Barker Rick: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Barker Rick: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:17985] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I am delighted to follow Sandra Goudie. I will pick up on a couple of things. Firstly being in Government is about choices. It is about making choices about where money is spent about how parliamentary time is used and about strategic direction. We were told by Sandra Goudie that now is the ideal time to choose to do housekeeping. She said that the most important thing we need to do now is housekeeping. As Sandra Goudie was speaking a phrase came into my head a saying my grandmother had handed to me: “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” 
As we are sitting in this House allegedly on Tuesday hundreds of young New Zealanders going out into the workforce are facing the bleak prospect of being placed on the unemployment scrap heap. In South Auckland two or three families are living in the same house. Twenty people are living in one house. People are living in garages. They are shacked up in bunks all around the garage. People in Christchurch are facing a grim prospect of living in a broken house with winter coming. In the middle of all these major decisions the Government as a matter of urgency is considering the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2). 
The bill has some really fabulous pieces of important strategic thinking! For example Part 17 is about a protected conservation area. We are changing “Saddlebank Island” to “Saddleback Island”. Well I am sure the poor people of South Auckland will go to bed happier tonight! They will feel warm and comfortable as they pull the blanket up to their neck and cuddle their teddy bear knowing that this Government’s got their interests at heart! It is going to correct the name of the island to “Saddleback”. They will be even further buoyed up they will wake up in the morning full of hope and optimism for a new dawn when they see we are changing the Wild Animal Control Act! We are amending the word “thar” to “tahr”. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Oh it’s big! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: This is big! This is really big! When we come to the House and see this we understand the vision of this Government. It is standing up on the bridge scanning the horizon looking to ensure that the good ship  
“New Zealand” 
 is navigated past those swirling whirlpools past the rocks that would consume the ship  
“New Zealand” 
. It is navigating us past all of those stormy seas because we will now amend the Wild Animal Control Act to correct the spelling of “thar” to “tahr”. Yes it is important to do some housekeeping but we have to ask ourselves the question whether this is in fact the appropriate time to do it. 
There are some other interesting things in this bill. I am really intrigued by a number of them. I made some notes. I see we are going to make amendments to the Marriage Act. Is it to promote more marriages or to make them more difficult? I am not sure. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: It’s about offshore marriages. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Is it about offshore marriages? There is something about people who are foreign nationals coming here who do not need a certificate to be labelled a New Zealand citizen. I wonder what is promoting National’s concern about this. Maybe those members should explain it to us. 
There are parts about social security retirement limited partnerships and so on. I ask myself what the importance or the value of those parts is when we have a major economic crisis on our hands. We have had a sequence of major financial crashes—South Canterbury Finance AMI—and here we are making tinkering changes to the legislation. What is the Government doing to ensure that the place is well run and tighter apart from putting more and more taxpayers’ money at risk? I ask the drafter of this legislation where the strategic vision is. What is it that we are trying to do to improve the well-being of New Zealanders? 
We will also be making changes to the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act. I think those changes are probably a good thing but thinking about the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act why is this House not consumed with not just the passing of legislation but the very important issues that underpin it? A major construction boom is going to happen and what are we doing in this House to find the workforce to undertake that work? Where is the discussion about training young New Zealanders—those on the unemployment scrap heap—to get the skills to have the opportunity to undertake the work? We all know we should be doing this work now. Young people should be taken on today to be given basic training. They should be given their education today or it should even have started last week but no activity is being undertaken. Yet we are worried sick about having our sequence of plans in order and in the right process. Well this is another example of Nero fiddling while the House burns. 
Other changes in the bill are to justice legislation—to the Judicature Act. I am really intrigued as to why they are appearing in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) and not in the justice bills that have come before the House. We finished debating a justice bill some weeks ago. We just debated the first reading of a justice bill. These provisions could have been incorporated into that legislation but we have this piecemeal process. Instead of having one justice bill we now have three. I have to ask what is happening within the organisation of the National Government that it cannot tidy up its legislative programme. Why are we debating three bills when there could have been simply one? Why are select committees considering three bills when there could have been one? Why are the public being asked to put in submissions on three bills when there could have been one and why if they wish to speak to their submissions do they have to come to the House of Representatives three times attend three select committees and make three presentations when there could have been one? 
The doozy of all of the amendments is the change to the Railways Corporation board. We are going to increase the number of board members by a Statutes Amendment Bill because they have an increased workload over the next 10 years. What is the message that Bill English has been sending to State servants in the last few months? He has been telling them they have to do more with less—more with less! But when it comes to the management class they will get more for less! It is exactly the reverse. It is like Bill English’s tax cuts: when one has more one gets more; when one has less one gets less. I think this reflects National’s attitude. If the Government were serious about expecting more for less out of public servants it should have said to the board of directors that no it would not give them more directors that those guys are paid a very very good salary and that it expects them to step up to the mark. As the Hon Paula Bennett says: “Step up! Step up! Do the job! Step up! And if you can’t do it move on.” The board of directors has obviously complained about being overworked. They have said it is too hard there are too many reports and by the way they do not have enough people in the boardroom to have a very enjoyable morning tea so they want to be given a few more mates. I think that is a very poor signal. If we are genuinely talking about difficult and constrained times if we are talking about the rest of New Zealand having to work harder to make ends meet then what is wrong with a board of directors doing more work with the same number of people? 
And what is so difficult about a 10-year plan? That has not been explained by the Hon Nathan Guy. I want to know what justifies such a significant increase in the number of board members when the rest of the Public Service and the New Zealand public in general are working harder for less. That is the message this Government has given but for its own people for directors—who support it no doubt—it will make sure they not only have more directors but receive more directors’ fees at greater cost. Well I think every group of cleaners in New Zealand would like two extra cleaners on the job for the same reason—because they have a big 10-year plan. I think every group of carpenters on building sites would like a few more carpenters to lighten the load. 
Grant Robertson 
: A bit more work. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: A little bit more work. I think every other industry would like to— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired.