Volume 615 Week 49 - Tuesday 24 February 2004 
Volume 615 Week 49 - Tuesday 24 February 2004 
[Volume:615;Page:11207] 
Tuesday 24 February 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Speaker and Delegation from Legislative Assembly of Sarawak 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that the Hon Dato Sri Haji Mohamad Asfia Awang Nassar Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Sarawak accompanied by the Deputy Speaker is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members not only would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair but also would wish to welcome members of his delegation who are present in the gallery. 
Hon Dato Sri Haji Mohamad Asfia Awang Nassar accompanied by the Deputy Speaker entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair. 
Delegation from National Congress of Republic of Chile 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I also have much pleasure in informing members that a delegation from the National Congress of the Republic of Chile is present in the gallery. I am sure that members would wish that this delegation also be welcomed. 
Questions to Ministers 
Television New Zealand—Information 
1. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Broadcasting 
: Is Television New Zealand Limited undertaking any inquiries into the manner in which its reporters obtain information for news stories? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Broadcasting) 
: 
 I am advised that Television New Zealand is not undertaking such an inquiry. I am further advised that TVNZ adheres to standards under the Broadcasting Act consistent with the gathering and presentation of news and current affairs that is balanced fair and accurate. In addition TVNZ similar to any other reputable news organisation has a 104-page manual to direct news and current affairs staff in the proper conduct of newsgathering including the rigorous checking of news sources. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: If that is so why is one Brent Fraser a Christchurch reporter behind the TVNZ news and  
Holmes  
show of 23 January not the subject of an inquiry given that he impersonated a police officer in assembling the information behind that story? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: If the member has evidence of that kind then he knows that there is a procedure to use. I cannot do it. Under section 28 of the Act I am prohibited from bringing about such an inquiry but he himself can do that either by complaining to the institution or by making use of the broadcasting complaints process. 
Mark Peck 
: Would the Minister outline the procedures available for making a formal complaint about the gathering and presentation of television news and current affairs stories? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Under the Broadcasting Act complaints must be made in the first instance to the broadcaster concerned. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the broadcaster’s response the complaint can be referred to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for investigation and review. The authority’s decision can then be appealed to the High Court and the member is well used to such routes. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister aware of the Police Act in particular section 51 in respect of impersonation of a police officer; and is it not a fact that Melanie Jones head of Television One news has been writing not one but various memos to Bill Ralston distancing herself from the Kermadec inquiry because of the manner in which it was conducted being both spurious and insufficient? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: These are interesting points and if the member believes that he has evidence of this kind—that somebody was impersonating a police officer for example—then I am sure with his legal experience he knows exactly what to do. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can the Minister tell me whether as the Minister responsible he accepts that TVNZ has properly informed him of the information behind this question today given that it has one Brent Fraser who claimed to be working on a criminal investigation at the time he went with regard to certain witnesses on that story; that is criminal behaviour guilty if he is guilty and punishable by 3 months’ imprisonment; and does he not think that TVNZ owed him more today than to properly inform him of the inquiry which it knows is going on? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As I said in my first answer TVNZ is not undertaking any inquiry at the present time in relation to this but if the member does have evidence of a person who has been impersonating a police officer—clearly something that is wrong—he should let me know that and I can perhaps help in ensuring that an investigation is taken up. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: What disciplinary action would the Minister regard as being at the very minimal requirement of TVNZ’s news management if a reporter claims to have been involved in a criminal investigation—in short impersonates a police officer? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As Minister of course one of the things I am proscribed and prescribed from doing is answering that question in the sense that I get involved with it but the member knows that this is something that is against the law and he has probably himself already looked up what the likely result would be if that was prosecuted. 
Floods—Government Assistance 
2.  
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
 to the  
Minister for Rural Affairs 
: What assistance and support is being provided by the Government to rural communities affected by the current flooding? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Acting Minister for Rural Affairs) 
:  
In addition to all the civil emergency work going on there is now coordinated the cleaning-up work with Task Force Green workers helping to clean away silt from orchards and farms and assisting in repairing fences and slips. Farm family income assistance measures are in place and agricultural recovery coordinators have been appointed and begun their work. The Government has paid local authorities in the affected areas some $650000 so they are not out of pocket while they grapple with the initial stages of dealing with the enormity of this disaster. This money will undoubtedly be a small fraction of the total cost of assistance and repairs met by the Government. 
Jill Pettis 
: Can the people in rural New Zealand have confidence that their needs will be met as they recover and rebuild after this disaster as will the needs of people living in the towns? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Yes clearly the Government is considering further measures of assistance above and beyond those that are normally provided in these situations. There has been strong support for the measures already taken—for example from the mayors of southern Taranaki Manawatu and Marlborough and from the president of Federated Farmers. 
Simon Power 
: Will the Government give a cash injection to local relief funds due to the small ratepayer base of local councils compared with the massive scale of devastation; if not why not? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Already significant assistance for mayoral relief funds has gone above the normal quantum of $20000 in these cases. The Government has received a suggestion from the United Future party in relation to matching grants for relief funds and is giving active consideration to that. That would apply to funds that have already been raised as well as to funds being raised by organisations like CaritasAotearoa Red Cross and so on. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Is the Minister aware of reports from the Wellington and Hutt Valley region of significant damage as a result of the storms of last weekend in particular and can he assure the House that the same general range of measures that he has foreshadowed will be available to assist those who are the victims of tragedies further north will also be available to the victims of tragedies in this part of the world? 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: The standard provisions of course will automatically apply—that is an 85 percent subsidy on local roads and a 60:40 split on a range of civic amenities and infrastructure. That has been standard Government policy since I think the Cyclone Bola disaster. We obviously will be prepared to look at additional assistance if that is required in the context of this region. 
Private Training Establishments—Financial Strife 
3.  
DONNA AWATERE HUATA (Independent) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: What support is available for private training establishments that get into financial strife? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 With a touch of irony I answer that private training establishments are private commercial organisations from which the Government purchases training. While education agencies monitor the performance of private training organisations the Government’s concern in relation to troubled private training organisations is the welfare of their students. Education agencies seek support for affected students from other tertiary education providers allowing the students to continue their studies with as little interruption as possible. 
Donna Awatere Huata 
: Is the Minister aware that it was in fact his ministry’s pressure on Te Wananga o Aotearoa to cancel a $10 million contract with Carich computers and its withholding of a $800000 repayment that caused Carich’s financial crisis; if so why could he not have written a letter agreeing to continue funding it knowing that that would have secured that organisation’s refinancing and future and knowing that Carich had a 2003 clean-sweep audit on all nine sites? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: No I was not aware of that because it is not true. I could not write a letter because the organisation could not provide a standard data return that guaranteed that I knew how many students it had. 
Donna Awatere Huata 
: Supplementary— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No there is no further supplementary question to the member. I call Dr Ashraf Choudhary. 
Donna Awatere Huata 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek leave to ask a further supplementary question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is not. I will hear the member’s supplementary question after I have heard Dr Ashraf Choudhary because questions do alternate. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: Why does the Government not provide financial support for private training establishments in financial strife? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Private training establishments are not Crown entities; they are private commercial organisations funded to complement the provision of public-funded tertiary education institutions. However the Government must manage Crown risk by monitoring the actions undertaken by those agencies. The Government has policy and actions in place to place support around students from private training establishments when they collapse—for example the student fee indemnification policy and the student placement plan. 
Donna Awatere Huata 
: How does the Minister justify a $5 million loan to Northland Polytechnic one of the poorest-performing tertiary providers when a 1c letter to Carich could have avoided the collapse of a provider that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has said was in the top 10 percent; how can he justify that when a 1c letter could have avoided 400 jobs being lost and several thousand students being caused unnecessary upheaval in their lives? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That question was long. The Minister may comment briefly. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: If the member has a source of 1c letters I would really like to get access to that. In the case of Carich I can easily say that it was not able to provide something as basic—after three shots at it—as a standard data return telling us how many students it had. 
Children—Prostitution 
4.  
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: Does she agree with the comments of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services’ Southern Regional Manager Paula Attrill that curbing child prostitution is “first and foremost” a police issue; if so why? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 When Miss Attrill was asked: “Do your staff go out on the streets at night looking for child prostitutes?” she said: “First and foremost police are responsible for policing the streets.”; I agree. Miss Attrill also said: “In the event that the police pick up any children or young persons for whom there are concerns over lack of supervision of any kind not just relating to prostitution then they phone the duty social worker and the department responds accordingly.” 
Judy Turner 
: In light of the findings of the ECPAT New Zealand recent study which showed that child prostitutes come from backgrounds where sexual abuse drug taking family dysfunction and neglect are prevalent does she agree that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is the very agency that needs to step up and take a much more proactive role given its core statutory responsibilities to promote the well-being of children by protecting them from abuse and suffering? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Not only am I satisfied with the contribution that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is making in respect of this need I am also very satisfied with the amount of interagency collaboration that is applied in the areas of early intervention and family support. 
Georgina Beyer 
: What is the Government doing to curb child prostitution? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: We have done more than any other previous Government to stop the sexual exploitation of children. We have passed legislation making it an offence to be a client of a prostitute under the age of 18 and we have introduced legislation toughening child porn penalties. The new Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) before Parliament increases penalties and introduces gender neutrality for sexual offences against children. It has introduced much tougher laws against paedophiles who will now face 10 years’ supervision once they have completed their sentences. 
Katherine Rich 
: What steps did the Department of Child Youth and Family Services take after being alerted to allegations of child prostitution to substantiate the claims or identify any children? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: As I indicated in the answer to the primary question the police alert as is their usual routine the appropriate Department of Child Youth and Family Services social worker who then responds accordingly. 
Bill Gudgeon 
: What powers of arrest do the police have under the legislation that will allow them to arrest detain prosecute and convict a 12-year-old prostitute? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: As I outlined in answer to an earlier supplementary question the current legislation has toughened the law in this regard. It is now illegal to hire an underage worker—that is someone who is under 18—and the illegality of receiving commercial sexual services from a person under 18 has been reaffirmed under sections 20 21 and 22 of the Prostitution Reform Act. Offences under these sections of the Act will be liable for imprisonment of up to 7 years. 
Judy Turner 
: Can the Minister explain the department’s response to the fact that last year a dozen girls aged between 13 and 16 were caught selling sex in Christchurch streets—girls who were at the time in the care of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services but were sneaking out of the department’s homes at night? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes those issues have been discussed in the House before and I am confident that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services has done all it is able to do to ensure a better life for those young girls. 
Judy Turner 
: Does she agree that the department should be playing the lead role in keeping children out of prostitution in light of the comment made by her colleague Tim Barnett: “Research shows that there wasn’t success by policing. There is success by working one on one with children. That is the answer.”? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The Department of Child Youth and Family Services does have a lead role in a number of early-intervention and family support initiatives. For example Family Start; social workers in schools; the provision of activity centres for secondary school children who are experiencing problems with schooling; the community project which aims at young people between 15 and 25 years of age; the Strengthening Families project; supporting education on the truancy services and alternative education programmes; Parents as First Teachers; youth at risk programmes; activity-based programmes; the youth offending teams; and life skills programmes. Those are successful early-intervention programmes some of which are led by the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and some are led by other agencies in collaboration with the department. 
Judy Turner 
: In light of the fact that the Christchurch Safer Community Council has renewed a contract with the 198 Youth Health Centre to get child prostitutes off the streets after it was abandoned by central government in 2002 due to lack of funding why was that programme stopped when the Department of Internal Affairs found that the money invested was well worth it and there were significant cost savings well in excess of the investment? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I do not have specific information with regard to the reasons that that programme was discontinued. However I am happy to provide them to the member in due course. 
Judy Turner 
: In light of the findings of the ECPAT New Zealand study that 86 percent of those who tried to help child prostitutes said that the best way to help them was to address the trauma and self-esteem issues of the children can she explain why very few respondents were satisfied with the support available from State care institutions and also why the Department of Child Youth and Family Services gave no information for that survey when it was asked to participate? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No to both questions. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Has the Minister read the agreement between the United Future party and the Government and which part has the provision demanding that the Government not introduce laws to legalise prostitution for all and sundry? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a statement. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: No it is not. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If it is a question the Minister can comment. 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes I have and no I cannot. 
Documents—Mt Albert Electoral Office 
5.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does she stand by the response given on her behalf on 19 February that in “early July the Mt Albert electorate office contacted Marshall Bird and Curtis asking for certain documents. Those documents were faxed.” and does she stand by the assertion made on her behalf that a document tabled by the Deputy Prime Minister was a “cover sheet” which evidenced that the alleged communication came from the lawyer’s office? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 There are conflicting accounts as to how the document referred to arrived in the Mt Albert electorate office. That is why the matter has been referred to an independent inquiry. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Surely we cannot be in a situation where the Prime Minister will decide whether the words said on her behalf were correct depending on an inquiry by some independent body. Those words were uttered in Parliament on her behalf. She has been asked a very direct question: “Does she stand by them?”. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister gave an answer that addressed the question but there are further supplementary questions that can come. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. How can you say that the Prime Minister has addressed the question in any other terms than saying: “Go take a running hike. I'm not answering that question.” when she has been presented with statements made in this House on her behalf and is not prepared to verify them. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is up to the Prime Minister as to whether she is satisfied with an earlier answer. The member may continue. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is a difficult situation. It is not clear to me listening whether the Prime Minister is saying: “No I do not stand by that statement because I have evidence to the contrary.” or: “I do not know whether that statement made in this House was true.” In that case I suggest that the Prime Minister should answer the question and say: “I am not certain about that statement any longer. That is why I am having an inquiry.”—in which case I think that the answer has to be that she does not stand by that statement until she gets some confirmation. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Prime Minister gave an answer. The member suggested an answer that she should give. He cannot do that. She has given her answer and she stands or falls by it. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I shall ask you again to review the  
Hansard 
 with the Prime Minister's answer. While you think that the answer may have addressed the question I suggest that it dodged the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I shall look at the question. However I have had advice and I am happy enough with my ruling. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Can you consider now whether the second half of the question is reasonable. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I shall look at it. The member has asked me to do that. I shall do that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Prime Minister know where the document came from; if not are we to believe that a Cabinet Minister leaked it to the media and then the Deputy Prime Minister came into the House and tabled a “cover sheet” claiming it clearly came from the lawyer all without them knowing where the document came from or whether it was genuine? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: There are conflicting accounts and Mr Hide’s second piece of analysis was pretty close to the truth. The conflicting accounts do raise doubts as to whether a document was faxed. I am happy to provide to the House later an affidavit that has been signed by a staff member. She does not say in that affidavit that it was faxed although that was originally what was said on the bit of paper Dr Cullen was given. What she also asserts in the affidavit is that she did speak to Ms Curtis. Ms Curtis has said something different. That is why these matters have been referred to an independent inquiry. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister has not addressed the issue of whether— 
Government Members 
: Oh! 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Well Government members will not like it. Of course they will not like it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Please carry on. There are to be no interjections during points of order at all. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: The Prime Minister has not addressed the question of whether the document was known to be genuine. It seems to me that if the document were known to be genuine then there would have been some inquiry as to where it came from. That would be the only way to know whether it were genuine. Other than that there now seems to be some expensive public inquiry into the matter of whether Ministers may have put spin into the media and tabled documents in this House that they did not know to be genuine. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I thought the Prime Minister on that occasion gave a pretty full reply and certainly addressed the question asked. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Will the Prime Minister tell Parliament how and why her electorate office in Mt Albert got involved in the deportation of a young woman from Sri Lanka? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As the affidavit the staff member has signed will show this was a case that the electorate office was asked to take up. The electorate secretary is adamant that she spoke with Ms Curtis. Electorate offices look at many immigration cases. The electorate office staff at no point referred the case to me. They made a judgment themselves that they would not take it up. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: If there is now some doubt about the circumstances in which the document came into the Prime Minister’s electorate office why has that surfaced only today and why did the Prime Minister’s chief press secretary circulate a series of notes supposedly—and referred to—as an affidavit from the Prime Minister’s office late last week when clearly at that point it was known that the origin of the document could not be proved? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: When the matter arose in Parliament last week the electorate office was asked to explain what happened. That information was made available to Dr Cullen and at media request was made available for them. Then on Friday the electorate staff member concerned began to have doubts over whether it had been faxed to her. Then earlier this week I think yesterday she signed an affidavit that does not refer to a fax. However the affidavit does assert—and a legal affidavit is a serious document—that she had a conversation with Ms Curtis and later with someone else in Ms Curtis’ office. After these conversations documents arrived. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Has a single shred of evidence as opposed to an assertion been presented when the documents were transferred to her office only a couple of weeks ago or a week or so back following the Sri Lankan girl’s departure from New Zealand? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The interactions I am describing today on the basis of the signed affidavit were interactions that occurred last July when the request came to the office to look into the case. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Given that there has clearly been a waiver of confidentiality by the lawyers involved why did Lianne Dalziel not go on to the steps of Parliament and tell everybody she was letting document go and thereby save New Zealanders all the trouble of looking after 3000 people of that type at enormous cost to New Zealand taxpayers while a whole lot of things are not paid for in this country? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Lianne Dalziel may well be regretting that she had not followed the course of action the member suggests. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: If circumstances prove to be as the Prime Minister has outlined—if that document came into her office last July—does she think it is acceptable that a document brought to a member of Parliament asking for help is ultimately handed on without her permission to a Cabinet Minister to be used against her and will she have the staff responsible resign if that proves to be the case? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I agree with the member and I have a very grave concern about the fact that information made available for one purpose was then used for another. I have made it very clear that I disapprove of that and I must put the matter in the hands of the Parliamentary Service—which acts as our agent as members of Parliament with regard to employees—as to how it then deals with that matter. I want—as I am sure every member wants—people to be able to deal with elected officers in trust and confidence. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. As I understand it last week the Prime Minister gave a correct answer as had been advised. The Government is now not sure that the document was faxed or whether the fax was in fact a cover sheet—which it may well have been. I am wondering whether the Prime Minister could provide that assurance and in the light of the electorate agent’s reconsideration of what happened that piece at least could possibly be put to bed in the proper manner. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Yes. I would like to thank Mr Hide because he is helping me to clarify what happened. I can say that on the basis of the affidavit the Government cannot be sure that the document concerned was faxed from the lawyer’s office. As to whether it was a cover sheet it does appear to have been a letter that accompanied another document—the Refugee Status Appeals Authority judgment—so in that sense I think it is probably properly described. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member has actually turned a point of order into another supplementary question and answer and he is to be congratulated on his ingenuity. 
Universities—Assessments MaoriStudents 
6.  
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: What reports has he received on whether New Zealand universities apply different standards of assessment to Maori students than for non-Maori students? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 I have seen allegations that universities’ double standards on admitting and assessing Maori result in Maori getting jobs they do not actually have the skills to do. I have written to universities about this and the Vice-Chancellors Committee has confirmed that contrary to these accusations “At New Zealand universities the standards of assessment in each discipline are the same for all students.” I have had similar confirmations from the Medical Council of New Zealand the Dental Council of New Zealand the Nursing Council of New Zealand and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand. 
Moana Mackey 
: What reaction has the Minister received about the possibility that New Zealand universities apply different standards of assessment to Maori students? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I will give three quick examples. Phil Meade of Otago University has said: “To have doubts cast on the qualifications of our Maori alumni is an insult to their efforts and achievements and also to the integrity of this university.” The Maori Medical Practitioners Association has pointed out that during examinations students are identified as faceless raceless numbers on bits of paper. They are not identified by ethnicity. Stuart McCutcheon of Victoria University has said: “Special support is not unique to Maori and Pacific students. It is provided for international students students with disabilities and mature students.” In other words students who they believe will benefit and profit by coming to the university. Dr Brash needs to apologise and withdraw his remarks. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Does the Minister support special admission programmes to law and medicine courses such as those at Otago University Auckland University Victoria University and Canterbury University which reserve places for Maori who do not meet the academic standards that non-Maori are required to meet; if so does he acknowledge that such schemes mean that there is one entry standard for Maori and another entry standard for non-Maori? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I do. Let me give an example. One example is the Maori and Pacific Admission Scheme at Auckland University’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences which was established to increase the number of Maori and Pacific health professionals to levels relative to New Zealand’s Maori and Pacific population. It is a similar programme to one for mature students. I support that approach because it results in excellent doctors—perhaps for example Mary English the wife of Bill English. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I want to say something first. I do not appreciate members’ partners or spouses being brought into this argument. I think that the Minister on reflection should withdraw and apologise for that comment. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No I want the member to withdraw and apologise. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Hon Bill English 
: I wish to make a personal explanation. The House will be aware that my wife is of Samoan descent but she gained entry to Otago University’s medical school purely on the results of her bursary exams in the seventh form. It is disgraceful that the Government has chosen to bring her into this debate in this manner. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have made my comments about that matter and there that matter rests. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Does the Minister— 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise to the member for interrupting him. It is an interesting question and I ask you to give us some guidance. We are now faced with the problem whereby any student who has gained access to any university course of study by merit and who just happens to be of a particular ethnicity—be it Pacific Island Maori or Asian—is now being cast as a person who got there by special selection. The Hon Bill English is quite able to redress the slur that has been placed across his wife by a personal statement. What assistance will you as Speaker of this House give to any other students who are so slurred but do not happen to have a spouse in Parliament to defend them? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: We have freedom of speech in this Chamber. Members have to reflect on how they use that freedom of speech. Occasionally things are said that I regret and that I think members might regret. In this instance I judged that that was not an appropriate comment to make—I made that judgment. I will look at each case on it merits but I assure members that I want to uphold the rights of members of this House and their personal families. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think that you should go further than that because the danger is that it becomes a tit-for-tat development. I think we have had this before and I think you should make a much stronger statement that you will not tolerate those sorts of comments tacked on to the end of an answer because if you do tolerate them then every time a Government gets desperate it will pull a stunt like that. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: On the face of it the member makes a fair point. I am certainly not defending what just recently happened but there are circumstances in which although the general rule in the House is that we do not bring spouses or partners into it it may actually be relevant to an issue of public interest— 
Opposition Members 
: Oh! 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: The reason I am saying this is that members opposite have done just that on occasions previously—including comments about the Prime Minister’s husband. I suggest to members that before they get too self-righteous on these matters they recognise that sometimes wives husbands and partners of members of Parliament also hold public positions that may legitimately raise matters of interest within Parliament. That is why it is a convention not a Standing Order. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I refer members to Speaker’s ruling 38/1 and Speaker’s ruling 38/2 and ask them to read both of those rulings which go back to 1938 in the one instance and to 1989 in the other. Those are Speakers’ rulings of this Parliament. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Does the Minister agree that the ability of a doctor to relate to his or her patients is at least as important to being a good doctor as that doctor’s high school grades and is he concerned that only 3 percent of general practitioners are Maori—when Maori make up 15 percent of the population—and what admission programmes is he aware of that address that inequity? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes to the first part of the question and yes there are remarkably small numbers of Maori and Pacific Island people who are in those kinds of professions. That is why the member will find spread throughout a number of tertiary institutions admissions programmes for students of those backgrounds. They of course have to meet the same standards as everybody else to pass courses and that is a comment that I think is echoed by Mr Gerry Brownlee when he said that it was not National’s call to cut those kinds of admissions programmes—it never would be he said under a National Government. Of course those comments are completely contradictory to comments made by Dr Brash who said he would cut the money for the programmes. 
Schools—Network Reviews 
7.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Why are the educational benefits of network reviews large enough to proceed with decisions on 71 school closures this term but not large enough to justify any more school network reviews? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I want to start by thanking the member opposite for his description of my previous policy as being sensible. In the current review areas there are around 11000 spare student places and further roll decline is predicted. Making the changes as proposed would if they proceeded according to that approach unlock about $90 million for those schools to provide quality education. I will however work carefully through each of those individual decisions. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister understand the anger of parents who are not interested in the $90 million but who find themselves in the position where it turns out that whether their schools are closed depends not on educational standards but on Labour’s poll ratings? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The last part of the question is absolutely incorrect. [ 
Interruption 
] The answer to the first part of the question is “Yes.” 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Because of the raucous laughter I did not actually hear what answer the Minister gave to the first part of the question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The laughter came from the member’s own side of the House and I did not interrupt it. But the member is perfectly correct. I heard the Minister say that the answer to the first part of the question was “Yes.” I myself heard it quite clearly. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Is the Minister aware of any alternative approaches to school network reviews? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes. I have seen newspaper articles that suggest that all the 126 one-teacher schools all the 129 schools that will receive supplementary reviews from the Education Review Office and all the over 400 schools with more than 30 percent spare capacity should be subject to a review. I will not adopt the suggestions that Bill English has made. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Can the Minister confirm that between 1996 and 1999 when National Ministers were in charge of education—and notwithstanding a softening of policy by New Zealand First—95 schools were closed or merged whilst between 2000 and 2003 82 schools were closed? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do not have all those figures here but I know that the member is an expert and that he can tell hypocrisy when he sees it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I do not like that word being used. The member will withdraw the word “hypocrisy”. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I withdraw. 
Metiria Turei 
: What does the Minister have to say to the parents and pupils who have marched to Parliament today in opposition to his plans to close their schools? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The key point is that each of these decisions will be made on its merits. That is the point I have made to them. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Will the Minister tell the parents of children at the 71 schools that are still under threat—such as Kaiata School on the West Coast and Kapuni School in coastal Taranaki which are represented in the gallery today and in hundreds of signatures on these petitions—that the reviews of their schools will not proceed; if not why not? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No I will not because they have proceeded a long way down a track they have caused a lot of hurt in those communities and what I want to do is make sure that the quality of education in those areas is improved. In most areas there is a lot of room for that to happen. 
Murray Smith 
: How can the Minister possibly justify abandoning because of strong public opposition school reviews that are yet to be announced while proceeding with the closure of the very schools from which that strong public opposition has come? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I have previously and easily. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does the Minister understand yet that it is his bullying and smart alec attitude that has excited so much opposition; and why should his colleagues believe he will be any more successful as the Minister of race relations than he has been as the Minister of Education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: They would probably look at Gerry Brownlee and decide it fairly easily. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a satisfactory answer. I would like the Minister to give an answer. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: There are two quite different areas that we are talking about. On the question of race relations I will listen to members in the way that I listened to that member when he promoted the closure of his local schools. 
Murray Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I did not hear the Minister’s answer to my question but it has just been relayed to me. By simply making a disparaging comment about me the Minister has certainly not addressed the question that I asked. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member said he did not hear the answer. I did not hear a disparaging comment about the member at all. Had I done so I would have intervened. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member who heard a disparaging comment did not hear it from the Minister; it was Mr Prebble describing him as a doormat—that is what he heard. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is where we get into trouble. I do not mind the odd interjection during answers—I never have—but I want to say that that is as far as this particular issue will go. 
Gordon Copeland 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I thoroughly agree with your ruling. But that comment coming from such an experienced member of Parliament who knows that it now goes in  
Hansard 
 is a bit like our deciding to record that he is a “zoneophobe” or something. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: For those people who read  
Hansard 
 avidly I am sure it might well be a point. I have approximately 200 volumes at my place that anyone who is willing to do so can come and take away for free. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am not certain what a “zoneophobe” is but if it means “good” I am it. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Perhaps the translator could help us? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No no no. I am ruling that we are moving on. 
Hon Bill English 
: Will the Minister give a commitment today to the 71 schools he has proposed for closure that he will listen to the anger of those communities and scale back the range of those closures? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes I will listen and I will treat each case on its rational merits based not on noise but on quality of argument. 
I seek leave to table the article in which Mr English outlines which schools he would close. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that article. Is there any objection? There is. 
Schools—Network Reviews 
8.  
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Does his statement that: “The days of people worrying that when the Minister’s coming to your school he’s coming not to praise you but to bury you are over.” apply to schools under review around New Zealand such as Pinehaven Watlington Intermediate Kaiata Kapuni and Invercargill South; if not why not? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I think I have essentially answered that question in the previous answers. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. The member has asked a question. Could the Minister please give a brief answer that does address the question. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The reviews will continue and will be treated on their merits. 
Metiria Turei 
: Will the school closure moratorium apply to Ruru Special School which provides quality education to children with special needs or will that school which is in the Invercargill review area continue to face an uncertain future? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Ruru is really subject to a different process as part of the review of the role of special schools more generally. That is why it is outside the time line of this part of the review. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm that in the process regarding Ruru Special School ministry officials and his own public statements have made it plain that he intends to close Ruru Special School and every other special school in New Zealand? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No I cannot because it is not true. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Can the Minister inform the House of what has happened to the request by Taipuha School to be closed after 75 years and in the best interests of the children; a request that it had to ask me to progress last year because ministry officials were so busy closing schools that did not want to be closed that they did not have time to process the closure of one that did want to be closed? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I do not have the details of all 2700 schools in my head but from memory I gazetted the closure of that school just before Christmas. It officially is open with no pupils but fairly soon it will be totally closed. 
Rod Donald 
: Does the Minister agree with Southland Primary Schools Principals Association President Allan Mitchell that: “The logistics of relocating so many children staff and accommodation for them is an impossibility by January 2005.” as reported in yesterday’s  
Southland Times 
 and will he therefore stop the current reviews that are under way? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I agree that in some cases it will be impossible especially with the latest climatic conditions to get the builders that are necessary to do all the work. Therefore I have agreed as a matter of policy that if the new schools want to take longer to get on to their sites—a term or two—in order to get building work done then we will be flexible around that. That will certainly be the case if the ideas Mr Power suggested in Taihape go through. 
Hon Bill English 
: The matters that the Minister is referring to have a great deal of public interest in Invercargill and I seek leave for Mr Peck to be allowed to ask a question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No. The member cannot seek leave for that. 
Mark Peck 
: No I am seeking a supplementary question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member will be entitled to a supplementary question. A member cannot seek leave on behalf of anybody else but Mr Peck can certainly have the next call. 
Mark Peck 
: Would the Minister confirm that the member of Parliament for Invercargill has made strong representations to him about schooling in Invercargill and indeed as a result of those representations the Minister will be visiting Ruru Special School very shortly to find out the conditions that exist and the wonderful education that is provided in that school? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I make it absolutely clear that the member’s representations have been enormous and I am relatively pleased with the force with which they were delivered—by that small chap. 
Sue Kedgley 
: What could possibly be the rationale for closing Fraser Crescent School in Upper Hutt which is a highly successful and financially viable school with more than 160 pupils and is strongly supported by the local community and has also spent almost $1 million on refurbishments over the last 5 years and is he aware that many parents from that school and indeed many other schools do not want to send their children to large 500-roll primary schools because they know that their children will not flourish in such a large and relatively impersonal environment and that that is why they choose relatively small schools? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Yes I am aware of the views of those parents. They have met with me. They had a sign at the rugby sevens a couple of weeks ago and that I think is legitimate. But the one thing I do regret with regard to Fraser Crescent School is the behaviour of some parents in driving past the other school with signs stating they do not want to take their kids to that school. I think that is very unfortunate. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why is the Minister so determined to go ahead with the closure of three Ngati Hine schools—Te Kura o Matawaia Motatau and Orauta in the mid-north—when his Government has had at least until very recently a stated intention of nurturing and fostering education appropriate to the needs of tangata whenua? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The main reason for closures in that area is that parents have made the decision not to send their kids to those schools. One of the school rolls has gone down to I think seven over a number of years. Another one has dropped very very substantially. I want to work with Ngati Hine to get one strong school in which their language is spoken. It is not workable with four schools in such an area. It is also worth noting that there are some relationship problems between families in the area and that situation has badly affected their children’s education. 
Rod Donald 
: On behalf of the vocational programme students at Ruru Special School I seek leave to present the Minister of Education with a copy of the CD  
Let us Shine 
 which is an appeal from those students to keep their school. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member cannot do something on behalf of other people. He can seek to table the CD if he wishes. 
Rod Donald 
: I seek leave to table the CD. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is. 
Resource Management Act—Enforcement 
9.  
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
 to the  
Minister for the Environment 
: Does she support the application of the Resource Management Act to all New Zealanders regardless of race and do councils who are confronted with flagrant lawbreaking have her Government’s full support to uphold the law? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 Yes and yes. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: In view of the Minister’s response what actions if any will she and her Government take following East Cape’s Potaka Marae’s rejection of Crown sovereignty and flagrant breach of the law by building an aquacultural research centre without any Resource Management Act consent and claiming that the construction of the buildings and taking of shellfish can be carried out under traditional authority without consents or permit? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I would like to make two points on that question. First of all the Gisborne District Council is at present establishing what is happening on the site. There may or may not be a need for a land-use consent. There may or may not be a need to take or discharge water. There are definitely issues around the Building Act and there may also need to be issues around a freshwater fish - farming licence. However the Gisborne District Council has written today to assure me that it administers its plans under the Resource Management Act uniformly and irrespective of the race or origin of resource uses. The Gisborne District Council will take appropriate enforcement action in all cases where its plans are not adhered to. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My question to the Minister specifically asked what action would she or her Government take. We could infer from the response that there would be no action but she should at least have addressed that part of the question. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: The action I have taken is that I have already been in contact with the Gisborne District Council to give my clear support for the work it is currently doing. 
David Parker 
: Has the Minister seen any reports about the operation of the Resource Management Act? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: Yes last Saturday’s  
New Zealand Herald 
 reported that councils charged with enforcing the Resource Management Act say that stonewalling over resource consents is rare and tends to occur only when consultation goes awry. Graham Ridley who is the consents and compliance manager for the Auckland Regional Council says that issues can usually be resolved by negotiation. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Will the Minister undertake a review of the Act to remove the references to the unclear and uncertain principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the extensive special consultation provisions for Maori so as to ensure that the Act meets the test that all New Zealanders are treated equally under the law? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I do not accept the proposition in the member’s question that people are treated unequally under the Resource Management Act. I do accept that under the Act all applicants consult appropriately with whoever is affected by their proposal. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Could the Minister confirm the facts—and she may wish to outline them—that the Resource Management Act was passed by the National Party in respect of that provision which followed a provision in the 1997 Town and Country Planning Act review that was brought in at the time by the Muldoon Government a provision that National also supported? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: Yes. 
Metiria Turei 
: Has the Minister done anything to challenge regional and district councils that have failed to take action when contrary to the Resource Management Act totara trees have been felled in Northland when the Morecow company has felled native vegetation in the Buller and when farmers have done the same near Wairoa; if not why not? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: In one of those particular cases I have taken a series of actions and they are to do with the Morecow application. With regard to that particular application the Ministry for the Environment at my behest has carried out an examination with the particular councils concerned. I have also had the Mayor of the Tasman District Council in my room before Christmas. 
Rodney Hide 
: Will the Minister give the public of New Zealand an absolute assurance that there are not two standards of enforcement—[ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: There is only one warning a day. That is it. The next member will leave the Chamber. Will the member please start again. 
Rodney Hide 
: Will the Minister give her assurance to New Zealanders that there are not two standards of enforcement of the Resource Management Act between Maori and non-Maori and what action would she take if such instances were brought to her attention? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I am having slight trouble with the terminology being used. I absolutely and categorically agree that there is only one standard of enforcement regardless of ethnicity or whatever. I presume the member is referring to enforcements of consents that have been given by councils. Therefore that applies to those councils and I absolutely support it. 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: What is the Minister’s view of the special provisions for Maori in both the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act and will she explain why the actions of the Potaka Marae are not the inevitable consequence of legislation that allows for privileged treatment based on race? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: If Potaka Marae has ignored the Resource Management Act processes and broken rules to do with the district plan or a building then I am assured by the Gisborne District Council that it will prosecute and proceed with that. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister aware of any issues of racial privilege that saw a boatshed application end up being a full home; if so what are the details and which part of the Treaty of Waitangi did that affect? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: I am not aware of the particular case although people are hinting to me that there may be one that affects a member in this House. 
Stephen Franks 
: What assurances can the Minister give the Gisborne District Council that it will not be left like the Wanganui District Council or the Gisborne District Council previously—in relation to the occupation of Moutoa Gardens and Young Nick’s Head respectively—festering with the active encouragement of her colleagues Tariana Turia and Parekura Horomia respectively? 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: That is drawing a long bow from the Resource Management Act but that Act is the law of this country I am responsible for it and I give councils every encouragement to ensure that it is enacted correctly. 
Breast-screening Programme—Access 
10.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: What are the estimated impacts of increasing access to the free breast-screening programme for women aged between 45 and 70 years announced yesterday? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I am advised that an additional 238000 women in the two age-group categories that have been added to the programme will be eligible for free breast-screening. It is estimated that five women’s lives would be saved in the 45 to 49 age group and 27 women’s lives in the 65 to 69 age group. 
Lynne Pillay 
: In light of representations to lower the age to 40 years why did she opt for lowering the age to 45 years at this time? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The current evidence supporting the expansion is strongest for the over-65 age group with an anticipated 46 percent reduction in the risk of death for a woman who is regularly screened in that age group through the expanded programme while including the 45 to 49-year-olds into the programme will result in a 21 percent reduction in the risk of death. We are waiting for the results from a large British study regarding the efficacy of screening women aged 40 to 45 and will re-examine that issue when those results are available next year. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Why did she intimate on 18 November 2003 in answer to an oral question from me that she would not be reducing the age of eligibility for free breast-screening yet now 1 day before the 124000-signature breast-screening petition is heard at the select committee 4 days after Tim and Debbie Short’s day of shame protest outside a Labour Party MP’s offices and 1 week after Labour’s dramatic slide in the polls she has suddenly decided to reduce the age? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: For 1 year we have been examining in which direction we would increase access to the breast-screening programme. Initially I made it clear that the evidence was to take the age up to a woman’s 70th birthday. I also said to the petitioners and to this House that I was prepared to look at the evidence. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is she aware that some women have concerns about the cumulative effect that exposure to radiation from successive mammograms may have on their health and will she therefore make freely available the alternative diagnostic tools such as ultrasound so that concerned women can choose an alternative to radiation-based screening; if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: My understanding is that the level of radiation used in breast screening is very low and for women between 50 and 70 it is every second year. In fact no screening programme in the world uses ultrasound on its own. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Will rural women with high risk factors be able to access breast-screening services? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Women who are at high risk of breast cancer and who would otherwise need to travel large distances to a fixed site will be able to access mobile screening services. Beyond the target group for the extended programme we are also looking at the use of mobile vans for other rural women to be able to access mammography. 
Immigration Minister—Meetings 
11.  
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: What did she discuss with Lianne Dalziel in her meeting with her on Wednesday last week and when did she first become aware of the involvement of her electorate office in the transmission of the letter leaked last Monday by Lianne Dalziel? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 There was not a meeting on Wednesday with the former Minister but in the course of a telephone conversation she informed me that the document in question had come from the Mt Albert electorate office. That was news to me. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Is she aware that the former Minister of Immigration after that telephone conversation with the Prime Minister proceeded to do an interview with the  
Sunday 
 programme in which she made statements now proved to be untrue; and can she deny that she was not complicit in an attempt to get the former immigration Minister out of trouble though she must have known that the former Minister would need to be untruthful in order to do so? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: No I was not aware she was doing a  
Sunday 
 interview that day. It did come to my notice of course on Friday that she had given an interview to the New Zealand Press Association on Monday night where there was clearly an untruth told. My advice to all members is to tell the truth. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: In the course of the telephone conversation on Wednesday did the Prime Minister ask the former immigration Minister who leaked the document to TV3; if it was Lianne Dalziel who told her it was done by her staff under her instruction why did she not sack her right then and if Lianne Dalziel did not tell her that she had leaked it why did the Prime Minister not find out who had? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Ms Dalziel did tell me that she had seen that it had gone to TV3 as it had through the press secretary. All that is well established. I told her that I was concerned about the  
Morning Report 
 interview and no doubt it was after reflecting on that in the course of the day that she then gave an interview on the  
Holmes 
 show where she made an abject apology and went on  
Morning Report 
 again the next day. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: In between her public statement supporting the former Minister of Immigration and the public statement that the media logs or organisations were checked what other relevant facts did the Prime Minister find in those 24 hours that caused her to change her mind and ask the Minister to resign? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The relevant fact was the drawing to my attention on Friday morning of both the New Zealand Press Association report and the supplementary question on question No. 12 last Thursday to Dr Cullen that was based on that report. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Was the Prime Minister made aware on Wednesday morning that Lianne Dalziel had denied putting the document into the TV3 office and if she was made aware did that information come from her staff who as late as Friday were trying to justify the Minister’s actions by taking pieces of paper around the gallery and creating confusion around this case that clearly does not exist; if so why was she not upset and concerned at that point that her staff were involved in protecting the Minister? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As far I knew from talking to Ms Dalziel following the  
Morning Report 
 interview that was the only interview she had done where that question had arisen. It was not until Friday morning that I became aware of the New Zealand Press Association interview on the Monday night that the member himself had drawn to Dr Cullen’s attention on Thursday afternoon. 
Local Government—Easter Trading 
12.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Labour 
: What has she done about giving local government the right to decide with local communities whether or not there is Easter trading in local government areas? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Minister of Labour) 
: 
 I established a Shop Trading Hours Working Group in February 2003 to sort out the inconsistencies in the country’s shop trading hours legislation. The group’s report was referred to the Commerce Committee in July 2003. I understand that the select committee is due to report back this Friday 27 February 2004. 
Urgent Debates Declined 
Floods Lower North Island—Government Response 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received letters under Standing Order 373 from Gerry Brownlee relating to the resignation of the Minister of Immigration; from the Hon Bill English Rod Donald and the Hon Brian Donnelly relating to the announcement of a 5-year moratorium and on the school review programme; and from the Hon Peter Dunne relating to the Government response to floods in the lower North Island. I take Mr Dunne’s application first. Without in any way wishing to minimise the importance of the flooding I think that if I were to have accepted an application on that subject it would have been last week when the crisis was at its height. The Government response to flood relief will unfold over the next few months and can be explored by the House in other ways. I do not accept an application for an urgent debate today. 
Minister of Immigration — Resignation 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The other two subjects both relate to particular cases of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. Not all ministerial resignations lead to an urgent debate but I accept that in the circumstances of this one there are grounds for a debate today. The announcement from the Minister of Education on the school review programme is also of sufficient importance to justify a debate today. Thus I have two subjects that would justify a debate today. In those circumstances I have to choose under Standing Order 375 which subject should be given priority as the most urgent and important. It seems to me that a change in educational policy of this nature is in substance the more important of the two issues. With regard to the resignation two inquiries are in train. These may give rise to further information that the House can address in the future. I therefore give priority to the applications relating to the school review programme from the Hon Bill English Rod Donald and the Hon Brian Donnelly. As the first such application was from the Hon Bill English I call upon him to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In accepting your ruling I ask whether you have considered the fact that the two inquiries you speak of into matters relating to the resignation of the Minister will not in fact inquire into activities in the Minister’s office will not inquire into the behaviour of the Minister and will not inquire into the behaviour of the Prime Minister in that matter. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a debating point. I can accept one application. I have accepted Mr English’s. 
Urgent Debates 
Education—School Review Programme 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance 
. It was ironic indeed to hear the Prime Minister giving instructions to this House today that MPs should tell the truth. It was advice that I believe she should take herself. Her record would stand less scrutiny than Lianne Dalziel’s when it came to the finer art of deception in politics. However the truth about school closures is pretty simple. An overrated overconfident Minister underestimated New Zealand’s parents. Closures of our schools have never been advocated on this scale—never. There has always been a continuous process of school closures and that is without question regardless of party. My own electorate of Southland has had demographic change for the last 15 years. I can tell the House that in the last 5 years over a dozen schools have closed in my electorate. Two were closed just before Christmas without getting in the newspaper. So before Labour gets precious about who closed what let us get the scale of these closures in mind. 
Currently 71 schools are designated for closure and the cynical head-grabbing exercise yesterday does not save one of them. Many New Zealanders now believe that school closures will not go ahead but they are going ahead and 71 school closures have been proposed. Let us remind ourselves about the nature of many of these schools. I have found people even in the press gallery who believe that this is just about the closure of some small rural schools. Well there are maybe a couple of dozen out of the 71—maybe 20. What we are talking about are schools like Watlington Intermediate in Timaru. That school has a roll of over 250 children and it has a very special characteristic in that its staff uniquely almost in primary and intermediate schooling are half male and half female. It is very successful is strongly supported has excellent facilities and it will be closed. I could go through a whole raft of such schools each of which has the same characteristics—that is is successful in its education has good facilities has strong community support and strong parental involvement and is in no way failing in its duty which is to educate our young New Zealanders. 
 The Minister of Education thought he would get away with it. He thought he would get away with it because he and the unions sat in his office and did the deal. That is how everything is done in education these days—if they decide then that is what will happen. I say to the teacher unions that they have made the biggest mistake they have made since I can remember watching them and that is to get offside with parents. They will pay the price for helping Trevor Mallard. They will pay a price because for the first time in a long time parents have not had to rely on the unions to lead their position in an argument about education. Parents have done it themselves and for reasons that shock the Minister. I saw the look on his face when he stood up in front of 600 people in Invercargill and parents made it clear to him why they were opposing his network reviews. 
Labour members have always believed that the concept of parents choosing schools is a nasty right-wing Tory idea that has to be stamped out. Government members believe choice is bad and that parents who want it have been duped by right-wing extremists. Well the Minister is wrong. I saw mothers from decile 1 and 2 schools who have voted Labour all their lives stand up and tell him to get back in his taxi get out of their community and stop telling them where to send their children to school. Timaru has elected Jim Sutton overwhelmingly for a number of elections. Forty-five percent of Timaru parents drive past their nearest school. Why? Well actually that is none of his business. Parents make choices not for ideological reasons but because they have children and each of those children is unique. Even when one has six of them they are all different. At the very least parents have the right to withdraw their child from a school where that child is not fitting in not succeeding or in fact may be having his or her educational experience destroyed—not because the whole system is wrong but because in that classroom with that peer group and that teacher it does not work. Trevor Mallard and Labour believe it is wrong to want to do that. That is why they are closing schools; to make sure parents lose those choices—because falling rolls are an opportunity. 
I know about falling rolls; they have been falling in my electorate the whole time I have been in Parliament. That situation puts a huge pressure for performance on the schools. I will tell members what happens. The school that does not deal with the hopeless principal or make sure its teachers are doing their job competently gets crunched and quickly because the parents can go—and they do and that is right and that is how it should be. Parents do not trust the highly centralised bureaucratic State-monopoly mindset of Labour and the unions who say that: “Whatever teacher is in your classroom your child just has to put up with it because that is your zone.” They say: “State education is about creating a democracy.” Actually it is not. It is about educating “my child”. That is what those parents out there were protesting about today. The Minister would not come down to talk to them. Those parents were not there to make some political statement; they were standing up for their children—actually their children ahead of their school. 
Parents are standing up for their children and that is why the network reviews have stopped. I have been saying for 2 months that the Minister would not start another round of them because of the anger of those parents. Is it not strange how 2 weeks ago the Minister went around the country saying that network reviews were absolutely necessary for a sustainable education system and yesterday he decided they were not necessary? What changed? Two things. It was not just the poll but of course the poll made a difference. Invercargill has gone; Labour can forget about it. Mr “Hopeless” Peck will never recover from his pathetic display and Jim Sutton will be very fortunate to recover from his. Their colleague has done them in. Trevor Mallard has done those Labour MPs in and they are starting to send the message back to the leader’s runner. They are sick of being done in. Jill Pettis is finished. She has just been promoted to senior whip but her seat is gone. Trevor Mallard did her in because he overrated himself and it is the sheer arrogance of the network reviews that shows the Government is completely out of step with public and parental opinion about education. It is off on some centralised bureaucratic monopoly trip but parents are out there making well-informed well-judged choices for their children and they will fight to keep those choices. 
The network reviews will not start up again and that is why the Minister must back off on 71 closures. What is the difference between the parents in Invercargill when Labour was polling 45 percent and the parents of rural Southland who would have had a review if Labour was not polling 35 percent? That is the only difference. Three months in the polls is the only difference between having the heart ripped out of the schools and being able to keep them. So whatever arguments the Minister has put up I would ask him to address this because it is a core principle of his own party: a fair go. What about a fair go for the thousands of families who are facing the closure of their schools? The Minister has no mandate to do it. 
 Yesterday the Government owned up to the fact that it does not have a mandate for the radical school closures it plans. Having lost his mandate that Minister should give away his policy. Certainly it will cost Labour politically and he knows that but it is too late. Most of those bills have been sent already. But out of a sense of a Kiwi fair go why should one community that fell on the wrong side of a poll have to go through this when a community that fell on the right side of a poll does not have to? How do I explain that to the 10 and 12-year-old children I will be speaking to in Invercargill tomorrow? 
Rodney Hide 
: What’s the principle? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As he said on the radio he is a politician. He is an overrated overconfident and destructive politician so why has Helen Clark appointed him Minister for race relations? Tell that to the people of Invercargill! He is the man who will bring us all together! Well parents know that Fraser Crescent School will close because the Minister does not like the way the parents are protesting. Pareora East School will close because he implied on the radio that it was a ghetto school and it asked for an apology. Other parents say to me: “Gosh they shouldn’t have done that because now he’ll close them.” They see the Minister as vindictive. They see not only that he has abandoned any pretence of educational outcomes driving these changes but also that he is vindictive. Of course it is not about educational outcomes at all. I will tell members who wins. Single-sex schools do not get touched. High-decile schools win their arguments and low-decile schools lose. It is that simple. It is the poorer areas of those cities that are being stripped of their schools not the high-decile areas so much. They tend to win. The Minister says he likes intermediate schools but he is closing them all. He says he likes intermediate schools because they produce good educational outcomes but: “By the way in Timaru and Invercargill I’m closing them all.” Some of the answers are just stupid. The “super school” in Invercargill James Hargest High School is merging a 1200-pupil primary school with two intermediate schools on to two sites. If James Hargest High puts the intermediate kids on their site they will get $9 million and if they stay on the other site they will get $4 million. So he is paying them $5 million just to push them all on to one site. The class rooms are already there on the other site and they will be full of intermediate kids so why not just call it an intermediate school and leave James Hargest High alone instead of shifting 2000 pupils around and making every teacher of those 2000 pupils reapply for their jobs? 
I say to the Minister that he can escape from this with some credibility if he backs right off on those 71 schools. In most of those communities there will be agreement about the closure of a small number of schools. In the Grey Valley people will agree to close four schools and keep four. In Invercargill they will agree to close some schools but a lot fewer than 13. In Timaru they will agree to close some schools but a lot fewer than 15. A Government without a mandate and a discredited Minister who have already changed their policy cannot be allowed to punish those communities. I say to the House that they are angrier today than they have ever been because they are being done over in a way that is grossly unfair and highly political. The Minister has some choices left if he wants to rescue his credibility and he will need to because why will anyone else in education believe anything he says? He went around saying how brave he was in fronting up and how convinced he was of his policy. He made a virtue out of it and some people believed it. I never believed that but some people did. What other policy can he ever announce that he might stick to under pressure? There is none. The only way for him to escape with some credibility will be to back off on the closures leave most of those schools open and let us all get on with teaching our kids instead of punishing a Government. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I think I can now understand why Don Brash is the leader of the National Party. The member who has just resumed his seat is the member who not more than 3 weeks ago described my policy in that area as “sensible”. That is what he said. He is the member who said: “Falling rolls are a reality and will be for decades to come. Birth rates are dropping and according to even the most optimistic immigration forecasts there will be fewer children entering school. That much is understood.” He is the member who said that he proposes three restrictions on the freedom to choose. First if a school becomes a one-teacher school it must take part—not choose to take part—in an educational development initiative. He agrees that education development initiatives can empower school boards to find their own solutions for improving education provision. He would force 126 schools into education development initiatives and he would require even the schools we have just reviewed to go into education development initiatives. 
Hon Bill English 
: Don’t be stupid. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I agree with the member: his policy is stupid. He would also require that if a school became 30 percent empty it must also take part in a education development initiative. 
In New Zealand over 400 schools have more than 30 percent spare capacity. It is in the nature of the changes that have occurred. So what do we have now? We have the National Party spokesperson on education announcing that over 500 schools would be the subject of a review if he were the Minister—over 500 schools. He then says that if a school consistently failed to provide adequate education to its pupils it could be closed or required to join an education development initiative. The only measures we have of that are Education Review Office reports and supplementary reviews. I understand that out of about 2600 schools 129 are currently having supplementary reviews—and he would put them into a review process as well. That member 3 weeks ago used the description “sensible” and on 4 February heannounced that 650 schools would go into review according to National Party policy. That was not quoted by some journalist; that was from an article he wrote himself—or from an article some stooge wrote for him which he put his name to. That is what Bill English said. He said that under National Party policy 650 schools would go into review. That is much more extensive than anything that has occurred under this Government. Because this Government has made some decisions in order to focus on education he is now recanting on his promises to review. Or is he? I did not hear him withdraw. I did not hear him apologise. I did not hear him say: “Sorry I was wrong when I promised to review 650 schools if I became the Minister.” What we have now is quite a lot of silence. There is not a whisper from him—not a murmur not a word. That member is quiet now because he knows he has been caught. 
Hon Bill English 
: No one believes you. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No one has to believe me. All that people have to do is to read the second edition of the  
Dominion Post  
of 4 February to see the words spoken by the Hon Bill English formerly the Leader of the Opposition and to read what he said he would do. In this House we are required to believe members. I believe him. I believe what he said. I believe he is honest. I believe he would put 650 schools under review because that is what he said in an article in the paper. 
 Having said that as I explained to people yesterday the Government—and I in particular—came to a point where we found that on just about every occasion I made an appointment to see a school the school would get anxious about whether it was to be reviewed. There was a classic case of a school up in Northland—I have lost the name of the school but I think it was in Peter Jones’ area—which was providing wonderful environmental education. I popped in to see the school and I saw there an enormous number of parents. The cars were lined up—they were all over the place. I thought: “Hell it’s early in the morning. This is a great welcome!” Of course the parents were scared that I had come to announce a review of their school. Their school is a good successful school with a growing roll in an area of the country that has growing rolls. But I found that when I made an appointment to visit a school—and even schools in those parts of my own electorate that have roll growth and are not areas of review—it would think that I was doing a review. 
This Government is doing some wonderful things in education this year. Later in the year some early childhood education announcements will be made that will reinforce the position we already have as a world leader in early childhood education. We have AsTTle rolling out which makes an enormous difference. These tools help teachers and parents to understand their kids and to learn what their strengths and weaknesses are. They are world-leading tools—the work of the University of Auckland which has been contracted to do it for the ministry since I have been the Minister. People from all around the world are coming to have a look at them. We have planning and reporting around which there is some debate and anxiety in some quarters. But it will mean that parents will be able to see in the reports of their schools what the schools are planning to do. The reporting against those objectives will be of a quality we have never seen before. That is rolling out now. From the annual reports I have received from last year that information will be available. It will be quality information about educational objectives of a sort we have never seen before in New Zealand. 
At the top end of the scale—as I was explaining to my colleague the Minister of Finance who had slightly mixed views on it—it appears that as a result of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement we might have retention rates at the top end of our schools higher than we have had previously. It is all anecdotal so far but we will get the 1 March returns and have a good look at them. Some people who were not succeeding are now succeeding. I think that is great. It is making an enormous difference in our schools. 
This year for the first time in many years we will have a scholarship examination. It will be a separate examination externally assessed—and really difficult—for year 13 students as part of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. It will stretch people. It is our expectation that students who pass it in a particular subject will go straight into stage II courses at universities. I have put a warning out to schools to try to discourage them from entering too many students because the standards will be so high. There will be rewards for those students There will be rewards from each school as long as they pass the scholarship—that is three passes in three subjects. The top student at every school will get a 3-year scholarship. There will be scholarships for the top student in each subject within the scholarship examinations and for those who do not have a scholarship examination in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement at level 3. So the top student in the country will get a reward. There will be $5000-a-year scholarships for 3 years for those students who get three of the outstanding level passes. So if they are outstanding in three subjects they will get a scholarship worth $5000 a year. That is a real reward for academic performance. For the very top students there will be $15000 a year for the top student in New Zealand for 3 years and $10000 for the second-placed student. 
This Government is into promoting excellence. But the problem I have is that with all these—and many more—wonderful things happening in education when I try to go to a school to talk to people about them they think I am coming to close it. That is just hopeless. That is why we have made the policy change. I hope we can now focus on positive aspects of education. Most of all I will be ensuring that schools all over the country get a copy of Mr English’s promise to review 650 of them if he becomes the Minister. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I have to ask the Minister: at the school that he went to in Northland when all the parents were waiting outside were they waiting for their T-shirts? 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I have to get a bigger size for the member now. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: In Peter Jones’ territory yes that is definitely so. The second element that arose from the Minister’s speech was this: he is using as an excuse the fact that if he turns up at a school people might think he is going to close it. All I have to say to the Minister is: “What appalling communication!”. It is appalling communication from himself and from his ministry if the parents at a school do not know when he turns up there whether he will close it or whether the visit is about anything else. That is a very limp excuse for this U-turn in policy. 
The case of Taipuha School which I pointed out today is a true case. That school went through a heart-rending process. It had been going for 75 years but realised that on behalf of its children it needed to close down and merge with another school. It had asked in plenty of time for this to take place before the beginning of the school year this year and that request sat on officials’ desks for month after month. The school had to come to me to get it moving and even now it has not been moved in time to close the school in a timely fashion. This shows that ministry officials have been so tied up with these school network reviews that they have not been able to get on with the other bread-and-butter tasks that they should be doing. I believe that is appalling. 
It is an appalling thing for a Minister to say: “The days of people worrying that when the Minister’s coming to your school he’s coming not to praise you but to bury you are over.” If that is what the parents of our nation’s schools have been perceiving over the last 12 months that is an appalling statement for the Minister to make about his own performance. That is why he was doing it. I think that we need to listen to the quotations of Trevor Mallard within the last 3 months—the justifications for the policy were there. Here is one: “It is about ensuring the school network as a whole is viable enough to continue to provide local children with the quality education they deserve in 10 to 15 years’ time. It is about using the best of education that is provided now and joining forces to provide an even better education in the future”. I cannot really argue with that. New Zealand First would support that. Here is another one from 25 October 2003: “It is far more prudent to plan for change now from a position of relative strength than to wait for the damage to set in and for schools to start self-destructing.” And from the same press release: “The new policy means that taxpayers’ money is spent on teaching and learning and not on the upkeep of unnecessary grounds and buildings”. Then we move to 15 November 2003: “I do believe it is essential to seize the opportunity and start planning from a position of relative strength rather than wait for schools to spontaneously self-destruct as population decline starts to hit hard on school rolls.” I could go on and on with statements the Minister has made that he would rather spend money on quality education for students than on bricks and mortar. 
 The question that has to be asked in this debate—which I remind people is a debate about the decision yesterday to impose a moratorium on school network reviews for 5 years—is this: if those conditions were true 2 days ago or 2 months ago how come they not true today? If those statements are true and the policy is justified why is it not justified now? Are we going to have a nation run by protest and polls or are we going to have a nation run by good policy? What Mr Mallard has done in this particular case for all educationists is prevent us from having any confidence in the validity of any policy—because it will be determined by what people say in the polls. 
Bill English is correct in one respect. He is correct in saying that the determination of the school network—the future of schools in New Zealand for the next 5 years—has been made according to which side of a poll communities have fallen on. So if a community was in the programme on one side of the poll it is now out. Its schools will be closed left right and centre ruthlessly callously to future-proof that community. The programme was to future-proof communities for the next 15 to 20 years and therefore it was in the best interests of the community’s children regardless of what adults thought and the points they had been making. But if a community falls on the other side of a couple of polls then its schools can continue with a lot of wasted educational money in that community and not the best education for the community’s children. The Government is not prepared to make any changes in that community because if it makes those changes people might not like it any more. Is that what our Government is supposed to be about? 
Mr Mallard has made the statement that National Ministers never fronted up to communities. I can say that I as an Associate Minister fronted up to the community of Oamaru and I can say that it is a very passionate emotional situation. But Mr Mallard then turned round and accused those National Ministers of not having any guts. Well what is this U-turn? He is a Minister who firmly believes in the review programme. He has his whole ministry geared towards it so that the ministry cannot do the bread-and-butter tasks it needs to do to support schools. Yet after two polls the policy is reversed. We have to ask ourselves: what is that? 
I have to say that New Zealand First has not opposed ideologically any network reviews. We are not like some who for example during the period between 1996 and 1999 closed 95 schools and then said that no schools at all should be closed. We are not like some who said that it should be parents’ choice when the policy of their party—which is the use of vouchers—would close every small school in this country. New Zealand First has said: “Let’s take this on a case by case basis.” We have watched on a case by case basis and I must say that we have become increasingly disturbed on a case by case basis. What has been happening is not rational decision-making in the best interests of education—or saving money and making the best use of the educational dollar. There were some very good decisions and they were accepted by the Northland community up in the mid-north—painful as they might have been—and they leave a platform for future development. But in other areas there were increasing concerns about situations where viable constructive and good schools were being shut down and monster schools were being created and that is not in the best interests of children. 
In some cases we would have to say that our fears were about the final decisions. I suggest that the one in Timaru really is of concern because all the recommendations were reversed at the last minute and do not make any sense and in fact it was the considerations of local politicians their concerns that finally held sway. New Zealand First is extremely concerned about this particular decision because the decision is saying that in future this Government will run the country according to polls and according to protest. John Minto could be the most powerful man in this country purely and simply by running protests. He is good at running protests. So anybody who wants this Government to do anything should just mount a protest and such people can be absolutely certain that this Government will fall into line with them. That is not what we consider to be a very good way to govern a country. 
We think that the decision to put off the policy of the network reviews of schools for 5 years has ramifications and implications that are extremely serious for the future governance during this particular parliamentary session of this particular Government. In fact the decision demonstrates that this Government does not know where it is going and is swayed simply by public opinion. That is not a good way to govern a country. People need to know that their Government which is there to make decisions on their behalf has firm policies that are sound and resilient and that it has Ministers who have the guts to stick with them—not just turn round on a poll. 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I would actually like to congratulate Trevor Mallard on his decision to introduce a 5-year moratorium on school reviews. It is hard to admit to having made a mistake and it is especially hard to admit to having made one as big as those reviews. It is big of the Minister to admit yesterday that he was making a major mistake with the school reviews process and that he was facing an enormous credibility problem: the problem of trying to convince communities that he was taking the right steps. The Minister has acknowledged that his network reviews were detracting from the good work that schools were doing. 
It has taken the Minister an awfully long time to reach that conclusion however. He said that it dawned on him late last year so I have to ask why he then carried on cutting a path of destruction through 11 communities from Northland to Invercargill and including Wairoa Taranaki Upper Hutt the West Coast Timaru and others in between. Why did he cut a path of destruction through those communities in January and February of this year? Why did he announce a further 67 closures—or mergers as he prefers to call them—when he knew what effects his actions would have on those communities? Why is the Minister saving the rest of New Zealand from his brutal divisive and unnecessary network reviews when at the same time he is continuing to inflict pain and suffering on the 11 communities I have just mentioned? I appeal to the Minister to listen to the widespread concerns being expressed about his decision to force through the existing reviews. 
It is pleasing to see that finally organisations like the Principals Federation and the New Zealand Educational Institute as well as local body leaders and most political parties in this House are now calling on the Minister to stop the process. There are very good reasons why we are doing that. It is quite plain from the reviews already completed such as the one in Mosgiel-Taieri that they have been and continue to be a disaster. But most important of all it is great to see the parents of our future leaders the parents of our young people and young children attending those schools asking the Minister to have a heart. So I have no problem—whereas it appears that Brian Donnelly does—with the fact that the Minister has changed his mind on future reviews. My only problem is that he is not making the decision right now to cancel the reviews already under way. 
If Mr Mallard had turned up on the steps of Parliament today and had met parents who had come from as far afield as Ngahere and Kaiata on the West Coast or Kapuni in Taranaki let alone from Pinehaven Fraser Crescent Brentwood and other schools from Upper Hutt he would have seen the anger the hurt and the bewilderment that those parents feel. They believe in their schools. They know that they provide their children with a quality education. They know that their schools are at the heart of their local communities and they want their schools to stay open. I tell the Minister that it is not too late to have the courage to change his mind on the existing reviews in the same way that he has changed his mind on the reviews that he had intended to announce in June. Trevor Mallard admitted today that parents teachers and pupils are hurting in the communities currently facing the chop. He has the power to end that hurt and to begin the healing process. I appeal one last time to him to this Government and to the Prime Minister—who herself attended a small rural school Te Pahu with a current roll of 133 which is below Mr Mallard’s arbitrary cut-off point of 160—to show some compassion and some common sense. 
The Minister says that he will treat each school under review on the basis of its rational merits. I believe that the current reviews have gone past that point. School communities have found the review process to be brutal coercive divisive and destructive. Yesterday I visited six schools in the Invercargill area. Some I had been to before and some were brand new to me. All expressed similar sentiments to the schools that I had visited in Timaru and on the West Coast. All want Mr Mallard to stop the reviews and to stop them now. As Bill English conceded some of those schools will probably close. Some of them recognise that their rolls are too small or that there are other factors that may lead to a closure. But we should let them do that in their own way and in their own time. We should let them close willingly rather than force closure upon them in the way that this network review process has done. Most of the schools that I have visited want to stay open and they deserve to stay open—they have every good reason to stay open. 
There is an extraordinary contradiction in Invercargill for example in the current proposal. An excellent school such as Invercargill Middle School which has a roll of 130-plus has been recommended to stay open when just down the road Waverley Park School with over 240 pupils has been told it has to merge with Ascot Community School. Invercargill South School is being told it has to merge even though its roll is only a little below that of Invercargill Middle School. Salford School with over 270 pupils has been told it has to merge with Invercargill North School which has over 200 students. And so on it goes. The process includes Waikiwi School which is an excellent school with well over 100 pupils. Those are not tiny rural schools. There are some tiny rural schools included but I think many of them have good grounds to stay open—especially when if they close some 5-year-olds will have to travel for more than an hour to school. But to focus back on the schools I was talking about in Invercargill they do not want to go through a forced merger process. Ascot Community School for example has already been through that process only very recently. That school is still trying to heal the wounds from the last merger when Surrey Park School closed. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: It opened in 2000. 
ROD DONALD 
: In fact Ascot Community School opened on 27 January 1999 but what is extraordinary is that yesterday when I visited that school the staff gave me a photocopy of the school plaque. It states: “Officially dedicated by the Hon Trevor Mallard on 16 March 2001”. That was meant to be a fresh beginning for that school. Now it is going through major upheaval yet again because of this review process. It should not have to face that. 
Children like Michelle Fogarty should not have to write poems stating: “Our school is an endangered species. Like the kiwi and the kakapo our school should be valued and treasured.” Parents such as Andrew Kerr whose children are at Waikiwi School should not have to write: “We have no transport and cannot afford to purchase any or to move house. If Waikiwi School closes our children will have to walk for approximately 40 minutes to and from school each day. This means crossing 17 streets. There are no buses. The proposed changes may save the Government some money but the costs of these savings is the health and safety of our children and our community structure.” 
Those points should be absolutely and completely transparent to the Minister because he has visited more schools than I have. He should know that the population projections he is basing the closures on do not stack up. Business and Economic Research Ltd showed that Invercargill’s school population will grow 20 percent in the next 20 years—not decline by 37 percent as the Minister is claiming. He should know that the empty classrooms that he talks about are actually being used for after-school care for special needs for computer suites and for drama suites. He should know that schools parents teachers and communities are angrier today than they were yesterday because they cannot understand why Mr Mallard is continuing with the current round of reviews while saying that there will be no further reviews. They are telling Mr Mallard to leave their schools alone. 
The Green Party supports that call. We will redouble our efforts to stop Mr Mallard from closing the 67 schools he has already earmarked for closure because those schools are the hearts of their communities and they deliver quality education to their pupils. Those schools have an important part to play in our future. They are the infrastructure that the Government needs for its own regional development policies and it should back off while it still has the chance to do so. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 Today we saw a precedent set outside. We saw a group of parents members of boards of trustees some teachers and children who came to Parliament to tell the Government that parents want to choose where they send their children to school. At the mere threat of this march on Parliament the Minister announced yesterday that there would be a moratorium on future reviews. What is wrong with parents wanting to choose where they send their children to school? I do not get it. What is the crime in parents wanting to choose where they send their child to school whether it be to a small rural school a co-educational school or a larger school? I do not get what they have done wrong to have these reviews visited on them. People out there do not get it either. These schools have good Education Review Office reports they have very strong community support and they have great parental commitment. 
One of the best things for a child’s education is having at least one parent connected with that child’s education whether it just be that the parent asks what homework the child has when he or she gets home from school or that the parent puts the painting the child has done at school on the fridge with a fridge magnet and says: “That’s beautiful darling.” That is one of the most important things for a child’s educational achievements. How do we achieve reinforce and celebrate that? We do that by saying to all of those people who came here today and all of the people they represent right around the country that they can choose where their child goes to school. 
The ACT party knows that sometimes schools close—that is a fact of life. Sometimes it is sad when a school closes but it is a matter of attrition. It usually happens when not enough parents want to use that school so a decision is taken in conjunction with the community—as it should be—that the school will close. But that is not what is happening in this situation. The Minister is just drawing lines on a map and saying: “In that grid those schools will be reviewed and these ones over here will be reviewed.” What is the point in having the Education Review Office when it gives these schools glowing reports and they still have to close anyway? We may as well close down the Education Review Office and the whole bureaucracy of education as well if this is how we run education in this country whereby one Minister can dictate what happens. 
The Minister says he is doing this to save money and that $90 million will go back into those schools and into education. He knows that that is not the case because I have papers from Treasury that show that after 4 years that money will not go back into education it will go into the consolidated account. 
 If the future reviews are so bad why are the current ones good? Why does not the Minister just dump the review process and give parents the choice? He is ripping the heart out of communities in New Zealand whether they are rural communities communities like Upper Hutt and Pinehaven or small provincial towns. In many of these places the school is not there just for children to sit in front of a teacher every day in the classroom. The school is the place where the parents meet. They are the places where sports are played. The parents watch out for each other. This is how we build a civil society where parents watch out and say: “Joe isn’t looking too great these days I wonder whether there is something wrong on the farm. Perhaps I had better ring him up and check him out.” The schools are where this all happens. 
I am a parent of four children. I was able to choose where my children went to school. They went to a little school in Russell up in Northland. The Minister has been able to choose where his children go to school. Why cannot everybody in New Zealand have that choice? We let them choose their car we let them choose their house and we let them choose which general practitioner they send their children to which family doctor they have. We do not tell them which one they will go to based on where they live. We do not draw a line on maps and say: “There are too many GPs in this little suburb or even in this street so some of them have to close and you will go to that one.” We allow them to have that choice. We allow them to choose which politicians they want in their House of Representatives but we will not allow them to choose which school they will send their children to. That is just nuts. 
I am really pleased that this issue has grown from something where people were thinking: “Oh well if the Minister is closing the schools it must be right.” It has grown into something really big. It has cross-party support. We have the Greens and ACT agreeing on the fact that the schools should—[ 
Interruption 
] I am not surprised because we are both parties of principle. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Oh! 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: This is a very important principle that we here are debating. Those members over there might laugh. They did not have the courage to go out the front there. Where were those members when the parents were out there asking to talk to someone? The Government sent out the Hon Paul Swain. He was the only one there. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: I was there. 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON 
: Mr Horomia must have been hiding behind the bus because I missed him. If he was there I apologise that I did not see him. 
Overseas research shows that big schools are in general more conducive to bad behaviour disruption and truancy—not always but in general they are disruptive. In New York they are breaking big schools down to small schools—100 to 200 pupils. 
The ACT party would not say which school is best for other people’s children. Nobody can tell me which school is best for my children. I cannot tell other people what is best for their child. They might choose a school of 2500 students; they might want to choose a school like the one of 11 pupils Wallingford School that greeted us 2 weeks ago at Wallingford. That has 11 students and is a sole-charge school. It is a wonderful school that has been there for a long time and has a good history. 
We have a crisis in education in this country. We have 20 percent of students leaving school at the most basic state of literacy who are unable to cope with everyday life. If we had 20 percent of children leaving school physically maimed so that they could not physically cope with everyday life there would be an outcry. There would be parents on  
Holmes. 
 The schools would be identified; the Minister would certainly be trying to do something about that. How can we change what the officials call “the tail” these people who are falling behind in the system? We give choice back to parents. Parents know whether their children can read write or add up. Wellington has to stop telling teachers what to teach turning principals into administrators where they are just filling out forms; and worst of all telling and ordering parents which school they should send their children to. Give the power back to the communities the parents and let them decide. 
BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 I was also in the walk along the boulevard from the railway station to Parliament this morning and as I was with those parents who were protesting from the schools of the Hutt Valley I was made aware that the Government had definitely made a grievous mistake in pushing matters too far. It was not a question of whether things should be done it was a question of how it was to be done and whether it was being done at all in some places. Mr Mallard started out by saying some months ago that there was a need to save money—among some of the reasons that he gave. As things went on and the reviews were being moved forward he felt that by having fewer larger schools there would be some savings in money that would then go back into those new or consolidated schools. But as some writer mentioned in a newspaper the education vote might save money but other departments may lose money because schools have been made too big. In other words the vote of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services might increase down the line because of the inattention given to students in larger schools. 
I do not know whether that is true but as that person pursued the article I started to wonder. I looked at the research from overseas saying that any education policy that moved toward creating smaller schools—not necessarily small schools but smaller schools—was a good basis to produce better educational outcomes certainly better social outcomes and also better financial outcomes. Surprise surprise! Nobody has taken the debate to talk about staff-student ratios. When I was growing up going to school and also as a parent there was always discussion about staff-student ratios. The lower we could have it— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Under 50 in those years! 
BERNIE OGILVY 
: Yes. The lower the ratio the better the educational outcome supposedly. But now with small schools being down to even 12 20 or 130 pupils in a school with a number of teachers I would have thought that those very low staff-student ratios make made for better student outcomes and therefore would be a basis for arguing more solidly in that direction. The teachers’ unions as we have them have not brought up that subject and I half wonder why. For many many years in a row they have talked argued and pushed for reducing the number of pupils in their classroom so teachers can make a better job of delivering in the classroom. 
But it is not hard to understand why small schools are good in the sense they are not small small but the teachers know who all the pupils are. They know them by name they quickly realise when a student is having problems which could be at home from the farm or from the local gangs around about. He or she could be misbehaving and that person would be noted very quickly. We know that we have a large problem in New Zealand that we do not seem to be able to deal with—the whole area of truancy. The problem of absentee children from schools becomes very difficult to police if teachers do not know who they are and certainly other students do not know who they are and therefore keep a sort of a buddy system of accountability among themselves. Under-performing kids are noticed much earlier and much more regularly in a smaller school. So United Future would encourage the Minister in his moratorium to strongly reconsider upholding smaller schools and looking at educational outcomes a lot more strongly. 
I was at a meeting last night where the Minister indicated that it is the teacher who makes the greatest impact in any child’s life in the classroom; the quality of teachers their life and everything else is paramount. I believe that the Minister and the ministry will now probably turn their attention from closing schools—this is what I picked up from the meeting that I noticed Mr Donnelly was also at—to focusing on getting quality teachers into the classroom. I believe too that the Minister has noted other matters that have occurred that have come to his notice—not only the angry parents’ and grandparents’ concern for children but issues such as increased travel times for students in the areas where schools are closing down and being amalgamated. I have heard stories already where travel could be up to 2 to 3 hours a day for some children going one way or the other or both ways. This really is very emotionally stressful on kids before they get home and even getting them off to school as early as that. 
So I believe that the Minister has looked at some of the arguments that parents have taken to him. I am not at all convinced about some of the rationale given by the Minister initially either in terms of saving money or looking at school projections. It is an imprecise science to say the least to figure out how many kids will be in the nation in total then to try to divide that up by regions—it is literally a poke in the dark. Over the years it has been almost impossible to predict how many schoolteachers will be needed in every place in every school and in every area of New Zealand. If we cannot predict the number of schoolteachers how do we know how many pupils there will be because the figure changes from year to year? 
I believe that the Minister has realised that the projections he is working on really have such variability that to close schools ad nauseam without reference to local areas and to projections for the future is really quite a hazardous task. I would certainly hope that he has taken that into account. 
In smaller schools there is no question that there is a stronger sense of parental ownership and certainly stronger parent-teacher relationships. I saw this today on the march to Parliament where the teachers the parents and certainly some of the trustees were involved with the children in that march. It is very very clear that they played a very strong role in pushing strengthening and wanting to stand up for their school so that the proposed mergers and closures would be reversed as a result of this march. 
This stronger parent ownership means that they participate at all levels—with working bees they form a great community spirit and it leaves a good feeling in the school. The Minister is aware and we are aware that if one takes some schools out of some communities one actually destroys the entire community. That was well voiced today. I believe that localised schools play an important role in a community and they are even a civil defence focal point in some areas where I have travelled. It is at the school that everything comes together not only with the playing of tennis on the school courts in the weekends but the schools are the civil defence centres for the entire area. Pull away those schools and one undermines something that is very strong and viable and is working at this stage. United Future believes that each school needs to be considered on a case by case basis and I challenge the Minister and the Government to consider that as they look forward in this 5-year moratorium. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Education) 
: 
 I am puzzled. This is an urgent debate and I have been struggling to stay awake because the sense of urgency has kind of gone out of this debate. I want to take some of the arguments that have been put up. The ACT member waxed lyrical about the need for choice. As a former principal I have always loved this argument about the need for choice because it presumes that everybody in Auckland wants his or her child to go to Auckland Grammar. I once heard it put out by a member of the Opposition who argued very strongly on this issue of choice that 400 Auckland Grammars should be replicated throughout New Zealand and what would be wrong with that? That would be giving people choice. There is a fallacy in some of these arguments about choice. 
But then the member Deborah Coddington went against herself because she said that she had looked at overseas research which said that big schools produced bad behaviour. Tell that to Auckland Grammar with 2400 pupils! Tell that to Burnside High School with 2600 pupils! Tell that to any number of schools that are doing— 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Rangitoto! 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: —I thank the member Rangitoto College—absolutely marvellous work with their children. Tell them that overseas research undertaken by Deborah Coddington the member for ACT absolutely means that big schools produce bad behaviour. What ludicrous argument is that? 
I have to say though not so angrily that Bernie Ogilvy from United Future—also quoting overseas research—says that smaller schools are better. Let us examine that argument. We now have a quite complex curriculum particularly with technology. If one goes into a years 7 and 8 classroom—the old intermediate stage or the top of the primary school—and looks at its technology curriculum and what needs to be provided by the teachers for a school of 40 50 or 60 pupils one will see that they cannot; the school has to bus its kids in. When people talk about busing in kids for years 7 and 8 technology they are talking about quite a long bus ride for some of those kids in the middle of the day. One would rather have them on the buses than integrating the schools. 
But let us go even further and look at a school of 120 pupils that is 20 minutes out of a major centre—a 20-minute bus ride on a flat tar-sealed road. How is that school able to provide year-13 children with physics chemistry biology design technology and all those things? I think one has to be very careful before getting on one’s high horse and saying either that big schools present problems or little schools are the only way to go. 
Then I come to Bill English who kind of accepts that closure of schools is inevitable. He said again today—other than the points that he was making 3 weeks ago—that he would have education development initiatives—that is reviews of one-teacher schools or schools where 30 percent of the classrooms are empty. That is really interesting because there was a policy once where schools were all built in permanent materials of brick or wood. When Kaikorai Valley High School dropped its roll from 1400 to 400 or 300 it had all these empty brick classrooms. It is now always so that a school will have 25 percent of its classrooms able to be shifted around because we always expect that school rolls will fluctuate up and down. 
But Bill English accepted that. He said today that communities in Invercargill Grey Valley and Timaru would accept some closures. That is actually what is happening in one sense. If we look at the issue that Mr Donnelly raised that the policy should not be based on protest or polls I think one will see—if one reads what the Minister has put out—-that if schools have bad reports from the Education Review Office lack viability or for instance have questions where parents as in the example the member gave want to merge then that will be an exception to the moratorium and they will continue. 
 That is the same sort of thing that Bill English is arguing for too. He argued that there should be a review of all one-teacher schools. Some one-teacher schools will always survive because the distance to the school actually mitigates against closing the school.But some one-teacher schools may have to close and Bill English said that. He accepts that that sort of thing continues. 
I want to come to Rod Donald’s process. He said we should stop the current review process already going on in 71 schools. Through being responsible for school buses I know—for my sins—that parents have been acting for the last 12 months on the potential for their schools to close and have been transferring their kids. We need to go through this process the full way to be really sure. I understand that the Minister said very clearly that it would be done on a school-by-school basis. That does not mean that 71 schools will close. The review will look at the situation and continue to do so. The Minister will make that decision in April. 
The real reason the Minister said that we should turn away from this policy of constant review over the next 5 years is that he knows he has been doing some amazing work in the early years of primary education in particular. The work of Russell Bishop on the role of the teacher is absolutely pivotal. I nearly fell out of the shower one morning when I heard it explained and accepted that the teacher is pivotal in how a child learns. For so long everyone has said that it is the size of the school or the socio-economic background of the child. Russell Bishop put it out there very strongly and said: “It is the teacher and how that child learns that is absolutely pivotal to success.” 
That work has been going on unrecognised under this very good Minister of Education let alone the work being done in literacy and numeracy. We faced a problem in this country that we had our top students as the Programme for International Student Assessement report stated rating right at the top of Europe and the OECD. But in New Zealand—within schools not between schools—we have a tail that is the longest of any country; a tail between the average and the failing. That tail has to be addressed. 
Did this Minister ignore that? No way! In no uncertain terms he moved to turn round how children learn numeracy. I wonder whether all those people like Rod Donald who have been busy going to schools sat down in a year 1 or year 2 mathematics class and saw the change of work the change in style of teaching what has been provided for teachers and the training that has gone on because this Government wants to ensure that we do not have that tail and that every child achieves to the limit of his or her ability. That is what this Minister wants to concentrate on. That is what this Government wants to concentrate on and if the rumpus around closing schools detracts from what is a really important job then I absolutely support our Minister in doing that. 
He made reference to something called asTTle tools which have kind of passed people by. Let me say as a former principal that when I was taking students into year 9 I was sometimes quite surprised when parents would roll up and I would put out the test in front of them and say: “Do you know that your kid’s got a bit of a reading problem and we will have to look at some extra work?”. They would say: “A reading problem? Didn’t know my kid had that. School reports didn’t say that.” This Minister with his asTTle tools will ensure that parents do understand where their kids are and whether they are succeeding—not in a comparison with schools or a big sheet in the newspaper but something that is for that child and that learner. It is an assessment for diagnostic tools. That is the way that we ought to go and I think that this Minister has done an extraordinary job. 
I want to end with this comment. Not very often but sometimes people say—and I heard it in this debate—that maybe Mr Mallard moved away on this issue because he was sort of running scared. I remind members that the first set of schools that Mr Mallard looked at was in a town in his own electorate—Wainuiomata. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Crocodile tears! 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS 
: No not crocodile tears Ms Coddington actual facts. Mr Mallard did it in his own electorate. That member does not have an electorate to do that in but he has. He owned up to his people and he worked with his community to do that. I admire that integrity and that guts. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (National—Pakuranga) 
: 
 I am delighted to take part in this urgent debate today about school closures. I certainly want to start with an apology to the Hon Marian Hobbs. I regret that we have kept her awake this afternoon. Clearly she goes through a process in the afternoon of having a long sleep. I am sorry we have taken the time of the House to do this to her. I hope tomorrow will be a more placid day and she can get back to her sleep. 
I also want to say that the National Party will never come into this House and claim that there has ever been a case for any one school not to be looked at carefully and if the proper consideration process and parental involvement take place perhaps end up facing closure. In most cases if it is worked through carefully the public will support it. But I have been watching from afar Trevor Mallard’s process in these school closures. Every night when I see the Vero advertisement on television—some members might have seen it—which involves a very big bull walking through a china shop past all sorts of delicate things I think the analogy with Trevor Mallard is nearly complete. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: The bull’s much better looking. 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON 
: I have to say another thing about the bull: he is more gentle in the way he deals with something. He goes right through the shop comes out the other side and everything is still intact but poor old Mr Mallard turns out to be the bloke holding the vase and he has dropped it big time. 
Why did he drop it? He dropped it because he had been told from on high: “We’re in trouble.” There is not a single person in this country—not a single member of the Labour Party not a single acolyte of the hard-line left—who believes that this change has occurred for any reason other than the polls having absolutely spooked Government members. The Prime Minister had Trevor Mallard on the carpet on the 9th floor booted him around and said: “Look at the mess you’ve helped get us into.” It is interesting that Mr Mallard has been appointed to be the man who as the Minister of race relations will get the Government out of the big mess. It is good to see a Prime Minister with a sense of humour—her making an appointment like that. 
The way that this issue has been handled has been nothing short of appalling. People should not take the National Party’s view of that; they should look at what the Government has done. It has completely pulled the pin itself. That is the test. If it were right and proper and had been managed well by the Minister the Government would not have pulled the pin. A Labour Government of the past—and I remember back to the days from 1984 to 1987—did some incredibly unpopular although I think some very good things and it held its nerve. When the Roger Douglas - David Lange Government made changes there were protests on the lawns of Parliament and people up and down the country marched but that Government held its nerve. Its members knew it was right and they boxed on regardless and guess what? In 1987 that Government increased its majority in the House. 
Members should compare that situation where a Labour Government was on the right track and doing the right things—for which it needs to be given some credit—with the way that Trevor Mallard has handled this situation. Never have I seen such a bully-boy tactic. Never have I seen such a Minister say to parents: “You don’t know what’s good for your kids. You don’t know what’s right for your community. I’m coming to town.” I love some of the television clips. There he was with his PowerPoint and his big overhead projector telling people: “This is what’s good for you.” I am delighted that the New Zealand public said: “No sorry you aren’t just going to ride into town in your ministerial limo tell us what’s good for us and leave again.” Trevor Mallard started to yell at them as he is likely to do; he screamed at the parents telling them that they really do not know what is good for them. He was just so far off side. I have talked to some of his own colleagues around the traps who were saying: “Oh gee you ought to see what it’s doing in my electorate mate. I could be gone because of this.” 
I ask whether he wanted to work cooperatively with members of Parliament. Let us give him some credit: I understand that Simon Power has worked quite cooperatively with Trevor Mallard in Taihape. We do not know the results yet we do not know the outcome but I think they have worked cooperatively and I hope they can get a realistic outcome. I think the parents will sign up to that. We do not want our kids going to a pathetically small school that has only a handful of pupils and does not have resources. On the other hand small is not bad in all cases; nor is big bad in all cases. There is no one size that fits all and so on. 
But here is the irony of this Labour Government—and Marian Hobbs will love this. We are talking about schools that have got a bad Education Review Office report. We are saying we cannot afford to force kids to keep going to them so we are going to force the schools to merge amalgamate or close down and the kids will go elsewhere. What about the schools in my patch that have bad reviews? In my patch there is growth in population and we do not have a need to close schools. What about the kids who because of zoning have to go to a school that has a bad Education Review Office report? How does the Labour Party reconcile that irony? Parents in some places in my area have been told: “Your kids will go to that school no matter what.” even though it has a hopeless Education Review Office report and schools elsewhere in the area are saying they would love to take those kids. But no this is the argument we get from Labour Party members; when it suits them they are very happy to say they need to shut down a school with a bad Education Review Office report; however when it does not suit them they pass a law that forces parents to send their kids to such a school. 
When it comes to the Minister himself and the way he handled this issue I am very confused. I have heard members in this House today from his side saying he is a very good Minister who was doing a great job. That is what I have heard; Marian Hobbs said it and I have heard other members say it. If he was doing such a great job why the U-turn? If Trevor Mallard had it all sussed was taking it comfortably was taking the public with him had right on his side had argued it reasonably and had the public on his side why the U-turn? The answer is simply that he had not even started to do it in the proper way. He had not even started to think of bringing the public on side. He had not even set out a plan that said there are some schools with falling rolls there is a need for some rationalisation and there is a need for us to move to better efficiency and functioning within the schooling system. That is what we did not get from the Minister. We got the “bull in a china shop” approach but unlike in the Vero advertisement he took out every vase every plate and every piece of cutlery along the way. 
Then today he suddenly said: “Oh no we didn’t change for that.” I listened to the interview on  
Morning Report 
 this morning and I have to say I could hardly stay on the road while driving. I was a danger to traffic in Auckland when I was driving and listening to it. It was the funniest interview I had ever heard. That speech on National Radio this morning was a “We’re doing a backtrack when we’re not doing a backtrack.” speech of the very best order. Why did he not just say: “Look we got it wrong. I went in boots and all and tried to kick people around before they were ready.”? 
It is quite clear to us that communities can be persuaded with good-quality information. I am a parent and I have small kids at primary school and a boy at secondary school. I am staggered at how well informed parents are. I am staggered at the knowledge that parents have. I am absolutely of an opinion that we could bring parents onside in this debate. I think some of these schools will have to close—there is no doubt in my mind about that. But I think that if it were done properly if parents were brought onside if we argued logically about educational outcomes—teaching and learning being the key focus—most parents would say: “We’re a bit wedded to this school but OK.” But that will not happen if we start telling parents to listen up or as I heard the other night: “Do you want to leave or do I want to leave? I don’t care.” This is the Trevor Mallard school of diplomacy: “Listen up! Get out sir! Get out ma’am! I’m not listening to you. Here’s what’s happening.” 
That is all very well if one can carry through on it but it is a little bit “egg on face” material when right at the last hurdle the Prime Minister not only pulls the hurdle out but whips all the vases off the shelves and there is the poor old bull running around the china shop with nothing left to smash. Trevor Mallard has really screwed up this time and he should tell the House so. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
 on behalf of the  
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade 
: I seek leave for the Committee of the whole House in its consideration of the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill to have authority to consider and if it thinks fit to adopt the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There appears not to be. 
Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
Motion agreed to. 
Civil Aviation Amendment Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Transport) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
Motion agreed to. 
Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
Clause 1 Title 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Obviously clause 1 is the title clause. I think it is quite clear when we read the title that it does not tell us anything about the bill. It just tells us that the bill amends the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act but for what purpose? To achieve what? The Government should make titles more clear as to what the bills do. If that were the case it would assist the public in utilising our statutes. 
In essence as I understand it and as the Opposition understands it—and I hope the Government will correct us if we are wrong—this amendment bill once Supplementary Order Paper 190 is adopted will essentially do two major things. First it will extend diplomatic privileges and immunities to the International Criminal Court. That is a quite important matter for New Zealand and there is no reason to hide that fact. There is no reason why it could not be mentioned in the title. As part and parcel of that process the bill also extends such privileges to persons attending meetings of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute or its subsidiary parts—all part of the International Criminal Court. 
The second major issue in this bill once Supplementary Order Paper 190 is adopted is that it also extends diplomatic privileges and immunities to members and their families and staff of the European Commission. Again there is absolutely no reason why the title of this bill could not include that so that people could see at a glance what this bill is doing. It is not amending some of the procedures for establishing which countries what organisations might receive diplomatic privileges and immunities in New Zealand; it is simply adding to the group of States and organisations that do enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities. New Zealand is adding to those the International Criminal Court and the European Commission. It is a shame that the Government does not have the title cover that. 
In future when the Government is establishing a title of a bill I strongly urge it to look at what the bill does and if it is at all possible incorporate some element of that into the title so that when people use the statutes they can see what on earth a statute is about. This legislation is not highly controversial but sadly the title as printed in this legislation gives us no guidance as to what it actually does. The Government ought to amend the title. There would not be any great difficulty in amending the title so that it could be seen what the bill actually does. As I have said without such an amendment the public has no guidance whatsoever. The bill could be amending the process or any aspect of that important principal legislation the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act. That is simply not good enough. The title needs to be much more clear. I suggest that the Government should consider spelling out in the title with a simple bracketed addition—“ICC and EC Inclusion” or some such wording—what the bill does to make it clear to people using our statutes what is covered by this legislation. 
I do not think there is anything of great importance in respect of the title clause apart from the fact that the title is so vague as to leave people absolutely in the dark as to what this legislation actually does. Some might say that does not matter too much but it does matter. It is important that people understand whether this legislation just adds new members who will receive such privileges or changes the process significantly because those two issues are very different. If it were changing the process for establishing diplomatic privilege and immunities then there would be far greater need for detailed attention to exactly how it was being changed. But the title gives no guidance whatsoever so people are left in the dark as to what the legislation does. 
The National Party is prepared to support the bill despite that deficiency in its title. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill as we did in the second reading. However in terms of the title debate I disagree with the previous speaker Lockwood Smith who said that the title does not indicate specifically enough what the bill is about. The bill is fairly broad. It does extend immunity to witnesses experts counsel and others involved in International Criminal Court proceedings. That immunity also applies to European Union representatives coming here or to international conferences of one sort or another that may be held here. The bill also refers to the OECD the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. As I understand it under this bill any conference can be designated as being appropriate for the level of privilege and immunity provided by this legislation. 
There is a certain lack of clarity in terms of the breadth of the title and what it contains. That is why I have moved an amendment to be discussed under the next clause—just to telegraph that—to make it clear that non-State actors who are participating in a specified international conference can be covered by this legislation. For example when New Zealand participates in an international conference often its delegation is made up of State representatives officially representing the Government and non-governmental— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Is the member seriously suggesting that he is to give diplomatic immunity to Greenpeace? 
KEITH LOCKE 
: It may be—I would have to look back at the history of New Zealand’s participation in environmental conferences—that amongst the non-governmental representatives as part of the official delegation at an environmental conference and the Minister may comment on this that there was a representative of Greenpeace. At conferences on Antarctica representatives and specialists from non-governmental organisations have been involved in those issues. All that we are talking about here is that we want to make sure that all members of a delegation and perhaps even non-governmental organisation members who are not part of an official delegation that is coming to New Zealand may be covered. 
Under the bill and under the amendment I will be producing the Minister has the power to determine the non-State actors who could be covered by this legislation and given the privileges and immunities it confers. We are moving into an environment where State actors non-State actors and non-governmental organisations do work together on issues and we want to set a good model too. One thing that worried me recently just this year was reports from Indonesia concerning the official negotiators at an international conference on Aceh—they have had conferences like the one they had in Tokyo and they were having an official international conference to settle the Aceh dispute with negotiators from Gerakan Aceh Merdeka the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian Government. Those negotiations broke down at the dictate of the Indonesian Government. It said the conference was all off and it required that the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka representatives accept officially— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I just bring the member back to the title please. 
KEITH LOCKE 
: I am just saying that the title needs to have the breadth—and here I disagree with Lockwood Smith—to cover the various possibilities that will be required if New Zealand is to involve itself properly in international conferences and if we are to give sufficient protection to people who are perhaps non-State actors or representatives of non-governmental organisations and not just the State actors. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Like Lockwood Smith I think the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill is misnamed. I was a little sorry that the Hon Lockwood Smith did not return to the matter he raised when he first spoke on this bill in the first reading debate. He pointed out that new sections 10E and 10D inserted by clause 3 raised serious issues that the select committee should examine. Sadly the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee did not examine them. It did a pathetic job and did not look at any of the serious issues. This bill comes back to us with the title unamended despite the fact that the immunities privileges and exemptions the bill confers will go way past diplomats. The international agreement the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which the bill makes extension to or extends the benefit of begins with some very fine old drafting. It states: “The States Parties to the present Convention Recalling that peoples of all nations from ancient times have recognised the status of diplomatic agents” and “Believing that an international convention on diplomatic intercourse privileges and immunities would contribute to the development of friendly relationships amongst nations irrespective of their differing constitutional and social systems …” and then it goes on. 
The problem here is that this bill extends diplomatic privilege or immunity to people who may well be war criminals or thugs. They may be propagandists for war criminals or thugs. The bill states that when an International Criminal Court hearing is being held here the immunities extend not just to the judges—which we would think was common sense—but go past the prosecution the deputy prosecutor the registry staff the staff of those officers of the court or those necessary appendages of the court and they go to counsel witnesses victims experts and any other person required to be present at the seat of the International Criminal Court. Members should just think for a moment about whether the title of this bill would alert anyone to the prospect that the former President of Serbia Mr Milosevic could call as a witness anyone he wanted to call and could bring in a bunch of his thugs—his gangsters—who would obtain all the immunities provided under noble sentiment for the diplomatic agents of nations. 
 In other words this bill does what Labour so often does: it takes legislation with ordinary words that have a well-settled meaning and adds in provisions that mean in the end they could come to have totally different consequences. I believe that is something the Committee stage of the House should look at because the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee did such a hopeless job in the 35 or 40 minutes that it spent examining this bill. It did not consider just what the ramifications are when the immunities are extended to counsel witnesses victims experts and any other person required to be present at the seat of the International Criminal Court. Why should those people be immune from New Zealand law? Why should they not have to pay tax? If they are gangsters and crooks and they spend 6 7 or 10 months here while there is a court hearing on we can be sure they will live according to their normal custom. Why should those immunities be offered to those people at all? Is there any suggestion that they need the State to assist them in finding accommodation? In my opinion there is a whole host of articles in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations that should clearly have been made exceptions so that those people could not benefit from this immunity. 
The title of this bill should have been adjusted to reflect the fact that this is not a diplomatic privileges and immunities amendment bill but is a “Parties to Court Proceedings (Privileges and Immunities) Amendment Bill”. That is quite different from the old immunities and privileges that have become part of international custom and that have sometimes been tested almost to the point of destruction when members of some diplomatic missions have abused them. We all know about the members of such missions who routinely do not pay their parking fines or who scoot and run when they have caused traffic accidents and so forth. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I want to make two points with regard to the title clause of the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill. Firstly I want to respond to some of the comments that have just been made and to draw the Committee’s attention to relevant sections of the explanatory note. This bill implements New Zealand’s commitments under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It is part of that agreement which we signed in October 2002 but have not yet implemented by ratification. The agreement sets out in detail—and I quote from the explanatory note—“the privileges and immunities that the International Criminal Court (the ICC) its Judges and others associated with the court enjoy while in the territory of a State Party on ICC business.” In other words the inclusion of the range of provisions that the member who preceded me referred to is not a matter of New Zealand arbitrarily acting to include certain people; it is a matter of New Zealand recognising the commitment it entered into when it signed the agreement in October 2002 to be party to the establishment of an international criminal court. That is the beginning and the end of that issue. So any talk of a need to amend the title of the bill in that instance is in my view spurious. 
The second point I want to make though does relate to the title of the bill particularly given Supplementary Order Paper 190 which now brings diplomatic officers of the European Union within the ambit of this legislation. In the second reading debate on this bill I raised a concern that we were dealing with only a part of the issue because there is a companion piece of legislation to the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act called the Consular Privileges and Immunities Act which is word for word identical to that particular Act. 
Stephen Franks 
: That’s not for crooks. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: If the member bears with me he will get the point that I am coming to. I was about to say before he interjected that this issue is not so much of relevance to the International Criminal Court as to the amendment to the bill that comes in by way of the Supplementary Order Paper relating to the European Union because that amendment does potentially introduce the issue of consular representation by the European Union. 
Stephen Franks 
: That’s fine. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: I agree with the member that that is fine. But if the member just bears with me he will find the point I am making is that in bringing a provision into this bill that deals with diplomatic privileges and immunities it may well be in time we will need to make a similar amendment in respect of consular privileges and immunities with regard to any officers of the European Union. In that event it would seem to me more logical that the entire Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act and the Consular Privileges and Immunities Act which are currently separate pieces of legislation be brought together as one because the provisions in them are broadly identical. 
I make the point that if there was to be a change in the title of this bill it should be to reflect the fact that this legislation deals potentially with consular privileges and immunities as well as diplomatic privileges and immunities which is what the bill contains. That is not particularly relevant with regard to the provisions of the bill as they relate to the International Criminal Court and I do not imagine even in its most extreme flights of fancy that it will open anything of the equivalent of consular offices anywhere. But it is relevant potentially in the context of the extension of the provisions in the Supplementary Order Paper to include the European Union and any moves that that union may make once it establishes its office in Wellington—for example to establish sub-offices as it does in Auckland Christchurch or other parts of the country. At that point we would need to consider the issue of any potential privileges by way of consular immunity to be extended to those staff and as the law stands at the moment this Parliament would find itself having to pass separate legislation to give effect to those privileges. 
So my point is that maybe we ought to consider at some point in the future— and the title gives rise to the debate—wrapping the two pieces of legislation up in one and having a “Diplomatic and Consular Privileges and Immunities Act”. That would then allow all those things to be dealt with in one place rather than in the piecemeal way that inevitably is the case at the moment. Every time we wish to extend recognition to a country we do so firstly by way of extending diplomatic privileges and then at a subsequent point we determine whether we want to extend consular privileges. That seems to me to be an unnecessarily protracted process and I think the time is overdue for a review of it. That does not mean the Government would automatically extend both privileges to a country but it would have the option of extending either privilege. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The title of the bill does not tell us what is really happening and indeed in the preceding debate with the exception of Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith everyone’s speeches went immediately to the substance of the debate. I want to speak a little bit on those points because they are important. I think it is inappropriate that the Government through a bill that is primarily about the International Criminal Court adds in at a very late stage the European Union through Supplementary Order Paper 190. There are no doubt good and valid reasons to do that but it is just that it is an unfortunate process whereby a statute being passed for one purpose ends up being used for another separate purpose. As a matter of legislative form that would be wrong. 
Last week there was extensive discussion about the role of the International Criminal Court. The ACT party in particular and Mr Franks especially has very directly stated that party’s opposition to the court. However on analysing new section 10D(2)(d) to be inserted into the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act by clause 3 of the bill he may have a point and I would invite the officials and the Minister to look specifically at that point. 
I think everyone and perhaps even Mr Franks would concede that obviously there should be immunity for the judges of the International Criminal Court and for the prosecutor deputy prosecutor and registrar. Frankly that is common sense and there should be immunity for States parties too. However Mr Franks has raised an important point around counsel witnesses victims and experts. I would particularly focus on the term “witnesses”. I think as we know from observing the trials in The Hague currently many of the witnesses usually by some form of immunity agreement have agreed to testify against a superior officer even though that witness was directly implicated and involved in the crime against humanity usually a grave massacre. 
 In that situation whilst the immunity may be against prosecution before the relevant tribunal one would hardly think it necessary that the witnesses have a general exemption from the criminal law itself of the place of jurisdiction of the tribunal. Imagine for instance there was a hearing of the International Criminal Court in New Zealand. Quite clearly witnesses could be called. Some of those witnesses might have some involvement in the massacre. Surely it cannot be our intention—and maybe that was a matter overlooked by the select committee—to also be absolving those witnesses from criminal conduct in New Zealand or immunity generally from New Zealand law. So I would counsel the Minister and the officials to look at that point in particular. I wonder whether the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs—or indeed Mr Franks—should be putting forward a Supplementary Order Paper relating to that clause. 
We certainly do not want to pass law that would make us a laughing stock and that—more than that—would enable people to perpetrate crimes. It is a grave matter. We must ensure our law is right. The next hour or so is the last opportunity to get this legislation right. There is no other opportunity except by an amendment bill or a Statutes Amendment Bill—but why wait? Why not do that work now in order to make sure we get this legislation correct? 
I understand Mr Franks’ broader objections to the International Criminal Court—and I generally disagree with them—but I think he has raised a very valid point on this particular issue and it would behove the Government to look carefully at it. I will take a further call when we come to later provisions particularly those amended by the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Mr Locke—which is breathtaking in its implications I think we could say—but I will turn to those points later on. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 This is straightforward legislation and I note that when the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee considered it its members noted that they had no matters to bring to the attention of the House. I really had not intended to speak on this bill especially on the title because it is so clear-cut. Nonetheless we seem to be having speeches from every party in the Chamber and it seems to me that that is a clear example of having too many members of Parliament in the Chamber. It is a clear example of the fact that the membership of this House needs to reduced to 99. That would reduce some of the time-wasting that takes place so often on the title. The reduction to 99 members is part of New Zealand First policy. I do not intend to take any more time because as I have said we support the bill and nothing further needs to be added to my speech. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Clause 2 Commencement 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Clause 2 again is a fairly simple clause. It is when we get to clause 3 that the substance of the bill can really be addressed and there are some issues that colleagues have raised that the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs should respond to. Even in clause 2 there is something that the Minister could assist us with that would be of value to the Committee. Clause 2 states that the Act will commence on a date to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council. When the bill was introduced we were told that the reason for commencement by Order in Council was that it was proposed that the Act should come into force on the same date as the agreement came into force in New Zealand. I presume that that agreement is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. 
That seems to all make sense up to that point. The agreement was to enter into force in New Zealand on the 30th day after the date of the deposit of New Zealand’s instrument of ratification with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. What would interest the National Party and the Opposition is why the Government is now amending the commencement date. Supplementary Order Paper 190 provides that the commencement date will be changed. The amendment to clause 2 on that Supplementary Order Paper states: “To omit from lines 7 and 8 on page 1 the words ‘a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council’ and substitute the words ‘the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent’.” It would be helpful in order for the Committee to understand what is going on here for the Minister to take a call and explain the reason for that change. 
I accept that it is not a huge change. It is quite common for a commencement date to be the day after the day on which a bill receives the royal assent. There is no problem with that but this is a significant issue. The clause had originally been put in for a specific purpose which was to coincide with the date of the agreement coming into force in New Zealand. The legislation was supposed to commence on that day. It would be helpful for the Committee to understand what has changed. It is a not a big deal. I stress that it is not about the downfall of the Government—it is causing enough problems for itself in other areas without this legislation causing problems—but it is important that the Committee understands the reason for that change. 
For example has the agreement already come into force? When does the agreement come into force in New Zealand? When was the instrument of ratification lodged with the Secretary-General of the United Nations? Has it been lodged? What is the nexus now between the royal assent being given to this bill and the coming into force of the Statute of Rome agreement in New Zealand? The Committee deserves to know that. It is not a big ask of the Minister but it would certainly give us a better understanding of why that clause is to be changed. There must be some reason for it. 
The bill as introduced had a perfectly rational commencement date. It will now be changed and there is obviously some good reason for it. That change must relate in some way to New Zealand’s ratification of the agreement and it would be very helpful to the House—if we are to vote in favour of the commencement date as amended by Supplementary Order Paper 190 and I stress that we have no huge problem about that—to understand why. Why is the Government asking Parliament to amend the commencement date when it seemed that the original commencement date in the bill as introduced to Parliament was a perfectly rational commencement date that tied in with the ratification of the agreement—its deposit with the Secretary-General of the United Nations? What has changed? I am prepared to resume my seat in order to save time and enable the Minister to take a call and explain to us—because it may save some debating time—why the Supplementary Order Paper amends the commencement clause when that clause seemed perfectly rational. Something must have changed to make that amendment a sensible one. I believe that it would be courteous to the Committee—if the Minister expects it to vote in favour of the amendment—to explain why it has become necessary. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 I will try to answer that—and members can see that I am trying as I was taking advice from the officials. The bill as amended because of adding the European Commission in will come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent. Then following the passing of the legislation we will have to carry out two Orders in Council. Under the new provisions of this bill the European Commission will have one date and the International Criminal Court another. In order to make that coherent in the bill we amended it. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 It would be helpful if the Minister in the chair could also cast a little bit of light on another matter which I raise as a matter of speculation. I am told that staff for a European mission are hanging about in Australia waiting for the passage of this law and that the earlier starting date and desire for the bill to be put through urgently are because of those staff who are hanging about waiting. If that is the case I am a bit puzzled by it in the sense that literally thousands of fellow countrymen of people from European Union missions are in New Zealand at the moment without the benefit of any immunity. Many of them would probably be far more likely to run foul of our law than any of these earnest diplomats or sober-suited mission members. 
I am therefore a little anxious to find out why members of a mission if it is true would hover around outside New Zealand waiting for immunity before they dare set foot in this country. Have our relations with the European Union gone as far down as our relations with Australia? Are we in a situation where we have to commence this bill to entice these fellows and women into our country because they are anxious that we will take some kind of primitive revenge on them in the form that once happened to diplomatic agents? If it were true what would make them sit outside this country waiting for the passage of immunity legislation when surely it could only be a tidy-up at most? Is this the way our diplomats would act—that they would not go to a country until they had the assurance of immunity even if it were a country with which we had such friendly and hopefully fraternal relations as most of the countries in the European Union? 
This is something that I think the Minister really should reassure us about because if the commencement date is as vital as has been indicated by what I have heard about the need for urgency it suggests that our relations with the European Union must be very fragile and that our reputation as a civilised nation must be at extreme risk. I cannot imagine why we would have to rush the commencement of a bill like this—to the stage of putting a hurry-up clause in a Supplementary Order Paper—when all it does is tell people that when they are in New Zealand they will not be liable to our laws and that we will accord them reasonable dignity. I hope they would feel confident that we would do that for all European Union citizens irrespective of any law. I hope that members of a European Union mission would feel they were coming to one of the countries in the world where they could expect that the law would certainly not trouble them provided they acted in accordance with the norms of reasonable civilised Europeans. 
I would like the Minister in the chair to either confirm or deny that we do have urgency. It is a very odd thing for something like this a technical tidy-up to be so urgent. I am a little concerned that there may be something behind this—that there might be some members of a mission planning to come here whom New Zealanders want to offer an indignity to. Will this legislation protect a Greenpeace mission? Will it protect people whom New Zealanders might want to protest against? Is it conceivable that there are people coming here who fear they will be offered an indignity and who want the assurance that the police will be looking after them in the way that the police have had to look after the President of China and some of the other people who have come here and who have needed the reassurance of the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act? 
That is the implication we get from a provision that suddenly speeds up the adoption of the effective date of this Act. The effective date of this Act as it was first stated was simply to come into force by Order in Council. Now it is to come into force on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent. Yet there are machinery things to be done if there is to be an order made and the Minister could tell us whether the order would be promulgated on that same day. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I speak on behalf of New Zealand First and once again I cannot help but say that this is another clear example of why we should reduce the number of members in the House to 99. It was very clear in the Minister’s letter to I expect all political parties that during Commissioner Patten’s visit to New Zealand in 2003 he formally proposed that a delegation office of the European Commission be established in Wellington. That was subsequently endorsed by President Prodi and New Zealand is going ahead with that proposal. With the expansion of the European Union on 1 May 2004 by the addition of 10 new members New Zealand is today in a very vulnerable position. The more we do and the quicker we act to get the European Union into New Zealand and be able to have dialogue with it the better. 
The attitude of the National Party and ACT which want to delay something that is formal practice between civilised countries is quite extraordinary. For example just a little while ago the Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Cyril Svoboda was here. I am sorry that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee was unable to meet him on the Monday as arranged but it is vital to New Zealand that we act promptly and that we do something to have the European Union here. 
We have discovered that sometimes the European Union sets out the terms and that we have to adopt reasonable civilised terms. Passing legislation that applies to all types of missions of this kind is a reasonably civilised way of behaving. The Government agreed earlier on that this was essentially an obvious and suitable occasion to amend the legislation to include the European Union in it. 
As I understand it members of the proposed staff are in Canberra at the present time and in terms of the Minister’s advice to all members of Parliament they are seeking the usual immunities and privileges that apply to them. New Zealand First supports this bill and looks forward to meeting with the European Union delegation as soon as possible. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190 in the name of Hon Phil Goff to clause 2 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to and clause 2 as amended agreed to. 
New clause 2A New section 9AB inserted 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 New clause 2A in Supplementary Order Paper 190 is the clause that will extend privileges and immunities to members private servants and family members of European Commission delegations. Supplementary Order Paper 190 has been tabled only today and members are trying to ascertain exactly what the wording in new clause 2A covers. 
The clause basically inserts new section 9AB and it has five subsections and most of what they are doing is reasonably clear. For example subsection (1) deals with issues of members of the delegation and covers the immunities and privileges addressed in the third schedule; subsection 2 covers the issue of I think the fourth schedule and things like servants and staff etc. The fifth schedule is referred to in subsection (3) which covers particular issues that are normal parts of diplomatic immunities and privilege. It covers families that form part of the household of members of delegations. 
But I would appreciate advice from the Minister as to exactly why subsection (5) is necessary. If we look at the original Act section 9(2) is contained in Part 2. Subsection (5) states: “An Order made under section 9(2)(a) in respect of the European Commission may in accordance with this section also confer privileges and immunities on members or on private servants of members of EC delegations”—that is fine—“and nothing in this section limits the application of section 9(2)(b) and (c) to persons associated with the European Commission.” 
 I am a little bit curious about why it is necessary to put that provision in there. Is that subsection (5) inserted there simply to avoid any doubt whatsoever or are we making some change by that? I do not see why new section 9AB particularly changes beyond what is specified the old sections 9(2)(a) (b) and (c) referred to in this new section 9AB. I realise it is a bit confusing with all those sections but I see nothing exceptional about what Supplementary Order Paper 190 is proposing in those new subsections under 9AB(1) (2) (3) and (4). They seem to be quite normal to me. 
The bit that I do not understand—and we have not had this Supplementary Order Paper for more than an hour or so—is why subsection (5) is required there particularly the last bit of it and what it means: “… nothing in this section limits the application of section 9(2)(b) and (c) to persons associated with the European Commission.” If we look at what section 9(2)(b) and (c) does we see that it confers on other persons representatives classes of officers and servants etc. certain privileges and immunities and I do not see why it is necessary to have that provision in this Supplementary Order Paper. 
I must confess that in the limited time we have had available I have tried to work through exactly what is going on there—I have had the statute out—but it is not clear to me. I am sure that if it is not clear to me it will not be clear to many members of the House because it is quite complex. It is worth the Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs taking the time to explain to members exactly what that provision is doing because it is not absolutely clear on the surface. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 The addition to that particular subsection—the three lines in subsection (5) that the member referred to—was added by the Parliamentary Counsel Office absolutely to avoid doubt that one can apply the exemptions under section 9(2)(b) and (c) to officials visiting New Zealand who are colleagues of diplomats already in New Zealand—if members can understand that. Let us say there is a diplomatic group the members of the French Embassy in New Zealand. A French delegation is visiting New Zealand so that provision applies to its members in just the same way. It is normal practice. Because that particular section was specifically designed for the European Commission the Parliamentary Counsel Office wanted to doubly ensure that when an EC delegation comes in to the EC office in New Zealand the legislation covers its members—just as it does in other diplomatic practice. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I would like to address that matter. The first point I note is that Supplementary Order Paper 190 which nevertheless the National Party will support was tabled today. The concern I raise is essentially procedural. As I noted in my earlier contribution this legislation is primarily about the International Criminal Court and a very vigorous debate about issues related to the proceedings was conducted last week and indeed when the bill was introduced. 
Today—literally—we have a Supplementary Order Paper that is four pages in length. It is of reasonably complex drafting and uses the vehicle of this bill by virtue of its generalised heading to provide diplomatic immunity to representatives of the European Community. In essence the European Community is being treated as if it were another State. There are good and proper reasons why that has to be done and that is why we will support the bill. But I have to say we have seen an egregious practice develop over time by which the Government uses Supplementary Order Papers well beyond the purposes that people might imagine they are used for. The normal practice is that a Supplementary Order Paper is there to correct a particular error in drafting or something of that nature. So essentially it stays within the subject matter that the select committee members themselves thought they were dealing with. That is the general philosophy of the Supplementary Order Paper mechanism and everyone recognises that it is necessary. 
There has been a practice however as in this instance of this Government using Supplementary Order Papers in a much broader way—essentially to put in a new purpose for legislation. I remind the Government of the trouble it got into some time ago when the Attorney-General in fact and the Minister of Justice sought to introduce not without notice on the same day a Supplementary Order Paper that introduced a new criminal offence—the offence of criminal defamation. The difficulty we have is that major changes are made to our law without reference to a select committee. Sometimes that is justifiable but the issue is more serious than that in this instance because the changes were introduced without notice. In this case we acknowledge that representatives of the European Community do need immunity but frankly that provision should have been introduced with a little more notice than 1 day—or on this very day. It could have been done last week. It could at least have been properly signalled last week in the House. It was not done in the way it should have been. 
So I raise this generalised point: this is a dangerous way of making legislation. It is a trap that leads inevitably to bad law which often then has to be undone. I invite the Government in the limited time in office it still has to think and not do that—not abuse the parliamentary process in that way. It brings this House the governmental processes and the integrity of our laws into discredit. The Government might be happy with that amazingly enough but on our side of the Chamber we are not happy with that kind of abuse of process as I regard it. The Minister may say I am overextending the point but there have been precedents in this Parliament that were dangerous that had to be backtracked on and that were a grave breach of the civil rights of the people of this nation. It is a practice this Government has yet to learn not to do. So I guess in its last 18 months we will see not only the panicked reaction of the last few days but this kind of egregious abuse of parliamentary process which frankly I would have thought under an MMP Parliament we have moved beyond. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First was advised of this matter by a letter dated 16 February which we received on 17 February and which we actioned on 17 February. The matter was the subject of questions in the House last week. I know that Mr Simon Power when he raised a question on it during the second reading of this bill was unaware that the letter had been written. I would have thought that by now the National Party has acquainted itself with the letter written by the Minister and that perhaps at National’s caucus meeting or somewhere its members have familiarised themselves with its contents and know what would be coming before the House. I compliment the Government on contacting all political parties. I am disappointed that the National Party does not seem to take any notice of correspondence sent to it. Perhaps it thinks that the time has come when it can ignore everything and just look at the polls and that it does not have to do any work for the next 18 months. Well New Zealand First is prepared to continue working and looks forward to being in Government none the less after the next election because we will continue to work. 
Reading the letter I see that on page 2 the very points raised by Mr Mapp are covered. It talks about the agreement and about the European Commission seeking the conferral on it of various privileges and suchlike. All the matters raised by Mr Mapp are in the letter. My concern when I read the letter was to make sure its points were transferred to the legislation and I commend the law draftsperson on working so efficiently and promptly in such a short space of time. 
I reiterate the point I made at the beginning. We seem to have too many members in this Parliament. To have two National Party members trying to raise objections about something that is very simple indicates we have far too many members in this Parliament and 99 as suggested by New Zealand First is a much better number. 
 This is urgent legislation and the National Party does not seem to have grasped that fact. This legislation is important in order to have proper dialogue with the European Union. Dr Mapp and Dr Lockwood Smith do not seem to understand the way in which diplomatic situations work. It is a pity that they did not read the letter and it is a pity that Dr Lockwood Smith a farming representative does not represent the wishes of the farming communities. When countries such as Poland which has about 40 million people and a vast agricultural base join the European Union we will want to make sure they understand what New Zealand is all about. People might think little countries like Estonia Latvia and Lithuania are not very important but each of them will have a vote in the European Union. Although the voting patterns have not yet been finally decided because of the German and French views those countries will have votes and the sooner we make contact with the European Union and have contact with those countries the better. I recommend to members the very good Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website on the matter. Of course other countries like Slovakia Slovenia Malta Cyprus and Hungary will all be playing a part in the new European Union and the sooner we get the European Union delegation here and have a dialogue with it the better. The sooner the National Party and perhaps ACT get on and support this legislation the better. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I do not have any particular problem with clause 2A but I believe that this is a debate and I am prompted by a sense of respect for this House to rise and comment on the last speech. It appears that New Zealand First members those giants of international diplomacy have the view that we have no contact with Latvia Estonia and those other countries. We have diplomats accredited to Riga and those other capitals and they visit them regularly. They live in The Hague or in other capital cities and we have a lot of contact already. 
There seems to be a New Zealand First view that until we have passed this bill no one from the European Union dares set foot here which is a bit puzzling. It was a question I was asking the Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs but she has not chosen to rise and assist New Zealand First in its understanding of this matter so perhaps the Government deserves its fate if New Zealand First chooses to lengthen this debate. 
I will also comment on Dail Jones’ repeated assertions that when parties question the wording of a bill during the Committee stage it is evidence that there are too many MPs. Mr Jones might reflect on the fact that in other bills passed not too long ago New Zealand First voted for the insertion of clauses referring to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. New Zealand First also voted against amendments seeking the removal of those references. 
In this bill I understand that the National Party has moved what I see as a very sensible amendment and I would be willing to guarantee that New Zealand First members have not even bothered to ask what that amendment is. They will vote without having the faintest idea of what it proposes. They will vote because they have a view that the proper duty of members of this Chamber is to rubber-stamp what the Government asks them to rubber-stamp. They have a view that when their leader is miffed at National because it has dared to question his probity in a select committee for the next few weeks they will spend all their time voting for the Government and not reading the legislation. 
Instead of reading the English-Italian phrase book on his desk because he has a deep interest in speaking Italian Dail Jones who keeps repeating that we are simply wasting time might choose to read some New Zealand law. He might decide to have a little glance at the bill and work out whether the Hon Lockwood Smith Dr Wayne Mapp myself and others who have spoken are doing exactly what MPs should do in the Committee stage of a bill. Dr Mapp is conferring with the Minister’s officials—I believe the Minister must have given consent. He is looking for reassurance that there is not something in this bill that no one has noticed until now—a matter that could be readily fixed by an amendment at this stage which would save the time of the Chamber. 
When a member like Mr Dail Jones rises to deride the attention being paid to the detail of a bill and says that there are too many members of Parliament when those members take time to scrutinise a clause or move amendments then people are entitled to know that Mr Jones is perusing his English-Italian phrase book and no doubt planning his next holiday on the Riviera— 
Dail Jones 
: In Rome. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: In Rome he tells me. If there are too many members in this Chamber I suggest that we could easily make a few savings by dispensing with those who find that the English-Italian phrase book is the right thing to read when they are being asked to vote on a bill that confers privileges and immunities on people like those who would give evidence for Mr Milosevic; or in this case privileges and immunities on a mission from the European Union that apparently is too scared to come here until it is assured it will not be prosecuted. What have the members of that mission got to hide? What is it that they are worried they will be arrested for? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Are they the new Soviets? 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The new Soviets yes! What taxes do they want to avoid? Are they too scared to bring their grog allowance through customs before they get this pushed through? The Minister is not explaining why it is so desperately urgent but presumably there is something that members of this mission lurking in Canberra really want to know that they will not be afflicted with when they come into New Zealand. We have not been told what it is but Dail Jones apparently knows that it does not matter. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I seek the indulgence of the Minister in the chair the Hon Marian Hobbs to come back to the new clause 2A that we are supposed to be debating which inserts a new section 9AB and especially subsection (5). Despite my best efforts to sort out what on earth this subsection is doing I still do not have a clear understanding. While I appreciate the Minister’s last attempt to explain it it did not clarify it. 
This is not really a big political issue—this is what Parliament is meant to be doing: scrutinising legislation. Too often legislation passes through this Parliament that no member understands. It goes through and we get into trouble because no one understood what the hell it meant and we end up with courts interpreting it and being surprised by them concluding things that we did not expect. 
Let me be specific. What I do not understand about new subsection (5) is this: as I understand new section 9AB inserted by clause 2A that section will give the Government the power by Order in Council to confer diplomatic privileges and immunities on European Commission delegates officials and their families etc. Subsection (5) in new section 9AB refers to an order made under section 9(2)(a). Now what I do not understand is that the very immunities and privileges that we would be conferring here are made under the new section 9AB. That is what we are inserting here—a new section 9AB to confer these diplomatic privileges and immunities. Why has subsection (5) been tagged on stating: “An order made under section 9(2)(a)”? I understand that section 9(2)(a) is considered inadequate to do the job. 
One reading of the current section 9(2)(a) (b) and (c) would suggest that maybe they could be used to confer the necessary diplomatic privileges and immunities on the European Commission delegation. Theoretically it would be possible to use those sections but in order to make it absolutely clear that there is no doubt that we can do this new section 9AB is being inserted by this clause 2A that we are debating right now. Why do we then have subsection (5) attached to the end of it which we gather has not been attached by the Government through policy but because parliamentary counsel suggested that it should be tagged on the end? 
Is it tagged there because we already have some diplomatic privileges and immunities granted under section 9(2)(a)? Have we already used section 9(2)(a) because we do not yet have new section 9AB to grant some diplomatic privileges and immunities? Why is: “(5) An order made under section 9(2)(a) in respect of the European Commission” tagged on there when at the moment we are putting in this new section 9AB in order to grant privileges and immunities to the European Commission? That is what I am just not understanding. 
As I say there is nothing big and political about this; it is just an MP trying to do his job to make sure that what we are passing in the Committee makes sense. I want to be sure that we are not putting into our law something that simply does not make sense. I am a little bit concerned because I gather this is not so much about policy but is something that parliamentary counsel has suggested should be attached. I just wonder how much scrutiny it has had. I suspect that a Cabinet committee has not actually seen that bit. 
I would really appreciate it if the Minister could explain why subsection (5) is needed—indeed why an Order in Council might be made under section 9(2)(a) when this new section 9AB is being inserted to enable us to make orders to cover the European Commission. I am happy to resume my seat to enable that explanation to be given because if that matter can be explained quite clearly then we have no opposition to new clause 2A at all. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to insert new clause 2A be agreed to. 
New clause 2A agreed to. 
New clause 2B Amendments consequential on enactment of section 2A 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 190 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to insert new clause 2B be agreed to. 
New clause 2B agreed to. 
Clause 3 New sections 10D and 10E substituted 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 Prior to the passing of Supplementary Order Paper 190 which included new clauses 2A and 2B which really adds the European Union in now as having the same rights and immunities as a State as has been well pointed out I personally was not particularly aware that New Zealand had an enormous degree of difficulty in actually making representations to the European Community in the past and it to us. I think many of us are well aware that European commissioners have visited New Zealand in the past; officials of the European Commission have visited us in the past and it does seem that the idea of this legislation being necessary and urgent to pass so they can open an office is rather a long bow to draw given the 40-year history of the relationship between the European Union and New Zealand. 
The clause we are dealing with now actually relates to the privileges and immunities of the International Criminal Court. It is crucial that we deal with this clause properly because although much of it is common sense and obviously the immunities and privileges of the judges of the court the prosecutors the deputy prosecutors and registrar go without saying a significant question has been raised about witnesses counsel and so forth. 
I know that the Minister's officials are looking at that and I guess they will have a bit of time between 6 o'clock and 7.30 p.m. to assure themselves that the legislation is correct and make whatever necessary minor amendments are appropriate. The difficulty is that at the moment the legislation as drafted on the face of it places the witnesses as if they were of the same class and category as judges. I realise that if one goes to both the Rome Statute which I have done and to the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court that is not the case. But one actually has to go to those provisions to ascertain that. On the face of the legislation itself that is not apparent. I believe we need to pay greater regard to what the legislation is saying on the face of it the intent. 
So my suggestion to the Minister is that an amendment be drafted—and I suggest there is time before this legislation is voted on—that clearly indicates on the face of the legislation itself without the necessity of the reference to article 48(4) of the Rome statute or articles 18 to 22 of the protocol the separate situation of the witnesses counsel and so forth many of whom will be war criminals themselves gaining immunity to give evidence against a more serious war criminal; but they are in quite a different category from the judges prosecutors deputy prosecutors and registrar. It is simply bringing into the legislation what is apparent in the Rome Statute and the protocols. 
Legislation has an important role in public education. The public of New Zealand ought to be able to broadly speaking read on the face of the legislation its intent; and on things of this nature that is doubly important. I believe there is a relatively easy opportunity which I believe every member would endorse to just make that plain so that it becomes clear. I presume we will be dealing with Mr Locke's Supplementary Order Paper as a separate debate so I will leave my comments until then. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That will actually be ruled out as being outside the scope of the bill. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Thank you. Well that is appropriate. It is worth knowing what Mr Locke wanted to do. He wanted to extend the scope of privileges and immunities to any member of a non-governmental institution as if the person were a diplomat or a member of the European Union or a State party or an official international agency—like the United Nations or one of the agencies of the United Nations. I would have thought that casual observation would tell us that that is wrong. The reason it is wrong is this: what is the purpose of privileges and immunities? The reason is primarily to exempt them from taxes the normal rules of criminal procedures—and I do not believe it can be possibly within the reasonable contemplation of this Parliament that we would in essence extend to private citizens those kinds of immunities. I know that Mr Locke has a particular political point he wishes to make but making that point means he is actually saying to members of non-governmental organisations that they could commit crimes with impunity. That is an extraordinary situation. Are we going to have the cars of members of Greenpeace parked up and down Lambton Quay— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but he really does need to come back to clause 3. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: But Mr Locke's amendment is to clause 3. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No it is a new clause. I advised the member of that just to be helpful but he cannot speak to that now. The member needs to confine himself to clause 3. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Just as a matter of clarification will there be a separate debate on Mr Locke's Supplementary Order Paper which is actually an amendment to clause 3? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The answer is no because the amendment will be ruled out of order. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: That is why I have to be able to take the debate now on that point. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: No I need— 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I wish to make the point that it is extraordinary that anyone could suggest that members of Greenpeace in their smoky old cars would be able to park up and down Lambton Quay freely without getting any parking tickets or whatever. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I need to bring the member back to clause 3. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I just wish to— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I am going to terminate the speech if the member does not do that. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I am just coming back to the issue because I have dealt with that other point now. I would ask the Minister that she does bring back to the Chamber after 7.30 p.m. an appropriate amendment so that it is plain on the face of the legislation without the need for reference to either the Rome Statute or articles 18 to 22 of the agreement that witnesses in the International Criminal Court would have particular immunity. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
 Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I was talking about the desirability that the legislation should say on the face of it that the immunity and privileges of counsel witnesses victims and others shall be clearly different to that of the judges prosecutors deputy prosecutors and registrars of the court. I have had discussions with the Minister and her officials and they are of the view that it is not necessary to make such an amendment because there is sufficient reference to article 48 paragraph 4 of the Rome Statute and articles 18 to 22 of the agreement that that is clearly sufficient to show they are different. My objection to that is this: it does not say on the face of the legislation we are passing today that they are different; and they are different. Surely we want to be able to signal clearly on the face of the legislation that someone who has received immunity from prosecution acting as a witness for the worst criminals who have committed grave breaches of humanitarian law does not have the same kinds of immunities and privileges as the court itself and the representatives of the court. 
I do understand the argument of the Minister and I say that we have the opportunity here to ensure that on the face of the legislation when people read the statute itself they know there is a difference. A modest amendment will achieve that. It will reflect article 48(4) of the Rome Statute and it would be read directly into the legislation. I believe that that kind of approach would be beneficial to our law not just in this instance but generally where we do not often make these calls. 
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 
: 
 As the last member just referred to I am not prepared to support the amendment that he is proposing. This is an argument that has also been put up by Mr Franks. What I understand them to be arguing is that whereas they can accept that judges and prosecution lawyers will be granted immunity under the International Criminal Court as is in the bill they have this terrible fear that if the court were sitting in New Zealand—and this is a really long bow to draw by the way—and had brought across Mr Milosevic which I think was the example that was given and witnesses to defend Mr Milosevic were being called they would automatically be given immunity. 
Let me make two things very clear. The first is that the immunity is limited and this is in the bill; and it is in the bill quite clearly by cross-references to the Rome Statute and to the Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court. Mr Mapp argues that we should therefore actually spell out the cross-reference by amending the legislation; I would say to him that that would be very tortuous. If in regard to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act I cross-referenced to every different international agreement and wrote it out those regulations—and those laws are already 10 to 20 centimetres deep—I would be writing out legislation in full for ever. I do not think that that is good lawmaking and I do trust that there are international lawyers who are fully au fait with doing the cross referencing to the Rome Statute. 
The second reason I would give as to why I do not think this is necessary is that following this legislation if this legislation gets passed and the amendment becomes law there will be written an Order in Council which again is a public document. The Order in Council will spell out very clearly that such immunities will not be necessarily available—that they are limited—and they will not be there holus bolus to everybody who comes in and who may be a threat to New Zealand in the terms of someone witnessing for Mr Milosevic. I do think it is a kind of “dancing on the head of a pin” argument that we were given here tonight. I can assure anyone listening that New Zealand is secure under this legislation. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 It is important to have immunities for all those coming into International Criminal Court hearings because I do not think we would otherwise have them held in New Zealand. They would not be delegated here if there were a danger of the witnesses experts or anyone being snaffled away and tried for other offences. So it is important to have the integrity of the court here or wherever in the world. But in speaking to sections 10D and 10E in clause 3 I say that the intention of my amendment I telegraphed earlier was in relation to those sections. I think it is important to fill in what Phil Goff talked about in his second reading speech—that there would be a process of extending protection to persons attending a specified conference. 
The essence of my approach in the amendment was that with important conferences such as peace conferences—and I referred to the question of Aceh in my earlier comments—we have to give respect and status to those people attending and that helps the peace process. As I said the problem with Aceh was that they had this conference in Tokyo and had negotiators from the Indonesian Government side and from the Aceh side. Those talks broke up on the initiative of the Indonesian Government and then the negotiators were arrested back in Aceh. There was not sufficient respect for the negotiators generated through the international community. 
One thing I would like to do if we are going to be a venue for peace conferences—there was talk the other day of our perhaps being a venue for a peace conference on Kashmir and one might have different parties coming into that conference—is to give them full status. It is at the discretion of the New Zealand Government. It is not something that the attendees automatically receive. But one might have the option to give the parties—not only the governmental parties but the non-governmental parties—a status that includes diplomatic protection and immunity as part of that process. One can imagine that with the Middle East as well. One perhaps would have to give status to the Palestinians as well as the Israelis. 
I also mentioned in my second reading speech the question of Algeria which is very current at the present time with Ahmed Zaoui being in prison here. We may be hosting some reconciliation conference here of the State party the Algerian regime and non-State actors like the official representatives of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) that Ahmed Zaoui belongs to. The FIS has official representatives in Sydney Washington and Switzerland and if they came here they might be given some status too. Mr Zaoui when hopefully he is out of prison shortly could participate in that sort of event as well. 
The intention of my amendment is that the Government can as part of its general approach of extending the bill beyond the International Criminal Court to international meetings—UN OECD World Trade Organization etc. or any specified conference—have a provision that non-Government actors can be designated as well whether or not those non-Government actors are part of an official State delegation. The question of Greenpeace came up earlier this afternoon; they may be part of an official delegation as non-Government organisation members particularly on environmental issues or non-Government organisations at a very high level. Amnesty International representatives for example might come from abroad to a particular conference we might be holding here and the head of Amnesty International from London perhaps could be given that particular status. I think the bill should be flexible enough to allow that. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It would assist with the Committee’s debate of this bill if you could give us guidance as to what this particular debate is about. Prior to the dinner adjournment my good colleague Dr Wayne Mapp in addressing clause 3 referred to the amendment tabled by Mr Keith Locke that Mr Locke has just debated during the last 5 minutes but the Chair of the Committee ruled that my colleague was out of order and was not allowed to speak on that Supplementary Order Paper during the debate on clause 3. That is fine; the Chair ruled in that way. However you appear to have just allowed Mr Locke to spend the last 5 minutes commending his new clause 3A as part of the debate on clause 3. I think you can see the difficulty we are getting into. Either we are meant to debate Mr Locke’s rather strange new clause 3A or we are not. At the moment we have had two different rulings because the previous Chair got quite forthright with my colleague Dr Mapp and threatened to terminate his speech. If you could give us some guidance I would appreciate that. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that. The member is right and I am wrong. The previous Chairperson did pull up Wayne Mapp for debating that amendment in the way that he did. The ruling stands from the previous Chairperson and Keith Locke should not have debated that clause. He was out of order in doing so. I accept responsibility for that. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I wonder whether you would like to reflect on that ruling. I appreciate you feel that you must uphold the ruling of the Chairperson before the dinner break. Her ruling was such that Mr Locke’s amendment could not be debated because it was to be ruled out of order. However it does not seem to me that a Chair of the Committee can rule an amendment out of order before it has even been voted on. Surely that is a matter that takes place at the time of the vote. So long as an amendment is extant—that is until it is voted on—if it relates to a particular part surely it and any other amendments to that part can be debated just as Mr Locke has already done in this case. Otherwise the effect of that ruling would be that Mr Locke could not even firstly put his amendment in or secondly speak to it. That would seem to infringe on the privileges of members to be able to table amendments and debate them. I ask you to reflect upon that ruling because it will have the effect of limiting the rights of members to debate on amendments and Supplementary Order Papers that they may move. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I support that point of order but I was not in the Committee just before 6 p.m. so I am not sure why my amendment was ruled out of order. I am not sure whether that was justified but I would be interested to hear your ruling on Mr Mapp's point and also to hear why my amendment was ruled out. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank both members for their contributions. We will try to clear the matter up. A separate question would have had to be put on Mr Locke’s amendment as it proposes a new clause. However the question will not be put because the proposed new clause is outside the scope of the bill. To allow debate would require an instruction from the House as was the case for the Minister’s amendment dealing with the European Union. 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am just a little unclear about when the decision is made that an amendment that has been lodged can be spoken to or is ruled out of order. The point is that Dr Mapp started to talk to the amendment. He would have probably given 2 minutes’ worth of discussion on that before the Chairperson at the time said he had to stop speaking about the amendment or she would terminate his speech. 
My understanding is that if an amendment has been tabled we can speak to it and it is only at the time of voting when you come to put the vote on a particular part or clause that you then rule it out of order and we do not get to vote on it. To my knowledge that is how we have handled amendments in the past and I think that when Dr Mapp spoke to the amendment he was right to do so just as Mr Locke has just spoken to his amendment as well without any interference from the Chair. 
I seek your guidance as to the procedures that we should follow because as Dr Mapp said there are actually two different versions. My view is that the decision is made when we come to vote and an amendment is ruled out of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The reality is that Mr Locke’s amendment is not an amendment to clause 3. The debate on clause 3 must be relevant to that clause; it cannot deal with matters contained in new clauses. Mr Locke’s proposed new clause is not an amendment to clause 3. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party effectively to endorse the proposed amendment that Mr Mapp suggested to clause 3. Mr Mapp’s purpose is to make sure that the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act records that there is a difference in the kinds of immunity that are intended for diplomats and other heads of missions or heads of State who visit New Zealand and the kind of people who might be called and who might be in New Zealand if there is a court proceeding under the International Criminal Court statute. 
I appreciated the fact that the Hon Marian Hobbs took a call. She endeavoured to explain that the amendment was not necessary because it would simply repeat what she said is already contained in other legislation and in particular in the Rome Statute which is appended to the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act. I do not think she dealt with the issue. The Hon Marian Hobbs did not actually tell us what it is or which provisions it is in those other documents that make this bill understandable. I have tried to follow the cross references. For example there is a cross reference to article 48 of the Rome Statute. It states: “Counsel experts witnesses or any other person required to be present at the seat of the court shall be accorded such treatment as is necessary for the proper functioning of the court in accordance with the agreement on the privileges and immunities of the court.” I do not know what agreement that refers to. Maybe the Minister can tell us there is a very straightforward answer but as I read article 48 it probably refers back to the privileges and immunities in sub-article 2 which relates to the court—that is judges the prosecutor the deputy prosecutors and the registrar. It states that they enjoy the same privileges and immunities as are accorded to heads of diplomatic missions. 
Our argument is that that is inappropriate for witnesses. It is probably inappropriate for some of the counsel whom war criminals might engage. It is certainly inappropriate for the category of people who are called “other persons required to be present at the seat of the ICC.” There is no reason why one of Milosevic’s former henchmen if here for a trial should be immune for example from the obligation to pay duty on his alcohol purchases or customs charges when he comes into the country. There is no reason why a thug should be immune from the ordinary criminal law. I am not saying that they should be exposed to New Zealand criminal law for what they may have done in the past but for what they do while they are in New Zealand even something as trivial as their traffic offences. I do not see any reason why we should be leaving open the possibility that a bunch of Milosevic’s henchmen could ignore even their parking tickets. I would like the Hon Marian Hobbs to explain to us just why that is excluded. 
 It may be that they are referring to another agreement. I cannot find the text of the agreement in the time I have available. But if there is a passage of the agreement that is separate from the Rome Statute that makes this clear it would be a reassurance to know that it did make it clear. 
Certainly sub-article 4 of article 48 which was mentioned by the Minister does not comfort at all. It simply says that they get the privileges previously referred to—I think that is what it is saying—in accordance with the agreement on privileges and immunities of the court. Unless the agreement says that there is something very specifically different for witnesses then we are putting into our law something that is unnecessary. It is a privilege that may come to embarrass. I fully agree that there must be a form of immunity for witnesses and for other people coming in. We do not want the embarrassment for example of someone moving to arrest General Pinochet if he were in New Zealand as a witness for the trial of some of the henchmen who might have done what they did all those years ago. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I believe that in clause 3 which inserts new sections 10D and 10E into the principal Act there is an important issue at stake that is very closely aligned to what my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp and also Stephen Franks have been debating. What strikes me about sections 10D and 10E in particular is this. I have been a great supporter of the fact that under New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements the power to enter into treaties resides with the executive. I think that is terribly important. It is not the case in the United States and I believe the fact that Congress retains that power causes the United States some difficulties. Here we have a situation where this legislation will give effect in our domestic law to an international treaty the Rome Statute and that is fine. But we have always argued in supporting the power of the executive to enter into treaties that where those treaties affect our domestic law this Parliament should then have the power to decide whether it is prepared to amend our domestic law in order to accommodate those treaties. I would like the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs to address the issue that the wording of new sections 10D and 10E circumvents the power of this Parliament to do that. If articles 18 to 22 of the international treaty—the Rome Statute—are changed through the process of change to that agreement those changes will automatically become part of our law in New Zealand without this Parliament having any further say in the matter. 
Let us say for example that at the moment—although this is not clear on the face of this legislation—articles 18 to 22 of the agreement set out a set of diplomatic privileges and immunities that Mr Franks and Dr Wayne Mapp may be satisfied with. It may set out a set of privileges and immunities that do not protect witnesses from breaking New Zealand’s criminal law for example or from not having to pay their parking fines or anything like that. But the point I am making is that if the international agreement is changed—in other words if the international treaty is changed—then because of the way that this legislation is worded our domestic law will be automatically changed. That I believe will bring into disrepute the power of our executive in this land under our constitution to enter into international treaties. I support that power; I believe it is a very important power. I have been New Zealand’s international trade Minister and I support the power of the executive to enter into treaties. But I think this kind of legislation which then enables those treaties to automatically amend our domestic law needs to be thought through quite carefully. 
So while I support our granting immunities and privileges to the International Criminal Court I think that the way it is done in this bill is not good. I am sure the Minister can see that if the articles of the Rome Statute or the articles of the agreement that is consequent upon that are changed by international agreement so will our domestic law be changed. As I look at new section 10D(2)(d) I see any changes to articles 18 to 22 of the agreement will automatically change our domestic law. If I am wrong I am happy to accept that but I would appreciate it if the Minister in the chair could explain why I am wrong. But if I am not wrong that is a serious issue. We have always argued in the past that where an international treaty changes our domestic law this Parliament should have the power to decide that. But according to the way this bill is worded instead of putting into the legislation what the international treaty has required New Zealand to do we have worded it in such a way that any change to that international treaty will automatically change our law. We simply refer to articles to 18 to 22 of the Rome Statute without setting out what they state. So if those articles are changed there is no reason that this Parliament would have the chance to pick up the change and look at it. There could be a change that states that witnesses can be absolutely immune from the criminal law of the country in which the International Criminal Court is operating. Let us say that became an agreed change to the international treaty. This Parliament would then have no say about how that affected our domestic law. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Wayne Mapp to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to omit paragraph (d) of section 10D(2) and substitute the following paragraph: 
(d)Article 48(4) of the Rome Statute or articles 18 to 22 or both to ensure counsel witnesses victims experts and any other persons required to be present at the seat of the ICC so that they be accorded such treatment as is necessary for the proper functioning of the Court: 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 71 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 3 be agreed to. 
Ayes 109 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 8 
ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Clause 3 agreed to. 
New clause 3ARefunds or payments in case of exemptions from taxation 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 188 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to insert new clause 3A be agreed to. 
New clause 3A agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The amendment in the name of Keith Locke to insert new clause 3A is ruled out of order as it is not within the scope of the bill. 
Clause 4 agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill 
In Committee 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Because we are doing this bill part by part it is important to remind members that recent changes to the Standing Orders have altered the way in which the Committee will consider a bill. The debate will now begin with the question that Part 1 stand part rather than clause 1 “Title”. Any schedules will be debated along with the part to which they principally relate. I will inform members which schedules belong to each part. So instead of debating the schedules separately they will be debated as part of the part they belong to. Schedules will be voted on separately without further debate once the parts have been disposed of. Debate on clause 1 and any other preliminary provisions that are not in a part will take place at the end. The preliminary provisions will be debated together but are voted on separately. 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am interested in the new Standing Orders. Have they been circulated? I am hearing this for the first time. I am not disputing anything. I am just interested to know the number of the Standing Order. Can you refer the number to me? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am more than happy to. It is Standing Order 296. The new Standing Orders have been available for a little while. 
Part 1 Preliminary provision 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is with pleasure tonight that I take the first call on the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment bill that amends the Health Act which is referred to as the principal Act in the bill. The commencement provisions in Part 1 have been changed. The Act is to come into force on 1 July 2004—that date having been changed from 1 July 2003 which is well past. 
This legislation has been somewhat contentious. Initially the legislation that was to come into force on 1 July 2003 was to be an omnibus bill for health screening programmes although it had been based almost exclusively on the need to have an effective National Cervical Screening Programme. There was a great deal of debate throughout the Health Committee as to whether this bill should apply to all screening programmes or whether it should be specific to the Cervical Screening Programme. The decision of the committee was that it would be specific to the Cervical Screening Programme. Hence there has been a great deal of consultation on this bill and that is why it now comes into force on 1 July 2004. 
However amendments in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper state that only new section 112D and section 6 come into force on 1 July. New clauses provide that the Act comes into force 12 months after the date on which it receives the royal assent. That is to allow the appointment of appropriate people to be made under the Act so that they can implement the provisions in the bill. 
If one looks at cervical cancer statistics in this country in 1981 12 women per 100000 developed cervical cancer and five per 100000 would die of it. In 2000 after the screening programme was set up in 1990 to show how effective that programme was the incidence of cervical cancer had gone down and 10.6 women per 100000 now develop cervical cancer in this country and three die. That is a 46 percent reduction in the death rate. It is a very significant reduction in the death rate from a terrible disease that killed too many New Zealand women. With no screening one in 200 women would die. With screening one in 1280 women die. 
That is a huge difference. That is why it is so important for this country to develop screening programmes. But for that to happen an effective measure is needed by which to screen. Screening for cervical cancer is not a really exact science. When one is looking down a slide in a laboratory to find abnormal cells it is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. The cell does not jump out and say: “Hey I’m cancer here.” One has to be very skilled. Part of what we have been doing with this programme has been in response to the McGoogan report to the inquiry in Gisborne making changes to cervical-screening programmes so that we can ensure we have a gold standard programme here that will ensure effective delivery at the coalface—where women are screened—in the laboratories and by the clinicians. Then there is the treatment for those women. That is why we need to get this legislation into effect as soon as possible and why its commencement needs to be this year 1 July 2004. 
In 2001 191 women developed invasive cervical cancer and 71 died. We still have more ground to cover. We want to see women on the programme. At the moment 1 million women are on the programme. We want to ensure that those women can have absolute confidence in the National Cervical Screening Programme. We also want to make sure that if this programme is used for other sorts of screening we have a standard that we can apply. Later in the debate we will be talking about the specifics that have delayed this bill to some degree which is why it is now coming into force in 2004 and not 2003 and looking at why the programme changed from “opt-on” to “opt-off”. It became an opt-off programme looking at access to primary-care records. But that is for further debate later in the bill. We know that other screening programmes are being developed in New Zealand for breast cancer and prostate cancer. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I shall take an early but short call to endorse the comments made by the Opposition spokesperson on health in her opening remarks on the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill. I do not think I could have put it better than the member already has. 
The key point she made is that we are looking for a screening programme that is of gold standard; that is the best we can possibly provide to the women of New Zealand. This bill addresses a number of issues concerning the development of a very good screening programme. It gives effect to four specific Gisborne cervical-screening inquiry recommendations of the 46 recommendations made and some of them relate to changes that we need to make in this Parliament. 
 The point I would like to make very clearly is that very good work has been done across parties in this Committee to get as much consensus as we can around the issues in this bill. 
The bill came back from the Health Committee which had done an extremely good job on it. The committee made quite a number of amendments to the bill which I accepted. There were some issues however that were of concern particularly to the women in the House. We met sat around a table and thrashed out how we could improve on what had been reported back to Parliament to make it even better. As Dr Lynda Scott said we will mention some of those when we get into the next part of the bill. 
But I want to acknowledge that really positive work. It was one of those occasions which does not always happen in Parliament when members sat down looked at issues and then came up with some decisions. I acknowledge that work; I am putting it on the record. We will debate some of the other issues in detail when we get into the next part of the bill. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I am pleased to speak on Part 1 of the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill. The commencement date is 1 July 2004. We know that that commencement date is important particularly to all of those who are affected by this particular bill. We want to have women enrolled in this programme we want to have a gold standard programme and we want a programme that the women of New Zealand can have total confidence in. 
I am particularly pleased that it is 2004 because the sooner we get on to this legislation the better but also because by this time all the people who are already enrolled in this programme can be informed of the changes to the programme they originally joined—namely access to their health records by programme evaluators. We know that this step cannot be undertaken until this legislation is passed. So the sooner it is passed the sooner we will be able to progress this. 
I am pleased too to think that in the very near future all the women in New Zealand enrolled in this programme can expect to be fully informed about the new process and we will look forward to monitoring the progress of this process. New Zealand First definitely supports the development of screening programmes of this nature that benefit the health of all New Zealanders. Women’s health is particularly important because of the families that they are part of. We know that this is a disease we do not want our women to have. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Some of the previous speakers have talked about the commencement date of this bill and we are frankly very relieved to know that the majority of the provisions in the bill will not come into effect for another 12 months. I think that there needs to be time for a woman in New Zealand to understand the true implications of this bill. Would that it were true what the New Zealand First representative said—that the women of New Zealand will be fully informed of the whole screening programme and the implications of this bill. But in our view this bill regrettably will erode the confidentiality and the privacy of personal health information and the approach to privacy issues that New Zealand has taken over many years. It will also undermine the confidentiality of the patient-doctor relationship and I am sure I do not need to remind members that confidentiality is at the heart of the patient-doctor relationship. Most of us would not divulge details about our health and well-being to a doctor if we felt that what we were going to put on a doctor’s records could be accessed by an unspecified number of people—and that I regret to say is exactly the implication of this bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: This debate is about the commencement date. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I listened with great interest to the speaker from the National Party and others and they spoke in an extremely wide-ranging manner. I took my cue from them. No one objected to them and that is why I am speaking in this way. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not correct because I did bring them in a couple of times as well to talk about the commencement date. The member can try. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I think that it is a good thing that there are 12 months before the provisions fully come into effect so that the women of New Zealand can become aware of the implications of this bill. Basically under the provisions of this bill all doctors in New Zealand will be required to hand over the medical records of any woman out of a million women who are enrolled in the National Cervical-screening Programme and of course of any other woman who chooses to join the programme. I think that at the moment many women are not aware of the amendments made to this bill that will undermine the privacy of health information. That is why it is fortunate indeed that there are 12 months in which to contemplate the implications of this bill. 
Frankly I am absolutely amazed that most of the parties in this Parliament including the National Party New Zealand First and ACT who expressed serious concerns during the debate last time accept the bill on this occasion and will support it. I wonder whether they too have thought through the implications of the amendments that are contained in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. Basically once the commencement date of this bill has come into effect New Zealand women will be faced with Hobson’s choice: either they stay on the National Cervical-screening Programme and surrender their right to informed consent or they opt off the programme and risk both their health and the efficacy of a nationwide screening programme. 
I believe that far from strengthening the National Cervical-screening Programme the last-minute eleventh hour amendments to this bill will cause many many women to choose to opt off the national cervical-screening register because quite frankly they will not be happy with the thought that their personal health records can suddenly be automatically accessed without their consent by an unspecified number of evaluators. 
So over the next 12 months as women become aware of the amendments and the implications of this bill I believe that there will need to be some rethinking of these last-minute amendments which have been parachuted into this bill. They were not in the bill when it went to the select committee but were put in at the last minute. I think that when we think this through we will have time hopefully to rethink this bill. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill and in particular to Part 1. The commencement date is 1 July 2004 now rather than 2003 and I will hopefully have a little latitude to talk about this. 
I note the comments of Sue Kedgley my former colleague from the Health Committee who is concerned very much about the privacy issues. If there is one thing I am somewhat concerned about it is privacy issues and confidentiality. I was very concerned when I first looked at this bill. I was extremely concerned that we might need to put the commencement date out further because I was worried about the implications. 
Certainly it was very concerning to me that anybody I thought could have a look at the records and get access to them. But I was very much assured and reassured really not only by the Minister and the officials but by looking at the amendments to see that in fact the only people who will have access to women’s medical records in relation to this bill—and I note that the commencement date is 1 July 2004—are in fact the people who are evaluating or in other words auditing the process. That is why I felt that it was very important that the bill be passed this year rather than next year. 
One of the concerns about the auditing is that lawyers’ records—and having been a lawyer for so long I am very much aware of this—are regularly audited by auditors. They look through files and check that things are where they are supposed to be. Of course that is the way it should be yet lawyers never get authorities for that and the reality is that that is all the auditors look at—to make sure that things are as they should be. This particular bill is about the auditing. It is a terrible crock—in fact it is a shocking thing to do to women—to have cervical-screening programmes that do not have any auditing or evaluation. It is nonsense. It is worse than nothing because it gives people a feeling of well-being— 
Hon Member 
: False! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It gives them a false feeling of well-being and that is something we should not allow. That is what led to the Gisborne cervical cancer inquiry—the McGoogan inquiry. We do not want to see that this year next year or any other year. That is why I am particularly pleased to see this legislation being passed this year. 
The reality is that women will still be able to get Pap smears done even if they are not part of the screening programme. The people that Ms Kedgley mentioned in her speech will not be chopped out of having their cervical tests done. They will be able to have them done usually by their general practitioners or whoever else does the tests for them and they will still get the results but they will not get the letter from the national cervical-screening register telling them when their call-up time is. In fact their general practitioners will be doing that. It is not as though they will suddenly be bereft of any medical assistance. They can choose to be in charge with their doctor of their own records and their own call-ups. 
I do not think that some of Ms Kedgley’s concerns will necessarily come out this year or next year as being quite so major. But certainly in the National Party we will be very much concerned if it looks as though people are just opting out altogether and not taking part in the programme to discuss with the other parties whether there should be an amendment to the legislation. I can see the Minister in the chair Annette King nodding away because none of us wants to see an epidemic of the proportions that there has been in this country. That is why we are particularly keen to see the commencement date be 1 July 2004 and not later. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to speak in the debate on the Committee stage of the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill and in particular Part 1. Part 1 consists of the commencement date which I note has now been pushed out by a year. I am not the ACT member who sat on the Health Committee to look into the bill and I understand from that member that the committee has done a very thorough job which is why I understand the date has been pushed out to 1 July this year. But I do note that the bill itself has changed as I understand it from being a “think big” bill—in other words it was supposed to be an umbrella bill under which a whole lot of screening programmes could have been slotted in—to being a more modest and specific proposal to deal with just the cervical-screening programme. I am very pleased to hear that because anybody who knows anything about national programmes—databases screening programmes or whatever one wants to call them—knows that they are or can be fraught with problems. The fact that the Government has another half-year to get its planning into place before it launches the provisions in this bill must allow the Minister to sleep a little easier. 
I already know from my own experience and the experience of people I know that the present cervical-screening and breast-screening programmes are fraught. They are fraught with problems because people get advised late—years late—that they are due for another screening. When they turn up for a screening—in the breast-screening programme in particular—they are told to go to the wrong place at the wrong time. All sorts of problems arise because the programmes are trying to deal with a lot of people. In this case I understand that about a million women will have to be brought on to the programme and as we have already heard there is now an opt-out provision. But a million women means an awful lot of planning. Again the fact that the commencement date is 1 July this year does allow some grace for all those officials who will have to take part in that planning process because it is no mean feat. 
I understand that some of the concerns raised by the ACT party have been taken into account in the way the bill has been set up and I say to the Minister that it is a positive thing—she has enabled the concerns of all the members on the committee to be looked at taken into consideration and addressed. The problem that we have from the outside is that it would be very nice to have an assurance or a plan from the Minister to tell us how she plans to implement the programme which as I say will be dealing with a million women. It starts on 1 July 2004 so the question is whether that is the date on which planning starts—or is the planning already under way right now so that on 1 July 2004 the first lot of women get their letters to say that they are now due for their tests? 
Given that this bill is in its Committee stage—which does allow different submissions to be put to the Committee on changes and modifications that could be made to the bill—it would be very helpful to the Committee of the whole House if the Minister could walk us through the programme and the progress that she intends to take between now and 1 July 2004 and then walk us through what she intends to do on 1 July to get this programme dealing with a million women under way. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 The bill before us has been very thoroughly and robustly examined by the Health Committee. Originally it was thought that the legislation would be able to apply in a more general sense to future health-screening programmes. However the advice from the Regulations Review Committee was such that it was decided to limit its scope to the Cervical-screening Programme that we are looking at today. 
When we talk about the time frame for commencement we also need to remind ourselves that we are talking about the time frame of a disease—a very preventable cancer. About 90 percent of all cases of the most common forms of cervical cancer are preventable if detected at an early stage and treated appropriately. Preventing deaths is possible but it hinges on the effectiveness of the screening programme in operation. As a country we have mourned the results of a screening programme that did not guarantee 100 percent accuracy for women and we have been given the mandate to put that right to the best of our ability. We also need to go back in time and remember the Gisborne inquiry that started this process. The evaluation that was so missing at that time will be addressed by this legislation. 
 I commend the chair of the Health Committee Steve Chadwick for her leadership in this regard. I mention Dr Lynda Scott—it is always great on a committee to have people with a medical background—and also Heather Roy from ACT whose contribution I found extremely helpful in the process. The most delightful aspect of this bill—and I say to Mrs Collins that it was delightful to work with her also—was that the cooperation worked. I also thank the Minister for the extended meetings regarding the bill and for the open and frank discussions that we had over ongoing concerns after it was reported back. 
It is important to remind ourselves when we talk about the time frame of this bill that we are dealing with a screening programme which is different from a diagnostic programme. There are flaws in a screening programme just by its very nature and if we do not have in place the kind of checks and balances that this legislation seeks to establish then a screening programme is not worth the paper it is written on and the system that is set in place can become a very dangerous tool. 
United Future is thrilled to support this bill and we will make further comments in Part 2. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 184 in the name of the Hon Annette King to Part 1 be agreed to. 
Amendment agreed to and Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments to principal Act and transitional provision 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 2 makes amendments to the principal Act which in this case is the Health Act of 1956—a rather elderly Act. The McGoogan report came from the inquiry into under-reporting of cervical cancer in Gisborne. Euphemia McGoogan is a world expert on cervical screening who came to have a look at our system and made recommendations for change. Recommendation 11.14 states: “The Health Act 1956 should be amended to permit the National Cervical Screening Programme to be effectively audited monitored and evaluated by any appropriately qualified persons irrespective of their legal relationship with the Ministry of Health. This requires an amendment to section 74A of the Health Act to permit such persons to have ready access to all information on the National Cervical Screening Register.” 
Recommendation 11.17 states: “The Health Act 1956 requires amendment to enable the Ministry of Health and any appropriately qualified persons it engages to carry out (external or internal) audits monitoring or evaluation of cervical cancer incidence and mortality to have ready access to all medical files recording the treatment of the cervical cancer by all health providers who had a role in such treatment.” 
The crux of one of the major debates that we have had about this bill is the section about “ready access to all medical files”. If we want a cervical-screening programme that can be appropriately audited then we need access not just to laboratory and hospital data but also to primary-care records. We have heard Sue Kedgley’s concerns in this regard and many in National’s caucus have similar concerns because it comes down to the issue of informed consent as opposed to the issue of having a gold standard screening programme that we know is effective. We will not repeat any of the mistakes that we had in Gisborne and we will follow Euphemia McGoogan’s report and recommendations. 
One of the issues is that this programme is an opt-off programme. From 1990 to 1993 it was an opt-on programme—people had to sign to say that they wanted to be part of the programme. Initially people joined and then over the months of 1993 the numbers of people signing up tailed off and dropped. The Ministry of Health decided to have an opt-off programme. That meant that when people had their first smear they were registered on the programme. At that point they were sent a whole lot of information and if they chose they could opt off the programme. We have had a lot of debate about how women will be informed if we make changes to allow access to primary-care records. We have had meetings with the Minister and from that we have had a guarantee that a letter will be sent to all 1 million women on the programme informing them of the changes in this bill and giving them the option to opt off. 
I have introduced a Supplementary Order Paper because I believe that if a lot of women opt off it will reduce the effectiveness of the screening programme in New Zealand and means that we may have a higher incidence of cancer as a result. I have an amendment which I will discuss later that would allow people to opt off just that section relating to access to primary-care records. But there are other things in the bill that follow these two recommendations and the amendment to the principal Act. Those qualifications are that the evaluators have access only to the information that they specifically need to evaluate the programme. Those evaluators cannot use that data for anything else and they are under the control of the Director-General of Health. Doctors initially had concern about access to primary-care records as well. They also have been reassured by the fact that they will be able to have oversight over access to primary-care records to ensure that if people are accessing notes they are looking only at the issues of cervical cancer smears and screening. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 Part 2 is the heart of the bill. It outlines the operation of the National Cervical-screening Programme. It is really pleasing to see in section 112M inserted by clause 4 that women having their first test will be fully informed about the procedure and the programme by the person taking the specimen. This information is absolutely essential to ensure that there is no decrease in the number of women on the screening programme. We must continuously try to reduce cervical cancer morbidity. 
New Zealand First was very pleased too to see in the Supplementary Order Paper that an independent review of the National Cervical-screening Programme will be carried out every 3 years. We believe that an independent review is absolutely essential for the credibility of the programme because it is only then that the women of New Zealand can have absolute confidence too in the process. The requirements for the review as set out in sections 112OA to 112OD inserted by clause 4 are very clear. In this way New Zealand women can have confidence in the report that will be produced and provided by the Director-General of Health. 
As has been mentioned by the previous speaker and the Minister of Health we have been reassured by Ministry of Health officials that access to women’s primary health records will be controlled and that a member from a practice will be present or will locate that information when the evaluation is carried out. The women of New Zealand can have absolute confidence that auditors will look only at the relevant information. These audits are needed if we are to have some confidence in the system. It does need that check. Above all we want to ensure there is not a decrease in the number of women participating in the National Cervical-screening Programme which would mean a reduction in the number of women being screened. 
This screening programme is absolutely essential for the health of all New Zealand women. The whole aim of this legislation is to ensure that the programme is safe and that all components are safe. Therefore primary-care records need to be subject to evaluation as do the other components of the screening programme. Participation in evaluation is for the benefit of all New Zealand women. New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 First of all I want to correct an impression the Minister gave when she said there was consensus on this bill amongst the parties. Certainly there is not consensus on the part of the Green Party. We would love to be able to support the bill and we worked diligently in the Health Committee to do so. We thought we would be able to do so until at the eleventh hour—in the last minute after the bill had been sent to the select committee after Cabinet had approved it and so forth—suddenly amendments were introduced to the original bill. As I have said this will effectively mean that the privacy of women’s primary health-care records—their general practitioner records—will be eroded. It will mean that an unspecified number of evaluators will be able to have automatic access to the health-care records of any woman who is enrolled in the National Cervical-screening Programme. 
The Green Party’s view is that consent should always be sought before a person’s health-care information and records can be accessed. It has long been recognised that medical records contain highly sensitive and intimate information and need special protection. That is why we have a Health Information Privacy Code that protects the confidentiality of patient information and access to medical records. Indeed New Zealand has been a leader in its approach to privacy—in particular the privacy of health information. Well this bill is the beginning of the erosion of the privacy of health information. Indeed parts of whole sections of this bill are really there to require doctors to get around the Health Information Privacy Code and to require doctors to hand over any confidential health-care or general practitioner records of any woman enrolled in the programme. 
The New Zealand First member said that the women of New Zealand can have absolute confidence that the evaluators who will automatically be able to access women’s personal health information will be able to look only at relevant information. I would like the member to look at the fine print of the bill because in fact when one looks at it one sees that evaluators will be able to access anything they decide is necessary to perform their functions. If we think about it we know that sexually transmitted diseases are thought to be one of the main reasons why women develop cervical cancer. Therefore evaluators could very easily argue that records of women’s sexually transmitted diseases—or anything else such as previous pregnancies—could in their view be relevant to and necessary for their research or evaluation. There is no point in looking shocked as some members are. We have been assured that that is a major reason why women may develop cervical cancer; therefore it would probably be useful for evaluators to look at those records. 
Now in a great concession at the last minute because of the concerns raised by women’s groups around the country—who I might say are up in arms at these last-minute amendments—there has been an amendment introduced that says that when the evaluators are rifling through the health information of any woman on the screening programme a health practitioner may oversee that access—he or she “may” oversee it. We were told that person would be a doctor. I do not know about other members but the doctors I know are extremely busy and I am not certain they will have time to be standing around while the evaluators go through women’s files. But even if they did have time I can assure members that this provision will not reassure many women. Women do not want to hand over to doctors the responsibility for deciding what confidential health-care information should or should not be handed over to authorities. Women want to make that decision for themselves. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I feel I need to answer some of the points raised by Sue Kedgley. She left the impression that somehow or other the bill that went to the Health Committee was changed by the Government or somebody else. I remind the Committee that the bill that went to the select committee underwent a very extensive consultation process by the members of that committee who were drawn from all parties in this House. The amendments made by the committee were reported back to Parliament and they were quite major changes to the original bill. 
Members will recall that I saw the amendments and accepted the advice of the committee. As far as I was concerned it was Parliament working at its best. It was legislation that a Government introduced which was then looked at in terms of the evidence given to the select committee and the amendments made by the select committee came back to this House as recommendations. 
There were of course some things we wanted to improve and I will talk about those in a moment. But Sue Kedgley said in her first speech tonight that at the last minute amendments were parachuted in with this Supplementary Order Paper. If the member looked at the Supplementary Order Paper she would see that those amendments came directly out of the meeting I had—and she was there at that meeting—in my office. We discussed how we could address the outstanding issues in order to make the legislation work as well as we could—as well as address the concerns our women members of Parliament had raised. 
Muriel Newman is standing in for Heather Roy tonight and Heather Roy played a very constructive part in the amendments. Her main concern was that there should be an independent review of this programme and members will see in the Supplementary Order Paper that we have built in an independent review. That was a concern from ACT and I had feedback from Heather Roy that she was happy with the way we had completed the bill. 
Certainly Lynda Scott was very keen to ensure oversight of the evaluators’ work with general practitioners and that concern came through from the general practitioners themselves. We have ended up by giving general practitioners oversight. They might be busy people but they said they would like the right to have that oversight and we have included it in the Supplementary Order Paper. 
Another important issue that was raised by women in my room that night—I think Dr Scott has already raised it—was ensuring that the women were given the information to opt out of the programme which involves over a million of them if they wanted to. Those were the three main concerns that came out of our meeting and into the Supplementary Order Paper that is now on the Table of the House. 
Subsequent to that Dr Scott tabled a Supplementary Order Paper and I know it is one in which she has thought through the issues. She is trying to find a way through the issue of primary health records and I gave her an undertaking that I would get advice on that matter and look at it seriously. 
Over the dinner break we sought advice from Professor Skegg and members will recall that the professor was an adviser to the committee throughout the hearings. I was unable to contact him initially and first of all had a response from Dr Julia Peters. Dr Peters has also been an expert on the National Cervical-screening Programme. She was previously the clinical director of the programme and is a public health specialist. I asked her and finally Professor Skegg to look at Dr Scott’s amendment and both of them felt that if the amendment were to pass it would compromise the evaluation of the programme. Based on that advice I will not support Dr Scott’s Supplementary Order Paper but I recognise the spirit in which it was presented. That advice from Professor Skegg and Dr Julia Peters is available if people would like to see it. 
I think what has taken place here needs to be kept in perspective along with what we are trying to achieve. The issue is whether we have a gold-standard cervical-screening programme for New Zealand women or whether we do not. The key as Dr Scott has said is that we have to be able to evaluate a programme properly. If we cannot we do not know whether we do or not. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 It may seem a little odd that I am taking a call in the Committee stage of this particular legislation as health is not a matter—nor is the Health Committee a select committee—that I have been heavily involved in. But I do want to make some remarks regarding Supplementary Order Paper 184 and in particular the way that this bill was brought to my attention by women’s health groups in my electorate that have very strong views on particular aspects of the bill. As a lawyer I approach most things from the point of view that no one should undertake any activity without informed consent and I take this opportunity before we get into the detail of some of the Supplementary Order Paper to pay a very high compliment to my colleague Dr Scott who has talked and walked me through this bill. She has brought me to the conclusion in our discussions about the Supplementary Order Paper and from the discussions she had with the Minister that in fact—initially anyway—this programme is as good an option as possible to make available to the women of New Zealand. I do quite genuinely worry about the issue of access to primary health-care records. As I say it is the hard work that has gone into the Supplementary Order Paper that has brought me to the conclusion that it should be supported. 
The inclusion of the new section 112OA “Establishment of NCSP review committee” is a very good measure indeed because if nothing else it allows that review committee to be formed by the Minister. I like the fact that that has to be done at least once every 3 years and I like the fact that it reviews not only the operation of the National Cervical-screening Programme but more particularly the evaluation activities. That is a very important point. As I said before I do not pretend to be an expert on this matter but I know good systems and bad law when I see them and I believe that the inclusion of section 112OA will indeed be useful. 
The transitional provisions contained in new clause 6 particularly clause 6(2) relating to the National Cervical-screening Programme manager having to take reasonable steps to ensure information about the programme and the effect of the Act is made available to women are a substantial step towards informed consent. But they are not the final step in terms of informed consent by any stretch of the imagination. I would have preferred to see that clause set out a requirement that a registered letter was to be sent to the women concerned advising them about the effect of the Act and the programme. Members on the Opposition side of the Chamber are taking the Minister at her word that that is how clause 6(2) will be played out. I have assurances on that from the Minister—I see her nodding there—and I have assurances from my colleague Dr Lynda Scott who I know has worked extremely hard on the production of the Supplementary Order Paper. 
I know that my colleague Dr Scott is disappointed that her further amendment will not be included. From listening to the Minister’s explanation on that issue I can say that this bill and Supplementary Order Paper have really exercised my mind in a way that frankly other legislation has not. Other legislation has not needed the careful attention that I have found myself giving to this legislation largely because of the very strong representations that were made to me in my electorate. As I say I am not an expert on this issue by any stretch of the imagination. 
I conclude by saying that National will be supporting the passage of this particular Supplementary Order Paper and bill. I will watch very carefully to see how the review and evaluation process unfolds and more particularly how the issues of informed consent are dealt with through that process. Once again I congratulate my colleague Dr Lynda Scott on working so hard to try to address as many as possible of the issues that worried me in the short term. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 This is the substantial part of the bill and it is important for all of us to comment on it. I have to keep coming back in my thinking to the context of this part which is that while we have made some real progress in controlling cervical cancer in recent years our outcomes still fall significantly behind those of many other countries. Of the 70 to 75 New Zealand women who die from cervical cancer each year about 20 would not die if we had the same mortality rate in that regard as say Australia. Many of them are young women with children and it is important to keep that figure in mind because the success of the screening programme benefits not just women but the families who rely on them. 
During the Gisborne inquiry Dr McGoogan explained that in her country each case is reviewed by the examination of medical records without special consent being required. Consent to access the records is not an issue because the evaluation is regarded as routine and as an essential public health measure. Professor David Skegg described the privacy issue in this way: “In New Zealand there is currently an extreme climate about privacy and doctors are nervous about providing access to records without legislative authority.” He also commented that the current delays encountered by those who were attempting to trace women and seek their consent were “making the current audit almost unworkable”. 
Every now and then I have to step back and personalise the issue in terms of myself. I ask myself this: if my test results were part of the small group needing to be reviewed would I want to have the information that I needed additional medical diagnosis held up by an audit process predicated on privacy issues rather than on health need or would I just want to be contacted as soon as possible so that I could get on with addressing my health needs? The answer for me is obvious. 
I do have before me the very well-intentioned amendment in the name of Dr Lynda Scott that would allow women to partially opt off—the intention being I understand to allow provision for women who want to have the benefit of the screening programme without the added safeguard of allowing evaluators to access their primary health records. I weighed that amendment up very seriously because I fully believe that Dr Lynda Scott would not have put it up without serious consideration. But I have come to the conclusion that I cannot support it not because it is not well-thought-through but because I have a real difficulty with the thought that women would be happy to take advantage of the millions of dollars this programme will cost the taxpayer and then not allow their data to form part of the overall picture that may pick up a discrepancy and save lives. I believe that the safeguards that Supplementary Order Paper 184 in the name of the Hon Annette King puts in place that mean that general practitioners’ records are accessed only under supervision provide very reasonable standards of privacy to individuals without compromising the programme. It is interesting that even now general practitioner audits are conducted on general practitioners’ patient records without patient consent. That process is already common practice and we are now just applying it to this programme. 
Safe screening programmes rely heavily on high levels of participation and the issue of the common good is an integral part of their success. To legislate so that some women can opt out of their commitment to the common good is to legislate for selfishness. Although United Future in no way wants to criticise the motives of the member who proposed the amendment we cannot support it. However we have received assurances from the Minister that if sizeable numbers of women pulled off the programme over that issue she would be willing immediately to redress it—by looking for instance at the suggestion that Dr Scott is putting forward. We would like to give the programme the chance to succeed in its present form. 
I will finish my speech by quoting Professor David Skegg: 
The three members of the committee of inquiry in Gisborne recommended legislation to ensure that people engaged to carry out external or internal audits monitoring or evaluation of cervical cancer incidence and mortality should have ready access to all medical files recording the treatment of the cervical cancer by all health providers who had a role in such treatment." 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 Part 2 is the heart of the bill. It sets out the mechanism for establishing the database carrying out the screening procedures analysing the samples and referring on the results. Then of course the next stage is the treatment of women. I would just like to say to the Minister in the chair that on behalf of the 1 million New Zealand women who are to be enrolled in the programme I hope the shambles that presently surrounds the treatment of women with breast cancer does not occur to women who have been identified as having positive results with their cervical smear. It is very worrying that we have to send people who have such a serious illness to Australia to be fixed and that we cannot treat them here in New Zealand. 
In the discussion that the Minister has had during this debate she has referred to this programme as being gold plated. I hope she will not live to regret that statement because I know that other national registers have very easily become a shambles. In the time I have been in Parliament we have debated a number of opportunities to establish national registers to sort problems out but they are always fraught with difficulty. If the Minister is promising New Zealanders that this will be a gold-plated programme then obviously we will hold the Minister and the Government to account on that. 
The first thing I would say to the Minister is that I am very disappointed that she has failed so far in this debate to do what I called for her to do the last time I spoke: to explain exactly what steps she intends to take between now and 1 July this year when this legislation gains the royal assent and comes into force so that we can have some idea of the planning that is going on within the ministry to ensure that on day one this programme is launched with the minimum of problems associated with it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Would the member please come back to Part 2. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Mr Chairperson we are talking about the implementation of the cervical-screening programme. I realise the Minister has been complaining about what I have been saying but in the debate on the previous part I did ask the Minister to put her plan on the record by sharing with the Committee exactly what she intends to do on day one after this bill gets passed regarding the steps she will take to ensure we do end up with a gold-plated cervical cancer screening programme. 
The concern that my colleague Heather Roy who sits on the Health Committee had was that in the original plan the Government was to set up implement run and evaluate the National Cervical-screening Programme. The ACT party believes that it would not be very good to have the Government doing all that and at an absolute minimum there should be an independent audit. We suggested that some of those services could be contracted out but I realise this Government is ideologically opposed to private sector contracting. However the bill does put down the way that the audit group review committee will be established and I note the Minister is in charge of appointing people to it. I would like the Minister to explain—and again I think this is a very important point—how we can be assured there will be some independence if the appointment process is up to the Minister and what the difference is between having a committee that is established by the Minister and the Government running the review itself. I realise there is a difference but I think it would be positive to put that on the record. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I want to deal with a couple of issues that do not seem to have had a lot of airtime so far. One of those is the issue of education. The bill does not actually say a lot about education except in the negative and that is in relation to the kaitiaki regulations. 
One of the things that really shocks me as a woman of now 45 years— 
Opposition members 
: Surely not! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes and today too. 
Opposition members 
: Happy birthday! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I am shocked that a lot of women have very very little knowledge about cervical cancer. Basically if they do not read about it in magazines such as  
New Zealand Woman's Weekly 
  
New Idea  
or  
Woman's Day 
—I do not want to miss out any—then they generally do not know about it. The fact is that a lot of us women get our information about such things from women’s magazines because we do not all come from a medical background. I am really concerned that we are not doing enough to educate women about cervical cancer. That is one of the problems. In particular the issue of the kaitiaki regulations was brought up in the Health Committee. I mention that issue now because to me it is an example of something that was brought in in an attempt to be culturally sensitive to the needs of Maori women—and I will not blame the current Government for it because it is not its fault and that is probably the last time it will ever hear me say that. Those regulations prevent information about Maori women's cervical cancer screening rates from being published or from being accessed without yet another very difficult and complicated process having to be gone through. 
I was appalled to hear in evidence in the select committee that Maori women's cervical cancer rates were something like four to five times those of non-Maori. That is an absolute national disgrace. One of the awful things I learnt was that this information is not available out in the public. Nothing is being said about it. Partly that has to do with the causes of cervical cancer. The causes seem to include the wart virus which is so easily spread and is something that people need to talk about. I know we do not normally talk about these things in the Chamber but this is actually extremely important. The virus is something that can be spread by men so it is a male issue as well. 
Until we stop hiding behind cultural sensitivity and start telling the truth Maori women will be hard done by. They will be worse off than anyone else because they are not getting the information. They are not being told the truth; nor is anyone else. That is a real crying shame. I am appalled we are not dealing with that issue. I note that in the report back to the House we made comment that some of us were very concerned that access to this information was not being made available to screening programme evaluators. It really does need to be. I am sure that once this bill becomes an Act it will have to come back to the House because some tweaking will need to be done on a cross-party basis. I hope that by that stage we will be big enough to own up to the causes of cervical cancer and do what we can to stop women from getting it. 
This evening I was speaking to my sister who rang me up to wish me "Happy birthday". She is a registered nurse and is somewhat older than I am. She said to me: “Judith can you please mention the fact that women are getting cervical cancer at a much greater rate and a much earlier age than ever before.” She puts it down to the fact that women are engaging in more sexual activity at an earlier age and with more partners. That is something we need to deal with. I know that all the men around here are saying: “Ooh ah that’s awful! How can you mention that Judith?”. The fact is it is true. Until one starts talking about the situation it will not change. If what it takes to make any scrap of difference is for me to speak about it in the House then I jolly well will. It is about advising women and girls particularly those who are most at risk. We must be able to tell girls aged 12 13 14 15 and 16 that cervical cancer is a very serious and often fatal disease that it can be prevented but because they will not know whether they have it or are carrying the virus that causes it they will have to be extra vigilant and extra careful. I really do hope that we can get some sort of message across. I would love to hear that the Ministry of Health is going to do something about it. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Dame Silvia Cartwright who is now the Governor-General wrote a very highly commended report some years ago in relation to cervical cancer after that very thorough inquiry. She said: “If such a register is set up it must be maintained under the strictest rules of confidentiality and privacy.” This bill does not allow that because it is quite clear that the evaluators that it talks about do have the right to go through women’s medical records without their permission. Of course the bill says that can be done only to get what is needed but in terms of medical records what is needed is often amongst a lot of other stuff and one cannot help but notice the other material when trying to get at what is needed. 
The control supposedly is that the doctors have oversight. Well when I go to my doctor there are 20 people in the waiting room. The doctors are shuffling through patients and they do not have the time to step aside. They will be reluctant to stand around while an evaluator trawls through a record to get what is needed. Even the Minister of Health when she made her comments before did not say that the doctor will be looking over the shoulder of the evaluator. She said that the doctor will have the right to have oversight. As my colleague Sue Kedgley points out the word used in the legislation is “may”. So there is no guarantee at all that there will be proper oversight and that information that women do not want accessed will not be accessed or seen. 
My colleague also made the point that the women do not know what the information is that the evaluator will obtain. They are a bit in the dark and they are a bit worried about what that information might be. Judith Collins’ previous speech will not have made them any happier because both Judith Collins and Sue Kedgley said that there does seem to be in many people’s minds a relation between sexual history and cervical cancer. So the evaluators and the researchers will be interested in that. I think that is one of the problems and one of the things that will scare people off. Because the evaluators are moving into an unknown area and because sexual history is relevant they might look at the files in that respect and women will not want anything to do with it whereas if women were given the right to buy in to give their consent consciously they might be more happy about the whole process. 
A doctor’s skill is to elicit from a patient very personal information; that is his or her skill. A doctor can use this skill effectively because confidentiality is well built into the medical profession and that is why the medical profession and many health practitioners are up in arms about this provision breaching confidentiality. It is very difficult for a doctor to get personal sexual information because most people for a start are very embarrassed about disclosing much about their sexual history. Whether women or men people are very embarrassed on that level and often are very embarrassed about what might be the consequences if that information were to get out especially if it involves things like sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS. Sometimes information about a male’s or a female’s other sexual partners is disclosed to the doctor as a health measure but the last thing that the patient wants is for that information to get out amongst other people and perhaps back to his or her partner. People do not want that. The other function of a doctor who might not be fully trained to the level of a psychologist is to play a counsellor role to a lot of patients. All of those things mean we have to defend confidentiality very greatly. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I want to make three points in this 5-minute speech. First of all I would like to acknowledge the effort of my colleague Dr Lynda Scott who is National’s spokesperson on health.. She has worked extremely hard to strike a balance between maintaining the success of this cervical-screening register versus the right of women to choose for very personal reasons to withhold their consent for their primary health records to be audited. 
From my experience and knowledge most women are very cooperative and want to ensure that a cervical-screening register will work. They cooperate in good faith and I think that is proven by the number of participants in the present system. But to decide that because a woman for whatever very personal reasons has opted to say she does not want her private record to be audited she will be expelled and excluded from participating in the cervical-screening programme is I think harsh and punitive. I wonder what women have done to deserve that. I would caution the Minister of Health the Hon Annette King a fellow woman to consider that very carefully to reconsider her decision in good faith and to accept the amendment recommended by my colleague Dr Lynda Scott. Women do not usually hold back consent for selfish reasons and I think we do have to respect women’s individual rights. Dr Lynda Scott has gone to extreme lengths to maintain that delicate balance. 
My second point is that I was really disappointed with United Future’s Judy Turner who said that women should be punished if for any reason they did not allow their primary health records to be audited—that they should be punished by removal from the register. I could not believe that a fellow woman MP would say that in Parliament. I felt really really frustrated and I hope United Future will reconsider its position. I think that men for various reasons would want their primary health records to be withheld and we should as a society respect individuals being responsible for making those decisions. I urge the Minister of Health and United Future to reconsider because we have to make a very difficult decision in trying to balance the right of privacy with the success of the cervical-screening system. I think Dr Lynda Scott has struck that very very sensitive fine balance. I think it would be a shame today in Parliament for any woman MP to say we should punish women because for very valid personal reasons they do not want to subject their primary health records to audit. 
The last point I want to make is that I believe that the Minister of Health wants to engage women in the programme in good faith so I appeal to her to pay special attention to women of ethnic communities and to consider ways of using a language that they understand in order to get their consent. It is important to strike a balance between privacy and the success of the programme and to ensure that women truly understand that their rights are respected. I appeal to the Minister to do that. 
I emphasise once again that Dr Linda Scott has worked long and hard. It was a very difficult situation for the National caucus to strike a balance between the rights of women and the wish we have that the system should be able to be successful. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I wish to talk to the amendment I have put forward. Although we do want a gold standard programme we have to accept the history in New Zealand of informed consent. We have had previous inquiries which began with the Cartwright inquiry into the practices of Herbert Green who had with the very best intentions tried to investigate whether all women who had invasive cervical changes went on to develop cervical cancer or whether some actually regressed back and became normal again—no one knew at that stage. But he did not tell the women what he was doing. He did not ask for informed consent. That influenced opinion in New Zealand about the absolute necessity for women and men to be told what is happening to them and to be asked for their consent for treatment. That set the ground in New Zealand for us to have heightened awareness of the need for informed consent. That is why we have had a great deal of debate about the access to information. 
My amendment to clause 4 states: “If a woman decides that she does not wish to allow an evaluator to have access to her primary care records she can by way of informing the NCSP cancel her enrolment in the NCSP”—that is she can opt off—“or opt-off for access to primary care records alone but remain as part of the overall NCSP.” I have to say to United Future that it is not selfishness that drives women to want to opt off; people having access to their primary-care records is of intense concern to them. But I also understand that access to that information will be limited to what the director-general specifies and for audit purposes only. Evaluators can look only at what is provided by the primary-care provider in relation to the National Cervical-screening Programme. They cannot trawl through records to see what people’s mental health might be or what medications they are on but can look at only very specific information. They cannot disclose information except for the purposes of accessing that programme. 
My amendment tries to strike a balance. My fear is that a lot of women will opt off especially if the Greens raise a lot of fear in this regard. Women may opt off and if they opt off they are lost to the programme for good. There will be no opportunity for further explanation of the programme. There will be no ability if they develop cancer to go back to look at even their secondary-care level. I would not want to see that happen. I want women to stay on the programme. I want them to have confidence in the programme. What I have proposed is a middle road. I think only a small number will choose to opt off when they get the information but if they have concerns my amendment would allow them to stay there and it would allow them to still be recalled and still get the results. 
At the moment women can flag certain parts of the programme that they do not want to be part of; that is part of the programme that is there. At the moment there also is not any access to primary-care records. That has been the problem with doing an evaluation of the National Cervical-screening Programme. So my amendment is a way to get a compromise position. I understand why Julia Peters and Professor Skeggs said what they did; they want a gold standard programme. But we have to consider not just the scientists but also the women. We have to consider the history of New Zealand. 
My amendment may be a very good compromise position. I urge the Minister of Health to give it further consideration. When we have a review in 18 months if we find that women have opted off and that that is compromising the programme then we should look at this option for them if we cannot convince them that the access to their records is only for the purpose of evaluation not for research that it is only to ensure that the programme is effective in all layers and that it is only in response to what Euphemia McGoogan had suggested that we need in New Zealand. This could be a good example. If we get it right on the National Cervical-screening Programme what has occurred in this bill can go to other programmes. 
JILL PETTIS (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to inform people that the Green Party has put up a Supplementary Order Paper. In it we have basically reinstated the informed-consent provisions that were originally in this bill for general-practitioner and primary health-care records. We have reinstated informed consent. 
The bizarre thing is that nobody objects to evaluators having automatic access to laboratory records to records that are on the screening register or indeed to hospital records. The concern is around evaluators having automatic access without consent to highly confidential and sensitive medical health-care records. The extraordinary thing is that no good explanation or convincing rationale has even been put up as to why we would want to set aside the privacy of personal health information in this way. The officials have said that they need automatic access to 1 million general-practitioner records so that they can evaluate whether women who develop cervical cancer are properly referred to and treated by their general practitioners. 
But if that is the reason that officials allege they need automatic access to general practitioner records without women’s consent then it simply does not stand up. Only about 200 women develop cervical cancer each year and it would be extremely easy to get consent from those women to carry out an evaluation of their primary health-care records at the time they are diagnosed. I am absolutely convinced that the overwhelming majority of women—certainly those who are diagnosed with cervical cancer—would be only too happy to give consent at that stage. 
The problem is that by doing it in this way—by saying that somehow in order to access the records of 200 women we need automatic access to the very personal and sensitive general-practitioner records of 1 million women—we will undermine confidence in the entire National Cervical-screening programme. 
The member for the National Party said that if the Green Party whipped up fear about this bill then that might result in women opting off. I can assure members that it will not be the Green Party that will whip up the fear. The fear is there. I have been contacted by women’s organisations and by women around New Zealand who first of all resent the fact that their personal health-care records will be able to be accessed in this way. They resent the fact that they will basically be given Hobson’s choice. If they want to be on the programme they have to agree to surrender their right to informed consent. They have to allow automatic access to all their private health-care records without their consent or they have to opt off the programme and risk both their health and the efficacy of the whole nationwide screening programme. Pansy Wong was right when she said that is the key issue. 
Why should women have to have Hobson’s choice? Why should they have to surrender personal consent in order to be on the programme? Officials told us that allegedly we needed these last-minute amendments to strengthen the cervical-screening programme. In my view they will not strengthen the cervical-screening programme. They will erode confidence in it and they will erode confidence in the doctor-patient relationship which is founded on confidentiality and privacy. Once women realise that this confidentiality may not be maintained—that an unspecified number of evaluators can access their personal health-care records and without their consent—it will undermine the whole confidence in the doctor-patient relationship. 
I notice that the latest New Zealand Medical Association records point out that the code of ethics of the World Medical Association and the New Zealand Medical Association state that physicians must preserve absolute confidentiality in all they know about their patient even after the patient has died. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 62 
New Zealand Labour 52; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 55 
New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Lynda Scott to clause 4 be agreed to: 
to amend new section 112F of the principal Act by adding the following subsection: 
(4)If a woman decides that she does not wish to allow an evaluator to have access to her primary care records she can by way of informing the NCSP cancel her enrolment in the NCSP or opt-off for access to primary care records alone but remain as part of the overall NCSP. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 42 
New Zealand National 25; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 7; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 75 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 184 in the name of the Hon Annette King to insert new sections 112OA to 112OE in clause 4 be agreed to. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 187 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert in clause 4 new section 112T be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 187 in the name of Sue Kedgley to section 112U(1) in clause 4 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 187 in the name of Sue Kedgley to section 112U(2) in clause 4 be agreed to.  
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 187 in the name of Sue Kedgley to section 112U(2)(e) in clause 4 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to.  
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 187 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert in clause 4 new sections 112V and 112W in clause 4 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the remaining amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 184 in the name of Hon Annette King to clause 4 be agreed to and that the following amendment in her name be agreed to: 
to omit from subsection (2) of section 1122AA in clause 4 the word “provided” in each case where it appears and substitute in each case the words “made available”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Amendments agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 108 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 25; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 7; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Clause 1 Title 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The original title of the bill the Health (Screening Programmes) Amendment Bill was changed in the select committee. We consulted the Regulations Review Committee about the change. The committee felt it was not appropriate to have this bill extended to other screening programmes. The committee thought it a constitutional principle that matters of policy are set out in an Act of Parliament and the details of those matters are left for regulation and that using regulations to extend this bill to other screening initiatives infringed on this principle as any future screening programme should be a matter that is sanctioned by Parliament and not by secondary legislation. The select committee had quite a debate on that particular principle and in the end decided it would limit this legislation just to the cervical-screening programme. 
The fact is that this particular bill will be a template for other screening programmes. We have been talking about the breast-screening programme and the extension of the age and I had a couple of emails today from two men with prostate cancer. Men often ask why they do not have a really well-organised screening programme for prostate cancer. I always write back that we do not have a test that does not have a high level of false negatives and false positives but as soon as we do have a good test for prostate cancer I am absolutely certain there will be a screening programme. When I first went through medical school they said that men died with prostate cancer not from it. That is far from the truth these days. A very good friend of mine died on election day the year before last. He had only just turned 60. These days a lot of men are getting prostate cancer and they often feel that cervical cancer and breast cancer get far more attention than prostate cancer. These days more men are dying of prostate cancer and the scientific community continues to work to get a good screening programme for prostate cancer. 
 As for breast cancer we know today that the screening programme will be extended in age for free screening. It will be important that that screening programme has the capacity to be able to deliver to all the new women who will be coming into the programme for free screening. So the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill being limited to cervical screening does not mean that in the future there will not be other screening programmes that will act very much under this particular type of legislation where there will be an opt-off programme to try to get the maximum number of women or men involved in the screening programme in order to achieve a very good programme. It does not mean that a system will not be set up whereby information is gathered from a mammography for example by the radiologist who is reading it and information on what happens to the woman—the treatment she receives. It is known that there is a considerable problem in this country with being able to get timely access to radiotherapy. That can impact on the local recurrence of breast cancer and make the programme less effective. There needs to be not just the screening but also appropriate and adequate treatment. There is no point in doing massive screening if nothing can be delivered that can save people’s lives. The reason why HIV is often not screened for is that although there is treatment there is no cure. 
So what can be done for prostate cancer and breast cancer? There is no definitive test for prostate cancer yet and with breast cancer there is the problem of not being able to get as timely access to radiotherapy treatment as we would want. Certainly surgery is offered within a timely manner. It was excellent when we got to the point of learning that lumpectomy and radiotherapy gave as good an outcome for early breast cancer as radical mastectomy because then women could save a breast. 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 An important part of any debate is the debate on the title. The title should be concise it should be unambiguous it should be specific and it should leave the reader in no doubt as to what the legislation is about. This title meets all those criteria. It is clear that this is a health screening amendment bill. It is an amendment to some existing legislation. New Zealand First supports this part of the bill. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I will take a short call in relation to the title of this bill. The Health (Screening Programmes) Amendment Bill as it was first brought to the Health Committee did come in for a change of name. That change made in relation to the advice from the Regulations Review Committee but it was also a concern of many of us on the committee that this bill was being used as a mechanism to set up screening programmes that could simply be enacted by the Ministry of Health when it issues a policy that should be debated in the House and that the people of New Zealand should have the opportunity to make submissions on through the select committee process. 
So even if we had not had that very good advice from the Regulations Review Committee there was a very good chance that we would have changed the name of this bill because we are very concerned to make sure that these programmes are set up properly carefully and with a great deal of consultation as they involve people’s private records their business and their health. Of course they cost a tremendous amount of money as well. So it is all money that is going into the health budget. If the money is going into a programme that will not be effective or that will help only a very small portion of the population then it could possibly go into other areas in health. I was very pleased to see that the Minister accepted our recommendations. That was a very good move from the Minister because we felt that no matter what we wanted to see any other screening programmes back here in the House. 
I take the point too that my colleague on the Health Committee and our spokesperson on health Dr Lynda Scott made. Men often talk about the fact that all they hear about in terms of cancer is cervical cancer and breast cancer. In other words they primarily hear about women’s cancer. I know Dr Scott has brought up issues about some of the specific men’s cancers but I would really like to hear more said about cancers that are prevalent among men—in particular more education about those cancers. I do not know that men will necessarily find the same level of help that women often find from the  
New Zealand Woman’s Weekly 
 on those issues—and I do not know which particular magazine we would have to put it in—but it would be great to be able to have something that is absolutely focused on men as well. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Originally this bill was called the Health (Screening Programmes) Amendment Bill. Thankfully that title has been changed to the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill. The reason it was called the Health (Screening Programmes) Bill was that basically the provisions of the bill were to have applied to any screening programme that exists or would exist in the future. In other words under the original way the bill was worded we would have had the whole issue of informed consent undermined in all screening programmes. There would have been no informed consent for any person who was on any screening programme in New Zealand. 
As other members have mentioned we have managed to get that changed but the problem is that officials have stated that there is an intention to move a generic amendment—probably under the Public Health Bill which is due to be introduced to Parliament later this year—to extend the provisions of the bill that we are about to pass to any other screening bill. That will mean that any screening programme in the future will have the same provisions as this bill. It will mean that the whole issue of informed consent for health-care records will be undermined in any future screening programme. 
In other words any person who is on any screening programme be it the breast-screening programme a prostate-screening programme—if one is set up—or a vaccination-screening programme will have Hobson’s choice in having to surrender informed consent and having to allow any evaluator to access his or her very sensitive general practitioner records without that person’s consent. 
Although I am very very pleased that we managed to get the title changed and thereby not extend the provisions of this bill to other screening programmes at the moment let me assure members of this Committee that officials have stated that their intention is to extend the provisions to all other legislation. That ought to be a huge concern for the medical profession as well as for all New Zealanders because as I was saying doctors take the Hippocratic oath which dates back to the 4th century BC in which they swear to keep confidential all patient records and everything they learn about a patient. 
The New Zealand Medical Association states that doctors must preserve absolute confidentiality about everything they know about their patients and that is the basis of the general practitioner - patient relationship. Mark my words that confidential relationship will be eroded by the provisions of this bill and by the intention to extend those provisions to other screening programmes. 
Progress reported. 
The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m. 
"