Volume 669 Week 62 - Thursday 9 December 2010 
Volume 669 Week 62 - Thursday 9 December 2010 
[Volume:669;Page:15991] 
Thursday 9 December 2010 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 When the House resumes next week priority will be given to the Committee stage and third readings of the Electoral (Finance Reform and Advanced Voting) Amendment Bill the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill and the Electoral Referendum Bill. Depending on progress this week the House should expect to adjourn some time next week. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I wonder whether the Leader of the House could be a little more fulsome in his explanation of the House’s programme as we come to the end of the year particularly in respect of the legislation that he hopes to progress through urgency. It is clear that all parties regard the electoral bills as being urgent matters that need to be passed by the end of the year. But why is it necessary to take urgency on other bills that are not as urgent and leave bills that are urgent out of the urgency motion given that previously in his business statements when we have taken him on his word he has sought the cooperation of parties for urgency on non-controversial bills in order to avoid exactly the kind of urgency that he is about to subject the House to before the end of the year? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I will make a number of points. First the way in which urgency has been conducted this year has been designed to give the Business Committee a great deal more input into when urgency occurs and what is to be covered during that time. But that does not take away from the fact that we are a very busy very active Government which has a very active programme. The Speaker more than anybody will be aware that the House is due to rise shortly for a 7 to 8-week adjournment. Therefore when we come back there will be a Prime Minister’s statement and much of February will be taken up in the reply that is made to that statement. So we need to get a whole lot of first readings done in order to get those bills to select committees. There is nothing wrong with doing that. I think most New Zealanders would be rather shocked to hear Labour complain about having to work for more than 17 hours a week in the House. We think that that is not enough time; that is why we are taking a few extra hours. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The point of the business statement given by the Leader of the House is to outline the programme and then there is a response from the Opposition. I asked him some questions about why he was going down a certain path in respect of some bills that are urgent not being taken under urgency and of other bills that are not urgent being taken under urgency. I asked him those questions and instead of his replying to them we got a stream of abuse saying Labour does not want to work a certain number of hours. That is an abuse. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I was happy to listen to the honourable member but he must not use the point of order process to start to get into a debate about who has been abusive. I must confess that I acknowledge that the questions the member put were not answered as fully as he would have liked but that is a matter for the Leader of the House. I cannot intervene in that process. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did answer those questions. I answered them in very straight terms. I am sorry if you did not understand what I said but I gave the senior whip an answer to the question that he asked. The fact is that the House is going into an 8-week adjournment. We think doing a bit of extra time ahead of that is not a bad idea. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the whole House for my stupidity. 
Questions to Ministers 
Economy Rebalancing—Reports 
1. 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What reports has he received on the economy moving away from Government spending housing speculation and borrowing and towards savings and exporting? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 This morning the Reserve Bank issued its Monetary Policy Statement for December. It confirms what I have been saying about the economy in recent months. The near-term outlook for GDP growth has softened. Beyond this higher export volumes and the Canterbury earthquake repairs are expected to push growth above the Reserve Bank’s previous forecast. For example it now expects GDP to grow by 3.4 percent in the year to March 2012. It also expects inflation to remain subdued after a temporary one-off spike from the GST increase and forecasts continuing falls in unemployment. 
Craig Foss 
: What did the Reserve Bank’s forecast say about national savings? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It confirmed what I think we all know which is that New Zealand needs to lift its levels of national savings and it pointed to some encouraging early signs. It notes that the current account deficit is actually low by New Zealand’s recent standards. It predicts that the current account deficit will average around 3 percent of GDP over the next 3 years which is significantly better than the average of 8 percent between 2006 and 2008. It notes what we have all observed—that households are being cautious with their spending. They are saving more and they are paying down debt despite interest rates remaining very low. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: In relation to the Reserve Bank’s forecast issued today can he confirm that it shows growth revised downwards by a full percent through mid-2011 unemployment tracking above 6 percent through 2011 and a $4 billion blowout in the fiscal deficit such that the economy is now tracking below the worst-case scenario in Budget 2010? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I do not think that any of that is news. For some time we have been discussing in the House the fact that the economy has been softer through the middle of this year. The forecasts for the year ending March 2011 are something like 0.5 or 0.75 percent lower than was expected at Budget time. That is correct and because people are saving more and spending less we are laying the platform for better growth later. 
Craig Foss 
: What did the Reserve Bank say about the role of the Government in helping to increase New Zealand’s national savings? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Reserve Bank encourages the Government to get back to surplus a bit sooner than the current settings. It argues that faster elimination of the deficit would improve savings and ease pressures on interest rates and therefore on the exchange rate. That would have the benefit of reducing our dependence on international borrowing increase returns to exporters and assist the rebalancing of this economy which is under way but not at the speed that the Government would like to see. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: When the Minister told the House yesterday that the deficit is set to grow to $11 billion this year can he confirm that this is more than $4 billion over the $6.9 billion forecast in Budget 2010? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: It is expected to be larger than the Budget forecast in 2010 and the reasons for that have been outlined which are that the economy was flatter particularly in the first quarter of this financial year and we have also had one or two one-off expenses like the Canterbury earthquake. The member may think differently but I think that that expenditure was unavoidable. 
Craig Foss 
: What measures will the Government consider next year to reduce fiscal deficits and return to surplus? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: We are committed to getting back to surplus no later than 2015-16. The Government will continue with the spending discipline that it has exerted for the last couple of years and those disciplines will continue to tighten on the public sector. Next week we will issue the Government’s first investment statement which will make public for the first time in a sensible way the size and ambition of the Government’s capital investment programme through to 2015 how it is to be funded and where efficiencies can be made. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Can the Minister confirm that for all seven quarters that he has been Minister of Finance real GDP per capita has so far gone backwards which is why New Zealand households have gone backwards and are struggling to make ends meet? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: New Zealand households have not gone backwards. Some certainly have— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Oh yes they have. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Some have because people who relied on the previous Government’s debt-funded binge to secure their jobs were sorely disappointed. They have lost their jobs they have had income cuts and we are working very hard to rebuild their prospects. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Does Treasury advice regarding the ownership of State-owned assets referred to by Treasury’s John Crawford include recommendations to expand public-private partnerships through partial sales of State-owned assets; if so would he consider such a proposal? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Treasury as far as I can recall has not made that particular recommendation. The Government’s position has been clear and that is no sales of assets in this term. If that position changes we will campaign on it. But I might say that that is relevant to a very small part of the Government’s balance sheet. The Government owns $235 billion worth of assets and if we can improve the management of all of those assets it will have a much more significant impact on taxpayers’ value than a few partial floats would. 
Hon Sir Roger Douglas 
: Given the Minister’s reply does he believe that the $94 billion overseen by the Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit is the best use of that capital for New Zealanders; if so why are the dividends paid out by the 17 State-owned enterprises it monitors showing an average return of 2 percent compared with 4.5 percent for private companies listed on the New Zealand Exchange? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I think that is a very good question. In recent years State-owned enterprises were allowed to retain much of their surplus cash. That has gone into an extensive investment programme and taxpayers have not yet benefited from that. We should be expecting significant increases in dividends from that significant increase in investment in recent years. The Government has published that information so that everyone can see what will be required to get better performance out of those assets and it is quite a lot. 
Pansy Wong—International Travel with Spouse 
2. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his answer to question No. 11 yesterday that Sammy Wong did not accompany Pansy Wong on any ministerial trips to China? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Prime Minister) 
 on behalf of the  
Prime Minister 
: Yes because yesterday’s question specifically asked whether the Prime Minister had approved Pansy Wong having private time on any of her ministerial trips to China and whether her husband had accompanied her on any of those visits. Mr Wong did not accompany Pansy Wong on any ministerial visit where she had private time. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Does he think it was a good idea to be a smart alec with the truth when yesterday answering a primary question on notice? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Standing Orders do not allow members to ask questions that include remarks to the Minister that are unparliamentary really. I invite the member to repeat his question in a way that brings it within the Standing Orders. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want to ask you what your ruling is. There are a number of words that as you say are unparliamentary. Is “smart alec” one of them now? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear the honourable member; the member makes a fair point of order. I chose my words poorly. In respect of debate the member is quite right that “smart alec” is not an unparliamentary expression. The Standing Orders around the asking of questions though are somewhat different. Questions are not meant to contain allegations or assertions that are unfortunate. And I think the expression was unnecessary to the question being asked. I am sure the question can be phrased in a way that does not accuse the Minister of being a smart alec and that is the issue. I accept the member’s point of order which was well made. I am not ruling out that language; it is just that in respect of questions they should not contain that sort of language. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Does he think it is a good idea to answer a question on notice in that manner especially when the Prime Minister has already answered a written question—No. 35737—and decided to give a completely different answer? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister believes in answering the questions that are asked. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Can he recall that he—the Prime Minister—himself when to China in April 2009 and that before Mr Sammy Wong joined him on his trip Mr Wong’s private self-funded business travel included a visit to one or more schools in Wuxi city as “Macleans College’s sole agent”; if so why did Mr McPhail conclude in paragraph 96 of last Friday’s report that Mr Wong’s “Chinese business interests [are] limited to the hovercraft company …”? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the Minister I may have to invite the member to rephrase his question because the Prime Minister has no responsibility for trips that are not ministerial visits and neither does the Prime Minister have any responsibility for the investigation conducted by the Parliamentary Service. But I do not what to deprive the member of his questions so I suggest that he rephrase his question. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Generally in the House members are not given the indulgence of having several attempts at re-asking several questions. Mr Hodgson appears to have been given that opportunity and I would be interested to know just what the rules are now about questions that are either out of order or misdirected and how often any member of the House will get the opportunity to re-ask a question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a matter for the Speaker. What I could have done if I had been absolutely certain of the entire question is say that a certain part of it was in order because I believe that a certain part of it was in order. Had the entire question been out of order I think I would have had more sympathy with the member’s point of order. Part of the question in my view was not out of order but in its totality it was not within the Standing Orders. That is why I am asking him to rephrase it—to make sure that the whole question he is asking is within the Standing Orders. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Can he recall that the Prime Minister himself went to China in April 2009 and that before Mr Sammy Wong joined him Mr Wong’s private self-funded business travel included a visit to one or more schools in Wuxi city as “Macleans College’s sole agent”; if so does he understand why Mr McPhail concluded in paragraph 96 of last Friday’s report that Mr Wong’s “Chinese business interests [are] limited to the hovercraft company …”? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The dilemma I have with the question asked is that the Prime Minister has absolutely no responsibility for Mr McPhail’s report and neither does he have any responsibility for private travel by Mr Sammy Wong. The Prime Minister certainly has responsibility for the Prime Minister’s own trip that the member referred to in his question but the dilemma I have is that the question goes way beyond the Prime Minister’s responsibility. That is why I asked the member to rephrase it and it seems to me that he has essentially asked the same question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think there are two points you have indicated on the question of responsibility. My colleague did make it clear that Mr Wong as part of his private travel joined the Prime Minister as part of the business delegation. No. 1 that is a link that goes to responsibility for someone who is part of the business delegation that the Prime Minister was leading to China. The other point was—and you have ruled on a number of occasions from what we regard as National patsy questions—that Ministers can be asked about reports. This is a report it is a report that has been made public the Prime Minister has commented on it and the Prime Minister has used that report in his decision-making process as far as the formation of his Cabinet is concerned. It is not his report but it is no different from in my opinion his being asked to comment on a report in the  
Dominion Post 
. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The point is fairly made in that under the Standing Orders at the moment opinions can certainly be sought as long as that is the way that the question is interpreted—that it is only an opinion being sought. I will allow the question but it would have been helpful if the linkage to the Prime Minister’s business delegation that the member has just made in a point of order had been made in the question. That linkage would have helped. But I will allow the Minister to answer the question. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: In answer to the first part of the question yes. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Is he aware that Mr Wong visited other schools at other times too including a high school affiliated to Nanjing Normal University; and noting that he has had many taxpayer-assisted trips to China and that there are a lot of schools in China does he still believe that no business was done on any taxpayer-subsidised trips? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The dilemma the member is getting into is that he is asking the Prime Minister to accept a report for which the Prime Minister has no responsibility. What is more the trips the member is referring to—from what has transpired already—were not part of the business delegation. They were part of a private trip it would seem and the Prime Minister has no responsibility for that private trip. That is the dilemma the House faces. These are important issues—I accept that absolutely—but questions do have to be within the Standing Orders and Ministers cannot be questioned on matters for which they have no responsibility. I have allowed the member to rephrase two questions so far—both supplementary questions—yet I feel that this third supplementary question is not within the Standing Orders at all. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We have the Prime Minister relying on the word of one of his former Ministers as did Mr McPhail that Mr Sammy Wong had only one business interest in China which did not include these schools. The Prime Minister has relied on that report—as I think you have Mr Speaker though we cannot ask you questions about it—and I think with the Prime Minister having indicated that he has relied on the report it is appropriate for him to be questioned on it. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: This issue bears on ministerial responsibility. The fact is that the MP Pansy Wong resigned from Cabinet and at that stage the Prime Minister’s responsibility ceased. The matter that then proceeded regarding reports on parliamentary travel was a matter for the Parliamentary Service and for the Speaker. It is drawing a very long bow to say that privately funded trips of the spouse of an MP who is eligible for Parliamentary Service support are the responsibility of the Prime Minister. It just cannot be the case. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Having listened to the points of order—which are made in good faith I fully accept—I believe I do have to rule that supplementary question out. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Does the Prime Minister now think it is appropriate to label the McPhail report as a whitewash? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The dilemma again I have with that question is the Prime Minister is not at all responsible for the McPhail report and asking the Prime Minister whether it is appropriate is asking him to accept some responsibility for it. That is the dilemma I have with the question. I will give the member a chance to get wording that is reasonable. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You conduct the office of Speaker with generosity but I would have to say that it is exceeding the generosity the House would afford to any MP to give that member who prides himself on his competence a third go at asking a third supplementary question. I have never seen that before and I do not think it is a habit the House should get into. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order—[ 
Interruption 
] There will be no interjections. I accept the point of order that the member made but the difficulty that the Speaker is in is there is interest in this issue. It is very important that the Speaker who is also involved in this issue because the Speaker ordered an inquiry into it is not seen to be preventing members from being able to pursue the matter within the Standing Orders. But the questions asked do have to come within the Standing Orders; I have to insist on that. Although I accept that maybe the Speaker is being unduly generous I have said that the member could attempt to rephrase his supplementary question but it would have to come within the Standing Orders. I offer the Hon Pete Hodgson the chance but the supplementary question must come within the Standing Orders. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Has he read the McPhail report into the activities of a person who was until recently a member of his Cabinet; and what did he think of that report? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I honestly cannot answer that question. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has read it. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Does he think that asking the Auditor-General to investigate as he did in the case of the Hon Phil Heatley may now be a good idea after all? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Prime Minister has made it quite plain that if anyone has information that may be relevant to this issue it can be put in front of the Auditor-General to be investigated. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: I seek leave to table two documents. They are both off Chinese websites they are both in Mandarin and they are both translated in parts into English. Both documents refer to visits of Sammy Wong to schools. One is dated March 2009 and the other date is unknown. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table those two documents. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Tobacco Point-of-sale Advertising—Rationale for Ban 
3. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Health 
: What is the rationale behind the move to prohibit the display of tobacco products for sale in retail outlets? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Associate Minister of Health) 
: 
 The Government is serious about saving lives and reducing harm caused by smoking. A growing body of evidence shows that tobacco displays prompt impulse purchasing. There is a clear link between displays and young people taking up smoking. It is vital that we do more to help people quit smoking and to stop young people from being tempted to take up the habit. 
Hone Harawira 
: What other tobacco controls are being introduced to reduce tobacco consumption? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: The Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill brings in a range of other controls including the ability to issue instant infringement fines to those selling products to under-age people. We will also be monitoring the progress on Australia’s proposal to legislate plain packaging of tobacco products by 2012 and we will explore the option of New Zealand making similar moves in alignment with Australia. Those controls combined with the increase in excise tax over the next 3 years are powerful tools in reducing smoking. 
Hone Harawira 
: What public health benefits are expected over time as a result of reducing tobacco consumption? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: Exposure to smoking in the home and tobacco use itself result in a staggering figure of around 5000 deaths a year. Every day 13 people die from smoking-related diseases. Reduced tobacco consumption has a direct correlation with a reduction in cancers strokes blindness coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—and the list goes on. 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: Why did it take nearly 2 years for her to adopt the Health Committee’s recommendation to remove tobacco displays given that she had all the evidence she needed 2 years ago that she has no new evidence and that her Government has shown that it can acquiesce in just a matter of hours to a corporation like Warner Bros? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: I think 2 years beats 9 years any day. 
Jo Goodhew 
: Mr Speaker—[ 
Interruption 
]  
Mr SPEAKER 
: Has the honourable member quite finished? 
Jo Goodhew 
: Has the public been consulted on the issue of tobacco displays? 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: Yes two public consultation processes have been undertaken. The interesting point in all of this—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I say to both sides of the House that a question was asked of the Minister and the House deserves the courtesy of being able to hear the answer. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA 
: Yes two public consultation processes have been undertaken and the interesting point in all of this is that members of the public including those who are smokers are totally supportive of the actions that the Government is taking. 
Drink-driving Blood-alcohol Limit—Support for Reduction 
4. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Has he received any feedback or information in support of lowering the adult blood-alcohol concentration to 0.05 that has given him any doubt or cause for reflection this year about his decision to retain the level at 0.08? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I have received feedback on this issue as I have received feedback on a number of transport issues that I have dealt with this year. I always reflect carefully on the feedback that I receive and I am comfortable with the decision that I have made. I note that I am yet to reflect for as long as the previous Labour Government did. It left office after 9 years having stated in 2001 that it needed more information in order to make a decision on this issue then spent the next 8 years presumably reflecting on the need for information. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: How can New Zealand be at the front of the war on drink-driving when the UK Government is considering the North report to drop the limit there to 0.05 and in Australia a debate has begun about lowering the limit to 0.02 which means that New Zealand could end up having a legal drink-drive limit four times that of say a city like Melbourne? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I know that the UK Government is considering that report at the moment. Of course it currently has a lower road toll than either New Zealand or Australia with the 0.08 limit. I note that it is considering not putting down the limit in favour of more research into the change. I also note that the Quebec Government in Canada has recently rejected a decision to lower the drink-drive limit from 0.08 to 0.05 in favour of more education and more tests at the current level. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Which adult limit has the most community support as demonstrated by public opinion polls and submissions: the current limit of 0.08 that he is leaving in place or the 0.05 limit that has been proposed by Labour? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I note that the Labour Party is of course a lion in Opposition on this stuff. I think the member should reflect on whether if he ever gets the chance to be in Government again Labour will actually get around to changing the limit. I think the important thing to note is that statistics show that 72 percent of all alcohol-related deaths on our roads are caused by drivers who either have a prior drink-driving conviction or are more than 50 percent over the current legal adult limit. I think it could be said the member may be promoting a change that does not have a significant impact in the way that tackling recidivist and high-level drink-drivers can. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Has Bob McMillan of Team McMillan BMW talked to him regarding his concerns about the current 0.08 blood-alcohol limit given that Mr McMillan took out this advertisement in the  
New Zealand Herald  
and gave $50000 to the National Party so that he could “mix with our master”; and if even major National Party donors do not agree with his blood-alcohol limit why does he not accept the consensus that now exists right across this country and lower the adult blood-alcohol limit to 0.05? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I am not sure but the member seems to be suggesting that donors to the National Party should influence public policy decisions. I think that is a rather outrageous suggestion and it can only be something that the Labour Party is familiar with rather than the National Government. I point out that the Government is doing a lot on this issue. The Government is running a nil limit for recidivist drink-drivers and a nil limit for young drivers introducing alcohol interlocks and finally collecting the data that the previous Government refused to collect despite recognising back in 2001 that it needed it. 
Housing State and Social—Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group Recommendations 
5. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Housing 
: What recent announcement has he made about the direction of social housing in New Zealand? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 Today I announced the overarching decisions in response to the recommendations of the Housing Shareholders’ Advisory Group. It has become apparent that the status quo for the provision of State housing is no longer sustainable and we need to make some significant changes. As such the Government will be acting on many of the group’s key recommendations. These recommendations include working closely with the third sector to grow the total quantum of social housing in New Zealand the end to having a State house for life the introduction of reviewable tenancies for all Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants from 1 July 2011—that is new tenants not current ones—and placing responsibility for housing-related policy with one agency. 
Tim Macindoe 
: What will the introduction of reviewable tenancies mean for new Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: This Government is committed to providing a house for those in need for as long as that need exists. The introduction of reviewable tenancies means that from 1 July next year all new tenants will have their tenancy periodically reviewed. For many their need for a State house will be a long-term situation and they will be housed for as long as that need exists. However we will work with those who have seen a significant improvement in their circumstances to find them alternative accommodation. That alternative might be in the community housing sector; it might be in the private sector. Once reviewable tenancies have been implemented for new tenants consideration will be given to extending this measure to current tenants although the elderly and those who are significantly disabled would not go on to reviewable tenancies. 
Tim Macindoe 
: How does the Government plan to grow the third sector? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: We will be working with providers in the community housing sector over the coming months to find the best ways to address the current constraints that challenge their growth. We know that those providers can successfully provide housing. They are ready willing and able and we are ready willing and able to help them. These providers can leverage funding and assets from a broad range of sources. They have wide skills often specialise and offer extra services and they are often more competitive and innovative when it comes to house design and production. We want to support them and we will. 
Moana Mackey 
: If he is prepared to exempt pensioners from any reviewable tenancies regardless of their means will he also exempt families with young children who attend local schools given the negative impacts disruption can have on educational achievement? 
Hon PHIL HEATLEY 
: We have said that any new tenants coming in from 1 July next year will be on reviewable tenancies. We are saying that in terms of current tenants going on to reviewable tenancies the elderly and seriously disabled can expect not to have to go on to reviewable tenancies. In terms of families they will go on reviewable tenancies but of course they may need to remain in their State home if their need persists. If their circumstances improve then clearly they will move out of State housing and into community housing or private housing. 
Earthquake Canterbury—Support for Business Recovery Package 
6. 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
 to the  
Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery 
: Is the Government’s response package announced last week to assist Canterbury businesses affected by the 4 September earthquake universally supported by the Government and its supporters? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery) 
: 
 The member will be aware that this Government has a vast number of supporters and as one of its own members pointed out today some of those supporters do have occasional disagreements with the Government. So I would not presume to speak on their behalf. 
Brendon Burns 
: Given that the $600000 package the Minister announced is mostly the salaries of 2.5 business mentors with just $100000 in cash to promote struggling Canterbury businesses does he truly believe that that is anywhere near sufficient when hundreds of small and medium sized enterprises in Canterbury have since the quake seen turnover drop by half or more and are shedding staff or going to the wall as a result? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I am aware that there are hundreds if not thousands of businesses in Canterbury that have adjusted to these conditions and that are thriving. I am aware of a number of businesses that do have difficulties. In the end it is getting customers through their door that will make the biggest difference to them in the long term and that is what this package at this point is focused on. 
Brendon Burns 
: Is it correct that the very modest bids for funding to assist business recovery totalling $4.1 million from the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise North Canterbury were turned down by the Government for fear of creating a “precedent” and on that basis what support could businesses in Wellington Auckland or any other New Zealand centre expect if they were similarly devastated by a once-in-750-years natural disaster? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The Government spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year supporting sectors in the New Zealand economy. Many of those sectors have businesses that are affected in this way. It is getting customers through the door that is the most important thing for those businesses and that is what we are focusing on. As for the package that was requested by the chamber of commerce and by the people out at Kaiapoi all I can say is that no criteria for the way that that money might have been spent were provided to the Government with satisfactory answers about what it might achieve. So yes it was declined. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: Apart from the Earthquake Commission and insurance company payouts the premiums for which of course are paid for by householders or companies themselves how does the Government funding provided to workers and businesses affected by the force 7.1 earthquake compare with drought flood or biosecurity funding or Auckland’s roading infrastructure given the scale of destruction and loss suffered by businesses and workers in Canterbury as a result of the earthquake? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The first point I will make is that the recovery from the Canterbury earthquake will take a very long time. The Government will need to make available various types of assistance as the next couple of years progress. I can say to the member that we think the best thing that can happen for businesses in Canterbury is to get customers through their doors. That is what this package is designed to do. We have also been informed that that package particularly the promotional side can be leveraged and we have had offers through media organisations to do that meaning that the value will be a great deal more. This is a unique situation. There are many many needs that will need to be met and the Government is if you like triaging exactly where that support should go and at what time. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Will he accept my invitation to attend the next round of public information meetings that I will be organising for earthquake-affected— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: Oh! 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: The member might not be interested but the people of Canterbury are. Will the Minister accept my—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I believe the level of interjection was not that great. The member should just ask his question. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: This is a serious issue. Will he accept— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I invite the member to just ask his question. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Will he accept my invitation to attend the next round of public information meetings that I will be organising for earthquake-affected residents so that he can provide detailed answers to the people for instance of Kaiapoi who are feeling increasingly frustrated with the lack of information from the Government and who along with other residents of Canterbury have repeatedly asked him to front up and answer their questions? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I totally reject any suggestion that I have not fronted up or have shown any reluctance to answer questions. What I am not interested in dealing with is some of the silly speculation that goes on from people who perhaps have not read all the information that is available at the present time. I say to the member that in the new year I will consider running meetings myself to give that information. What I would also say as someone who is personally affected by this is that I think the communications at this point given the complexity of the problem have been perfectly adequate and rarking people up unnecessarily does not help them. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Is the Minister aware that for many earthquake-affected residents who have been forced from their homes their private insurance cover for temporary accommodation lasts only 6 to 12 months; if so what extension to its response package is the Government considering to assist these earthquake victims when this temporary accommodation assistance runs out? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is a very real and serious problem that the Government has a team working on. I have myself had discussions this week with the Insurance Council about how we might give effect to sorting out that problem. 
Welfare Reforms—Focus 
7. 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: Does she agree with the Alternative Welfare Working Group that welfare reform should be focused on “the relentless pursuit of well-being”? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 That is a very idealistic goal. This Government takes a more pragmatic view preferring to concentrate on an unrelenting focus on work. I note that the member had her policies written down in a song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I hope the House gets an opportunity to hear some of that today. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I am sorry to disappoint. Will she commit to meeting the members of the Alternative Welfare Working Group to discuss their findings; if so when? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I see them as submitters to the Welfare Working Group. They have an opportunity to submit to that group. I think that is the right process for them to go through and I look forward to recommendations coming from the Welfare Working Group. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does she agree with the Alternative Welfare Working Group that the current emphasis on paid work is too narrow and treats caring for children as inferior secondary and unimportant? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I think we all agree that children are at the centre of what this Government sees as social development and social policy. Hence when we talk about child poverty and those people who are on benefits for long periods of time it is children who are most disadvantaged. Our focus is on getting those people into work giving them the skills to get there and helping them in any way we can in that respect. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does the Government accept that raising children is work? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: It can be hard work at times; it can also be incredibly pleasurable and something that most people aspire to and enjoy doing. I hope that the member’s co-leader enjoys his experience in the next few months as well. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Why should single mothers be required to work in minimum wage jobs instead of caring for their children when middle-class mothers can choose to stay at home? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Of partnered women 68 percent are in paid work at this time; and of sole parents approximately 52 percent are in paid work. I do not discern a difference between sole parents and those who are in partnerships. Some mothers choose to work and some mothers do not and that is a matter for those women whether or not they are partnered. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question asked why single mothers should be required to work instead of being able to stay at home. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister responded. It was not perhaps exactly the answer that the member expected but I think it was a reasonable answer to the question asked. The Minister explained the situation that partnered women are working in paid work rather more than women who are not partnered. I think it was a reasonably interesting answer to the question. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Does she agree that accessing education while caring for children is a good way for parents on the domestic purposes benefit to prepare to move into work; if so will she consider reintroducing a form of training incentive allowance? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: There is extra assistance for those who are on the domestic purposes benefit and in study at the moment. There is an extra $500 loan that they can take. There is a lot of assistance for those people now. Certainly at this time the Government feels that that is enough but we look forward to seeing recommendations from the Welfare Working Group. As such we will not be pre-empting it. 
Catherine Delahunty 
: Should every child have access to the essentials this Christmas regardless of whether their parents rely on a benefit? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That is certainly what New Zealand stands for and certainly what this Government stands for as well. Those children should be cared for and looked after. I believe that our policies and what we put in place to support them does that. 
Energy Strategy—Lignite Mining 
8. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
 to the  
Minister of Energy and Resources 
: Will the mining of lignite form part of his New Zealand Energy Strategy? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Energy and Resources) 
: 
 Not specifically. However one of the goals or areas of focus that are outlined in the Energy Strategy is the development of New Zealand’s oil and petroleum mineral fuel resources. 
Hon Nanaia Mahuta 
: Is he aware that the report released by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment today states that one large lignite-to-diesel plant similar to that proposed by L and M Mining in Southland would increase New Zealand’s carbon dioxide emissions by 7 percent; if so how does that fit into his draft energy strategy goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Yes. That is a separate report. It has nothing to do with the Energy Strategy. 
Hon Nanaia Mahuta 
: Who will pay for the $137 million a year that such an increase in emissions will cost—New Zealand L and M Mining or the taxpayer? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The member should well know that that cost would fall on the business operator. 
Hon Nanaia Mahuta 
: If the use of 10 million tonnes of lignite to produce diesel would cost $137 million a year in emissions what would be the cost of using 6.3 billion tonnes of lignite which he told the distinguished fellows forum of the Centre for Advanced Engineering was technically and economically recoverable in Southland and was a cost he thought worth paying? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: A much bigger number. 
Education Student Achievement—Programme for International Student Assessment Results 
9. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What were the results of the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) which looked at New Zealand students’ achievement in reading maths and scientific literacy? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 The latest Programme for International Student Assessment results show that our top-performing students are up amongst the best in the world and we should be proud of that. However New Zealand continues to have a disproportionate number of lower achievers. In fact of the top-performing countries in reading literacy which was the main focus for the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2010 New Zealand has the largest range of student scores between the top and the bottom 5 percent of students. And New Zealand has the largest range of scores in the middle range—that is between the top and bottom—at 25 percent. In addition there has been no significant change in our students’ performance in reading for the last 10 years or in maths for the past 6 years. 
Louise Upston 
: What is the Government doing to address the findings of the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2009? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: In the modern world we cannot allow any of our students to be left behind. National standards in reading writing and maths will give us the information that we need to address underachievement as early as possible with timely and targeted interventions. To further strengthen work that is already under way the Ministry of Education will take a much more direct front-line focus on supporting schools to lift student achievement. 
Motor Vehicle Information—Response to Charges to Web-based Services 
10. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: How many emails has he received on the decision of the New Zealand Transport Agency to start charging CarJam and similar web-based information services for accessing the agency’s stored basic motor vehicle information? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask front-bench members to please stop this interjection. It was difficult for me to hear the question. 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 Following CarJam emailing its customer database and posting a message on the front page of its website which apparently has about 150000 subscribers per month my office has received about 4500 form emails on this issue. 
Darien Fenton 
: Does he agree that free website access to a motor vehicle’s history is a cheap and effective way of keeping dodgy and potentially dangerous vehicles off our roads; if so what does he say to those 20000 people who have signed the online petition protesting his decision to claw back a few dollars in the name of user-pays? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: That question is wrong in its assumptions on so many levels. Let me just deal with a couple. Firstly in most cases the charges for accessing that information have been reduced. Secondly the changes that the New Zealand Transport Agency has made will reduce the total revenue received from providing the service. Thirdly the business model of the websites—to access the one or two items that have previously been free to give that away free and then to charge significant sums of money for more detailed reports—has led to massive increases in the amount of data. That means that the New Zealand Transport Agency has had to charge for some of that data. Finally all this is the reality of having a very old motor vehicles register that is unable to provide the information easily to users. That has happened because the previous Government over 9 years never spent the money to update the motor vehicles register. 
Darien Fenton 
: By applying the user-pays model to motor vehicle registration information—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the member. I say to her colleagues sitting on the bench in front of her that when they interject it is difficult for me to hear her question. What is more it is discourteous. 
Darien Fenton 
: By applying the user-pays model to motor vehicle registration information is the Government telling us that dodgy practices—such as clocking odometers patching up written-off vehicles flicking off stolen vehicles on TradeMe or onselling repossessed cars that have money still owing—have all mysteriously ceased to be a problem in the used-car market? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No and I point out again for the member that the previous Government operated this same user-pays model. In fact the New Zealand Transport Agency is collecting less revenue now than it was previously. The transactions the member refers to are 16c for an instant transaction and 2c for an overnight transaction—2c. It could of course be 2c for all transactions if the previous Government had got around to updating the motor vehicles register. In that Government’s 9 years in office it absolutely neglected core business. 
Darien Fenton 
: Why would the New Zealand Transport Agency have the marketing slogan “Building a better transport system for New Zealanders” while at the same time reduce access to the information that helps make our national fleet safer and also make it more difficult for already hard-pressed families to make the best decision when purchasing a vehicle? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The member has not been listening to the answers to any of the previous questions. Sadly if the previous Government had adopted an approach of making sure that Government business ran properly and had taken a responsible approach to renewing infrastructure we would not be in the position of having to charge 16c for instant transactions; we would be able to charge 2c for the lot. In fact the New Zealand Transport Agency is lowering the amount of revenue it is receiving. 
Bovine Tuberculosis—Management Plan 
11. 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
 to the  
Minister of Agriculture 
: What recent steps has the Government taken to control bovine TB? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 Earlier this week I was pleased to confirm that the Government would commit $30 million annually for the next 5 years to manage bovine tuberculosis. This ensures that the good work of the national pest management strategy will continue and that we can make significant progress in controlling this damaging disease. Failure to do that places at risk our trade access to many valuable offshore markets. 
Jacqui Dean 
: What support is the primary sector providing to control bovine tuberculosis? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Bovine Tuberculosis National Pest Management Strategy is a true industry - Government partnership. On top of the $30 million annual contribution from the Crown the beef dairy and deer industries commit $45 million and regional councils around $7 million. In total $82 million is available each year to fund what is the world-leading tuberculosis management programme. 
Early Childhood Education Limited-attendance Centres—Minister Responsible for Legislation 
12. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Which Minister is to be responsible for the enforcement of the Education Act 1989 in relation to limited-attendance early childhood centres following the passing of the Education Amendment Bill (No 2)? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 The Minister of Education and the Minister for Tertiary Education are responsible for the Education Act 1989. Gym and shopping mall creches will not come under the Education Act because they are not providers of education. These types of facilities will come under a wide range of requirements including the Health and Safety in Employment Act the Building Act and the contractual obligations that they will have with parents. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: When she suggested that the Health and Safety in Employment Act could be used for protection from the paedophiles who will no longer be subject to police vetting before being employed to care for children at limited-attendance centres after her bill is passed was she indicating that she thought fellow employees were in danger from those paedophiles rather than the children they were caring for? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I am sorry but that question was so convoluted that I did not understand it. Could I ask the member to repeat it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will repeat his question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: When she suggested that the Health and Safety in Employment Act could be used for protection from the paedophiles who will no longer be subject to police vetting before being employed to care for children at limited-attendance centres after her bill is passed was she indicating that she thought fellow employees were in danger from those paedophiles under that Act rather than the children they were caring for? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: No. The Health and Safety in Employment Act requires that all practicable steps are taken to ensure that no action or inaction of any employee harms another person. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: When she said scout and guide leaders were not subject to police checks was she aware that it is the policy of the national organisations for both scouts and guides that all those who supervise children are subject to police checks? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Absolutely and that is the point: legislation does not require it. But the obligations that those organisations have to the parents who entrust them with their children mean that in order to protect themselves and the children they voluntarily make sure that anyone who is working with children undergoes a police check. Many parents insist on that before they make the decision to leave their children with those groups. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is she aware that there are no national organisations such as there are for scouts and guides covering childcare centres at gyms shopping malls or swimming pools that could impose a policy to ensure that police checks are carried out on any staff who will be supervising children? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: Yes. But a large number of organisations that work with a variety of children are in the process of developing some guidelines now and will continue to develop guidelines as parents make the decision themselves to entrust their children to those people. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is she sure that she is doing the right thing in removing the primary protection against children being exposed to known paedophiles in limited-attendance early childhood centres? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: That is not what I am doing. 
Question No. 6 to Minister 8 December 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 I seek leave to table this photo of Vera Wilson taken today by her son Murray as she was being forced to leave her home in Taihape and move to Feilding to be separated for the first time in her marriage from her husband by a locked door—the face of health cuts. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The last comment was not helpful. Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Questions to Members 
Student Loan Scheme Bill—Submissions Received 
1. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Student Loan Scheme Bill? 
CRAIG FOSS (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee) 
: 
 Ten. 
Student Loan Scheme Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
2. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee 
: How many submitters on the Student Loan Scheme Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
CRAIG FOSS (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee) 
: 
 Those are matters for the committee. The committee is yet to discuss those matters. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: When will the committee consider whether all those who have sought to be heard in person will be allowed to do so? 
CRAIG FOSS 
: That is a matter of committee business until such time as the committee discusses those matters. 
Sustainable Biofuel Bill—Submissions Received 
3. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Sustainable Biofuel Bill? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee) 
: 
 Twenty-eight. 
Chris Hipkins 
: How many submissions were received after the due date? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: I do not have that information with me. 
Sustainable Biofuel Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
4. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee 
: How many submitters on the Sustainable Biofuel Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee) 
: 
 Ten. 
Chris Hipkins 
: Was every submitter who requested to be heard in person given that opportunity? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: Yes. All were heard in person in Wellington on 22 and 29 October. 
Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill—Submissions Received 
5. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee) 
: 
 Twenty-two submissions have been received on the bill. 
Chris Hipkins 
: How many submissions were received after the due date? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: None so far. We have one that has asked to be received and permission has been granted. That submission is due by the end of this week. 
Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
6. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee 
: How many submitters on the Southland District Council (Stewart Island/ Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee) 
: 
 In direct response to the question and its mispronunciation none. But we have had six submitters requesting to be heard on the “Raki-ur-a” bill. 
Chris Hipkins 
: How much time has the select committee set aside to hear those submissions? 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: That is the committee’s business. 
Question No. 7 to Member 
Question postponed. 
Question No. 8 to Member 
Question postponed. 
Question No. 9 to Member 
Question postponed. 
Question No. 10 to Member 
Question postponed. 
Retirement Commissioner—2009-10 Financial Review 
11. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee 
: Has the Finance and Expenditure Committee conducted the 2009-10 financial review of the Office of the Retirement Commissioner? 
CRAIG FOSS (Chairperson of the Finance and Expenditure Committee) 
: 
 No. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Has the Finance and Expenditure Committee decided to call back the Retirement Commissioner for further discussion on her report on securing superannuation given that her early appearance was unfortunately scheduled just days before the report was tabled? 
CRAIG FOSS 
: How the committee conducts its business and chooses to progress its work is a matter for the committee. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The matter of whether the committee has timetabled a repeat appearance by the Retirement Commissioner is a matter that is well within the ambit of the chairperson being able to answer in the House. He is simply dodging the question by saying it is a matter of— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member asked a wider question than just that and the chair of the committee focused on another part of the question the member asked. 
Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill—Submissions Received 
12. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill? 
DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee) 
: 
 Twenty-eight. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I understand that the chairs of committees are under instruction to be as brief as possible but if the chairs when they are given the call by you begin their answer before their microphones have been switched on we cannot hear the answer. I could not hear the chair of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I have no idea how many submissions he said there had been. Some of the members seeking the call are obscure and the technicians do not know where they sit so we have to wait till the microphones are on. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Interestingly the Speaker often has difficulty hearing things in this House but he had no trouble hearing that answer. It was 28. 
Darien Fenton 
: When was the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill first introduced? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The chair of the committee has no responsibility for that. 
Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
13. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
: How many submitters on the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee) 
: 
 Six. 
Darien Fenton 
: When will the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill be reported back to the House? 
DAVID BENNETT 
: The report-back date for the bill is 24 December 2010. 
Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill—Submissions Received 
14. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Land Transport (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill? 
DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee) 
: 
 Eighty-five. 
Darien Fenton 
: How many of those submissions supported the immediate lowering of the adult blood-alcohol concentration to 0.5— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The chairperson of the committee has no responsibility for that matter. 
Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill—Submissions Received 
15. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill? 
CHESTER BORROWS (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 The committee has received six submissions on the bill. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I could not hear him. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As I understand it the answer was that there were six submissions on the bill. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of his answer that only six submissions have been received on that bill is it the committee’s intention to call for further submissions in order to make sure that a wide spread of public opinion is received? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No. 
Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
16. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee 
: How many submitters on the Lawyers and Conveyancers Amendment Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
CHESTER BORROWS (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 All six submitters asked to be heard all of whom have appeared or have been scheduled for hearing. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is it the intention of the committee in order to make sure that the evidence is robust and covers all matters to call back any of those submitters for further submission or elucidation? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No. 
Legal Services Bill—Submissions Received 
17. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Legal Services Bill? 
CHESTER BORROWS (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 We have received 26 submissions. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of the fact that only 26 submissions have been received on the Legal Services Bill and of the importance of the legislation is it the committee’s intention to call for further submissions to make sure there is a widespread understanding of the importance of the bill for committee members? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: A widespread range of submissions has been received by the committee and we do not intend to seek further submissions. 
Legal Services Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
18. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee 
: How many submitters on the Legal Services Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
CHESTER BORROWS (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 Thirteen submitters asked to appear in support of their submissions all of whom have already appeared in order to give evidence. The committee deliberated on the bill today. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is the chair satisfied that it was not appropriate to call for further people to be heard on the bill in order to better improve the committee’s understanding? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: I am more than satisfied. 
Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill—Submissions Received 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 On behalf of my learned colleague— 
Hon Member 
: Esteemed! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No esteemed is not a word that is used— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will just ask his question. 
19. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill? 
CHESTER BORROWS (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 The committee received 233 submissions. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: In light of the fact that only just over 200 submissions have been received on this very important bill is it the intention of the committee to re-advertise to make sure more people are aware of that important bill? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No as the importance of the bill has been mitigated by the introduction of an excellent bill by the Government and the Minister of Justice Simon Power which is open to submissions at the moment. 
Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
20. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
 on behalf of  
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee 
: How many submitters on the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
CHESTER BORROWS (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee) 
: 
 One hundred and two submitters asked to be heard. The committee heard from 79 before putting consideration of the bill on hold to await the publication of the Law Commission’s report earlier this year. It has now been overtaken by events with the introduction of the new bill. Submissions are open until 18 February and we expect an overwhelming response from the public to submit on this fine piece of legislation. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is it the intention of the committee to write to the submitters who have not been heard inviting them to make a submission on the subsequent legislation? 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: No because submitters who responded not only to the first bill but to the Law Commission’s report who numbered 3000 are well aware of events—the new bill that is before the committee—and have made public their intention to submit on that fine piece of legislation. 
Food Bill—Submissions Received 
21. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Food Bill? 
SHANE ARDERN (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee) 
: 
 Sixty-seven submissions. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: How many submissions were received after the submission due date? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: No submissions were received after the due date. 
Food Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
22. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee 
: How many submitters on the Food Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
SHANE ARDERN (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee) 
: 
 Twenty-four submitters requested to be heard and were heard. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: When will the bill be reported back to the House? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Presumably on the next sitting day as the bill was deliberated on today. 
Dairy Industry Restructuring (New Sunset Provisions) Amendment Bill—Submissions Received 
23. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee 
: How many submissions have been received on the Dairy Industry Restructuring (New Sunset Provisions) Amendment Bill? 
SHANE ARDERN (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee) 
: 
 Thirteen submissions were received. 
Dairy Industry Restructuring (New Sunset Provisions) Amendment Bill—Requests for Oral Submissions 
24. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee 
: How many submitters on the Dairy Industry Restructuring (New Sunset Provisions) Amendment Bill have requested to be heard in person? 
SHANE ARDERN (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee) 
: 
 Eight submitters requested to be heard. 
Hon Damien O’Connor 
: When will this bill be reported back to the House? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: That matter is still before the committee. 
Urgency 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That urgency be accorded the first reading of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill; the third reading of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill; the first readings of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) and the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill; the passing through its remaining stages of the Taxation (GST and Remedial Matters) Bill; the first readings of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill and the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill; the second reading of the Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill; and the passing through their remaining stages of the State Sector Management Bill the Education Amendment Bill (No 2) and the New Zealand Productivity Commission Bill and of any bills into which any of those bills may be divided.  
I spoke a bit over an hour ago in my Leader of the House update to the House on where we are going next week and the reality is that as we come to the end of the year the Government has a great deal of work that it needs to do to get legislation either sent to select committees or completed in order that we may have orderly progress in the way Government departments administer themselves beyond the new year. We are about to go into a long adjournment and when we come back we have the Prime Minister’s statement and the attendant debate that goes with it meaning that the amount of time available in February is also somewhat limited. 
This Government does not shirk from the job it has to do of leading New Zealand and that job requires us to pass legislation. It is extraordinary that parties in this House are upset about spending more time in this Chamber. For those reasons I am happy to move the motion as I have just read it. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is about the instruction that is given to the House for bills to be considered under urgency. Once we have voted on the motion that has been moved is it possible for the Government to add any other bills for consideration under urgency or it will cover just the bills that have been read out by the Leader of the House just now? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The advice I have received is that bills cannot be added unless the urgency concludes before the House rises. 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. For absolute clarity I say that if the Government attempts to include a bill that was not on the list read out by the Leader of the House it would be out of order for us to consider that bill. Is that correct? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: While under this urgency the list should be the list that the Leader of the House read out. That is my understanding. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 It may help if I table the list for clarity—[ 
Interruption 
] Perhaps I could read it again—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is a point of order. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: There was quite a lot of interjection across the House and I am quite convinced that the list I have read out is the list of bills that we wish to pass. I suspect the Opposition believes that I have left something off the list. Of course in the end it is the Government’s list that we work through. If I have left something off which I do not believe I have clearly the Opposition’s eagerness to go into urgency would facilitate our passing it. But I am satisfied that the list that I read out is the list that we want to work through. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: To ensure that the House is aware of what it is doing as it takes this vote can I be certain that the first reading of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill was actually read out? It may have been mispronounced. I would like to make sure that the House is aware of the bill. Today plenty of people have mispronounced words in this House. All members are aware of that and it is an easy thing to do when reading out a long list. I think I should make sure the House is aware of what it is voting on because the House is about to vote on the motion. As I understand it the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill is on the list that the House is voting on. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is correct. I read out the first readings of the Biosecurity Law Reform Bill and the Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: For the sake of clarity I appreciate that. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That urgency be accorded. 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General)  
on behalf of the  
Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service 
: I move  
That the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Intelligence and Security Committee and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
This bill focuses on amendments that will allow the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service to operate more effectively. It has three objectives. First the provisions will maintain the operational effectiveness of the Security Intelligence Service by updating the warrant scheme to continue to allow for the use of modern technical methods of surveillance. Secondly the provisions will maintain protections for those acting under warrant including those exercising entry powers. Thirdly the provisions will also improve operational efficiency by allowing a more flexible process for persons assisting under warrant. 
The principal Act currently enables the Director of Security to apply for warrants to undertake certain surveillance activities. Surveillance activities encroach on personal privacy rights. As such surveillance of this nature is not lightly authorised. Foreign warrants require the Prime Minister’s authorisation. In cases where any New Zealander is the subject of a warrant such warrants are required by the principal Act to be issued jointly by the Minister in charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and by the Commissioner of Security Warrants. The warrants framework provides for the interception or seizure of documents communications and other things that could not otherwise be lawfully obtained by the Security Intelligence Service. The warrants also provide the powers that are necessary to give effect to the authorised interception or seizure such as entry powers and search powers. Stringent conditions must be met before any warrant is issued. The Director of Security must demonstrate both to the Minister in charge of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and to the commissioner in the case of domestic warrants that the interception or seizure is necessary either to detect activities prejudicial to security or to gather foreign intelligence information essential to security. Additionally the value of the information must justify the interception or seizure and the director must attest that the information being sought is unlikely to be obtained by any other means. 
Notably the proposals in the bill are restricted to powers that are subject to authorisation under warrant. As I have explained the threshold to be met to issue these warrants is very high. The bill should not be seen as providing the service with unique powers; it should be seen as a bill that seeks to clarify and update the application of existing powers particularly in areas where current legislation has been overtaken by developments in technology. The current warrant framework in the principal Act has become outdated. It addresses only those activities that would otherwise have been lawful at the time that the provisions were enacted which in 1977 was interception and seizure and in 1999 was entry. The underlying premise of the framework is that activities that were lawful at the time that the legislation was developed did not need authorisation by warrant regardless of the extent of intrusion. 
Changes in technology have also had an impact. In particular the frameworks are not expressly configured to support the use of electronic tracking and some computer-based techniques used to collect information. The first change covers electronic tracking devices. The current Act does not expressly provide for the Security Intelligence Service to undertake the tracking of subjects by electronic means so the bill will clarify that the warrant framework does cover the use of electronic tracking devices. Clauses 6 and 7 amend sections 4A and 4B of the principal Act to enable the Minister and the Commissioner of Security Warrants in the case of domestic intelligence warrants to issue intelligence warrants that authorise electronic tracking. The existing oversights scheme will be applied to these electronic tracking activities. The process of applying for warrants to authorise electronic tracking will be the same as that for warrants covering interception or seizure. So high thresholds including tests of necessity and value and that the information cannot be obtained by other means will need to be satisfied before any warrant can be issued. The House should note that the needs of New Zealand law enforcement agencies have previously been catered for in this area with the development of a tracking warrants framework in the Summary Proceedings Act 1957. 
The next change made by the bill is to update the principal Act to provide a clear framework for facilities that are to be the subject of surveillance. Facilities include identifiers such as telephone numbers and Internet protocol addresses. The objective is to provide for the specification of cyber-identities in warrant applications. The amendment will allow warrants to be granted when specific facilities can be identified but the name or the physical location of a subject is not known. This is a very necessary update in an age where the use of unattributable mobile phones and cyber-identities is common. The matter is one that has been specifically raised as a matter for legislative amendment by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The term “facility” will be defined in the interpretations section of the principal Act. The bill also introduces a definition of “identity” which includes an alias adopted by or assigned to a person. Clause 7 amends section 4B of the principal Act to enable intelligence warrants to make facilities the subject of intelligence warrants. 
Clause 5 amends the principal Act to rename interception warrants as intelligence warrants. The name “interception warrants” has never been representative of the range of surveillance activities. At present those warrants cover interception and the seizure of documents or things. With the amendment they will also cover electronic tracking. Renaming them as intelligence warrants supports transparency by better reflecting the scope of warranted surveillance activity. 
The authorities provided to the Security Intelligence Service require clarification in the area of computer-based surveillance. Section 253 of the Crimes Act 1961 already provides a qualified exemption to the access without authorisation offence for the service. The current approach of providing a qualified exemption for some activities relating to computers but not for others creates uncertainty for the intelligence agencies as well as for other agencies acting under warrant. The current exemption may be insufficient to cover modern surveillance methods that may interfere with a computer system in a temporary or minor way and the current arrangements do not recognise the merging of technologies particularly in terms of phones and computers. Clause 17 therefore amends section 248 of the Crimes Act which sets out definitions relating to computer-related offences. It inserts a new definition of “authorisation” and this amendment will clarify that a lawfully issued warrant will constitute an authorisation for the purposes of the computer-related provisions in the Crimes Act. 
The bill clarifies the protections in the principal Act for persons acting in accordance with a warrant. These amendments focus on two issues. First the principal Act does not adequately protect from liability those persons exercising Security Intelligence Service entry powers when they are seeking to obtain or facilitate entry. Minor property interference is sometimes necessary in order to obtain entry and better protect the safety of persons exercising those warrants. Clause 8 will replace section 4E of the principal Act. It will clarify that those persons exercising Security Intelligence Service powers will be protected from liability when they are seeking to obtain or facilitate entry. Second the Act will be amended to provide consistent protection to all persons acting under Security Intelligence Service warrants from liability regardless of the foreign or domestic status of the warrant. Currently protection applies only to domestic warrants so it applies only when the subject of a warrant is a New Zealand citizen or resident. 
A number of other changes will be made to the substantive legislation in order to improve practice. 
Because of the operational sensitivity of the matters covered by the bill public consultation was not undertaken during the policy development stage. Instead in order to address the public interest in the area of privacy and to ensure the proposals were calibrated against appropriate oversight arrangements the Office of the Privacy Commissioner the Office of the Ombudsmen the Commissioner of Security Warrants and the inspector-general were consulted on the development of the bill. To enable members of the public to contribute it will be recommended to the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee that public submissions on the bill should be invited and arrangements made to hear submitters who wish to appear before the committee. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill in its first reading. I have to say that the Opposition is very disappointed that the Government has decided to include this bill in the urgency motion. We were led to understand right up to question time today that this bill would not be part of the urgency motion and that it would be taken first for its first reading then urgency would be taken. I think it was important that it was outside the urgency motion because the optics of it are not good. I do not believe that the public will like the optics of putting this bill in an urgency motion very much at all. It is a very very serious bill about human rights and a serious bill that deserves to be taken in the ordinary time of this House. There was no need to include it in the urgency motion which means that something must be done urgently at this moment. 
I have to say that this shows me that the Government is in a shambles over its legislative programme. It has no idea what it wants to do. Gerry Brownlee told this House about 2 weeks ago that we would not be having any more urgency and now we are having urgency on this very important bill and on many many others. I have to say that the Labour Opposition will be here for as long as it takes to debate every one of them. But to tell Parliament and the people of New Zealand that one is finished with urgency and one’s programme is up to date and to then decide that one is to have some urgency shows that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. We will debate this bill and other bills including the very many that have been put down in the urgency motion. 
The Government has indicated that this bill is needed ahead of the Rugby World Cup and it is one that amends the principal Act the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act to implement the Government’s policy decision to update the interception warrant framework. This bill takes account of technological changes developments in human rights case law and the modern requirements of intelligence acquisitions. We believe that a number of issues need to be considered with this bill. First of all we need to weigh matters of national security with issues of human rights. Secondly a citizen’s rights to privacy and to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure are fundamental rights and we must always take great care when defining State powers that impact upon these rights. Thirdly the task of balancing the State’s surveillance powers with the protection of fundamental human rights is a complex one. The Labour Opposition welcomes the input of the Privacy Commissioner the Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to the development of the policy and of course we also look forward to hearing submissions at the select committee. 
We also note the comments made in the regulatory impact statement by Dr Warren Young of the Law Commission. In my experience the Law Commission has been an organisation that has provided extremely good advice to Governments over many years and so particularly has Dr Warren Young. He independently reviewed the regulatory impact analysis prepared by the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service and also the associated supporting material. Dr Young said that he was satisfied that “the information and analysis met all of the quality assurance criteria. He noted that the updating and clarifying issues arising from the current legislation were clearly identified; the policy options addressing these issues were adequately canvassed; and the need for the preferred policy option was demonstrated.” 
Dr Young noted: “While there are some impacts on privacy this is clearly justified by the associated benefits. In particular updating the warrant framework is a recognition of technological changes in the storage of and communication of information and is essential in order to enable the NZSIS to continue to effectively undertake its statutory functions.” I think those words are reassuring to those who might be doubting the changes that are being made in this legislation. We will be supporting this bill. 
The principal Act was first enacted in 1969. Now it is 41 years old. When we think about that time span an awful lot has changed. Man went to the moon and landed on the moon in May of that very year. The first supersonic jet with passengers flew in 1976. No one had heard of Twitter Facebook social networks and so on and certainly most people were still using the telephone that was connected to wires. Over the past 40 years communication and data storage technology has changed significantly. 
Areas of interest and activity for the Security Intelligence Service now include things as simple as email—things that we take for granted that we have on our BlackBerries every day. This legislation now takes account of those changes with regard to our email Internet accounts mobile phones and social networking facilities such as Facebook and Twitter. 
In the past 20 years there have also been developments in New Zealand’s human rights law. Section 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act guarantees the right of everyone to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure and modern case law increasingly expects that security services will rely on specific rather than generalised legislative provisions to undertake their work. The bill amends the warrant framework that takes account of the contemporary legal and technological environment. 
The issues raised in the bill are important because they involve the balancing of personal privacy and property rights with matters of national security. The principal Act allows the Director of Security to apply for warrants to intercept or seize documents communications or things that cannot otherwise be lawfully obtained. There are also currently powers that enable these tasks to be performed in fields such as powers of entry and search. The principal Act contains a range of safeguards in terms of both procedure and oversight. For example the current warrant framework requires evidence that an interception is necessary to detect activities that might upset security. Other requirements are that the value of the information must justify its seizure the information is not likely to be obtained by other means and the information is not privileged. 
This bill addresses a number of very important issues that have not been looked at for over 41 years. When we look at such things as tracking devices we find that organisations like the New Zealand Police and the Customs Service have already had the law updated in their areas of work but the tracking warrant regime for the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service has not been reviewed. So there are many parts of this bill that bring the organisation into the modern era to take account of the technology that we now have available to us. 
There is also one important point to make which is that we are calling on the Government and the Prime Minister to allow submissions to the proposed changes on the SIS legislation to be held in open session. First this bill is being brought in under urgency; secondly it is of interest to the public; and thirdly it can be held in open session because a select committee has the ability to hold submissions in private when it wants to. If the select committee deems that a submission ought to be heard in private then it can do that. The rule and principle set down by the then Prime Minister Jenny Shipley is that unless there are extraordinary circumstances that require a closed hearing for any particular submission then they ought to be heard in public. We urge the Prime Minister John Key to hear as many of those submissions in public as possible. There is no reason to be secretive or inflexible on this matter. I think it is important for the confidence of New Zealanders in this legislation that as much information as possible is made available to them and that as many people as possible can hear what is said on this bill. 
CRAIG FOSS (National—Tukituki) 
: 
 I commend the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill to the House. 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill is an important bill notwithstanding the fact that the previous speaker Craig Foss stood up and made just a 5-second speech on it. Any bill that affects the civil liberties of New Zealanders and gives powers of surveillance to an arm of the State is worthy of proper consideration by this House whether it is the police the Customs Service the Ministry of Transport or the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. 
This bill affects the powers of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. The powers of the Security Intelligence Service have not been updated for some years now. Indeed the principal Act the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act was enacted in 1969 which is 41 years ago. In the time since then technological changes have meant there have been significant changes in surveillance techniques. This Parliament has been addressing the consequences of those changes in surveillance techniques in a range of legislation recently notably the Search and Surveillance Bill which deals with police powers and the powers of non-State agencies. We have touched upon the changes in respect of private security personnel although that is an area of law that still needs a bit of a tidy-up. Now Parliament is looking at them in respect of the Security Intelligence Service. 
It is a sad fact that one thing that has happened as a consequence of change in technology is that there are methods of surveillance in New Zealand currently able to be used by arms of the State that are largely unregulated because they were not thought of when the original legislation controlling State activities was passed by this Parliament. Rather than legislation necessarily always conferring additional powers on State agencies in some ways it limits the powers of State agencies to use new technologies in a way that is currently unconstrained. Labour agrees that there is a need to tidy up those new technologies and make some other changes in respect of the Security Intelligence Service just as we agreed that some changes were necessary in respect of the police and other State agencies in the search and surveillance legislation. 
I am pleased to talk also about the principles that should underlie our consideration of issues such as these. When we give powers to the State we should always be aware that they can be abused. Therefore although it is appropriate that the arms of the State have more powers than ordinary people to conduct surveillance operations and to check on illegal activity on plans that could cause physical harm to people’s bodies or on occasion on a level of involvement in criminal activities or activities that threaten the security of our country we must always be aware that giving unconstrained powers to State agencies should be avoided because those powers can be abused. 
We see that not just in New Zealand but in other countries. It is entirely appropriate that we in this Parliament put limits around the exercise by State agencies of the powers that they need on occasions to maintain surveillance operations on other people that go further than the powers that I or anyone else in this House has. We do not have those rights as private citizens generally. There are some holes in that law at the moment but generally we do not have those powers. When we give those powers to State agencies we ought to be sure that they are appropriately constrained. 
We have different sorts of constraints in respect of the police compared with those that we give to the Security Intelligence Service which has different methods of oversight. The oversight in respect of security warrants is provided by the Commissioner of Security Warrants who is a retired High Court judge. That person is of higher standing than the person to whom one would normally apply for warrants in respect of police matters. Police can get warrants from registrars of the court and from justices of the peace but the level of disclosure to what we would describe as lower-level functionaries in the State bureaucracy is not always appropriate in matters of State security. For that reason the person who oversees the issue of warrants in respect of the Security Intelligence Service is a retired High Court judge. 
The changes proposed to the Act have been advised by the Government to the Opposition and we thank the Government for the briefing it provided to the Opposition in respect of the reasons for the changes. That briefing follows on a longstanding tradition in New Zealand and is to be applauded because those things ought to be done with cross-party support if at all possible. 
We have already made the point through the Hon Annette King in this debate that we think there should be a public process for hearing submissions. When we confer rights on State agencies we ought not to be scared to hear from people who might be critical of those decisions as they could be right. We ought to hear their submissions and take them into account before we in this Parliament decide to change the powers of the Security Intelligence Service. 
There will be times when the justification for powers such as those that are sought might include instances where those powers have been used previously. The Security Intelligence Service might think it appropriate that members of Parliament learn about them but not appropriate for those powers to be advertised through the newspapers effectively if there was public reporting. That is a delicate balance for Parliament to tread. We want to maintain as much openness as possible but at the same time we do not want to be so open that we inhibit the fair operation of the Security Intelligence Service or make it more likely that it will not be as open with the Intelligence and Security Committee as we hope it would be. 
That balance is to be struck by the committee which is in charge of its own processes. The chair and the members of that committee have an important task to consider whether some or all of the submissions should be heard in public or whether selected submissions should appropriately be heard in private or in secret. Again there are precedents for this. The Rt Hon Jenny Shipley previously said under the National-led Government in 1999 which considered Security Intelligence Service matters that these hearings should be open to the public unless there are extraordinary circumstances that require a closed hearing for any particular submission. I suggest to this House that that remain the position. Just because we have had at one level a rise of terrorism internationally since that period it does not change the underlying principle that there should be something extraordinary to justify a committee conducting its business in anything other than a public way. 
I think some countries in other parts of the world have gone wrong. Some of the additional powers that have been conferred upon State agencies in terms of surveillance powers in the United Kingdom have in my view gone too far. There is considerable backlash against those powers in those countries. Of course if there is a backlash against arms of the State it undermines public confidence in the rule of law. A governing body actually wants to carry people with it when it comes to the laws that govern search and surveillance. A governing body wants people to think that the system overall is fair so that the people cooperate with it rather than work against it. 
We do not want to make the mistake made in Great Britain where the search and surveillance powers of State agencies have gone too far. We want to maintain the civil liberties that we have in order to have freedom from inappropriate intrusion by State agencies into our lives whilst not being so naive as to deny the reality that there are occasions when we want an arm of the State the Security Intelligence Service to actually be checking whether people are doing things that could be damaging to our country’s interests. 
Labour supports this bill going to the committee but we will be keeping a weather eye on the process of that committee to make sure that all that can appropriately be done in public in respect of this legislation is done in public. Thank you. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be voting against the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill but before I explain why I wish to register a protest about the way the bill is being rushed through the parliamentary process. 
The passage of the bill is accompanied by an unnecessary level of secrecy. There was no advance publicity about the bill before it was tabled in the House nor any public consultations as to its contents unlike other bills. The regulatory impact statement accompanying the bill says that “Because of the operational sensitivity of the proposals public consultation on the proposals was not undertaken.” That is simply not a valid excuse. There is nothing in the bill that is of an operationally sensitive nature. It is all about the powers that the SIS is to be given and the processes it has to conform to. 
After this first reading in Parliament the bill will go to the secret Intelligence and Security Committee for consideration. As things stand the public and the media will not be allowed into that committee to hear the exchanges between submitters and committee members. Hopefully that will change. On Tuesday the Prime Minister ruled out any open hearings but yesterday he responded positively to my question and said he was taking further advice. I suggest that he learn from former Prime Minister Shipley who in 1999 allowed public hearings on the last SIS amendment bill. In the view of the Green Party the people and the media have the right to be present during submissions on the bill. 
Submitters are the people most likely to spot weaknesses in the bill because unlike select committees the Intelligence and Security Committee is chaired by the Minister in charge of the bill the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service who is also the Prime Minister. He is unlikely to be particularly critical of his own bill. By having the Prime Minister as the committee chairperson it also means that the Intelligence and Security Committee is a hopeless oversight body for the intelligence services. The Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service is hardly the person to lead an oversight body particularly one to which he appoints most of the members. The result is that the SIS is the most unaccountable State agency we have which is a key reason why the Green Party is voting against this bill. 
Essentially we do not want to give the SIS greater powers to invade our privacy when it is such an unaccountable organisation with a history of being used against political dissenters. The Green Party can testify to that because three of our MPs Catherine Delahunty Sue Bradford and I have been provided with our SIS files showing that our activities for greater social justice in this country drew the attention of the SIS in my own case for several decades. 
The spying on dissenters has not ended. More recent cases such as the Ahmed Zaoui case have not shown the SIS in a good light. Ahmed Zaoui a democratic politician who had fallen foul of the Algerian military dictatorship was persecuted by the SIS for years until the agency admitted in legal proceedings that it did not really have a case. It was clear that the main concern of the SIS was to please what it called likeminded countries like France which backed the Algerian dictatorship in its own interests. The rights of Mr Zaoui who now runs a kebab stall in Palmerston North Square were very much secondary. 
One reason why political dissenters can be and have been targeted by the SIS is that its legislated political mandate is very vague. For example it is able to spy on those who prejudice “the international relations of the Government of New Zealand”. That is something that the Green Party could be guilty of each week in Parliament if one listened to National MPs. They think that the Green Party’s current opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade and investment agreement and our request that the Government’s negotiating position be made public prejudices the international relations of the New Zealand Government. 
The SIS operates in such great secrecy that it can spy on critics of Government policy with relative impunity. It is hard to argue for more intrusive powers for such an agency which has clearly transgressed people’s human rights but cannot demonstrate to have done much to improve our safety as a people. That contrasts with the police which is considerably more open in and accountable for its activities. The police also have a mandate to detect politically motivated crime such as terrorism and it is hard to see an additional and separate role for the SIS other than to spy on those who are actively opposed to the current policies of the Government of the day. 
These changes to the powers of the SIS are being rushed through in unseemly haste using the spectre of terrorism at next year’s Rugby World Cup as an excuse. Of course New Zealand does need to have good security at the cup but I think the police are perfectly capable of handling that. The limiting of alcohol would provide better security at the Rugby World Cup than limiting our civil liberties through granting spooks extra powers. I think it is unlikely that we will be overrun by terrorists at the World Cup. It should be noted that rugby-playing nations are remarkably free of terrorism and perhaps that says something about rugby as a sport. Mind you if we are talking about the danger of terrorism it might be more on the field than off the field. Players like Richie McCaw and now Sonny Bill Williams could well terrorise their opponents. 
One of the problems with granting the SIS extra powers in the modern digital technology age is that it enables them to be used in a more intrusive manner than in the past. For example this bill enables spooks to put tracking devices under warrant on a whole grouping of people and track them everywhere they go using global positioning system technology. Also the bill gives the SIS an extra explicit power to “monitor” an audiovisual or electronic interception device covertly placed in someone’s home. The increased sophistication and miniaturisation of such devices allows for more widespread monitoring of people’s private activities. 
The legislation also makes it easier for warrants to be changed or expanded on authority delegated from the Director of Security so that extra phone companies or Internet service providers can be roped in to help intercept the communications of a particular person or group of people. The range of information that the SIS can intercept or collect is explicitly expanded in the bill so that warrants now contain such details as email addresses user account identifiers Internet protocol addresses and Internet storage accounts. Basically whatever a person does on a computer can now be accessed. 
This bill takes us one more step down the road to a surveillance State where more and more of our private activities can be monitored. This spying will almost always take place without us knowing which accounts for the lack of complaints about SIS surveillance to the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Public reporting by the SIS tells us almost nothing about the spying going on. We do get annual statistics on the number of warrants issued but we have no idea how many people are covered by each warrant. 
The secretive nature of the SIS and the lack of accountability to Parliament and the people means that it can be more easily harnessed to serve the interests of other States as I have already explained in the Ahmed Zaoui case. Our Government’s recent defence white paper described the United States as our “stalwart partner” so it is probably the American intelligence agencies we have to worry about in terms of bending the SIS towards their interests. 
In summary I think that we have to have great suspicions about this agency particularly about extending its powers. It operates in an unaccountable way. It operates in a secret way with very little oversight from Parliament and the people and it has a history of spying on political dissenters. In fact it may be being used by other powers. In the recent case exposed by WikiLeaks of the United States spying on United Nations officials including former Prime Minister Helen Clark it may well be that the Waihopai spy station was used even inadvertently from a New Zealand Government position because Waihopai is integrated into the United States intelligence apparatus. The Green Party will oppose this bill as it is contrary to New Zealand’s interests and the interests of the privacy of New Zealanders. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa e te Whare. First of all let me say that the Maori Party is not fundamentally opposed to the Government taking steps to ensure the security of our country nor are we opposed to the use of technology to enhance that security. Furthermore the Maori Party supports the principles of transparency accountability integrity respect and confidentiality. But in terms of this bill’s proposal to widen the powers of the SIS I have to express grave doubts about the way in which a secret organisation goes about snooping on ordinary law-abiding citizens in this country. I express particular concern on behalf of the many Maori in this country who are actively campaigning for recognition of tino rangatiratanga as well as those citizens who care about the integrity of this nation for the very reason that they have been the improper targets of the SIS in the past and will undoubtedly attract further attention from the pie in the briefcase brigade in the future. 
For those with a short memory I will recall just a few of the following incidents for the edification of the members of this House: the SIS publicly releasing a list of so-called radicals and subversives during the 1981 Springbok Tour to try to hamstring the anti-tour movement—what a complete waste of time that was—SIS agents caught in an illegal search of the house of Christchurch anti-globalisation activist Aziz Choudry; the SIS issuing a security risk certificate against Ahmed Zaoui and having the poor bugger held in jail without trial until it was forced to withdraw the certificate when it could not substantiate its claims; SIS involvement in gathering the information that led to the botched terrorism raids on the nation of Tuhoe and the laying of terrorism charges against Tuhoe citizens which have since been thrown out; and just last month for some unknown reason Professor Jane Kelsey a vocal critic of the SIS’s role in New Zealand politics all of a sudden is stopped at the airport when trying to get into Australia to promote a book challenging the credibility of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 
Given the public embarrassment that the SIS has subjected this nation to over the last 20 years with some of its Keystone Cops 
routines and its harassment of law-abiding citizens I would have thought Parliament would be wanting greater scrutiny over the SIS rather than simply rubberstamping its cellphone snoopery. But here we are considering giving these guys even greater powers? When I think of who is actually watching the watchers I am mindful that although there is a committee set up to oversee the SIS the operations are not themselves subject to public scrutiny. 
The Maori Party is happy to support this bill at first reading if it will be brought before a committee for public debate and scrutiny because we want people who have concerns about the SIS’s past and current activities to tell the committee so that the Government can hear exactly what it is its precious SIS gets up to. But we are not keen to support it if those submissions are all going to be held behind closed doors. Thank you very much. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I commend the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill to the House. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill. I will speak on the bill in detail because it is an extremely important bill for New Zealand as many of the speakers on this side of the House and from the Greens and the Maori Party have suggested. 
We are sitting under urgency to look at this bill. Two weeks ago we were told by the Leader of the House that the House would not need to go into urgency because the legislative planning was well under control. We would not need to sit here until probably the weekend. None of us on this side of the House have any problem with being here until the weekend but what I do have a problem with is that while we are sitting here under urgency listening to speeches on highly important legislation for New Zealand such as this bill the Government member Louise Upston stood up to take a 2-second call on something that will affect and impinge upon the human rights of every New Zealander in this country. She took a 2-second call. How cynical is that? The Government is putting this bill through the House under urgency yet one of its members stood up to take a 2-second call. And then the Government has insisted on hearing submissions on this bill in secret. How cynical is that? 
This bill is very important. It updates the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. It brings it in line with changes in modern technology. It amends the principal Act the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act to take account of technological changes developments in human rights and case law and the modern requirements of intelligence acquisition. Those have all changed in the last 41 years since the principal Act was put in place. The objectives of the bill are to maintain the SIS’s effectiveness by updating warrants to clarify that modern technical methods of surveillance can be used now. The Internet cellphones and a whole range of different methods are available now that were not even dreamt about 41 years ago. The second objective is to maintain protections of those acting under warrant including exercising entry powers. The third is to improve operational efficiency by allowing a more flexible process for people assisting under warrant. 
That is all very good but there are some fundamental issues with the bill. As my colleague from the Maori Party Hone Harawira just pointed out we need to weigh up matters of national security with issues of human rights and the protection of human rights which we in this modern democracy grow up with and probably take for granted. We need to weigh up national security with human rights. A citizen’s right to privacy and to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure are fundamental rights that we take for granted in this country; we have grown up with them and they are part of our whole being as New Zealanders. We must take care when defining State powers that impact upon those rights. 
Secondly the task of balancing the State’s surveillance powers with the protection of human rights is complex. It is not an easy thing. It comes into conflict often with many many different operational situations. We need therefore the widest range of opinion and advice in hearing this legislation. So I think the input of the Privacy Commissioner the Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security into the development of policy in the committee process will be extremely extremely important. 
Labour as earlier speakers have said will support this bill being referred to the Intelligence and Security Committee. The principal Act is now as I said before 41 years old. It was brought in in 1969 the year we landed on the moon for the first time. The issues that are raised in the bill are important because they involve as I said before balancing privacy and property rights with national security. 
The principal Act contains a range of safeguards in both procedure and oversight. For example the current warrant requires evidence that an interception is necessary to detect activities prejudicial to security that the value of the information justifies any seizure or any sort of activity along those lines that the information is not likely to be obtained by any other less obtrusive or less extreme means and finally that the information is not privileged. We have oversight by the Commissioner of Security Warrants who is a retired High Court judge and the Prime Minister. So this legislation is at the highest levels of our Government system. Therefore it needs and demands to be treated seriously with the respect it deserves. I do not believe that that is the case with regard to the way it is being rammed through the House under urgency and to the trivial call of 1½ seconds from a member on the Government side. 
I will mention a couple of things the bill addresses. When I refer to updating the technology I mean tracking devices and global positioning systems which did not exist 41 years’ ago. The New Zealand Police and New Zealand Customs have already had the law defining their activities changed but the SIS has yet to be properly reviewed. As I have said we have the Internet cellphones satellite telephones and a whole range of different technologies that demand that the legislation is brought into the 21st century. But we must ensure that the legislation has the right checks and balances and that as it goes forward it is heard in a public forum. Many members speaking on this bill—those who have deigned to speak for more than 1½ seconds—have spoken about the need for the hearings to be held in public. The Prime Minister came out and said they would be held in private. The Labour Party has said that the hearings need to be held in open session. Lo and behold just yesterday the Prime Minister came out and said he will have a rethink on this policy. That attitude is the Government’s plan and strategy for the future: kick the tyres check the pulse do the polling and change one’s mind. That is what the Prime Minister did. He went away checked the polling and felt that maybe he had overextended the secrecy element and needed to make the hearings more open. 
His predecessor Jenny Shipley had already done that. She said that Security Intelligence Service legislation needs to be heard in secret only where that is warranted; other than that we should hear it in public. This bill is of such importance that it definitely needs to be heard in public. It needs to have a good hearing. It should be talked about and discussed openly right across the country. People should realise that the technological changes which are needed must be balanced with and matched by the ability to protect our human rights and our right not to have our privacy transgressed. 
The Labour Party will support the bill being referred to the committee but we will be listening very carefully to the submissions. I say finally that it would be a really good idea for members of the Government to stand up take a decent call and attribute to the bill the importance that it deserves. The Government is being cynical in rushing the bill through the House under urgency. 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 I rise to the challenge presented by the previous speaker and in so doing support the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill. I too commend it to the House. 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I am sorry that National is not choosing to contribute to the debate on a piece of legislation that matters. 
Hon Paula Bennett 
: What was that? You and your other two members in the House? 
Hon PETE HODGSON 
: I wonder whether the Minister for Social Development and Employment would like to pull in what is left of her head and I will continue with my contribution to the House. I do think that National should contribute to the debate on the legislation. The fact that it is doing what is called “whips’ calls” which means that members opposite get up say something sit down and that counts as having made a speech—and therefore counts as having got one-twelfth of the way through to the end point of the legislation—is not a very good look. 
Labour will be supporting this legislation. We do so with some mixture of views and with some hesitation that always attends legislation of this ilk. Those who understand legislation of this ilk far better than I will say that it seeks to achieve a balance between the protection of society on the one hand from bad people and attention to human rights on the other hand from an over-excitable State sector. Labour’s position on the legislation is that getting that balance right will take a bit of time. Over the years the one thing that has helped has been an increase in the degree of transparency that applies to SIS activities and SIS legislation. 
For example there used to be no ability to examine the SIS at a committee level. There was no ability to do that. There was an obligation on the SIS to tell the Prime Minister of the day how many people’s phones had been tapped. The Prime Minister of the day would table that number on the floor of the House once a year; and that was that. These days we have more openness than that. In other words the SIS has certain powers that no one else has but is obliged to explain what it does with them more openly than it ever has before. So one of the things that society can do as it is trying to match this balance between what is perceived to be the need for closer public safety or more attention to public security on the one hand and attention to human rights on the other hand is to reach for transparency. There are various ways of doing so. 
Of course things can go wrong. I can remember being a member of Cabinet during the Ahmed Zaoui case. That was a very difficult time to be in Government because the law could not be changed mid-stream. We did however indicate that we would change the law at the end of the course of that process and we did. That is an example of what can happen when things go wrong and people decide that a person has a certain profile that it turns out they may not have. Keith Locke who is sitting not so far away from me now is another example of someone who perhaps somewhat to his considerable surprise has been under the watch of the SIS because he is such a beastly terrorist-inspired sort of a coot! He has found himself until recent times under the examination of the spooks. That is simply bizarre. 
When it comes to the select committee hearings for this legislation the idea that the hearings would be all held in secret is itself intolerable. The way that the committee is put together as I understand it is that any one person on the committee can veto the hearing of evidence in public. In other words the rules around it are tilted such that one needs unanimity to get openness. Any one person can require hearings to be closed. I think I have got that right. I think I saw the Prime Minister of the land who is a member of that committee tell the House the day before yesterday or it may have even been yesterday that he was of the view that things would need to be held in secret and therefore as he alone held that view they would be held in secret. We are learning today that maybe the Prime Minister is changing his mind. I would simply say to the Prime Minister that it is not OK to be beholden to the wisdom or at least the advice of SIS folk who of course will say: “We want to be heard in secret.” Of course they will say they do not want any hearings to be made public. Of course they will not want transparency on their watch because that is not their style it is not their history it is not where they have come from. That is why they are called spooks. 
That does not make it good. If we are to have the SIS getting into the Prime Minister’s ear getting him excited giving him “Boys’ Own Story” stuff about how we really should not allow the bright lights of transparency to shine on the processes of this legislation and the Prime Minister uses his veto right to ensure that the rest of the country does not get to see what goes on in the select committee that is bad style. We know that the Prime Minister is subject to that sort of “boys’ own” excitable story stuff because he travels with an enormous number of Diplomatic Protection Squad personnel around him. He has people striding around him. Even when he is about to walk into this Chamber he comes with an armed guard. It is unbelievable. I do not know of any Prime Minister in the history of this country and certainly none that I have had anything to do with who would walk around this building with armed guards—with lumpy armpits—either side of him. Who would trammel the dignity of the Prime Minister in this place? I really do think he is vulnerable to that excitable “boys’ own” stuff. 
I think that is a shame. If the Prime Minister is of that nature if that is his personality then maybe it has affected his approach to the openness of the select committee hearings. If that is the case then we have a situation where one person alone gets to say that the rest of the 4 million of us are not entitled to have an open process for this legislation. That is not good. The ideal would be to have a default position that was open except that there will be some instances at some stage where the select committee members should be the only ones to know some level of evidence. I can imagine that being the case and I would be comfortable with that even though I am not myself on the Intelligence and Security Committee. But the default position has to be “let’s have it in the open unless” and at the moment the default position occasioned by the Prime Minister alone seems to be “Let’s have it all locked up unless I change my mind.” I ask the Prime Minister to please change his mind because he is about to make a big mistake if he does not. It is really important as we try to balance on the one hand the dignity and importance of human rights and on the other hand the protection of society that we use transparency as a way to get that balance right. The Prime Minister is of an opposite view. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to speak on the first reading of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill which makes five main changes to update and clarify existing legislation to take into account advances in technology. 
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act was passed more than 40 years ago and I think it is safe to say that at that time Parliament would not have been able to consider the way in which technological advances would affect the role of our security services. As such the Act does not recognise the electronic and digital methods that the SIS uses in its investigations today or the methods used by those whom the SIS investigates. No longer are those being investigated exclusively tracked and followed by agents. Although such methods are undoubtedly still utilised the vast majority of surveillance is now done by remote and electronic means. 
Current legislation should reflect current practice and bringing this law into the 21st century is long overdue. The bill will do that by making it clear that the warrant framework set out in the Act includes electronic tracking. The bill updates the means by which the subject of the surveillance can be monitored. Sadly for those of us who are old spy movie buffs the days of secret agents breaking into a home and attaching a bugging device to a landline phone are probably long over. 
The bill will update and expand the scope of the Act to include 21st century technology such as mobile phones and other digital communication devices. With the expansion of computers in our everyday lives the ability for individuals or organisations to misuse such technology to aid their lawbreaking has risen dramatically. The bill will provide an explicit focus on those using new technologies and clarifies that computer-based surveillance is a permitted activity for the intelligence services by ensuring a clearer exemption from that aspect of the Crimes Act. The security service requires and deserves clear direction in order to remove any uncertainty over the legality of its actions. 
This bill will enable the SIS to work more effectively within the New Zealand Police and other enforcement agencies. It will modernise the current Act and the activities of the SIS to bring them into line with our overseas partners and with technological advances over the last four decades. It will provide our security services with a clear and modern mandate to keep our country and our people safe. I commend the bill to the House. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I rise to take a “whip’s call”— 
Hon Member 
: Well you’re a whip. 
CHRIS TREMAIN 
: —maybe because I am a whip—and make the closing speech of the debate on the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill. 
Before I commend the bill to the House I have to say a few words in reply to the Hon Pete Hodgson. He was going on about the Prime Minister and his “boys’ own” way of walking around with the SIS. If anyone in this House loves the SIS it is Pete Hodgson. In fact he walks into the House every day almost in camouflage gear. I imagine his underwear is probably in camouflage. If any action takes place in this House with members trying to dig dirt on anybody that man is at the bottom of trying to uncover the dirt. If anybody loves the SIS manoeuvres or tactics it is Pete Hodgson. I had a bit of a laugh when he talked about that in respect of this bill. 
Without any further ado I commend this bill to the House. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
Ayes 111 
New Zealand National 58; New Zealand Labour 42; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1; United Future 1. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service 
: I move  
That the Intelligence and Security Committee 
 consider the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 64 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 4; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill 
Third Reading 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations 
: I move  
That the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill be now read a third time 
. E nga rahi o Nga Wairiki Ngati Apa tatou nga uri w’aka’eke i te Waka o Karahaupo nga tuku iho o nga maunga tupuna nga kaitiaki o nga awa o W’angae’u Turakina Manga’wero Rangitikei; Ngati Apa tena tatou tena tatou tena tatou katoa. Apa-’apai-taketake nana te tapiki i te takiritanga o te ata. 
[ 
To the multitude of Nga Wairiki and Ngati Apa we are the descendants of the Kurahaupo Canoe the ones handed down from the ancestral mountains the guardians of the Whangaehu Turakina Mangawhero and Rangitikei rivers; greetings to us all three times over Ngati Apa. It was Apa-hapai-taketake who took a hold on the dawn 
.] 
This is a day that Ngati Apa has been waiting for for many generations and many decades. Today we come together—the Crown and Ngati Apa—to reflect on a journey that started in 1899 110 years ago. At that time the Premier Richard Seddon sat with our tupuna to hear their anguish and to understand the sense of disillusionment and despair amongst them. Their pain flowed from the effects of the Rangitikei-Turakina purchase some 50 years earlier in 1849. In that transaction the Crown purchased the 260000-acre Rangitikei-Turakina block for ₤2500—a little under tuppence an acre. That one act resulted in the mass alienation of our lands from us and is the original source of our grievance. It was a transaction that resulted in poverty not partnership. Worst of all our identity as mana w’enua—literally the people of the land—was removed from us with one swipe of the pen. 
I refer back to these events because as uri of Nga Wairiki / Ngati Apa the sense of travelling a journey with my ancestors is constantly with me. Today our journey takes a new turn establishing a strong foundation to restore and enhance the well-being of Nga Wairiki / Ngati Apa. Although we look forward to the transformation we can never forget—nor should we—the injustices that have shaped our history. 
It was a history that Ngati Apa entered into in the genuine desire to establish a positive two-way relationship with the Crown. The first major engagement between Ngati Apa and the Crown took place on 21 May 1840 when three members of Ngati Apa signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Tawhirihoe Pa. Eight years later the Crown purchased over 400000 acres of land in which Ngati Apa had interests. But it was the impacts of the Rangitikei-Turakina block purchase that left the deepest wounds. The korero from the Crown at that time encouraged our tupuna to believe that they would reap substantial economic advantages from the growth of European settlement around them. Our people agreed to the transaction in the hope that settlement would bring with it peace protection and prosperity. As one of our rangatira is recorded to have said in 1849 “We have married our land to the Europeans and entirely given our greatest property to the Europeans”. 
One of the tragic facts of our story was that our ancestral aspirations for a positive two-way relationship never eventuated in their time. The Crown did not properly protect the 35000 acres of reserves from the Rangitikei-Turakina sale. The operation of the native land laws—in particular awarding land to individual Ngati Apa rather than to iwi or hapu—made our lands more susceptible to partition fragmentation and alienation. So when Premier Seddon came to the marae our elders spoke to him about the erosion of their access to mahinga kai and their dwindling tribal estate. They shared with him their grief at the decimation of traditional tribal structures based on collective tribal and hapu custodianship of land and the alienation of nearly all of Ngati Apa’s remaining lands. They recommended that the Crown pass an Act of Parliament to protect their lands but the reserves for Ngati Apa never eventuated. 
Yesterday when the Maori Party and the National Party announced the establishment of the very significant process of constitutional review a fascinating insight was made by a young man on the street. He remarked that we simply do not do enough to look at ourselves as a nation to know our history. Never a truer word was said. For the hapu collectives that make up Ngati Apa we have deliberately joined together to learn our history and to familiarise ourselves with our land interests which stretch from Motu Karaka south to Omarupapako and inland to the upper Rangitikei area. We proudly claim the statutory acknowledgments that have been recognised over sites within our rohe. 
Through this bill deeds of recognition and place name changes will recognise Ngati Apa’s traditional cultural and spiritual relationship with their area of interest. The area known as Mount Curl will now be known as Parae Karetu. The Round Bush Scenic Reserve will be known as Omarupapako / Round Bush Scenic Reserve. Another recognition of our relationship with places and sites within the area of interest is that 12 Crown sites totalling 214 hectares will be transferred to Ngati Apa. 
But it is the prospect of cultural revitalisation that probably fills me with the greatest sense of anticipation. The settlement provides for the gifting of five papakainga properties: AgResearch Lands Parewanui School part of the Santoft Forest part of the Lismore Sands forest and the Kauangaroa School. It provides for funding to assist in preparing and implementing a cultural redevelopment plan. This plan includes marae development and investment in programmes and initiatives covering areas such as te reo the arts and taonga or matauranga. It provides for settlement funding to assist with compiling a comprehensive historical record and clearing two papakainga sites located within licensed Crown forest land. 
Alongside all of these developments the financial redress part of the settlement package will help Ngati Apa to re-establish and grow their economic livelihood. Financial redress includes a cash payment of $16 million the ability to purchase licensed Crown forest land and receive associated rentals and the right of first refusal for 50 years to buy four Crown properties if they are declared surplus to requirements. The runanga has also agreed to provide Whanganui iwi with an option to buy 50 percent of the land beneath the Wanganui Prison. 
I come back to the journey that we are on. I stand to honour our four outstanding young leaders who have championed our settlement: chairperson Adrian Rurawhe Toko Kapea Pahia Turia and Toroa Pohatu. It is no coincidence that three of these named are affiliated to tupuna who travelled the world to take their petition to ratify Te Tiriti o Waitangi to King George. It is in our w’akapapa to continue the search for resolution. My own grandfather Hamiora Uru Te Angina; my adopted father Tariuha Manawaroa Te Aweawe; and my mother’s two sisters Ripeka and Mihiterina also travelled with Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana to get the Treaty ratified. Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana asked the Labour Party to ratify the Treaty of Waitangi. It could not and did not honour that agreement. I hope that the constitutional review we embarked on yesterday takes our journey forward in such a way as to honour our tupuna as he deserved. 
When the deed of settlement was first signed I remember my nephew Adrian speaking of the amazing gift of generosity given by iwi to the nation. He was referring to the fact that iwi through the course of negotiations give up the right to claim up to 97 percent of what they are entitled to. Such is the extent of the manaakitanga that they bring to this nation. How hard it is to listen to some of the redneck rhetoric that is espoused by some who are unable to accept the noble generosity of spirit expressed by tangata w’enua in the Treaty settlement process. Our struggle for justice over successive generations has today come to fruition. I weep for those who are no longer with us. I am in awe of the leadership of our young and I say to Nga Wairaki / Ngati Apa that we can celebrate that all this work was not in vain. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 E nga iwi o Ngati Apa tenei te mihi ki a koutou. Tena koutou tena koutou kia ora koutou katoa. It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to this third and final reading of this Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill which has been a long time in the making. I pay my respects to the tupuna and the leaders of Ngati Apa who have gone before and who have not lived to see this day. I pay my respects also to those who have carried their torches faithfully—the young people whom the Minister has just named in her korero—who have now brought this settlement to fruition. I pay my respects to them also. 
I think it is a striking element of this settlement that we have the emergence of a generation of young leaders who are now more than well-equipped to settle a grievance of long standing. I recognise that and I recognise the people who have gone before them because they are the ones who have prepared them and equipped them for this task. I hope today that in fact the Government with this third reading puts the seal on something that should have been honoured a long time ago as the Minister has said. 
I will make a couple of points about the legislation and I will refer to a few things one of my colleagues said earlier in his first speech—I think in addressing the first reading of this legislation when it came to the House. My colleague the Hon Mita Ririnui had this to say about this legislation: “Ngati Apa entered into a process which basically began with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi for a simple purpose: they encouraged settlement but at the same time they wanted to be recipients. They wanted to be in the position where they could benefit from much of the technology brought here by the settlers. So they entered into many discussions with Crown agents many of whom are mentioned in the preamble to this bill. Certainly they are mentioned in the historical account.  
But that did not happen. In fact Ngati Apa went through a process of being subjected to land confiscation and land acquisition to the point … where they were left with simply 1 percent of their original land holding. For them that had a tremendous impact … It led to the undermining of their culture the loss of their language and the fragmentation of whanau hapu and iwi to the extent that they did not participate in the development of the Rangitikei area. In fact they were what we might call onlookers. The development of that area was undertaken at their expense and they at no time were able to participate in it.”  
The history of this settlement is painful to read. It is good that it is traversed in some detail at the beginning of this legislation so that it is written down in our law for all to read that the land confiscation the alienation and the oppression of Ngati Apa which deprived them of economic well-being as well as spiritual and physical well-being can be referred back to by anybody who cares to look because it will now enter our statute.  
From a brief traversing of the history and by reference to my colleague Mita Ririnui’s words but also in recognition of the words the Minister spoke a few minutes ago the next step to come to in the legislation is the apology. Because the first thing that must happen in order for a settlement to be a settlement of a grievance is an apology. There is no settlement without the apology. I quote from the text of the apology in the bill: “(1) The Crown recognises the efforts and struggles of the ancestors of Ngati Apa (North Island) in pursuit of their claims for justice and redress from the Crown and makes this apology to Ngati Apa (North Island) and their descendants. (2) The Crown profoundly regrets and unreservedly apologises to Ngati Apa (North Island) for the breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles acknowledged above. (3) The Crown regrets and apologises for the cumulative effect of its actions and omissions over the generations to the present day which have had a detrimental impact on the traditional tribal structures of Ngati Apa (North Island) their access to customary resources and significant sites economic and social development and their physical cultural and spiritual wellbeing. (4) Accordingly with this apology the Crown seeks to atone for its past wrongs begin the process of healing and make a significant step towards re-building a lasting relationship based on mutual trust and cooperation with Ngati Apa (North Island).”  
If I say nothing else in this speech tonight the text of that apology is sufficient to begin a settlement process. Also within this legislation are the other elements of a settlement process with which we are now familiar. There is the cultural redress there is the compensation and there is the return of lands. All of those elements are prerequisites for New Zealand Aotearoa to begin to move forward as people who work with each other and treat each other in a way that is respectful and equal. We can start to build a different society on that basis. It is my great pleasure to commend this third reading of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill to the House. Kia ora. 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) 
: 
 I welcome those who have travelled from the Ngati Apa rohe and are here in the gallery today to listen to the third reading of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. Some people in the gallery may have found it a little strange that I exited the House when Mrs Turia was speaking. The reason for doing that was that I am the Minister in charge of the passage of the bill and I am not allowed to be in the House if another Minister is addressing it. So it was not out of any disrespect to her—far from it. She is an outstanding ministerial colleague and valued parliamentary colleague. I think she is an utterly principled and brave member of this Parliament and out of deference to her it was entirely appropriate that she led off the debate today and that is why I left. Mind you there are other people in the House for whom—from a point of principle—I leave as soon as they stand up to speak. Mrs Turia is not one of them. Maybe a ginga on the other side of the House could come into that category. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Oh Minister! 
Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: Mr Horomia is not one of them either. The passage of this bill concludes a long journey for Ngati Apa. The claim started in December 1991 with the lodging of Wai 265 with the Waitangi Tribunal. That claim as well as Wai 655 will be settled with the passage of this legislation. I very much want to acknowledge the many kuia and kaumatua who are no longer with us who provided leadership and inspiration during this long journey towards settlement. It is a fact and I have seen it time and time again that those whose names were on the claim forms to the Waitangi Tribunal are no longer with us but their children and sometimes even their grandchildren carry the burden of the claim through to settlement. When we settle in those circumstances it is deeply moving and humbling. I too endorse the comments of Mrs Turia in paying tribute to the visionary leadership of the negotiating team who have conducted a superb set of negotiations throughout the various stages of the process. 
The previous speaker referred to the Crown apology. It is an essential component of the exercise we have been undertaking for so many years because as a part of this settlement the Crown apologises to Ngati Apa for past dealings that breached the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. Those breaches included a failure to ensure that Ngati Apa were left with sufficient land for their present and future needs a failure to ensure that the Native Land Court gave effect to the terms of the 1849 Rangitikei-Turakina purchase deed and a failure to protect Ngati Apa’s traditional tribal structures. The Crown can never fully compensate Ngati Apa for their losses and dispossession but through the settlement in this bill we can provide the means for them to move forward to achieve their future which I am sure will be great. So I hope the Crown apology and settlement will lay the ground for rebuilding a lasting relationship of trust and mutual cooperation between the Crown and Ngati Apa. 
I acknowledge the role of Te Runanga o Ngati Apa in the settlement of these claims and the hard work of the negotiation team. I commend the work of the Office of Treaty Settlements in negotiating this settlement on behalf of the Crown and in particular I acknowledge the work of Ross Philipson as chief negotiator. It is my hope and my intention to deliver the Crown apology on a Ngati Apa marae early next year for all Ngati Apa people to hear their historical grievances acknowledged and addressed and that is always such an important part of what we are doing. Just a couple of weeks ago I dealt with another Ngati Apa at Omaka Marae Kath Hemi’s Ngati Apa and when I read out the apology silence fell everyone was very intently listening. It is an extremely important part of the exercise we are undertaking. 
So the Ngati Apa settlement is one of the many settlements this Government is progressing towards our aspirational goal of justly and durably settling historical Treaty of Waitangi claims by 2014. I wish Ngati Apa well in their future endeavours. I look forward to meeting with them as I said on one of their marae early in the new year to read out the apology formally. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon PAREKURA HOROMIA (Labour—Ikaroa-Rawhiti) 
: 
 E tika atu i runga i te tu nei ki te mihi kau ana ki a koutou katoa o te wahi o te whenua o Ngati Apa. E tuku aroha ki nga pakeke e kore i konei kua rere atu ratou kare e kite i te otinga o te hikoi roaroa atu penei tonu. Na te mea i roto i aku i whakaaro atu mo te taumahatanga e mahi atu te Kawana ki a koutou. No reira e mihi kau ana ki a koutou o te Kurahaupo mo to kaha ki te tae ki te rangi nei mo to whakaaro ki te tuku awhi tuku manaaki ki a tatou nga kanohi Maori e manaaki atu te kawenata nei. No reira tena koutou. Mo ratou e rere ana e tangi hoki te ngakau. Na te pai o te whakaoti penei tonu kua tae atu ki te wa mo te whakatikatika i nga hea e puta ana mai i te Kawana. I takahia atu te tangata o te whenua i mau kaha atu nga riri nga ahua e mohio atu ratou nga uri o Ngati Apa. Na te mea i roto i aku e kite atu te kaha o te miharo e kaha ana ratou ki te mau atu i te ahua o te humarie to ratou kaha ki te whakatikatika. Tera ano te tino mihi i roto i aku mo ratou. No reira tena tatou. 
[ 
It is appropriate that I rise to specifically congratulate you all 
 
 the people of the land and region of  
Ngati Apa. 
 I extend condolences to the elders who passed away and were 
n 
o 
t able to see the completion of a journey that has taken so long. Personally 
 
 I think it was the pressure that  
the G 
overnment imposed upon you 
. 
 That 
 i 
s why I really adnire you of Kurahaupo  
for 
 your efforts to make it here today 
 
 as well as providing assistance and support to us 
 
 the Maori members 
 
 in regard to this settlement 
. 
 Congratulations. 
As for those who passed away 
 
 the heart grieves 
.  
Because the settlement process has gone so well 
 
 it is time now to look at how  
the G 
overnment intends to address it. The people of the land were mistreated 
; 
 there were long 
- 
held grievances and situations that only those descendants of Ngati Apa know about 
. 
 Their ability to remain humble and work rigorously for resolution amazes me 
.  
I really admire them for that 
.  
Greetings to us 
.] 
I mihi to the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector who has led the debate and discussion this afternoon because she is of Ngati Apa descent and has been involved in this matter for a longer time than the present Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations. But I do want to recognise the present Minister and I say that now just in case I forget on the way out and he stands up next. I say it quite seriously. I had the honour on 8 October 2008 to be there to sign the deed and I want to mention my former colleague Dr Michael Cullen and Mita Ririnui who gives his apologies. He is up in Tauranga on a matter to do with the foreshore and seabed legislation. I also want to mention the people who signed with us Lillian Ruihi Manawaroa Te Aweawe Ropata Te Hina—e mihi kau ana ki a Ropata. E tata ana ki tona rere haere— 
[ 
a 
 special acknowledgment to Ropata Te Hina 
 
 whose death is impending 
] 
—Arikihanara Mare Mare and Mariana Shenton. Those people had the gumption and the notion to give direction to the young group that finalised this deed and settlement and that is something I want to talk about later on. 
There is a whole lot of history to this settlement—what Land Claims Commissioner Spain did what the other commissioners did and what the Native Land Court did. The Ngati Apa settlement is a very very important settlement. People can take a lot of lessons out of it. Ngati Apa waited for 100 years - plus to get to this point. I say to the Minister—I see he left as soon as I stood up but I will say it because it will be recorded—that in the summaries and when he signs this document I hope he is very clear about ensuring and understanding the support that Ngati Apa will need in the sense of economic development. The bill in itself has a whole lot of ramifications and it should attest to a whole lot of future activity in order to put the past behind us and go forward. 
There is simple logic in the background of this settlement. In 1840 North Island Ngati Apa in the Rangitikei-Manawatu area had land interests stretching from Motu Karaka about midway between the Whanganui and Whangaehu rivers south to Omarupapako just north of the Manawatu River and inland to the upper Rangitikei area. As Minister Turia said three members of North Island Ngati Apa signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Tawhirihoe Pa a Ngati Apa kainga near the mouth of the Rangitikei River. The preamble sets out all of that. The reason I mention that is a whole lot of things have happened and if people go to Rangitikei now or the area of Ngati Apa they will see it is one of the most flourishing economic developments in this country. I hope it is remembered that the Ngati Apa people were paid tuppence—I did not know that Minister Turia was old enough to remember pennies—an acre or whatever. When we put something right then let us ensure that we correct the imbalance. This settlement is only one part of ensuring that. When we see the wealth that abounds there and in Taranaki and in Hamilton we wonder and we ponder what was in other people’s minds in the past. 
The apology has all those parts in it. Clause 8(4) states: “Accordingly with this apology the Crown seeks to atone for its past wrongs beginning the process of healing and make a significant step towards re-building a lasting relationship based on mutual trust and cooperation with Ngati Apa …”. They have some neighbours next door to them who have been running a formation called a paepae rangatira which involves all these Government agencies with a whole lot of funding supposedly getting together in an effort to support those people. I suggest the Minister makes sure he keeps his finger on it because the other one is waning a bit. 
The cultural redress is really important. Protocols are to be issued to the trustees. I mention to the two Ministers in the House that it is important that the Minister of Conservation the Minister of Fisheries and the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage are involved even though I grumbled a bit at the time. But we must remember who took these things off Ngati Apa and ensure that there is a comparable line-up on the other side so that there will not be just one-way traffic in one direction for another hundred years. I think it is more important sometimes in Treaty settlements that that is remembered. This edict or legislation of this House should not compound what has taken a hundred years to correct. I encourage the Minister to do that and I will not walk out the next time he speaks. 
I want to quote from Mita Ririnui who wanted to be here today: “It is incredible that young people of Ngati Apa could bring this settlement to the House without too many problems.” I can see that what problems they did have were handled very well. I say to the nation and to those involved in other settlements that they should take a leaf out of the book of the young people who led this settlement. Well they are not too young; I think Toroa is older than young and so is Andre. But that is what happens in Maoridom; people are called young if they are under 70. But I say seriously and with respect that people should take a leaf out of this young group’s book; they got to the end. I mention Adrian Rurawhe Pahia Turia Toroa Pohatu and Toko Kapea; that is what they did. It was wonderful to see that the old people could give the direction hand it down and the young people had to go and do the job. 
In conclusion I tell members that after World War II many members of North Island Ngati Apa moved away from their tribal lands to urban areas. It was part of a national trend. Economic opportunities appeared to be better in urban areas than in rural areas. In 1962 the Department of Maori Affairs was pursuing a policy of providing housing in Whanganui and evacuating families from Kauangaroa. The department was trying to encourage Maori to move from remote rural areas to urban districts where more employment and better social amenities existed. Most Ngati Apa people now live outside of their boundaries. There is approximately only 1 percent of their people in their traditional lands and that needs to be paid for recognised and supported. 
Without further ado I commend this bill. Labour members will certainly be supporting it. I thank all the people who have been involved in it. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 As ever it is a pleasure and a privilege to stand and speak on a bill of settlement. On behalf of the Greens I acknowledge the presence in the gallery today of representatives of Ngati Apa. I also acknowledge their long struggle and the courage and determination that have been shown over many many decades to bring to fruition the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill which will be passed in the House today. 
We will of course continue to support this bill as we have supported it throughout its various readings and as indeed we will continue to support bills that restore the recognition of mana recognise kaitiaki status and seek to redress some of the historical and contemporary grievances. The commitment to the fulfilment of the Treaty relationship is embedded in our Green Party constitution as is recognition of Maori as tangata whenua. In that spirit clearly we genuinely take real pleasure in seeing the settlements made over time. 
One of perhaps the secondary benefits of these settlements—clearly the primary benefits are the restoration redress and recognition of mana—not often enough commented upon is the fact that within the bill there is recorded the history of these events the lands the people and the actions that occurred over time. This bill like others contains a narrative of how we came to this place and this position today. These narratives are very accessible and in one way easy to read. For that reason they are of considerable benefit beyond the immediate benefits. 
They are not easy to read in the sense that they record over time the loss of land through illegal actions by the Crown and other agents. They record suffering and hardship over many years and the gradual erosion of the possessions and well-being of people. Nevertheless it is important that these documents are made available. The fact that they are here and accessible is a major benefit as I say. 
I will reference a particular section of this bill that caught my eye which is the reference to the fact that in the 1840s the Crown’s land purchase policy was generally to acquire land at the cheapest possible price in the belief that Maori would reap benefits in addition to the payment made for the land. In this instance it says that Ngati Apa agreed to the transaction at a lower price than their initial request or expectation because they wished to obtain various benefits from the establishment of a European settlement in their vicinity including peace protection and prosperity. Those are very humble aspirations to wish for. They are quite low expectations. They are very reasonable expectations. By fulfilling their part of the Treaty relationship they could reasonably expect a degree of peace some protection from the Crown and indeed a degree of prosperity. Sadly of course history now tells us that none of these expectations were fulfilled and it is to the credit of this Parliament today that we seek to put right at least some of that. 
I guess I make these remarks in the context of having recently sat on a select committee as many of us have and heard people who constantly refer to settlements and other forms of recompense to Maori as if they acknowledge some particular special privilege or unearned benefit for Maoridom rather than simply being quite minimal settlements to pay back and return what was taken and being recompense and redress for the wrongs that were done in the past. 
The notion of so-called special privilege that an uninformed but very vocal minority continues to insist upon is clearly at odds with the reality of all the social statistics that typically put Maori at the high end of all the wrong sorts of statistics. Clearly these settlements can give Maori in their own hands some resources tools and ability to rebuild an economy and the prosperity and well-being that was sought so very many years ago. It is to be hoped that those who choose to criticise these settlements and these bills will take the very small amount of time necessary to sit down with these documents and read these very simple but very powerful narratives that tell the story of why it is necessary that we recognise and make redress in the appropriate time. 
I join with others in acknowledging that this Government—despite its various other shortcomings which we comment upon on occasion—has seen the progress of a number of these settlements. We hope that that progress will continue and that settlements are made in a timely fashion without neglecting the opportunity of course for everyone to have their say and to ensure that we get appropriate settlements that genuinely restore justice. 
On that note I again acknowledge the long battle and the long struggle for Ngati Apa to get to this point and I wish them very well into the future. Kia ora koutou. 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora. Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker 
  
tena koe. Huri rauna tena tatou katoa e oku hoa o te Whare koutou ano ra e oku whanaunga o te waka o Kurahaupo tena koutou tena koutou kia ora tatou. Kia ora tatou mai i a maua ko Shane nga uri o Kurahaupo o Te Tokerau ki a koutou ano ra e Kurahaupo o Ngati Apa. E mea ana a Shane ko Shane te tuakana. Engari e mihi atu ki a koutou e whakarangatira ana i to tatou waka i tenei ra e Ngati Apa.  
Hara taku tu i te tu roa engari tu ana au ki te tautoko i taku rangatira a Tariana i korero tuatahi i teneki ra kia mihi atu ki a koutou mo nga take nunui e pa ana ki a koutou mai i te timatanga o tenei hikoi tae noa ki tenei ra. Me te mihi ano hoki i runga i te whakaaro kotahi te tahae whenua te takahi mana me ona ahuaranga katoa. Engari i tenei wa kei te ora tonu matou. Kei te ora tonu to tatou reo kei te ora tonu to tatou tino rangatiratanga. No reira kia kaha koutou kia kaha tatou. Kia kaha tatou i roto i tenei hikoi ahakoa kua rongo nei au i a ia e whakaae ana a Ngati Apa kia waihotia te 97 pai heneti o ta koutou kereme kia oti pai ai tenei raru. Tangi ana te ngakau ko tatou katoa ra ena. Hakoa ko tehea te iwi tera te ture o tenei Whare. 
Engari kua tae mai koutou i tenei ra me mihi atu ki a koutou. Mihi ano hoki i runga i te whakaaro o Ngapuhi i tae mai i tenei ra te korero atu ki te Minita i roto i tona tari kia timatangia i teneki hikoi. Tata ana ko te iwi mutunga tera a Ngapuhi te timatangia ai tenei hikoi. No reira kua kite au i a ratou korero ana ki te Minita i tenei ra i te ahiahi nei ko koutou ra wena e tata whakaoti nei i te kaupapa. No reira mihi atu ki a koutou mai i ta matou pati hei tautoko ano hoki i taku rangatira Tariana. No reira tena koutou tena koutou. Huri atu huri noa kia ora tatou katoa. 
[ 
Thank you 
.  
Greetings to you 
 
 Mr  
Assistant  
Speaker 
greetings. 
Greetings to my parliamentary colleagues throughout 
 
 and to you 
 
 as well 
 
 my relatives of the Kurahaupo  
C 
anoe. Salutations to us from Shane and I descendants from the  
n 
orth of Kurahaupo 
 
 and to you Kurahaupo ones also of  
Ngati Apa.  
Shane is saying that he is the elder one. Nonetheless congratulations to you 
 
 Ngati Apa 
 
 who are promoting our canoe today 
. 
It is not as though that I am going to address you at length 
 
 but  
I shall  
merely tak 
e  
a short call in support of my leader 
 
 Tariana Turia 
 
 who spoke first today 
 
 and also to commend you in respect  
of 
 matters of huge significance to you from the beginning of this journey to the present day 
. 
 I acknowledge the fact that you were all of the same view that the land was stolen control was tampered with and all that went with it. But at this point in time we have endured. Our language lives on and our sense of self-determination continues to survive. So you need to be resolute and we need to be as well. We must be strong in this journey even though I have heard him say that Ngati Apa agree to leaving 97 percent of their claim so that this settlement is resolved well. The heart weeps because that is all of us. Regardless which tribe it is that is the law of this House. 
But that aside you have  
arrived here today 
 
 and I must congratulate you. Indeed 
 
 I commend you 
 
 knowing full well that Ngapuhi arrived here today to have discussions with the Minister in his office that will set this journey off 
.  
The Ngapuhi tribe is nearly the last one to start this journey. I saw them today in discussions with the Minister 
 
 and now there you are this afternoon ab 
out to conclude the settlement. 
 So congratulations from our party 
 
 and  
on 
 your support of 
 my leader 
 
 Tariana 
  
as well 
. 
 Salutations twice over 
. 
 Than 
ks 
 to us all throughout the House. 
] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 E nga iwi o Ngati Apa kia ora mai tatou tena tatou katoa. I acknowledge the iwi in the gallery today and I thank them for the manner in which they have entered into these negotiations. I congratulate them on the place that they find themselves in today with the moving of the third reading of this bill before the House the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. 
I have read the biography of T W Ratana. I have read of the steady resolve with which he went about seeking Government actions that were consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi to redress the wrongs of the past. It was palpable to see the energy with which he directed himself and his people towards that goal. 
I am pleased to live in a community in Whanganui and in Taranaki where iwi have moved to heal the wounds of the past and have moved well over halfway towards Pakeha who are slowly resolving that they need to be there too. I welcome the new identity of those communities particularly around Whanganui and the acceptance of a oneness that will preserve the uniqueness of the communities but will at the same time recognise all those things that we have in common. 
I am also pleased to see that through this new understanding we are prepared to cut a new track through old hurts old bigotry and old redneck persuasions. That is largely down to the manner in which iwi have addressed these negotiations and the understanding and the enduring patience that they have shown which has allowed the rest of us to catch up. 
I thank iwi for the patience they have shown and the spirit in which they have engaged—congratulations. Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) 
: 
 Kurahaupo Waka Ngati Apa iwi tena koutou. Tenei e tapiri atu i aku nei whakaaro ki era kua waihotia ki te whakatau i a koutou i waenganui i a matou i tenei rangi whakahirahira. No reira tena koutou tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
Acknowledgments to you the people of Ngati Apa and to the Canoe of Kurahaupo. I add my sentiments to those expressed in welcoming you here amongst us on this great day. So greetings to you all greetings 
.]  
It gives me great pleasure to offer a small contribution on the third reading of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. Without restating the history that was put by Minister Turia in the House today I will make a number of brief acknowledgments and offer some comment. 
The long history of Ngati Apa working towards their settlement has in some part been addressed and resolved today. As Minister Turia started her speech there was a call probably of a mokopuna in the gallery. There is something very honest and pure about the voice of a young child. It immediately made me reflect on the generational opportunity that is afforded as a result of reaching this particular point in history. 
Many speakers before me have commented on the long progress it has taken to get to this point. That progress has not been without struggle or sacrifice and it has been made with the enduring vision to take a people forward. But there is hope in it and that is what that young voice reminded me of. There is hope for the future because if as a Parliament we continue along the road of ensuring that Treaty settlements continue to be a defining part of what our nation must do to look forward—and I sincerely hope that every party in this House will do this—then we can all celebrate today. 
We cannot be partisan on this point. Every political party in this House has the huge responsibility to continue with the Treaty settlement process so that we have an enduring solution for the future. I have been concerned in past years when political parties have not seen this settlement process as a part of the essential fabric of what our nation will look like and I remain concerned about that. I believe that the voices of those young children like the child whom we heard in the gallery urge every one of us to take the responsibility here at this point in time to say that Treaty settlements must continue like this settlement for Ngati Apa so that their kids and their kids after them have a future an opportunity and a hope that can be realised because it was given to them by their ancestors. 
I will also comment on the aspects leading to this point. The negotiators made a huge effort. It is certainly worth noting that the greatest challenge for many iwi is to have successful succession planning. I say that with all due respect to all tribes; I reflect on only my own. It is a huge ask for people who have carried the baton for so long to say that it is OK and they can give it over. But here we see that another generation has come forward and there has been faith in those negotiators to get their people to this point. All I can say is it is a huge example that many other iwi can look to for some inspiration as to what can be achieved by a younger generation with different skills but with the same heart for progress. 
It also signals that the new generation of leaders is able to see what the challenges ahead are. Once we reach a settlement the hardest task is the post-settlement phase. In this instance it is now for Ngati Apa to look out the window of opportunity and meet the challenges of post-settlement development. It will come with challenges. There will be ups and downs; there will be high points and low points and great successes and great challenges. But that is their experience and if anything can be learnt from the Treaty settlements of other tribes then it should be to share that experience to fast track some of the learning difficulties to make it easier and to make the path a little flatter along the way. 
Minister Turia raised the comment about Labour’s reflection of the Treaty of Waitangi. Well all I can say is that at points in time and history there have been high expectations on both the main political parties I expect but more so on Labour with regard to its relationship with the people—down in Whanganui specifically with the Ratana movement. That progress has been steady. It has not been as fast as people would have liked it to be and I think the historical context has at some points inhibited the level of progress that people would have liked to see. But I can say that without some of the critical things that Labour has done in the past we certainly would not be at this point. I absolutely believe that and it is a point in the historical record. I am looking forward to the new relationship that Labour can have with the future of where Maoridom wants to go and that is certainly my intent while still being a member of this political party. 
I acknowledge the efforts of the advisers for iwi and for the Crown. Terse words have been spoken behind back doors and there have been reflections on the quality of the negotiations at some point. That always happens but without the technical advice and support offered to both iwi and the Crown we could not have had the quality of the settlement that we have today. I know that both Minister Turia and Minister Finlayson are all too well aware of that and so are we. 
The Maori Affairs Committee has had a hard task trying to manage expectations. Once bills get to the select committee if there is still dissent amongst iwi over these types of things the expectation is that the Maori Affairs Committee can all of a sudden change a deed but that is actually not the case. Once a settlement has been negotiated with the Crown and put into legislation before the select committee no substantial change can be made without the express consent of the iwi concerned. The Maori Affairs Committee has a huge challenge and task. At best it may be able to achieve some technical amendments but it can make no amendments of substance although that has not been the situation with this particular settlement. 
Finally I thank the clerks of committee who have brought together the report so that we as parliamentarians who have not sat in on the select committee process can be better informed. Without their hard work and effort we cannot as parliamentarians hope to comment unless they are doing the work that they are there to do. 
Finally it is my pleasure to offer Labour’s continued support of the Treaty settlements in principle and of Ngati Apa in particular. We wish them well for the future. We wish those young voices in the gallery today all the hopes and aspirations and dreams of their forefathers that they can be realised in their time and that they can continue to put out a strong voice of hope for the future of their people in Ngati Apa. No reira tena koutou katoa. Kia ora. 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. Tena tatou huri noa e te Whare. I also extend my greetings to the iwi of Ngati Apa on this the day when we come to the third reading of the Ngati Apa (North Island) Claims Settlement Bill. To the iwi I say that it is a great day for this House and for their house that we come to a place of settlement. I believe settlements must lead to “settledness” where people can move forward. I join with the previous speaker Nanaia Mahuta and concur with her comments in wishing Ngati Apa’s representatives in the gallery all the very best for their future. I trust that this future is strong for them and their iwi. I acknowledge those who have gone before them who have persevered and endured and who have held up the strength of their people in their rohe and their area. I am sure that today they see them here with pride. 
The reports we received stated that back in 1849 Ngati Apa entered into an agreement with the Crown with the wish to obtain the benefits from the establishment of a European settlement in their vicinity including peace protection and prosperity. I believe that today the House joins together to wish this upon the iwi. It is our prayer that they will find great prosperity in their time ahead that throughout the generations that follow there will be great strength and great success that they will have protection and peace and that all success will come to them. Kia ora. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 I te tuatahi me whakahaere wenei korero oku ki roto i to tatou reo Maori. E te iwi koutou nga uri a Apa-hapai-taketake kua tatu mai ki Te Upoko o te Ika tena koutou katoa. Penei me ta taku whanaunga a Hone Harawira e korero nei nga maramara a Kurahaupo he Kurahaupo i roto i to koutou rohe he Kurahaupo ano hoki i roto i toku rohe. No te putanga mai o Kurahaupo katahi ka pakarukaruhia ki Rangitahuahua. Na ka whakatikangia ka whakaterengia tonutia ki waenga tonu i a matou ki Muriwhenua ka kitea ko nga rakau e pua ana. Ko te hanga o wena rakau i te takutai he kura he whero. Katahi ka tangotangohia nga huruhuru tapu i utaina ki runga i to taua waka mai i te motu a Enua Kura i roto i Te Moana Nui a Kiwa katahi ka piua ki nga kare o te wai. No te putanga tatanga unga mai ki uta katahi ka kitea ko nga rakau he kura he whero e pohiri mai ana ki o tatou tupuna kia tae mai ki Aotearoa. Na me pena rawa te korero mo o tatou nei taketake e hoki ana ki te ao kohatu noa atu. Na reira tena koutou katoa. 
[ 
I will make these contributions of mine in the Maori language 
 
 from the outset 
. 
 To the people and descendants of Apa-hapai-taketake who have arrived here in Wellington greetings to you all 
. As 
 my relative Hone Harawira said oh chips of Kurahaupo there is a Kurahaupo 
 
 as well 
 
 in our area. 
When the Kurahaupo appeared it got damaged at Rangitahuahua. When it was repaired it sailed directly into our midst in the  
f 
ar  
n 
orth and saw the trees in flower 
.  
Those trees on the beach were red and glowing 
.  
The sacred red feathers from the island of Enua Kura in the Pacific 
 
 which adorned our canoe 
 
 were then removed and tossed on the waves of the tide. When the Kurahaupo appeared drifted closer to shore 
 
 and beached they saw the red and glowing trees welcoming our ancestors to Aotearoa. Now 
 
 that 
 i 
s the sort of talk that explain 
s 
 our origins 
 
 which go all the way back to the  
S 
tone  
Age. T 
herefore 
 
 greetings to you all. 
] 
I stand with my colleagues and welcome members of Ngati Apa here today. I observe that they give as their historical roots descent from Apa-hapai-taketake and also find great strength and meaning in their proverbs and sayings. I repeat what I observed recently: there is a Ngati Apa in the South Island as well and there is a Ngati Apa whose name is etched in the pages of history. It was they who took the original claim as to whether residual rights belong to Maori in the seabed and foreshore. Small though their numerical strength may be large is the shadow on the activities of politicians that the name of their tribe casts. Perhaps that is why they have inherited the saying “Apa-wetewete tapiki i te takiritanga o te ata” [ 
Apa 
— 
remover of the hold on the dawn 
] as referred to by Minister Turia. 
This claim is a further step along what is proving to be a protracted process. However the current Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and colleagues in the Maori Party are advancing the issue of Maori claims towards its inevitable historical conclusion. But every claim that is settled requires a new cluster of skills and I acknowledge the younger people who have also arrived here. We as Maori must not be like that Japanese soldier from World War II. When he was discovered in the jungles of the Philippines 25 or 35 years later it was a matter of ignorance for him that World War II had stopped. It is important that we do not repeat the errors of that lost soldier: fighting wars and fighting battles that the world has moved on from. 
These settlements as we address them and pass them into law require a new level of engagement and a new set of skills because once the capital is restored to the iwi each generation needs to grow it and to ensure that it contributes to the overall development of the country. It is only by avoiding the trap of Maori believing that they can be an island unto themselves that we will ensure that the legacy grows. 
It is a solemn day in a sense because many of the people whom we knew of are no longer here. This group of Maori this tribe of Ngati Apa have as Minister Turia has said a proud heritage. They are the people amongst other things who have produced the kuia matakite Mere Rikiriki who laid her mana upon the prophet Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana. Indeed there was some discussion if my history serves me correctly that another promising young man Rangi Mawhete may actually inherit her mantle. He ended up in the Legislative Council in this House and played a key role marrying the vision of the Maori of Ngati Apa and other Kurahaupo waka associated with the Ratana Church with that of the Labour Party. That was his contribution not only to his own people from Ngati Apa and Rangitane but to the affairs of this House. 
I mention their names because they are so easily forgotten and the names of such powerful figures in our Maori history who have influenced our overall New Zealand history must not be obscured on a day like this. 
When we go forward with these settlements it is pleasing to see that the names of the areas are slowly being restored. I did some background research and learnt that the name of Marton came from the name of where James Cook originally came from. That came as an utter surprise to me and I was in fits of laughter. Recently I was in the township of Marton visiting a daughter who goes to school up there and I heard some of the local Maori telling me that the original name of the place was Tutaenui. I am yet to ascertain whether that is actually correct. But when I hear Simon Power testing my patience in the future I will explain to him in another speech that Tutaenui is an appropriate appellation if that is the quality of his contribution. 
We should ensure that days like this are a chance for us as proxies for ordinary New Zealand men and women to say that we are prepared to embrace these small but important episodes. It is easy as I have said in earlier speeches to say that this settlement is giving too much away or that it is not enough. But I repeat that unless we can capture and sustain legitimacy through taking people with us and ensuring that these settlements cause the ordinary New Zealand taxpayer to by and large believe that they are making a better country for our children and grandchildren no runanga and no Parliament through fiat can command how we as New Zealanders think about each other. It is almost a matter of faith and goodwill. 
I am confident that underneath the settlement—when we take away all the ebb and flow of anger hurt and dealings with the bureaucracy and indifferent Ministers etc.—there remains the bedrock feelings of willingness to compromise and willingness to join together and create something bigger than our own sense of entitlement or our own sense of anger. That is the deeper thing that I hope all of us as parliamentarians with whatever tribe that comes here pass on to our children. 
Settlements are only a stepping stone. If we want to address the deficit in investment and the deficit in jobs and to encourage firms we need to ensure that we plumb the depths and not only make a commitment to turn these settlements into flourishing enterprises but also to ensure that the people who are entitled to benefit from the fruits actually do so. 
One thing I am not entirely comfortable with is to hear a number of our relations say that this settlement has nothing to do with the iwi that it is an article 3 or an article 1. These are iwi settlements and “iwi” means people. Wherever an iwi finds its people it ought not only to engage with them but also to ensure that the resources associated with this settlement and the ongoing high-quality relationship hopefully with the Crown are dedicated to improving the prospects of the people. As that famous Maori proverb says “Pluck forth the tender shoot of the flax bush you will hear the bellbird cry. What does it say? It says the greatest gift of all is humanity humanity humanity. Hutia te rito o te harakeke kei hea te komako e ko? Mau e ui mai ki a au he aha te mea pai? Maku e ki atu he tangata he tangata he tangata”. 
Today is an opportunity for us to celebrate with Ngati Apa and encourage them to take this settlement to the next stage but at all times let us remember that it is people whom we need to bring with us as we advance the Maori agenda and the Treaty settlement agenda. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
Bill read a third time. 
Karanga whakatau; waiata 
Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 I move  
That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee that the committee present its final report on or before 28 April 2011 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 on which there has been a sitting of the House on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
This bill brings to the House the legislation that will underpin a package the Government has negotiated with a number of parties. We have negotiated with local government and with the banks and we now have a package to bring to the House. 
I will be very brief and say in summary that the package will allow homeowners to voluntarily choose whether to take it. The most important point I can make to anybody is that no one will be forced to take this package. If they take it 25 percent of the repairs will be paid by the Government; 25 percent of the repairs will be paid by the local authority if the local authority was the consenting authority—sadly for some people if the consenting authority was an independent certifier they will not get that 25 percent—and the remaining money be it 50 percent or 75 percent will be given as a guaranteed loan from the bank to pay for it. 
It is most important to point out here that some protection will be put in place so that local authorities cannot be sued for any more than that commitment and they cannot be sued by being joined in a roundabout circuitous route. The homeowner will still be allowed to sue the builder or the developer but the local authorities were concerned that the developer might then try to bring the local authority into the litigation and it would be back for some more liability. This package will exclude that possibility. It will give a cap to local authorities that their maximum liability will be 25 percent of the repair. 
It gives the Crown some safety. The Crown did not need to buy into this package. Twice the Crown has been joined into the litigation and the courts have said that no the Crown has no standing in this. So we could have said that we were not going to do it. This package will give homeowners the right if they choose to pick a 25:25:50 arrangement. 
I am sorry that there will be some limits. There is a 10-year limit and people who are just outside that will be upset but every time we try to look at the magnitude of the sum of money involved our eyes begin to water. Our PricewaterhouseCoopers report showed that the damage is estimated to be $11.5 billion but possibly as much as twice that amount. They are huge numbers and a Government with a deficit on the books every month of about $1 billion struggles with them. I apologise to anyone who is excluded from the package but we cannot leave it open-ended for everybody. 
I have been out and about and I have seen people in tears in their house. They are stuck. They cannot get it fixed and they cannot get the bank to lend anything. They have pleaded with me to please just do something. They say they did what they thought was right. They invested all their life savings in a property. They thought it was the right thing to do but now they are sitting in a piece of rotting junk. 
I commend this bill to the House. As I said before I hope that when it comes back from the select committee we can bang it through its remaining stages and begin to start offering those settlements. The money will be paid only on receipt of work done so it will guarantee that the actual fix to the house is done and money is not just paid to someone who may then onsell it so we have the problem once again. Thank you. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to take a call in the first reading debate on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. 
I acknowledge the work of the Minister in this area the Hon Maurice Williamson. Our country has been grappling with this huge problem for a number of years now. In saying that Labour will support this bill’s referral to a select committee we recognise that the Minister has worked hard and that this bill represents a genuine effort over a number of months to try to come up with a package that will seriously address the scale and complexity of the problem and attempt to provide relief for homeowners who have been afflicted by the leaky homes problem. 
We support this bill being referred to a select committee. We look forward to teasing out some of the questions and the issues on this bill because there are many. I will use the time we have today to raise just some of those questions about the structure of this package. 
The key thing about this bill is that it provides an indemnity to the Crown in the case of homes or buildings that will benefit from this financial assistance package. That is the first thing. The second thing is that it gives the Minister the power to provide a guarantee for commercial loans that are obtained to cover the 50 percent of the cost of repairs that are left over once the Crown and the council have both made their 25 percent contributions. 
That is the first thing I will query. We see in the regulatory impact statement that the Department of Building and Housing advised quite strongly against the Crown being indemnified. It said there was no reason why Department of Building and Housing assessors who scope a repair job should not be required to stand behind their work. I know that quite a few people in the industry feel the same way. The Department of Building and Housing said that the Crown’s liability would be very limited—there would not be a huge liability—and there was no reason the Crown should be indemnified. I am interested to hear from Government members in this debate why Cabinet and the Minister have gone against that advice and insisted on indemnifying the Crown. 
The next question is one that the Minister raised. It is the provision in the bill that seeks to prevent so-called double-dipping. People who benefit from this package may then sue other third parties like builders designers and architects. The provision seeks to prevent those people from trying to enjoin the council in that legal action. This bill specifically takes away that right. The regulatory impact statement says that it may be a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to take away the longstanding legal right of joint or concurrent tortfeasors to seek a contribution. I wonder whether that is something else the select committee should consider—that this provision is unjustified and unnecessary. 
The third question I raise is about the 25 percent council contribution. Much of the language we have heard in the discussion of this package by the Minister suggests that if one signs up to the package one gets the 25 percent contribution from the council. That is what has been conveyed. But in the wording as I understand it the bill gives the council the right to opt in and make that contribution. The council is not required to opt in; it will simply allow the council to consider as it does now on a case by case basis what it wants to contribute. If it chooses to opt in to the Government scheme the bill clearly says 25 percent. But councils will not be required under the bill to pony up with that 25 percent. I think that is a very significant difference from the way it has been presented publicly. It will give councils the opportunity to consider each case on a case by case basis but a council will hold the whip hand when it comes to negotiations. It would be good to hear a response to that question from the Minister or from his colleagues. 
We think that clarity is needed in situations where a repair job goes pear-shaped. Given that the bill indemnifies Department of Building and Housing assessors what will happen if a homeowner goes into a repair project borrows half the money and gets half from the council and the Government but then finds halfway through the job that the assessor has got it wrong and a significant value in extra repairs is needed? What happens if they get halfway into a job and they find that some more structural work needs to be done? I have not heard anything from the Minister yet and nothing in the bill or the commentary gives any reassurance in that area. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Quite a bit of this will get sorted at select committee. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Sure. Another concern is that the bill does not require remediation work to restore homes to the performance or durability requirements of the building code. It is quite possible in the framework we see in the bill that councils will insist for example on targeted repairs which may be unsatisfactory in terms of compliance with the building code. I would like to see the select committee take up that concern. 
It is not clear to me how this bill will affect multi-dwelling buildings which are particularly in Auckland a very big chunk of the leaky buildings problem. It seems to me that if an apartment complex was going to benefit from this package the body corporate would basically have to get 100 percent of the— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: No because the Unit Titles Act kicks in next year and it allows 75 percent. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: OK. I appreciate the Minister’s explanation but it still leaves the question of whether a significant number of multi-dwelling units will not be able to be helped by the bill because they will not be able to reach the requisite 75 percent. Particularly with multi-dwelling units at the bottom end of the market people there will have very little equity in their buildings. They may not be able to afford the 50 percent. That is another question about this package. I do not mean to be pernickety because we genuinely acknowledge the effort and the ambition that has gone into the bill but a lot of people will not benefit from this bill. Many many people will simply not be able to afford to take on the 50 percent loan to meet the rest of the costs. 
Another concern is that the bill does not differentiate between genuine owners of leaky homes and greedy speculators who may be going around now snapping up buildings that are not weathertight buying them at knock-down prices. They are eligible under the bill for what would be a massive taxpayer subsidy to repair the buildings which they could then flick on at market value. I question whether the limited taxpayer resources available to solve this incredibly important problem should be delivered in that kind of way to speculators who could make a killing under this bill. I hope we will get the chance to discuss that concern as well. 
Doubt remains about the role of the banks in all this. I know the Minister has made reassuring noises but we saw in the  
New Zealand Herald  
this morning the Bankers’ Association saying that the banks had not yet agreed to participate. I would like to hear from the Government members now and not wait to hear in the select committee precisely what kind of guarantee the Minister proposes for those loans. If people find themselves in a default situation will that contract be allowed to fall over? Will they be allowed to default? Will the banks step in? What kind of premium is the Government intending to pay on behalf of the taxpayer to support commercial banks with those guarantees? 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise so close to the dinner break to support the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. I start by congratulating the Minister for Building and Construction on his hard work over 2 years. There was a lot of doom and gloom in the speech of the previous speaker Phil Twyford although I know that he wants to be positive about the solution. I think he focused far too much on the negative aspects of “what if” “how” and so on and so forth. 
I say that this Government has reacted in a very short period of time and has delivered a very good package for New Zealanders who for some period have not been sure what would happen to them and their homes. It gives me please to support the bill. I commend it to the House. Thank you. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I intend to move that all the words after “Committee” be deleted. Labour will be supporting the first reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. I commend the Minister in charge of this bill the Minister for Building and Construction for the work that he has put in to come up with a resolution for what is undoubtedly one of the more difficult issues that this Parliament has had to deal with. It certainly goes right to the heart of the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of families and we cannot underestimate the difficulty of navigating a path that attempts to protect the Crown’s position the householders’ position and local government’s position. I congratulate Maurice Williamson on that. 
I was also very pleased to see that during the speech given by my colleague Phil Twyford the Minister was very open to the questions that the Opposition has been raising about how this bill could be improved and whether some aspects of it opened up other areas of risk or other areas of unfairness. I was very pleased to see the Minister indicate that he was open to any solutions and that we would not get the usual thing with National members at select committee where they use their voting power to block changes regardless of whether those changes make sense and would actually be in the interests of the New Zealand public. I certainly hope that that openness translates itself to the Local Government and Environment Committee and that we can make some changes that undoubtedly will make this legislation better. 
This is an incredibly complex issue and its reach is enormous. For example I have been contacted by people in the Auckland region who have rented a property that they did not know was a leaky property. We have had some homeowners who own leaky buildings trying to get some kind of financial recompense from the situation by renting the buildings out to people without telling them that they are leaky. Clearly that is unacceptable but it just shows how far this issue reaches into other areas of legislation. Again we do not underestimate the task of trying to find a solution that as much as possible is acceptable to all parties. 
During this debate we definitely need to keep in mind why we are here in the first place. The deregulation that came with the Building Act in 1991 had an enormous impact on the building sector and we have never really caught up in terms of the professionalisation of that sector and the protection of consumers who purchase products assuming that those protections are in place but then find out once they have invested their entire livelihood in a property that in fact those protections were not there to begin with. 
I found another example recently having toured around boarding houses in Wellington. I wondered how it is possible in New Zealand for properties like that to be rented out to people—and to the most vulnerable people in New Zealand. I was told by the Wellington City Council that prior to the 1991 Building Act changes councils actually had responsibility for boarding houses. Boarding house owners were required to tell the councils where they were and the councils were able to go in and ensure public health standards were being met. The council said that when the 1991 Building Act changes came in it lost that ability. Now if it knows where a boarding house is it will go in and use whatever public health powers it has to look after the tenants. For example one boarding house did not even have running water or connected sewerage. Once the council knows about a problem it will do something about it but it said these tenants would not tell them because they were vulnerable and they were terrified that they would be evicted. That was another thing that came out of those 1991 Building Act changes. 
It is a salient lesson to all members of this House when people go on about red tape red tape red tape. None of us wants to see people having to jump through legislative and regulatory hoops that they do not need to but we have these protections in place for a reason. 
Jo Goodhew 
: That doesn’t sound like the philosophy of the Labour Party. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Apparently according to the Government junior whip the deregulation of the 1991 Building Act and the leaky homes that came out of it is a good thing. That probably sums up the one-eyed view of some of the National members. If she had actually listened to what I was saying she would have heard that I was agreeing with what the Minister is doing. Instead she is just chipping away negatively like she always does not listening to what anyone else has to say and just assuming that because I am from Labour I am not interested in having a constructive debate on this issue. That of course is not at all true. As I said we are supporting this legislation. 
One of the major parts of this bill is the Crown indemnifying itself. The select committee needs to do some serious looking into this part because it is quite a major step. We agree that if people want to go down the path of accepting this package which involves 25 percent from the Government and 25 percent from local government—although my colleague Phil Twyford has raised some concerns about whether there is actually certainty around that 25 percent from local government—then they should not also be able to sue at the same time. One either goes down the path of accepting the solution in this legislation or one can go down one’s own path. We think that is absolutely fair enough. 
But when it comes to the indemnification for future grievances that people might have against the Crown we question whether that is a fair thing to do. For example if during the course of repairs it is found that the Department of Building and Housing assessors have not done a proper job in assessing the damage the homeowner is no longer allowed to have any recourse against the Crown for that mistake. We think the select committee will need to look at that issue. 
We also have to appreciate that the people we are talking about trusted building officials in the first place and this is the position that it got them into. To say to them that they have to trust a whole raft of officials again despite what happened the first time around when councils signed off on building plans and products is asking an awful lot. Some people have lost a lot of trust when it comes to this area of Government regulation. If the officials are wrong again even though it may be completely different officials those people will have no ability to come back against the Crown. We will certainly want to look at that at select committee. 
A lot of risk is also built in for builders with this indemnity. They are the one group that is not covered by it fully. The Crown does not carry that risk. If a homeowner wants to prosecute a builder for the work they did that resulted in a leaky building the builder may say that it was not their fault it was the council. But they are not allowed to do that under this legislation—they are not allowed to engage a third party in those proceedings. That means that the only person left sitting out there like a lightning rod for complaints and for being sued is the builder the architect or the developer. Even though it may not have been the builder’s fault everyone else has been protected while they have not. As we know there will probably be people out there who will go after every avenue they can to get back some of the value of their property. Having one person sitting out there all on their own is a problem. We think we should indemnify all or none and we may want to look at that at select committee. 
I will finish off by talking about the Housing New Zealand Corporation its role in some of this and whether it is considered to be the Crown under this legislation. I am thinking of a particular property up in Auckland called Pepperwood Mews where the Housing New Zealand Corporation and a developer came together and marketed properties to consumers. They said that if they purchased this property the Housing New Zealand Corporation would tenant it and become the tenancy manager. This was a very good deal for people so they invested in these properties. Then it turned out that the properties were leaky buildings. Housing New Zealand Corporation pulled its support and said it had nothing to do with it and was only going to be the tenancy manager. 
As time has gone on and documents have been revealed we have found out that the Housing New Zealand Corporation played a much bigger role than it had originally admitted. It originally purchased these properties and then shifted to a leasing arrangement which means that it went through a process where it looked at these properties and said they were structurally sound otherwise it would not have purchased them. That gave the tenants some hope that it must have been a really good option. Also there were problems with those buildings before the unit titles were signed off that the tenants were never told about. 
There is some ongoing action around this issue but I want to know whether indemnifying the Crown under this legislation means that those people are no longer able to pursue the Housing New Zealand Corporation for any culpability it may have had in the leaky building saga. If that is the case then I think it needs to be made clear. There needs to be a definitive decision for the corporation to be either included or taken out. 
In the case of Pepperwood Mews those residents certainly believe that there is a case to be made that the Housing New Zealand Corporation has some culpability. Housing New Zealand Corporation was involved in assisting the developer during the resource consent process and the building consent process at council. The corporation put the process out under its name. It originally bought the properties thereby leading people to believe that the properties were safe. Does indemnifying the Crown mean that the Housing New Zealand Corporation is also exempt from any kind of action being taken against it? 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 Housing is not my portfolio but I rise to take a brief call on behalf of my colleague Gareth Hughes. I begin by supporting the comments that Moana Mackey has just made in congratulating the Hon Maurice Williamson on bringing the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill to the House. It is good to see legislation come before the House to make some advance on this issue. The Green Party will be voting for the bill to at least go to a select committee. We do so in the belief none the less that the bill does not go far enough and we hope that some of its faults may be remedied at the Local Government and Environment Committee. But having something to debate and consider is better than having nothing to debate and consider. 
I also praise the Hon Maurice Williamson for already having distributed to members some explanatory material that could be useful for us when working with constituents. I think that is a very helpful and unusual development in relation to this kind of complex legislation. 
As Moana Mackey and other speakers have said this mess was created by the National Government of the 1990s with its failure to regulate the building industry and indeed the broader network of industries surrounding building—or rather the Government’s deregulating those industries. So it is only fair that National is the one to take the steps to put that right. That said the Government’s providing 25 percent of the cost while asking homeowners to front up with 50 percent is grossly unfair given that it was the previous National Government’s own failure to regulate that created the problem in the first place. 
We know that this issue affects the lives of a very large number of New Zealanders and we know too that homes built in those laissez-faire years of the 1990s are the worst affected as they coincided with that deregulation of the building industry. The Hunn report in 2002 called what happened at that time a “major systemic breakdown across the entire building industry”. No one escapes blame: product designers and manufacturers developers builders architects central government the Building Industry Authority local authorities real estate agents and even some private owners. In the Greens’ view the limitation of 5 years in the bill is too short and we hope it can be remedied in the select committee process. We think it is too short because often issues come to light only when houses are sold. Any home identified as a leaky home should be eligible to use the service so we think it is completely unfair to limit support for leaky home owners in that way. 
The issue of leaky homes and the failure of that deregulation approach bring to front of mind a bigger issue which is how we get the best outcomes. It is one of those fundamental political divides between political parties in the House and I have spoken about it several times. The Green Party can accept that in some situations a free market could deliver the best mix of price and quality for consumer goods or services. We think that probably would apply only in the conditions that Adam Smith himself identified as being necessary for the correct operation of the free market that he described. Where those conditions do not apply and they do not apply in most economic situations—in the situation of most goods and services—then that free-market approach will fail to deliver the best mix of price and quality. That provides a basis for the intervention of the State. 
The State also needs to intervene where vulnerable people need to be protected. The State also needs to intervene where it is necessary for public good to be generated because free markets are poorly suited to those purposes. The Green Party can accept that sometimes certain market mechanisms— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: His fault. 
KEVIN HAGUE 
: Yes it was Roger Douglas’ fault. The Minister has correctly put his finger on the problem and it is sad that subsequent Governments were slow to realise that fault and to remedy the problem. But I thank him for pointing that out. 
The Green Party can accept that market mechanisms and consumer choice are sometimes the best way of achieving the outcomes that we all want but in many cases they will not be. In many cases some level of regulation or rule-setting by the State will be necessary to achieve the kinds of outcomes we want. This issue of leaky homes is one that clearly illustrates one of those areas. I am not sure that this Government has entirely learnt that lesson because again and again we see an approach to issues that falls back on an ideological belief that free markets will somehow deliver the best outcomes for everyone. That kind of magical thinking consistently fails. We have seen that in the term of this Parliament—for example with biofuels. We see it frequently on issues like country-of-origin labelling. A personal obsession of mine is that we see it in the failure to act to remedy another one of these pieces of ideological wreckage and that is the free market in electricity generation and supply. That is another example of a failure to deliver many of the outcomes that as New Zealanders we expect. 
I make that point because the next bill we will be debating is a Government bill to adjust the building codes with again the aim of reducing regulation. The Green Party warns that the Government needs to be very careful that in that bill it does not through the cutting back of regulation create another saga equivalent to the leaky homes one that we are addressing now. Although we say that the system is far from perfect we applaud the Minister for bringing this bill before the House. We think there is enough in it of merit and value to support it being referred to the select committee. We look forward to engaging positively in that process to try to cooperatively bring about an Act that can best address these problems. Thank you. 
Hon Sir ROGER DOUGLAS (ACT) 
: 
 ACT is very pleased to support the first reading of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill and will support its referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I listened to the honourable member Kevin Hague from the Green Party. He started by saying he was going to make a short speech; fortunately we were saved by the bell! I make one comment in reference to his speech and that is that generally the best judge of what a person needs is that individual not the Green Party. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I rise to express the support of the Maori Party for the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. In doing so I am acting in a way that is consistent with our previous voting stance particularly our support of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services Bill into law some 4 years ago which incidentally was in December of 2006. I wonder what it is about Christmas time that makes Governments want to ensure that homes are indeed weathertight. It is not like December here will be cold and horrible. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: It’s all the snow. 
RAHUI KATENE 
: I thought it must be or maybe it is like what my grandchildren tell me. It is all about Hana Koko and they want to get the chimney nice and ready for him to drop their presents into it. But all jokes aside I am pleased to see— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Gerry Brownlee is getting rid of chimneys. 
RAHUI KATENE 
: Oh no we cannot get rid of them. This is just in Christchurch and I will talk about Christchurch a bit later too. I am pleased to support this bill as it will bring into place the financial assistance measures that will be provided by the Minister on behalf of the Crown to lenders in the form of a credit support facility. The bill provides for the setting of monetary limits for the guarantees or indemnities the form and content of the guarantees or indemnities and the maximum contingent liability of the Crown under the guarantees or indemnities. This sounds particularly impressive and as if no stone has been left unturned. However the bill does not establish a limit on how much can be lent by the Crown to lenders. The Minister of Finance will determine the length of time the lender has to pay back the loan so I am particularly interested in hearing the public’s views through the select committee process about whether the Minister of Finance should be the one who has the ultimate authority to determine time frames and parameters around them. Arguably the Government will act as a guarantor to financial institutions so that the pressure of lending for the purposes of repairing leaky homes by these institutions can be eased and therefore money to fix leaky homes is more readily accessible. 
In its simplest form then this bill aims to provide owners of leaky homes with access to cost-effective procedures for assessment and resolution of claims. The bill will establish financial assistance measures in order to facilitate the repairs of leaky homes. 
I cannot leave this bill without making the inevitable comparison with a region central to my electorate of Te Tai Tonga. I am of course referring to the drastic impact of the September earthquake on some 100000 homes in Christchurch with some 2000 homes being uninhabitable. I am very aware that last Saturday was the last day the deadline for Earthquake Commission claims relating to damage from September’s earthquake. I certainly hope that everybody managed to get their claims in on time. I was one of those who procrastinated a little but I did manage to get my claim in within the last couple of weeks so I am feeling relieved about that. I now await the result of the inspection. But my big question does remain about how we support and sustain those residents who did not have the protection of insurance and how we can provide a positive future for them much as we are doing today with this Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. The Government has stepped up with a financial assistance package to help people get their leaky homes fixed more quickly. Our priority is getting homes fixed and we must move beyond the current state of endless disputes and litigation. This package is about spreading the costs as evenly and as fairly as possible to get action. We need to help affected homeowners to move on with their lives. I commend this bill to the House. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is good to be able to speak on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. But I have to make the observation that the calls from members on the other side have been short. 
Two weeks ago the Leader of the House told us that the legislative programme was in place and we would not need to take urgency in the last couple of sitting weeks. Members on the other side of the Chamber were probably as surprised as we were to find out that we will probably be here until Saturday. That is not a problem for us but it means that National members do not enter into the debate any more. 
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill which was debated earlier today is one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation that will be put through the House. It balances national security against our human rights the protection of our human rights the protection of our privacy what can be done against it. National members did not speak on that part of the bill at all. They did not even take a call as long as Chester Borrows’ previous call. The cost of the disorganisation we are facing in the legislation right now is the absence of debate. We have National members just standing up and saying that they support this legislation. 
This bill is different from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill obviously but it is different in another way in terms of the process. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Do you think it’s a bit different from the SIS bill? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: I tell Mr Williamson to wait for this. Unlike the SIS legislation I think there has been very wide consultation with the stakeholders involved. We will not have the opportunity to do that with the SIS legislation as it seems like the committee stage will be handled in secret unless Mr Key changes his mind again. 
I congratulate the Minister on bringing this legislation to the House. This bill will never satisfy absolutely everybody. People will be annoyed and not happy but it strikes a balance and I think the Minister has done a good job in bringing the legislation to the House. If we look back at the issues we see the problems that caused this debacle. The cost of it is eye-watering. We are looking at $11 billion and PricewaterhouseCoopers thinks it could be up to $23 billion. That is equivalent to the education and health budgets for 1 year. In fact the North Shore City Council came up with some interesting figures when it looked at the cost in 2008 dollars of the Napier earthquake. It was only $608 million versus possibly $11 billion here. 
There has been a systemic series of failures right through the last 20 years. We have talked about the deregulation of the building industry and I think that was definitely one aspect of the problems. There were the problems of poor shoddy workmanship as a result of a lot of the builders not having the right qualifications and the demise of the apprenticeship scheme. We have had a change in the style of housing. They have no eaves they have flat roofs and there is little in the way of control from the councils which should have exercised much greater control over the building process but did not. 
Also a lot of the houses were built with untreated timber and they were much more prone to rot. Interestingly I live in a house that is 130 years old. It has no rot at all except in the parts that have been renovated more recently in  
Pinus radiata.  
Although I have some constituents who come into my office to talk about leaky homes most of my constituents live in older style houses that do not have this problem. Their homes have been standing for 100-plus years in some cases and they are solidly built with eaves and have the right types of measures built in that are suited to the New Zealand environment and to the Auckland environment. The houses that were built much more recently certainly were not set up to have those features. 
Obviously 25 percent is an improvement on the 10 percent that the Government was going to pay originally. The Government is now looking at the council paying 25 percent and the owner paying 50 percent and that strikes a reasonable deal. 
Some issues with the details have been raised by my colleagues Phil Twyford and Moana Mackey. I expect those issues to be ironed out in the select committee. It was good to hear earlier in the evening the Minister say that that would be the case. 
We thank the Minister for the extra material he sent through because I think quite a few questions will be coming to electorate offices over the next few weeks about what this legislation is and what it might look to do. 
I will touch on some of those issues. We need some clarification around repairs. If for example the repairs are costed out at around $100000 and they look like they might be heading towards $150000 we have an issue about how an owner bridges that gap. If the repairs are not done to a satisfactory level what sort of come-back does the owner have against the council? The council is essentially not able to be taken to task. I think there needs to be the possibility of some sort of appeal mechanism. We cannot simply say that these assessors will be able to get it right every single time. There are a couple of issues around that. 
Obviously there is the big issue of people who are simply not able to afford to pay the 50 percent. We are all told that the best thing we can do is to buy our own home and have it mortgage-free by the time we get a bit older. Many of the people who have been affected by leaky homes are older with a limited ability to earn an income yet they are facing massive costs. I am not sure how we deal with that issue. I am sure submitters to the select committee will want to talk about that a bit further. 
The other issue is the situation where an owner decides to take on this particular package—to take the 25 percent from the council and the 25 percent from the Government—and then sue the builder. What recompense does the builder have at that point? In a sense we are moving the blame down the line. A builder could quite legitimately turn round and say that actually they built it to council specifications and it was all above board. But builders have no ability to go back to the council and seek recompense from the council as a result of buying into the scheme. 
Overall I think the estimate that about 70 percent of people will take up this offer is good. It was never going to fix everybody’s problems; this problem affects New Zealand at large. When somebody turns round and says that the council should pay for something I say that the council is funded by ratepayers which is ultimately our problem. So the whole issue goes round in a circle and we as New Zealanders will have to shoulder the burden collectively for this complex system of errors. 
I do not think we have many other options than to look at a solution such as the one that has been put before us. I think that with the right amount of discussion the right amount of communication to people out there about what is going to happen and the right amount of listening to whatever suggestions that they bring up this could be a useful solution to an enormous problem that is facing New Zealand. Thank you. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I would say to the member for Mt Albert who has criticised Government members for making short speeches that his party in Government talked for 9 years about this issue and that is what it is still doing now whereas our Government is determined to act and that is why we are getting on with the job. 
Along with most electorate members of Parliament I imagine I have had the sobering experience of meeting constituents who face the sobering terrible ordeal of owning leaky homes and it is very hard not to be moved by their distress. Fortunately the problem is not as extensive in my city of Hamilton as it is in some other parts of the country but for every single homeowner who is caught up in this tragedy it is an absolutely shocking state of affairs. 
There is much that I would like to say on this bill but because of the circumstances I will confine my remarks to an acknowledgment of the Minister local authorities and officials who have put together this admirable package. It is an honourable and just response to a serious problem. I am very proud to be a member of the governing party that has responded to such a difficult and longstanding challenge. I join other members in commending this bill to the House and I sincerely hope that it will make a huge difference for the thousands of homeowners who are in this ghastly position. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Such is the gravity of this subject that it requires a full 10-minute speech. Labour members are supporting the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill. It is important to bear in mind that the bill remedies a situation that although it began while Maurice Williamson was a Minister in the early 1990s in actual fact has worsened over the last decade or two. I will isolate a few important things that have happened. 
Local government found the difficulty so severe that it could not even secure reinsurance in the international reinsurance market and its exposure has grown as the problem has increased. I would be the first to admit that during the period of time when I was the Minister for Building and Construction it was a difficulty that bedevilled— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I just ask Government members to quieten down please. I am trying to listen to the speaker. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. The point I was making was that although we support this bill the reality is that during the last 10 to 20 years local government has become lumbered with this problem. I give full marks to the Minister of Housing for finding a way for the Crown to contribute. I look forward to hearing the submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee because at the end of the day the submitters will focus on how in practice the Crown will assure them as they go into debt that they can actually gain access to the Crown percentage of the money. Similarly how will local government also offer a bankable level of assurance? Most important how will we ever convince the trading banks domiciled in New Zealand—otherwise known as the Aussie banks—or should I say the Crown to step up to the plate? 
A key weakness which is reflected in the policy at the moment I venture to say will be the unwillingness of the banks to provide homeowners with additional capital to address the problems. They are already overexposed in relation to property in New Zealand. Thousands of New Zealanders already have what are called aquarium mortgages—that is the value of the property has receded below the level of the mortgage. I suggest that during the select committee process when the Bankers’ Association makes its submission members on the committee focus on what the banks might be expecting from the Crown in terms of underwriting perhaps in order for them to extend dough to these individual homeowners. 
I have met a number of these homeowners and the lesson to be taken is that if anyone seeks advice about buying property in areas around Auckland the advice should be to buy nothing unless it has eaves of at least 600 millimetres or 800 millimetres. If it is a 1950s or 1960s bungalow it should be bought 1000 percent more quickly than anything that looks like a Mediterranean construction because I fear that those buildings are permanent aquariums and that those building designs will never ever cope with the New Zealand climate. The people who have escaped scot-free for having blighted our local urban landscape with these buildings will never be fully held to account. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Shane you’d better come back to the committee. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I know my presence on various committees has been missed. I might actually improve the intellectual quotient on the other side of the House by from time to time arriving there. I cannot improve the intellectual quotient offered by my colleagues here; all I can do is make up for the defects on the other side. However I do not want to be too uncharitable tonight. I have not had the chance to acknowledge my distant Ngati Porou kinswoman Hekia Parata. I want it known that this woman worked in the general area of housing in her time so what I am to say is relevant to the broad ambit of the bill. Craig Foss despite his pugnacity did not make it. Amy Adams despite her knowledge of being Parliament’s most knowledgable lawyer and accountant could not mix it. Hekia however—a figure of elegance style and humility a woman of few words retiring shy—has now replaced Pansy Wong. Ngati Porou say that Hikurangi mountain is the first to see the sun and we can expect more of that rhetoric from Hekia in the future. Anyhow I do not want the year to pass and grind to a halt without my acknowledging Hekia Parata. We came into the Civil Service at a similar time—but that is another story. 
Part of the difficulty with what this bill is addressing is that unless the builders of the future and the designers and the architects can improve their general level of skill there is no guarantee that if we continue with very complicated building designs that are not suitable for Aotearoa this problem will not recur. I encourage Minister Williamson—and we have another bill on the way—to actually expedite the process of improving the pace at which builders and other experts in the sector can become qualified so as to reduce the construction-related problems with this package. 
As I said earlier a number of us have met the families who are struggling who are stranded who are condemned to live in these shoddily constructed apartments and buildings. In some respects as harsh as it may seem often the best thing for some of them—and a number of them have done it—is to just cut their losses and move on. This issue has mental health implications it has destroyed marriages and it has ruined families. 
Although this legislation represents a remedy it is only a partial remedy because at the end of the day if the owners want to remain in those dwellings they will have to go further into debt. They will not have the opportunity to have another crack at the Crown or local government etc. and in a sense I do think that is unfair. But having said that I believe we will hear through the submissions that the ratepayers and the taxpayers—unless they want to turn this issue into some sort of multi-century Treaty of Waitangi settlement process—want to see an end to it to the point at which property owners are no longer able to come back. Because who are they tapping? They are tapping ratepayers and they are tapping taxpayers. Although we think it is quite unfair—the time restrictions and the absence of the ability to ram home a liability case in the future—there are two sides to the story. That is why Labour members are happy for the bill to go to the select committee and we will listen with a considerable degree of interest to what the submissions might be. 
This has been predominantly an Auckland problem with some cases in Wellington and a few in the South Island. But it has largely been an Auckland-based experience. I think the lesson here is that if we continue to deregulate in the future and if we do not have a workforce that is capable of taking the elegant plans on the architect’s computer screen and turning them into an actual construction then this problem will revisit us time and time again. 
We support this bill being referred to the select committee but I offer a warning: we supported the Ngati Apa debacle being referred to the select committee as well and as a consequence of the wide divisiveness and very angry reactions that that bill has caused we reserve our position with regard to what we will do then. We will hear very courteously—unlike certain Ministers on that side of the House—what the public has to say. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 I will take a brief call on the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill and I do so actually with quite a heavy heart. This bill has come to this House not before time after the good work of the Minister Maurice Williamson. But it is too late for some. It is too late for my family members who were challenged by a leaky home and who went through tremendous pain anguish and suffering over what was a couple of years. I must say that that probably contributed to a now terminal illness on the part of my mother-in-law. This legislation is too late for them. It has taken a National Government with the guts determination and ability to get on and do something after 9 long years of waiting for Labour to stop the rhetoric get on and take some action. It did not happen; thank goodness it has now. Therefore we can congratulate this National Government once again. I commend the bill to the House. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education)  
on behalf of the  
Minister for Building and Construction 
: I move  
That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee 
 that the committee report finally to the House on or before 28 April 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Before I put the motion I have an amendment in the name of Moana Mackey to delete all the words after “Committee”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the words after “Committee” be omitted. 
Ayes 51 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Progressive 1. 
Noes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Weathertight Homes Resolution Services (Financial Assistance Package) Amendment Bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee that the committee report finally to the House on or before 28 April 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
Ayes 68 
New Zealand National 58; ACT New Zealand 5; Maori Party 4; United Future 1. 
Noes 51 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Progressive 1. 
Motion agreed to. 
Building Amendment Bill (No 3) 
First Reading 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education)  
on behalf of the  
Minister for Building and Construction 
: I move  
That the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee and that the committee present its final report to the House on or before 30 June 2011. 
The Building Act 2004 is the primary legislation that governs the building and construction sector in New Zealand. The building and construction sector is vital to our economy but productivity is low. The sector is finding the current economic environment tough. There has been a rise in construction activity this year but it is a patchy recovery. 
The current system is not broken but it is not creating the right incentives to improve productivity. It is more costly than necessary and less efficient than it could be. Change is needed. When I say that I am not talking about just the Government changing the law; I am talking about culture change in the building and construction sector so that everyone takes pride in their work and stands behind it. There are many good people doing good work in the sector but the behaviour of some has dented confidence and that behaviour has to change. 
I am also talking about homeowners and others who commission building work changing their approach. Often their decision making is based purely on price. That approach needs to change to take into account factors that contribute to long-term value as well as immediate cost. None of this change will happen overnight and we need to manage the change carefully so we do not lose the gains we have made since enacting the Building Act in 2004. 
This Government is committed to regulatory reform designed to unleash enterprise. The Building Amendment Bill (No 3) is the result of a comprehensive review of the Building Act 2004 carried out in 2009-10. I acknowledge the important role played by the sector reference group in the review. Many sector leaders in the building and construction sector put time and effort into making submissions and contributing to meetings and working groups. They are the best source of information about the sector and their input was very valuable. 
A year ago when we started the review the aim was to reduce the cost and complexity of the consenting process. The Government received over 380 submissions in response to the review. The main message of the submissions was the vital importance of getting the balance right between reducing compliance costs and providing adequate insurance that building work is up to scratch. The package of amendments in the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) seeks to achieve that balance. 
The Government has no interest in deregulating at the cost of the health safety or financial security of New Zealanders. Quality of building work must come first—that is the fundamental purpose of the Building Act 2004. The Government’s goal is a more efficient and productive sector that stands behind the quality of its work; a sector with the necessary skills and capability to build it right first time and that takes prides in its work; a sector that delivers good-quality affordable homes and buildings and contributes to a prosperous economy; a well-informed sector that shares information and quickly identifies and corrects problems; and a sector where everyone involved in building work knows what they are accountable for and what they rely on others for. The Governments wants consumers in the sector to make informed decisions and to understand the risks and consequences of their decisions. I am pleased to report there is widespread support for the direction of the proposed changes. 
I will now outline the key changes contained in the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). They cover three broad areas: clearer accountability more efficient regulation and improving skills and knowledge. These areas are all interrelated. We cannot make regulation more efficient without first getting accountability clear and both depend on people having the necessary skills and knowledge. The Building Act 2004 will be amended to make it clearer that the buck stops with the people doing the work. Builders and designers must make sure their work will meet building code requirements; building owners must make sure they get the necessary approvals and are accountable for any decisions they make such as substituting specified products; and building consent authorities are accountable for checking that plans will meet building code requirements and inspecting to make sure plans are followed. 
The bill will also change the current building consent process to allow for risk-based consenting. This change will reduce compliance costs by doing away with unnecessary checking and inspection. It will also provide incentives for builders and designers to ensure they have the necessary skills to build it right first time. 
A new risk-based consent system will allow owners to apply for different types of building consents based on the risk of the work to be done rather than the current one-size-fits-all standard. Low-risk or simple residential work done by a licensed building practitioner does not need a lot of checking or inspection by the building consent authority. The building consents for this type of work will have limited checks and inspections by the building consent authority. For more complex residential work where the risks are higher the current building consent process will remain in place with detailed checks and inspections by the building consent authority. For commercial building work the new building consent will take current best practice and apply it across the sector. This will allow for third-party review and quality assurance processes to take the place of building consent authority checks and inspections. 
The risk-based consent system will work only when we have confidence in the quality of building work being done. The Government has identified a number of pre-conditions that will tell us whether we are on the right track. These conditions include having a sound base of competent licensed building practitioners who know how to comply with the code. We will activate the new types of risk-based building consents only when these pre-conditions are met. 
In February this year the Minister announced measures to streamline and simplify the licensed building practitioner scheme. A robust licensing scheme with a critical mass of licensed builders means consumers can have confidence that their homes will be built right first time. The Government will cut compliance costs for building practitioners without compromising standards. The bill will amend the Act to be explicit about the standard of behaviour expected from people working in the sector. This is the culture change I mentioned earlier. Good standards of behaviour will help restore confidence in the sector. A code of ethics will now form part of the licensed building practitioner scheme and licensed building practitioners will be able to be disciplined for breaches of the code or other behaviour that brings the scheme into disrepute. 
The final key change included in the bill is an owner-builder exemption from the restricted building work regime in the Act. We are a nation of do-it-yourselfers and the Government thinks it is unfair to stop Kiwis wielding a hammer on the weekend which could happen under the restricted building work regime. But we still want to protect consumers from past shoddy work on their prime asset. The do-it-yourselfers will be exempt from the restricted building work regime. This means they will not have to employ licensed building practitioners to supervise or carry out restricted building work but their work must still meet the requirements of the building code and like professional builders they will still be accountable for the work that they do. 
Further we need to prevent unlicensed builders from flying under the radar and passing themselves off as do-it-yourselfers. The bill therefore includes provisions preventing do-it-yourselfers from working on more than one home within any 3-year period. It also requires any assistance given to the do-it-yourselfer by friends or family to be unpaid. The Government believes that these are fair and reasonable steps to prevent bad houses being built by unlicensed builders. 
This bill will see more work built right first time increase confidence in the sector reinforce incentives for the sector to upskill and reduce compliance costs by increasing efficiency. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I move that all the words after “Committee” be deleted. I acknowledge the work of the Hon Maurice Williamson in bringing the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) to the House. Labour will be supporting this bill going to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We see this bill as a modest and positive contribution to the ongoing process of reform of regulation in the building sector. 
I also acknowledge the work of the honourable and modest Shane Jones who started much of this work when he was the Minister for Building and Construction. He set up a number of task forces and began a whole process of consultation and discussion with the industry which has led to many of the reform proposals that are contained in this bill. Shane Jones in his earlier contribution on the weathertight homes legislation was quite right to point out that if he were to join colleagues on the Government side of this House the average quality of contribution on that side would rise and the average quality of contribution on this side would diminish. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: It would be a change because none of you seem to be able to get to the committee at all. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: I have to say that it was a great relief to finally hear a 10-minute contribution from the Minister who opened this debate. It makes a refreshing change from the rather desultory contributions we have heard from Government members this evening. 
We support this bill. We think it is a modest step forward in the ongoing process of reform in the building and construction industry. However it lacks ambition. I want to go on and say exactly why we support it and what is good about it and raise some questions about the bill. Let us look at the context of what is happening in the building and construction industry. It is a hugely important part of our economy. It accounts for about 5 percent of our GDP and something like 70000 New Zealanders are employed in the sector yet this is an industry that is in crisis. The building consent figures that came out last week show that construction activity in the residential sector has fallen through the floor. We have appallingly low levels of productivity in the building and construction industry. We are killing people on building sites at two to three times the rate of Australia. This is an industry that is in desperate need of assistance. Although the measures contained in this bill are positive and worthwhile in general they are woefully lacking in ambition. 
The question I have for Government members is why we are not seeing some kind of plan to rescue the building and construction industry in order to address the deep-seated productivity problems in the industry and the entrenched health and safety problems in this industry. Currently in the economic crisis besetting the building and construction industry we are seeing the departure of large numbers of skilled tradespeople at the moment who are going off to Australia. We are seeing apprentices being laid off at the moment because this Government does not have a plan not only for the wider economy but also in particular for this vital industry that we are talking about tonight. 
The historical context is that in 1991 the National Government of the time deregulated the building sector and as we know the response was a disaster for New Zealand. It was a disaster for homeowners and we are still feeling the effects of it. When the fifth Labour Government came in we set out to address the problem. We saw in the Building Act 2004 a genuine attempt to restore a decent building regulation regime. We recognise that in hindsight that legislation is too prescriptive and too heavily focused on compliance. The result was that the industry generally stopped building leaky homes but the heavy compliance regime slowed down the whole industry and added costs that were ultimately passed on to homeowners. So it is appropriate at this time that the reform process will swing the pendulum back towards the centre and give us a more thoughtful and light-handed approach that will be better for the industry and better for the consumer. 
We are supporting this bill in general and we look forward to a good debate in the select committee but we want to raise some questions at this point. One of them asks why the Government has opted for the much more light-handed approach of requiring home warranties to be made available to homeowners. The builder is required to have a home warranty scheme in their back pocket to offer it to homeowners at the point of purchase. A much more comprehensive approach would be to make home warranties mandatory and to back that up with a fidelity fund. I think that is the option that most people in the industry recognise would solve the problem. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Heavy-handed. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: It is heavy-handed and there would be some risk involved in such a big intervention but I think that is an interesting debate. I would like to hear why the Government has gone for a much more insubstantial and light-handed approach that will arguably have less of a chance of solving the problem and providing real consumer protection. I am not convinced that this will provide the level of protection that is needed. Arguably mandatory home warranties backed up by a fidelity fund that could invest in productivity certification and health and safety could potentially offer a much more thoroughgoing solution to the deep-seated problems of lack of productivity and poor consumer protection that we see in the industry today. 
I think there are other issues. Reflected in the bill is an attempt to better balance the spread of accountability and responsibility across the different players in the industry and that is a worthy attempt to reform the problem in the industry which is that accountability has not been aligned with levels of responsibility and that is what we need. If we want to drive behaviour change in the industry accountability has to be aligned with responsibility. I want to give members an example of this. In the bill new section 14D inserted by clause 10 places on designers and architects the responsibility for ensuring that the plans and specifications that they deliver to the client if followed correctly will result in building work that is compliant with the building code. At the same time clause 24 lets councils off the responsibility of carrying out inspections and issuing a code of compliance. This is a major change to the regulatory regime that has not been discussed publicly by the Government. It puts a huge amount of responsibility and liability on to designers and architects and I wonder whether that is a sensible apportionment of accountability and whether the unforeseen consequences of that might undermine the objectives of this bill. 
We have talked about home warranties. One of the other major pieces of the reform process that has been discussed is risk-based consenting which the Minister outlined in her opening speech. We support that. The attempt is good and it will mean that we will see a much lighter and differentiated approach to consenting. It will mean that for instance certain things will be able to be done that will not even require a building certificate any more. They are things like car ports porches verandas simple houses and free-standing barns. I know that the leader of the Labour Party the Hon Phil Goff will be extremely relieved. He was most upset at being whacked with a huge building consent charge by his local council when he built a barn on his property so that is one New Zealander who will be happy to see that change. 
The bill also makes some further improvements to the licensed builder practitioner scheme which is worthwhile. It prescribes a code of consent. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
: 
 In following on from Phil Twyford I say that it is a pleasure to hear a series of cathartic speeches from the other side of the House. Obviously he has fully considered the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) and I concur with his view that we can all look forward to good debate at the select committee. I think that is where the debate will occur. 
I take pride and pleasure in being part of the John Key - led Government which introduces purposeful and practical legislation and has done since it took office. This particular bill is both practical and purposeful and I commend it to the House. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is enormously disappointing that Government members do not feel that they should earn their $140000 salaries by making a proper speech— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: We put the bill together. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I say to Mr Auchinvole that he did not. The Minister of Education made a 10-minute speech which is very good. Although I suspect that had the Minister for Building and Construction the Hon Maurice Williamson made that speech he would have truncated it but that is a bit hard to do when it is not one’s particular area and one reads the speech that the officials have very kindly written out for the Minister. But I suggest that we might have expected a little bit more from Mr Auchinvole the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. The point of urgency is that Parliament sits for longer than it normally would. Urgency does not absolve members of their responsibility to debate legislation in the House to show that they have taken the time to consider it and to ask the kinds of questions that the public have been asking about it. That is not what urgency is. Urgency does not mean that we do in 10 seconds a job that should take 10 minutes. It is not our fault that the House is in urgency. It is not our fault that the management of the House has been such a shambles this year that the Leader of the House is in a panic and we will be sitting until midnight on Saturday. 
Labour members will be supporting the referral of the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) to the Local Government and Environment Committee. The juxtaposition of the previous bill with this bill is very timely. I think we are all very aware that any changes made to the Building Act 2004 need to be seen in the context of the previous legislation— 
Hon Member 
: What was the previous one? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: —the leaky building solution—which is repairing a lot of the damage caused by the Building Act 1991. The 1991 legislation deregulated the sector to the point where consumers found themselves with very few protections under the law. Aaron Gilmore has been a builder an architect and a developer. In fact I think he wrote the 1991 legislation so I look forward to his contribution. 
Phil Twyford 
: It’s on his CV. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: It is on his CV anyway I hear— 
Jacinda Ardern 
: He said his brother did. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Oh his brother did. His brother did it. This is a new kind of variation on a theme. Right before Christmas—what a gift! I thank Mr Gilmore. 
But the juxtaposition of these two bills should not be lost on members of the House because we need to be very careful when we amend the Building Act that we do not create the same problems that the previous National Government did in the 1990s which have seen billion-dollar legislation having to go through the House to assist homeowners whose houses are absolutely uninhabitable and who have lost their life-savings which were invested in those properties because of shonky work and shonky materials. Legislation passed by that Government allowed that to happen under the guise of the free market. It was so opposed to any kind of regulation that it thought all regulation must be bad. 
I suspect that is why when Labour fixed the situation in 2004 we made the legislation very tough. The extent of the leaky homes crisis was just becoming evident to all the people of New Zealand. The public were crying out for more controls and people who were in the process of having homes built wanted to know that they would not fall into the same trap and we responded with legislation that was very tough and provided enormous protection. We know that the Hon Shane Jones who was the Minister thought that perhaps the pendulum had swung too far. In hindsight we know that the reaction although understandable and appropriate at the time— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Here’s the cathartic bit. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: —had caused its own problems. I say to Mr Auchinvole that when Labour was in Government it acknowledged that and set in place a process to amend the Building Act again to remove unnecessary blockages in the system and to try to make the process easier and to lower the cost of building houses in New Zealand. So we will be supporting this legislation because we see it as another step in the process of trying to streamline the Building Act where we can. As my colleague Phil Twyford has said it is very modest legislation. This bill will not have a huge impact but none the less we believe that it is a positive step in the right— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: It will it will. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Well I look at the issue of housing affordability. Is Mr Auchinvole saying that this bill will have an enormous impact on it? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Yep. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: He is. OK. Well I wonder whether I should listen to Mr Auchinvole or to the Registered Master Builders Federation president Warwick Quinn who welcomed the changes—like we do—but said that he does not think building costs will fall at all as a result of this legislation. Should I believe Mr Auchinvole or should I believe the president of the Registered Master Builders Federation? 
Chris Auchinvole 
: I’d stick with Mr Auchinvole if I were you. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Well Mr Auchinvole thinks I should believe Mr Auchinvole; that is one of the few things he is consistent on and I congratulate him on that. But I think I will go with the guy who actually does this for a living and knows what he is talking about with the greatest of respect. 
Hon Member 
: Aaron Gilmore. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: And I do not mean Aaron Gilmore. I hope my whanaunga Hekia Parata now that she is in a position to mentor younger members will take Mr Gilmore under her wing and teach him those great Ngati Porou qualities of humility modesty and wisdom. These great gifts can be bestowed upon Aaron Gilmore by one of our Ngati Porou whanaunga of whom we are very proud. I congratulate Hekia Parata on her promotion—it is well deserved. Now I have forgotten where I was up to. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Housing affordability. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Housing affordability is a major issue. This bill was one part of the housing affordability plan that National campaigned on. It said that the first way that it would address housing affordability was through tax cuts. Well those tax cuts went to the wealthy. They went to people who could already afford houses so that was a big fail. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: What about what the Budget did to tenants? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: The Budget increased rent for tenants and the cost of living has gone up across the board all of which make housing affordability even further away from being addressed. The second part was the Government’s Gateway Housing Assistance scheme. Well that turned out to be a real fizzer because not only did that great bold policy deliver only 40 houses—40 houses across the entire country in its first year when Labour while in Government had identified 1500 sites in Auckland alone—but apparently it just does not work. The sector tells me that it does not work but there will be more to come on that later. 
Now we have the amendment of the Building Act. We in Labour absolutely agree that if we can put in changes that protect consumers and that mean they will not be at risk from shonky buildings then that is great and it would be great if we can address housing affordability through those measures as well. But as the Registered Master Builders Federation president Warwick Quinn has said this bill will not do that. If the aim of this bill is to reduce the cost of housing well that will not happen. So I do not think members opposite should claim as Mr Auchinvole did that this bill will be a panacea for housing affordability when clearly it will not be. 
I endorse what my colleague Phil Twyford has said about the building sector. This sector is in crisis. When we look at what is happening at the moment we see that two things are happening concurrently. There is an incredible housing shortage in New Zealand—not enough residential housing is being built—and we have a building sector that is screaming out for work. The building sector has seen the number of consents drop through the floor to unprecedented levels. The work just is not there. People are losing their jobs and building companies are going out of business. On the other hand we are facing an enormous housing crisis in New Zealand. 
One would think that a responsible Government that had a plan for the economy—a plan to keep people in work and to address the lack of residential housing being built—would take advantage of this situation. Remember Labour built 8000 State houses to replace the 13000 that the previous National Government had sold and we did that during one of the biggest housing booms in New Zealand when it was difficult to get hold of a builder so imagine what we could do in a time when builders are screaming out for work. We could really dent the shortfall in housing that New Zealand is facing at the moment. But this Government has not done that. 
In fact what has it done? It has slashed the budget for housing this year by more than 80 percent. It slashed it. It has completely taken itself out of that situation. [ 
Interruption 
] I am not sure what is noisier: Anne Tolley’s jacket or her interjections. But she can read the Budget and see that the Housing New Zealand Corporation has been told that any new houses will have to come out of savings in baseline spending. Is that what we should be doing at a time when we have a housing shortage and a building sector in crisis? We are not training building apprentices and we are not doing the skills training that we should be having at this time. Apprentices are being laid off. They could be going back to polytech to do more work on their qualifications rather than their being let go and the years of training that have already been put into them going to waste. This Government has no plan—no plan for building. That is the important other half of this legislation. 
Labour members support any moves that make it easier for the sector to work while also offering protection to consumers. This is modest legislation and it follows on from the work that Shane Jones was doing. But there has to be a plan for the building sector; otherwise all the good intentions in this kind of legislation do not mean anything. 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I begin where the previous speaker Moana Mackey left off. I support the comments that both she and her colleague Phil Twyford made about the broader context of housing and the New Zealand building industry in which the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) is being advanced. 
A recent Government task force report entitled  
Home and Housed: A Vision for Social Housing in New Zealand 
 found that there is a shortage of 70000 homes in New Zealand and that 8500 to 2000 New Zealand households have extreme housing issues. That is extraordinary. The Government’s solution has been to make vague comments about working with the community sector more and that is simply not enough; we need action and we need it now. 
The Government has cut money for upgrading and acquiring State houses from $120 million to $18 million in this year’s Budget. It is actively going backwards on supporting vulnerable Kiwis who have the right we would say to be guaranteed a roof over their heads. This cut is occurring at a time when over 10000 families are on the State housing waiting list. 
The Green Party has suggested some solutions that would address those needs for housing and also address the plight of the building industry. Our Mind the Gap package and our Green New Deal package have proposed a comprehensive State house building programme to increase the stock of State houses by 6000 homes over 3 years. It would create 28000 jobs. We also proposed that a further $200 million should be spent in community housing to build a further 500 homes over that period. 
That is the broader context. I also make a comment that builds on something that Chris Auchinvole said. He thought that the debate on this bill would happen at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I think it is evident that that is the only place that it can happen. Even though this is a complex and technical bill I am sure we would have all benefited from Government members taking some time to explain their proposals more and I think the New Zealand public has a democratic expectation for the Government to do that in a first reading. The first reading debate is not about satisfying the needs of only the Government itself; it is actually about satisfying the needs of the New Zealand public to know more about the bill being proposed so that they are in a better position to make informed comments and submissions as part of the select committee process. I think it is unfortunate that Government members have chosen to take cursory calls on this bill because it robs the public and important stakeholders of the opportunity to know more about the bill and therefore to make the best submissions they possibly can as part of the select committee process. 
The bill’s aims of making builders more accountable and simplifying the building process seem superficially good on the one hand but on the other hand they sound like code for more deregulation and a higher risk of the kind of debacle that we heard about earlier this evening in this House: the catastrophe of the leaky homes disaster which has befallen so many New Zealand households. Once again it is one of those issues where there is debate between regulation and deregulation and striking the correct balance. 
It is worth repeating the conclusion of the Hunn report about leaky homes which in 2002 found that the deregulation of the building industry undertaken by the National Government in the 1990s represented a major systemic breakdown across the whole industry. That cannot be allowed to happen again. We cannot compromise environmental safety and quality standards in order to fast track building developments and satisfy National’s obsession with free-market economics. In the long run that approach will lead to problems such as the leaky homes debacle the repercussions of which we are still dealing with today. 
We realise that the building industry and the systems we have around the industry are not perfect and we certainly welcome some of the provisions in the bill. There is room for improvement and we agree with objectives such as holding people to account for their work. Indeed part of the problem with the leaky buildings fiasco was the loss of the accountability chain and accountability mechanisms. It is important to remember that all of that fiasco happened in the context of deregulation. 
I raise another problem that we hope this bill will address—that is the problem faced by people who want to build different or eco-friendly buildings. Very often councils seem ill-equipped to deal with those kinds of applications and they fall back on the tried and true systems that they know. That is anathema to the kind of innovation that we need in order to overhaul the style of New Zealand buildings and to address some of the challenges that we face in this century. On the whole the 2004 reforms to the building code have been an improvement but there is still a way to go. 
With all that said the Green Party has an open mind and is keen to hear the submissions from the public and from stakeholders on how the Building Act can be improved. We are also keen to hear from experts about how we can safeguard the environmental safety and quality standards of the building industry and to see whether there is scope to make the processes easier to comply with. It is fair to say that we are sceptical about National’s record on building regulation and more particularly deregulation but we want to hear the arguments. With that said we will support this bill at the first reading. 
Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the first reading of the Building Amendment Act (No 3) on behalf of the ACT Party. I have to say that the previous speaker Kevin Hague seemed to be struggling to fill his 10 minutes. It seems in summary that this is not such a bad bill but he had to say something negative because it is Government legislation. We think that this is a very good bill. It will make a number of changes to the Building Act to improve its productivity efficiency and accountability which should always be strived for. 
The amendments will exempt a broader range of low-risk building work from consenting requirements which will free things up significantly in the building sector and that is well needed at the moment. It will also require building contractors to disclose more information to enable building consumers to make better-informed decisions. That too is very important. 
I do not think the criticism about leaky homes was valid. I think this Government is taking leaky homes very seriously. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: The Labour Government did nothing. 
Hon HEATHER ROY 
: Yes the previous Labour Government did not do a great deal. I sat on one of the select committees that heard one of the bills. In fact if Labour members had been listening to the debate on the prior bill they would have heard that the Minister involved is fully engaged with this matter and has taken on the cause very passionately. Few could actually criticise his approach or what it is that he was trying to achieve. 
Hon Hon Member 
: If you had been here you would know we spoke on that bill. 
Hon HEATHER ROY 
: In fact I did sit through his speech and it was an excellent speech. 
The ACT Party is fully supporting this bill. We look forward to it going to the Local Government and Environment Committee where of course it will receive proper examination in a great deal of detail by the committee members. 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 I am pleased to speak on behalf of the Maori Party about the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). I find it very interesting that the general policy statement for this bill in part says: “Change is needed to provide incentives for building professionals and tradespeople to take responsibility for the quality of their work and to stand behind it.” It is really sad that in this time we need to pass legislation to make sure that people stand behind the quality of their work and take responsibility for it. 
I remember that back in the late 1980s our family bought our first new home. It was built on iwi land by Maori affairs trainees. It was not what one would call a flash home. It cost us $80000 in those days and we had to take out a mortgage with an interest rate of about 18 percent. At one stage it rose to about 24 percent interest so it was very expensive. The first storm we had after we moved in lifted part of the roof. I walked into one room and water was pouring down the wall. We had to get the insurance people to come in and check it all out and get the builders back to re-roof the building and this was only just after it had been built and we had first moved in. This was long before the leaky buildings scandal. 
About 10 years later in the late 1990s we moved into our next new home which was a lot more up-market. In fact it was built by a registered master builder who stood behind his work. He did fantastic work. When we first moved in he lived just down the road from us and he used to make lots of excuses to pop in and check out his workmanship. He would look around to make sure that it was holding up and we felt very comfortable with that because we knew that he cared about the quality of his workmanship about the quality of the building and about the people who were living in his buildings. 
That was very good. He did not need a Building Act or anything like that to force him to do it. But we realise that times have changed and there are cowboys out there still. We realise that some people will act only when the heavy arm of the law is resting upon their shoulders. So although it is regrettable we support this bill being referred to a select committee. 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 The Building Amendment Bill (No 3) is focused on improving efficiency and effectiveness in the building industry and on raising overall performance and productivity. It is designed to allow builders to build better-quality buildings in a more cost-effective manner by ensuring clearer accountability for building practitioners building consent authorities and consumers. It will make sure that work complies with the building code. It includes a code of ethics for licensed building practitioners in order to encourage professional behaviour. It also allows DIY work under controlled conditions. I commend this bill to the House. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) and I will be taking a full 10-minute call unlike National members opposite who specialise in— 
Nikki Kaye 
: It had better be good. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: I can tell Nikki Kaye that National members have on average spoken for 26 seconds. That speaks to why we are here at the moment which is because of National’s mismanagement of the House and the collision of all of this legislation at the end of the year. I remind the House that 2 weeks ago the Leader of the House said that we would not need to go into urgency before the end of the year but here we are sitting under urgency until the weekend. I do not mind doing that but I think that a democratic principle is involved here which is that there should be good debate on important legislation. This bill is one of those important bills but the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill was probably the most significant and even it did not get more than a 3½ second call from National members. 
This legislation has a long history dating back to 1991 with the deregulation of the building industry and the building codes. The idea was that somehow the market could regulate standards and ensure that buildings could be built more flexibly more cheaply and more efficiently but ultimately it was at a huge cost to New Zealand. We have just been told that it was at a cost of $11 billion but actually PricewaterhouseCoopers puts it at closer to $23 billion which is about the cost of the health and education budgets for a year put together. 
In 2004 the Labour Government brought in the Building Act which tried to tighten up considerably the regulations in relation to buildings and building construction. I think that it was perhaps too heavy and too prescriptive and that this bill provides in a sense a rewriting of the situation back to where the law should lie. Nevertheless the leaky building situation is still with us and I think the key point about this legislation is that the accountabilities are set and the expertise required by builders and councils is explicitly set so that there is real protection for homeowners and everybody else in New Zealand. In relation to leaky buildings it is the rest of New Zealand that is paying for the array of faults that happened right throughout the industry. 
This bill moves to a more balanced building consent system. It looks at low-risk building work such as a low deck a basic shed or something that any Kiwi would build and it enables that work to be done without consent which is a very welcome provision. I think we can be well and truly over-regulated; applying for consent to build a shed and having to wait for 2 months to get that consent from the council at huge cost is unnecessary. Low-risk building work such as a simple one-storey house would go through a quicker simpler consent process with fewer council inspections required and rather than having to rely on the council it would rely on the skills of a licensed builder. Consents for high-risk more complex houses will go through the current kind of system that we have. Those are all sensible changes to the Building Act and will make a difference in terms of efficiency and the ability to get things done much more quickly. 
This legislation also provides for a rebalancing of responsibility back towards professionals and tradespeople which is important. However I think it highlights the fact that the deregulation in 1991 brought about a major problem with the smaller number of builders who were trained who came through a proper apprenticeship scheme and were able to take on large building programmes. There were very weak skills in that area which contributed to the problems we have seen today. 
This legislation also includes better tools for consumers to hold professionals to account. It includes mandatory written contracts and deals with how disputes will be solved how money will be paid and how finances will be backed up. 
This legislation is good but it is pretty modest. I do not think the bill goes as far as many people would like it to go. We should consider the comments made by John Gray the President of the Home Owners and Buyers Association. He may even be watching the debate tonight and seeing the short calls that National members are taking on this bill and the cynical way in which they are treating the passage of legislation through the House. He accused the Government of a weak Building Act review and said that the changes had stopped short of a national building warranty scheme or a fidelity fund which he wanted as a backstop for homeowners which my colleague Phil Twyford talked about before. Mr Gray said: “The building industry needs to give itself an enema”. It is spoken like a true builder: to the point and saying that basically this bill is not as good as it could be. He continued: “The focus on potential liability is a sad indictment on an industry that … is still failing to focus on quality outcomes and to give consumers the level of protection they deserve …”. They certainly do deserve that protection as we have seen in relation to the previous legislation on leaky homes because families have been bankrupted and people have suffered huge financial burdens. 
The building industry is extraordinarily important in New Zealand. It is worth from memory about 5 percent of GDP. An enormous amount of people work in the industry. Yet right at the moment as Moana Mackey pointed out earlier in her speech building consents are at an all-time low. In Auckland the number of building consents being approved now is about half the number of consents being approved a year and a half ago. Although the demand for housing is still there building is not happening and we will have a major shortage of housing in particular in Auckland in the coming years unless we are able to do something about it. 
I will come to a couple of points that are more particular to this bill. Phil Twyford mentioned the fidelity fund. It has been brought in in Queensland. It is a more heavy-handed approach I agree but it does set up a fund that can be used to not only backstop any liabilities that could happen but also contribute to innovation and the building safety codes that we do not have at the moment. A fidelity fund offers the scope to be able to do that. 
The bill lacks provision for materials and I believe it should be looked into at the select committee. A lot of the leaky building debacle happened as a result of new materials that were untested or not tested sufficiently. The materials leaked or rotted and owners ultimately paid the price. This bill does not sufficiently protect consumers from faulty products of manufacturers or retailers and I think that needs to be addressed. 
Finally I hope that this bill brings about the culture change that needs to happen in our building environment. I do not think it will do that; it is too light and too modest and it does not go far enough. But the ultimate test and the ultimate challenge is to bring about a much more professional building practice in New Zealand. That is what we all should be aiming for with this bill. Thank you. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
: 
 This bill is about cutting red tape reducing compliance and reducing bureaucracy and it is about affordable housing. One of the reasons I came to Parliament was because I got to see members opposite in their true colours. I will never forget being a researcher when members opposite said that it was a  
New Zealand Herald  
beat-up to say that we have leaky homes in New Zealand. I was very sad for the many families who suffered under the previous Labour Government. It did nothing—absolutely nothing—on the rotting homes crisis. So I am very proud of our Ministers that we have given certainty to so many of those families. As a constituency MP it has been heartbreaking to see the many families who spent years under the previous Labour Government—firstly when it denied there was a situation and secondly when it did nothing. So I am very proud to be part of this National Government which has developed policy around weathertightness and leaky homes. 
This bill is about Kiwi DIY. This bill is about saying that it will not cost an arm and a leg to do up one’s own place. I am very proud to be supporting this bill which is not only about reducing compliance costs and red tape and providing greater affordable housing but about recognising the historic injustices some of which were caused by the previous Labour Government and about the average Kiwi person who does not want to pay thousands of dollars just to do up their home. So I am very pleased to support this bill because life is not a beach for some of those people. Some of those people have suffered significantly. I am very pleased to support this legislation. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou Mr Speaker. Just to bring the previous speaker Nikki Kaye up to speed the bill she was referring to has already been dealt with. That bill pertained to the leaky homes problem. I can assure the member that everyone who spoke from her side of the House had less to say than she did. 
A number of people have suggested that the Building Act ought to be put into the furnace. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Fast-forward that one. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Oh hold on that was Aaron Gilmore. He used the words “funereal pyre”. What he was actually referring to is the struggle that he and Paul Quinn will have to get hold of the lifebuoy as they are thrown off the sinking ship of Te Roopu Nahinara. Paul Quinn will say: “I need to get it because I have protected us from prisoners who now are unable to vote.” Aaron Gilmore will say: “I need to get it because I am the cleverest financial analyst who has ever come to Parliament.” But that is kei te pai because Sammy Wong and his hovercraft will save both of them. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am mildly offended that Paul Quinn is being treated in such a poor way given that he is not in this House right now. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Well the member has actually breached a Standing Order ruling by referring to the absence of people from the House. I feel that we should just get on with the debate. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: This legislation is about reforming the Building Act. I am not entirely sure whether it will relate to sow crates but I can see a Minister over there who has ruined the agricultural portfolio worsened the liability of the Crown and incurred an inordinate debt as he sought to offend the members of an important religious community in New Zealand who just want to go about their lives and eat kosher meat. He has introduced some foolish regulations. But I will come back to that another time. The man is a walking liability. He has probably endangered the larger meat trade but the terms “head” and “meat” tend to come together when one looks at him. 
This bill is an improvement in terms of what took place and what a number of us on our side of the House—too late in the piece I might say—endeavoured to arrest. That is why a number of us have spoken enthusiastically about it tonight and why 10 minutes at the very least is required to elaborate as to what the bill actually means given that no one on that side of the House has either read it or— 
Aaron Gilmore 
: Get the sure strokes Shane. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I tell Mr Gilmore to keep all his energy for the lifebuoy. Well in his case I had better say the safety belt. 
However I come back to the bill. There will be four new categories of building permits. A lot of building activity in New Zealand should not require a permit of any sort and I sought to do that in the period of time that I was Minister. Some very modest insubstantial building activities ought to be able to be carried out without a permit provided that the person is a credible and qualified tradesman. Why on earth should ratepayers be blighted with the costs of having to deal with permits and consents for building activities that are of a modest nature? That is why the schedule that was passed 2 years ago allowed certain building activities to be exempted. I must say that this bill continues slightly in that vein. It focuses the attention of decision makers on where risk really lies. Councils ought to be concerned about those projects where the risk is of a very substantial and significant nature. 
Councils will not be issuing certificates of compliance; they will be issuing completion certificates. That will reflect the fact that when a person makes an application the process has been completed. Owners have a responsibility not only to use common sense but to act as investors and owners of property and find tradesmen who are qualified and reliable. This bill brings a suitable level of responsibility on to the applicant and on to the person who actually owns the property. Then it sheets home the responsibility to those such as the designers. Those fools who brought cheek by jowl Mediterranean-style housing into New Zealand have got off largely scot-free and have concluded that they are no longer liable and are no longer responsible. But this bill provides for the liability that they should face to be borne by them and requires them to ensure that the advice they give is consistent with the requirements of the building code. 
The building code was originally a permissive experience but it got far too liberal and problems emerged during the period of time prior to the Helen Clark Government. Our response as my colleagues have said was a very heavy-handed response and we all agree that this bill should go to the Local Government and Environment Committee because the pendulum most certainly needs to swing back to a place where people are not overwhelmed by too much red tape and are not paying absurdly high levels of fees to the council when the problem that needs to be managed is of a very simple nature. 
An important part of this lies at the heart of the average Kiwi citizen’s experience of owning their own property—that is the owner-builder exemption. Earlier this was a matter of some debate. How does one allow for the average Kiwi do-it-yourself Carter Holt Harvey - ITM friend who keeps those businesses in regular cash flow by wanting to improve and actually enrich the value of their properties? This bill will allow that to happen. However where activity requires a high level of skill because one may impair the integrity of the building there will be an obligation on the owners of the property to ensure that the people doing that work include a suitably qualified person. Without a doubt that will not pertain to Skyline garages and garden-variety straightforward—I will not say ticky-tack—modest dwellings. I do believe that under this bill those things can happen with a great deal of speed. 
The difficulty underlying all of these changes is that the building industry is on its knees. The building industry is losing talent and qualified people to Australia. The building industry is not able to raise the necessary levels of capital because the buying market has lost confidence. In addition to that although population changes are taking place and the number of people requiring new dwellings and new residences is geometrically increasing the difficulty is that the supply side is constrained—indeed in some cases it is static. That is the deeper problem. Recently representatives from the building industry said to Prime Minister Key that unless he was capable of bringing forward an intervention there would be no building industry left. The big end of town got taken care of; the Fletchers etc. have been given a lifeline through the role they are playing in the reconstruction of Canterbury. But the essence of the building industry is the person with a four-wheel drive two or three largely blokes a dog on the back and some simple tools. That is the garden variety everyday Kiwi enterprise in the building industry. We are losing them because there is a fear or a complete unwillingness on the Government side of the House in terms of economic policy to inject capital and confidence into this sector. Somehow members opposite imagine that the hidden hand of Adam Smith is going to rise and cause economic activity to enjoy a greater elevation. That is not going to happen. More apprentices are going to be turned away there are going to be more difficulties and we are going to watch a greater drift of our young people to Australia. 
The challenge is for—[ 
Interruption 
] I say to Mr Carter that he has created enough liability for the Crown. He has enraged the most frightening Aucklander Michael Stiassny. We know that Mr Carter now requires a handholding experience by Crown Law to avoid any further liability being incurred as a consequence of his delinquency on the part of the Crown. Michael Stiassny is coming for him make no doubt about that as a consequence of his enraging and alienating that valuable part of the religious community of Auckland otherwise known as the Jewish community. 
JO GOODHEW (National—Rangitata) 
: 
 As this debate on the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) draws to a close I want to reiterate simply this: the building and construction sector is vital for New Zealand’s economic performance and prosperity. This bill is yet another tool in National’s determination to make sure that economic prosperity comes from this Government’s term in office—so different so very very different from the previous 9 years of inaction. Therefore I commend this bill to the House. 
Bill read a first time. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister for Building and Construction 
: I move  
That the Local Government and Environment Committee consider the Building Amendment Bill (No 3) 
 and that the committee report finally to the House on or before 30 June 2011. 
Motion agreed to. 
Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 I move  
That the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the committee report back on or before 6 May 2011 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House on Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 187 189(a) and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
The Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative will make ultra-fast broadband available to three-quarters of New Zealanders through the deployment of fibre-optic cabling. The Rural Broadband Initiative will provide broadband services to 93 percent of rural schools and ensure that 97 percent of households have access to broadband with download speeds of 5 megabits per second or better. This bill provides the framework for the Government’s broadband policies. The bill ensures that the networks under both initiatives are open through new binding open-access undertakings ensuring that the networks are made available in accordance with non-discrimination and equivalence rules. 
Under the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative for the first 10 years pricing is set through the competitive tender process. As members will be aware that competitive process has resulted in prices for fibre services that are competitive with those for other services currently in the market. Therefore before 31 December 2019 the Commerce Commission may not recommend to the Minister regulation of access to the providers network. The commission will have the ability to monitor and enforce the undertakings regime with penalties for non-compliance and the ability to require the local fibre companies to disclose capital and operational costs and the characteristics of their network. 
This bill also implements the Government’s telecommunications service obligation reforms. The telecommunications service obligation framework ensures the ongoing supply of basic residential telephone services at a fixed price that would not otherwise be likely to be supplied on a commercial basis plus the telecommunications relay services for the hearing impaired. The bill amends the definition of “net cost” of a deemed telecommunications service obligation instrument to require the commission to offset the costs and revenues from providing services to all end-users who had a residential connection on 20 December 2001. The bill amends the process for initiating a telecommunications service obligation cost calculation determination providing that the commission will calculate the cost to the local service telecommunications service obligation only where the telecommunications service obligation provider requires a determination for that financial year. 
The bill amends payment of compensation to a telecommunications service obligation provider by requiring the Crown to pay compensation due to telecommunications service obligation providers as assessed by the commission. That compensation is funded from a new levy called the telecommunications development levy. The annual amount to be collected for the telecommunications development levy is specified in the bill and the money collected will first pay for any telecommunications service obligation charges and then rural telecommunications infrastructure development and upgrades to the emergency-calling services. 
The Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative processes are ongoing. As a result of discussions and outcomes between Crown Fibre Holdings and bidders some additional legislative amendments may be needed. These may extend to measures to assist with the deployment of fibre and in the event that Telecom was selected as the preferred supplier in the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative amendments to enable structural separation. Should changes be required the Government will introduce a Supplementary Order Paper containing any legislative amendments during Parliament’s consideration of the bill. 
I commend this very important bill for the future of New Zealand’s telecommunications sector to the House. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 The Minister expresses such passion for his portfolio yet that was I think a 3-minute speech—an embarrassment. I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about the Government’s much-vaunted ultra-fast broadband policy. It was No. 2 in John Key’s top 10 pledges made before the 2008 election. His personal guarantee was to deliver ultra-fast broadband fibre to 75 percent of New Zealand homes for $1.5 billion. People thought that sounded good. How are we doing? Two years later and there is no broadband. Two whole years! When National became the Government Labour already had a broadband policy. It was not packaged in such a sexy manner but it was sound. Thirty-six broadband projects in communities across New Zealand worth several hundred million dollars were poised to roll out across the country from Hobsonville to Otago. They included fibre to the home projects for new communities existing cities and rural areas. Many of them would have been built by now but they all got canned by Steven Joyce. 
It has taken 2 years for the Government to recast its policy with a complicated scheme that may or may not deliver ultra-fast broadband at prices that New Zealanders can afford. Two years later we get a bill brought to the House that is deeply flawed a scheme dogged by complexity and secrecy. There was the first dribble of a decision this week to roll out fibre in some regional towns covering about 16 percent of the country so that before the end of the year Steven Joyce can get his photo in the paper and on the telly with a hard hat on and pretending to lay out fibre paid for by the New Zealand taxpayer. That is not ultra-fast broadband it is ultra-slow broadband. It does not fill one with great confidence. 
Looking more and more like the big elephant in the room Telecom remains a massive problem for the Government to solve. Labour supports this bill going to the select committee. We have strong reservations. We have already publicly opposed a key part of the bill the proposal to introduce a 10-year regulatory forbearance period up to 2019. This prevents the Commerce Commission from playing a watchdog role over ultra-fast broadband and perhaps the rural broadband initiative prices as it has done in the mobile market. Labour has deep concerns that this bill weakens hard-fought legislative protections for consumers and exposes the public to an unnecessary risk of future monopolistic practices. The Telecommunications Act already includes protections for investors so the proposed regulatory holiday is unnecessary. The Government argues that it is not a regulatory holiday but it is playing with words. We do not like it; we have said we are opposed to it. We will review it should we win Government next year. 
Labour wants New Zealanders to have ultra-fast broadband but broadband is just part of what is needed to deliver a digital transformation strategy for this country. We want New Zealanders to have access to the best technology to help transform our economy and take advantage of the opportunity that technology provides and we want to use technology to better deliver Government services and better engage with its citizens. We need digital vision and a concrete digital agenda. Under this Government and this Minister we do not have either. It was Labour who developed the Digital Strategy 2.0 and it is this Government and this Minister who canned the Digital Strategy—the vision that surrounded this new network. There is no vision no sense of what New Zealanders will be able to do with this network. Instead it is about ticking the box next to that election promise of ultra-fast broadband delivered to 75 percent of New Zealanders in their homes—a promise that should never have been made. 
If Steven Joyce had had any sense he would have taken Labour’s broadband scheme re-branded it and gradually expanded it throughout the country. Instead we have had 2 years of nothing. We want to be ultra-fast not ultra-slow. We want equitable access for New Zealanders across urban and rural New Zealand. We never understood why the Government needed to put in place two completely different schemes one run by a Crown-established company Crown Fibre Holdings and the other one by the Ministry of Economic Development. We want a broadband programme that is underpinned by a set of principles: participation accountability and transparency access to technology and affordable technology. That is the key thing because it is all very well talking about building a new network but if people cannot afford to access it then it will not be much good. 
Instead this week the Government announced two—out of 27—contracts for urban broadband and three short-listed bidders for rural broadband because it had to do things its way. This meant that successful projects already out there delivering fibre to people in rural New Zealand at affordable prices will be shut down—people like James Watts of InSPire Net who has laid hundreds of kilometres of fibre between Woodville Pahiatua Eketahuna and Palmerston North. InSPire Net charges $100 a month for 100 megabytes per second access and the Government’s plan is to deliver 5 megabytes per second access. Watts and InSPire Net were shut out of the rural broadband initiative after the Government said it would take proposals only from national companies. Watts has said publicly that the most disappointing part would be to watch the Government pay someone to dig into schools that are already connected courtesy of the community’s own hard work. It is people like James Watts whom we should be leveraging off. 
Instead if there is one thing this Government and this Minister have excelled in in trying to work out how to make its broadband policy slogan work it has been secrecy—the cloak of commercial sensitivity to exclude the public from knowing what is going on in developing its newest network paid for by them. Why? Firstly the Government did not know how to make it work and it has mucked about for 2 years creating a complex cumbersome dual system in urban and rural New Zealand which may or may not deliver affordable broadband. Secondly Telecom. It has been the elephant in the room from the beginning and it remains the elephant in the room. If Telecom is to be a successful bidder in ultra-fast broadband then it has to structurally separate. The country should know that the bill contains amendments to enable the structural separation of Telecom if it is chosen as a preferred supplier. 
I am told by the Ministry of Economic Development and the Minister’s office that amendments to enable this could be introduced in a Supplementary Order Paper at the select committee. It is extremely concerning that in its submission to the ministry’s suggestions on how Telecom should structurally separate into two businesses the Commerce Commission said that the ministry seemed more concerned with the interests of investors rather than consumers. Even more concerning is the suggestion that instead of introducing a Supplementary Order Paper at the select committee it could be introduced in the Committee of the whole House. That would give the public and the Opposition no time to submit or formulate arguments. I would like the Minister to confirm that that is not so. It would be taking secrecy arrogance and disregard for the democratic process to the greatest extreme. 
I put on record my discomfort and unease at what appears to be at least a perception of conflict of interest. A board member of Crown Fibre Holdings consulted for technology vendor Huawei Technologies for a number of months and presented at a Huawei Technologies conference on 17 September at the same time as Crown Fibre Holdings was directly involved in a process to select technology partners. SAMENA a multi-continent telecommunications consortium of South Asian Middle Eastern and North African telecommunications companies wrote in its web newsletter on 31 August that Huawei Technologies was hoping to supply fixed-line fibre broadband infrastructure and beat competitors Alcatal-Lucent Ericsson and Nokia Siemens to become the technology partner of the successful bidder or bidders in ultra-fast broadband. They referenced John Key’s Television New Zealand interview in July when he said that Huawei Technologies could be a possible partner in ultra-fast broadband. Tell me that that is not a potential conflict of interest needing a quick response from the Minister and the board chair. But did we get one? No. it was denial and more secrecy. It all adds up to a muddle a mess a flawed process and a new network being paid for by $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money that appears skewed in the direction of investor interests not consumer affordability. 
There have been very few decisions made in 2 years. There is the big question of whether Telecom will be involved and if so what legislation will be needed to allow it to be involved. Will the public be able to scrutinise and submit on the legislation if Telecom does not get the contract? Will Telecom furiously compete with its existing copper network and make it unattractive for years for New Zealanders to access fibre? There are so many questions and doubts. It is not a good look and it is not something to be proud of. 
PESETA SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I rise to support the first reading of the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. This is another piece of legislation that supports this Government’s drive to enable businesses schools learning institutions and individuals to communicate with one another. It is about amending the Telecommunications Act of 2001 and supports the implementation of this Government’s policy programme for the telecommunications sector. 
The bill is about creating jobs it is about creating efficiencies in businesses and it is about creating better technologies. It is one of the six drivers of National’s economic programme. Boosting broadband is part of that initiative. We have heard from the Minister that it is about the ultra-fast broadband initiative it is about rural broadband initiatives and it is about the framework reforms that we are to set up. 
I support this bill and I look forward to the select committee and hearing submissions. Thank you. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 More and more of these speeches sound like valedictory speeches. It is like those members have given up. They want to run away. They want to go home. They do not have the courage of their convictions and they are not prepared to stand up for what they believe in. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: Order! 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: “Courage of convictions” is allowed. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: OK I will watch the member. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: “We don’t have the courage of our convictions.” is what members opposite say. They are not prepared to stand up in this House and say what they believe and to speak from the heart. They read half a page of research unit notes. 
Chris Hipkins 
: It’s not even half a page; it’s a couple of sentences. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He is a faster reader than Paul Quinn but that is not saying a hell of a lot. But there is no conviction on their part whatsoever. 
It was a marginal call. We will support the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill to the select committee but with severe reservations. I think it is fair to say that some of us are worried about how close our spokesperson on communications Clare Curran is getting to Mr Joyce and the fact that he has somehow convinced her to let this bill go to the select committee. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Three minutes he talked tonight—3 minutes. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Was it 3 minutes? That is quite a long one for him. I am told that is quite a contribution on the part of Mr Joyce. 
The Government is clearly struggling in this area. It was one of National’s biggest pre-election promises in 2008. An amount of $1.5 billion has been sitting— 
Hon Member 
: And it’s coming. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Well it is coming and it was coming the Christmas before last. This Christmas is coming but the Government was meant to be making progress on this area before Christmas of 2008. It is now Christmas 2010 and not a single centimetre of extra cable has gone down. Not even a millimetre of broadband fibre has been laid as a result of the Government policy since that time. The Government said it would progress it by Christmas and we all believed it. It was Christmas 2008 when John Key made that promise. But like so many things—like so many things—this is a case of broken promise after broken promise and John Key has made no progress at all. 
It is fair to say that I have some time for some of the people who are involved in the Crown Fibre Holdings board. Some of them I think have some real integrity. But they have been dealt a dog in the regulatory area by this Government. The regulatory forbearance period outlined in this bill basically gives whoever wins the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative and the Rural Broadband Initiative a 10-year holiday from price regulation. It is absolutely outrageous when we know that in this area prices come down down and down. What will we have? We will have a Crown-anointed monopoly that is allowed to keep its prices up and to strangle the public in this area. 
Clare Curran 
: It’s a dribble. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do not really understand why it is a dribble but I do not think even the broadband is dribbling out. The Commerce Commission—[ 
Interruption 
] Melissa Lee is finally apologising. She is saying she is sorry for her performance in Mt Albert. We forgive her. We found her entertaining; we thought she was great. 
Chris Hipkins 
: She can come and stand against me. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do not want her to come and stand against me. I would prefer to have Paul Quinn standing against me rather than Melissa Lee because he got 1 out of 10. I think Melissa Lee got 2 out of 10. Did she get 2? 
Jonathan Young 
: Come on get back to the broadband Trevor—it’s very interesting. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I will be interested in Paul Quinn’s speech because I do not think he knows about the broadband that is available out in Hutt South—he does not visit it often enough. I think he uses the jungle drums when he is trying to communicate with Hutt South from Roseneath rather than the broadband that Hutt South— 
Hon Member 
: Like this. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: He might go like that a bit but if he did that a little bit better and if he was 2 inches taller he would have been an All Black. Everyone knows that if Paul Quinn was 2 inches taller or even had broadband he might have been an All Black. If he had some fibres that connected in the neurology area he might have been an All Black. I am not sure whether this legislation will help him at all. 
Some of us are pretty unhappy with the way that the Minister for Communications and Information Technology has kept on changing the goalposts in respect of ultra-fast broadband. It has been seen to be unfair—and a number of the people who have been involved have felt it has been very unfair—that the Minister has kept on changing the rules mid-process. People have been coming into a tender process going out of a tender process and coming into a tender process again on the basis of some very unclear arrangements. I appreciate the Minister’s position. He does not know the extent of the involvement of Telecom. He does not know the way that that will work. He does not know whether there will be full separation. And I do not blame Telecom for taking so long in this particular area. 
I am sure the Finance and Expenditure Committee—I assume the bill will go to a select committee—will get the Commerce Commission in and hear from the commission about its concerns. I know there is a lot of anxiety in the industry around the taxation arrangements and the possible tax advantages that will go to Telecom and around whether that is fair or unfair as things change. 
An area of a lot of concern is the Minister’s apparent nonchalance about what is ethical and what is not ethical in this area such as the arrangements where one of the directors is acting as a consultant to the suppliers of one of the bidders for the Ultra-fast Broadband Initiative. Venn’s son—what is his name—Jonathan Young might shake his head and say it is nothing to worry about but I think there is something to worry about if someone who was involved in making the decisions is also involved and has a relationship with the people who will be supplying the equipment to the people who win those decisions. I think there is an inherent conflict in that situation and I do not think it is a recoverable position. I do not think it can be isolated and I am quite concerned about that arrangement. 
I will go back to where I started. I find the lack of progress almost incredible. I find it almost incredible that a Minister could make so little progress in an area over a 2-year period. I think it is fair to say that. I now apologise to Clare Curran because she indicated to me that she thought the Minister would not make much progress and I said he was one of National’s brightest Ministers. I said he was a bright new shining boy; he knows quite a lot about the communications area; he has been involved in the radio industry; and he had more oomph than anyone on their front bench. I thought that if anyone in National could get it sorted then Steven Joyce could. I thought he would have sorted it by now and I thought he would have made a lot more progress than this. I defer to my colleague Clare Curran who warned me that she thought he was not capable of doing the job. In fact some of her worst fears are coming true. 
Broadband is the way of the future. Our exports will be weightless. The stuff that goes up and down this fibre network will be the future of this country. To have the sorts of essentially Third World arrangements we have—both in rural areas and in most of our cities where we are way way behind many of the countries we are competing with—is an indictment on the Minister. We have made almost no progress in this time and it is likely to be 6 months before this area is progressed. 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take what I would normally consider to be a short call on the Telecommunications (TSO Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill but in comparison with some of the offerings I have heard this evening it might be a relatively long monologue. The Government one would imagine has quite a lot riding on this bill; it is one of the major planks of its election campaign a couple of years ago. It is one of the major infrastructure investments that the Government believes will turn round our economy make this a better place and provide all sorts of useful services. 
Government members in the House tonight seem to have remarkably little to say about the bill. One would expect a degree of commitment a degree of confidence and—dare I say it—even some pride in this legislation. That does not seem to be coming through this evening. That fact has been observed not only in this House but also in some social media that I saw earlier this evening before I came into the House. There were some comments on air to the effect that people were wondering why the Government was so reluctant to advance some robust arguments in support of its own legislation. One commentator suggested that perhaps Government members just did not have much to say but others noted that that has not stopped them from speaking at length on previous occasions. 
I will talk about the benefits proposed in this legislation. The Greens will support this bill going to the Finance and Expenditure Committee albeit with major reservations and of course reserving the right to withdraw that support if we do not see some needed changes to this bill. We recognise the considerable benefits of fast and ultra-fast broadband and those benefits are well known both locally and internationally. There are considerable advantages for businesses to establish this facility this infrastructure. I know from my own experience in my former life as a business adviser on sustainability that the ability to communicate not only with voice but also through images is a significant advantage. I worked in a number of large companies who invested quite heavily in videoconferencing equipment which not only reduced their operating cost but saved time for their employees and reduced their carbon footprint considerably. It enabled them to have high-quality communications to do business over the wires rather than requiring people to travel around the country. There is a clear advantage to that and ultra-fast broadband will facilitate that. 
This infrastructure will enable people to choose particular lifestyles and conceivably take pressure off our urban centres to the extent that people using this infrastructure could choose to live in rural environments and still have the instant communication advantages of living in the city. For that reason I think it is not a bad thing that some of the initial roll-outs will be in the smaller provincial and rural areas because that is desirable on many levels. 
This infrastructure will be a very valuable educative tool that will put students in our rural schools as well as in our urban schools within very easy reach of information. It will enable the sort of initiative we saw recently where a virtual conference was held in New Zealand. This academic conference engaged people from around the country and was conducted for the most part as a virtual conference. 
There are major advantages in this sort of technology and for that reason the Greens will lend this bill our qualified support at this point. 
We must recall however that this technology like every other is not a panacea; it is a technology and it is a tool. We have this unfortunate habit of allowing our technological capability to run in advance of our social adjustments. We often invest heavily in research into technology and invest rather too little into our sociology of place and of community. Faster communication is not necessarily always better communication. It is important that we maintain awareness and continue to research and think very hard about the social and cultural consequences of new technologies in our haste to adopt them and to adapt them. We ought not to lose sight of the larger picture or the reality that these sorts of technologies do affect social change as well as provide tools for business for education and for standard forms of communication. 
In essence this bill sets out the path for the Government’s roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and its rural broadband initiative and it makes changes to the telecommunications service obligations. On the surface it is a reasonably complicated document. It is almost perhaps overly complex one would think but much of the bill is about working out who pays what and when and in what circumstances. A great deal of the bill focuses on pricing: who will pay and how prices will be managed and regulated and therein lies some of the rub with this bill. 
This legislation gives new power to the Telecommunications Commissioner. 
The explanatory note says that future amendments to the legislation may be needed to facilitate the breakup of Telecom if that company should win or win in part the tender to roll out the ultra-fast broadband initiative. The provision to substantially alter the bill in the event that Telecom does win some part of the tender means that to some extent we may be heading into unknown territory. There is a degree of scepticism and concern. Arguments will have to be made at the select committee that that is an appropriate course of action and we will need to be careful to iron out and attend to all the possible ramifications of that. 
The matter of the regulatory holiday the 9 or 10-year relief from regulation if you like has been mentioned already. It has been commented on at some length in the interested media; Computerworld InternetNZ and Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand among others have all had comments to make and there are some very real and very serious concerns within that community of interest. The information and communications technology community knows and understands this issue best and can think through the consequences of getting it wrong. 
Debate interrupted. 
Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Friday)