Volume 675 Week 83 - Wednesday 7 September 2011 
Volume 675 Week 83 - Wednesday 7 September 2011 
[Volume:675;Page:21045] 
Wednesday 7 September 2011 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Questions to Ministers 
Economy—Growth and Job Creation 
1. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: What steps has the Government taken to make better use of its balance sheet to boost growth and jobs? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 The Government has a very substantial balance sheet with total assets currently at a value of around $220 billion. In the last few years the Government has undertaken a range of carefully selected capital investments including an infrastructure programme with significant investment in roads and in KiwiRail as well as investment in schools hospitals and commercial assets. The first Investment Statement shows that these substantial investments will add up over the next 5 years to increasing State assets by $34 billion much of it through expenditure on property plant and equipment which will generate jobs and a long-term boost in productivity for the economy. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: What independent assessments has he seen of the benefits of the Crown using its capital better? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: When the Government is making very substantial new investments it needs to be careful how it finances those investments. Last week I saw analysis by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research of the mixed-ownership proposal that the Government has put forward. It concluded that the proposal makes sense that a partial sale would allow the Government to share the financing of major future investments with other investors and that the proposal will reduce the Government’s future borrowing needs. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Did the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research analysis also cover what impact mixed ownership would have on Government finances? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes it did. It noted that the return on the equity that the taxpayers have invested in these assets is less than the interest costs of holding the assets. The institute calculated that the annual gain to the Government from selling 49 percent of these companies could be close to $250 million. This seems reasonable though the Government’s own projections are more conservative. 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Has he seen other examples of New Zealand businesses redeploying their capital for better use? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes I have. I have noted that the Tower Investments chief Sam Stubbs has said it is likely to sell assets it owns overseas in order to be able to buy these assets in New Zealand. That would follow the pattern of shareholders of Port of Tauranga Ltd where New Zealanders are buying out foreign ownership of Port of Tauranga Ltd shares listed on the stock exchange. I have also seen reports that Fairfax intends to float part of TradeMe on the New Zealand sharemarket—a model similar to the one the Government is proposing and similar to that of Air New Zealand which was set up as a mixed-ownership company by the previous Labour Government. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: How would growth and jobs have been affected if the Government had implemented a tax-free threshold on income of $5000 a year taken GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and restored the research and tax development credits as proposed by Labour? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Thankfully we did not get to find out because the Labour Government was thrown out and did not have the opportunity to put that package together. But it would almost certainly have been as bad for jobs and confidence as the policies of that party were when it was in Government. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: How would growth and jobs have been affected if the Government had reduced spending to 29 percent of GDP and reduced the top company and income tax rate to 21 percent as proposed by ACT last month? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Well it is a bit hard to tell because those measures may have ended up with the Government slashing the support that many New Zealanders have relied on through the tougher times of the recession. I am sure the member’s party believes those measures would have been better for growth and jobs. We believe we struck about the right balance between building confidence and the opportunity for there to be more jobs and higher incomes in the future while protecting New Zealanders through the tough times of a recession. 
Child Poverty—Estimated Cost Per Year 
2. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: In light of her answer on behalf of the Prime Minister yesterday that there is child poverty in New Zealand what is the estimated cost of child poverty per year? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 That very much depends on whom one asks. New Zealand does not have either an official poverty measure or an official measure of the cost of child poverty—nor does any country in the OECD. Recent reports into child poverty take data from Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development’s household incomes report. They then undertake their own analysis. Two recent reports go a step further and come up with an estimate of the cost to New Zealand of child poverty. These reports used assumptions from the UK and USA in their cost estimates which range from $6 billion to $8 billion per year. I am not in a position to comment on the accuracy of those estimates. 
Hon Annette King 
: If the Government is putting massive investment into child poverty as she said in the House yesterday how many children have been lifted out of poverty in the last 3 years by this investment? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As I stated New Zealand does not have an official poverty measure. It did not have one under Labour— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the member. I say to some of the Labour front-benchers that their deputy leader asked a fair question and I believe she deserves to hear an answer. That absolutely excessive interjection level means no one can hear the answer. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: New Zealand does not have an official measure of poverty. It did not have one under the previous Labour Government and it does not have one under this National one. I stand by my stance that we have put millions and millions of dollars into those children and their families. Some examples are insulating over 100000 homes where those children live putting $1.4 billion into early childhood education focusing on those children who most need it spending money on Incredible Years our immunisation rates going from 73 percent to 90 percent and the focus on children in care. The list can go on. 
Hon Annette King 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question was based on an answer given yesterday by the Minister about putting massive investment into child poverty which I raised in my question. Then I asked her how many children had been lifted out of poverty by this investment in the last 3 years. The Minister told us about a lot of programmes but that did not address the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I believe in fairness that in the early part of the Minister’s answer she re-emphasised the fact that the Government does not have an official measure of child poverty. If there is no official measure of child poverty it is not possible to estimate the number of children who have been lifted out of poverty. In that regard I believe the member’s question was answered. 
Hon Annette King 
: What did she base her answer on yesterday when she said that there was not a lot of work being done in research and evaluation of children’s policy in light of the following reports: the Ministry of Health report on child health and well-being the Public Health Advisory Committee’s report on child health her own ministry’s report on indicators of child well-being the household incomes inequality report the Children’s Social Health Monitor report the Child Poverty Action Group’s annual reports the OECD  
Doing Better for Children 
 report and the Every Child Counts report—every one of them highlighting child poverty in New Zealand? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: What I was referring to was the evaluation and the effectiveness of programmes so it would be fair to say that when National came into office and certainly when we were in Opposition we had concerns about how effective they were in reaching those children and then how good some are compared with others. We have done some work—as much as we can—in starting those evaluations and working our way through them. We have held a number to account and I make no apologies for that but I do think there is still a lot more work to be done. 
Hon Annette King 
: Will the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study commissioned by the Ministry of Social Development involving 7000 children and their families provide the Government with the sort of research that will enable it to formulate policies for children? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: Yes. The member raised the longitudinal study Growing Up in New Zealand yesterday. When we came into Government a huge investment had already been made by the previous Government into that study. However it had not funded it ongoing so within weeks of being in this job I was informed that we had to find money to keep the study going. I had to go to my colleagues cap in hand and ask them to find some money out of their baseline. We have since put millions of dollars more into that study and do support it. But $25.9 million into the longitudinal Growing Up in New Zealand study out of taxpayers’ pockets is a lot of money and I think it is an incredibly fair investment in that programme. 
Hon Annette King 
: Is the Ministry of Social Development funding the study and is the funding continuing from the ministry after July 2012; if not why not? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I do not have all the facts in front of me because the member did not actually ask that in her main question. If she wants more information on the longitudinal study I would welcome a written question. But I can say that we have supported the longitudinal study. I have had to find millions more dollars since I have been Minister to keep it going. I think an investment of $25.9 million into the longitudinal study over a period of time shows our commitment to it. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou. When will the Government be implementing the Maori Party policy of having a polity measure? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: That is not on the Government’s time line at the moment. 
Hon Annette King 
: Has she not been told that the funding from the Ministry of Social Development has been stopped from July 2012 and is she aware of the outcomes of withdrawing such funding for a project that requires ongoing research through to at least 2014 which include the loss of participants the loss of data the loss of goodwill and putting the whole project in jeopardy? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: As I have stated I am more than happy to answer questions and put the actual facts on the table for the member because I do not believe that she has her facts right and that funding does stop there. We had a huge hole in funding that we had to find millions of dollars to fill and we have done that. I think members will see that we have ongoing funding for the longitudinal study. I am sure that there are gaps in some of it. We are trying to fill them but there were no appropriations ongoing from the previous Government for that study. 
Hon Annette King 
: Will the Minister apologise to this House when it is shown that funding from the Ministry of Social Development does stop in July 2012 as I have been advised by the University of Auckland today? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: I will apologise when the previous Government apologises as well for the hole in funding it left the programme with. 
Broadband Ultra-fast—Wellington 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 My question is to the Minister for—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the member. I say to the front-benchers that please I have called Katrina Shanks. We have dealt with the previous question. 
3. 
KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Communications and Information Technology 
: What progress has the Government made on rolling out ultra-fast broadband in Wellington? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) 
: 
 Good news. I was delighted to attend the commencement of the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband in Wellington just last week in the Lower Hutt suburb of Kelson. In the next 12 months over 9000 premises across Wellington will be passed with new fibre which when combined with existing fibre will total around 29000 priority users in homes covered in the first year. This excellent progress in Wellington is just one part of the wider national roll-out that is currently seeing broadband deployment already under way in Whangarei Auckland Hamilton Tauranga and Whanganui. 
Katrina Shanks 
: How will the roll-out improve broadband services and economic productivity? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: By the time the roll-out is completed in Wellington fibre will cover a population of almost 390000 people as well as 7900 business premises many schools and more than 1500 medical and other health care services. Fibre with ultra-fast capability will mean business people innovators and entrepreneurs in our capital city grant will have a platform from which to compete with anyone anywhere in the world. In addition we are boosting retail competition by ensuring the newly built network is open to retailers on equal terms. Wholesale prices will be as low as half the current price for business services and residential customers will enjoy a vastly improved service for as much as they currently pay or less. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Amongst the good news was there the fact that the broadband is broad enough to get the very big message to Katrina Shanks that the Prime Minister supports Peter Dunne? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not the Minister’s responsibility at all. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The capacity of broadband to get big messages through the system is something that is certainly his responsibility. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I accept the member’s point except I have ruled the question out of order. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What progress is expected—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Fortunately I did not hear any of that. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: What progress is expected on connecting marae runanga kohanga reo and wananga with ultra-fast broadband? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Under the ultra-fast broadband programme these are all priority users for fibre to the home and they will be provided by the end of 2015 right across the country. Also under the rural broadband programme further marae will be connected as well. The Government is continuing to work with Nga Pu Waea to maximise the benefit of the ultra-fast broadband to iwi hapu and whanau. Once again I take the opportunity to thank the Maori Party for its support in ensuring that this transformational programme for New Zealand is proceeding on time and quickly to the country’s benefit. 
Children Hospital Admissions—Respiratory and Infectious Diseases 
4. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Have hospital admissions for children with respiratory diseases and infectious diseases increased over the last three years; if so by how much? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 As the member will be aware there are a number of respiratory and infectious diseases that children can suffer from including pneumococcal disease whooping cough measles bronchiolitis bronchiectasis rheumatic fever asthma skin infections and others. I am advised by the Ministry of Health that hospital admission data for the last year is not yet complete for most of these conditions. However I have seen the  
Children’s Social Health Monitor: 2011 Update 
 which advises that in the 2007-10 calendar years there was an increase in admissions for certain medical conditions for children. At the same time there have been reductions in rates of others such as invasive pneumococcal disease but here in New Zealand there is more to be done in this important and challenging area. 
Grant Robertson 
: Can he then confirm that the Children’s Social Health Monitor report 
says that 5000 more children were admitted to hospital for avoidable medical conditions in 2010 compared with 2007? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It is not my report but I certainly read those numbers in the report. I remind the member that a couple of those years were in part of his Government. I can also comment to the member that I have also seen the comments of Associate Professor Cindy Kiro who says that the recent update indicates that although these admissions are still increasing the rate of increase appears to be slowing with possible early signs of improvement in some groups—potentially Pacific children. Professor Kiro puts these improvements down to interrelated factors two of which she identifies as first the Healthy Homes initiative and second the much better intake of immunisation in the last couple of years. 
Grant Robertson 
: Are the authors of the Children’s Social Health Monitor report correct when they say that children may be suffering “permanent health damage” because preventable illnesses are not being treated because parents are struggling with the cost of living including the cost of getting medical treatment? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: I certainly would agree that some children are suffering permanent damage if certain diseases are not remedied and that is the reason why I was in Hawke’s Bay this morning to launch the Government’s roll-out of the first of the rheumatic fever programmes at the Irongate primary school. The rheumatic fever programme—$12 million over 4 years—is a substantial investment targeted specifically at a disease that causes irreparable damage to young children. This has actually been a national health goal since 2001 when it was set under the previous Government. But as that member knows although that Government set it as a goal it never did anything about it. 
Grant Robertson 
: Does he accept that his removing of the target for district health boards to reduce avoidable admissions to hospital may have contributed to the increase of 5000 more children being admitted for avoidable medical conditions? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: No I would not agree with that because in one of the key groups children under the age of 5 the advice is that avoidable hospital admissions are in fact coming down. The target that the Government puts great store on is the increase in immunisation for 2-year-olds where we have taken it from 73 percent of 2-year-olds being immunised to over 90 percent today. This morning I received an email from the Western Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation to advise that now 98 percent of Maori 2-year-olds are fully immunised and then a few hours later I received a text from the Eastern Bay of Plenty Primary Health Organisation to advise that it has hit 94 percent across both Maori and Pakeha the highest levels ever achieved in those communities. 
Grant Robertson 
: Will the Minister reinstate a national health target for avoidable hospitalisations in light of the fact that 5000 more children were admitted to hospital for avoidable medical conditions in 2010? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: The Government has a number of key preventive health measures that impact positively on children. The first is immunisation where we now— 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. That was a very direct question. It asked whether the Minister would reinstate the target. That was the question that was asked. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: A point of order has been called. To avoid uncertainty I will invite the member to repeat his question because I am still struggling to hear accurately today and I apologise for that. The member may repeat his question. 
Grant Robertson 
: Will he reinstate a national health target for avoidable hospitalisations in light of the fact that 5000 more children were admitted to hospital for avoidable medical conditions in 2010? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: No I will not make it a national health target because the Government has a number of health targets already specifically targeted at good health promotion and prevention for children the first of which is immunisation where we have closed the gaps. Where that party opposite talked about doing a better deal for Maori and never achieved it in 9 years we have closed the gap and in many parts of New Zealand Maori kids have a higher immunisation rate. The second issue of course goes directly to respiratory disease and it is the work we are doing to stop smoking which has been internationally recognised. 
Grant Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the member I say to the deputy leader of the Labour Party who has been a little bit vociferous today in her interjecting that she heard her colleague call a point of order and kept interjecting across the House. [ 
Interruption 
] I am finding it very difficult to hear because of these cousins on each side of the front bench here expressing cousinly affection for each other. If they could desist it would assist me hugely. 
Grant Robertson 
: I seek leave to table a segment of the Children’s Social Health Monitor report entitled “Hospital Admissions and Mortality with a Social Gradient in Children” which shows that 5000 additional children were admitted to hospital with avoidable conditions in 2010. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Water Agricultural Uses—OECD Recommendation 
5. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Agriculture 
: Will the Government adopt the OECD’s 2011 recommendation that New Zealand implement water charging for agricultural uses? 
Hon DAVID CARTER (Minister of Agriculture) 
: 
 The OECD report makes many recommendations and some of the issues it has raised are already covered by current Government policy. This Government is committed to water reform and to date we have been working very closely with the Land and Water Forum. The forum has also made a number of recommendations and included in those is the recommendation that consideration be given to allocating as efficiently as possible water for industrial agricultural and domestic purposes. The Government has still to respond to the forum’s recommendations. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Was the OECD wrong when it said about New Zealand: “With little pricing of water resources water scarcity is being felt increasingly acutely in some dairy-intensive regions prone to drought.”? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: No but it is important to note that the OECD report said upfront: “The country’s environment is of high quality”. It did however recommend continued development of better measurement of water abstraction something which the Government has done and on water quality via national guidelines which again is something this Government has done. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Will a charge on irrigation water benefit the New Zealand economy by driving efficiency gains in the irrigation sector and also decreasing the pressure on overallocated rivers and aquifers? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: It is wrong to assume that farmers do not pay now for water. If they are involved in significant community or regional schemes there is a charge. If they are involved in extracting water they already also pay considerable costs for the benefit of the water that they use. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Before I call the honourable member for his further question I say the question asked whether water charges could improve efficiency in terms of the allocation of water as I understood the question. The answer said farmers already pay a charge but made no comment whatsoever about whether charging for water could have any impact on the efficiency of water use. I believe the Minister should make some attempt to answer that because the question was I think a reasonable question. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Some attempts to put additional charges on water could well lead to more efficient use of water. The very fact that we are now requiring irrigators over time to measure their water abstraction will also clearly lead to more efficient use of water. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Should we understand from that that the Government is leaving open the door to introducing a charge on irrigation water? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: No. What the member should take from that is that we are working very closely with the Land and Water Forum which has made a number of recommendations. As I said earlier some of those recommendations include finding ways to more efficiently allocate water not only to agricultural uses but also to domestic and industrial uses and the Government will respond to the forum’s recommendations when it is ready to do so. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Will the Minister therefore rule out the introduction of a charge on irrigation water in New Zealand? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Government will respond to the Land and Water Forum when the Government is ready to respond to the Land and Water Forum recommendations. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was an absolutely clear question. The Minister might say no but he did not really address the question at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: In fairness on this occasion I think the member asked whether the Minister would rule out charges for irrigation water and the Minister in reply said the Government was making no decision or announcements until it had finished its consideration of a report advising the Government on these matters. I think that it is a reasonable position not to rule anything out until the Government has reached a position on advice. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Minister agree with the Speaker’s interpretation of his last answer: that he is not ruling out a charge on irrigation water? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: In this matter it is important that the Government takes a position not just I myself as the Minister of Agriculture. The Government will take a position and when we do so we will respond to the Land and Water Forum recommendations. At that time the member will know what the Government has decided. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Can the Minister therefore confirm in relation to his last answer that the Government has not at this point ruled out introducing a charge on irrigation water? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: The Government is considering very carefully the recommendations of the Land and Water Forum and will respond to those recommendations in the very near future. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With regard to the answer in the last question am I to take it from you that your previous ruling stands: that that answer again was that he is not ruling it out? Is that what you— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I cannot rule in that way at all. But I think it is a perfectly fair answer for a Minister when asked whether or not they will rule matters in or out and when the Minister on behalf of the Government is in the process of considering advice on a significant issue like that not to pre-empt any decisions that the Government might make. I cannot ask a Minister to answer any more precisely than that when a matter is under consideration. 
Early Childhood Education—Retention of 20 Hours Policy 
6. 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does she stand by her commitment on  
The Nation 
 on 20 August 2011 that low and middle income families would not pay more for 20 hours of early childhood education in the next three years if the Government is re-elected? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 That is not what I said. If the member listens to the interview again she will hear that I was not asked about low-income families. But I can tell the House that this Government will be maintaining the 20 hours’ early childhood education policy should we be re-elected. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The text of that question was validated by your office and the Minister has disputed that that was a statement that she made. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: And it is absolutely the right of a Minister to do that. Although a question is validated as being compliant with the Standing Orders a Minister is still at liberty to totally disagree with what may be included in the question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Did she make the comment that was referred to in the primary question? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: My answer to the primary question was that I was not asked about low-income families. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It was a very direct question: did she make the comment? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I hear what the member’s point of order is. The member did not ask whether the Minister was asked in this interview about low to middle income families. The question was whether she made this comment about low to middle income families and that is a different question. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I was neither asked nor did I make comment about low-income families. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thank the Minister. 
Sue Moroney 
: Will she commit her Government to keeping the existing subsidies in place for 20 hours’ early childhood education for the next 3 years if it is re-elected? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It is good to hear the Opposition talking about this Government being re-elected. What I can say is that this Government will be retaining 20 hours’ early childhood education and fee controls. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was specifically about keeping the existing subsidies in place for 20 hours’ early childhood education and the Minister made no reference to that in her answer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Given the unnecessary comment at the start of the answer I think the Minister should be asked to answer the question again. The question was quite specific. It contained no criticism of the Government; it just asked whether it was the Government’s intention to maintain current subsidies during a further term should it be re-elected. I do not believe the answer was fair in responding to that question. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: The answer to the question is that we will be retaining the 20 hours’ early childhood education and fee controls. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Again the Minister failed to answer the question which was about keeping the existing subsidies in place for 20 hours’ early childhood education for the next 3 years if re-elected to Government. The Minister has made reference to fee controls. She has made no reference to the specific question which is the only part of this question about the existing subsidies. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think the member who asked the question has a fair grievance in that the question asked about subsidies and the answer spoke about 20 hours and fee caps. I might be stupid but I do see a difference. When members commendably ask straight questions I think it is in the interest of the House that they are answered. 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: I am new here but my sense is that obviously 20 hours’ early childhood education is a subsidy programme and I would have thought that the Minister did answer the question. Perhaps more broadly I think we are getting into a situation this afternoon where members of the Opposition are not only seeking to ask questions but also seeking the exact answers that they want as well. It is perhaps getting a little bit tough because the Minister does have the ability to answer the question that I think the member asked. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not need any further help on this matter. As I said I might be stupid but members have a right to ask questions and Ministers are accountable. Where questions are absolutely within Ministers’ portfolio areas they are accountable to answer those questions. The question did not ask whether the Government intended to keep the 20 hours policy in place. The question did not ask whether the Government intended to keep a fees cap in place. The question asked whether the Government intended to maintain the current subsidy levels. I cannot help with regard to the questions asked. It is not my job as the Speaker to stop members asking questions. It is a fair question it is in the public interest and I believe it should be answered. It may be that no decision has been made; it may be that there are trade-offs in certain areas. But to ignore the question totally is in my view not on because Ministers are accountable to this House and the House deserves an answer. As I say the question was commendable in that it did not make any criticism of Government policy. It was a straight question and I believe it deserves to have some kind of answer. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I attempted to answer the question by saying this Government should it be re-elected intends to maintain 20 hours’ early childhood service which is a subsidy programme and the fee controls. They are the two essential parts of 20 hours: universal provision of early childhood services for 20 hours for every 3 and 4-year-old with fee controls— 
Hon Members 
: Free. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It is not free. It never has been free which is why we renamed it. It was never free— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have assisted the Opposition to obtain an answer here. To put up a barrage like that when the Minister is answering the question as she sees appropriate is not on. If members of the Opposition want the Speaker to assist in getting answers they should treat answers with more dignity. 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: There is something happening towards the end of November which is called an election and if the Opposition wants to know what the Government’s policy is it will have to wait until it is announced. 
Sue Moroney 
: When the Minister says the subsidy programme will continue for 20 hours’ early childhood education is she committing to the same level of subsidies that currently exists? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: I have just said any election policy will have to be announced as part of an election policy but this Government is committed to 20 hours. We have extended it to kohanga reo Playcentre and 5-year-olds and we have said we would maintain fee controls. Parents like it parents use it and we will retain it. 
Sue Moroney 
: Do her promises on this issue carry the same weight as her promise in National’s 2008 education policy that “National is also committed to keeping all other ECE funding.” given that she subsequently cut $285 million from early childhood education in 2009 for improved staff-child ratios and $400 million in 2011 for centres employing more than 80 percent qualified staff? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: It is pretty rich to get that sort of a question from an Opposition party that when in Government allowed early childhood education spending to treble while less than 1 percent more children turned up at school having experienced early childhood education. This Government has increased the spending on early childhood education by almost 40 percent over what the last Government spent and we are determined to make sure that those children that will benefit the most from it—that is Maori and Pasifika children and children from poorer backgrounds—actually get access to good-quality early childhood education. 
Sue Moroney 
: I seek leave to table the education policy document from 2008. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We will not do that sort of thing; that is all available to members. 
Sue Moroney 
: Will she rule out any funding cuts to home-based early childhood education and kohanga reo should her Government be re-elected? 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY 
: This Government has proven time and time again that it believes in having a diverse sector. We believe in having a very diverse early childhood education sector. If there are any changes made to the funding system it would be to make it less bureaucratic and much more flexible than it currently is and to maintain the diversity. Home-based care is extremely important as are parent-led services to parents. We believe in parents having choice. 
Sue Moroney 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was very straightforward: will she rule out any funding cuts to home-based early childhood education and kohanga reo? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has done pretty well today but as has been pointed out some of these questions are about what the Government might do after the election. The Minister made it clear that there is an election policy to be finalised in this area. I think that was a fair answer to that question. 
Unemployment Beneficiaries—Number 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 My question is to the Minister— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Dead man walking! 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want to hear the question. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It is better being 40 on National’s list— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Order! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —than 15 on their list.  
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will resume his seat right now. I am very tempted to move straight on to question No. 8 because the member wilfully ignored the fact I was on my feet. The only reason why I am not is that there was a fairly provocative interjection. But let me warn the member that that will not work again. The Hon Tau Henare question—[ 
Interruption 
] The Hon Trevor Mallard on this occasion is not being particularly helpful. I call the Hon Tau Henare question No. 7—[ 
Interruption 
] No the member will just ask his question. 
7. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
 to the  
Minister for Social Development and Employment 
: What reports has she received on the latest benefit figures? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 Numbers put out today say that last month the number of people receiving the unemployment benefit was 55974. That is the lowest it has been since July 2009 a drop of 18 percent since its peak in January last year when 68369 people were on the unemployment benefit. In August the number of people on the unemployment benefit dropped by 1145 with half of the decrease due to more young people going into work. The overall number of New Zealanders on benefits is 328355. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: How many young people came off the benefit and went into work during August? 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: In August 2471 18 to 24-year-olds cancelled their main benefit to move into work. We have seen the number of young people on the unemployment benefit drop by 32 percent from 23545 in January 2010 to 15980—the highest we saw the numbers go down during the economic downturn. 
Transport Planning Auckland—Auckland Council’s Draft Plan 
8. 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Transport 
: Does he endorse the transport elements of the draft Auckland Plan; if not why not? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) 
: 
 It is not appropriate for me to endorse or otherwise any aspect of the draft Auckland plan at this time. The Auckland Spatial Plan is the Auckland Council’s plan and the council will be consulting the community on it. The Government strongly endorses the process but its role is to provide input not to formally endorse it. With regard to transport elements the Government will continue to consider individual projects on their merits if the Government or its agencies are called on to provide funding assistance. In this context it is important to remember that central government is currently contributing over $1 billion a year towards Auckland’s transport needs. 
Phil Twyford 
: Can he confirm the  
New Zealand 
Herald’s 
 report that he and Ministers Hide Smith and Heatley at their 26 August meeting with the Auckland mayor and Auckland Council could not stop browbeating the councillors over the draft plan’s commitment to urban intensification in a way that was “intimidating and small town”? 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: What’s wrong with small towns? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: Yes I do not know that we should be picking on small towns. I point out that that was a view of a prominent left-wing politician from Auckland who might have a slight conflict of interest and it was reported by a prominent left-wing columnist from Auckland who might also have a certain interest in this matter: a certain Mr B Rudman. 
Phil Twyford 
: Does he accept that the alternative to a compact city supported by a modern public transport system is an Auckland that sprawls endlessly and a traffic jam from the harbour bridge to Whangarei? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: I do not know that I would want to make too many comments on the Auckland plan at this point but I would say that we on this side of the House believe strongly in people having the right to determine where they live and the way in which they want to live. We think it is an important principle provided of course that they meet the cost of those decisions. I think that is an important point to make. I understand that Mr Twyford might have a strong view that everybody should live on top of each other but others might disagree. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Is the city rail link his No. 1 transport priority for Auckland? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: No it is not actually. The current priorities for Auckland are many and varied. They include the Waterview project which the Government is building currently the Victoria Park Tunnel project the electrification of the rail in Auckland the Newmarket Viaduct and a number of other very important investments in Auckland. Currently the central business district rail link has a benefit-cost ratio of about 0.3 and I think that we can all say that it probably needs to have an improvement in that before any responsible Government would seek to invest in it. 
Phil Twyford 
: Why did his Government go to the trouble of creating a unified Auckland when it is very clear that the Government is determined to undermine and block Auckland Council’s plan for a world-class transport system and a compact city? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: The member is simply incorrect. It is an important project for a unified Auckland. I think it is a very important project and Auckland Council is currently consulting on its new spatial plan which is a very important part of the unified Auckland process. I think it is great that it is doing so and that people are getting the opportunity to comment. I note that the member is assisting in that matter as well. In fact I understand that he had a public meeting on Monday night and that up to maybe eight people turned up. On that current progress if he was to hold more public meetings he could possibly cover the whole of Auckland—once he has got to 162500 public meetings—and be able to consult on the future of the Auckland plan. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: What is his advice to Government members who have claimed that the city rail link is this Government’s No. 1 transport priority in Auckland? 
Hon STEVEN JOYCE 
: My advice to the Government members would be to attract more people to their public meetings than the eight that Mr Twyford was able to attract. 
Canterbury District Health Board—Funding for Earthquake-related Costs 
9. 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What steps has the Government taken to improve outpatient and other health services to the people of Canterbury following the earthquakes? 
Hon TONY RYALL (Minister of Health) 
: 
 The district health board’s earthquake recovery plan has identified a need to increase short to medium term medical bed capacity and to relocate most components of the general medical service back on to the Christchurch Hospital site. The Government is announcing this afternoon that we have fast-tracked approval of $15 million in capital funding to relocate the outpatients facility and the acute medical assessment unit. This will enable the district health board to achieve shorter waiting times to meet the growth in outpatient demand to improve medical team efficiency and to improve staff satisfaction and morale. Both of these projects will be completed in time to ensure that the new facilities are available for the 2012 winter peak demand. 
Nicky Wagner 
: What other support has the Government given to the Canterbury District Health Board to manage the impact of the earthquakes? 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: The staff of the Canterbury District Health Board have simply done an outstanding job of providing good-quality services to the people of their community in the most difficult of times and circumstances. I advise the member that in addition to the $15 million for the new outpatient facility and acute medical assessment unit in June this year the Government pledged a special payment of up to $16 million to the district health board to assist with earthquake-related service costs for the 2010-11 financial year. This $16 million is in addition to the new funding for buildings and facilities. The Government has also made it clear that further special payments to the district health board over the next couple of years can be expected to cover ongoing extra costs as a result of the earthquake to help the people of the district health board get the best possible services for the people of Canterbury. 
State-owned Assets Sales—Parameters 
10. 
STUART NASH (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Finance 
: Does the Government’s privatisation plan include parameters which would cause it to cancel sales such as low sale prices or high dividend yields; if so what are the parameters? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 In the first place the Government is not getting ahead of itself. It has always said it would get a mandate from New Zealanders before proceeding with the detailed plans for the sale. The mixed-ownership model is about achieving long-term value for taxpayers. The Government has said that if it is re-elected such a programme would be spread over 3 to 5 years which gives the Government ample flexibility to adjust to market circumstances. In the current environment demand from New Zealand investors is likely to be strong. The NZX 50 Index has risen 27 percent in the past 18 months and that looks reasonably favourable at least at the moment. 
Stuart Nash 
: Has the record $900 million of dividends returned to the Crown by the State-owned energy companies in the last year on top of an average rate of return of 17.5 percent over the previous 5 years caused him to reassess the economic case for selling these highly profitable State-owned assets? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As I pointed out yesterday of the $900 million the member is talking about at least $500 million is a one-off capital release as a result of the sale of assets between Genesis and Meridian Energy. The fact is that until this Government came into office and lifted the performance of these State-owned enterprises they were pretty abysmal. They are better now and under the mixed-ownership model they will improve further. 
Stuart Nash 
: Given that 75 percent of New Zealanders earn below the average wage of $50000 and only 1.5 percent earn above $150000 what percentage of hard-working Kiwi families does he think will be able to afford $4000 to directly buy shares in an asset they already own? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: New Zealanders will have the opportunity to own these assets in a number of ways. First the Government will retain 51 percent ownership. Second we expect significant investment by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund which holds assets on behalf of all New Zealanders. KiwiSaver funds which— 
Stuart Nash 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have listened to the other two answers and they have really been off the point. This one really I do not want to know who will own the shares I just want to know what percentage it will be. The question asked what percentage of New Zealanders—just a rough percentage—he thinks will be able to afford to buy these shares. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: With respect the Minister was in the process of explaining why he believes that some percentage of New Zealanders will be able to afford to own them. He was talking about the Government owning 51 percent; I think he was going on to talk about funds owning some of these shares. When the member asks that kind of question which is a hypothetical question he cannot expect a precise answer. I think the Minister has some latitude in how he answers it. So far he has been answering the question in terms of why some percentage of New Zealanders should be able to own those shares. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With all due respect the question was about direct ownership not about indirect ownership via funds or via the taxpayer. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not recollect the question being quite so specific. It talked about if I remember correctly where people with $4000 could be found to own these shares. The question was hypothetical. It is not the kind of question for which I can insist on any particular answer. I think the Minister was not criticising the questioner; he was explaining why he believes New Zealanders will be able to own these shares. I do not know whether he was arriving at an estimate but I cannot stop him at this stage when he has not departed from the Standing Orders in answering the question so far. I ask the Hon Bill English to finish his answer. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Using the term the member uses that New Zealanders already “own” these shares then any of those who do not actually put up cash to buy some of the shares will already own the shares that the Government already owns. 
Online Government Services—igovt Log-on and Identity Verification Services 
11. 
NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) 
 to the  
Minister of Internal Affairs 
: What announcements has he made regarding the igovt scheme and increasing online access to government services? 
Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister of Internal Affairs) 
: 
 Last week the Electronic Identity Verification Bill was introduced to Parliament which will allow the igovt identity verification service to be used widely across Government and by the private sector. The igovt log-on and identity verification services provide an easy and secure way of accessing Government services online and proving identity. They have great potential to deliver better more secure and cost-effective online services to the public. I also announced last week an agreement that has been signed between the Department of Internal Affairs and New Zealand Post to develop and promote these services which will help make these services much more accessible to the public. 
Nikki Kaye 
: What kinds of services can the igovt log-on and verification services be used for? 
Hon NATHAN GUY 
: Currently about 30 services are available such as booking swimming lessons via the Wellington City Council or ordering a birth certificate through the Department of Internal Affairs. There are more than 320000 igovt log-ons in use. This is far more convenient for the public because they have to remember only one log-on detail rather than a whole bunch and they do not have to queue in line with different forms of ID. With New Zealand Post coming on board and ultra-fast broadband rolling out across the country we expect more and more services to become available in the future. 
War Pensions Law Commission Report— 
A New Support Scheme for Veterans 
12. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) 
 to the  
Minister of Veterans’ Affairs 
: When can veterans expect a full response from the Government in response to the Law Commission report titled  
A New Support Scheme for Veterans: A Report on the Review of the War Pensions Act 1954  
that was presented to Parliament on 1 June 2010? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Veterans’ Affairs) 
: 
 When it is ready. For the member’s information it took 3 years for the Law Commission to present its report with 170 recommendations. It did not provide draft legislation and it did not provide costings. It could not even tell us how many veterans there are in the community. But as the Law Commission noted it has proposed significant changes and it would not be possible to implement the proposed changes quickly. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Does the Minister disagree with the contention of the Law Commission that in some instances a veteran has less support by way of the War Pensions Act than a comparable ordinary citizen who is supported by ACC; how can this disadvantage to the veteran be justified and when is the Minister going to put right this injustice by implementing the provisions of the Law Commission report? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: The member is quite right. The situation is unfair and we are aware that 39 veterans if we were able to proceed with the Law Commission’s report would transfer to the veterans’ weekly income compensation. However I note that this anomaly is not new and the previous Government was in the situation where it could have rectified that. It is certainly one of the recommendations that we are taking very seriously. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Does the Minister agree with the Law Commission on the establishment of an expert panel to develop prescriptive decision-making processes and guidance; if so why has the Minister disbanded the expert panel this year how does this demonstrate good faith to the veteran community and if the Minister disagrees with having an expert panel why? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: Because one of the proposals is that I put forward another expert panel which will be able to assist us in a much greater way. The fact is that this Government brought in the expert panel. The previous Government promised it; we brought it in. It has now fulfilled its requirements and we wish to have another one that will better meet the needs of veterans. But after 9 long years of the Labour Government I think we have made a lot of progress. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Is it correct that the delay in responding to the Law Commission report on the review of the War Pensions Act is because of the cost to the Crown which in reality means a financial loss to the veteran community and how can this be justified as being fair to veterans? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: No. 
Questions to Members 
Railway Workshops Petition—Request for Submissions 
1. 
CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South) 
 to the  
Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee 
: Has he requested any written submissions on the petition of George Laird signed by nearly 14000 people calling the Government to retain the Hillside and Woburn workshops? 
DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee) 
: 
 I have not requested any written submissions on this petition. 
Clare Curran 
: Did he as chair put a motion to the committee that a submission be called for from the petitioner and did he rule that Michael Woodhouse voted against it? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: What the member may have done as chair within the committee is a matter for the committee and it is not in order for the member to be questioned on that. The workings of the committee are not matters that the member can be questioned on in the House. 
General Debate 
Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. At the 2008 election National promised five trades academies. National promised to deliver five trades academies. Well this week we have announced that next year there will be 21 trades academies—21. There will be 10 more trades academies starting next year. The number of students attending those trades academies will rise from 700 this year to 2000 next year. These are 2000 young people who are at risk of falling out of the school system. After attending these trades academies they will be better prepared to take up apprenticeships to enter the workplace or to go on to further study. 
Next year the number of 16 and 17-year-olds who are taking part in the wider Youth Guarantee trades academies and service academies all supported by this National John Key - led Government will rise to 10000; 10000 16 and 17-year-olds next year—yep 10000. That is an outstanding effort not just from this Government but from the schools from the tertiary institutions and from business and industry across this country which have said: “We value these young people. We know that they are not necessarily succeeding in academia in schooling and we value them. We want them to be able to make a contribution as good New Zealand citizens and we’re prepared to get behind and support them.” Next year there will be 10000 16 and 17-year-olds in training. 
These trades academies have opened in New Zealand this year for the first time ever. We have never had trades academies before. Between 125 and 150 schools are taking part in the scheme. These are partnerships between schools tertiary institutions—in some cases polytechs and in some cases private training enterprises—and industry and business. A couple of these trades academies are being run by industry training organisations themselves. In particular primary industry training organisations are working with 17 high schools right around New Zealand making sure that young people who are interested in horticulture agriculture and forestry have the opportunity whilst they are still at school to take part in industry training and start on the way to getting their industry qualifications. 
At the same time of course they are continuing their school work. They are continuing to do English maths and science. They are continuing to play sport and continuing to take part in drama in art and in all the things that students enjoy about school. When we talk to these young people and ask: “How’s it going?”—the scheme has being going for only 6 months—we can see the light in their eyes. For the first time in a long long time learning is interesting for many of them. Learning is something they want to do. In fact one tutor at Christchurch said to me that he had had a call from a student’s mother asking: “Is he really turning up at polytech at 8 o’clock in the morning? Is he really there? Because he’s never been anywhere at 8 o’clock in the morning in his life.” The tutor had to say: “Yes he is there at 8 o’clock and often he is there before me.” When I talk to these young people up and down the country they say that for the first time in many many years they want to go to school. They want to learn. 
In Christchurch on Monday the tutors were telling me that the students are doing so well with their maths and English that their schools are surprised at the scores they are getting in quite complicated maths and English studies. This is hard work and we have to be aware that schools and tertiary institutions have worked really hard to put this scheme together. It has meant changes to their timetables changes to their funding and changes around staffing. It is not easy. 
We cannot just throw money at training and hope that young people will suddenly stick at education or training. To show how tough it is we have only to look back at the Labour Government. In 1994 Helen Clark said: “Labour makes a commitment within 3 years to have all under-20-year-olds in education employment and training.” That was in 1994. Again in 1998 she repeated the same. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am proud to be a member of the Labour Party which is still sticking with the aspiration of making sure that every under-20-year-old is either earning or learning. National is a Government that has given up on that aspiration as it has given up on young people. We do not see members on this side of the House walking away from something that we know is absolutely achievable. But if one listened to the Minister of Education one would think we lived in some kind of rosy utopia. One would not think there were 58000 young people not in education training or employment—58000 young people doing absolutely nothing. The Minister claims that she has the answers to everything at secondary school level. The honest reality is that the Government has not done enough to address the fact that up until just 19 years of age we have 24000 young people doing absolutely nothing. 
What have we heard from the Government to address this issue? It has had almost 3 long years to address this issue and Labour has consistently raised the ways it could address that. What has the Government given us? It has given us make-work schemes it has given us training places at the expense of other training places it has cut $140 million out of skills and trade training it has decimated the sector not boosted it as it has claimed and its last attempt was to give 1600 young people a plastic card to moderate their purchasing of products that were already illegal for them to buy. That was the grand plan. Labour has said that that is just not good enough. There is absolutely no reason why 24000 young people who are of the age where they should be in skills and trade training or education should be doing absolutely nothing. We are aspirational for young people and that is why we have produced a package that at its full extent and its full potential has the possibility of placing 24000 young people into work and into training and into trade training in particular. 
We have a plan. I have not heard a lot of commentary from members on the other side of the House about that plan. They know that we have fully addressed the scale of the issue and it is enormous. That is why it will take an extra $250 million investment. The Government cannot claim that it is the same as its package. If it was it would not cost $250 million to address. Not only have we set out what the plan would look like but also we have set out how we would pay for it. It is a far bigger difference than what the Government has done in the past three youth unemployment packages. It said that its last one would cost roughly $25 million. There was no detail. It said that youth transition would just come out of baseline. That is not possible. There was no detail and it is time that the Government was taken to task on the lack of detail it is giving the media the public and this side of the House. 
Labour’s plan covers four areas. In relation to secondary schools we said we would boost Gateway to make sure an extra 500 young vulnerable people are given access to industry-based training while in school. We have said we would keep trade academies because we acknowledge that they are doing good work but we need more. We would overhaul Career Services because it is not serving our young people well. We would make sure that the Youth Transition Service was nationwide. No school leaver should leave school without a plan for further training education or employment and under Labour they will not. We have listened to the Mayors Taskforce for Jobs as opposed to the Minister who bullied them browbeat them then ignored them. On skills we would ensure that instead of 9000 young people getting the dole a subsidy would go to employers directly to give them an apprenticeship. It makes no sense to pay a young person a dole payment when we could be giving them skills and trade training and an apprenticeship on the job and the industry has welcomed that. It has welcomed that because it knows that we are investing long term. We will invest in a subsidy for 12 months because that is how long an apprentice costs an employer. Not only that we will ensure there are 5000 more training places and Maori trade training Pasifika training and mentoring for each. There will be a boost to the Conservation Corps. 
And most important we acknowledge that none of this matters unless they have jobs to go to. Members on the other side of the House do not think the Government has any role in creating the economic conditions for job creation. Well we do. On this side of the House we have created an end-to-end plan that is robust and that members opposite have been unable to pick a hole in other than to accuse us of continuing to aspire to get young people earning or learning. I am proud of this plan. It gives young people hope and now it is time to vote for it. 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 It is always interesting to follow on from the passionate speech of a second or third cousin on the other side of the House. As an active farmer and the MP for the Taranaki - King Country electorate which includes a large chunk of the Waikato it is more than interesting to listen to Labour members talking about what they want to do as opposed to what Labour did do when it was in Government for 9 long years. 
Last week by comparison I attended the opening of an $80 million substantial extension to the New Plymouth - based hospital where on the same day the Hon Tony Ryall opened a new health centre in Stratford in the heart of the Taranaki - King Country electorate. These are substantial actual improvements in health services. There have been an extra 4337 elective surgeries under the Waikato and Taranaki district health boards in the 2009-10 year. These are real numbers not the artificial and substantially inflated numbers that we hear from members on the other side. We have given $4.4 million to our small and poorer rural communities to upgrade their sewerage facilities. Over 13000 Taranaki and Waikato homes have been insulated through National’s Heat Smart scheme. There was a 4.4 percent drop in recorded crime in 2010 for central districts and 3 percent for the Waikato. 
These are real achievements from the John Key Government. We have spent $3 million on upgrading schools in the electorate. This Government has major policy initiatives that will have a positive and ongoing effect on rural New Zealand electorates like Taranaki - King Country. The Primary Growth Partnership has invested something like $447 million in industry promotion and innovation on-farm innovation and promotion jobs growth market opportunities environmentally sustainable technologies and a higher standard of living for the whole of New Zealand. [ 
Interruption 
] It is interesting to hear the members on the other side because one thing that they always forget and always ignore when they are in Government is that the agricultural sector of New Zealand—and Mr Speaker knows this as well as anyone in the House—is the backbone of New Zealand and is the way forward for this economy. The opportunities that have opened up for exporting high-quality protein foods to the world because of the work of the John Key Government and Ministers like Tim Groser who have been signing up and opening up trade opportunities for us have never been greater. They have never been greater in the history of New Zealand. There has never been a greater opportunity. What would our opponents do? What would happen if they were given the chance? Well they would entertain what they have always entertained: a tax-and-borrow-and-hope policy that has failed. It has failed so many times that we cannot remember. 
What else has the Key National Government done? There is $350 million worth of rural broadband initiative to be rolled out over the next few years. If we look at how we can compete internationally and become a very forward-thinking modern dynamic economy that is exporting that high-quality protein food to the world we see that one thing that is absolutely essential is for us to be linked to the world through high-speed technology and communications. So $350 million worth of broadband initiative will bring fast broadband to our rural communities. 
Amendments to the Resource Management Act are always understated by members on the other side. You Mr Speaker as well as everyone else—and I know I should not bring the Speaker into the debate so I will refrain from doing that—and most people in this House know that there was a substantial reduction in growth and opportunity and for a lot of the time it was without any real environmental impact. Reforming the Resource Management Act was an essential platform that the John Key National - led Government has undertaken. I look forward in the next 3 years if we are successful at the next election to growing the agricultural sector and improving our way in the world. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 In 2008 John Key said in a speech at Ellerslie: “Young people are a group I’m passionate about. For they more than anyone will determine the future shape and prosperity of New Zealand. The energy and enthusiasm of the vast majority of our young people make me hugely optimistic for our country. But the sad fact is that a growing number are failing to deliver on their potential.” I could not agree more but 3 years down the track what have we got? We have a Government that has actually delivered us 18000 more people into unemployment and not into training. This is not about Job Ops; this was about “photo ops”. This is a Prime Minister who has concentrated on getting his photo up rather than on getting the jobs and delivering for the young people of this country. There are 18000 more young people not in training and not in education. What sort of legacy is that? 
Let us look at some of the gimmicky projects this Government has rolled out in the last 3 years. We have Community Max where people have learnt how to grow vegetables but it does not turn that into any long-term jobs. We have boot camps and these have failed absolutely miserably—90 percent of the people who went through those have started reoffending. We have created much more fit and able criminals. Even Sir Peter Gluckman in his report pointed out that this particular project has failed as well. 
Mr Joyce has shown his passion by stripping $145 million out of vocational training and skills—$145 million has come out rather than gone in. After 3 years of being passionate about our young people we have seen something that is passionately dreadful. We have a situation where 18000 more young people are unemployed and not in training and that is pathetic. We know that 77000 skilled people are needed in the construction area alone—77000—yet we know that under this Government Modern Apprenticeships which teach the very skills that we are looking for have declined by 15000. Do we have any aspirations or plans? Did Mr Joyce have any aspirations or plans when he stripped $145 million out of this for the building sector and for creating those 77000 skilled people whom we need? And we know we need them. We know that the leaky building project will need building people. We know we are not building enough houses in New Zealand. We know that Christchurch needs a huge building effort but right now employers are not able to take on apprentices. 
What is Labour doing about it? We are making available 9000 new places in apprenticeships. How are we doing that? We are doing that by enabling those people who once would have been paid the dole. We are helping employers to take on those people as apprentices. That is what we are doing. We are swapping the dole for assistance for employers to take on those people. There will be 9000 additional apprenticeships. That is the sort of thing that one prepares for now when one knows that further down the line we will need those people in those construction areas. There will be 1000 new shared or group apprentices and 5000 new training places. All up there will be 25000 training places and assisted employment places for those people whom I spoke about who are neither in employment nor in training. That is what Labour is passionate about. 
We are passionate about our young people. We are not passionate about those photo opportunities that Mr Key has followed and did not deliver on in 2008. And we have had the audacity of the Minister of Education who came into this House today to talk about and boast about what she will do in the future when she has delivered virtually nothing of what she said in 2008 she would do. It is a disgrace. It is a disgrace that she came in and boasted about what she has not done for the young people of this country. 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I am very happy to tell Mr Shearer who has just resumed his seat that I spent last Saturday afternoon knocking on the doors of Melville and Frankton in the wonderful Hamilton West electorate. Even though it was a beautiful sunny day in the winterless Waikato it was not just that radiant sunshine that left me with a warm and happy feeling. Both Melville and Frankton are traditionally Labour-leaning areas but judging by the response I was getting last Saturday I have to say that members opposite should be worried—they should be very worried indeed. 
Darien Fenton 
: Don’t be arrogant. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: There is nothing arrogant about this I say to Ms Fenton; it is simply realistic. I was getting the response that I have been getting consistently in recent months and that is a very realistic one. Everybody knows that times are tough and everybody knows there are real issues out there that people are grappling with. But the thing I am detecting everywhere I go is a very realistic mood and a strong sense of appreciation that the Government is on the right path focusing on the things that matter and delivering policies that will make a difference and see us back into growth out of debt and providing a much brighter future for New Zealand. 
People in my electorate tell me how grateful they are for the way our Government has stood by the people of Canterbury. I get that comment a lot. People tell me they are delighted that we are committed to reining in Government spending to prevent our debt from spiralling out of control. They are delighted that we are intervening in very positive ways in the lives of youth at risk and those who are in danger of being long-term welfare beneficiaries. These are the things that matter out in my electorate. 
Carol Beaumont 
: I can’t believe you’re happy about 58000 young people being unemployed. 
TIM MACINDOE 
: I say to Ms Beaumont that I had a very similar experience a couple of weeks ago when I spoke to a Grey Power audience in my electorate. Again Grey Power is not a traditional National Party audience but what a wonderful delightful group it was. That audience and so many others told me that despite the huge challenges that we have faced as a Government—and they know what they are—they are thrilled that we have rolled up our sleeves and tackled the things that matter and that they can see we are delivering in a host of important areas. The public recognise and appreciate these facts and most importantly—and this is what they were telling me on the doorsteps in my electorate—they have no desire whatsoever to go back to Labour’s failed policies of borrow and hope and tax and spend. They know that Labour’s prescription will discourage private saving and investment increase bureaucracy and red tape and propel our doctors and other skilled graduates off to London and Sydney. 
So I am very pleased that our Minister of Education kicked off today’s debate by speaking about the success of and the huge increase in the number of trades academies. Last week I was privileged to speak at the graduation of the very first intake of the Waikato Institute of Technology or Wintec of its trades academy. I was particularly pleased when I spoke to the students who told me that as a result of doing those courses they were much more motivated at school. Their tutors told me that attendance was almost at 100 percent and the few absences were absolutely genuine and not only that but the attitude and application of the students has been first rate. They have appreciated the opportunity they have got stuck in and they now have a real sense of purpose and hope. They are responding to a great initiative. Is it not fantastic that this Government has increased—by doubling—the number of new trades academies for next year? I say well done to Anne Tolley and well done to this Government; that is a great thing for our country. 
There are other significant developments in my city that I want to tell members about. We in Hamilton are leading the way in the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and I am thrilled about that. We have committed as a Government $1.2 billion to our ultra-fast broadband initiative which will see fibre rolled out to 50000 premises around New Zealand in the next 12 months including schools hospitals and businesses. I am delighted that Hamilton is leading the way in this initiative. Just last week I was pounding the streets in Forest Lake. I have done a lot of walking. Members can see that it has taken pounds off me and I am absolutely delighted; I am no longer the size that I was. But there I was out in Forest Lake and I met the technicians who were literally on the footpath delivering the high fibre to the gate and it was fantastic. I was able to have a chat with them and to say thank you for what they were doing and that it would make a huge difference. Together over the 8½-year roll-out the Crown’s partnerships around the country will deliver about 25000 kilometres of fibre— 
Dr Cam Calder 
: How much? 
TIM MACINDOE 
: —25000 kilometres of cable—enabling connections to about 1.1 million homes over 100000 businesses in excess of 1300 schools and 6000 medical facilities. 
I would love to talk about the health initiatives that are happening. There is also a great development of our university campus and new buildings and classroom refurbishments in schools. A whole lot is happening. I am absolutely delighted. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 We have come along this afternoon and heard from the Labour Party about its concern for youth unemployment. We have heard about the lost opportunity and we have heard about the so-called disgrace. Everyone in this House knows the underlying cause for that. Without a doubt there is one single major cause. I see Mr David Carter shaking his head. It is a pity Mr Carter and his colleagues are not prepared to recognise that problem. 
There was a very close relationship between youth unemployment and unemployment in the rest of the community up until 2007. If we follow a graph of the rate of unemployment over a number of economic cycles and we compare it with the rate of youth unemployment we find that there is a very close correlation. What happened in 2007? Against the strong opposition of the National Party Labour pushed ahead with a law to abolish youth rates a law that requires employers to offer a 16 or 17-year-old exactly the same wage as an adult with the minimum wage currently being $13 an hour. What was the one impact of that? It was to be absolutely expected. The rate of youth unemployment increased dramatically. It was not because of the recession. Yes the recession contributed but the very close relationship between adult unemployment and youth unemployment at that stage diverged. It diverged for one very simple reason: it was more expensive to employ a younger person than it was previously. If an employer was faced with the opportunity of employing a 16 or 17-year-old straight out of school on the adult rate of $13 an hour or employing a person with more experience a mature person aged 25 35 or 40 at exactly the same rate what would that employer do? Well we all know the answer to that. 
Mr David Carter Minister of Agriculture who acknowledged me earlier is a farmer. He has employed people. I ask Mr Carter: if he had the choice of employing a 25 or 35-year-old on his farm at $13 an hour or a 16 or 17-year-old straight out of school whom would he employ? Well if you speak to other employers other famers you will know absolutely the answer to that—you will know absolutely the answer. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think especially given your other life talking about “you” employing people on “your” farm could be seen to be drawing you into the debate. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The former Minister should know better than to debate “you” this “you” that. It is not consistent with our Standing Orders. The member should refer to the member’s farm or the Minister’s farm not “you” or “your” farm. 
Hon JOHN BOSCAWEN 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. I am very happy to refer to Mr Carter’s farm. Mr Carter like all other farmers would know that when faced with the chance of employing a 16 or 17-year-old at the same rate as an older more mature person he would take the older more mature person at any stage. 
Today we have heard two speakers from Labour express concern about youth unemployment. Well they know the solution. There is a very simple solution. It is to reinstitute youth rates. It is interesting that Jacinda Ardern this afternoon talked about the $250 million of taxpayers’ money that Labour would put into encouraging employers to take on an apprentice. What were Jacinda’s comments? She said that 12 months was how long it took an employer to recover the cost of an apprentice. That is the cost; that is the incentive. We actually have to provide an employer with an incentive to take on an apprentice and it is that exact same incentive that Labour took away when it abolished youth rates. The tragedy of this—the absolute tragedy—is that most people with common sense in this House know that. I believe that every National member knows that because National spoke out strongly against the abolition of youth rates in 2007 when it was pushed through by Labour. National had an opportunity to do something about that. It had the opportunity to reverse that law change when Sir Roger Douglas had a member’s bill before the House in 2009. What did National do? It voted down the bill. 
The ACT Party will be taking a very active part in this election. We will be using the opportunity to go out and talk to New Zealanders about the things that need to be done to turn round this economy. We are talking about the waste of a young person sitting at home on the unemployment benefit picking up $4.50 an hour while watching television. That is a waste of our young people it is a waste of their potential it is a tragedy and every single person in this House knows that we can do something about it. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I have to give it to the ACT Party: if they come up with one idea and they go on and on about it and their great idea to win them the election is to cut wages— 
Hon John Boscawen 
: Provide incentives. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Cut wages. No cut wages. That is exactly what Sir Roger Douglas and National did in the 1990s—cut wages. Did that help to create jobs? Did it create skills? Did it develop our skills? What it did was lead to a low-wage low-skill economy. So ACT’s whole policy is based on a false premise. I strongly suggest to the member that he go back and look at the history of what happened when this country cut wages and whether that created jobs. Did it create jobs in the 1990s? Of course it did not. 
I am very proud of Labour’s plan to have all young people earning or learning. I congratulate my colleagues who have been involved in putting it together. I know it has taken an awful lot of work. It has been very well received. It is a very positive plan. I know that National cannot live with the idea that some in business actually think Labour does some good things but they do. Have a look at the press releases from Business New Zealand and others. What the plan also does is add to a cohesive economic package we are putting together. We have announced some of it so far: our monetary policy and our tax policy. This is the skills and jobs— 
Chris Tremain 
: Oh yeah; that’s cohesive! 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well that party has no cohesive policy except to cut jobs and lose jobs and owning our future. We will have a comprehensive package to take to the electorate that will have all the elements in it to change the economy instead of relying on past failed ideas as National continues to do. 
The skills crisis we are seeing at the moment which the Labour plan responds to was absolutely predictable—absolutely predictable. All the problems that are there and everything we are facing right now are the fault of a National Government that failed to look ahead and see that we were going to have skills shortages. Things never stay the same. If we go back to the great ideas of this Government we see the things it failed to do—particularly for the young people of New Zealand who are bearing the brunt of its failure. They are the ones who are paying the price. Let us think about those ideas. We had the Job Summit and that was supposed to deliver jobs. We are still waiting for that. The other big idea from National to create jobs was the 90-day trial period. How many jobs has that created for young people? 
Hon Kate Wilkinson 
: 13000. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well the Minister of Labour says 15000. She knows that that research she keeps citing is rubbish. It is absolute rubbish. Also while I have the Minister’s attention I say that she is doing the dance of the seven veils on returning to youth wages. We all know that she really wants to bring them back. Mr Key is being a little bit edgy on that. Again those are the only ideas they can think of. Of course we had boot camps. How many jobs have they created? What have they done to change things? 
I am really pleased about our policy. I am particularly pleased about the apprenticeship schemes. The previous speaker John Boscawen was talking about people sitting on the dole and how wasteful that is. We agree with that. That is why we will be subsidising employers to take on apprenticeships to fund 9000 additional apprenticeship places. 
Hon John Boscawen 
: Why are subsidies necessary? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Why is subsidisation necessary? That member should talk to builders and find out how difficult it is in this climate for them to take on an apprentice. They need assistance to do it. Why should they take all the risk? We are going to help them with that. We are going to help make sure that those young people have much-needed skills. Also we will support group apprenticeships. That is a very good scheme. There are some group apprenticeships that exist already. What happens in a group apprenticeship scheme is the group takes on the responsibility of employing the apprentice so the employer does not have that responsibility. They do all of the pastoral care they deal with all the risk and employment relations and they can also share out those apprenticeships between different employers. In the process leading up to our announcement I visited a number of apprentices apprentice providers and industry training organisations. What our policy has come from is from listening to what those people were saying. Going back to builders it is really hard for them to take on an apprenticeship at the moment. That is why we are supporting a real boost to make sure they can do so. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 There is one thing that clearly sets this side of the House apart from the other side and that is the difference in leadership. We have a Prime Minister in John Key who is providing a steady hand in very uncertain times. That is why New Zealand as a country is positioned to be in better shape than many other countries around the world despite the level of global uncertainty that we are facing. New Zealand has a strong plan for getting back into the black. Unfortunately members on the other side continue with their mantra of “tax more spend more get more debt”. It is interesting that when we talk to New Zealanders they do not seem to have too much of an appetite for that. 
I will talk about some of the things in the Taupo electorate. I was recently at the business excellence awards which 500 people attended. Actually it was a sell-out. I made a few comments to the group of business people who were gathered there. I passed on the comment that the Leader of the Opposition had made that day that it is “good fortune” when people succeed in business—“good fortune”. Actually it is a hell of a lot more than good fortune. All of the people on this side of the House know exactly what it takes to do well in business. I talked to a roomful of people in Taupo who are courageous who are dedicated and who are resilient. Let us face facts: we have had some tough times but those people are the ones who are doing it out there on the street and making it happen. 
If we look at the people in business in the Taupo electorate we see there is a quiet air of confidence. I will give members some examples. In Cambridge anytime that a retail space becomes available it is snapped up just like that. Two new supermarkets have been built in New Zealand so far this year both of them in Tokoroa. There are three new dairy factories. Two have been consented for and one has just been completed in Mokai. That is a fantastic sign in terms of growing our exports in New Zealand and that is what this side of the House is focused on. We are focused on growing our exports because we know that that leads to jobs. 
With regard to energy just last week I was with Minister Hekia Parata at Contact Energy. Some significant investment projects are under way. One is the Tauhara project which was consented to in record time because of the changes we made with the introduction of the Environmental Protection Authority. At Te Mihi $623 million is being invested. These are great news stories in Taupo and they really demonstrate the fact that there is confidence out there there is confidence in this Government and there is confidence in what we are doing for the economy. 
A recent campaign undertaken by a local business organisation in Taupo was a “grab it” campaign. It was focused on what is generally a challenging time in the winter months over the period of July and August. It was really interesting to see exactly what businesses can do when they pull together. I have recently found out that in August both retail spending and the number of transactions were significantly up—in fact they were higher than the average across New Zealand. 
There is confidence out there. We are getting results. People have the confidence to take on staff and that is exactly what we want to see. And that is before the Rugby World Cup hits town. Taupo is hosting three teams: Wales Ireland and South Africa. I must admit that having seen the excitement of the Tongan supporters in Auckland on Monday I did have a little wish that perhaps the Tongan team would be in our town but never mind. This event will be a significant boost for the local economy. Not only that but what businesses have been doing is putting in place things that will actually create more business in the long term with the initiative by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the New Zealand 2011 Business Club. There is the Sika Show which focuses on deer hunting; the inaugural Clean Energy Centre expo with a whole raft of international guests; and the New Zealand Junior Rugby Festival which in its own right is expecting 5000 visitors. 
I report from the people of Taupo that Taupo is in good heart but it is not because of good fortune. It is because of courage determination and the ability to work hard. More important it is because of the confidence in a John Key - led Government that we have the foundations in place for a strong economy that creates wealth and jobs and builds a brighter future. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Nicky Hager’s  
Other People’s Wars 
 should prompt us to assess the so-called war on terror which will be 10 years old this Sunday. The September 11 attack on the Word Trade Center caused such destruction and loss of life that it spooked the world community. The Bush administration seized the opportunity to increase State powers at the expense of civil liberties and to engage in foreign military adventures. Unfortunately it pulled other Western countries including New Zealand in its wake. New Zealand SAS troops were sent to Afghanistan the Terrorism Suppression Act was passed and the police the SIS and the Defence Force were instructed to develop a much greater anti-terrorism capability. 
Most New Zealanders have doubts about America’s wars and now they would rather our SAS was not involved in Afghanistan. Nicky Hager’s book reinforces this particular view. It is a war where our SAS and our intelligence operatives embedded with the Americans have been providing targets for missile attacks often by drone planes which commonly kill civilians. Prisoners captured by our SAS have been handed over to possible mistreatment in US or Afghan detention centres. Nicky Hager also questions how separate our provincial reconstruction team in Bamian Province is from the larger war despite the Defence Force saying when the team was sent that its “Personnel are not going to war.” and that “The focus of this mission is reconstruction.” 
Yesterday defence Minister Wayne Mapp did not deny that there were US operatives in Bamian collecting intelligence including it seems signals intelligence for the wider war. The New Zealand public relations people do not tell the whole story. For example we are told that our provincial reconstruction team has handed over some responsibilities to the local police which is good but it seems that surplus New Zealand soldiers have been assigned to the north-east corner of Bamian Province away from the peaceful Hazara-populated zone where they are more likely to be engaged in the wider war. 
The Hager book details that New Zealand helped American and British occupation forces in Iraq with our frigate  
Te Kaha 
 by escorting American troop ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Also Kiwi army engineers based in Basra from 2003 helped by repairing British combat riverboats and helping the British occupation force to build roadblocks to control what were described as Iraqi rioters. 
Domestically our police and SIS have been on a mission to justify their extra anti-terrorist staffing and find some actual terrorists. This has led to unwarranted suspicion being placed on refugees and migrants most notably in the Ahmed Zaoui case where a democratic opponent of the Algerian regime was imprisoned in New Zealand because of pressure from other Western Governments that tended to support the Algerian dictatorship. Even local political activists have been labelled terrorists as in the so-called Tuhoe raids of 2007. Thankfully with the dropping of most of the charges yesterday this case is collapsing. 
Of course the one group the SIS did not want to spy on because these people are supposedly Western allies was Israel’s Mossad agents. They happen to be the only group engaged in terrorism-related crime in New Zealand in the last decade. Mossad agents obtained fraudulent New Zealand passports to use in terror acts in other countries of the sort they have carried out in Jordan and last year in Dubai. 
So what can be done at the end of the war-on-terror decade to rectify this situation? The Greens offer the following suggestions all of which will achieve the Government-stated objective of reducing State expenditure. Firstly we should move quickly to withdraw our SAS unit from Afghanistan. Secondly we should sell off our two frigates which unlike the multi-role vessels and the patrol boats are only useful for helping in America’s wars. Thirdly we should significantly reduce the budget of the SIS in light of the realisation that it is not practical to have so much resource devoted to finding terrorists in New Zealand when we have not discovered a single terrorist in the past decade. Finally we should listen to the New Zealand people more. They do not want our foreign policy and our defence policy to simply be a carbon copy of the United States’ policy. They are tiring of this war on terror. 
KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National) 
: 
 It is my privilege to participate in today’s general debate as a member of the National Party. I would also like to share the experience I have had while being out and about among the Indian and ethnic communities during the past few months. It was my honour to accompany our Prime Minister the Rt Hon John Key on his State visit to India. National is very focused on improving New Zealand’s relationship with India which is the fastest-growing economy in the world. It is very important for New Zealand to look for new markets for the products produced in New Zealand. 
The economy is recovering. The National-led Government is taking New Zealand forward by reducing our debts getting back to surplus within 3 years and building a faster-growing economy. We are getting on top of Government debt by keeping it below 30 percent of GDP and we are on track to surplus by 2014-15. Over the next few years we have an opportunity to build a solid foundation for a faster-growing economy and more jobs. 
It is the week of our largest sporting event. The Rugby World Cup 2011 is an unprecedented opportunity for New Zealand. It will be the biggest event ever held in this country and we plan to make the most of it. The tournament will be watched by millions of viewers around the globe. We will be showcasing New Zealand to the world. I have seen enthusiasm over the past few weeks within the communities in South Auckland. Shops in Manukau have flag bunting up people are adopting their second teams and a great atmosphere of excitement is building. I have no doubt that the All Blacks will win and I am looking forward to watching the games. 
National has added additional funds for education health transport and law and order all of which are very important areas for ethnic communities and Indians. National has made South Auckland a safe community. Crime has reduced family violence has decreased and the streets are safer. That is reflected in the latest crime statistics of all recorded crimes in the Auckland district last year. The highest percentage of 43 percent was recorded for theft and related offences followed by unlawful entry burglary and breaking and entering at 17 percent. Recorded crimes in Auckland per head of population are the lowest they have been for the last 15 years. We have introduced tough laws and new legislation boosted police numbers and given them new tools to deal with crime. It is good to see in my electorate that this is making a difference. Taxi drivers in the taxi industry are very happy with the instalment of the new cameras in their taxis. They now feel safer and there is a huge sense of relief and satisfaction that the killer of Hiren Mohini the taxi driver who died last year has been brought to justice. 
Aucklanders can look forward to faster and more reliable electric trains thanks to National’s $1.6 billion investment upgrade in extending and electrifying Auckland’s rail network. National’s investment in Auckland rail will give the region more independence and flexibility in how it runs its services. Motorists will not have to pay an additional regional fuel tax of 10c per litre. 
As a person of Asian ethnicity it is a common practice and expected that we save for our old age and for generations to come. This is a value that is instilled in us from birth. The proposal of mixed ownership is very attractive to the ethnic community. Small investors such as mum and dad investors will be able to invest in New Zealand companies. There is strong Kiwi demand for shares in State-owned enterprises. New Zealanders are expected to own at least 85 to 90 percent of five companies under National’s mixed-ownership policy including the Government’s majority shareholding. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I want to return to the issue of our young people because as is often said young people are our future. New Zealand has the worst youth unemployment record in the OECD—that is right: the worst in the OECD. That is a disgrace. There are 58000 15 to 24-year-olds who are not in work not in training and not in school and 24000 of those are under the age of 20. These are our children and our grandchildren; these are the people whom we will expect to take their part in our economy and we are throwing them on the scrap heap. The Government’s response to date has been nothing short of lazy and piecemeal. This is the issue that should be at the forefront of all of our attention. It should not be about spin and it should not be about gimmicks but that is precisely what this Government’s response to youth unemployment has been. 
In contrast Labour has a coherent plan. We have a coherent economic plan unlike the Government which does not have a plan. Our plan will focus on productivity and lifting investment in our productive economy. 
Chris Tremain 
: Tax more spend more borrow more—great plan! 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: It will use things like a tax reform package to give the right signals— 
Chris Tremain 
: There you go—what I just said. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: —and it is not about taxing more. That is just another example of Government spin—of National spin. It is about reforming our tax policy. We will be investing in research and development we will be dealing with a volatile New Zealand dollar and as part of that economic plan we will be looking at significant investment in the area of skills. 
Other members have spoken about our youth skills and employment package and I want to talk about one particular aspect. But can I add the fact that I am also very proud of this package. This is a package that will really make a difference and that really resonates in our communities. I have to say that Melville must have changed a lot since I went to school there and lived there. I find it hard to believe that the people of Melville would be happy about 58000 young people being on the scrap heap. I do not know whom Mr Macindoe was talking to. 
Anyway Modern Apprenticeships have declined by 10 percent in the past 2 years under this Government. Labour has come up with a plan that would see employers receiving a subsidy of $8700 and that would be for an additional 9000 apprenticeship places—that is right: 9000 more apprenticeship places. That has been welcomed across the board by business groups by unions and by the building and construction industry in particular which is suffering from major skills shortages and is facing a rebuild in Christchurch with no people to do it. It has been welcomed across the board because this is a good idea. 
We do have to spend money in this area but it is an investment; it is an investment in our future and it is an investment in our young people. Every parent and grandparent and every decent-thinking New Zealander wants that sort of investment in something like an apprenticeship which provides a really effective form of learning. It has stood the test of time. It is a process whereby those who have skills impart those skills to our young people in a workplace context. It is about giving young people a future. I have spoken to principals who have talked about the difference that getting a young person who is at risk of disengaging from school on an apprenticeship makes to their whole life course. It gives them a whole range of opportunities it gives them hope and it gives them pride because they are doing something they can see and something that makes a difference in our economy because we do have massive skill gaps. 
A person who does an apprenticeship has a range of opportunities. They can continue doing that work as an employee. They can establish their own business in that area. They can go overseas with a recognisable qualification that will be well rewarded. They can build a good future for themselves and their families. More apprenticeships are important to plug the very real skill gaps that we have in our country. We have lost so many skilled New Zealanders to Australia. Even the Prime Minister of Australia sees us as part of their skills strategy. We have a problem and the Government is failing to address that problem. 
Of course the apprenticeship model has the other great feature which is that the young person is earning and learning at the same time. I can tell members that on the streets of Maungakiekie when I have been talking about this package people believe that this is a good idea an idea whose time has come. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany) 
: 
 I commented to a few people earlier today that I expected there to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Opposition during the debate on the voluntary student membership bill but little did I know that this would start an hour earlier during the general debate. The reality out there in the community just does not align with the Labour Party’s view of the world. The people in the community know that and they will make their decision in November this year. 
I want to talk about something very positive for New Zealand very positive for the country which is starting in just 2 days’ time. It is something we should all be proud of as New Zealanders. It is something that I know everyone has been looking forward to for a long time and it all starts on Friday with the Rugby World Cup. It is a big opportunity for New Zealand. It is a very good thing that we are having this tournament—the third-biggest tournament in the world—coming to New Zealand. 
I acknowledge that there is a quarter of a billion dollars in economic benefits just for Auckland alone—the city I am from—and $700 million of economic benefit for the nation as a whole. It is a time for pride in our country it is a time to stand up as New Zealanders and support the mighty All Blacks. It is a time to showcase to the world everything that is good about New Zealand everything that we as a country achieve and everything that we want to sell to the world—the image of New Zealand as a great place to live and a great place to do business. We will see 95000 visitors coming to New Zealand many of those in just the first week alone. 
We will be showcasing to the world everything that is good about New Zealand through the REAL New Zealand Showcase event. 
Those of you who have been down to the Cloud on the waterfront will have seen that it is a brilliant entertainment facility for New Zealanders. It is a place where we will be hosting the REAL New Zealand Showcase. It will present the best of New Zealand business and industry to the world through a nationwide programme of events. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Mr Speaker doesn’t hop from cloud to cloud. 
JAMI-LEE ROSS 
: I am getting some heckling from the Opposition. Let me remind the House that the Cloud on the waterfront is something Trevor Mallard could never achieve. It took Murray McCully to come along to get something on the waterfront. Trevor could not achieve it. Do members remember the stadium that Trevor could not achieve? It took Murray McCully to come along and bring the Cloud to Auckland. Thank goodness he has done that. 
The REAL New Zealand Showcase that is down there at the Cloud will be supported by events around the country. It will showcase to the world the industries we have and the people we have working out in the community who are building their businesses. They want to sell the industry and sell everything that they have available to the world so that they can help to further build this economy. There will be 18 export industry sectors at the REAL New Zealand Showcase staging 230 events across New Zealand. I am proud to be a member of the party that has helped to bring this to the country through the REAL New Zealand Showcase. It is all about building the economy as well. 
Let me remind the House what the National-led Government is doing about the economy. We will bring us back to surplus by 2014-15. We are investing over $30 billion in assets over the next 5 years. We are spending $5.5 billion on recovery in Canterbury. We have had across-the-board tax cuts. We are reducing regulation and red tape. We have got more money for health more money for education and more money for law and order. I know that New Zealanders out there are proud to see what this National-led Government has been doing across the board. 
We heard a bit about what the Opposition members have been talking about with regard to youth unemployment. Let me remind the House of two things that Labour wants to do that would hurt young people in the country. The 90-day trial period has been great for young people. It has given young people a chance to get into employment. Labour would kill it off. Labour wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We would see 6000 young people out there who would be on the unemployment heap just by virtue of that policy. We are hearing simple-mindedness from members across the House that would do New Zealand a lot of harm. Thank goodness—thank goodness—we will continue to have a John Key - led Government should we be so fortunate to be re-elected in November this year. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 3 August. 
Clause 14 Elected Councillors ( 
continued 
)  
Clause 14 agreed to. 
Clause 15 agreed to.  
Clause 16 Co-opted Councillors 
Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I move  
That the Committee report progress. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the Committee report progress. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 52 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Motion agreed to. 
House resumed. 
Progress reported. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The question is that the report— 
Report adopted. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: This bill is set down— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The process here is that I have to put down first that the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill be set for consideration on the next sitting day. That is first process then I can accept the seeking of leave. What we have done is adopt the report; that motion has been put. The next stage means that it cannot be debated today so I am putting it down for further consideration on the next sitting day as Standing Order 177(1) states. The member is seeking leave to depart from that. I am prepared to put that question to the House but first of all I have to say that the bill is set down for further consideration on the next sitting day. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek the leave of the House for the further Committee stage of the Royal Society of New Zealand Amendment Bill to be set down to be taken subsequent to the debate on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill today with no debate. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Are we all clear? Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 3 August. 
Clause 9 Transitional Provision 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I am happy to take a brief call on clause 9 of this bill. It is the last clause to be debated in the Committee stage before the bill is up for its third reading presumably on the next sitting day. Clause 9 is a transitional provision. In the view of the Opposition it raises questions around the date that this legislation will come into force. 
When we first debated the commencement clause of this bill some months ago it was quite conceivable had it been passed at that time that the bill could be implemented without causing any difficulty to the institutions involved. We are now into September. Many of the institutions will have set their tuition fees for the coming year and will have begun to enrol students. Many more students will be covered by this transition clause than would have been had this bill passed earlier in the year. Many many more students will be in programmes that will be ongoing past the commencement date of this bill than would have been had it been passed when we debated the commencement clause. Therefore it is actually quite legitimate I think to ask whether the commencement of this bill should be delayed. 
As I said many of the institutions will already have set their tuition fees and begun enrolling students for next year and we think it would therefore be reasonable to delay commencement of this bill overall until the beginning of January 2013. It is a logistical nightmare for some of the institutions to try to change their procedures at this late stage in the proceedings. I accept of course that the bill has taken as long as this to get to this stage because we the Opposition have over the last few months been fully arguing this bill and other bills that have come before it on the Order Paper. 
It looks like this bill will pass before the election. Therefore I think it is legitimate to ask whether this transition clause should be expanded or whether the Committee could potentially go back and reconsider the commencement date for the bill. This transition clause will probably be insufficient to meet the challenges that are posed by the passage of this bill at this late stage in the year when students have already begun enrolling for their studies. 
Also of course there is the question of how long it will take the institutions to put alternative systems in place. They will have to put systems in place for student representation on their governing bodies for example which is currently covered under the law by the students associations. Universities polytechnics and institutes of technology will need to put alternative systems in place for those matters from next year. And of course they are coming up to exam time and a time when many students will not be in the institutions. Is it therefore feasible for them to put those things in place in time for a commencement date of 1 January 2012? I argue quite strongly that it is not. 
Therefore the transitional provisions currently provided in the bill are insufficient if this bill is to be passed and it will be judging by the number of votes that have gone through so far. Despite National promising before the election not to vote for the bill National has in fact been voting for it all the way through. This makes it more likely that this bill will pass into law before the election despite National not having sought a mandate for it. National claims that it seeks a mandate when it changes its policies. Well it changed its policy on this matter but it does not seem to think it needs to go back to the electorate for a mandate on this particular legislation unlike some of the other things that it claims to be seeking a mandate for. That is another example of National implementing policies without seeking a mandate despite claiming that it intends to do so. Therefore I think it is quite reasonable for us to go back and consider whether this transition clause should be expanded. 
It simply will not be feasible to implement this legislation prior to 1 January next year. It will be a nightmare for the institutions to implement. It will be difficult even for the students associations to establish alternative systems for signing up students as members and making sure that many of the valuable services that they currently provide are catered for in a voluntary membership environment. 
I ask the Committee to reconsider whether this transitional clause is sufficient and whether we should go back and reconsider the commencement clause and extend the date for the commencement of this bill by a further year. We first considered the commencement clause as I said some months ago—some months ago. A lot has changed in that period of time. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 Just to pick up where Mr Hipkins left off I say that it is quite clear to me that the transitional provision in the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is not adequate. It is not adequate for two main reasons. One of them is the one Mr Hipkins has raised—that is that we are now here in this Chamber in September looking at passing this bill. I acknowledge that this side of the Committee has strongly opposed this bill and we stand by that opposition. But if members on the other side of the Committee are true to their word that their goal here is not to destroy students associations then they will accept a change to these transitional provisions that would allow for a longer period before this law came into force. The truth is that students associations and certainly those in the university environment will now need to negotiate with institutions in relation to which services will be provided. 
Institutions themselves are concerned about this. Members should bear in mind that all bar one of the polytechnics all of the universities and all bar one of the wananga came to the Education and Science Committee and said: “Please don’t pass this legislation.” This legislation is actually opposed by the institutions because they know about the value of the work that students associations do. Institutions are now being placed in a position of having to negotiate—or not—with the students associations about the services that will be provided. We know from around the country that institutions are struggling with this. Students associations are not able to engage with them in the way they would like we are heading towards the exam period and it is getting towards the end of the year. The transitional provisions need to be updated to take into account where we are in the year and how long it has taken to complete this debate. As I say members on this side of the Committee fully accept that we have been part of trying to vigorously oppose this legislation. But if the members on the other side of the Committee are true to what they said to submitters in the select committee in the public sessions and if they are true to what they have previously said about students associations they will change the date this bill comes into force. 
Unfortunately they are sitting there in silence having listened to the submissions in the committee. At the end of that process the National members knew that this bill was wrong. It was unworkable it would undermine the services that students got it would undermine the advocacy that students got and it would undermine the educational experience of students. They all knew that—the National members of the committee—and there were possibilities for compromise. It seems it is now too late for some of those compromises to be put back on the table but one thing members on the other side of the Committee can do is think about when this bill comes into force and about the students who will be coming in on 1 January 2012 who are not already enrolled and covered under this transition provision. They can think about those students they can think about the institutions that are trying to organise which services are going to be provided and they can create a transitional provision that actually acknowledges the reality of where we are. 
If members on the other side of the Committee do not do that then it calls into question everything they have said about their belief that students associations do valuable things and provide important services. It undermines that and it aligns those members with the ACT Party’s ideological opposition to students associations. That is what has driven this—the views of a small number of students who could not even get the 10 percent of students required to run a referendum. The ideological views of the ACT Party tail are wagging the National dog again. Members on the other side of the Committee have the ability to ensure that this bill does not come into force on 1 January 2012 and that there is a proper transitional provision put in place that will actually facilitate a smoother transition to what we on this side of the Committee continue to believe is wrong. We continue to believe it is the wrong thing to do for students and for tertiary institutions. But if members on the other side of the Committee are so determined to push this bill though then at the very least they should put in place a transitional provision that actually gives some time to those institutions and to those students to adjust to a new reality. The truth is that if the bill is rammed through in the form it is now it will cause significant upheaval services will be lost 75 percent— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You should have thought about that a long time ago. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: We oppose the bill I say to Mr Henare because it is the wrong thing to do. It is the wrong thing to do. Mr Henare knew that. He knew that in the late 1990s when he negotiated the compromise that has been undone today. This is what is being done today—we are undoing Tau Henare’s legislation of the late 1990s. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I would like to follow on from what Grant Robertson was arguing and it is about something that students associations have mentioned to me in a number of meetings I have had with them over the last few weeks. They are concerned about the transitional arrangements that are to take place as a result of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill coming into force. Unfortunately it looks as though it will even though we have tried the best we can to argue against it and debate that. 
We have met with both National and Heather Roy herself to look at a compromise alternative that might have actually been able to get through. That alternative could have enabled this legislation to get through with an opt-out clause—an opt-out clause that would mean that students who were signed up to a students association would in the first month of signing up be able to get out of it pretty much as we currently do with KiwiSaver. We believe—and the students associations do as well because they announced this in a press release a few weeks ago—that in fact this opt-out clause would enable us to do two things. Those with a pathological dislike of students associations who do not want to be part of one could get out of it yet the legislation would not undermine and gut students associations which we know has happened in every other jurisdiction where legislation has done the same thing as is proposed here to students associations. In those places that legislation has meant that the students associations are undermined. 
But unfortunately that compromise and those discussions collapsed when ACT realised that it could possibly get the bill through the House before the end of the year. I think that is a real shame because what we would have had was legislation that had some durability. It could have continued on without becoming a legislative ping-pong game between different Governments as they come and go out of power. 
Having said that I do think there are some real issues around the transitional arrangements mentioned in clause 9. There is one thing I would not mind some elucidation on. Now as we all know many students join an organisation or an institution halfway through the year; with the semester system people do not always join at the beginning of the year. If people join halfway through the year under the current regime and suddenly on 1 January they shift to a different regime according to this legislation—as I understand it anyway—those people would stay part of the students association having paid their full entitlement for the course of a year. This is the question: should they be eligible for a pro rata refund should they decide to opt out of that students association because they do not want to be part of it? That is a legitimate question. I am not sure whether that is completely covered in the transitional arrangements but it is one of the questions that will arise I think should this legislation come into force on 1 January 2012. Clause 9 alludes to a number of transitional arrangements but perhaps does not fully cover them as a result of the way that the legislation is written at the moment. 
The second point regarding clause 9 that I want to raise is about the implications of the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) which passed into law a few weeks ago. As we know as part of that legislation our students associations will have to sit down with universities to look at any increase in levies. I submit that if this bill goes through and it goes through on 1 January 2012 a number of students associations will basically fall over and some of the services that some of them are currently providing will not be able to continue to exist simply because the finances for those services—be they counselling or medical or sporting or— 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party would strongly support the proposal by Labour to amend the transitional provision. We agree wholeheartedly that it is absurd to have this Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill come into effect on 1 January next year and that a much longer transitional period will be needed if there is to be a smooth transition once this rather unfortunate bill passes in this Parliament. As previous speakers have said there is no question that some of the services will fall over. The universities are very worried about trying to negotiate and take over some of the services from the students associations. There is a huge amount of work to be done and it is completely unrealistic to expect it to be done by 1 January next year. Therefore we need to change the transitional provision. 
One of the Labour speakers said that if the intention of this bill was not to destroy students associations then the Government would readily agree to amend the transitional provision. Unfortunately I am afraid that that is the ambition not just of the ACT Party but indeed of the Government and that is what this bill is about—destroying students associations in New Zealand. As we said in our Green Party minority review undermining the membership and financial viability of students associations will reduce student democracy reduce student participation and reduce students’ voices on university and polytechnic boards. Let us be absolutely clear that that is what this bill is about. It is about trying to destroy student democracy student participation and the student voice. 
Like many people in this House I was on a student executive—the Victoria University student executive—and that was a very radicalising positive political experience for me. That radicalised me. I participated fresh from a private school for young ladies. I found myself on a student executive and it radicalised me. I was involved in student protests student marches on Parliament and so forth. 
That is what the Government does not want to happen. The Government does not want students to be radicalised or to be involved in student politics. It does not want students to have a strong voice. Indeed once the Government has destroyed the student unions and the student voice it knows that its next proposals are to undermine universities and university funding. The Government anticipates it will not have opposition if for example it were to do things like change the student loan scheme because by the passage of this bill it will have undermined students associations it will have undermined the student voice and it will have undermined student radicalism. That is what this bill is about. 
Let us not have any pretence that there is any other purpose to this bill. Let us not pretend it is about freedom of association or some vague ACT principles. That is what the bill is about—trying to destroy student democracy student participation and the student voice. But unfortunately in setting out to destroy those things it will also destroy some extraordinarily valuable university student services. Many of them will fall over. They will be a further burden on the universities which will have to pick up these services particularly if we do not amend this transitional provision clause and this is all supposed to happen somehow in a couple of months’ time by 1 January. 
I cannot understand—well I suppose I can really—why National would be so intent on destroying student democracy student participation and the student voice. Perhaps it feels that students might be the ones who oppose the market economy or oppose some of the Government’s policies such as selling off our State assets. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on clause 9 of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. As my colleagues have pointed out we are discussing the transitional provisions. I think a really important point has been made in terms of the suggestions that we have put forward to the member in the chair Heather Roy on the transitional provisions—that this is an opportunity to prove that this is not an ideological issue and that if some of the amendments we have put forward were adopted that might go some way to alleviating that concern. I give that a heavy caveat because ultimately I would still probably believe this is purely ideological. 
There are two quick points that I want to make. Clause 9(2)(a) states: “a student to whom this section applies continues to be a member of the students association until the expiry of his or her current term of enrolment;”. Obviously the impact of that will be that we will have potentially a gradual depletion in students association numbers and that will impact on the ability to keep students association services up to the level that would be provided if we had full membership. 
Probably the best example I can give of that is to ask what would happen in New Zealand if only a quarter of the country was contributing to the services that require universal provision—if only a quarter of the country was contributing to roading to schools and to health services. 
Health services are actually a direct parallel. If we suddenly have the phasing out of students contributing to those services—if economies of scale require that we have no less than one nurse or one doctor available—we can almost guarantee that despite those students still being enrolled in the students associations and requiring those services and expecting those services the depletion of resources going into those areas will gradually mean that they will not be able to be provided to the same level. 
The transitional provisions I think will ultimately lead to the gradual decline of those services as will this entire bill. This bill is denying only to a certain degree the ultimate inevitability of the depletion of services and advocacy for students on campus. However as we have already pointed out that is ultimately the purpose of this bill. 
I turn to some of the amendments proposed by my colleague Grant Robertson because I think they require a response from the member in the chair. I reflect that if we are treating this as a true democracy then the most important part of a true democracy is the ability to communicate with those who have an interest in the details of student union membership. If it is impossible to communicate with the individuals in question then that is an erosion of that democratic principle. 
I think it is absolutely pertinent that Grant Robertson has put forward an amendment that suggests we add to clause 9 a subclause (3) which states: “The institution”—obviously the tertiary provider as it were—“is to provide its student association with the following details of students for whom any membership fee of the kind prescribed in section 229CA(1) is currently collected from: (a) The student’s full name; and (b) The student’s contact address; and (c) The student’s contact phone number; and (d) The students email address.” 
Just like in elections whereby we are able to make contact with individual constituents via an electoral roll for the purposes of communicating in a general election I think it makes absolute sense that students associations are able to communicate with potential members about the services they can provide via membership. If this were truly about giving students choice then surely a fundamental principle of that is providing the information in order to make said choice. I cannot see how anyone would have a problem with such a common-sense clause. Second and equally as important is the ability to provide information about the services themselves. Having the contact details of the person one is communicating with is one thing but the ability to provide adequate information is another which is why Grant Robertson very wisely has put forward another amendment. 
Grant Robertson 
: Name-dropper. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I am a terrible name-dropper I say to Grant Robertson. I am yet to mention other learned colleagues in the House. I see that Paul Quinn is here as is Simon Bridges and I am sure they will make contributions on this bill as well. 
Grant Robertson’s next amendment to clause 9 inserts subclauses (3) and (4). Subclause (4) states: “The type of information referred to in subsection (3) includes: (a) the services the association provides members; (b) the services the association provides non-members; (c) the fees and levies which apply to joining an association; (d) the process of electing representatives of the association.”. 
So not only does it set out the type of information which of course is incredibly important. If students are to be contributing a fee or levy they deserve to know what they will receive for that fee or levy in the same way that someone who is putting himself or herself forward for election is able to provide for their constituents information about what they are able to provide as an elected representative. There are similarities there which are just basic principles of democracy. 
I think it is important also to point out that in the fourth area he has also added the process of electing representatives of the association thereby indicating that from the outset those who are opting in to an association—because it is exactly what this entire bill will prompt—will have the ability to see from the very outset the process they can expect for electing representatives of the association. It is a good common-sense clause. 
Prior to subclause (4) though he has also added subclause (3) which states: “Despite sections 229A to 229CA information must be provided by the institution to both prospective and current students about any student association at the institution for the purpose of informing the student about joining the association.” 
If the member in the chair is unwilling for us to explicitly set this out in the legislation what information can we expect students to receive? Essentially without this subclause we could expect them to receive nothing: absolutely no information about those services their rights their access to them as advocates and the process that is undertaken for electing representatives. That is just not good enough. So I ask the member in the chair to demonstrate to us that in her mind this bill is genuinely about democracy. I have already given the caveat that I am unlikely to believe that in any case but I ask her to demonstrate to us that by adopting these simple common-sense provisions about information and the right of access to information this is about choice for students. 
Under those criteria these provisions should be adopted. If they are not adopted I think this Committee deserves an explanation. I do think though that in broader terms the use of the term “democracy” has been bandied around and misused by members on the other side of the Chamber in regard to these provisions in the bill generally. As the member who spoke before me said if this bill really was about democracy there were already provisions that allowed students to trigger a referendum if that is what they wanted. That has not happened which is why in debating clause 9 I ask that the member in the chair directly address why it is that at the eleventh hour you are unwilling to add a provision that would enhance what you claim to be the ultimate principle of this bill— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Me? 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: Not you Mr Chairperson. There are double Roys in the Chair today which means that probably I am OK. I look forward to the female Roy—Heather Roy—responding to that challenge. I think that Grant Robertson has crafted these provisions with care. I think he has put some thought into how we can improve these last transitional provisions of the bill. 
It looks as if Heather Roy—the female Roy—is about to get to her feet I hope and tell me whether she is likely to adopt those provisions. I did see the whip come over so perhaps that means that she is corresponding with him about how she can introduce those provisions. Thank you. 
Hon HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I will take a moment to respond to some of the concerns that have been raised this afternoon and I hope that the member who has just sat down Jacinda Ardern is happy with the Roy who is on her feet. 
I will start with the comments that have been made about democracy. The Green member Sue Kedgley said that the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is an attack on democracy and in fact some Labour members also made that accusation. This could be an attack on democracy only if students were prevented from joining a students association. If members choose to read the bill carefully they will see that it is about voluntary membership which is a right that all students should have in a free and fair society. Nobody should be forced or compelled to pay a fee to join an association. Students should not be forced to join an association in order to be able to study which is the situation we have at the moment. In fact this bill just goes back to the original intent of students associations when they were first formed to be voluntary organisations— 
Grant Robertson 
: What? 
Hon HEATHER ROY 
: I can tell Mr Robertson that they were not compulsory when they started and this bill takes them back to the original intent. 
There was some commentary from the member Jacinda Ardern about communication with members. In fact of late we have seen appalling communication from students associations with their membership. Incorporated societies decide for themselves what information is given. So the clauses that Jacinda Ardern was promoting in the name of the member Grant Robertson are not necessary because incorporated societies will decide for themselves what information is communicated with members and how democratic elections will be run. 
Some comments have also been made about the transitional provisions in clause 9. If a concern is that the transition time is now too short Labour members need only look at their own behaviour over the past 8 months. 
Grant Robertson 
: That’s a silly thing to say. 
Hon HEATHER ROY 
: They can say all they like that it is a silly thing to say but in fact everybody in this House and the public know that that is exactly the case. They have lobbied long and hard for referenda to be put in place and for students to be able to decide for themselves through referenda. As to when that happens we need only to look at the Auckland University example. When a referendum happened there the organisation became voluntary in 1 month. There are several months yet before these provisions will come into being. In fact by the time students return for the beginning of the academic year there will be an additional 2 to 3 months before the invoices need to be paid for their student organisation fees. 
The last point I would like to make while I am on my feet is about the discussions with the New Zealand University Students’ Association. I think it was Mr Shearer who noted that the students associations were keen to talk. We have talked on a number of occasions—on quite a handful in fact. At the last discussion I had with the co-presidents of the New Zealand University Students’ Association I left things in their hands. They were adamant that there was too short a time frame to put this legislation in place both for the organisations and the student councils. I left it with them to get back to me with written information about the detrimental effects that this would have on students associations collectively and individually and with the councils. This meeting happened about 3 weeks ago and so far I have heard nothing—not a word from them. 
Grant Robertson 
: Go talk to your colleagues. They have a letter. 
Hon HEATHER ROY 
: That letter went to National members but not to me or the ACT Party members. If the New Zealand University Students’ Association was absolutely serious about amending that date I would have thought it would make some effort to get back to me and to some National members that they had the same discussion with with the details necessary to allow me to make an informed decision. 
I look forward to the passing of this Committee stage today despite the best efforts of Labour members to delay this bill inordinately and actually put students associations in a very awkward position as they describe it. They need to take some responsibility for their behaviour over the past 8 months. Many students in New Zealand are looking forward to voluntary student membership. They are very keen to have the democratic choice to decide for themselves whether they want to belong to a students association not for the Labour Party to compel them to do so. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 What a load of puffery and nonsense from Heather Roy who has demonstrated once again that she has absolutely no idea about what students associations actually do and how they actually operate. In fact a lot of the assertions she made in her speech are just blatantly untrue. The University of Auckland students voted for voluntary membership and the seven other universities when given the choice to vote on whether it should be voluntary or compulsory membership voted for compulsory membership. Overwhelmingly at the polytechs and institutes of technology when students were given the choice about whether they wanted a students association that everyone was a member of or a voluntary membership regime they voted for it to be universal—for every student to be a member. They did not vote just in small numbers. More than half the students at Victoria University voted the last time they were given a referendum and something like 80 percent of them voted in favour of a universal system of compulsory membership for their students association. So what Heather Roy has just claimed is absolutely untrue. 
If the ACT members did believe in democratic process then they would not be afraid of campaigning for voluntary membership but they are afraid to campaign for voluntary membership. They are afraid to give students that choice because they know that they would lose. They know that if the students were given a choice ACT would lose because that is what has happened in the past. In fact in Waikato—where the ACT Party got organised; it campaigned and it won a referendum to make membership of the association voluntary—it was a disaster. The students voted to put it back the other way because it simply did not work. The ACT Party knows that if democracy were allowed to serve as it should then ACT would lose. What does it do if it loses democratically? It wants to just legislate over the top of it which is what it is doing. 
I come back to the point I made about Heather Roy having no idea about how students associations operate and I will talk about that in the light of one of the amendments put forward by Grant Robertson which would require institutions to provide the associations with names addresses and contact information of students enrolled at the institutions. In the instance where an association moves from a universal system of membership in which all students are members—as will happen with all of them if this bill is passed—to one that is voluntary the association may wish to communicate with those students who have previously been members and invite them to join. I am sure Government members would be in favour of that. They claim that the association should be allowed to sell itself to its current members but they will deny its getting the contact details for its current membership because the institutions hold that information. 
I used to be the president of a university students association. If we wanted to communicate with our members we would get the contact information for them from the institutions. We did not hold a separate database of that information. There was no need to; they were our members. Actually the most up-to-date and accurate information about our members was held by the university because its staff dealt with the enrolment. They collected the membership fee and they passed it on to us. If we wanted to communicate with our members we would go to the institutions and get that contact information. 
If the National-ACT Government votes against this amendment put forward by Grant Robertson students associations will be prohibited from communicating with their existing members and from trying to recruit and retain them as members. It is loading the dice against the students associations even keeping their existing membership and against them going to their existing members and giving them the opportunity to stay members. It is a relatively simple amendment that would require the institutions to provide students associations with contact information for their current members who are the students who study at the institution. The ACT Party through Heather Roy is saying that it will not do that. That is absolutely ridiculous. 
If Heather Roy actually believed in all of the rhetoric that she has been espousing about choice she would not be afraid to give associations the membership contact details that they should currently be able to get because then they could communicate and they could give students that choice. Heather Roy does not want to do that. She wants to load the dice in favour of students not being members. 
Of course that comes back to the wider agenda. National and ACT know that the students associations have campaigned against some of the policies that they are promoting and will promote and they want to silence them. Those members want to take as much influence away from the students associations as possible. Those members know that after the next election they will break all of the promises that they previously made on things like interest-free student loans capping student tuition fees and so on. They will break all of those promises. They want to get rid of those pesky students associations before they do that so that the major voice that would be arguing against them is taken away. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I too will respond to some of the comments made by Heather Roy. In particular I will respond to her suggestion that an attack on democracy comes from the current arrangements that students have. Well the current arrangements that students have allow students to have control over student affairs. They are allowed to elect their representatives. They are allowed to approve a budget that includes what services will be provided. The situation that we will be left with now if this bill passes is that the decisions about those things will go out of the hands of students and will go into the hands of administrators within tertiary institutions. How is that promoting democracy? How is that helping students to have control of student affairs? 
The word “choice” has been bandied around a lot by the member in charge of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill and on the rare occasions that National members have got up to speak about why they are supporting this bill. Well choice means nothing if it is not informed choice. That is what Chris Hipkins was just talking about. Informed choice about whether to join a students association would see the amendment in my name passed because it would allow students associations to communicate with their members. It would allow students to actually be aware when they arrive at a tertiary institution of what services are on offer and what advocacy the students association provides. But instead the real agenda of the member in charge of the bill is to destroy students associations for political reasons. The bill is not actually about choice because if it was about choice—if it was about real choice—then information would be provided to students so that they could make that kind of informed choice. 
Only one person is responsible for students associations and institutions being faced with transitional difficulties and only one person is responsible for an attack on democracy and that is the member in the chair because she is the one who has promoted this bill. It is all very well to attack Labour for having delayed the passing of this bill but there would be no danger to students associations if the bill had not been put forward in the first place. It is righting a wrong that is not there. It is an ideological attack on the rights of students to organise themselves and to decide what services they will get. Instead institutions will be in the situation where they will be making up their minds about that matter rather than the students. 
I was fascinated to hear Heather Roy say that she wanted to return to the original intent of students associations so I presume that she will be advocating for lady vice-presidents and for port to be served after all meetings. Things have changed. Students associations are different entities now. They are the providers of professional services. That is why all bar two institutions came to the Education and Science Committee and said: “Please do not pass this bill.” The institutions know that as time has worn on students associations have become even more important to the quality of education that is delivered in tertiary institutions and to the well-being and welfare of the students at those institutions. This bill in fact takes away choice it takes away democratic rights from students and it hands on to the institutions the decisions about what kinds of services students will have. 
I will also refer to the question of how this bill relates to polytechnics. I have in my hand a letter from the students association of Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology which has raised the concern that the commencement date and the transitional provisions—which we believe should be expanded—do not actually take into account the situation for polytechnics. Heather Roy said that it was months before universities get going. Well that might be true. It is certainly not true for polytechnics. It is all very well to have in the transitional provisions something for polytechnic students who are part-way through a programme but students will be starting right away from 1 January 2012. I look at the letter here from the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology students and they are saying that in actual fact enrolment forms and invoicing for 2012 have already been generated by the institution. So here we are. We are in a situation now where the institution is already getting itself ready and this bill comes along and causes huge drama for them over that. 
The associations will have to change constitutions. A number of the institutes of technology and polytechnic students associations have quite different arrangements to universities because they tend to be closer to their institutions in some cases but they also have constitutional arrangements that give them independence. All of that is trampled on by this bill coming in in this way. Heather Roy said in her comments that she was waiting for the New Zealand University Students’ Association to come to her. I do note that it has been lobbying for some considerable time not only ACT but also National on this. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports the amendment put forward by Grant Robertson to the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. His amendment is intended to make sure that details are provided to students associations of the people who might become members and people who are members. I think that is critical. If we look at other associations such as unions and professional associations we see that part of the standard arrangement—particularly these days when people are quite mobile and change addresses and all the rest of it—is that the employing agency often provides those details to the association or union. I think that is the appropriate thing. The Green Party will be supporting that amendment. 
Heather Roy said that way back—and it would be interesting to know how far back—student unions were voluntary. Of course tertiary institutions and universities have undergone a lot of changes. At one time they were very much elite organisations. I would imagine that the students associations would have had to battle for recognition battle for rights battle to get a more comprehensive membership etc. and there has been a very positive evolution over the years. The speeches given earlier prompted me to think back to when I went to the University of Canterbury many years ago and joined the students association as I think everyone did at that stage. The services provided were not terribly wide ranging if I recall correctly compared with today when one goes to a university and there are all sorts of counselling services and a myriad of other services available to students that were not previously available. That is a step forward that is progress and now it seems that after this bill we might be going backwards where there would be less provision of services by student unions. Sometimes that slack will be taken up by the university administration as a whole but probably in a less adequate way. 
As other speakers have pointed out those services will not be under the control of the students association and will not be informed by the students association. Students associations better understand the needs of the students in order to shape these particular services. I think that is important particularly for people who are sometimes a bit alienated and might not necessarily join the student union first off if it is a voluntary system. They might be a bit alienated and there only for certain lectures or whatever but they are often the very students who get into financial and emotional trouble. They need professional help the student services and the community of the students association to support them and now they might be the very people who miss out. To have a well-resourced students association will help enable everyone to be part of the students association and to understand that they have access to the services because they are being informed of them—perhaps all the time with modern communications emails and all the rest of it. That will lead to a much better situation for individuals and for the students association as a collective entity. 
All round I cannot see why we are changing the status quo. I have not really heard an argument explaining why we need to make this move except if there is a political agenda to weaken the political heft of students that is currently in evidence through students associations. That is very important because universities and students in particular are often the conscience of society. We see all the former students association officials around this Chamber and we see that they are very much making a contribution to our democracy. If we knock off that channel of people into public life and into Parliament by weakening the students associations then we will have a much less informed and vibrant society and indeed Parliament. Thank you. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou e te Whare i tenei po. I want to take a call on clause 9 “Transitional provision” of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill as other speakers have and in particular the direction that this clause applies to any student with regards to having an establishment date of 1 January 2012. 
I think it is very important to say that while we are debating a provision of this bill tonight critical action is taking place before the Waitangi Tribunal at the instigation of Te Mana Akonga. What is Te Mana Akonga? It is the national Maori tertiary students association. This is an urgent action which has come to bear only because of the significance given to it at Te Huinga Tauira 2011. What is Te Huinga Tauira? For many years now Maori students have been getting together to debate issues that happen to be current and to talk I suppose all about student life. Last week over 250 Maori students gathered for Te Huinga Tauira at Nga Whare Waatea up in Mangere in Auckland. 
Part of the discussions at that hui included the news—the breaking news at the time—that Te Mana Akonga had lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal against this bill. The students have asked that this Parliament tonight do what is necessary to ensure that they are heard and indeed that the case is heard by the Waitangi Tribunal before this bill becomes an Act. I know that those are pretty tight time lines but things can happen in a short space of time if we really want them to happen. 
At this point then I guess I am calling on the compassion and understanding of all the parties in the House to listen to the views of a number of the Maori students organisations that have been in touch with the Maori Party over this issue. I am talking about Te Mana Akonga which is the national association; Ngai Tauira from Wellington; the WelTec Students’ Association; Manawatahi from Massey University; Nga Tauira Maori from Auckland; Te Akatoki from Christchurch— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Did you go to the hui last week? I didn’t see you there. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: —Te Roopu Maori from Dunedin; Te Awhioraki from Christchurch; Te Waka o Nga Akonga Maori; and all of the alumni of Maori students associations throughout the country. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: The Maori Party weren’t there. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: We cannot be everywhere I say to Mr Henare. The claim has from all Maori students tauira Maori. It has come from whanau hapu and iwi. Importantly it comes from the perspective of their being stakeholders in and beneficiaries of the New Zealand tertiary education system. It is their claim that Te Mana Akonga and all Maori tertiary students have been and continue to be prejudicially affected by policy and practices adopted by the Crown and exercised on its behalf by successive agencies and now in particular by this bill. 
Fast tracking this legislation to take effect from 1 January 2012 as in this transitional provision is in effect a massive slap in the face for tauira Maori. I know that Mr Henare was at that hui because obviously we heard about that and he pretty much had to defend this legislation. But in this case we have clearly been lobbied by the Maori students associations and we are fully behind them. 
I will lay out as simply as I can the case that has now proceeded through to the Waitangi Tribunal so that every member in this Committee can go on record and vote knowing full well that they are voting against the claims put to Parliament by tauira Maori. It is their contention that this bill will diminish: “1. … the right of tauira Maori to form ropu; 2. … the right of those ropu to exercise Tino Rangatiratanga over Maori student issues including representation Whanaungatanga Manaakitanga Tuakana/Teina Kotahitanga me ona Tikanga; 3. … the right of tauira and ropu to form a national representative entity to ensure fair and just tertiary education policies in Aotearoa New Zealand.” These are very important points which I hope this Parliament will give sufficient time to address. Te Mana Akonga concludes: “the policy and practice of the Crown stemming from this Bill fails to protect Maori students’ rights as stated above and that this is contrary to Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840 and Te Wakaputanga o Nga Rangatira o Niu Tireni 1835.” 
The claimants have therefore sought two very clear requests: firstly that this bill be abolished and secondly that provisions be made to protect tauira Maori their local ropu and their national representation Te Mana Akonga. I think that their case is pretty clear. The Crown’s failure to consult with tauira Maori is a breach of the Crown’s duty to act reasonably and in good faith as directed under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That is important for them and for us. It is the very strong view of the students that this bill will result in prejudicial effects against tauira Maori in the tertiary sector and will impact on the overall framework provided by students associations which assist in strengthening the support of tauira Maori. They contend also that the Crown’s inaction in terms of including and/or providing research and analysis into the impact of the bill on tauira Maori and their whanau hapu and iwi development and advancement is sufficiently dire to warrant that this bill be thrown out as an order of the day. 
This bill will stop the much-needed national Maori student representation which assists in helping to contribute to inform and change Government policy and legislation into the future. As I say it should be pretty clear that the Maori Party opposes the bill in the strongest possible way. I seek leave of the Committee that this bill be suspended immediately. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: I seek leave of the Committee that this bill be referred in its entirety to the Waitangi Tribunal under section 8 of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 That was a very interesting turn of events and I thank the previous speaker Te Ururoa Flavell for putting that to the Committee and for the brave attempt at preventing this Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill from passing through. 
I start by commenting on a couple of points that Heather Roy mentioned in her contribution just before about the students associations going to her and—as she intimated anyway—their lack of ability to get back to her on a number of issues. I think that was a bit unfair. I think the students associations have come to her on many occasions to talk through this bill with her and to try to seek a compromise as have we. What they realised was that at the point when there was a possibility that this bill would not get through Heather Roy was willing to listen and to compromise. When she believed that the bill was unlikely to be prevented from passing she closed that down. That in some ways is in complete contradiction to what she said on  
Back Benches 
 the other night. She said that some of the best legislation that she had got through had been when parties sat around and compromised—that is exactly what she said. I think it is somewhat sad that she did not take that advice those ideological words she talked about on  
Back Benches 
 and put them into action particularly with this bill. This bill could have had a much better outcome that would have been durable and long-lasting and it would have respected the students associations and the ability of people who wanted to opt out and not be part of a students association. Instead we have the situation as it is today. 
Let us be quite frank about this: at the point that we were looking for a compromise with Heather Roy Labour’s point of view was that we thought we could defeat this bill. We thought we had sufficient time to defeat this bill and it would not come forward. We were willing to compromise and put up an opt-out clause because we felt we could get much better legislation out of this and it would stop this whole issue being ping-ponged around the place which is to the detriment of students. I want to put it pretty firmly on the table that when Heather Roy pops up and says that it is all Labour’s fault that we are looking to extend out the transitional arrangements to 2013 so that students associations have an opportunity to get themselves ready we can say that there was an option on the table to have different legislation to the bill we are debating today. 
The second thing that Heather Roy says of course is that it is Labour’s fault that students associations will face an inordinate problem to get ready by 1 January. So therefore we are not looking at trying to do something to ameliorate the position of the students associations; we are simply blaming Labour. Well Heather Roy can blame us if she likes. I submit that in fact she is equally as uncaring about what will happen with the students associations as she is in blaming us. I think there is a very strong case under clause 9 to put together a transition clause to enable students associations to get ready much more adequately. 
I will refer to a point I made in my last call. Under the Education Amendment Bill (No 4) there are some real restrictions on universities increasing their levies to meet the services that students associations will no longer be able to provide. This is a very serious issue. We all know what will happen when this bill comes through. We all know what will happen when clause 9 is enacted. What will happen is that the students associations will run short of money which happened in Waikato and at Auckland University and every single Australian university where the same sort of legislation was put in place. When that happened the universities had to step up and pay the students associations or contract out the very services that the students associations once provided. It is ironic and I hear Sir Roger Douglas call out “freedom” or “democracy” or whatever he calls out from time to time. 
Grant Robertson 
: It’s hard to say. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: It is hard to say but there is a grunt over there in the corner that sounds a little bit like “freedom”. But effectively students will be levied money for the services they receive now from the university without any representation. Taxation without representation is supposedly something that the ACT Party upholds higher than just about any other value that its members espouse—perhaps no taxation would be one—but they are not willing to examine that in the light of this legislation. 
I come back to the Education Amendment Bill (No 4). It puts in place a number of stipulations for universities to consult with their student bodies. It puts in place some regulations on the degree to which a levy can be raised. We know that in the case of Auckland University—let us take that example—the levies went from more than $100 to more than $500 to meet the costs of services that the students association there once provided. Now the students association quite frankly is a contractor to the university. It does not have the same ability to represent students as it did before. 
In my reading in this area I came across a quote from the UK Conservative Party which at the moment as some members may know is raising the cost of universities considerably and stripping away basically a free university education there to huge protests. The Conservative Minister for Universities David Willetts praised the contribution of students associations in a recent speech saying that students associations “are playing their part in their local communities. To local schools hospitals charities friendly societies I would add student unions.” He does not call them a union in the sense of a workers’ union; he calls them a union in the sense of an association like those other societies that he referred to. He says: “We value student unions. We salute them and what they achieve for and on behalf of students. Without them universities would be much poorer institutions as would the employers causes and political parties who take on their alumni.” That was a Conservative Minister in the throes of making universities in the UK much more expensive to go to yet he is valuing students associations and ensuring those students associations stayed there. 
Mr Locke as did Ms Roy in her contribution talked about the fact that students associations were in fact voluntary early on in the New Zealand university experience. According to my colleague Grant Robertson who actually did a thesis on this issue which I did not know—it does make him something of an expert on the matter; just in case he does not get another call I just want to say that he reflects from that thesis and I think he should make it into a book—students associations became compulsory when the University of New Zealand was split up into the various universities that we largely see today. At that point there was a clause put in the legislation that created our universities from the University of New Zealand and said that students associations should be compulsory. 
COLIN KING (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No I will hear about the thesis from Grant Robertson. 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It will take somewhat longer than 5 minutes to read it but I am sure an extension of time will be granted by the Committee which will no doubt be enthralled by it. It was a dissertation; I should not overstate what it was. I am sure it has been one of the highest interloans the University of Otago library has ever had! 
I will talk about two additional clauses that are being proposed by Labour. In particular I want to talk about an amendment to clause 10 in the name of Trevor Mallard. It was an issue that was raised numerous times during the select committee process and was around the question— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Clause 9. We cannot talk about clause 10; we are not on it. We are on clause 9. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I will return to clause 10 in the future I hope. 
Sue Moroney 
: You don’t want to rush through it. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: That is right. The other matter I want to raise is about clause 9 and it is about the question of the timing of the transitional provisions. I note that there has been a wide-ranging debate on clause 9 which is a good thing because the act of transitioning to this proposed new regime is a significant act and it impacts on everything students associations do. One of the things it impacts on is the ability of students associations to communicate with their members and to get across to members what services are provided and what additional services could be provided in the future if students associations were allowed to carry on. Unfortunately because of the unwillingness of both the member in the chair the Hon Heather Roy and National to actually consider bringing in this bill in an orderly fashion students associations—as I mentioned before like at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology—are now faced with a situation where the enrolment forms for students have already been printed and are about to be sent out. They have on them the fees that students have to pay. What will happen now to those institutions? 
The polytechnic students associations play a very important role in their institutions. Part of the nature of students associations in universities is that people will perhaps take 2 to 3 years of time on a students association contributing—they are often at the institution for 3 to 4 years. There is some institutional memory and some continuity. In polytechnics people are often there for quite a short period of time on courses of perhaps only 6 months or even less or maybe a year or 2 years. One of the things that polytechnic students associations do is to establish themselves in a way that they can provide some continuity for members. That continuity is at risk with the absence of a decent transitional provision in this bill because those associations have as I said in an earlier call constitutional arrangements. They mean that the students associations need to make changes to be able to continue to operate as they do now. I think the institutions themselves as we know from the submissions they made really will struggle to be able to put in place those services for students immediately upon the passing of this bill if that is what happens. 
Clause 9 is inadequate. It does not allow for the different nature of students associations which has been a feature I might say of this bill. It really does cut to the heart of the fact that this is an ideological crusade. It is an ideological crusade against university students associations on behalf of those who have issues with some of the political stances that have been taken by students associations. That is what this boils down to and it really does ignore in many ways the role of polytechnic students associations many of which will not be able to negotiate the service agreements that some of the university students associations will. 
Fundamentally the absence of a proper transitional clause re-emphasises the ideological nature of this bill. It re-emphasises the taking away of student decision-making rights in what will be provided for students in the future. So it is a real shame—and I know I have exhausted my calls on clause 9 in this debate—that in debating clause 9 we have not heard a single peep out of National members to justify their support for this bill. Not a single peep— 
Simon Bridges 
: Peep! 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: There we go—Simon Bridges has given the best contribution of the year: the word “peep”. That is it. We have not heard a single thing from National members to justify their support for this bill other than Mr Henare’s interjections and they are not actually justifications; they are sounds—they may be words; they are certainly sounds. That is all we have heard from National members. We have not heard from them an actual justification for this bill because they know from the submissions they heard in the Education and Science Committee that this bill should not pass. 
Louise Upston 
: You obviously haven’t been listening Grant. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I have been listening. Louise Upston says I have not been listening. I have been listening to a lot of speeches in this debate. They have come from members on this side of the Chamber and occasionally from Heather Roy but they certainly have not come from National members to justify why they are passing a bill that will destroy students associations. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to the heading to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to omit the heading and substitute “ 
Two classes of students provisions 
”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 54 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Kris Faafoi to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (1) “This section applies to any student who on 1 January 2012” and substitute “This section will not apply to any student who on 1 January 2012”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 55 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Sue Moroney to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (1) “student” and substitute “person”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 55 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Sue Moroney to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to omit from subclause (1)(b) “institution’s” and substitute “establishment’s”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 55 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendments in the name of David Shearer to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to omit subclause (1)(b); and 
to omit from subclause (2)(a) “a member of the student association” and substitute “subject to compulsory student association membership”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Mana 1; Progressive 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendments not agreed to. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Whip—Maori Party) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Just listening to my colleague Mr Locke with regard to the votes for the Mana Party and bearing in mind that the Mana Party has not voted for some time and Mr Locke is exercising that vote I am just checking whether that is right—especially in respect of this bill because we did not have any discussion earlier. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I will just ask the Green member who holds the proxy for the Mana Party I understand. Is that correct? 
Keith Locke 
: Yes I have just received a communication that we are. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The vote is in order. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to insert in subclause (2)(a) “or 31 December 2015 whichever comes later” after “enrolment”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to add the following subclauses: 
(3)Despite sections 229A to 229CA information must be provided by the institution to both prospective and current students about any student association at the institution for the purpose of informing the student about joining the association. 
(4)The type of information referred to in subsection (3) includes— 
(a)the services the association provides members: 
(b)the services the association provides non-members: 
(c)the fees and levies which apply to joining an association: 
(d)the process of electing representatives of the association. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to clause 9 be agreed to: 
to add the following subclause: 
(3)The institution is to provide its student association with the following details of students for whom any membership fee of the kind prescribed in section 229CA(1) is currently collected from— 
(a)the student’s full name; and 
(b)the student’s contact address; and 
(c)the student’s contact phone number; and 
(d)the student’s email address. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 9 be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Clause 9 agreed to. 
New clause 10 Funding services 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: There is an amendment in the name of David Clendon to add new clause 10 as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 203. This is out of order as a financial veto certificate has been lodged and therefore no question will be proposed. 
New clause 10 Implication for Student Loan 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The next amendment in the name of the Hon Trevor Mallard to add new clause 10 is out of order as a financial veto certificate has been lodged and therefore no question will be proposed. 
New clause 10 New section 229D 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: There is an amendment proposed by Grant Robertson to add new clause 10. This is out of order as it relates to a subject area dealt with earlier in the bill and should have been proposed when the Committee was considering amendments to Part 16A of the principal Act in clauses 6 and 6A. 
New clause 10 Charges for non-members 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: There is an amendment in the name of Grant Robertson to add new clause 10 “Charges for non-members”. This is out of order as it is the same as an amendment that has already been lost. 
New clause 10 Review of Sections 229A to 229CA 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 New clause 10 that is in my name is an important addition to this Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill because by extending the debate around clause 10 we are trying essentially to make sure that students have all the information they need to be members within students associations. It is important in saying we are putting forward a new clause 10 that the bill gives us the opportunity to ensure that students associations can survive. That has been the concern raised on this side of the Chamber and it has been accepted by National on the other side of the Chamber that the bill is not about destroying students associations. So if the bill is not about destroying students associations then we need to provide a way in which students associations can continue to exist. The new clause 10 I am proposing will insert in the principal Act a new section 229D “Institution to provide association funding” which states: “Every institution where a student association exists— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: A point here to the member: he is speaking on the wrong new clause 10. The one he needs to be talking about which is in scope and which I have agreed to have debated is “Review of Sections 229A to 229CA”—review of sections. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: I was not aware because when you announced the new clause 10 Mr Chairperson I was not sure which of the excellent new clause 10s we were allowed to debate. This one allows for a review of the changes that have been made because one of the things we have noted in the past when changes have been made to membership of students associations is the use of referenda and the use of review of provisions after a certain amount of time. This again is something that National has previously said was an acceptable thing to have happen with students associations and this particular clause 10 would allow for reviews of the passing of particular clauses that have previously been in the Act. This allows students to continue to have a voice in how they are organised because we have to remember that fundamentally what the previous clauses we have agreed to in this bill do is actually take away choice from students. The current clauses that are within this new part have in the past given students the ability to have some control over their affairs but by removing those clauses and bringing in the new clauses that have been passed that choice is actually taken away. We have to have the capacity to review those clauses and to be able to say to students that they have an opportunity in front of them within 5 years to see whether the provisions are working to see what their impact has been on the provision of services and also to make sure that students have a say. 
The new clause 10 that we are debating as opposed to a future clause 10 that we may debate shortly requires a review of sections 229A to 229CA which have been included. Proposed new clause 10(1) states that the Ministry of Education will run this review and that it will be 5 years after the date on which the legislation receives Royal assent. Clause 10(2) states: “The review shall assess the impact of the provisions on students and the tertiary sector in accordance with the terms of reference established in subsection (3).” Proposed new clause 10(3) states: “The terms of reference for the review shall be set out by the Minister of Education.” and proposed new clause 10(4) states that the Ministry of Education will then report back to the Minister of Education and the Minister for Tertiary Education. This clause is about a 5-year review of this change. 
It is important because the evidence we have internationally is that student services disappeared when voluntary student membership arrived—in particular in Australia. Seventy-five percent of the services provided by students associations disappeared under voluntary membership. That had a huge impact on the experience that students had in their institutions. So the new clause 10 I am proposing would allow for a review to see the impact of the legislation on students. There has been a lot of debate. We believe that the evidence internationally shows us what the impact will be. But here is the opportunity for the National Government to say: “Alright we accept that we need to look and see what will happen when this legislation passes. We accept that there could be detrimental effects on students.” National members might try to argue that in fact it will be a positive thing for student services. Let us have a review and look at that. That is what new clause 10 does. I suggest that after 5 years is a good length of time to be able to do that. 
Now that I am on the right clause there are a few more points to make. It may well be that some of the impacts of this bill will not appear immediately. Students associations may well be able to survive for a period of time based on their reserves in an attempt to try to attract some members. It is perhaps difficult to do that at the start of a calendar year. The impact will emerge over a period of several years and what this clause does is allow for a review after 5 years from when the legislation receives its Royal assent. It is important we do this because what is being done tonight will effectively change the nature of student experiences right across the tertiary sector. It is no small thing. It is not as some would say just a technical change that allows students the freedom to do whatever they want; it fundamentally will undermine the experience of students in tertiary institutions. 
We have already heard tonight from Te Ururoa Flavell about the action that is being taken by Te Mana Akonga. Te Mana Akonga is addressing a very specific matter which is the role that the Maori students associations on campuses and at a national level play in the experience of Maori students. Not every student arriving at a tertiary institution is in the same place. Not every student arriving at a tertiary institution knows what will happen to them when they are there. I know from my time in students associations and in more recent times from working in the tertiary education area that the strength of Maori students associations and indeed of some other student groups that help support groups within tertiary institutions is the key to the success of those students. Having a body of students that is able to support other students of the same ethnicity or in the same experience group has made a real difference to the lives of those students. So the change that is being made tonight merits a review clause of this type because it is a significant change. It is a change that will affect the very well-being of students who attend tertiary institutions. I think the issues that Te Mana Akonga is raising within its claim about what kind of experience students from different backgrounds have when they come into a tertiary environment are very very legitimate. Students associations over the years have worked very hard to be able to provide support to those students. 
It is also the same with international students. There is a different experience again for international students coming into a foreign environment and not only not always understanding exactly how the institution works but also not understanding the customs and the interactions that they are not familiar with that go on between students. Students associations have provided a vehicle for that and it is a significant vehicle. It is also the other services that students associations have created over the years. Student Job Search was essentially created by students associations and on the initiative of students associations. The very existence of things like Student Job Search has made the difference to some students being able to stay and finish their studies. 
The changes that are being proposed tonight in this bill fundamentally alter the experience of many students and the legislation deserves a review that will take into account what has happened if this bill passes. As I say all the evidence we know about from overseas is that the legislation will be detrimental but in New Zealand we need to see it for what it really is and for the impact it will really have on students. 
The other part of the clause is about exactly who will be doing this review. It should be the Ministry of Education. The ministry will be impartial and will not take into the review any baggage around the past activities of students associations. That is not politicising the review; it is saying that the Ministry of Education will look at the legislation. There is an important point in that. The Ministry of Education should do the review because what students associations do is support the educational outcomes of students. This is a very important signal to be given that actually what students associations do is about educational outcomes. There has been a lot of talk in this debate about unions and about why if we do not have compulsory unionism outside of the tertiary sector we should have it inside. It is because that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what students associations are. They are democratic bodies of students who make the choice to be students and at that point become part of a greater whole which is the student body. By law since as Mr Shearer said earlier the late 1950s and early 1960s we have made the decision— 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 If National and ACT members actually believe the rhetoric they have been espousing during the debate on the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill—if they actually believe what they have been saying—they will be voting in favour of Grant Robertson’s proposed new clause 10 “Review of Sections 229A to 229CA”. They have argued that if the bill is passed all of the services all of the representation and all of the things that we on this side of the Committee have argued will be at risk are in fact not at risk and will still continue to be provided. 
They will therefore be quite happy to have a review in 5 years’ time and demonstrate all of those things. They will be quite happy for the Ministry of Education to take the politics out of it and to review it and say “Yes this service is still being provided this service is gone and this is the way institutions are choosing to manage student representation.” or that student representation has disappeared altogether. An independent review—and I think the Ministry of Education would be sufficiently independent—would establish whether the rhetoric being put forward by National and ACT members is true or whether it has simply been a move by them to remove from the political process and the democratic process organisations that have in the past been very vocally opposed to many of the changes they have tried to make. I would certainly argue the latter whereas they have argued the former. 
The reason I would argue that is if we look at the limited experience we have had in New Zealand of voluntary students association membership—and it has been limited because overwhelmingly when students have been given the choice as to whether they have a voluntary or a universal system of students association membership they have opted for the universal system—we see that many of the services previously offered have disappeared. At Waikato University the students lost just about everything so much so that they opted to go back to a compulsory system because the students at that institution valued those services and wanted to see them restored. 
I think there is a really good cause to say that if we pass this bill today in 5 years’ time we should reflect on it. As a matter of fact I think that as a broader principle for the House in general it would be very useful for us to review much of the legislation that we pass 5 years after enactment to consider whether the laws are working in the way they were intended to or whether the House needs to reconsider them. I think it is probably quite good practice for Parliament to make sure that laws are reviewed regularly to determine whether they have had the desired effect. I do not think anybody should be afraid of this amendment. I think that if National and ACT members believe the things they have been arguing through the debate of this bill then they will be very happy to support this new clause. 
What the new clause would do is allow the Ministry of Education to report to the Minister of Education and the Minister for Tertiary Education with the terms of reference for the review set out by the Minister of Education. The review would assess the impact of the provisions on students and the tertiary sector in accordance with the terms of reference that would be established. I guess it is important to note that this review would be 5 years after the date on which the bill receives the Royal assent. We are not talking about something that would come into effect straight away. It would allow a period of time for the claims that have been made by the people proposing this bill to be tested. A review would allow students the institutions and other interested parties to have a say on whether the claims made by National and ACT were in fact true or whether they were misguided as I think they must be. 
It would also allow the consideration of evidence from international jurisdictions. There is probably more evidence from Australia on the impact of voluntary student membership than there is in New Zealand. Like I say the New Zealand experience in universities has been relatively limited to simply the association at Waikato University which has gone back to a universal system of membership and the association at Auckland University which built up a very large asset base under a compulsory membership system. That is one of the things that has helped that association get through despite having voluntary membership. It would be interesting in this review to consider for example the respective positions that students associations go into the voluntary system in. Some of the university students associations have very large asset bases. 
The associations at Canterbury University and Auckland University have large bodies of assets and large cash flows from trading operations with which they will go into this voluntary regime; others such as the association at Victoria University go into it with very few assets and therefore the impact of a voluntary system on them may be significantly greater. They will lose their revenue very quickly. They do not have trading activities to support them that they can continue to cross-subsidise from. A review in 5 years’ time would allow those impacts to be assessed. Although I am very strongly in favour of this amendment by Grant Robertson he probably should have given us a few options. Rather than a 5-year review it would have been useful to have some options as to whether it should be after a year 2 years or 5 years. I strongly contend that for the associations that I have mentioned that have a very low asset base and no trading activities the impact will be quite immediate. For the associations that have a large asset base and have built up large reserves the impact will potentially be felt in the longer term. 
One of the things that a review after 1 year would do is assess how associations that have built up those large asset bases and large reserves have behaved and what they have put those assets towards. One of the things I am a little concerned about—it has not actually been touched on much at all in the debate—is the potential under a voluntary system for asset stripping of the students associations once they become voluntary. It is quite possible that when we move from a system where membership of these associations is totally universal to one where a very small number of students could effectively take over a students association they could asset-strip them spend the money however they choose to change the constitutions of those organisations and spend up the money at large and not necessarily for the purposes for which it was originally collected. This bill does not make any provision for that. That is one of the reasons why I think it is very important that there be some systematic form of review. In fact I argue that 5 years is too long to wait to do that. 
We are not talking about inconsiderable sums of money; it is in the millions for some of the larger university students associations. They have assets and reserves in the millions and there is no protection of those once this bill passes. There are no transitional measures that mandate for example any democratic process or any protection in terms of what happens to those assets once these organisations become voluntary. That has not been canvassed in the debate by any Government member or by the member proposing the bill. I am genuinely concerned about that. These assets have been built up over a number of years. 
In the case of my old students association the Victoria University of Wellington Students Association it has been in existence for about 110 years—maybe 111 years I think—and a lot of assets have been built up over that period of time. A lot of interests have been built up over that period of time that are not immediately tangible assets and we potentially need to think about how they would be transitioned to a voluntary membership environment. For example the student union building at Victoria University does not belong to the students association because the students association in its benevolence gifted it to the institution but the association continues to have a significant interest in that building. That is based of course on the current settings where all students are members of that association. What happens to the beneficial interest in that building that the students association currently has when it no longer represents all of the students at the institution? How will the institution manage that? There is no mention of that in this bill and no systematic process is set up in this bill for addressing those issues. 
I think that is a good justification for there being a fairly thorough and comprehensive review of it. Again I argue that 5 years is too late but at least after 5 years we would be able to establish where some of the money has gone if in fact it has disappeared. At the moment it is quite possible that the money will disappear and we will never hear anything more of it because there will be no review to determine where the money has gone. I am very concerned about the significant asset base that these associations have built up about how they could potentially be abused and about the fact that this bill does not make any provision whatsoever for dealing with that issue. 
So a review after 5 years—as set out in new clause 10 proposed by my colleague Grant Robertson—is a very prudent and sensible move and I think that National and ACT would be very well advised to vote in favour of this provision. It is a sensible provision and it will not delay the progress of the bill. 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I also support the amendment put forward by Grant Robertson for similar reasons to those that Chris Hipkins was just talking about. I think we need to look at two things here. First of all the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is a contentious one. Over the last decade and a half we have swung backwards and forwards between voluntary and compulsory membership. A review of that a review of the way that the bill is progressing and the way that the students associations are actually faring under this new regime would be a good thing to institutionalise within the context of the bill with the addition of new clause 10. Of course if and when we have the next Labour Government we will probably bring forward the review much sooner than 5 years. We will probably look at putting in place robust and enduring legislation that would perhaps depoliticise this particular issue and enable the students associations to carry on and do what they are supposed to do which is to continue to provide the services and advocacy they have been providing up to today. 
But if we were to have a review and if it were to happen every 5 years we would want that review to look at a number of different aspects. First of all what services were being provided at that time versus the services that were being provided 5 years before? If we look at the experience of both the Australian situation and what has happened at universities in New Zealand we sort of know what will happen. We will see a degradation of services we will see services taken over by the universities and we will see the universities charging students for the continuation of those services. We will see the universities not only charging students but then contracting back many of those services to the students associations which have been running those services for many many years and we will see students paying a levy but not having the opportunity to have representation in relation to what money is going to them and how that levy is being set. That is one aspect of a review of this area that I would certainly welcome. 
We could also look at some of the services that the students associations are taking an active role in right now. We as New Zealanders have an active interest in making sure those services continue. One for example is Student Job Search and the job search and careers advice that is being provided to ensure that our students go on to be productive members of and enormous contributors to the workforce of New Zealand. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Before we broke for dinner I was looking at the amendment that Grant Robertson has put to the Committee to insert a new clause 10 into the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. His thinking around this as he explained it was that after a period of 5 years—and I think the period is arguable but anyway that is what it says—we would look to review sections 229A to 229CA. That would mean that we go back to the whole concept of whether to have a voluntary students association or to make it compulsory. Actually I do not like the word “compulsory” because it is compulsory to join up but if students want to opt out there is the option to opt out as many other speakers have talked about before. But this review would look at the applicability of the bill we are looking at tonight 5 years down the track. My personal preference would have been a series of options—rather than 5 years perhaps 1 year 2 years 3 years. I think 5 years is a long time and in the course of that time an extraordinary amount of damage could be done to students associations. 
The important thing here is what exactly the review would cover. If we look at the legislation 5 years down the track we will probably want to compare the services available from the university that students accept and enjoy right now with the services being provided in 5 years’ time; to look at the advocacy that happens now versus what is happening in 5 years’ time. I guess the question in terms of services is whether the services are being provided by the students associations or actually by the universities. What has happened in pretty much every case where a bill of this nature has been brought in—in Australia in particular—is that the students associations effectively have collapsed and the actual universities themselves have picked up the costs of some of the services but not necessarily the complete menu of services that were being provided beforehand. So the universities in effect were having to charge levies were having to charge students for those costs. In my mind that would be the No. 1 issue if we were to review this legislation. I think it is a good thing to do; all legislation should be reviewed. Perhaps putting in a clause with a compulsory review in 5 years’ time is quite a good idea. 
The second part is looking at the students associations and seeing what services they provide to the students; not those services that are found around the outside of the universities—the counselling health and various other cultural and sporting services all those sorts of services which I think will end up suffering under this bill—but the type of thing students associations are doing to improve teaching and improve the various aspects of university life within the classroom. I know after going to Unitec the polytech in my electorate and talking to the students association that it has an extraordinarily good programme that actually rates the quality of the teaching. That is not terribly comfortable for a lot of the lecturers and teachers I have to say. It is not a terribly popular thing. But the chief executive officer of Unitec agreed that it go ahead and pretty much everybody accepts that it has lifted the quality of the teaching and lifted the quality of the tuition within Unitec’s various lecture theatres classrooms labs and other places. So students associations are not there to offer just the health counselling sporting cultural radio—or whatever—services that people have talked about; they are making a substantive difference to the quality of the tuition and teaching that is happening within the classroom as well. 
It would be good to look at the management of student services. This is something that I know Heather Roy has talked about before. I agree with her that some of the student services that have been offered and some of the student management that has happened in some of the universities and many of the polytechs have simply not been up to scratch. Fairly young students with perhaps very little management experience are asked to manage large amounts of money on behalf of the student body and I agree that the management of that money and the way that it is accounted for is something we should look into and something we can improve. I think the university students associations—certainly the national body—are in agreement with that. 
Lastly I would say that the review might want to look at the way that the different institutions vary amongst each other. The students association in a large body such as Otago University might be somewhat different from that in a small polytech or even a private training establishment in the way that it functions. 
CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Taloha ni Mr Chair and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on clause 10 of the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill. I like my colleague David Shearer want to focus on the amendment— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Name-dropper! 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Tau Henare—how is that for name-dropping! I would like to focus on the amendment put forward by Grant Robertson—yet another name we have dropped—that will see a new clause 10 put into this bill to ensure a review of the voluntary student membership legislation after 5 years. 
I would like to support some earlier contributions that were made by Te Ururoa Flavell from the Maori Party around his concerns for Maori students with the passing of this bill. I also say that I have some serious concerns around the effects of this bill on Pacific Island students. I know that both Maori and Pacific Island students have heavily relied on the students association at the polytech in my electorate Whitireia Community Polytechnic. I know that it has had a chequered past in the last couple of years with its finances. I know that Don Campbell the chief executive may be watching and I know that he holds a different ideological position from me and that he is a supporter of the voluntary student membership bill. I think that this move by the Government in particular by ACT which is seen to be the tail wagging the dog in this instance will have serious adverse effects on both Pacific and Maori students at Whitireia Community Polytechnic. 
The 5-year review will look at how this bill which may become law very soon will have an effect on student services and I am very concerned about the effect it will have on what the students associations provide for their students such as the cultural aspects pastoral care academic support and sporting support. After 5 years the big question that will be asked is what has happened. We do not have to look too far to find out what the experience will be. As David Shearer pointed out in his contribution since voluntary student membership was passed in Australia in 2005 in subsequent years we have seen some serious degradation in the services for students at their tertiary institutions. Essentially the associations have collapsed and the services available to students have drastically reduced. In many cases a user-pays system has been introduced at the tertiary institutions across the Tasman. At the moment that can have only a negative effect for Maori and Pacific Island students who are struggling as it is just to get into tertiary education. If they are forced to pay even more for the services that are being provided under the current regime that will have a seriously negative effect on the tertiary experience of many Maori and Pacific Island students. As we have seen across the Tasman this has disadvantaged a lot of those students who come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. 
Unfortunately a lot of tertiary institutions have had to take on some of the functions the services and the assets that previously have been provided by students associations and operated by students associations. In effect although the ACT Party said that this bill will make things much easier for students that it would give them choice that it would give them freedom and that it is about democracy it will actually put the burden of the services and any assets that have fallen on those students associations fairly and squarely on the institutions. That means that taxpayers will be burdened with more costs in the long run. As we have said tertiary institutions across the Tasman have taken on more of this burden and this has resulted in many unpopular decisions being made such as elite sports teams being funded at the expense of social sports teams. There has been a noticeably large price increase in campus services and again that will be a disadvantage for many lower socio-economic groups of students. 
There has been an increase in the price of campus services and an increase in the number of campus services activities being outsourced to private sector firms. In the past we have had the student spirit behind making sure a lot of these services are provided to students at a pretty reasonable rate a pretty cheap rate but we will now find the private sector coming in and saying that it can provide that service at a profit. Of course that comes at a price. 
We have also noticed that across the Tasman a thousand jobs were lost in the student services area. There is one instance that I am concerned about— 
HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chair. I thank my colleague from Mana Kris Faafoi for speaking just prior to myself. Kia kaha bro. I was not going to come to the Chamber to speak to the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill but I heard the korero from the Maori Party while I was up in my office and I just had to come down. The reason why is that when I heard the Maori Party talking about Maori politicians getting in behind this Treaty claim I shook my head. 
I shook my head because I have been talking to Maori students. I met with them at their annual wananga just last week and they told me that the only reason they had to put in a Treaty claim was that they came to the Minister of Maori Affairs who is also an Associate Minister with responsibility for Maori education to get assistance with this issue the review of the provisions. They came to ask for his support for this kaupapa to ensure that Maori rights would be recognised under the terms of the provisions of the clause that we are considering now—the review of the provisions. 
Louise Upston 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My point of order relates to relevance to this amendment to the clause. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you Ms Upston. I have urged the member to refer to the review. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: I did actually refer to the review of the provisions that apply at a 5-yearly term. I heard the Maori Party talk about the fact that this needs to go before the Waitangi Tribunal and whether Maori politicians should be lining up against this bill and in support of the claim to the tribunal because that claim is also about the review of the provisions and when that review should take place. In the students’ view the review should be taking place immediately. Also the students said to me that the reason why the claim has gone in is that there was no support from the Minister and no support from the Maori Party. When I look at this report from the Education and Science Committee I see a minority report from Labour and I see a minority report from the Greens. I have heard a lot of talk from the Maori Party but it never bothered to put it in the committee’s report at all. Clearly there is no sense that the Maori Party opposes this bill. It certainly is not in this committee report. 
When we asked the students themselves about this review of the provisions they were particularly concerned that they would have to wait for 5 years instead of those provisions being reviewed immediately. Hence the reason why this claim has gone in. They see no support from the Maori Party or from the Minister for students to take action. They see no stand taken by the Minister or the Maori Party in defence of Maori rights and the review of these provisions. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I find it interesting that Mr Harawira is making accusations with regard to the Maori Party on this particular clause when he was not here at the beginning of the vote. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No that is a debatable issue. Not only that but the member has been here long enough to know that he cannot refer to the absence of a member. Every member at one stage or another has to be absent from the House because they have other duties. It is against Speakers’ rulings to refer to the absence of a member. I call Hone Harawira and ask him please to refer to the review. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: In the review of the provisions of this particular bill there has been no support from the Maori Party or from the Minister— 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Rubbish. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: There has been no call for a special Treaty case for Maori students at all. I think the member on that side of the Chamber knows that. There is nothing mana-enhancing in this particular clause. There is nothing in this committee report. In fact in terms of the review of these provisions there is nothing in this bill but a roll-over by the Maori Party and their Minister to allow ACT and National to crush Maori development and Maori— 
Chris Tremain 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I bring your attention to Standing Order 107 covering relevancy. You have brought Mr Harawira to attention on two occasions up until now. You have asked him to speak specifically to the clause at hand. He has failed to do that on two occasions. Under Standing Order 107(2) you have the ability to terminate his speech and I ask you to do that now. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Speaking to the point of order on every occasion every minute or so I have always referred to the review of the provisions which is what we are discussing tonight. At no stage have I allowed 60 seconds to go past without specifically referring to the review of the provisions in this bill. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Mr Chair I make two points to you. First you will note that there has been quite an amount of interjecting on the honourable member Hone Harawira and on a number of occasions he has responded to the interjections and the disorderly behaviour on that side of the Chamber. Second saying that you are allowing this member to speak outside the scope of the bill is in actual fact implying that you are allowing this debate to be held outside the provisions of the Standing Orders—that you are allowing the Standing Orders to be broken. I do not think that is right. I think you have a very good handle on this issue and if you were in any way concerned I am sure you would have brought the member back to order. I say that I am very happy with the way you have been chairing the debate tonight. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member. I say to all members that the member has only a few seconds left to speak and the member will refer to just the review. It is clause 10 as amended and put in place by the honourable member Grant Robertson. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: Thank you Mr Chairman. Party vote Mana. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question that the question be now put. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I remind members that there are to be no comments at all during the taking of a vote. It can be seen as intimidation which means that it can appear as a breach of privilege. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Grant Robertson be agreed to: 
to add the following clause: 
10Review of sections 229A to 229CA 
(1)The Ministry of Education shall review the effect of the operation of sections 229A to 229CA 5 years after the date on which this Act receives Royal assent. 
(2)The review shall assess the impact of the provisions on students and the tertiary sector in accordance with the terms of reference established in subsection (3). 
(3)The terms of reference for the review shall be set out by the Minister of Education. 
(4)The Ministry of Education shall report to the Ministers of Education and of Tertiary Education. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Noes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
New clause 10 not agreed to. 
New clause 11 Polls must be held 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: New clause 11 is out of order as it is contrary to the principles of the bill as agreed to at the second reading. 
New clause 12 Triennial Polls must be held 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: New clause 12 in the name of the honourable member Grant Robertson is also out of order as it is contrary to the principles of the bill as agreed to at the second reading. 
New clause 13 Enrolment in a Student Association 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The amendment to add a clause 13 also in the name of the honourable member Grant Robertson is also out of order as it is contrary to the principles of the bill as agreed to at the second reading. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I would like you to expand on your rulings a little bit. I accept that it is your decision and yours alone but it seems to me that if you are going to rule out an amendment on the basis that it differs from what was agreed at the second reading then it appears to me that the Committee can accept only amendments that are consistent with and agreeable at the second reading. Therefore it does tend to restrict the ability of the Committee of the whole House to amend the bill when it comes to the Committee stage. 
I would have thought that the second reading was a time when the House considered the report of the select committee when it considered the bill as amended and once that is done it comes to the Committee and the Committee itself can then make further amendments. I do not know that all the amendments have to be agreeable on the second reading. Surely if that were the case it would say so quite clearly in the Standing Orders and I do not recall that it does. It could be that an amendment is ruled out because it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee. If that was the case then I would accept your ruling immediately but you have made a different ruling. You have said that it is inconsistent with the principles of the bill at the second reading. 
The second reading has been and gone. It is now for the Committee of the whole House to consider the matter as the bill stands. Therefore I think the Committee is at liberty to amend the bill quite freely. I accept that the amendment cannot be inconsistent with the principles of the bill but you have ruled quite differently from that. I would like you to reflect on that because I think you are setting the Committee into new territory here. 
I would like you to expand on your decision because I do not think it is particularly good practice simply to bring down a decision without an explanation. You have given us your decision and you have given us a reason but it is not an explanation. I think you should give the Committee an explanation as to why you have ruled it out as a result of the second reading which is different from the Committee of the whole House. I would appreciate your very considered ruling Mr Chairperson. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the Hon Rick Barker for his considered views. I make the point to him that at the second reading the House agreed to the principle of voluntary membership of students associations. So any amendments that would directly overturn that principle are not in order. One can turn to Speaker’s ruling 112/6: “Any clause is out of order which is—… (4) In conflict with the provisions of the bill.” In the second reading the House agreed to the principle of voluntary membership of students associations. So I will report this bill without amendment presently. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is a new point of order. I seek the leave for the Committee to vote again on clause 2 including voting on a handwritten amendment in my name to change clause 2 to delay the commencement from 2012 to 2013. [ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Any member is entitled to seek the leave of the Committee and the member is doing duly that. Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There is. 
Bill to be reported without amendment presently. 
Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Clause 1 Title 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on clause 1 of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I note that the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee of which I am a member made a recommendation that the original title the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill be changed. It is interesting that the recommendation in the report from the select committee says that the word “Workers’ ” should be removed because that term is not used in the principal Act and that is true; it is not used in the principal Act. The bill seeks to require unions and not workers to hold secret ballots. 
I go back to the genesis of this bill. It came out of Tau Henare’s brain a couple of years ago when he was lying around thinking “What can I do to put forward a bill that makes me look important but doesn’t really have a problem?”. It is a bill that is looking for a problem and we do not have a problem. He put the word “Workers’ ” in there because I presume—I ask the member in the chair Tau Henare and he might respond to that—he could not bear to write the word “Unions’ ”. He could not bear to write the word “Unions’ ”. 
The Transport and Industrial Relations Committee was right when it looked at this clause because the title “Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill” actually provides for unions to have the secret ballots not workers. But it is very interesting. I would like to know what members opposite and the member in the chair think unions are because actually they are workers. 
But I maintain that the word “Workers’ ” ended up in the title originally because the member in the chair has had such a torrid history with unions in the past. We all know that he thinks he was a hero in the 1980s of the very militant Clerical Workers Union. He is looking back to those glory days and he has not realised that times have changed an awful lot. I think that he is holding on to some kind of grudge and could not bear to use the word “Unions’ ” in this bill so he used the word “Workers’ ”. 
As I said the select committee was absolutely right; there is no such thing as “workers” under the Employment Relations Act. I would be really pleased if there were because the meaning of “workers” is actually much broader than that of “employees”. The meaning of “workers” is everybody including contractors who are people outside of the employment relationship as well as those who are in the employment relationship. The meaning of “employee” under the Employment Relations Act is very specific. It is all there. It is all about the employer-employee relationship apart from homeworkers who can be in any kind of employment relationship. 
Homeworkers can be contractors and that goes back to a case that was taken in the 1990s about homeworkers who were being paid less than the minimum wage and were being employed as contractors. It was a famous case—it was  
Cashman v Central Regional Health Authority 
—and the outcome of that case was to say that homeworkers are actually employees and as such they should have all of the entitlements of an employee. 
I was quite comfortable with the word “Workers’ ” in the title because I thought that if we could introduce the new word “workers” into the Employment Relations Act then that would bring into employment law a whole new category of working people who are currently not in that law. I have already mentioned dependent and independent contractors who do not have employment relationships. They are outside employment law and there are a lot of problems with what is happening to them. They are being exploited in many cases apart from the very highly skilled workers in that situation. In fact I tried to do something about workers in the minimum wage for contractors bill which National members voted down last year. 
Phil Twyford 
: Excellent bill. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It was an excellent bill that would have seen a minimum wage for all workers in New Zealand whether or not they were in employee-employer relationships. It would have covered vulnerable contractors such as courier drivers whom I see on a regular basis who are not earning the minimum wage and who are being enormously exploited. 
So I did not have a problem with the original title and I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed. Members will note from the select committee’s report that the bill was passed by majority and Labour put in a minority view. I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed that we did not retain the word “Workers’ ” in the title because I think it would have opened up a whole new area of law beyond the employment relationship. We would have been able to have a discussion. We would have been able to argue in this bill and beyond that workers whether or not they are in employee-employer relationships are covered by all the provisions of the Employment Relations Act. I would have really welcomed that. 
But I go back to the point about the member’s original title. I would be interested in hearing from the member in the chair about why he put “Workers’ ” in the title and why he did not put “Unions’ ”. I wonder whether there is some sort of prejudice lingering from his time as a Clerical Workers Union organiser in the 1980s. In those good old tough days that member used to wander into workplaces and say: “Let’s pull the pin. Everybody out!”. He could look tough; he could look really important. Clerical workers for goodness’ sake! I do have to wonder whether he was just harking back to those days. 
As I said earlier he may still have some residual resentment about unions because in the end he did not survive in the union movement. I would not say that he was kicked out of the union movement; certainly his reputation is still alive is it not? People still talk about Raymond Henare. They all talk about what he used to do in the good old days of the 1980s when he was staunch but he could not hang around during the 1990s when it got really tough. In fact he ended up sidling up to the National Party. He has consequently joined the National Party and helped make sure that things get harder for workers. 
I would be interested in hearing a response from the member in the chair about why he used the word “Workers’ ” and not “Unions’ ” and about whether he is comfortable now with the change that has been recommended by the select committee which changes the title to the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I want to know whether he thinks that is better than it was or whether he regrets losing the word “Workers’ ” from it. I want to know who he had in mind when he was talking about workers why he did not use the word “Unions’ ” in the first place and whether he was just trying to target a particular group. 
I am interested in why he put “Workers’ ” in there in the first place. Maybe he should have put “Companies’ ” in there as well. That is a debate we will have a bit further on as we get into this debate because I have an amendment that proposes that companies or employers that are imposing the opposite of a strike—which is a lockout—should have to be subject to a secret ballot as well. 
The title clause is very interesting. It is a very interesting clause and I am sure that my colleagues will have many other suggestions about what the title could have been. As I said this is a bill looking for a problem—and there is not a problem. Maybe that could have been the title of the bill. It could have been the “Employment Relations (Looking for a Problem) Amendment Bill” or the “Employment Relations (Using a Sledgehammer to Crack a Peanut) Amendment Bill”. It could have been the “Employment Relations (National Hates Unions) Amendment Bill”. Who knows? 
The title could have been the “Employment Relations (Let’s Make Stuff Up) Amendment Bill” because there is no problem here. The member in the chair knows that. He knows that there has not been a problem. Actually since his bill was first introduced in April 2010 I would be very surprised if there had been one single worker in the country who has complained about being forced to go on strike—one single worker who has been forced to go on strike without a secret ballot for a strike as the title suggests. 
I would be interested to know how many complaints the member in the chair has had. Going back to the title I think that another possible title could be the “Employment Relations (Tau Henare’s Time in the 1980s Clerical Workers Union was a Complete Failure) Amendment Bill”. Who knows? Or it could have been the “Employment Relations (Let’s Go After Workers and Make Life More Difficult For Them Than It Already Is) Amendment Bill”. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 That was a very useful and informative contribution by my colleague Darien Fenton. I too would be very interested in knowing the views of the member in the chair Tau Henare about the title of this bill the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill why the original title had “Workers’ ” in it and what his views are on the striking out of the word “Workers’ ”. We now have the “Employment Relations”—struck-out “Workers’ ”—“(Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill”. 
The first part will obviously be a change to the Employment Relations Act. The Employment Relations Act is about the relationship between a number of parties in the workplace. Those parties include unions and employers and individual workers and individual employers so both collectively and individually all of those groups are part of the employment relations that take place in a workplace. So it would be very interesting indeed to know Mr Henare’s views on the striking out of the word “Workers’ ”. 
Just to follow through on a point that Darien Fenton made my understanding is that the UK legislation deliberately uses the word “workers” for the very reason she identified which is that it is broader than the term “employee” and therefore covers the multiplicity of relationships that now exist. In fact—and this is certainly true in New Zealand—many of those relationships have been established in such a way as to remove rights from people so employees have a number of rights that do not necessarily apply to other groups like for example contractors. So that term “workers” is a broader term. 
We are talking about employment relations. Specifically this bill is focused on secret ballots for strikes. I would be very interested in getting to the bottom of the question why this bill is even here and why we have wasted time in the House in the select committee and again here in the Committee of the whole House looking at this bill. It is an absolute joke. The submissions we heard made it very clear that there was not a problem to be dealt with. I have to again reinforce the points that Darien Fenton made: if this is a problem it is a problem that is perceived to be of an earlier time. It is certainly not reflective of the relationships between unions and their members and employers in the 2000s. It is not a problem. 
Generally speaking secret ballots exist. Generally speaking in fact strikes are comparatively rare and bullying union officials like the sort of union official that someone like Tau Henare was are not commonplace. Members opposite might mutter under their breath about whether we can say that but that is a fact. If members opposite want to hear more about that I am sure we could give them more information. 
I was a union official for many years of my working life and I never once stood over a worker. I never once put pressure on a worker to take strike action. Those decisions were indeed the decisions of the workers concerned freely made. That is the only way in common sense that we can see how a strike can take place. We cannot force people out the door. We cannot lock the door behind them unless we are the employers and keep them out. The reality is that it is harder and harder in the current environment for workers to get together collectively to take action to improve their wages and their conditions of employment. It is much harder in periods of high unemployment. It is much harder in the anti-worker and anti-union environment that currently exists and if National is re-elected that will get a whole lot worse. 
It is not easy for workers to take strike action but the reality is that it never really has been that easy because we all know—and just in case members opposite do not know—that if we go on strike we lose pay. That is quite hard for the average working person because they need their wages and salaries to live on. 
I go back to the title of this bill. The bill is supposedly about secret ballots for strikes. We will be talking a lot more about industrial action during the course of the evening because striking is a form of industrial action and of course the flip side of that is the lockout. 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 I agree entirely with my colleague Darien Fenton that I would not have been too fussed about the word “Workers’ ” being left in the title of this bill. To me the word “workers” returns a bit of the personal touch to this bill. We have to remember that workers are the people whose sweat and tears are what carries industry and business. By removing the word “Workers’ ” from this title we are just depersonalising this whole bill and making out that workers do not mean a lot. 
I do not really understand the purpose of this bill and why it is necessary. We all agree that secret ballots for strikes are fine. It is just the common practice that carries on now but the removal of the word “Workers’ ” from the title I think depersonalises and desensitises this bill. It is just another one of these bills that National is infamous for—bashing workers and their rights their conditions and their pay. That is what this bill is really all about. That is the underlying menace of this bill. It is just another dig—continuing the work of this National Government since it was elected—at workers and their rights. It chips away at the very people whose sweat and industry carries this Government forward. 
We have to remember that when we talk about workers we are talking about people. We are talking about the mums and dads who have families and kids and who work in the factories the abattoirs and the various places all around the country. They are people and we should be looking after them because it is their work that lifts the country. We have to remember that. We cannot desensitise ourselves to the very people whom we should be helping to make this country go forward. 
I believe that there is no reason to remove the word “Workers’ ” from the title and just have the title as the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I think that is pointless. We should keep the word “Workers’ ” in the title so that it reminds us that we are talking about people as we go through this bill. 
Again this bill continues what National has started. We have a litany—in fact it is a rap sheet—of what this National Government has done to erode workers’ rights. If we put all these pages together it would be literally as long as my arm. We have the employment relations legislation that introduced the 90-day trial period. This bill is just a continuation of what was started then. That was one of the first pieces of legislation that went through this House during the time when I was first elected to Parliament. This bill is just a continuation—more chipping away at workers’ rights. 
Of course we then look at the pitiful rises in the minimum wage. I think it was 50c in 2009; again that shows workers getting hammered by this Government through pitiful hourly wage rises. The minimum wage went up 50c the first time and I think the second time it went up a massive 25c. That really highlights the value that this Government places on workers on people who do the hard yards and that word “Workers’ ” is being removed from the title. The Employment Relations (Rest Breaks and Meal Breaks) Amendment Bill denied vulnerable workers their basic rights to minimum breaks during a working day. Workers were attacked once again; a continuation as I say of the rap sheet from the National Government. I do not know what National has against workers. I do not know what it has against people the mums and dads of this country who get out there and try to earn a living to feed their kids to put a roof over their heads and to put clothes on their backs. I do not understand why this Government wants to take another little pot-shot at workers in the form of this bill. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 What a waste of Parliament’s time the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill is. This could be called the “Employment Relations (What a Waste of Time) Amendment Bill” because that is what it is. What is it about this National Government that the only things it wants to fix are non-existent problems? It does not want to fix all the actual problems that are out there such as the fact that workers cannot get pay rises and that there are no jobs. It cannot fix those problems it has no plan so what does it do? It wants to fix non-existent problems such as the requirement for unions to hold a secret ballot when workers want to strike. We should not be surprised because the member in charge of this bill Tau Henare is widely regarded as the worst union organiser in the history of the universe—in the history of the universe. It is a title he wears with pride. So this bill is a little bit of revenge. Maybe this is the “Employment Relations (Tau Henare’s Revenge) Amendment Bill”. 
Jacinda Ardern 
: Tau’s last stand. 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Tau’s last stand as my colleague Jacinda Ardern says. I think there is an element of truth in that. This bill does nothing except wrap up people in red tape in bureaucracy and in time-consuming costs all of which National members are meant to hate because Tau Henare wants his revenge. 
The fact is that we do not need this bill because unions already have within their rules the allowance for secret ballots where appropriate. Why does the National Government feel the need to interfere in a relationship between unions and their members—unions and their members—who have democratically decided how they will determine when they strike and when they do not and when secret ballots are held and when they are not? Why does the National Government feel it needs to interfere in that relationship? Why does it need to get involved? There is no problem here. There is no outcry from workers who have been forced to strike when they do not want to. Secret ballots are held all the time as Mr Henare would know if he was not the worst union organiser in the history of the universe. Maybe he does know. Maybe he does not care. I do not know. 
The fact is that this is an utter waste of time. This is the “Employment Relations (Utter Waste of Time) Amendment Bill”. That is quite a high bar given some of the legislation we have seen from this National Government in the area of employment relations. This bill is absolutely pointless because there is no problem. There is no outcry. This is just interfering by a Government that has an ideological opposition to unions that it cannot get over and that wants to divert attention away from the fact that it has no plan to address the actual problems facing New Zealand workers—the actual problems. If it had a plan then maybe we would be here passing legislation that would make a difference in people’s lives instead of legislation that does nothing. It does nothing except impose huge costs. There are a number of industries—I say to Chris Tremain that I think Tau wants to take a call and he is asking for his permission—in New Zealand that are spread across the entire country that have shift workers. It is entirely impractical for them to be able to call all their workers together for a secret ballot. It would impose huge costs. It just would not work at all. 
So what Labour says is let the unions sort that out with their members. That is the relationship where they can sort that out. Whatever their members want they can democratically decide that. A one-size-fits-all approach of the kind we see in this ridiculous legislation tonight will not work. It will not work. It will cost more and it will do nothing. 
My colleague Darien Fenton raised a very good point: if we are going to require this of unions why are we not requiring it of shareholders when a company decides to lock out its workers? Why on the flip side are we not requiring all shareholders to have a secret ballot to say whether they agree? When a company decides to lock out its workers that can have a very negative impact on the reputation of that company. Shareholders might well say that they want to have a say in that because they may not agree that locking out those workers is the right thing to do. Oh but no we do not do that—we do not do that at all. It is only the unions that Mr Henare has in his sights. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Taloha ni Mr Chair. It is a pleasure to speak on clause 1 of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. We are on the title clause and I guess that people at home may be thinking that the title clause is mundane and boring but in this instance as Darien Fenton and Kelvin Davis have mentioned it holds a lot of the motivation for what this bill is about. 
Usually when legislation is passed in the House it is to give some benefit or to right a wrong but the fact that the word “Workers’ ” has been removed from the title shows what National is really all about: if benefit or advantage is to be afforded to anyone it dare not be to any workers so the word “Workers’ ” had to be removed from the title of this bill. It dare not be the workers so the word had to be removed from the title of the bill. 
This bill does nothing for the benefit or the advantage of workers at all which is a sad indictment on this Government in terms of its Employment Relations Act amendments in this House. We first saw the provisions of the 90-day fire-at-will bill—as we like to call it over on this side of the Chamber—extended to small businesses and then expanded out to larger businesses with restrictions on unions and of course we cannot escape the fact of this Government’s miserly increase in the minimum wage. Yet again this bill is another change in employment relations that has nothing to do with increasing or at least protecting the rights of workers in New Zealand. 
I think it is a little bit ironic that we have this bill which makes it compulsory to have secret ballots when unions want to have strikes before the Committee today when the previously debated bill the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill is to remove the compulsion from student union membership. It is very odd; it is ironic. I do not know what members want to call it but at home people may see the muddled thinking behind what this Government is doing in terms of that. 
There is a Eurythmics’ song entitled “Why”; I guess a lot of people at home are wondering why this bill is being introduced. Moana Mackey has already traversed why this legislation needs to be changed what the problem is what the issue is why we are doing this and what is not working. The answer to those questions is nothing. This bill did not need to be introduced. Secret ballots can already be held at the moment to ensure that when a strike is called a majority of workers agree with it. So why this bill has been introduced we do not know. 
There were a handful of submissions to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee on this issue. If Andrew Miller of Auckland is watching tonight I commend him for the first line of his submission which says: “this bill serves no meaningful purpose in improving industrial relations in New Zealand”. That is a nice sentence. It pretty much sums up the opinion of members on this side of the Chamber on this bill. 
Let me move to the Council of Trade Unions’ submission on this bill the “Employment Relations (Scratch the Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill”. The Council of Trade Unions agrees with Labour in terms of the problem that this bill seeks to resolve and why it has been given priority over so many other issues that are facing Kiwi workers today: “It appears to be designed as more of an attack on workers their unions”—and Moana Mackey has already traversed the chequered history of Mr Henare with unions—“and the right to organise than as a response to any real problem with the industrial relations framework.” 
We have seen the recent example in the UK where the introduction of compulsory secret ballots has caused real problems for unions to exercise their right to take strikes. Two recent challenges to strike ballots in the UK were based on what we would consider to be trifling reasons and resulted in injunctions preventing strike action. Such challenges not only prevent workers from being able to exercise their freedom of association rights but also—and here is the nub of it—delay resolution of disputes and can harm and worsen industrial relations. In that respect this bill could be counterproductive to making sure that any industrial disputes are sorted out in a timely and in what members on this side of the Chamber would call a fair manner. 
There was one change I think at the select committee to this bill. It concerned the fact that secret ballots do not need to take place in terms of health and safety. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour) 
: 
 I am standing along with my colleagues. I have to put on the record that I agree with everything that has been said today about this bill the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. It is a waste of this House’s time. One could ask why. The only good point about this bill is that whilst this bill which does absolutely nothing is going through the Government’s agenda of dealing to workers and putting through legislation that takes rights away from workers is not happening. Usually it is customary that that happens under urgency so that people do not have much opportunity to have a say on it. 
Much has been said about the title of this bill. I think along with my colleague Darien Fenton that it could be called the “Raymond Henare (I Have a Chip on My Shoulder) Bill”. It seems to me that the Government one way or the other has a very very low opinion— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My birth name is Raymond Tau Henare. I am known in this House and outside it as Tau Henare. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am a little bewildered by that point of order. Was that a point of order a point of information or a point of clarification? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: We would have to seek the member’s view for that. I understood it was a point of clarification that was done through a point of order. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I ask respectfully that you Mr Chairperson invite the member to elucidate whether it was a point of order a point of clarification or a point of information. I would like to know. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Well it is up to the member whether he wishes to clarify. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: It was in response to the member speaking. She tried to belittle me by using what she thinks is just a funny part of my name but it does not. She should refer to me as Tau Henare which is my name in this House and outside it. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I in no way intended to belittle the member at all. I referred to the member as Raymond because his union experience goes back to when he was an organiser with the clerical union and at that stage I believe he was known as Raymond. That was why I thought it was appropriate to refer to the bill as the “Raymond Bill”. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. I say to members that courtesy is contagious. We will all prosper if we stay within the spirit of the Standing Orders. Regarding names members must refer to members by their title or their name in this case as it is recorded in the  
Hansard 
. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I get to my feet to mention the use of the term for the member who introduced the bill as someone having a chip on his shoulder. It seems to me that this suggests or implies that the member is somehow getting revenge back on the union movement and therefore it is an imputation of an improper motive. That appears to be in breach of Standing Order 116. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member. I know what he is referring to. He is referring to personal reflections which is Standing Order 116. I say to the member that in a Speaker’s ruling it is up to the member himself to take offence—[ 
Interruption 
] I am on my feet. Members make disparaging remarks about each other all the time. It is when it is a personal reflection that it is out of order which is Standing Order 116. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: I do accept members on the other side jumping to the member’s defence because it would be fair to say that Tau Henare is the only member of National who has had any experience of workers and unions be it rather not the most pleasant experience for workers and unions in New Zealand. He is the only member on that side of the Chamber—and I will stand corrected if there is anyone else—who has any real experience of unions or of working with workers— 
Chester Borrows 
: Rubbish. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Oh rubbish rubbish. Apart from rubbishing as those members do— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Rubbish. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: Rubbish Rubbish—that got a bit of passion! Never mind the views of Sandra Goudie on unions. Those members see that Tau Henare is somehow the authority on what happens in that mystical world of unionism. This is a Government that vilifies workers vilifies unions and it actually vilifies people who do not work. It vilifies people who are not able to work when there are plenty of people in New Zealand who through no fault of their own cannot work under this Government. 
Kris Faafoi 
: Bullies. 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: My mate at the back says “Bullies” and I am inclined to agree with him. Those members are bullies and they are very ignorant of the rights of workers in New Zealand—those who are left—because the Government is steadily decimating workers’ rights. I know that other colleagues have spoken about it. 
This member is so obsessed with a secret ballot as other colleagues have said. I myself as a union official have never ever ran a strike vote without a secret ballot and I have to say that strike votes are very seldom occurrences. It is really serious to ask workers to withdraw their labour. It is a very serious thing to do because they will not have any income and a strike has a detrimental effect on the business they work for. So it is a very rare occurrence. A strike ballot is done by a secret ballot. That is common practice. But that member is out of touch. I ask this Committee and I ask members on the other side to take a call as to whether—[ 
Interruption 
] I cannot hear Sandra Goudie’s words of wisdom; I hope she stands and takes a call rather than shouting from the peanut gallery. This is based on fear. This member’s obsession with secret ballots is probably because he had to run them. Having him as a union official would be a dreadful dreadful situation for a worker in New Zealand. 
Hon Member 
: Ha ha! 
LYNNE PILLAY 
: It would. I would say that workers in New Zealand would insist if that member was the organiser on having a secret ballot because if they did not do what he wanted he would be looking in that mean way he has. All of us have seen it. We have been trembling in our boots on this side of the Chamber with his stony glares at us and his threatening manner. We all know about that. I know he is looking like butter would not melt at the moment but we know the fearful side of Tau Henare. That is why it is really important that workers under his watch— 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I follow an appalling contribution to the Committee from Lynne Pillay. Not only did that member get personal but she thought she knew her subject. Well let me tell this esteemed Committee that the worst union organiser in this country’s history was Fintan Patrick Walsh. That is right—Fintan Patrick Walsh. He used to throw people off the bloody—excuse me sorry I apologise—ferry. He was an appalling unionist and not one of those members on the other side of the Chamber will get up on their hind legs and say otherwise. Sorry but Fintan Patrick Walsh was one of the worst unionists this country has ever ever seen. 
Let us talk about Moana Mackey. She is here only because she took over some sort of rogue dynasty from her mother. She took over from her mother as some sort of union official down on the East Coast for goodness’ sake. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I understand we are up to clause 1 and I have not heard the member in the chair refer at all to clause 1. He has given just a rather personal tirade—which we on this side of the Chamber quite enjoy actually—and that little tirade about history does not seem to be of much relevance. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the member for her contribution. A number of Speakers’ rulings say that with any speech in reply the speaker has some time to rebut some of the accusations against him or her. But I would hope that the member would shortly come to answering the questions that were raised. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well now that I have dealt with the last speaker from over there let us have a talk about Mr Faafoi. He says this Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill— 
Lynne Pillay 
: The member’s a bully. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The member wants to call me names. Oh dear! How sad! I am really hurt. I am really hurt. Lynne Pillay has spent the last 10 years in this place and she has never ever—ever—in the last 10 years said anything worthwhile on the floor of the House. It amazes me. It is no wonder she lost to Paula Bennett. It is no wonder that Paula Bennett is the member for Waitakere and will continue to be— 
Jacinda Ardern 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I really question the relevance of this at this point—we are debating clause 1—particularly given that the member began his speech by questioning the personalisation of this debate. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you. I again thank the honourable member. It has been rather robust debate tonight. When people make interjections on someone who has the floor they can expect some feedback. But I ask the member now to come to the title and to answer some of the questions. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: If this bill is such a waste of time why have we spent the last 40 minutes listening to members on that side say the bill is a waste of time and not worth debating? Why have we been hearing from those members who have been getting up and down for the last 40 minutes to talk about a bill they think is a waste of time? Well I can tell the Committee why. Mr Faafoi said this bill does not increase the safety of workers. I say to Mr Faafoi “Guess what? It does.” It protects the worker from the bullying tactics that we all know are out there—the bully-boy tactics from the unions. That is what this bill does. It protects. 
The funny thing is I think about Christchurch where all the people have insurance—well most of the people have insurance. A secret ballot whether of a union or of a country is insurance against intimidation. That is all this bill is. It is insurance. It is insurance against intimidation. 
Moana Mackey 
: Should shareholders get secret ballots? Do they have to do secret ballots as well? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It is insurance against the bully-boy tactics of the likes of Moana Mackey and her mother. 
Kris Faafoi 
: That’s rather rich. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That is what this bill is all about. And while I am on my feet I say that those members get up and say— 
Kelvin Davis 
: Seconds out! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: —that the word “worker” is being pulled from the bill. Well here is the reason why I tell Mr Davis and Mr Faafoi; here is the reason why. If they knew what was in the principal Act they would realise that the word “worker” does not appear in the principal Act. It was the Labour Government that passed the principal Act and nowhere in that Act of Parliament which was passed by “Lady Muck” Helen Clark—she passed that bill— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take offence at the reference to the previous Prime Minister. I would like the member to withdraw and apologise. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No. The member cannot take offence at that. People make disparaging remarks about each other all the time. This is a robust Parliament. But I would ask the member to try to be careful. Courtesy as I said is contagious. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Well it would have been if they had been courteous. 
Nowhere in the principal Act does the word “worker” appear. Work out why Kelvin Davis got up on his feet and said that that was an attack on workers—that it was a clear attack on workers’ rights that the word “worker” had been pulled from my bill. But the word does not even appear in a bill that was put forward and turned into an Act by a Labour Government. Work that one out. My question to Kris Faafoi who could not even find his way to McDonald’s in 1960 or whenever it was— 
Kris Faafoi 
: You did. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Absolutely—absolutely! I know where they all are and I am quite proud of that fact. 
The last thing I will say for the moment is this. How horrible members on that side of the Chamber must feel. They think that this side of the Chamber does not have any unionists does not have any people who have worked with workers. Well I have news for Labour: most of the members on this side either have been delegates or have helped out during their work experience way back— 
Lynne Pillay 
: Which of those ones? 
Moana Mackey 
: Name them! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh in the abattoirs people have worked in in the hospitals people have worked in they have belonged to unions and they have also been delegates on the shop floor. That is not the preserve of the left. It is about representation. It is about making sure that people are OK. That is it—end of story. I look forward to some pearls of wisdom from the little miss from Waitakere Lynne Pillay and others as this debate goes on. 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I feel as if I am in a vortex at the moment. The member in the chair Tau Henare spent quite some time trying to explain to the Committee why the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill is incredibly important to him and to the Government yet he is the only Government member who has spoken on the bill. If there is such passion on that side of the Chamber I really would welcome a call from perhaps Sandra Goudie who gestured that she had once been a union delegate. I would genuinely like to hear Ms Goudie’s delegate stories. I would genuinely like to hear them. Perhaps she was a union delegate for the mangroves of the Hauraki Plains! I really would welcome hearing from her. In fact I would welcome any Government member speaking to this bill. I believe that they would only reinforce the eloquent comments made by the member in the chair who did refer to his bill once or twice once he was done with his insults. 
But I have an actual question for the member in the chair. I would really like to understand the origins of this bill a little better. He did allude to his knowledge of the union movement and his history in the union movement but actually he is trying to debate a point that we are not debating. We are not debating that there is anything wrong with the use of secret ballots. In fact the reason that we on our side allowed this bill to go to a select committee in the first place was that we acknowledged that secret ballots were common union practice. We therefore had no fear of this issue being discussed. But it became more and more obvious to us that this legislation was unnecessary and that in fact it had the ability to create a distortionary effect. We are not debating the relevance of secret ballots here I would say to the member. So I would like to hear from his perspective some genuine examples some real-life recent cases that obviously have been brought to his attention. I fail to see why he is driving this bill unless he has had some experiences or cases brought to him. Perhaps if he shared those with the Committee that would improve our understanding of his motives because at the moment I am not clear on his motives in relation to this bill. I think it is interesting to dig down beneath it. As we on this side have said secret ballots are common practice. We have members on this side who have recent experience of that process amongst workers. 
So I would really like the member to explain in this title clause debate what is driving this legislation. If I were to suggest a new title for this bill in this debate maybe it would be “Bill Looking for a Problem Bill” because at the moment I have not heard clearly articulated what the issue is. I can see the Chair looking at me graciously expecting me to speak directly to clause 1 and that is why I will bring in at this point my ridiculous alternative titles—if the Committee can bear with me. So there is one: “Bill Looking for a Problem Bill”. I would also like to throw out the option of “Bill Reinforcing Old Prejudices Bill”. 
Perhaps the title should be “Contradictory Bill” because ultimately the member has tried to tell us that somehow this bill will improve the process. We are saying that secret ballots already occur; he is trying to require them by legislation. To me that seems slightly contradictory to the usual perspective that a member of National would take on such matters. If we can prove that it is happening generally why would the member wish to entrench it unnecessarily into law and to create unnecessary red tape? National prides itself as being a bastion against red tape yet when it comes to the union movement it seems to take a completely different view. Perhaps instead we could call the bill the “I Didn’t Wish to Explore Voluntary Codes Bill” because every other time I have seen the potential for regulation come in the first thing that someone who looks at these things from the perspective of business would say is “Let us do it as a voluntary code. Let us see whether we can bring it about through compromise through a collective approach.” Actually that is what the unions do. They have their own democratic way of operating. They abide by their own written constitutions. That is how it works. 
Again I ask any member of National to contribute to this debate. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a call on the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill but I first have to reflect on the most outrageous comment that has been made in this House for a very long time which came from the member Miss Mackey. She said in her first call that this bill is a complete and utter waste of time. That was from a member of the party that has spent 9 months filibustering on members’ days on a bill it supports. That is an outrageous waste of taxpayers’ money—I think it has been mentioned that it is $453000 an hour—Wednesday after Wednesday after Wednesday this year. We have not had a single draw of a Labour member’s bill from a ballot in 2011—not one. Do members know why they do not care? It is because they do not have any ideas for a member’s bill. The only Labour member’s bill in the last ballot in November 2010 came from the Hon Darren Hughes. I do not know where that is but there has not been a single Labour member’s bill in the ballot in 2011. For Miss Mackey to accuse Tau Henare of wasting House time is completely outrageous. 
I will go on to what Miss Darien Fenton said about people on this side of the House—in fact she has been misquoted. I do not believe she said there are no union delegates on this side of the House. She said there are no people on this side of the House who deal with unions. Well I have news for that member: employers deal with unions every single day. She should not stand here and say that employers do not know what unions want because unions make that very clear. Those employers that have good relations with their unions get to deal with them on a daily basis. 
So why have the bill? Jacinda Ardern asked that very good question. This party and the member who introduced the bill Tau Henare believe in workers’ rights. We do not believe in union rights and the choice of the unions to ride roughshod over their members at any will. Talk about being in a vortex. This is the first line of Labour’s minority view: “The Labour Party is supportive of secret ballots for strike action because it largely reflects current practice …”. But Labour does not want to entrench it in legislation. Is Labour the new neo-liberal party of New Zealand? ACT’s demise has led to the new neo-liberal “No Need to Pass Legislation Party”. But hang on if Labour was so keen on choice and flexibility why would it have the Employment Relations Act in the first place? It is a fudge. It is opposition for opposition’s sake. 
But I have realised who has the greatest to fear from a secret ballot right now not only in this House but in the whole country. It is the Leader of the Opposition Phil Goff. What would happen if a secret ballot was allowed in the Labour Party caucus this week? I ask myself how many of those members would be prepared to stand up in their caucus when a ballot was called and say whether they support the Leader of the Opposition. It is the ultimate dilemma—whether to support their leader when the time comes. It will not be long; there are 81 days to go. It will probably be on day 82 because nobody has the courage to stand and challenge the Leader of the Opposition. Nobody has said they will they do that. So what will these members do? Will they stand and support him? Then if he loses after his demise what will that mean for their future? Are they not going to stand and support him? What if he passes muster? What if he wins the ballot? If anybody needs a secret ballot right now it is the members on the other side of the Chamber. It is a complete paradox. They do not support this bill but they do support secret ballots. Reconcile that. 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am going to completely ignore—completely ignore—the previous speaker Michael Woodhouse because that is what his speech deserves but I do want to pick up on the comments of the member responsible for the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill Tau Henare. I acknowledge that in response to a comment from one of my colleagues that Tau Henare was the worst union delegate secretary ever in the history of the country he stood up and said that that was not true and that it was Fintan Patrick Walsh. That was the comparison he made for himself. That is what he told us. We have the “Black Prince” who I acknowledge was worse than Tau Henare as a union delegate secretary. He was the “Black Prince” who worked with the employers against the interests of workers in issues like the 1951 waterfront lockout. So to make that comparison rather underscores the comments made by my colleagues. 
Mr Henare also referred to bullying tactics but he talked hardly at all about this bill which I think rather underscores the futility of it. We have had people who have been union representatives and who have overseen ballot after ballot say to the Committee that it is the practice—and I as a former union member can confirm—that ballots are almost always held in secret. I contrast this bill with the previous bill the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill where the Government was not prepared to allow compulsion in respect of student union membership. But suddenly this following bill says that secret union ballots must be compulsory. What a contradiction in terms that is. That is the contrast there. 
Mr Henare also made an extraordinary comment that many members of the National caucus have been union delegates. I found that to be an extraordinary comment and I would like to see any member opposite stand up and confirm his comments. I wonder whether he was referring to people like David Carter who perhaps represents the “Union of Multiple Farm Owners” or maybe to Wayne Mapp who must represent the “North Shore Workers Union” or maybe he could have been referring to Maurice Williamson the well-known union delegate and representative for the “Pakuranga Geeks and Related Trades Union”. That would be a union that I am sure would never want to see a compulsory ballot because they would want to do it on their iPads. They would not want to have compulsory ballots; the “Pakuranga Geeks and Related Trades Union” would want to have their votes taken by iPad which is rather different from walking into a trades hall or a conference centre to give a vote. I wonder whether Tony Ryall— 
Moana Mackey 
: Title. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I will come back to the title of the bill which relates to the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I say thank you to my colleague Moana Mackey for reminding me that we are debating the title of this particular bill. Following on from that this bill is about trying to enforce what is already the practice in union ballots today which is to have a secret ballot. The situation is not one where one size fits all. The point has been made in respect of a decision by shareholders to lock out workers that they should be given the same requirement. If we are to have equity across this issue then surely this bill should extend to shareholders in a company. Where shareholders in a company have made a decision to lock out workers who have decided to take a strike because of the ballot they have taken—almost certainly in secret—then they should be compelled under the same legislation that Tau Henare has brought into the House. 
I find it absolutely extraordinary that we have this member’s bill. It is clear that there has been an instruction to the National caucus to find a member’s bill; it does not matter whether or not it is of no consequence at all. We have the Military Manoeuvres Act Repeal Bill and we have this bill. These bills are an indication that the National caucus has been told to get a member’s bill up. I will take the word of colleagues who have been in the union movement—like Darien Fenton like Lynne Pillay like Carol Beaumont—that the practice is there but there has to be a choice for workers to make their decisions in respect of these ballots. We can see the potential for this bill to be used as a weapon against workers not as a tool to protect their rights in the workplace. That would be very much in line with the anti-worker sentiment of this Government. 
Sandra Goudie 
: Mr Chair— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I will give the call to Sandra Goudie but before I do so I say that the Chair is desirous of having some debate on the title which is actually what this debate is about. I just caution the Committee that we actually should be debating the title and I would prefer that we do that. Then we can make some progress. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I am sorely tempted but Darien Fenton assured me by sign language that she was going to speak on the title. 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Absolutely Mr Chair. Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to talk about the title of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I want to go back over a couple of things particularly in relation to Tau Henare’s response and to the change in the title where the word “Workers’ ” has been removed. I make the point that the original title of the bill the Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill was put forward by the member himself so I thought it was a bit ridiculous for him to come back and argue that it was removed and to say that we do not understand the Employment Relations Act. 
What is really interesting is that if the word “Workers’ ” had remained in the title it would have included a whole group of workers who are now excluded as employees. Just so members are not confused I say that I am referring to the recommendation from the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that the word “Workers’ ” be removed because there is no reference in the Employment Relations Act to that word. A whole group of workers has now been excluded from the definition of “employee” under the Employment Relations Act. If the word “Workers’ ” had remained in the title of this bill they would be covered by it. Guess who I am talking about. Who am I talking about? I am talking about any person engaged in film production work as an actor voice-over actor stand-in body double stunt performer extra singer musician dancer or entertainer and any other person engaged in film production work. That whole group of workers employees or people had the right under the Employment Relations Act—until National decided that they should not have the right—to go to court to have the court determine that they could be employees under this Act. They were in fact workers. Because they are called workers and they are outside the Employment Relations Act they actually have no rights—no rights at all. 
It is quite perverse in a way when we think about it. This Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill as it was called actually applies to employees. That is the point that the select committee made. The Employment Relations Act applies only to people in the employee-employer relationship. So it is an interesting question I think. Those workers in the film industry and video production industry have now been excluded from rights as employees—well I do not think they have the right to strike but there is an argument that the Trade Unions Act 1908 still applies. The Trade Unions Act 1908 actually applies to workers. They have the right to form a union and they have the right to strike and it cuts across the Companies Act the Commerce Act and other things. It says they are not allowed to collaborate because they would be committing some kind of conspiracy. 
I think it is a very very interesting title. I am still very interested in why the member in the chair said that “Workers’ ” came out because it does not apply when he put the word “Workers’ ” in the title in the first place. I have yet to hear from him why he did that and what he had in his mind. Did he have in his mind that a secret ballot for strikes should apply for all workers not just employees? There is a huge difference under law. Was he implying by removing the word that workers who are outside the employment relationship under the Employment Relations Act should have the right to strike? Was he implying that? Is that what he had in mind when he included the word “Workers’ ” in the title? I would be interested in his response to that because we have asked a question about that. I think it is a very interesting topic and I think it deserves a lot more exploring—if not tonight then we want to have other opportunities to talk about this. 
The fact is that we now have an Employment Relations Act that applies to employees only. Many many workers are now outside that relationship and they have absolutely no rights at all. It is something I am quite passionate about. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I don’t think National’s thought about it. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: I am sure except that by taking employees who work in the film and video industry out of the Employment Relations Act National made them into workers and Tau Henare’s bill as it was originally titled would have included workers. I think it is a very interesting question. 
I would still like to hear from the member in the chair about why he put the word “Workers’ ” in the original title and whether he agrees with the change that the select committee has made. He is right in saying that the word “Workers’ ” does not appear in the Employment Relations Act— 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Motion agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Clause 2 Commencement 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Clause 2 is on the commencement which is a reasonably precise and tight debate. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I think that the commencement date should be put out several years. 
Kelvin Davis 
: For a century. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: No I think 10 years would probably be a good start. I say that because I think the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill itself offends basic rights. There was a discussion previously on the title which unfortunately the Green Party did not get a call on. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: You weren’t here. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: I was here. It is an unbalanced bill. It talks about workers’ secret ballots for strikes but it does not take into account the other side of the industrial equation—that employers should also if there is going to be a secret ballot have a secret ballot as is proposed in a further amendment that we will be discussing later whereby shareholders should be balloted secretly before they lock out workers because there is equality in the Employment Relations Act on strikes and lockouts in that respect. 
I think the commencement date should be put out for 10 years because if we look at the justice of it we should ask why the State should control voluntary organisations. That is what this is about. In spite of National members talking about freedom and nanny State and all the rest of it—all of the things they have talked about over the years—this is the ultimate nanny State measure. The State is controlling such an intimate thing as how people in a voluntary organisation can decide collectively whether they should go on strike. That should not be the role of the State. 
In fact let us look at the practicalities of the situation. I have been in several situations where there have been strikes. Sometimes there have been secret ballots and that has been very good. Sometimes it has been impractical to have secret ballots. That is the situation and that is the way submissions went to the select committee. The Service and Food Workers Union and I think the Unite union put across the idea that in some of the industries they organise such as fast food outlets and whatnot it is impractical to have a secret ballot so it should not be in law. The Green Party completely opposes this provision being in law. It is impractical and will act against the interests of unions. 
Also as was mentioned in some of the previous discussion it will allow because it is in statute law employers to try to trip up workers all the time. Employers may say: “Well this person didn’t get a note and this worker didn’t get a notice of the secret ballot.” because that worker might have shifted address or something. They may hold up the strike action of the union concerned until that is all sorted out in a court. Because the employers always have more money than unions they can also bankrupt the unions by dragging them through repeated court proceedings about whether a strike ballot was properly implemented. This is highly prejudiced against one side of the industrial disputes—that is the workers. I think that putting the implementation of this bill out for 10 years would give us time to think about it. It would give time for members of this Parliament to go down to workplaces to talk to workers go into fast food outlets talk to the Unite union talk to the Service and Food Workers Union and talk to employers about whether they want to have an imposition on them of all their shareholders having a secret ballot before there is a lockout as might be the case if Darien Fenton’s amendment is passed in relation to clause 4. There is still water to go under the bridge and I think that 10 years’ worth of water going under the bridge would be quite good. 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I have to say that I agree with the member Keith Locke. I think that the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Act should come into force some time far far away from 1 year after the date on which it receives the Royal assent which is what is currently in the bill. Perhaps 10 or 15 years after the date on which it receives the Royal assent might not be such a bad idea because this is absolutely ridiculous legislation. But it is more than just ridiculous. The logic behind it—as far as I can tell and I use “logic” in the broadest sense of the word—is fundamentally flawed. 
This is a bill that will put in place secret ballots for strikes—only for strikes I might add—when in fact that is what generally occurs. This is based on some premise of a time past. I just thought I would elucidate to members opposite what a strike is because we are talking about bringing into commencement in a year’s time legislation that will require secret ballots for strikes. Now a strike can be a number of things. It is the “walk out of the door” scenario that people think of—the full withdrawal of labour but it is other things as well. It is also refusing or failing after any such discontinuance to resume or return to employment. It is about breaking employment agreements. It is about refusing or failing to accept engagement for work in which one is usually employed and it is about reducing normal output or the normal rate of work. 
I go into some depth on this word “strike” because it is not an easy thing to do. It has never been an easy thing for people to do. People think about it and make a decision to strike in very extreme circumstances—usually when they are trying their level best to improve their wages and conditions of employment and that has become tougher and tougher. As the economy has tightened up under a National-led Government and when employers feel perhaps more emboldened to play a harder ball if you like it has become tougher for unions to negotiate collective agreements and get reasonable outcomes for workers. Striking is a last resort. It has always been a last resort to try to improve wages and conditions of employment. 
This legislation which would come into force a year from receiving the Royal assent as provided for in clause 2 the commencement clause would require strike action—and that is quite a broad thing as I have just outlined—to have a secret ballot before it could happen. And that secret ballot could be challenged by employers. Later on we will talk about that a little bit more but many of us can see that this could provide grounds for litigation driven by employers trying to stop unions taking action to try to improve their wages and conditions of employment. So again that is another reason to push out the commencement date of this bill because it will lead potentially to significant legal challenges by employers hell-bent on stopping workers improving their wages and conditions of employment through taking industrial action—through taking strike action. 
Now of course the other thing this bill does is that it focuses only on one side of the coin. Industrial action has two parts: strikes and lockouts. We can see that they are one part after the other in the Employment Relations Act: section 81 is around the meaning of strikes and section 82 is around the meaning of lockouts. But that is not affected by this bill so the commencement would bring into force a regime that applies only to one part of the industrial relations landscape not the other which is the lockout. The lockout is effectively where employers take actions that stop workers doing their job and that also therefore impacts on these people’s pockets. It means that they are not earning money. Certainly there have been some very very ugly lockouts in this country’s history and I am not talking just about the 1951 lockout but much more recently the Progressive Enterprises lockout—and that would not require any sort of ballot. It did not require any sort of ballot. A similar very large-scale lockout like that which put enormous pressure on to very low-paid workers would not under the provisions of this bill require any form of ballot any form of consultation and the management of a company could just go ahead. 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 Keith Locke says that we should push the commencement date of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Act out 10 years and Carol Beaumont says 15 years. I say let us push it out a century because even in 100 years’ time we will not have more than a handful of people complaining about the whole secret ballot thing. In fact why do we not just push it out a millennium—why do we not just push it out a thousand years because in that time there will still be only a handful if that of people who actually feel the need for this bill other than Tau Henare and perhaps a few thousand of his descendants who will want to maintain Papa Tau’s legacy of giving it to the workers. 
Keith Locke was right: this is about the National Government interfering in the intimate workings of a voluntary organisation. Now why on earth would it want to do that? And who is going to be next? Meals on Wheels—“Sorry you can’t have cabbage on Tuesday you’ve got to have peas.” This will be the National Government’s next step in interfering in other voluntary organisations and what they do. After that it will be Victim Support after that it will be the Boy Scouts and after that who knows? The world is at Tau Henare’s mercy when the Government is interfering with voluntary organisations around the world. It will be Volunteer Service Abroad next: “Sorry you can’t go to Tonga for your voluntary service abroad. You will have to go to Kiribati.” 
This will be the start of something big for Tau Henare. Let us start with the unions. Let us interfere with the workings of that voluntary organisation. Let us deal to the unions and then we can take on the rest of the voluntary organisations. 
It is a nonsense bill. There is no need for this bill as we have already outlined in the title clause debate. As well there is an imbalance here. There is a lack of fairness. We want to know what it is about National members that they do not understand fairness. National’s tax is not fair. It is tax cuts for the wealthy. Here is another thing that is not fair. Unions will have to have secret ballots yet employers will not. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: Commencement. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: Commencement. Again within 1000 years of the commencement of this bill employers will not have to conduct secret ballots of their stakeholders when they want to lock out these horrible union workers. Not within 10 years not within a decade not within 15 years not within a century not within a millennium will employers have to do what Tau Henare wants the unions to have to do and that is hold these secret ballots. For what reason? For what purpose? Oh the bullying he says. Well there is a story about the pot and the kettle and I am not sure which one Mr Henare wants to be when it comes to bullying. His overbearing attitude is exactly what he is accusing unions of having. 
Hon Maurice Williamson 
: What’s wrong with a secret ballot? 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: What is wrong with it? Fairness I say to Mr Williamson. There is nothing fair about this when we are expecting a voluntary organisation to have to have secret ballots but National does not expect employers to hold secret ballots of their stakeholders when they want to lock out workers. It is the fairness. 
There is a lack of fairness and again National does not understand fairness. Its tax cuts were for the wealthy. It was not fair that the wealthy received a $1000 a week tax cut and the low-paid workers received something like 25c an hour in their tax cut. 
I feel it does not matter how far out we push the commencement date. It will not make a difference whether it is 1 year as stated in the bill or whether it is 10 years 15 years a century or a millennium. It will not make a difference because there is not a problem. As Jacinda Ardern put it so eloquently this is a bill looking for a problem. There is nothing here that will be remedied by commencing the bill at any stage. 
JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 I thank you very much Mr Chairperson Roy for giving me the opportunity to talk to the commencement clause of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill. I feel like a bit of an auctioneer because first we heard that the bill should come into effect in 10 years then 15 years and now we have heard 1000 years—sold to Mr Davis. This bill should not come into effect at all. It will take considerably longer than a year to figure out why this bill is here at all and to figure out the motivation for it and what positive effect it will have on any workers who are slogging their guts out and having this measure forced upon them. It will take a considerable amount of time—more than just 1 year which is provided for in clause 2 the commencement clause—for us to sort out why this bill is here. Mr Davis talked about how on many occasions we have asked what the motivation for the bill is what the problem is and why this bill needs to be passed. It will take us considerably more than a year to figure out why on the grounds of democracy National thinks this bill needs to be passed. 
We have no problem with secret ballots. They are widespread at the moment and have been well used by unions to adjudicate whether a strike is to be called or effected. But there is some puzzlement on this side of the Chamber as to why the Government wants to make it compulsory for unions to have secret ballots for strikes to be called. 
On a number of levels it is impractical. Keith Locke in his contribution earlier talked about how difficult it would be in practical terms to organise a secret ballot for the likes of fast-food workers such as people who might work at restaurants like McDonald’s which opened in Porirua in 1976. It is also impractical in terms of the longstanding history unions have already of making sure that these secret ballots happen in order to give their members a say. 
There were a number of submissions on this bill from the Employers and Manufacturers Association and also if I remember correctly from Business New Zealand. They wanted to impose an amendment to the bill to make sure that for the vote to strike to be successful the threshold for the secret ballot would be 75 percent. Therein lies some of the motivation as to where the benefit from this bill would lie. In relation to the commencement we will need a lot more than just 1 year to sort out why this bill is needed and how it will protect the rights of workers as Mr Henare said when we were debating clause 1. 
I think it was also Mr Locke who commented on Mr Woodhouse’s contribution in which he said that he thought we should make secret ballots compulsory. I agree with Mr Locke that the bill is nanny State and it is controlling a voluntary organisation and we should not have to do that especially when at this stage as far as we on this side of the Chamber are concerned the unions that use secret ballots are using them quite effectively and fairly. So again we ask why this bill needs to be passed. Again we will need a lot more than just 1 year from the bill receiving the Royal assent to figure out why this bill is here. 
This bill in essence will enforce compulsory secret ballots on unions when calling a strike. There has already been some talk about this bill changing the very nature of the definition of a strike. A strike will not be able to be called unless a secret ballot is taken and that fundamentally changes the rights of workers in terms of their ability to take industrial action. If a ballot is not taken but strike action is called then a union could be tied up in lots of red tape and potentially big legal bills because their action could be deemed illegal. That is one of the serious dangers contained in this bill and again that is why we will need something like 1000 years I say to Mr Davis to sort out why this bill has come before the House. The commencement of this bill should not be as stated in the bill at the moment. One year is simply not enough time for us to sort out this mess. 
We have had problems with the title. Mr Henare has not admitted to the fact that he botched up the title and included workers in the title when they are not included in the primary legislation. But again the commencement of this bill should not be 1 year following its receiving the Royal assent. 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 195 in the name of the Hon Tau Henare to clause 2 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 56 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 8; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Amendment agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 63 
New Zealand National 57; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 1. 
Noes 57 
New Zealand Labour 42; Green Party 9; Maori Party 3; Progressive 1; Mana 1; Independent: Carter C. 
Clause 2 as amended agreed to. 
Clause 3 Principal Act amended 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 I was really looking forward to taking a call on the previous clause of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill but I will make do with this one. I think it is worth discussing exactly what we are amending under clause 3 of the principal Act—that is the Employment Relations Act. We are amending quite a significant part of the rights of employees under the Employment Relations Act. It sounds really simple and easy to say that there should be a secret ballot for strikes and we should put it in this amendment. We might ask who has a problem with it as it is about democracy and so on but I do not think that members opposite understand what this will involve and the change and red tape and all sorts of— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Compliance. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Compliance—absolutely. The Hon Tau Henare did not speak on his Supplementary Order Paper 195 but it amended clause 2 and it goes on to make some other amendments. This bill will require unions to amend their rules because the principal Act the Employment Relations Act is being amended. Unions have to be registered under section 14 of the Employment Relations Act. They have to be registered as unions. There is a whole provision in the Act that says when they are entitled to be registered as unions. There are a whole lot of rules about them having to be democratic not unreasonable not unfairly discriminatory not contrary to law and interestingly independent and at arm’s length from employers. Yet here we have a provision to amend the principal Act that will allow employers to interfere in the democratic processes of unions. 
Unions will have to change their rules. Because it has been a while since the member in the chair Tau Henare has been involved in unions I do not think he understands the requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act and the provisions in the Employment Relations Act as to the requirements a union has to meet in order to change its rules. Unions have to get their members to approve those changes. For the union that I come from the Service and Food Workers Union it would involve something like 50 stopwork meetings throughout the country. That means arranging with employers for workers to be released and that is not always easy. It is a cost on employers. It also means getting the workers to the meetings so that they are able to vote on the changes to the rules that this bill will require. This bill will require that unions change their rules so that there is a provision as set out in Supplementary Order Paper 195 relating to the process for holding a secret ballot. 
I think that unions could live with that. Certainly I will have an amendment a bit later on that proposes that that is all this bill does. All this bill needs to do is amend the Employment Relations Act so that unions have to have in their rules a provision for holding secret ballots. Then the unions themselves with their members can decide in a democratic way what the process is. That is what all of the international conventions around freedom of association and the whole tenor and support for freedom of association and collective bargaining under the Employment Relations Act are about. It is about unions being independent of employers. It is about them being able to run their own business just as employers’ organisations are able to. This bill will not require employer organisations or shareholders to amend their rules and go through the process that unions will be required to. 
I think that when we talk about amending the principal Act everyone needs to understand what is being asked. We are imposing a whole lot of red tape not only on unions but also on employers. Employers will be affected by this because unions will have to go through a process of changing their rules and in order for them to do that employers will have to comply. Employers will have to cooperate or the rules will not be able to be changed and then over a period of time those unions will be in breach of the amended Act. 
We oppose the bill for a whole lot of other reasons that we will get into a bit later. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 I will take just a quick call on this particular clause because it is at the heart of the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill in terms of the principal— 
Grant Robertson 
: I’m not sure Jo wants you to take a call. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: It is members’ day; that is why they call it such. I will just touch on what this particular clause is not. It was raised by Mr Burns in his call— 
Chris Hipkins 
: He gets a bit of a promotion and it goes straight to his head. 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE 
: Oh those members are nice to talk about it like that are they not? It is just a list guys. They should relax unless they are in that member’s situation. In that case the member is a little less relaxed would he not say? 
This is what this clause is not about: it is not about compulsion as Brendon Burns would have us believe. Indeed he compared this with the voluntary student membership legislation. He said that somehow this legislation was about compulsion and that the voluntary student membership legislation was about choice so we must be inconsistent. Well I challenge that notion because this bill is not about compulsion. Even the Labour members on the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee said this bill is about choice. They said it in their minority report in which they said that “in New Zealand union membership is voluntary and unions should be free to run their organisations according to the rules” that the members democratically put in place. 
I will tell members what Labour members did not say but what one of the unions came in and said. I cannot remember exactly which union it was and I will not guess in case I get it wrong. The member in the chair the Hon Tau Henare may remember. When questioned about what would happen to a union member faced with a ballot that would not be secret and about what choices that union member had in that situation here is what that union said: “They’re free to resign. They can just go.” 
The reason this is relevant is that this bill is exactly about protection. It is not about compulsion and that is what the principal Act says. It says that the Employment Relations Act is “acknowledging and addressing”—these are Labour words but in just this situation I agree with them—“the inherent inequality of power in employment relationships;”. I suggest that that inequality of power exists between unions and union members. It is exercised fairly in many cases but I am sure that members on both sides of the Chamber have a number of examples of when union power was inappropriately used to muscle people into strike action against their judgment. 
The member Tau Henare should be congratulated on bringing this bill to the House because the inappropriate use of power happens altogether too often. [ 
Interruption 
] There those members go—up. The halo on unions cannot be nudged. Well I suggest that this bill is exactly what is needed in order to bring to the use of a secret ballot the very few and not the very many who use that power inappropriately. I strongly support the bill. 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I will refer back just to what Michael Woodhouse was saying. I think one of the key things that he is missing about the Employment Relations Act 2000 which is the principal Act being amended by the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill put forward by Tau Henare is that the whole principle behind the Employment Relations Act 2000 is one of good faith. 
I think National has always—has always—struggled to come to terms with what “good faith” actually means and one of the things that the bill does is to undermine that notion. It says that unions cannot be trusted. That is one of the key messages that regularly comes out of the National Government when it comes to dealing with unions—that the unions cannot be trusted—and that therefore the good-faith provisions do not mean anything. 
Well I think that the good-faith provisions do mean something and when it comes to dealing with secret ballots I think that the unions by and large act in a way that exhibits good faith. They act in a manner that is transparent they act in a manner that is accountable and I think that there is absolutely no need for the bill whatsoever. In fact questions will be raised later in the debate about whether the bill goes wide enough and why if we are to insist on this provision of secret ballots employers should not have to have a secret ballot of their shareholders for example. That is something we will canvass later on in the debate. 
Ultimately in a good-faith environment the bill is totally unnecessary. In an environment where there is goodwill and good faith between employers and employees the bill is unnecessary and it undermines that. It undermines the central principle behind the Employment Relations Act 2000. Were the bill necessary and to be effective one of the things it would do for example is guarantee unions the right to access in the workplace so that they could conduct the secret ballot. Under the bill where secret ballots are required there is no guarantee that unions will in fact have access to the workplace. Oh goodness me! I think we have just stepped off the reservation now. 
I would really like the member in the chair Sandra Goudie to take a call and espouse what in her mind are the central principles behind the Employment Relations Act 2000 the principal Act that the bill amends. I think that members all around the Chamber—in fact people all over the country—would love to hear Sandra Goudie’s opinions on the Employment Relations Act 2000. We know that Sandra Goudie embodies the views of the National Party when it comes to workers’ rights. She is absolutely dedicated to the National Party cause. I would like her to take the next call and explain to us why she believes that the bill furthers the principles of the Employment Relations Act 2000. I will happily go and get her a copy of the Employment Relations Act 2000 if she— 
Grant Robertson 
: That might be necessary. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I think it would require more than a copy of the Employment Relations Act 2000 actually to get Sandra Goudie to produce something coherent. It would require an act of divine intervention to get a coherent call from Sandra Goudie but we live in hope. We are optimists on this side of the House and in fact I can see that Sandra Goudie has a copy of the bill. She is prepping up there— 
Grant Robertson 
: That’s a start. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That is a start. There is always hope. I would very much like to hear what Sandra Goudie has to say on this. If it is as lively as the contribution we had from the member in charge of the bill Tau Henare earlier on it will be a sight to see. We would very much like to hear what members opposite have to say about the bill. 
What we know is that the bill is the first of many amendments to the principal Act that will be coming if National is re-elected. Of course those members will not tell anybody what those amendments will be. It will be just one of those things. John Key has gone out there and said: “Oh well we want to make more changes. If we are re-elected we will make more changes.” He will not say what they are but what National will do is turn round after the election and say: “We have a mandate now. We have been re-elected. We said before the election that we would change it.” Therefore— 
Hon Member 
: No more kicking the tyres. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: They have kicked the tyres. Therefore they will make all of these extra changes to the Employment Relations Act 2000. This is the first of many. I am absolutely devastated that Sandra Goudie is leaving the chair and will not have the opportunity to contribute although she could still take a call from her seat up on the backbenches and espouse to us why she believes that these changes to the principal Act the Employment Relations Act 2000 are necessary. 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 The first thing I would like to do is commend Tau Henare for bringing the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill to the Committee. In speaking to clause 3 I say that the fantastic advantage of this amendment is that we further enhance protection for workers. Yes! That is absolutely critical. I think this is a brilliant member’s bill. Tau Henare should be congratulated. I know that workers will appreciate the fact that we are looking after their interests and further enhancing their protection by way of this bill. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 A previous National speaker spoke about unions versus union members which struck me as rather odd because union members are the unions. They make up the unions. There are of course elected officials in unions. Perhaps the member was going to talk about union officials versus the members. But union officials are always elected by secret ballot. If any union official starts to kick the union members around force them to go on strike and beat down anyone who votes against a strike or anything like that that union official would not last very long particularly at the next secret ballot election. 
When we look at the actual process in the workplace of deciding on a strike we see the secret ballot is not primarily a protection against union members being pushed around by union officials but is a protection against union members being pushed around by their employers. Anyone who has been in a workplace knows that the fear of supporting a strike amongst workers is a fear about what their employer might think about their decision to vote to go on strike not a fear of what union officials might think about whether they are voting for or against the proposal. Because there is usually a democratic atmosphere in the union which the workers insist on the officials accept people voting for and against a strike. But the employer gets rather upset and makes that quite known to the workers if they vote to go on strike. When the workers go back from the union meeting to the shop floor or whatever it might be often the person who is in charge—the supervisor or somebody—will ask them about the meeting how they voted and all the rest of it. So the secret ballot is actually a protection of the workers against harassment from their supervisors and employers not from union officials. That is a practicality of the workplace. 
I support the amendments to the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill that are being put forward by Darien Fenton although I am a little questioning of one provision that would require a secret ballot in every case of a strike because as I indicated in my first speech sometimes that is impractical. That should be a rare exception and in any big workplace normal workplace Public Service workplace or whatever a secret ballot is certainly practical and should be pretty universal—although I am not sure whether that universality should be prescribed in law. 
There is another question relating to rules and this is where the issue comes back to a provision in the Employment Relations Act. That Act is supposed to govern the relations between workers and unions and employers organised in some form as employers. It is not supposed to be an Act to determine exactly how all employers will conduct their business or how all unions will conduct their business. That is not the nature of that Act; it concerns the relations between two self-determining parties. This bill tries to say one of those parties is no longer self-determining and it will prescribe exactly how that party is to function. Once we do that we disrupt the balance between the unions on one side and the employers on the other. We will give the employers the right through pressure on the State or judicial process to then say the other party the union is not abiding by this or that provision in terms of the conduct of the secret ballot. Someone can say that they have proof that so-and-so at 36 Lewis Street Wadestown or wherever it is did not get a ballot paper in the mail and was not able to participate in the election so therefore that ballot on a strike is illegal and da-de-da-de-da. That just causes huge frustration amongst the workers concerned who may have perhaps voted by 95 percent for some sort of strike action but are hampered by the State getting involved in their union’s internal affairs. 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I want to go back to what Chris Hipkins said— 
Hon Member 
: Who? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
:—Hipkins—about the good-faith provisions in the parent Act the Employment Relations Act. As far as I am concerned good faith is nothing more than a Fabian notion of “we will tell you what to do.”—the lumpenproletariat. “We know best and we will tell you what to do when and where and we will tell you how to do it.” That is my little spiel on the good-faith provisions in the Act. 
But here is something for Keith Locke to think about. What he should do is put away Nicky Hager’s book stop reading it and stop thinking that there is a conspiracy around every corner. There might be something around every corner but it is not a conspiracy. It is not a conspiracy. Look Keith Locke is a nice man. Keith Locke is one of New Zealand’s genuine nice men—I want to put that out there. 
But—but—unions and workers are two different things. In my experience—and I know I have been referred to as the worst union organiser ever and blah de blah. In fact we have spent 2 hours listening to personal attacks on me and my career. But that is OK because every member from that side of the Chamber has mentioned my name and that is all right. The good people of Te Atatu are hearing that as well. 
Unions are organisations. Union officials are nothing more than people who grab subs from their union members and give them to the Labour Party—and give them to the Labour Party. Here is something I ask Keith Locke and anybody else who wants to butt in with their beautiful pearls of wisdom: how many workers are ever asked whether they mind their union taking $2 a week off them so that it can give $1 out of that $2 to the Labour Party? 
Darien Fenton 
: It’s not true. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh it is not true! It is not true! That is what Darien Fenton says. That is what Carol Beaumont says—that it is not true. Well how is it that the Service and Food Workers Union can give 200K to the Labour Party for the election? Where does that money come from? That is $200000-odd. 
Kris Faafoi 
: Where’s your money coming from? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: I know where my money comes from. In fact in Te Atatu it comes from the hard-working people who belong to the National Party. They want to give me five bucks or $10. 
Phil Twyford 
: He hasn’t got any volunteers. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh let us see. I saw this fella have a meeting the other night. His kaupapa was the busway out in Te Atatu. Who did he have at his meeting? Eleven people. 
But I digress. One of them was one of my members! But I digress; I do not want to go there. The fact of the matter is that everybody needs insurance whether or not we have an earthquake and whether or not we have stand-over tactics. 
Progress to be reported presently. 
House resumed. 
The Chairperson reported the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill without amendment and progress on the Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill.  
Report adopted. 
Amended Answers to Oral Questions 
Question No. 2 to Minister 
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development and Employment) 
: 
 I seek leave to correct a figure I gave earlier today in question time. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. 
Hon PAULA BENNETT 
: My officials gave me the figure of $25.9 million for funding the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study. They have since informed me of their mistake. The total funding figure should have been $23.3 million and I would like to correct that. 
The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.