Volume 650 Week 86 - Tuesday 23 September 2008(continued on Friday 26 September 2008) 
Volume 650 Week 86 - Tuesday 23 September 2008(continued on Friday 26 September 2008) 
[Volume:650;Page:19259] 
Tuesday 23 September 2008 
( 
continued on Friday 26 September 2008 
) 
Business of the House 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Subject to agreement between the whips I seek leave to take the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 4) through its remaining stages and to take the second and third readings as a single debate of 12 10-minute speeches. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Leave is sought to take this course of action. Is there any objection? There is none. 
Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 4) 
Second Reading 
Third Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 4) be now read a second and a third time 
. I am very much obliged to the House for allowing the two stages of the bill to be read together. This is the annual bill that confirms a range of subordinate legislation—things for example like levy rates of various sorts—of a classical variety. The bill includes the issue of excise duty on petrol and road-user charges it includes areas in agriculture but most important it includes the confirmation of the annual adjustment on 1 April to benefit rates and New Zealand superannuation. Under law these changes have to be confirmed by statute by the end of the calendar year or on 1 January those rates revert to where they were on the previous 1 January. 
Obviously with the election being held on 8 November the House is not likely to be meeting for very long before Christmas so it would be quite difficult to get this legislation through given that there will be an Address in Reply debate and so on before Christmas. I am sure that nobody in the House wants to go into the election campaign explaining the possibility that New Zealand superannuation rates—or indeed benefit rates—may be cut on 1 January. The bill has been to the Regulations Review Committee where under the excellent chairmanship of Dr Richard Worth it has been given a clean bill of health. There are no strange things in it and no peculiar forms of validation so I am happy to support the bill. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) 
: 
 I think Dr Cullen adequately describes what is in the Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 4). I add that when it comes to the point at which any particular rate around excise is fixed clearly any Government has an opportunity to change those rates at any time. But New Zealanders particularly those who are in retirement do have a right to certainty about matters relating to their income and it would be the desire of no one in the House to give anything other than certainty that those payments will continue. We can be sure that Dr Worth and the people who sit on the Regulations Review Committee some of whom are excellent members of this House—and some of whom are retiring sadly for the House so some of their expertise will be lost to it—have done their work and we are assured that there is nothing untoward in this bill. It is a functional bill and for that reason we will be supporting it. 
Bill read a second time and a third time. 
Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. This is a simple bill. I think it comes from a mistake on the part of a court and it was decided that it would be easier to sort it out in this way rather than in any other. The mistake led to something that none of the parties involved in the case wanted as a result. We have an increasing degree of unanimity between the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand around the stability of employment law in New Zealand and this bill puts the law back to what everyone thought it was. Thank you. 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 National is of course supporting the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill through both its second and third readings. This must be one of the few bills relating to employment that has gone to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee unopposed. It passed through the select committee without any amendment it continues to be unopposed and National will of course continue to support it. As the Minister has stated all that this bill really does is to fix up a muck-up of the Government which got the law wrong in the first place. It drafted legislation that should have been certain that should have been straightforward and that should have been able to be understood but that failed. 
This issue went to the highest court in our land the Supreme Court which had to try to work out what the definition of “public holiday” in the Holidays Act actually means. It took a judgment of approximately 50 pages to then try to work out what this House intended with regard to its definition of “public holiday” back in 2002. That Supreme Court decision involving the New Zealand Air Line Pilots’ Association and Air New Zealand basically held that under the current legislation an employer and an employee could not agree to transfer a public holiday from a day listed in the Act to another day. All that this bill seeks to do in reflecting that Supreme Court decision is to provide that the definition of “public holiday” can include by agreement a period of 24 hours being treated as a public holiday but to exclude agreement to part of a day being treated as not being part of a public holiday. 
Usefully we are given an example of an employee who works from 10 p.m. on 24 April to 6 a.m. on 25 April—Anzac Day—and from 10 p.m. on Anzac Day to 6 a.m. on 26 April. Under this bill the employee and the employer can agree to treat the time from 10 p.m. to midnight on Anzac Day as a public holiday. In other words the bill allows the parties to treat one entire shift that is split over 2 days where one day is not a public holiday as if that shift were entirely worked on a public holiday. 
That is all that this bill does; it is a very narrow bill. Some submitters have suggested widening its scope but in the end the bill has come back to the House unamended. As one of the submitters suggested there are also other defects in the Holidays Act. This year those living in Southland actually missed out on a holiday completely because of the definition of “public holiday”. Also a public holiday in one of the other regions still has not been gazetted even though it is observed as if it were a public holiday. So this bill is a very very narrow amendment and it could have gone a lot further than it has. Certainly some defects still remain in the principal Act. Let us hope that at some stage that Act will be amended once and for all so that employees and employers can have certainty as to what it actually means. 
It is really like a situation of déjà vu. Five years ago when the original bill was first looked at the select committee report stated that “By majority we recommend substantial redrafting of the bill to make it explicit in what circumstances the public holiday entitlements would arise and to clarify the intent of the bill.” Well it would appear that the select committee report went unheeded because that did not happen and after further amendments we are back here 5 years later trying to clarify the intent of the Act and we now have yet another amendment to it. It is interesting to look back to 2002 which was about the time of the original holidays legislation. I understand that at that time about 75 percent of all inquiries to the labour inspectors related to holidays. It was quite an important issue. One would have thought that this Government would address some of those issues but no we have a narrow narrow bill. 
We had about 10 submitters on the bill. None of them opposed it. Again I say it is interesting in relation to employment law that there was no opposition to the bill. It has passed through the process so far without any amendments and even at the Committee stage there are no Supplementary Order Papers to be considered. I think that is probably a remarkable feat in this House in terms of employment law. 
Actually the holidays legislation is still in a mess. Employers still do not understand it even with this small amendment and employees still do not understand it. But rather than fixing it once and for all what does this Government do? All it does is to introduce this narrow narrow amendment to fix a narrow narrow area as a result of one Supreme Court decision. When the next Supreme Court decision is made on the next narrow aspect that no one understands then we will be back once again in this House under this Government to fix the next problem. 
Let us hope that does not happen and that the next review of the holidays legislation is done properly so it deals with the whole Act and not just with one small part of it and it deals with it in discussion with both employer groups and employee groups so that we have comprehensive legislation that both employers and employees can at least understand. Employers and employees alike need and deserve legislation that provides certainty. They should be able to know what the legislation says and what it means; they should not have to go to the Supreme Court to ask the justices what it means. They should not have to resort to the legal process all the way up to the Supreme Court for an interpretation of what Parliament intended and of what the legislation actually says and means. 
The bill goes only so far. As one submitter stated it does not deal with the Supreme Court’s prohibition on transferring an entire public holiday to some other day but at least it will allow for greater flexibility by agreement where shift work overlaps on 2 calendar days. National supports this bill. We supported it through its first reading we supported it through the select committee process we are supporting it now through the second reading and later we will support it through the Committee stage and the third reading. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I do not intend to take a long call; this is a very straightforward bill. I think it is fair to say that this matter was overlooked when the Holidays Act went through the House some 3 or 4 years ago. I agree with the latter part of Kate Wilkinson’s speech but I think it was most unkind of her to say that this was a Government stuff-up. New Zealand First was on the Opposition benches at that time and Kate Wilkinson was not a member. Wayne Mapp will agree that this was a matter of significant debate both at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and in this House. 
New Zealand First did not agree with everything in the Holidays Bill when we went through it—we had concerns. But we are big enough ugly enough and strong enough to say that the legislation has gone through this House and that people in this country are entitled to have proper protective holiday legislation. At the time we were supportive of most of the bill but not all of it. I think in our last vote we voted against it but having said that we were in large measure supportive of it. The provisions in this legislation needed to be addressed; we all know that. We are all going to agree with the bill. Let us get on with it and do it. New Zealand First supports this bill. 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 I will make just a short comment on this Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill on behalf of my colleague Sue Bradford who is not here this morning and this will be our only comment on the bill this morning. We support the bill. We raised concerns at the first reading that this kind of piecemeal change to the Holidays Act is not good enough and we say that a proper look at it needs to be taken. Fixing up little bits as they pop up is useful to some extent but it does not actually do the job of making sure that workers’ rights are fully considered and protected. 
In respect of holidays we are always particularly concerned about the most vulnerable workers. People have a right to participate in their community activities and their families and public holidays are often the one opportunity for them to be able to do that. This is especially so for those vulnerable workers who work shift work or split shifts. They do not always work on Mondays and therefore are not always entitled to holidays on Mondays. 
People work to live they do not live to work and that needs to be better respected. We have very few public holidays in this country compared with other countries and we really need to beef up the commitment to enable people in our communities to contribute to their community and family life rather than being just economic units producing cash for large multinational corporations—and for some local domestic ones as well. 
We are very pleased to see the bill come to fruition. We are looking forward to its speedy progress but it is not enough just of itself; more needs to be done. Thank you. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Morena tatou e tenei ata. At this point in the urgency programme there is something very attractive about the concept of holidays although sleep is an even more attractive option at this point of the programme—and going home. We are pleased to support this Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Bill which amends the Holidays Act 2003 to ensure that when a work shift spans two days and at least one of those days is a public holiday an employer and an employee can enter into an agreement to transfer the public holiday to cover one whole shift. It all sounds very complicated I suppose but in reality what the bill does is reinstate previous practices that benefited both the employer and the employee. 
We are pleased that the bill is supported by both employers and employees—a win-win situation all around. In fact this proposal has been so well accepted I understand that the employees of Heinz-Wattie have actually made a joint application for the change with the company. As I understand it the bill provides specifically for agreement about such a transfer to be reached in certain circumstances. These circumstances are when say the shift spanning two days starts or finishes on a public holiday. 
The first point to note is that the legislation is intended to specifically address the consequences of the Supreme Court decision in the airline pilots case. The effect of the Supreme Court decision was to overturn the Employment Court decision in the Heinz-Wattie case. The Heinz-Wattie case that went to the Employment Court dealt with the issue of shift workers whose shifts cross midnight. The Employment Court had found that workers and employers could agree to observe a public holiday based on the shift patterns rather than on the period from midnight to midnight. The Employment Court’s decision was generally supported both by unions and employers whereas the Supreme Court found that a public holiday can be only one of the days listed in section 44 of the Holidays Act. This is where it becomes rather complicated. 
The general policy statement in the bill specifically states: “This legislation is needed following the recent Supreme Court decision  
New Zealand Airline Pilots’ Association Industrial Union of Workers Incorporated v Air New Zealand Limited 
”. However it deals with only the Heinz-Wattie case issue of shift workers. It does not address the issue of for example workers who want to observe days of cultural significance other than those listed in the Act. Basically the bill proposes to repeal section 44(2) of the Holidays Act altogether and effectively replace it with new section 44A which deals only with the Heinz-Wattie scenario of shift workers. In other words the bill appears to narrow the circumstances in which a public holiday can be transferred to only the situation where shift workers’ shifts cross midnight. 
However the general principle of workers having the ability to observe days of cultural significance to them rather than being limited to those days listed in the Act is a good one we believe provided it is not open to abuse. The best way of doing that the Maori Party thinks would be to provide that such arrangements require an agreement between the employer and the employee and to provide that they can be initiated by employees only. 
The scenario might be for example that a Muslim worker wants to observe the beginning of Ramadan which is a day of cultural significance to him or her rather than Christmas Day. Or a worker may want to celebrate the birthday of Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana or perhaps the monthly hui on the 18th of the month as practised at Parihaka—as my colleague Mahara Okeroa would know—or the on 12th of the month as practised by the Ringatu people. That worker would be able to request that he or she works on Christmas Day and that the nominated day of cultural significance would become his or her public holiday. We think that is a pretty good idea. The employer would not be able to withhold agreement unreasonably. The worker would not be entitled to time and a half for working on Christmas Day. 
The Maori Party will be supporting this bill. We have spoken to a number of different union organisations and we know that their members are very supportive of this bill. We know that Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions have been consulted and that they both support the amendment. 
Many of these same members work in food factories that run 24-hour production lines and they work 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. night shifts so they are directly affected by this bill. What appears to have happened as a result of the Supreme Court ruling is that at midnight the pay rate changes which causes hassles for payroll and confusion around wages. For 24-hour production companies it has also meant that two shifts of workers are entitled to a day off in lieu instead of one shift. Although this may be good for workers for some companies it means closing down from midnight to midnight to avoid having to compensate all of the workers of two different shifts by giving them a day in lieu. We know this is the case for both Heinz-Wattie in Hastings and Unilever in Petone. Therefore in practice it turns out to be not so good for workers after all. 
The Maori Party is happy to support this bill but we consider that the costs of time delay and uncertainty need to be addressed immediately. We are pleased to lend our votes to give effect to this. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 National is supporting the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill. It is an irony that on the last day of Parliament in theory we are debating a bill that everyone has agreed on and yet this is the third amendment of the Holidays Act since it was enacted in 2003. We on this side of the House have been saying to the Government for some time now that this legislation should be properly reviewed and that there would obviously have to be a collaborative arrangement involving both employers and unions to get legislation that would be actually workable. 
What this amendment and previous amendments have shown and indeed what previous speeches have shown is that the Act developed by the Labour Government has not actually worked in practice. The irony is that the Labour Government was intending to simplify the Holidays Act. All I can say is that I have never seen so many amendments to what was supposed to be simplified legislation in employment law. This shows a Government that has frankly created a mess and we are having to fix that mess yet again—a third time in just 4 years. The legislation is simply deficient. Interestingly enough Mr Peter Brown noted that point as well in his speech. 
The irony of it also is that we have established at great expense a Supreme Court that ended up saying employers and employees could not even agree to have a common-sense arrangement. We have spent millions and millions of dollars establishing that court and it could not using its judicial power come up with a common-sense solution. It took very much a black-letter law approach to the legislation and we are being required to fix it here. I would have hoped that a court of that nature would be able to allow a bit more flexibility; that is after all one of the values of a court like the Supreme Court. No the legislation has come back here. 
It is National’s intent to fix these problems in the Holidays Act once and for all. We are committed should we be in Government to having a proper review. We will take into account the views both of employers and of unions because the legislation has to work for everyone concerned. People—both employers and employees—need to have certainty and the legislation has to be reasonably simple in application. The whole problem of this legislation which has been pointed out time and time again to the Government is that it is simply too complicated and Government has been unwilling to deal with the issues. Instead we get these piecemeal ad hoc amendments to cover up the mistakes. 
I know that Mr Mallard said there was a certain level of consensus around employment law; actually in some respects he is right. That certainly does not mean that the Government got much of it right. In fact in the Holidays Act it has got much of it wrong. The Labour Government does not understand—indeed it has never understood—the need for flexibility. That is why we would say—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: I say to members that the debate is widening. Could we bring it back a little bit and then we might not have quite the amount of noise. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Surely on the last day you would want a certain level of interchange in the House— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Oh dear me no! 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: National is supporting the bill. We are recording our disappointment that we have to do yet again another fix-up job on botched legislation. The fact that this Government—on the last day—has to come back to Parliament to say we will do another fix-up job is completely reflective of its whole approach over the last 9 years. The Government has struggled with the concept of governing and it has struggled with the ability to have clear and understandable law. New Zealanders are looking forward to a better change in the future and in 6 to 8 weeks we will know the results. 
Bill read a second time. 
In Committee 
TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I seek leave for this bill to be taken as one question in its Committee stage. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is none. 
Clauses 1 to 8 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 It is a delight to spend the last day of this parliamentary term in urgency speaking at 9.30 on a Friday morning about an amendment to the Holidays Act which should have been fixed up many many years ago in relation to whether employers and employees can agree to transfer a public holiday. I would like the Minister in the chair Trevor Mallard to take a couple of calls to answer some queries. 
I note that in 2004 the report  
Working Group Report on unintended consequences of the Holidays Act 2003 
 was released and I shall quote from that report: “Some employers questioned when a public holiday is deemed to start for the purposes of the Act. They noted that in some cases a shift pattern will ‘straddle’ a public holiday in the sense that the shift covers parts of two days one of which is a public holiday. In these cases employers need to know when the public holiday is deemed to start for the purposes of the Act particularly when the employer intends to stop production at the start of a public holiday to avoid the requirement to pay employees one and a half times their [relevant daily pay]. … This issue turns on the interpretation of ‘a day’ which is not defined in the Act but is referred to in section 12(4). … It was suggested that there is nothing in the Act to stop an employee and an employer from agreeing on the time that they deem a public holiday to start.” 
That was 4 years ago. The issue of a public holiday being straddled was raised then. It has taken 4 years for us to have this amendment which addresses that issue. I would really like the Minister to explain why it has taken 4 years for the Government to try to fix this very—[ 
Interruption 
] The Minister will get his turn. He is not allowed to barrack from that chair. I ask the Minister to explain what exactly this Government has been doing in relation to making the holidays legislation certain so that both employees and employers can understand it. 
The other issue is that this amendment is very very narrow. Some submitters queried why the ability to transfer those entitlements should apply only to shift workers and why it could not apply to any employees. I would like the Minister to explain the anomaly—why the provision applies just to shift workers. Will we have to wait for the next Supreme Court decision before we expand the provision to include all employees? 
Bearing in mind that there were no objections to the bill I just mention that one of the submitters suggested that the bill should go further and ensure that all employers and employees have the flexibility to transfer the observance of and entitlements that arise from a public holiday from a day listed in the Act for reasons of cultural or personal significance or for reason of convenience. I think prior speakers have already raised that issue. If employers and employees can agree that part of a day is a public holiday why cannot they agree that a whole day can be deemed a public holiday and make their choice? 
National will support the bill in the Committee stage. I know there are other important matters that members of the House want to attend to rather than debating this technical amendment to the Holidays Act 2003. That we are debating it now is due to 4 years of idleness on the part of the Government 4 years of ignoring the suggestion of the 2004 working group report which specifically mentioned the issue of shift patterns straddling public holidays. That was 4 years ago. Nothing has been done since then. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I must confess that I was waiting for the Minister in the chair the Hon Trevor Mallard to answer— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I’m waiting to hear a substantive thing to comment on. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: The previous speaker Kate Wilkinson did raise substantive questions and therefore I will ask the Minister to comment—the questions were quite legitimate. Those questions related to why the working party report was not properly implemented and why we are now dealing with quite a narrow approach relating only to shift work. By making those sorts of narrow technical amendments—and no one is in dispute about them—we certainly fix a particular problem. No one is doubting that. This particular problem relating to shift work has been fixed. Everyone has agreed on that and that comes directly from the Supreme Court decision which is as the Minister noted earlier only about a year old. 
However that is not really the question my colleague asked. She asked about the other issues. What mechanisms does the Government have in place to fix the other issues that will arise or is the pattern going to be that we will have these little amendment bills to fix up each individual problem as it arises? There has been a consistent call as the Minister knows to have a more comprehensive review of the Holidays Act so that the range of problems that have been identified on a number of occasions—I have been on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee in the past—will be fixed. Obviously in the nature of that discussion there would be a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between employer and employee. We understand that and obviously we would not want to return to ordinary daily pay as was proposed by some people. That would be far too restrictive but conversely— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s what Kate Wilkinson has been promoting. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: —National does not propose that approach—we say that relevant daily pay has its own set of problems. 
One would think this would be an important opportunity to establish a working party to resolve those kinds of issues and others so that we get a more comprehensive approach to the problem rather than this particular approach. The Minister owes it to the Committee to answer the questions raised by Kate Wilkinson. I do not think I need to take up any more time on that point but I do ask the Minister to comment. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I thank the member and make it clear to Dr Mapp that all I was doing was waiting to see whether there was a more substantive list of issues for me to address because the issues raised should not take too long to deal with. 
The member Kate Wilkinson was right when she indicated that the issue was raised in 2004 but if she had continued to read the report she would have seen that when the issue was raised in 2004 in the Heinz-Wattie case it was not regarded as a problem. The legal understanding at the time was that the employer and employees could make an agreement around that particular shift work issue and in fact all of us and the people who have been involved in this area for quite a long time thought that was the situation. I am sure that Kate Wilkinson as someone who is versed in industrial law probably thought that was the case at the time. Unfortunately in November last year in the Air Line Pilots’ Association and Air New Zealand case the Supreme Court gave a ruling that was not asked for by anybody and it did upset people’s understanding of the law in that particular area. 
There was a more general question about the calculation of holiday pay and it is fair to say that up until a year or 18 months ago making holiday pay calculations was something that businesses especially small and medium sized businesses had some problems with. As a result of that my very good predecessor Ruth Dyson did some work on the issue and it has resulted in a very good holiday pay calculator now sitting on the Department of Labour website. That calculator is extensively used and it has been praised by the Small Business Advisory Group as well as by a number of individual small employers. The ability to work out those calculations is now much easier than it had been. It is a complex area but there is a good computer programme which is easy to feed data into and which takes employers and employees through the process step by step. So that issue has not been raised with me over the last 6 months or so as being a practical problem for employers. 
Then I think we got to a broader issue which is that if employees are allowed to transfer a couple of hours of a public holiday why cannot they transfer it all? I am sorely tempted Madam Assistant Chairperson—but I am sure you will not let me—to broaden the debate quite extensively— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: No. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: —on to the general question of transfer. I will not do that but what I will do in response to the point made by Kate Wilkinson is to say there is a fundamental difference of opinion between the Labour Party and the National Party on this particular range of areas. The Labour Party is of the view that holidays are not for sale and that there should be a balance in the relationship between employers and employees. Especially for people who are in marginal employment situations—people who do not have a lot of power in the workplace—our view is that having employment rights set out in statutes and codes is the proper way of achieving that balance. 
That is why we are not prepared to entertain that member’s suggestion that people should be able to give away their Christmas Day give away their Good Friday or as that member suggested earlier— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Yes I know but let us contain it. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I think it was fair for the member to raise that issue. I did not take a point of order about that. The issue might have been marginal to this bill but it is important. The reason we disagree with National is the same reason that we disagree with the proposal of the National Party to cut back the entitlement to holidays—to take it back to 3 weeks. We know what would happen. We know that employers would put pressure on employees— 
Kate Wilkinson 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I think the Minister is straying from the topic at hand quite considerably. If he wants to give an electioneering speech on workplace practice— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: The point is taken. Do not add to it; do not exacerbate the situation please. Has the Minister finished speaking? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Not at all. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: What a shame! Would the Minister resume the call and please remain close to the subject of the debate. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Sure. The debate is as defined by Kate Wilkinson about whether we should be allowed to transfer holidays to other days. Labour says in a very specific instance—in this case where there is a straddling of the holiday by shift work—then yes that is acceptable. But generally we do not believe that employees should be made to give away their holidays which is the National Party’s policy. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to clause 8 be agreed to: 
to omit from the example in section 44A “would” and substitute “could”. 
Amendment agreed to. 
Clauses 1 to 8 as amended agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Third Reading 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. I congratulate you Mr Assistant Speaker on your productivity. You have been coming in and out of the Chamber in various roles such as Assistant Speaker and Chairperson and we have made amazing progress while you have been away. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Oh you are going again! I did not know I had that effect on you Mr Assistant Speaker. 
This is a simple wee bill. It fixes up a decision that the Supreme Court made—a decision that it had not been invited to make by any of the parties and a decision that really made a nonsense out of any practical application of the law. I am a supporter of the Supreme Court but in this particular case I think it is fair to say that it made a mess of things. 
This Parliament has unanimously agreed with the support of the Council of Trade Unions and Business New Zealand to remedy the mess the court has made. We have had a little bit of fun in the Committee stage because an invitation was made by the National Party to have a broader discussion about the transferability of public holidays and of course that raised the question of the sale of holidays generally. It has been made very clear that there are some issues around holidays and I am absolutely determined to have a more general piece of amending legislation in the next Parliament. It will be something that is wider and something that I hope will not be unanimous because I know that if I do something substantive the National Party will not agree with it. 
We had a bit of a discussion around whether workers should be forced to give up their fourth week’s holiday as the National Party has proposed. It is a debate that I am sure we will have quite a lot of over the next 6½ weeks. I am sure that every time it is brought up we will get a few more votes because no one out there who is reasonable would think that the public holiday provisions and the paid holiday provisions in New Zealand are too generous. It is at the lower end of the OECD scale and lower than most other countries apart from the US. Part of the reason we are relatively lowly paid compared with the United Kingdom Australia and some other like countries is that our holiday arrangements are not as generous as those of some other countries. 
As I say there was remarkable unanimity around passing this legislation quickly but what the bill did was to focus on some very big issues. I will be particularly interested in the response of my old friend and colleague Dr Sharples in this area because this is one of the defining issues. Frankly if one is looking for an ethnic group that gains the most out of having proper holiday pay arrangements one will find that it is Maori because they are most likely to be amongst the disadvantaged group. I would be interested in the Maori Party’s reaction to the National Party’s suggestion that the number of public holidays should be reduced. Thank you very much. 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 As I stated earlier National is supporting the third reading of the Holidays (Transfer of Public Holidays) Amendment Bill. As the Minister of Labour has correctly stated it is really a technical amendment to the Holidays Act 2003. 
The Minister was a wee bit misleading in his comments about forcing people to transfer holidays or employers being able to take holidays away. I do not think that the National Party or anybody else wants to take away people’s holidays. The overall purpose of the Holidays Act which we applaud is “to promote balance between work and other aspects of employees’ lives …”. But the National Party trusts New Zealanders to sometimes make the right decisions for themselves. 
This bill is very narrow. It covers just the situation where a shift straddles a public holiday. Its drafting is a result of the Supreme Court decision in the  
New Zealand Airline Pilots’ Association Industrial Union of Workers Inc. v Air New Zealand Ltd  
case. If we look back in history we see that the way in which some of these issues evolve is really interesting. The justices in that Supreme Court case stated: “Parliament can hardly have intended to create this potential for confusion and disputes.” I think that is quite a strong statement from the justices. It is interesting to note that way back in 2003 before that decision the Labour Government boasted that the holidays legislation would provide “certainty clarity and consistency”. It was very very confident that its holidays legislation would provide certainty clarity and consistency yet here we are several years and three amendments later trying to fix up and clarify legislation that did not provide certainty clarity or consistency. 
In 2003 the then Minister of Labour actually admitted that “the current Holidays Act is an extremely difficult piece of legislation to apply and to interpret.” She stated: “Areas previously left to the courts to interpret and develop have been dealt with in the bill … That will mean that users will not have to refer to the numerous judicial decisions that supplement the current legislation.” That was back in 2003 and here we are in 2008 as a result of a judicial decision trying to provide some clarity in legislation that the Minister at the time boasted would cure all ills. 
Actually this is the third amendment to the holidays legislation since the original Act came into force in April 2004. Less than 6 months after that there was a further amendment because the Labour Government had got it wrong; Peter Brown from New Zealand First mentioned that this morning. In fact in 2004 he stated that his party “got it wrong by quite some.” So here we are in 2008 on the last day of Parliament and in urgency trying to fix up what the Government got wrong. Back then in 2004 New Zealand First actually went further and said that “The holidays legislation in this country is in a mess. It is absolutely in a mess. Employers do not understand it; employees do not understand it.” Well it is still a mess. We fixed up a tiny little area of it that they got wrong “by quite some”—an area that needed clarification—and that unfortunately went to the highest court in the land. But at least it is fixed hopefully with this small amendment. 
When we look back in history at the transferring of public holidays—which allows an employee to observe a public holiday on another day—we see that it is not a new concept. Apparently it was first used legislatively in the Public Holidays Act 1910 and even before that in 1908 the Factories Act provided that persons employed when Christmas Day for example fell on a Sunday could observe the holiday on the following Monday. Later in 1955 the Public Holidays Act had the effect of transferring public holidays to other days when they fell on Saturdays or Sundays. So as this Supreme Court decision stated since at least 1910 employment legislation has been familiar with the concept of public holidays being observed on days other than the calendar days on which the holiday actually falls. 
The predecessor to this Act the Holidays Act 1981 also provided that public holidays could be varied by agreement as long as they were not reduced in number. Indeed the original explanatory note of the holidays legislation in 2003 actually contemplated that and said that the bill gives employers and employees the flexibility to agree to observe alternative days as public holidays. That was back in 2002. Something happened in between and the bill that came out of the select committee morphed into the Act we now have which has been fixed up three times because of the lack of clarity. 
Back in May last year there was an article in  
Employment Today 
 by an employment specialist which quite aptly stated: “Rather than simplify the law relating to holidays the Holidays Act 2003 has resulted in an increase in litigation as employers employees and unions all endeavour to come to terms with interpretation of differing sections of the Act …”. How right that is. Now this narrow amendment is trying as a result of a Supreme Court decision to add some clarity to a very very narrow interpretation of the definition of “public holiday”. 
National is supporting this bill. It only goes so far. It does not deal with the possibility of transferring an entire public holiday to the next day or another day; it only deals with the matter of where a shift straddles a public holiday. Also it applies only to shift workers and not to other employees. There is scope for a good look at the holidays legislation. The legislation has to be certain. Employees have to understand it and employers have to understand it. A review of the holidays legislation does not mean taking away holiday rights; it means providing legislation that is clear and certain and does not add to confusion. National supports this bill under urgency at its third reading. 
Bill read a third time. 
Business of the House 
TIM BARNETT (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 Following discussion between the whips I seek leave that if at 1 p.m. the House is still debating the adjournment motion the debate continue past 1 p.m. until the question is put. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action? There being none it is agreed to. 
Appointments 
Independent Police Conduct Authority 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That pursuant to section 5 of the Independent Police Conduct Authority Act 1988 and section 32 of the Crown Entities Act 2004 this House recommend His Excellency the Governor-General appoint William Allan Reid Galbraith and Melwyn Purefoy Smith CNZM as members of the Independent Police Conduct Authority each for a term of 3 years. 
 Membership of the authority is established by section 5 of the Independent Police Conduct Authority Act 1988. The authority consists of up to five members appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the House of Representatives. 
The appointments of Mr Galbraith and Mr Smith mark the completion of another recommendation of the 2007  
Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct. 
 Mr Galbraith is currently the investigations manager of the Independent Police Conduct Authority and prior to this he was a member of the New Zealand Police for 37 years. Mr Smith has held various senior State sector position including that of Secretary for Justice and he was an Ombudsman from 2001 to 2005. In late 2007 Mr Smith completed a further 6-month term as an Ombudsman during which he delivered his report on his investigations into the criminal justice sector. Messrs Galbraith and Smith bring with them a wide range of skills and a wealth of experience in the public and justice sectors. With their appointments the public can have every confidence that the authority is well placed to continue with its implementation of the recommendations of the commission of inquiry. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 Madam Assistant Speaker I know you will indulge me for taking about 25 seconds before I address the motion. I was not in the House yesterday evening—I was back in my electorate—but I want to congratulate members opposite on their valedictory speeches. In particular I thoroughly enjoyed hearing on the radio the speeches made by the Hon Paul Swain and the Hon Steve Maharey. In times gone by that could have had consequences for road safety but last night all was well. I wish all those members opposite who have given their valedictories the very best. 
On the issue of the motion before the House our leader John Key has indicated to the Minister of Police that National will be supporting the appointment of Mr Alan Galbraith and Mr Mel Smith as members of the Independent Police Conduct Authority each for a term of 3 years. In recent times a matter of some debate in this House and outside of it has been the issue of appointments to bodies such as the Independent Police Conduct Authority being made close to a general election and the various  
Cabinet Manual 
 conventions around the consultation with Opposition members on such appointments. On this occasion John Key received a letter from the Hon Rick Barker on 25 August which appropriately in our view sought the Opposition’s view on these matters. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: I say to members to just lower their voices. Keep going Mr Power; it was just that the noise was getting up. 
SIMON POWER 
: Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It is worth spending a moment to note—and I am sure that the Minister who moved the motion will agree with me—that the authority has changed considerably under the chairmanship of Justice Lowell Goddard. It has become an authority that is truly independent and I note in fairness to the Government better resourced after Justice Goddard insisted— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Well she’s an authority—that’s the difference. 
SIMON POWER 
: She certainly is! As I understand it when Justice Goddard appeared before the Law and Order Committee she made determined noises about seeking more resources from the Government to fund the authority. 
Justice Goddard brings to the Independent Police Conduct Authority an air of authority and she has a presence and determination about her. In recent days I have had absolutely no hesitation in assuring a constituent—who had talked to me about a particular matter involving the police—that if he wrote to the authority now that Justice Goddard is in charge he would hear firm fair and very independent views expressed. I think the chairperson is doing a particularly good job. 
But with increased responsibility increased independence and increased resources in the budgetary sense comes the need to firm up the authority by placing on the authority members of equal gravitas equal experience and equal independence. I do not know Mr Galbraith but I know of him and having made some inquiries prior to the motion being put to the House I know that he will do a terrific job.As the Associate Minister Rick Barker said Mr Galbraith was a member of the New Zealand Police for 37 years. He has a strong investigative background; having spent most of his police service in the Criminal Investigation Bureau I understand he worked in Wellington Palmerston North Auckland and national headquarters and was the New Zealand Police liaison officer in South-east Asia for 3 years. He retired from the position of assistant commissioner of police for crime and operations in 1995 and brings to this position knowledge of trusted and trustworthy policing in New Zealand. 
The Associate Minister when he wrote to Mr Key in late August on this issue made this statement: “New Zealand police are one of the Authority’s biggest stakeholders and the Authority needs the confidence of the police. It expects them to take the Authority’s reports and criticism seriously.” I think the Associate Minister missed an “if” there now that I read it out loud. It is worth noting that Mr Galbraith will bring that experience and the National Party is certainly supportive of the part of the motion that is his appointment to the Independent Police Conduct Authority. 
The second person probably needs less introduction to the House. Mr Mel Smith of course completed a short term as an Ombudsman in which he delivered his report into his investigation of the criminal justice sector. It may not be very interesting to other members but I think it is a particularly interesting matter. That criminal justice sector report was some of the finest work done by an Ombudsman looking at the state of the criminal justice sector. It was a report that in actual fact suggested a separate independent inquiry into the criminal justice sector. That was not to be dismissed lightly. The Prime Minister herself asked for that report in the first instance and Mr Smith did not hold back in delivering a very objective view of the criminal justice sector. It is that type of independence that type of fearlessness when it comes to dealing with institutions and matters of that level of importance that make Mr Smith a very appropriate addition to Justice Goddard’s authority. 
As I said Mr Smith had just completed a short term as an Ombudsman in late 2007 but he had previously served consecutive periods totalling 3½ years and 2 years as an Ombudsman. His CV is impressive. He has had various senior State sector appointments including Deputy Secretary for Internal Affairs Deputy Secretary for Justice acting Secretary for Justice acting chief executive of the Government Superannuation Fund and also acting Chief Executive of the Ministry of Social Policy. He has chaired various ministerial reviews including the review of the general election process in 1999 and the review of the Department of Work and Income. He will bring serious clout to the authority and it is my hope that he along with his fellow members of the authority and of course the authority herself will continue to act not only in an independent and appropriate way but in a way that does the thing we are most concerned about in establishing the authority and its membership and that is to restore public confidence in the police. 
The parliamentary term has not been full of good news for the police but like most New Zealanders I am of the view that 99.9 percent of police in New Zealand do a fantastic job. It is not an easy job and they should be supported for doing it but where things go wrong the public need to be assured that those things will be looked at in an independent thorough way. I am sure that the additions to the authority that are before the House today in this motion will under Justice Goddard’s firm hand and guidance see the authority maintain the rigour that is required to ensure the police continue to be held in high regard. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Thank you Mr Power. I apologise. I did not want to interrupt you mid-flow. There is an awful atmosphere of end of term in the House this morning. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I can understand that Madam Assistant Speaker. Before I commence an endorsement of these nominations with similar comments to those of my colleague Mr Power I say that unfortunately I was out of the House yesterday afternoon but I did manage to hear your valedictory speech and I appreciated it very much. Unfortunately I did not get to hear the valedictory speech of Jill Pettis yesterday afternoon but I will check up on it. I did sneak in unseen to the Government side of the Chamber the other night and left a little bottle on her seat with a card wishing her all the best. Jill and I first met up shortly after 31 October 1998 when I was selected as the National Party candidate in Whanganui; we have been doing battle ever since. I must admit that attending a Grey Power meeting yesterday afternoon without Jill and her melodic tones and without banter from Warren Pettis Dave Vallely and various other members—who no doubt were in the gallery yesterday afternoon—made the meeting a fairly tame situation. 
In any event I rise to speak in support of the nominations of Allan Galbraith and Mel Smith in respect of the Independent Police Conduct Authority. I will make a few comments in respect of former Assistant Commissioner Allan Galbraith who was the regional commander of the central region region 3 for a number of years—I was one of his lowly subordinates—but who is probably best known for his investigation of the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 homicide. That police operation is probably our biggest internationally recognised operation. It is interesting to note that the main reason the two offenders were in custody so quickly revolved around the fact that like true Government servants having completed what must have been a multimillion-dollar operation in coming over here to blow up the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 they got caught because they hung around to pick up the $167 deposit on their motor home. If they had left the motor home in a car park and just disappeared they probably would not have been caught. However that inquiry escalated very quickly initially to 56 staff and then to well over a hundred as the police ran an operation that took place right around the country but largely in Northland and around Auckland as they sought to complete the inquiry. They did that and it then led on to huge international repercussions for New Zealand as part of the ongoing stance that New Zealand took in respect of nuclear weapons right around the world. Mr Galbraith’s role in that was significant. The contribution he made to the New Zealand Police over 37 years was huge and he is well respected within the rank and file and within the administration and the hierarchy of that organisation. 
I must also endorse the comments of my colleague Simon Power in respect of Mel Smith. His reputation and forbearance is well regarded. The respect he is held in as a result of his role as Ombudsman adds very much to the role that he now takes on in the Independent Police Conduct Authority. As someone who has had quite a bit to do with that authority in the short time I have been in Parliament I also have to agree that the public perception of the Independent Police Conduct Authority has been hugely enhanced from what it was previously. That has a significant amount to do with the force of personality of the authority Justice Lowell Goddard and also of the deputy authority Mike Lance but the experience of Allan Galbraith and Mel Smith added to that will certainly bring confidence from the public to the authority’s ability to deal independently to investigate on its own motion and to bring to a conclusion in a speedy and fair way those complaints that have already been laid before it. I believe we have already seen that confidence after a number of reports that the authority has reported back to the New Zealand Police and released publicly. The scrutiny for instance in the way the authority looked at the issues raised in respect of the police reporting on themselves and a number of initiatives that the authority has raised recently have only enhanced the public’s view of the authority and its independence. 
So I look forward to seeing what the future holds in respect of these members of the authority and I am pleased to be able to endorse their appointment for 3 years. I wish them all the best for the future. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports the motion before the House and recommends to His Excellency the Governor-General the appointment of William Allan Reid Galbraith and Melwyn Purefoy Smith CNZM as members of the Independent Police Conduct Authority. One of the most important roles which goes back to Roman times—and I am not aware of the tag in Latin but in English one asks “who watches the watchers”—is the very role that the Independent Police Conduct Authority has in New Zealand. As members of Parliament we get constant complaints about the way in which police activities are conducted and lawyers also receive complaints about the way in which prosecutions are conducted and evidence is obtained. So it is extremely important that we have a body that inquires into the activities of the police. 
The Independent Police Conduct Authority is a step up from the previous arrangement we had in New Zealand and the appointments of Mr Galbraith and Mr Smith are two very important appointments. Of course mention has been made of Mr Galbraith’s involvement in the  
Rainbow Warrior  
inquiry and that discussion touched on what was happening in this House at the time because the Rt Hon David Lange was the owner of the unit in Parakai in which the people who were planning their little escapade on the Waitemata Harbour were staying. It is amazing what a long arm some of these involvements have. Mr Galbraith has often been confused in Auckland legal circles with Alan Galbraith QC a very highly respected lawyer in New Zealand. It takes a moment or two to differentiate between the two but I am sure they are equally highly regarded in their respective professions. 
Mr Smith is well known to us all in this House as a former Ombudsman and it was Peter Brown the Deputy Leader of New Zealand First who said some time ago: “We find him an affable man a very competent man; he is very conscientious; he is very determined to get to the bottom of a particular issue and we cannot speak highly enough of Mr Smith.” It should also be remembered that Mr Smith conducted the report into aerial spraying for the painted apple moth in Auckland and he sharply criticised the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of Health for their handling of the campaign. We have two very well-qualified independent people undertaking this responsibility and New Zealand First supports the motion. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Ka nui te mihi ki a tatou katoa. Firstly before I start my last speech in this term of Parliament I want to mihi to you for your leadership in the House and to thank you. 
The announcement at the start of the month that the Independent Police Conduct Authority would be receiving enhanced powers to arrest police officers and lay criminal charges as a result of its inquiries has been welcomed by the Maori Party. Similarly we supported the decision in Budget 2008 that an extra $4.7 million in operating funding would be appropriated to meet the requirements of this authority. It is to our mind eminently sensible for this organisation to have the authority to make appropriate decisions and the resources to carry out these tasks. We in the Maori Party stand by our commitment to the principles of accountability transparency and kaitiakitanga—the active exercise of responsibility—in a manner beneficial to resources and to the welfare of the people. Therefore we support any initiatives that will assist in strengthening the justice system and ultimately working to ensure that we all live in a safe secure and peaceful community. 
We have also been greatly impressed by the leadership brought to the authority by the appointment of Justice Lowell Goddard of Ngati Te Upoko Iri Ngati Kahungunu and Tuhoe. Justice Goddard took the initiative to visit Ruatoki as part of an inquiry into police actions in the Tuhoe raids. She made the decision to take an independent oversight of an event in our history that Tuhoe leader Tamati Kruger described as a gross breach of civil rights. In his assessment the breaches included many things. There were serious charges laid down and it is vital that every stone is turned if we are to enhance the credibility and the reputation of police in Aotearoa. 
Justice Goddard also made a symbolic visit to the street in Waitara on which Steven Wallace was shot. The comment that Steven’s mother Raewyn Wallace made after that visit sums up the quality of the presence that Justice Goddard has brought to the role. Mrs Wallace remarked that she was pleased that the authority was independent and was looking at all the issues over the police actions and procedures that were raised but not necessarily addressed in the private prosecution and the inquest. The authority is aiming to release in October its findings on Mr Wallace’s shooting and it is a report that we will be watching out for. It is important that the police act on its recommendations which could include that disciplinary action be taken against officers. 
The decision to re-examine the evidence on the Steven Wallace case certainly reinforces Justice Goddard’s intention that the Independent Police Conduct Authority will live up to its name and do exactly that—bring independent civilian oversight of the police. It will ensure a set of fresh eyes and a new perspective. As Mrs Wallace said: “Justice Goddard came to where it happened. She looked and listened. I appreciated that.” 
The authority it would appear has encouraged a new confidence amongst New Zealanders and its report released just at the start of this week regarding the search into the home of Dunedin man Bruce Van Essen was even further reinforcement of the important role played by the Independent Police Complaints Authority in helping to restore public confidence and trust in police work. 
Given all these factors in normal circumstances the decision to appoint new members to the Independent Police Conduct would have been supported by the Maori Party. But that is the thing: it is about normal circumstances. We did not receive the letter from the Minister concerning the appointments to the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Human Rights Review Tribunal until 25 August. We are all aware that it has been the practice for Governments to exercise restraint in making significant appointments in the period leading up to a general election. Usually this is for a period of about 3 months. In our analysis the period of restraint should have begun on 15 August at the very latest. These appointments did not meet that threshold and accordingly we will not be supporting the motion—for that reason only; not because there are any personal considerations against the nominees. 
We believe that these appointments should be put on hold to be either confirmed or amended by the incoming Government after the 2008 election. Therefore the Maori Party cannot support the proposed appointments at this point. Kia ora. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That pursuant to section 5 of the Independent Police Conduct Authority Act 1988 and section 32 of the Crown Entities Act 2004 this House recommend His Excellency the Governor-General appoint William Allan Reid Galbraith and Melwyn Purefoy Smith CNZM as members of the Independent Police Conduct Authority each for a term of 3 years. 
Ayes 111 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 47; New Zealand First 6; Green Party 4; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 4 
Maori Party 4. 
Motion agreed to. 
Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 I will direct my comments this morning to Supplementary Order Paper 246 proposed by Judith Tizard the Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage in the House last night. In my second reading speech I explained why following a visit to the Government Administration Committee by Sir Geoffrey Palmer it was thought fit to include in the interpretation clause some definitions that were regarded as very important. The first is “author” the second is “book” and the third is “New Zealand author”. I will now analyse those definitions briefly. 
I forwarded to the Minister a couple of comments that have been made to me and I will now record some of those questions and perhaps get some answers to them. The first definition is that of “author”. Everyone recognises of course that for the purposes of this scheme an author has to be a natural person. But I have a couple of questions about subclauses (6) (7) and (8) of new clause 4A which is proposed to be inserted in the bill by Supplementary Order Paper 246. 
Subclause (6) states: “ ‘Author’ does not include a person who writes or illustrates a book as part of his or her duties under a contract of service or a contract for services.” This phrase seems to catch both employees and those commissioned. That seems to be the case even if as is the case with academics copyright for the work remains with the author. I am not quite clear whether the intention is to cover books that are written after the conclusion of a publishing contract. It seems to me that authors who wish to benefit from the scheme ought to be clear that the publishing contract they sign is expressly not a contract for service. 
Subclauses (7) and (8) state: “ ‘Author’ does not include a person who receives payment for writing or illustrating a book wholly by way of a fee.” and “ ‘Author’ does not include a person who paid a third party to publish the person’s book.” Looking at it from a first-principles basis and not from the point of view that that is what is in the scheme already I have difficulties working out why both those categories of person are excluded. Surely how the author is paid or whether he or she has contributed to publication costs will be irrelevant if the book proves popular in New Zealand libraries. 
Let us take this hypothetical situation. A person may have difficulty getting his or her book published so the person self-publishes and the book then turns out to be very popular. It is sold in bookshops around the town and becomes very popular in New Zealand libraries. Looking at it from a point of principle I ask why that person should be denied access to the benefits of the public lending right. I know the immediate answer is that that is not what the scheme currently provides. That is all very well; I acknowledge that. But looking at it from a first-principles basis I ask why those people are not included given that this is the time to review the public lending right scheme. 
The second definition is “book”. The first clarification made in new clause 4B is that “ ‘Book’ means a publication that—(a) is listed in the national bibliographic database of the National Library of New Zealand …”. There are certain exceptions. There is a curious exclusion in new clause 4B(3) of “a text book intended for use in schools.” Those types of books are not included. 
But let us take this hypothetical situation. Someone writes a book—for instance  
Owen Marshall: Selected Stories 
 edited by Vincent O’Sullivan. It proves to be very popular in our shops and is regarded as the locus classicus of short stories in New Zealand and it becomes the standard text for year 13 English students. It is used as a textbook. Therefore why would that book be necessarily excluded? 
Perhaps the hypothetical situation is slightly off-key because the Supplementary Order Paper states “intended for use in schools.” What does that phrase mean? Maybe when the author was writing it he intended that ultimately it would be for use in schools. Those are just a couple of the questions I have on the definitions of both “author” and “book”. 
New clause 4C defines a “New Zealand author” as “an author who—(a) is a New Zealand resident as defined in … the Income Tax Act 2007;” and who also satisfies certain other conditions. I have less of a problem with this definition although it has been pointed out to me that there is an issue with what to do about expatriate writers. Someone who goes to live in Menton under the residency that is made available for authors and decides to stay there and continue writing for 4 or 5 years presumably does not qualify in terms of the Income Tax Act as a “New Zealand author” but is still very much a New Zealander. I mentioned Katherine Mansfield as a hypothetical expatriate writer and the Minister’s advisers said very helpfully that Katherine Mansfield is of course dead. I was most grateful for that information. I had not realised it! One can see hypothetically that an issue could arise so I would be grateful for some guidance on that. 
In the course of preparing for this debate I brought down to the Chamber a couple of books that I am reading at the moment. I started with the doyen of short stories in New Zealand Owen Marshall who has written a splendid text. But I just notice—and I would be grateful for the Minister’s guidance on it—that copyright in this text is actually held by two people. The introduction and the selection are by Vincent O’Sullivan and the stories themselves are by Owen Marshall. This book currently qualifies for a payment under the Authors’ Fund and will qualify one would hope under the new regime that is being established. One works out that payments ought to be made to the author but how does one sort out in a situation like this one where there are two authors—Vincent O’Sullivan for the introduction and Owen Marshall for the substantive part of the book—who is to get what and in what proportions? 
Of course it is much easier with another book I am reading  
My Father’s Shadow: A Portrait of Justice Peter Mahon 
 by Sam Mahon. That case is quite easy because he is a New Zealand author and therefore qualifies and he is the only person who holds the copyright. If his book qualifies then so be it. 
To illustrate the principle of what would not qualify the third book is a book written by the former British Foreign Secretary David Owen. It is called  
In Sickness and in Power 
. Members may know that when the Labour Party in England went crazy in the late 1970s and early 1980s David Owen went off and formed the Social Democratic Party. Mr Barnett looks up; I think he was an active member in the Social Democratic Party. But anyway at the conclusion of his time David Owen looked back and wrote a book called  
In Sickness and in Power 
. It is a very interesting book and I recommend it to Mr Barnett when he is flying back to England. In fact I may even give him my copy because I think it would be good for him to read it. 
As David Owen says it has been observed for centuries that something happens to people’s mental stability when they are in power. The causal link between holding power and aberrant behaviour that has the whiff of mental instability about it was captured by Bertrand Russell’s phrase “the intoxication of power”. David Owen says that power is a heady drug which not every political leader has the necessary rooted character to counteract: a combination of common sense humour decency scepticism and even cynicism. He then starts talking about hubris. 
I think I may give this book to Mr Barnett as a farewell present because I can certainly pick up another one from Parsons later on. But there is an example of a book that does not qualify because it is not by a New Zealand author. It would not be entitled to payments under the public lending right scheme. 
So I have some questions for the Minister as to the definitions of both “author” and “book” and I think we ought to touch on—albeit briefly—the definition of “New Zealand author”. When one is dealing with this legislation on a first-principles basis I do not think it is enough to say: “Oh well these matters are already included in the guidelines for the New Zealand Authors’ Fund. To broaden the definitions would extend the scheme to more titles and authors.” I think that is a pragmatic answer but not a principled answer so I would be most grateful for the Minister’s comments. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I follow on from my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson in speaking to the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill. I want to cover Supplementary Order Paper 246 which of course did not go to the Government Administration Committee. 
Before I do that I would like with the Chair’s indulgence and in line with the speeches of some of my colleagues to acknowledge the valedictory speeches that were given in the House yesterday. We appreciated having the opportunity to hear those valedictory speeches and we commend those members for doing so well. We wish them all the best in the future. This is not an easy environment. Who knows at some point somebody might put all those valedictory speeches into a book to be lodged in some our excellent libraries. It would be very interesting to see how many people actually picked up that book and read the speeches. I am not sure though with such a collection who would be entitled to the author’s payment! 
I note that we are sitting under urgency at the end of the parliamentary term. After 9 years of this Parliament the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill is going through the House under urgency. We have a Supplementary Order Paper and it has not been to the select committee. 
A number of matters were raised by my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson and I share those concerns. I would really appreciate the Minister in the chair Judith Tizard taking a call to explain to us—because we have not had the opportunity to discuss these matters at the select committee—the rationale for including subclauses (6) (7) and (8) of the definition of “author” inserted by new clause 4A. I absolutely concur with my most excellent colleague Christopher Finlayson that those subclauses should not be there. In the purer sense if an author’s book is in a library and if the author is entitled to the author’s payment then there should be no condition around whether that author was under a contract of service or a contract for services. That raises the point about authors suddenly having to be smarter about the way in which they provide their service capability or expertise. 
I note that subclause (3) of new clause 4A states: “If a book’s intellectual content is expressed only in text ‘author’ means a person who created the text.” I raised at the select committee the issue of whether books in Braille audio books and CD books fell into that category and whether that provision would affect the ability of the authors of those books to receive a payment. Let us face it: a lot of Braille books are taken out from libraries—more than we realise. It is incumbent upon the advisory group that establishes the regulations to work out the eligibility criteria. The advisory group will set all the criteria for eligibility for payment and I wonder whether it will take into account the number of Braille and audio versions of a book as part of its assessment of a book’s eligibility. Use of such versions of books is significant. Often they are in a small select category of books. 
One of the other things I was looking at was subclause (3) of new clause 4B. It states: “ ‘Book’ does not include a text book intended for use in schools.” It is interesting to note what my most learned colleague Christopher Finlayson said about textbooks. They are actually books that first were written and then were included in the school curriculum as text books for a particular subject. I wonder how that provision will affect an author’s payment. 
There is also the issue in new clause 4C(a) of “New Zealand author” being defined as “a New Zealand resident as defined in section YD 1 of the Income Tax Act 2007;”. That is the criterion for establishing whether an author is a “New Zealand author”. I share the concerns of my colleague because a New Zealand author may not have eligibility in terms of that Act and therefore will be prevented from having a payment. 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage) 
: 
 It is an enormous pleasure for me to stand in the Committee stage of the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill to address some of the questions that have been raised but also to give a bit of background on this legislation. As Christopher Finlayson has said this legislation is a result of a promise made by the Labour Party in its 1999 election manifesto. We referred the issue of the public lending right or the Authors’ Fund as it then was to the Arts Council and Mr Finlayson happened to be the very excellent chair of the Arts Board. I was grateful to the council and the board for taking this issue up. They are independent bodies and they have the responsibility for the Authors’ Fund almost by accident. 
The public lending right or the Authors’ Fund was set up by a Cabinet minute in 1972 as a result of the work of people like Keith Sinclair who was a Labour candidate in 1969. He was a professor of history at Auckland University and a significant author as both a poet and historian. He had realised that people who did not have university or other public salaries and who put their efforts into writing—people like Janet Frame—were often extremely poorly paid for their writing effort. Those authors are people who have defined the way New Zealanders see themselves. They have taken our collective and individual cultures and created something that is new and in many cases beneficial to New Zealanders. But even where authors are writing about the dark underbelly of New Zealand society or indeed of humanity it adds of course to our knowledge of ourselves and our society. 
I believe that what all artists do is vital to us. We celebrate we commiserate and we mourn using their words. Who could imagine the burial of the Unknown Soldier when that serviceman’s remains were returned from France to New Zealand without the beautiful poetry of Vincent O’Sullivan? The memory of that and of the tuis singing in the pohutukawa trees will remain with me forever. It crystallised the emotion and the background of that ceremony. 
We as a Government have said that all artists need to be compensated better for what they do; they are both the soul and the critic of our country. This bill is part of that work. Up to 2002 in response to the report on the Authors’ Fund we looked at the amount of money involved and I thank the Green Party for its excellent Budget bid in 2002. It has meant that $1 million more has gone to authors both directly through the Authors’ Fund and the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement and indirectly through support for example for New Zealand publishers who are looking at book exporting. The Ministry of Economic Development has also assisted that work and we are very pleased at the response to that.The public lending right issue to a small extent went away for a while after those developments. 
However the New Zealand Society of Authors came back to us and said it wanted stand-alone legislation and this is the result of that very good representation. I acknowledge the Society of Authors and the many people who have been chairs and committee members of its predecessor PEN New Zealand. I am thinking particularly of Kevin Ireland Tessa Duder Gordon McLauchlan and Dame Fiona Kidman. A huge number of people have been involved and undoubtedly I will leave many of them out. I also congratulate and thank Dr Lydia Wevers for her wonderful job in chairing the group after we had that Budget announcement in 2002 which led to the range of initiatives that include the increased funding for the Authors’ Fund. We have also seen an extraordinary expansion in the number of number of New Zealanders who are writing books that are being published. 
We come to this legislation and I say yes to a large extent and in pragmatic terms it does repeat the definition of “author” that is in the present scheme. It does that mainly because there was no ability to discuss that more widely. Sandra Goudie I am afraid suggested the bill had not been referred to a select committee but of course it was. The Government Administration Committee although it called for submissions and heard some of those submissions was not able to give the House a recommendation in time. That is why we have Supplementary Order Paper 246 in my name. To the largest extent that it can that Supplementary Order Paper keeps the present definition of “author”. It is a limited scheme. It does mean for example that overseas-based New Zealand authors who are not paying income tax in New Zealand as defined under section YD 1 of the Income Tax Act 2007 are excluded. Indeed I say to Mr Finlayson if Katherine Mansfield was alive today she would probably be excluded although I suspect that any tax she paid was probably paid through her father so she may well have been covered. 
The reality is that this scheme is very focused on authors who are writing in New Zealand primarily for a New Zealand market although we look at wonderful New Zealand writers like Lloyd Jones who are finding increasing international audiences for their work. There is a process at present for dividing the Authors’ Fund amongst the various copyright-holders and I cannot imagine that Vincent O’Sullivan would in any way assert that by writing the foreword he had written Owen Marshall’s book. The present scheme divides that and there is an ongoing debate which I think the House will have to address at another stage about who is covered. This scheme is very much designed to support authors who are not otherwise compensated. When writing a book as a textbook one is selling textbooks and as an author being compensated for that. The idea of this scheme was not to compensate people who through the course of their work were being paid to write whether that was through a university or another educational institution. The scheme was not designed as a Christmas bonus for those people. It is intended as a recognition of people who are to a large extent full-time writers. 
The only other question I have to deal with is Sandra Goudie’s one about Braille and audio copies. Audio copies are not covered but the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind has an arrangement with authors and their works are recognised. It is not always possible to pay for every copy that is used particularly by people with sight disabilities. 
I commend this bill to the Committee. I thank members for their attention to the Supplementary Order Paper and the bill and I look forward to the bill proceeding. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 This is the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill. It provides for authors to receive annual payments in recognition of the fact that their books are available for use in New Zealand libraries. 
I have just a couple of points to make on the bill. It is interesting that “New Zealand author” as defined in the income tax legislation is not an author who is a New Zealander but rather anyone in New Zealand who is writing a book that is available in libraries. So it is good to see that a wide range of people can be defined as writers in New Zealand who are not necessarily New Zealanders. The wide range of new immigrants and groups that we have in the country making a contribution will also be entitled to payment in terms of this fund. 
Of course authors have a great habit of criticising members of Parliament but I hope they take into account the fact that here in the dying stages of this Parliament we are rushing through legislation to enable authors to benefit. I hope authors bear that in mind and do not write books criticising parliamentarians for rushing legislation through the House when in fact this last piece of legislation in this session is here to benefit authors. I trust they will take that into account in future. 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to speak once again on the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill. Again I declare my interests as a beneficiary of the New Zealand Authors’ Fund and no doubt of the new scheme that is being introduced. 
My two colleagues on this side of the House who spoke before me raised some very important points in relation to Supplementary Order Paper 246. I do not propose to repeat them because I want to talk about something else in Part 1 but I offer the observation that we are a little bit disappointed in the explanations given by the Minister in the chair the Hon Judith Tizard and in the lack of detail in her answers. I would invite her to take a second call and be a little more precise. We on this side of the House were not particularly interested in her interpretation of New Zealand history or New Zealand literature. I would however be interested in her taking a call to explain to the House why in listing all those New Zealand authors she forgot about John A Lee who was probably the greatest author to sit in this House and a Labour member as well. Of course he and the party did come to a parting of the ways because of what he had written. But I leave that to the Minister. 
I want to address Part 1 “Preliminary provisions” and to talk a little bit about the intention to disestablish the Authors’ Fund and to replace it with a public lending right for New Zealand authors. I look to the Minister to take another call and in addition to addressing the issues I have already raised provide this House with some assurances that the issues that led the Government to commit to this scheme in its 1999 manifesto—it is 9 years since then but that is par for the course for this Government—issues that were raised by authors themselves and by Creative New Zealand will not recur as a result of the change. This legislation disestablishes a fund that has been in place for quite some time. It disestablishes the role that Creative New Zealand had in administering that fund and it hands that role over to the chief executive of a Government department with an advisory committee. I want assurances from the Minister that taking that action will address the issues around the old fund. 
Those of us who are authors have observed over time that the return from the fund has been diminishing—relatively slowly but it has been diminishing. The other side of that coin and it is a very good side is that the fund has had to be spread around a much wider range of authors. That is good. I heartily endorse any effort at all to encourage more authors in New Zealand to continue to develop what is still a very young literary tradition. On that subject it is very important that the House notes that we do not need a Minister to spend time on the last morning of the final sitting of this Parliament giving us a particular interpretation of that tradition. Her interpretation had very little substance in fact and very little substance in research. 
So there are three things that I am seeking from Minister. The first is that she take another call and actually address the issues raised by my colleagues Mr Finlayson and Miss Goudie; the second is that she give us a little bit more of her interpretation of the historical and literary traditions of this country and explain Labour’s reluctance to acknowledge one of its own John A Lee probably the finest New Zealand author to sit in this House; and the third is that in relation to Part 1 she give this Committee the assurances that I am seeking— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: This is the silliest speech that you have made. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The “Dead Poets Society”! 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: There they go. I wondered how long it would take them to get motivated and wake up. I make the observation that members on that side of the Chamber have been incredibly quiet. Government members have not been getting to their feet during the debates that have been occurring in urgency. The Ministers in the chair have just sat there. I would welcome a Government member making a contribution instead of sniping at me across the floor. 
Hon Members 
: Aww! 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: It is Friday guys. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 246 in the name of the Hon Judith Tizard to Part 1 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Public lending right for New Zealand authors scheme 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 Part 2 is the heart of the legislation; it establishes the scheme. It disestablishes the Authors’ Fund established by Norman Kirk in 1973 and it provides for the establishment of an advisory group. I do not think I need to detain the Committee for too long on this issue. 
The heart of the matter is clause 10 “Matters that may be dealt with in regulations”. As I said in my second reading speech there were some concerns about the extent of the regulation-making powers. Sir Geoffrey Palmer that zealous constitutionalist thought that the regulation-making power was too broad and that is why in Part 1 we included definitions of “author” “New Zealand author” and “book”. As a consequence of that the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper says there will need to be a minor amendment to clause 10(2) to provide that the regulations may add conditions to the definitions of “author” “book” “New Zealand author” and “New Zealand library” and of course we support that because it is a necessary consequential amendment given what we have done in Part 1. 
The advisory group will be established and these are persons who must have appropriate skills to administer the scheme. Importantly the advisory group must include at least one representative from organisations of authors and at least one representative from organisations of librarians. These people will be appointed for a term of not less than 5 years although the terms may be renewed. I think that the way in which the advisory group is set up is sensible. It does not allow capture by a particular group so a broader range of interests will need to be taken into account when determining the way in which the scheme is to operate. I am hopeful the advisory group will work well. I should not have thought it would need to meet all that regularly. Certainly in the initial period there will be quite a lot of work to do but thereafter the only issues that will arise for consideration are the book rate and the frequency with which the book rate is to be altered. 
That is all that one needs to say really about Part 2. It is all pretty straightforward and we can move on. 
ALLAN PEACHEY (National—Tamaki) 
: 
 I had thought after the debate last night— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: The last day and Mr Peachey has the chance to speak! 
ALLAN PEACHEY 
: The bully boy of the lower sixth Shane Jones cannot help himself. He is the Gilbert and Sullivan clown who wanders around this Chamber seeking high office. He will be wandering for a long long time. 
I wanted to take a call on Part 2 to make a couple of what I believe to be very very significant points. The Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill is a short bill. I am troubled about the lack of discussion at the Government Administration Committee about Supplementary Order Paper 246 in the name of the Hon Judith Tizard. 
This is a relatively short bill and its real substance lies in Part 2. It seems to me that if this legislation is going to address the issues that were causing concern about the old Authors’ Fund then the nature of the advisory group and the way in which the chief executive of the Government department that is given responsibility for it interrelate—the way that the chief executive works with and consults the individual members of the group and the interests they represent—will be critical. Getting that right will be the key to whether this legislation which has been so long in the making and has now been so rushed in the last 2 days of the sitting of this Parliament will work. I seek assurances from the Minister on that issue in the absence of any other member taking to the floor to support the bill. 
To the authors who are following this debate closely this bill is very important. They have a very strong interest in it. They will note the role of members on this side of the Chamber in advancing their interests. What we need is an assurance from the Minister that the relationships involved in the administrative structure that has been set up around a chief executive of a Government ministry and an advisory board—and bearing in mind the role the chief executive has in the establishment of that advisory board—will be got right. We do not want to let down the authors of New Zealand any longer. So there is a very very high level of responsibility on this House to be sure that it has got this legislation right. 
Members on this side of the Chamber have some worries about that as we were landed with a Supplementary Order Paper that a select committee has not had the chance to do its work on. We all acknowledge here the important role that select committees play in getting legislation like this right. When a select committee does not have a reasonable opportunity to do that it is therefore valid for members on this side of the Chamber first to raise that reservation and secondly to seek from the Minister a clear explanation and assurance that the structure that has been set up will deliver the intention of the bill. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 246 in the name of the Hon Judith Tizard to Part 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Clause 1 agreed to.  
Clause 2 agreed to.  
Bill reported with amendment. 
Report adopted. 
Third Reading 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage) 
: 
 I move  
That the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill be now read a third time 
. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Great speech! 
Hon JUDITH TIZARD 
: Ha ha! 
I commend this bill to the House thank the House for its consideration and recognise that the bill has been of particular interest and concern both to the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark—who is of course the Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage—and to the Deputy Prime Minister the Hon Michael Cullen who takes an enormous interest in this issue. 
New Zealand was the first English-speaking country in the world to introduce a scheme to compensate authors for the use of their works in libraries; Norman Kirk’s Labour Government did that in 1973. We saw an attempt to get rid of this scheme but it was maintained by the Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act in 1994. This bill will repeal that provision and establish a public lending right scheme for New Zealand authors. It is a great measure and I commend all of those who have worked towards it. This Government believes that the work authors do must be recognised and compensated for and this bill does that. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 The National Party enthusiastically endorses the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill and we will support its third reading. As I said last night during the second reading debate it is one of those strange pieces of legislation. If one is a property rights person one can be very much in favour of the public lending right from a property rights point of view. If one is a socialist or a social democrat and believes that everyone should be on welfare then likewise it is utterly acceptable. So there is no reason why anyone in this House should oppose this legislation. It serves our excellent New Zealand authors very well indeed and my personal hope is that we will be able to do more for authors in the years to come. 
As the Minister said it has been a very long journey. A funding scheme was introduced by Norman Kirk in 1973 and it simply existed for some years. The Minister quite rightly accepts responsibility for saving that fund by means of a particular reference to it in the Act that re-established the Arts Council in the mid-1990s. But by the end of the 1990s it was becoming apparent that the Arts Council was not doing all that flash a job in administering the Authors’ Fund and that the time had come for reform. So the Arts Board had a report commissioned on the fund and that worked very well indeed; Associate Professor Geoffrey McLay wrote a very good paper. The Labour Party promised that it would introduce a public lending right and reform the Authors’ Fund. That was promised in its 1999 manifesto but nothing has happened for 9 years so it is good that in the dying stages of this Parliament this legislation will shortly be passed into law. 
As many members have said we have a thriving literary community in New Zealand. Most of the people in this community are members of the Society of Authors. They really do contribute to the richness of our culture and this is one very very small way of recognising that contribution. 
I am very happy to support the bill. It was rushed admittedly and we did not get time on the Government Administration Committee to write a report which was perhaps a little disappointing but we were concentrating on the resale royalties legislation. I think we have tidied up the bill as best we can. I know that Mr Jones is not all that happy with the existing scope of the regulation-making power but we will have to see how it goes. Let us see what the advisory group does when it is established and let us see what sorts of regulations emerge. I have a feeling they will be acceptable. 
The real debate will come when a Minister of Finance is spoken to about increasing the book rate and I hope all Ministers of Finance will be generous in that regard because authors deserve it. The frequency with which the book rate is going to be negotiated will be a major question. I do not think to do so annually will make a lot of sense. I think in Norway and some other Scandinavian countries it is done on a quinquennial basis so maybe we could do something like that. 
So there we have it. I am pleased that this is the last bill to go through the House before Parliament dies and I am hopeful that what we have here will serve the interests of authors for the next little period. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I will take just a very short call in the third reading of the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill to put on record my pleasure that this bill is being concluded with the support of the parties in the House. I also thank the members of the Government Administration Committee. I have worked on that committee for 2 years and it is a very interesting committee. Quite a variety of things come across our table and this was one of the bills we considered even though we did so in a very short time frame as the previous speaker Chris Finlayson said. I enjoyed working with Christopher Finlayson on this bill and I enjoyed seeing the love-fest between Sandra Goudie and Mr Finlayson which is continuing to this very day. 
Hon Member 
: What was this? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Oh yes the member did not hear about that. But this is a very very important bill. 
It was a great pleasure to hear from some of our top authors and from the other people we asked to make submissions to us. That process impressed upon me the real importance of the literary scene in New Zealand—how much it contributes to our society and how generous authors are in sharing that through libraries. I also thank the officials and the department for their work. 
I finish by saying that I have enjoyed working with the other members of the Government Administration Committee on these types of bills. I am pleased that we are getting this bill through on the last day of Parliament in such a good cause. Thank you. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 Any civilisation is remembered by its contributions and the people who make the greatest contribution to a civilisation are its artists and writers. The Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill recognises the work undertaken by New Zealand authors towards creating our own New Zealand civilisation. 
The bill in its definition of who a New Zealand author is does not limit the definition to a New Zealander in terms of the tax definition provided in the legislation. In terms of the bill’s definition anyone is included who is resident in New Zealand and who is writing in New Zealand. I think that not enough has been made of the contribution made to authorship in New Zealand by the many new immigrants who have come into this country from various parts of the world. They are making a contribution and will be making a contribution to writing in New Zealand. In a way this bill gives recognition to that state of affairs. 
New Zealand authorship goes back a long time. Much mention has been made of the works of Katherine Mansfield and the work of Peter Buck who was the iconic writer for New Zealand anthropology. His work  
The Coming of the Maori  
is something that is read in New Zealand universities even today as part of anthropology studies. Of course both those writers are deceased and neither of them will receive any benefit from this legislation. This bill is meant for those people who are currently writing in New Zealand and whose books are available in New Zealand libraries. As mentioned earlier the legislation excludes books that are written for the purpose of school studies. 
My only criticism of the legislation is that when it was first introduced it had a regulation power that was far too wide and it is only because of the well-intentioned purpose of this legislation that one can turn a blind eye to the usual overarching regulation provisions that were in the legislation in the first place. The select committee has done some work on improving the situation. Of course this bill went to the select committee and came back without amendments in the committee’s rush but then the Minister put amendments to the Committee of the whole House and those amendments were accepted. The bill is in a much better state than it was when it came back from the select committee and as I have mentioned already let us hope authors give us some credit for rushing through the House a bill that benefits authors in New Zealand. 
The question of interpretation was raised by Chris Finlayson. I can assure him that I was not a student of Geoffrey Palmer. In fact he came into this House after I came into it and I am sure he learnt a thing or two on the Statutes Revision Committee as it was when he was a member of that committee and I was its chairman many years ago which might have helped him in his subsequent literary and literate contributions to New Zealand. 
The bill is supported by New Zealand First. As the New Zealand First spokesman on culture I have great pleasure in taking part in the debate on this legislation—as we all take pleasure in New Zealand First in this legislation. It is the last piece of legislation before we move into the adjournment debate—which I am sure we are all looking forward to with great interest—and the House rises. On that note I indicate that New Zealand First supports the bill. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 It is my very great pleasure to follow my most learned colleagues in speaking to the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill and National is very proud to be able to support New Zealand authors by supporting the bill. I note that the previous speaker Dail Jones said the bill was in a much better state than it was in previously. In actual fact the bill is in exactly the same state that it was in when it went to the Government Administration Committee; it is Supplementary Order Paper 246 that makes it slightly different. In response to some of the previous comments made I say that yes I am enjoying the love affair that is continuing to grow with my select committee colleagues. I have to say that I will indeed miss the very fine contributions of Dover Samuels who always had a cheery smile and a ready quip which was gratefully accepted. 
We love our books and we love our libraries. They are wonderful institutions in New Zealand and I am delighted that our authors are being recognised and will receive payments according to the criteria set down by the advisory group as long as they meet the eligibility criteria for a payment. I would just like to mention one book  
The Great Brain Robbery 
—and that is no reflection on this Parliament. It is a wonderful book by Tom Scott and Trevor Grice and it raises an issue in respect of the public lending rights of New Zealand authors. The book has two authors so who will the payment be made to? Of course it will be incumbent upon the authors to make a decision about who receives the payment and how they divvy it up according to the degree or percentage of contribution. I certainly extol  
The Great Brain Robbery 
 for any parent wanting to know about teenagers and drugs. It is a wonderful book and it is one of those resources that is readily accessible in our libraries. That is the wonderful thing about our libraries: not everybody can afford to buy a book but people can go along to the library and get the information they seek. 
The Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill is one way that we can recognise and reward the significant contributions that authors make to support the people of New Zealand in their greater understanding of a wide range of issues. Drugs are one of those issues and a very important one given the devastating effects they have on our children and our families in New Zealand. National is very happy to support the Public Lending Right for New Zealand Authors Bill and we look forward to working with that legislation in the future. 
Bill read a third time. 
Voting 
Correction 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I wish to advise members that the result of the vote on the motion to appoint members to the Independent Police Complaints Authority was incorrectly announced. The result is Ayes 111 Noes 4. You can relax Dr Cullen. 
Adjournment 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That the House do now adjourn until Tuesday 7 October 2008.  
For those on their first time through such a motion this somewhat Gilbert and Sullivan motion is moved even though in fact the House could not meet on Tuesday 7 October in order that the processes around the dissolution of Parliament can occur. The dissolution will occur at 3 p.m. on Friday of next week. 
I want to begin as is traditional in this case by thanking the staff of Parliament and in particular the Clerk and the Clerk’s Office; the security staff; the messengers; the ministerial and parliamentary staff who do so much work for us; and the drivers for the Ministers. They all have contributed to the way in which this House runs. 
I particularly pay tribute to retiring colleagues on both sides of the House. Minor party members do not seem to retire in the same way that major party members do. I begin with your good self Madam Speaker. Your moving on from this place is a great loss in my view but a great regain for academia. 
I pay tribute to Clem Simich. In the unlikely event that there was a change of Government I would have looked forward with some pleasure to Mr Simich being the Speaker of this House. Unfortunately apparently his services were no longer required. He was seen as somewhat surplus to requirements because of his age; the older I have got the more I have begun to think that in fact age brings some advantage around this place as opposed to disadvantage. 
Of course I pay tribute to Marian Hobbs. This is the first time I think that Parliament has lost three of the four presiding officers in one go due to their retirement. Marian has brought in a short space of time a quite extraordinary new style to presiding in the Chair. One understands now why she was such a good principal of Avonside Girls’ High School in Christchurch. 
I pay tribute to all of my other retiring colleagues in the House. On the other side of the House I mention Mr Blumsky and particularly Katherine Rich who as the daughter of an old friend of mine I have always been relatively light on one may have noticed compared with other members of the National Party caucus. But I pay tribute particularly to my own friends and colleagues on this side of the House. Steve Maharey has been an important part of the Labour caucus and Labour Cabinet over a long long period of time and Paul Swain is another long-term friend. I will not mention the rest of my colleagues; I am supposed to say a few other things in this speech as well. 
I think this Parliament has been a very interesting one in two particular respects. One is that we have begun to see reinforced in this Parliament an MMP tradition about how Parliament works. It works quite differently from the way that it worked under the first-past-the-post system. Much much less time is spent trying to dig in on extremely long battles down to the wire there is much more simply stating one’s position and there is perhaps a little loss if one likes of debate but actually a surprising amount of business is passed with minimal use of urgency overall compared with what used to be the case under the first-past-the-post system. If colleagues actually look back over the last 3 years I suspect they will be quite surprised to see how much has been done particularly given that we have not had a statutes revision bill this year; those bills always cheat by upping the body count in terms of Acts of Parliament that have been passed—everything this year has been of significant substance. 
The second aspect is that contrary to all expectations what has been a multi-party arrangement has survived in Government not simply for a full term but for actually slightly longer than a full term—we have carried on for slightly more than 3 years in this Parliament. Again I think we are beginning to learn how to work the MMP electoral system to provide stable Government—if occasionally exciting Government in terms of some of the internal debates that occur between the parties that are part of the Government.I pay particular tribute and give thanks to the support parties which despite occasional difficulties have provided for that stability and that continuity which is important from a public perspective. 
This Parliament has also seen some very major changes. One is the passage of the legislation for the emissions trading scheme. New Zealand is at last catching up with the great majority of the developed world in addressing the issues of climate change. I still get these extraordinary comments from business people about why we are leading the world when in fact nearly all of Europe has nearly lapped us! That gives the impression that we are leading the world but what we actually have to do is to sprint a long way to catch up with the rest of Europe. And finally Australia is catching up in that regard. We can expect the United States to do so as well with the change in the presidency. 
We have seen also of course the enormously successful introduction of KiwiSaver certain fiscal consequences of which should become apparent on Monday week; the Kiwi Rail buy-back; the completion of the Working for Families programme; and the roll-out of 20 free hours’ early childhood education. We will see the introduction of fair tax cuts next week which are biased towards those on lower incomes compared with those on higher incomes as far as any progressive income tax scale is capable of actually doing that. And of course we have seen very significant growth in infrastructure spending. 
But the story of this year of course has been particularly a story about the economy. We have seen international commodity price inflation. Price inflation in New Zealand Australia the UK the US and elsewhere in the world has been approaching 5 percent this year though it is likely to come back quite quickly in the latter part of this year as oil prices fall back again and as the global credit crunch starts to bite into economic growth around the world. We have seen obviously this economy as we now know—we have known it for months really—being in recession although in fact the second quarter figure is slightly better than nearly all market predictions of minus 0.2 percent. I think it would be a very foolish person who would want to take a bet that the figure for the third quarter which we are now in would be anything other than negative as well. 
But nearly all projections still say the economy is likely to start picking up from the fourth quarter of this financial year and certainly by the beginning of the next financial year subject to one very very important caveat. If the United States is unable to address its internal financial crisis if—which I think is extraordinarily unlikely—the US Congress is unable to agree on a rescue package and I think it will agree on one in a matter of days then there is a very serious risk that the international financial credit crisis will actually roll out into a broader economic crisis and a major slow-down in the world economy. We have seen only a relatively moderate slow-down so far in the world economy. Yes a number of countries are in moderate recession but nobody is talking about anything more than that at the present time. New Zealand simply is a cork on the ocean in that regard. We are unable to influence the play out of the financial credit crisis in the United States. 
It is very important for us because the restoration of confidence in the international financial markets is crucial for New Zealand business as we move towards many businesses needing to refinance their offshore debt and needing to do so at prices that they can afford. That means a steady hand moving forward within New Zealand even through a period of great uncertainty. What we do know and it will be revealed in detail on Monday week is that the slow-down in the New Zealand economy has been deeper than was forecast at Budget time. The impact of the international credit crunch and some errors by Treasury in terms of forecasting mean that the deficits that we are forecasting for the next 4 years will be very much larger than they were at Budget time. That means whoever is sitting in my seat after the election—whether it is I or somebody else—will have to go through a significant period of fiscal restraint and there is no room for substantial major growth either in spending above what is forecast or in cutting of revenue below what is forecast over the next 3-year period. This is not going to be a period for fiscal adventurism moving forward. 
So this election will be about trust versus the supposed desire for change. “Trust” because of course Helen Clark has demonstrated the ability to be a superb political manager to deliver what she says she will and not to deliver what she says she will not deliver which is at least as important in politics—not to visit people with nasty surprises on made-up excuses. Against that we have basically a promise not to change any policies which is a very strange position for an Opposition party to take; the extraordinary series of flip-flops; the inability of Mr Key to stick to a question and an answer for more than 2 seconds at a time; and the re-run and re-run and re-run of Monday’s TV interview which encapsulated within 10 seconds everything that we are learning and that the public is starting to say more and more about Mr Key. Was it $25000 to $50000 or was it $100000? If only Fran Mold had said: “Are you sure it was only $100000?”; I am sure we would have got a different story again at that point. You see Crosby/Textor can take him only so far. Once he is out on his own and answering questions he is on his own and he must be able to answer them honestly and truthfully himself. 
Then we have the fresh new faces. Look at them! The fresh and new Mr English Mr Williamson Lockwood Smith Murray McCully and Allan Peachey the rising young man of the National Party backbenchers! Goodness me! The party opposite says: “We present something new and fresh; the thing is we just can’t remember what it is and we hope that nobody will ask us what it is before election day.” 
JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
Madam Speaker I begin by thanking you for all you have done and wishing you the very best for your years outside of Parliament. I acknowledge Deputy Speaker Clem Simich and wish him the very best and I acknowledge Assistant Speakers Ross Robertson and Marian Hobbs to whom I wish the very best as well. I also acknowledge the Clerk of the House Mary Harris and her staff the Hansard staff the Parliamentary Library staff Parliamentary Service the security guards the messengers the VIP drivers and everyone else who makes this place work. I acknowledge all the retiring MPs on both sides of the House and I take one moment to acknowledge two members of Parliament who have passed away in this term Rod Donald and Brian Donnelly. 
Labour ended its term in the way that it started it: embroiled in scandal. It began with the pledge card and it will end with the red card when Labour is sent to the Opposition benches for a very very long time. This Government has forgotten why it is here. The Government is not focused on New Zealanders and it is not focused on the things that matter. Its only agenda is “dirt over direction”. It does not care about where the country is going. It is no wonder that the polls are where they are. When Labour goes out there with its “dirt over direction” model it does not reflect what New Zealanders want. 
This is a Government of failure. Michael Cullen is the Minister of Finance who has led this country into recession. He can laugh but that is factually correct. That was not an adjournment speech from Michael Cullen; it was an apology. It was an apology for 81000 New Zealanders leaving the country it was an apology for a burgeoning bureaucracy and it was an apology to the people who found out yesterday that they were losing their jobs. He is a fair-weather Minister of Finance and he does not know what to do when things get tough. It is no wonder he said that it will be a bit difficult for the person who sits in that seat. This is a man who has not stuck to $1.75 billion as the new Budget spend. For 5 years he spent twice that amount. 
This Government has failed though its members may not want to hear that. New Zealanders do not need to hear this from me; they see it every day. They pick up the papers and see murders happening in South Auckland. They see patients going to Australia to get health care services. They see their youngsters coming home with reports they cannot understand and with educational levels they do not approve of. They see Helen Clark reheating policies like Schools Plus which she quietly cut from $160 million in January to $40 million today.She promised to do the same thing she had promised to do in 2002. For the past 3 years Labour has failed and it has the audacity to go out there and ask New Zealanders to give Labour another 3 years. I do not think so! 
Then in amongst all of that there is the state of the New Zealand health system. David Cunliffe has said: “I’m running the show.” Well guess what? David Cunliffe is right. He is running the show—badly. So is Helen Clark so is Michael Cullen. It is no wonder that people want a change of Government. 
This is the time for a fresh start for New Zealand. This is a time for fresh leadership. This is a time for a team of people who are ready to take this country forward a team of people who know that tax cuts are an economic policy not a political policy. We will not wait 25 days to raise taxes and 9 years to cut them. We know that New Zealanders are hurting out there. We know that New Zealanders want to keep their own money. We know that New Zealanders will not put up with more bureaucracy. 
The record gets worse. National will not have an emissions trading scheme that is based more on legacy than on legitimacy. We will have an emissions trading scheme that works and has New Zealand doing its bit for climate change. It is not about getting five gold stars from some organisation out there that no one cares about. We will solve the problems of law and order on our streets. We will not be in denial like the Labour Government is. When Helen Clark had to rush to announce the election date she said law and order was improving. She must be the only New Zealander who believes that and she must be the only New Zealander who does not acknowledge that there is a crime wave. We see the violent crime and drug abuse. This Government is more interested in building the bureaucracy than in putting police on the streets to help other New Zealanders. We say that is wrong. 
Labour says it is a party that stands up for those from disadvantaged backgrounds but where has the opportunity been to look after New Zealanders in an education system that should work for those who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds? We care about standards in education. We care about every kid getting a chance. We do not care about having to tackle the unions on this sort of stuff. We know what matters. 
We will help to solve the problems in a health system that is not working. We know there is a crisis in the health workforce. We will have a voluntary bond system for doctors nurses and midwives so that people in rural and provincial New Zealand will know there is a doctor for them to see. Mr Cunliffe will not do it but Tony Ryall will. When it comes to the economy Bill English will cut taxes and he will do it well. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I am sorry to interject on the member’s valedictory speech but I want to know what point he was making about the health system— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Is this a point of order? 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Yes Madam Speaker. Quite genuinely I could not hear the point the member was making about the health system because of barracking from his own members. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: It is very difficult to hear but in this—[ 
Interruption 
] Members can talk amongst themselves but not while I am on my feet and talking. There is a tradition that this debate is a kind of end-of-term end-of-school hurrah. It is a rather loud last hurrah I must say and if members cannot hear each other then I wonder at the purpose of it. I just remind members to at least keep the noise level down so that we can hear what is being said. 
JOHN KEY 
: That contribution from David Cunliffe was the same as the contribution he has made to the health system—shocking! 
About 2 years ago I said in the House that Labour was a “Walkman Government in an iPod world”. Well the battery has gone flat on the walkman the lights have gone out and the music has stopped playing. New Zealanders look at Labour and they see the past. They look at National and they see the future. New Zealanders want hope they want opportunity and come 8 November they want an opportunity to choose a brighter future. They will not let that chance go past. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 That certainly was early applause or acclaim afforded to me by the National Party! I begin by saying thank you to the Office of the Clerk and to those people who have carried out their duties in respect of members of Parliament: security guards and their supervisors messengers and catering staff. They all deserve our gratitude. 
In this House there are friendships that cut across party lines and that is good for if we get so committed to our own particular beliefs that we shut out the good ideas of our opponents we are on the road to intolerance and bigotry. We must not close our minds; we must keep our eyes and ears open to take in the best of what happens around us. Politics after all is known as “The Great Game”—it is played hard even brutally at times but that is the nature of democracy. It is untidy unlovely and often unrewarding but as Churchill said nobody has thought of a better way yet. 
We have been working under MMP since 1996 and I believe that the public of this country accepts it. It is interesting to note that in 2002 the Labour Party rejected New Zealand First as a possible coalition partner but that in 2005 we formed an agreement for confidence and supply and that that agreement has worked to enrich the lives of New Zealanders. Amongst other things it has restored the income of superannuitants and provided more fairness in respect of old people in old people’s homes and in respect of the young. It has also revived dramatically the racing industry of this country. We have improved our relations with traditional and newer allies in foreign fields and we are on the way to a free-trade agreement with the United States. 
I want to place on record our thanks to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and to those Ministers and MPs we have worked with to make this country a better place in the last 3 years. We did not always agree but we all worked with a common aim—to secure a better future. If there is one matter of concern we have had for the past 3 years it is that members of the second-largest party in Parliament did not attempt at any time to join in this country’s governance. Where were their ideas their pieces of private legislation their hunger to bring about the Utopia they insist is waiting for us all out there should their party get to take over? Their problem was that they were waiting for the Government to collapse—all through the last 3 years. And that was never going to happen. 
Despite what we know there are good members in all the opposing parties and as some will not be back after the election we tell them they go with our best wishes. We trust they will find a life after politics. 
The last few weeks and months have been tumultuous for New Zealand First and for me personally. We are grateful for the support we have received from many many thousands of New Zealanders who have pledged their support and who will be lining up to work for us in the next few weeks. There are forces out there working day and night against us but let me say this: “Bring it on!”. We will be ready and we certainly are match-fit. 
I thought I might bring to the attention of the House a certain trust document that has come into my hands. It is designed to get money and to get behind a political party and it is dated 30 June 2005 so it is pretty much where it has to be to be in the ballpark nowadays in New Zealand politics. I will read from the  
Weekend Herald 
 
at page 26 from an article by one Stephen Cook. It is about Rodney Hide who said: “I try to put as much distance as I can between myself and donations made to the party.” Yeah right! In my inquiries I found a trust plus its bank account—and I have 70 copies of the document for members if they want to take them. I found out what was going on but those people up there in the press gallery have always darned well known because the man behind this is known to me. He recently spoke at the Newmarket Rotary Club where he went on record as saying that Winston Peters had done nothing wrong that nothing New Zealand First had done was illegal and that any arrangements of the type that New Zealand First had were totally above board. Meanwhile his party leader Rodney Hide and the media have daily hurled abuse and hypocritical tirades in an attempt to bring down New Zealand First the third biggest political party in this country. The man behind this of course and the man at the Newmarket Rotary Club was one John Boscawen. Members have heard his name; he is the one ranting and raving about the Electoral Finance Act. Meanwhile Rodney Hide knows all about that trust having been taken by the Electoral Commission all the way to the Court of Appeal for failing to disclose the evidence of millions of dollars of funding behind the Cargill Trust and the ACT party. 
What is important about this story is that it will not be on page 1 of the  
New Zealand Herald  
tomorrow in the  
Dominion Post 
 
or in the Christchurch  
Press 
 and it will most certainly will not make the 6 o’clock news tonight because the media have been involved in a cover-up whilst they sought to get rid of a party and its leader. My profound message to the media right now before they get out there and start miswriting history is that they should learn something because New Zealand people have a sense of fairness of justice and of what is right and they have watched for 3 months whilst crisis after crisis in this country caused mainly by events happening abroad could have been assisted in terms of resolution. But every day whilst 29 companies went down owing $3 billion to mainly older people the media decided that that was not the issue. I have never ever in my period in politics seen such grossly irresponsible media as we have in New Zealand today and I have always known from day one that behind this has been an orchestrated conspiracy to get rid of the Government—any way any how. I know who is behind where the money is. When we see a man like Phil Kitchin from the  
Dominion Post 
 saying: “I have been working on this case for 2 years.” then we know full well how long Opposition members have programmed this outcome. But they are going to lose come 8 November because out there even as I speak tens of thousands of Maori have changed their minds and are coming home—and rightfully so. And tens and tens of thousands of older people have had enough of this hypocrisy— 
Hon Member 
: What a load of rubbish! 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: The member calls it rubbish. That may be those members’ specialty but if they think that on election day 2008 they are going to romp home then they are kidding themselves; they will be way short of numbers. 
I will tell members something about politics: in this business one never never never says never. Only a fool would do that. So having disclosed what is going on in terms of hypocrisy in this country I will close with the famous words of that hero of Tennyson’s called Ulysses: 
One equal temper of heroic hearts 
—clearly that must be a reference to New Zealand First— 
… but strong in will  
To strive to seek to find and not to yield. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I would like to start by remembering those who have come before us. I would like to remember Rod Donald. Rod Donald died on 6 November 2005. Rod was a patriot. He was a New Zealand patriot. He had a vision for this country and he had a deep love for this country and I think we are all the poorer without him. I would like to thank Rod for all that he gave to New Zealand and for all that he gave to the Green Party and to this Parliament. I also thank Nicola for all of her support for me since I have taken over as co-leader. Rod was a man who looked forward and I hope that the Green Party has carried his vision forward. I would also like to remember Brian Donnelly. I did not know Brian Donnelly but my Green Party colleagues thought very very highly of him. I offer my condolences to New Zealand First and to Brian’s family. 
I thank the people who made it possible for me to be here—Nandor Tanczos Mike Ward and Catherine Delahunty. They put the interests of the Green movement ahead of their own personal interests. It was important for the Greens to have our co-leaders in Parliament in order to recover from the loss of Rod Donald and that was possible only because those three people put the interests of the movement and the interests of New Zealand ahead of their own personal interests. I have tried hard to reward Nandor Mike and Catherine’s faith in me and I hope that I have not disappointed them. People who see the world through their own self-interested frame will never understand that some people are capable of seeing the bigger picture and of doing what is right and those three people did that. 
I thank the staff the messengers the cleaners the Speaker the Clerk and all of those people who make this place possible and make it work. We could not do what we are doing without them. I would also make a special mention of Helen Culver. Helen is Jeanette Fitzsimons’ secretary. She was in a bike accident this morning and is in hospital but she is OK. I hope that Helen gets out of there fast so that she can come back and help us in the campaign. I hope that she gets better soon. I would also say to the bus driver who cut off me and another cyclist this morning on Lambton Quay: “I will support you in your campaign to get decent wages but you just respect me when I am on my bike.” 
The Green Party takes a long-term view of the future. We act today to make the world a better place for today and tomorrow. We also understand that the world is finite. If there is perhaps one novel insight in the green movement it is an understanding that the world is finite—that is the new insight that the green movement brings. Human ingenuity is infinite human capacity for love and for hate is infinite human capacity for greatness and for evil is infinite but resources are not. Resources are finite. Human activities currently deplete the Earth’s life support system and its resources but it does not have to be like that. We could actually make this a better place. We have to learn how to live well while protecting this beautiful planet we call home. We have to learn to live well while improving the life-support system of planet Earth. The very existence of the Green Party is proof that we have started that journey of learning how to live on this planet as if we mean to stay here but we are only at the very very beginning of that journey. 
I will talk about climate change for a little bit and about methane hydrate. One of the most dangerous scenarios with climate change is that the methane frozen in the form of methane hydrate tied up under the oceans could be released as the oceans warm. In recent days there have been reports of plumes of methane being released in the Arctic Circle as the undersea permafrost melts and releases methane. Methane of course is 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide. To quote from the  
Independent 
: “In the past few days the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through ‘methane chimneys’ rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost which has acted like a ‘lid’ to prevent the gas from escaping has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age. They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.” 
There are two reports now about methane being released in huge quantities in the Arctic region. One of those reports suggests the methane has been coming out for a long time—since the last ice age—and the other one suggests that this is actually new and that what we are facing now is the positive feedback that could result in rapid climate change. For those who actually understand climate science this is almost certainly one of the most worrying things that the human race has ever seen in climate change. For those members who follow the news the day that they read that article will be a day that they will all remember. It is still early but if these reports are true then we are seeing the beginning of the most dangerous positive feedback loop—the positive feedback loop that will release masses of methane and produce massively more global warming.  
New Zealand of course is a major contributor per capita to greenhouse gas emissions. Our emissions have increased by about a quarter since 1990 and the taxpayer under the Kyoto Protocol is responsible for purchasing Kyoto credits to cover the increase. Between 1990 and 1999 our emissions increased by 11 percent under a National-led Government; and under the current Government emissions increased by about 13 percent to 2006. Since 2006 they have increased quite significantly. The dairy sector has increased its emissions of methane by about 77 percent since 1990 and emissions of nitrous oxide will have increased by a similar amount. Because we have to purchase the carbon credits to actually cover that increase in emissions we are subsidising the dairy sector’s emissions by about $200 million a year. Every dairy conversion gets a bonus from the taxpayer of roughly $120 per cow. Each new cow costs the taxpayers roughly $120 per year to cover the increase in greenhouse gas emissions. It is a strange situation whereby we find ourselves subsidising our own demise. What kind of a system have we set up when the taxpayer subsidises our increase in greenhouse gas emissions? It seems to me that that is not really a user-pays system and I think that both sides of this House need to change that. 
In terms of public transport we made a little bit of progress on that issue under this Government and I acknowledge that. However we are still spending six to seven times as much on roading as we do on public transport. We still have an enormously long way to go. I also acknowledge the billion dollars the Greens obtained for the green homes project as part of our support for the emissions trading scheme. We made some progress there but we still have a long way to go. On the issue of oil prices we still have sadly a Government in denial. Oil prices will go up and down but the long-term future can only be up. There is no choice. When it comes to food I think one of the most extraordinary things is the bipartisan opposition to country-of-origin labelling of food because it is supposedly not a food safety issue. It seems incredible to me that anyone could argue now that having a label to tell us about the origin of food is not a food safety issue. That seems completely incredible. 
Of course one of the great concerns of everyone at the moment is the state of the economy. I would say that our economy is in danger. I would say it is in danger because of inaction to protect our environment. Our environmental performance will be one of the deciding factors in our economic performance now and into the future. Our primary production and tourism sectors are dependent on being clean and green. Being one of the worst greenhouse gas polluters per capita does not fit with being clean and green. Having most of our lowland rivers full of cow effluent does not fit with being clean and green and having Crown research institutes producing genetically engineered llamas and goodness knows what else does not fit with being clean and green. Our markets will judge us on our environmental performance and the only party that will protect the economic future of this country is the Green Party. We can live well and look after this beautiful planet we all share. 
Hon TARIANA TURIA (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Speaker. Tena tatou katoa. There is a whakatauaki that I want to share in our final korero of the forty-eighth Parliament: he mate tino tangata tena e renga mai—when an important person dies the place fills up. This Chamber is full to capacity with the presence of the lives of those who have touched us all. The forty-eighth Parliament opened with the tragic loss of Rod Donald and has ended with the sad news of the death of Brian Donnelly a politician for whom I had huge regard and we offer our sincere condolences to his whanau and to New Zealand First. Along the way the journey has been marked by many—too many to name—who have passed on but they are always here in our hearts and thoughts. We think of Tumu Putaura and Boyd Matene and how our Parliament came together to mourn their passing. E nga rangatira e nga hoa haere atu ra ki o awa tupuna. Hoki wairua mai ki a matou e whai atu ana i muri i a koutou. 
[ 
To the elite to the colleagues go forth to the landing places of your ancestors. Come back to us in spirit who are to follow you 
.]  
The valedictory speeches that have been heard this week have enabled us all to appreciate the distinctive contributions of each of the retiring members. We in the Maori Party thank you for your dedicated commitment to doing good for this nation and we wish you a much improved quality of life post 8 November. 
From the stunning excitement of election night in 2005 right through the last 3 years we four members of the Maori Party have loved the privilege of serving our constituency. From the elderly couple in Kawakawa who felt they were treated unfairly by Work and Income to the families in run-down State houses in Porirua we have had the honour of representing their issues and we have endeavoured to do our best for them. For they are the reason that we are here: to defend Maori rights to uphold Maori interests and to do so because we know that it will benefit Aotearoa. 
The Maori Party has been well served by time-honoured kaupapa which have motivated our every move watched over by the truly wise counsel of our president Whataranga Winiata. These kaupapa have enabled us to support what I believe was one of the most positive initiatives that occurred through the life of this Parliament and that was the introduction of a code of conduct which was first recommended by Ross Robertson an Assistant Speaker. Tena koe Ross. We enjoyed the opportunity to work collaboratively with members of the Greens ACT and United Future on that initiative and also on the successful repealing of the archaic sedition legislation. 
There have been many other opportunities for cross-parliamentary cooperation to be expressed. The commitment across party lines to “encourage courage” amongst our families and communities in treating our children as treasures was one of the most distinctive features of this Parliament. The legislation to outlaw the capacity of adults to use physical force against children established a bench mark that this Parliament should rightly be proud of and I mihi to the Greens for that legislation. We acknowledge however that the devastating impact of violence in our communities has featured too frequently too savagely for one to sit nohopuku. We must be better in our progress as a nation to create and maintain violence-free homes and violence-free communities. 
Parliament has endured many challenges over the last 3 years but none as dramatic as what happened to a small rural community Ruatoki almost 1 year ago. The introduction of the Taser gun the slaughter of police officers on the job and unprecedented growth of the prison population are all areas that must continue to be monitored if we value justice and the sense of a free and democratic society. 
We noted with some irony yesterday that the most dramatic event in the last decade of political history the theft—or was it the gifting—of the foreshore and seabed to the nation was missing from members’ summaries of their proud achievements perhaps out of shame. We must never forget that the world is watching. It watched our country vote against the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It watched Hone speak out against the injustice in the Northern Territory. It is watching a Government that has voted against the Treaty of Waitangi in successive bills in this House. 
But there have been some great moments in the life of the forty-eighth Parliament and the Maori Party members were thrilled when our support of Ngati Kahu Ngati Tuwharetoa and Hauraki meant that the Government was forced to back down over the Landcorp and Office of Treaty Settlements mismanagement of land. All parties have been enthusiastic at the sudden progress for iwi in concluding Treaty settlements and we have been impressed at the new approach of rangatira to rangatira. I mihi first to Mark Burton for his outstanding contribution to Treaty settlements and I want to say thank you to the Hon Dr Michael Cullen for his absolutely outstanding contribution to settling grievances. We are pleased that those iwi can move forward and progress. 
We are proud that Te Ururoa Flavell was part of the team promoting simultaneous interpretation in the House and that soon our official language will be truly practised as a living breathing language of choice. We are pleased with the progress we have experienced through our contributions to the select committees. I can speak really highly of the leadership of Sue Kedgley and we recognise the Health Committee for its support of the Treaty clause in the Public Health Bill. Te Ururoa Flavell’s pressure for an inquiry into Maori schooling resulted in an important set of recommendations for a future in which educational benefits can be enjoyed by all. Dr Pita Sharples has thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work with the Hon Dave Hereora and the other members of the Maori Affairs Committee. We all consider our work across Parliament to be a genuine source of satisfaction in a job well done. Of course there is still much to do. We must as a nation eliminate poverty. We must ensure every child and whanau has the opportunity to thrive. 
The work that we do across this Parliament is so much easier because of the professional and unrelenting support of so many worker bees in the hive. From the dawn chorus of the security guards the receptionists the telephonists the help desk team the messengers and the staff of Copperfields through to the midnight toil in the Office of the Clerk the Table Office the librarians the Hansard Office the legal team the cleaners and all the other people who make this place hum we are all extremely well served. 
We are a united team in the Maori Party. Our devoted parliamentary staff our loyal electorate kaimahi and our ever-loving whanau enable us to get through every day. Nga mihi aroha ki a koutou. Each and every one of the people who occupy our lives gives their all to enable us to be here and we are humbled by the commitment that they have made to the Maori Party but also to Parliament. 
We want to recognise the hard-working team in the press gallery above—the political journos the oft-maligned watchdogs of the fourth estate. They constantly encourage us through their questioning their commentary blogs and reports to go either left or right. They have yet to realise that we are the Maori Party and we will go neither left nor right. We are a party that is determined to go forward in the best interests of our people and that is the most important thing. 
Once the microphones are switched off and the cameras are put away we are all travellers on a journey that rarely has a day off and we acknowledge the impact that that has on all of us. 
Finally the company we keep in this Chamber makes this place really special. We will never forget that every one of the representatives in this Parliament is worthy of our respect and our admiration for taking on the role of public office and so we mihi to you all. 
We have greatly appreciated the leadership of Madam Speaker and those who have also occupied her Chair: the Hon Marian Hobbs the Hon Clem Simich Ross Robertson and Ann Hartley. You have presided over some intense debates and you have always done so with integrity. 
And just as Hone Harawira rose to let the first voice of the forty-eighth Parliament be that of te reo rangatira let the last word be words that we all hope to live up to in every aspect of our lives: to have trust and openness and integrity. No reira tena koutou. 
JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future and in particular on behalf of the Hon Peter Dunne to speak in this adjournment debate. I begin by thanking all those who staff the precincts of Parliament for the wonderful support they give this House. The Hon Peter Dunne would like me to especially mention his ministerial staff from the Inland Revenue Department and the Ministry of Health Rachel Baxter Margaret Denny and Kevin Moar for the impressive support they have given him in fulfilling his roles here in Parliament. 
In a small party the staff we rely on are so incredibly invaluable that it is very hard to do credit to them but I would like to mention their names because we are hugely grateful for 3 years’ support from them. I would like to mention Anne Small Rob Eaddy Ted Sheehan Mary Binnie Caron Hoare Hayden Cox and Luke Chappell and our out-of-Parliament staff Shirley Simcock Sue Lock Lori Fretwell Joe Burton Denise Krum and Vicki Rogers for all the support they have given us with constituents. We are very grateful. 
I also pay tribute to you Madam Speaker for the great leadership you have shown. It has been a great pleasure to be in this House for our first woman Speaker. I thank you for your friendship and for your guidance. I would also like to pay tribute to the Hon Clem Simich the Hon Marian Hobbs and those others who are retiring from Parliament at this time. I thank you for your friendship. It is also important that we pay our condolences to the family of Brian Donnelly—a person whom we hugely respected—and also give our condolences to our New Zealand First colleagues at this time. 
This for United Future has been a successful parliamentary term and we have delivered on all the policy gains negotiated in our confidence and supply agreement with the Labour-led Government. We have for instance lowered business tax—a $3.4 billion tax reform package that we hope will promote investment in New Zealand create more jobs and enhance New Zealand’s business competitiveness globally. I recognise the fact that this is the first business tax cut in nearly 20 years and it is interesting to note that last time the business community got such a boost the Minister of Revenue was at that time the Hon Peter Dunne. 
Perhaps the issue I am the most proud of in terms of what we have gained in this parliamentary term is the huge boost we have been able to capture for charities. In the 2007 Budget we saw the removal of the cap on tax rebates for charitable donations. This has meant a huge boost to philanthropy in New Zealand and it is something that I am hugely proud of. Also I am very proud of the ongoing work that the Hon Peter Dunne has done around issues like payroll giving and the payment of honorariums to the staff of these wonderful community groups. 
Better access to medicines is now available for New Zealand families as a result of the National Medicines Strategy which was part of the confidence and supply agreement with United Future. We have improved access to living allowances for tertiary students. We remain committed to a universal student living allowance so we will continue with others in this House to chip away at that goal. But we are pleased to have delivered better outcomes for tertiary students in the short term. 
We have also delivered a number of other small things that were not part of our confidence and supply agreement but have been quite delightful. In partnership with the Nelson City Council and Mark Holmes it was United Future that was able to push forward and gain an extension to daylight saving by 3 weeks—something that we are all coming into and will enjoy at this time. I want to mention the Hon Peter Dunne for getting on to the Order Paper a bill to raise the driving age. We look forward to seeing that progressed. Even this week as we complete this parliamentary term United Future announced as part of our confidence and supply agreement the creation of a Wild Animal Control Advisory Committee and the ability to do better both environmentally and recreationally for the hunters and fishers in this country. 
One of the other interesting things that has happened in this Parliament has been the progression and the evolving of MMP. I want to particularly honour others from MMP parties and thank them for the new collaboration that we have begun to experiment with. We have discovered that when we focus on what we agree on there is much to be gained. We always accept our differences and that is why we exist separately from each other but the MMP parties have begun to discover and explore the new opportunities that MMP provides us with together collectively. I think this is an area that is only going to grow over time and we look forward to that ongoing relationship. 
United Future is we believe a stable party in Government. We are under-rated and possibly we will only ever be appreciated if we are not here. We believe that the people of New Zealand deserve the certainty of a permanent Government and regular elections. We are a dependable group of people and the public can trust that once we have signed the confidence and supply agreement with the Government we will stay true to our word until the next election. We did it in 2002 and in 2005 and we will do it again in 2008. 
Within United Future we believe that where New Zealanders have voted they have the right to expect that their votes are decisive and will last for the full term. It is not the case that we will work with any party. Our principle is that we will work with whatever party shares our goals and aspirations for New Zealand and once we have agreed to work with a party we do and we do not back down or sidle away even when it gets tough. That is hard work. We do not get attention for not being stroppy and shouting. We do knuckle down and work to make meaningful differences in the lives of everyday Kiwis and everyday Kiwis can have confidence in the knowledge that bit by bit the job is being done. United Future makes that happen and we are proud of the support that we have been able to offer this Government. It is not a glamorous job but it is a good one. We look forward to this election period and to making our case yet again to be a part of the make-up of this Parliament. We wish all our colleagues well. 
HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 On behalf of the ACT party I would like to join my parliamentary colleagues in thanking all those who work so hard to make our lives easier here at Parliament: the security staff the messengers the library the Hansard staff the Office of the Clerk the select committee staff the Parliamentary Service staff and the travel office. Certainly our lives would not run nearly as smoothly without the contribution that they all make to Parliament. 
Madam Speaker I would also mention you and your team and the contribution that you make to the smooth running of this House as well. Your job is not always easy but you do it with respect to fellow MPs with a great deal of tolerance and usually with very good humour. I thank you for that. To those MPs who are retiring we wish them the very best for their future. 
On behalf of Rodney and myself I also thank with a great deal of sincerity our own staff. To our parliamentary staff Sandy Sally Chas and Andrew and also to our out-of-Parliament staff Priscilla Brian Stuart and Neil we offer our very sincere thanks for the hard work and the support they have provided us with over the last 3 years. 
The dissolving of Parliament means that we inevitably move into full-scale campaigning mode and just in anticipation of that I say it is my view that the election campaign should not be thought of as a sprint to the finish line. In reality it is the beginning of a marathon setting the pace for the long endurance event that is making our nation a much safer and a more prosperous place for all. A vision is obviously needed to achieve that goals need to be established and a plan needs to be put in place. I have stood on a lot of election stages already where candidate after candidate stands and says: “I cannot tell you what our policy is on this yet.” I am proud to belong to a party that has no shortage of policy and we are happy to share that policy. Our policy is based on a vision of our country that can again foot it with the rest of world—and in particular with our neighbour and colleague Australia—by the year 2020. 
The ACT party does not believe that anybody has a monopoly on good ideas. Good ideas should be put forward they should be debated by all and they should be shared around for the benefit of all our citizens. Here are the big issues as we see them for the election campaign. 
Firstly the economy is a big issue. In the face of what seems to be a global financial meltdown we will experience flow-on effects here in New Zealand but given our large degree of self-determination we should not use the global situation as an excuse to not make the tough decisions that need to be made in order to move our nation forward and to lay the groundwork for strong economic growth. The ACT party believes we should be striving for economic growth of 5 percent on top of what we currently have. We should be lifting our performance and growing the economic cake. We should be not constantly quibbling about how we will divide up the cake that currently exists but growing it because that is what will make everyone better off particularly those who are currently struggling. What is needed is an urgent focus on improving productivity shrinking the size of government and letting people keep more of what they earn. 
Law and order too seems to be emerging as a huge election issue this campaign. The ACT party has always taken a strong stand on law and order and our zero tolerance for crime policy—or the slogan at least—now seems to have been adopted by just about every party in this Parliament. We also want to see truth in sentencing and our policy plank this election will be the three strikes and the maximum policy. These policies are ever more relevant today in a society that seems sadly to place much greater importance on the rights of criminals than on those of the victims. 
Education is the greatest gift we can give to our children. Education empowers people and gives them the ability to move forward in life and to make the wise decisions that will help them strive and prosper and we need to place a great deal of emphasis on this. School choice is the tool that will give parents the ability to give their children the greatest gift of all the gift of education. 
Climate change also seems to be a huge election issue. The world’s core temperature has always fluctuated and our scientists seem to have fallen into two camps. There seems to be no agreement on the impact that mankind is having. Although there is no doubt that we should all treat our plant with respect—it is our home after all—we need to be realistic about the influence that New Zealand can have when we contribute just 0.02 percent of the total worldwide carbon emissions. 
ACT is the only party that has opposed an emissions trading scheme from the time it was introduced into this Parliament and right through the process. It is costly it is open to fraud and abuse—of which we have had any number of examples in Europe—and it will increase electricity and fuel costs for all. But most important it will increase costs for those people who are already struggling; those who are least able to afford those increased costs in their budgets now. 
ACT believes in a carbon tax. We should have a carbon tax if we are to do anything at all because that would be a much fairer model as it provides the right incentives. It would see the polluters pay for the amount of pollution they produce with the incentive inevitably being to reduce their carbon emissions so that they pay less tax. What we have now is a certain cost based on uncertain science. 
As we enter into this election campaign and leave Parliament I would say just one thing to my parliamentary colleagues. I hope that as we get out and about on the hustings we can put aside personal grievances and things that have gone before us in this forty-eighth Parliament that we will play the ball rather than the man and that we will discuss the things that will inevitably move our country forward and we make the hard decisions that will do that. [ 
Interruption 
] The ACT party—despite the jostling from the Government members over there who will be on a different side of this Chamber after the election—will take that into account. 
Just in finishing I say that a party vote for National or the ACT party will bring about a change in Government after this election but more important a constituency vote for a National Party candidate plus a party vote for the ACT party will bring about for New Zealanders and their children the change of Government that is so desperately needed. The ACT party looks forward to being back in Parliament—back in the 49th Parliament—after the election with increased numbers so that we can move forward. Particularly we will bring in a taxpayer rights bill to cap Government spending and limit the size of Government so that everybody can get about their business as they should be able to and we will progress the Regulatory Responsibility Bill. 
I wish my parliamentary colleagues the very best in the election campaign. We look forward to being back in the forty-ninth Parliament in ever increased numbers. I offer my thanks again to those who have helped us so willingly and have given their all in the past 3 years. 
GORDON COPELAND (Independent) 
: 
 I too would like to begin by thanking various people particularly my staff member Rebekah Clement—I have just one staff member in Parliament—and also Bernie Ogilvie and Larry Baldock who have worked tirelessly outside of Parliament as part of my very small team as an Independent MP. As an Independent MP I particularly want to give my thanks today as well to the Parliamentary Library. Believe me when one is on his own pretty much that service is absolutely vital and it has been superb. Also I thank the Office of the Clerk which on many occasions has given me advice and assistance as I have adjusted to life as an Independent MP. 
I would like too to extend my very best wishes to the National and Labour MPs who are leaving Parliament today. I was not able to be here for all the valedictory speeches but I do wish those members all the very very best as they leave here now to go on to whatever their future holds for them. I would also like to join others in marking as I have privately the death of Brian Donnelly—that was a real shock to all of us—and to convey my sincere condolences to his colleagues in the New Zealand First Party and of course to his family. 
In particular I thank you Madam Speaker for the many many ways you have assisted me particularly since I have become an Independent MP. I also thank you for the way you have carried out so professionally so well and so impartially your great responsibility as the Speaker of this Parliament. As we have gone into this Parliament the level of noise has increased pretty steadily and you have done a superb job in keeping us on track when we went down many blind alleys at various times. I also thank your supporting team of Clem Simich Ross Robertson and Marian Hobbs. I say thank you very much to them for all of that. I also wish you Madam Speaker the very very best in your future.  
Today of course marks the end of the forty-eighth Parliament and I guess the official beginning of—we can go from de facto to “in facto” as it were—election campaign 2008. History may well identify the passage of the Act criminalising good parents who correct their children as the beginning of the end for the Helen Clark - led Government. That bill was passed—that Act enforced—against the wishes of 80 percent of the people of New Zealand. Editorial after editorial has been written along those lines saying that that was the critical point in the life of Helen Clark’s Government. 
Indeed I remind the House that directly after the 2005 election the Prime Minister said: “We almost lost the election because of social engineering and there will be no more in the next 3 years.” But when a member’s bill in the name of Sue Bradford came along the Government could not help itself. She could not help putting aside electoral logic and every other thing and getting really involved in that. One has only to listen to talkback radio right through this country to find out how many people those actions have upset and how that will result in seeing a very very different outcome in terms of Government following this year’s election. I have no doubt that we will see a change of Government. 
Can members imagine the effort that was required to collect 390000 signatures to force a referendum on this matter? MPs who have been involved from time to time in collecting signatures for a petition feel they have done well if they get 6000 or 7000 signatures. Even on issues like the abolition of the Privy Council as I recall after a huge well-financed and well-organised campaign 70000 signatures were collected on that issue. Members can just imagine the effort that has gone in by so many people to force a referendum on the anti-smacking legislation. It has been a tremendous effort. But because Parliament has chosen to criminalise good parents New Zealanders have flocked to the tables from Whanagrei to Invercargill and from Greymouth to Gisborne in huge numbers. 
They came from every strata of society from Maori and from Pakeha and from every ethnic community in this country. They are Christians Jews Hindus Buddhists Muslims Sikhs and of course in New Zealand today many many deeply committed secularists. But they are all very very passionate about the fact that they wanted that bill to be overturned. They are schoolteachers—schoolteachers signed that petition in huge numbers. They are police officers including those in uniforms. They are High Court judges. They were thousands and thousands of blue-collar workers. They were the elderly and the young. In fact in my office I have a whole stack of petition forms that are signed by people under 18 which could not actually be presented to Parliament. Believe you me people young and old in this country believe that we have made a very very serious mistake indeed. 
But first and foremost all of the people who signed that petition are parents or intend to become parents. They are people who love their children deeply and deeply resent the intrusion of the police and of Child Youth and Family into their families and into that unique and wonderful bond between good parents and their children. They are upset that a relatively small group of New Zealanders have decided that they have the wisdom and the right to impose their views on this issue on the rest of New Zealanders. 
Heartland New Zealand sees the law as a black mark against the Labour Government that will not go away. Members simply increase those people’s sense of alienation when they tell them to “get over it” and refuse to allow the referendum that they demand as part of this year’s elections. What a wimpish action! What an excuse for democracy it was! The Government knew that 80 percent of the people of this country do not agree with that law yet it has simply been put off from the election date until a postal ballot next year. 
I do not know what the thousands of New Zealanders say to members of the National Party on this issue but I can tell members that in hundreds of conversations with me people from all sections of society have asked me what National was thinking. It had Helen Clark on the ropes when it suddenly threw in the towel sat down in the middle of the ring and said that it is OK to criminalise good parents. National has not seen the end of this matter. I say to National members that parents do not buy it. If National becomes the Government they will have to deal with this issue. 
That is pretty much it from me but I would like to wish everybody a good election campaign. Like others I encourage members to put aside the spin. So often in this place when one is surrounded by spin doctors and the members of the press gallery and so forth it is very very easy to lose contact with the voices of New Zealanders what is actually real in their lives what they are actually thinking and what they are actually saying. If nothing else the petition has given me a wonderful insight: I certainly spoke to more people in this country in the last 18 months than I did in the first 5 or more years of my parliamentary career. It is very very good to listen to the wisdom of those people and the love that they have for this country. They are saying to us that we need to put aside all that spin and we need to put aside the personal denigration and actually get real with the issues that confront and concern ordinary mums and dads ordinary Kiwis and ordinary young people in this nation. I believe it is time for us to begin to listen to them and to take on board their wisdom rather than imposing on them what we think is right for them. Let us seek to give them a voice—a voice in this Parliament—for they certainly deserve no less. 
I wish all members a good campaign. I tell them to enjoy it. Hopefully I will see them again later this year. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 At about this time 3 years ago after the 2005 election Dr Cullen and Helen Clark were plotting how to break the tax cut promise they had made in the 2005 election. About 2 months after that election they started the slow slippery process that they know so well of backing out of a promise to give New Zealanders back some of the massive surpluses the Government had accumulated. The reason why they set out to break that promise was the officials had told them that their spending promises were so large that they had to abandon their tax cuts in order to finance them. 
We wind ahead to 2008. Like an alcoholic who cannot go into a bar without getting off his face Dr Cullen has had to legislate against himself. He has had to pass legislation for tax cuts on 1 October just in case he breaks that promise. Well he still can actually. The next round of Labour’s tax cuts is not due until 2010. I ask this question: if Labour broke its promise to deliver on tax cuts in 2006 when it had record surpluses what will the self-styled fiscal conservative Dr Cullen do after the 2008 election if he is re-elected when he faces record deficits? He has started the slippery process already. If this election is about trust then Labour cannot be trusted on tax cuts. In fact one reason that New Zealanders have learnt they cannot trust Labour on tax cuts is that they have found out that they cannot trust Labour on anything. 
I want to reflect on the forty-eighth Parliament which is coming at last and with great relief to its bitter end. As my colleague John Key said it started with the pledge card scandal. It started with Helen Clark telling the public that Labour had the right to steal $800000 of public money for its own election campaign. It started with the Labour Party promising one of our public bodies that it would count that money as election expenses but the day after the election Labour officials said that no they withdraw that undertaking. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: They’ll do it again. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well they have made undertakings now. Who believes them? Labour of course is going to break the law over this election because it was the first party caught breaking its own electoral law the Electoral Finance Act. As we know all the parties that voted for that law have broken it and three of them are under police investigation for breaking that law. But that is not unusual. No Prime Minister in New Zealand’s history has been interviewed by the police as often as Helen Elizabeth Clark has. But the pledge card— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: Personal attack! Personal attack! 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well that is a fact—that is a fact. 
We are talking about people who are meant to be the world’s most competent political managers. Let us read out the roll call of scandal mismanagement prevarication obfuscation and bullying. There was the pledge card scandal and the Phillip Field scandal. Where has he ended up? He is in court on criminal charges. There was the Madeleine Setchell scandal. A chief executive and a Minister lost their jobs as well as two well-intentioned civil servants because the Prime Minister’s office had tried to take over the Ministry for the Environment and turn it into a propaganda arm of the Labour Party. 
Then there was the whole scandal around the Electoral Finance Act to which I have already referred. It was a blatant partisan attempt to screw the scrum. It breached every convention of decency that this Parliament has followed including the convention that the rules around elections should have broad support in Parliament. Labour sacrificed that convention for a highly partisan attempt to silence its critics and legalise its own illegal acts. 
Then there was the Owen Glenn saga. We know the reason that Helen Clark did not sack Winston Peters over the donation from Owen Glenn: because the Labour Party had helped to arrange the donation as part of its coalition negotiations. Helen Clark could not sack him for taking the money because she had sanctioned his taking it. She could not sack him for keeping that secret because she had known about it and she had kept it secret. And she could not sack him for misleading the public because she had misled the public. It has become quite clear that Labour does have a plan to win the election: Winston Peters. The plan is Winston Peters. Of course the public are absolutely puzzled as to why Helen Clark cannot deal with Winston Peters when John Key has made a principled and brave decision to say that the standards of his Government will not be so low that he can negotiate with someone who is under investigation by the police who is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and who has been censured by Parliament. 
Of course as members go through that roll call of scandals they should think about the common factor: Helen Clark misleading the public with her finely crafted calculated mistruths in every single case. And if Labour thinks it has such fantastic political managers why did the pledge card scandal the Phillip Field scandal the Madeleine Setchell scandal the Owen Glenn scandal and the Electoral Finance Act scandal go on for months and months? 
It is time to sweep the dry rot out of the Beehive. Why do I say “dry rot”? I have learnt something in the forty-eighth Parliament: one of the things that have kept up standards of decency and probity in New Zealand Government is a pretty basic instinct of every human being—that is shame. Most of us if we get caught not telling the full facts if we make a mistake have enough integrity to feel some regret. We have enough integrity to feel some regret. The Labour Party and Helen Clark do not. There is now nothing that this Government will not do to stay in power. There is no standard too low no lie too bold and no bullying too shameful that its members will not engage in in order to stay in power. That is the ugly truth that the public now know—the ugly truth that they now know. The Labour Party has a dangerous—[ 
Interruption 
] Labour members should listen to this; this is what they will hear on the doorsteps. The Labour Party has a dangerous and ferocious sense of entitlement to power and public money. Well the public money is running out; there will not be much in the next 3 or 4 years largely because of Dr Cullen’s mismanagement. And the power is running out because New Zealanders think this country is bigger greater and more important than Helen Clark and the Labour Party. 
We have things we want this country to be able to do and so do 4 million New Zealanders. We do not get out of bed in the morning to make the Labour Party members feel as though they are in charge and that is why the country will sweep the dry rot out of the Beehive. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: As the 2008 parliamentary term comes to a close we also as members have noted come to the end of the forty-eighth Parliament. In the traditional way I wish to formally pay tribute to all the people who contribute to the efficient functioning of this House. 
First I must acknowledge the support of my colleague and Deputy Speaker Clem Simich who like myself is retiring at the end of this term. He has given commendable service to this House. I also thank Assistant Speaker Ross Robertson for his considerable contribution. I also thank the Hon Marian Hobbs who filled the role of Assistant Speaker earlier this year with her own refreshing style. I also acknowledge the tireless and frequently unacknowledged work of Parliament’s kaumatua and kuia John and Rose; thank you. 
Parliament could not function of course as many members have noted without the tireless work of the Clerk’s Office whose professionalism is a credit to the leadership of the Clerk Mary Harris and her senior team who oversee servicing at the Table of the House compiling  
Hansard 
 records processing legislation questions and petitions and serving on select committees. In this context it is important to acknowledge the work of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel David Noble and his team who deliver a high quality of service to this Parliament. 
Although the Chamber is the focus of parliamentary activities the activities of the House are also supported by the staff of the Parliamentary Service. It has been another year of much change for that service and I want to record my thanks for the work of Geoff Thorn the general manager who leads the team in constantly striving to provide services to members in the House. The team is a large one from inside and outside Parliament and it includes members’ support staff including executive assistants; support staff of the various parliamentary parties; the staff of the Parliamentary Library—and I am pleased that some members have acknowledged their great contribution—research units; and the Chamber and gallery officers. 
I give a special thank you to the interpreters. Soon we hope we will have simultaneous interpretation in the House. I also thank the security staff buildings services staff telephonists travel office staff and the reception and visitor services staff. I think special thanks must also go to Bellamy’s staff who often in difficult circumstances work to ensure members and their staff are well fuelled for their jobs. 
My thanks go to the Serjeant-at-Arms Brent Smith and all those who work with him to uphold the traditions and propriety of the Chamber and to welcome visitors to the parliamentary galleries. They are an essential part of the running of Parliament and events such as the highly successful open day at Parliament in October are a testimony to that. Others who work hard to ensure guests and visitors to the parliamentary complex have an enjoyable time include Beverley Cathcart and Michelle Janse and I give special thanks to them. 
I also thank the Leader of the House the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and the Opposition Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee. Leaders of all the parties in the House their deputies and the party whips and their deputies have all contributed to the smooth operation of the business of Parliament. From this position I am well aware that the life of a whip is not an easy one so I give extra special thanks to all who have taken on that responsibility. I also acknowledge the work of all members of Parliament who despite enormous workloads continue to serve this House well. I give a final and special personal thanks to my own staff: Roland Pam the two Roses and Nina. It would be impossible to do the job without them. 
Although people can now see how hard we all work through the televising of proceedings I would like to reinforce that impression with a few statistics which is also traditional. Here are the statistics for the 2005-08 session as at 24 September. We have had 246 sitting days and 258 calendar days and members can explain that difference to people who want to know. Sitting hours have totalled 1486 hours and 51 minutes. Moving to bills passed there have been 329 Government bills three members’ bills eight local bills and eight private bills. There have been 52324 written questions and 2844 oral questions asked excluding supplementary questions. There were 313 select committee meetings 883 hours and 18 minutes of meetings—those figures exclude September—and 242 select committee reports were generated. I know from the look of members that it feels like it. 
I know that members are all anxious to leave and commence the democratic cycle of electioneering so I will not delay them any longer. As this is my last appearance in the role of Speaker may I thank all who have supported me in what may be described as perhaps the most difficult refereeing role in the country. Kia ora. 
Motion agreed to. 
The House adjourned at 12.44 p.m. (Friday)