Volume 642 Week 58 - Thursday 18 October 2007 
Volume 642 Week 58 - Thursday 18 October 2007 
[Volume:642;Page:12505] 
Thursday 18 October 2007 
Madam Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Business Statement 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 Next week in the House progress will be made on the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill the Human Tissue Bill the Oaths Modernisation Bill the Copyright (New Technologies and Performers’ Rights) Amendment Bill the Armed Forces Law Reform Bill and the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill. The third reading of the Income Tax Bill will be the last item of business on Thursday with the intention being that the House should rise at 5 p.m. so that members may attend the farewell function for the Clerk of the House David McGee. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I was listening closely to the Leader of the House and he did not mention the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill which was going to be discussed this week. I wonder whether it is going to be discussed next week or is the Government a bit worried about the public reaction against that bill? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 It is not media commentary that determines the Government’s business but the Leader of the House. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Are there any further comments? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I seek leave for the sitting hours of the House on Thursday 25 October to be from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is no objection. 
Questions to Ministers 
Health Services—Very Low-cost Access Scheme 
1. MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Has he received any reports on the number of people benefiting from the very low-cost access scheme? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Associate Minister of Health) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Health 
: There are now 1039655 New Zealanders enrolled in the scheme which keeps general practitioners’ fees at $15.50 for adults $10.50 for young people aged between 6 and 17 years and free for under-sixes. That is over 1 million New Zealanders who pay under $15.50 while the rest pay an average of $25. On average the cost of a general practitioner visit has halved under the Labour-led Government. The question on my mind is whether the National Party is celebrating this or is it intending to take charges back to where they were and beyond? 
Martin Gallagher 
: Has the Minister seen any reports of initiatives that will threaten lower doctors’ fees? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Yes I have—the National Party’s secret plan to let the market set the price for people seeing a doctor which will drive many people away from getting health advice. John Key and his friends think it is OK for something like health to be a market commodity. 
Barbara Stewart 
: What action is the Minister taking to ensure that the Government’s success in providing access to affordable health-care is extended to cover accident and medical services in centres such as Porirua where staff shortages are threatening after-hours services to north Wellington Porirua and Kapiti coast residents? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: This action or any action would be of course the responsibility of the district health board. After-hours services have historically been a problem as people do not get ill between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. all the time—I appreciate that. But this Government has added 4000 nurses and 1200 doctors to rebuild the health sector decimated by the previous administration and all of those additions will help a multitude of health services. 
Martin Gallagher 
: Has the Minister seen any report that cheaper doctors’ visits actually have a positive effect even for people who do not necessarily need to see a doctor? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: As a matter of fact I have. When the Consumers Price Index figures came out this week inflation figures were lower than what just about everyone had estimated. Treasury said: “It was mainly because the effect of increased Government subsidies for health and education was greater than expected.” Inflation in the September quarter was 0.5 percent. Treasury said: “Without the increases in Government subsidies the quarterly increase in CPI would have been at 0.9 percent.” Even the meanest-minded members of the Opposition must realise that without the Government paying these subsidies interest rates would rise mortgage payments would rise and people would be much worse off which of course they would be if the National Party health policy was implemented. 
Taxation—Australian Tax Cuts 
2.  
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
on behalf of the  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does he stand by his statement regarding recently proposed tax cuts in Australia that “There’s nothing for anybody under $30000 a year”; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 No; because the advice I received initially failed to recognise the effect of the low-income tax offset the Australian equivalent of our low-income earner rebate— 
Hon Members 
: Oh! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I think I should spread the pills out amongst them! If ever fully implemented the proposal would see zero tax cuts on incomes of up to $11000 a year compared with $128 per week for those on $200000 a year. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does he agree that the recently proposed tax cuts in Australia would actually deliver about $8.65 a week in the first year to those earning under $30000 a year and why does he consider $8.65 a week—almost $450 a year—to be nothing for people in that income bracket? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The member did not listen to my answer. I said that the initial advice I had did not account for what the Australians call the low-income tax offset. Taking account of that the member is quite correct but there is still no change on incomes of up to $11000 per year. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: Has he seen any reports on the value of delivering tax relief of around $10 per week for working families? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes I have seen a taxation policy that proposes scrapping the $10 per child per week tax credit extension to Working for Families in order to pay for tax cuts for the better-off. I have also seen reports of a vote in this House where the National Party refused to endorse the Working for Families increase of $10 per week per child in tax credits that came into force on 1 April 2007 one of the most significant poverty elimination measures advanced for many years. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Is the Minister concerned that across-the-board tax cuts favour the wealthier members of our society and does it further concern him that such tax cuts often lead to user-pays regimes for Government services thus disadvantaging further the less well-off such as young families? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have made it clear that any programme of tax cuts under the Labour-led Government must be fair and that the cuts must also not impact upon the ability of the Government to deliver services. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Is it correct as the Minister has just alleged that the Australian tax package proposal did nothing for income earners earning less than $11000 a year and delivered significant tax cuts for those on higher incomes because in fact those earning less than $11000 in Australia pay zero tax—unlike the situation in New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The effect of the tax offset is precisely that; it is the equivalent of our low-income earner tax rebate. The National Government in its changes in the 1990s reduced the low-income earner tax rebate with every change it made. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: What reports has he seen on support for initiatives to reduce taxation in New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I have seen reports showing that this Labour-led Government has reduced taxation on working families—that was opposed by the National Party. I have seen reports that this Government has reduced taxes on business on multiple occasions—each time that was opposed by the National Party. I have seen reports that this Government has reduced the taxation on savings—that was opposed by the National Party. New Zealanders need to remember that when the National Party talks big on tax cuts its members do everything they can to actually stop them when they get in this House. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: If there is nothing in the proposed tax cuts in Australia for anyone earning under $30000 a year is it correct that a low-income earner say on $16000 a year in Australia if the proposals were fully implemented would pay $2790 a year—almost $54 a week—less in tax than someone earning the same $16000 here in New Zealand? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The fact is that the Australian taxation system is more progressive than New Zealand’s taxation system. Tax is lower at the bottom end and higher—higher—at the top end. The National Party’s proposal at the last election did absolutely nothing about rectifying that position at all; its tax proposals would not have given larger gains to those at the bottom end. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Does the Minister stand by his advice to his Cabinet colleagues that the Government should “not adjust tax thresholds in the medium term thereby retaining fiscal drag” and that if it does eventually adjust the tax thresholds for inflation it should retain some portion of fiscal drag to “finance our decisions.”—is that still his position? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The proposed— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: “Lolly-nomics”! 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: That member cannot just shut himself up can he? It is terrible. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Although interjections are in fact permitted some interjections create disorder. If that continues then I will ask members to leave the Chamber. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The proposals put forward in the 2005 Budget did indeed retain some elements of fiscal drag because the adjustment was by means of consumer price index adjustment not by means of average wage adjustment. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith 
: Should ordinary New Zealanders who currently pay what used to be the rich person’s tax rate of 33c in the dollar and who after 8 years are still waiting to see the tax thresholds adjusted or the rates reduced take it from the Minister’s comments that he considers tax cuts that deliver less than $10 a week to low and middle income earners to be worth nothing to them and that he considers tax cuts that deliver more than $10 a week to be unaffordable; and should they therefore conclude that his promises to address bracket creep and fiscal drag are in fact worth nothing to them? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: No not at all. What they can take from them is what is a reality: $10 a week to somebody on $25000 a year or $30000 a year is worth far more than $10 a week to somebody on $150000 a year or $200000 a year. Yet the National Party continues to support changes that will give more to those at the top end than to those on low to middle incomes. 
Maori Education Strategy—Government Agencies 
3.  
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Kua tae atu te tohutohu ki a ia ko tetahi o nga tino kaupapa nui kua kitea e nga whakawhitinga whakaaro mo te kape tuatahi o te Rautaki Matauranga Maori ara a Ka Hikitia ko 
“te mahitahi a nga pokapu Kawanatanga ko ta ratau hono hoki tetahi ki tetahi” a he aha rawa nga rautaki kua whakaritea kia tino kore ai nga mahi a etahi atu tari Kawanatanga e tukituki i nga wawata o era e whai ana i nga ara matauranga? 
[ 
Has he been advised that consultation on the draft Maori education strategy 
 Ka Hikitia 
 has identified that one of the themes that participants think is important is “Government agencies working together in a collaborative and connected way” and what strategies are being put in place to ensure that activities in other departments do not unduly compromise educational opportunities? 
] 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 A call for Government agencies to work together in a more collaborative and connected way is not new but it is important. That is why it is in  
Ka Hikitia 
. The Ministry of Education regularly works with key education and Government agencies on a wide range of issues. It is certainly my expectation that where the actions of one department will have an impact on another departments will work together to minimise that impact. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What advice has the Minister received about the impact of New Zealand Police actions on kohanga reoand kura located in Ruatoki Waimana Matahi and Taneatua following the fact that the Ruatoki community was locked down roads were sealed and people were isolated during the raids of Monday 15 October? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am not fully briefed on police operations this week. The member would probably need to direct his question to the Minister of Police to get more detail on what actually took place. But I would like to point out that the police operation was independently initiated by the police. It was a country-wide operation that impacted on a wide range of people from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances. We are all waiting to see what exactly will arise from the police activities. 
With regard to for example the alleged boarding of the school bus which I took some particular interest in I advise that no police boarded that bus. The bus was facilitated through the roadblocks where there were armed police. Of course it impacted on the schools that day but my understanding is that those schools and kohanga have gone back to operation as per normal. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What crisis intervention assistance and culturally appropriate trauma counselling will be made available to te kohanga reoo Taneatua following the events of 15 October after its van full of preschoolers was stopped three times at three separate roadblocks and reportedly boarded by an armed offenders squad in full combat gear with guns leaving the children—the tamariki—extremely distressed some still too afraid to go to kohanga reo4 days later because of the fear of the “ninja army”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think it is really important at this time for cool heads to prevail while we wait to see what will arise from the police investigations. Labelling is probably not the best thing to do at this particular time. I say again that my advice is that police did not board any transport and that children were facilitated through the roadblocks to make sure they moved on their way. In relation to trauma and counselling the member will be aware that the Ministry of Education moves very swiftly on requests by schools to deal with those issues and to provide counsellors and support. It will do so in this case as soon as it is invited to. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Does the Minister agree with the plan for action in  
Ka Hikitia 
 that recommends that Government agencies working together is one of five factors that can make the most difference for Maori students; if so what protocols will he recommend to the New Zealand Police to ensure that children are not subjected to police actions that can cause long-lasting trauma? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I repeat that we are waiting for the full details of these operations to emerge; therefore I do not have them. But what I am aware of is that the police appear to have made sure they did not board transport or put themselves in those kinds of situations the member is alluding to. We will have to wait for full details to emerge but that is my understanding. I hope the member will ensure that the information he gets that he makes available in a public platform is accurate information because as I said at this time I think it is very important that cool heads prevail that we wait for full details and that we are accurate in what we say. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I appreciate the information given by the Minister in his answer but I ask him through you whether it is appropriate to address the question in respect of the concerns coming through the constituency which were about the work that will be done by the New Zealand Police to ensure that the children are not subjected again to any actions. If he could address that part of the question it would be helpful. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I thought the Minister did address the question but if he wants to add any more then he is perfectly free to do so. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I think it is important to clarify exactly where the question needs to go. If the member wants to know about the police unfortunately he needs to ask a question of the Minister of Police. But as Minister of Education I say that it is of course my interest and I am making sure that I am being kept up to speed with what is going on around young children in our country and in our schools. As I say if trauma teams are asked for they go straight in there to assist. I am assured that the police did not board buses; they treated children properly. It will emerge—and I see that the member is not agreeing with me—if the factors are different from that but that is what I have sought to do. If the member wants to know precisely about the police then unfortunately he will need to ask the Minister of Police. 
Justice Ministry—Confidence 
4.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Does he have confidence in the Ministry of Justice; if so why? 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Generally yes; because they are hard-working and conscientious public servants. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm that his ministry’s latest forecast of the prison population released in July this year projected that the number of prisoners for 2007 during the peak month of September would be 7959 yet the actual muster was 8372 at the beginning of September and that he stated on 1 October that New Zealand’s prison population is now approaching 8500? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: I do not have the figures in front of me but I am sure I can rely on the member being accurate in the report he has given. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm that the forecast of 7959 inmates takes into account his Government’s Effective Interventions initiatives to reduce the prison population; and is it any surprise that those policies have failed when one of those initiatives electronic bail was expected to be granted to “upwards of 1000 defendants per annum in order to save 120 prison beds a year” yet in its first 10 months only 56 defendants have been on electronic bail thus saving just eight prison beds? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Again I do not have the figures in front of me but I am sure the member is quoting accurately. I say to the member that if he wants to put down questions about the operation— 
Pansy Wong 
: He has. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: For goodness’ sake the member should listen to the whole answer. If the member wants to put down questions around the operation of electronic bail that is actually a matter for the police and he should put the question to the Minister of Police. Equally the member should be aware that the Effective Interventions policy was about slowing the rate of growth in the prison population and that is something that was made very clear at the time it was announced. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Can the Minister confirm that two of the reasons that the prison population may have increased are firstly that this Government is committed to increasing the numbers of police and will have done so by more than 1000 front-line officers and secondly that this Government put into effect the tough legislation that the National Government never had the guts to do over 9 years? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Indeed I can confirm both of those things. That is a good illustration of why they are called projections. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm that the current prison muster is close to the total capacity of the prison system of 8624 which includes beds set aside in the event of a disaster; and is the approaching crisis the reason why the Deputy Prime Minister told the House last month that Cabinet devotes “considerable attention to keeping track of what is going on within the prison system” stating: “It is one of the few areas where … every week we examine the number of people in custody”? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Again I would have thought that the member would understand by now that if he wants to put down questions about the prison muster he should do so to the Minister of Corrections—that is his portfolio responsibility. As to the other matter I think the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement illustrates why this Government takes issues around law and order and imprisonment seriously—clearly more so than the National Opposition. 
Simon Power 
: Did the Minister read a March Budget paper that states that the Effective Interventions decisions already taken have allowed Ministers to avoid decisions on 800 additional beds over the 5-year period to 2011; and given the current prison population is now at the level it was forecast to be at in 2011 does he concede that Effective Interventions seems to be failing to reduce the prison population? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Yes; and no. 
Simon Power 
: Will the Minister’s Government build another prison? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: I can only paraphrase the Deputy Prime Minister and say that we will someday yes. 
Hon Paul Swain 
: Is the Minister aware that National Party members who were supposedly wanting to get tough on crime were advising local communities on how to stop prisons being built in their local areas? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Yes indeed I am and I think it is just a further illustration of National’s—there is a word I cannot use—double standards which we see daily in this House. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Minister confirm that the last three forecasts from his ministry have consistently underestimated the prison population yet unlike the previous two the latest forecast was quietly posted on the ministry’s website without a press release from the Minister himself; and is that because he knew by the time the forecast was released that the actual numbers had already overtaken that forecast? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Yes; and no. 
Police Operations—Complaints 
5.  
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Police 
: Has she made any complaints over any aspect of police operations in the last week; if so on what grounds? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Police) 
: 
 No. There is a necessary separation between the Minister of Police and the Commissioner of Police over day-to-day policing decisions. This separation has been consistently upheld by the courts and was the subject of an authoritative opinion by the then Solicitor-General in 1993. The constitutional principle of police operational independence is one that this Government is committed to uphold and we look to other political parties to do likewise. 
Keith Locke 
: Will the Minister be seeking an explanation from the Commissioner of Police about raids such as one on Tuesday where a Tauranga pensioner’s home was raided in his absence—his window was broken his door latch was smashed and his belongings were strewn all around his house and his shed—yet no charges or explanation followed? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: No I will not be seeking an explanation of police actions in their operations. If any member of the public is dissatisfied with any action of the police there is a proper and appropriate body for people to go to to lay those complaints. It is not for the Minister of Police to troll through police operations and decide which bits are the good bits and which bits are not. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Minister’s answer mean that there is nothing the police could do that would lead her to seek an explanation from them or to make a comment to them; does this mean that she is quite satisfied that by disrupting a workshop on yeast-free bread baking and seizing the computers and the underwear of the organisers of the very popular Ecoshow under the Terrorism Suppression Act the police are contributing to protecting the New Zealand public; if so from what? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The New Zealand Police must act within the law. If the police did not act within the law then this House and the Minister would be concerned. I do not know why the police would be looking at particular items; neither does that member. I suggest that those members breathe through the nose for a little longer and allow the police to do their work and the proper institutions in this country to look at those actions rather than rush to an opinion which I do not believe is helping at all in terms of the debate over this issue. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: How does she believe it possible that the New Zealand public could have been protected and from what by the police seizure of the computer of a visiting Swedish banker a keynote speaker at the Environment and Conservation Organisations show in Taupo yesterday? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I have no idea what is on any computer that has been seized. I suspect that the member does not either. I believe she should not rush to judgment but should wait until the proper processes have been gone through to see whether what the police did is correct. The member is making judgments without having all the facts. I do not believe that is helpful to the debate at all. The member knows—because I have spoken to her—that the police were taking this very carefully. They were being very careful about what they did. They tried to follow through what was an operation of many many months as carefully as possible wanting to get to the bottom of what could be a very serious issue for this country. 
Energy Strategy—Emissions Trading Scheme and Greenhouse Gases 
6.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues 
: Is he satisfied that the analysis behind the emissions trading scheme and proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the New Zealand Energy Strategy is realistic? 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 Yes I am. Work across these policy areas is well integrated. The emissions trading scheme has been reviewed by independent economics consultancy Infometrics Ltd and came up trumps. New Zealand has a competitive advantage in renewables and the Labour-led Government is going to seize that opportunity. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why does the Energy Strategy provide for growth in electricity to 2025 of just 9 percent or an annual growth of just 0.4 percent per year when growth in the use of power has consistently grown at 2 percent per annum for the last 20 years and when he is proposing hundreds of thousands of new electric cars? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: I do not think the strategy does say that. It may say that for the next couple of years there is not expected to be a high rate of addition of capacity but that could of course be because we have added a bit more than 500 megawatts of capacity this year which is more than 3 years’ demand growth. I am advised that electricity demand is expected to increase by between 15 and 20 percent to 2025 equating to between 1.3 and 1.5 percent compounding growth per annum. This is lower than recent historical trends of up to 2 percent per annum but that difference reflects the gains expected from efficiency as a consequence of the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy and the Electricity Commission’s expanded electricity efficiency work programme. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: Is the Minister confident that the domestic emissions reduction amount signalled in the independent Infometrics study can be realised? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Yes absolutely. Without counting emission reductions from avoided deforestation which will be substantial and without counting reduction opportunities in agriculture from the likes of nitrification inhibitors which will at least be significant and could also be substantial—even without taking those into account—the Infometrics model predicted a $25 per tonne of carbon dioxide scenario which is a 25 percent drop in the country’s deficit. I also make the point that it ran its $25 per tonne scenario not as a prediction that that would be the figure but because if it used any other lower figure—assumed price of carbon—it could not get any discernable effect on economic growth. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why should New Zealanders believe the Minister’s reassurances that the Government’s latest energy efficiency strategy will achieve some dramatic drops in electricity use to 75 percent as well as sufficient power for hundreds of thousands of electric cars when his Government’s earlier 2001 strategy achieved less than a fifth of the gains it promised and when it contributed to the 2002 bungle over New Zealand’s Kyoto balance and to the two power crises that were experienced earlier in the term of this Government? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The member is well aware that the main reason that electricity-related greenhouse gas emissions increased was as a consequence of Maui Gas running out and Huntly switching from gas to coal thereby increasing emissions. In terms of my confidence as to New Zealand doing better in energy efficiency I refer the member to the KEMA study that has been released this week on the website of the Electricity Commission. It shows with the best cost-benefit analysis this country has ever had that very affordable reductions in electricity usage are available in all sectors. Of course the levy-making powers that the Electricity Commission now has in addition to the extra funding that has been put into this through budgets through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority mean that the projects that are necessary to bring forward those savings will in fact happen. On that last point I note that requests for proposals on some very significant proposals are going out this week from the Electricity Commission. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister aware that there are some real and genuine concerns in sectors of our society that the Energy Strategy announced by the Government will have an adverse effect on the exploration for gas and possibly oil; if that is the intention will he confirm that; if not what will he say to those people to allay their fears? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The first point I would make is in respect of the major exploration work that is expected in the next few years in the Great South Basin. None of that is occasioned by New Zealand demand. I spoke with the chief executives of two of the major oil companies involved down there before the tender rounds and they confirmed to me that their interest is stimulated by the potential size of those resources for export markets not for the New Zealand market. In respect of the New Zealand market for gas it is an unavoidable reality that if we have more focus on renewables we have less focus on thermal alternatives. It is two sides of the same coin. However having said that I point out that we will still have a dependence on gas in industry and in electricity generation to a significant extent for years to come. That in itself will be a market. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Is the Minister satisfied that a realistic way of incentivising agriculture to reduce its emissions is to exempt it completely from any price on carbon until 2013 and rely on voluntary action given the sector’s complete failure to get anywhere near the targets it agreed to with the Government in the 2004 memorandum of understanding? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: A number of reasons are behind the Government’s proposed decision in respect of that including a signed agreement with the industry that we thought we would be accused of breaching if we imposed a price-based measure before the end of 2012. However I do not accept the proposition that there is no incentive on the agricultural sector to reduce its emissions in the meantime. The proposed level of allowance or grandparenting of emission rights on 1 January 2013 is 90 percent of 2005 emissions. If the emissions increase above 90 percent of 2005 emissions between now and then the sector will be paying for them. So there is an incentive for the sector to start reducing its emissions from now. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How many Eveready batteries will New Zealand need to import to power the huge fleet of electric cars the Minister is proposing when over the same period he is proposing reductions in per capita electricity use? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: If the member cares to look at the information in the Energy Strategy he will see that the time period over which electric vehicles are expected to enter the fleet is still some years away. The member seems to be of a party that says we should not try to do anything until it has already been done. On this side of the House we think that occasionally we should lead and give a bit of direction in areas that will obviously be in New Zealand’s economic interest. This is one of those areas. I have no doubt that history will prove us right. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How is it realistic for New Zealand to be a world leader in electric vehicles when in March this year the Ministry of Transport advised: “The first generation of electric vehicles will have limited application to New Zealand.” and when the only initiative in the strategy to achieve the goal of 1.4 million electric cars is to form an advisory committee? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Of course the first generation of electric cars is already with us in the world and it is obvious that they are not in New Zealand. So we are not relying upon that first generation of electric vehicles. We do already have some high-end fully electric vehicles in the sports car market. In addition to that I say to the member that clever though the engineering students are at the University of Waikato to build a fully electric vehicle this year in New Zealand I suggest that if they can do it now then in the next few years the Japanese car industry might be able to too. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why should anyone believe his Government’s strategy for New Zealand to lead the world in new-car technologies when the record of this Government is that our car fleet has got older every year over the last 8 years and is the dirtiest and the noisiest in the OECD and one of the least efficient; or has his Government become so desperate for re-election that it will say anything to anybody because it knows it will never have to implement it? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The member would have that status quo continue. We actually want to change it. The other point I would make is that New Zealand is not talking about pretending to be the developer of all this technology. We are just saying we want to be one of the first countries to widely deploy it and in that we have some advantages. They include our low-cost electricity our renewable electricity and the fact that we do not have a domestic car industry based on internal combustion motor production to protect. 
Public Transport—Auckland 
7.  
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: What reports has she received on the improvement of public transport in Auckland? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I have received the 2006-07 annual report on the Auckland regional land transport strategy. It states that many achievements have been made possible from central and local government funding. Highlights of the report include the fact that a million passengers use the northern busway and the Albany park-and-ride; the opening of the Esmonde Road interchange; the construction and opening of eight new railway stations; and the completion of the upgrade of the Birkenhead ferry terminal with work progressing on Bayswater and Beachhaven. All these projects show the progress being made due to the Government’s investment in partnership in Auckland’s public transport. That was not possible under a National Government as National invested no more than around $40 million a year in public transport across the whole of New Zealand. 
H V Ross Robertson 
: What legislation that the Minister has just introduced will further improve public transport in Auckland? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: That is a very good question because on Tuesday I introduced the Public Transport Management Bill which will give the Auckland Regional Transport Authority new tools to improve public transport in Auckland and I was pleased that the bill received unanimous cross-party support to go to the select committee. Today I tabled the Land Transport Management Amendment Bill 2007. This legislation among other things will allow regions to introduce a regional fuel tax if they want to. One of the things that it would be used for in Auckland is the electrification of its railway network. It will also enable us to be able to hypothecate or dedicate all fuel excise duties to the National Land Transport Fund—something the National Party talked about said it might do but never got round to doing. 
Peter Brown 
: Is the Minister in a position to advise when she believes sufficient numbers of people will be using public transport and the roads in Auckland will become much less congested—certainly in off-peak times—or does she believe that to achieve that even with our current population we will need to build more roads? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: There is no doubt that a greater emphasis is being put on public transport today than ever has been before but it will take a number of years before we have a sufficient number of people travelling on public transport. The great sadness I suppose for that member is that we would not have to have quite the same amount of congestion we have now if some emphasis had been put on public transport in the 9 years when National had the opportunity to do that and maybe we would not have so much congestion if National had invested in roads as well instead of starving and underfunding places like Auckland. We know that in transport there has to be a balance. There have to be roads for buses to travel on and there have to be buses trains and ferries that are reliable safe and affordable. That is what we are committed to in our land transport strategy but all we have from the Opposition is the ability to hold up little bits of newspaper and make plaintive cries about what National might have done but never got round to doing. 
Electoral Finance Bill—Refinements by Select Committee 
8.  
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Justice 
: Does he stand by his statement regarding the Electoral Finance Bill that “the select committee process will add value by further refining the bill”; if so what refinements was he referring to? 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 That is my view but I would not presume to predetermine the specific outcome of a select committee’s consideration of the matters before it. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Is it not the reality that the bill is incapable of refinement; and should the Minister not listen to the Human Rights Commission which like the New Zealand Law Society said that the right thing to do is to withdraw the bill and completely rewrite it or will he continue to toe the party line and defend this indefensible assault on freedom of speech? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: I do not accept the first premise in the member’s statement—that the bill is indefensible. It is eminently defendable. It will be subject to refinement as I said in the answer to the first question and I am sure that that will help to improve what is already good legislation. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Is the Minister aware of the delaying tactics of Opposition parties at the Justice and Electoral Committee; if he is aware of that would he agree with me that those delays are designed to postpone the introduction of the Electoral Finance Bill so that the National Party can run a costly billboard campaign during the early months of 2008 just as it did in 2005? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: No. The first part of the question is in order but not the second. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Indeed I think the member has it precisely right and although as you point out Madam Speaker his assumption is beyond my ministerial responsibility I am sure that it is correct. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: If the Minister will not withdraw the bill will he ensure after changes are made to the bill either by the select committee or by Supplementary Order Paper that the bill is sent back to the select committee so that the public can make submissions and give evidence on what will be fundamentally different legislation from the current disaster which he commended to the House at first reading? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: That proposal it seems to me ignores the very fundamental role of a select committee. The member seems to be suggesting that we should call for public submissions presumably listen to take note of and respond to them by way of potentially refining the bill and then ignore that process and go back to start all over again. I understand that National members want to try any strategy at all to avoid actually having change made to legislation that they used to abuse the electoral system last time with their friends by means of multimillion-dollar rorts of the system. I am sorry but this party will not support that sort of avoidance of fixing the rort-prone electoral law that we currently have. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Is the Minister aware that individual members of the Exclusive Brethren Church were the third-biggest spenders at the last election—outspending all political parties except National and Labour—if so does he think that they should be brought under the sensible rules of New Zealand’s electoral law just like the rest of us? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: That is my understanding. I think that when one considers the wide range of expenditure that the Exclusive Brethren undertook—not only the million-dollar campaign that we are all aware of and the $350000 pamphlet campaign that preceded it but of course the phone canvassing and push-polling undertaken at the urging of various National MPs—which Mr Neville Simmons has recently admitted took place—to try to further undermine the electoral system in New Zealand. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Will the public have an opportunity to comment and make submissions on the Supplementary Order Paper—yes or no? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: There is no Supplementary Order Paper for anyone to comment on. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Has the Minister heard reports that this morning in the select committee the Human Rights Commission said it had considered the decision of the Supreme Court in  
Harper v Canada 
 on which the Minister places so much reliance but had decided that it was not worth mentioning because all it stood for was the principle of caps on third-party spending; and how does he reconcile that with his own comment last week that the Human Rights Commission had neglected to consider the case? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: The Human Rights Commission made no reference to the case in its submission as the member knows—I am sure he has read it—and it certainly did not seem to me to reflect any consideration of it. I say it is a bit rich to have National quoting endlessly the Human Rights Commission when one considers that that is the party whose then PC eradicator Dr Wayne Mapp claimed that minorities had captured certain institutions in New Zealand and were telling people in New Zealand how to think. He said that the Human Rights Commission was one of those institutions and that it should not have an advocacy role. It is very interesting that for once the National Party seems to place some credence in the Human Rights Commission’s view. 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Why is the Minister changing his mind on the $60000 spending cap and changing his mind on the definition of an election advertisement but will not change his mind on the most glaring omission—that being the lack of any measures in this bill to prevent his party from robbing the taxpayer of $800000 to fund another pledge card? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: As I indicated in my primary answer I have not yet responded to the select committee’s consideration of these matters because it has not yet reported. But as for stealing the real attempted theft in 2005 was the National Party’s attempt to steal an election outcome. 
Simon Power 
: Has the Minister received any reports on whether New Zealand First has paid back the money it owes from the last election? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: As the member knows the Minister has no ministerial responsibility for that matter. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Barely a day goes by when we do not have Government members asking every Minister for reports on all manner of things and you have repeatedly said that it is perfectly in order to ask a Minister for a report. We are asking questions of the Minister of Justice and he has responsibility for electoral law. One of the key breaches at the last election was that a number of parties used taxpayer allocations for campaigning as found by the Auditor-General and that is why the question from my colleague Simon Power as to the reports the Minister of Justice—who is responsible for electoral law—had received is perfectly in order. I simply ask for some consistency. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I understand the member’s argument. The fact remains of course that reports can be called for but only reports on matters that are subject to ministerial responsibility. As the member knows that is not a matter of this Minister’s responsibility. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yes it is. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: I am sorry Dr Smith; it is not. Please be seated or you will leave the Chamber. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Mr Mark Burton the Minister of Justice is responsible for electoral law. One of the key debates around electoral law is the use of taxpayers’ money such as we saw on the pledge card at the last election. I cannot see how you can rule that a question specifically about that and whether he had received reports on it is somehow now deemed to be outside his jurisdiction given the broad range of questions you have allowed on this issue. 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister is not responsible for that matter. The Minister who is responsible for it is the Minister responsible for the Parliamentary Service which is well known. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Just protecting the Government! 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Would the member who made that comment please leave the Chamber—the comment that the Speaker was protecting a member. That is totally unacceptable. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Protecting the Government. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber. 
Rodney Hide 
: Does he agree with the Human Rights Commission in its submission this morning that his Electoral Finance Bill represents a dramatic assault on two fundamental human rights that New Zealanders cherish: freedom of expression and the right of informed citizens to participate in the election process; if he does not agree with the commission will he explain to the House why the Human Rights Commission is wrong in its submission? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: No I do not agree because I think that alongside the provisions in the bill there is the opportunity for the select committee to look at those to ensure that if there are areas within it that need to be refined that is done and for the select committee to ensure that the purpose of the legislation is as well delivered as it can be. So I fundamentally disagree with the commission. The purpose of this legislation is to protect the right of participation of ordinary New Zealanders and their right not to have their voices overwhelmed by those who have the capacity to spend large amounts of money. 
Employment Relations Act—Workplace Stoppages 
9.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: What reports has she received on the number of workplace stoppages since the enactment of the Employment Relations Act 2000? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education)  
on behalf of the  
Minister of Labour 
: The Minister has recently received a departmental report comparing work stoppages under the Labour-led Government’s Employment Relations Act with the number under National’s Employment Contracts Act of the 1990s. It shows that the average rate of work stoppages has dropped by 21 percent under the Employment Relations Act the average rate of working days lost has reduced by one-third and wage losses have dropped by almost 50 percent. Those results do not even take into account the fact that there are 362000 more New Zealanders employed today than there were under the previous National Government. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Has the Minister seen any other reports concerning the Employment Relations Act? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes the Minister has seen two reports. The first states: “Under National expect quite significant changes. There was nothing wrong with the Employment Contracts Act.” A second quote states: “Broadly speaking we weren’t planning to make major changes … we haven’t argued for some time that we would go … back to the Employment Contracts Act”. Both of those conflicting statements unfortunately come from the Leader of the Opposition John Key. Once again we can see the billboards across the country demonstrating that Mr Key cannot hold one view for very long. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: Will the Minister also confirm that Statistics New Zealand has today released results that show that labour productivity growth since 2000 is about half what it was prior to Labour taking office— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s because low-skilled people have been getting jobs you silly member! 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Those sorts of comments lead to disorder. If the member does it again he will be asked to leave the Chamber. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: Will the Minister also confirm that Statistics New Zealand has also today released results that show that labour productivity growth since 2000 is about half what it was prior to Labour taking office and now puts us in the bottom quarter of the OECD in this area? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member raises an interesting point because of course the very high levels of unemployment in the 1990s did tend to concentrate productivity. There has been a massive increase in the number of people in employment but most of them have come in through entry points that are low-skilled positions and of course we end up with a lower level of productivity. As Mr Lockwood Smith would know the challenge for all of us now is not just to get people into employment but to walk them up the training ladder to walk them up the skills ladder to walk them up the productivity ladder. That is the challenge before us. 
Education Minister—Statement on Delivery of Education 
10.  
PAULA BENNETT (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does he stand by his statement that “This Government is delivering a better education system”; if so why? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes and I thank the member for the opportunity to highlight some of the things that have taken place since 1999: 5000 extra teachers in classrooms an extra $4 billion the introduction of 20 free hours’ education for 3 to 4-year-olds the provision of laptops for every teacher the provision of broadband access and free software licences for every school the reduced number of students leaving school with no qualification the introduction of the Modern Apprenticeships scheme the dramatically increased funding for industry training and significant rises in participation in tertiary education. Time means that I cannot go on any longer but if any member wishes for an extension of time can he or she please ask another question. 
Paula Bennett 
: If this Government is delivering a better education system why do 9600 students every year—according to the Minister’s report on the compulsory school sector in New Zealand—drop out of school with no qualification and without even the most basic literacy and numeracy skills? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: In answer to the primary question I was going to say that I am sure that the member is about to rise to point out that there is more work to be done in our system and I fully agree with that. But I would say to the member that after nearly 9 years of a Labour-led Government the results are there they speak for themselves and we hope to remain here to do more work in the future. 
Dianne Yates 
: How does the implementation of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) fit within the Government’s overall game of improving our education system; and what recent reports has he received on NCEA’s success? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The introduction of NCEA is one of the more important things that has happened over recent years to meet the needs of this century’s young learners. NCEA is designed to ensure we recognise what students can do and how well they can do it. It also helps us recognise where they need more help. It provides a greater level of detail in other words on student achievement and of course it has been very strongly supported by employers. I have received a recent report that states that 90 percent of school principals support NCEA and the majority of teachers and school trustees support it as well. The report found that NCEA motivates low-achieving students to do better and very few people have argued for a return to the old system. 
Dianne Yates 
: What reports has the Minister received on the number of students leaving school without any formal qualifications and how are the policies of this Government actually encouraging students to stay at school longer? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The number of students leaving school with little or no formal attainment has halved between 1999 and 2006. As recent research has highlighted the introduction of NCEA is helping to motivate students who were previously left behind. We have also introduced programmes such as Gateway and more recently we have piloted a new Youth Apprenticeships programme which will give students the opportunity to link their learning to real on-the-job experience. There will always be more improvements to be made and I would join with the member in saying that we want to carry on doing that and we are looking forward to doing so. 
Paula Bennett 
: Why will one of every three 15-year-old males and one of every four 15-year-old females not have even basic literacy and numeracy skills after 10 years in the education system and why to quote the Minister’s own report will most of this group leave study after their first senior secondary year? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As the member will know for achievement we compare very well with systems all around the world but we share the same problem that all systems have which is that we have some students who underachieve. That is the task before us. There has been massive improvement over the last 9 years but of course we need to continue that. I say to the member that there is obviously a complex range of reasons why students underachieve. It may be to do with their health family background or school. But what we do know is that this Government is making a real difference. 
Allan Peachey 
: How has the learning of children in New Zealand school classrooms today been improved as a result of the reported $94 million salary blowout at the Ministry of Education where the salaries of bureaucrats—not schoolteachers—have skyrocketed by 154 percent since 2002? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: A former principal who gets the figures so stunningly wrong could perhaps take over from Lane Nichols at the  
Dominion Post 
. Lane Nichols for example says that 200 people have joined the staff at the Ministry of Education. The figure is actually 2000—I know that a zero is easy to miss but he missed it. Those people are special education staff who have been brought under the Ministry of Education. As a result of their coming in their wages have come in as well. It would be helpful to the member if he had a look at our website when he pops back to his office. He will see for example that the average salary of Ministry of Education staff has actually gone down. The number of people who are on over $100000 is exactly the same as previously. The report in the paper—I am sorry to say—is totally wrong. It is a shame because these are dedicated public servants doing a great job of serving this country and they deserve better reporting than that. 
Allan Peachey 
: How far would that $94 million go towards addressing the problem coming out of the advice that the Minister gave to me in his answer to question for written answer No. 16928 (2007) that there is “a lack of trained reading recovery teachers willing to teach reading recovery in our lowest-decile schools” and the advice that the Minister gave in his answer to question for written answer No. 15713 (2007) that compared with 1999 there are now 4000 fewer reading-recovery hours in our schools? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Once again one of the things I would have hoped a person who has been in the education system would know is that schools choose the reading programme they want to use. People have made different kinds of decisions about how they will address issues of reading in their school. I go back to the point I made before because the member did not seem to listen. He is still using the $94 million figure as if I had confirmed it. I want to confirm for him and the House that the report is totally wrong. If he has a look at my website when he goes back to his office he will see the real figures. 
Allan Peachey 
: I seek leave of the House to table the report stating there is a $94 million blowout in— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Allan Peachey 
: I seek leave of the House to table the answer to question for written answer No. 16928 (2007). 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Allan Peachey 
: I seek leave of the House to table the answer to question for written answer No. 15713 (2007). 
Madam SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? Yes there is. 
Emissions Trading Scheme—Economic Impact 
11.  
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues 
: What reports has he received on the likely economic impact of the emissions trading system? 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 I have recently received and released an independent report on the emissions trading scheme prepared by the economic consultancy firm Infometrics. The report concludes that the macroeconomic impact of New Zealand’s complying with our international commitments around greenhouse gas emission reductions as represented by a variety of indicators is very small. This is consistent with previous reports indicating that the impact on the size of the New Zealand economy under the Kyoto Protocol over the first 5 years would be negligible. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Will emissions trading reduce emissions? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Yes. The report also confirms this. Infometrics estimates that significant reductions in emissions will occur in New Zealand under an emissions trading regime. It estimates that during the first commitment period the emissions deficit would decrease from around 9 million tonnes per annum to about 6 million tonnes per annum. That figure—as was expressly stated in the report—is before taking into account avoided deforestation and cost-effective agricultural mitigation opportunities. The report also assessed the cost of reducing emissions through an emissions trading system compared with the Government just going out and buying emission reductions offshore and found that it was cheaper to do it through an emissions trading scheme. It also confirms our view that under a Labour-led Government the economy will continue to grow. 
Peter Brown 
: Noting that the emissions trading scheme will ultimately result in increased power prices—and there is already a lot of concern in society over the levels of current prices—can the Minister advise how far work has proceeded on the compensation package that has been proposed to assist low-paid people on fixed incomes? 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: We have said there will be two components to that package an important part of which will actually be helping people to reduce their electricity consumption rather than just paying them to consume the same amount at higher prices. We have said previously that our decisions on this package will be finalised before the emissions trading legislation is finalised. 
Conservation Department—Environment Court Case 
12.  
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Conservation 
: Did he support his department’s Environment Court case against the Bayly Trust; if so why? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 Yes; because Waikatea is a regionally significant mature kanuka forest and an important bird and reptile habitat. 
Hon David Carter 
: Can the Minister confirm that the highly respected Bayly Trust volunteered to conserve 800 hectares of native bush wanting to clear only 260 hectares of scrub and why did that proposal not receive the Department of Conservation’s wholehearted support? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I can confirm is that the Bayly Trust said it would do that but it was not prepared to put it into a covenant. Taking the trust to the Environment Court meant that it was required to do so. It was a very positive environmental outcome. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Why did the Department of Conservation appeal to the Environment Court the decision of the Wairoa District Council to consent to the Bayly Trust clearing the native kanuka forest? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: The Department of Conservation has had a longstanding and well-known interest in the mature kanuka forest on the Waikatea block. The Department of Conservation met with the current landowners in 2004 prior to the purchase to identify the conservation values on the block. It willingly entered mediation prior to the Environment Court hearing seeking to protect areas of particular significance. The landowner walked away from those discussions. My department is satisfied with the outcome ordered by the Environment Court. Approximately 280 hectares of mature forest will be conserved with a covenant on pest control and fencing to protect a further 800 hectares of restored indigenous vegetation. It is a pity that this outcome was not able to be secured without recourse to the Environment Court. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: How much has the department’s advocacy for the biodiversity values of the Waikatea kanuka forest saved taxpayers in terms of the carbon costs of deforestation? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: Through the Department of Conservation’s advocacy 280 hectares of mature kanuka forest will be conserved. As the forest existed prior to 1990 its clearance would have incurred a Kyoto Protocol liability that the taxpayer would have had to pay until the emissions trading scheme commenced. As the Greens co-leader Russel Norman has pointed out that liability is estimated at approximately $2 million—a cost the taxpayer will now not be expected to shoulder thanks to the Department of Conservation taking an active role in this matter. 
Hon David Carter 
: Can the Minister confirm that in excess of $100000 of taxpayer money was wasted by the Department of Conservation on this case which was inevitably going to be thrown out by the Environment Court? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I can confirm is that if the Department of Conservation had not appealed the case the covenants the Bayly Trust said it would put in place—but did not—would not have been put in place. This land is now protected thanks to the excellent work the Department of Conservation has done. The National Party may want to gut the Department of Conservation but Labour like most New Zealanders supports the excellent work the department does. 
Anne Tolley 
: Will the Minister confirm that the Wairoa District Council and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council defended this action for the Bayly Trust as the regional council was so concerned about the impact that the Department of Conservation’s heavy-handed approach would have on the implementation of its regional plans? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I can confirm is that when the Wairoa District Council gave its new consent it did the paperwork properly and the covenants were put in. 
Hon David Carter 
: How many briefings did the Minister himself receive on this issue prior to the Environment Court hearing; and why did he at no stage instruct his department to pull out because it was on a hiding to nothing? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I am delighted with the actions my department has taken. By the Department of Conservation involving itself in this process we have now protected this land. If it had not done so there would be no legal covenant to stop the whole lot being cleared. 
Hon David Carter 
: If the Minister is so delighted with his department’s actions will he instruct the department to reimburse the Bayly Trust the Wairoa District Council and the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for the costs they have incurred in having to take this matter to the Environment Court? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: What I think the people of New Zealand should be very pleased about is that the Department of Conservation has saved the people $2 million because of the carbon credits we have. What I hope is that the Wairoa District Council will be a little less sloppy next time it does its paperwork. 
Hon David Carter 
: What disciplinary action will be taken against the East Coast - Hawke’s Bay Conservator Peter Williamson who is pursuing a case that can only be called bullying tactics against a local community including the council and the local landowner? 
Hon CHRIS CARTER 
: I confirm again that this Government endorses the work the Department of Conservation does in protecting our unique biodiversity which is something most New Zealanders are really proud about. I know that the National Party would gut the advocacy role of the Department of Conservation at our peril and to our cost. 
Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I move  
That the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 This bill arises in rather unusual circumstances. Members will recall that a few weeks ago in the House following the recent tragic deaths in Christchurch of three 15-year-old drivers Emma Reynolds Melissa Norton and Chloe Cockerell I raised a question with the Minister of Transport who suggested that I should seek to test the will of the House on the matter. The House very graciously a week later gave me leave to introduce this bill as a Government bill. It arises because of those incidents and mounting public concern about road safety and young drivers. 
 The principal purpose of this bill is to raise the minimum driver-licensing age from 15 to 16 years and to extend the length of the learner-licensing period from 6 months to 12 months. At the appropriate time I will move that the bill be referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
It is a relatively short bill with some six clauses. The operative clauses are clauses 4 and 5 which make the age adjustments. The net consequence of this adjustment of moving the age from 15 to 16 and lengthening the period of the learner licence from 6 to 12 months will be that the time at which a person can obtain a full licence will rise to 18½ years. At the moment one starts the process at 15 and one can get a full licence as early as 17. The consequence of shifting the period that one starts at by a year and the period that one can hold a learner licence from 6 months to 12 months means that the age when the process can be completed will now rise to 18½ years. 
A number of comments have been made over recent weeks about whether a change would put New Zealand out of kilter with the international norm. I note that in Britain at the moment the House of Commons is considering shifting the driving age from 17 to 18 to align it with other European nations. I note that in Australia depending on which state one may be in young Australians cannot take to the roads until they are at least 16 or 17. In New Zealand the age of 15 was originally struck to coincide with the school-leaving age. That has moved up over the years and it seems appropriate to look at the minimum licensing age for drivers as a consequence. 
But there are other reasons as well and I want to draw to the House’s attention some of the statistics relating to the involvement of young drivers in road accidents. Although it is true that car crashes that involve 15 16 and 17-year-olds are similar overall to the number involving 18 and 19-year-olds on learner licences those figures change dramatically when these age groups get their restricted licences and are able to drive solo. For instance the number of crashes in the first month after gaining a restricted licence compared with the last month that one is on a learner licence increases about 2½ times for 18 and 19-year-olds and about 4½ times for 17-year-olds but there is a whopping eightfold increase for 16-year-olds and an even greater increase of tenfold for 15-year-olds. That clearly shows that the younger the age at which a driver gets a restricted licence the higher the chance that he or she will crash. That is really the point of this legislation. 
I have heard comments from some quarters that this will adversely affect rural drivers. I even had one person contact me and say this legislation is a total outrage—that he taught all of his children to drive at the age of 12 and why should the law interfere in this way? I have two comments to make in respect of those claims. Firstly I have little sympathy for the argument of saying: “I taught my kids to drive at 12 so goodness knows to hell with what the law might say.” But with regard to the legitimate case of rural drivers who may feel they are being discriminated against by these provisions I say that that is a matter the select committee should give some consideration to. It should consider whether there is scope or practical ability to give some form of limited licence in those circumstances. I am open-minded on that point. I have some doubt about its efficacy but I am prepared to see that matter considered. 
Overall we need to see this in the context of the consequences for young drivers of the current situation. It is certainly true that young people are overrepresented in our road-crash statistics. In the year to 31 December last year for example young drivers between the ages of 15 and 24 were involved in 121 fatal traffic crashes 813 serious-injury crashes and 3768 minor-injury crashes. If one takes the past 10 years 1997 to 2006 one sees that crashes involving 15-year-old drivers have resulted in some 37 deaths and 385 serious injuries. Similarly crashes involving 16-year-olds have resulted in 146 deaths and 949 serious injuries. In other words crashes involving 15 and 16-year-old drivers over the last 10 years have accounted for some 183 deaths and 1334 serious injuries. 
Some of those deaths have been the drivers themselves others have been innocent victims but the net effect has been a very serious impact on a wide range of New Zealanders at a time when through other road-safety measures our road toll has been reducing. The figures indicate very clearly that as with other developed countries the crash risk is inversely correlated with the age at which a driver starts solo driving. That is particularly so where that occurs before the age of 18. 
Members may say that New Zealand is no different from other countries that this is part of a worldwide trend and that these circumstances however shocking they may be are no different from what occurs elsewhere. There is some truth in that argument. But when one looks at OECD comparative figures and sees where New Zealand fits on the international league table one sees that we have the fourth-highest rate of road deaths for 15 to 24-year-olds per head of population. I do not think that that is acceptable particularly when we have placed so much emphasis under successive Governments—and I note that the member opposite Mr Williamson during his time as Minister of Transport was very strong on these matters—on bringing down our road toll because one life saved is one life to the benefit of this country. The net negative cost of injury death and the whole trauma associated with road tragedy is one that is controllable one we can make positive steps towards reducing. The logic to me of making a move now to change the minimum legal driving age to increase it to deal with these statistics is compelling and overwhelming. 
 We are not talking here about removing a right from New Zealanders; we are talking about protecting young New Zealanders about ensuring that the period during which they take their learner licensing test through to gaining their provisional licence and finally their full licence is one where they can be equipped with the experience and the skills necessary to be effective drivers and where their contribution to negative road-safety statistics can be reduced. 
I want to observe as I bring this speech to a close that there is overwhelming public support for this measure. The Television One Colmar Brunton poll on Monday night showed 82 percent in favour of it. There have been polls in newspapers showing similar figures. I think the  
New Zealand Herald  
figure was around 87 percent. Most of the people who have a vested interest in promoting road safety and better driving conditions are also in favour of this move. Finally I note as I began that the parents of the three young women who were killed in Christchurch recently in very tragic circumstances have also expressed to the Christchurch  
Press 
 their support for a change along these lines. I commend this bill to the House. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 Can I say from the very outset that the National Party has agreed to support this Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill going to a select committee. But can I also say that the National Party—probably like other major parties in this House—has a wide range of views within its members. Some are very supportive some are not so supportive and some have some serious questions. I think the select committee will be the process whereby we can go through sorting out what those issues are. 
I have to say from my own personal perspective—and I will speak to this bill only from my own personal perspective—this is something that I tried once. Members will know that in 1998 in the Land Transport Amendment Bill of that year I tried to move the age for driver licensing to age 16. We got the proposal through most of the processes then it fell at the last hurdle. The reason I think was the rural-urban split kicking in with those from rural areas saying it would disadvantage their kids and we did not quite get the numbers in the House. 
I caution members to be very careful about being susceptible to hysteria such as the hysteria that flew around over some of the other aspects of that licensing legislation at the time. I will give members an example—although there are others—and that is the issue of the compulsory carriage of one’s licence. Federated Farmers and others said that it was an outrage and a disgrace. They said that farmers would be stopped every day and because they did not have their licences on them they would be prosecuted. They said that we must not have it. They came to Parliament and put in submission after submission saying that the compulsory carriage of one’s licence must be taken out of the legislation. I asked several farmers whether they had ever been stopped by a traffic officer in the last 10 years and they said that they had not. I asked them how that would happen now and they replied that that did not matter that it would disadvantage their members in the rural community and it must not happen. Well I am pleased that we got that measure through and I have never heard the issue raised again. 
Ron Mark 
: Like the photo licence. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Exactly. Ron Mark is right. That is a second example. 
The photo licence was going to be the biggest breach of one’s civil liberties. Chris Carter—not the member in this House—a talkback host said that having to have a photo on one’s licence was like Nazi Germany at its worst. War was waged against me. Questions were raised about whether my parents were married when I was born and all sorts of things. For the first year after the photo licence came in we saw the biggest 1-year drop in the road toll ever. Leighton Smith one of the other talkback hosts who opposed me asked how having a piece of plastic in one’s wallet made the road safer. I told him the answer was easy because for the first year after the measure came in we confiscated 22000 vehicles from the road. We caught people—and could identify them—who were driving while illegally on the road. Some were disqualified many times—four or five times for drink-driving. But under the old system when people did not have to carry the old piece of tatty paper they could swap it with a mate and the cops would not know who they were anyway. 
So I give a caution to this House to be very careful about hysteria when it comes to saying: “This will do all sorts of things.” and “This will stop all sorts of things.” I ask members of the House to just look at comparable jurisdictions around the world to see whether similar measures have resulted in disastrous consequences. For example I think there is a legitimate argument that says that the driving age should be aligned to the school leaving age. I think that is a very legitimate argument for a lot of rural communities. Where I grew up in Matamata we used to catch the school bus to school. But once we got to the point of leaving school we could no longer catch the school bus so to get to work we had to be able to drive. I think that is fine. But it might not have escaped the attention of too many people that the school leaving age was raised from 15 to 16—now 16 is the age. So I find it hard to believe that kids will be disadvantaged because they cannot get to sporting activities. 
Well what about the 14-year-olds? They cannot get to their sports unless their parents take them. My wife tells me she is a permanent taxi driver in Auckland taking kids to rugby and tennis. My girl has just come back from the aerobics competition in Melbourne. My wife says she is often on the road trying to get our kids here there and everywhere—and that is in the city. So get real! It happens for parents at any rate. I look at a state like Queensland where the distances from the cities to the rural parts are way bigger than we will ever experience in New Zealand. In fact some of them are bigger than New Zealand. Yet that state’s driving age starts at 17. 
I ask those who have grave concerns—I have heard them over and over again—to please think seriously about this matter. I think 15 is too young to drive. I personally think that 15 is too young to drive. If members want to think about some sort of a compromise—and I advocate that they do not—then let us look at giving some licensing exemption to some children who can be proven to be living way outside of urban areas who have no alternative when it comes to doing the things they need to and whose parents are unable to participate in moving them in and out of town. Based on their specific cases—on their address and for specified hours of the day when sporting or other such activities are going on—we may grant them an exemption. I am not a fan of that idea. I am really a big fan of things like the GST regime which gave no exemption to anything because the moment exemptions happen all sorts of lines start to be drawn in the sand then question marks arise on the other side. But if that is what members from the rural sector are concerned about then I hope that the select committee looks at the scenario carefully if there is a need. 
I say again that members should look at jurisdictions that are comparable to ours. I am a big fan of not reinventing the wheel. New Zealand should not say “Oh but we’re different.” We are not as different as that from any countries we like to compare ourselves to. Most European nations Australia and so on just laugh at the fact that we let 15-year-olds drive. 
One of my most amazing experiences in relation to photo licences was when I went to the California Highway Patrol headquarters. I went to the officers’ mess for a drink at the end of the day. They got my piece of tatty paper and handed it around and laughed and guffawed. They said: “This is not a licence. How would we ever ever apprehend anybody with this stupid piece of nothingness?”. But at the time if one listened to talkback and to the feedback one would hear that photo licences were the greatest crime ever imposed on this country. But I have never heard that issue raised again since the legislation was passed. How many members have people coming into their constituency clinics saying they are really concerned about the photo drivers’ licences? [ 
Interruption 
] Oh David Cunliffe has had somebody come in. I did not think people even knew where David Cunliffe’s office was but there we go he has had someone come in. Well I have not. 
In the last few minutes of my speech I want to repeat what I think the arguments are. I think that extending the time of the learner licence is a really good idea. If there was some way to do so I would love to measure how much driving people did during that time before they could get a full licence—just like pilots have to qualify with so many hours before they can get a full licence. That is not practical and it is not possible. It would be great to say to young people that they have to do say 100 hours of driving with somebody then when they have qualified with that 100 hours they can get a full licence. I wish that were possible but the technology is not available and people could cheat or rort it and say they have done their hours. So I am not going to get silly about it but just getting a learner’s permit on day one then doing nothing not even driving for 6 months then somehow getting a provisional licence then maybe doing nothing for 18 months then suddenly getting a full licence means someone may have done only 4 or 5 hours on the road. That does not seem to me to be sensible either. 
But two things do seem to be sensible. First we should align the driving age with the school leaving age—we always did and we always should. Secondly we should look to alternative jurisdictions. I said during the debate on photo licences and I will say it again: if any member of this House can show me a jurisdiction we would like to think ourselves comparable to—I am not talking about Burkina Faso in the Horn of Africa or anything; I am talking about a country that is comparable to us—that does let 15-year-olds drive and has a fantastic safety record then show it to us. I am happy to be persuaded. But in the debate on photo licences I could not find one. I actually got the Ministry of Transport to troll through every country we could think of to find one that did not have photo licences. We could not find one. Yet Chris Carter on Newstalk ZB said: “If Williamson gets away with this I’m leaving the country.” 
Peter Brown 
: He’s gone. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: Well he did not actually go. They kicked him off Newstalk ZB but he did not leave the country 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Why not? He should have. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I agree that he should have but he did not. That was the hysteria of it but where would he go? Similarly in this case if a member says that he or she knows of a comparable country to ours that has a record of crashes and killing on the roads that is way better than ours and it lets 15-year-olds drive I will be convinced about it. But I do not believe such a place exists and I think it would be really foolish for this House to deny an opportunity for good debate in the select committee and for proper and careful consideration. 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill. Labour will be supporting this bill going to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
I want to comment briefly on what Peter Dunne has said. One of the key phrases he used was “the right”. New Zealanders have always had the idea that they have a right to drive. I have a 15-year-old daughter so I am very aware of the pressure that parents come under on this issue. But with rights come responsibilities. I think this bill has come at a good time. 
The Government is currently considering a package of measures to create a safer environment for young New Zealanders to learn to drive in and to develop into competent and safe drivers. I think some of the issues raised by the Hon Maurice Williamson were very appropriate and I hope they will be thoroughly considered by the select committee alongside the package of measures the Government is about to announce. 
I welcome consideration and discussion of the move to raise the minimum licensing age to 16 and to extend the length of the learner licence period from 6 months to 12 months as part of that package. Currently our young people pay in my view far too high a price for the opportunity to drive especially in the first 6 months of gaining a restricted licence. Traffic crashes are the single greatest killer of 15 to 24-year-olds and the leading cause of permanent injury for that age group. As the Hon Peter Dunne said last year young drivers were involved in 121 fatal traffic crashes and 813 serious-injury crashes. 
Fifteen to 19-year-olds are six times more likely to crash than you or me. It is also worth remembering that over the last 4 years fatal crashes involving 15-year-old drivers have averaged two a year—one of which was the tragic case the Minister mentioned in which three young people died—where a 15-year-old driver was deemed to be at fault. Of course we still do not know the cause of the latest two crashes. 
There is a strong commitment on all sides of the House to do something about this and I commend the Hon Peter Dunne on his launching of this bill into Parliament. It is essential that we create a safer environment for our young people to develop into fully competent drivers. The Government is fully committed to doing this and it is part of the reason why we have set such ambitious road safety targets in our Road Safety to 2010 strategy. People will be aware that there was a significant consultation programme in the Road Safety to 2010 strategy which has been running for about 18 months now. A considerable amount of feedback is about young drivers. 
 Raising the minimum licensing age to 16—that is the age at which one can begin to learn to drive—and extending the length of the learner-licensing period to 12 months will not however on their own create a safe enough environment. The greatest risk period for young drivers is the first 6 months of driving solo—that is when they are driving without supervision by a qualified driver. In that period—those first 6 months—as Peter Dunne said young drivers are estimated to be about seven times more likely to have a crash than in the period when they were beginner drivers and were supervised. 
The risk of crashing declines rapidly after the 6-month period. But the learning curve to achieve the risk profile of say the average 30-year-old is long. It takes about 10 years to achieve that sort of risk profile. So we need to put in place a range of measures that will shift our young people along the driver learning curve at a faster rate and with less risk of fatality or permanent injury. In particular delaying the beginning of solo driving by 6 months will allow for a greater amount of supervised driving practice to occur. 
Experience in Sweden which is the safest driving environment in the world has shown that increasing supervised driving practice to about 120 hours before a young person can drive solo reduces the crash rate by about 40 percent. I am talking about not simply raising the age but actually extending the supervised driving practice period. We are currently considering a range of initiatives alongside raising the minimum licensing age to 16 and extending the length of the learner-licensing period from 6 months to 12 months. In particular we are considering strengthening the practical driver testing regime. We are not convinced that the current two-test system adequately prepares young drivers for their first months of solo driving. The first test which in our view is the critical one focuses too much on basic technical driving skills and tends to ignore other important factors that determine driving behaviour. 
We are also considering whether the current enforcement regime for the graduated driver-licensing system is working effectively and while I am on that issue I want to say to this House that our graduated driver-licensing system—the concept—is much admired around the world. That is not to say that it cannot be improved. I believe that it certainly can be improved and I am looking forward to the debate on this because I believe we can make substantial improvements. I am aware that non-compliance with the conditions of learner and restricted licences is relatively widespread. 
Last year I had the opportunity to spend a complete night with a traffic patrol on duty in the Wellington area. Out of the 19 cars we stopped for various things—like not having a tail light or speeding or running a red light—seven I think were driving outside the conditions of a restricted licence. They either had passengers or they were driving outside the permitted hours etc. When I commented on what I thought was a high incidence the traffic officer said it was actually a low number. Normally the incidence of people breaching the driver-licensing conditions of restricted licences was higher than that. The key conditions are the restrictions on carrying passengers and on night-time driving and these conditions are critical for lowering the risk profile of young drivers. 
As I stated earlier this Government is fully committed to creating a safer environment for our young people to develop into fully competent drivers. It has been one of the themes of my career as a parliamentarian and as the Minister for Transport Safety it is one of the things I take extremely seriously. We support the referral of this bill to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and we will be looking very closely at the debate that occurs at the select committee once the views of public submitters are known. 
We will be particularly interested to hear from our rural communities. We are told that increasing the minimum licensing age to 16 raises issues for communities where the availability of transport alternatives is limited. Another issue is whether people are driving for work purposes or for entertainment and leisure purposes. We will also be very interested in the feedback from parents road safety experts and young people on the full range of measures that are needed to keep our young drivers safe. This is a very serious issue for the community an issue that I hope Parliament will debate really seriously. If the beginning of this debate is any indication I think there is goodwill to come to a very good outcome. 
There are many countries—much of Europe—where for the first year or so of one’s driver’s licence the only vehicle one can ride is a low-powered scooter or motorcycle. That could solve the mobility problems of some of our rural people who require a vehicle to get to work or football practice or whatever it is they are involved in. That might be a possible way forward. I think we should look at a range of alternatives and I hope the select committee will do that. 
I look forward very much to the public debate. If the debate is of as good a quality as the debate we have had on the See You There—Safe As programme I think it will be a valuable experience for New Zealand. It is well time this issue was thoroughly examined not only by the House but by society as a whole. The issue is that yes there is a right to mobility but with that right comes a responsibility to be a good safe young driver and that is what I want to see become the culture of New Zealand—as it is in most other countries. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. 
DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I thought that was an excellent speech from the Minister for Transport Safety the Hon Harry Duynhoven. It identified some key elements that we will have to look at in the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill. 
I know that it is quite easy for us to say we will increase the minimum driver licensing age and that that will solve the problem of traffic accidents involving young drivers but I do not see age as necessarily being the problem. If we increase the age to 16 I think we will still encounter some of the difficulties we have now with 15-year-old drivers. I think Harry Duynhoven touched on a number of issues in his speech that are crucial to what the select committee needs to look at and what we need to look at as a Parliament. I would like us to ask ourselves what age we were when we started driving. Were we driving at 15? A lot of us were and it was something we found to be a very important part of our ability to get around our communities to get to work to get to school and to do a lot of activities that we would never have done if we had not had the ability to drive. So I ask members to think of that question and I wish that members would want to have a look at some other things—for example the fact that the problem is not a matter of age. 
In this House we have had legislation—for example minimum wage bills—come through where people have argued that 16 and 17-year-olds have the same ability as 18 and 19-year-olds to work the same maturity and all those factors. Yet here we are doing the opposite; we are increasing the age at which young people have responsibility instead of decreasing it as we were expected to do in the minimum wage area. There is no consistency there in rationale. I know there is a difference in age but there has to be some consistency also in rationale. How many people will want to trust young people? I say that we do want to trust our young people. These young people have a lot of opportunities out there and they need to be given some respect. 
I think that the Minister raised some very good points. The question is not about the age; the question is about the limits we put on people at that age. If we look at what the Minister said some of the issues we can look at are the times young people can drive their hours of driving perhaps the vehicles they can drive and how long they will be in a situation where they have to be supervised. Those are the key issues. Those are the things we need to debate and find solutions for. Raising the age is just a political attempt to get something forthright that the Government can go out and sell. It does not necessarily solve the problem because the problem will move. If we change the age to 16 we are taking the chance that 16-year-olds will then make up the high percentage of accident victims. There is the chance that 16-year-olds will then represent the people learning to drive by themselves rather than the 15-year-olds who are learning to drive by themselves now. We could easily just move the problem up a year and just say then that 16-year-olds are the problem rather than 15-year-olds. 
The mover of this legislation put up some very interesting statistics and they will be good to see at the select committee. But there is one question I want Mr Dunne the mover of this legislation to answer in relation to those statistics—that is after a breakdown of the statistics to show how many accidents occurred as a result of young drivers being outside the rules they should have followed. How many of those accidents were in relation to young drivers who were drinking speeding or driving outside the hours they were allowed to drive? I ask Mr Dunne to give us those statistics because they are the real statistics they show the people who are breaking the rules. If we change the age to 16 we will have 15-year-olds breaking the rules and we will have 16-year-olds speeding drinking and driving outside the hours they should. 
The real question does not concern the age; the real question is whether these people are breaking the rules. If it is the case that they are breaking the rules—which I believe on my gut feeling that it probably will be—then we need to deal with that issue. That is the real issue. Are our enforcement provisions strong enough? Are the rules tight enough? Are we setting the right rules in the first place? Those are the real issues. That is what we need to debate in this House; that is what the select committee needs to work out. If young people just think because they are 16 that they are driving and they are not going to break the rules then they have some big lessons to come their way. It is not a matter that at 15 and 16 there is a huge change in maturity that changes the ability to break or not to break the law. 
Another thing we need to look at—and I think that the Minister was correct about bringing this out—is that driving solo is where we see the real risk of an increase in accidents. That period of driving solo is when the percentages of accidents increase. Well are we moving those percentages just to an older age group? Is that the real problem rather than the fact that young people are 15 when they actually begin to engage in driving? That is a question that I would like the mover of this legislation to give us the research on rather than just give us those figures that relate to all driving statistics and are not broken down. 
I think we need to look at the practicalities as well. A lot of people have said that in rural communities we cannot have this measure. You know people have to drive to be able to go to school to go to work or whatever it is. But the reality is that I do not believe that just rural communities are affected now. All our communities have changed and I ask how many kids go to school on a bike in urban communities? Very few! That is why we have such congestion at 9 o’clock in the morning and 3 o’clock in the afternoon. People have changed the mode of transport they use. Their kids are either driven to school or they drive themselves to school. That is why we are trying to have initiatives like walking buses and so on to try to break down that driving culture. But the transport culture is a culture that has changed in New Zealand and over the last few years the days of kids biking to school has not been the reality because of safety issues. There has been a fundamental change in New Zealand. So I say that it is not just rural communities that will want an exemption; many urban communities out there have a lot of children who go to school by car and who will want an exemption as well. They will see that they will also be affected by legislation like this. 
When we look at legislation and try to look at communities that have changed we also need to look at the way in which work environments have changed. Most people now live in two-income families. Both parties in those families basically have to go out and work these days. One will have to work to pay the mortgage and one to pay the living expenses. That is what the reality is in a lot of communities. But we are saying to those people who are going out there doing it hard and doing all the right things that they may have to wait another year before they can be that two-income family. They may have to wait another year because we are changing this rule. A lot of people do not go to work because they know that they have those kinds of responsibilities transporting their children and they are looking forward to giving their kids the opportunity to take some responsibility. That saves some money because people can go out and work as a two-income family. That is the reality of the communities we live in now. The days are gone where there was just one provider in the house; the world has changed. If we deny those families the ability to have two incomes then we are denying a lot of people a lot of respect and a lot of time in the workforce. 
Personally I think that this legislation is not the right approach at the moment. I will be on the select committee and I am looking forward to the information coming forward. I support the bill going to the select committee and I support the debate. I would like to see the mover of this legislation Peter Dunne give us the real figures in relation to young people who are breaching rules. I think that will be crucial. We need to look at this issue of the minimum driver-licensing age on a wider scale. Are we willing to take away the rights of young people just for a political convenience or is there a real reason why we are doing this? If there is a real reason then I think we will find that the bill has the support of the House. But if it is merely for political convenience or for show then I do not believe we should make legislation on that basis. This is too big an issue—to take away the rights of young people just for the power of getting votes. We need to be very careful of that in this House. 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 Well that was actually a very interesting contribution by the member who has just resumed his seat David Bennett. It would have been better perhaps if he had got many of his facts straight. Let us address one—the minimum wage. I could not understand why he brought that issue up. 
The minimum wage kicks in at 16—not at 15 but at 16 which is the school leaving age. So bringing the driver’s-licence age up to 16 makes it all compatible. The other impression I got from the member is that he left school at 15—an early age—and that he drove himself around town. I do not doubt that he drove himself around town but I have my doubts that he left school at 15; I think he was at school in a tertiary education organisation for quite some time. 
He gave another fact that I have to take issue with. Certainly in my area I see more and more kids children youngsters cycling to school. There may be older children who drive themselves to school and there may be younger children who are driven to school by their parents but more and more youngsters certainly in the area I live in get on their bikes and cycle to school. That I understand is the reason why Tauranga and other places are constructing all of these cycleways. We are producing cycleways everywhere because more and more people are getting on bikes. 
Katrina Shanks 
: Not in Wellington. 
PETER BROWN 
: Not where? 
Katrina Shanks 
: Not in Wellington. 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Yeah it’s kind of hilly. 
PETER BROWN 
: Well that might be the reason for that. 
New Zealand First will support this bill’s referral to a select committee but that is not to say that we will support it as a party after that. Some of my colleagues have some concerns about raising the age but we have all agreed to support the bill’s referral to a select committee. One must remember that this bill will go to a select committee because the Hon Peter Dunne sought leave to bring it to the House to test whether the House thought such a bill was worthwhile. That went through very quietly and very quickly at a time when I think most members of the House were present. 
There was no doubt that Parliament wanted this bill to be considered. One might ask why. Well the simple reason is that the public want to raise the driving age—they want to raise the age when youngsters can get behind the wheel of a car and drive it. I personally am totally in favour of that. I would not let my own children anywhere near a car before they were 16. If I had had my way at that time I would have raised the age to 17. Peer pressure being what it is I won out for a year but after that I encouraged them to drive at 16. 
The Hon Maurice Williamson raised a few interesting points. I can recall back to 1998 and the Land Transport Bill which made reference to raising the driving age from 15 to 16. New Zealand First at one time—and we had just arrived on the scene in any meaningful way at that time—wanted to increase the age to 17. But when we were in coalition with the National Party we were persuaded to drop the age to 16. Sometime later out of the blue further pressure was exercised on us by our coalition partner to retain the age at 15 principally because of the rural concerns. 
Had National and New Zealand First stuck together and seen that legislation through—the numbers were there to push it through the House and to raise the driving age in 1998—one has to ask whether a few more people would be alive today. My own view is that we should tack this to the school leaving age. We have had the abysmal record read out to the House by the Hon Peter Dunne a few moments ago and for that reason alone we must take this issue very very seriously. I welcome this bill going to a select committee because I know the public want to have a strong say on it. New Zealand First has been informally canvassing our members and without a shadow of a doubt they want to increase the driver’s-licence age. Many of them want to increase it to 17. 
Sandra Goudie 
: How many? 
PETER BROWN 
: Quite a few—a significant percentage. Of the few hundred we have met with informally quite a significant percentage want to raise it. I could not tell the member how many want the age to be 17 or 16 but we asked them pretty genuinely and there was a clear-cut response from New Zealand First members—they want to raise the driving age. There are some who do not and who probably think along the lines of David Bennett. But on the sample we tested I would say that by an overwhelming majority most New Zealand First members want to increase the driving age at least to 16 and as I said many want it increased to 17. 
I listened to the Hon Harry Duynhoven and I did get the impression that he wants to use this bill to improve or to address driver’s-licence problems per se. That is what it sounded like to me but I think that is coming in the next bill is it not? 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Yes. 
PETER BROWN 
: This bill will stick to raising the age and extending the length of the learner licensing period from 6 months to 12 months. But the bill that will follow—when; early next year?— 
Hon Harry Duynhoven 
: Hopefully soon. 
PETER BROWN 
: —hopefully soon—will address driver’s-licence issues per se in some detail. 
I think we have to remember that driving on our roads should be a privilege not a right. I do not think anybody has the right to demand that he or she can get in a car on a motorbike or even on a bicycle and demand the right to drive or cycle on our roads. People should meet a certain standard—certainly in respect of driving a car a motorbike or a motorised vehicle—and they should have to apply themselves diligently and follow the rules. 
On the weekend that the Hon Peter Dunne referred to when three youngsters were killed a youngster killed a civic leader Graham Condon. He was killed by a 15-year-old driver. I obviously have a lot of sympathy for Graham Condon’s family and for the parents of the young girl. She will suffer from that for the rest of her life. But had the driving age been 16 one has to assume that she would not have been in the car and that Graham Condon would still be alive. 
These youngsters are killing not only themselves but other people. The statistics are awful absolutely awful. No other country as we have heard has the driver’s-licence age at 15. I cannot think of one. I know that in Britain it is 17 and the Hon Peter Dunne told the House a little while ago that it is to go up to 18. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: The House of Commons committee recommends it go to 18. 
PETER BROWN 
: Mr Dunne is just saying that the House of Commons committee recommends that age go up to 18. 
So we are not alone in addressing this problem and as David Bennett said I hope we can address it positively. But first and foremost we have to listen to the public. It is not a decision that we make. We have to go with the public. What the public wants must be the priority. I for one welcome this bill going to the select committee. I am on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee and I welcome listening to the public and hearing their ideas on what should happen. But I know we will hear a lot of sad stories and it is an issue that we must take very very seriously. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to have a debate about this issue of young people driving because it is an issue that has simmered in the public mind for some time. It is an issue that shows up in the letters to the editor and the letters from constituents. The Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill is a really good opportunity to get this issue out in the open and widely discussed and I congratulate Peter Dunne on bringing it to the House. 
A knee-jerk response to individual tragic cases is never a good context in which to make legislation but sometimes those cases are an indication of a much wider problem and that is why we should consider this. Not all members of the Green caucus are convinced that this bill is necessary and that it is not just another beat-up on young people but all of us are very happy to see it go to a select committee to listen to the evidence and to make up our minds for later votes on the bill based on the evidence that is brought to that select committee. 
Figures provided to us by the Ministry of Transport which I actually requested a little while ago before the bill was put forward knowing this was an issue on which we were going to form a view were quite convincing. I have found in those figures that 15 to 24-year-old drivers are at fault in three-quarters of the crashes that they are involved in and that those crashes caused by 15 to 24-year-old drivers account for one-third of the total social cost from crashes. The figures also show that the lower the starting age for driving the more crashes people have and that the dangerous point is the first 6 months of solo driving before they have had a lot of experience. That suggests to me that a measure to provide for people to have a lot more driving hours’ experience before they drive solo could be a very good change. 
Ministry of Transport figures show that the 15 to 19-year-old age group is six times more likely to crash per 100 million kilometres driven than drivers in the 45 to 49-year-old age group. That is a very significant difference. It seems that the learner stage is relatively safe but there is a period after that when people are allowed to drive solo where perhaps there is an attitudinal problem that takes over combined with inexperience and this is where the risk occurs. So a longer period for the learner phase before solo driving and taking passengers kicks in may also be a useful way of addressing that. 
It is hard to argue that this bill would not reduce serious crashes and deaths. One might say that that is an obvious reason why we should pass it but we could actually reduce serious crashes and death by banning driving altogether but society has decided that there is a trade-off between the road toll and mobility. So the real question is whether the trade-off that we are making for 15-year-olds is actually a worse trade-off than the one we are making for the rest of the population. There is some evidence that it may be. 
I will consider another consequence of 15-year-old driver crashes which will never show up in statistics and that is the impact a crash has on the life of a young person knowing that at an age of inexperience and perhaps with a lack of driving skills he or she killed another person. I think the impact of that on somebody’s life forever is very significant and we should do what we can to prevent people being left with that legacy which must mar the rest of their lives. 
The arguments against the bill in terms of freedom and mobility focus on young people needing to drive cars for their daily activity—for work for school or for social activities. I have to say I have no sympathy at all for the argument that young people in cities need to drive cars to school. There are adequate public transport systems in cities there are bicycles there are all the ways that we got to school when we were young. I do not sympathise with that argument. But there are some differences in rural communities—and I happen to live in one—where public transport is not available and where distances from activities are much greater. I remember what it was like being a parent ferrying 15 and 16-year-old children to music lessons because one cannot easily take a cello on a bus or a bike and looking forward to the date when my son would get his driver’s licence. At the same time I knew he was actually quite poorly coordinated and he and I made an agreement that he would not even seek his licence until he was 18 because he was a very accident-prone person. So I have dealt with those trade-offs I guess in my own experience as well. 
The point is sometimes made that if it is not possible for a young person to get a heavy-vehicle driver’s licence in a rural area then some employment opportunities are restricted for that person. That may be true but of course a heavy truck is even more of a lethal weapon in the hands of somebody inexperienced than a light car is and we have to consider safety there as well. I think it would be very useful if the select committee explore the idea of exemptions in certain circumstances—where a young driver would have to go through additional training like an extended defensive driving course for example and would have to demonstrate a high level of skills in order to get the ability to drive solo earlier than the law otherwise states because of employment reasons or because of where that young driver lives. It would be very interesting to hear submissions on that view and I hope the public will comment on that. There could be a way of tightening up here reducing accidents for people who have alternatives and providing greater safety and greater flexibility for people where there are no alternatives. 
I look forward to the debate in the select committee. The Greens are happy to support this bill in its first reading; we are still divided about what we would like to do after that. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou e hoa ma i tenei po. I am told by my colleague Hone Harawira that downtown in Papatoetoe in Auckland there is a project called Street Talk which is literally about getting out on to the streets and helping people to be safe. We are not talking about sexual health and we are not talking about child welfare; the safety brand that Manukau Urban Maori Authority is promoting is road safety. 
Street Talk provides drivers with a chance to learn new safety skills and to look at their own performance as drivers and to improve their style if there is a case for doing that. The programme is funded by the Accident Compensation Corporation. It helps participants to make the right decisions and learn how to manage risk and control and it even includes the provision of child restraints. It is targeted particularly at Maori and Pasifika people and it has a specific focus on drivers up to 25 years of age—the key group addressed in this Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill. 
At the opposite end of Aotearoa in Ohai the locals are doing much the same thing except that their programme is based at Te Oruanui marae. A key concern for the locals was that a lot of the younger ones were driving without licences. Whether it be for literacy competency or cash reasons a lot of the local rangatahi were driving without having sat their licence. I read a comment from the marae kaiwhakarite Serena Harris that actually blew me away. She was talking about their plans to offer restricted licence driving courses. She said: “For some people this is the first time they’ve got 100 percent in anything. The confidence somebody gets from getting their licence is unreal.” That is at one end—to do with rangatahi. 
But at the other end of the scale one of our own kuia back at Rotorua of Tamatekapua Aunty Miro Morrison aged 79 has just got her licence—for goodness’ sake!—having driven around for 50 years without one. She got snapped—thank goodness!—had her car confiscated and decided to attend a course for free with Lil Emery at Taharangi marae in Rotorua. So she is away now. 
At completely different locations there are resounding success stories of Maori groups making a difference in keeping our people safe our young ones in particular. The focus of this bill presumably is about much the same thing—trying to keep our young ones alive instead of bumping up the national average for car fatalities. 
The Ministry of Transport tells us that over the last 5 years 22 percent of fatal car accidents involved Maori drivers with an even higher number 28 percent of fatal casualties from crashes being Maori—that is the passengers the ongoing traffic and the whanau that have the bad luck to be following on behind. Then there is what is called the vulnerable road users: the cyclists the pedestrians and the motorcyclists. It makes for another bizarre irony in the debate around peak oil and the search to reduce our dependency on cars as the main mode of transport when we look at the statistics for vulnerable road users. 
We need to be doing something and this bill is a good place to start. We know who is getting killed—it is our young men who are being daring risking their lives out on the roads and too often losing the gamble. Young men aged between 15 and 19 years are seven times more likely to die than 45 to 49-year-old male drivers. 
A high proportion of the fatal crashes of our young drivers under 29 years of age occur on rural roads. As other speakers have said speed is a huge factor in this. Looking at my own electorate in the 2004 national road safety public attitude survey 32 percent of drivers in the Bay of Plenty region said they enjoyed driving fast on the open road. That is all good and fine but it ain’t so good when one learns that in the Rotorua area excessive speed was a factor in 23 percent of injury-causing crashes in 2004. Taking one year as a case in hand—2004—in Rotorua we suffered the cost of 193 road crashes. We lost eight lives that year from car crashes 33 drivers and passengers were seriously injured and another 153 were reported casualties. 
One of the things I have picked up from the heap of television ads telling our mokopuna “If you drink and drive you’re a bloody idiot.” is that the message is slowly getting through and sinking in. But although it seems that drink-driving is becoming an unacceptable practice across the community there still seems to be a tolerance towards speeding. 
Teenage boy racers I am told would tell us that the key to success is all about how fast their machine can go. Success actually counts for nothing for those turning up at the cemetery—at the urupa—a couple of days later to pay their respects. Those turning up to court to receive their sentence are not so successful. All those victims of other crimes in the city that become relegated to a lower priority because the full squad is out with the boy racer squad are not so successful. 
This bill does not target any of these factors—speed booze social pressure road conditions and education. The bill is basically just to raise the minimum driver’s licence age from 15 to 16 years and to extend the length of the learner-licensing period from 6 to 12 months. Will adding 6 months make a difference? I doubt it. 
What will make the difference is the way the message gets through. It could be those billboard messages that tell us it is better to be late than to arrive dead on time. Or it could be what they are doing at the Whakatu marae in Nelson with a driver’s licence course which has had a 100 percent success rate. They could not get much better than that. 
In Nelson the local constable John O’Donovan was getting worried about all the young people in the region who were constantly getting parked up by the cops their cars being impounded fines being thrown at them and their getting caught up in a cycle of offending. A teacher David Tepania was enlisted and before they knew it 33 students had passed the course. They found in the programme that some of the reasons cited for not having licences were learning difficulties and low self-esteem. Yet again that is more proof that basic literacy skills keep proving to be a common underlying factor in offending. 
The interesting thing about the programme is that although it picked up referrals from the courts and police there was support from the city council Land Transport New Zealand and Work and Income to get the programme off the ground. Probably the biggest factor of all was that it involved heaps of volunteers helping out for the greater good. That is where I think a lot of our efforts could be usefully spread as well. Instead of constantly telling our young boys how mad bad and fast they are we should be working with the whole whanau in the interests of whanau well-being and safety. 
We need to be thinking about how to create optimum safety environments. Increasing the age at which young people can legally purchase alcohol—from 18 years to 20 years—was one of the strategies to keep our young alive but it was a strategy that this House voted down last year. We the Maori Party block voted. All four of us supported the proposal to raise the legal purchase age to 20 when that legislation came to the House last November. Other Maori members voted to keep it at 18. I was particularly interested that the Minister of Maori Affairs and the sponsor of the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill Peter Dunne could overlook the brutal combination of alcohol age and fatal crash data and vote to keep the purchase age at 18. Alcohol is such a huge and potent contributor to fatal crashes that I would have thought it would be impossible to overlook it. 
Although raising the licence age and increasing the time of learning licensing practice are better than doing nothing other actions could be taken which we hope the select committee will explore—new technologies like alco-locks education such as the three good examples I offered by Maori groups around the motu or indeed more accessible and affordable public transport options. Australian and Canadian graduated driver’s licence schemes for example require a zero blood-alcohol level for young and inexperienced drivers. The option to reduce the blood-alcohol content limit for our young drivers to zero is certainly something that we would do well to consider. 
Finally I hope that all of these mayors in their first meetings with their newly elected councils might be thinking of ways to keep our young people alive. That is something that I am sure we are all hearing and that we would all support. 
Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Minister of Customs) 
: 
 I rise to speak today on the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill and certainly welcome the opportunity to debate the issues raised in relation to the proposal to raise the driving age and extend the learner licence period. We have to keep our eye on the ball because far too many of our young people are dying on the roads. We need to consider what more needs to be done. In doing so we should not fool ourselves that legislation in itself is the answer. By and large the responsibility of parents and the way they teach their young people how to drive and more public education—as the previous speaker Te Ururoa Flavell raised—are elements to be able to tackle the real issue in front of us. 
The Government is committed to sending this bill to a select committee to ensure that it gets a full and robust hearing. I certainly urge more young people and parents to make submissions to the select committee on this matter because it affects them. I am hopeful that through the course of this debate we will hear informed debate based on fact rather than fiction and certainly based on sound evidence. Members who have spoken before me have highlighted the need to get good information at the select committee in order to give this bill full consideration. 
A number of issues have been raised by members. It is worth highlighting them if anything so as to commence this debate in a full and frank manner. Issues have been raised about whether the debate should centre on whether setting the age at 15 or 16 is the best way to deal with this—I think the jury is out on that. To some extent we may delay the period for young people in gaining experience on the road which I think is where we would best spend our efforts in considering the matter. 
The other issue is around exemptions for young people and this is certainly a matter for rural communities. If we start this debate with that premise at the forefront then we have already lost sight of what the real goal is. However I accept the very real issues raised in relation to difficulties faced by young people in rural areas. For example they do not have public transport or the options for public transport to be able to get to sporting activities or to work. What we do know is that a lot more young people work at a younger age and they do need to get to their jobs. They do not have the public transport options available to them. So we should consider the factors of rurality in light of the issues that young people have around transportation. 
The other issue that was raised during the course of this debate was around the issue of safety. My colleague the Minister for Transport Safety Harry Duynhoven raised the issue of whether further consideration should be given to the types of vehicles that young people have access to and whether this might moderate some of the aspects of poor driving behaviour. Again more information on that issue might be helpful. A very substantial contribution was made on the role that supervised driving could have in improving the driving behaviour of young people on the road and this is certainly an area that I will come to later. 
By and large though there are two aspects of this debate that we should never lose sight of. Firstly too many of our young people are dying on the roads. That should not happen it must not happen and we can do more here. It takes a more comprehensive effort to do that—partly through legislation and also through a commitment within our families and communities to ensure that young people are safe on the roads. The other part is understanding the contexts for the decisions we are going to make that will have an effect on young people. In a sense gaining a driver’s licence for young people is their first step to independence. It is a way in which they can positively engage in community activities positively engage in terms of supporting their own independence and getting a job and positively engage in socialising with the broader part of the community that they are involved in. I think that more social connectedness of young people to their community is a good thing and that we should find ways to encourage more of that. 
Much has been said about the statistics and I just want to make a brief comment here because the statistics released by the Ministry of Transport about young drivers earlier this year confirmed that motor vehicles are the leading causes of death and injury amongst young people aged between 15 and 24 years. In addition to that males are more likely to be involved in crashes and those crashes are more likely to occur on a Friday or Saturday night. Importantly fatalities involving young drivers between the ages of 15 and 24 years represent about a quarter of all drivers involved in fatal accidents. So there is a very good reason to debate this issue right now. It is the right time to do so and we should ensure that this is a robust debate. But we need to ensure that we are targeting the problem in front of us and more important finding the best solutions for our young people their families and their communities and with their input. 
Often age or more particularly youthfulness is associated with inexperience. A simplistic analysis might suggest that merely by raising the driving age one might gain more experience or on the other hand that if that decision is delayed the opportunity for experience will be gained. Research shows that in the instance of driving a lack of time behind the wheel rather than age is a primary factor in increasing the risk of having an accident. I certainly hope that by debating the issue of age consideration will also be given to the aspects of supervised time provided to young people who are learning to drive. I have a teenager in our house who wants to drive right now. I am trying to say: “No you’re too young. Not until I can spend the time with you behind the wheel in the car actually going through it can you learn to drive.” And that is from someone who learnt to drive at a very early age at 15—as soon as I could get my licence I certainly did. 
But really that is to highlight the critical role that parents have. Parents have a role to ensure that when they are teaching a young person to drive—and let us face it most parents teach their children how to drive because often many parents cannot afford to pay for someone else to do it—they understand just how critical the aspect of supervised driving and dialogue while driving is and how much of a positive effect that can have for a young person in his or her experience. If parents understood that I am sure that they would be armoured with the right tools to be able to teach their children how to drive. It is my view that if we can do something in that area around supervised driving and extend the learner licence period in this bill as a positive step towards that aspect then I think we will be making positive steps alongside young people. Research tells us that supervised driving practice for up to about 120 hours before solo driving will produce a safer driving skills set. The average supervised driving time here in New Zealand is about 40 hours so we know that there is a lot more to do in this area. In part the extended length of the learner licence period from 6 to 12 months as I said previously provides a good opportunity for supervised driving to be addressed and puts some onus of responsibility on to parents. 
Finally I would like to draw the attention of the House to some of the recommendations made during the Youth Parliament when we had the Youth Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. That committee investigated the issue of young people involved in motor vehicle accidents and fatalities. It found that the most dangerous period for a driver is the first 6 months of solo driving. The committee went on to recommend regarding the graduated driver’s-licence system that the learner period be extended from 6 to 18 months with a reduction to 12 months if a defensive driving course is completed. The committee also recommended that subsidised defensive-driving courses be offered through schools that there be a tougher restricted licence test that we enable the attainment of a full licence by the automatic progressive relaxation of restricted conditions for those with a clean licence and that an enhancement of educational support for learner drivers and their parents be embarked on. In part the consideration of road safety issues during Youth Parliament precedes this debate we are having today. It is my hope that full consideration will be given to the propositions in this bill that weight will be given to the evidence around supervised driving and that some insight will be gained from recommendations from the Youth Parliament select committee that dealt with part of the issue we are dealing with here. 
I certainly look forward to the report back of the select committee and to having a further debate in this House. It is my sincere hope that there is no politicisation of the debate because for our best intents and purposes we really want to achieve greater safety on our roads for young people. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of National to support the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill to a select committee. I also reiterate that we want good open dialogue at the select committee and for us to not close off any avenue for debate given some of the many excellent speeches made in the House today. I firstly acknowledge my own sorrow at the tragic death of Christchurch city councillor Graham Condon who was also a paralympian. In saying that I am mindful of the words of Maurice Williamson who said that we should not let emotion drive our decisions around how we address the serious concerns of youth deaths on our roads and the accidents that are caused by young drivers. Maurice also said he wanted statistics about 15-year-old drivers in other jurisdictions. I am not on the select committee that will be considering this bill but I hope that the select committee will explore the range of statistics. 
I noticed that the Bills Digest entry about the Land Transport (Driver Licensing) Amendment Bill lists a number of jurisdictions with identified driver-licensing ages. I notice that in Australia the driving age is around 16. In Canada in Quebec the driving age is around 15 or 16 but in Alberta it is actually 14 years which I thought was extraordinary—14 years! It would be very interesting to see what the statistics are from Alberta in regard to 14-year-olds with driver’s licences. I am not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that we drop the age down but it would be interesting to see what the statistics are for that particular age group and what the conditions are around drivers’ licences in that area. The United States also has a driving age of 14 years in Arkansas and North Dakota and again it will be very interesting to see what the findings are from the research provided to the select committee for those areas. In France and Sweden the driving age is 16 in Great Britain it is 17 and in Germany it is 17 years and 5 months. 
I will now comment on some matters that were raised by David Bennett who gave an excellent critique of this bill and the matters pertaining to it. He asked clearly whether it was the 15-year-olds we need to be looking at because once we shift the age all we will do is shift the problem up into the 16-year-old age group. The problem that we are looking at is significant between the ages of 15 and 18. We all have a range of ideas about how the issues might be able to be dealt with. One thing that he only slightly touched on that I would like to expand on which I think could be a very simple solution to the problem in the main concerns the cc rating of the vehicles that young people are driving. In this legislation we are focusing on the individual driver—and yes there are some problems there around the licence period around the understanding of the rules and maybe around the level of responsibility etc.—but we are not talking enough in my view about the cc ratings of the vehicles that young people are driving. 
Our society has changed. We are a nation of petrol-heads—we love our cars and we have a lot more cars on the road. Our society is changing so that nowadays generally both parents are working. Parents do not have time to leave their jobs to come home to pick up their children when those children have come home on the bus and take them back to school or to pick children up from school because those children have had to stay behind for a music lesson or whatever. David Bennett is quite right. The problem does not necessarily apply just to young people in rural areas who are particularly challenged by lack of public transport; it also applies to our young people in urban areas because sometimes they go to schools that are well outside the area where they are living or that do not connect them to available public transport. 
I really would like to see consideration being given to the cc rating of vehicles. Why is it that a 15-year-old can drive a V8? Why should 15-year-olds have access to vehicles of that calibre of power and put them on the roads? 
Ron Mark 
: Some V8s have less horsepower than some 1300s. 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: Now we are hearing that some V8s have less horsepower. Be that as it may we have young people who have ready access to vehicles. They like nothing better than to work on these vehicles—to soup them up—so that they can get the maximum power out of them get them on the roads congregate do wheelies and indulge in those sorts of activities. Those are a lot of the activities in actual fact that many people in the community do not like. It is all of the add-on activities that young people do with their vehicles that many people in the community do not like. 
I understand that in England young people are constrained to a vehicle with a lower cc rating. Maybe we should be looking at what sorts of changes that would make to the statistics for our young people who learn how to drive. Consider a small vehicle a small Volkswagen—I do not know; what car has a low cc rating? I am not very familiar with what is on the road these days. I am referring to the kinds of cars that we would call granny cars or shopping baskets. I cannot imagine young people going out to do wheelies and burnouts in a car park at night with a vehicle that can do only about 120 miles an hour. However our vehicles have changed incredibly— 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: Only 120 miles an hour! 
SANDRA GOUDIE 
: It does not bear thinking about. I still think that looking at the power of the vehicles that young people drive is worthy of consideration. 
As I said before every single one of us has a whole range of ideas. We all have different opinions about the solution to the problem but I note that Paul Adams made some very sensible comments. Of course he was a former national rally champion. I happened to have the occasion to be a passenger in a vehicle he was driving and I found him to be an absolutely superb driver. He considers that training enforcements and boundaries all need to be in place. In picking up the idea of enforcement I do not know how many members have heard stories of young drivers who have been stopped found to be in breach of their learner licence conditions by having passengers in their vehicle while driving and have had a traffic officer or a policeman give them a warning and send them on their way. I think that enforcement is a big issue and it will be very interesting to see how these statistics will be viewed at the select committee. Again it was David Bennett who raised that very excellent point because we need to look at all the aspects around the conditions for these accidents. Is it about the breaching of the rules? We need to look at how much young drivers are breaching the rules and what those breaches are. I am only just starting to look at a very very small part of all of the different aspects relating to this bill. 
The New Zealand Automobile Association Inc. also made some sensible recommendations which have been reiterated here. It recommends doubling the duration of the learner licence from 6 to 12 months. That provision is in the bill and I think it is a sensible change to the rules. The association also identified that attitudinal training might be able to be incorporated with the defensive driving course. I think there needs to be a little more emphasis on that and that we need to make restricted drivers’ licensing tougher. 
All of these matters will be discussed in the select committee. I have been thoroughly impressed by my most excellent colleagues Maurice Williamson and David Bennett who are members of the select committee. They will be giving due consideration to this legislation and wanting to explore the statistics. They will want to see how they relate not only to 15-year-olds but to 16 to 18-year-olds and they will not want to limit what the possibilities might be in terms of addressing the issues. I do not want to see 15-year-olds disadvantaged when they do not have access to public transport and when both their parents are working regardless of whether their environment is urban or rural. I do not think they should necessarily be penalised by the actions of a few. The statistics will actually show us where the troubles are occurring. So I am happy to support this bill and I am looking forward to further debate and seeing the statistics. Thank you. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I found myself agreeing with a lot of the points Sandra Goudie made which is somewhat of an unusual experience. Along with her I certainly want to compliment the previous speakers. I know she meant to include the Hon Harry Duynhoven and the Hon Peter Dunne in her praise. I add them to mine and also acknowledge David Bennett who made a very good contribution as did the Hon Maurice Williamson. 
Their speeches highlight the fact that all members of this House want to have and see a very—if you like—sober analysis of the issues and problems being posed with regard to the terrible propensity for young drivers to have a much higher proportion of fatalities and injuries than other age groups. Just raising the driving age from 15 to 16 will not on its own be the cure-all panacea but it will give us a starting point for a renewed national New Zealand - wide discussion to address some of the horrific statistics we observe with regard to our young people. 
In that sense I want to personally thank the Hon Peter Dunne for his initiative in getting this proposal back on to the parliamentary agenda and I think the select committee is the place for its analysis. 
David Bennett my good colleague from Hamilton East illustrated the differences and complications that exist around the argument. I am sure he will have lots of intense discussions with the Hon Maurice Williamson and Sandra Goudie because obviously they will be going to him for some guidance. I acknowledge very seriously Maurice Williamson’s previous experience in this area. Some of his contribution is particularly worthwhile reflecting on today. 
If the information I have in front of me is correct then as I understand it according to the  
Waikato Times 
 we have a situation even within my own city. The editorial of 26 September expressed that it was not in favour of raising the driving age. It made some very interesting points with regard to praising Harry Duynhoven in terms of his work around trying to address the issue of boy racers and on his call for third-party insurance to be made compulsory. It quoted Harry as saying that the move would provide an incentive to drive safely because blemishes to driving records will push up the premiums and high premiums will discourage younger drivers from buying high-powered cars. 
That is one of the raft of issues that need to be addressed in the context of driving age. It is not just a simple issue for the select committee members to say we should increase the driving age from 15 to 16; there are other issues to consider. Also I have to say with cynicism that for years and years bureaucrats in this country advised me why we could not have compulsory third-party insurance. I remember meeting constituents and giving them those bureaucratic reasons when in fact my own heart was saying: “Wait a minute; I agree with Harry.” I thank Harry Duynhoven for putting that particular issue back on the agenda. Some of the bureaucrats might listen frankly to how we should be doing something about the issue. It is so logical that we have third-party insurance. Again it is something that will hit people where it counts—in the pocket. 
 On the other hand just to give an illustration of the range of views on the issue a few days later on Monday 8 October 2007 a headline in the  
Waikato Times 
 stated: “Top cop backs driving age lift”. Inspector Leo Tooman is the region’s road policing manager. David Nanaia and I all know Leo very well—along with my good friend Sue Moroney who will be on the select committee. He is well respected. He is quoted as saying that “lifting the minimum driving age from 15 to 16 not only made sense from a safety perspective but would bring the country more into line with the rest of the world. No other country in the rest of the Western world has a driving age lower than 16.” 
A telephone poll conducted in Hamilton by the  
Waikato Times 
 of a random group of people showed that 75 percent of people agreed that the driving age be raised with most people wanting the age to be lifted to 18. Again that is just an example from my own city of the variety of views on the subject. At the moment on the face of it there is a huge groundswell of support to raise the age at which young people can start to learn to drive. Some people are even looking beyond the age of 16 to 18 years. 
I think the Hon Peter Dunne has done a huge service in getting this issue back on to the parliamentary agenda. We have all read some horrific statistics not just of say 15-year-olds who are experiencing fatalities but also of some terrible tragedies as a result of in some cases mad wantonly reckless driving often by young people. In other cases decent wonderful lovely young people have just made a misjudgment through lack of experience but are really lovely kids. It is every parent’s and grandparent’s absolute nightmare. These kids are in the wrong place at the wrong time and have a momentary lack of judgment. 
That also raises the issue of the review of the way in which young people learn to drive—for example the length of time taken to get the learner licence. What should be the conditions to enable a learner driver to start to drive? What should be the terms and conditions around the restricted licence? 
My children will not be listening to this—and they certainly will not be watching the Parliament channel on Sky so they will not see this—but I have to say as a parent that extending the curfew has great appeal. The biggest worry parents have when young people go from a restricted licence to a full licence is that they can drive around the clock. I quite like the 11 o’clock curfew. 
One of the other things that I think we really need to look at—and I refer to the announcement by Ministers Mark Burton and Damien O’Connor—is the review of under-age drinking. As members know I sponsored a bill to raise the drinking age from 18 to 20 years but Parliament in its wisdom exercised its right to vote against that bill hoping that the compromise measures forecast by the two Ministers would move us into a much better frame and a much better environment in relation to the serious disturbing binge-drinking culture amongst teenagers in this country. I am not referring just to the under 18-year-olds but also to the under 20-year-olds in that context. 
One of the issues I think the select committee needs to look at is the proposal to have a zero alcohol limit for any person under 20 on a restricted driver’s licence. In addition to the debate about whether we raise the age at which young people can start to learn to drive from 15 to 16 years maybe we should debate whether we should have a zero drink-drive limit for every person in this country aged under 20 years who drives a motor vehicle. Maybe that is a discussion we need to have. 
Along with the other speakers in this debate I acknowledge that just on its own raising the driving age from 15 to 16 years is not the cure-all. It is not a magic bullet or the total answer; it has to be seen in the context of other measures. I hope the select committee and its researchers have a comprehensive micro-look at the individual states of Australia and at the social and road safety impacts of its driver licensing. If any country is a rural country then it is Australia. It has huge rural distances and issues with some of its young people getting from A to B in those far-flung rural communities. 
We have great commonality with Australia. I would be genuinely interested to know whether those states give exemptions what the dynamics are what research has been done and whether there are gains or losses given the fact that Australia’s statistics are better than ours. However having said that I point out that Australia’s statistics may reflect that it is a much more urbanised country in terms of the fact that most Australians live in the big metropolitan areas. What are the rural road safety statistics? What are the rural young driver statistics? I think there are some issues there to consider. And what is the situation in Sweden the United Kingdom and in other countries that have better statistics than us? 
In summary this bill is a very very good starting point to revisit the whole issue of road safety for our younger people. Thank you. 
Bill read a first time.  
Bill referred to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee. 
Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Debate resumed from 10 October. 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 National supports the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill. We agree that there are good reasons to repeal the law relating to sedition and the most important is that the law is a threat to the principle of freedom of speech a principle that New Zealanders quite rightly hold dear. During the debate we have had we have heard many times that the law on sedition has been used in the past to impose political censorship to stifle political discussion and to suppress individual opinion. That is not what we want in New Zealand in 2007. 
Or is it? Right now there are real fears that the Electoral Finance Bill which is being forced through Parliament by this Government could deprive us of our right to be heard on political issues. It will do exactly the things we reject with this bill. It will impose political censorship it will stifle political discussion and it will suppress individual opinion. New Zealanders do not like political censorship. We believe that individuals should be allowed to have their say and quite rightly we resent new rules and regulations that limit our freedom of speech. The Electoral Finance Bill will do just that. 
Labour may try to dress the Electoral Finance Bill up as necessary medicine but it has not fooled the submitters. Of the over 500 submissions received by the Justice and Electoral Committee on the bill the vast majority are against it. Many submitters have wanted to present their submissions orally to the committee and have been concerned about rushed agendas and short notices. Many individuals many organisations and even the Law Society are concerned that the bill will significantly restrict freedom of speech. The Law Society in its submission pointed out that it felt it had to depart from a longstanding convention of constructive criticism to declare that Labour’s Electoral Finance Bill should be withdrawn. The society said the bill is complex vague and makes it dangerous for anyone to participate in elections for fear of unknowingly breaking the law. That is not the sort of law we expect to have in New Zealand. 
Even today speaking to the select committee the Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan described the Electoral Finance Bill as flawed. 
Martin Gallagher 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Speaker’s ruling 101/3 states: “Members must confine discussion to the main purpose and the contents of a bill and not deal at length with matters not provided for therein though reference may be made to such matters if related to the bill.” 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you for raising that. That is a good guideline but I will be the judge on that. 
NICKY WAGNER 
: Rosslyn Noonan described the bill as flawed and asked the committee to withdraw or substantially change the bill given the implications of the proposed legislation for the democratic rights of New Zealanders. 
But I go back to the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill. National agrees that the law on sedition should be repealed. We agree with the Law Commission which has said that the present law invades the democratic value of free speech for no adequate reason. Again the Human Rights Commission when commenting on the bill said it believed that the law on seditious offences seriously undermines freedom of expression. So it is right that those offences should go. But we also believe that the Electoral Finance Bill invades the democratic value of free speech for no adequate reason and that it too seriously undermines freedom of expression. We in the National Party are shocked and amazed that this Government thinks it is OK to replace one outdated and repressive law with another that holds similar dangers for our society. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 Is it not interesting that at a time when are debating an issue as important as this and not long after the parliamentary prayer when we agree to put aside all personal interests the only thing the National Party can do when it comes to discussing such key legislation as the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill is to talk about personal interest things such as how it will get money for its next campaign. That is about as hollow as the party has become and it truly is a sad reflection on what was once a great party led by my late local MP in Pahiatua Keith Jacka Holyoake. I lament that loss. 
The Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill is sadly one of those bills that seems to be lumped in the warm fuzzy basket of things we are going to hug. It has become legislation that could probably be described as fuzzy meaning nothing and “touchy-feely” and it is tragic to see parties such as the National Party and the ACT party support it. We need to take off the rose-tinted glasses and look at what the current legislation is in place for and at what it does and not get carried away by all the lefties in our midst who say it is outmoded and outdated and needs to be repealed. Right now at a time in our history when the police are engaged in operations such as they have been engaged in for the last week one would have thought that the National Party would pinch itself wake up and have a bit of a think about this legislation. 
Freedom of thought and speech are ultimate legal values. They are quite rightly described as part of the lifeblood of democracy and of political expression. Comment about the Government and Government policy usually enjoys the greatest protection and is often described as being at the core of the right. If the State does not permit the expression of opinions in a lawful framework however unpopular or objectionable those opinions may be then the State is empty of moral content and is perceived in terms of force alone. In New Zealand the importance of freedom of speech is recognised in section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which provides that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression including the freedom to seek receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.” 
It is indisputable that in order to have a fair and participatory democracy a wide degree of freedom of expression must be allowed. Even speech that promotes unpopular unreasonable distasteful or dangerous ideas must be allowed. As the Law Commission says “expressions should not be branded as criminal simply because they involve dissent and political opposition to the Government and authority.” Although our constitutional systems will not work if they are not respected and protected it is equally true that they will not work unless there is freedom of speech. Therefore respecting and protecting our constitutional systems and permitting free speech to the maximum extent possible are both necessary in order to ensure that the system works properly and that everyone is prepared and able to engage with it. 
However sometimes the right to freedom of expression comes into conflict with other principles. When that happens it is essential to bear in mind that the right to freedom of expression is not absolute. The National Party of all parties we would have thought should understand that. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act itself recognises that when it states in section 5 that there may be limits on rights as long as they are “reasonable” and “prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” Similarly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which New Zealand has ratified provides that the right to freedom of expression can be limited if the limitations are “provided by law and are necessary: … For the protection of national security or of public order”. 
The first thing we need to think about when we look at the seditious offences is their central function. The central function of the seditious offences is to protect lawful authority. That includes the system of government the head of State the justice system the judiciary Parliament and its members and the institution of Parliament itself—in other words the seditious offences are designed to protect the institutions and processes of democracy and government. It seems that the National Party has forgotten that. Its members would rather make speeches about getting more money for the next election. Generally speaking seditious offences give that protection by making it illegal to incite or urge the use of violence. We have a Government over there that says that at the top of its law and order agenda is the curbing of violence but it wants to get rid of this legislation—provisions about violence or force being used against lawful authority; provisions about violence or the use of force against the principles of democracy. Why would anyone want to repeal laws that are there to give us that kind of protection? 
The second issue is that the seditious offences represent a common commitment to democratic institutions and lawful authority a respect for them and an appreciation of their importance. They do that by recognising that the urging of violence against lawful authority is a different type of crime from that of generally urging violence because of the importance of the authority that is threatened. Our constitutional system will not function unless we have a common commitment to it and unless we all accept the importance of the system and institutions. Repealing the seditious offences and leaving the constitutional system protected by only the general criminal law as the Law Commission has recommended implies that constitutional systems and institutions are nothing special and do not deserve any extra protection or recognition. In short it devalues democracy. It devalues the very freedoms that Nicky Wagner has just been saying she wants. 
Well I am sorry but New Zealand First says that such a devaluation is not just a theoretical or abstract problem; it fosters an attitude that democratic processes and institutions of government are optional or even irrelevant which is likely to lead to them being bypassed. If that attitude were to become widespread it would undermine our constitutional system. The democratic system functions well only if everybody respects it everybody engages in it and everybody agrees not to bypass it and pursue change and power through other means. Once that system has begun to be undermined it becomes more likely that people who want to achieve change and power will resort to other means instead of taking part in the democratic process. In other words there is a risk of a downward spiral. 
One would have thought with the unfolding of events right now that people’s minds would have focused on that. But oh no the National Party and its hollow men—and women—focus only on money. I urge them to wake up and to rethink their commitment to the constitutional values this country seeks to uphold—to democracy to its special nature and to its need for special protection. Let us not fool ourselves: the central function of the seditious offences legislation is to protect lawful authority. Taking away that protection devalues lawful authority and therefore our constitutional system. Democracy also requires the broadest possible range of free speech. The only speech that should be prohibited is speech that intentionally urges violence against lawful authority and that creates an immediate direct danger of that violence. We have just had a wake-up call and whatever unfolds as the police progress their case and the justice system works through the happenings in our country right now we need to rethink. 
New Zealand First urges the Government to park this legislation put it to one side give us a chance to see how the law and the general criminal laws do and do not work whilst we face the current situation and rethink. The laws of sedition were put there by our forefathers our forebears and our grandparents for a purpose. They have value. New Zealand First supports them. We will oppose this bill. 
RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) 
: 
 I respect my friend Ron Mark considerably but that speech was an example of tortured logic and sad rhetoric. It is a fact that the law of sedition has been an anomaly on our book for a long long time and it has nothing at all to do with the matters earlier this week. The sooner we draw a strong line between those matters and the law of sedition the better. 
When I was a poorly educated country boy studying legal systems as an adult student before the Rt Hon Sir Kenneth Keith—or Professor Kenneth Keith as he was then—40 years ago he taught me something about the Crimes Act. His words resonate today as I read the document before me. Sir Kenneth Keith said that the law of sedition is the prime example of an attempt to control by law expressions of political ideas and their consequences. That came about in New Zealand because when New Zealand adopted the common law of sedition into its criminal law—when it codified it—over the process in 1893 and 1906 to the final codification in 1961 the common law crime of sedition changed from being the crime of words intending to incite violence to the crime merely of uttering the words. 
As a result of that a number of very important people in this country—and some of the people I look to for political and social value inspiration—have run foul of the law of sedition. I mention first of all Harry Holland a former leader of the Labour Party. In 1913 he was charged and imprisoned for I think 3½ months for sedition because he urged naval ratings to train their guns not upon the fellow workers who were striking on land but on the moneyed classes whom the workers were striking against. Nine years later Sir Walter Nash who was later to become Prime Minister was also charged and fined for sedition for bringing into the country a pamphlet involving free speech. After he was convicted and fined he found that very pamphlet in the Parliamentary Library—that is how ridiculous the law of sedition is. And it has gone right down until 2006 when Timothy Selwyn threw an axe through the window of the Prime Minister’s electorate office and then faced charges of sedition. However the jury sensibly discharged him. The jury did not convict him on the charges that related just to political utterances but it seems to have convicted him on the charge that arose from the damaging of the Prime Minister’s window. So the jury quite sensibly limited the working of our present law to words that incite violence. 
But do we need a law of sedition these days particularly as wide as it is in our Crimes Act? Of course we do not. First of all we do not need it because we have had since 1990 the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Section 14 of the Act guarantees everybody the right to freedom of expression including the freedom to seek receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form. That is an absolute right which as my friend Mr Chauvel reminded me National voted against. That is a fundamental freedom in this country and it is a freedom that we all grow up understanding to be our very own. No longer is it a crime in New Zealand to defame someone; it is a civil wrong but it is no longer a crime. Criminal defamation has been removed from our statute book. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act guarantees freedom of expression so having a crime on the statute book that makes it unlawful to express ideas that are against the Government—or against other authorities but particularly against the Government—is an anomaly whose time to be removed has come. 
I will look briefly at the situation we have this week because it was raised by Ron Mark in his speech. It has been an appalling instance of cloudy emotional rhetoric from politicians from the media and even I suspect from people close to the police. I heard nothing more appalling than a speech made by Derek Fox—a man I respect greatly—on Radio New Zealand National this morning at about 11 o’clock. He came on ostensibly to speak about Maori sovereignty but he instead expressed his anger and frustration at the police searching houses and arresting people. He went so far as to say that one of the people arrested was a 64-year-old grandfather who had never committed a crime in his life and was locked up as a result of this search but was innocent. What Derek Fox does not know is whether that man is innocent or guilty. That is for the court to decide. When emotion and rhetoric become as rampant as that and are aired on Radio New Zealand National a lot of people have to take stock of themselves. The removal of the sedition laws may make it more clear what the offences really are. 
While Ron Mark was speaking I looked at the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. The definition of terrorism is dealt with in section 5. I mention it here because it is relevant to the difference between sedition and terrorism. Terrorism is defined in several ways but the key one that is relevant to the matters this week and to the abolition of these sections of the Crimes Act is that terrorism is an act with an intent to cause an outcome and the intent that is relevant is to induce terror in a civilian population. 
Well terror is not defined in the legislation but the dictionary defines terror as “serious panic”. But that is not enough for a conviction under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002; it must also be accompanied by the intent to cause an outcome. An outcome is such a thing as the death of another person; serious bodily injury to one or more persons; a serious risk to the health or safety of a population; the destruction of or serious damage to property—not just any property but property of great value or importance—or major economic loss or major environmental damage. So those are the outcomes. The other outcomes that are relevant are a serious interference with or disruption to an infrastructure facility if it is likely to endanger human life. There is also a definition relating to the release of disease-bearing organisms. 
So terrorism in our Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 is really a development of the common law that came to New Zealand and existed before 1893 until the attempts to codify it resulted in the watered-down version of the 1961 Crimes Act which has caused so much difficulty in New Zealand including for Timothy Selwyn in 2006. I dare say in relation to the Selwyn case that he would never have been prosecuted under the sedition provisions except he went to court on a raft of offences which surely attracted a desire by the police to cover the field. These offences included offences under the inland revenue Act and similar dishonesty offences which interestingly he pleaded guilty to and he defended the sedition charges being convicted on just the one charge. 
So what we have before us today is a move that was anticipated for 40 years by Sir Kenneth Keith one of our most eminent jurists who is presently serving on the International Court of Justice having served on the Court of Appeal and then as one of the inaugural justices of our Supreme Court. He is a leading academic an international lawyer a great writer and a very very humble human being. In 1968 he said that the law of sedition was otiose that it achieved nothing and that it stifled free speech in New Zealand. It is surprising in fact that when the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act was passed in 1990 and section 14 became part of it there was not an amendment to remove the law of sedition from our statute book. But perhaps our political maturity takes time to manifest itself and in today’s climate where terrorism is a real fear sedition is an old concept that has no place on the statute book. Instead of a sedition law we have the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and I have already dealt with the definition that relates thereto. 
I want to close my speech today by referring to subsection (5) of section 5 of the Terrorism Suppression Act. Subsection (5) states: “To avoid doubt the fact that a person engages in any protest advocacy or dissent or engages in any strike lockout or other industrial action is not by itself a sufficient basis for inferring that the person—(a) is carrying out an act for a purpose or with an intention specified in subsection (2);”. So what it says is that the very crime of sedition is not sufficient to establish an act of terrorism and our Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 takes us back to a modern version of the common law before we proceeded to codify it in this country. This bill is long overdue and I commend its passing to the House. 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee I am pleased to follow my friend and colleague in the law and in the Labour caucus Russell Fairbrother to speak in the second reading debate of the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill—not the “Seditious Officers Bill” as Ms Wagner seemed to think it was called. 
This bill is the latest in a long series of Law Commission recommendations to be progressed through the legislative process by this Government. I did a count while I was considering what remarks I might make today. As far as I can tell it is the 14th report to be progressed by this Government legislatively or on the basis of publicly announced executive consideration. 
The 20th anniversary of the Law Commission conference last year drew to the attention of politicians the academic world and the public the somewhat unfortunate logjam that had built up in New Zealand—as it has built up in the United Kingdom and Australia—of unimplemented Law Commission reports. In case members are interested the other 13 reports the Law Commission has put up to the Government that are either under active consideration or likely to be implemented legislatively relate to access to court records; Waka Umanga; the Limitation Act; minority buy-outs; costs in criminal cases; problems in the law of trusts; wills; succession homicide; arbitration amendment; property law; damages; interest on money claims; sentencing guidelines and parole reform; and customs. 
As I pointed out in previous remarks to the House this month on other bills being progressed as a result of Law Commission recommendations this is a remarkable record of progress on the part of the Minister responsible for the Law Commission the Hon Mark Burton. I would just like to record my appreciation of the Minister’s vigorous record of progressing Law Commission reports. It is an unparalleled record in our history. The dispassionate consideration and implementation of these reports in my view is an important aspect of the practical observance of the rule of law. I just repeat my commendation of the Government’s record on this score. 
It is interesting to note that the progress of this bill represents one of the swiftest examples to date of the implementation of a Law Commission report. The commission formulated its terms of reference under section 16 of the Law Commission Act on 16 October 2006 and its report was transmitted to the Minister just some 4 months later on 12 March 2007. The bill was introduced just under a further 3 months later on 8 June 2007. It was read a first time on 19 June and referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee where submissions were heard and a report back to the House produced on 24 August. 
It is now my hope that in future we will see similar expeditious progress on uncontroversial Law Commission recommendations under the procedures for dealing with Law Commission reports that were announced by the Prime Minister on 24 July at an event to mark the publication of the 20th anniversary papers to which I referred in more detail in previous remarks. 
It is good to note from previous speeches by members that there does appear generally to be multiparty support for the repeal of this archaic legislation although I note with concern Mr Mark’s apparent withdrawal of support for the legislation. Notwithstanding Nicky Wagner’s speech against the bill I am encouraged that it appears that the National Party still supports its repeal. 
In my respectful view though it is a shame that there has been some pettiness and inaccuracy in some of the contributions made on this legislation in the House. I would like to deal with one or two of those contributions. The first is a matter that deals with evidence that came before the Justice and Electoral Committee—specifically that of the New Zealand Police. In total we heard from five of the 17 submitters who made submissions before the committee. Of those five oral submitters only two did not favour the bill in its present form. We asked to hear from the New Zealand Police on its use in practice of sections 81 to 85 of the principal Act. The police came before us and gave very fulsome evidence—in my view—on the sections in question. 
They said the sections were very rarely relied upon in practice and as a consequence because of the rarity of their use there are no specific guidelines on their application. That really helped—certainly in my mind and I think in the minds of others on the committee—to confirm that the Law Commission was absolutely correct to recommend the repeal of those sections. These comments might help Mr Mark because as the Law Commission report points out all the elements of the applicable law in respect of the sedition offences clearly are able to be covered by other offences that will and do remain on the statute book. 
In my view there is an unhealthy trend as Mr Fairbrother said in New Zealand politics for some politicians to suggest that there is some political motivation on the part of the police in their decisions in individual cases as to whether to bring prosecutions. I know that this is an absolutely despicable and untrue allegation. I asked the police when they came before the select committee to confirm that they act in decisions to prosecute in respect of sedition as they do in respect of all other matters—with complete political independence. I am very glad to note that the committee recorded that evidence in its report. The House should note it for the record as well. Politicians who bandy about suggestions to the contrary should be ashamed of themselves. In making that suggestion for short-term political gain they denigrate the integrity of the New Zealand Police and the excellent work it does and whether or not they realise it they also denigrate themselves in this House. 
The second matter I want to speak on in this debate is the linkage that has been made in the minds of some between this legislation and the matter of certain arrests that have occurred this week. We have already heard some discussion of that imagined link in the debate today. In reality there is no link between the two matters. We know from public statements by the Commissioner of Police on the one hand and by Ministers on the other that the police are acting as they always do on the basis of evidence they believe is sound. 
Under certain circumstances in respect of those arrests the Solicitor-General will also need to be satisfied that evidence is sound if charges are to be laid under the Terrorism Suppression Act which Mr Fairbrother adverted to. But in either case the courts will make the final decision. It is not and never should be for members of this House whether in the Chamber in press statements or on  
Morning Report 
 to start thinking they can decide what the actual facts are. 
In my view it will be seen in due course what evidence the police have and what the courts make of that evidence; members should not be rushing to any form of judgment. If there are concerns about the way in which the police have conducted themselves then of course members of the public will have the ability to have recourse to the Police Complaints Authority. The processes for that are well-laid-out. 
New Zealand stands for the right to peaceful protest and the repeal of this legislation is confirmation of that. Indeed as Mr Fairbrother pointed out many within Labour have engaged in peaceful protest in the past and it is quite right that such activity should not be punishable by the law. As Mr Fairbrother said the Terrorism Suppression Act is quite specific about that matter. But in respect of the events of this week as with arrests and potential prosecution under this or other legislation members should surely refrain from making extravagant comments in order to avoid potential embarrassment in the future. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. 
Ayes 109 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 47; Green Party 6; Maori Party 2; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 7 
New Zealand First 7. 
Bill read a second time. 
Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill 
First Reading 
Debate resumed from 16 October. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of State Services) 
: 
 When I was last speaking in the first reading of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill I was pointing out that even with the Act’s protections whistle-blowing carries some personal risks to employees. But we all know that silence is not in the public interest. 
Measures in this bill are designed to give more substance to the Act’s protection. They include the Ombudsman assisting organisations to keep confidentiality of disclosers expanding the Act to protect volunteers of information in support of an existing disclosure of serious wrongdoing expanding protection to people who reasonably but mistakenly believe they are disclosing serious wrongdoing and clarifying that disclosers are not excluded from the Act merely because they did not refer to the Act by name when disclosing. 
Further technical non-compliance with the Act’s processes for whistle-blowing will no longer prevent an employee from coming within the Act’s protection. An example of this change would be an employee say at a Wanganui Crown institute blowing the whistle on two staff who were burying toxic waste in riverbed shingle. Under the internal procedures the employee should first disclose to the human resources manager but if instead he or she discloses to the general manager he or she still comes within the Act’s protection despite technical non-compliance with one of the process steps in section 7 of the Act. 
In summary this bill is designed to improve aspects of the Protected Disclosures Act. It gives the Ombudsman an enhanced coordinating and helping role. As a result it should be easier for whistleblowers to bring serious wrongdoing to light and for organisations to investigate effectively. I think it is a good bill and I commend it to the House. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I think the Minister who has just resumed her seat Annette King probably summed up the intent of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill quite well when she said that whistle-blowing carries with it risks for the person or people who decide to make information public from an organisation with which they may have a relationship or association. She rightly made the point that often in these cases silence is not in the public interest. National will be supporting this bill going to the select committee and will wait with interest to see what particular submissions are made in respect of the bill. 
As the explanatory note states at the start of the bill: “The Bill is designed to give the Ombudsmen an enhanced guiding reviewing and investigating role …”. That is an important step that this legislation encourages. The Protected Disclosures Act 2000 was reviewed by Mary Scholtens QC and in the report she brought to light some evidence of delays and the like that make this legislation necessary today. The bill will give more explicit information and advising powers to the Ombudsman but of course the whistleblower in any set of circumstances takes on some considerable personal risk when deciding to take what is often a courageous step to bring to light information that is in the public interest. 
The provisions of the bill essentially do the following. The bill broadens the scope of who is a protected person and treats board members and volunteers in organisations as employees for the purposes of the Act. Although the National Party historically would be reluctant to see legislation define people as employees if indeed they had decided to contract in another way with a particular organisation for the purposes of this legislation it is an appropriate capture. The bill protects witnesses in support of a whistleblower. That is also an important provision for third parties who may stand alongside or provide support for those who are actually carrying out the so-called act of whistle-blowing. The bill allows protection for those who substantially comply with the Act but also for some minor technical failure. 
As was said earlier the Ombudsman can take a managing and coordinating role but the bill does not give the Ombudsman the role of advocate for the whistleblower. I think that is an important point. Ultimately the Ombudsman is not there to advocate a case but rather to exercise certain powers in order to ensure that the process around the disclosure of the information is kept as proper and as pure as possible. I wonder whether our own Dave McGee may find himself one of the first users of this particular legislation when it passes. I would certainly trust him to get it right if indeed he was one of the people charged with making some of the decisions carrying out some of the actions or exercising some of the powers that the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill facilitates. 
As I said earlier the bill moves to apply the protection of employees to a wider group of whistleblowers. Chester Borrows said that a good example would be Clive Solomon who was a board member of the Whanganui District Health Board and who drew some public scrutiny to the practices at Wanganui Hospital. It will be interesting to see whether a bill such as this could have protected someone like Kit Richards at the time he entered into an interesting situation in respect of information from Timberlands. Although the bill gives the extension of protection and the provisions give a more facilitative role to the Ombudsman there is a desire for a fair and sensible regime to surround the disclosure of information where as the Minister put it—and I could not put it better myself—silence is not an option if the public interest outweighs the risk that that individual is taking in disclosing such information. 
On that basis National will be supporting the bill going to the select committee. We will take some interest in the more technical application of some of the provisions during the hearing of submissions on the bill. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to speak in the first reading of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill. The introduction of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000 was a very important measure that this Labour-led Government enacted to provide protection for employees who make disclosures of information about serious wrongdoings in their organisations. This is known as whistle-blowing and I am sure most New Zealanders are very familiar with the term. 
I recall the furore surrounding Neil Pugmire that led to this bill. In the 1990s he was a psychiatric charge nurse at Lake Alice Hospital. He expressed concern to his then employer Good Health Wanganui over the release of dangerous psychiatric patients into the community. After raising the issue with his management and not getting a satisfactory response he went public with his concerns in the interests of public safety by releasing confidential material to a member of Parliament. Mr Pugmire was suspended and later sacked for his actions. Although the Employment Court eventually reinstated him to his former position he and his family had gone through a long and stressful employment disputes process as well as coping with the uproar in the media and in his community. 
What happened to Mr Pugmire was typical of the prevailing culture of fear in the workplace in the 1990s: fear of losing a job in a time of high unemployment and unprecedented power in the hands of employers. Thankfully this kind of unhealthy workplace is not acceptable to this Government and Labour has ensured that the dreaded culture of the 1990s has been changed for the better through legislation that promotes good faith the right to consultation and to be heard and the right to be represented through one’s union. 
When it comes to public services that are provided with public money our Government takes particular notice. Although an employee has a duty to his or her employer he or she has a higher responsibility to our society and to the Public Service to report acts of wrongdoing by his or her employer or organisation. This is because these are services to the people and for the people that are paid for by the people through their taxes. 
Some employers see the actions of whistleblowers as a breach of loyalty. Employees in this situation can face retaliation from employers when they attempt to stop inappropriate actions. That is why Labour passed the Protected Disclosures Act—to protect people like Neil Pugmire who blow the whistle on serious wrongdoings in their workplace. Employees are protected if they disclose a misuse of public funds or resources a risk to public health and safety or the environment a threat to the maintenance of the law or a public official acting oppressively discriminating against people improperly being grossly negligent or grossly mismanaging. 
Of course an employee must not simply act on something that he or she believes might be happening; he or she must have reasonable grounds for believing that the wrongdoing is true or likely to be true. There are also safeguards in the Act for employers in that employees have to follow set internal procedures to report suspected wrongdoing. If those internal procedures do not work employees may then complain to the appropriate authority. So the Protected Disclosures Act not only protects employees but also promotes transparency in Government and it protects the interests of individuals and the general public. 
Our reputation as a corruption-free country and our consistently good rating on the annual survey of Transparency International where New Zealand is identified as being first-equal with Finland and Iceland as the world’s least corrupt countries is vitally important. That is why the then Minister of State Services had a review of the operation of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000 to ensure that it was working as intended. This Act contains provisions requiring that review and a decision on whether any amendments should be made to the scope and contents of the Act. We know that that was a significant review and a significant report and the current Minister and others have referred to some of the amendments that are recommended in order to improve the operation and effectiveness of the Act. 
I was interested that the report said there have been very few successful efforts by employees to use the legislation. The Public Service Association in its submission on the review reported that it did not know of any and it questioned the extent to which the Act was being used effectively. It said that one member who had used the process had found it to be a long-drawn-out and not well-understood process and felt that the State Services Commission and the Ombudsman could have been much more responsive. But at the same time the association observed that the Act in itself although not widely utilised had value as a strong deterrent to wrongdoing in public sector organisations. I think that that is right and also that it shows that the Public Service is functioning well and according to the principles laid down in the  
Public Service Code of Conduct 
 which sets out the Government’s expectations of standards of behaviour and conduct for the Public Service. 
This bill is designed to improve aspects of the Protected Disclosures Act and it builds on the recommendations of the report which has as outlined in the explanatory note brought to light some evidence of delays inconsistencies and other difficulties in using the legislative procedures properly. 
 The report also highlighted some uncertainty from both organisations and employees as to how the legislative procedures in the Act could be used and how to go about accessing them and referred to a strong perception among some who were consulted on the Act that the identity of a whistle-blowing employee would not be protected. That goes to the heart of the effective application of this Act. We need to be absolutely sure that employees who set out to disclose wrongdoing in their organisations are protected and that the organisations and the employees are absolutely clear about the process. 
This amendment bill makes it easier for whistleblowers to bring serious wrongdoing to light and it will also make it easier for organisations to investigate such allegations effectively. It does this by enhancing the role of the Ombudsman. It gives the Ombudsman the ability to review employers’ protected disclosure procedures. Although many employers now have such procedures in place many do not and this will encourage employers to develop good procedures. The Ombudsman will also be able to give guidance to employees on how the Act works what a serious wrongdoing actually is and whom they can complain to. The Ombudsman will have new powers to review and guide public sector organisation investigations of whistle-blowing but this is a power that is facilitative rather than directive. In addition the Ombudsman can take over an investigation into serious wrongdoing in the public sector if insufficient progress has been made by the organisation but the whistleblower must consent. 
I am also pleased to see that the Act’s processes and protections will be extended to include volunteers board members and members of local authorities. For the purposes of the Act these groups will be employees in regard to confidentiality of identity and they will have immunity from liability and anti-victimisation measures under the Human Rights Act. 
This bill is about encouraging accountability and transparency while at the same time providing better protections for those who put their jobs or positions on the line when they make decisions to disclose wrongdoing in their organisations. As a member of the Government Administration Committee to which this bill is being referred I look forward to hearing submissions on the bill and returning it to the House. 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 In rising to speak to support the first reading of the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill it is useful to note firstly the intention or objective of the original 2000 Act. The Act was intended to operate by facilitating the disclosure of serious wrongdoing facilitating the investigation of that serious wrongdoing and protecting employees who make disclosures under the Act. The Act also provided for a review to be made of its operation no sooner than 2 years after its commencement. In fact that review took place as we have heard in 2003 and indeed the review appears to be somewhat comprehensive comprising some 90-plus pages. Four years later the results—or some of the results—of that review can now be found in the bill before this House. The reason why it has taken so long to get here is certainly anyone’s guess. 
We have heard that the bill seems to have two main objectives. Firstly it seeks to give the Ombudsman a more substantial managing and coordinating role in an attempt to reduce the risks of confusion and the risks of disclosures of serious wrongdoing falling between the gaps in various organisations’ investigative jurisdictions. Secondly the bill seeks to clarify and extend the group of people who can make disclosures of serious wrongdoing—that is who can be a whistleblower—and therefore come within the protection of the Act. For example as we have heard volunteers and board members may now be treated as employees for most of the purposes of the Act. Currently and in summary the Act protects an employee or a former employee of an organisation who discloses serious wrongdoing from retaliatory action from the employer and from civil and criminal suit in relation to the making of that disclosure. 
I have read the 2003 review of this Act and it is interesting to note certain things. There is no comprehensive data on the extent to which the Act has been used because there is no particular organisation that has any oversight of the legislation. I am not sure that this bill goes so far as to remedy this although it does give the Ombudsman a more substantial managing and coordinating role which is specifically described as “not an advocacy role for the whistle-blower”. The report also noted that the original whistleblower’s Act had not resulted in a significant volume of protected disclosures of serious wrongdoing and that there was some lack of knowledge or awareness of the terms of the legislation and how indeed it should be applied. In fact the Chief Ombudsman noted: “Although the Office had been surprised by the paucity of complaints under the Act during the first two and a half years those it received had been time consuming.” 
When it first became law the Act was expected to trigger an avalanche of whistle-blowing which did not prove to be the case. It may well be however that the mere presence of this Act and prospective whistleblowers having access to information and therefore seeing why something was happening was sufficient to allay their suspicions. Many submissions leading up to the 2003 review both from employer representative groups and employee representative groups indicated they had little if any experience to report either positive or negative with the Act. 
There appears to have been some confusion as to who indeed could make a disclosure about what and from which organisation. Should or could for example elected members of local authorities—say mayors and councillors—come within the definition of an “employee”? To cover this confusion the bill does extend that definition as we have heard of “employee” to include firstly a person who is a member of the board or governing body of the organisation and secondly a person who works for the organisation as a volunteer. An issue was also raised in relation to anonymous disclosures. Some have the view that anonymous disclosures are not covered by the legislation the protections available to others cannot be provided to persons whose identity is not known and “as you do not know whether the person is an “employee” within the Act you do not know whether the Act covers them.” 
A further concern raised in the 2003 report was whether it was inappropriate for the Act to require organisations to accept such anonymous disclosures. This issue of confidentiality is important. Although the Act does attempt as one of its protections for whistleblowers to confer on them confidentiality and privacy there does seem to be some scepticism “and the ability to provide full confidentiality to someone disclosing wrongdoing is almost non-existent” and is considered to be “a fundamental problem for staff.” This is to be balanced however with the guidelines relating to natural justice to the effect that a person is entitled to know the identity of his or her accuser. Perhaps this is an issue that could be considered further at the select committee. 
National supports the first reading of this bill the efforts to improve the operation and administration of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000 and the recommendations of the 2003 review. It is important however that protecting whistleblowers and indeed giving them the confidence to be whistleblowers is not just a matter for legislative change. Ongoing operational improvements are also very important. The 2003 review noted that the Chief Ombudsman gave examples of employers not recognising a disclosure as a potential disclosure and where the whistleblower’s identity had indeed been revealed without considering those confidentiality obligations. His view was that this indicated inadequate processes and a lack of understanding of the legislation. Consequently the protections under the Act may appear to be ineffective and may be one reason why the Act has not been used much—whistleblowers simply do not feel secure enough about their protections. 
Closer examination of this bill by the select committee is required. National supports the bill at its first reading and we support its referral to the select committee for closer scrutiny so that the review that was carried out 4 years ago in 2003 can be scrutinised. 
Debate interrupted. 
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.