Volume 706 Week 20 - Wednesday 24 June 2015Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeVolume 706 Week 20 - Wednesday 24 June 2015[Sitting date: 24 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4693. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Wednesday 24 June 2015Mr Speaker took the Chair at 2 p.m.Prayers.Amended Answers to Oral QuestionsQuestion No. 1 to Minister 23 JuneHon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. I seek leave of the House to make a personal explanation to correct an answer I gave to oral question No. 1 yesterday 23 June.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There is none.Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: In the House yesterday in response to oral question No. 1 asked by the Rt Hon Winston Peters as to whether my office also told Māori Television that I as Minister “was prepared to appear on that programme” I answered with the following statement: “The staff have advised me that the events of my appearing on that programme are as follows.On 14 May Māori Television’s Native Affairs made a request to myself. There was an interaction between my staff and Māori Television of which I was aware as often happens.” My corrected answer is: “The staff have advised me that the events of my appearing on that programme are as follows. On 14 May Māori Television’s Native Affairs made a request to myself. There was an interaction between my staff and Māori Television of which I was not aware as often happens.”Questions to MinistersFree-trade Agreements—Saudi Arabia Negotiations and Al-Khalaf Group1.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement in question time yesterday he would “absolutely” retain confidence in a Minister who authorised a multi-million dollar payment to a disaffected businessman to unlock a free-trade deal?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): I stand by my statement in response to that question yesterday by the member but I would note the question does not accurately reflect the actions of Mr McCully in relation to the Saudi sheep issue.Andrew Little: Why does he think that it is appropriate for his Government to use $4 million of taxpayers’ money to grease the palm of one foreign businessman?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Again I think the member presents the issueinaccurately which was a payment made for contract for services.Andrew Little: What service was given by the businessman in question in exchange for $4 million?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have it all in detail but it is laid out in the Cabinet paper.Andrew Little: Given his answers yesterday that he did not know whether Murray McCully invited Mr Al Khalaf to sue New Zealand as stated in the 2011 letter from Brownrigg Agriculture has he now had time to check these serious documented allegations against his Minister and what assurances can he provide the House today?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Mr McCully has informed me that he has made no such comment. I do not believe that any Minister has told a party to sue the Government. What Ministers do say from time to time—and I have actually said myself—is that people are free to test their legal rights in court. There is quite a big difference.Tim Macindoe: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports on the issue that Minister McCully was seeking to resolve with Saudi Arabia?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have. I have seen reports that indicate that trade Minister Phil Goff travelled to Riyadh in 2006 and told the Saudis that live sheep exports for slaughter would resume. I am also seeing reports that suggest that the Labour Government acted in bad faith towards the Saudis by deliberately—deliberately—not telling them that it was changing its position and banning exports. What is clear is that the Labour Government created this problem and Minister McCully is now resolving it.James Shaw: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. If I can get clarification: yesterday I believe you pointed out a ruling that Ministers were not allowed to use a patsy question or a supplementary question to attack Opposition parties.Tim Macindoe: I reject absolutely the assertion in that member’s question. I was seeking—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not going to be helpful. I certainly did use a ruling yesterday—197/6—and I would encourage members to have a look at it. If I detect that a question is lined up simply as a means of attacking another party—[Interruption] Order! To the Hon Annette King:I am on my feet. Therefore if I detect a question is for that purpose alone—in this particular case I have got to judge quite a significant difference of opinion clearly between National and the Labour Opposition in regard to the history of this matter. The questions have been asked and have been flowing across the House now for a considerable length of time. I do not believe that that question was designed simply to attack the Labour Party. I think it is a position that the Government has continued to advance—that the problem was one that was created earlier. It is for members to decide or determine how accurate those statements are.Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister appeared to be quoting from an official document. I ask that he table it.Mr SPEAKER: That is easily sorted. If the Prime Minister was quoting—the Prime Minister is indicating that he was not so that is the end of that matter.Andrew Little: What advice did he and/or his Cabinet receive about the cause—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! Can I just ask that the question be started again?Andrew Little: What advice did he and/or his Cabinet receive about the cause of action underlying Mr Al Khalaf’s claim against the New Zealand Government?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not have that information with me.Andrew Little: What was his Government doing sending sheep halfway round the world to die in the desert?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Well I refute the proposition in that question.Tim Macindoe: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports about warnings that were given to the Government in regard to the Saudi sheep issue?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I have. I have seen reports that show that the Government’s actions in relation to the Saudi sheep issue carried legal commercial and diplomatic risks. These risks were outlined in Cabinet papers—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! I am not going to put up with that form of interjection from that member. If it happens again she will be leaving the Chamber. I am sorry to interrupt the Prime Minister. I invite him again to complete his answer.Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I will start again. I have seen reports that show that the Government’s actions in relation to the Saudi sheep issue carried legal commercial and diplomatic risks. These risks were outlined in Cabinet papers which also show that the Labour Government gave full assurances to the Saudis and then went back on its word.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In his answer the Prime Minister quoted from Cabinet papers. I request that he table them.Mr SPEAKER: If the Prime Minister quoted from an official document then he must table it. [Interruption] Order! Whether he quoted from a Cabinet paper is not the issue. As to whether he was utilising an official paper the Prime Minister shook his head and said he was not.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I would like you to consider perhaps later and in more detail that when the Prime Minister outlines the contents of a document whether or not he uses the exact words he is clearly referring to an official document and therefore he is required to table it.Mr SPEAKER: I will give the matter further consideration but at this stage my ruling stands. The Prime Minister said that he was not quoting from an official document and he cannot be required to table it.Andrew Little: Does he consider that a farm in a desert where 75 percent of lambs die has demonstrated New Zealand’s reputation as a leader in global agriculture?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not think that is a proven fact in terms of the proposition the member is making but I do think that the opportunity that the agribusiness hub creates is a good opportunity actually to showcase for those 30 companies the technology that New Zealand has.Foreign Affairs Minister—Saudi Arabia Free-trade Negotiations and Al-Khalaf Group2.JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Prime Minister: Does he still have confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.James Shaw: How can he have confidence in a Minister who has repeatedly championed the private interests of a disgruntled Saudi businessman over the New Zealand public’s interest?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I think the member is completely and utterly wrong on that statement.James Shaw: Has he asked Murray McCully who suggested that Mr Al Khalaf sue the New Zealand Government; if so will he tell the House who it was?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I am advised that no Minister told any party to sue the Government. Ministers as I have said before from time to time will certainly say that people are free to test their legal rights. That is because we live in a democracy with an independent judicial system and actually people are free to test their legal rights.James Shaw: Which one of Murray McCully’s statements about the roll over of the live sheep exports ban in 2010 does he believe: the one to the House on 27 May that “What was different was that we did not mislead the Saudi investors about the consequences of the roll over of that order. We fronted up and told them the truth.” or his statement yesterday that “Well he did not tell me anything because I did not talk to him about that particular roll-over.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I would want to see the full context of all the things that are said but what I can say in relation to the first statement is Mr McCully is absolutely right—this was a problem created by the previous Labour Government.James Shaw: Given that answer and given that the November 2011 letter to Murray McCully 3 weeks before the 2011 election says that “Mr Al Khalaf has been working patiently with the New Zealand Government of the last 7 years towards the resumption of the sheep trade. He is now deeply concerned”—he is now in November 2011 deeply concerned—“that despite repeated Government assurances that progress towards resumption of the trade was continuing this has now stalled.” How can he continue to believe Murray McCully’s assertions that the threat of a $30 million lawsuit was entirely Labour’s fault?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: The member has actually defeated his own question because that is exactly the point. Seven years prior to 2011 we were not the Government. We were not the Government that travelled to Riyadh to inform the Saudis that live sheep exports would continue. We were not the Government that deliberately did not tell the Saudis and we are certainly aware that the actions of the previous Government as the previous Government was aware created legal commercial and diplomatic risks. What we are is the Government that has tidied up this mess.James Shaw: So is the Prime Minister saying that he was not in office between 2008 and 2011 given that the letter says that Mr Al Khalaf has been working patiently with the New Zealand Government of the last 7 years in November 2011?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I do not want to give the member a basic lesson but there was not one Government for 7 years; there were a number of Governments over that period of time. But the Government that created this problem is called the Labour Government.James Shaw: Is the reason that the Prime Minister is not moving to sack the Minister of Foreign Affairs that everybody knows that Murray McCully knows where all the bed—bodies are buried?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Oh he came to the leadership with such high hopes and we have already got down to these levels. The member knows in his own heart that he is better than that. The Minister of Foreign Affairs dealt with the situation created by Labour. It was a mess. Labour knew it created it. It was advised it delivered commercial legal and diplomatic risks. This Government sought to resolve that issue in a way that I think has been good for the relationship with both countries and will progress the relationships together.Housing Market—Productivity Commission Report on Supply3.ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua) to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received showing why more housing is needed as part of supporting a growing New Zealand economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): The Productivity Commission last week released its draft report on using land for housing. It finds that New Zealand cities have not been able to provide enough greenfield and brownfield land to meet growing populations particularly in Auckland and that planning rules have increased the cost of housing. Among its draft recommendations are that councils do not seek requirements that exceed the Building Act for the construction of homes that there should be better use of existing infrastructure by allowing intensification where supporting infrastructure is in place and that councils monitor and report on new dwellings and infrastructure delivery to highlight where their regulations are too restrictive.Andrew Bayly: What are some of the factors the Productivity Commission points to as affecting the supply of more housing where it is needed?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The commission points out that New Zealand’s housing supply is only moderately responsive to demand due mainly to restrictions on land supply and densification. It says that the costs of some urban design requirements may outweigh the benefits including rules around minimum parking balconies and interior design—requirements that raise housing costs without delivering enough benefits to justify them. The report also says that some of these council rules may be unlawful. The commission says that rules around densification are affecting housing supply. The Auckland Plan sets out a 30-year goal of 70 percent of future growth occurring within existing limits. So achieving these growth targets will require reasonably liberal rules around densification.Andrew Bayly: What does the Productivity Commission say are the consequences of limits on the supply of housing for the economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The commission points out three major consequences from council rules around land use. First the impact on prices has a disproportionate effect on the less well-off because it is the prices and rents of housing at the bottom end that are most affected by red tape. There is a nationwide shortage of lower priced new housing as the commission’s report shows. Second an unresponsive housing supply is a risk to macroeconomic stability as well as a barrier to productivity gains by limiting employment opportunities. Thirdly the cost of housing puts pressure on the public purse. The accommodation supplement and income-related rents will in 2015-16 exceed a cost of $2 billion.Andrew Bayly: What steps is the Government taking to deliver more houses by supporting the growing economy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The most important one has been to work closely with Auckland City to understand how we can assist it to expand the land supply and ensure that the required infrastructure can be put in place at reasonable cost and in a timely manner. The next step in that process will be when we see the Auckland Unitary Plan again and then we can see whether Auckland City will be able to deliver the supply of housing that its own demand forecasts indicate are required. Alongside that we have suspended duties and tariffs on building materials rolled out the HomeStart scheme from 1 April ongoing reforms to the Resource Management Act and in particular lifting the Government’s investment in the supply of new housing to the Auckland market.Phil Twyford: Why if he believes that the answer lies in more intensification and greenfield development has he been talking about this for 9 years now while doing absolutely nothing about it for 7 years and a shortfall of 32000 houses has built up on his watch?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Over that time there have been some significant changes like the formation of the single city in Auckland. I have to say—well actually it was initiated by the Labour Government and we implemented it. Secondly we have brought in place a truncated process for the Auckland Unitary Plan and the member may not realise this but it is Auckland Council that makes the decisions about houses in Auckland. We have worked hard to influence them and will continue to do so.Social Bonds—Mental Health Services Pilot4.Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) to the Minister of Health: What advice if any did he give to Cabinet on the risks of the Social Bonds Pilot announced on 1 June 2015?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): Papers on social bonds were presented—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I don’t think the microphone has been switched on. Let the Minister start again now.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: OK. Papers on social bonds were presented to Cabinet—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member could move closer to the microphone and talk into it that would help.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: No I do not think it is a problem with my voice; I think it is the microphone.Mr SPEAKER: If the member speaks clearly and close to the microphone we will hear the answer.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: OK. Papers on social bonds were presented to Cabinet by the then Minister of Health—Mr SPEAKER: No. Order! I cannot hear it. Can the member swap with another microphone? OK.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Papers on social bonds were presented to Cabinet by the then Minister of Health in February and August of 2013. In each paper the Cabinet was provided a list of risks and a process for managing these risks was set out. These papers are available on the Ministry of Health website.Hon Annette King: Was Cabinet advised that a negative impact of social impact bonds could be a poor-quality service?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: I do not recall that specific advice being given.Hon Annette King: Was Cabinet advised that services provided through social impact bonds could be ineffective and providers could cherry-pick their clients to avoid hard-to-reach users?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: The issue about social bonds is actually that we are contracting for results and what papers have also described as mitigating strategies around any existing risks. So what we are clear about here is we lay out what we want out of these bonds we contract very tightly for them and there is no payment paid until the contracted results are delivered.Hon Annette King: Was Cabinet told that the pilot services for social impact bonds would need to be non-essential health services; if so does he consider services provided to mental health sufferers and those with chronic illness non-essential?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Of course those areas are absolutely really important. It is very important that people with mental health issues are guided back into employment and assisted in doing that. What we are clear about is we want a result for this vulnerable population and we are prepared to contract for that and pay for that result to be delivered unlike other Governments that have preceded us.Hon Annette King: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question asked—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will immediately resume her seat. The question was in two parts and in my opinion the Minister addressed the second part—certainly did not address the first part but addressed the second part—and that meets the Standing Orders.Hon Annette King: Are those lining up to be investors in social impact bonds philanthropic organisations well-meaning philanthropists or foreign-owned banks keen to make an even bigger profit?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: We are actually focusing on the result. The interventions are well proven. We are not actually too worried as long as the organisations are ethical about who provides the financing. But you have got to focus on delivering a result for a vulnerable population and that is what this is all about.Hon Annette King: I seek leave to table a Cabinet paper to the office of the Minister of Health—to the Cabinet social policy committee Social bonds: Proposal for a New Zealand pilot setting out the risks as I set out—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That last part is not necessary. The paper has been described. It is a paper going to a Cabinet committee from memory. Leave is sought to table it. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Māori Television—Minister’s Involvement in Programming Decisions5.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister for Māori Development: Does he stand by all his statements?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development): Tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa. Yes in the context they were given.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why did the Minister when asked about his or his staff’s involvement in programming for the Māori Television Whānau Ora debate deny involvement first at the Māori Affairs Committee on 17 June; second in this Chamber on 17 June; and third again yesterday when he knew those denials were false?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: I reject that statement.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why did he claim to the media yesterday that at his meeting with the chief executive officer of Māori Television content was not discussed when he knew that to be false?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: In the context of the discussion yesterday the context was around Whānau Ora. In my purview as the Minister for Māori Development and indeed as a responsible Minister for Māori Television in the context of the wider statement of intent that is given to me which was part of the discussion with Mr Maxwell certainly one of those parts of the statement of intent is content in the wider sense. It includes such things as growth and protection of te reo Māori me ōna tikanga 100 million engagements per week meeting place of Māori youth. That is the context of the discussion.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why did he deny to the media yesterday that content was discussed when the chief executive officer at that time with nothing whatsoever to hide on 27 May in his email to staff 2 days after meeting the Minister confirmed that content was discussed? Was the chief executive officer lying?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: In the context of the discussion I cannot answer for Mr Maxwell but certainly he did make the statement around the discussions and talked about strategic pillars as well partnerships as well alliances as well people as well—all of that was a part of the discussion. In the context of what I am required to report back to the House upon the statement of intent the discussion around content was certainly in that context a part of the discussion.Rt Hon Winston Peters: When his colleague Marama Fox messaged Mihi Forbes when the Whānau Ora debate was spiked and claimed that the Māori Party had no part in it was he aware that she had done this and did she do that with his authority?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: That is outside the realms of my delegations as a Minister.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Why did the Minister yesterday admit knowledge of his staff’s involvement in seeking to have New Zealand First removed from the debate using the words “of which I was aware” which appears in the television coverage of yesterday’s debate then later changing his Hansard to deny knowledge when he knew again that that denial was false?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: In answer to the second part of the question I deny absolutely any involvement in the changing of Hansard until the record was corrected today.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table last night’s Hansard with the change in it. He says he did not do it—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No the draft Hansard is prepared and available to all members. I get it at about 4.30 p.m. or 5 p.m. It is not necessary to table it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is not a boring matter. The fact is one can change a Hansard to change spelling or for clarity or a misquote but to put in the word “not”—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] Order! The member is now alleging that the member changed the Hansard. I can assure him that that is not the case. I have checked on this. The Hansard was a draft prepared by Hansard staff. It turned out to be incorrect and as soon as that was noted it was changed.Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Hon Te Ururoa Flavell first.Hon Te Ururoa Flavell: I take offence at the Rt Hon Winston Peters suggesting that I changed the Hansard. I would like him to stand and apologise.Mr SPEAKER: No. Listen—on this occasion this is a debating matter. I am trying to assist the Minister by stating the facts clearly in the House today. Certainly I can assure this House that there was no attempt by the Minister to alter this Hansard and have that word stuck in. It was—[Interruption] Order!—effectively a mistake by the Hansard office and that has been acknowledged. It is a draft Hansard that is done very very quickly for the benefit of all of us members. It is published in haste and then it is distributed and that is the opportunity for members collectively to make sure that it is accurate.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon Winston Peters: If one looks at the television coverage yesterday of this question it is as clear as daylight if you follow what was said—Mr SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order! No the member will immediately sit down.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Well I want to ask a question about the authority to change it.Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member wants to ask a question get up and do so—I will accept that—but to go back and re-explain what is in the Hansard when I have covered that off quite adequately is unnecessary. So if the member wants to raise a point of order I will hear it.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I want to know how Hansard could possibly change this transcript without the authority of the Minister or someone with his authority from his office. We do not give it to all our staff members.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will now resume his seat. I will explain it once more as clearly as I can for the member and then we will move on. Hansard record very quickly what happens to get it out for members to comment on. A mistake was made. How that was made I do not know. It was made and as soon as it was then distributed it was picked up by members and corrected. That has been the procedure for as long as the member has been here. To suggest that it was either a deliberate mistake by Hansard or that it was somehow influenced by the Minister I assure the member is absolutely not correct. Does the member have a further—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: No I—Rt Hon Winston Peters: No there will be a point of order.Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume his seat. There may be a point of order. I will invite the member if he wants to raise a fresh point of order to certainly do so but I will not under any circumstances entertain from the member a continuation of this point of order. Fresh point of order—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I seek leave to table a video of the parliamentary coverage—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is completely unnecessary and I am not prepared to put the leave.Ron Mark: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! Members have a right to raise points of order. We collectively hope it will be of value.Ron Mark: I am trying to be helpful. Could you deliberate then and at a later time give us your view? How are we to reconcile a transcript of ourselves on video with that finally produced in Hansard if the two do not match and how do you as the Speaker intend to ensure that consistency remains?Mr SPEAKER: I have now explained it at least twice as clearly as I can. If I have not made it clear enough to Ron Mark then I am afraid I cannot help him.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Was he so desperate not to debate the Māori Party’s Whānau Ora programme with New Zealand First that he broke the law and got his chief executive office mate Paora Maxwell to scrap the debate which is why he should resign?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: I am really proud of the efforts that Māori Television has done in respect of all sorts of things in particular around our reo. I thought I made it really clear to the member yesterday that there was no effort whatsoever to get in the road of the broadcast of the programme. In fact I outlined it really clearly and I will do it again for him just for today. On 14 May of this year we received the request from Māori Television to appear. On the same day 14 May the request was accepted. On 20 May the programme was pulled. There was no interference whatsoever and I gave that assurance to the House.Denis O’Rourke: What happened in between?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Well the member seems to think he knows but he does not know anything unfortunately—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Now that answer is quite long enough.Marama Fox: Did the Minister knowingly mislead the House at any time now yesterday in the past weeks or in the 8 months of his exemplary service as Minister for Māori Development?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: I will apologise for getting up fast—I was so anxious to answer that question and to say to my colleague that I take this as an honourable place I take the position as a Minister as an honourable position and I do not intend to do anything to jeopardise that.Housing Market—Tax Reform6.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa) to the Minister of Revenue: What recent announcements has the Government made around tax rules on property transactions?Hon TODD McCLAY (Minister of Revenue): As part of Budget 2015 the Prime Minister announced additional measures to ensure that people buying and selling residential property for profit including overseas buyers pay their fair share of tax. The measures will take effect from 1 October this year and they include that buyers and sellers of property other than their main home must provide a New Zealand Inland Revenue Department number; that overseas people must have a New Zealand bank account to get a New Zealand Inland Revenue Department number; and a brightline test to tax gains from residential properties sold within 2 years of purchase with exemptions if it is the seller’s main home if it is inherited or if it is transferred in a relationship property settlement.Alastair Scott: How will the Government enforce these tax rules?Hon TODD McCLAY: Since Budget 2010 the Government has provided the Inland Revenue Department with $33 million more for property tax compliance and enforcement. This has resulted in an extra $258 million of tax revenue—a return of $7.80 for every $1 invested. Budget 2015 provided the Inland Revenue Department with a further $29 million for property tax compliance. This takes its total budget to $62 million over the next 5 years. This is expected to generate $420 million of additional tax. Although it is not illegal to trade property to make a gain property traders are subject to tax rules like everybody else.Alastair Scott: What progress has been made on these measures?Hon TODD McCLAY: Good progress. The Minister for Land Information Louise Upston introduced the Taxation (Land Information and Offshore Persons Information) Bill to the House on Monday of this week. The bill contains measures that require buyers and sellers of property other than their main home to provide a New Zealand Inland Revenue Department number. It also requires non-residents to have that New Zealand bank account in order to get their Inland Revenue Department number. I will also be releasing a public consultation document seeking views on implementing a brightline test that would make gains from the sale of residential properties sold within 2 years of purchase taxable with those exemptions. These measures will provide extra information that will help the Inland Revenue Department to detect people seeking to avoid their tax obligation which is unfair to those who pay their fair share of tax.Free-trade Agreements—Saudi Arabia Negotiations and Al-Khalaf Group7.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) to the Minister of Foreign Affairs: Did he meet with David Brownrigg and George Assaf in Auckland on 18 October 2011 “to discuss trade between New Zealand and the Middle East and in particular the resumption of a specialised live export sheep trade with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and was that meeting the subject of a letter to him dated 2 November 2011 from Brownrigg Agriculture on behalf of Mr Al Khalaf and Mr George Assaf?Hon MURRAY McCULLY (Minister of Foreign Affairs): Yes Mr Brownrigg wrote to me on 2 November 2011 to express his views on New Zealand’s live export trade protocols.Hon David Parker: Is Brownrigg Agriculture the same company that was eventually awarded the tender to build the multimillion-dollar model farm in Saudi Arabia on the Al Khalaf property which Mr Al Khalaf now owns part of?Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I am advised that that is the case.Hon David Parker: Did the letter of 18 October 2011 from Brownrigg Agriculture state: “Thank you for your understanding to look seriously at resolving the live trade impasse as part of a wider Gulf trade solution.”?Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I do not have that letter immediately to hand but that sounds like the sentiment that I saw in the letter.Hon David Parker: I seek leave to table the letter dated 2 November 2011 from Brownrigg Agriculture that—Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that particular letter. Is there any objection? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.Hon David Parker: Did former National Party president Michelle Boag ever propose or endorse a proposal that the New Zealand Government subsidise a model farm in Saudi Arabia benefiting the Al Khalaf group?Hon MURRAY McCULLY: I think that as a member of the New Zealand Middle East Business Council she was involved in making representations on those matters and those have been in the public arena.Hon David Parker: Did the letter of 18 October 2011 from Brownrigg Agriculture state that the letter was also being copied to Michelle Boag saying: “… who has been in contact with both of us in her capacity as a director of Laurium Asset Management regarding her interest in seeing the live sheep export issue resolved and the free trade with the Gulf States advanced.”?Hon MURRAY McCULLY: Yes.Emergency Services—111 App8.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) to the Minister for Communications: What recent announcements has she made on a new emergency response system for mobile 111 calls?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for Communications): Last week I announced a request for proposal for a new emergency response system app for mobile 111 calls. Each year there are more than 1.3 million genuine calls to 111 and last year 73 percent of those came from a mobile phone. Currently in about 60 percent of genuine 111 calls no information is automatically available about caller location. The request for proposal calls for a new smartphone app to be developed by mid next year that can provide caller location information automatically to emergency services as well as allow users to contact directly the service that they require. Lack of location information can mean at least 15 to 20 minutes’ delay in emergency situations and that can be the difference between life and death.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: What other benefits does the Minister expect this application to deliver?Hon AMY ADAMS: The app will also have the ability to distribute information to the publicin the wake of natural disasters or other emergencies based on their geographical location. This public-alerting function will contribute to public and personal safety by enabling people to see emergency alerts about important public safety matters in their area. The app will be free to download and the cost of it will be met through the telecommunications development levy.Prime Minister—Trans-Pacific Partnership and KiwiSaver9.FLETCHER TABUTEAU (NZ First) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes.Fletcher Tabuteau: Would he concede that his firm stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement has become more of a firm footing on quicksand as he moves from strong statements like “For New Zealand to do a deal it has to be a deal on our terms.” to now saying “It’s probably not at a level that we would currently like for the dairy industry.”?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No and the context in which I made that statement—that it is probably currently not at a level we would like—was in relation to the clause around dairy and that is why the Government is continuing to negotiate to get a better deal for dairy.Fletcher Tabuteau: Which statement does he stand by: firstly he told the New Zealand public that it would not look good if New Zealand made concessions on the status of Pharmac and then several weeks ago he acknowledged that if patents were to run a little bit longer the Government would in theory have to pay a little bit more?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: They are both correct. There are no changes to the model that Pharmac would operate in. It is possible that patents would be a little bit longer and if they were they would have no impact on New Zealanders who will continue to pay $5 for their prescription drugs.Grant Robertson: Does his statement made in this House last month still stand: “the removal of the $1000 kick-start contribution will not make a blind bit of difference to the number of people who join KiwiSaver.” given today’s statement from ANZ Investments that enrolments in its KiwiSaver scheme have dropped by 50 percent since his Government announced the immediate end of the kick-start?Rt Hon JOHN KEY: Yes it does stand and that is because sure there may be some initial timing issues but over time actually I am quite confident that the numbers will remain the same. As ANZ said today its scheme is very good and if one day a Government goes to auto-enrolment actually the numbers will increase from where they are today.Māori Television—Minister’s Involvement in Programming Decisions10.CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) to the Minister for Māori Development: Why did he tell Radio New Zealand yesterday he did not discuss programming content with Paora Maxwell on 20 May when Paora Maxwell said in an email to staff on 22 May that “We talked about … content”?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL (Minister for Māori Development):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou. The full question I was asked by Radio New Zealand was: “Did you discuss the programme that they were planning to run on Whānau Ora?”. In response I said that I had no discussions whatsoever about any programme content of any programme. I stand by that statement.Clare Curran: In the light of that answer has he encouraged a culture under his ministership where news and current affairs staff of Māori Television are not protected if they scrutinise or criticise the performance of Māori organisations or individuals and is this not editorial interference?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: If anything I hope I encourage staff and indeed the country to continue to focus on the kaupapa of Māori Television te reo me ōna tikanga.Clare Curran: Can he rule out any connection between Māori Television management saying a panel discussion on Whānau Ora would “not appeal to viewers” and his press secretary saying that a panel discussion on Whānau Ora would not “enlighten viewers” or is this just a coincidence?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: All I can tell the member is that yesterday the head of news and current affairs at Māori Television said that the claim of political interference in Māori Television is inaccurate and in fact said: “For the record”—for the record to help the member—“For the record the 20 May meeting was set up on 19 February any suggestion that there was a link between the replacement of the panel with a best of show and the meeting does not reflect reality.” That is the statement from Māori Television.Marama Fox: Given the obvious leaks of emails making their way to the Labour Party benches—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That question will be ruled out of order. I will give the opportunity—[Interruption] Order! Just to ask a supplementary question that is line with the Standing Orders without that sort of information—otherwise the member will lose her opportunity.Marama Fox: Thank you Mr Speaker. Given the light of new information coming out from the cross benches does the Minister have—Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the member just starts where I interrupted her I will allow the question. If she goes back to where she was it will not be allowed.Marama Fox: Thank you for the clarification Mr Speaker. Does the Minister have concerns about the level of cross bench political interference in the management or processes of Māori Television?Mr SPEAKER: The Hon Te Ururoa Flavell.Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just want to be clear. Are you accepting now that the Minister is responsible for any actions taken by Opposition members of Parliament?Hon Gerry Brownlee: The question was extremely clear in asking whether the Minister had concerns. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! There was an issue yesterday where I had to remind my right-hand side that points of order will be heard in silence. I am going to do the same on this occasion to my left-hand side. Will the Minister please complete his point?Hon Gerry Brownlee: I have got to say the Opposition—Mr SPEAKER: Order! Just complete your point of order.Hon Gerry Brownlee: The question was very clear. It asked the Minister whether he had concerns about interference in the activities of Māori Television and then referred to interference possibly coming from the cross benches of the Parliament. That is not unreasonable. He has already accepted questions from the cross benches about the issue of interference with the activities of Māori Television.Mr SPEAKER: Order! I was very generous to the member in allowing the question. In my mind the essence of the question was whether the Minister can have the opportunity to assure the House whether there is political interference from anybody in this House. That is the way I read the question and on that basis I am allowing the question and the Minister to answer it.Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Bearing in mind that—[Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! We will now have the answer.Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: Bearing in mind that these are some of the accusations that are angled at me I would be very concerned if there was any political interference by any member of Parliament and I hold that as a very high standard to ensure that it does not happen. Thank you.Clare Curran: At an event on 21 May last year did he tell Māori Television staff if they had concerns with Mr Maxwell not to go signing petitions and not to go to media but to come to him and if he thinks it should be dealt with he will deal with it?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: That is very good because in the context of a pōwhiri that was held for the new chief executive officer it was said in front of the chief executive officer of Māori Television. Why? Because he comes from an honourable waka called Te Arawa. It is important we look after them.Clare Curran: Did he in this speech express anger and disappointment that Paora Maxwell had faced criticism leading to his appointment as chief executive officer?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: I think that is clear because that member carried out a character assassination of a particular member of the waka and that was sad under the conditions at the time but in the end it is OK because the current chief executive officer went through a rigorous process to become the chief executive officer of Māori Television. And the great thing is they are moving from better to great.Clare Curran: What concerns has he raised over the management of Māori Television given that several top journalists have left due in part to claims of managerial interference in news?Hon TE URUROA FLAVELL: As I said in previous discussions issues in respect of the operations of Māori Television were not discussed in that context. I made no statement in respect of that and I would not. I should not I would not and should not and if members are going to take me back to the time that there was a pōwhiri for the chief executive officer in front of the chief executive officer and in front of their staff I think that is drawing long straws.Businesses Rural—Annual Agricultural Production Survey11.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to the Minister for Small Business: What steps are the Government taking to improve the way we collect data from rural small businesses?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business): Rural small businesses will benefit from the annual agricultural production survey now being available online. Moving the survey online will save approximately 30000 rural small businesses time and money while still providing important information on New Zealand’s biggest industry. Any rural business completing this survey can now do so at a time and a place that suits them within the 14-day window. Delivering better online services is a key focus of the Government’s Better Public Services programme.Jacqui Dean: What valuable information from rural small businesses do we get from this online survey?Hon Craig Foss: Agriculture is New Zealand’s largest industry and earns more than half the country’s total export income. It is important to run a regular survey to identify any changes in the agricultural sector but it is also important to enable it to be carried out online and to make it as easy as possible. All New Zealand rural small businesses can benefit from contributing to the survey—Jacinda Ardern: Is this the best you’ve got—a survey?Hon CRAIG FOSS: Come on—are you going to be next?Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am not going to be next.Hon CRAIG FOSS: All can benefit from contributing to the survey and using the data from it to better inform their decisions.Jacqui Dean: How is this Government making it easier for rural small businesses to interact with the Government online?Hon CRAIG FOSS: The Government’s ultra-fast broadband initiative and Rural Broadband Initiative are allowing for more rural small businesses to interact with the Government online. The Minister for Communications announced recently that we had reached the halfway point for both the ultra-fast broadband initiative and the Rural Broadband Initiative. These initiatives are being extended to regions across New Zealand meaning more rural small businesses will be able to increase their productivity reduce costs and deliver better results.Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I assume you are about to move on to the next question but what I would want is to offer one of the spare National Party supplementary questions to the Labour Party—Mr SPEAKER: Order! And if they wanted one I am sure they would ask. Supplementary question Jacinda Ardern.Jacinda Ardern: Thank you—Hon Gerry Brownlee: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: Are you now withdrawing?Hon Gerry Brownlee: No no no.Mr SPEAKER: As I try to interpret the chaos of the last 20 seconds Mr Brownlee has offered one of National’s questions and we look forward to it.Jacinda Ardern: Can the Minister confirm that the Business.govt.nz website said after the Budget that there was nothing new in the Budget for small business other than of course the survey he just announced for rural small business?Hon CRAIG FOSS: I welcome the member’s megawatt smile and sparkling brown eyes—Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have had to remind this Minister on previous occasions how to answer a question. It is a legitimate question. [Interruption] Order! I do not expect to have to give this tutorial to the Minister on a regular basis. Would he now answer the question.Hon CRAIG FOSS: There were many initiatives announced in the Budget that not only affect but also improve circumstances for all New Zealand business such as tax cuts which were potentially signalled for 2017 and which would be of huge benefit to each and every small business across New Zealand.Climate Change—Health ImpactsKEVIN HAGUE (Green): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your ruling on the legitimacy of the transfer of this question from the Minister of Health in light of Speaker’s ruling 168/1—in particular 168/1(2) your own ruling that “Ministers should be in a position to answer supplementary questions.” This is a question that is primarily around the health consequences of climate change. The fact that the words “climate change” were used in the question does not change the substantive nature of the question. As competent a Minister as I am sure Mr Groser is he is not an expert in health services. He is not in a position to answer supplementary questions about those issues. Therefore I find myself in the position if the question is permitted to be transferred of not being able to effectively ask some of the supplementary questions that I would like to because the Minister responding will not have the expertise to be able to do so.Mr SPEAKER: I will hear from the Hon Gerry Brownlee.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House): Firstly it is a very bold person who suggests that the Hon Tim Groser does not have expertise in a large range of topics. Quite apart from that—Mr SPEAKER: If the member could just raise his real point of order I would be very grateful.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: It is up to the Government to choose who it believes can best answer on behalf of the Government. In this case the question is very much focused on climate change. Quite clearly the suggestions by the professional which we would have looked at in making that determination are best answered by the way in which climate change policy might be affected in the months to come.Mr SPEAKER: I do not need any further assistance. Can I also take the opportunity of inviting the member who raised the point of order to look at Speaker’s ruling 168/2 and that clearly says it is the prerogative of the Government to determine who will answer. The point the member makes in quoting a Speaker’s ruling of mine is that I would certainly not find it acceptable when the supplementary questions were asked for a Minister to then say that you would have to ask the Minister to whom you originally tried to put the question. That is why that particular Speaker’s ruling is there. So we will proceed with the question and as Mr Brownlee says we will wait with interest on the answers given by the Minister for Climate Change Issues.12.KEVIN HAGUE (Green) to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: Does he agree with Lancet Commission co-Chair Professor Hugh Montgomery that “climate change is a medical emergency” but “tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century”?Hon TIM GROSER (Minister for Climate Change Issues): In the light of the discussion we have just had let me put it this way. If one were a climate change denier then in the last few days it has been a very bad run for anyone who is a doctor a patient or a Catholic.Metiria Turei: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Frankly if that was not proof of this Minister’s inability to answer these questions I do not know what is. And it was certainly—Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member will resume her seat immediately. Sit down. It is not the answer I would have hoped for. The way forward is that I will now allow the member two additional supplementary questions.Kevin Hague: Is the New Zealand Medical Journal wrong when it says that in New Zealand leading health threats from climate change include high temperatures extreme events changing patterns of infectious diseases and water and food shortages or price changes?Hon TIM GROSER: No I do not believe that analysis is wrong. I think it is entirely consistent with the science and it is also entirely consistent with the underlying objective of the 1992 convention which calls for Governments to act to stabilise anthropogenic emissions at a level suitable for human habitation.Kevin Hague: Is Dr Rhys Jones public health physician and senior lecturer at the University of Auckland wrong when he said that tackling climate change is likely to be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century meaning that urgent action to move to a low and very soon zero carbon society is not just necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change but if done correctly will be enormously beneficial for our health and well-being right now?Hon TIM GROSER: I will leave it to medical experts to debate this. What I notice is that The Lancet said it could be. Whether in fact it will be greater than say the risk of superbugs to the efficacy of antibiotics greater than the perennial rise of cancer in advanced societies or other such major challenges facing the medical community is an interesting question but yes it could be the greatest challenge.Kevin Hague: Why then did the Government’s consultation document on setting New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change target completely fail to consider the health costs of climate change and the health benefits from well-designed climate action?Hon TIM GROSER: The question fundamentally relates to the risks of climate change; that relates to the science. The consultation was not trying to reopen the science which we think is extremely clear.Kevin Hague: What steps has he taken to protect New Zealanders’ health in the face of climate change?Hon TIM GROSER: I and the team of New Zealand experts that works with me have done a great deal to try to contribute towards global solutions on climate change which is the root of the problem. We have done this in a variety of ways on which I have addressed this House only recently.Kevin Hague: If I were to ask another oral question about health services in relation to climate change tomorrow will he guarantee that the Government will not transfer that question?Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no ministerial responsibility for that whatsoever.General DebateHon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I want to begin by addressing my comments to the member for Wellington Central. It is just about 10 years ago that I came in here and I always remember having a chat with his predecessor Marian Hobbs. She said to me: “Look when you’re in Opposition it’s a really good time to read and to think.” I took on her very good words of advice and I did a lot of reading and thinking and mastering of my portfolio responsibilities. But the trouble with the Labour Party and with Mr Robertson in particular is that there is no thinking and there is no working. That is a great disappointment from Mr Robertson who has gone from rising star to elder statesman with no intervening period.I say this to Mr Robertson: what the Labour Party seems to be saying these days is—these are the broad themes of what those members are thinking about. The first is to look at the future of work which is great coming from a party that has no work ethic—Grant Robertson: You used to be so nice.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —I am being nice—and the second thing is that they want to get up a theme that we are neglecting the regions. But the member for Rongotai would know—because she had a very nice statement in The Chatham Islander the other day—what a tremendous Budget it was for the Chatham Islanders in the farthest part of our Realm. It was a very good article if I may say so. What we were doing—Hon Annette King: Did you read the bit that said it was 12 years too late?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: I only read the good bits. There is the very substantive effort that been made by this Government in the farthest part of the Realm to do something about its infrastructure and I personally want to thank the Minister of Finance for his kindness.The second thing that we heard the other day—and Jonathan Young the MP for New Plymouth referred it to me—was this extraordinary article by Labour’s arts spokesperson Jacinda Ardern who was in New Plymouth with a group of Labour MPs—Hon Annette King: It’s “Ja-cinda” actually—Jacinda.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —Jacinda—and she stood in front of the new Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and she said that this shows why the Government is neglecting the regions and why money needs to be put into regional projects conveniently overlooking the fact that the Government through the Regional Museums Fund had put several millions dollars into that very project. So that was a week’s work for her and it was a very disappointing week’s work.I come back to what Marian Hobbs the former member for Wellington Central—a very nice lady—said to me and I say it to the Labour Party: there is no substitute for hard work. There is no substitute for knuckling down and thinking through the issues—Grant Robertson: What about nastiness—is there any substitute for that?Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Instead of hurling abuse across the Chamber Mr Robertson should be at his desk thinking through the issues from a social democratic point of view but he is not. Instead we have the rising star of the left the Greens’ Mr James Shaw. It is going to be a very interesting tussle in Wellington Central. I am predicting that in 2017 Paul Foster-Bell is going to storm through the middle because this is—Grant Robertson: Join in—come along. Run in Wellington Central. Come on Chris. Run here—run where you live.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Mr Robertson is always wanting to have me stand in Wellington Central.I compare that do-nothing attitude of the Labour Party with the very positive agenda of this great party because we are building we are building we are building. I have been a student of politics since the fourth term of the Holyoake Government and I can honestly say that I have never seen such talent on the backbenches. I have never seen such a vigorous third-term Government building infrastructure.I congratulate my colleague Amy Adams. Someone told me the other day that broadband is faster in New Zealand than it is in New South Wales and the Australians are marvelling at it. We are building law reform thanks to Amy Adams’ good work.We are building houses thanks to Nick Smith. We are rebuilding—Phil Twyford: Almost nothing. You’ve blown your credibility.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: —and all Phil Twyford can do is snipe on the sidelines. We are rebuilding a strong environment thanks to the work of people like Nick Smith. Look at the Environmental Reporting Bill debate last night. All Labour could do was indulge in pettifoggery and nastiness because the reality of the matter is that that is legislation that will greatly advance our environmental agenda.We are rebuilding Christchurch. Gerry Brownlee has got many many fine qualities but what he is going to be remembered for more than anything else is the work that he has done in rebuilding Christchurch.As Mrs Thatcher said I could go on and on and on but I have to have a meeting on the town belt with Mr Robertson.ANDREW LITTLE (Leader of the Opposition): There are times when the House has to do a number of things. The first is to not to reduce itself to comic entertainment such as the last speaker Christopher Finlayson did. Secondly there are times when it is entirely appropriate for this House to put aside the robust cut and thrust which is the bearpit that this Parliament is even during the weekly general debate in order to focus on those things that unite us. This country and this House had that experience just a few years ago with one of the worst workplace accidents we have seen in this country’s history. That was the Pike River disaster. As a consequence of that tragic disaster the country was united in the need to do better on workplace health and safety. Even within this Parliament parties united around the need to do better when it came to workplace health and safety.This Government did the correct thing in assembling a high-powered royal commission of inquiry which investigated the causes of that accident. It went very widely and it looked at the systemic causes the regulatory causes and the things that the Government itself contributed to. It was an honest appraisal and it was a royal commission that came up with some very serious recommendations. This Government did the next important thing and the right thing to do. It drafted legislation and brought to this House a bill that truly reflected the issues raised by the royal commission. It was part of that growing consensus amongst workers employers politicians civil servants and the entire community that we needed to have something better to protect workers at work.I sat on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. I had the privilege of sitting on the select committee where we received many submissions. Some submitters however did not speak to their submissions such as Talley’s but then there was a reason for that possibly—that they were not part of the consensus. Perhaps now they will be. That piece of legislation inched its way forward and there were contests of ideas. There was push back but in the end the broad consensus remained—until it went back to the National Party caucus and then something happened.Something has happened in the National Party caucus in the last few months. We cannot put our finger on it—and Maurice Williamson sits there rubbing his hands; I am not sure whether with glee or with concern—but something has happened in that National Party caucus. The consensus that has gripped the rest of the country that once gripped this Parliament has fallen apart and we are entitled to know why because there is a very serious issue. There continues to be a very serious issue about our health and safety performance and we must be able to put longstanding differences aside. The National Party has always seen itself as an ideological warrior for some in the employing class but it has never seen to have a sense of pragmatism and unity when it comes to workplace issues. It has lost it completely. We must find the way to redraw that consensus to bring it back together.It was encouraging last night to see Amy Adams the Minister of Justice—spoken of so fondly by the Attorney-General just now—come out and say that it is time for a corporate manslaughter law. She said she wanted to see it as part of the Health and Safety Reform Bill. What a pity that it was not in the first reading in the first draft that came to the House. It would be a pity if it just appears as a Supplementary Order Paper because it is an issue that ought to have been the subject of public submissions. But what a positive step for a Minister in the National Government to take until of course a few hours later when we saw the response. It was not from us not from members of the community and not even from members of the employer community but from her own National Party colleagues who then started a process of pouring cold water on the idea.Well it is time that this National Party in Government understood the importance and the urgency of getting our workplace health and safety performance to improve. What is it with this National Party? Why is it so divided not just on this issue but on others as well? Why are those members trying to lead a breakdown in the national consensus that we have on such an important topic? What has gone wrong?Let me be very clear. On this side of the House we stand firm and true for better workplace health and safety and for proper accountability. We must never repeat the situation where directors sit round a board table and just positively ignore their obligations and their responsibilities. Bring that bill back bring it back unchanged and give us better health and safety across New Zealand.Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): I had a very interesting trip yesterday to the Manawatū Rangītikei and Whanganui areas to make sure that they were coping reasonably well with the big storm and flood event that occurred. I must say that the devastation in that area is very dramatic. A lot of roads—in particular in the rural communities—are suffering through slips and road closures and there is a lot of debris around and a lot of silting.I went on to one particular farm yesterday in the Whangaehu Valley and on his hayshed one particular farmer had a flood marking of the water level of the 2004 flood and one of the 2015 flood. There was not too much difference—probably about a 250 millimetre - odd difference between the two water levels.What is slightly different this time is that this event has occurred in the winter months and the last event in 2004 occurred in the summer months. So we all know what that means: soils are already waterlogged in the winter and once they have a significant rain event occurring upstream above Whanganui of course that water had to go somewhere. So that meant that my officials sought a lot of advice and said to me that this met a medium statutory declaration. As a result of that $100000 of extra funding has been made available to supporting the rural support trust.Also we are going to have a recovery facilitator on the ground working very closely with the likes of Fonterra Federated Farmers Beef and Lamb New Zealand and other industry groups and linking closely with the councils because the Government has already indicated that it will provide $250000 for an enhanced Taskforce Green. These are the people who are going to get out there and help farmers in those rural communities clean a lot of the debris that I saw yesterday off their fences and stand up some of those boundary fences that have been decimated by this significant flooding event.Also if needed there will be rural assistance payments. What I have often said to the many groups that I have spoken to is that farmers are not interested in a handout. They are actually more interested in knowing that the Government cares in the period of hardship that they find themselves in. This is not a new event for rural communities. They have been through events like this before and unfortunately they will go through them again whether it is droughts whether it is snowstorms that are occurring in the South Island or whether it is a very prolonged drought period like that which North Canterbury is having to deal with right now. Fortunately it had 25 or 30 millilitres of rain this week so there is some positivity there. The Government is doing what it can the Minister is on the ground and officials are helping the councils to get through what is a significant event there.Also it is very timely to mention that for our dairy farmers in particular this is a tough time. Not only has the flood impacted on this particular area but prices are very very volatile. That is why I reached out with Minister Coleman and announced $500000 where both of our ministries are going to be focused on mental health and wellness into rural communities. There are a lot of initiatives out there already and farmers just need to know who they should turn to. Whether it is Dairy New Zealand which is running an initiative called Tactics for Tight Times or whether it is Farmstrong which is all about “Live well farm well” it is about rural communities knowing who to turn to in times that are pretty tough for them.The outlook for the primary industries is extremely bright. The outlook for dairying is very good. Beef is having a record yearright now and the outlook for beef farmers for the next couple of years is strong. Horticulture products are going extremely well. Exports for viticulture—that is the wine industry—avocados kiwifruit and apples are also having a great year. Also seafood is going pretty well and there is the ability for it to grow going into the future as well. Forestry is looking at having some growth as well because of the US housing market recovering and of course there are also big demands on its products here in New Zealand in the Christchurch rebuild and for building more houses in Auckland.Tonight we are celebrating success in the primary industries and that is with the Ballance Farm Environment Awards. I salute all of the finalists who are coming to Parliament tonight. I congratulate the winner and we do not know who that is yet but I look forward to shaking hands with them and saying what a fantastic job they do of actually looking after the environment sustainably. More consumers around the world are demanding more from our farmers and tonight we are going to celebrate the success of farmers focused on sustainability and celebrate how they get a premium product into the market and do extremely well whether it is by planting riparian planting zones excluding cattle from waterways—and cattle are now excluded from about 96 percent of waterways under dairy farms. That needs to be acknowledged.Our farmers have come a long way and they have challenges in front of them but we should celebrate the success of our farmers tonight and say what a fantastic job they do. I invite everyone to get involved—Mr SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.JAN LOGIE (Green): New Zealand is facing what may well be an unprecedented attack on State and social services. Just this past weekend we found out from the Minister for Social Development that she is open to considering Serco and we must assume other transnational corporations to provide community care for our most vulnerable children and young people as well as victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Serco is the company that is running Mt Eden prison which has the highest inmate-on-inmate violence in the country according to a recent UN report; Serco in early audits was found to have failed to reach 40 percent of its targets. But this is not an isolated announcement. This is part of a pattern of the implementation of an ideology of this Government.Last week we found out that the Government is looking at using people accessing mental health services as a cash cow for its mates in the form of social bonds a model where businesses are encouraged to invest in the provision of something that we used to consider a core function of Government—a role a service for some of the most vulnerable people in this country. To be able to turn this into an opportunity for profit for a business is this Government’s agenda. Only 2 weeks ago we saw the largest counselling provider in this country close its doors because of funding pressures—after having been required to cut $4.5 million from its operating budget. This is a service that had existed since World War II. Relationships Aotearoa has been quite blithely criticised by this Government without being given a chance to be able to stand up and defend its good name. And I must say that what I heard in the community was roundly positive about that organisation. But no that is not what the Government said. It has just been happy to see it close.These three cases are just part of another stage of a significant attack on services. We have seen Child Youth and Family operating under a differential response model for a while where two-thirds of notifications for Child Youth and Family are put out to community organisations community organisations that are struggling to survive organisations whose staff members have not had a pay rise in 6 years who are saying that their skills are undervalued and they are struggling to cope with the massive increase in complexity of the cases that they see—children like we have seen in front of the courts in Auckland this week—because the Government is reducing its role in providing these essential social services. We have also now seen a review of Child Youth and Family. Rather than having a response to the reports that are telling us it has been underfunded and understaffed for a long time we have a review happening headed by Paula Rebstock.We have seen functions of Work and Income also contracted out to the community and businesses which are no longer under the same level of democratic scrutiny. We cannot see what is going on and it is much harder to get the stories from those communities in order to be able to hold the Government to account. And now we hear the Government’s Better Public Services model is going to be applied on to our community sector. Whereas before the community used to identify its needs do its research come together as people and provide the best responses now the Government is going to be reducing its funded work down to this Government’s political goals not the democratic political needs of that community.This is part of the sale of State houses into the community the privatisation of prisons ACC contracts going to businesses Australian insurance companies picking up services for specialist sexual violence services charter schools—the list goes on. This is a comprehensive unprecedented attack on the role of the State and the undermining of our communities. It is something that this country should be very very wary of. We are being told it is all about better services but this is the most significant and pernicious political agenda we have seen in decades.TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): If ever there was a party mired in ideological claptrap it would be the New Zealand Green Party. I will look forward to refuting the prophecy of doom that we have just had from Jan Logie. But before I do so could I just put on record my endorsement of the words of the Hon Nathan Guy for the victims of the recent flooding in Whanganui Rangitīkei and surrounding districts and also note that the people of Dunedin South went through a similar experience just a few weeks ago. It has been a difficult time for all of them. We send them best wishes and though it may not seem like it just now I am sure that there will be better times ahead.This is as we said in the Budget just a few weeks ago a Government that is sticking to a plan that is working. What I want to suggest to the House today is that there is a fundamental difference between National and our support parties on this side of the House and Labour and its allies on the other side. The fundamental difference is this: Labour believes that the success of a Government is measured by how much money it takes from the taxpayers and then splashes around—the more the merrier—without ever worrying about the results of that expenditure. National on the other hand says that taxpayers’ money is hard-earned much of it by people on low incomes. Therefore we must never take a dollar more than we can justify and every dollar that we spend has to be spent with the best possible impact with the best possible evidence behind it. That is where I come back to the point that Ms Logie was making before. This is a Government that is firmly focused on looking at the evidence of how the money is spent and finding better ways of spending it. We have made a priority for the last 7 years the delivery of Better Public Services and across the board it is working—across the board it is working. Better Public Services does not automatically mean more expensive services; it means delivering value for taxpayer investment and constantly looking for ways to improve.At the end of the Budget debate the Minister of Finance made a comment about the Labour Opposition that I think bears repeating. He said: “This lazy Labour Party this uninspiring Labour Party this Labour Party that sucks hope from those who need it most has been waiting around to be able to say: ‘The nasty Tories cut everything. Vote for us; we’re kind and caring.’ ” Well it has not happened. We have not been cutting. We have certainly been pruning in certain areas in order to ensure reprioritising in ways where the expenditure will work better and the results are there in crime health education and welfare right across the board showing that it is working. This is a Government that has been firmly focused on striking the right balance between responsible management of the economy managing a growth phase in the economy—and does the international community not look at it and say “Well done New Zealand.”; all the commentators say that—while keeping our own expenditure under control. Remember that Labour saw expenditure go up like this. It went out of office saying “We’ve spent the lot. You guys have got a decade of deficits to look forward to. Good luck—make good with that.”Well we said that that was not good enough and that we would get things back under control much faster than that and we are. But we also said that we would do it while protecting the most vulnerable New Zealanders. Of course this was all before the global financial crisis all before the Canterbury earthquakes—nobody could have seen just how bad things were going to be—and yet in New Zealand here we are with a record that all the economic commentators and all the international observers say is the model to follow. The Labour Party members of course have got no answer to that. They say no a lot of the time but they do not like saying “Well let’s look at what National has been doing that’s working so well and see whether we can adopt some of it.” They just have not got the wit to admit that.We are without doubt looking at further and further improvements. As Chris Finlayson mentioned earlier on what a talented team National has because right across the board the Ministers and snapping at their heels are a group of people on the backbench focused on delivering things that matter for New Zealand—not little ideological claptrap - type things but they are really getting down and saying this could be done better. That is why the Community Investment Strategy is so worthwhile looking at hard. I wish that Ms Logie would take her blinkers off and say: “We can do things better.”—and the Government will do better. One final point that I want to leave with the House is that it is worth noting right across the land that the total annual cost of initiatives in the Government’s last six Budgets has been an extra $2.9 billion. It is a lot of money but it has been manageable and it has been measured. In comparison the extra cost in the last six Budgets of the Labour Government totalled $20 billion. That is unsustainable. Ours is the plan that is working.GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to join with other speakers in acknowledging the hardship that the people of Wanganui and the South Taranaki are going through at the moment in recovering from the devastating floods. It is quite clear for many people in those areas that this will be a long road back and they deserve the support of everybody in this House. It was pleasing to see the Minister of Civil Defence and the Minister for Primary Industries showing up in those regions in recent days. In the community that I grew up in down in south Dunedin people were not feeling quite so much love from some of the authorities there. I think—I hope certainly—that some lessons have been learnt there as they should have been from the Northland floods last year when an awful lot was promised but not a lot was delivered. So I do hope the Government will apply its largesse evenly across those who have been affected.When I look at the floods that have affected the people in south Dunedin it gives me cause for thought to reflect on my upbringing in that community. South Dunedin has never been a particularly wealthy community. It has got a lot of elderly people; it has got a lot of low-income families. But when I grew up there I got a fantastic start in life. I went to some great schools. I lived in a community that was tight-knit. There was not a huge amount of money around but all of us growing up there felt that we had the same opportunities living in St Kilda as someone who was living in St Heliers. There was nothing that held me back in terms of achieving what I wanted to growing up in that community. I ask myself today whether that is still the case in New Zealand today—that it does not matter where you grow up that you will still get the opportunities to succeed and achieve your potential.I would say for Emma-Lita Bourne that was most definitely not the case. She did not start her life in a situation where she had the same opportunities as somebody else to achieve her potential. Her life was ended so tragically early in large part as the coroner has told us because of the house that she was growing up in. I look at the case of Bonnie and William Moa and their family in South Auckland and I ask whether they are getting the same opportunities as I got when I was growing up in south Dunedin when they live in a home that they have had to describe to the public as covered in faeces graffiti and mouldy and rotten floorboards. I look at the opportunities for Melissa Nganu and her family where she has had to move her children out of a rodent-infested house with mice faeces and rotting floorboards through which the mice get in. I ask whether her family is getting the same opportunities as other New Zealanders as we pride ourselves on in New Zealand and the answer is that they are not.We are told by members opposite that this is compassionate conservatism. Well I would hate to see the hard edge of conservatism when people are being made sick and are dying because of the homes they are living in. Then we have Nick Smith the Minister for Building and Housing whose response to this was to say that people dying of pneumonia and other illnesses is not new. That is not an acceptable response from this House. It is not an acceptable response from a Minister who claims to be part of a so-called compassionate Government. There is nothing compassionate about people growing up in houses that make them sick and that they die from.I watched on the news the other night a story in the Good Sorts section of the Television One news. It was about a lovely man in Kāwhia who was giving technology to the schools there—a decile 1 school. I thought what a fantastic thing it was for that man to do.Chris Bishop: What a good guy.GRANT ROBERTSON: But by the same token Mr Bishop how is it that we now come to rely on the charity of one man to make sure that kids in a decile 1 school are getting the same opportunities as kids in a decile 10 school? That is what this country has come to under the National Government.We need to focus as a country on giving everybody the opportunity for success. Every New Zealander deserves to grow up in a warm dry home. Every New Zealander deserves to be part of a school that has got the technology and resources that will unlock their potential. Every New Zealander deserves to be able to get a job where they are paid well and where they can support their family. The Labour Party’s focus is on giving every New Zealander a fair shot at success—a life where your success is not based on your parents’ wealth but on how we as a community can support all New Zealanders to achieve their potential. That is the focus of the Labour Party whether you grow up in St Kilda or St Heliers or South Auckland. Every New Zealander deserves the same chance. They are not getting it from this Government.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Listening to that member Grant Robertson the current member for Wellington Central and hearing the advice from the Hon Marian Hobbs a predecessor of that member that the Attorney-General gave earlier in this debate—that when in Opposition you should use that time to be thinking and investing in policy and hard work: doing the thinking and the hard work—clearly that is not occurring from either that member or members of his caucus. Here they are 7½ years into Opposition and there is not a new idea amongst them—no thinking no new ideas and certainly no new work.The speech just completed by Grant Robertson was a good classic example of how bad the situation is within the Labour Party. It is bereft of ideas bereft of new thought bereft of good thinking and bereft ofany sense of wanting to do the hard work that should be done in Opposition in preparation for returning eventually to the Government benches. Looking at its efforts so far 7½ years into its term in Opposition it is clearly nowhere close to being ready for Government. It is a party that says no. It is the party of “no”. It says no to everything. It has no new ideas no new vision and it is a party of no change. About the only thing that it changes is its leader and it does that with monotonous regularity. There is a very high chance in my view that it will change its leader again before we go to the polls in 2017 because the performance of its leader this afternoon would have left the Labour members feeling very concerned indeed about the coming election in 2017.A party that has recently changed its leader—or indeed half of its leadership—is the Green Party. This is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate James Shaw who was another candidate for the Wellington Central seat along with Mr Robertson and my good friend and colleague Paul Foster-Bell. James Shaw has now become the co-leader of the Greens and one would have you think that all is happiness—that the morris dancing is being danced with vigour and the singing of “Kumbaya” is all happy and loud. But actually we know that it is not because it was a tightly fought contest—it was a tightly fought contest. The protagonists all said that it was a tightly fought contest. Actually I have to say that most pundits expected the hard-working and diligent Kevin Hague to win that election and that he did not was cause for considerable surprise amongst the political commentariat. I think that those who follow politics were genuinely surprised that James Shaw came through in the end.The Greens have a system of electing their co-leader whereby each of their branches elects a delegate and the delegates then go and vote by secret ballot at their AGM and a winner emerges. I know that all is not well in the Green Party when members—active members; members of longstanding in the Coromandel Green organisation—go out of their way to come and tell me how unhappy they are with the decision that was made and how disappointed they are. I suspect their concerns are about how that process of voting actually took place and occurred because the news that is reaching me is that clearly some of those branch delegates did not vote in the secret ballot according to the directions of their branches. That would account for the surprise result that occurred in terms of the co-leadership of the Greens. I am not one to get too concerned about the internal machinations and the democracy of the Green Party but it strikes me as fundamental that if the branches give to their delegates a direction on how to vote and then those delegates do not vote as they have been instructed then that causes great concern amongst the rank and file of the Green Party.We on this side of the House are part of a Government that has a plan that is working and unlike members of the Opposition in both the Labour Party and the Green Party we have a functional leadership. We have a functioning organised caucus. We have new ideas and new plans and the plan is working.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we set out to deceive. Yesterday in this House we heard the Minister in charge of Māori Television stumble over undoubtedly well-rehearsed and closely scripted lines. Then there was some inadvertent honesty after a litany of denials blaming everyone but himself. That honesty lasted just as long as Mr Flavell or his staff realised they had made a big mistake and they cack-handedly sought to falsify the Hansard record.He said yesterday on the issue of his awareness of staff involvement the following—and I quote him—“of which I was aware”. Yesterday’s video of Parliament clearly has him saying that but in last night’s Hansard all of a sudden the word “not” was put before the word “aware” so that in the Hansard last night it reads “of which I was not aware”. Yesterday Mr Flavell uttered the truth before a cover-up that must not be allowed to succeed. Now the word “not”—you would not believe it—is back out of the Hansard. What on earth is going on with the leading institution of this country when it is claimed that the Hansard people put the word “not” in there? Who would do that?When you saw the video or you heard what was said there is no way there could have been a mistake. He tried to change the record but in doing so he more deeply implicated himself because what he denied before the Māori Affairs Committee on 17 June in the afternoon in Parliament then this week in Parliament and again today was caught out by his Hansard record—now corrected—which reads “of which I was aware”. And how can a Minister get by making denial after denial when it was said by the Prime Minister: “I’m a Prime Minister who believes in standards—high standards.” Well these standards are so low you could parachute out of the bottom of a snake and have room to spare. Over and over it goes on.I want to say to the National-led Government and more particularly to the Māori Party and Māori members over there that we will never have equality in this country if substandard performance and second-class standards is the benchmark for Māori politicians. We will never have equality if that is what is accepted by your European colleagues in the National Government. It is inverse racism of the worst sort. The last thing that any Māori wants is this paternalistic treatment that says: “Well he’s a Māori Minister; we don’t expect better.”Well we in New Zealand First do expect better. We have always opposed Whānau Ora. The only party in this Parliament that has opposed Whānau Ora because of its corruption is New Zealand First. But the Minister sought and his staff sought to interfere and break the law and to spike—stop—a debate because he did not want to face New Zealand First. That is enough for the Minister to go but the denials over and over and over again and the circus we saw in the House today on points of order about that Hansard change tell us that he should go. I regret saying that—Tim Macindoe: No you don’t.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I do regret saying that. I know him better than you do. I know him far better than that member over there does but I am sick of those members over there telling me they believe in equality. They are telling me they believe in one law for all but when it comes to standards and performance and accountability they clearly do not. Again I say that that Minister in the interests of Māoridom’s integrity let alone that of this country and of this Parliament should resign.You know Marama Fox got involved within hours of the programme being shut down to try to convince Mihi Forbes that the Māori Party was not involved. Why would she do that?Do not forget that on 22 June 2 days after the shutdown you had the chief executive officer for Māori Television—namely this man Paora Maxwell—saying that content was discussed. The Minister kept denying it. What is this photograph here about? Well this is a photograph of him being taken on to the marae to welcome him as the new chief executive officer of Māori Television. What is fascinating about that is this: when this event happened Te Ururoa Flavell was not the Minister in charge of Māori Television. He did not get that job until 8 months later. So the question is: are the allegations true that Māori Party interference in Māori Television was happening a long way back and that it is happening still? The answer is palpably demonstrably yes. Mr Te Ururoa Flavell should be resigning.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga): I again thank the whips for giving me another slot for the drive-time audience of Auckland. In fact I almost feel I should be like Selena on breakfast TV and have my iPad out and take you through a traffic forecast for Auckland. But I am not going to do that.What I am going to do today is give a little lesson to the Labour Party members. It is a genuine lesson. It is not going to be rude. It is not going to be nasty. I want them to listen carefully. I am going to throw a bit of mathematics in it. For example I am going to talk about monotonic functions. Most people do not know—they think monotone is a dreary dull speaker—that a monotonic function is a graph that heads in one direction and keeps doing it. Here is my lesson. I have gone back and I have looked at the two main parties Labour and National right back into the 1930s and I have looked at general elections and what has happened when there has been a change of Government. We know there is a famous statement here that Oppositions do not win elections; Governments lose them. In fact all you need to do—and I suggest to people on the other side that they get their research people to do it—is to draw these graphs because it is just so factual it is not funny. Every time there has been a general election in the past that changed the Government from that point on the Government’s support has started to drop and the Opposition party started to grow in a monotonic fashion—that is a general increase.So we go back through history. Take 1975 when Rob Muldoon won. By 1978 National had dropped dramatically. By 1981 it just got there by about one seat from the Springbok tour. Three years after 1981 by 1984 there was a complete and absolute clean-out. Why am I telling the Labour Party members all this? I am telling them this because what has happened now is that history has somehow changed the political landscape.Hon Trevor Mallard: Tell us about 2002. Bill English—22 percent.Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON: It is no good for Mr Mallard to keep yelling and screaming about this. He really should listen because he just needs to look at the graphs. This is not the National Party’s view. This is not whether the Labour Party thinks this is a great Government or not. This is what the public think of the performance of their politicians. Once the John Key - led Government had won the election in 2008 what should have happened after that—actually I hear Mr Mallard say: “Tell us about 2002.” Actually Labour dropped in 2002 from what it had got in 1999. Yes there was a huge aberration. For the first time in the history of the country an Opposition party—National—went down in 2002. It is the only time in the history of the graphs that that has happened.But let us come back to the last 3 years because this is where it gets interesting. This is where it gets frightening for the Labour Party. After the 2008 win by the John Key - led Government Labour should have expected its poor performance reflected in 2008 to start lifting and by 2011 be within sort of striking distance and certainly by 2014 to be right knocking on the door and if it does not make it well you know it is a little bit like the Brash-led party of 2005 when it did not quite make it but on the night you could not tell. But that is not what has happened—that is not what has happened. My lesson to the Labour Party today is that you should be very very afraid of what is going on because you are not making any traction in the polls. You can get up and blame this Government and say that we are useless and we are hopeless and so on. I do not mind you doing that. But why are the public not responding to the Labour Party as they normally would in Opposition? Labour members say: “We’re coming back; we’re coming back.”. They are not. They have got very limited time. Elections are not won in the last 6 months of the 3-year period. You cannot do it. The history of it is that unless you have got yourself well back in the polls you cannot do it.My lesson to Labour members is that they need to really scurry around fast and say—the polling is showing it. Our polling is showing it—I am sure they are doing the same sort of polling—and the general polls are showing it: Labour is actually lower in the polls now than it was 3 years ago or 6 years ago. The Labour leader is lower in the polls than previous other leaders before Cunliffe and so on. So they have got a limited time frame. Instead of carping on about what a useless Government we are or how the National Party is not building enough houses Labour members should go back to first principles and say: “What is it we need to do to turn these polls round?”. If they do not they are guaranteed a fourth term in Opposition and right now the way they are polling that is exactly where they are destined.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Referring to the fact that Mr Williamson said Labour cannot do it I just want to say: “Watch this space Mr Williamson. Watch this space.” We can and we will Mr Williamson. Let us see what happens in 2017. We have listened to a few National Party speeches today. We had Tim Macindoe telling us that the Government is sticking to a plan that works—the Government is sticking to a plan that works. Well if the plan is to sell out New Zealand then it is doing a good job of it. If the plan is to sell out the most vulnerable New Zealanders then the Government is doing a good job of it. Mr Macindoe said that good public services do not necessarily mean expensive public services. Well actually $140000 for a TV screen at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Mr Macindoe is expensive in our minds. At least Mr Macindoe on this side of the House we want to put taxpayers’ money into people not into $140000 TV screens not into $74000 reception desks and not into $1000 seats for people to sit on. We want to put our public money into the New Zealand public.We listened to Scott Simpson saying that Labour likes to talk about “no”—that the word on this side of the House is “no”. They think that we are “no no no” to good ideas. But let us reflect on what National has said no to over the 7 years that it has been Government. When National first got in it said no to apprenticeships: “We can take money out of that. We don’t need that.” Then what happened? We had an earthquake and we did not have the expertise here. The Government had to ship it in. The Government said no to things like healthy food in our schools. One of the first things that the Government did was cut the policy of healthy food in our schools and now we see the Government struggling with the issue that we have with obesity and our children. Why did the Government remove that policy? We see the Government saying no to building houses in Auckland. There is a demand for housing in Auckland and that Government says no to new houses.That side of the House has said no to healthy homes. We put up a healthy homes bill and the Government said no to it. The Government does not care about the health and well-being of New Zealanders even when we have instances like the one we had recently where a small child died because of the fact that she was living in an unhealthy home.The Government said no to extending paid parental leave. The Government said no to the paid parental leave bill that my colleague Sue Moroney put up.A few years ago the Government said no to adult community education. It cut all the funding to adult community education which for many people was their first step back into the education system.The Government said no to the training incentive allowance not wanting to support sole parents to be able to increase their earning capacity—to increase their chances of getting a better-qualified higher-paying job.The Government recently said no to KiwiSaver thereby denying children who enter into the scheme the $1000 incentive. The Government says that we are the party of “no” but its track record says that it is the party of “no”.I think the whole country should be concerned aboutthe things that the Government has said yes to. It has said yes to foreign property speculators being able to buy our houses. Here we are with a housing market that it is difficult for New Zealand families to get into and the Government still allows non-residents non-citizens to come here and buy our New Zealand houses thereby driving the prices up and making it impossible for families to be able to get into their own home. The Government said yes to experimenting with our most vulnerable New Zealanders. The Government is now looking at introducing social impact bonds when there has been no research done here that qualifies or justifies the Government being able to implement them. The Government said yes to selling out our social services to big multinational corporations. On Sunday we had the Minister for Social Development on Q+A confirming that she would contemplate the idea of selling out our social services to a company like Serco which has an international reputation such that no New Zealander would be happy about handing their social services over to it.What else has the Government said yes to? It has said yes to the Conservative Party despite the fact that the whole board walked out on that party. The Government has said yes to asset sales. That was not a very good economic strategy. The Government has said yes to Rio Tinto. The Government has said yes to Nick Smith even. We have got all the evidence in the world to suggest that he is not doing a good job. The Government still says yes and we have the Prime Minister saying that Nick Smith is outstanding. We might be saying no to some of what the National Party is suggesting but we are justified in saying no to what it is doing. The Government is not justified in what it has said no to over the past 7 years.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): That speech has definitely proved that it is that side that is the “no” party. This side believes in yes. It is under this National Government under the leadership of the Rt Hon John Key that our economy is growing wages are rising there are more jobs out there inflation is negligible and interest rates are staying lower for longer. This shows that our plan is working and that we are sticking to a plan that is working.This National Government is a very efficient and fair Government. For example our tax system is fair to all. We believe in a low-rate tax system that responds to our needs in a planned manner. We believe in rewarding people for their hard work not punishing people for their hard work. We believe in low compliance and administrative costs. It is this National Government that is working hard to minimise tax avoidance and evasion opportunities. Since 2008 it is this National Government that has given a reduction in the personal tax rate and a reduction in the company tax rate and it is this National Government that has just announced firm rules around property taxes.This has been possible because we have a plan that is working. We want to keep our taxes to the minimum and that is why we rejected Labour’s capital gains tax idea. Yes we rejected the capital gains tax idea which was Labour’s idea. This is with the target of getting our net debt below 20 percent of GDP by 2020—net debt below 20 percent of GDP by 2020. This is without putting any extra burden on taxpayers. Again this has been possible because we have a plan that is working.It is under this National Government that the number of people who are under the age of 20 and who are not in any employment and who are not in any training or education is the lowest since 2004. Yes the lowest since 2004. Is it not a great achievement of this National Government? Yes it is a great achievement of this National Government. This National Government is working hard to reduce welfare dependency. We are working hard to uplift skills in our people. We are working hard to reduce crime and we are working hard to improve interaction with Government. By working in these areas we are getting better outcomes for our people.When you talk to people what do they want? They want firstly good educations for their children and they are getting that under this National Government. They want jobs. Yes they are getting jobs because there are more jobs being created under this National Government. And the next thing they want is to be safe and that is another great achievement of this National Government because under this National Government crime is the lowest since 1978. Yes and this has been possible because this National Government is hard on crime. This National Government is hard on criminals. We have more cops on roads. Yes we have more cops on roads because we have provided them with modern-day technology: smartphones and tablets. So instead of sitting in their offices they are on roads. Each cop is saving 30 minutes of their office time and that equals 354 additional cops on roads. That equals half a million hours of cops on roads New Zealand - wide per annum and that is how we have the lowest crime since 1978 under this National Government.Our justice system is focused on the rights of victims. New Zealand families deserve to feel safe in their homes and communities and our strategy is working. Our approach is working. Our plan is working and that is why in Budget 2015 $218.6 million was allocated to do that and $40 million was allocated to improve services and efficiencies in targeted areas in justice and courts. By investing in these agencies we are getting better outcomes for New Zealand families.Our money that is allocated for the Serious Fraud Office shows that we are really serious about our international reputation because New Zealand is known as a safe place to do business and invest. This National Government takes any kind of misuse very seriously. This National Government has already saved $60 million of taxpayers’ money since we started the national benefit fraud reform initiative over 2 years ago. Yes $60 million of taxpayers’ money was saved by this National Government. There are 9500 people off benefits because they were on because of benefit fraud. They are off benefits. There are 9500 people off benefits. Thank you.PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to finish certainly the debate from this side of the House. As I start I would like to acknowledge Norm Berryman and his passing and pay my respects to him. I played club rugby with Norm Berryman in the far north and he will be sorely missed amongst the people in the north. Our prayers and our thoughts are with him and his family. Norm Berryman was able to slice through the middle of some of the best rugby teams in the world. He was able to pick out some of the smallest gaps and exploit their weaknesses. You do not need such a keen eye as Norm Berryman’s to find the weaknesses in this current Government.What we are seeing from this Government is confusion. The campaign picture of all rowing in the same direction is but a distant memory. Housing—let us take housing for example. We have two Ministers in particular engaging in what seems like an icy cold stare. That icy cold stare is around the right of first refusal. It seems to me that what this Government is doing is trampling on the integrity and the so-called good faith that was entered into with the iwi of Tāmaki-makau-rau in making sure that they have the right of first refusal on land to allow them to develop it for the well-being of their people. You do not need to look too far to know that it is probably strategic that Minister Smith is behind Minister Finlayson so that they are not able to engage further in that long cold icy stare.You throw into the mix into that whole right of first refusal the Māori Party—the Māori Party which since getting into bed with the National Government has claimed that “We are at the table; we are able to influence these decisions.” Well what happened when the right of first refusal came around? All those members could say was: “Well we’ve written a letter to the Prime Minister.” What happened to this solid relationship that they claim out in our regions? What happened to this “We are getting the benefits for our people.”? What it showed me is that they just like anyone on this side of the House only have the power to write a letter to the Prime Minister. And what has been the answer? Silence—exactly.I want to talk a little bit about poverty too. Just not long ago all this Government talked about was how it was focusing on poverty how it was pouring all of this money into identifying what poverty is and how it was going to fix it. Well at the moment just like the previous question I just asked what is the answer and what is it doing now? Nothing. It slipped entirely off the radar. The Government has forgotten about poverty. It has forgotten about the regions. Why? Because it does not know how to invest in them. It does not know how to solve these issues.To some of the more positive economic things—tourism. Just before I came down here I was in my office with the chief executive of Tourism New Zealand who was giving me a great conversation and a great presentation about how well tourism is doing. So then why when members of this Government attended particular seminars and conferences with the tourism industry which clearly said to them: “We do not want a tax for people who are coming in and out of this country.”—what did this Government do? It turned its back on that industry. It was a complete surprise in the Budget announcement to the tourism—Hon Annette King: They deceived them.PEENI HENARE: They deceived them. It was a complete surprise to the tourism industry when that announcement was made during the Budget. In fact I have received numerous complaints about this Government not listening to the tourism industry. It is such a valuable industry in this country and this Government turns its back on it. This is not a Government with a plan or a future or a hope. I have already mentioned the campaign picture of rowing in one direction. Well it looks like not everybody is wearing a blue T-shirt. In this case they are all rowing the wrong way.Finally we talk about the holes and the party falling apart. If there is one thing that sticks together in this party—I am reminded of a dag on the rear end of a sheep. We know just how sticky that can be and just how unified that can be but we know just how important sheep are to this particular Government. A little bit of sand might be able to help with those dags on the back of a sheep. We hope that this Government actually wakes up to its own arrogance but it is a little bit difficult when all you do is talk to yourselves about all the important matters facing New Zealand.Finally we here on this side of the House have a positive look for the future. We are looking with aspiration for the future of New Zealand. Māori Television will see better days. Housing will see better days. Tēnā koe.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.Underground Coal Mining Safety BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 3 June.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The last time we were considering this bill Jonathan Young was speaking. He has 1 minute left if he so wishes.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Yes absolutely I do want to take up my 1 minute.I want to acknowledge the honourable member Damien O’Connor who put this bill in. Everything in politics is a matter of timing and perhaps when the bill was lodged in the ballot the timing was right but it is not right now because legislation has overtaken the intent of this bill. The legislation has overtaken the intent of this bill and in fact the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment produced this document in 2013 which says Safe mines: safe workers—New laws—new laws—on mining health and safety: A quick guide for mine operators.Can I just mention a couple of things it says in the introduction? It says: “The Government has recently made changes to the laws concerning health and safety in the mining industry. This is in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy and will bring New Zealand’s approach to mining health and safety into line with international best practice.”The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I regret to inform the member his time has expired.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I want to acknowledge my colleague the Hon Damien O’Connor for introducing the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill as a response to the tragedy that occurred within his own electorate which so deeply affected his electorate and which to this day still so deeply affects his electorate. I want to just comment on the final comment made by Jonathan Young there. He said that timing is everything and that there once was a time when this bill might have had a place but that that time has gone and has been overtaken by events and been overtaken by all the actions that the Government has taken. Oh if only that were the case. If only the Government actually maintained the focus on health and safety that it had in the days and weeks after the Pike River disaster.It was a wake-up call for all of us. Years and years of reliance on the ideological view that deregulation was the answer to everything led us ultimately to that tragedy occurring. In the days and weeks after it the Prime Minister said and did all the right things. The Government members said and did all the right things. They knew that they had no choice. It was politically untenable for the Government not to address health and safety not only in the mining sector but in all other industries in New Zealand. Our health and safety record in this country is woeful. We have twice the rate of death and injury that they have in the United Kingdom and in Australia their rate of injury at work is around just two-thirds what ours is here in New Zealand. We have to act. We have known that for a long time but it took this tragedy to get the Government to actually take action. And yes it did some things but as time has gone on as Pike River has become more and more of a distant memory and as we get close to the 5-year anniversary of that tragic day it has become something that has slipped slowly off the National Party’s political radar.It is out of frustration for the fact that that has happened that my colleague Damien O’Connor has introduced this legislation and left it on the Order Paper even though it has been sitting on the Order Paper for some time because of the National Party’s filibustering of a range of members’ bills on members’ day. It has remained on the Order Paper because it is still relevant. In fact it is more relevant now with the National Party divided over health and safety than it was a month ago. The National Party now is not sure if it wants to water down the health and safety reforms that it is introducing or beef them up with corporate manslaughter. It has no idea what it is doing on this. It is getting pulled in all directions by all its different corporate interests—by Talley’s which want there to be no health and safety legislation at all in New Zealand.Hon Annette King: And they’ve got the money.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: And they have got the money too. That is why: out of frustration that the Government has failed to actually finish the job and make sure that not only our underground coal mines are safe but our quarries are safe our forests are safe our farms are safe and our fishing vessels are safe—all those industries that are killing and maiming New Zealanders. We should still be focused like a laser on addressing those issues. But it is no longer a focus for this Government.We are still waiting to see what it is that the Government wants to do since it has delayed the health and safety legislation. We have no idea what it is that the Government actually plans to do with that legislation. I think it has no idea what it plans to do with that legislation. All it knows is it is not in its DNA to make workplaces safer. So I say to the Government members: demonstrate to the people of New Zealand that it is in your DNA that it is something that you are committed to and that it is something you are focused on by supporting this legislation in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor. Do not forget Pike River—do not forget Pike River. Finish the job and make not only our mines safer but every workplace in New Zealand safer.ALASTAIR SCOTT (National—Wairarapa): Thank you for the opportunity. First of all I would like to commend Mr O’Connor for his initiative in bringing this bill to the House his motivation for bringing this bill to the House and last but not least his obvious action because actions are what matter.This bill was brought to the House as a result of the Pike River disaster but I would like to also acknowledge that it is part of a concerted effort that is going on in health and safety not just in this House but in industries across the country. The Government is aiming to reduce deaths by 25 percent by 2020. Some of those initiatives include the maritime operator safety system the “MOSS” regulations which have been in for about 12 months. The forestry sector is collaborating together to increase the health and safety of its workers. FarmSafe is working with Federated Farmers who are working with WorkSafe and are engaged in a whole lot of initiatives to make sure that their workers are safe. The previous speaker suggested that this party is not concerned about the safety of workers in this country. That is just totally rejected. That is why we have introduced the Health and Safety Reform Bill which has as has already been mentioned superseded this member’s bill.I agree with Mr Lees-Galloway. The statistics in this country are not good—75 deaths per year is not a good record. About 40 percent or let us just put it another way about 29 people die in the agriculture sector alone every year—the same number of people who died in the Pike River disaster. That is every year. That is just every year and that has got to be considered. There are going to be thousands of injuries let alone the deaths and thousands of families who are affected by slack poor health and safety regulations and practices that have been in this country for too long.As a result of the Pike River inquiry there are 16 recommendations. I can tell the House that they have all been considered and implemented including consideration of the Australian mining regulations which are the basis of this member’s bill. As I say because the Health and Safety Reform Bill has superseded the member’s bill I cannot support Mr O’Connor’s bill. But it is not just about the paperwork. It is not just about the bill; it is about attitude and culture which are the key drivers to having a safe environment. “She’ll be right” when it comes to health and safety is not right. A bit of No. 8 wire is not good enough when it comes to the health and safety of our colleagues and workmates. This cultural change that will take place will take time.I would like to acknowledge at this point the previous chief executive officer of Transpower from 2007 to 2014 Dr Patrick Strange who at the top of his agenda at every board meeting had as an agenda item not the financials and the number of kilometres of cable that had been strung up but the health and safety record of the Transpower board over the previous month. He has led the way since before I was on that board and he is an example of leadership in the field of health and safety.We need to continue to lead from the front. Just think about 20 years ago when we talked about drink-driving culture. The laws were put in place but we know my parents and my grandparents continued to drink and drive. How long did seatbelts take to get in place? That took years. I recall my parents not putting their seatbelt on despite the law and my old man was a cop. So it is about a change in culture and attitude that must take place; it is not just going to be about the legislation. But we will persist and we must persist in developing the health and safety legal framework and we must get it right. To Mr Lees-Galloway’s point—we must get it right and a couple of weeks will not hurt. It is important for the benefit of all New Zealanders.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I attended most days of the hearings of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. It was unusual for the commissioners themselves to ask many questions but one of the ones that really sticks in my mind was a question asked by Stewart Bell one of the commissioners. In his day job he is the Commissioner for Mine Safety and Health Queensland. He asked Doug White who is one of the managers from Pike River and an extremely experienced coalminer whether in his experience he had ever encountered a situation where the regulator had made no notices to the mining company for any changes or improvements in health and safety. Doug White answered no. Commissioner Bell was clearly aghast at the gulf that existed between Queensland mine safety regulations and those that pertained in New Zealand.That gulf came from decades of Governments that either had actively shrunk the State and the role of the State or had not done enough to pull that role back and reverse those changes. The two particular axe blows to mine-worker safety came in the 1990s at the hands particularly of Bill Birch and Max Bradford when they gutted mine safety regulations and then eliminated the role of check inspectors and largely dismantled the Government’s mine inspection service as well.I live close to the Pike River coalmine site. Many of those affected directly by the tragedy were my friends and neighbours. I am proud of the role I played in forcing the Government from its initial position of stonewalling and a Bart Simpson “Nothing to see here” attitude into instead first creating the High Hazards Unit and then Worksafe New Zealand and overhauling mine safety regulations and then overhauling workplace health and safety legislation. Those have all been good developments.The question is whether or not enough has been done. The picture I certainly have is of a Government that is very much in two minds. I think Iain Lees-Galloway is right that one of those minds was forced by the circumstances that immediately followed the Pike River disaster. I do not believe that any of those changes that the Government has made have gone as far as I would take them. On the next day after the publication of the royal commission’s report I asked the Prime Minister whether he accepted that deregulation had been a primary cause of the disaster. He did not. He did not accept it. When we considered the first of the Government’s health and safety bills we had the quarrying industry submitting that it should be exempted from some of the measures that pertained to mining and quarrying and it won. The Government allowed the industry to be exempted from those provisions with tragic consequences.I am certainly reminded of a question that I asked a former Minister Kate Wilkinson on a number of occasions. I asked her whether on the day before the Pike River disaster she would have said that the Government had done all it could to ensure the safety of miners going to work that day. It was a very difficult question for her to answer because there is always something we can do. So what I ask in relation to this bill is what can possibly be wrong with our allowing this bill to go forward to a select committee to enable members of the public mine workers and the companies themselves to tell us whether enough has been done? What can be more important for us in this House than to ensure that mine workers go to work each day and then come home?ANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): No one can doubt the genuine intention behind this Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill that is before us today. Each of us clearly remembers the tragedy at Pike River the enormous national wave of feeling and reaction and later on the deliberations and the debate of the royal commission.This Government has acted on all of the recommendations of the royal commission. One of these recommendations specified or requested the urgent establishment of an “effective regulatory framework for underground coal mining”. At that time reference was made to the Queensland and also the New South Wales mining industries as demonstrating best practice. As a result this Government has worked with those areas and the experts from those areas and also with our own coalmining industry in order to improve and develop our own safety regulations to ensure that a disaster like Pike River cannot or should not happen again.Following on from this in late 2013 Parliament passed legislation to significantly improve work safety in this country and included specific new regulations to address the coalmining industry. There were six principle provisions that were put forward through that legislation. The first one was about putting in place health and safety management systems. The second one was about appointing people to the newly created High Hazards Unit part of WorkSafe New Zealand. I note that 17 of those High Hazards Unit inspectors have already been appointed and are in place. The third one was about ensuring workers meet new competency requirements; the fourth about complying with strengthened emergency standards and related to that making sure that we had the right emergency preparedness; and finally the fifth was about having notification and reporting requirements that were suitable and appropriate. WorkSafe New Zealand has been established and its funding has been recently boosted by $30 million. The High Hazards Unit as I mentioned before is already in operation.I also note that the Government has made changes to the Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010 to complement the new mining regulations. Three new changes were made. The first one was about ensuring the competency of those carrying out electrical work in mining operations is appropriate the second was about improving the design requirements assessments and verification of safety for mining equipment and the last was about regulating and endorsing the technical requirements and maintenance of equipment used in mines. Other changes have been made to the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. They have been specifically tailored to this industry. These came into force in December 2013.As a result of the Government’s wide-ranging reforms New Zealand’s current approach towards health and safety is nearing best practice. The Government has clearly demonstrated its determination to continue the process towards making sure all workers operating in the coalmining industry are safe and that we have in place the appropriate safety practices. The reforms aim to reduce injury and death by 25 percent by the year 2020. WorkSafe New Zealand is one of the most significant overall reforms. It currently carries out about 12500 operational inspections each year.The new Health and Safety Reform Bill is currently before the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and has been subject to long and lengthy debate. We have had the opportunity to hear many submissions. We are committed to getting it right. It is a collaborative effort with all parties in Parliament. I do note that in schedule 2 of the original draft of the bill there is specific mention of an area dealing with the mining industry. All these important initiatives have consequently pre-empted the proposals of this bill and rendered its introduction redundant in view of the wide scope of changes and the overarching regulations that have already come into place.Although commending the purpose of the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill this National Government considers it to be a duplication of all the good work that has gone on and is currently going on. As such we do not support its introduction.CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise to take a short call for New Zealand First on this very important matter the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill introduced by the honourable member Damien O’Connor. I unlike Jonathan Young will not hold out until the end of my speech to let you know where we stand as a party. In fact it was at the very last minute in extra time that he told us where National was going to go with it and it was no surprise to us that of course National members do not support it. New Zealand First wants to come out strongly in the strongest of terms to say that we support this initiative by the honourable member Damien O’Connor.I stand with pride because if my grandfather was alive today he would be very much appreciative that we have got the likes of the Labour Party and the Greens and New Zealand First supporting this bill because it is looking after the welfare of our workers. My grandfather was the head of the miners’ union for some 20 years and was actually present in 1967 when they had the Strongman Mine disaster where 19 men lost their lives. Now we are coming up to 5 years this year since the death toll of 29 workers who lost their lives at Pike River. This is the largest issue that we have got around the country. This is a bigger issue than how much we are paying as a minimum wage for our workers. Every single worker in this country has the right to absolutely be guaranteed that they are going to go home after work. We as a country have got an appalling record in terms of health and safety when we compare ourselves to the likes of Australia the United Kingdom Germany and the USA.I asked to be on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee which many of my friends across the House are a part of as well. We are right in the middle of deliberations on the Health and Safety Reform Bill and yet again time has been extended even further. What we are trying to say here is that we have got a bill in place that could be implemented rather quickly and under some sort of urgency to look after the lives of those mine workers. It was only 10 days ago that another quarry worker was killed. I know it was not an underground mining situation but it just goes to show the lackadaisical legislation we have got around health and safety in this country. Yes after Pike River the Government came out and said it wanted to do something about it. It said it would act quickly and put some regulations in place and make sure that the death toll comes down in this sector. What it did not do was actually fund health and safety adequately to ensure that those regulations were actually managed and policed adequately to ensure that those deaths stopped happening and of course we are still finding the same old story. We are going over and over it again.I urge this Government to change its position of not supporting this bill. I would like to say also that Damien O’Connor has been in Parliament for some 22 years and for all but 3 of those years he has held the seat of West Coast - Tasman. He has held that seat and he stands up and speaks for those people because he actually gets to see them and speak to them on a regular basis. When he has to go and talk to his constituents from his area and explain to them that he is doing everything he can it is frustrating for him to actually not be able to go back with something solid that is supported—not for any political reasons but for good reasons—in this House.I would just like to finish by saying that the coal mining industry makes up about 2.5 percent of our country’s GDP and about 6.2 percent of our total exports. But it actually does more than that. For our regions particularly in the West Coast - Tasman area it makes up about 40 percent of our GDP. It has high-quality workers who are well and truly getting paid over and above the New Zealand average wage and of course down there the average wage is about $105000 a year. The industry provides about 8000 jobs. If we do not do something to keep our workers safe if we do not do something to look after this industry for our regional and rural parts of the country we are going to be in a very dire situation in the future.We are waiting with bated breath for the current legislation the Health and Safety Reform Bill to go through and we urge the members of the Government on the benches opposite to support the Underground Coal Mining and Safety Bill in the name of the Hon Damien O’Connor. We commend this bill to the select committee. We hope it gets support. It makes good sense for it to get support and we wish it all the best in its endeavours. We will never forget the tragedy of Pike River. We will never forget the tragedies of the Strongman Mine Ralph’s Mine and other disasters around the country. Those memories will be etched in the minds of all those family members and New Zealanders who were there and know people who lost their lives on those very sad days. Thank you.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): I rise in opposition to the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill but as my colleagues have done I will not move any further without acknowledging the intention behind this bill. It is extremely admirable that the member Damien O’Connor has brought this to the floor in response to a tragedy that should not have happened and that of course is the Pike River mine tragedy. We are shortly coming up to the anniversary of that disaster where 29 men on the West Coast lost their lives. I can certainly say as someone who comes from a tight-knit community that when a tragedy such as that occurs everybody would have known one if not many of those men and my sympathies are with those families in that community where such a huge and significant tragedy has occurred. It was a tragedy that should never have happened but now we need to move forward and certainly learn from it. But as my other colleagues have mentioned time has moved on and events have superseded this bill. Following on from Pike River there was of course the royal commission into the tragedy and there were 16 recommendations from its report. It should be noted that the Government has adopted those recommendations and one of those of course is to reform our law in respect of health and safety acknowledging that New Zealanders as a culture require a step change in health and safety—a step change in how we view it and a step change in how we deal with health and safety in the workplace—and that is certainly something that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee has been looking at over the past months.I just want to pick up on a point raised by the member opposite—Mr Lees-Galloway. He suggested that this side of the House is deliberately slowing down the legislation. Well yes we are because we want to get health and safety legislation right. This is the biggest reform in 25 years and we need to make sure that the law is fit for purpose. We have a new concept coming into play a PCBU or person conducting a business or undertaking and we must make sure that that is fit for purpose not only for our large high-risk industries but also for the businesses that are low risk. But in acknowledging that in respect of Pike River in 2013 new regulations were introduced in respect of mining administration and what they did was require mining operators to “put in place new health and safety management systems; appoint people to new safety critical roles; make sure their workers meet new competency requirements; comply with strengthened minimum standards; meet new requirements for emergency preparedness … and; meet notification and reporting requirements.” So that in itself is a step change but this new Government bill coming into play a bill that will again raise the bar means that New Zealanders have to take health and safety seriously and look at it as an integral part of their business. As part of that the Government has established WorkSafe New Zealand and the challenge will lie with it to get the balance between carrot and stick to encourage businesses to look at their safety culture but also to take a hard line on those operators who are not compliant with health and safety laws and are not putting their people first in respect of health and safety.I just want to touch on some statistics. Obviously it is part of the Government’s programme to reduce deaths and injuries at work by 20 percent by 2020. If we look across some of those high-risk sectors we can see that we definitely need a reduction—for example in the rural agriculture sector there were 20 deaths last year. So this legislation is timely. I am not apologetic for slowing it down. We need to take a look at it. We need to take this law reform seriously. It is the biggest law reform in health and safety in 25 years. But in respect of this bill from Damien O’Connor it has been superseded by events and despite the intention we oppose the first reading.SUE MORONEY (Labour): It is a pleasure to rise in support of this bill put forward by my colleague the Hon Damien O’Conner. If only what the last speaker Sarah Dowie said was true. If only events actually had made this an irrelevant debate for this Parliament—I would be fine with that. I would be ecstatic about that because that would mean that workers in workplaces particularly the most dangerous workplace of New Zealand—mines—would be safe. But sadly that is not the case and that is why we are debating this very important bill. That Government opposite has not seen fit to make this issue a priority as it should be.I recall speaking on one of the readings of the bill that the Government has passed with regard to mines safety and I remember imploring this Government to never forget what we have learnt from the Pike River mine and the tragedy that unfolded there. I remember also saying to those members: “Please don’t do what I think this Parliament is guilty of doing in forgetting the Cave Creek tragedy and all the lessons that we learnt from that particular series of tragic events.” It appears to me that the National Government is going to go down that same path again. It forgot about what it learnt from the tragedy of not having strong enough regulations when it came to Cave Creek and it is about to do it again with regard to what the royal commission has told us about the outcomes of the Pike River mine tragedy and it is not even that very long ago.As many speakers in this debate have said on the West Coast where my good colleague Damien O’Connor is the MP and represents that area particularly well it is just as though it happened yesterday. It is just as though that tragic event happened yesterday for the people of the West Coast and the Government is already forgetting the lessons. We know that it is forgetting the lessons because it is holding up the Health and Safety Reform Bill at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee—it is really clear that that is what is occurring. There is disagreement in the ranks of the National Government. Members cannot seem to get their act together around this. The Government is falling apart around this issue. Meanwhile the people of the West Coast wait. Meanwhile the people in workplaces up and down the land wait for the National Party to try to get its act together so that we can ensure that workers return home safely after they have been to work.I agree with the person who spoke from New Zealand First because actually this issue does surpass what one gets paid at work. There is no point getting a great wage at work if you cannot actually perform the function safely. If you are not going to make it home to your family there is no point in what the size of the pay cheque is. This issue of health and safety should be paramount and it should be at the forefront of that Government’s thinking. It should be a priority for Government members but what are they doing? Instead they are voting against this legislation and they also watered down the legislation that came from the royal commission where the commission said that the legislation should have also have covered quarry workers. National watered that down and we saw the sorry consequences of that just a few weeks ago and it is doing the same thing with the Health and Safety Reform bill. It is attempting to water that piece of legislation down.Chris Bishop: How would you know?SUE MORONEY: Well I would know because I am on the select committee actually Mr Bishop. That is how I would know. That Government is attempting to water down the legislation and that member will know this because he is in the National Party caucus where they have been debating how they are going to water down the recommendations from the royal commission. That is right. The recommendations of the royal commission have become an item for debate in the National Party caucus because those members cannot agree on whether they think workers’ health and safety particularly in the dangerous workplace of mines should be paramount or not.I just recently learnt that my husband’s great-grandfather who was an MP for the Ōhinemuri area did several good pieces of legislation to ensure that the miners in that community were made safe many many decades ago. To me it is an absolute travesty that I am standing here debating the same issues that are still not addressed and thanks to that National Government will continue not to be addressed.Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill which is in the name of Damien O’Connor. The purpose of this bill is to on an interim basis bring in better protection and safety for underground coalminers here in New Zealand by adopting Queensland’s regulatory framework until we have a better process in place. I can see that this bill is inspired by the Pike River mine tragedy so before I get into this bill I would like to say that my heart and thoughts go out to the Pike River miners and their families. The whole country—yes the whole country—was mourning after those explosions. Everyone expects to return home safely after their day at work. Health and safety is critical. Health and safety at work is important. Employees and employers both know that health and safety is important. Employers know that if they have a safe workplace their employees are happy they feel safe and they are more productive. There are fewer interruptions which leads to less cost to business because all such interruptions always lead to some kind of cost. Cost aside in serious cases it can lead to injury or even the death of workers. No one can deny that workplace health and safety is important but things get overlooked and accidents do happen.According to the type of industry there may be sometimes some specific requirements measures and practices that are required to be in place and these measures and practices should be able to address physical psychological environmental and other health and safety issues. Coalmining is a worldwide industry and the way of mining depends on the geology of the coal deposit. Open-cast mining—yes it is economical but the coal seam should be close to the surface. Underground coalmining is comparatively a very complex process. It is not as simple as just adopting another country or region’s regulatory framework because it requires a good understanding of local coal deposits and technical and operational requirements. It requires good strategic planning. It requires good risk management. Also we need people who bring the right kind of expertise because it is a very complex and hazardous industry.I can see the reason for this bill but this National Government has already done a lot in that direction. This National Government has already fulfilled that commitment that it made after that Pike River tragedy. This was in November 2010 when this National Government initiated a royal commission of inquiry and then it was November 2012 when the royal commission made its report public. Then in December 2012 this National Government released its plan to implement the key recommendations that were made by the royal commission. For that the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety was given the task of advising the Government on workplace health and safety and also on the structure and form of a new independent regulator for workplace health and safety. So this National Government has already developed an effective framework for mining—all kinds of mining not just underground coalmining.I would like to actually list a few things that are already done. Legislation arising from the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill established a new workplace health and safety agency—that is WorkSafe New Zealand—and implemented key recommendations of the royal commission. Three Acts were created by the Health and Safety (Pike River Implementation) Bill: The WorkSafe New Zealand Act 2013 the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2013 and the Mines Rescue Act. So we can see that this National Government has already fulfilled its commitment to the royal commission’s recommendations. I can see the reason behind this bill but this bill is unnecessary because this National Government is already investing significantly in health and safety. We know that working safer reforms in the Health and Safety Reform Bill before the House are to reduce injuries and the death toll by 25 percent by 2020. WorkSafe New Zealand is assessing 12500 businesses every year. We do not support this bill because this bill is completely unnecessary. This National Government has already done a lot in that direction. Thank you.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): In reply thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate those members who have contributed to this bill the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill. This was my best attempt to react and to take action from the report of the Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy. It said as one of its first things to do: “Major change required and fast”. I drafted a bill. The only avenue available to me was through the member’s bill process and I put this bill in there. Unfortunately it took some time to be pulled out. In the meantime I acknowledge that the Government took the recommendations and developed changes to mining regulations and legislation and then promised to move on health and safety. There are 29 families who will remind each and every one of us of the failings of Parliament and the failings of legislation to put in place proper protection for their loved ones in underground coalmining.About 2 months prior to the Pike River disaster having written to the Minister of Labour at the time warning her about conditions in the coalmining industry I received a reply: “I am advised by the Department of Labour that there is no recent change in the pattern of mining serious harm notifications that might give cause for concern.” That Minister has long gone but what I have heard from the Government in this debate is the same naive approach to health and safety and to mining regulations that that Minister had swallowed also. In the process of development of the legislation that has been passed now for underground mine safety the quarrying industry lobbied to be excluded even though it is acknowledged as being a high-risk industry and now this Parliament will be reminded by three other families who have lost loved ones in the short space of time—in fact in this year alone—in the quarrying sector that they wanted their loved ones to return home from work as well and the legislation and the absence of regulation for quarrying meant that those workers were not protected. Scott Baldwin Tane Hill-Ormsby and Murray Taylor have been killed in their workplaces because the National Government was lobbied to make changes to the proposals from the Pike River disaster and the recommendations from the royal commission and it dumbed down that legislation.What I say in the House here is that the Government has made changes to underground mining regulations and safety and made some improvements but it has also made compromises as well. What I ask through this legislation is that the Government would support the bill going to a select committee to enable us to review the progress that has been made and to ask the question of whether we need to make further changes. At the moment the wider body of health and safety legislation has been parked up because the Government is subject to lobbying. In the same way there may be families in the future who have every right to come to this House and say “You failed my partner. You failed my husband.”—not you Mr Assistant Speaker but this House—because we ignored the wisdom before us and through lobbying dumbed down legislation and did not have in place the proper protection for people at work. This bill is a legitimate way of having a comprehensive review.I acknowledge the Green Party and New Zealand First for their support—they too see the wisdom—and I would like to acknowledge my West Coast colleague Kevin Hague who has always stood beside me in trying to force the Government into a better space on health and safety legislation. The 1992 legislation and the regime were based on a flawed philosophy but this Government’s oversight is based on flawed information and so we face a situation where because of lobbying and because of bad information this National Government is going to vote down this piece of legislation. This is a lost opportunity that would have allowed us to review the progress that we should be making in mining quarrying and workplace health and safety.A party vote was called for on the question That the Underground Coal Mining Safety Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 60New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.Noes 61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Motion not agreed to.Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment BillFirst ReadingIAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I move That the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Justice and Electoral Committee be instructed that as part of its consideration of the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill it may consider any amendment based upon the recommendations of the MMP review conducted by the Electoral Commission in 2012.This bill is the result of a long process that is worth recalling in order to give the bill some context. It began with the announcement by the Government that it would hold a referendum on whether or not New Zealand should continue to use MMP as our system for electing our Parliament. As part of the legislation that enacted that referendum it was agreed by Parliament that should New Zealand vote in favour of retaining MMP a review would be carried out to consider some of the issues that members of Parliament on all sides understood that the public had around MMP. In the event it did come to pass that New Zealanders did vote to retain MMP but it was clear to us all that there were issues with the system that the public wanted us to address. So the review as legislated for was carried out and the review reported back to Parliament with a number of recommendations.The Minister of Justice referred the review to the leaders of all political parties represented in Parliament at the time asking for their views on the recommendations of the MMP review and each political party responded to the Minister of Justice with their views on each of those recommendations. At that point the Minister of Justice declared that there was no consensus and the process stopped. It was in response to the fact that the process was not going to be continued by the Government that my former colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel drafted this legislation. Upon her retirement from Parliament I picked up the legislation and shortly after I did that it was drawn from the ballot.The bill does three things. First it abolishes the one-seat threshold that allows parties that do not reach the party vote threshold to bring list MPs into Parliament; secondly it reduces the party vote threshold from 5 percent to 4 percent; and thirdly it allows for a review of the party vote threshold after three elections with the new party vote threshold in place. It is important that we consider why we need to implement these recommendations from the MMP review. The one-seat threshold has never really served any real purpose in the New Zealand context.Chris Bishop: It increases proportionality.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY: I will address the point that Chris Bishop has interjected on. The one-seat threshold was simply a carry-over from the German system. In the German system there are a number of states. There are regional parties that must reach a three-electorate threshold in order to bring list MPs into the federal Parliament and that has actually occurred only on four occasions since MMP was introduced to the German system in 1949. The royal commission that recommended the shift to MMP recommended the one-seat threshold in the context of abolishing the Māori seats. Of course Māori seats were never abolished and therefore the one-seat threshold was never required. I do accept the point made by Chris Bishop that a consequence of retaining the one-seat threshold is that it can in certain circumstances increase proportionality but that was not the purpose for introducing the one-seat threshold. In fact it increases proportionality on an ad hoc basis. It increases proportionality only when parties win one seat or more and when those parties gain enough party votes to bring additional list MPs into Parliament. There are better ways of increasing proportionality and that includes reducing the party vote threshold from 5 percent to 4 percent.Moreover and most important in the public’s mind is the fact that the one-seat threshold which serves no real purpose has become something that has been abused by political parties. What has occurred is political parties have made deals with parties that may support them in Parliament by essentially giving up a seat and encouraging voters to vote for the other political party knowing that that political party will not reach the party vote threshold but has an opportunity to bring MPs into Parliament through the one-seat threshold. That is a situation that New Zealanders have resoundingly told us they are sick of. It does not matter which parties do it—it does not matter which parties do it—it is simply something that New Zealanders have loudly and clearly told us they are sick of and they want us as MPs to address this issue whether or not we in our political parties stand to gain from it personally.The other thing that this bill does is it reduces the party vote threshold from 5 percent to 4 percent. That is an acknowledgement of the fact that getting rid of the one-seat threshold does have an impact in certain circumstances on proportionality. In fact reducing the party vote threshold ensures that proportionality is increased at every election and that there is a clear rule that everybody has to meet. Every party if it reaches the 4 percent threshold has the right to bring list MPs into Parliament. That is clear and it affects everybody and it is the case at every election. It is not an ad hoc way of increasing proportionality—list MPs will be brought in only in the event that parties win one seat and only in the event that those parties gain enough party votes to bring additional MPs into the House.I want to address some of the concerns that have been raised regarding this legislation. First is that there is apparently no consensus. Well in fact there has been no opportunity for political parties to reach consensus. We were given an opportunity to provide our opening position the position from which we would be prepared to negotiate with other parties. But what we were not given was the opportunity to carry out that negotiation—the opportunity to reach consensus. Sending this bill to a select committee is in fact that opportunity to reach that consensus. Secondly the issue was raised that not all the recommendations of the MMP review were contained in this bill. I actually appreciate that concern that has been raised and as I began my contribution it is my intention in the event that this bill passes first reading and is sent to the select committee to move an instruction to the select committee to consider all recommendations of the MMP review. That then gives us the opportunity to consider the recommendations as a package and reach consensus around them.However on the issue of consensus I would say there is a very clear consensus and that is the consensus amongst the New Zealand public the voters who put us here the people who have clearly said they want us to address this issue. In a UMR poll 71 percent of those polled were in favour of abolishing the one-seat threshold. Just 13 percent were against and 16 percent were unsure. It is clear in the minds of New Zealanders that the one-seat threshold—coat-tailing as it has come to be known—is unacceptable and the public no longer tolerates it. They want us as parliamentarians to address this issue. So those who vote against this system will be seen in the public as putting their own interests and their own party’s interests ahead of making an amendment to our electoral system that makes it stronger more robust and more closely aligned with the way New Zealanders want our electoral system to work. So I do ask members of Parliament to put a strong and robust electoral system ahead of our own interests. Send this bill to a select committee let us consider all the recommendations of the MMP review and let us craft an electoral system that New Zealanders can have faith in.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I want to firstly congratulate Iain Lees-Galloway on bringing this bill to the House. It is always—Chris Bishop: Don’t do that. He doesn’t deserve any congratulations.JACQUI DEAN: Of course he does. Every member deserves congratulations on bringing a member’s bill to the House. It is a great privilege for a member of Parliament to have the ability to bring a member’s bill to the House and with that privilege comes a high degree of responsibility. And therein lies one of the issues I have with this member’s bill. It is to do with the fact that it is completely out of date and that concerns me. For a member who comes to the House and wishes to implement quite sweeping changes to the Electoral Act across a number of fronts he brings a faulty bill to the New Zealand Parliament. I find it extraordinary that a member would do that and it rather undermines any argument that that member might advance towards his bill.So if we go back in history a little in respect of the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill—the member himself wished to go back in history so let us do our own little bit of history—we recall that this is a bill that was first brought to the House by the Hon Maryan Street—Iain Lees-Galloway: No Lianne Dalziel.JACQUI DEAN: I beg your pardon. It was Lianne Dalziel back in 2012; that is right. So back in 2012 the bill sat in the ballot as do a number of bills and it was not drawn by the time of the 2014 election—oh well—Iain Lees-Galloway: Yes it was.JACQUI DEAN: Well it was not drawn by the time the Hon Lianne Dalziel left the House. I am thanking the member for helping me with the history because here we get to the nub of the argument. This is the member’s history of course which is why I am seeking his help with it and I am grateful for it. But if the member cares so much about the history around this bill then maybe he might have thought to update the objectives of the bill which I would have thought were pretty pertinent to the debate at hand. So I would invite that member to approach the Table and pick up a copy of what is now his bill. He did pick it up on behalf of the Hon Lianne Dalziel who left Parliament and promoted it as his own bill and he has argued very passionately in this House this afternoon towards the objectives of the bill.Unfortunately the objectives are out of date.Iain Lees-Galloway: Hope to get to the substance.JACQUI DEAN: Well you see now the member is trying to defend himself by saying that this is not the substance of the bill.Iain Lees-Galloway: But you haven’t actually told me what I’ve done wrong yet Jacqui.JACQUI DEAN: Well let me help the member and I will read from page 1 of the bill “Objectives”. These are Iain Lees-Galloway’s words: “This Bill proposes to implement the main recommendations of the Electoral Commission review of MMP in time for the 2014 election.” This bill is out of date—this bill is out of date. This member did not take the opportunity to update the wording in his own bill.Iain Lees-Galloway: Ha ha! Own goal—beautiful own goal Jacqui. Well done. Is this the best you can do?JACQUI DEAN: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Chris Bishop: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The first point—[Interruption] No the first point of order was from Jacqui Dean. I will hear Jacqui Dean.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Rare and reasonable interjections are fine but I think a barrage of shouting is a little unreasonable.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am the judge of that. I hear what the honourable member is saying. I did indicate to the member who was interjecting Iain Lees-Galloway that it was unacceptable and I know he will not do it again because I am not in the frame.JACQUI DEAN: Thank so much Mr Assistant Speaker. I do find it distressing that even now the member has not caught on if you like to the fact that he did not take the opportunity when he assumed ownership of this bill to update the bill and felt that it was acceptable to bring a bill to the House in this state.I will just turn perhaps to page 2. Right at the very bottom—the member may care to do that; he clearly has not looked at this bill since he assumed it. Maybe he might have taken the time before bringing the bill to the House to have a look at the final sentence on page 2: “That is why in order to keep faith with the integrity of the referendum these changes must be implemented in time for the 2014 general election.” Is this lazy work on behalf of this member? It is indeed very lazy work on behalf of this member who could not even read the bill—his own bill. It is pretty symptomatic of that party I would contend. He is too lazy to read his own bill before he resubmitted it in the ballot and now we have an objective in the bill that is out of date.However—Iain Lees-Galloway: You’re a star!JACQUI DEAN: I think he has been hurt a bit because he is getting a bit personal. I think that may have cut a little bit deep. However—Iain Lees-Galloway: No I feel bad for you Jacqui because you are making such a fool of yourself.JACQUI DEAN: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Similar to my first point of order rare and reasonable interjections are fine I know but a barrage of noise—perhaps not.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I hear what the member is saying and I will just ask that from now on we actually concentrate on thesubstance—[Interruption] I am on my feet; well I am standing—of what is in a first reading and that there be some material now related with 4 minutes to go to what is actually in the bill. Thank you.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. So it is no surprise I would imagine that National does not support this bill. National opposes this bill. It is shoddy it is lazy and it takes no account of the proper processes that underpin the electoral process in New Zealand. New Zealand is so fortunate that our electoral system has a very high level of integrity. I would have thought that any member bringing a bill to this House around the electoral system would have presented a bill that at least was not so laughably out of date.Prior to the last election new electoral laws were passed—which is why it is so embarrassing that this member has brought this bill to the House now—to provide better services to voters candidates and political parties. A number of changes were made to enable people to enrol and update their details fully online which is very beneficial particularly for people residing overseas. The law was changed to make loans to parties subject to disclosure rules for greater transparency in our electoral law and to allow parties to lodge bulk candidate nomination and party list documents by email. Good process underlined and underpinned those changes. Good process is integral to good electoral law not I would imagine out-of-date lazy members’ bills. It is important to continuously improve our law and processes in light of changing—Iain Lees-Galloway: It was drawn on 14 November 2013. Didn’t you bother to read that?JACQUI DEAN: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am attempting to make a contribution to this debate but there is a barrage of noise coming across.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No look this is a debating chamber—[Interruption] I do not want any comments when I am ruling. This is a debating chamber. I am the judge of whether I feel that the barracking is unacceptable and in that case I did not accept that it was. So with 2 minutes remaining I will ask the member to continue.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I invite the member who is obviously so passionate about this issue that he presented a bill to the House that is horrendously out of date to make a submission to the inquiry into the 2014 general election. Although the member may feel that a way to influence electoral law is to do it by way of a member’s bill I believe that a more substantive and responsible way is to in fact make a submission to the inquiry into the general election. In fact I invite the member to do that. In fact I will go further than that. I challenge the member to do that because he raises some substantive issues that of course have been raised in the review already. We have kept in the Justice and Electoral Committee the terms of reference deliberately wide and open so that all views can be heard. Instead of cherry-picking a few recommendations or a couple of issues that were originally from a previous member of this House—nothing wrong with that—it would be better in my view when we are looking at electoral law to look at it as a whole. That is a process with far more integrity than just looking at one narrow part of electoral law.So in closing National will not be supporting this out-of-date narrowly focused bill that has been picked up by Iain Lees-Galloway but I invite—and indeed challenge—him to make a submission in the proper place which is to the Justice and Electoral Committee’s review of the 2014 general election. Thank you.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I have to start my contribution in this House first by thanking the member Iain Lees-Galloway for bringing a bill that generally has a consensus view in the public that this is something that this Parliament should do. So that is my first point: my thanks to him for bringing to Parliament something that the Government should have actually brought here but did not so we are being forced to have this debate via a member’s bill.Second though to begin my contribution I want to rebut what Jacqui Dean the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee had to say. I have great respect for the chair; I think she is an excellent chair and I enjoy being a member of her committee. What she failed to acknowledge in her contribution—which seemed to focus solely on first the date of the implementation of this bill and second whether or not it is the most appropriate mechanism; she failed to make any other substantive statement on the content of the bill itself—is that the bill was drawn on 14 November 2013. It was perfectly reasonable for the bill to make reference to its coming into force in 2014 because of when it was drafted. Of course all members of the House know that commencement dates change frequently because bills are frequently delayed. So the only point that the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee just made was actually to remind this House of how members’ bills can drag. Members’ bills can drag particularly when there are elections in between so I think it is unfair of that speaker to have called this member Iain Lees-Galloway lazy. It is absolutely outrageous when there is a very reasonable explanation for why we have the date that we haveon this bill.The second substantive point that she made in her contribution was the notion that there are better ways to bring up an issue like reform of our electoral system. We probably would not disagree with that. We believe—we would have probably preferred this—that the Government should ideally have taken the review recommendations of the Electoral Commission its full report on MMP and the voting system and should simply have packaged them together as a bill for this Parliament to debate; that the Government should have put to the floor the issues that were raised by that review and let us decide.Chris Bishop: By consensus.JACINDA ARDERN: That would have been a reasonable way for us to have that discussion. The Government did not do that. So what are we left with except the option of using mechanisms like members’ bills? I believe absolutely that Iain Lees-Galloway has done the right thing by bringing this bill to the House in this form.The member across the way starts raising the issue of building consensus around this issue. We have to acknowledge that in the past there has not been consensus on some significant electoral reforms. There were divergent views on issues like whether we should have MMP as an electoral system. The problem is that when you have got political parties debating issues like this self-interest is going to come into it. With all due respect do we really believe that ACT is going to want to get rid of a provision that allows it to have greater representation in Parliament? Really? Although I respect the member’s ability to step away from issues and take a non-personal approach and rather to take a considered view it is probably a bit of a stretch to ask him to go that far. I would welcome a counterview from the member but obviously smaller parties that have relied on the threshold before and the life raft position within this bill are probably not going to want to support it.Jami-Lee Ross: Labour is doing what is in its best interest too.JACINDA ARDERN: Jami-Lee Ross says that Labour has some self-interest in this bill. I welcome him to stand up and go through all of that self-interest. Ultimately we just want good electoral reform to the point that Iain Lees-Galloway has written to every member of this House and has said that for all of the other issues that were in the MMP report by the Electoral Commission let us debate every single one of them at select committee. Let us put them on the table. Let us have a discussion. If you think that we are simply just cherry-picking if the members think that then be willing to send this bill to select committee to discuss every single recommendation and to bring it back to this House.If there is a view that there is not consensus in Parliament I can tell you that the one place where there is consensus on this issue is among the general public. In a survey in December 2013 71 percent of people wanted an end to coat-tailing. In a Stuff poll in 2014 81 percent of people wanted an end to coat-tailing. The people have formed consensus around this issue and yet unfortunately we still have a view among some MPs that this is not something that we should proceed with. We should. It would improve our electoral system. I hope that the bill is sent to select committee so that we can have a decent debate.JONO NAYLOR (National): Thank you for the opportunity to be able to rise and take a call on this bill. If there was ever a bill that was an answer looking for a problem it seems to me that this is it. Actually I am surprised that the member who has brought this forward given his Midas touch history with members’ bills actually has wasted the opportunity on such a bill. But there you go. I guess we have got to put anything forward that we think may get somewhere.There are three main parts of this legislation and I want to address each of them in turn. The first one is the reduction of the threshold from 5 percent down to 4 percent. I have got to say that neither in reading the background nor the introduction to the bill nor in any of the arguments that I have seen put forward today have I heard any plausible rationale for that. You could argue that 5 percent is in fact just a random number to some degree and that there is not necessarily particular meaning attached to 5 percent; but neither is there any meaning to 4 percent. So if we are going to change it from 5 percent to 4 percent then why are we not changing it to 3 percent? Or perhaps the Conservatives might like 3.6 percent after last time? It has equal meaning to say 3.6 percent 2 percent 4 percent 5 percent—to me there is nothing specific that really says that we need to pick just another random number.In fact when we look at the other countries around the world that use a proportional system there is a wide range of numbers that are used. Actually the most common number used is 5 percent but they vary anything from 10 percent in Turkey down to 0.67 percent in the Netherlands. From my perspective until I hear a specific rationale that says 4 percent is somehow more of a magic number than 5 percent and is one that is convincing to me—and yes I have seen some arguments; what I am saying is that I am not convinced by them—that is an important part of it.Arguably Germany has got a very system operating. A lot of people talk about the success of the German MMP system and it uses 5 percent. Yes its threshold is three seats to our one seat in terms of the seat threshold perspective but what you have got to remember of course is that Germany has 631 seats in its Parliament. So proportionately the three-seat threshold in Germany is far lower than the one-seat threshold in the system we use in New Zealand.When it comes to abolishing the one-seat threshold—coat-tailing as others have described it—initially I did have some sympathy for this. You know when you look at the 2008 example that has been used at face value to some people it does seem unfair and at face value it could seem unfair. However I think that unless you are going to do away with thresholds altogether in terms of percentages actually they are really important. If a person from a party by winning their seat finds themselves in Parliament it seems absolutely ludicrous to me that other people from their party if they have achieved some level of proportionality above the one seat allocation should not be there. There is no justice in excluding them if the party is in Parliament. So I think there is no reason that I can see to do away with that if it is about fairness because whichever way you cut the cake there is always going to be some argument against fairness. There is no perfect system; we have just got to get the best system we can.In fact I have heard it argued plenty of times over the years when we have had parties represented in Parliament that have not even actually managed to win any seats. It seems a little bit weird to me that sometimes we have parties represented—yes they might have got 5 percent or 6 percent of the vote—but none of the people in their party were able to win an electorate seat. Some people have said that perhaps we need to have at least one seat plus whatever percentage you get. There are all sorts of permutations that we could come up with but I do not think that discussing this bill any further is going to take us any further.Finally it says in this bill that we should review it every 3 years—to put that in legislation.Iain Lees-Galloway: No after 3 years.JONO NAYLOR: Every three elections—sorry my correction.Iain Lees-Galloway: After three elections. Not every three elections; after three elections.JONO NAYLOR: After three elections there should be a review. Well I am quite confident that any Parliament will take a review if and when it is required. At the moment I do not see the need for us to change anything and—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member’s time has expired.JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill. This bill aims to do a number of things that came up during the MMP review conducted by the Electoral Commission in 2012. The Green Party at the time really supported the review and noted that it was a Government review that was brought about because of its own coalition agreement. Although the Green Party has an electoral reform plan and a set of policies that are different in some part from the recommendations that the Electoral Commission came up with we said that we would support the changes that were recommended by the Electoral Commission because they were changes recommended by the Electoral Commission. It had done a great deal of work. It had taken submissions and I personally submitted on that. It took a great deal of time and thorough consideration to arrive at the conclusions that it did. The proposals that it made whether or not we actually disagreed with them were ones that were well-considered by the Electoral Commission and then were completely shelved by this Government because they were inconvenient to this Government’s short-term interests. That was unfortunate. It was unfortunate that we wasted the resources and the time of the Electoral Commission. It was unfortunate that we spent the money on that review and then did precisely nothing with it.So for those reasons we support Iain Lees-Galloway’s bill because it does advance at least some of the recommendations that were outlined in the Electoral Commission’s review. The three main recommendations were to remove the one electoral seat threshold to lower the party vote threshold to 4 percent and to review the party vote threshold after three general elections. I just want to respond to some of the points raised by the previous speaker Jono Naylor where he was kicking around a number of other options. I am sure the Electoral Commission did consider them as it was moving through its deliberations. Given that the Electoral Commission deliberated on those and then chose the recommendations that it did I do not think it is helpful now to kick around a whole bunch of other things that have already been considered.We do support this bill. The most important part here and the reason why we supported this one at the time is that public opinion and faith in the MMP system is degraded by the presence of the one-seat rule. We recognise that that is not convenient necessarily to all of the parties in this House but there is a greater need here I think which is the requirement for integrity in the system in the sense of public faith that the system is a good one and at least has the perception of fairness although I note as Mr Naylor said that that could be a relative thing. It is pretty apparent that a significant portion of New Zealand voters consider that the one-seat threshold is a rort. The media keep using the same thing when talking about for example Epsom and Ōhāriu. They refer to those two cases as kind of examples of how political parties undermine the overall system and use it to—Chris Bishop: A bit like Coromandel in 1999.JAMES SHAW: —I am just reporting what people say Chris—undermine and get around the electoral system. We know that this bill is not going to be supported by the Government for the same reason that the Electoral Commission’s report and recommendations were also not supported by the Government. But if they were then that would restore some level of faith or increased faith in MMP. It would be great if this issue did not have to come up via a member’s bill. It would have been better if the Justice and Electoral Committee took another look at those recommendations because any time you change the electoral system it is going to have winners and losers in terms of the MPs and parties that are in Parliament. One option would be to grandfather this bill out so that it takes effect in two or three elections’ time so that current MPs and parties—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry but the honourable member’s time has expired.Hon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Look it is probably my fault you know. I was the Minister of Justice who really could possibly have spent the next 2 years trying to get consensus amongst seven different parties in Parliament. If only I had done that we could today have Colin Craig as an MP. If only I had done that. I mean for goodness’ sake! Let us have a look at the results. We have talked a lot today about this. [Interruption] That would have been good—and by the way all the rest of them. The Conservatives had 3.97 percent out of the 2014 election. Do you really think that if we had gone to that election with a 4 percent threshold the party could not have got another 0.03 percent? It would have been a doozy and we would have had that.Who actually benefited out of this so-called coat-tail one-seat threshold in this particular election the last one? The only one actually is the Māori Party. We would have had one member. I do not know how the Greens would feel about that. Did they really not want Miss Marama Fox in here? Let us go back to the 2011 election result. I know that these are facts and they do not like that in the Labour Party. But let us have a look at it. What have we got? The Mana party were in here. It was not supporting the Government was it? It was 1.08 percent of the vote and apparently that is no good either.Let us just go back a little bit more to 2008. Oh we had Mr Jim Anderton’s Progressive party. I have heard Mr James Shaw who has never won an electorate seat and never will talking today about—[Interruption] No he has not. He was talking about Epsom and Ōhāriu. Apparently the people do not like it. Which people do not like it? Clearly the people in Epsom and Ōhāriu do not mind because guess what? The people in Wigram were asked by the Labour Party to vote for Mr Jim Anderton’s Progressive party and guess how much he got—0.91 percent. It was not even 1 percent. He was just a minnow compared to that fabulous Conservative Party.Let us go back to 2005—an election that Labour claimed. What did we have here? Who was coat-tailing then? Well the ACT Party. It coat-tailed. It got 1.51 percent. It got Epsom and it also got one more MP. But actually Mr Peter Dunne’s United Future New Zealand Party which at that stage supported the Labour Government got 2.67 percent and he got one seat. But in the end he got three seats after his electorate seat. I did not hear the Labour Party members all crying about that one. No actually they were very happy to take Mr Peter Dunne’s party and also Mr Jim Anderton’s Progressive party. That was an election where we had eight parties represented here in Government and four of those parties had fewer votes in terms of the percentage than the Conservative Party at the last election. So maybe we should drop the threshold a bit more down to 2 percent.Let us go back to 2002. Guess who was coat-tailing again. Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition party. Guess how many seats it won in the electorate seats—one. Guess how much of a percentage of the vote it won. Hmm—1.70 percent. And guess how many seats in Parliament it got.Tim Macindoe: Two.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Two. You are so right Mr Macindoe: two. [Interruption] Mr Seymour you got that and Mrs Tolley. My goodness gracious. And guess who was crying about that then. The Labour Party? Mr Iain Lees-Galloway? Any distraught people from the left? No.The fact is if you can win an electorate seat in Parliament that means there are enough people there 60000-odd voters who think there is a little bit of sanity in that party. It actually brings in a bit of sanity and it actually means that a party has to go back to the electorate and say “Well this is what we’ve been doing.” and it actually stops people being complete fruit loops when it comes to politics. But when you have got parties that have no respect for electorates no respect for the work that goes on representing people whether they vote for you or not—people like Mr Shaw who is a nice chap but really he showed his colours today. He says that he submitted to the Electoral Commission so therefore he represents the people. Let me tell you this: most people did not submit. There is a reason. The only people generally who submitted were absolutely into politics and had an agenda and unfortunately I just could not get consensus. But is it not a good thing I did not otherwise we would have Colin Craig here?RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am going to ask for your forbearance. It has come to my attention—and I need to start by saying this is the first opportunity that I have had to come and raise this point of order in the House. It is regarding a matter that I think you should take very seriously. It has been reported back through my office to me that in this debate at a time when the honourable Jacqui Dean was speaking a member on the Government benches made a very unparliamentary comment about you Mr Assistant Speaker. At this point in time Chris Bishop has not stood to withdraw and apologise—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! A point of order was raised at that time. I indicated to the person who made that comment that it was unacceptable. Although I did not take it further than that the point was made and I ruled at that time and that was the end of the matter. So there is no further discussion on it. I acted on it at the time. I am calling the next speaker.RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I hope you are not going to be—RON MARK: Just to be sure are we talking about the same incident? This was not clearly audible to you. You gave no sign. My reports from the people who had been listening and watching were that you did not act on this particular occurrence from Chris Bishop because you did not hear it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Well if a member in the House had heard something at the time they would have brought it to my attention. There was nothing brought to my attention at the time. You cannot at a later stage come in and say something happened. It has to be dealt with at the time. I did deal with an issue that came up. A point of order did come up from Chris Bishop and I dealt with that at the time just as I did with Jacqui Dean at the time. [Interruption] Order! I am trying to rule here. At any point if some indiscretion has happened it must be dealt with at the time not at a later stage. So as far as I am concerned that matter is over and we are now moving on with the debate.RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is a separate point of order.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I hope you are not going to relitigate what I have just ruled on.RON MARK: I am not going to relitigate that incident but I am going to make a request of you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): What is the point you are making?RON MARK: The question is if an incident such as the one just described occurs and a person is unable to get to the House for some time is that not considered to be the earliest possible moment? Could you please deliberate on that and give us a ruling because this means that if no one else heard it but one person and that person was on the motorway driving and it might take half an hour or an hour for that person to get to the House—if you are saying that because it was not raised at that very—[Interruption] Points of order should be heard in silence Anne Tolley—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! [Interruption] Order! The member will sit—[Interruption] Order! The member will sit. [Interruption] The member will sit. I have ruled on this matter and as the Clerk has just informed me if there are matters where someone feels aggrieved or an indiscretion has happened they have to be brought up at the time by someone who was present. You cannot come back at a later stage and then indicate that you feel aggrieved because one heard something by way of audio or by way of television. I have ruled on this matter and that is the end of the story. We are now moving on to the next speaker.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I have ruled on this matter Mr Peters and I hope that this is a new matter.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is a new matter.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Then I will hear the new matter—the Rt Hon Winston Peters.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: It is your very reputation we are seeking to defend Mr Assistant Speaker. Do you recall that there is a precedent that is opposite to the one that the Clerk has just given you? It was when my colleague made a sign in this House which was later picked up by a camera and then long after the event long after the time frame that we have got here it was raised in this House as being improper behaviour. Mr Assistant Speaker I have heard the Clerk’s ruling but there is a precedent outside of that ruling and my colleague unfortunately is the centre of that precedent. That is why I am asking you—is the Clerk sure of his facts here?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member. I will ask Chris Bishop when he made a comment that someone might have taken offence that is—Hon Anne Tolley: Point of order—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No I am just asking first whether Chris Bishop said something that I was unaware of and it was directed at me I understand. If he did—Chris Bishop: Mr Assistant Speaker I think—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No just answer my question. Did you or did you not make a comment that reflected on the Speaker?CHRIS BISHOP (National): I was reflecting back what Mr Lees-Galloway was saying to my colleague Jacqui Dean and pointing out that the reference to you—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): That is right. Well that is exactly—[Interruption] Order! Thank you. And that is—[Interruption] The member will sit thank you. That is exactly—[Interruption] Order! Order now! I heard the comments made by Mr Iain Lees-Galloway on two occasions. At the time I indicated to Mr Lees-Galloway that that was unacceptable. He acknowledged that. At the time of the two points of order first by Jacqui Dean about barracking I dealt with that matter. Chris Bishop then indicated his point of order which was in reference to what Mr Lees-Galloway had said and I ruled on that matter at the time—end of story. Now we are moving to the debate.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I just think it is important as we discuss this—and I am not trying to relitigate but in fact the matter that the Rt Hon Winston Peters raised was absolutely incorrect. And I would hate that to stand on record because in fact Ron Mark denied that he had made that unparliamentary comment and was caught out simply because someone was signing—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Look this has got nothing to do with this. The member will sit. We are not delving into it. I am going to call Denis O’Rourke as the next speaker. Denis O’Rourke.Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No I have dealt with this matter Mr Peters. [Interruption] I have dealt with it and I do not want to hear any more. Will the member—[Interruption] We are moving on.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I seek leave therefore to table not the comment that was offensive as the member just said but the photograph that was the offence. I seek leave to do that.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. I am calling the next speaker.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will support this bill only to the select committee at this stage. And I might say that the reason mainly for that is that that is what the public of New Zealand expects. It expects that we will have a robust debate and discussion about these very important issues and that they will not simply be brushed aside as the National Government wishes to do. The last speaker Mrs Collins only gave us a list of what this party did what that party did not do and what the results of various elections were and that is hardly the basis on which these sorts of serious issues should be decided. So it shows that this Government is taking a cavalier attitude to these matters and that is not what the public wants.The public wants a good and proper and robust discussion. The only way that can happen is at the select committee and through that process. In that process New Zealand First will support the abolition of the coat-tailing provision—the one-seat threshold as some call it—but we will not agree to the lowering of the threshold from 5 percent to 4 percent. So we agree with one part of the bill but not with the other. We wish to have the opportunity to discuss all of that through the select committee process.The big issue for electoral reform in New Zealand is that coat-tailing provision. That is what the public thinks and that is what New Zealand First thinks as well. For those who do not understand it who may be watching this debate: well you are not alone in not understanding it because it is a completely illogical provision. There is no reason for it. The 5 percent threshold is for parties that get list seats and that should not be compromised by a one-seat threshold either. There should just be the one threshold and that should be it. That is what the electoral committee says that is what the public expects and that is what this process should result in.Why are we in the position of even having to debate this? It is because parties both parties now and other parties in the past have both seen the opportunity to use that coat-tailing provision for their own political purposes—not because it is proper not because it is democratic and not because it is in the national interest. No independent or professional advice has ever supported the coat-tailing provision. To the contrary: every formal recommendation that has been made so far—and that includes the Electoral Commission itself—says that that provision should go because it is unfair because it is undemocratic and because in an MMP system it is actually illogical.The results have been many and various. In 2008 New Zealand First had more list votes than other parties that won an electoral seat and got more than one seat in Parliament and yet on that occasion New Zealand First got a little less than 5 percent and got no seats in Parliament. That is not fair that is not logical and that does not fit well with what is supposed to be a proportional system under MMP. The MMP system is grossly compromised by the coat-tailing provision and it is time that it went. Other parties have allowed obvious cynical and blatant gerrymanders of the system. An example of that is the ACT Party which was gifted a seat in this Parliament. Why was it gifted a seat in this Parliament? The reason is that the National Government wanted to see the coat-tailing provision in operation with the hope that not only would it get David Seymour into the House but it would get other seats as wellthat were not deserved and that exactly is a good reason why the gerrymander has to stop.The threshold of 5 percent is necessary because it is a good balance between on the one hand a fair and democratic system of representation for small parties but on the other hand nobody wanting to see a proliferation of very tiny parties with one or two seats in this Parliament. So that is what the threshold is there for and 5 percent is the right level and no other.CHRIS BISHOP (National): This bill the sponsor of it would have you believe is being advanced with noble intentions. It is seeking just to implement the recommendations of the Electoral Commission review. Labour is not trying to play party politics with this issue; it is all for the glory of the country and the benefit of our electoral system! It is not about the self-interest of the Labour Party or the Green Opposition; no no it is all about the beauty of the electoral system. That is what they would have you believe except the truth is the exact opposite.There are four reasons why this bill should be voted down tonight. The first is that it has been advanced in bad faith by its sponsor. As I said before Mr Lees-Galloway would have you believe that this is some sort of noble endeavour except that—and here is the rub; here is where his argument falls down—the Labour Party’s intention to lodge this bill and to get rid of the electorate seat threshold waiver was announced before the Electoral Commission review reported back. So before the recommendation was made to reduce the threshold down to 4 percent and get rid of the electorate seat waiver the Labour Party had put on the record that it was going to get rid of it.That absolutely puts a lie to the claim that this is some noble sacrifice or noble act by Iain Lees-Galloway and the Labour Party members. They had announced it before the recommendations of the Electoral Commission. Why? Because this bill is all about politics. It is all about the fact that the Labour Party and the Green Party do not like the outcome of the 2008 2011 and 2014 general elections. They do not like them because they lost. They do not like the fact that the good people of Epsom elected my colleague David Seymour and they do not like the fact that my colleague Peter Dunne was elected by the good people of Ōhāriu so they are seeking to relitigate that through the petty political point-scoring of a member’s bill that they know has no chance of success and it is also hypocritical.The second reason is that it is hypocritical for Labour to advance this bill. Why? Because Labour itself has relied on coat-tail MPs in the past. When? Well in 2002 when it relied on the vote of Jim Anderton who took his good mate Matt Robson into Parliament with him after the election and who propped up the Labour Government of the time. So it was OK for the Labour Party back in 2002 to use Jim Anderton’s seat of Wigram and it carefully encouraged people who were actually Labour Party supporters to vote for Jim Anderton’s Progressive Coalition the vainglorious party named after him. It was OK for the Labour Party back then but the moment Jim shuffles off his political mortal coil the moment he is gone no no it is not good enough for any other party to use that provision. That is absolutely hypocritical and absolutely grotesque.The third reason why this bill should not advance is the reason that my colleague Judith Collins pointed to and that also Jacqui Dean pointed to which is that there is not any consensus on this issue. It is very important. Reform of our electoral law should be based on consensus—broad-based consensus. We know that the Labour Party has form or lack of form in this area I should say after its disgraceful attempt—not even its attempt but its successful measures—to ram through Parliament before the 2008 general election the disgraceful Electoral Finance Bill which cracked down on free speech and really struck a hammer blow to the heart of our democracy all because Labour did not like what some groups did in the 2005 general election. So notwithstanding the concerns of the Human Rights Commission the New Zealand Law Society most of Parliament and all the submitters to the select committee on that the Labour Government rammed it through. So we know that it has form when it comes to consensus on electoral law issues.The point is that when you do change electoral law it should be something that is almost above party politics. You are never going to completely get rid of party politics out of a situation where you get politicians talking about the electoral system but it should be something that is a little bit independent is looked at impartially is looked at a little bit neutrally and where things are done in good faith. That is certainly not what has been done by the Labour Party in the debate today.The fourth reason to close my speech is that there is a very good reason for the so-called coat-tail provisions. The very good reason in our electoral law for those provisions is that they actually increase the proportionality of Parliament. It was absurd to hear Denis O’Rourke railing against them saying that New Zealand First is going to vote for this bill. After the 1999 election New Zealand First did win an electorate seat when Winston Peters won Tauranga. It got 4.3 percent of the vote and it brought in four list MPs. So the New Zealand First Party has been a beneficiary of the provisions. If this bill had been in place if this was the law only one New Zealand First MP would have been elected. The coat-tail provisions increase proportionality. They make Parliament fairer. They make it more proportionate to the actual will of the voters. That is why this is a silly bill advanced in bad faith.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): I seek leave to table a document titled Representation vs Stability: The Five Per Cent Threshold in MMP written by one Christopher Bishop which advocates for removing the party vote threshold altogether.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no. I am sure anyone who wants to know Mr Bishop’s views will probably be able to find that. [Interruption] No; the matter is finished. I have dealt with it. I am calling David Clendon.DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take a brief call—and it will be brief—on this very good bill and to congratulate the member on bringing it to the House. The Greens like this bill. It is very much in line with our own party submission to the MMP review where we argued for the elimination of the one-electorate seat threshold on the basis that it was creating disproportionate outcomes. We argued for a reduction in the percentage threshold and we highlighted the fact that the original Royal Commission on the Electoral System pointed to 4 percent as being an appropriate level for that.We have heard much from the Government side this afternoon about the self-interest of Labour and by association the Greens in bringing in this bill. I think it would be helpful for those members to actually read what the Electoral Commission had to say in 2012. I would think it would be a very brave or foolish person who would accuse the Electoral Commission of self-interest or political interest. It said that the party vote threshold is the mechanism for achieving the competing objectives of proportionality on one hand and stable and effective Governments on the other. One argument is to have everything wide open with no threshold at all which means you would have lots of one-member parties in this House and that would not be a stable environment. The commission went on to say: “At 5%”—the percentage that is—“it is higher than it needs to be to strike the right balance. It could be lowered to 4% without any risk to effectiveness or stability and this is what we recommend be done.” It goes on to say that “The one-electorate-seat threshold should go” because although it concedes “it does increase the proportionality of Parliament it does so in an arbitrary and inconsistent way … Its effect has been to undermine the principles of fairness and equity …”. I would be interested to hear an argument that that is a politically loaded position or a self-interested position from the Electoral Commission.Having said all that I have heard an argument—and I am slightly influenced by it—that we should not worry too much about the coat-tail rule because the evidence is and it was reinforced by the member for Papakura that parties that rely on the coat-tailing provision actually do not survive very long. They do not thrive. They may maintain a residual presence as we see with all due respect in the member to my left the ACT Party member—the entire ACT Party caucus—present in the House today. The reality is that I think the ACT Party’s support peaked with a magnificent 3.6 percent in 2008. Under the coat-tailing provision that brought in four list MPs behind the then leader Mr Hide. I have to say that those MPs in their own unique way—I am looking for a word other than “value”—added a layer of interest to this House.I think one of the most remarkable speeches I have ever heard in this House was in the context of another electoral bill as it happens the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act which to this day should be looked back on with shame by the National Party which supported it. One Hilary Calvert the then ACT MP made the most extraordinary 47-second speech that I think this Parliament has ever heard. So although there is a level of interest added to the House by the presence of these smaller parties which are relying on coat-tailing ultimately I think we have to concede that they do not thrive in the long term.However the reality is that we need to get the best possible outcomes—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted and I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I have been waiting for this bill for some time. Unwrapping the Order Paper has been much like a game of pass the parcel hoping each time that Mr Lees-Galloway’s bill would finally be up for debate. Tonight it is. The reason why I have relished debating this bill is that often in politics and public policy there is actually legitimate cause for debate and valid points on both sides but in this case the Opposition is so wrong on every count that it is a delightful case to prosecute.Richard Prosser: Spot the vested interest.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well we will address that. Let me start with a little bit of history. We have an electoral system that has two tests for whether or not a member or members can enter Parliament. One is that they must win an electorate—win the majority of voters within a geographical area. The other is that their party must win 5 percent of all the votes. The objective of this policy—that is to balance proportionality with stability of Government—is something that this bill is seeking to change. They decided back in Germany post-World War II when this particular system of electing representatives was designed to have two tests: one was to win some geographical areas and the other was to win 5 percent of all votes. Why? Because they were concerned as it happened that ethnic Danes who were concentrated in certain geographical areas but who had brethren represented around the rest of the country might be fully represented by passing not just the one test but actually both. So what that achieved was that the proportionality of Parliament could be enhanced while also having a clear test for stability and that nobody would be elected unless they could persuade the majority of a particular geographical area to vote for them.Fast forward to 1986 when our own royal commission on the electoral legislation actually contemplated that Māori and Pacific Island peoples who might be concentrated in a particular geographical area—Carmel Sepuloni is really thinking right now—would be able to elect members and also enhance the proportionality of Parliament through representation being proportional to their brethren if you like in the remainder of the country. Interestingly as it comes to pass in this House today the sole beneficiary of the coat-tailing rule that this bill is seeking to remove is actually one Marama Fox. I do not know what the Labour Party could possibly have against Marama Fox because she is a fabulous member of this House. But let us be clear: the only net effect on the current House of changing this Act would be to remove Marama Fox from it. Why does the Labour Party hate Marama Fox? That is the question that I would like to be answered tonight. It is certainly not clear.We heard earlier in this debate a superb contribution from one Judith Collins and she recited the history that in 1996 it was indeed the Labour and Green parties who strategically elected Jeanette Fitzsimons to Coromandel in order to take advantage of the coat-tailing rule. My earnest friend here the Rt Hon Winston Peters had his political skin saved in 1999 by the people of Tauranga and New Zealand First via the coat-tailing rule. But let us be honest about the real motivation for this bill on the part of its proponents and that is that if you take the entire history of MMP for a period the coat-tailing rule benefited the left and then it benefited the right. There is no more to it than that. There is no more sincere motivation on the part of the proponents of this bill other than the fact that it has politically disadvantaged them recently. The Rt Hon Winston Peters knows that he has been kept away from the cross benches at least twice in the last three elections by this Act. For that reason he is very angry about it too and I understand—I understand. Time is running out. None the less I will be opposing this bill because there is no sound principle—only self-interest on the part of the proponents of this bill. Thank you.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): Well this has been a fascinating debate in which there has been an astonishing amount of clutching at straws by the Government members desperate to find any reason to vote against this legislation the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill. We started with the astonishing nearly 10-minute attack on me by Jacqui Dean because apparently I had got the date of commencement wrong in this legislation. The minor detail that Jacqui Dean overlooked was the fact that this bill was drawn from the ballot in November 2013. That was well in advance of the last election and the Standing Orders say I cannot amend the bill after it has been drawn from the ballot but that is not a big deal to Jacqui Dean. I wondered how a member could come up with such an illogical argument and then I remembered that Jacqui Dean was the one who was taken in by the dihydrogen monoxide hoax. So Jacqui Dean has not learnt a thing from embarrassing herself in public in the past and demonstrating her ignorance. Once again she has been able to demonstrate her ignorance this evening.I want to address some of the comments made by Chris Bishop and also by David Seymour. Chris Bishop and David Seymour both raised examples in the past of when other parties have indeed been able to bring people in by virtue of the one-seat threshold rule. They noted Jim Anderton and suggested that the Labour Party did a deal with Jim Anderton to help him win Wigram. Well I have to say that a small thermonuclear weapon would not have got Jim Anderton out of Wigram—likewise with the example of Jeanette Fitzsimons. Here is the key difference between what has happened in the past and what has happened with the ACT Party: yes Labour has sometimes in the past said: “Look you have got a choice between the Greens and the National Party. We are out of this race so you have got a choice. Either vote for the Greens or vote for the National Party. We’re not particularly fond of the National Party. We suggest you get in behind the Greens.” The key difference is that National should win Epsom every time and the only reason David Seymour is here is because of the largesse of the National Party. That is the only reason why ACT is here. That is the key difference between what has happened in the past and what has happened now.But actually all of that is irrelevant. It is irrelevant whether lowering the threshold would allow one party or another party into Parliament. It is irrelevant whether people have made use of the rules as they stood in the past. What is relevant—the only thing that is relevant here—is that there was a review and the review an independent review not governed by any special interest of anybody in this House came up with these recommendations in response to an overwhelming demand from the people of New Zealand for this Parliament to stop putting self-interest ahead of the way they want to have a fair system of electing our representatives. Yes we are talking about a balance between proportionality and I suppose governability in the House. That is why the recommendation was made to get rid of the one-seat threshold and lower the party vote threshold to get the balance between proportionality and governability right.But again I want to address what David Seymour said. He said that this comes from the German model. The German model was worried about ethnic representation. I wonder how many ethnic Epsomians need to have their representation guaranteed in Parliament by having the ACT Party represent them. We do have a desperate shortage of straight white men in this House! Thank goodness that through the one-seat threshold that ethnic representation of Epsom has been able to be represented by David Seymour and Rodney Hide in the past! Actually that is the truth of that particular argument.What we have heard from Government members is a line-up of spurious arguments idiotic attacks on the Opposition and clutching at straws simply to divert attention from the fact that they are voting against this legislation tonight because they have an interest in maintaining the one-seat threshold and maintaining the coat-tailing so that they can get an unfair advantage in Parliament. That is the only reason why and they are not listening to New Zealanders. They are completely out of touch with what New Zealanders want. They have put their own self-interest against thousands of submissions an independent review and promises that were made by the National Party that they would make the changes that this bill seeks to implement. They are full of broken promises they are full of silly arguments and they will rue the day they voted against this legislation.A party vote was called for on the question that the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I just want to remind members of what happened to the last member who was caught interjecting during a vote and I am sure the member who interjected then would like to stay for her leader’s speech.A party vote was called for on the question That the Electoral (Adjustment of Thresholds) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Noes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Motion not agreed to.SuperGold Health Check BillFirst ReadingRt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I move That the SuperGold Health Check Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill. This as you will realise is a seriously non-controversial measure that should have the support of every sane and reasonable person in this House. We are proposing the SuperGold Health Check Bill as a common-sense cost-saving policy and preventative measure. Giving three free GP visits with the SuperGold card every year makes more than economic sense. It will save lives and precious health dollars. Globally according to Deloitte life expectancy is expected to increase from an estimated 72.6 years in 2012 to 73.7 years by 2017 bringing the number of people over the age of 65 to around 560 million worldwide. That is more than the 10 percent of the total global population and in Western Europe the proportion in 2017 will hit 20 percent. In Japan it will be 27 percent and what it will be here according to Statistics New Zealand is 16 percent but of course that is seriously dependent upon the wisdom or lack of it in terms of immigration policy.Bearing in mind that Deloitte also warned that pressure to reduce healthcare costs remains and is escalating due to Government debt and constraints on tax revenue and ageing populations a policy that makes medical social and financial benefit makes common sense. Today the price for a hospital bed per day in New Zealand is about $1243. That is a lot of money when the average price for a stay in hospital and the cost to the taxpayer is in the vicinity of $10000. This policy will cost about $69 million per annum based on the number of SuperGold card holders we have now. But it will be cost-neutral only if 1 or 2 percent of the SuperGold card holders use the three free visits and are kept out of hospital. Simply put keeping SuperGold card holders out of hospital will help to contain health spending.Grey Power has welcomed the policy applauding it in terms of the cost and suggesting it will be an incentive to get people to the doctor. Grey Power says there are many cases of elderly people putting off going to the doctor or declining to pick up prescriptions because of the cost. Just recently in the Sunday Star-Times it was reported that a huge premium rise is driving older people to drop private health cover just when they need it the most and pushing the burden on to the taxpayer. This is because the excesses are now between $2000 and $4000 per annum and if you bear in mind what these people get annually plus rates and every other cost this is not what they can afford. Bearing this in mind we want people out of hospital. The economics of preventive medicine simply put makes sense. That is what this bill is about.Even the Conservative Cameron Government in the United Kingdom has a National Health Service health check for people turning 65. The National Health Service points out that as we get older we are more likely to develop conditions that are rare in younger people—and this is under a Conservative Party Government in Britain. If it understands the need then why would we not? Economic modelling has estimated a saving for the National Health Services in the UK around £57 million over 4 years rising to £176 million over a 15-year period. I wish to table this at the end of this speech. But the lesson from the UK is that everyone benefits and there is a real benefit for the health budget.The great thing about this of course is that it will kick in in the 2016 Budget not now. For the individual New Zealander who takes up the three free GP visits the benefits will be huge in all respects: social emotional physical and mental well-being. A fair society is not a mean society. It must not be so mean that we ignore measures that will prevent seniors from sitting at home too worried about cost of a GP visit. We want to avoid the consequences that would arise. As we get older we become more susceptible to age-related issues. God knows over there I can see many examples already. A winter cough can easily lead to pneumonia—Hon Member: Don’t say that about Ron Mark.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: Well Ron is one of the fittest guys in this House. Hospital beds start to fill in winter as the elderly get hit by winter ills so any sort of preventative care makes economic sense. For families and friends the checks will reduce the pressure for them to act as drivers helpers and carers when older relations and acquaintances have secondary health problems. The dissenting commentary against the SuperGold Health Check Bill is from groups who want—and this is sinister—more public health dollars targeted towards the older and the poorer. Groups advocating means testing for three free GP visits go against the gain of hugely successful SuperGold card in this country. Bear in mind that we are talking about people who have paid some of the highest taxes—66c in the dollar—of any age group in this country’s entire history. The SuperGold card was introduced by New Zealand First in 2007 so that all New Zealanders turning 65 are recognised for a lifetime of contributing to society. Making it universal is simpler than hiring an expensive army of bureaucrats to regulate it—and do not forget; it was all about putting old bottoms on empty seats and removing the increased carbon footprint. Where better to place three free GP visits for over 65s than in the SuperGold card?We recall advocating free medicine or free doctors checks for children under 6 years of age. It was opposed back then but now is so supported by some enlightened members of the National Party that they want to deliver it next year to all primary school children. We have always said that there is much to be proud of when others adopt your ideas. Another sound reason for the Government to support this bill is economics. Finance Minister Bill English is constantly telling us he has to nip and tuck and cut everywhere to save dollars. So right here amidst his health-funding headache is an instant remedy. The Government support should be coming from Peter Dunne because back in 2008 he promised a free annual warrant of fitness check for seniors. New Zealand First is hopeful that National and United Future and the Māori Party for very very good reasons because of affordability will support this legislation. I know that some members here may have been told by caucus what they should do but frankly if they let the bill go to a select committee we would know what the rest of the country thought. As I know the Māori Party has always spoken out about looking after seniors. A simple scheme to keep them out of hospital must seem appealing. The Māori Party is dedicated it says to improving the lives of whānau and these checks will certainly do that.A general practitioner visit is so much easier to organise for the families in this country than the comings and goings required when a relative is in hospital. It is not just the $10000 per hospital visit; it is all the cost of relations in some cases because hospitals are so far away from many of our provincial populations which is in itself an enormous cost. We believe that the Labour Party and the Greens have got the picture and clearly will support this legislation and we are grateful for that. We believe that seniors who have worked and paid taxes for decades and have contributed to building the country to whom we owe respect and dignity should be honoured in this respect and it will not cost us anything. It will save us money. One sure way to make this happen is to provide the health care they need. Looking after our seniors is a lesson we can take from many countries especially those in Asia who elevate their senior citizens to a high status so that everyone is respected and is understanding of their needs.We commend this bill to the House. It makes economic social and medical sense and it is a way of putting a preventative health measure in place and to do it now. Thank you very much. I seek leave to table the NHS Health Check implementation review and action plan July 2013 from Public Health England.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think I had better ask the member the question that the Speaker asks as to whether this is a document that has been downloaded from the internet.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I have to confess it was given to me by my staff and I have got no idea how they acquired it but I do think given how far it is away it is very relevant.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): On that basis I will put the question. Is there any objection to that document being tabled? There is no objection. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The question is—Simon O’Connor: Mr Speaker—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Simon O’Connor. I thought we were going to have a very short debate.SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): It could have been. You never know. It was a great phrase: “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes”—I am not quite sure what the declension is in terms of the New Zealand First Party—beware Greeks bearing gifts. We have just heard from the other side that this is a no-brainer it will save money and it is easy. Well the National Party’s position is quite clear as is my own. We will not be supporting this bill and there are a number of good reasons not to do so. But as we start the debate around this bill there is always that usual suggestion of “Look let’s just take it through the first reading and let’s just put it to the select committee and have a discussion.”I am certainly one of the people who do not necessarily believe in just sending things to select committees for the sake of it. I think we can exercise some judgment prudently and early on in order to engage with this particular first reading of the SuperGold Health Check Bill. Any attempt to try to improve the health of Kiwis is worth engaging in is worth discussing but just because—[Interruption] They are yelling that we have to send it to a select committee. They forget that we have discussions before we come to anything like this and that we actually have a debate at the first reading to decide whether a bill is worthy of going forward. As I said at the start there is not really much need for this to go forward.The primary reason we do not support this bill—and those who understand health will understand this—is that ultimately this issue is about targeting and putting money and support into the most necessary places. Those of us engaged in health care—be it as the chair of the Health Committee or in my work previously—know that there is not unlimited cash for every desire and that we have to have priorities. We have also got to have some prudence around some of the arguments.One argument that the right honourable gentleman put forward is that people are getting older and therefore as ages increase we have to make sure that people do not go to GPs and to hospital. It does not really make a lot of sense because actually as people are ageing it does not really matter when they engage with the GP they will still ultimately for a lot of people end up in hospital or in residential care and the like. So it is not ultimately a saving further down the track. What we see as the main provisions of this bill—[Interruption] I have to say one thing I notice—the Opposition members are in excellent voice and will not need to go and see an ear nose and throat doctor. I am sure that through your vocal cord exercises here you are doing very very well.This particular bill the SuperGold Health Check Bill argues for three free GP visits. What we know already is that generally speaking those over 65 are not struggling to go to the GP certainly not in the same way that our younger people are. What we know already is that 95 percent of those over 65 are able to get to a GP at least once a year. [Interruption] Of course Opposition members are not terribly happy to hear that statistic so we should repeat it again. We would not want them to be hard of hearing. Of course if the Opposition members are hard of hearing I am pleased to tell them that the SuperGold card enhanced by the National Government enables them to go to the likes of an audiologist. If they also need some ophthalmological help I think that they can with the enhanced SuperGold card from the National Government get some ophthalmological help as well. I am not sure they do brain transplants—that is probably a bit too involved.The statistics are very clear that 95 percent of those over 65 years of age are able to access and are accessing a GP. In fact 80 percent—80 percent—of those over 65 years of age access a GP three times a year. So really you have got to ask what the problem is here. I know that in my own electorate this is not an issue. My electorate is relatively diverse. You go from the heights of Ōrākei down to the likes of Glen Innes. Not being a constituent MP the honourable member would not understand this—sorry; he has just become one. That is right! He has just become one so I am sure the member is going to tell me that he has all these people knocking his door down. Well actually I know from my own electorate that this is not an issue. Be it from Glen Innes or from Ōrākei they not demanding this. In fact what they are asking for is more focus on young people. Of course they might talk about Northland seeing that my family is from up that way—but in Northland they do not talk about this. In fact they are asking where the local MP is. Look the Government already has a wide range of support—Hon Member: They’re still looking for him.SIMON O’CONNOR: Still looking for him—that is right. What they are looking for is obviously support for the elderly and I think it is important to tell the House that there is already something called the Very Low Cost Access Scheme. That is around co-payments that people make and I know colleagues of mine will speak to that. We already have the high use health card and the community services card. Again those who are most in need regardless of age have access to this. Then there is the pharmacy subsidy card which is quite well used in my electorate which means that if you have over 20 prescription items in a year—that is about $100—your prescriptions become free after that.So the two primary messages I am trying to put across here are that first and foremost our elderly those over 65 are already accessing primary care and for those who are struggling there is a multiple array of support services already in place. I think it is also very helpful to note that the Government continues to be committed to the area of health. During the Budget speeches you would have heard about the extra elective surgeries that we are having a 47 percent increase there. We have recently announced a $47 million increase for dementia care. I know this is only a small part of health care for the aged but we understand the importance of that.We are also working on other technologies to make say getting your pharmaceutical scripts easier through the e-Prescription System. It is something really simple. When our aged or anyone goes to their GP the prescription goes straight to the pharmacist. Patients do not have to take a piece of paper. It is automatically being checked. It is better for the pharmacist better for the doctor and most important better for the patient. So ultimately this bill does not need to be implemented. The services are already being provided to the over-65s.I would suggest that this bill is a classic case of bribing people with their own money. I notice that the honourable member the Rt Hon Winston Peters talked about the high taxes in times past. If I recall correctly that member was in those Governments that had those very high taxes. In fact I think that the member may have been in a Government with my predecessor Muldoon when the Government was having the high taxes and so forth. The services are already there for those retiring. They are receiving good support be it though superannuation through governmental supports already for health care and importantly through the SuperGold card.One of the things that the right honourable member will be absolutely thrilled about is that often when I go into the retirement villages and residential care services in my electorate people will mention the SuperGold card and they are very very pleased that the Rt Hon Winston Peters introduced it which is great—it is always a positive way to start the conversation. What is excellent is that by the time I finish chatting with them they are thanking the National Government for turning the SuperGold card into something absolutely fantastic. So I think it is important to acknowledge the honourable member for starting the journey—the first step on the ladder. National proudly has taken it a lot lot further and we pay substantial moneys now—and rightly so—into the SuperGold card which is helping across a wide array of areas.So fundamentally this desire to extend it for this particular reason is really just political posturing if you will. As we said at the start this is not something that is well needed. The member himself costed this at about $69 million. I was going to say it was something between $64 million and $100 million a year. Is that really the costings that we need? Again I do not think we do. We have to be prudent with the health spend. It is the largest ever—just shy of $16 billion now under this Government—but every dollar counts. In fact we heard that very clearly today from the Minister when we were discussing the estimates—we need to be prudent with every dollar. So targeting up to $100 million towards those over 65 to go to their GPs when they are already going to their GPs or are in residential care or villages and are accessing primary health care is not a prudent spend particularly when you contrast it with what every medical professional—GP or specialist—will tell you which is that we need to target our young people.The Health Committee before me did a fantastic piece of work on the period of time from pre-conception to 3 years old—that is where the most efficacious use of our health care spending is and where we need to focus. It is one of the reasons why we as a Government were happy to have free health care for under-sixes and why most recently we are moving towards having free health care for those under 13. That is where the efficacious spend is and not in better health outcomes because importantly they are the ones not engaging with primary health care in the way that they should.So I want to conclude by reiterating the National Party’s desire not to vote for this bill. We acknowledge the great intention of the member in bringing this here—for political reasons or otherwise. Sometimes a SuperGold card can help you get cheaper tyres hearing checks and so forth but a SuperGold card cannot prevent someone from coming up with ideas that are a bit shoddy.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Well that is 10 minutes of our lives that we will never get back. What a tragic waste of space—absolute waste of space—from the patronising heights of Orākei telling us that older people do not need better support to go to a doctor. Thank you very much for that contribution Mr Simon O’Connor. I am so pleased it is on the public record and I will enjoy knocking on the doors of SuperGold card holders in your electorate and making sure that they have heard your contribution to this debate. I want to commend the Rt Hon Winston Peters for bringing this bill back to the House. I think it is a very good bill and I am delighted to be supporting it.The member Simon O’Connor who tragically is the chair of the Health Committee still I think said that National would do anything to improve the health of New Zealanders—any proposal would have good discussion. Three minutes into his speech the first speaker from National said that he was going to vote against this bill. One of those statements is not true and perhaps neither of them is true but you cannot give a good idea any consideration unless it goes from this House to a select committee and that is where it should have gone. The member also made I think it was a sort of Ian McKelvie - type of contribution. Remember Ian McKelvie a couple of weeks ago said that he was wondering whether there was any difference between people-trafficking and sheep rustling? Ian McKelvie said that in the House. Mr O’Connor said: “It doesn’t really matter when old people go to the doctor. You know if it’s early on in their illness or later on they will end up in hospital anyway.” It was an extraordinary comment. It is on the public record. It is in Hansard. It will be another one that I think will need to be distributed.Why do we not get some facts on the table to consider in this bill? It costs about $30 to $35 for a person who is over 65 to go to the doctor—that is the average across New Zealand. Over half of over-65-year-olds in New Zealand are totally dependent on New Zealand superannuation and if you go up to the next 20 percent 80 percent of their income is from superannuation. We can be very proud of our level of superannuation compared with many countries but it does not leave a lot left over. It does not leave a lot left in your pocket every week and if you have had something big break down—whether it is a fridge a washing machine or a car or the roof is leaking and you need some big expenditure—that would chew away at your savings pretty fast. If you have been on a low fixed income for your entire life and then you go on to superannuation then going to the doctor might just be that expense you cannot afford. We know that if frail people are sick and do not get treatment they end up in hospital and who wins from that? Who wins from a person with a preventable illness not being treated and ending up in hospital? I cannot see any winners out of that.Simon O’Connor clearly can see a winner out of having someone who is 75 who has contributed all their life to the good of our community in one way or another who cannot afford to go to the doctor ending up in hospital. He said: “That doesn’t matter. They would have ended up in hospital at some stage anyway.” Three doctors visits a year for an over-65-year-old is about the equivalent of a quarter of one hair straightener at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. For every pensioner who has three doctors visits a year it is about a quarter of a hair straightener. I think that for every person who gets early treatment and who ends up not getting worse not being sick not being hospitalised or just not being really unwell actually—that is bad for them even if it does not cost us money—it is a good investment.I would not often say this to the Rt Hon Winston Peters with regard to his view on people for superannuation but I think he could have gone further in this bill. I would like to see him go further. Access to primary health care should be something that this House should strive for so that people who get unwell get access to a doctor or a nurse as early as possible. If it is money that is the barrier then we should ask what the priority is for spending of this Government and this Parliament. I think older people should be quite high on the list. They do not have an opportunity to make additional money often. They are dependent on what is compared with all of us in this House a low fixed income. This bill would have given them better quality of life and reduced our health expenditure. With just 1 percent of uptake of these people not going into hospital it would have been financially neutral. I urge the Government members to think again support old people and support this bill’s referral to the select committee.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): The intention of this member’s bill that we are speaking on tonight would be to provide three free doctors visits for people over 65 which in itself is commendable but it is very unnecessary and very expensive. Over the next 10 years one of the challenges facing the public health service will be the increase in the population of people aged over 80 years.The member Ruth Dyson stood up earlier and said that the esteemed chair of the Health Committee had said that these people do not need to be supported. What the chair of our select committee actually said was that these people are being supported anyway because under this Government those over 65 who struggle to pay to go to the doctor are already supported and as he also said that is the group that is less likely to be deterred from going to the doctor. We need to be more supportive of our younger people.Let me tell you that given that 80 percent of the people who are over 65 now are actually going to the doctor at least three times a year it is unlikely to significantly increase the number of GP visitations or to decrease the number of hospitalisations. So when we think in the context that over the next 10 years we will be worried about the costs associated with the number of people over 80 years old imagine how much that measure is going to increase the cost to the system. I think that despite the fact that you can retire at 65 some people who are well over 65 are actually quite fit and healthy.On Monday I did a volunteers day out in the electorate with a number of different groups. For part of that day I did Meals on Wheels. The couple who so kindly offered to take me out and around to do Meals on Wheels were celebrating on that very same day their 58th wedding anniversary and here they were actually out delivering Meals on Wheels and they were going to a Lions meeting that night. I cannot thank enough the elderly people in our community who get out and volunteer and care for each other. That actually in itself gives them company and keeps them fit and healthy. I also had another man in my electorate who is 80. He says to me that he used to drive the elderly people to their medical appointments. Now he is actually driving his peers and it is an honour for him to be able to get out and do that.For those who struggle to visit a GP there is a wide range of support available and that includes high-user health and community services cards and it includes a pharmacy subsidy card. This policy as our select committee chair said is likely to cost between $64 million and $100 million. But that actually does not include administration costs it does not include after-hours GP visits and it does not include prescriptions. Even the New Zealand Medical Association chair Dr Mark Peterson said the policy is unnecessary and difficult to justify and he went on to say: “we need to target increased funding to those who really need it those people who can’t afford to go to the doctor otherwise.” As we said before 80 percent of those people are going to the doctor anyway.In terms of health care I think this Government is doing pretty well and I think we are supporting those people. We have also put an extra $76.1 million in the next 4 years to go into palliative and hospice care. We have increased spending on aged residential care and it is really commendable I think the work that has been done in this area. Also the number of hours of home support that are going in now has been lifted from 9.3 million up to 10.9 million in 2014-15. So that is prevention that is an example of communities looking after themselves and it is actually about people taking care of each other with support from our Government and helping each other lead a long healthy sustainable life. Thank you.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): The Green Party will be supporting this bill at its first reading. We believe that the kind of conversation that is just beginning perhaps in the House tonight would be advanced best by select committee discussion where we can actually listen to some evidence as well as argument.Health care should be a fundamental right for all New Zealanders. There should be no access barriers certainly not financial ones. Services should be universally available. Services should be preventive in focus. Services should be integrated. They are pretty good goals are they not? Those goals are not necessarily the Green Party’s goals; we did not invent them. They are actually the goals of the New Zealand public health system as set out by the Savage Government in the 1930s. The Savage Government set out in its establishment of the New Zealand public health system to actually make primary care—doctors’ visits as we would say now—free for all people who needed them.But it was blocked in doing so by the New Zealand chapter of the British Medical Association in fact. What we have seen over the years is a steady increase in what is called the co-payments—the amount of money that a patient has to pay when they go to see that doctor. With the capitation formula that we now have the district health boards are in a position to impose a cap on that but the cap tends to be still set at a pretty high level. Even those practices that are called very low-cost access practices which are located in parts of the country that have a very large proportion of their population on very low incomes still have a co-payment for patients of $15 a visit. The evidence is that even $15 per visit which is about the cheapest that you will find if you are over the age of 6 currently—even at that level that is prohibitive for many people seeking health care.That is a problem. It is a problem because our New Zealand Health Strategy and the health strategies that I am sure every party in this House would actually support are ones that attempt to prevent people from becoming ill in the first place and if they do become ill that seek to treat them in community settings close to where they live. So if you have that as your strategic intent but then the State places a financial barrier to accessing those primary care services it is a case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. It is a problem that we seem to have all too often in the health sector.Most of the people who are lying in the beds in our medical and surgical wards in hospitals are older people. If it is possible to actually stop them getting there by treating their problems in the community that would be a very good thing with health benefits and cost savings thereby distributing funds to other causes. Having said that it is certainly true that in the New Zealand Health Survey people over the age of 65 were numerically and proportionately the group that was least likely to miss out on primary care because of costs. However because of the number of older people and their frequency of requirement of primary care that is still a very substantial number.So our preference of course would be to return to a system in which primary care was completely free but failing the funds for that—and I rather suspect that the Government’s priority on new motorways for example means that probably we cannot possibly afford that—we actually need to prioritise how we best spend the money that is available to us. Making primary care more available to New Zealanders is a very sensible and wise use of health care dollars. It is an open question as to whether the universal age group - based subsidisation is the best way to do that as this bill provides or whether it is more targeted assistance based on socio-economic status. But that is the discussion that we need to have at the select committee and therefore we strongly support the bill at this stage and look forward to the Government perhaps changing its mind taking a more rational approach to this bill and one that is more conducive to discussion and debate.Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to speak on this bill. We support the intention of improved access to health care for older people but this bill is not the right tool to do that. It suffers from a lack of understanding of how medical services are provided. It is broad and unfocused and because of that it is also fiscally unsustainable and I will give examples of all of this. Firstly let us imagine the deployment of this bill with free doctors visits and three free health checks. What is a doctor’s visit? Well you know that is kind of a hard problem. In fact academics and others have pondered over that for many years. What is a doctor’s visit? Is a blood pressure check a doctor’s visit? Is a repeat prescription a doctor’s visit? When does a doctor’s visit start? Is it when you enter the building? Is it when you check in with reception? Is it when clinical notes are first entered in the computer? You see all this matters because as we know through years of medical audit we need to be able to reliably map service to funding—the details matter.But here in four pages despite others spending many years trying to figure it out it seems like we have an answer. The answer is in the interpretation clause clause 4: a doctor’s visit means to a doctor who is a general practitioner. What a disservice to the largest medical workforce in New Zealand our nursing workforce. Under this bill this lazy definition nurses are incapable of undertaking a health check and I would hotly contest that—lazy drafting. And what of nurse practitioners who run clinics in remote regions—Te Hāpua or Te Kao? Amongst some of the high-risk populations that this bill seeks to reach they would miss out under this bill’s poorly drafted words. A health check—what is that exactly? Is a phone call a health check? Is a blood test a health check? You know it would have been so easy to add a bit more detail and carry the intent of the bill by adding one word: preventive. OK—got it. There are a whole lot of descriptions around what preventive health checks are but no no. It is lazy drafting and it just adds further confusion to an increasingly confused bill.It gets even worse. The bill espouses the aim of “ignoring a minor ailment that could [get worse]”. What is a minor ailment? Because you know the doctor’s code in what is called recoding and systematized nomenclature of medicine—there is no code for minor ailments. It just does not exist. It is a lazy interpretation and lazy drafting. Even if we accept this let us look at two scenarios. An older person thinks they have a minor ailment. They visit a GP and in fact nothing is wrong. Do they then have to pay? Conceivably this could increase the costs to older people. Let us take the other extreme. What about the person who has a major illness who visits under this scheme? Will they be excluded because they do not have a minor ailment? It is poor drafting lazy drafting and exactly the people whom we want to target are not targeted. Therein lies the confusion.If we start at the front of the bill the confusion actually starts in the general policy statement where it reads: “[The bill will have] far-reaching benefits in terms of social emotional physical and psychological wellbeing”. Does the member not think that older Māori might be a target population; if so why does this part of the bill completely miss out one of the fundamentals of Māori health which is spiritual well-being? It is completely eliminated in this description—not interested. Under the most common framework for Māori health te whare tapa whā spiritual health is one of the sides. It is lazy drafting. It misses the target and that is important to this bill—targeting; exactly that. This is a major problem. There is no targeting. Everyone gets three visits despite the fact that 90 percent of New Zealanders report they are in good very good or excellent health and for those over 75 80 percent report good very good or excellent health. There are other targeted tools—very low-cost access high-user health cards prescription subsidy cards.We know the sector would struggle with this bill. As my colleague Barbara Kuriger said the New Zealand Medical Association chair Dr Mark Peterson said that the policy is unnecessary. It is short on detail short on facts and unsustainable. It is short on everything. It is more of a haiku than a bill. It is just short and I cannot commend it at all. Thank you.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I welcome that speech by Shane Reti for three reasons. Firstly it did not make any sense at all and that was absolutely obvious to anybody who is watching this debate; secondly it shows the National Party members for who they are: heartless and unable to understand the benefits that can be contributed to our society from making sure that our older people are well looked after; and thirdly older people vote—90 percent of them vote. If they are watching tonight they will be saying to the National Party: “That’s the last time I vote for them—those heartless illogical people opposing this bill.”The SuperGold card has been one of the real triumphs of the last 10 years. I have to say that most of the credit has gone to the man with the golden card Winston Peters—but remember it was actually done and agreed to under a Labour Government. I have to say that now belatedly we want to take a little bit of the credit for it. Quite frankly the SuperGold card has made an enormous amount of difference to New Zealanders and older New Zealanders right across the board. I do not mean just the fact that they can be helped out by getting on to a bus or whatever else needs to be done when they do it. The fact is that—and so many people say this to me—they are getting out. That is the most important thing. They are getting out there in the community taking their trip across to Waiheke Island. I know that Bill English does not like the fact that they are charging up all this money but actually the money is so insignificant compared with the benefits to those people getting out of their homes getting real value out of that SuperGold card and being able to get out there and prolong their lives and be healthier as a result.This bill is simply extending the value that is already there which is to provide free doctors visits three times a year. I mean three times a year? Is this Government really opposing their visiting a doctor three times a year so that they can get checked up and so they can get to know what the problem is before it gets complicated into something that will hospitalise them? In hospital as the previous speaker Shane Reti knows that is going to cost them—how much does it cost in hospital fees for one night?Louisa Wall: $1400.DAVID SHEARER: It is $1400 compared with going along to see a doctor which might cost $50. This is actually a saving in health services not a cost. So I do not understand for one minute what the logic is in opposing this bill. Firstly the bill makes good common sense; secondly frankly it means that these people who are some of the most vulnerable in society get to be seen; and thirdly ultimately it will save money.It makes absolutely no sense to oppose it. But I am absolutely delighted that the Government is opposing this bill because anybody who is watching this on television tonight will say: “What a heartless out-of-touch arrogant Government this is.” This is from a group of people who vote in every single election. That will be felt at the ballot box. It will be felt by this Government and they will see this Government for what it is—not standing up for the elderly in society. Those people have contributed and those people have paid their taxes all throughout their lives. They are being denied the opportunity of getting along to a doctor three times a year to get a check-up to save us—us taxpayers and everybody out there watching as well—more money as a result of their being able to go along and get that ailment or whatever it is seen to early rather than having it get complicated and their having to go into hospital at $1000 a night. This is illogical. The National Party should be backing this bill just as the Labour Party is backing New Zealand First.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): That was one of the member David Shearer’s better speeches. In fact all that was missing was—Tim Macindoe: The best.SCOTT SIMPSON: It was his best. It may have been his best speech. If he had given speeches with as much vigour passion and commitment when he was the leader of the Labour Party he would not have needed to hold up the two dead fish and we know where that led him.I am speaking in this debate as a member of the Health Committee. I had the privilege of being on that select committee in the last Parliament. I do not come from a medical background but one of the things that you learn as part of our select committee process is that you learn a lot about subjects that you did not know much about when you came into this place. The select committee process gives a great learning experience to a whole range of members. I listened with great and careful intent to the contribution of my colleague and friend Dr Shane Reti who was speaking only a few minutes ago. When Dr Reti speaks he speaks from the experience base of having been a long-serving dedicated professional GP in practice on the ground who knows how GPs work. I think that he made a very valuable contribution in his speech this evening when he asked the very basic question as to how you do actually define what a doctors visit is.He made a very good point because this bill in its current drafting does not really make that clear. This is a bill that simply provides that if you are a valid SuperGold card holder and if you are enrolled as a patient of a primary health-care organisation then you will be entitled to three free doctors visits per year. But the bill does not go on to define in any way what that might entail and how it might be. For instance would it be simply a blood pressure check at the premises of a GP conducted by a practitioner nurse? I think those are good questions. Dr Reti made I think a very good point that the bill in terms of its drafting is lazy and that it is a lazy piece of waffly legislation. He talked about how he thought that some more care could have been given to its drafting in order to target an approach like thisbetter. I am not one who is cynical enough to believe that the member sponsoring and introducing this bill is doing so for purely political motives—that he is doing so simply as a grab for votes from those older senior New Zealanders who feel that they have the need to go and see a GP. The statistics are actually very compelling: most older New Zealanders are not the ones who have difficulty going to a GP. In fact the statistics are very clear that they go to a GP very regularly and do not have a problem in that area.In the last Parliament the Health Committee did a very good piece of work under the chairmanship of Dr Paul Hutchison—another medical practitioner of long standing and high professional regard. The committee put together a very detailed report. We did an inquiry and it was called Inquiry into improving child health outcomes and preventing child abuse with a focus from preconception until three years of age. Why I refer to this is because the evidence that we gleaned as a result of that inquiry was absolutely overwhelmingly compelling. In terms of where we spend our health dollar as a society and as a nation it was estimated in that report that we spend at the moment probably well over half of the total Vote Health on the last 2 years of life. But the report advocated for a bigger spend in the period from preconception through to the age of 3 simply because there is much less need for care in your senior years if we get that part right. I want to quote just one thing from the report. It said: “The evidence is very strong; the first few years of life from pre-conception are fundamentally important for a broad range of child health outcomes and for the achievements of children as adolescents and adults.”I think that one of the faults of this bill is that it is not science based it is not targeted and it does not do what it proposes to do. As I say I am not cynically motivated so I do not think that the mover and the sponsor of this bill is doing so for the wrong reasons; I think that he is probably attempting to do it for the right reasons. But it simply does not achieve what he sets out to do and therefore I cannot bring myself to support this bill. It needs a lot more work. It is a lazy bill and I cannot support it.LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. As a member of the Health Committee I firstly want to take the opportunity to congratulate the Rt Hon Winston Peters on his bill and also to acknowledge Barbara Stewart one of my colleagues on the Health Committee who was the original proponent of this piece of legislation.I want to read a quote. It says: “Our vision is for a society where people can age positively where older people are highly valued and where they are recognised as an integral part of families and communities. New Zealand will be a positive place in which to age when older people can say that they live in a society that values them acknowledges their contributions and encourages their participation.” This is from Older New Zealanders: Healthy independent connected and respected. It is from the Office for Senior Citizens it is dated October 2013 and it is part of New Zealand’s Positive Ageing Strategy. One of the interesting components of the strategy is that it is actually about health. So if you go to that particular document what it says in its first bullet point is actually about support to stay well. There are 55000 New Zealanders who are over 65; this Government and this strategy commit to supporting over-65s to stay well.But when you actually look at how it defines how older people are supported to stay well there is a big focus on the high-use health card and one of my colleagues across the House mentioned that earlier. In fact only 14300 of those 55000 65-plus benefit from the high-use health card. That is only 2.6 percent of the New Zealanders who would qualify under this piece of legislation for a visit to a doctor. I concur with all of my colleagues on this side of the House who have contributed today. If older people have an opportunity to go to the doctor—which actually is about a wellness focus. It is about prevention and we heard a lot of that focus in the Health Committee today given we had the Minister of Health talk to us about the Healthy Families New Zealand initiative.So this Government has got a huge commitment in primary health working with communities and preventing their need for secondary and tertiary intervention and it seems that this is a policy idea that actually has some merit. I would have thought that as a reasonable House we would actually send this piece of legislation to a select committee where we can have the discussion and the debate that we have had tonight. Actually finding all the holes in this piece of legislation picking on drafting issues is not constructive. We in this House all have a vested interest to ensure that everybody—and particularly our older people—has three GP visits every year if it means it prevents them from going to hospital. So a $35 cost which is a hospital visit actually pays for 45 older people to have a GP visit as opposed to a 1-night stay in hospital. It costs us $1400 for an older person to stay in hospital for 1 night. If you have pneumonia the average stay is 10 days. If these three visits can prevent an older person over 65 from getting pneumonia and going to hospital for 10 days I would have thought that this House would want to debate the merits of this particular policy proposal.So what I am saddened to say is that this is actually about the money and fundamentally it is about priorities. Just because it was not the Government’s idea why is the Government not actually allowing us to have the debate to do what we did through the inquiry that focused on the needs of young people? Yes I am a bit sad because I think this is a member’s bill that warranted serious consideration by this House. If it could prevent older New Zealanders going to hospital and actually contribute to an efficient and effective health system which we are all committed to achieving then this is a sad day. Thank you.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): I rise tonight to support—yes that is right you heard me correctly: to support—the SuperGold Health Check Bill.Hon Members: Kia ora.MARAMA FOX: Thank you. You might find that I am often correct—something you may need to learn.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the member advising me about needing to learn that is probably not the proper thing—MARAMA FOX: My apologies. The members of the New Zealand First Party might find that I am often correct. Yes it may be some surprise that I am supporting this given the events that unfolded in question time today. But you need to understand e te Mana Whakawā that there is no festering turd of resentment here in the Māori Party. In fact despite the baseless accusations against my co-leader I am happy to support Koro Winitana and his well-herded followers and we will not be dissuaded from supporting this proposed legislation. Why? Because this legislation is aimed at alleviating the hardships that our people face.I do have a few concerns though. I wonder given the aim of the bill to support the needs of our elderly folk our most senior members of our country whether there might be some conflict of interest from the member who is proposing the bill. But far it be from me—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume her seat. There are two warnings now. That was an inappropriate comment and the member will withdraw it. The second warning is that the member is reading her speech and she must stop.MARAMA FOX: Fair call Mr Assistant Speaker. I withdraw. I will no longer read the speech but I might refer to it every now and again. I do withdraw those comments about the member who is proposing the bill. There should be no aspersions cast that there is any feathering of nests here—or Zimmer frames.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will resume her seat again. In her withdrawal she did more than say “I withdraw.”; she repeated—she repeated—the point. Although the member might find it funny I think defiance of the Speaker when asked to withdraw is not something that leads to happiness for members—I have some experience.MARAMA FOX: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I will try to keep it under control.I do want to support the bill though in all seriousness because it is aimed at alleviating the hardships of our people—and our Māori people specifically do suffer in this country from actually living 8 years less on average than non-Māori. It would be hard for New Zealand First to add to this given that it does not appreciate race-based policies. However it is a suggestion that I think should be taken up—that in fact if Māori live 8 years less then maybe the benefits of this legislation should be supported to take effect at 60 the way they used to be and not at 65 as it is now.We have moved into a time when it is more a case of economy versus society. If it is for the fact of money that we are making this decision we need to think again. We need to move away from the economy and back to society. Our older people are well respected. If they were not here to give us guidance and advice we would be less worthy of that in this country. We would be failing to uphold the richness of their numerous years. I think that we would like to support the legislation to ensure that they live long and healthy lives and to improve the state of Māori. That is why we stand as the Māori Party to support this legislation.You will know or perhaps you may not Mr Assistant Speaker that in the East Coast region there is much disparity but we get most of our support on the marae from our old people. I know when I go up the coast and up to Wairarapa that those numbers are dwindling quickly. There is great hardship on our older people especially at this time of year and that only needs to be witnessed—[Interruption] You would know that actually if you—[Interruption] The members might understand that I am speaking in support of this bill so their yelling out is not helping. I would think that if we concentrate on keeping our elderly people alive and offer that support to the marae and to their communities then we will be the richer for it in this country. Therefore we support this bill.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I want to thank those members from the Labour Party the Green Party and the Māori Party who have backed the SuperGold Health Check Bill with their senior members and former Ministers who understand the common sense behind it. National led off with laymen and laywomen backbenchers. National rubbished free doctors visits for primary school children in the past. Of course Mr O’Connor forgot to say that it was New Zealand First’s idea and he claimed that it was National’s policy. Then having rubbished the SuperGold card in the past according to Mr O’Connor MP for Tāmaki it was National’s policy he claimed tonight. It must be personally debilitating and gutting to be forced to stand up in this House and make those claims when they know that they are demonstrably and palpably just false. Mr Reti the third National speaker the person who has got a qualification as a medical doctor the MP for Whangarei got up and said that in the UK the Conservative Party and Prime Minister David Cameron do not know what they are talking about. That is what he said in essence. And then he said that Te Hāpua and Te Kao the two most northern settlements in my electorate of Northland would miss out. How he could not say. He then posed as an antipodean Blackstone or an expert in draft statute law. He questioned the bill’s drafting. Why? He could not say. And then he said that the bill left out Māori spiritual health. He wants a free visit to a tohunga. He is so out of date that he wants a free visit to a tohunga.National gives $42 million per year to Skycity and yet says we cannot afford this bill. National gives $40 million and massive power discounts to Rio Tinto and yet says we cannot afford this bill. National gives $800 million to the South Canterbury Finance bailout and then says we cannot afford this bill. Mr Reti’s question—and how electrifying it was—asked: “How do you define a doctor’s visit?”. He himself could not say. But the most senior Minister in the National Government Chris Finlayson regarded this debate from his colleagues as a substitute for Mogadon and spent most of the time asleep. I hope it was a pleasant sleep at the time. Where was the Minister for Senior Citizens? Well that Minister could not be seen for dust and small pebbles. No they put up their political cannon fodder like lambs to the slaughter. If that is the best that the—Simon O’Connor: What is it about sheep and you lot? You’re obsessed.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no. It is not sheep to the Arabian slaughter but lambs to the political slaughter. Mr O’Connor that was a disgraceful performance. The reality is that Conservative Parties around the world know that this works. If you are going to make a complaint without having any substitute wording that will not wash any more. We are required to be professional in what we do. This legislation has precedent—precedent in the foundation source of the National Party in this country. How sad it is that the British Conservative Party might remember Disraeli and people like that but this new modern brand of National Party has no philosophical basis at all. That is why National opposed the people who we know used to be so loyal to them. Here comes the warning. This is a fatal night for those backbench members. There will come a time soon when they will realise that they should have stood up for themselves and their constituents not for the hopeless political organisers at the top of the ninth floor of the Beehive.A party vote was called for on the question That the SuperGold Health Check Bill be now read a first time.Ayes 60New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.Noes 61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Motion not agreed to.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Because I thought I had misheard what the National Party whip had given for another party we did not go for a personal vote. But this is so close that I believe we should have a personal vote and I am moving that.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no reason to hold a personal vote. The member must in calling for a personal vote have good reason to believe that members are absent and so the vote is invalid.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I realise what you have just said. But when a vote is that close—Hon Member: Not close.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: No no. When it is that close with respect there have been times in the past and it goes back a long time when people have given their votes and they have not been here. I have got an example where one night three people did not make it here into this House but they were counted and then it was found that they were not here. I think with a vote that close on an issue so critical we should have a personal vote and that is what I seek to move.Ron Mark: Speaking to the point of order—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No I do not require any assistance in respect of this matter. I have given my ruling on it and nothing the right honourable member has said has caused me to change my mind from that call.RON MARK (NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well I hope the member is not going to challenge on some frivolous basis but I will hear his point of order.RON MARK: I do hope that you do not rule this as frivolous. It is not intended to be at all. But in your deliberation you said that where the party believes that a member is absent—Standing Order 144 clearly states: “A personal vote may be held following a party vote” which has been called for “if a member requests one” which the member has “and the Speaker considers that the decision on the party vote is so close that a personal vote may make a material difference to the result.” It makes no mention of us having to believe that someone is not present in the House or may not be here. The vote could not be closer. It is a vote of 60 to 61 and we are exercising our right under Standing Order 144 in asking for a personal vote.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. The member has made his point.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Minister of Immigration): Mr Deputy Speaker in support of your decision I want to draw the House’s attention to McGee’s Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand page 208 which goes directly to this matter. “The Speaker has emphasised that closeness on a party vote result cannot by itself be enough to justify holding a personal vote. Depending on party standings in the House every party vote might be close.” It goes on to describe a number of scenarios where—perhaps due to confusion—there may be a reason; closeness is definitely not one of them.Ron Mark: Speaking to the point of order Mr Deputy Speaker.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No I am not going to take any further comments or further points of order in respect of this matter. I know the matter has been controversial I know it has been well canvassed and I recognise that in a—Rt Hon Winston Peters:I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No I am not accepting a point of order. [Interruption] I am still giving a ruling. The member will be seated. I was still speaking when he stood and sought a point of order. He should sit down now.Rt Hon Winston Peters: No. I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is a new point of order and I am entitled to put it.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No the member will be seated. The member will recall that he started speaking—making this point of order—while I was still speaking. I have not finished yet. He should stay in his seat. [Interruption] The Speaker’s word is paramount. The National Party whip has cast the vote. There is no reason why there should be any doubt whatsoever and if the member wants to restate his point of order—that it is 60-61 it could not be closer—he may well make his point. But in this Parliament—the member should be seated while I am speaking. I have shown the member as the elder in this House due regard so I would expect him to show the person seated in the Chair due regard. The member will recall that in this House especially under MMP votes have often been close and I am not going to call a personal vote on the basis of closeness. If the member has a new point of order he may well put it.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First): I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. If you are going to take the advice of the National Minister by reciting McGee—Hon Todd McClay: What’s the point of order?Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The point of order is that the—Ron Mark: Silence.Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: The point of order is—first of all you will hear this point of order in silence. But the real issue is this: the Standing Order is clear. If it was not you would go to McGee but he is not the authority where the Standing Order is so precise as my colleague Ron Mark said. Now that any lawyer will tell you is a fact. So therefore to have heard that argument and give it credence simply is not the way this House should be conducting its affairs.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Exactly right and I will be the judge of how the House is going to be conducting its affairs. The fact that the Hon Michael Woodhouse happened to agree with the ruling that I had already made did not sway my mind one way or the other.Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3)First ReadingALFRED NGARO (National): I move That the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) be now read a first time. It is an honour to be able to speak in the House on members’ day and particularly to speak on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). It is always a privilege to have a bill drawn out of the ballot. First of all I have to acknowledge thatin this case the bill was actually in the name of the Hon Maggie Barry—just to acknowledge that fact then to have been able to take that bill on. But still to be able to have a member’s bill in the House is quite an honour. Often when member’s bills are in the House and are given from one member to the other one looks for the connection. And so in this case in 2010 I was a candidate for Citizens and Ratepayers and stood in the first of the Auckland Council elections. At that time it was my first experience of actually standing for a local government position and it was at that time that I realised that actually the issue with the Auckland Council was the ability of seven territorial authorities to come together in the hope that a sense of unification would bring greater gains for Auckland as a whole. So I along with a number of others actually did that. For me the Auckland Council has been one of those situations where we have seen that there should be greater gains. The aspects around Auckland planning create one single strategic spatial plan for 20 to 30 years.There are a number of things that I think are important and that actually go to the heart of this bill. This bill—its purpose—is to improve fairness in the local electorate system by prohibiting candidates from serving on more than one local board at the same time. We know that local boards play an important role and so although we have the governing body the local boards are in a position where they are able to work with local communities to distribute funds that are much needed in a way that does make a difference. That is despite the executive the governing body as well. But in fairness one of the issues that has come up—and hence the reason for this bill—is the provision that allows for people to be able to be present on one or more local boards. I will draw to the attention of the Deputy Speaker and also of the House that the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 starts off in its provisions by prohibiting a person from being a member of both a local board and the governing board. They can be a candidate for both but the governing body election has precedence if the person is elected to both. And here is the point of this bill which is to tighten that loophole: currently the legislation does not prohibit a person from being a member of more than one local board. So I think that is really important and that is the intent of this bill.Members will also see that there is Supplementary Order Paper 418 which is quite strange because when a bill is entered in the ballot it should actually contain all of the clauses that are important. But what actually happened is that there was an administrative error and so when the bill went in it was incorrect and did not have a clause that was important. Clause 6 which is actually in the Supplementary Order Paper provides a savings clause in order to ensure that the existing membership of two or more local boards is not affected by the commencement of this bill. In other words it could force a by-election. So that is why it is important that although the Supplementary Order Paper resulted from an administrative error we think that it is important however that it should be included as well.One of the things that are also important is that we know that this is a bill that has wide support as I have canvassed and talked to some of the members of Parliament. It has support because it is important that it goes to the select committee. We know that it will go to the Local Government and Environment Committee ably chaired by my colleague here Scott Simpson. There we will then be able to hear submissions and talk about what is important and how we can look at the bill—whether there are clauses that potentially need to be changed or added. But I think that it is also a great opportunity to look at and to review parts of that bill. I know that on 20 October 2010 there was a media statement put out by Mr Phil Twyford. In that press release in October of 2010 which was entitled “Labour proposes amendment to close Flaunty loophole”—quite a sort of provocative title—it really meant to talk about this loophole that is there. It states that the Labour Party will move an amendment to local government law to prevent local board members from sitting on more than one board in the Auckland super-city. Labour’s spokespersonon Auckland issues Phil Twyford said that the case of west Auckland pharmacist Warren Flaunty sitting on five boards showed that there was a loophole and that should be closed. So we know that there is support for this bill especially for it to go to the select committee for us then to be able to debate the issues that are important to this bill.This is not a bill that will save Auckland City; it is a bill that will actually address I think a concern that has been had. What is important is that the local body elections will then allow for a greater distribution for those to be representative on those local boards. We know it is a little unfair that people are in the situation where they are on two or more boards—in some cases they have been on three or more. It does not allow for wider representation throughout the city. So we think that that is really important. Even today in talking to David Seymour the leader of the ACT Party he said to me and did question whether this is something that we should be doing. Should we not just allow that where there is adequate information out there that people can see when they look at a person who is representing them on the local board and who maybe did not actually represent their concerns that they were not doing a good enough job—is that not enough? In our conversations though I did say that not only did we have challenges around participation in our general election but also we have noticed that there has been a decline in participationin the local bodies especially in postal voting. There are challenges with participation so in order for us to be able to ensure that we do not have a loophole where there is insufficient representation we should act accordingly; hence the reason for this bill.This bill does remedy the loophole in the current legislation; we think that that is important. In the Local Electoral Act 2001 it states that it prohibits a person from being a member of both a community board and a territorial authority. They can be a candidate but a council has precedence if they are elected to both. Further on down it says that in more than one ward—the same territorial authority—or in more than one constituency of the same regional council for a regional council territorial authority or community board within that region. However and again here is the point: although this could mean that out of this they could have further conversation around potential amendments to the Local Electoral Act 2001 it does not prohibit a person being a member of more than one community board. So we believe that there are not only loopholes in Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 but also that potentially there could be other conversations around the Local Electoral Act 2001. This bill attempts to close that loophole and provide the opportunities that are really important for wider representation as well.I am really fortunate that we have got a number of members in our caucus who have had senior representation. In fact sitting right next to me is a previous mayor—should I call you ex-mayor or “Your Worship”?—Jono Naylor who was the Mayor of Palmerston North. He shared his experiences of the importance of representation on the local boards and community boards and also on the council. I know that he is going to add a great amount of knowledge and wisdom to the debate as well. Also further across over here is the honourable member and my colleague Nuk Korako who stood inChristchurch I think it was. He too has experience of wanting to stand and represent our communities on our local boards as well. We and I believe that this is a bill that is small in nature but provides us with the opportunity to have a conversation around some of the challenges with this loophole as well. This is a good bill and we look forward to the conversations as it heads to select committee. My understanding is that it will be supported across the House as it goes to select committee to hear submissions as well. I do commend this bill to the House.Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): The Labour Party will support this bill to a select committee. I was going to be quite critical of the member who produced this bill Alfred Ngaro but I now understand it was not his bill that he did not draft this bill and that it was actually Maggie Barry who drafted this bill. The right place for this bill to be considered really is at the select committee. There I think we will really delve into the substance of this bill and whether there was wide-ranging support for it. The reason why I say that is firstly we have a bill that we are debating tonight that amends the Government legislation of 2009 and contained in the presentation tonight is another Supplementary Order Paper—Supplementary Order Paper 418—in the name of the same member who drafted the original bill Maggie Barry and that Supplementary Order Paper is amending this bill. That is a signal that does not really sit well with the public so when the Government member says that this is a good bill that is yet to be seen.So we would like this to go to a select committee and we would like to hear from particularly those members who are in this situation where they are serving two or more local bodies because it is not their fault. The legislation that was passed by this Government allowed for that. The rules simply state that they have to be elected by the electors of that ward or of that area. That is really it. So it is not their fault. I am pleased that the member who drafted this bill actually has got a Supplementary Order Paper saying that this will not affect those members who are currently in that situation because that gives some confidence to them while the House deliberates on this particular bill.The explanatory note suggests that this will help resolve the potential conflicts of interest. The reality is that in politics—whether it be central or local government—there are bound to be conflicts of interests. It is my hope that we have existing systems in place—in central and local government—that will ensure that when there are potential conflicts of interest that do arise perceived or otherwise those systems in place will help address those conflicts of interest. So I would like to hear from the local government sector and particularly also Auckland Council and those members whether it is in fact the case that they cannot deal with their conflicts of interest.The other point that the explanatory note makes is that this is going to somehow resolve the problem of double-dipping. I do not know why we are pointing the finger at the local board members in the Auckland region. There are members in the House who at various times have been in local government and who could be accused of double-dipping—holding a position in a council and holding the position also of a member of Parliament. But there is also the instance where a person could be on the local board and serve on the district health board at the same time or be a councillor and serve on the district health board at the same time yet if a candidate stood for a local board and the council and they won both they must choose one. They cannot hold both positions. So we would be interested to hear in the select committee just how widespread this situation is. I accept that this bill is focused on the Auckland Council but I would be interested to hear from the New Zealand local government sector whether this is a widespread situation across New Zealand.So those are really the points that we would like to make at this stage. We look forward to the select committee process. Again I say that I would hope that the local government sector comes forward I would hope that the candidates who find themselves in this position come forward and I would hope that those in similar situations outside of the Auckland boundaries also come forward.I have a concern about what gave germination to this bill because I note that Maggie Barry released a press statement last year accusing Mr Paul Gillon—[Interruption] Grant sorry—Grant Gillon of holding two roles. The reality is that he had every right to stand in those two positions. The legislation that this Government passed in 2009 allowed for it. I look forward to the discussion and I look forward to the public coming forward and making their points heard on this particular bill. Thank you.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee I am encouraged to hear that the Labour Party is going to support this Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) to select committee. I think that is a practical and useful contribution to a debate that I think is an important one. The member who was previously speaking Su’a William Sio was perfectly correct; when the legislation was originally created for the new Auckland City structure a situation such as now exists was perfectly able to occur and indeed it has occurred where there are several people who hold multiple roles in various local boards. This bill seeks to question the legitimacy or the substance of that occurring for the benefit of the wider democracy in terms of the governance model of a city like Auckland.I think that the select committee is exactly the right place to tease out these questions—to tease out the issues that have been raised by my friend and colleague Alfred Ngaro in his sponsorship of this bill notwithstanding that in fact he has taken the bill over from Maggie Barry who of course now has ministerial responsibilities and is no longer eligible to promote a member’s bill. I want to thank and congratulate Alfred Ngaro on stepping up to the plate and on taking on this bill and now having it in his name. I am confident that he will be a very staunch advocate for the bill and that he will guide it through the select committee process in terms of submissions and process in a very thorough and professional way.So what does this bill essentially seek to achieve? Well it seeks to create a situation where the fairness in the local government electoral process can be enhanced by preventing candidates from serving on more than one local board at the same time. Local boards are a relatively new creation in the local government model and they were developed specifically during the set-up and creation of the new Auckland Council structure several years ago. They are quite a different beast from community boards. In terms of their constitutional role in terms of their governance role and in terms of their financial accountabilities and delegations they have a role to play that is set somewhere between the governing body itself and that role of the former community boards. They are I think a more robust creature of statute than previously existed so it is very important for the success of the entire model that local boards operate with credibility and that they operate in a way that the public feels is credible.One of the sad aspects of our local government system is that for reasons that are multiple turnout is often very low in local government elections. It is much lower than most members of this House would like and I am sure it is much lower than most participants in local government would like as well. That occurs for as I say a variety of reasons which I am not going to go into tonight but it is clear and obvious that in some communities candidates have for whatever reason—it might be professional it might be because of their previous sporting achievements it might be because they have a role in some celebrity status or a range of reasons—higher name profile and name recognition than others. One of the aspects that I find frustrating in our local government system is that often when people go to vote they literally do not know whom they are voting for. There is often I think a natural assumption that people with high name recognition and a high profile are therefore proportionally more likely in some cases to be elected. That creates this opportunity for people who have that profile to stand in multiple constituencies and then be elected to multiple constituencies.In my view I want to have a better understanding of the impact of that. Does it have a negative impact? Does it affect the credibility of the local boards; if so how? If it does is this the best way to address it? I am confident that we will get lots of submissions at the select committee. I am looking forward to the process. I know that Alfred Ngaro will be a staunch and firm advocate for this bill and I wish him well as it proceeds through the House.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a short call—and it will be short—on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). The Green Party will be supporting this bill. It is a small and uncontroversial bill that prevents someone serving on more than one local board in Auckland at a time. The Supplementary Order Paper ensures that it does not affect any board members who are currently on more than one board and I understand that there are four people in that position each of them on two boards. I do not expect that there will be a lot of submissions. I think it is a useful bill because it ensures that people are fully engaged with one board rather than spreading time and effort over several and we will be supporting it. Thank you.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): It is a great pleasure to rise and take a call on this the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3) which is in the name of my respected and learned colleague Alfred Ngaro the list MP and probable future constituency MP for the fine electorate of Te Atatū in Auckland. Mr Ngaro is a very hard-working member and he has done very well to pick up this bill which was originally entered into the members’ ballot in the name of the Hon Maggie Barry another very fine member of this House.This bill may be small but it is perfectly formed.Matt Doocey: A bit like Ron Mark.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: That is a very uncharitable suggestion from my colleague Mr Doocey. But I think really the nub of it comes down to clause 5 subclause (2) where the bill is very clear that a member “must not serve as a member on 2 or more local boards at the same time.” This could be characterised as the anti - double-dipping bill. I would as a Wellington list MP query whether it might be useful to prevent such double-dipping throughout the country including here in the Wellington region where we do have local community boards as well as the councils and the regional council. Actually there is a particular pertinence to Auckland with the Auckland super-city. This is not so much about the issue of people having multiple jobs within local government—and there would be nothing preventing someone standing for both a local board plus then the Auckland super-city itself—but this is more a question of conflicts of interest. As constituency MPs members in this House cannot represent the interests—often competing and sometimes contradictory interests—of more than one constituency. For that reason I think it is very proper and right that members of local boards should champion and prioritise the interests of one board that they are elected to represent rather than trying to juggle those competing interests.Another point that I would make is that with the complexity of the electoral process in some areas—and here in Wellington we have the single transferable vote system—if you have dozens of candidates in a district health board election for instance you will end up having literally 100 pages of candidates’ biographies to read through when that booklet gets posted through your letterbox.So one could say it is up to the electors and the ratepayers to make a decision as to whether they are happy with having a candidate represent them who is also representing another community with possibly diverse and competing interests but actually the reality is that as intelligent as the voters of this country are—and I have great respect for the judgment of the electors of Wellington and of Auckland and in fact of all New Zealand electors—the sheer volume of material that they may be expected to read and the fact that they may not necessarily look through and see who the candidates are for other wards other local bodies other local councils or other community boards within their region means that they may not be as fully informed as they could be and they may not be able to make that well-informed judgment as to whether they want someone who is also representing another area to represent them.So for these reasons I think this is a very good bill. It does come to the heart of democracy in New Zealand. I congratulate the sponsoring member Alfred Ngaro and also the Hon Maggie Barry on having formulated it in the first place. As a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee I do look forward to hearing submissions on this. I wonder whether any of the four particular individuals who are affected by this piece of legislation will be fronting up to the select committee to explain why they think this is not a good idea. I think it is a wonderful idea and I am sure that it will have the widespread support of the voting public in Auckland members of this House and other interested people who have an interest in democracy in New Zealand. Thank you.RON MARK (NZ First): Sometimes some of my colleagues on the Local Government and Environment Committee make it difficult for me because whereas you would like to stand up and give a bit of a rousing speech and rip into it they are actually good people and it is a little disarming sometimes. So I am going to start by saying that I appreciated the speech by Paul Foster-Bell and I concur with many of his comments.The first point is to say to Alfred Ngaro that we in New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. I probably would like to backtrack a tad and pick up on a comment made by the chair of our select committee Scott Simpson who said that the decision to send this bill to the select committee is a practical and useful one. I absolutely agree and New Zealand First would applaud him. The pity is that the Government did not have the same view on the legislation that we have just debated the SuperGold Health Check Bill. How we can go from one irrational decision that showed no logic and was completely lacking in heart we would argue to then arguing on pure logic that this is the very reason we should send this bill to the select committee actually befuddles and bemuses me somewhat. But it is no worry—we have the video taped. We will play those ad nauseam in certain MPs’ electorates on the campaign trail and we will let the people be the judge which leads me to my next point in respect of this bill.We had some discussion over this bill and it would be fair to say that there were as many pros for this bill as there were cons. One of the cons for this bill is that it actually interdicts impedes and negates the will of the voters. It actually undermines democracy. You see at the end of the day the voters may not necessarily do what we think they should. We may question their logic and their argument but at the end of the day the voters have the vote and their vote stands supreme in the decision that they make and they make that decision to elect a person to one or two boards because they think that is a smart thing to do. For us to pass a piece of legislation that says “Thou shalt not have the same member representing two different bills” actually undermines the very principles and the basis and the fundamentals of democratic choice.It is interesting also because I have had some experience in local government and I consider myself to be the better for having that experience in local government before coming back to the House. So I am well aware that there are times when voters elect people because—and the argument has just been put up by the previous speakers from the Government—they know them more by name and face than they do by deed or skill. Well right or wrong that is what the voters do. They have every right to do that. We have some people whose inability to get elected we lament because we know them personally we know their skill sets and we know their experience levels be it in business or in the social community doing good work amongst our people but their name recognition is not high. So amongst the plethora of candidates they do not stand a dog’s chance. That is sad but it is the reality of the way the democratic process works and who are we to challenge the voters?In terms of the pros we see that it does remove potential for a conflict of interest. That is an issue that has been seriously championed by certain members of the public and we would welcome the opportunity to have those views expressed at the select committee. We would come back I think to the view that at the end of the day the choice as to who represents people is made by people who vote. So let us have this discussion at the select committee let us hear the submissions let us hear the pros and the cons and let us collectively as a committee make the right decision and a wise choice. Thank you very much.NUK KORAKO (National): Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. Can I first of all Mr Deputy Speaker mihi to your constituents. I know that it has been very trying over the last few days with that terrible flooding so kia ora. I also want to speak on this bill the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). It is interesting actually coming from Ōtautahi Christchurch to be able to really get excited about the fact that I will have as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee an opportunity to be part of looking at something that needs to be rejigged in some way around the Auckland super-city and Auckland Council. It is interesting because I want to tautoko and support my colleague Paul Foster-Bell in his sterling and stirring support of the sponsor of this bill one Alfred Ngaro. I also acknowledge the previous speaker the former Mayor of Carterton Mr Ron Mark a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. When you look at these two members they are very small in stature but what we say is “He iti he pounamu”—they are small but they are pounamu. They contribute to this particularly Mr Alfred Ngaro. I know that he will sponsor this bill. I have watched him on the rugby field the way that he will weave and get through and he will get this bill to the end where it is going.When we look at it I think we actually have both sides of the House going to support this bill. It is interesting that when Mr Ngaro was introducing this bill he also mentioned the fact that I was involved in local government elections. I did not make it; I could not get off five votes. But at least I was involved. I could not get off the five votes because I was short of five votes we were in a grey area and we were waiting on special votes so I was actually part of the Christchurch City Council for a while as they waited for the five special votes to come in. So anyway it did not happen but the next part led me to this House. The interesting thing is that we call it double-dipping. My first foray into politics was into iwi politics and if you can survive that you can survive anything. I think the situation there is exactly this. A lot of that is based on finding people who actually want to do it finding people who actually have the skills and it is not double-dipping I believe.We all know people who serve on more than one board at the same time and a number of us here in this House I believe will know that they have actually done that. Most of us have multiple interests and we all have committed at one time or another to being involved in our communities. Some of us have volunteered in ways that whet our interests though to our desires to make a better place in which to live and play. So that immediately brings me to the fact that we do actually want to be involved in everything. Looking at this I know it is about local boards. I thought it was community boards but now I have learnt that it is local boards that we are talking about here in Auckland. I do not think it is double-dipping. I am looking forward because as Su’a William Sio said it is very healthy that we actually process this though the procedures of Parliament take the bill to the select committee and look at it. I hope we do get a number of submissions. It will be really interesting to hear what people think about this. So kia ora and I really do look forward to receiving this bill at the select committee. Kia ora.LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. I too want to pay my respects to you and the communities in Whanganui who have been devastated by the floods and send our aroha from right across Aotearoa actually. Some of the images have been quite distressing so I acknowledge that you have had to deal with that at this time.It is my pleasure to speak on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). I would like to acknowledge the Hon Maggie Barry whose bill this initially was. It has now been transferred to Alfred Ngaro and it seems to me that there are three main issues or problems that this piece of legislation is trying to correct or fix. The first is about conflict of interest. The proposition is that if you serve on multiple boards then you have a conflict of interest because supposedly the communities you are serving may have different needs and so you are pulled in all sorts of directions because you cannot reconcile the priorities of those two communities. I just want to put on record that a conflict of interest is actually “a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity.” So if you are torn in a whole lot of different parts—which actually we are a number of times in this House because we end up debating and discussing particular pieces of legislation that some members of our communities support and others do not—I guess we have to use our judgment in determining where we sit on that spectrum. So dealing with conflict of interest is actually an inherent responsibility and role as a member of Parliament.The second issue that this bill seeks to rectify—actually I will quote Minister Barry from a press release I have seen: “This has allowed local board power to be concentrated in the hands of a few people many of whom don’t even live in the area they represent.” So I guess that a fundamental question this legislation is proposing is whether you should live in the area you represent. It is an interesting proposition. I am sure that there are a number of members of Parliament who actually do not physically live in the electorate they represent for a number of reasons. I am sure my former colleague Lynne Pillay will not mind if I say that she did live in the Waitakere electorate but the boundaries changed after the census. So sometimes people do not actually end up living in their electorate but they have a huge relationship commitment history—but that seems to be one of the issues that this piece of legislation is trying to deal with.I guess the third issue which I find really fascinating is this whole issue about double-dipping. So if you are a member of one local board and another local board and you collect two salaries because you represent that local board and that local board somehow there is a problem with that. What I want to highlight actually is an Auckland Council document dated 13 May 2013. It is titled Step forward for Auckland:Becoming an elected member. The interesting thing about this booklet is that it anticipates how much commitment a member of the local board should anticipate giving per week. If you are a chair it says that you will end up working 40 hours a week and if you are a local board member you should anticipate working between 15 and 25 hours a week.So if you serve on two local boards and you are anticipated to work between 15 and 25 hours a week actually that is between 30 and 50 hours per week. Is that unmanageable I guess as a concept? Is that type of workload unmanageable? Because actually what this bill says in clause 5(2)(c) is “must not serve as a member on 2 or more local boards at the same time.” What about being a chair?It does not mention anything about not beinga chair. The reason I bring it up is that actually I think having that responsibility of a 40-hour week position actually might challenge your ability to do a good job if you are on two different boards.But if you are a memberof a local board who is on two local boards is working between 30 and 50 hours actually an unmanageable workload?So that is my short contribution to this debate. I will reiterate that weare supporting this bill to the select committee. I look forward to reading the select committee report on this piece of legislation actually and whether or not this is sufficient because maybe there will be some other Supplementary Order Papers that the select committee recommends. Kia ora.MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It gives me great pleasure tonight to rise and speak to Alfred Ngaro’s member’s bill the Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 3). I suppose as a new MP I congratulate Mr Ngaro who has had this bill in his nameselected. I wish Alfred Ngaro all the best with that. Most people would know that member of Parliament as someone who is committed to the communities he works in. People would know that Alfred Ngaro is committed to Auckland. So it is great to see that he is bringing a bill that is relevant to the people of his communities. Can I also mention that I am looking forward to this bill being sent to the Local Government and Environment Committee a committee I am on which is very ably led by the chair Scott Simpson and the deputy chair Todd Muller—very much becoming the top guns of the legislative process.I had a read around this bill. Although very short and simple the purpose is around amending the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act to prevent candidates from serving on multiple local boards at the same time. It makes sense if I could run you through a situation. Imagine being at one local board and having—say we use Alfred Ngaro as an example—Alfred Ngaro on the local board then you go to the other local board and there is Alfred Ngaro sitting there again and then you go to the other local board and then there is Alfred Ngaro. I mean really it is going to be a bit confusing. So I can understand why this bill is being brought in.I do not have much experience of local boards in Auckland but I do wonder when we move through the submission process whether we are going to look at how we expand it out to community boards. Community boards are very big in my electorate of Waimakariri. We have the Kaiapoi and Rangiora community boards and of course in Canterbury—because 1989 was a great year for democracy: the Europeans were bringing down the Berlin Wall and New Zealand was setting up community boards. There is a big movement to empower community boards greatly. What they are saying is that as councils get more and more workload they can devolve to community boards which can pick up some of that important grassroots work. You could imagine that as the devolution to community boards happens there is more work increased workloads and it is quite right to ask how someone seriously could manage the workload of operating both on a local board and on a community board. So I am looking forward to this bill going through the legislative process.As I mentioned around the community boards I just want to acknowledge the real role community boards play in local communities. In my electorate I think we quite often forget—we call them the Christchurch earthquakes but in fact they were the Canterbury earthquakes and my electorate Kaiapoi was the most hard-hit area in the first earthquake in September 2010 having a very large red zone like in Christchurch. Kaiapoi Community Board led by the very able chair Robyn Wallace played a very leading role in the recovery and still does and it was great that she was acknowledged for this work by cutting the ribbon of the newly opened Ruataniwha Kaiapoi Civic Centre which consists of a new museum an art space a library and the council’s civic service centre. Very much that building represents the beacon of the recovery and it is really setting a direction forward for the community. So I would like to acknowledge her and her eight members on the community board. I visited them last Monday. They are doing a big piece of work around the Earthquake Commission and increased risks of flooding in those hard-hit earthquake areas.So overall I would like to fully support this bill. I am very much looking forward to it going through the legislative process. Once again I would like to thank Alfred Ngaro for bringing this very real issue to the House. I support the bill to the House. Thank you.IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North): There has been considerable debate this evening on this bill which has just one operative clause. I do not want to delay its passage unnecessarily just suffice to say that it is difficult to tell exactly where the public outcry was that generated this legislation. As best as I can tell it actually represents a personal vendetta by Maggie Barry against a fellow North Shore politician. Nevertheless the content is perfectly sound. Let us get on with it.ALFRED NGARO (National): It is an honour just to round off the debate and also the speeches in the House. I would like to respond though that the Hon Maggie Barry was actually addressing an issue that had existed for quite some time so it was not a bit of a stoush with another local ward member or chair over on the North Shore. In fact this had been in existence for some time and as I said there was a press release by Phil Twyford in 2010 so this is a long-held issue of concern that has been going on for some time. So I think I just want to acknowledge that first of all.One of things that I think is going to be important as we head to the select committee is also the wealth of experience and I can speak only for those who are on our side that Jamie-Lee Ross my colleague over here—I will not say how old he was but he was one of the youngest members on the Manukau City Council. He served ably on the Manukau City Council for 6 years. [Interruption] That is right he did say he was shaving at that time—apparently—with a butter knife but it was a shave. He spent half a year with the Auckland Council prior to coming into Parliament as well.There is also my colleague over here Jono Naylor who was a councillor for 6 years in Palmerston North and then became the Mayor of Palmerston North for 7 years as well. Our good friend Ian McKelvie who was the Mayor of Manawatū District for some say 100 years but no it was only 6 years. He was the Mayor of Manawatū District for some 6 years and very ably led over there. Jacqui Dean was the Deputy Mayor of Waitaki District I think it was and again has a wealth of experience. The Hon Anne Tolley too was also a councillor for Napier; and then there is also the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga who was also on the Auckland Council and he was the councillor for Tāmaki-Maungakiekie as well. And also who could forget the Hon Paul Goldsmith who served on the Auckland Council and in fact he was the chairperson for the community services committee—he did a great job on community services. He showed lots of empathy for the communities Auckland-wide. I mention the experiences of my colleagues because I truly do believe that that is a wealth of experience that will be added to this bill and to me that is going to be quite significant and quite important as well.We do look forward to the submissions that will come forward. I do think that what has been raised too is the potential under the local government legislation in 2001—and my colleague Mr Matt Doocey talked about community boards—where there are potentially situations there for some discussion and some conversation around those. I know that Mr Sio also talked about that opportunity as well. So we are looking forward to the discussion and yes there could be more Supplementary Order Papers in there.I just want to again remind members that there was some comment about the bill being a bit sloppy with regard to Supplementary Order Paper 418. It was an administrative error that had happened. So in the Supplementary Order Paper where it has clause 6 this is just to ensure that at the commencement of this bill we are not going to have a series of by-elections up and down the country and I think that is really important as well.There is not much more to say but I just say that we look forward to the ably chaired Local Government and Environment Committee process. We do hope that there will be—I know that in the Greens’ speech that there was a thought that there would not be many submissions but I think what it will do is again begin to answer questions around the Auckland Council. I do know that there has been wide conversation and concern at times around I suppose how effective the Auckland Council has been in the engaging of seven territorial authorities to come together. Although we have said that there have been some savings there could be some concern as a whole as to whether the leadership of that council has actually continued to pay dividends and make a difference. I think it is not a judgment call but it is a challenge I know that is there as well.I look forward to this bill going to the select committee. I look forward to sitting in the select committee to hearing the submissions and I look forward to the bill returning back to the House with the hope that there will be widespread support across the House for this bill too as it comes back and hopefully it will gain the Royal assent and then be enacted into law as well. I commend this bill to the House.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment BillFirst ReadingMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. E ngā mema o te Whare nei tēnā tātou katoa. I move That the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill and I recommend that the House refers my bill to the select committee for further debate. This bill amends the Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 by adding the additional objective that the organisation must aim to protect maintain and enhance New Zealand’s environment. When the Act was passed the stated objective of the Environmental Protection Authority contained an important oversight in that it did not actually require the protection of the environment as part of the authority’s role. This bill aims to correct that defect.What this bill does is place the protection of New Zealand’s precious natural environment right at the heart of the law governing the Environmental Protection Authority. This bill does this by cementing in legislation the Environmental Protection Authority’s role in protecting the environment by amending section 12(1) by inserting the following paragraph: “(c) protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.”—seven small words but very very important words. This bill is especially important in light of media reports this morning saying that staff at the Environmental Protection Authority are struggling to determine what the mission of the organisation is. Whom are they accountable to—the Minister or the public? We do not want a situation in the future where short-term economic thinking is allowed to impinge on the Environmental Protection Authority’s function because the agency’s mission is legally unclear. This bill will help make the Environmental Protection Authority a better-performing organisation by giving it a clear well-articulated mission placing environmental protection at the core of everything it does. There is no ambiguity no confusion.It is an honour to have one’s member’s bill drawn from the ballot. I believe that members who bring members’ bills to the House do so with the utmost honourable intention: to address often very important issues and we strive for clarity and practicality in our bills. For this bill the words “protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” are not only very clear but they are also very practical. I hope this fact is not lost on members across the House. This is an uncontroversial bill.New Zealand’s beautiful natural environment is a fundamental part of our natural identity. As a proud member of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti I like many of my people introduce myself by my maunga my mountain; my awa my river; my hapū my subtribe; my iwi my tribe; and my waka which connects tribes to other tribes but more important it connects Māori to our Pacific relations. This is a priceless inheritance we receive from our tīpuna our ancestors before us and we have a responsibility to leave it to our children and grandchildren. My maunga my awa my iwi and my waka is me and I am them. Their protection and preservation are my duty. Their protection and preservation are my responsibility.Our environment is also one of our biggest natural advantages as a country. Our “100% Pure” green image is a boon to our exporters and our tourist industry. But if we do not protect it we will lose culturally socially and economically. We hear often from my colleagues across the House that it is about choice. You can have a thriving economy or you can have a clean environment. In Labour we firmly believe in the balanced approach: a thriving economy from a protected environment. We believe as Gaylord Nelson once said that “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment not the other way around.” As the Government agency responsible for regulatory management of New Zealand’s environment the Environmental Protection Authority is a vital part of protecting our environment for future generations. The omission in the regulations around the Environmental Protection Authority of protecting the environment is not spelt out in legislation. This bill aims to fix that.If we want to protect our environment for the future we must ensure its legislative safeguards are long-lasting. We have seen just today how a lack of statutory clarity can create problems when multiple internal reviews at the Environmental Protection Authority can lead to confusion over the agency’s mission as we heard on Morning Report today. My bill is a sensible reform that unambiguously has the explicit objective of protecting maintaining and enhancing New Zealand’s environment—seven very small but important words. It will end the confusion of the Environmental Protection Authority and ensure better protection of our environment. This bill will offer more consistency across New Zealand’s environmental legislation as stated under section 6 of the Resource Management Act which requires all persons exercising powers under it to recognise and provide for the preservation and protection of various aspects of New Zealand’s environment. To ensure consistency across New Zealand’s large marine environment it is sensible to make this change to the Environmental Protection Authority Act.If opponents of this bill have drafting concerns the select committee will provide an opportunity to discuss the best approach to inserting a reference to protect the environment in this Act. It will allow for expert evidence to be presented and for a full discussion of how we maximise the protection we give our environment.In closing this bill is very clear. It is very consistent with other legislation and it makes good sense. I commend this bill to the House. I ask that the House support it to select committee and helps us to take steps to give our beautiful natural environment the protection that it deserves in the years to come. Kia ora.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I rise to speak in this first reading debate on the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill in the name of Meka Whaitiri. I want at the outset to congratulate the member. It is always an honour I think to have a member’s bill drawn from the ballot. It is literally a lottery so therefore not only is it an honour but it involves a degree of luck and good fortuneas well. Although this is a piece of good fortune that has befallen that member the bill itself is one that I do have some problems with. I want to spend just a few minutes speaking to those issues and questions that I have with the bill as it is proposed by Meka Whaitiri and on where I think some of the issues are that would prevent me and the National Party from supporting it in its current form.The addition of extra objectives into the principal Act is in my view completely unnecessary. The reason for that is simply that the principal Act sets up and creates the Environmental Protection Authority. This is an authority that was created during the first term of this National Government which was done with the purpose of providing an operational organisation that would ensure that arm’s-length policy would be determined separately from the politicisation of us mere politicians. I contend in fact that if this bill were to be passed by the House the inclusion of the seven small words that the sponsoring member has at the basis and the heart of this bill would actually be detrimental and would achieve a negative result and the exact reverse result of the one that she is seeking to achieve. I think that that of itself is a fatal flaw in this bill.The Environmental Protection Authority was set up as I said to be an arm’s-length operational entity. It is my view that this amendment has the potential to turn the agency and impinge upon its operational integrity and independence. I do not think that that ultimately serves the objectives that the member is seeking to achieve in terms of the amendment to the principal Act that she is proposing in this bill. The operational independence and credibility of the Environmental Protection Authority is at the very heart of that legislation. It is at the very heart of what it was designed to do. It was established precisely so that the difficult decisions could be taken independently and without the involvement of us mere politicians. Policy agencies operate best when there is less dependence on direction of that sort and the Environmental Protection Authority in my view absolutely does not need to move in that direction. That would be without doubt I think the potential impact if this bill were to proceed through the House.The amendment that is being proposed would have a significant impact on the way that the Environmental Protection Authority carries out the existing functions that it is tasked to achieve. I note that there has been media commentary which the member spoke about in this morning’s media. I am not aware of that; I choose to listen to far more uplifting and enlightening morning radio than the member does so I missed the commentary this morning. But I suspect without having heard that media commentary that if there are questions from staff members as to their role and the function that they have or that the agency that employs them has then that is essentially an employment matter and one that I think that the chief executive of the organisation should properly address. The principal Act defines the role of the Environmental Protection Authority in very clear and precise terms. That role in my view is completely unequivocal and a role and a function that is understood I think by the vast majority of people who come into contact with the agency the vast majority of its employees and its senior management team. That there may be some employees who are confused about their role I think of itself is not a good reason to muck around with the objective provisions of the legislation and amend the principal Act.There are functions to provide the assurances and the goals that the member seeks to achieve in this bill in other pieces of legislation. That is the way that the legislation has been particularly constructed. That is the way that it has been formatted: so that there are other pieces of legislation such as the Resource Management Act and the Climate Change Response Act for example which provide exactly the kind of definitional functionality that the member is seeking from this bill. I am not arguing that the objectives that she is seeking are wrong or invalid; this is just the wrong place for them. Those objectives are well covered in other pieces of legislation that have been designed specifically for that purpose.Although there is not a proposal to add any additional functions into section 13 of the Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 this amendment as it is being proposed would still significantly in my view affect the way that the Environmental Protection Authority carries out its existing statutory functions and obligations. The Government set this organisation up as part of its first-phase Resource Management Act reforms and the principal legislation was passed back in 2011. As members will know very clearly it is the plan and proposal of the Government to introduce second-phase Resource Management Act reforms later this year. I know that the Minister for the Environment the Hon Nick Smith is working diligently and hard to achieve that and as we speak I suspect is working hard to seek cross-party support for the much-needed Resource Management Act phase two reforms which will make that piece of legislation which is the cornerstone piece of legislation in this area a more functional and worthwhile piece of law that will provide much of the confidence and support that our environment needs going forward.As I said the amendment as it is being suggested by Meka Whaitiri would in my view change the very purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority. It would change it in a way that goes well beyond the original purposes of the principal Act and the bill does nothing to actually enhance the work of the agency. In fact in my view it has potential to detract from and actually diminish the work of the agency. It has the potential to effectively undermine the operational effectiveness of the agency. The result of this amendment bill could actually be that the Environmental Protection Authority is required to apply a whole new set of tests to its functionality and that would translate to a whole range of new duties a whole definitional new menu of objectives that in fact would detract from the effectiveness of the agency in its current form. I do not think that that necessarily provides any net benefit in terms of protection to our environment or the measurement of our environmental standards.I do have clear difficulties with this bill. It is well intentioned I know. I think the member is well intentioned; I think she brings to the House a piece of legislation that is thoughtful.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.