 7500 caregivers who are caring for more than 10000 children. This new funding will apply to those who will have been receiving up to 1 April 2009 the unsupported child’s benefit and the orphans benefit. That core benefit will match the foster care allowance and I thank the Government for hearing that call because I know it means a lot to those people. 
However—and I have already said this to the Minister—United Future does not feel that we have quite finished this call for help for these people yet. There are still some areas where foster parents benefit in a way that kinship caregivers will currently still miss out on and that covers the allowances that foster-care parents get—additional amounts that they get to supplement children’s pocket money school uniforms doctors’ visits etc. There is a whole host of other additional payments that foster parents can get for the children they care for that are still unavailable to kinship caregivers such as grandparents raising grandchildren. 
People have asked whether we should pay family members to look after their own. That is the ethical issue around this. The case that United Future has tried to make on this question is to flip it around and ask what it would cost us if we did not support these people to do the job they have nobly stepped up to the plate to do. That is a much more interesting question from an economic point of view. When we talk to grandparents raising grandchildren—to people like Diane Vivian who is one of the unsung heroes of this nation—we discover that these people largely look after seriously traumatised children. These are children who have been at serious risk of harm. Half of the time Child Youth and Family has made the approach to the grandparents and said: “Would you please consider stepping up to the plate at least for a short period of time?”. Some of these grandparents took on children for what was going to be a couple of weeks and 3 years later they still have them and have finally figured out it is a permanent arrangement. 
These people lose a season of their lives. If they are in their late 40s or 50s they quite often lose that season of their lives where they would be putting away some money in a nest egg for their retirement; that season is gone and they are at home looking after children who need additional care as a result of what they have been through. If they are superannuitants then the strain is even more phenomenal. These people make decisions every week about whether to fill their prescription or to pay school fees for their grandchildren. These people often live in fear; they have been threatened by family members who have lost income due to them stepping up to the plate and taking care of those children. These people pay a price socially. They tell us they no longer fit with their peers because they have grandchildren in tow among a group of people who no longer have the care of young children. They do not fit comfortably with the parents of their grandchildren’s friends because they are from a different generation. They can experience a huge amount of isolation. 
These are people for whom half of the time their greatest worry is: “Will I live long enough to fulfil the obligation I have now committed myself to?”. We are talking about literally thousands and thousands of households not 100 or 200 of grandparents raising grandchildren doing a very good job and the best they can and the last thing they need is to be struggling financially. They have enough pressure with the job they have taken on. So although we congratulate the Government on hearing our call and making an adjustment so that grandparents in this situation will now get the same base rate as foster-care parents we call on the Government—and I think it even falls on the National Party which is polling very well—to state very clearly what it is prepared to do into the next financial year for grandparents raising grandchildren. Will they offer the additional allowances that other foster-care parents get? 
One of the other issues that needs to be considered for these people is respite care. They sometimes have very few options for having someone look after the children for a weekend or even a week or two so they can get a much-needed break. It really is something that United Future is concerned about going forward. We are glad for this gain but we call on the Government to look to the additional needs. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Commerce 
GORDON COPELAND (Independent) 
: 
 I was waiting momentarily for the arrival of the Minister of Commerce but I assume she will be deputised for in this debate. 
I want to speak about two very important issues which right now are affecting every single family in our country. Those two issues are firstly the price of milk and secondly if I get some time to mention it briefly the price of motor fuels. 
Back in early April I asked the Parliamentary Library to investigate for me the price of milk in New Zealand as compared to its comparable retail price in the United States Canada England and Australia. I did that because I was very concerned that we have just simplistically said in the House—and Ministers have said this in the House—that the price of milk has gone up in response to international demand. When those figures came back and I discovered that the price of milk in New Zealand was actually higher than it was in some parts of Australia the UK and Canada I began to get very concerned indeed. As I took that information out to the media I was very surprised at the massive response I got from many households families and business people who said: “Look you’re really on to something here. We are paying far too much for milk in New Zealand.” 
I want to ask first of all what it is that we are paying for when we buy milk in New Zealand. It is pretty simple. First it is the cost of milk from the farmer. Farmers get 60c a litre or $1.20 per 2 litres. There is then the cost of treating that milk before it can be sold legally in New Zealand—in what used to be called milk treatment plants—which is a very simple and cheap process. We have the cost of taking the milk to the point of retail then it is retailed off the shelf. It is impossible to conclude from that simple little analysis that it can be justified for New Zealanders to be paying well over $3 and up to $4 at the moment for 2 litres of milk. 
Accordingly I wrote to the Commerce Commission on 28 April and asked it to start an investigation into this matter. I received a response from the chief commissioner saying that the matter was outside the purview of the commission but nevertheless it would begin to look at the subject because it also had some concerns. In response to that letter on 1 May I sent a lengthy letter to Paula Rebstock at the Commerce Commission who had responded to my original letter outlining that I thought there was a definite problem we should be looking at. I want to explain why. 
If we exported milk overseas—which we do not; we export milk powder—in addition to the four simple costs I have mentioned of the milk the treatment the transport and the retailer’s margin for milk going overseas we would have to add all of the costs for Fonterra itself. That would include not only the processing costs to convert milk to say cheese but in addition the vast international corporate structure of the company itself with its highly paid executives marketing and the like. All of it exists purely for exports. Secondly there would be the cost of insurance and freight to the border of the importing countries the exchange rate risk involved the tariffs payable at the border of the importing country the cost of distribution from the port of entry to the retail shelf the cost of any value-added tax GST or similar at the point of sale and finally the retailer’s margin. 
When we add up all of that it is clear that it would be impossible for milk to be sold from this country at the price we charge it to New Zealanders and still make a profit. When we add on all of that the cost overseas would be vastly higher than it actually is. That leaves me seriously concerned. The Commerce Commission has said that it will come back to me in due course and I still have not heard from it but just the Saturday before last in Hamilton a group of dairy farmers said to me: “Look you are on to something very important here because we have come to the conclusion that the price of domestic milk in New Zealand is actually subsidising Fonterra’s international operations.” If that is true we have a very serious problem and I believe that in that case the Government must undertake a full inquiry. 
I believe that we need to decouple the price of milk in New Zealand from the international price of milk products. After all in Saudi Arabia where people pay 20c a litre for petrol the Saudi Arabian Government does not force them to pay an international price because the price of oil has gone up in other countries. Thank you. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Food Safety 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 First I would like to endorse the remarks of the previous speaker Gordon Copeland about the need to investigate the price of milk and to decouple the New Zealand price from the international price and to start to investigate the prices not just of milk but also of other consumer goods on sale in New Zealand. We are finding huge profit margins. I think there was a profit margin of 286 percent on a piece of pumpkin in the supermarket. We are finding as Gordon Copeland has said substantial profit margins in respect of the price of milk that seem to be exorbitant and not justified by the inputs into them. So the Green Party would strongly endorse the need for the Commerce Commission or the Commerce Committee of this Parliament to investigate these matters. 
I would like to talk briefly on the food safety estimates and I have the Primary Production Committee’s report on the food safety estimates here before me. It is a rather disappointing and shallow report I am afraid and it underscores for me that certainly the food safety aspects of the Food Safety Authority should be investigated—I believe by the Health Committee rather than by the Primary Production Committee. The issues of huge concern to New Zealanders relating to the Food Safety Authority are precisely health issues—issues of food safety. Frankly I am astonished that the select committee in its report did not allude to the fact or did not seem to realise that there is growing concern amongst New Zealanders at the failure of the Food Safety Authority in New Zealand to protect food safety. 
Indeed a series of food safety scares has undermined consumers’ confidence in the safety of food and in the ability of the Food Safety Authority to be independent or to protect consumer interests. Only last week I think it was on Thursday we had yet another food safety scare when the Food Safety Authority discovered that a genetically engineered type of rice which had not been approved for animal or human consumption anywhere in the world—anywhere in the world—was on sale here in New Zealand. In fact 3 tonnes of it had already been sold presumably to households around New Zealand. How is it possible that an illegal and unapproved genetically engineered type of rice would be imported into New Zealand come through our borders be on sale and be sold around New Zealand without anybody picking that up? This is the sort of almost monthly scare it seems that has completely undermined consumers’ confidence in the ability of the Food Safety Authority to protect food safety. 
It is said in the report that one of the purposes in the rather modest budget the Food Safety Authority has is the provision of reliable information for consumers on food issues. Well if this is the Food Safety Authority’s mandate—if this is what it is funded to do—could somebody please explain to me why our authority is adamantly passionately and militantly opposed to the consumers’ right to know where their food comes from? Actually I would also be deeply interested in knowing why National and Labour are opposed to the right of ordinary consumers to work out where their food comes from and why those parties along with the Food Safety Authority are opposing a petition that I brought to Parliament signed by 39000 New Zealanders—which New Zealanders were lining up to sign—to require country-of-origin labelling to be disclosed on fresh fruit vegetables meat and fish. This labelling is extremely inexpensive and easy to do because it would be point-of-sale labelling. It could be implemented tomorrow without cost yet our Food Safety Authority is opposing it along with National and Labour and despite the fact that the authority has a specific objective that it is funded for—to provide reliable information for consumers on food issues. 
When I explain to consumers in New Zealand that the Food Safety Authority and National and Labour are opposed to their fundamental right to know where their food comes from they are appalled. They want to know why when we are importing 1.8 million tonnes of food into New Zealand those bodies will not allow us to find out where it comes from. Thank you. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Climate Change 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 The global challenge of climate change is one of the issues of our time and this afternoon I will take the time to challenge the Government’s pretty poor record over the last 9 years in respect of climate change. If we look at the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from New Zealand we see that Labour came into Government in 1999 promising to reduce those emissions by 20 percent by the year 2005. But we know from the official record that has been reported to the UN that far from emissions being reduced they have continued to increase and most worryingly to increase at an ever-faster rate. In the estimates that we are considering before the Committee we note that in fact the Government is seeking $12 million this year for the monitoring and measurement of those emissions. 
My first question to the Minister is about the fact that in 2007 the Government said sustainability was the issue of the year. The Prime Minister actually mentioned that word 38 times in her first speech to the House. Of course there was also the New Zealand Government’s claimed goal of moving towards carbon neutrality in 2007. So my question to the Minister is simply this: where is the data for New Zealand’s 2007 emissions? We know that emissions were pretty bad in 2006 and there is speculation that they were even worse in 2007. I want to know why the Government does not come clean and tell New Zealanders what the emissions from New Zealand were in 2007. We know that the Government spent $6 million—$6 million—last year on a carbon monitoring programme. I tell the Minister that if he has spent $6 million we expect to know what the data for those emissions were. We know the energy data from the Ministry of Economic Development and we know the agricultural and forestry data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry so why do the people of New Zealand not know the data for those emissions in 2007? 
I have lodged a whole series of questions to the Minister but he has ducked and he has dived—he is almost trying to avoid accountability. We have a fiscal responsibility Act I tell the Minister but I ask whether it will take a requirement prior to the election to get transparency into that data and for the Minister to come clean. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Probably—probably. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well maybe it should but I want to know why a Government that says climate change is the greatest issue of our time will not tell us what the net emissions were for 2007. It is a very simple straightforward question— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Does he know? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: —and if the Minister does not know that I ask how he can have the cheek to come to Parliament and ask for another $12 million to monitor those carbon emissions when he cannot answer with a very simple easily calculable decision on what the emissions were for 2007. 
I will tell members what I think. I think the Government is too embarrassed to tell us what the figures were for 2007. I can tell the Committee what Government members will say. They will say that after 8 years of a Labour Government emissions in 2007 grew by a greater rate than they did in any previous year since records began. We know the Government’s climate change policy drove record amounts of deforestation last year with the loss of 19000 hectares of forest and that will make the figures we have to finally report to the United Nations next April awful—just awful. I say to the Minister that the electorate has a right to know. Before people go to the polls this year they need to know this Government’s record so I simply challenge the Minister to tell us the emission figures for last year. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Before I call anybody else who may wish to speak I just remind people that when using phones in the Chamber they need to keep their voices down. I do not really want to hear entire conversations being relayed across the Chamber. Thank you. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I find it extraordinary that here is the Government that has made climate change its great issue—in fact the Prime Minister has said that climate change is the issue on which she wants to campaign in this election—yet the Minister in the chair the Hon David Parker has not been able to answer a very simple question: what were the greenhouse gas emissions for New Zealand in 2007? We know that for every year from 2000-01 all the way through to 2006 the greenhouse gas emissions for New Zealand grew by nine million tonnes. But why is it that the Government is trying to hide the figures for last year? If this were a Government of open transparency if this Government really believed in its programme of policies around climate change it would be pleased to get the figures out for last year. 
Why is it that this Labour Government will not be open and transparent about New Zealand’s emissions in 2007? It is extraordinary that the Minister will not take a call and answer that very basic question. I think I know why; it is that this Government’s record despite all the rhetoric on climate change has been just awful. We know that every one of its policy measures has turned to custard. We could talk about the failure of the projects to reduce emissions where the Government tendered out projects and then had to buy them back in again. We could talk about what has happened with electricity whereby 75 percent of new electricity generation that has been commissioned since Labour has been the Government has been thermal. Can you believe it? 
Hon David Carter 
: No! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Three-quarters of the new generating capacity that has been commissioned by this Government has been thermal. 
Hon David Parker 
: Not so. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The Minister in the chair says “Not so.” Those are the figures from his very own ministry; it accepts that 75 percent of new generation has been thermal. Then we have the worst forestry figures since records began in 1951—that is trees play a really important role in absorbing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere but with this Government’s policies we have seen record levels of deforestation. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: It’s due to the Siberian forests. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well Shane Jones! Is it not interesting—crime is due to the moon deforestation is due to the Siberian forests! We know that the Government’s solar water heating policy has resulted in a drop in the number of Siberian forests! That is a new line. I have to say the reason that so many trees were cut down last year in New Zealand the reason there was a chainsaw massacre is that this Government’s stupid policies around forestry encouraged foresters to get out there and to chainsaw down their forests. I just ask Mr Jones whether he can name a single climate change policy that this Government has succeeded on. The project to reduce emissions has failed. I am not sure what happened to the billion-dollar surplus of solar water heaters being installed. We know that the policy— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: “Treelords”. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: He says that “Treelords” is the answer. Does he know that the biggest loss of forests has occurred in the central North Island area under his Government’s watch? On every front there has been failure on climate change. We have an emissions— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Stop these unfounded allegations. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I challenge Shane Jones to take a call to explain why emissions have gone up every single year under this Government and tell us the data for 2007. I simply conclude that the Government has become so embarrassed— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: A passing blip. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is a passing blip! I say to Mr Jones that the problem is that the “passing blip” has been going on for 9 years—every single year. Perhaps the Labour Government will go down in history as a passing blip. New Zealand deserves better. I say to Mr Jones that the Government has had 9 years to deal with the issue of climate change. Emissions have continued to grow. Every one of the Government’s policies has failed and I simply challenge the Government to come clean with the 2007 figures. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: I just make the comment that although the previous speaker was calling for members of the Government to speak it has limited calls left in this debate unfortunately. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Energy 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I wish to question the Government’s performance on energy supply or the lack of it. This is the fourth year since the Government came into office that there has been an electricity crisis. New Zealand has relied on a broken-down cable between the North Island and the South Island running at only 5 percent of capacity. An inefficient gas-fired plant that was riddled with asbestos had to be fired up to keep the lights on. The so-called emergency plant at Whirinaki burnt millions of litres of expensive and carbon-emitting diesel just to keep the lights on. That is not a matter of electricity supply; that is a lack of supply. It is an insecure situation. 
Spot prices hit the highest levels since the electricity market began—over $450 per megawatt hours at some points. I will not question at this stage the way that we calculate that spot price. Suffice it to say it has brought misery and economic difficulty to a number of companies. High-value companies that would normally be having economic success were suddenly faced with a period of downturn and had to consider cutting shifts and reducing staff simply because we seem not to have security of supply. 
The Government’s response to the difficulty was pathetic. Mr Parker spent weeks telling the country there was no problem at all: the security of supply was tight but nothing else needed to be done. He said for the entire infrastructure to be broken all at the same time was a coincidence. Finally and reluctantly through gritted teeth he was forced to admit that New Zealand needed to save power. In June the power companies to which he had devolved responsibility launched a power-saving campaign. What happened as a result of that campaign? I can imagine the misery in some households where elderly people felt they had to have only one bar of a heater on and shivered in the cold. Old people particularly suffer under these experiences. People who would normally bottle fruit were constrained not to engage in such a useful activity. Finally the rain fell and the Government escaped having to require even more serious savings. 
Pita Paraone 
: The rain fell and it’s been falling for weeks. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: But it was pure luck I tell that member that we managed to get through that situation not good management. The member knows that because people have had a bit of rain up in the north. 
The Government has been irresponsible in its approach. Savings should have started far sooner than they did. Of course we have reservoirs but our reservoirs are generally fairly shallow and they do not hold great quantities of water. In a similar crisis in 2003 an electricity savings campaign started in April. This year the Government waited until mid-June before sounding the alarm. The difficulty with that is that we will not ever be able to calculate the economic damage done to New Zealand during that period simply through not having a reliable supply of electricity. 
What is most galling is that the Government now mocks the Opposition for raising serious questions about New Zealand’s security of electricity supply. The Opposition was being responsible and was listening to the experts who were raising the same questions that we were. We were actually the party that was looking out for New Zealanders’ interests because the present Labour Government had walked away from its responsibilities. 
Electricity prices have gone up by nearly 50 percent in the past 5 years; I think that they have gone up by 48 percent. Security of supply is perilous and not guaranteed. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Geothermal energy’s growing. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Geothermal energy—I see. Well thermal energy use is growing under this Government. We have heard Dr Nick Smith asking what the actual figures have been on carbon emissions and there was a reluctance on the part of the Minister in the chair the Hon David Parker to take a call. Here the Government as in most other fields has utterly failed. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) 
: 
 I rise to respond to some of the comments that have been made about energy policy and its relationship with climate change policy. Of course we hear National again claiming that we had a crisis this year in electricity which was quite the opposite conclusion to the one reached by the  
New Zealand Herald 
 the  
Dominion Post 
 and all of the energy analysts other than Bryan Leyland who is always out there on the fringe with the National Party. In respect of this year in the 3 months to June we had the lowest inflows to our hydro lakes since 1947 and the data going back to 1947 is so old that we have to question whether it would be quite as accurate as the data we have today. By June we had the lowest inflows since 1947 and despite those record low inflows we have maintained higher lake levels than was achieved in the 1992 power crisis under the previous National Government when it had to put out streetlights and things like that. 
Sue Moroney 
: Now that was a crisis. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That was a crisis as was the crisis in Auckland in the late 1990s when the lights went out on the whole of the Auckland central business district for 2 weeks under a National Government. By contrast we have managed our way through this situation very well—and why? It is because security of supply margins have improved under a Labour-led Government. 
The two main aspects that we need to have investment in in electricity in order to achieve security of supply are transmission which is the big lines that are owned by Transpower and sufficient generation build. In the 1990s investment in transmission was running at about $50 million per annum. This year it is $450 million. That is a ninefold increase. Next year it increases further still. We have enormous projects under way consented to under the Resource Management Act throughout the country and paid for without borrowing. In addition to the billions of dollars we have coming in transmission investment which is as I said $450 million this year alone we also have 1400 megawatts of new generation capacity being built in the next 4 years. To put that in perspective 1400 megawatts is something like 10 years’ demand growth. Security margins in that period are increasing substantially and they have improved significantly over the last 2 or 3 years. 
Of that 1400 megawatts more than half is baseload geothermal. Just about all of it is renewable. The way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector is to build renewables. That is what this Government is doing. We have an ambition of 90 percent renewables by 2025. In order to achieve it we have to build 170 megawatts of new renewables each year. That enables the increase in demand to be met as well as allowing some existing thermal plant to be retired or to be put into more of a dry year role. 
Phil Heatley 
: Ha ha! It doesn’t do that. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I heard Mr Heatley laughing and calling out that that was not being done. This year alone we are building 400 megawatts. There are 400 megawatts of renewables under construction as we speak. As I said 1400 megawatts is coming on stream in the next 10 years just about all of it renewable. 
In terms of the effect on greenhouse gas emissions of course notwithstanding Dr Nick Smith’s comments he is wrong. The deficit projected for the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol which runs from 2008 to 2012 was until this year in the mid - 30 million tonnes. We have trimmed that deficit back to a projected deficit of 14.7 million tonnes because we are on top of our electricity-related emissions. For the first time in our history our transport emissions have plateaued. We are on the way to carbon neutrality in the electricity sector by 2025 and in the whole of the energy sector by 2040. 
An important part of that is energy efficiency. We have for the first time introduced into our energy settings the principle that as a country we should invest in efficiency ahead of extra energy or extra energy capacity where it is cheaper. In that cost-benefit analysis we should include environmental externalities like the cost of carbon emissions which are already a cost to the country. 
How do we do that? We do it through an emissions trading scheme. How do we bring forward renewables? We do it through having a renewables preference through the emissions trading scheme legislation. Notwithstanding the cant we hear from the National Party National members opposed both of those measures and every other measure for sustainability that we have brought forward. Criticisms were made of the earlier projects to reduce emissions. Those too were unfounded. That has brought forward wind and that is why wind is now economic in New Zealand. Under a Labour-led Government we are charging towards sustainability. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Lands agreed to.  
Vote State Services 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
:  
I am pleased to take this opportunity to ask a series of questions about what is going on in the State services portfolio. I have to say though that after having just listened to the Minister in a different portfolio run through what he knows about the energy situation in New Zealand I am not greatly hopeful that we will get any particular elucidation in response to the questions I want to raise. 
First I say our observation is that many State servants in this country—in fact thousands—do a superb job in assisting with the activities of the Government throughout New Zealand. There is no question about that. We take our hat off to the people who make services work particularly those who are in the front-line services that we all come to rely on such as education health the police defence and all the sorts of services that keep us safe and keep our community moving. 
But we are perplexed by the rapid growth of the non-core bureaucracy in New Zealand. The rapid growth in the number of people inside Government departments is so great that the office space now taken up by bureaucrats in Wellington could be accommodated in no less than 25 rugby fields’ worth of office space. The bureaucracy has grown so fast here in the capital city that it has pushed property prices to all sorts of record levels. It is really interesting to see in these straitened times all sorts of deals being done on rents in large buildings all around the capital city when those landlords who are lucky enough—and good luck to them—to have a State tenant are sitting there with a smile on their face because the rather large rents they have been able to negotiate will continue to be paid at the expense of the taxpayer. 
We have a number of questions that relate to that extraordinary growth. We make the observation that despite the fact that the State Service is filled with a lot of people who are very very capable and competent none the less it has what we would say is a large redundant capacity made up of those people who look after the Public Service Association and who despite claiming they are non-political are the most political bunch that I have ever come across. 
I ask the Minister in the chair the Hon David Parker whether he might go into some explanation of this matter. We see in the appropriation a little item noted as “Chief executive appointment and performance management services advice on governance and performance of State Services leading and reinforcing integrity and conduct support to the Minister of State Services and operational services to client departments.” Firstly I would ask whether the Minister of State Services or any of his predecessors had to be taught lessons about integrity and conduct because we might get an interesting response from the Minister. We have certainly seen in the last year an increasing politicisation of the Public Service whereby many public servants have been put in the unenviable and somewhat compromised position of having to run the Government line on any particular issue. We have seen the difficulties that that caused particularly in the Ministry for the Environment. So some assurance I think that the Minister himself understands the need for integrity in the conduct of the portfolio would be something that we would look to. 
But we note that a figure of about $11.5 million is allocated just for that particular purpose—that is an awful lot of paper a terrific amount of paper-shuffling and of course a whole lot of people writing all sorts of reports and other such material. My colleague Phil Heatley mentioned before that all this Government ever does is to form committees put together commissions and have inquiries left right and centre. Well it is no wonder when that is one’s only answer in a policy sense to the things that matter in this country that one ends up with such a very large non-core bureaucracy. 
The other interesting figure for us here is the Mainstream Supported Employment Programme. The estimates state: “This appropriation is limited to salary subsidy training and other support provided by the Mainstream Supported Employment Programme which is a programme to assist people with disabilities to gain permanent employment in the State sector.” There is a very very small figure for this programme given the size of this vote—a $200 million vote—with just $3 million to be spent on this particular initiative. That seems to me to be very very light. We have the Government spending money in other department’s programmes in order to encourage the private sector to give people a go yet the Government itself is not following through on that. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Customs agreed to.  
Vote Local Government 
JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) 
: 
 I take this opportunity to congratulate Lawrence Yule on obtaining the position of president of Local Government New Zealand and also of course Kerry Prendergast on retaining her position as vice-chair. They are good people for local government and we wish them all the best and give them every support. 
I want to just start in the 5 minutes I have by saying what a disappointment the way that the Labour Government has treated the local government sector is. It has actually failed local government and it has been quite insulting in the way it has addressed local government issues. Over the last three terms in Government it has imposed huge costs on local government and nothing represents that better than the cost of bureaucracy that the ratepayers now have to meet in the local government sector. This Government has passed at least 67 or 68 pieces of legislation imposing new costs on local government and local government has had to respond by employing more and more people to take up the duties and the responsibilities that the Labour Government has thrust upon it. 
The bureaucracy in local government has increased over the last 9 years by at least 25 percent and the cost to ratepayers has been extraordinary. We saw last year of course a ratepayer revolt. One of the problems local government has is that infrastructural costs are growing and the demands by the public are going beyond the expectations of the ability of local government to meet those costs. The Labour Government has done little to respond to local government’s problems particularly in infrastructure. It has tinkered around the edges with some small votes for some water supplies etc. but quite honestly in the main it has not addressed the infrastructural needs. 
John Key said at the Local Government New Zealand conference just recently that if the National Party is fortunate enough to become the next Government it will take the matter of infrastructure in this country seriously and that includes the issue of local government infrastructure. It is estimated that there is in excess of a $30 billion demand for infrastructural growth in the local government sector over the next 10 years and quite honestly local government ratepayers cannot address this matter by themselves. The Labour Government knows this but the Minister in the chair Nanaia Mahuta and more particularly not so much her but the Ministers before her have done little or nothing to actually address this issue even though local government has brought this to the attention of the Labour Government. 
The National Party if it becomes the Government certainly will address this issue. It understands the need for development and progress in infrastructure and has made it very clear that it will use a whole lot of financial tools to allow local government to address the issue of the infrastructural demands that the ratepayers are requesting. Even my colleague from up north Shane Jones knows that there is just not enough strength in the economy from the ratepayers to address the needs of the far north and unfortunately he sits there interjects and does not help the Labour Government do anything about it. 
The second area I want to address briefly is this. The Labour Government’s response to the rates revolt was to have what was called the Shand report. The Shand report came out with 96 recommendations. Just last week we had solved them and Local Government New Zealand came along and said: “Look we’re so worried that the Labour Government has not done anything to address this issue that we’re going to take up 13 of these issues ourselves.” Actually good on it for responding. I understand that the Minister has recently written a letter to local government in response to the Shand report. Unfortunately I have not seen it; we have not been sent a copy and we do not know quite what the response is. Maybe the Minister will explain to the Committee. 
But the fact is that there were some recommendations. Not all of the recommendations in the Shand report are acceptable because some of them are contradictory. But nevertheless there were some very good suggestions that needed to be picked up. Again in his speech to the Local Government New Zealand conference John Key addressed some of those matters specifically. National will deal with those issues that need to be addressed if it becomes the Government and certainly a number of those will be addressed in our local government policy when it is released a little later. The real worry that local government and ratepayers have is that the Labour Government has not responded in the way one would have expected it to. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Otago) 
: 
 In her speech to the Local Government New Zealand conference last week the Prime Minister proved that the Government has completely missed the point on local government rating issues. I will quote from that speech in which the Prime Minister said: “The report of the Rates Inquiry concluded that local authority finances were generally healthy reinforcing the conclusion reached earlier by government officials.” That completely and utterly misses the point and the point is that local government finances may be healthy but the finances of the ratepayers—the people who matter to the National Party members—are hurting. It does not take a genius to read that since 1999 during the term of this Labour Government average rates have risen by 64.62 percent. That affects not the council finances but the ratepayers. Does the Prime Minister recognise this in her speech? No she does not. 
What the Prime Minister does is pick winners. Is that not just the way of this Government? Is that not the way that this Government responds to the issues of affordability for local government? The Government has sanitary works schemes. Well that picks favourites. One has to be extremely poor to qualify for the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme. I do not think we have had many down in the South Island at all. The Drinking-water Assistance Programme is a joke. Nobody can seem to get any of that pot of money. We have the Rotorua lakes’ pot of gold. That was less about remedial works on Lake Rotorua than it was about saving the seat of the local member which is under threat. I could go on and on—for example there is the Sustainable Management Fund and funding for arts culture and heritage. Well say that in respect of the Auckland amenities. This approach by Government completely misses the point of local government affordability—that is the effect that it has on its ratepayers specifically those ratepayers who are on low-fixed incomes. 
My colleague has mentioned the over 60 pieces of legislation that have been brought down to local government without the cheque attached. It is a tired old story. What does the Government do about it? It does nothing. Let us turn to the Shand report. We had 96 recommendations. Members will see that my copy of the Shand report has been well-thumbed. That is because colleagues on this side of the Chamber take this issue very seriously. What has the Government done about it? It has done nothing. In fact the Minister of Local Government noted to local government—and this quote comes from last month; I do not know which day—“Central government has made its decisions in light of the fact that as the rates inquiry found local authority finances are generally healthy.” Funny that; it is the same thing that the Prime Minister— 
Phil Heatley 
: Generally what? 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Generally healthy. I hand that document over to my colleague John Carter who will no doubt look at it with the same disbelief as I do. 
What does the Government intend to do with the Shand report recommendations most of which are incredibly sound and 13 of which have been picked up by the Society of Local Government Information Managers and Local Government New Zealand? What does the Government intend to do with them? Well from what I can see it intends to do very little because it does not see the problem. 
I will tell members who does see the problem in local government. It is the ratepayer. The ratepayer is now expected to cope with the flow-on effects of the Building Act requirements that have been placed on local government by this Labour-led Government—many many different compliance costs as a result of the Building Act and also the requirement to be accredited as a building consent authority. What a load of nonsense that was. Local authority planners and engineers are tied up for months and months by a Government that simply does not trust them to do their job—a Government that does not trust council building inspectors who are tradesmen of long standing and know what they are doing in carrying out their jobs. Do members know what is happening in the local government sector? Those people are walking away. These building inspectors these professionals who for years and years had great relationships with the local builders in the community have had enough and are walking away. The result is that we have to bring in new building inspectors who perhaps do not have the experience and background to pick up the slack and of course there are more rises in rates. 
I seek leave to table a quote from the Minister of Local Government to councils this year where she notes that central government has made its decisions in light of the fact that as the rates inquiry found local authority finances are generally healthy. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: I seek leave to table the speech made by Helen Clark to the Local Government New Zealand conference in which she notes that the report of the rates inquiry concluded that local authority finances were generally healthy. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Youth Development agreed to.  
Vote Immigration 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 In Vote Immigration this year taxpayers’ money is set aside for an inquiry into activities going on in the Pacific division of Immigration New Zealand. This is an extraordinary situation. Under this Labour Government the very credibility and integrity of the New Zealand Immigration Service have been hugely damaged. 
First we had the Ingram inquiry in 2005 when the Hon David Cunliffe the predecessor of the current Minister of Immigration was Minister. We had the Hon David Cunliffe claiming that the Ingram report into the activities of Taito Phillip Field was an authoritative report because it had been written by a Queen’s Counsel. He refused to ask the hard questions. He refused to ask the question why for example the group manager of service international who had recently been appointed to his department—a fellow called Kerupi Tavita—had failed to blow the whistle on the activities of Taito Phillip Field when Kerupi Tavita had been advised on several occasions by the branch manager in Samoa of what was going on. David Cunliffe refused to ask the hard questions. 
And what do we have now? Because the Opposition asked the hard questions we now have Taito Phillip Field facing 12 charges of bribery and corruption and 25 charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice. The Minister in the chair Clayton Cosgrove claimed that the Ingram report which supposedly investigated all of this and found that nothing actually wrong—nothing criminal—was going on was an authoritative report because it had been written by a Queen’s Counsel. 
He was just an Associate Minister at the time; the Minister was the Hon David Cunliffe. I come to the next scandal under David Cunliffe’s watch. Colleagues should not forget that it was David Cunliffe who told this Parliament that he was running the show now. Do members remember that when he took over the health portfolio he stood in this Chamber and said: “I am running this show”? Was he running the show when he was Minister of Immigration just before that? Just after the Ingram report came out in July 2005 the Chemis inquiry report was completed. The Chemis inquiry was also about this fellow called Kerupi Tavita who heads the international service division. That is the part of the Immigration Service that as the Minister will confirm covers refugee decisions and the Pacific division. He was taken over to Immigration New Zealand by Mary Anne Thompson whom we have all heard about because she used to work with him in the Prime Minister’s department. Helen Clark seems to have had some very interesting people working in her department. 
When KerupiTavita went over there he established the Pacific division and he contracted a person called Mai Malaulau to head it up. When Kerupi Tavita got there he approved the payment of $400 for a gift to himself which was against Immigration New Zealand policy. He also approved the payment of thousands of dollars to Mai Malaulau whom he had contracted to run the Pacific division for 1000 bucks a day. Her contract specifically excluded the payment of expenses yet Kerupi Tavita authorised the payment of expenses to her on top of the $1000 a day. 
What did David Cunliffe do about that? He was the Minister of Immigration. He took over in September 2005 just after the Chemis report was made available. What did David Cunliffe do about it—the guy who was running the show? What did he do about the fact that the group manager of service international was approving payments that were totally unlawful in his department? 
That was not the end of it. Just after the Chemis report came out and Kerupi Tavita said: “Oh I’m sorry I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have approved those payments. They weren’t correct. They were actually not legal. I shouldn’t have done it.”—at the very time that he acknowledged that he had approved payments that should not have been made—he was flat out approving payments to his new executive assistant Ms Visesio-Skelton. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I would like to speak to Vote Immigration because the immigration bill to be debated in the House soon when it comes back from the select committee is often promoted as streamlining processes and saving the public money. To some extent that is true but there are other procedures that will cost the taxpayer a lot of money and I just want to spend time on a couple. One relates particularly to the situations of Iranian Christian converts from Islam where the taxpayer has had to bear the cost of their spending long periods in jail—nearly 4 years for Amir Mohebbi and around 2 years for Thomas Yadegary and Ali Panah. 
These people are now either accepted in society or are out on bail with their cases being further considered. At least it is good they have bail because it then does not cost $65000—or whatever—a year to keep those people in a penal institution and it is quite unjust when those people the Christian converts from Islam generally have not actually committed any crimes. But if the changes to the bill go through in this Parliament when someone like Thomas Yadegary comes before the judge for a bail application the lawyer for him will not be able to claim exceptional circumstances such as that the person has been in jail for say 2 years. Essentially the bill tries to construct a code to restrain judges from giving bail. It is not only costly to the State but very unjust and to me it seems to offend against at least the principle of habeas corpus. One could say the detention is legal but when it is indefinite it will be essentially indefinite detention for people who have committed no crime other than in the case of the converts from Islam of not signing a passport application to be sent back to Iran where in the present circumstances they are likely to be persecuted in one way or another. The Iranian Parliament is discussing a law for the death penalty for apostasy—for those not being loyal to Islam the religion of their birth—and recently there were people sentenced on other charges to be stoned to death. Of course the situation varies from one part of Iran to another but it is a dangerous place for a Christian convert from Islam to go back to. So the Greens are quite concerned about that. 
In spite of the streamlining of appeal procedures in this bill it sets up a greater structure for the use of secret and classified information. It allows 14 different Government agencies to claim that their particular information is classified; the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries the Ministry of Corrections the Police or whatever can all claim information is classified when under the old legislation it was essentially intelligence from intelligence agencies and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security that was involved in the process. 
I think this can lead to greater injustice because what worse injustice is there than having one’s whole future affected in an immigration sense without knowing the details of the charges against one? Sure there is a requirement for the most part for people so affected to be given a summary of the accusations against them but for fairness they need to have a whole lot more information than that not just a summary of the allegations. Even though there is provision in the bill for a special advocate to be appointed to advocate on behalf of the person that special advocate cannot talk to the person he or she is defending after the special advocate is in receipt of classified information; communication can be in writing via the judge. If that situation were translated to a normal criminal trial it would be like the defence lawyer being able to communicate with the defendant only through the judge—a very unsatisfactory procedure. Information critical of the procedure was given to the select committee by Stuart Grieve who was the special advocate in the only case where there has been a special advocate so far—the Ahmed Zaoui case. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I want the Minister of Immigration to tell us what he is going to do about the shambolic state within Immigration New Zealand where his group manager of service international was investigated for appointing a business associate to head up the Pacific division and where he approved payments for that person that appear to have been not totally lawful. At the time it was found that he was approving those payments he carried on approving payments to his executive assistant for things like luxury hotels rental cars and even a flat-screen TV and a DVD player. The group manager approved those payments after he had been caught out approving payments to Mai Malaulau that she should not have received. 
Then we have the daddy of them all. Not long after all of that was going on we had the Oughton inquiry into the scandal surrounding the granting of residence to family members of Mary Anne Thompson. Again the reports on those matters came out in April and August under the watch of the Minister who says he runs the show David Cunliffe. 
I want that Minister one day to tell us what in the Oughton report was just an employment matter. David Oughton made three recommendations. The first of those recommendations was that those people who had missed out on residence because of unlawful decision-making needed to have their cases considered. Only the Minister could do that so what has that to do with an employment matter? The second recommendation was that a protocol was needed to deal with the issue of family members of staff in Immigration New Zealand making applications that had to be considered. What has that to do with an employment matter? That is a matter that requires the consideration of the development of a protocol for an important function. Thirdly the Oughton report said there was a wider problem of managers directing staff members to make decisions that were outside of policy—in other words to make unlawful decisions. What does that have to do with a specific employment matter? So there we have the three recommendations of the Oughton inquiry. There was nothing to do with an employment matter and David Cunliffe the Minister who was briefed on that inquiry claimed it was just an employment matter. 
I want the current Minister who has had to cover up for his predecessor David Cunliffe to tell us why the department fought to keep the Oughton report secret. The department fought for months to stop that report becoming public and if it had not become public no one would have known about the unlawful decision-making and about the involvement of all those people who are still in Immigration New Zealand: the group manager of service international who approved all those illegal payments and who was involved in the whole scandal around Mary Anne Thompson and Mai Malaulau. Those people are still operating in Immigration New Zealand and their actions would have all been covered up if Immigration New Zealand had not been forced under the Official Information Act to release the Oughton report. 
The saga I have just outlined that series of absolutely scandalous goings-on in Immigration New Zealand deserves some answers. I know that the Minister will say there is an inquiry being made into the Pacific division but one of the key people at the centre of all those scandals Mr Kerupi Tavita is not just the manager of the Pacific division but also group manager of service international which includes the whole refugee section of Immigration New Zealand. How do we know that he has not applied his same scandalous management to the whole refugee sector? How do we know there have not been the same outrageous decisions—in fact what have now turned out to be unlawful decisions—going on within the refugee section of Immigration New Zealand? Kerupi Tavita does not just head up the Pacific division; he covers the entire refugee decision-making process as well as the Pacific division. 
I think the Minister should tell us today whether the inquiry will cover all of the activities of Mr Kerupi Tavita because clearly he has been involved in decision making under his responsibility that is quite unlawful. He approved unlawful payments and what is so bad is that when it was pointed out to him that he was approving unlawful payments he went on doing that. He went on approving them to his executive assistant after the Chemis report pointed out that he should not have been approving the payments to his head of the Pacific division Mai Malaulau. 
There is a series of scandals there and I want the Minister to tell this Committee whether the inquiry will go wider than just the Pacific division of Immigration New Zealand. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I will deal with a couple of things. Mr Locke’s contribution may have been less animated than others but it asked some valid questions. Mr Locke raised some issues in respect of the new immigration bill and expressed some scepticism perhaps at its aims and objectives. I say to him that he is right. Many of the aims and objectives of that bill deal with the efficiency and the streamlining of the whole immigration process but they are not brought about at the expense of the abrogation of people’s human rights or the contraction of those rights. For instance we have a unified tribunal but that does not mean that the claims of rights that people—refugees or whatever—can engage in are somehow disposed of. No they can go through the same claim for various types of status but it is dealt with if you like—and I paraphrase in an efficient way—by one authority. That I think is logical. 
 I note that Mr Locke has made some claims about dawn raids and immigration staff being given the power to enter premises. I say to Mr Locke without being provocative that that is inflammatory language. I know from when I was the Associate Minister that there were rules and raids or interventions outside of a particular set of hours had to be approved by the Minister. I say to Mr Locke that raids have occurred as long as I have been an Associate Minister and Minister—and prior to that Ministers ad infinitum—and in my view there have not been the sort of instances that Mr Locke is fearful of. He is right to raise them but people act appropriately. 
I have to say to Mr Locke in summary that we need to give communities the confidence that we are bringing in the right people—and we will come to Mr Smith’s comments in a moment—and that confidence can be engendered only if the communities know that we are preventing the bad guys from getting in and also removing those folk who should not be here. But removals and raids have been going on under this Government appropriately with appropriate interventions. We have not seen the language—which is bluntly scaremongering—of dawn raids and people’s rights being thrown out the window which Mr Locke rightly raised and which he is fearful of but which I think is hyped up under this Government and under this administration. I can give the member assurance that the ability to approach the Ombudsmen and Privacy Commissioner and to appeal to courts—all those legal privileges and rights—is still preserved. But as we have to put it bluntly seen certain individuals pull the wool over our eyes in terms of their status it is appropriate that they are dealt with efficiently. 
I reiterate to Mr Locke in respect of his comments in relation to those who may be fearful of returning to places and who believe they may be subject to death or to torture or whatever this point. There is some scepticism over those people—I think this issue was raised by a member of this House—who somehow convert to Christianity when they are on board the aircraft or going via the departure or exit lounge or whatever and so are en route to New Zealand. I must confess to being an old Irish Catholic myself. It took my parents and me a wee bit to get the baptismal font organised and ensure that I was an appropriate person in front of the deity to be considered to be a Catholic—that took a few years. 
I think it is right for the Immigration Service to be a little sceptical of those who rush across our border claim some particular status—some divine intervention from above—and then say: “Please don’t return me.” The question is how we test that. I think that is an issue that Mr Locke has raised. We are guided ultimately by the advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. If the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says to put it crudely “Do not return” the Immigration Service makes a judgment on that—even in relation to Iran and even though Iran has a repugnant piece of legislation before its Parliament. We are reliant on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which tells us that there are certain countries that we should not remove folk to. But we cannot stick a finger in the air and say that because the person is a nice person because we have heard good things about him or her and because certain folk have different views on his or her status we should abrogate all the appeal processes and review processes and let that person out let that person come to New Zealand and then let that person stay. If that is the case there is no point in having legislation. So we do have regard for some of our world-class processes in making those assessments. People may not agree with those assessments but we are reliant on external agencies like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the like. 
I come to Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith’s dissertation in relation to matters pertaining to the goings-on in the Immigration Service. The member has asked what the Minister in the chair—that is me—will do about these things. The member keeps prattling on about the Oughton report. I will reiterate in small sentences for him what I was told in respect of the Oughton report on 14 December 2007 when I was first briefed. I was briefed that there was an independent investigation into historic employment matters. I was briefed that the report concluded that Mary Anne Thompson—[ 
Interruption 
] I am telling the member. He asked me what I was briefed on; I am telling him. The report concluded that Mary Anne Thompson had not sought to influence decisions about her family members’ residence applications and that disciplinary action had been taken against another Department of Labour employee. The member has constantly—for weeks on end—said: “What about the Oughton report? Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?” Well as I have said to the member my first sighting of the Oughton report was when it was publicly released on 24 April. 
There are a number of things that I will concede to the member have been legitimately raised. There have been some very concerning things about the individual that he has spoken about—things that happened historically. I would note that in the example he raises of Mr Tavita—the member will also concede this I am sure—the individual personal assistant was prosecuted and dealt with in the courts. I say this to the member about what is being done. With Chris Blake as the new chief executive and myself as the new Minister at the time there are now four robust inquiries taking place. The member raised a good point. He asked whether the activities of service international—the other activities centred around the example he used—will be encompassed and be examined by the Pacific review and by the chief executive’s inquires. I say to the member that I am advised they will. I say it is a fair question that the member raises. Those activities will be examined. In fact I would go as far as to say that I have confidence that the new chief executive will examine all or any processes that are called into question. That is the appropriate action of a chief executive. I believe that Chris Blake acted absolutely appropriately and as I have said time and time again on 14 December when he advised me he had already engaged the State Services Commission as I have advised the member. Post that he got legal advice in respect of whether he could reopen matters about Mary Anne Thompson if he had a mind to—I think a very appropriate action to take. 
I have asked for an Auditor-General’s inquiry. I said to him when I had an informal meeting with him that his inquiry should go far wide deep and high. He is unfettered in his inquiries and in his terms of reference and that is why I recommended to the Prime Minister that we engage his services. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is David Cunliffe as cooperative? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I say to Dr Smith that I think it is on the public record that the Auditor-General will be interviewing Ministers including myself. I welcome it I look forward to it. I am happy to put my hand on the Bible as part of it. I am advised that other Ministers in our Government whom the Auditor-General wishes to speak to will be available and will cooperate. That is what the public would expect. 
There is also of course the State Services Commission inquiry and that will look at a series of other matters. There is also a police inquiry that the member is aware of. In terms of what is going to happen and what is being done about it I tell the member that we have a litany of inquiries that will look at this organisation. But I would say as Dr Smith—to use a military term—sprays and prays with the sort of political bullets he is firing at the department that this is a department that has 1200 staff. I will put my hand on my heart and say I believe that the overwhelming majority of those folk are damn good honest honourable public servants. I will not engage in political spray and pray. Those people deal with over half a million decisions annually and with over 350 million border crossings and the very nature of immigration is that even if we had an ideal world there would still be allegations flying around. That is the nature of those who try to penetrate our borders. That is the nature of some of the stakeholders nefarious as some are who deal with immigration. That is the nature of the portfolio. But I just offer the comment that the overwhelming majority of those 1200 staff are good honest honourable people. It is a bit like politics is it not? If there is one bad politician we are all a pack of mongrels in the eyes of the public. That is the way it goes. It happens in all occupations. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: You can’t talk about Rodney like that. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I would not deal with the camp entertainment officer from  
Hi-de-Hi! 
. I say that we should respect the institution that is the Immigration Service. But I also agree with the member that all inquiries should examine all facets identify wrongdoing and cut it out. 
Vote agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The question now is that Vote Sport and Recreation stand part. I call the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I have had to rejig a whole lot of meetings late this afternoon because I understand I am to be involved as a Minister in respect of the estimates shortly. Is there any chance of my being heard pretty soon so I can get back to meetings; if so does anybody have any objections to that? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: What vote did the member wish to speak to? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Well I do not—I am told that other members of the Committee have intimated they want to have a discussion on Vote Racing. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Obviously the Committee is the master of its own destiny. 
NATHAN GUY (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 The National member who wished to take a call on Vote Racing is no longer here this afternoon so unfortunately we will not be taking a call on Vote Racing this evening. 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
NATHAN GUY 
: I have alerted the whips about this. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Well thank you for the courtesy of telling me! I have been down here three times this afternoon. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I have been notified that the Greens may take a call on Vote Racing. If they do so then the Minister will need to be here. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: They are not taking a call on Vote Racing. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: In that case Minister you are free. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I do not want to have any special privileges Mr Chairperson— 
Keith Locke 
: Yes we are taking a call on Vote Racing. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: If that is the case can the debate on Vote Racing be held soon please. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The Minister is quite entitled to seek leave to— 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: I seek leave to have the debate held when the Green member gets down here. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Mr Chairperson I have to check on the speaker’s availability. I cannot just say offhand. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can I suggest that the two members get together and organise that in the next 5 or 10 minutes. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Mr Chairperson I said “subject to the Green member being able to be down here” which means that if she can get down here and it is OK with Mr Locke who is looking after the affairs in the Committee now then we can expedite this issue. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is fine. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken if it is agreed to? [ 
Interruption 
] He is going to come back first? We need to wait until it is organised; it should not take too long. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The point that we made when we were speaking to the point of order—[ 
Interruption 
] Sit down junior. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will be seated. There is no need for that Mr Heatley. That leads to disorder in the House on both sides and I have to deal with it. The member will be seated. The point of order will be short and to the point. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: The point we are making is that clearly the Greens and New Zealand First have to talk about whether the Green speaker is available when the Minister wants to be in the Chamber. So our suggestion is that the Minister seek leave when he knows that that is the case and the Greens are happy with it. So rather than seek leave now and have us make a decision now could the member seek leave when he knows that the Greens are available? That is our point. Otherwise we do not object. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I understand that that is what will happen. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 It is a sad thing in this House when people cannot understand English and they therefore deny themselves the chance albeit for a brief time in their political lives to cooperate. It was a very reasonable request. I used the words “subject to the availability of the Green member”. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. I understand that that discussion is taking place now. 
Vote Sport and Recreation agreed to.  
Vote Courts 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 The common perception on the street is that our court system is in disarray it is foundering and it is not working. Delays are getting longer stays of prosecution for systemic reasons are becoming more common and confidence in our court and justice systems is diminishing. What does the Minister have to say about this? If we look at the transcript in the report of the Law and Order Committee on the 2008-09 estimates for Vote Courts we see that the Minister quite clearly stated with confidence that “the system is working”. That is what he said—the system is working. 
But how can the system be working when median waiting times for High Court jury trials have increased by 70 percent to 304 days since 2003? How can the system be working when waiting times at District Courts have increased to 270 days since 2004 and by 11 percent in just the last 5 months? How can the system be working when some courts have waiting times of more than a year including the High Courts in Wanganui and Whangarei? Since 2003 waiting times have more than doubled in Auckland Blenheim and Gisborne and at District Courts in Rotorua Blenheim and Invercargill. How can the system be working when many courts have waiting times of more than 300 days including the High Courts at Hamilton Nelson Rotorua Palmerston North New Plymouth Wellington and Auckland and District Courts at Greymouth and Kaikohe? It is quite clear that the system is not working and that under this Government waiting times and the number of outstanding cases have got worse. 
As recently as Sunday in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 we saw yet another instance of a case being thrown out as the judge attacked the court system. Serious criminal charges are being thrown out unheard after delays have been caused by what the judge called “shamefully inadequate” court facilities. The judge described as “grossly unsatisfactory” a delay of 2½ years in the trial of a man charged with child sex offences. The judge threw out 15 charges against that man and he warned of his great concern that many more cases would follow as the backlog of District Court juries which has risen by nearly 50 percent in 3 years continues to mount. A trial scheduled for July 2007 was cancelled because no trained staffer was available to act as a registrar. The system is not working. 
This Government has not got on top of the issue and it is foundering and floundering. So bereft of ideas is the Minister that he was even heard to bleat that the National Party should stop criticising him and offer to help. The only excuse that the Minister can give is that the number of cases is increasing and that the disposal rate of some cases is increasing. But the bottom line is that waiting times have more than doubled since 2003 in some jurisdictions—the bottom line is that waiting times have more than doubled. One response from the Minister which again can be found in the select committee report transcript was: “if everything stood still and nothing changed from say 4 years ago my court staff with all the improvements we’ve made would be waiting for work. … If the number of informations and prosecutions being laid had stayed where they were in say 2004 we would be twiddling our thumbs looking for work.” So this Government needs a buffer of 4 years to catch up but according to the Minister that is OK because more cases are being processed. That may be true but waiting times are getting longer and longer and worse and worse. 
Our court system is going backwards and I have to say that it is not working. Where offenders have walked free—because of systemic failures and a permanent stay of proceedings—the response of this Minister to the victims of those crimes has been that that is OK and that the system is working. I say that the system is not working. 
Vote agreed to. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Having received clearance from both the National Party and the Greens that they do not wish to take part in the debate on Vote Racing when they had first of all signalled they would can I move that this matter therefore not be discussed and the estimates carry on as was previously arranged albeit short of one item? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member would have to seek leave. Is the member seeking leave? The Committee is the master of its own destiny. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Yes. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. 
Vote Emergency Management agreed to.  
Vote Internal Affairs 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I am delighted to be able to speak on Vote Internal Affairs. I have to say that the Minister of Internal Affairs has been very disappointing. The Minister was in charge of a Fire Service review that crashed and burned and he did not even have the intelligence to ensure that a fiscal analysis was undertaken as he tried to progress the review. The Minister cannot see a problem with a Fire Service fleet more than one-third of which is over 20 years old with an average of 14 fire appliances a year being replaced since 2001. The fire appliances are getting older every day and there is no way that the replacements can cover the ageing fleet. 
The Minister thinks that a regulatory and enforcement team for gambling should be able to involve itself in community and social aspects of gambling instead of leaving that to contract providers under the Ministry of Health. 
The Minister also has oversight of the Charities Commission. What a disaster that has been! Legislation has had to be rushed through the House to cover universities which were vulnerable and to cover the delay in the processing of applications to ensure that not-for-profit organisations are able to enjoy the tax-exempt status that they should have. There is a real question about whether it will cover off applications that are not processed before the end of 2008 because from the estimates that many people have made based on their understanding of the time frame for processing applications we are looking at it being somewhere around 2015 before they can all be finished and accomplished and all of those applications can be processed. 
The huge disappointment for me—and it is yet to be felt by the rest of New Zealand—was the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Act 2008. I say “Act” because it received the Royal assent on 24 July 2008. I say to people who are listening that they now have 6 months in which to get any information from the Births Deaths and Marriages registrar that they can before they may be denied that access. Under the current Act—which disappears in about mid-January when the new legislation comes into force—anyone can approach the registrar for information and get a printout of it. That is as it should be; that is what a free open and democratic society allows. 
But let us look at the provisions of the new section 74 in section 27 of the new Act which comes into force in about mid-January. I take as an example my most excellent colleague Nathan Guy; if he wanted to source some information about another member—or any member of the public—he would see under section 74(1): “Any person may request a Registrar …”. Well that is fine. That looks pretty good. Section 74(2) states: “A Registrar may comply with a request …”. Well that is really good too. We then go through the conditions and we see that section 74(2)(a) states: “the request is in respect of a named person;” which is fine; section 74(2)(b) states: “the request is for a source document …” which is fine; section 74(2)(c) states: “the request is made in a manner approved by the Registrar-General;” which is fine; and section 74(2)(d) states: “the prescribed fee is paid;” which is fine. Section 74(2)(e) states: “the requirement in subsection (3) is met;”. The requirement is to sign a register and that is another piece of unnecessary bureaucracy but OK we can do it though I cannot imagine what the cost to the department will be. Section 74(2)(f) is about a source document. Well one would not be able to have access to it because one has to clear some hurdles to do that. 
The kicker is in the last subsection of section 74. Section 74(4) states: “This section is subject to sections 75B(2) and 75G to 78H.” I tell people that if they are just coming off the street and wanting to make general enquiries about somebody else they will not be able to meet the thresholds of section 75B(2) and sections 75G to section 78H. Section 75G is about “Searches for purposes of gathering statistics or for health historical or demographic research” and there are lots of conditions around that. Public sector agencies may be able to source the information and one can source it if one is a lawyer or a trustee or for particular purposes along those lines. But if one is an average Joe Bloggs who wants general information from the Births Deaths and Marriages registrar that is looking extremely difficult if not impossible. It is not clear at all how anybody will be able to access general information. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Social Development agreed to.  
Vote Tourism agreed to.  
Vote Conservation agreed to.  
Vote Women’s Affairs agreed to.  
Vote ACC 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 I wanted to take a call on the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) estimates explicitly because the National Party was not going to. It made me wonder why National members would not take a call on the ACC estimates. There are obviously two reasons. The first is that they do not understand the accident compensation scheme and the second is that they are clearly not prepared to defend their policy on accident compensation which was released recently in the last adjournment. 
Not only does John Key clearly not understand Working for Families as is evidenced by a statement from his own deputy but also it is very clear from interviews done on the accident compensation policy National released recently that National does not understand the accident compensation scheme either and that Mr Key in particular does not understand the scheme. Mr Key told the public that the privatisation of accident compensation will result in safer workplaces for workers—wrong. The facts show that New Zealand workplace injury rates are significantly lower than those of Australia where there is a large amount of privatisation. As everybody now knows of course Australian insurers would be running the show under National. 
Mr Key told Radio Live that “in Australia … their rehabilitation rate has been much quicker”—wrong. The fact is that New Zealand workers return to work faster than their Australian counterparts. The latest figures show that 39 percent of injured workers in Australia receive compensation for 6 weeks or longer compared with just 31 percent in New Zealand. 
Mr Key said that the Accredited Employers Programme which allows some employers to self-insure enabled them to use private insurers—wrong. The facts are that these employers are explicitly prohibited from using private insurers. Mr Key claimed that 500 employers were on the scheme—wrong. There are in fact 145 Accredited Employers Programme contracts. 
Mr Key told Radio Live that he believed there should be an independent ombudsman to investigate accident compensation claims. The facts are that there are already significant review rights and a further right of appeal through the courts and that the ombudsman is already used in some accident compensation disputes. Mr Key also claimed that approval ratings for ACC were only 50 percent—wrong. The facts are that client satisfaction ratings are between 80 and 86 percent. 
But then there is Mr Key’s apparent unfamiliarity with the fundamental principles that underpin the accident compensation scheme. On Radio Live he described the principles as “no fault 24 hour no fault blah blah blah.” He is not only wrong but also appallingly naive about and ignorant of the principles. 
The principles underpinning accident compensation are as good today as they were 40 years ago when Sir Owen Woodhouse spelt them out. For Mr Key’s benefit I say that they are comprehensive entitlement community responsibility complete rehabilitation administrative efficiency and real compensation. It would not have taken Mr Key long to swot up those principles and find out what they were before releasing the National Party’s policy. 
Clearly Mr Key does not understand the accident compensation scheme in the same way that he does not understand Working for Families. The National Party policy was to introduce competition “in the Work Account” which is what the policy as originally released stated. But then he went on to say that perhaps it most likely probably could be applied to the earners account and to the motor vehicle account well. 
The attack on the accident compensation scheme is in the first instance unnecessary because nobody among all the partners who contribute to the scheme considers it to be broken. Therefore it is not in need of fixing. That attack right through to the proposed solutions has caused outrage amongst employers employees and medical practitioners. Mr Key could not have been more wrong. 
Vote agreed to. 
Vote Housing 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 Members of Parliament and colleagues from right across the political parties in this New Zealand Parliament acknowledge the importance of the State house sector in New Zealand to provide housing for the most vulnerable—families single people elderly people who are sometimes living alone older couples those who are on lower incomes or disabled and those who find themselves in all sorts of circumstances that make their situations particularly financially more vulnerable than many other more fortunate New Zealanders. That is why Kiwis across the decades have been keen to support the provision of State housing for such families in need. 
That is why it has been with some distress over the last few years that I have examined on behalf of a concerned public the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the management of that organisation—a $13 billion investment on behalf of taxpayers—under a Labour Government. We in the National Party believe that that particular asset should be managed for the most vulnerable New Zealanders but in the time that I have spent examining five areas of the State house sector in particular I have been quite astonished at what I have uncovered. I have not even begun to look into some issues that I embarked upon because I have been so swamped with concerns in five areas. 
First of all I recall a few years ago raising with the then Minister of Housing the issue of a single home in Auckland worth over $1 million which was a State house. I pointed that out to the Minister at the time Chris Carter and of course his response was to deny deny deny that it existed until I presented papers in Parliament to show that in fact it did exist. I suggested that perhaps this million-dollar State house could be sold because even in the Auckland market at that time two or three average State houses in average streets and average suburbs—we are not talking about very dilapidated State houses in poor streets and poor suburbs—could have been bought with the $1 million sale of that home. 
Interestingly enough after the Minister denied it we uncovered million-dollar State house after million-dollar State house not just in Auckland but in various places in the country. Many many State houses were worth over $1 million—some were worth only $750000—and they ranged right up to almost $2 million. Two years after I pointed that out—and the general public had agreed with the sense of not having such high-value State homes but instead of having a larger number of modest homes—we found that the Housing New Zealand Corporation and the Labour Government were on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 talking about selling million-dollar State houses. And it was a pleasure for me to write their policy! 
A couple of years ago I pointed out to the then Minister of Housing the issue of a subletting scam in Christchurch where a State house tenant had decided to get a State home and not live in it but rent it out to make some cash and perhaps even purchase a home on the way through. That particular State house tenant had a trucking business and was on to a good thing. Of course the first reaction from the Minister was to deny deny deny. Needless to say I investigated this and tabled papers in Parliament; apparently the woman did exist and this was going on. An investigation was undertaken and I tabled more examples week after week until we saw that the Minister was reported in the pages of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 and the  
Dominion Post 
 as deciding to set up an investigations unit within the Housing New Zealand Corporation—which incidentally has uncovered 44 subletting scams to date this year. I am very proud to be a member of the National Party again writing Labour policy on how to manage the State house sector. 
I am also aware that over 2000 State houses are defined as being “under-occupied”—that is some four or five-bedroom State houses have only one or two people rattling around inside them. That is a huge inefficiency of stock when we consider that many large families—many of them Pacific Island and Maori families—are wanting a State home that suits them but are bunking in with relatives in crowded conditions while at least 2000 State houses have just one or two people rattling around in them. 
The amount of vandalism in the State housing sector is going through the roof. Neighbours have complained that the tenants living next door to them have been kicking in doors breaking windows having parties up and down the street and generally harassing them. These neighbours have rung the Housing New Zealand Corporation but they have had no response. At a Ridgeview Road property in Auckland where neighbours had been complaining for a couple of years because of media attention the Minister decided to take the tenants to court only to lose the court case. Why? It was because the Housing New Zealand Corporation had not documented the complaints of neighbours over a period of 2 years. 
Members will recall that a couple of years ago I uncovered a very lucky tenant who was earning $127000 before tax. It was deny deny deny on the part of the Minister until through Official Information Act requests I received a list from him of hundreds of tenants who were living in States houses and earning well over $70000 or $80000 a year after tax. So of course there was a change in policy. 
That is why the National Party considers State housing to be there for the very vulnerable; State houses are not there to be worth a million dollars and not there for subletting scams vandals and high-income tenants. That is why National has announced policies such as the policy that says if someone lives in a State house and is a high-income tenant that person can buy his or her State home. We will use the money from the sale to replace that State home with another and we will get another struggling family off the waiting list. It is a no-brainer. 
But for reasons that Labour has not told us it is ideologically opposed to this policy. Labour should be a bit more aspirational. If people living in State homes improve their condition through work or whatever and raise their income to $70000 $80000 or $90000 and can afford to buy the State home they have raised their family in for the previous 5 or 10 years why should we not give them the opportunity to buy it? The level of State housing stock will be maintained because we will replace that home with the income received from the sale. It is a no-brainer and what is more it is aspirational for those in State housing who want to move into homeownership. 
These are not the sorts of things we see in the estimates. All we see is more money being pumped into State housing for fixing up vandalism broken windows and kicked-in doors for supporting million-dollar State homes and for giving a home to someone who is renting from someone else who is running a subletting scam all while that person owns a lovely little bach in the Bay of Islands! Who will ever forget that subletting scam! 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: I was explaining just before dinner the importance of State housing—housing for the vulnerable for those families who are generally struggling financially. I said that the housing the taxpayer provides quite willingly for them is not set aside for the purchase of million-dollar State homes it is not set aside for those who are running sub-letting scams which are rife within the Housing New Zealand Corporation it is not for those who vandalise kick in doors and break windows and it is not for high-income tenants on $70000 $80000 or $90000 a year. It is for the vulnerable. 
Members can be assured that the National Party under John Key will manage that State housing asset with the care and the attention it needs to make sure it does house the most vulnerable. We will not turn our eyes away from that and we will also have aspirations for those living in those houses. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The time for this debate has expired. Therefore the remaining votes and provisions of the bill will be put as one question and there is no debate. 
The question was put that Vote Housing Vote Consumer Affairs Vote National Archives Vote National Library Vote Pacific Island Affairs Vote Statistics Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade Vote Official Development Assistance Vote Racing and Vote Revenue the preamble clauses 1 to 12 and schedules 1 to 7 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the votes the preamble clauses 1 to 12 and schedules 1 to 7 be agreed to. 
Ayes 61 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 50 
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 2. 
Abstentions 10 
Green Party 6; Maori Party 4. 
Votes preamble clauses 1 to 12 and schedules 1 to 7 agreed to. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister for ACC) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for the Environment 
: I move  
That the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be referred to the Primary Production Committee with an instruction that the committee present its final report on or before 25 August 2008 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during questions for oral answer and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 192 and 195(1)(b) and (c). 
This bill amends the Aquaculture Reform (Repeals and Transitional Provisions) Act 2004 the Resource Management Act 1991 the Fisheries Act 1996 and the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. The aquaculture industry is sustainable; it has tremendous capacity for growth. Since 2001 there has been a 56 percent increase in the size of the area approved for the industry from 9086 hectares in November 2001 to 14188 hectares today with most—that is 11723 hectares—in known productive inshore areas. It is important to ensure that this growth occurs with proper planning. 
Since the aquaculture reforms were enacted in December 2004 a number of issues with the legislation have arisen. The issues dealt with in this bill relate to a May 2006 decision of the Environment Court in the case of  
SMW Consortium Ltd v Tasman District Council 
. This could have the effect of blocking the allocation of space to iwi under the terms of the aquaculture settlement in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. It could also create problems in processing other applications and in developing aquaculture management areas. It is therefore necessary to clarify the policy intent of the aquaculture reform legislation which is that applications to occupy space for aquaculture activities can be made only in relation to aquaculture management areas included in operative regional coastal plans. These issues need to be progressed quickly as they are subject to ongoing litigation. We cannot allow a loophole to block the aquaculture settlement obligations being met. 
The bill also amends the Fisheries Act 1996 and the Aquaculture Reform (Repeals and Transitional Provisions) Act 2004 to ensure that the Ministry of Fisheries is not prevented from carrying out an assessment of any undue adverse effects on fishing. The SMW Consortium decision has highlighted a small number of consequential issues that provisions in the bill also address. 
The bill also makes amendments to the Resource Management Act to ensure that councils cannot grant coastal permits for non-aquaculture activities in an aquaculture management area except to the extent that the activity is compatible with aquaculture activities. It will also ensure that applications for coastal permits for non-aquaculture activities will not prevent councils from tendering or otherwise allocating space in an aquaculture management area for aquaculture activities. 
The bill also makes an amendment to the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004 to ensure that applications that are not cancelled do not prevent an allocation of space to the trustee. It further makes amendments to the provisions relating to the assessment of undue adverse effects and the definition of “new space” in the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. I commend this bill to the House. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I thought I would bring a little bit of reality to the debating chamber this evening on the issue of aquaculture and the progress of marine farming over the last decade. It is true to say that the amount of marine-farming space has increased as is evidenced by those figures the Minister put forward but that increase came largely from applications under the old legislation. In fact the setting aside of marine-farming space since Labour’s reforms in 2004 has brought the creation of aquaculture space or marine-farming space to a grinding halt—a grinding halt. No new significant aquaculture management areas have been created since 1 January 2005— 
John Carter 
: You’re joking. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: None have been created since 1 January 2005. Labour members will be digging around for their calculators to work this out but members of New Zealand First and the Maori Party have already worked it out. I can tell those Labour members that since 1 January 2005—3½ years ago—there have been no nil none zilch aquaculture management areas created anywhere in New Zealand. Not a single regional council has created a new significant aquaculture management area anywhere. 
I will explain to Maori Party members what that means. In 2004 Maori were promised 20 percent of new aquaculture space but none has been created. Labour members need not scramble for their calculators to work out 20 percent of nothing. It is nil zilch zero nothing. Maori have not received their aquaculture settlement and that is an absolute disgrace. 
The aquaculture reforms of 2004 to be kicked off on 1 January 2005 were supposed to boot along aquaculture and to put a rocket under the industry. But that has come to a grinding halt. Members will recall that in 2004 Maori were appeased over the foreshore and seabed issue with the offer of 20 percent of aquaculture space but that has not eventuated. We are here tonight with legislation to amend those reforms. 
So that there is no confusion in the public domain I point out that two aquaculture bills are coming into Parliament in the next few weeks—this one and another one. The Labour Government through a pincer movement has decided it will introduce two bills to try to fix the reforms of 2004. I say that it is too little too late. 
Will National vote for this bill? Yes we will because any progress is good even if it is as minimal as this. Even if we are just creeping ahead inch by inch foot by foot at least it helps. Hopefully this bill will deliver something over and above the big nothing that has come after a wait of 3½ years including nothing for Maori. 
This bill deals with a court decision where essentially the Tasman District Council went to court against SMW Consortium which is made up of Sealord’s Maclab and Westhaven Shellfish marketing. The SMW Consortium which is involved in aquaculture anyway applied for aquaculture space or marine-farming space under the coastal control of the Tasman District Council during the period leading up to 9 May 2006. Of course 9 May 2006 as people will know was my 13th wedding anniversary and on that date the court ruling was made. 
Marine-farming activities under the current law—Labour’s legislation—can occur only in aquaculture management areas. Essentially that is zoning just the same as if we were talking about land in a district council. Land is zoned residential commercial or heavy industrial. The same applies with the sea. There are areas called aquaculture management areas which are zones where aquaculture can occur. 
SMW Consortium argued that it could apply for space outside aquaculture management areas but the Tasman District Council argued that one could not have marine farms outside aquaculture management areas. SMW Consortium argued it was just applying for the space and was not intending to farm inside that area. It was just “applying” to farm in the area but not intending to farm it physically. Some would argue that the consortium was splitting hairs. Then a whole bunch of marine farmers decided to apply for space outside aquaculture management areas. The law states that they cannot farm outside aquaculture management areas but the applicants said they were not farming they were only applying for space. 
This court process highlighted a loophole where one could apply for marine-farming space outside aquaculture management areas. One cannot farm there but one can apply for space. This bill makes it very clear that people cannot apply for space unless it is within an aquaculture management area and that they cannot marine farm unless they are on space that is inside an aquaculture management area. That is the crux of this bill. 
If the SMW Consortium and other marine farmers were allowed to apply for space outside an aquaculture management area then they would not have to pass 20 percent to Maori. Where they applied for and got space that later became an aquaculture management area they would not have to give 20 percent to Maori. Interestingly if they applied for that space outside the aquaculture management area then they would not have to go through a fisheries test either. The test makes sure that the marine farming does not impact on fishing activities such as searching for crayfish trawling for scallops trawling for other fish species or any recreational fishing. If they applied for marine-farming space outside a aquaculture management area then they would not have to pass 20 percent to Maori they would not have to consult commercial fishers and in the future when it became a aquaculture management area they could merrily go on and farm that space. 
Of course it was the intent of the law that 20 percent should go to Maori. How much has gone to Maori? 
Eric Roy 
: How much? 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: None because no marine farms have been created since the new law was passed. Setting that failure aside if some marine-farming space had been created in the last 3½ years instead of the process coming to a grinding halt then those particular groups would not have had to pass 20 percent of that space to Maori. So Maori would have missed out anyway. Are Maori currently missing out under the current reforms? Yes they are. That has been happening for about 3½ years. What is the go-forward for them? It is very little. Will this change in the legislation help? Incrementally it will but essentially we need to see much more significant change in aquaculture legislation than we see here. 
I reiterate that National will support this bill being referred to the select committee. We will look at the issues but we do not think the bill goes far enough. The industry wants this legislation supported and the National Party actively supports the industry. John Key made a speech to commercial fishers and the aquaculture industry recently where he actively promoted and pushed to help this industry. Even if this bill helps only a little bit we will support it for that reason. Thank you. 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am a little surprised to get a call without an intervention from somewhere else in the Chamber after the very spirited dissertation given by our fisheries spokesman Phil Heatley. He has outlined a number of the issues about which National has some concerns. I will reiterate some of those concerns and for the information of those who have just tuned in we are debating the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill. It is a rather complex bill which impacts on four different Acts in its attempt to move forward the process of advancing aquaculture in New Zealand. 
Members will know that in many parts of the fishing industry New Zealand has a very fine record. We were perhaps the first in the world to have an advanced fisheries management bill and set out in the purposes and principles of the 1996 Act was something that has since been mirrored in many places around the world. At that time some quite extravagant claims were made about the future of New Zealand fishing and not only in the sustainability area of harvesting wild fish. New Zealand has the fifth or sixth largest exclusive economic zone of any country in the world. Our isolation makes the management of that so much better in that we do not have shared waters so we set out a blueprint. 
Then some things happened that were a kind of enhancement to that particularly in the shellfish area. A lot of work went on with enhancement programmes such as for the likes of the Bluff oyster or “tiotio Chileans” found in Foveaux Strait. It is world renowned and it is in my electorate so I am interested to make sure that it is safe and secure. It is one of those iconic things. Then we had the enhancement and advancement of what were natural fisheries. 
But ultimately one looks at the spectrum of harvesting fish. One can only do so much in management and enhancement but feeding the planet in the future has a lot to do with having sensible and viable fisheries management through aquaculture. As I said some quite extravagant things were said about New Zealand’s potential. For example I was at a seminar about 6 or 7 years ago— 
Pita Paraone 
: How long? 
ERIC ROY 
: —6 or 7 years ago—and a fast-forward scenario of aquaculture was put out. It was proposed that by the year 2015 we could be exporting $2 billion worth of aquaculture products although some of that would still be consumed locally. Not only that but the production processes we put into processing high-value species could give us an entrée to other species that we might catch naturally and one of those would be salmon. Again New Zealand’s image as a pristine country is well known around the world and it is a real value-added thing in terms of what we sell. It was calculated at this seminar that if we were producing $2 billion worth of fish product from aquaculture that product could be harvested from 2000 hectares. When we see the size of the area in New Zealand that it would take to produce $2 billion worth of milk lamb wine or something else we know that it is certainly a lot more than 2000 hectares. So there was all this excitement and speculation about where we were going but my colleague Phil Heatley spelt it out—where has it gone? 
John Carter 
: Nowhere. 
ERIC ROY 
: Well since 2004 it has gone nowhere so National is supporting this bill. We want to move the steps forward; we still have this dream this anticipation. Is New Zealand suited to it? Well certainly. We need only look around the world at countries that are of a similar latitude to New Zealand. I was speaking recently with a fisheries management consultant from Argentina an Angelo Massini who told me that the growth rate of aquaculture in Argentina is 7 percent. We can compare that with the rate where we sit—zero—so we need to move on. Mostly this is about a spatial thing. I mentioned earlier that if we had those 2000 hectares engaged then we would be doing much much better so a number of issues need to be resolved. 
When an area has been set aside for marine farming we have had a bit of a gold rush. People have kind of just put a peg in the ground and said that they will do it and some of them have not even developed the claim but have earned huge profits from just getting their names on a patch of a sound a fiord or an area that has been set aside. They have then had quite a speculative advantage from onselling that patch so the spatial thing is one of those areas that really needs to be resolved. There needs to be some clarity about just how we develop those areas in a way that lets the real players in there and this bill will go some way towards doing that. 
Earlier this evening many members of Parliament were at a function for Saunders Unsworth. I spoke to some fishermen there and said that we had the aquaculture bill before us. I asked them whether they had a word of advice that I should bring to the House and they said: “Just get on with it!” They made some interesting comments about fisheries management in New Zealand in general. They said that our exclusive economic zone is one fish farm and that we are managing its aquaculture sustainably but they said that we need to be able to set in place some aquaculture management for those specific products that do very well under a management process either in cages or in some form of ocean ranching. 
I am sure the select committee will look very closely at one or two issues in this bill. At any time when we bring a fisheries bill into the House and it ends up before a select committee we get an absolute plethora of people trying to bring all kinds of issues to be developed or debated in and around the whole area of fisheries management and I do not expect this bill to be any different. I note that this bill has some retrospective aspects to it in terms of where some of those licences have been granted and I am sure we will get a number of submissions around that issue. Most probably there will be some people who feel there are some unjust provisions within this bill and we will have to sort our way through that. That is why I say that we are happy to support this bill to go to a select committee. 
We want to see the advancement of this vibrant industry but property rights are involved. At this point of the debate I do not know whether there are any robust arguments about what is happening with this bill with regard to retrospectivity but I can assure the House that we will be looking at that as an issue we will really have to grapple with to make sure there is equity and fairness as well as to make sure that we do not delay what goes forward from there. 
I mentioned that we have some activity now that is very well regarded and well known such as the work on the green-lipped mussel which is found in a number of places around New Zealand but particularly in the Marlborough Sounds and in Big Glory Bay in Stewart Island. This iconic species was not known in the world 15 years ago yet now it has been discovered there is a whole technology around its development and there is a variety of products in relation to it. It now has significant space internationally and is recognised as a high-value product that comes from New Zealand. 
There are other things as well. We could look at some of the native—and they are all native I guess—shellfish species that are under threat. Gradually we have seen the closure of the toheroa fishery right around New Zealand. Since 1993 we have not had a toheroa season at Oreti Beach— 
Hon Mahara Okeroa 
: That’s right. 
ERIC ROY 
: —and Mahara Okeroa acknowledges that. But there is a huge potential for us to develop these things in a way with fish farming. A lot of really iconic species can be developed such as kingfish. But what is the hold-up? We have had a Government that has sat on its hands for 4 years we have had a spatial argument and we have had issues around the retrospectivity of the property right in terms of where people can ocean ranch or fish farm. So this aquaculture bill is important. I doubt whether it goes far enough. Members of the select committee are keen to get into it and to resolve the issues. I am not sure whether it will be completed by the time this House breaks for an election but at least we will have the process going. It is our commitment to see that there is some advancement so we will be supporting the bill. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take just a short call on the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill at its first reading. This Government is getting on with it I say to Mr Roy. I thank the member for his encouragement for the Government to get on with it. This is just another example of this good Labour-led Government getting on with it once again. 
This bill amends the legislation governing aquaculture in order to clarify the original intent of the aquaculture law reform. The bill is required because of an Environment Court decision that allowed applications for aquaculture activities to be made before aquaculture management areas were defined in regional coastal plans. I know there are many of those regional coastal plans where people have taken a lot of time to think about these areas very carefully and to think about the development of aquaculture management areas in their region. This bill clarifies the position that applications for aquaculture activities are to be made only for aquaculture management areas in regional coastal plans. 
I ask members whether such planning is not a very fine thing brought to bear on this country by this Government. I think that in regard to the good old market-led days of the National Government—where it thought that anything could go that no rules were needed that no planning was needed and that anyone could just be allowed to do whatever he or she wanted to do—those days fortunately are gone. These days we actually do plan. We take our time over things we get them right and we get good plans in place. 
The bill also cancels any applications made after 9 May 2006 that did not relate to these aquaculture management areas in the operative regional coastal plans. It freezes the applications made between 1 January 2005 and 9 May 2006 and allows them to be processed only if the area concerned becomes an aquaculture management area in an operative regional coastal plan. It clarifies the process for creating those management areas and clarifies the various provisions of the aquaculture legislation relating to non-aquaculture activities in the aquaculture management areas. It also clarifies the obligation to provide new space for iwi and the assessment of areas of aquaculture management areas that are already subject to an existing marine-farm approval. So with those few words in outlining the real purpose of this bill at its first reading I commend the bill to the House. 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a privilege to be able to participate in this the first reading of the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill. I listened to some of the comments made earlier on in this debate. Although some speakers would like to express the suggestion that they are sympathetic to the Maori cause I would suggest that that sympathy is really just to solicit some support from a particular party in this House and that the sincerity of their concern for that particular part of our community is shall I say not real. 
Our fish stocks at this very time are under threat and it is only proper that we as Parliament should consider other alternatives in terms of providing protection for our existing stocks and look at ways of growing that stock outside of mere reserves. I believe that this legislation which is an omnibus bill that amends a number of pieces of legislation goes towards that end. The bill is of course a result of the Environment Court’s 2006 decision in the  
SMW Consortium Ltd v Tasman District Council 
 which raised issues about the wording of current law. It was all about applying for space as one earlier speaker mentioned. 
I say this in conjunction with the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004. I can recall that some parties in this House were expressing concern about that legislation. The question being asked was where we would get the 20 percent space that was needed to fulfil the requirements of that particular legislation. I suggest that the application in this court case was being made not to be able to farm or to develop that particular space but to hold it in case it was required under the terms of the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act so that the consortium had the space to give up to Maori—that is the first point. 
The second point is that although comment has been made about the fact that there has been no movement in regard to that particular Act in terms of providing aquaculture management areas to Maori I am not sure whether any Maori interests have actually applied for an aquaculture management area under that settlement legislation. However this bill adds clarity to the intent of the Act. 
As I read through the bill I see that it clarifies the intent of the original aquaculture reform legislation which was that applications for aquaculture activities were to be made only in aquaculture management areas in operative regional coastal plans. It cancels any applications made after the court case of 9 May 2006 that do not relate to aquaculture management areas in operative regional coastal plans and it freezes those applications made between 1 January 2005 and 9 May 2006. It allows them to be processed only if the area covered by the application becomes an aquaculture management area in an operative regional coastal plan. 
The bill also provides clarification that aquaculture management areas can be created in a number of ways. They can be created through a regional coastal plan that provides for aquaculture management areas under the Resource Management Act by the interim aquaculture management area process currently in the Aquaculture Reform (Repeals and Transitional Provisions) Act or by approved marine farms being deemed to be aquaculture management areas under the old legislation as provided under section 45 of the Aquaculture Reform (Repeals and Transitional Provisions) Act. The bill also clarifies aquaculture legislation relating to non-aquaculture activities and aquaculture management areas contains an obligation to provide new space to iwi and provides for an assessment of aquaculture management areas that are already subject to an existing marine-farm approval. 
New Zealand First will support this bill going to a select committee. As we always say when we support legislation going to a select committee it is an opportunity to allow the people of New Zealand to have their say on this bill. I hope that those in the industry and particularly Maori interests will avail themselves of that process. New Zealand First will ensure that the aquaculture industry’s legislative needs are met by fisheries and resource management legislation. On behalf of New Zealand First I say again that we will support this bill going to a select committee. Kia ora. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This bill in many ways is a technical bill amending a mistake. It was a mistake in the original legislation in which various actors in the industry managed to find the loophole. It is a pity that we did not manage to find it ourselves but there we have it. For that reason the Greens will be supporting the bill. 
I think it is important to make the point that in fisheries as with many other activities sustainability is one of the key issues. I heard Eric Roy lamenting the fact that we did not have a 7 percent growth rate like the Chileans in aquaculture. Of course a 7 percent growth rate means a doubling every 10 years. It is hard to imagine how we could continue to double the size of our aquaculture industry every 10 years; only so many places are suitable for aquaculture. 
We have already had the problem of the gold rush that Mr Roy talked about. We had the gold rush before which is why we had to have the moratorium on aquaculture in order to give us some space to try to work out how to deal with it. All the legislation that came out after the moratorium was an attempt to manage that and this legislation is an attempt to make sure that we follow through properly. But I cannot help but notice that just as we had a gold rush in aquaculture which required a moratorium on issuing new consents we have also had a gold rush in dairying in this country. Perhaps we also need a moratorium on issuing new consents for dairying—to take water and to have effluent discharge to water—just as we had to have for the aquaculture industry. When we have a finite resource as we have with our water resources and as we have with our aquaculture or environments suitable for aquaculture there is often a gold rush as people try to be the first in to stake their claims in the gold rush. Although that is entrepreneurial and we can be only encouraged that people want to get ahead the fact is that with a finite resource it is the job of the Government and Parliament to actually manage the process and to manage what happens with aquaculture just as it is our job to manage what is happening with water right now—a job we are spectacularly failing to do at the moment. 
Mr Roy may well want a 7 percent growth rate every year but we cannot continue to double the size of our aquaculture industry indefinitely every 10 years. In fact we should aim ultimately for a steady-state aquaculture industry—one that works within the limits of the natural environment. Although it may come as a surprise to a species like ours which has become accustomed to exponential growth we cannot have exponential growth in a world that is finite. It is simply not possible. We cannot continue to increase the size of our aquaculture industry by 7 percent every year and not expect to run into serious problems. 
There is of course an interesting connection between the aquaculture industry the dairy industry and water in general which is that the aquaculture industry runs into real trouble when there are large amounts of E. coli and other faecal matter coming down our rivers and streams; large sections of our aquaculture industry when that happens have to stop harvesting. So there is actually a very close connection between cleaning up our rivers and lakes and protecting this very important and I hope ultimately sustainable industry which is the fact that if we do not clean up our rivers and lakes then we will continue to have a negative impact on our aquaculture industry. 
I am hoping then that what has happened with aquaculture could be a lesson and perhaps if we do it properly a model for how we deal with managing our water resources in this country. These will need a serious intervention of the level of the aquaculture moratorium if we stand any chance of actually having a sustainable dairy industry in New Zealand as well as hopefully a sustainable aquaculture industry. The Greens will be supporting this bill to go to the select committee and we will look forward to its deliberations. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Mr Assistant Speaker tena koe. Kia ora tatou. Kia ora tatou i tenei po. I do not know whether members have heard about a good Te Arawa gentlemen by the name of Arthur Bloch author of the  
Murphy’s Law 
 books. He summed up this bill I think in one short sentence when he said something like this: “If you improve or tinker with something long enough eventually it will break or malfunction.” It seems to me that the aquaculture legislation is kind of like that—a tale where the art of tinkering has been taken to an extreme. 
In response to Maori claims regarding aquaculture the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004 was introduced to commit the Crown to provide Maori with the equivalent of 20 percent of aquaculture space in the coastal marine area which Mr Phil Heatley discussed a little earlier. Most believed that it had incredible potential for tangata whenua and for the nation. The concept was that Maori were granted 20 percent of the existing space but if the space was not made available by 2014 then a cash settlement would follow. This was a measure that tangata whenua appreciated in recognition that they could decide to buy commercial aquaculture space with the settlement money. 
The second part was that iwi would be granted 20 percent of new space—and this was where all the problems started to flow from as again Mr Phil Heatley and other speakers have talked about and pointed to. The fundamental problem is that too few new players including Maori will be able to enter the aquaculture industry. There is basically no existing space to allocate to Maori and because the process is so difficult and bureaucratic it is too difficult to get new space. 
I am not an expert on the industry but this is what I understand happened. Tinkering No. 1: in December 2006 the Government made a technical amendment through the Maori Purposes Bill related to the definition of pre-commencement space. Tinkering No. 2: on 15 May 2007 the Minister for the Environment David Benson-Pope announced that the Government had an intention to introduce a bill to make technical amendments to the aquaculture legislation. Tinkering No. 3: on 7 June 2007 the Government introduced a five-point scheme to tell Maori what they should do to work with a Maori manager employed by Te Puni Kokiri and to establish some national standards for sustainable aquaculture. 
That is all well and good but the problem is that there is a big fat white elephant in the room that no one wants to see. That fat white elephant is the major structural problem in aquaculture and that is the requirement for all new aquaculture management areas to require a private plan change to a regional coastal plan. This would be a huge expense for a private venture trying to get into the aquaculture with no certainty that it will get aquaculture space even after investing what could be thousands and thousands of dollars. So when this bill came up—tinkering No. 4—we had every expectation that maybe this time we would see the fundamental changes needed to address the issue of how we would get new aquaculture space in Aotearoa. 
The bill amends the legislation governing aquaculture—the Resource Management Act 1991 the Fisheries Act 1996 the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004 and the Aquaculture Reform (Repeals and Transitional Provisions) Act 2004. The bill we see corrects technical issues and provides some assistance in amending experimental areas outside the aquaculture management areas more usually known as AMAs. It seems that the Environment Court had defined these aquaculture management areas before the Act came in. This bill has been necessary to tidy up the definition of these areas before the High Court makes a decision on the matter. The bill also amends the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Act 2004 by revising the definition of “new space”. The No. 2 bill which is destined to follow this one also goes a little bit further to deal with the possible effects of spat catching and marine farming on fishing. 
These amendments are all very helpful but at best are nothing more than tinkering around the edges. The problem with this version of tinkering and the trail that preceded it is that it fails to address the private plan change requirement in the Resource Management Act that enables a new area to be established which other speakers have talked about. While iwi wait in line for the Crown to come up with the marine space others are fast losing patience with the Government which is tinkering rather than making a tangible effort to find any unused space. 
So is it any wonder that the Te Tau Ihu iwi have announced that they will take the initiative to join forces to seek early settlement of their aquaculture claims? I am told that Richard Bradley from Rangitane has confirmed that the iwi have asked for aquaculture to be included in their Treaty settlement. They have also included Ngai Tahu in their discussion. So we are seeing looming on the horizon the possibility of a settlement covering the entire South Island Te Wai Pounamu for we know that other iwi such as Ngati Rarua Ngati Tama and Te Atiawa have invested considerably on legal action to try to get the issues addressed. The block has come about because there is simply no new aquaculture space at the top of the South Island so iwi are working together towards a cash settlement instead. They have had to do it themselves because the Government has not. 
Officials of the Ministry of Fisheries have estimated that the total cost of the aquaculture settlement post-2014 could be up to $100 million but the essential issue for tangata whenua is not essentially about a cash offer; the issue is around protecting and preserving our rights to whenua space and resources rather than seeing space alienated further into the creation of private marinas. In this way there is a link to the Foreshore and Seabed Act in that the Crown is allocating space that does not belong to it and making decisions about marine spaces that tangata whenua should rightly be involved in. The decision by the Government to provide all Maori with aquaculture space since September 1992 was a unilateral decision made entirely by the Crown. In doing so it established a dangerous precedent in that it proposed settlement without any substantial discussion or negotiation with tangata whenua. 
The key point is that aquaculture will be too significant a feature of the fishing industry in the future for Maori to be excluded at this point. We need to see regional councils being consistent in the way in which they respond to aquaculture management areas. Currently it is an extraordinarily large process to go through—a process that is rather bureaucratic with no guarantees at the end. We need to have clear and consistent management that will oversee the issue of the quality of representative space for allocation to iwi. Our major concern is that tangata whenua will end up with marine-farming areas that are not likely to yield a higher than average productive capacity. 
Iwi and Maori organisations have already been playing a crucial role in the marine-farming industry as we know. A central challenge facing Government could be how to ensure that the sector is able to respond to the economic and environmental aspirations of iwi. We are also interested in seeing demonstrated the way in which the sector can sustain the progress of iwi in upholding the ancestral responsibilities that come with kaitiakitanga. 
We will support this bill at first reading as it attempts to move forward albeit in a very limited sense—as alluded to by Mr Phil Heatley. But we recognise also that the real issue of the quality of representative space for allocation to iwi remains on the agenda. The Government rushed through the 2004 bill leaving in its wake a lot of loopholes that left Maori vulnerable. The Government has not changed the legislation and closed these loopholes as promised according to many whom we have talked to but we believe that this bill at least closes one of those loopholes and as such it should be supported. 
Although iwi have been allocated aquaculture space under the Maori Commercial Aquacultural Claims Settlement Act 2004 a recent press release issued by the Minister of Fisheries indicates that the actual transfer of this aquaculture management area space to iwi has not yet occurred and that consultation is ongoing. The fundamental flaw of course is that none of the iwi aquaculture organisations has taken full possession of its aquaculture management area allocation under the Act. Many of these organisations had been undertaking aquacultural activities on aquaculture management area space obtained outside the provisions in the 2004 Act. These were established privately owned Maori businesses that have also qualified as iwi agricultural organisations under the 2004 Act. 
This bill is still needed for those iwi who want to get into aquaculture where there is new space available. So we support this first reading and we look forward to the ongoing debate. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 At the outset I say National will support the referral to the select committee of the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill. The failure by this Government to see its way forward in realising the potential of the aquaculture industry has been well canvassed. 
I will come back to the bill. This bill amends four particular Acts and I make the comment that the legislation is complex. That is of course borne out in the very court case that has been referred to between SMW Consortium Ltd and the Tasman District Council. 
If we stop to think about the complexities of the law and to talk about them in real terms we should go into the judgment. It is very interesting when looking at the judgment of that court case to see that under the heading “Tasman District Council” it states: “Unfortunately the TDC did not take this opportunity to argue which version of s19 applies and whether the prohibited rule in the Transition Plan is still operative. The TDC spent most of its submission instead trying to reopen the discussion about whether s12A creates a prohibited activity. The TDC considers that the two preconditions in s12A(1)(a) are at the heart of the matters left for determination by this Court. It submitted that the matter for ultimate determination is whether the TDC is required to accept an application for coastal permits for mussel farming when occupation is a prohibited activity”. 
When we start to understand the complexities of the law from the point of view of the people who are trying to administer it and who get it wrong we can understand why this bill is in front of the House. As the general policy statement in the explanatory note of the bill states: “The effect of the court decision is that applications can be made outside of AMAs in operative regional coastal plan.” So effectively the amendment in front of us at the moment freezes those decisions—the decisions from 1 January 2005—and they will proceed only if the areas concerned are in fact registered as aquaculture management areas. 
It should be of interest to members on the other side of the House that the Marlborough Sounds has half a million hectares of intrinsically sheltered waterways. Those waterways were an area identified early on as a primary place to establish a new industry known as the aquaculture industry. Most of the aquaculture industry grew out of hobby farming or hobby part-time operations. It was a way in which pastoral farmers in that region supplemented their incomes or in which people who had a quota of wet fish also grew their incomes. From 1971 the marine farms were under the auspices of the Marine Farming Act 1971. In 1991 when the Resource Management Act came into effect that then came to take control of the way in which the aquaculture industry was treated. In fact that Act enabled councils or the local authorities to assess the effects of aquaculture. Those effects are something that cannot ever be dismissed. There is a saturation point because the area in which aquaculture is established is a public area and on that basis many many people use it. That was the second leg from 1991 onwards when the Fisheries Amendment Act came into play. As aquaculture was established under the Resource Management Act it displaced people who had quota to fish in those particular areas. That meant that before anybody could set up aquaculture and be approved to do so that person had to receive a permit from the Ministry of Fisheries. 
However those dual purposes were replaced in 2005 by the four Acts that we are facing today. From that point on a multitude of things had to be met by people who wanted to commence farming mussels or whatever form of aquaculture they wanted to undertake. Therein lies one of our major challenges. Although our local governments control areas like the Marlborough Sounds under the Resource Management Act it is always going to be very hard for a council to justify spending money on setting up aquaculture management areas when using ratepayers’ money. That has been one of the choke points in the whole system so that in actual fact nothing has occurred. It is quite serious that we are in that dilemma because we have not only the complexities around competing interests be it people wanting to compete for scallops cod or whatever else but also the issue that people want to farm mussels. 
Today in the Marlborough Sounds we have 3023 hectares of aquaculture distributed between 616 separate marine farms. It is very interesting to see the range of aquaculture—it is something that has not been talked about very much tonight. There is salmon there is paua there is seaweed there are sponges there are scallops and there is oyster farming. When we look at aquaculture in Marlborough we see the region has 65 percent by area of the mussel farms in New Zealand and 95 percent of the finfish farming in New Zealand. We all talk about the sea but there is also to a varying degree of success aquaculture on the land. We have salmon being farmed up the Wairau River. Also in Kaikoura we have crayfish or what would be more affectionately known over in Australia as yabbies. 
As members can see there is a fair amount of history to the aquaculture industry. A wonderful book has been written on the industry; it is called  
Lines in the water 
. But we can be as sure as eggs that if we measure what has been achieved by this Government we find it has been well articulated by the National Party spokesperson Phil Heatley as being absolutely nothing. 
The member from the Maori Party articulated that a $100 million - plus bill is sitting at the end of the process to ensure that Maori get 20 percent of the previously allocated space. It has to be underscored too that they are entitled to 20 percent of the future space that will be allocated. How did all that come about? That is quite interesting because at the very heart of it all was the Ngati Apa issue. Once Ngati Apa got the allocation of 20 percent there were so many people in front of them that there would never have been an opportunity for them to get up to or near the front. So in fact the debate came out of the Ngati Apa claim to the foreshore and seabed and of course it took off from there. It is with great comfort that I see in relation to the Kurahaupo settlement that Richard Bradley and others are talking about including that sort of solution in their final settlement. I believe that we have to move forward on that. I have absolute confidence and faith in the process and in the Kurahaupo people. I see Dr Cullen acknowledging that that would be a good outcome. 
But I say the sad thing about the aquaculture industry is that under this Government’s watch our best and finest people have left this country and invested in places like Port Lincoln in South Australia or over in Chile—people who have really worked hard and grown this industry from infancy and who have had nothing but roadblocks and obstacles from this tired Labour Government. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 The aquaculture industry is one that has huge potential for New Zealand. We are a coastal nation. We have beautiful clean oceans and we have many areas of New Zealand where aquaculture can play a very important role in regional development. But it is an area that has been wrecked by poor public policy from this Government. Only a month ago I had 320 constituents lose their jobs at Sealord Shellfish as a consequence of the mess this Government has made of the aquaculture industry. To put those job losses in context I note that it is the biggest single loss of jobs in Nelson in its 158 years of settled history. It is a huge blow to my electorate’s economy. I say to the Government opposite that accountability day is coming up later this year on which the people of Nelson— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Is Lockwood accountable as well? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I notice that Labour members are laughing. They think that the loss of 320 jobs is a laughing matter. I have to say to members opposite that that is one of the reasons why the people of New Zealand have lost confidence in the Government. When members think it is a laughing matter— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the member’s speech but I felt compelled to correct the record. I was not laughing at the loss of jobs—that would be reprehensible. I was laughing at the need for Lockwood Smith to be accountable. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is a debatable issue. The member can take the next call. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I say to Mr Cosgrove that the part Labour does not understand is that when 320 people in Nelson lose their jobs because of botched aquaculture legislation this Government has done its day. When Clayton Cosgrove and his colleagues opposite laugh their heads off I say to them that this is not a laughing issue. This is an issue that goes to the core of the wealth creation that New Zealand needs to engage in if it is to maintain living standards and stop the tide of New Zealanders departing for Australia. 
What has been so depressing for me in Nelson is to watch scientists investors and skilled people in Nelson the leadership of the aquaculture industry take their skills and wealth to Australia because of the botched regulatory regime that this Government has made of aquaculture. Let us compare the record. In 1990 the aquaculture industry was worth $40 million. With the very careful stewardship of people like Doug Kidd the Minister of Fisheries in the last Government that industry grew from $40 million a year to $260 million a year and was one of the reasons during the 1990s that the economy was growing so strongly in places like Marlborough and Nelson. The first thing that this Government did when it came to office in 1999 was to impose a moratorium on aquaculture. The first thing that Clayton Cosgrove and his colleagues over there did was to freeze the growth of this industry. They rushed into Parliament an aquaculture moratorium bill that resulted in freezing this industry. Since that time they have had four cracks at trying to get the aquaculture— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Ha ha! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member is laughing again. The members of the Labour Party are so out of touch with New Zealanders that they think when they make a mess of legislation that it is a laughing matter. 
Let us read the intent of this bill. It is to clarify the aquaculture reform legislation of 2004. Well the reason that it needs to be clarified is because the Government botched it up—it made a mess of it. And now we have the fourth attempt a desperate attempt in the dying gasping days of this Government to get some sense in to the development of the aquaculture industry. The great irony is that about a year ago I and Phil Heatley our very capable spokesperson on fishing and aquaculture attended a function in Nelson where the Prime Minister launched a billion-dollar strategy for the aquaculture industry. She told the people of Nelson my community that hundreds of new jobs would be able to be produced as a consequence of this Government’s policies—and within a year 320 jobs were down the toilet. So the members opposite should say “Mea culpa.” They should accept some responsibility for the mess they have made of this important industry. They should accept some responsibility for the job losses that have occurred as a consequence of the legislation they have passed that has not worked at all well. 
I like Phil Heatley do not have confidence that the reforms in this bill will go nearly far enough for what will be required to get the aquaculture industry onto a growth path. We will support the bill’s referral to the select committee because we want to have a crack at trying to fix the mess that Labour has made of this aquaculture law. Clayton Cosgrove and his Labour colleagues think it is funny that they have frozen an industry. They think it is funny that 320 jobs have been lost in Nelson as a consequence of the mess they have made in the aquaculture industry. They think it is funny that we have a large number of aquaculture investors who have taken their capital to other parts of the world because of what those members have done in New Zealand. They think it is funny that research scientists who work in the aquaculture area have taken their skills to other parts of the world. National says that that is not good enough. One of the reasons this Government will be tossed out on its ear is poor legislation in this sort of area which has cost the growth of areas like Nelson and Marlborough because of poor public policy and lost opportunities. 
I say to the aquaculture industry that help is on the way. There is a mood out there in New Zealand for change—change to a Government that recognises the potential that this industry has and will get rid of the ridiculous bureaucracy and red tape that Labour has tied up the aquaculture industry in over the last 9 years. I say to members opposite that the statistics paint a very clear picture of the Government’s failure in aquaculture. Average compound growth during the 1990s was 23 percent per year—23 percent year on year growth within the aquaculture industry. In 1 year over the last 9 years it got to 2 percent but there was an average of just 1 percent growth. That is why New Zealand is going backwards that is why we need a change of Government and that is why we need an aquaculture reform bill that goes considerably further than this fourth botched attempt by the Labour Government to get the law in this important area of resource management right. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of State Services) 
on behalf of the  
Minister for the Environment 
: I move  
That the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill be referred to the Primary Production Committee 
 with an instruction that the committee presents its final report on or before 25 August 2008 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 195(1)(b) and (c) and 192. 
Motion agreed to. 
Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. The background to this bill is well known to members of the House now. It has been the practice for as long as I can remember—which is a fair amount of time now—that between election night and the return of the writs services continue to be provided to members and to new members apparently elected on election night; that is things such as travel costs accommodation costs and out-of-Parliament expenses. But doubt has now arisen—indeed it is more than that; it is now clear that legislative authority does not exist for those entitlements to continue. In other words without this legislation no such payments can be paid between election night this year and the return of the writs. That does not affect Ministers because Ministers’ entitlements are paid separately under Ministerial Services and Ministers continue in office until any changes have occurred. 
The bill was introduced not very long ago and was sent to the Standing Orders Committee for consideration. At the time of the first reading I explained to the House that I had quite strong reservations personally about one aspect of the bill and that the select committee would need to look carefully at that aspect. That aspect involved determining who indeed was if one likes elected on election night even though the writs had not yet been returned. The bill as introduced made provision for that to be determined by the general manager of the Parliamentary Service who could form an opinion based on the results as known on election night. The select committee came to the view unanimously—and quite properly in my view—that that was not a satisfactory position to place the general manager in and that it was not a satisfactory position for Parliament to be in in that regard. 
The select committee came to the view that the results to be published by the Chief Electoral Office on election night and subsequently give a clear indication of who the member for a particular constituency is and therefore—on the basis of the party vote—who the list MPs elected for each party to be represented in Parliament are. Of course as we have seen those results can change quite significantly under MMP—much more so than under first past the post. At previous elections we have already had a situation where a party did not exist after the election night but where it reappeared on the return of the writs as it passed the 5 percent threshold. Nevertheless the functioning of the political system needs to be such that members are able to receive entitlements to enable business to continue such as discussion about the formation of a Government and any coalition arrangements and all those matters that necessarily cannot wait until the final return of the writs. 
So the select committee has amended the bill in that particular respect and with that one change of significance I am very happy now to support the bill and to move the second reading. 
NATHAN GUY (National) 
: 
 National supports the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill at its second reading this evening. It is important legislation. It is good that we had a very good look at this legislation in the Standing Orders Committee. In the past we did not realise that we had no law that members may be paid over the approximately 2-week period—and that can vary—between polling day and declaration day. So this bill will tidy up that anomaly in order to allow members to be paid over that 2-week period. The examples I would like to raise for the House this evening are those whereby a member will be required by his or her caucus to fly to Wellington after polling day presuming that that member will be declared a member of Parliament. Therefore some accommodation contribution will need to be paid by Parliamentary Service. 
The other important point to make to the House and to those listening is that current sitting MPs have leases on their offices and also phone-rental expenses. That was an important aspect that the select committee looked at in order to ensure that those two very important components were funded over that 2-week period on average. 
We received no submissions when this legislation went out into the public arena but I need to acknowledge the good work of the Standing Orders Committee. I also endorse the comments that Dr Cullen made about the general manager making those decisions and I think it is important that the Chief Electoral Officer can declare those results as quickly as possible on the night of or certainly on the Sunday after election day. We are looking forward to the contributions at the Committee stage of this bill as it traverses through the House. 
Bill read a second time. 
Policing Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House)  
on behalf of the  
Minister of Police 
: I move  
That the Policing Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill is a major piece of legislation though it is not very long by the standards of some of our current pieces of legislation. The bill replaces the Police Act of 1958 which is some 50 years old and is certainly fairly ancient legislation—perhaps Mr Borrows remembers the passing of the bill; I am not sure. Not many of our statutes on the books these days are still in their principal form dating back some 50 years. Clearly there is a need to update the Police Act given the enormous changes that have occurred in society and the enormous changes that have occurred in the nature of the police force and policing in New Zealand. Fifty years ago of course nearly all members of the New Zealand Police Force were men with very few women in the police force at that stage. Now a substantially increasing proportion of police officers in New Zealand including senior police officers are women. Nearly all police officers in 1958 were of Pakeha background. That is certainly no longer true and the police are increasingly representative of the much more complex and multi-ethnic society that we have seen emerge over that period of time. 
There has been wide consultation around this legislation and I know that the Minister of Police is extremely keen to see this legislation passed. The bill continues the best features of the current legislation particularly—and most crucially—the independent role of the police and the traditional role of the police constable. I have to say that I am often concerned in this House and outside when members of Parliament talk to the Government about the Government or in criticism of it implying that the Government should in some way interfere in the way that the police run their own affairs and should be directing the police about how they carry out investigations whether they carry out investigations whether charges should be laid and so on. It is a fundamental principle in my view of a police force in our kind of democratic society that they are operationally independent of the political system—obviously they are accountable to Parliament and the Government but they are not directed by Parliament or the Government in the way in which they operate. 
I am very pleased to see that in New Zealand under this bill we are continuing the tradition of an operationally independent police force and not going down the track that I see British politicians talking about amongst both major political parties which is introducing an elected element into the management of the police system. The Conservative Party is actually talking about electing chief constables and the British Labour Party is talking about electing police authorities with supervisory powers over the police. I think that that would be a very bad track for us to proceed down. We have seen in the United States where senior police officers are elected or politicised that that creates all kinds of difficulties that we do not see occurring within New Zealand. 
The police of course are clearly responsible for the maintenance of law and order and in a modern complex society that is no easy business indeed. It often requires difficult issues of prioritisation. The police occupy a very special and difficult place in regard to the issues around employment practices in terms of conditions of employment. But I am pleased to note that the Minister of Police was so keen to see this bill passed that she has rushed run—indeed sprinted—and almost qualified for the Olympic Games in arriving here for the second reading of this bill. I am sure that she will be very pleased to take the second call on behalf of the Government. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to indicate the National Party’s support for the passing of the Policing Bill. I have to say that the process of putting the bill together—consideration across parties and the select committee process—was very much a non-partisan effort. Many of us from various parties felt that we had the opportunity to have a great deal of input into the way the bill proceeded. 
The Policing Bill underlines a number of aspects of the Police Act 1958 and as Dr Cullen said it has been a long time coming. The principles which form part of that Act and have stayed pretty much the same over the past 50 years include as stated in clause 8: “principled effective and efficient policing services are a cornerstone of a free and democratic society under the rule of law:”. Although we would all agree with that other impacting legislation has over the years changed the way in which policing is done. If we look back for instance at changes to what we now call the Summary Offences Act—which was the Police Act 1927 as Mr Deputy Speaker would have learnt when he was at the Police College as did those of us of a similar vintage—we see that some of its provisions seem completely Draconian and archaic compared to what we are dealing with today. 
Paula Bennett 
: It was a long time ago. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: It was a long time ago. 
There was for instance impact from the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It changed the face of policing in respect of acceptable practice in dealing with accused persons what warnings had to be given and what rights had to be extended. The game changed significantly. If we look forward through until today we see a police service that is different from the one we had just 15 or 20 years ago in terms of civilianisation which is probably a politically incorrect and old-fashioned term. Now we see the difference between sworn and non-sworn staff and non-sworn staff carry out some duties that are parallel to those carried out by their sworn compatriots. 
As stated in clause 8 another principle on which the Police Act is based is that: “effective policing relies on a wide measure of public support and confidence:”. The New Zealand Police or any other police service around the world could not operate in the ratio of numbers that it does within this country without the support and confidence of the public of New Zealand. The police forces around the world that do not operate with such confidence have to be far more paramilitary and oppressive. 
Another principle states “policing services are provided under a national framework but also have a local community focus:”. If we compare for instance our national police service with Britain’s we see that there are 43 police forces in Britain. There are 37000 of them within the United States. People in New Zealand have the comfort of knowing that the law that applies to them in one area generally applies to them in another. Another principle is: “policing services are provided in a manner that respects human rights:” and that reflects the legislation affecting human rights that has been passed since the Police Act 1958 was passed. 
The next principle is that “policing services are provided independently and impartially:”. We now have an Independent Police Conduct Authority. That authority does act independently but it also with another leg acts with police assistance to ensure that people who are confronted by the police have their rights respected and their complaints dealt with independently and impartially and it ensures that if they have been dealt with and prosecuted by the police they have been dealt with in an impartial manner. Lastly clause 8 states: “in providing policing services every Police employee is required to act professionally ethically and with integrity.” and every employee is therefore subject to the Employment Relations Act and also to the provisions of this bill as they replace the Police Act 1958. 
It was interesting to go through the select committee process and see the issues that were raised by the submitters. Largely submitters were positive in respect of the bill and wanted only a little tweak here and there. Those who were concerned with human rights or for instance with the way biometric data would be preserved and used in investigations made their submissions known but most of the committee accepts that we live in a new age and that for instance DNA is just a new fingerprint and has the ability to exclude as well as include suspects in any investigation. 
During the select committee process two issues stuck out. One was the delegated powers of the Commissioner of Police in terms of being able to delegate duties to those who are not sworn police and are also working within the policing area. The Police Association raised this as an issue and initially that was to be dealt with by regulation. As a result of the process that will be done by empowering legislation within a fairly tight time frame. Members of the committee felt that that was fair enough bearing in mind the precedent that it set. 
The other issue that became relatively contentious was the ability of police to stand for and be elected to territorial local authorities. It was raised by one or two submitters and I guess they came from two camps. One had a particular area—and in some cases a particular councillor—in mind and the others were legal purists who talked about a separation of powers and said that those who write the law should not be those who enforce it. But other submitters made the point that police who serve on councils tend to bring to the table far more than just the fact that they happen to be sworn police officers. Police serve on a number of councils around New Zealand and where they put themselves up for candidacy they tend to get an overwhelming response from members of the public and tend to poll highly which indicates the confidence that members of the police service enjoy from their local community. 
National members did not agree with the position of the bill as it was to come back to the House as it would not allow for members of the police to stand in elections for local councils. We indicated at that stage that we would put forward a Supplementary Order Paper to amend the bill. I am pleased to say that during the select committee process in respect of estimates and when speaking to the Minister the Minister indicated that the Labour caucus was in favour of the status quo as it was in the Police Act 1958 and that members of the police should be able to stand for and be elected to territorial local authorities. 
This is different of course from their ability to stand for central government which members of the police are prevented from doing. If a member of the police wishes to stand as a candidate for central government he or she must go on leave without pay from writ day and then await the outcome of the election. If the candidate is successful he or she must resign; if unsuccessful police duties may be taken up again. 
I believe that the New Zealand Police Association lobbied strongly for retaining the right of local police to be able to stand for local councils and serve in that way and National was pleased to put forward Supplementary Order Paper 213 in an attempt to preserve the status quo as it is in the Police Act 1958. Given the support of the Labour caucus we expect to see that transition in the course of the Policing Bill going through the Committee stage and the third reading. 
It is good to see before the House a bill that will have such a significant effect on the enforcement of law and order in this country—probably for the next 50 years—and that recognises the changing face of policing and the stresses and strains on our men and women in blue who serve us so well. National is pleased to support the Policing Bill. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) 
: 
 First of all I thank my colleague the Hon Dr Michael Cullen for the interest he has shown in this historic piece of legislation. He has ensured that it reaches the Order Paper in time for its passage before the election and also took the first speech tonight because although I am a particularly fast runner I could not make the House before it was time for me to speak so I am very grateful for his support. I also thank members of the House for their support. The member who has just spoken Chester Borrows has been from the beginning a continuous supporter of the Policing Bill and I think that that probably reflects his knowledge of policing from many years as a former police officer and his interest in policing. I also thank other members of this House: Ron Mark has shown particular interest and been very supportive throughout this process but so have the Green Party Maori Party United Future and ACT. So in terms of all the parties of this House this is one of those rare occasions when we have tremendous support for a piece of legislation. 
Tonight I also want to acknowledge Superintendent Hamish McCardle who is in the gallery. Superintendent McCardle and Mike Webb are two people who have really been the architects of this bill. They have put in countless hours to get this bill into shape for introduction. For them it is almost like watching a baby grow. They have been with this bill every step of the way and I want to acknowledge that Superintendent McCardle is here tonight supporting it again. 
When I introduced this bill in February this year in its first reading I noted that it contains the most far-reaching legislative proposals on policing to come before the House in 50 years. After all the old Police Act is 50 years old and we could describe it as legislation that is covered in sticking plaster because it has so many amendments attached to it. So this is very far-reaching legislation—a total rewrite of a major Act. 
I also drew attention to the multiple strands of public consultation testing and refinement that have been threaded together in the bill and that mean that it does largely represent a consensus view. I thank all the members of the Law and Order Committee for the constructive way they have approached the fine-tuning of this bill. I believe the draft legislation has been strengthened as a result. 
I wish to draw attention to some of the more significant changes heralded in the bill. First the bill provides an important acknowledgment that trust and confidence in the police hinge on policing being conducted in a principled way. Clause 8 identifies six principles that are broadly agreed to be important in the New Zealand policing tradition. They include acting impartially and Chester Borrows has already mentioned that; upholding high standards of ethics integrity and professionalism; and providing a national service linked strongly with local people and communities just to name some. 
The bill also recognises that the police cannot and do not act alone in responding effectively to safety and security needs. This is why clause 10 highlights the roles played by a range of partner organisations as well as the efforts of individuals families and communities. For example we see real progress being made when the police work in partnership with groups like Maori wardens Neighbourhood Support groups and community patrols and where the collaborative links are formed with organisations like for example the private security industry. 
I also draw attention to clause 16 which clarifies the relative areas of authority of the Commissioner of Police and the Minister of Police. In future we will not need to rely solely on custom and convention or case law to understand where the line is drawn between the legitimate role of the chief of police and the Minister of the Crown or those who act for them. This is a major step forward and it is strongly supported by constitutional experts. 
This bill also contains a number of provisions designed to support the operational effectiveness of the police. Although time constraints do not allow me to reveal all of them in detail I do want to briefly highlight clauses 32 to 34 which update powers relating to the identification of suspected offenders who have been lawfully detained by police. For instance clause 33 will allow front-line police to obtain a suspect offender’s identifying details without the need for the person to be physically arrested facilitating the use of summons and other notices to commence proceedings. This improvement should reduce the opportunity for people to provide false identities and in turn prevent precious time and resources being wasted in the justice system while the law catches up with the offenders. 
I want to single out three aspects of the bill’s personnel provisions that will support the commissioner’s ability to employ a modern police workforce. First and foremost the bill provides clearer recognition of the office of constable and reinforces its central place in the New Zealand system of policing but it breaks with the old-style thinking that assumes we need to run two parallel employment frameworks for general police staff and those who are constables. Part 4 confidently takes police into the mainstream environment where all police staff work under a unified system for setting terms and conditions of employment. This is a sensible evolution and long overdue. 
Secondly the bill gives a statutory basis to a code of conduct for all police staff reinforcing the importance of ethics and integrity in the way policing is done in New Zealand. Thirdly I want to highlight the way the bill provides greater assurance about the skills and qualifications of the men and women empowered to perform particular policing functions. Unlike the situation under the 1958 Act the bill will introduce an explicit requirement that a person who is appointed as a constable or an authorised officer is adequately trained and capable of exercising his or her powers. Although this has always been a legitimate expectation clauses 22(2) and 24(2) will make it a statutory requirement that recipients of policing powers and duties are suitably qualified to discharge their assigned responsibilities. 
The Policing Bill contains important innovations but also carries through cherished traditions. The bill reforms the legal structure under which the New Zealand Police is mandated and organised and will better enable the police to face future challenges. The bill as a whole is welcomed by the men and women who serve in the New Zealand Police and it has been particularly pleasing to see such a wide measure of support and public support coming from the police staff associations and the community at large. I now call upon members on all sides of the House to add their backing to this bill which promises I believe to help ensure that both Kiwis and visitors to our country will continue to receive the highest standard of policing. I do commend this bill to the House. 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise today and speak in support of the Policing Bill at its second reading. Firstly I too acknowledge the work of the Law and Order Committee of which I am a member. I must say that it was a nice change to be part of a process that was for the most part non-contentious and non-partisan and that had the full backing and cooperation of all parties in this House. That is something that unfortunately the public does not get to see much of from this Parliament. This rare expression of unity is certainly in marked contrast to the furore that followed the passage of the Electoral Finance Bill through the House. 
This bill is a real testament to the efforts of Hamish McCardle—and I note that the Minister has already acknowledged his efforts—and the Police Act review team and I thank them for their enormous contribution as well. I also recognize the extensive and innovative consultation process held over almost 2 years that has allowed members of the public to engage in this lawmaking process in so many different and unique ways. Everyone who had an important role to play in bringing this legislation to the House has had his or her voice heard and I hope we will see more of this kind of involvement in the future. 
We are and should be strong supporters of the police in New Zealand. The National Party is a strong supporter of the police and I believe that by and large as a country we have widespread support for confidence in and respect for the police force despite some of the setbacks experienced in recent years. I recognize here today the tremendous work the police do every day in keeping our communities safe. It is not an easy job nor is it a job that can be just left behind at the end of the day. Sometimes when the organisation is under scrutiny that point is easily forgotten. I believe that New Zealand has a police force we can all be proud of and I am pleased that through this bill we are truly modernising the New Zealand Police by providing its members with the necessary tool kit that will allow for the delivery of better policing services for our communities in dealing with 21st century situations and that will better position us as a nation for the future. 
I will give a recent example of how modern and in touch with our community our police can be. In a recent radio interview in Christchurch there was the story of a policeman who picked up a young schoolgirl who was a truant and took her to school. Her mother unfortunately left for work every morning at about 6.15 a.m. She was not there to make sure that her daughter went to school; there was nothing to give this young woman the discipline or the incentive to go to school. So the local policeman off his own bat decided that he would pick her up every morning and take her to school and within one week she was back enjoying learning and enjoying school. That is a true and remarkable testimony to the importance and role of our police work in our community—work that does actually make a real difference. 
I think we have done well in ensuring that this bill stays true to the spirit of the original Act. The first principles on which it was founded remain largely the same within this Policing Bill and are described as having stood the test of time. These founding principles are firstly that “(a) principled effective and efficient policing services are a cornerstone of a free and democratic society under the rule of law:”. The principles have been mentioned by the Minister and are contained in clause 8 of the bill. They also include the principles that “(b) effective policing relies on a wide measure of public support and confidence: (c) policing services are provided under a national framework but also have a local community focus: (d) policing services are provided in a manner that respects human rights: (e) policing services are provided independently and impartially:” and that “(f) in providing policing services every Police employee is required to act professionally ethically and with integrity.” These principles are as relevant today as they were in 1958. 
I mentioned earlier that this bill was largely non-contentious but there was one point—and it has been mentioned by my colleague Mr Borrows—on which we perhaps did not all agree. That was the inclusion of a new clause clause 97 that sought to deal with the politicisation of the police force by allowing serving officers in uniform to be elected to local government—colloquially known as “cops as councillors”. Questions were raised about why constables authorised officers and supervisors were not explicitly prohibited from being able to be elected members of local government in the same way they are prohibited from being members of Parliament while still constables supervisors and authorised officers. Some submitters were concerned that because local bodies had bylaw-making powers a constitutional anomaly would allow the law enforcers to also be the lawmakers. That was mentioned by my colleague Mr Borrows and it was based on the legal purists as he said. I know that New Zealand First and Labour members of the committee also shared those concerns and it was a question of whether those lawmakers should be the enforcers of the laws they had had a part in making. 
It therefore came as somewhat of a relief to National—and also to the Police Association which agreed that the proposal was in its words “ridiculous and unjustified”—when the Minister confirmed and acknowledged at the select committee that she and her party supported the status quo which does allow the police to put themselves up for election at local body elections. This proposal does not actually affect many police officers. In fact I understand that only about six officers throughout the country are also local authority councillors. I think it is important to be aware to acknowledge and to trust that it is up to the individual police officer who is also the councillor to deal appropriately with any perceived or arguable conflict of interest situation. Similarly it is up to the public when voting for those councillors to elect those they think are the best people for the job. If the best person for the job happens to be the community cop then it is up to the community to make that election and make that vote. 
As an example Mr John Morrissey is an example of a police officer stationed in the Coromandel area and doing a fine job while also serving as the Coromandel-Colville ward councillor on the Thames-Coromandel District Council. He is in his second term as councillor and is able to do both jobs well at the same time. His re-election showed that voters believe he is doing a good job and I am certain that Mr Morrissey is not alone. In fact I know he is not alone. In the electorate where I reside we have a Mr Brine who is in a similar situation. He is not in his first term as councillor he deals with any conflict of interest situations appropriately and his appointment was reinforced when he was duly elected by the ratepayers and citizens of the Waimakariri district. They obviously have the faith to think that he is one of the best people to do that job. 
I am pleased that we have all come to some sense in this House and that this clause will be removed through Supplementary Order Paper 213 which my colleague Chester Borrows has prepared. I urge the support of the House on that. This leaves a bill that confirms and strengthens police government accountability and organisational arrangements in a way that reflects 21st century New Zealand thereby making the organisation as a whole more accountable and more transparent while at the same time improving police efficiency. We commend this bill to the House at its second reading and trust that its remaining stages will run as smoothly as its introduction has. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 First I heartily congratulate the policing review team and the Minister of Police on the manner in which this police review was conducted and the legislation formulated and brought to the House. 
Only a small number of submissions were received; they were from some 34 groups in all of which only 22 were heard by the Law and Order Committee. That is probably a fair indication of the degree of acceptance in the wider community that the review had been thorough the issues well canvassed and discussed and the bill pretty much on track. I pass on the congratulations of New Zealand First to the policing review team the Minister and the advisers who assisted the select committee in its work. But I specifically congratulate the Minister on the process. A lot of legislation comes to the House some of which we could assume is not contentious at all if people took time out and consulted more broadly and were prepared to accept differing views. If that happened we might actually find that a lot of other business would progress through this House with far less angst and a higher degree of consensus if the process that happened with this bill was duplicated in other portfolios. 
I congratulate also the select committee. It has been a pleasure working with the team and the reason we arrived at this point with virtually unanimous support in the House reflects the way this entire bill was handled. 
There is not really a lot more to be said. I think most of the speakers have covered some of the ground. We can reflect that the bill deals with some language change. People will have to get used to it. Members who have been law and order spokesmen for quite some time will have to get used to not using the terms “sworn” and “non-sworn officers”. There will be no such definition. We will be talking about “constables” “authorised officers” and “supervisors” but essentially everyone in the New Zealand Police will be police employees. That is a very clear change in definition and the reasons have been clearly outlined. 
The other strength of the bill is that it recognises that police do not police in a vacuum these days. They have long come to accept that their effectiveness in the community in preventing and resolving crime depends on the type of relationships they have. In fact it relies on the police having strong relationships and a high degree of respect for those other citizens in our communities who work to preserve protect and make safe the citizens in their communities. The standout examples for New Zealand First are security companies which are increasingly being used by New Zealanders whether corporates or private citizens to enhance their security. Maori wardens have long been a specific focus of New Zealand First hence the rather large allocation in the Budget first time up of funding from the Treasurer to Maori wardens to ensure they are established in areas where they have died out that they are trained that they are effective that they understand the statute that governs them and that they have a clear fundamentally strong and working relationship with the police. 
I think the Budget and the initiatives that have been undertaken and supported by the Commissioner of Police and the police in general in respect of Maori wardens have actually leapfrogged ahead of this bill. But this bill will cement in statute that relationship as it will with those Neighbourhood Watch and Neighbourhood Support groups that we see out in our communities every day of the week every night of the week as they patrol our communities. Maori wardens and the relationship they have with the police given and respecting that they have their own statute are a lot stronger and a lot more effective now due to the new relationship and the new initiative where the police themselves have taken the responsibility of providing training at the Royal New Zealand Police College and the underpinning of that relationship through this Policing Bill will only give strength to that initiative. 
We have already seen a 29 percent decrease in crime in the central business district of Rotorua. We are seeing strong reductions in crime—in particular street crime—in other areas where there is a high density of Maori population. As this bill comes into effect and as we continue to advance the decreases in street crime particularly where it relates to Maori youth will continue. I have only one other hope one other wish one other dream for Maori and their relationship with the New Zealand Police and it is this: I look forward to the day when every Maori family in this country has a police officer sitting at their breakfast table—he or she being a member of their family and a member of the New Zealand Police. When we see that level of integration we will see a fundamental change and shift in the way in which Maori themselves behave in our communities. I shudder to use the word “behave” but it is unavoidable. Who knows even Hone Harawira might be a cop one day! 
The independence of the Police Commissioner is paramount. It is interesting that we sometimes stand in this House and make demands for the Minister of Police to act. Of late in the last 12 months a number of MPs from the Maori Party the National Party and even from my own party on occasion have demanded that the Minister intervene in an issue and tell the police what they should be doing. The fact is we all know that is wrong and we all know that what makes the difference between a New Zealand democracy and a Zimbabwean one is that our Commissioner of Police stands independent and alone. We all know that the three tenets that underpin our democracy—the separation of powers between the judiciary the Parliament and the police—are fundamental to a strong healthy democracy. This bill reinforces that principle. 
The question of community input into policing priorities is a much-vexed question and often leads to calls for police commissioners to be elected or for police area commanders or district commanders to be held accountable by the mayors of those respective communities. I do not think that argument will go away and the amount of vitriol we hear the level of discussion on occasions will pretty much be dependent on how communities see the police in their area in terms of their effectiveness and the effect of prioritisation as the community feels it should be. We live in hope that as we go forward there will be a greater degree of discussion between police commanders their communities and the community of mayors within each of those areas or police districts. 
There will be changes to police general instructions as a result of the bill. One of the things that I like is that we have introduced and we are more specific about offences such as failure to help a police employee. In the bill we have spelt out very clearly that a person who fails to give help when asked commits an offence and is liable to a fine not exceeding $2000. I am particularly pleased about that. There is the offence of killing or injuring a police dog. A number of police dogs have been killed or severely injured in recent years as a result of the increasing levels of violence in our communities and the propensity of certain offenders to resort to violence. The punishment includes 24 months in jail or a fine of $15000 or both and is a pretty fair depiction of the community’s revulsion at such practice. 
New Zealand First supports this bill and will continue to do so as it progresses through the House. Thank you very much. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is supporting the Policing Bill. We thank the Law and Order Committee for the work it has done on the bill. 
I think the points Ron Mark made on the independence of the police are very important. Many occasions in this Parliament particularly those involving MPs make it clear that the separation of powers is required if the police are to look objectively at cases. I think that the relationship between the police and the Government is laid out reasonably well in the bill at least on one side—that is the responsibilities of the police. 
One of the points covered by clause 16 is to give effect to any lawful ministerial directions. Unfortunately the provision does not spell that out as fully and adequately as the previous police amendment bill did which has been subsumed into this legislation. That is what I understand from the discussions that took place around that amendment bill. One thing that can be worrying is a situation where a ministerial direction to the police is not fully known to Parliament and through Parliament to the general public. I think it is important that any ministerial directions be tabled in the House as was intended with the previous bill so that there is a clear understanding that the police are not being pushed around for political purposes by an incumbent Government. 
I think the line between what the Government should get involved in and what the police are in full control of has been highlighted in the controversy around Tasers. The Government and I think the police have defined it as an operational matter that comes within the independent orbit of what the police themselves should be responsible for. But it can also be argued that given the impact of having essentially a higher level of armament of the police force with the addition of 50000-volt stun guns it is something that is not just within the immediate operation of the police and there should be more community involvement just as if there were a decision to arm all the police generally—in the way that American and other police are armed—then surely it would be something that the general community through its representatives in Parliament and the Government should deal with. That decision should not be handled purely by the police. 
That relates to one of the points in the principles—and it is not a bad set of principles—outlined in clause 8. Clause 8(b) states: “effective policing relies on a wide measure of public support and confidence:”. Clause 8(d) states: “policing services are provided in a manner that respects human rights:”. Both of those points apply to the Taser decision. One of the concerns the Green Party has raised about the possible introduction of the Taser weapon is that it might undermine the ability of the police to enjoy a wide measure of public support and confidence and that it might—to relate it to clause 8 again—lead to the undermining of policing services being provided in a manner that respects human rights. We have already seen some transgressions—mainly with pepper sprays and in some respects in the year-long Taser trial—that could run contrary to those principles under clause 8. So that is very much an open question. I think it is possible that the bill should be amended a bit further in order to clarify that relationship between the Minister or the Government as a whole and the police. 
Another question that has been under some discussion is the increasing use of civilian staff. In the public debate on this bill there has been some concern about jailors guards and transport enforcement people being civilians and sometimes crime investigators having powers of arrest. They are all operating outside the sworn officer force. I think the Police Association has raised some concerns and I am not sure whether they have been fully addressed in this final version of the bill. 
Another question that concerns the Green Party and one that was raised in some of the submissions is the powers of search held by the police. There do not seem to be sufficient qualifications that there have to be reasonable grounds for a search in the provision in the bill for searching people outside of police premises and police cars. There is new wording that tries to rectify that; I am not sure whether it fully meets the circumstances. People might be searched when they are in all sorts of odd places where it is harder to insist on there being a reasonable requirement for searching. If someone is arrested it should not be the case that it is just open slather and the police automatically have the right to search that person. 
Another provision in the bill that is actually quite good is the provision for officers serving overseas because it is true that one of our major contributions—it may become our most important contribution—to international peacekeeping as it is sometimes called is done through the work of our police officers. They have done a fantastic job in places like the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. It is good that that role is now being integrated into the police system through the Policing Bill. I think as well we need to budget for that overseas work much more clearly because if the police think they are losing some funding and resources to those overseas operations it can create conflict for them. If we plan more consciously for it as an ongoing component of police work it should be funded accordingly. 
With those few comments I say that the Green Party will be supporting this bill. Thank you. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. I was just listening to Mr Ron Mark’s speech before about fining people $2000 if they do not go to the assistance of the police. Well people should fine me $2000 and fine me now because if I ever see the police pounding on my neighbour Mr Mangu Awarau they can yell at me they can point a gun at me they can ask me they can do anything and I ain’t going to come to their assistance. They can put me in jail but I will not come to their assistance. A policeman’s job is a policeman’s job and he can do it himself. 
The historian Richard Hill called our early police “the iron hand in the velvet glove” yet by 1958 when the Police Act came into force New Zealand police officers were still running around with just a baton a torch a whistle and a set of handcuffs. Fifty years on from that and our police still operate under the terms of that Act. But in the wake of a massive drop in public confidence in the police following front-page allegations and convictions of horrific sexual assaults by the police themselves the police terrorism raids against Tuhoe and the Bazley Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct it has become obvious that a review is well overdue. However I can tell members that for many Maori confidence in the police died a long long time ago. In many Maori communities that confidence has been replaced by bitterness and anger at the way in which the police have been used as stand-over agents for rip-off landlords thieving businessmen land-grabbing developers and rapacious Governments both red and blue. So this bill to tidy up how the police are run what accountability they should have and what the commissioner and deputy commissioner should be doing is way overdue. 
The Maori Party has a few suggestions to make but we were really surprised to see that a Gallup poll of 6700 cops and support staff released in February 2008 found that most of them do not even trust the force to provide them with a good place to work that the fundamental requirements of a strong and vibrant workplace fall short and that with only 9 percent being really happy in their work the New Zealand Police is way down the bottom of the list of places where people actually want to work. So this bill to update police governance accountability and organisation is a positive move but we need to make sure that how the bill is written actually translates into how the police operate—and it does not. 
Dr Trevor Bradley from the institute of criminology at Victoria University reckons that although having principles and functions of policing is a positive development the bill does not actually lock the principles into practice. For example the bill talks about public consent and legitimacy but provides no framework for local consultation or accountability. YouthLaw Tino Rangatiratanga Taitamariki pointed out that although there are clear obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure that police respect the interests of young people there is no reference in the bill to the questioning of or getting information from those young people and there needs to be. The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties has long called for police operational guidelines to be published so that people know what their rights are and what limits there are on police behaviour yet this requirement is not included in the bill either. These examples show clearly how this bill is big on the talk but nowhere when it comes to the walk. That is not really surprising given how deaf dumb and blind this House can be when it comes to recognising and acting on principles of fair play and honour. 
Arguably the biggest omission in this Policing Bill is that the principal section of the bill does not refer to the Treaty of Waitangi does not refer to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and in fact does not even mention the Treaty of Waitangi at all which opens up a really interesting scenario. The rationale for why a Treaty clause should be in the bill was part of Ngai Tahu’s submission presented on behalf of the Commissioner of Police’s Maori Focus Forum. That submission drew our attention to the actions of this colony’s armed police particularly during the land wars and highlighted how policing has often been and continues to be used as an instrument of Government—often to brutal effect against Maori. That submission should be compulsory reading for all members of this House as we consider how policing should operate in Aotearoa because it confirms the role that this country’s armed constabulary played in assisting the Crown’s many breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Our people do not easily forget those policies those breaches and those police actions. We remember the use of armed police—ironically charged with preserving the peace—to destroy Maori communities all over the country from the Hokianga to Takaparawhau from Hauraki to Whaingaroa from Tuhoe to Taranaki and from 1846 right through to the cowardly police anti-terrorism raids in the Tuhoe territory in 2007. 
Ngai Tahu called for the bill to say more than it does about recognising the status of tangata whenua and that Maori should be expressly recognised in the bill—like in clause 10 which acknowledges the role played by those other than police in policing but does not even mention the Maori wardens who voluntarily provide a whole range of policing escort security and guidance services. Ngai Tahu’s submission said that it was important for policing to reflect the foundations of our nationhood and that the absence of a Treaty clause in the bill was a big disappointment but consistent with the way in which statutory recognition of the Treaty seems to have fallen from political favour. I repeat that this submission from Ngai Tahu was on behalf of the Commissioner of Police’s Maori Focus Forum and its criticism that this bill does not comply with Treaty justice should be of great concern to members of this House. Yet the Law and Order Committee decided to completely ignore the focus forum’s advice. Well the Maori Party will not be ignoring the advice of the Commissioner of Police’s Maori Focus Forum and during the Committee stage we intend putting up a Supplementary Order Paper to have a Treaty clause put into the bill. We will be reminding the Government again that the Treaty of Waitangi is as important to police operations as it is to those communities the police are supposed to serve. 
Finally I wish to raise the issue of Maori in the police force because when we had a look we found that over the past 6 years the percentage of Maori cops across the country has gone up by only 0.1 percent from 11.4 to 11.5 percent and that the number of Maori in the non-sworn force has actually dropped from 11.1 to 9.3 percent over the same time. Everyone knows of the massive gulf in trust between Maori and the police yet clearly the New Zealand Police’s recruitment strategy for Maori has failed miserably to address that mistrust because it has failed to bring more Maori into the force. 
I wish to advise that the Maori Party will support this bill only in order to try one more time to get issues such as the Treaty consultation and accountability included in the bill. But we may not support it further if those matters are not properly and fully addressed because without them this bill will do nothing more than simply update the rules governing an organisation that has historic problems dealing with racism corruption and violence and that has an arrogant disregard for the rights of the citizens who pay the wages of our police force. Make no mistake the Maori Party wants a strong positive and well-supported police force but—and members can take it as read—we will no longer accept a police force with the inherent problems that this one has and this bill simply does not deal with those problems. Kia ora. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 United Future supports the second reading of the Policing Bill. It supports it as being timely and also as being a move towards bringing modern policing requirements and the legislative framework by which they are provided up to date. It is worth observing that this bill replaces an Act that has been in place for some 50 years. It is further worth observing that the 1958 Act was conceived in the most extraordinary of circumstances. During the 1950s there was a controversy surrounding the then Commissioner of Police Commissioner Compton that forced his resignation and led to the appointment—for as far as I am aware the only time in our policing history—of a civilian Secretary of Police Mr Barnett. The 1958 Act was conceived as a way of dealing with the issues that had given rise to the problems that had led to the replacement of the commissioner and the appointment of a civilian head. That was a long time ago and they are not the only things to have changed or altered significantly in the last 50 years. 
I heard the previous speaker make an observation that is commonly referred to—that is to say that the reputation of the police has been dwindling over the years for a variety of reasons. I actually think that when we look at it we see that every time over those last 50 years where the police have been put in the position of being in conflict with the community over some interest or another that has led to some challenge to their authority. I refer to the Viet Nam War protest in the 1960s as an example where the police were in the front line of maintaining law and order against a large popular movement opposed to an action of the Government of the day. Just over the weekend I was reading again the accounts of the police actions during the 1981 Springbok Tour where the same sorts of issues were at play. 
I suspect that in both situations there were police officers doing their duty who felt very strongly sympathetic to the cause of the protestors with whom they were forced to deal. They were reflective of the general population in that regard. That brings home to us the difficulty of the role that the police inherently have to perform. They are there to uphold law and order. Sometimes it is in very difficult and dastardly circumstances such as the horrific crimes they have to be at the scene of—the grisly murders they discover. Sometimes it is in situations that are much more emotional and political such as I have just described but at all times it is the police whom we expect to be the upholders of law and order to be our protectors and to be the first people on the spot. 
Just over the last weekend we have had horrific weather affect the country and I suspect there were many police officers called out to be in the front line of our civil response to some of the emergencies that were occurring. We take that for granted as being their role. Then we add to that the controversy that has attended the police in recent years culminating in Dame Margaret Bazley’s report and a whole series of other unseemly actions that have contributed to a tarnishing of the police reputation. This bill seeks to set aside all of those things and say that here is a regime for the operation of the police in the first half of the 21st century. In that regard it is a very important milestone and step forward and I am very happy to support it. 
I want to make one other final closing comment. This is an occasion on which perhaps the House will indulge me for a moment as I pay a tribute to a constituent of mine who died recently and I refer to the late Commissioner Bob Walton. In many senses he was the typical embodiment of the modern New Zealand police officer and at his funeral he was described as perhaps the greatest police commissioner of modern time. I got to know him in his latter years when he was still in both a figurative and a literal sense as straight as a die. He was ramrod upright in his demeanour. He was a great bowler and he was a warm and friendly character but he was the embodiment of what we expect a New Zealand police officer to be. 
I simply want to take this opportunity to pay my tribute to him and to pay my respects to his family on their sad loss and to the wider police community for the loss of one of their great leaders. I am sure he would be saying tonight that this legislation is exactly what the police need to enable them to face the challenges that they will encounter in the years ahead and to enable them to continue serving the New Zealand public with the dignity the honour and the general good humour and good faith that they have done over the last 50 years. 
I support this bill I look forward to it proceeding and I rest secure in the knowledge that whatever circumstances befall any of us at any time the police will almost certainly be there to assist us. There are very few countries in which that remark could be made with confidence and with assurance; we should be thankful that New Zealand is one of those. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I want to make just a short contribution because I am conscious that Parliament will want to see this bill passed through its second reading before 10 o’clock this evening. That affords me roughly 8½ minutes to make a quick contribution on this issue. 
I am normally a full-time member of the Law and Order Committee that dealt with this bill. Unfortunately for me and probably fortunately for the committee I was not present when this bill was dealt with by the committee; I was subbed on to the Justice and Electoral Committee to deal with the Electoral Finance Bill as it then was. But I was in fact the Opposition police spokesperson just after the last election when the Hon Annette King decided that she was going to move in the direction of a review of the Police Act and set out a series of consultative documents over a long period of time to discuss changes that should be made to the legislation governing the role of police in New Zealand society. I think with the benefit of hindsight that that cross-party approach—particularly between the two major political parties but I take nothing away from the contributions that other parties made to the process—was the right thing to do. 
This is one of those pieces of legislation that comes to the House from time to time whereby political parties can assist each other in getting the right result. If the process starts with the best intentions being expressed by all parties then the chances are that a good result will be forthcoming. 
I listened to what the Hon Peter Dunne had to say about the timeliness of the legislation and I think there is a point that is worth adding to that. The last 18 months have not always been easy for the New Zealand Police. There have been many controversial issues—some of them deserved some of them perhaps not so deserved in one or two instances that I can think of—that have caused the police to come under increased public scrutiny. Of course Dame Margaret Bazley’s report has highlighted many of the areas where the police need to improve and I know that the present Minister and the person who is the Minister of Police following the election—from whatever political party—will be vigilant in making sure those recommendations are seen through to the end. 
In many respects the Hon Peter Dunne describes this bill as timely. I think it is in the sense of a bit of a break from the past. It is an appropriate administrative change and a signal that the Government of the day and most of the political parties of this House are concerned to see the police modernised. The structure that it needs to have available to it to make a valuable contribution in the future as part of a workable legislative framework to ensure the modernisation of the police—with its roles more deeply embedded in the communities in many ways—is an important factor. It is a good example of just how good the police are at making sure that particularly our young people understand the role of the police in society. 
I was recently caught at home on a very wet afternoon and turned on the television with my 4-year-old. On the TV was a policeman with a dog—it was actually a puppet dog— 
Bryan and 
— 
Hon Annette King 
:  
Bobby 
. 
SIMON POWER 
: Thank you I say to the Minister. I said to my son: “Look there’s a police dog. They are to be avoided if you can son.” My son said to me: “Who’s that woman talking to the police dog dad?”. I said: “That’s Annette King.” The wee dog was in Annette King’s office having a bit of a chat to her behind her desk and the Minister was engaged in appropriate conversation with the puppet dog. It struck me at that point that my 4-year-old was already convinced that the police had an important role in his view of the world. To this day of course one of the first things that he recognises when we are on the road is a police car. 
Hon Annette King 
: It is Annette King! 
SIMON POWER 
: No; it is not Annette King although he does know who the Minister is now—she will be pleased to know. 
Thinking about it afterwards made me realise that if we are to continue to give the police the respect they deserve our young people have to have a view of them that makes their influence contemporary and more particularly makes it relevant to them. Hopefully that is what legislation such as this will achieve. This bill will see the modernisation of the police as they continue that longstanding tradition of dealing with our young people and informing them about right and wrong. 
I want to finish by saying that we will have a debate or a discussion in the Committee stage to talk about the police’s involvement in local elections. When the Minister came before the select committee during the estimates process she indicated that she was supportive of an amendment that might be made in that area. We look forward to seeing the support of the Government come to hand when Mr Borrows deals with his one amendment in this area during the Committee stage. But as I am sure Mr Borrows and Ms Wilkinson have made clear to the House and in reflection of the fact that the Hon Annette King made sure that this issue was dealt with in a bipartisan way right from the start we have returned that view of how this legislation should be handled and we support it at its second reading. 
Hon MARK BURTON (Labour—Taupo) 
: 
 I have pleasure in taking a short call on the Policing Bill. What more could illustrate how important this is than the fact that the Minister of Police has given time for an appointment with a police dog? I think that only at 2 minutes to 10 could we hear that in this House. 
Seriously I want to acknowledge the good work of the Minister Annette King Martin Gallagher Ron Mark as the chair of the Law and Order Committee and all the members of the select committee who saw this bill through. Superintendent Hamish McCardle who is still in the gallery is a real stayer. We have seen that with the bill and indeed with the fact that he is here tonight. Really I think it underscores the quality of the debate in the House. I regret only that none of this debate has been witnessed by the members of the media in the gallery this evening. This is I think a good example of quality debate and I acknowledge every member of the House who has taken a call. We have had some serious considered debate and we have raised some quite important issues that will require further consideration during the remaining stages of the bill’s journey through the House. That is as it should be. 
This bill is laying the foundations 50 years after the bill that it replaces for a 21st century policing structure. It ensures as preceding speakers have indicated that certain core principles are preserved and if anything rightly strengthened. The independence of the Commissioner of Police and police officers—constables—lies at the heart of that. It is my pleasure tonight to support the progress of this bill. I look forward to its further progress in the House and to I am sure hearty debate and serious consideration of the important matters the bill brings before the Parliament. 
Bill read a second time. 
The House adjourned at 10 p.m.