Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEstimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5594. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Estimates DebateIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 30 July on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill.Justice Sector (continued)The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Members we now turn to the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill. When we were last progressing the estimates debate we were debating the votes in the justice sector—volume B.5 volume 7—Vote Attorney-General Vote Corrections Vote Courts Vote Justice Vote Parliamentary Counsel Vote Policeand Vote Serious Fraud. David Clendon had the call and he has 2 minutes and 5 seconds remaining should he wish.DAVID CLENDON (Green): The point that I was making at the earlier sitting was that it is not that we are spending too little on the suite of portfolios—across police corrections courts and so on—but that we do not spend the money wisely and that we need to reinvest in a different manner and spend money on solutions. In that sense I think the obvious gap in this year’s appropriations is around the police. The police budget has been flat for a number of years. In effect it has suffered a funding cut overa number of years.The police have found efficiencies in their operations and they are using technology well and wisely to the extent that they can. Nevertheless if they are to deliver on the Prevention First strategy for example they will require well-resourced officers of good morale to do that hard grinding work to prevent crime in the communities. We will not achieve that if we continue to underfund the police as we are undoubtedly doing this year in these appropriations. The solution is not to turn the police into a user-pays force which is the intent of a bill before this House—the Policing (Cost Recovery) Amendment Bill—that effectively would have police running around with an invoice book to charge people for vetting initially and later potentially for anything from search and rescue through to educating businesses on how to make their premises secure and to public education about crime prevention. That is an intolerable proposition and one that we should not entertain at any level. We need to fund the police force properly in order for it to do its job well and we know that it wants to do its job well. We should enable it to do that.In terms of corrections we know that privatisation is not the answer there. That might appeal initially as a cost-saving measure but over time as we have seen quite recently it is in fact a false economy and the public sector can provide corrections services. There is a moral imperative that only the State should manage the incarceration of people. There is also a major economic imperative. Thank you.JONO NAYLOR (National): It is a great pleasure to rise and talk on these issues in this debate because actually this is an area that as a Government we can be really proud of in terms of the progress that we are making. It is an area in our country that we can be really glad of—that our crime is at a 35-year low. I think as we look over the last 7 years there have been some things that we can be happy about in terms of the things that we are achieving.The Better Public Services target of crime being down by 20 percent by the year 2017 is on track. We have already had a 17 to 18 percent decrease over the time period that we were aiming for so we are absolutely on target to reach that. We have identified a number of ways that we can in fact make some improvements. There are some things that this Government has done over the last number of years that are helping us to make some of those impacts. We have been very much at the forefront of ensuring for example that we are putting victims first. For a long time in New Zealand our justice system was very focused on the criminals as to a certain degree it needs to be. We need to make sure that we are addressing criminal behaviour and the like but we have not always done the best that we can by victims so this Government has been absolutely committed to ensuring that we are mindful of the needs of victims.This is a Government that in the 7 years it has been in power has put through 94 pieces of legislation across the justice area. In particular I want to point out the work that has been done with the victims of crime reform legislation and also the Harmful Digital Communications Act which are as I said earlier very much focused on delivering for victims. But there have been a number of things introduced and I want to highlight those things as we look at this sector particularly when we look at the establishment of a Chief Victims Advisor to the Government. This is the first time this has been put in place. It was advertised last month and we are hoping to make an appointment by the end of this year. Again it is something that will ensure that we are going to have victims’ needs very much at the forefront of what we are doing across this sector.We are creating a National Home Safety Service which is aiming to assist up to 400 victims of family violence a year as well as up to 600 children. We are improving judges’ access to information to ensure that they are the best informed that they can possibly be. They will have more information about the history of the perpetrators of family violence and that kind of thing so that they can make better decisions to keep victims safer.We are speeding up court cases. We are getting things going through the court system in a timely way. Again we are not drawing that out because as we know victims have that time frame of the justice system and when the wheels of justice move slowly victims face the issue of perhaps being revictimised all over again and having to live with that and not being able to move on from the trauma that they have suffered. So speeding up that court process is another important aspect of what we are doing.There are a number of other things that have been introduced. If we look at the $50 offender levy which was scoffed at by a lot of people what we have actually seen is that this has generated more than $16 million since its introduction. That has gone towards funding at least 15 new grants and services to provide key victim support services that were not previously available. If we look at this kind of approach to justice it makes a whole lot of sense. Yes perpetrators and those who have been found guilty need to be held to account. They need to be punished at different times but we all know that restitution and restoring things is a very important part of it particularly for victims. So that offender levy is a critical part going forward of what we are going to see ensuring that victims will be helped out.We are seeing an increase in the number of in-court victims’ advisers. They are being contacted by 35000 victims a year and we are seeing that sort of service increasing. We are starting to see people engage with it and I think it is providing long-term benefits for the victims of crime.It was interesting that the previous speaker David Clendon brought up the police. Well we have put more police on the beat.KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would like to start off by talking about the police as well. I noticed that Jono Naylor the speaker who has just finished said that the National Government is putting more emphasis on victims. Let me tell you now that the resolution rates for high-volume crimes such as burglary and car theft are below 10 percent. If the National Government were really serious about the needs of victims the first thing it would do would be to address those low resolution rates. You cannot tell me that any criminal or burglar would be put off from committing those crimes if they knew they had a greater than 90 percent chance of getting away with it successfully.One of the reasons though that these resolution rates are so low is that the police are being continually asked to do more with less. There is a $15 million cut to the police budget this year. I know that the Minister of Police denied that but the first thing in the Attorney-General’s report in the Finance and Expenditure Committee was to confirm that there was a $15 million decrease in the police budget and in real terms over the last 4 or 5 years there has been about a $300 million decrease in the police budget. So continually the police are being asked to do more with less.I believe there is a police wage round going on. General duties constables have had an increase in their salaries over maybe the last 4 or 5 years of about $5000 while at the same time in the period since I think 2009 to 2013 the Commissioner of Police has had a $100000 rise in his salary. I would like to think that the men and women on the ground who are doing the hard work and who are putting themselves in the front line there and in harm’s way would get a wage increase relative to what the police commissioner gets. But that said if they were to get a substantial salary increase which I believe they deserve then that would mean there would be further cuts in other areas such as police cars or maybe some of the technology that is being rolled out. There has been an 18 percent drop in the number of general duties constables over the last little while as well.Sexual assaults and violent assaults are areas on the rise. In fact the statistics say that only 5 percent of sexual assaults are reported and of that 5 percent only 1 percent will ever see a conviction and that is just simply unacceptable. We need to have a greater emphasis on the investigation of sexual assaults. We need to take it a lot more seriously and violent assaults as well.The policing budget has an emphasis on revenue-gathering policing such as intersection behaviour and lane-changing compliance the use of mobile phones and warrants and certificates of fitness. We can understand that there is some emphasis on that and that people can be killed and are killed by vehicle violations but the reality is that we also need to have an equal emphasis on those high-volume crimes such as burglary sexual assaults and violent assaults as well.I would just like to also talk about the speeding up of court processes which the previous member spoke about. It is a nice segue into the corrections debacle. One of the things that we are hearing about the botch-ups at Serco with all the lockdowns that are going on is that lawyers are having difficulty getting access to their clients. In fact instead of being able to spend 2 or 3 days preparing cases with their clients lawyers are having to spend 2 or 3 days just trying to track down where their clients have been transferred to. There is a lack of communication. So when lawyers finally get in touch with their clients they have a very short time to actually prepare a case and that is basically causing a logjam in the courts. So the whole corrections episode with Serco shows that the Government’s privatisation agenda is a complete and utter failure.One of the main issues around Serco is the fact that it is a business and it wants to make a profit. So it cuts corners and one of the main corners that it is cutting is staffing. So in terms of the lack of staffing in the contract Serco does not actually have to have a ratio of prisoners to corrections officers which is outrageous. The general rule of thumb is that there should be one corrections officer for every 20 inmates. If it is higher security then it should be one to about 15. There are stories emerging from Serco that at times there is one corrections officer looking after up to 55 inmates. You can understand how those Serco guards would be hesitant to get out into the general population. If there were some sort of fracas that broke out their lives would be in danger and they would not have their colleagues there to help them get out of it.I have also been told that most of the contraband that comes into Serco is via guards who because there are not enough guards to check other guards coming in are able to bring in contraband. If you go to Department of Corrections - run prisons anybody who goes through is searched. The other day I was down at Otago Corrections Facility and we were led around by the head of the facility himself. When he came out to greet us and he had to go back in he had to remove his belt his keys his watch his shoes and everything. Apparently in Serco there is just not enough staff to be able to monitor other staff coming in. When you are as poorly paid as the Serco guards it is quite tempting to bring in contraband and to actually get paid for it. So what actually happens is that the inmates have access to cellphones as we all know because they have been taking videos of themselves in the fight clubs. They are also able to ring outside and make arrangements for payments to guards who have brought in contraband.I spoke to a Serco guard who did not want to be named obviously because his life would be in jeopardy if he was named and he was telling me this outrageous figure. In fact it was so outrageous I did not believe him. I said: “Well how much can a guard get? What’s in it for him if he brought in a packet of cigarettes?”. He said: “If a guard brings in a packet of cigarettes from the outside he can get $1000.” I actually did not believe him but the very next day I met with an inmate who had been released the day before and I said to him: “Look I’ve heard this outrageous story about the value of a packet of cigarettes. You tell me because I just want to confirm this.” He said: “Actually for a 50-gram pack of tobacco a guard can get $800.”—for 50 grams’ worth of tobacco. If you are a guard and you can get $1000 for bringing in one packet of cigarettes you may as well bring in 10 packets of cigarettes and get $10000. It sounds outrageous but that is the black market value within prisons for this type of contraband.A cellphone is valued at over $1000 and those cellphones are not only being used to organise a meth ring from the inside as we know but also being used to intimidate families. There was an inmate whose mother got a phone call saying: “If you don’t put money into a certain bank account well then your son will get the bash.”The review of Serco to me is going to be a whitewash because it is Serco reviewing itself and the Department of Corrections reviewing Serco and there is the Ombudsman floating around somewhere. Because we know Serco is such a mess it is interesting that the Minister of Corrections has got Serco to review itself. But when we come down to Tony Robertson we know that the Department of Corrections actually did a good job in monitoring him while he was on release. But it is interesting that the Minister has gone and got an independent person to review it knowing that the review will come out well because the Department of Corrections Chief Probation Officer Darius Fagan actually did a review a couple of weeks back and said that it did a very good job of it.So I ask the question: why is there an independent review of one aspect of the Department of Corrections when it already knows that it has done well and yet when it is looking at Serco Serco gets to review itself and the Department of Corrections gets to review Serco? The first term of reference around Robertson is the management of Robertson prior to and following his release. Well that has already been done by Darius Fagan. Then the second term of reference is the way the Government—DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I want to talk about legal aid because access to justice is becoming more and more difficult. Costs are very high even for relatively minor matters. Legal aid was of course designed to provide legal representation for people who could not afford it by themselves. It was never a grant except to parties who could not afford to repay a Legal Services Agency grant. Originally the qualifying criteria made it possible for people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale to access legal aid and that worked very well. But now the criteria are so tough that very few people actually qualify.I want to refer specifically to the Legal Services Regulations as they now are because they specify that the maximum levels of income for the purpose of determining an applicant’s eligibility for legal aid in respect of a civil matter are: “(a) $22366 per year for a single applicant: (b) $35420 per year for an applicant with—(i) a spouse or partner; or (ii) 1 dependent child: (c) $50934 per year for an applicant with—(i) a spouse or partner and 1 dependent child; or (ii) 2 dependent children:”. So that is a pretty low level. It is even tougher when it comes to the maximum levels of disposable capital for the purposes of eligibility for legal aid. It specifies for a civil matter that the maximum is $3500—an incredibly low figure in my view. However if the applicant has a spouse or partner or one or more dependent children the maximum level of disposable capital for that applicant is calculated by adding an allowance of another $1500 but even then it is an incredibly low total.The income and capital thresholds for qualification for legal aid are now so low that many people will simply go unrepresented. And these are not wealthy people. They are ordinary people who find it too tough to pay legal costs without some assistance. So the capital and income thresholds need urgent revision upwards so that people can get legal representation. Far too many are now forced for economic reasons to represent themselves. That leads of course to poor-quality justice. It leads to a greater burden of time on the courts it leads to greater use of appeals and it leads to more injustice than would be acceptable in a modern society.To make matters worse the Legal Services Commissioner now must refuse legal aid if the applicant is in arrears for repayments on previous legal aid grants subject to an interests of justice test. Nevertheless the commissioner’s assessment about what is in the interests of justice can be very difficult especially for unrepresented parties to argue successfully. In addition to that I actually do not personally trust the commissioner’s discretion on the interests of justice test in those circumstances.This provision concerning arrears is intended to encourage legally aided people to start repaying their debt. There is nothing wrong with that objective but there is actually very little evidence to show that it is likely to have any positive effect on that objective at all. The reason for that is perfectly obvious and it is simply that the people in that position actually do not have the money to do the repayment of debt that is required of them. So it cannot really have a positive effect in those circumstances. What it does do is cause injustice by making legal aid unavailable in far too many cases so that people either give up or have to represent themselves and I have already spoken about the results of that.The Legal Services Act saying that the amount owing is collectable as a debt and that that should be enough is not sufficient in my view. That needs to be reviewed as well. In addition we should be deleting the $50 user-charge. That is wrong. Many lawyers simply pay that on behalf of their client. It really is just penny-pinching on behalf of the State and really is not much more than a blatant attempt to try to suppress demand. That of course is wrong in terms of what the Act is all about and what legal aid should be for. The money lost by the Crown would be very small if that user-charge was abolished but the effect on low-income people would be disproportionately high and very positive.I would like to turn next to the issue of charging interest on legal aid debt. It is absolutely wrong in principle in New Zealand First’s view. It is true that interest could be written off under the existing provisions in the Act but it does require evidence of serious hardship and the definition of serious hardship shows that it is a very high bar to reach. As a result of course it will again be low-income people—not people at the very lowest rung but people just above it—who will suffer and be badly affected by this particular provision which I think is Draconian. The State should not be a banker in these matters seeking interest at the rate of 8 percent. It should be seen as a public service and there should be no interest charged on legal aid debt.The Government has lost its way as to what legal aid is really about. It is really about access to justice. That is what we are losing and it is a very bad trend. Legal aid must be fair for people unable to afford a lawyer so that they can get sufficient assistance to take legal proceedings that have a reasonable prospect of success and to ensure assistance to people who have no choice but to defend proceedings brought against them. Many of them simply cannot afford to do so because they cannot get legal aid. So in the end in its quest to move into surplus this Government through its Budget cuts over recent years has limited access to justice for lower-income people. The very people who need legal aid the most are the ones who are going to suffer.The restrictions in legal aid have gone far too far and combined with the increasing expense of the legal system and legal costs generally the result in far too many cases is that many many people will be effectively priced out of the justice system. I think that that must change. This is a very serious issue and I call on the Government to look at legal aid again especially those thresholds I referred to but also the whole system. It really is not working any more for low-income peopleand it is an urgent matter. It is an urgent matter that has not been addressed in this Budget and it needs to be looked at in the very near future.JAN LOGIE (Green): I am pleased to take a call in the estimates debate on the justice sector this evening particularly in response to the recent initiatives from this Government in response to the crisis we have in this country around domestic and sexual violence. It is nice to stand up and offer unequivocal support for the actions of this Government. It is a very rare event for me to be able to do so and I do. I commend the Minister of Justice for making domestic violence her priority and I acknowledge that she said in the media that she could have gone for easy wins and that this probably will not provide the easy wins. But it is addressing an absolute crisis in this country and I commend her. It is not going to be simple. We are not going to get quick results but it is worth doing.She has rightly noted that there are 100000 family violence call outs to the police every year. That is one call out every 5 minutes and this work accounts for 41 percent of the police’s work. Yet we know that only around 10 to 20 percent of the incidents of domestic violence are actually even reported to the police. We know that although the number of cases reported to the police is going up at the moment the number of cases being resolved has dropped by 10 percent since 2008. There is something going wrong if the number of reported cases is going up and the number of cases being resolved by police is going down. So we need desperately to have a very comprehensive look at this problem. This is one in three women in this country who over their lifetime are likely to be victims of domestic violence.We also have an epidemic rate of sexual violence where one in three or four girls is likely to be a victim of sexual violence in this country and one in six to 10 boys is likely to be a victim of sexual violence in this country. We have a conviction rate for sexual violence of around 1 percent and of less than 2 percent for domestic violence. So this Government is doing the right thing in making this a priority. I would just like to offer it some advice and some encouragement to have the public participate in the consultation.I do think the Government is going to have to review its Better Public Services target to bring down the crime rate. The target is to reduce the crime rate by 20 percent by 2017 and what I am hearing from the community and on the ground is that that reduction and police resolution of family violence cases is a result of that Better Public Services target to reduce crime. We need to have all of the incentives lined up going the right way and when we know that only 10 to 20 percent of cases are coming to the police’s attention we need to be encouraging them to resolve things. That in the short term is going to result in an increase in recorded crime. That is just going to be part of the process and we have to go through it if we are going to get on top of this problem as a country.I also want to point out that the Prime Minister has noted that it is possible that the Government may need to spend a little bit more money in this area. Well from speaking to so many organisations on the ground hearing about the situation around legal aid and knowing the pressures on police there is no doubt that we are going to have to spend more money. The majority of funding in this area is going to the corrections system our prisons. We have a 1 to 2 percent conviction rate so we know that that money is not actually doing anything to resolve the issues in the long term when it is touching only a tiny little part of the problem. And prevention—the amount of money that is being spent in this area is 1.5 percent of the Government’s spending. A similarly small—not quite that small but inadequately small—amount is going towards counselling and support services and wraparound services for offenders and people who use violence as well as towards victims. If we want to be able to break these patterns and get people to change their behaviour and help women and children to get to safety we actually have to resource those efforts in a complete wraparound way.The third point I just want to touch on is that I do hope that the Minister is not dropping sexual violence as her priority though the discussion document is focused on domestic violence because the Law Commission has a comprehensive body of work to look at.ALFRED NGARO (National): It is an honour to speak in the estimates debate about law and order. I follow Jan Logie and the comments that she has made in regard to domestic violence. I know that in the last term we too were involved with the inquiry into the funding of sexual violence social support services. And also just recently there was a hīkoi that Kelvin Davis led and was part of. Again it addressed the issues around men against sexual violence. The whole issue is somethingthat I thinkis of concern across parties and across Government. Prior to entering Parliament I was also on the task force for family violence under the previous Government so this is an issue that has been there for such a long time. It has been a critical issue. It is an issue that has raised both awareness and also along with that a number of systemic areas of concern that we have to deal with and I believe that that has been part of this Government’s focus as well.Violent crime has been rising—we know that. The criminal justice system has needed accountability and focus on victims and that has been the key driver for this Government in the direction of the justice sector. It has been our belief that our having a tough stance on law and order means that New Zealand’s recorded crime rate is falling and is at its lowest level since 1978. Although we can applaud the fact that we now have one of the lowest crime rates in 30 years we know that family violence domestic violence and even sexual violence are still areas of concern and we do not shy away from that. In fact as the previous speaker did I want to applaud again the comments of the Minister of Justice the Hon Amy Adams who has taken a lead in a direction and area for us to be able to champion that. And actually the way that she has been able to do that is that National’s focus is on getting the key justice sector agencies to work together—that is justice police and yes even corrections—in this regard. That is really important.One of the areas that I think has not been addressed or touched on either in the debates so far in regard to law and order is some of the focus and priority areas especially those that impact on both our Māori community and vulnerable children. Several challenges remain and we know that the incidence and impact of crime is unevenly spread. In fact research shows that 6 percent of adults experience 54 percent of the crime. But an area of concern for this Government is the over-representation of Māori in the criminal justice system both as offenders and even as victims of crime. Māori are in prison at six times the rate of non-Māori and it is estimated that 22 percent of Māori males born before 1975 had a corrections-managed sentence before their 20th birthday and that 44 percent had such a sentence by the age of 35. This is an area of concern for this Government. It is an area that we want to address as well because the rate of offending for Māori youth has fallen by 53 percent from 2008 to 2014. However there is still much work to be done and we know that these are critical areas for us.One of the areas of focus for this Government is in putting victims first. We have introduced the $50 offender levy which has generated more than $16.6 million since its introduction. This has gone towards funding 15 new grants and services to provide key victim support services that were not previously available. The ministry funds victim support and it provides nationwide 24/7 crisis response and ongoing support services so that more than 34000 victims were supported in 2013 and in 2014. The Victims Centre manages funding for victims of serious crime through the $50 offender levy. In 2013 and in 2014 the centre funded $5.9 million of grants and services that was provided to almost 5500 victims of serious crime and tailored to their specific needs. During the court process the ministry had 84 in-court victims’ advisers. It contacted about 35000 victims a year and there have been 24000 using the service since 2013-14 as well. There has also been an increase in funding for restorative justice programmes which are available to courts as an option for pre-sentencing and to provide an alternative way of responding to crime and addressing harm to victims. The increase in the penalty for breaching protection orders to 2 to 3 years’ imprisonment has also made a difference.National passed the Victims of Crime Reform Bill in order to improve the rights and services for all victims and we passed the Harmful Digital Communications Bill to protect victims from cyber-bullying as well. What we are also doing is strengthening sentencing parole and bail. We have passed the Bail Amendment Bill in order to tighten up on bail and to introduce electronically monitored bail.ADRIAN RURAWHE (Labour—Te Tai Hauāuru): I would like to speak to Vote Corrections. There are some interesting figures in this document the Estimates of Appropriations. Although the overall increase in the vote for corrections goes up 2.7 percent the total amount paid in the next 12 months to Ministerial Services which the Department of Corrections uses for responses to ministerial correspondence and for the Parliamentary Service actually goes up by 6.5 percent by my reckoning. I wonder what that is in aid of. Why is there the 6.5 percent increase for ministerial correspondence and parliamentary questions? I would hazard a guess and say that corrections is receiving a lot of attention from the Opposition. I think that is probably the reason why that has gone up 6.5 percent and overall the budget has gone up only 2.7 percent.But the key thing that I want to talk about actually is the absolute failure of prison privatisation. We have got the report of select committees on the estimatesand according to the Minister of Corrections the department’s public-private partnership with Serco was proving beneficial to both parties as they could share and model best practice for the most effective use of taxpayers’ dollars. Well I would challenge that. I think the evidence and the information that has come to the attention of the House quite clearly says that it has been an absolute dismal failure. I think that the vote the amount of money put aside within this Budget may not be enough to run the prisons because as we know there are a number of reviews being carried out as we speak the result of which may have implications upon this budget. So I would question that.I also question the statements made in this Chamber by the former Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley who said: “the privately run prison in Mt Eden is exceeding the record of our State-run prisons.” Well I do not think that is correct either. I think that is part of the hospital pass that she has made to the current Minister of Corrections and this experiment in privatisation of prisons is not working. I think that the New Zealand public deserve some assurances that the people who are sent to prison are well looked after and are rehabilitated because eventually they are going to come back out into our communities. So the appropriation should reflect that and I do not think it really does.I do not think there is enough being done particularly in the privately run prisons. I think the numbers that have been used which the former Minister of Corrections Anne Tolley referred to in particular to Mt Eden prison are definitely skewed because that is a remand prison. So the majority of the people in there—those ones on remand of course—are going through the court system. It is the minority who are in there who are going through programmes for rehabilitation.The issue that we have been hearing time and time again is that the most difficult inmates are transferred to other prisons to State-run prisons. That is a huge problem because when you are looking at the statistics around how well that particular prison is doing quite clearly those numbers are skewed. I think we are seeingonly the tip of the iceberg.MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): I would like to highlight the lack of taxpayer funding being allocated to one of the most important sectors of our law and order machinery and the most important of our public services which is the corrections system. We need prisons to be safe for both staff and prisoners and we need them to function in a way that they will deliver the services they are being paid for. At the moment it is not happening.Serco has been given the contract for some years now to run the old Mt Eden Corrections Facility and Serco was branded by the Minister of Corrections as having the most successful and the highest-performing prison in the country. Well that is not a fact because time and again Serco has proved that it is not up to the game. There were the infamous fight clubs. There have been extortion calls going out to community members. There has been drug taking and home brew being used by those prisoners in Serco’s prisons and the reason for that is that Serco does not maintain the same staff-to-prisoner ratio as the Department of Corrections has. And Serco does get away with it.With the $30 million - odd Serco gets every year its aim is to save the maximum and send it overseas as profits because that is what it is—a profit-making corporate. It does not have the safety and the security of prisoners and officers in mind; what it has in mind is its profits and it has been able to achieve that. But what we have not been able to achieve is getting the service that we pay for. The taxpayers are not getting their money’s worth from Serco and that has been proved beyond doubt starting with the fight clubs the extortion calls that have been going out to the community the use of banned cellphones inside the prison the weaker prisoners being stood over as they call it and the weaker prisoners being thrown off balconies being injured and then being passed on to other Department of Corrections - run prisons just to cover that up. So there is a real danger to the safety of prisoners and staff.Now after the so-called fiasco the Department of Corrections has posted 20 staff from the corrections system to assist with the management of the Serco-run—or rather the Serco-mismanaged—Mt Eden Corrections Facility. Those 20 staff are actually filling in for the shortage of staff that Serco has been making money on. So now our question is: what will happen after the dust has settled? Will they be called back to corrections prisons and if that happens what will happen to the staff-to-prisoner ratio in Serco prisons? That is a question we need to get answers for. Serco-run prisons do not have the rehabilitation programmes that Department of Corrections - run prisons have. Serco had cut funding to that also just to make profits.It is a shambles at the moment. We have got prisoners absconding to Brazil we have got offenders killing women while on electronic monitoring and we have got them cutting off bracelets so they can have some free time on the outside. That is really concerning. We cannot have it and we cannot have prisoners organising fight clubs bullying prisoners or injuring prisoners and even killing them. We just cannot have it. This Minister is letting this slip by on his watch.So why are we even thinking of funding such a public-private partnership? Serco has proved time and again that it is not capable of running a prison like the Mt Eden Corrections Facility and yet it is being rewarded which is a double whammy. It does not deliver and yet it gets rewarded. Recently the Department of Corrections chief executive officer declared that he is going to fine Serco half a million dollars. Well that actually is not a fine; that will be deducted from the bonus it would have otherwise got had it performed to standards—and clearly it has not.What we have suggested is that instead of putting our own staff at risk our own people at risk and our prisoners at risk we should withdraw Serco’s contract altogether.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections): It is an honour to take a call on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill. I just want to touch on some of the areas of corrections that members across the Chamber have alluded to. We will agree across this Chamber firstly that the safety and security of staff of the New Zealand public and of prisoners is paramount—it is paramount. Secondly as has been alluded to by colleagues across the Chamber the rehabilitation of offenders is also really important. It is important because most of the offenders who go to prison ultimately get out and we have got to get them reintegrated and rehabilitated so that they can take part meaningfully in our society once they return to civil society.I just want to touch on a couple of points that members across the aisle talked about today. It is about justice for people and I like many across this country was appalled at some of the footage around the fight clubs that were allegedly happening at the Mt Eden Corrections Facility. That is why we put in place a review by the chief inspectorate overseen by the independent office of the Ombudsman which is really important. I urge members in this Chamber as well as the general public that if they have any evidence of the allegations of violence and of corruption that have been bandied around this House and of the accusations loosely made against different people in Serco and people across the prison estate to bring it forward. Bring it forward to the chief inspectorate bring it forward to the investigators who are currently going through all the issues that are being bandied around in society because what we need is a thorough review and investigation of the facts we need a report that will look into these matters and then we need to sensibly make decisions that affect not just Serco but the prison estate right across this country.I just want to touch on the estimates in terms of what we are doing in corrections and how we are doing in corrections. The reoffending rate since 2011 has come down 9 percent—just over 9 percent—so it is currently just over 27 percent. I was in Australia recently for the Ministers’ conference and when you look at reoffending rates in Australia you see that for New South Wales it is over 42 percent—over 42 percent—so that is 50 percent more than in New Zealand. In Queensland it is in the high 30s—high 30s.So when we look at our system and how we are doing compared with our Australian neighbours—who are the most important neighbours we have the most important partners with a jurisprudential system that is very similar to our own—we are actually doing far better in terms of reoffending and we are doing far better in terms of rehabilitation. It is one of the reasons why the South Australian Minister visited me last week and asked what we were doing around rehabilitation and what we were doing around reintegration because they want to know what we are doing that we are doing well.So although some members will bash the corrections system there is actually a lot that is going on in our system that is really good. There is a lot that we are doing with Māori around tikanga Māori in our prisons to get Māori men particularly connected with their culture connected with their whānau back into society and doing well again.There is so much in our system around employment: a goal of every prison in this country is to be a working prison by 2017. Why is that important? It is because we know that jobs reduce dependency on welfare we know that jobs reduce hardship and we also know that jobs reduce reoffending rates. Jobs keep people out in our communities; enable them to look after feed and house their families their whānau; and enable them to be better citizens in this country. That is why we are going for a full complement of working prisons across the estate—that is both within Serco and within the public prisons.We are also increasing numeracy and literacy in our prisons with programmes. We know that two-thirds of those men predominantly who turn up to our prisons cannot read or write. They are functionally illiterate and that is why we have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Tertiary Education Commission and we are now running programmes numeracy and literacy programmes to get these men back learning growing and in jobs.Finally I just want to salute the 8000 men and women in both private and public prisons who are out there every day making this corrections system the best that it can be.A party vote was called for on the question That Vote Justice Vote Attorney-General Vote Corrections Vote Courts Vote Justice Vote Parliamentary Counsel Vote Police and Vote Serious Fraud be agreed to.Ayes 62New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Votes agreed to.Māori Other Populations and Cultural SectorThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Members we now come to the votes in the Māori Other Populations and Cultural Sector—volume B.5 volume 8. The question is that Vote Arts Culture and Heritage Vote Internal Affairs Vote Māori Development Vote Pacific Peoples Vote Sport and Recreation Vote Statistics Vote Treaty Negotiations and Vote Women stand part of the schedules.NUK KORAKO (Chairperson of the Māori Affairs Committee): Kai te Kaiwhakahaere tēnā koe ā huri noa i te Whare e mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa. The Māori Affairs Committee considered the estimates for Vote Māori Development and for Vote Treaty Negotiations. On Vote Māori Development we heard from the Minister for Māori Development and Te Puni Kōkiri and we received advice from the Office of the Auditor-General.I want to briefly cover the key findings of our report. We questioned the Minister and the ministry about Whānau Ora particularly on the implementation of funding transfers from Te Puni Kōkiri to commissioning agents. The Minister explained the clear lines of accountability that are in place to ensure this money is spent in the way that it is intended. The commissioning agencies have expectations written into their contracts and these will be monitored and refined in the future.We discussed also the inclusion of non-Māori in Whānau Ora. We consider this to be important as Whānau Ora represents a Māori approach to dealing with whānau but it is a programme for all New Zealanders. We questioned the Minister about Māori Television. The Minister assured us of the continuing independence of Māori Television and the rigorous protocols he is putting in place to prevent any appearance of improper influence.The appropriations for Vote Māori Development have been increased by 12.56 percent for the 2015-16 year from $221 million to $249 million. As well as the usual operational funding that is needed to keep Te Puni Kōkiri operating and providing policy advice to the Government there are many great initiatives that Te Puni Kōkiri is leading that will continue to grow Māori capability support our most vulnerable whānau and grow the Māori economy. There is $16 million to fund Māori potential through community investment programmes and the rangatiratanga grants as well and $4 million is going to specific Māori potential programmes such as the Māori Wardens Association and the Māori Women’s Development Fund.We know that one of the biggest issues for our most vulnerable people is housing so $7 million is going to provide practical assistance to Māori housing projects and another $7 million is going to Māori housing development. One million dollars will be spent on strengthening and promoting tourism which is a cause very close to my heart. Over $82 million will be going towards the promotion of the Māori language and culture. That $82 million will fund organisations that are actively promoting Te Reo Māori such as Te MāngaiPāho Māori Television and Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. One of those great initiatives organised by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori happened last week. Of course I am talking about Māori Language Week.Moving on to Vote Treaty Negotiations we heard from the Minister for Treaty Negotiations and from the Office of Treaty Settlements. The great work that this Government is doing in the Treaty negotiations area is very very well-known. The Minister told us that 85 of the settlements are now completed and there will be further agreements in principle and deeds of settlement in the next year. The estimates for 2015-16 put aside a multi-year appropriation of $1400 million to cover the costs of those settlements and put $88 million towards the operational costs of continuing the settlement process.One thing that we were particularly interested in when the Minister appeared before our committee was the post settlements commitments unit. The Government has made over 7000 commitments to iwi through Treaty settlements. As we come closer to having settlements signed with all willing and able iwi the role of the Office of Treaty Settlements will diminish but the role of the post settlements commitments unit will grow. It is good to hear that the Minister is planning for this transition.The 2015-16 estimates represent a good balance of funding to grow the Māori economy support our most vulnerable whānau and strengthen Te Reo Māori. I wish Te Puni Kōkiri the Office of Treaty Settlements and the other organisations that will be putting these goals into action all the best for the year ahead and we look forward to seeing the results that they have achieved when they report to the Māori Affairs Committee next year. Kia ora.Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato): It gives me great pleasure to speak to Vote Māori Development. The chair of our committee has aptly summarised the report. However if one was to look in further detail at the issues confronted by the Māori Affairs Committee and indeed throughout the country in relation to the most important factors affecting Māori development then we would simply hinge this particular discussion around the framework that the Government has used to address Māori development.In He Kai Kei Aku Ringa—The Crown-Māori Economic Growth Partnership there are six goals. Those goals in part align to what one might expect Te Puni Kōkiri to be doing. However we question only the significant areas that the vote affected. I raise the issue of He Kai Kei Aku Ringa because goal one of this is probably one of the most fundamental elements of what is going to help propel Māori development and that is the education of our people our kids—lifting skills in training. I was somewhat disturbed by the lack of contribution by the Minister for Māori Development certainly in the estimates debate about how he saw the contribution of Te Puni Kōkiri going forward in this period towards lifting Māori participation and education especially in the early childhood area. I raise this also because one of the most topical debates right now is around the reorganisation and restructuring of kōhanga reo which is a significant contributor to the positive advancement of our children on a Māori-medium language pathway into education. The Minister was absent in terms of his contribution in this space before the select committee.Secondly the committee spent some time investigating the issues around Whānau Ora and more particularly with regard to the Office of the Auditor-General’s report. Whānau Ora commissioning agencies have had $43 million transferred to them in this vote. The questions of the select committee were quite simple: was the Minister satisfied under phase one that enough had been done to evaluate Whānau Ora as an initiative in order to make that substantial decision to transfer the funding obligation to these Whānau Ora commissioning agencies?The Auditor-General’s report helped with the questions at select committee level. We were concerned about a number of areas. Firstly it is very difficult to define what Whānau Ora is. So if it is difficult to define what it is how can you evaluate the outcomes? People who are well versed in this particular area will point to a whānau outcomes framework and a shared outcomes model. But the question is quite simple: did Te Puni Kōkiri have confidence that the phase one evaluation gave it sufficient confidence to be able to make the transfer to the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies? When I asked the chief executive of Te Puni Kōkiri whether it raised any risks with this decision the chief executive nodded her head and said: “Yes risks were raised with the Minister.” We will come back to that particular point.The second point is that in the Office of the Auditor-General’s report one of the insights that the Auditor-General observed—noting that there were innovations in this particular model—was that shifting the funding framework model currently adopted and used by the Ministry of Social Development the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education from individual to collective outcomes was going to be a significant challenge. In fact Te Puni Kōkiri recognised that as well. It remains an issue for the Government to confront. If the aspirations of Whānau Ora as an initiative are to work towards shared outcomes whānau-based outcomes then that would require those other ministries to change their funding framework model. That was highlighted in the report.The other aspect was the success of the Whānau Integration Innovation and Engagement Fund (WIIE) plans that were in the phase one stage of the model. Those members who have travelled throughout the country and have visited with various of these Whānau Ora providers will have heard numerous bits of feedback about how successful this particular part of the Whānau Ora initiative has been because it allowed whānau themselves to identify some of the outcomes they were seeking at a very small level. So being able to coordinate services and collaborations around whānau in order to address the issues in the WIIE plans became fertile ground for learning about how to improve service delivery. Interestingly enough in the phase one evaluation and the transfer to forward funding in these estimates the WIIE initiative was actually not picked up. It was only the navigator component of the Whānau Ora funding.In so far as that is concerned here is a question that remains for the Minister to respond to: in respect of those Whānau Ora providers that were successful in phase one but have not been funded in phase two can the Minister explain why that has occurred and whether he is satisfied that the network of services especially in rural areas can be achieved despite the inequity of funding towards navigators in this space? The Minister for Māori Development is I think putting his mind to this particular challenge because he knows like we know that the Whānau Ora commissioning agencies have not addressed this issue and that there are significant gaps especially in rural areas about how Whānau Ora providers can significantly meet the obligations of their whānau when they are not getting the same flow-through of funding through the navigator fund.I will come to the issue of Treaty settlements. I agree that the post settlements commitments unit provides ample opportunity to assess the positive implementation of a number of Treaty settlements throughout the country. Notably just last week the Freshwater Iwi Leaders Groupannounced a high-level memorandum of understanding with Local Government New Zealand which I think foreshadows just how beneficial some of the mechanisms within Treaty settlements will be at a local government level and that they will have a positive impact in their area. However can I say is this: it is probably salient at the front end of the discussions if co-governance and co-management with local government is going to work that local government is included in some of those particular discussions. Given that we have some hefty issues around water around representation around procurement of services at the local government level and also around the funding for utilities infrastructure if there were a front-end participation role for Local Government New Zealand in that space then co-investment strategies with iwi could be a really new opportunity to help support regional development.I know that the Minister is aware of all these issues. I am looking forward to the Māori Affairs Committee monitoring further the role of the post settlements commitments unit to ensure that an even-handed application of the mechanisms within Treaty settlements in so far as local government is concerned can happen in the way that it is intended to.The last part of my contribution is in the space of housing. There was some $7 million appropriated to the Māori housing development initiative and $4 million to the rural and Māori housing component of the role that Te Puni Kōkiri currently undertakes. It seems to me that at a local government level there is still an uneven response to the way in which papakāinga development can continue. Also the whole resource consenting and planning process can make better provision for this. I know this because I submitted to the Hauraki District Council on its papakāinga development plan as well as on the Waikato District Council development plan. There are exemplars throughout the country but it is not even-handed. Here is a really easy space for the Minister for Māori Development to send a signal to councils that best practice is actually the real opportunity if we want to ensure that Māori can build on their own lands to be able to provide housing at a low cost and to be able to meet some of the real challenges of homeownership amongst the Māori population. Again the Minister was silent on that.My last point: both Te Ture Whenua Maori Act reform and Te Reo Māori bills have been an absolute shambles. The Minister has had to delay and defer the report back of the bill for Te Ture Whenua Māori because he knows that it does not meet the needs of those Māori landowners to be able to move their land into a productive space. My colleague Meka Whaitiri is championing that particular issue for our team. In the Te Reo Māori space the poor old Minister is having to do a bit of backwash to save face for the previous Minister who made an absolute kibosh of the issue. He introduced the Māori Language (Te Reo Māori) Bill into the House at the eleventh hour and with I think very little robust consideration around the proposals there. We have had to revamp that. It is going back to Cabinet for further consideration. Poor old Minister Flavell has made a wee mess of it—Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations): I want to take a call on Vote Treaty Negotiations and thank the previous speaker Nanaia Mahuta for her helpful comments on the post settlements commitments unit. She raised some very interesting issues. I agree with her that early engagement particularly with local government provides opportunities and also enables issues to be clarified at an early stage and that is exactly what I want to do on the harbours negotiations that are coming up. I also want to pay tribute to the Office of Treaty Settlements for its excellent work over the past 12 months. It is a very dedicated bunch of people and I am very proud to work with them. Some of them also act as Treaty negotiators. So for example the deeds of settlement for Ngāti Hauā and Heretaunga Tamatea were negotiated in-house and that is my plan with Ngāpuhi as well.But I do want to say something about the money expended on external Treaty negotiators because of what I think was a vulgar crude and intemperate attack on them by the Rt Hon Mr Peters earlier in the day when he said that the fees were colossal and somewhat bizarrely said that I was giving jobs to my mates. I am very fond of both Paul Swain and Rick Barker but I do not know that they would want to be called my mates. Unlike that honourable member I do have great respect for them.I asked Mr Swain some years ago whether he would like to work with me on the Ngati Porou matter and he did such a very good job that I asked him whether he would work on some others. So in recent times Paul Swain has negotiated the Taranaki settlement which will hopefully be signed in September; Mana Ahuriri; Ngāti Hineuru which we are going to debate for the first time tomorrow; and Maungaharuru-Tangitū. Mr Swain is an excellent negotiator and if anything I do not think he charges enough. I have huge respect for him.Hon Clayton Cosgrove: We’ll tell him that.Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON: Well you tell him but do not tell him too loudly. The second person that Mr Peters insulted was Mr Barker. I approached him after he left Parliament in 2011 and asked whether he would like to do a few negotiations for me and he is doing a great job—for example Te Ātiawa and Ngāruahine which we are debating for the first time tomorrow. So I am very happy to say that these external negotiators are very good value for money are providing excellent service and are achieving results.I say to New Zealand First members that their tendency to personalise things and attack the individual as they have done with my Treaty negotiators is something I resent and something I think is quite simply disgusting. As I said this afternoon to a journalist Mr Peters is nothing more than the Donald Trump of New Zealand politics who wants nothing more than a cheap headline. These people are good people and I am very proud of the work they are doing regardless of party and regardless of background.Another person that the right honourable member attacked this afternoon was John Wood. John Wood who is the chancellor of Canterbury University and has been doing an excellent job there was twice our ambassador in Washington and is an outstanding public servant who has negotiated two extremely difficult Treaty negotiations and done phenomenally well. I refer to his negotiation with Tūhoe and his landmark negotiation in respect of the Whanganui River.These are the sorts of people I have had working with me over the years regardless of party and regardless of background. They are dedicated to achieving just and durable settlements for the benefit of New Zealand and if the New Zealand First speaker Pita Paraone—who obviously wants to stand up next for his penny’s worth—has any decency he will apologise to those people because his leader’s statements were unfair and were simply disgusting.The final point I want to make is in relation to Te Ture Whenua Maori Act reform because I do think that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta was a little unfair on that issue. This is the first comprehensive rewrite of Te Ture Whenua Maori Act for well over a generation. The 1993 Act was never really fit for purpose and so what we are seeking to do is take a fresh look at it. There has been an exposure draft put out to enable proper discussion. There are lots of issues and we make no apologies for the fact that there is a lot of work to be done there polishing the jewel so that everyone benefits from the reform.PITA PARAONE (NZ First): Tēnā koe Mr Chairman.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Tēnā koe. I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member—you can go for dinner. Members the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Tēnā koe te Whare. Kia ora mai tātou tēnā tātou katoa. Members before the dinner break we were debating Vote Arts Culture and Heritage Vote Internal Affairs Vote Māori Development Vote Pacific Peoples Vote Sport and Recreation Vote Statistics Vote Treaty Negotiations and Vote Women and matua Pita Paraone had the call. All but 4 seconds of it was cast in the pre-dinner break but he has 4 minutes and 56 seconds remaining should he wish to avail himself of the opportunity.PITA PARAONE: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Can I ask for the 4 seconds to be added on to my—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): No. I am sorry there is no discount.PITA PARAONE: —lot because I had difficulty understanding from your predecessor his pronunciation of my name and I took time to correct him.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well I hope that you have not had that problem with me. You have 4 minutes and 56 seconds remaining.PITA PARAONE: Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. Reluctantly I will have to accept that. Before the dinner break the speaker before me Chris Finlayson had a bit of a hissy fit at the comments that my leader had made. Quite clearly he took them out of context because reverting to diversions and straw men in some vain attempt to avert attention from cross-expenditure items to individual Treaty settlement negotiations simply will not do. What Mr Peters was referring to—and he did not name any names other than to say that two of the negotiators had received in excess of $1 million during the period of their tenure as negotiators. That was the only comment that he made. If people want to know the details of what each negotiator got I am quite prepared to table that but that is public knowledge so I do not need to do that.I want to focus particularly on the area of Whānau Ora. That was some discussion during the review of the Māori affairs portfolio. Right from the outset New Zealand First has had some doubts about the programme and how that fund has been used. I want to say that in the 2015-16 Budget $50 million was added to the Whānau Ora programme. The question that I am asking this Committee and perhaps the Minister in the chair the Hon Paula Bennett may be able to give me some answer is that in terms of receiving that $50 million for this programme no evidence and no application was actually made for the funds. If I was an operator in another ministry I would certainly be asking: “Why is it that if I want extra money for my ministry I have to put up a case for it and yet for Māori development they get that extra money without any evidence as to justifying the need for that extra money?”.The other thing that came out during the review when asked of the officials what the major task was in order for Whānau Ora to progress onwards was the answer that they needed to inform the public as to what Whānau Ora was all about. We found that quite surprising given that this programme has been around for some time and here we have officials having to tell us that the public are not quite sure of what Whānau Ora is all about. I just want to have it on record that this is I think pandering to the wishes of a particular political party rather than looking at the issues and whether or not Whānau Ora is a programme that justifies extra funding without a proper case being put to have that extra money.I also want to say that in advancing Whānau Ora I note that the Ministry of Health has put together some comparisons in terms of some of the programmes that the health ministry is responsible for. I need to say that Whānau Ora providers compare very well with general providers so in some respects that is a good point for Whānau Ora to carry on. But at the end of the day what our concern is from New Zealand First is whether or not the funding that has been allocated to that programme is properly administered. As we in this Committee all know if funds are not properly administered then the whole programme falters. We certainly do not want to see that under our watch.In terms of the Treaty settlements I just want to make the comment that although a number of settlements have been made—Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister of Local Government): I stand to speak to these votes which are wide ranging at the moment on internal affairs Māori development Pacific peoples sports and recreation statistics Treaty negotiations women and arts culture and heritage. I do stand up though right now and just say that one sees the changes we have made in Vote Māori Affairs turning it into Vote Māori Development and the actual progress that is being made in regional development with the Business Growth Agenda and having the Minister of Māori Development working alongside that.I actually stand and take umbrage with the last speech where someone said that there is no evidence to support funding for Whānau Ora. Well how about the evidence of Māori being disproportionately in our jails? How about the evidence of Māori disproportionately doing poorly in our education systems? How about our health sector where they have more health needs that are not identified? How about our education sector where Māori are not doing as well? If one stood up and wanted evidence I would simply say that what has been done in the past is simply not good enough for that population and what their needs are.We do have to be brave and work differently with Māori and alongside them with them being stewards of what is best as far as their social and economic development goes. So as part of this National-led Government I do stand beside our coalition partners with the Māori Party and with the Minister of Māori Development and see that actually Whānau Ora is working. As always with a new initiative if you like that is out there in the communities and working differently and it needs to be worked alongside to see the level of support and expertise.But even today—if we are being negative—I read in the paper that the nurses who are working in Whānau Ora are being paid less than those who are in other areas. Quite frankly that is where we say that they are not sitting there wasting money; they are actually in their communities and in those homes working alongside people to help them reach their aspirations and their goals. Unlike other members I get alongside those people in their communities and get alongside those Whānau Ora navigators. I hear the challenges that they have and I certainly hear how hard the work is and we acknowledge that. So we will be putting more money in and quite proudly to stand across those who are disadvantaged and more vulnerable and who actually need more support and in a different way than has been done in the past.I also want to touch on Vote Women and certainly where that is at and what we are doing. We should be incredibly proud in this country that 64 percent of our university graduates are women—are female. When we actually look at the statistics of how they are going how they are in education and how the education system is delivering for them we can see the difference. I want to stand here and acknowledge the significant reduction in the number of women on benefits. Sole parents who are on benefit have gone down by literally tens of thousands. That is women and their children actually being independent and having a better go at life than they would have had on the lifetime of welfare that they have led in the past.I want to acknowledge the huge reduction in the number of teen pregnancies. I say “teen pregnancies” on purpose because it is not just births to teens; we have also seen a mass reduction in the abortion rate in this country as well. So unwanted pregnancies to our teens have dropped by over 40 percent in the last few years and that is giving those girls opportunities. Hey I am the biggest proponent of babies and more of them and a teen mum can be incredibly successful in life but equally we want them to have opportunities. There is plenty of evidence that says the best opportunity that you can give to a young woman is for her to be educated and for her to be in a stable home in a warm environment and to have some work experience behind her before she starts a family. So I am backing them in that. So I want them to have babies and I want them to have fantastic families and be full of aspiration but if we can actually back them to be planning that so that suits them and their home then that is certainly something that I stand proudly by.You can see the significance of the difference that that will make for them in their lives while they are still teens but more important for when they do go on to be mums in the families that they raise. I do not think we acknowledge that enough in this country—the kind of family planning that is now going on the differences it has made in our health system for those girls. But more significantly I think the educational achievements that they are able to get to—RINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): Kia ora Mr Chair. I am pleased to speak in this estimates debate. I would like to stick with the Māori development sector which is spearheaded by Te Puni Kōkiri. Te Puni Kōkiri as we know means in Māori “a group of people moving forward”. If you could think of Te Matatini—think of our kapa haka teams—and the precision and the power with which they move that is really what we should envisage from Te Puni Kōkiri.Alas it is very much not that. Te Puni Kōkiri in 2015 is in a shambles. It is in disarray because there is a lack of leadership from the Minister over his ministry. It is evidenced because we had the chief executive and her senior team come to the Māori Affairs Committee earlier in the year. There has been a never-ending restructure happening within Te Puni Kōkiri during the current chief executive officer’s tenure. When we asked the question as to when this restructuring will be completed and when it will have its executive team in place the chief executive said: “Oh by the end of this year.” By the end of this year to get an executive team in place? Prior to that the restructuring had taken 2 years already.What we have is really inept leadership. It goes further than that because we know we understand that there is a breakdown in the relationship between this Minister and the chief executive. It is widely known around town that there is a dysfunctional relationship there so much so that this Minister is now going directly to staff and interfering. He has gone rogue in terms of trying to get his projects done.We have very real concerns about Te Puni Kōkiri. There is no great group moving forward. This is a shambles. It is evidenced by asking what the Minister has actually produced. We have rising unemployment in this country. We have plummeting dairy prices. There is a great deal of concern out there. Families are on the cusp of poverty. This is a very real concern. So what has this Minister and his ministry come up with? Well the first piece of legislation that we have waited for which has come through to this House is a Māori Purposes Bill that updates a private whānau trust in the Gisborne area from last century. It updates it for the 1993 Te Ture Whenua Maori Act which is going to be amended next year. That is the priority that this Minister has set in terms of his legislative programme. That is absolutely appalling.We have also seen the debacle around the Māori Language (Te Reo Māori) Bill. Mr Chair I will not bring you into this debate but members of our select committee are well aware that we have been very charitable I would say to this Minister. We know that there were deep problems with the bill that was sent to us at the Māori Affairs Committee. We have been very accommodating of this Minister to give him every opportunity to try to resurrect the bill and address some of the deep flaws that are contained therein. We are not through the woods yet. It rests on our select committee to complete the job and hopefully we can get there and come up with a workable piece of legislation. But as it stands again it is a failure by this Minister and a lack of leadership. He should just have scrapped it and started again right from the start which is what all of Māoridom was talking about and telling him to do.Can I go on to Whānau Ora. The Minister who just resumed her seat the Hon Paula Bennett said that Whānau Ora is working. Well I would hope that Whānau Ora is working because in the first 4 years of Whānau Ora there was $137.6 million spent on it a third of which over $40 million was spent on administration and research and evaluation—$40 million. So I would really hope that Whānau Ora is working because that is an incredible amount of money which the Auditor-General actually pointed out should have been going directly to whānau in need which is what the kaupapa of Whānau Ora is all about.I could go on to Treaty settlements. I am looking forward to progressing the first readings of some settlement legislation that is coming through the House tomorrow. That is a positive piece of work that we are doing as a select committee. We are not all negative. We do actually work cohesively together to progress that very important work. Thank you.METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I will start by just saying that I agree with the Minister on two issues—one is that Whānau Ora is working and we know that from all of the stories. Even the Auditor-General set out some really clear stories of how the approach which is long term wraparound and about the whānau as a whole is making appreciable major differences to how whānau are operating and to their wellness. There are issues with other parts of Whānau Ora—the evaluation how the money is being spent and the administration—but the concept itself is working. The worst thing that we can do is attack it such that we lose the advantage of the great outcomes from this rethinking about how we deal with whānau as a whole.Also I would agree with Minister Paula Bennett about education being such an important part of a young woman’s way out of poverty. I would urge her to reconsider then the benefit that both she and I received as young women on our own with small babies from what was then a very full training incentive allowance grant which allowed us to have more resources to pursue our educational dreams. In my case it was law school. Under the current situation with the training incentive allowance women are simply not in the same position that I was in 20 years ago to be able to access that level of education because resources are so tight. I am absolutely 100 percent supportive of investing in the education of young women in order to improve their life outcomes. I wish that we could do more. I think that we could do more if it were a genuine priority.What I want to address tonight in just a few minutes is Vote Māori Development particularly with regard to housing. The Māori Affairs Committee asked about housing when the Minister came before it because we know that housing is such a major issue for Māori and the Minister agreed with that. The Minister agreed that Te Puni Kōkiri was preparing to take on more responsibility in leading housing initiatives for Māori. He assured us that the ministry would be making all possible efforts because housing is so closely tied to poverty. I agree with this. We need to make sure that we have secure housing both rental housing and also homeownership for Māori and that that is a core way of making sure that whānau are secure and healthy in their own homes so that they can then pursue their dreams for themselves and their kids. But we have to be aware of the facts. We now have the lowest Māori homeownership rate in this country in decades—decades and decades—because of an erosion of support with a particular focus on the needs of Māori whānau when it comes to housing. According to the 2013 census only 28 percent of Māori own a homenow. That is half of the Pākehā rate—the Pākehā rate is around 57 percent. It is at the lowest end. It should not be getting any worse but in fact it is eroding over time. The number of Māori in homeownership is declining.When we asked the Minister about homeownership he also recognised these critical issues. He said there was more money for Te Puni Kōkiri to help whānau towards homeownership but there were no firm plans by Te Puni Kōkiri for any house-purchasing initiatives it says here in the report. But in fact there are some significant programmes and I just want to mention two of them which are the Kāinga Whenua programme for infrastructure grants and also the individual loans that are available. The Kāinga Whenua programme has enormous potential. It enables whānau to build homes on or to move homes to collectively owned Māori land. So it is a way of our using land that we may not be able to put into productive use for housing in rural areas where it is so essentially needed—and good quality properly insulated housing; housing that has good heating and that is safe for whānau to live in. We need more of that but at this time of highest need we are seeing these funds—these programmes—just not being promoted in such a way that whānau are accessing them.In the years between July 2011 and August 2014 there were only 10 individual Kāinga Whenua loans—10 in those 4 years. There was only one in the previous year. Only three of those 10 have been this year—three individual loans to whānau looking to build on Māori land. It is not enough. There have been Māori organisations getting involved with the social housing fund and with the Kāinga Whenua infrastructure grants but they are still too few.CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I am very privileged to stand up on behalf of New Zealand First for our estimates debate on the Māori other populations and cultural sector. I am going to talk specifically about the internal affairs section.Before I get started I just want to bring everyone’s attention back to just before we went on our dinner break. There are a number of fine men and women in this Chamber and one whom I consider to be one of those fine gentlemen is Chris Finlayson. So I was as perplexed as many other people in the Chamber when he was completely off-base and off-tangent in some of his remarks when he was referring to the Rt Hon Winston Peters. It got me thinking that perhaps the problem was that he was just a little bit “hangry”—a little bit hungry and angry prior to dinner—and so I have brought him along a Snickers bar which we could perhaps put in a little wee glass box out the back and break it in case of emergency so that next time he gets angry in the Chamber he can go out the back and relax himself. I hope he returns well rested and ready to fight.Specifically what I would like to talk about this evening is the Fire Service. Yet again we see another review in the Fire Service. This is the 17th review in the Fire Servicein the last 21 years—17; this is the 17th review. It begs the question: what is going on? When I trawl through the Budget that was released this year there is not a single solitary cent not a dollar being put forward for our Fire Service and yet the Government is sitting down and spending more money yet again to review the system. It is not fit for purpose it does not work and there is no funding allocated to allow this very crucial organisation which supplies so much for our communities to move forward.Let me just go through some of these statistics. We have got 17000 career firefighters around New Zealand currently. We have got 8300 urban volunteers giving up their time risking their lives in helping out in those communities and another 3500 rural volunteers.At the moment we have an absolute state of disrepair in a number of the buildings that are actually housing our Fire Service equipment. We have got 79 career stations 360 volunteer stations and 187 rural fire forces and the buildings they are operating out of are barely fit for service. I mean we are seriously putting our Fire Service people in some perilous situations if this Government does not come up with a better funding model.Let us talk about that funding model because what we are currently hearing from the Minister of Internal Affairs—the “Minister of Reviews” is what we should be retitling him—is an idea that we are going to put search and rescue and the urban search and rescue into the Fire Service. Well that does make sense. Accolades are to be given where credit is due and credit is due there. However the silos in which this Government places all of our emergency serviceproviders are not fit for purpose. We have got the likes of Surf Life Saving New Zealand providing safety education and saving lives and which is also doing the job of search and rescue and working hard and volunteering its time efforts and energies on the beaches around New Zealand—77 surf clubs around the country. Then of course you have got Coastguard which does another fantastic job of rescuing people at sea—search and rescue looking for them—and yet there is very little correlation or an organisation that can be put under a single heading that enables it to be funded as a whole and to be taken seriously as an emergency serviceprovider.When we look at whether it is a fit for purpose issue and what the Fire Service actually provides with its urban search and rescue and with its search and rescue around the country—it puts out fires. Who do we call when the rain comes down and the floods come in Mr Muller? That is right—your local fire brigade. The number of times it has been out there on the streets pumping water clearing out people’s houses—when your cat gets stuck in a tree who do you call? The local fire brigade Mr Muller—that is correct.And of course as we go on the Fire Service is the first port of call when we have an issue relating to emergency service providers. Who do we call when there is a car accident? Who comes along and issues and administers first aid? It is the Fire Service. Yet we have got these silo situations where the Government is putting these organisations into various blocs and underfunding them and there is complete and utter under-investment within this service.Let me just bring your attention—I am speaking quite quickly because 5 minutes goes so fast when you are in the Chamber—to an Official Information Act request. It was the Minister’s briefing so it was officially released. It says: “There is an under-investment in rural fire reduction and readiness and the changing service scope is making it difficult for the commission to adapt to new demands.” We need to be fit for purpose; we need to be up and ready for the 21st century. I doubt that this review is actually going to do much with regard to what the Government is going to do to put funding into this absolutely vital—JOANNE HAYES (National): I am pleased to stand to take this 5-minute call on the Māori development area of this theme. But before I do that I just want to make a few comments about a previous speaker. It does sadden me and kind of makes me really angry that people can stand in this Chamber on the Opposition benches and have a go at our outstanding Minister for Māori Development. The great work that he has been doing—Sue Moroney: It’s called accountability.JOANNE HAYES: —listen listen—he has taken on the challenges and he is coping very well with the work that he is doing.I want to support Te Puni Kōkiri and the restructure there. This is a senior executive manager who knows what she is doing. She is doing a marvellous job there and I do take umbrage at the fact that people can stand in this Chamber and have a crack at her after the good work that she is doing. The work that she does is not easy—it is not easy when you are restructuring a ministry as complex as Te Puni Kōkiri—but I believe that the work that she is doing is going to be of great value to Te Puni Kōkiri in the future.My next kōrero is about Whānau Ora. I worked in Whānau Ora and I helped in its development on the ground—on the ground. I have seen the whānau I have talked with the whānau and I have interviewed the whānau that Whānau Ora has helped. When Whānau Ora first came about yes it was a new concept but many Opposition members thought it should just start off like it had been going for many many years. It takes time for good things to mature and Whānau Ora is one of those programmes that will take time. It is developing the goods. You just need to talk to some of the whānau whom it has helped over the 4 to 5 years that it has been operating.We talked a little bit I also heard in the Committee about homeownership and Māori homeownership. The Minister for Māori Development has done the most amazing thing which has never been done by any Government before but which has been done in coalition with the National Government and that is being able to build houses on Māori land. In the past that was never able to be done. They are able to actually access loans to do that. I am very proud of what he has done.When we start to look at other areas within the Māori development portfolio under Vote Māori Development we can look at Healthy Families New Zealand. This is a project that Jonathan Coleman launched in the East Cape just recently in April. It is the Healthy Families East Cape project which belongs to the lead provider Te Whare Hauora o Te Aitanga a Hauiti. They established—hello—a Whānau Ora collective called the Horouta Whanaunga Collective a collective that comprises 17 providers and nine iwi groups. It is a collective that has come together to address health issues at a local level. At the end of the day where we are the most effective is with helping our own working with our own and coming up with the decisions and the outcomes at a local level.So when I look at Māori health I see that over 50 percent of Māori are now enrolled in these low-cost accessible primary health organisations. I was there at the start of all of that time when primary health organisations were being developed and at one stage we thought that Māori were going to miss out on that. But low-cost Māori primary health organisations came about and so we have 350000 Māori enrolled in them paying up to $18 for a GP visit which is great for Māori whānau as is the new announcement on 1 July of free GP visits for under-13s. That has never been done in the history of this Parliament and it was the National-led Government that pulled all of that together.Education as I have said many times is freedom. It is freedom to make choices and the tertiary education area for trades academies is one area that Māori have shone in. I want to talk just a little bit about the Ngāi Tahu He Toki ki te Rika. That is pre-trades training that was developed post-earthquake in 2011 and it has over 800 students enrolled in it. Just recently in April the Prime Minister was hosted by Ngāi Tahu where he launched He Toki ki te Mahi Apprenticeship Training Trust programme and that has 10 to 15 apprentice carpenters. This is great news for Māori. It is great news for iwi because of the steps the benchmark and the power that iwi can have within the tertiary sector.I am very proud to stand here and speak on Vote Māori Development. I am a Māori; I support all Māori things—it does not matter what colour the politics are. I support Māori achieving and everybody in this Chamber should be looking at that and at every which way we can help. Kia ora.SARAH DOWIE (National—Invercargill): It is a pleasure to rise and take this call in this debate with such wide-ranging topics. As we have heard they include Vote Arts Culture and Heritage Vote Internal Affairs Vote Māori Development Vote Pacific Peoples Vote Sport and Recreation and Vote Women. I think it is really important and it is a pleasure to say as the lead National member for the Government Administration Committee—as I acknowledge Nuk Korako the lead National member for the Māori Affairs Committee—that these disciplines require attention. They do encompass a richness that is New Zealand and it is wonderful to rise and speak about it.I am actually going to focus on sport and recreation and change tack here. I will talk about some of the wonderful things that sport and recreation does. Of course sport is in our blood as New Zealanders and we usually use sport to signal our prowess on the world stage but it is more than that. Sport and being active means having a healthy lifestyle and it is through Sport New Zealand that $7 million is taken from Vote Health and put into Kiwisport which is a fantastic programme. It recognises the importance of getting children involved in sports. It designs games for little people. It educates them about the needs of health and sport as part of that. Obviously sport helps them with their cooperation and teamwork builds their self-esteem and adds to an all-round healthy lifestyle. So I want to acknowledge that that is a great programme that Sport New Zealand is involved in and certainly it adds to the healthy lifestyle that we need in New Zealand to tackle some of those problems that we see in our community.I had the pleasure on 7 July of actually stepping in for the Hon Dr Coleman and launching the Healthy Families New Zealand initiative in Invercargill. That is an initiative that is based on the Victorian model that has seen significant improvements in health and it creates a platform for getting people involved in an active lifestyle. Invercargill was one of the 10 communities that were selected. It was selected on a range of different factors but mainly because unfortunately in Invercargill there is a prevalence of some diseases that can be prevented through having a healthy lifestyle.Hon Member: It’s cold.SARAH DOWIE: It is not just cold but sport plays a really big part in Invercargill. So it is important to get that initiative going and to start auditing the community and looking at the wins that we can create by getting people involved in sport and understanding the drivers of what creates a healthy lifestyle along with eating plans and just getting people active.That involves stakeholders coming together all within the health field and they audit basically the community and look at the different health organisations that are out there. The sporting organisations come together and they look at what they are doing already so that they can look for easy wins to educate those people who are at risk of different diseases that can be prevented like diabetes. They come together and look at establishing programmes.One of those programmes is through Volleyball Southland. It was my pleasure to meet some of the people who play volleyball through Sport Southland. It has community teams school teams ethnic teams and teams through the Southern Institute of Technology. Again it is a great way to meet people to engage in your community to make friends and to build self-esteem but obviously it is also about getting active and learning about being healthy. So through that initiative we are encouraging families to live healthy lives and obviously Sport New Zealand is part of that.I want to touch on Vote Women and one of the wonderful initiatives that is the brainchild of the Hon Louise Upston. That is the research into family violence and violence against Māori women. I had the pleasure of going—Vote Arts Culture and Heritage Vote Internal Affairs Vote Māori Development Vote Pacific Peoples Vote Sport and Recreation Vote Statistics Vote Treaty Negotiations and Vote Women agreed to.Primary SectorThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Members we come now to the votes in the primary sector—volume B.5 volume 9. The question is that Vote Lands and Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety stand part of the schedules.IAN McKELVIE (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): What an interesting time to chair the Primary Production Committee and to lead the discussion in this estimates debate. The committee considered the estimates for Vote Lands and Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety and of course those are the areas of Ministers Guy Goodhew and Upston. I think we need to look back a little to look forward at this time. Looking back at the ministries that merged to create the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry for Primary Industries as it has moved through that process in the last few years there have been some very testing times faced but there have been a couple of factors that I think have emphasised the value of that merger. The fruit fly outbreak in Auckland earlier in the year has been very successfully combatted by an extremely strong team. The 1080 contamination threat was also in my view very well handled in a very difficult environment by a very strong and capable ministry performing cohesively.The recent Budget provided some $179 million for border control and domestic biosecurity risk matters and $24.9 million more has been allocated to border security in increased dog and X-ray - based facilities. I myself witnessed this in action last Wednesday on returning through Auckland Airport with the New Zealand Special Olympics team from the Special Olympics World Summer Games and a very successful team it was too. But it was really quite impressive to watch the performance of the—[Interruption] thank you—biosecurity team at Auckland Airport and in fact the things that I suppose you could call hounds really and I guess that if you are a member of the hunting fraternity they most certainly were hounds. But they were very impressive and I think the system is working really well.The Animal Welfare Amendment Bill passed through this Parliament some 3 or 4 months ago and more money has been provided for this critical leg of our productive sector. The money will ensure that the very high standards we have in this area are maintained and improved which is a really important factor for New Zealand agriculture.Food safety is the second critical leg of our No. 1 industry and some $103 million will be spent on ensuring that this most important area remains secure. It is quite a challenging area for us and of course when you think of our place in the world food industry and our place in food supplies generally it is absolutely critical that this sector of our economy is maintained and maintained very strongly.The Minister in the chair Nathan Guy has faced some challenges in this role—some pretty significant challenges: the whey protein concentrate scare; the 1080 threat which Minister Goodhew of course was very strongly a part of as well; and the fruit fly incursion and the way they have handled those just shows the strength of our biosecurity system. The Rangitīkei Wanganui and South Taranaki flood event just recently is going to make a significant dent and cause some significant impact on our economy—our local economy in my electorate particularly and of course in Mr Chairperson Borrows’ electorate as well.The downturn in dairy prices is certainly a testing issue for us but not one that we in agriculture find unusual. We have gone through these things many times in my lifetime in farming and we will go through many more of them. It is just the cycle we go through in agriculture and food supply and I think it will always happen. It is very difficult to protect us from it. We have never achieved that in 150 years of farming in this country and I do not suppose we will in the future.Has not Fonterra which is so often criticised in this House done such a great job in the last few days of supporting its cooperative members with its 50c announcement last week pointing very strongly to the value of a strong cooperative? It is something the kiwifruit industry is benefiting from right at this minute and something that the Meat Industry Excellence group would dearly love the meat industry to achieve as well. It really does point to the strength of having a cooperative in a very small economy. I think it is most important that we have this kind of strength and that those cooperatives and the companies that operate in New Zealand have the confidence in the Ministry for Primary Industries—and in the various ministries I guess—to ensure that our industry stays in the prime position it is in.I want to touch on building capacity through investment in the Primary Growth Partnership and people and three aspects of that in particular. I want to talk about the Precision Seafood Harvesting Primary Growth Partnership project which is really when you think about the potential it has got going to achieve some hugely exciting opportunities for New Zealand and for the New Zealand fishing industry. If it can achieve what it certainly looks as though it will achieve we are going to see our fishing industry restocked.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): If ever there is an area of Government responsibility where there is failure it has got to be in the primary industries. The farmers’ friend—that is the National Party the farmers’ friend.Well well well let us have a look at what we have got facing the agricultural sectors at the moment. My colleague Stuart Nash will talk about forestry but I will just focus on a few things. I welcomed the speech from the previous speaker Ian McKelvie because he has pointed out fruit fly and 1080 contamination a $100 million tax on travellers to pay for biosecurity WPC80 and failure after failure to carry out what the farmers would consider friendly policies.We have a superministry that is responsible for so much it is failing in almost every single area of its responsibility. The dairy industry is a classic example of an outcome of a Government that has failed to lead as it should have. The Government facilitated the capital restructure of Fonterra because John Key wanted his mates in the stock exchange to have a few units to play around with. What that has done is left the company distracted to the point where it has had its eye off the ball.The National Government and its friends have been happy to trade in Fonterra units and the company is now floundering around. Yes there is an international challenge but ask Tātua what it is doing and ask the suppliers of Fonterra in Australia what is happening with payment for their milk. They are being paid considerably more than poor old Fonterra and Westland Cooperative Dairy—dare I say it as well—as suppliers.I have to say that the Government has made lots of noise but it has not done much. The Primary Growth Partnership referred to by the previous speaker has been a failure. The Office of the Auditor-General investigated six of the schemes and found no real economic benefit and many of those schemes were over halfway through their completion—no real economic benefit. It said that it could not identify “additionality” which was its polite word for saying: “This should have been business as usual and the Government spent money and we haven’t really seen any additional benefit.”Biosecurity is the Minister’s No. 1 priority and in the first year of the National Government it slashed funding and it has been playing catch up ever since. This year’s proposal is a tax of $100 million on New Zealanders and foreigners flying in and out of this country to pay for biosecurity because the Government does not want to commit real money to it.Today we had some indication—but not a promise—that there will be 100 percent baggage screening or a trial of it. We in Labour implemented 100 percent baggage screening and we had no fruit fly incursions. The Government removed it and we have had four incursions with potentially huge and damaging results for our economy. If it was the Asian fruit fly not the Queensland one we would be in a desperate situation.There has been no leadership in the meat sector. We have at the moment a temporary beneficial situation for the beef industry. The lamb and sheep industries are still floundering around. Meat Industry Excellence and the farmers themselves are asking for leadership from the Minister and it is nowhere to be seen. Although the previous speaker talked of the cooperatives—and I support them too—the Alliance Group and Silver Fern Farms have not been serving the meat industry and all the players as they should have been and indeed their suppliers have not been served that well as well. They want leadership they want vision and they want a clear direction that will provide a better alternative than in the dairy industry which at the moment is floundering around. Although people may say it is not a crisis go and ask a farmer who is facing the banks and negotiating their way to a future.It is a tough situation brought about by a Government that is laissez-faire and is prepared to accept market signals. The member at the back there Todd Muller the ex-Zespri employee was nodding his head about the wonderful management from Government. Zespri is there because of the Labour Government and its legislation discipline and leadership which we were prepared to show in Government but this Government has not been prepared to show that.The farmers out there want better leadership they want some direction and they want a vision. They have failed to get any from this Government from the expenditure that they have seen through the primary industry sector.Hon NATHAN GUY (Minister for Primary Industries): Well there we heard a very interesting speech from Damien O’Connor. What we did not hear when he was talking about the border levy was that when he was the Minister of Tourism he proposed the exact same thing. He is nodding now. Did you see him nodding? He just said for the Hansard record that he did. So he did propose a border levy when he was the Minister of Tourism in the Labour Government. Now he stands up and says it is terrible that the National Government is indeed implementing in part what he was proposing. So he has forgotten what he was proposing in several speeches when indeed he was the Minister of Tourism.I was so disappointed that that member would not support the border levy when we proposed it on the back of the Budget. In fact we did not hear a squeak from that member. He could not get on a plane to the West Coast quickly enough and he hoped that no one would discover the fact that he proposed a border levy in the dying days of the Labour Government and now he has forgotten. Looking at his face over there we know that he proposed it—and look at that grin. It tells you a thousand words.We should indeed be supporting the primary sector. We support the primary sector on this side of the Chamber. We celebrate the success of an industry and a sector that generates around $4 million an hour in terms of export earnings for this country. I am the first one to acknowledge it is tough times for the dairy industry right now. It is very tough times but I will also acknowledge that the medium to long term outlook for the dairy industry is extremely bright and our farmers know that. Our farmers know that this is a period of short-term volatility.The doomsayers on that side of the Chamber just want to talk it down. Yet again we hear Andrew Little and Damien O’Connor and others saying: “It’s a crisis! It’s a crisis!”. Well we had the manufacturing crisis the day that all the parties pretty much on the other side of the House proposed that. Actually manufacturing has started to grow and has never looked back. So the dairy sector will get through this.Of course what is not acknowledged—and I was talking about it earlier in the House today—is that our red meat sector particularly beef is going incredibly well. That is also happening with our viticulture and our kiwifruit. Kiwifruit has from memory got up to $1.42 billion in export earnings. Zespri has blown through the high level of $1 billion and is almost back above pre-Psa returns which is fantastic. Also our forestry sector is starting to grow and is waiting for new opportunities in the US. I know that Minister Goodhew will make some comments about that.What we also should not forget importantly is the future of seafood. It is great to see in the outlook for primary industries that seafood is forecast to grow to $1.8 billion by 2019 on the back of aquaculture growth. Not a lot happened in aquaculture when Labour was in Government. There is a lot of potential under this Government for aquaculture to grow and prosper more so than under the Labour Government. So this Government has a focus on supporting our exporters through the tough times and actually a big part of the primary sector is growing incredibly well.The No. 1 priority for me is biosecurity. That is why we invested $27 million in this year’s Budget. We made an announcement just last week that there will be 20 more detector dog teams more X-ray machines more people on the front line more auditing of in-country audits and import health standards etc. There will be a real focus on biosecurity because you cannot grow exports unless you focus on the “protect” part which is biosecurity—and food safety where Minister Goodhew is doing an outstanding job.Also trade is hugely important—new market access opportunities—and that is why we are very optimistic about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is going to be interesting when those negotiations land just to see where political parties across the House actually fall. Who will actually support the Trans-Pacific Partnership? It will be very interesting to see whether Mr Little can support the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I imagine that Labour’s caucus is split. I imagine its caucus is split down the middle. You will have Sue Moroney there talking out of one side of her mouth. You will have David Shearer and Phil Goff and the guys like David Parker who have a bit of an outward focus realising that New Zealand is not going to grow our wealth unless we sell things to the world and we sell 45 percent into those 11 countries that are involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. There are huge opportunities there. I am delighted that Minister Groser landed a free-trade agreement with Korea and Taiwan is also proving to be a very important new and emerging market for us.We should not forget about irrigation particularly in North Canterbury where they are still battling through very dry times. I know the local member will no doubt comment on that this evening because he has been in touch. I am looking forward to visiting North Canterbury in the next week or so. It is going to be hugely exciting when stage one of Central Plains Water storage opens. That is a massive project on the outskirts of Christchurch City. Everyone is talking about the Christchurch rebuild; no one actually realises that just out there on the Canterbury Plains hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in farming improving water quality improving the environment improving productivity and growing our exports. We should be backing water storage projects. This Government has a real focus on water storage. We collect and store only about 2 percent of the rain that falls in this country. The rest roars out to sea. There are huge opportunities to do more.In the final couple of minutes I have got I also want to talk about the regional economy. We have got four studies under way in East Coast - Hawke’s Bay Northland the Bay of Plenty and the one that was announced recently Manawatū-Whanganui which covers the whole Horizons Regional Council area. What these studies show is that there is a huge amount of potential and upside in these regional economies particularly in the primary sector—particularly in red meat sheep and beef production dairy and also horticulture expansion. So the Ministry for Primary Industries with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and Te Puni Kōkiri will be working with regional leaders to lift the performance of these four regions. These four regions—Mr McKelvie talked about it before and he is well in touch with the potential of his region as is Chester Borrows the other local MP there and Jono Naylor—are all linked in with the opportunities of this regional growth study for the lower North Island.Also we have got a real focus on skills because we know that we need to attract about another 50000 into the primary sector over the next 10 years or so. About half of them will need to be tertiary qualified or have level 4 qualifications. So they will be your food safety scientists. They will be your robotic engineers. They will be your environmental planners. Agriculture is actually becoming a lot more sophisticated. So we have got to attract the youngest and brightest into a big part of the New Zealand economy. We have got to celebrate success. We have also got to retain and upskill our primary sector capability. Of course we cannot do that here in Wellington and the Government should not be doing it on its own so we are reaching out to industry. And when I say “we” we have got some work under way with the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry of Education working closer together looking at pilots in the likes of Ashburton Picton and Kerikeri.There is huge potential in Ashburton for sheep and beef production and also dairying and arable and we are bringing in the local principals so that they understand that there are jobs in their local communities. In Picton it is about viticulture and it is about aquaculture. In Kerikeri it is about sheep and beef and dairying and horticulture. So it makes sense that we wrap our arms around industry and get in touch with the principals of those local schools to make sure that they understand there are jobs in their local economies.Finally we should be backing the primary sector. The Committee this evening should stand up and say that the primary sector matters. We back it more so than the Opposition parties because we know it is hugely important to the New Zealand economy.STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. This year the 2015-16 appropriation for the Primary Growth Partnership was $69.8 million almost $70 million. I want to discuss tonight a recipient of Primary Growth Partnership money PGG Wrightson Seeds and touch on the national policy statement on plantation forestry which the Ministry for Primary Industries has been road-showing recently and the very unfortunate direction that this Government appears to be heading in with agricultural research biotechnology and loss of community choice. As I point out the toxic direction of current AgResearch in New Zealand we must be mindful that there is a fantastic opportunity in organic agriculture that can be very profitable for “New Zealand Inc.” while mitigating much of our greenhouse gas emissions and reducing nutrient leaching. It will be hundreds of percent better than conventional methods in product value in dairy alone.PGG Wrightson has said that it wants to compete with GE giant Monsanto and it has been on that path since Dr Allan Freeth the next chief executive of the Environmental Protection Authority set it on that path when he was chief executive officer and managing director of PGG Wrightson. He also got PGG Wrightson to buy into Genesis which was experimenting with GE grasses and was working with ArborGen on GE trees an unusual appointment for the arbitrator of GE in our environment. PGG Wrightson developed herbicide-tolerant swedes with Dupont and a couple of failed GE scientists—scientists who had happily broken the important conditions of the previous GE field trials that the Environmental Protection Authority had set and had assured us that those conditions would deal with any risks. But those scientists happily broke those conditions.PGG Wrightson and the scientists thought that they were really clever and used chemical mutagenesis instead of GE. They did both actually but they popped the other ones out in the market so that they could avoid regulatory oversight and avoid safety tests and the apparently irksome conditions of use. The unexpected happened as can occur with GE and other DNA-disruptive technologies such as that chemical mutagenesis. Hundreds of cows and sheep died and many more were sick because in part it appears that there was an unexpected increase of up to 16 times the natural toxin. A dangerous and unexpected result from a non-regulated technology that is based on the use of three herbicides and DNA disruption—nothing sustainable. That is PGG Wrightson’s direction and this Government is funding Chinese-owned PGG Wrightson for more of the same but funding almost zilch for the organics.I want to touch on the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry. I note that somehow the Governmentwants through the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry to bring in GE trees if the Environmental Protection Authority headed byPGG Wrightson apromoter of GE trees and grasses—it wants to allow GE trees to be decided by only that arbitrator the Environmental Protection Authority and it has made loads of mistakes in the past. I can go through every one of them if necessary. In every field trial that the Environmental Risk Management Authority now the Environmental Protection Authority has done in recent years the major condition of consent for approval has been breached and yet this Government says through that national environment standard that local councils and local communities will not be able to decide for their own region whether the Environmental Protection Authority should grant genetically engineered trees. It looks like a cook-up.Our communities want to be able to sell top-notch product overseas as GM-free and from areas such as Hawke’s Bay. Pure Hawke’s Bay reckons that $100 billion—sorry $1 billion—[Interruption] Yes yes I am getting my figures. One of the producers is working on $100 million on its own but $1 billion of product from the Hawke’s Bay is going out as being from GM-free Hawke’s Bay. How can that carry on if this Government—STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): What an extraordinary speech from the Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy. Is there a Minister in this House who is more out of touch with his portfolio and heartland New Zealand—[Bell rung] Mr Chair—second call Mr Chair? Can I start again?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): No.STUART NASH: OK. Is there a Minister more out of touch? First of all he stands up and talks about the value of the regional economy. Well those of us who are regional MPs know this. I am sick to death about hearing that the regions are failing because they are not. Regions like Hawke’s Bay are doing well in spite of this Government. In fact you have got two mayors who are saying: “Where is the plan? Where is the strategy from this Government around regional economic development?”. The Government has not got one. Then we get a Minister who stands up and says: “You’ve got to concentrate on primary industries.” Really? There are three major variables for success in the primary industries: one climate; two exchange rate; three commodity prices. And do you know what? We have no ability to control any of those three.So why should we concentrate on an area where we have no ability to control? Sure we are the first to admit that primary industries are the backbone of the Hawke’s Bay economy. They provide around about 45 percent of the revenue into Hawke’s Bay. It is an incredibly important part of our local economy. But let me inform the Minister: there is more to primary industries than red meat and dairy especially in Hawke’s Bay. There is the wine industry which the Minister for Economic Development had the nerve to stand up and tell this House is doing really well as the Government whacks an excise tax on it. The wineries are so annoyed with this Government because it taxes them more. These guys cannot get a break.The apple industry is finally doing really really well in Hawke’s Bay. But do you know what? We do have a problem with labour supply in the regions and the Government’s response to this is Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme workers. I have a philosophical problem with the RSE scheme because what we are doing is we are bringing workers in from overseas when there are a whole lot of unemployed people in Hawke’s Bay. The problem with it is that we actually need them at this point in time. We need them because getting these unemployed people off the dole and into work is proving close to impossible.What we really would like this Government to do what the industry would like this Government to do is come up with solutions. It has not had a solution in 7 years so yet again it is up to Labour to provide solutions for the RSE scheme and we have got solutions. Meka Whaitiri and I have been working with the industry. We have the answers. All we need is to get into Government and implement these and what we will do is drive the sort of growth that we need to see in Hawke’s Bay.In terms of the Primary Growth Partnership—I will tell you this is a very interesting thing. I am hearing more and more as I go around. It is a little surprising actually but the sort of catchcry is out there. What I hear is: “We don’t bother with the Primary Growth Partnership—this is just a Minister giving money to his mates.” And I have heard—even the Chair is nodding. Even the Chair is nodding in agreement—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! Do not bring me into that in the way that you have. You have been here long enough; you know how this place operates. Do not muck around like that with the Chair. Thank you very much.STUART NASH: I was at a conference just yesterday and a speaker stood up—we were talking about the Primary Growth Partnership—and this speaker said: “We don’t even bother. It is the Minister and his mates.” We were at our regional economic caucus. Our economic caucus did a Hawke’s Bay visit last Tuesday. One of the largest employers in the Bay said exactly the same thing: “Oh we don’t even bother these days. It’s corporate welfare. It is money for the Minister’s mates.”Then there is forestry—a very very important part of this local economy. There was a policy workshop for the New Zealand Institute of Forestry yesterday and the Minister did not even turn up. Not only that the Minister did not even send anyone along at all and the word from the forestry sector is that this Government does not care about the forestry sector—this Government does not care about the forestry sector. It does not understand the forestry sector and as a consequence the New Zealand Institute of Forestry is trying to develop policy on its own because this Government is not providing anything for it at all. Minister if you had been there you would have heard exactly the same as I said.So when I hear this Government talk about the primary industries all it talks about is dairy—which it has done nothing about—and red meat. What I would love the Minister to do is to start coming up with a strategy around the wine sector around the apple sector and employment opportunities around the forestry sector—RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise to take a call in this Committee of the whole House as we debate the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill. Before I start berating the Government and the Minister in the chair the Hon Nathan Guy I would like to just take the opportunity to hand out a bit of a bouquet along with the brickbats.I want to say a word in support of the Primary Growth Partnership scheme. It is a bit of an anomaly. I really cannot understand why colleagues on this side of the Chamber are so opposed to the Primary Growth Partnership scheme. It is pure socialism. It is absolutely wonderful venture capital from the Government into the primary sector. There is certainly more that can be done with it and over time I have no doubt that there will be more that is done with it and the Primary Growth Partnership will be extended through other schemes. But notwithstanding Mr Nash’s passion I do not accept that criticism of the Primary Growth Partnership. I think we have barely scratched the surface of what we can do with it.But I do want to pick on a couple of areas a couple of line items in the estimates. The first is in the multi-category section of the appropriations for primary industries which includes safety and it is the appropriation allocated to border and domestic biosecurity risk management. That stands at just under $179 million. As we examined through the Border Processing (Arrivals and Departures) Levy Bill which was one of the enabling pieces of legislation for the appropriations for the primary sector in this Budget we discovered through that process that that amount includes the revenue forecast to be collected from international passengers arriving in New Zealand on airlines and cruise ships. And I say “forecast” because it will take a while for the levy to be designed and a while longer for it to be instituted and then a while after that for the money to start coming in. Then over a period of time that money from the levy will replace the funding that is currently allocated to biosecurity from general taxation.We know this because the Minister very slowly and grudgingly admitted quite tortuously over a period of some time through gritted teeth—he finally admitted that this new levy was not actually going to amount to any increase in funding for biosecurity but in fact was only ever going to be a replacement for the current funding arrangements.So this appropriation is not actually doing any favours for biosecurity. We are not going to see a return to 100 percent screening of all incoming passengers we are not going to see the implementation of 100 percent screening of incoming mail and freight and we are not going to see an improvement on the present rate of about 25 percent as far as the inspection of shipping containers is concerned. We are not going to see an increase in resourcing for border security officers so that the green lane can be done away with. In fact this Government is increasing the number of SmartGate entry points rather than reducing them. So we have no more money for boots on the ground no more money for additional sets of human eyes and the brains and intuition that goes with them but we do have more robots—and SmartGate is not a clever robot; it is just a passport reader. It is quite a dumb robot in fact. This robot is not the “Six Million Dollar Man”.So we do not have the “Six Million Dollar Man” but we do have the $3 million possum. I say that because there is a line item in the non-departmental output expenses column of the appropriation for primary industries that relates to TB vector control. TB vectors are animals that can carry and spread bovine tuberculosis. We need to eradicate bovine TB and keep it out of our cattle and deer herds and that is a good thing and the single most important TB vector we are told is the possum. Feral deer can carry and spread bovine TB as well of course and so can ferrets and pigs and hedgehogs. No one in officialdom seems all that worried about hedgehogs just yet. Rather it is the humble possum that is tarred with being the single most important TB vector and this appropriation allocates $30 million to controlling it.Well we know from answers that the Minister has given in reply to written questions that over the past 10 years TBfree New Zealand has autopsied more than 124000 possums in its search for bovine TB. Of those more than 140000 possums 54 were found to have TB so that is 54 out of more than 124000—0.04 percent—or to put it another way an average of five and a half possums per year. So going by the averages of the last 10 years we can reasonably expect that this year there might be another five or maybe six possums out there with TB. And they are not the only vector as I mentioned—TBfree New Zealand has autopsied a number of feral deer as well. Since 2007 it has autopsied a total of 1751 deer and found that 34 of them had TB.So we have had 54 possums over 10 years and 34 deer over 8 years. That works out to an average of a little under 10 wild animals a year that we might expect to be carrying TB and this Government has allocated a nice round $30 million in order to control them. That is $3 million per animal. We cannot have our shipping containers inspected but we can go chasing the $3 million possum. I am sure—I am absolutely certain—that if the Government were to announce a bounty of $3 million a head on any possum dead or alive found to be carrying TB it would get knocked over in the rush of trappers and ground control operators wanting to take on the job. Instead we are going to carpet bomb thousands of hectares of bush with airdrops of 1080 and kill thousands of native birds and insects and pollinators and lizards and snails—Hon JO GOODHEW (Associate Minister for Primary Industries): It is great to rise and speak on Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety. In particular I want to cover off on my responsibility for forestry and also for food safety within this sector which is so important to New Zealand. We would not necessarily know it from some of the comments that are coming from the Opposition but it is.Let us start with our $4.5 billion forestry sector. This is a sector that is attracting capital from within New Zealand and from overseas at the moment because if we think about engineered timber this is the way that this sector can grow to what it has set as a lofty target of $12 billionby 2022. The sector is going to be able to do that only if the much more valuable products are in fact put together and engineered timber is the way for that. What the Government is doing to support this sector is we are getting in place plans for skills development and for the review of New Zealand standard 3603 which allows engineered timber to be used in a standard measure in a standard fashion by the sector. It is getting those barriers out of the way that will see that sector continue to grow and reach towards its potential.I want to touch on the Afforestation Grants Scheme which was a Budget 2015 announcement—$22.5 million over 6 years. That will see an extra 15000 hectares planted—but you know every week I hear about more businesses going out and planting more. I believe that the tide has turned and there is much more confidence in the sector.Let me address some of the ill-informed comments from the member from Labour who was on his feet before Stuart Nash. You see yes there was an Institute of Forestry conference yesterday followed by the DANA Ltd forestry conference this evening. I have just left from the dinner at the DANA conference and I have been hearing about the Institute of Forestry’s conference yesterday. Back in 2013 the Institute of Forestry asked the Government to put together a forestry sector policy and I said to it: “Why doesn’t the forestry sector put it together? Get the politics out of it.” And that is what it has decided to do. Had I been able to attend yesterday had I not already committed to doing other things yesterday I would have done so but instead in fact I sent three Ministry for Primary Industries people rather than as Stuart Nash said no one. So in fact the Opposition members are out of touch on forestry and they are out of touch on food safety and many other aspects of the primary industries sector as well.You see the Recognised Season Employer scheme was mentioned before. Well the onions do not get packed and the apples do not get picked in my district in the Rangitata electorate unless we have workers under the scheme so that would be millions of dollars out of New Zealand’s primary production sector because we have low unemployment in South Canterbury and cannot get people to pick those particular products. So the scheme is doing a particularly important job down there.The wine industry—well apparently it needs help! It is going better than ever before at $1.42 billion in the last year and is getting really excited about getting geographic indicators from this Government which will be very important for that sector. The wine industry is having one of its best years as is kiwifruit. There are great prices for beef—actually there are lots of things going well but you would not know it if you talked to the Opposition.I want to briefly mention a trip that I had to Viet Nam because from this Government’s perspective not only are we trying to get free-trade agreements and understand the benefit that they would be to New Zealand—the Green members could well listen to this—but at the same time we know there are non-tariff barriers that we also need to be out there trying to reduce. On the forestry and also food safety front which was the reason for my visit to Viet Nam last week—it was the week before in fact—those sorts of non-tariff barriers going into a market that is for the very first time seeing $1 billion of two-way trade will put money into the pockets of New Zealanders. So New Zealand needs to reach out and work out what these non-tariff barriers are work on them with the politicians and with the officials in the countries like Viet Nam because far from just $443 million worth of export produce into Viet Nam we can do so much better. People in Viet Nam trust us. They trust our food safety systems. They trust our honesty and integrity in exporting products to their nation. They want our technology transferred. They appreciate the fact that we have supported them in aid projects as well.MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Chairman. Tēnā tātou katoa. I am happy to take a call on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill on primary industries. Before I do that can I please acknowledge the passing of the last 28th Māori Battalion veteran from Awatere Valley of Te Wairoa Te Hei Mauroa Ben Hook; e te rangatira o te Pakānga Tuarua haere haere haere atu rā.I come from a long line of freezing workers and it is from that perspective that I am going to contribute to this vote that we are discussing today. Can I acknowledge Rose White an auntie of mine who after 40 years and 328 days has finally hung up her apron and knives after working for Silver Fern Farms in Whakatū. I want to acknowledge my auntie and wish her all the very best in her retirement.As a product of our being freezing workers my auntie often told me that freezing workers were the backbone of our economy and I will work with anybody in this Chamber in fit for purpose primary policies that enable opportunities for all New Zealanders. I am happy to be a member of the very hard-working Primary Production Committee and I want to acknowledge both our chair and the Minister for Primary Industries for coming to the select committee when we examined his vote—and it was a very big vote that we had to examine. But my contribution tonight is going to be on the Primary Growth Partnership and there have been a lot of speakers speaking about that tonight.For the benefit of those who may not have been there I will just quickly remind members that the Primary Growth Partnership was established in 2009. Its purpose is to increase investment and innovation and to achieve economic growth and sustainability for multiple industries in the primary sector. It is responsibly administered by the Ministry for Primary Industries. The partnership meets equally or exceeds the investment made by the Crown with private investors and it has an investment advisory panel that assesses all the proposals and business plans before it makes a recommendation.In the last Parliament the Primary Production Committee requested that the Office of the Auditor-General examine the Primary Growth Partnership. The committee was specifically interested in the transparency and management of the programme—hence my reason for making this contribution. On 30 November 2014 the Crown committed $322 million to 18 programmes of which just under $120 million has been spent. The Auditor-General’s office undertook a performance audit of the Primary Growth Partnership and it reviewed six programmes with a combined investment of $491.3 million.So what were the findings of the office? Basically the Auditor-General said that the Primary Growth Partnership was set up too quickly. It encountered some challenges in its early stages—for example the definition of funding conditions and criteria in the early funding rounds appeared to be “loose”. The office expressed concern about the concept of additionality—which my colleague Damien O’Connor talked about—to ensure that the Crown was not just paying for something that should have been just part of the normal process of some of these larger industries.The Auditor-General’s report also identified that given that the size of our country of New Zealand is quite small there were going to be times that you could have conflict in terms of having limited core expertise in the primary sector. The Auditor-General noted however that the limited scope of the audit did not determine whether the investment advisory panel or the programme steering groups had a potential conflict of interest that should have been declared. That is not saying that a conflict of interest was not there; it was just not part of the scope of the investigation.What were the overall findings in relation to the Primary Growth Partnership according to the Auditor-General? Clearly transparency and accountability issues were identified and that was something that the select committee took on board and we are undertaking to investigate it again in about 6 months’ time. I want to just make sure for my colleagues on the committee that we uphold the findings of the Auditor-General ensuring that all Crown money is going to what is intended.I know that this is rushed because we have got only a few minutes but I want to turn your attention now to Crown Irrigation Investments. I want to acknowledge the Minister again for coming to the select committee and for his commitment that we will not be investing—STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): The Green Party supports forestry particularly permanent canopy sustainable production. We need very good forestry rather than—as we are seeing—conversions to unsustainable and intensive dairying. But forestry must be located without impact on the indigenous habitats and it must be done right and at the moment in too many cases it is not.We are very concerned about the direction of the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry which the Ministry for Primary Industries has been driving. It will not protect our indigenous habitats our streams and erosion-prone land from the impacts of forestry as we have been seeing lately. In my own area the estuary was seen as the worst of 32 in the country. The Marlborough Sounds has just been shown to have had an area of habitat the size of Blenheim destroyed by either dredging or forestry sediments and it was only a fraction of the Sounds that was measured. So we are worried about it.I went to seven of the consultations or hui around the country about this. I am optimistic that the Ministry for Primary Industries will tweak the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry a bit but I am not confident that it will go far enough to protect our fisheries fish nurseries and habitats from more sediment because this national environmental standard is for industry. Councils have been submitting—submissions finished today—because they realise that they cannot protect their local environments adequately under this national environmental standard. Once it is finalised and gazetted it will replace councils’ existing district and regional plan provisions for managing plantation forestry across New Zealand unless the national environmental standard specifically says otherwise. When it is a permitted activity there is no chance for further public comment. People will not even be able to comment ahead of a forestry harvesting that will destroy and wreck their water supply for a period of time.The Ministry for Primary Industries said: “Hey you can use the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and you can get in the collaborative process and deal with things.” but even just 2 weeks ago the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was talking about that process and said that there are gaping holes. One of the biggest ones is that estuaries are not covered and so our fisheries are still at risk. And that collaborative process is often not quite as effective being dominated by industry all too often with a result that is an increase in pollution rather than a decrease. So we need major changes to the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry.I will go back to the issue I spoke of earlier around genetic engineering. This national environmental standard is being used not only as a Trojan Horse to take communities out of looking out for erosion and looking after their fisheries their awa and their kai moana—it is a Trojan Horse to get GE trees in because the Government lost its ability to do so through Resource Management Act reforms. The Environmental Protection Authority which the Ministry for Primary Industries is saying should be the arbitrator has consistently failed. It has a long history of failure and shortcomings in relation to genetic modification and this Government carries on giving money to those fiddling with it. Crop and Food Research’s brassicas were planted and illegally flowering even when the decision to allow the field trial was being appealed to the High Court. It was ultimately stopped and a foot-deep of soil was removed from across that site and deep-buried at Kate Valley because of potential contamination. Crown research institute AgResearch has GE animals—it has breached its conditions. The Environmental Protection Authority can do nothing about that.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): I would really like to start by refuting some of the comments made by one of the earlier speakers about getting in and managing all sorts of industries. I can say as a former leader of the wine industry which was one of the industries that he spoke about that the last thing we would have wanted as an industry when I was in charge—and I am sure it is the same today—was to have the Government get in and try to run the industry.What industries want is a Government that runs efficient services that minimises the tax burden as much as possible and most important that runs a good framework and particularly takes care of trade by negotiating really good trade agreements and free-trade agreements. I am really delighted to be a part of a Government that is supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the moment which will be such a fantastic opportunity for this country. It was disappointing I would have to say—although perhaps not surprising—to hear the uninformed comments coming from the other side of the Chamber.I want to move on to talk about the drought in North Canterbury which the Minister for Primary Industries alluded to.The drought is a really significant drought particularly around the Cheviot-Hawarden area.It seems to be a horseshoe of land on the east coast of the South Island that is missing out on the rain that comes from the north and missing out on the rain that comes from the south and the west. It is unfortunate; this drought has been biting really hard for quite some time. There are reports of about 100000 breeding stock that have been shifted out of the area to go for grazing some of which will not come back on to the farms to lamb because there simply will not be the feed there. Although it looks green to the uninitiated as you drive by it is what is known as a “green drought”. There is a green tinge with really no feed underneath it and not many root reserves to really kick anything away. The soil moisture is so low at the moment that it will need significant rainfall to really turn that round.I really want to acknowledge the $200000 of additional funding that has gone to the rural support trusts. That will make a big difference. It is gratefully received by those people who are affected—and also the $500000 that was announced at the Fieldays by Minister Guy and Minister Coleman. That was a great initiative—it really is. That is where Governments can get in and make a big difference with actually a relatively small amount of money and I want to acknowledge that. I also want to acknowledge the team that is doing a great job in North Canterbury—Winton Dalley in particular the mayor of Hurunui who is heading up the drought committee along with Doug Archbold the rural support guy for that area who is doing a fantastic job. Sometimes it is a pretty tough job to get out there and do that and I want to acknowledge him tonight. I think that we should really all encourage those people and the job that they are doing.These things will improve. It will rain again. All those things happen and people will adapt their systems to deal with it as best they can. But that segues quite well into my next point which is irrigation. I acknowledge the $25 million towards the Irrigation Acceleration Fund. There has been a lot of talk about funding from the Government and Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety towards irrigation and what that amounts to. But that money is to fund storage and storage is about actually the community benefiting and the environmental benefits from irrigation.The Ōpuha scheme in South Canterbury is I think a wonderful example of how the whole community and the environment benefits from storage. At Ōpuha Dam the irrigators voluntarily reduced their take as the drought really started to bite hard in that area to allow more water to flow and to keep the instream values up in the Ōpihi River which flows out of the Ōpuha Dam. That enabled Fish and Game which was a very vociferous opponent of the irrigation scheme to capture the fish that were in the streams that were drying up and take them and put them into the Ōpihi and then when that finally got to the point where it was drying up to take the fish and put them in the Ōpuha Dam.So we have now certainly a group of people from Fish and Game in South Canterbury who were opponents of the scheme but now very much fans of the scheme because they can see the benefits to the environment from storage for irrigation. So I think the Irrigation Acceleration Fund is very important. Thank you.BARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): It is a pleasure to be speaking in the Chamber and taking a call tonight. I am very proud of the primary industries and the expectation for the year to June 2015 is that $35.2 billion would be brought in by primary industries. I know that at this point in time we are looking at a volatile situation in the dairy industry and I just want to shout out to my fellow farmers tonight. The falling dairy prices have been a concern but they are temporary. They will come through and we do know that we are looking for a bright future in this industry.I also want to mention and my colleague here Stuart Smith talked about it the funding that is going out to help farmers at this time—the $500000 that was actually delivered at Fieldays which has been used to train more people. There are going to be another 100 people out there working with DairyNZ and working with Beef and Lamb and encouraging those farmers to come forward. Although the industry itself is very resilient we just want to be quite careful about talking too much about individual farmers being resilient because we want them to stand up and ask for help when they need it—and they will. If they do that if they work with their banks they will be resilient and they will come through.But I want to also acknowledge that there is a whole lot more to the primary industries. We focus on dairy and I am very proud of it but over recent weeks I have had the opportunity to visit Zespri with the Primary Production Committee. You know that is an industry that has come through some very tough times. It had the disease Psa unexpectedly come in with the gold kiwifruit variety that it had at the time. It put in a huge effort around getting people through and now that is an industry that is really thriving.What was impressive to me was when we talked to those horticulturalists about what they were growing in their kiwifruit they were talking about the dry matter content the sugar content—everything to those people was important about the taste of that kiwifruit and the experience of that kiwifruit from the time it left the farm until it went to the pack-house.The people at the pack-house we visited were absolutely focused on keeping that quality all the way through to the market so that they knew that the person who picked up that kiwifruit and had it at the end of the day on their plate was having a fantastic experience and will continue to buy the kiwifruit.I have also been to Tegel which is a fast-growing chicken industry in Taranaki. What is really interesting for me and I also note is that in our estimates there is another $10 million going towards animal welfare. Often the chicken people get targeted when it comes to animal welfare. Well actually I can tell you that there are no meat chickens kept in cages. There are no hormones used. There are a whole lot of rumours out in our society about what goes on with chickens and I can tell you that when I was in one of those newlydeveloped sheds on that particular day with 35000 13-day-old chickens it was 27 degrees Celsius inside that chicken shed and it was actually 10 degrees outside. If I was a chicken I know where I would make the choice to go—because it was very hard to go back out into the cold.I also want to acknowledge that if you come into Taranaki - King Country on the way from Taumarunui—which is our esteemed select committee chair’s electorate—across in Te Kūiti just after you leave Taumarunui there is a wonderful little alpaca shop. We do not often think a lot about alpacas when we think about primary industries but these people have very very selective breeding. They have white ones they have black ones and they have brown ones keeping them very pure. They are selling the products in their shops. The wool that actually comes off these alpacas is of a very very high quality. So there it is a combination of the primary industries combining with the tourism industry and providing a product that people want to see. I can tell you that those alpacas are very very cute. They do spit but they are very very cute.I am also very impressed with the extra $7.5 million over 2 years that is being put into developing key skills and systems. I was very pleased when the Minister for Primary Industries talked before about the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry of Education working together. Prior to coming into Parliament I was involved with a group called the Primary Industry Capability Alliance. As part of that group—its role is to encourage new talent to come into our industries. Thank you.A party vote was called for on the question That Vote Lands and Vote Primary Industries and Food Safety be agreed to.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Votes agreed to.Social Development and Housing SectorThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We now come to the votes on the social development and the housing sector—volume B.5 volume 10. The question is that Vote Building and Housing and Vote Social Development stand part of the schedules.ALFRED NGARO (Chairperson of the Social Services Committee): I rise as the chair of the Social Services Committee to take the first call on this estimates debate. The Social Services Committee recommends the appropriations for the year ending 30 June 2016 for Vote Social Development be accepted.It is an honour to be able to speak tonight on this. The Budget for 2015 delivers a $790 million package to help children living in some of New Zealand’s poorest families. It is a commitment that was made by the Prime Minister and he clearly made it in his state of the nation speech that we are firmly focused on helping those children who through no fault of their own have been caught in a cycle of hardship. As the Prime Minister has set that vision I also want to acknowledge that the Minister the Hon Anne Tolley has taken on that role to ensure that we deliver that package and that vision as well.One of the things that we often think is the key area of concern and this is also the judgment from those in the sector who provide the service—and I know that my colleague Mr Matt Doocey will be reading from the state of the nation booklet called A Mountain All Can Climb but before he does that I too want to sort of comment on that. In February of this year this was a report that actually talked about it and often it is a state of the nation report that judges the performance of the Government in regards to the social sector. They have 22 indicators by which they judge the Government on its performance. I am happy to say that 14 out of the 22 had the thumbs up out of those social indicators of change during 2014 which gives us the lead that it is a good foundation for us to build on.Just a couple of those to mention—child poverty for instance. The percentage of children living in benefit-dependent households has reduced by 2 percent to 17 percent. We know it is a small change but it is a significant change. It is moving in the right direction. We talk about children at risk and it is a reduction of 15 percent down to 19623. So again it is a small change but the number of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect has also reduced.Darroch Ball: How many reported? Don’t answer that one!ALFRED NGARO: Educational achievement has increased by 0.2 percent. These are key indicators social indicators that are making a change. If Mr Darroch Ball was there he might have read this. He might have seen that 14 out of the 22 indicators have shown that this Government is heading in the right direction.Let us then look at the Budget of 2015 and what it is delivering for us and for New Zealand as well. We know that Budget 2015 delivers a $790 million package to help children living in some of New Zealand’s poorest families. We know employment is the best way to lift families out of difficulty and hardship and the incentive to work will ensure their children who are living in poverty are supported. This is focused on helping 60000 to 100000 children who through no fault of their own experience material hardship. There has been widespread reform throughout the welfare system over recent years aimed at increasing independence where possible. This is working well with 42000 fewer children living in welfare-dependent homes since this time 3 years ago. I think that is a significant number—42000 children in 3 years are now actually in situations where they can thrive and their outcomes can be improved.This Budget’s announcements continue National’s plan to deliver better services to vulnerable children and New Zealanders who rely on them and to deliver better value for money for taxpayers. Inside of that package I want to talk about a couple of things that I think are quite important. One of the ones that was significant in 2015 which I know was celebrated even on the other side—I know there was acknowledgment—was the fact that under this Government a National Government the benefit rates for families with children will rise by $25 a week after tax. It is the first increase other than inflation adjustments for 43 years—43 years.Darroch Ball: What did you do in 1991 Alfred? What did National do in 1991 to benefits?ALFRED NGARO: I do not think you were even alive in 1991 Mr Darroch Ball. It is the first increase other than inflation adjustments for 43 years and there will be extra support for low-income working families despite Labour voting against both these measures. That is significant because even when there was a time of surplus under the previous Labour Government there was no increase but under this Government there is an increase.Some speculators on the other side said: “What will $25 do?”. Q+A went up to the far north to some of the most deprived communities up there—Māori communities up there—and the question that was asked to Dr Lance O’Sullivan was this: “Will this budget of $25 extra per family that is eligible make a difference?”.CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak to this. I sat through what was actually a really painful estimates hearing in the Social Services Committee with the Minister for Social Development present. I want to talk to a little bit of what was discussed in that meeting and challenge a little bit of what the former speaker Alfred Ngaro spoke about.There are three issues that came up in the estimates hearing that I really want to discuss today. First was that child hardship package so let us talk a little bit about that today. Second was from benefit to employment—is that really happening? Does the Government have an emphasis on that or not? Third are the Ministry of Social Development dealings with Relationships Aotearoa—it fronted at that hearing so I will speak to that as well.Firstly the member Alfred Ngaro touched on this the Government’s child hardship package. It made this announcement that an additional $25 will be going into the pockets of families who are on benefits. What it did not give when it made that announcement was the detail. So let us look at this Support for Children in Hardship Bill what that entails and what it really will mean for families. The Government said $25 per family—not per child; per family. But actually there are going to be a lot of families who do not get that entire $25 because they are getting access to a disability allowance temporary additional support and a whole lot of other things. So they may not get the $25. They may not get anything. They may get $12.50.The Government is looking to extend the work obligations alongside this additional $25 a week expecting parents or sole parents to go back to work when their youngest turns 3 rather than 5. We asked the ministry for documentation or evidence to support why it might make that call. All of the reports that we got back did not support that move at all. In fact there was no New Zealand evidence to support what it was doing. All of the evidence was overseas evidence and the overseas evidence said that when you impose these types of work obligations on sole parents then you are likely to have the adverse effect where you drive them further into poverty. Was any of that advice or research taken on board? The Minister and the ministry chose to ignore that.We have seen recently that there are real issues in New Zealand with early childhood education in terms of access to quality early childhood education yet with the extension of these work obligations these—primarily—women are going to be expected to go back into part-time work and put their children into early childhood education. The standard of early childhood education available has been questioned recently by experts by New Zealanders and by the general public. It is something that the National Government still refuses to address.I want to bring up the fact that we have been told that with the legislation the Government is introducing there will be an extension of childcare subsidies. Well there is a problem there too because where is there a serious overspend every year? It is in the accessing of childcare subsidies. So the Government is saying that it is going to extend it. The Government is saying that it is pushing people into work and that it is providing more opportunities in terms of childcare subsidies. Well then why are there 1800 fewer people in the most recent year compared with the last who are accessing childcare subsidies? Why has the number of people accessing childcare subsidies over the last 5 years dropped by 2500 people? They are not accessing it because the Government is making it difficult.This Government is not aspirational for people and I want to make that point. It is pushing primarily women these women out into jobs that are any job. I just talked to a woman yesterday who has taught for the last 13 years in Samoa and has come back. She is a qualified teacher. She did her training here. She thought: “OK. Yes I will do this Ministry of Social Development course.” Sixteen weeks she has to do this course for. She goes along. She is a qualified teacher. She is sitting next to a woman who ran an airfield for goodness sake and the person taking the course that they have to attend for 16 weeks is saying: “And at the end of this you might get a job at McDonald’s.” How aspirational is that for these women?I want to move from that over to whether or not people are going from benefits into jobs. When asked in the select committee whether or not it was a primary concern that people were coming off benefits and going into jobs the Minister said: “It is not necessarily about employment; it is about independence.” How independent can you be if not only are you not getting an income from work but you are not getting any support from the State? When we continued down that line of questioning her Ministry of Social Development chief executive said “Well those people who are not in work and are not getting a benefit have other means.” and the Minister sat there nodding her head.Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Social Development): It gives me great pleasure to take a call tonight to talk about Budget 2015 because as we heard from the chair of the Social Services Committee my colleague Alfred Ngaro of course this is a huge year for those who are the less well-off in our communities. In Budget 2015 a $790 million package was announced by this Government focused on reducing hardship for children in some of our poorest families.It was a 43-year watershed when this Government announced a $25 a week increase in the benefits. No other Government in 43 years has actually focused on those receiving a benefit and lifted that benefit. This Government did it. They hate it on the Opposition because in the very best of economic times that Labour Government did not lift the benefit. It ignored the people who are on a benefit. This Government has announced that as from 1 April next year people will get a $25 increase in the benefit.Brett Hudson: The first increase in real benefits in 43 years.Hon ANNE TOLLEY: Yes 43 years. Not only that we also looked at those who are working hard. We know there are many families in New Zealand that are working hard but are still on very low incomes and their children are still experiencing hardship. We have lifted the minimum family tax credit and the in-work tax credit so that the families that are eligible for those also receive an increase of anything between $12 extra a week and $25 extra a week.And we have increased the subsidy for childcare. We have done that because contrary to the previous speaker we know from experience what is working well particularly for parents reliant on the sole-parent benefit. We know what support is needed to help those people out into work and independence. Independence of the State is extremely important. We know from experience what is working what support is working and we know the determination of many of those people to be independent. From 1 April next year it is interesting that a sole parent now working 20 hours a week on the minimum wage and receiving the minimum family tax credit and the in-work tax credit could be $190 a week better off. That is the difference that it makes—helping people and supporting them into work and supporting their families. They could be $190 a week better off and independent of the State. That is the ambition that this National Party has for those people.We know that the outlook for those children in families that are reliant on the State for a benefit is not great. Their lifetime expectations are not great. The statistics tell us that those children who are born into homes that are included in the main benefit within the first 2 weeks of their life 48 percent of them will have a Department of Child Youth and Family Services notification. Almost half of those kids will have a referral to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and 48 percent of them will not attain NCEA level 2. We know that that is the minimum qualification that a young person needs to go on to get a good job to go on to further tertiary education or to go into an apprenticeship. Almost half of those kids—we know that if nothing changes in their lives they will not have that and then 45 percent of them will go on to receive a youth benefit. Again the outlook for youngsters going on to a youth benefit is that they are most likely to still be on that youth benefit in 20 years’ time.So the absolute imperative is to help people become independent of the State able to stand on their own two feet able to support themselves and their families and therefore we have put into play these benefits.JAN LOGIE (Green): I did have a whole speech written but I do feel compelled to respond to some of the comments from the Minister who talked about this being the first benefit raise in 43 years. She has conveniently ignored the fact that it would have required a 45 percent increase in benefits to be able to return them to the pre-1990 level when the previous National Government slashed them to the point where we now have the unemployment benefit being worth 24 percent of the average wage where people are consciously being left in poverty. And for children to be in our hospitals and dying because of the policy of this Government—we should be celebrating that in this Budget? Well I am sorry but I am not going to celebrate that.We are being told by this Government that it knows what works. It is these sanctions it is beating people over the head to be able to get them into work because that is how you make it happen—that is how you encourage independence! You cut people’s incomes! That leads them to a life of independence! Well why are more people being sanctioned now in the last year than were being sanctioned previously? If it was working there would be fewer people being sanctioned. But it has been increased by 30 percent. More sole parents have been sanctioned in the last year. That is a sign of this policy failing not succeeding.We know that when benefit levels were set at a higher rate we had lower rates of unemployment. Poverty does not drive people into work—it keeps them stuck in poverty. It puts them into fragile precarious work that is actually not better for them or their family.I really think that this Government with the Better Public Services targets that it has set—of reducing benefit levels by 25 percent and reducing the liability and the pressure on the Government—really shows the lack of awareness in its thinking. That to the Government is what is most important for this country. It is not about the well-being of our society. It is not about getting people into work into decent jobs. It is not about eliminating child poverty. It is not about ensuring that families where women and children leaving violent relationships are able to re-establish themselves with a minimum of trauma. It is not about people who are sick—getting treatment for cancer or any other number of illnesses or even donating organs—to be properly supported and not forced into debt or made homeless; so that they are so stressed out and unable to get the medical attention that they need because of the financial stress on them at the moment which is what is happening now. People are being made homeless while suffering and getting treatment for cancer because this system no longer provides a safety net.We are being told in this House by this Government in response to this Budget that we should be celebrating the fact that there will be an average of maybe $20 a week to families no matter how many children they have. This Government was told in the policy documents that that amount of money would make no difference to the child poverty levels in this country and the Government presented this to the public of New Zealand as a child hardship measure.The New Zealand public cares about our children. We want our children to be well and healthy and able to thrive and live up to all of their potential. Instead of actually creating the environment to enable that for our children this Government has presented a piece of window dressing that is leaving those children in hardship. It is refusing to address the core foundation of poverty in this country.Carmel Sepuloni: She can’t even look up. She’s just texting on her phone.JAN LOGIE: And the Minister is texting—really engaging with the issue!So the impact of these policy decisions is the increasing number of people being trapped in poverty. We are being told by the community organisations I am seeing around the country that they are dealing with a lot of people now who are not even wanting to go into Work and Income because they are finding the situation and the environment in those offices so traumatising.PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I am going to talk about housing. The really intriguing thing about this Government’s handling of the housingissue has been that in the face of a crisis that has got worse and worse over the last few years all we have seen from the Minister Nick Smith since he became the Minister for Building and Housing 2½ years ago is a series of grudging half measures. The standard operating procedure for this Minister on housing has been denial trivialisation complacency and refusal to acknowledge the extent of the problem until the focus groups showed that people are starting to get concerned. Then what do we see time after time after time? He tosses out some grudging half measure as a sop to public opinion.Last week the Prime Minister made his most revealing comments yet on this issue in an interview with Leighton Smith on Newstalk ZB where the Prime Minister said that Aucklanders like their house prices going up because it makes them richer. This was very interesting and very significant. It was the most candid that the Prime Minister has been and it explains why we have a non-housing Minister and a non-housing policy.He is a Minister whose job is to look like he is doing something—to provide political cover for a Government that has made such a cynical political calculation a calculation that there are sufficient numbers of Aucklanders who own their homes and who will feel wealthier and happier because of rising paper wealth that they can never cash in unless they move out of the city giving up their job and moving away from family. That does not happen. The Government knows that but it is content to make that calculation—that there are enough homeowners who feel that they are getting wealthier because of skyrocketing house prices. In doing so it will throw under the bus the 50-plus percent of Aucklanders who do not own their own home—who rent. It will condemn Generation Rent to a lifetime of renting—the very tenants in their own land whom the Prime Minister talked about only a couple of years ago.Nick Smith talks a big game on supply—the supply of houses. His diagnosis of the housing crisis in Auckland is simply that there are not enough houses. It is all about supply and nothing about demand. But he has singularly failed to deliver supply. In 2½ years as the housing Minister there is such a shortfall in houses that the Productivity Commission—his policy touchstone on housing; the Government’s pet thinktank—predicts that at current rates that shortfall is going to go from 32000 now to 60000 houses in 2020. That is a failure by anyone’s reckoning from a Minister who made it his ambition to increase the supply of houses. It is getting worse by 5000 every year.That is why house prices in Auckland are skyrocketing and that is why the New Zealand Herald reported that they have been going up by $511 a day on average for the last year—$511 a day. You can make more money under this National Government’s policy by owning a house than by working. There is only one way to get rich under this Government and that is by speculating in residential property. That is its policy. The National Party is the party of property speculators foreign and domestic. That is whom it stands for and the Prime Minister’s comments revealed very clearly that the Government is selling out New Zealand and selling out young Kiwi first-home buyers because it does not care. It has made a cynical political calculation that it would rather count on the votes of Auckland homeowners who think that they are getting wealthier. It does not give a damn about the lost generation that will never ever have the Kiwi dream of affordable homeownership.The crowning glory of Nick Smith’s tenure as housing Minister so far has been his Auckland Crown land fiasco—Carmel Sepuloni: I thought it was him lying on the road.PHIL TWYFORD: It is hard actually to choose which one is the real fiasco. Documents released under the Official Information Act the other day revealed exactly what everybody knew. His Budget policy on developing vacant Crown land for Auckland housing was rushed. Treasury said that it was almost too late. It was past the deadline and we know why—DARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on Vote Social Development. I would just like to concentrate on the Limited Service Volunteers programme and its—Brett Hudson: Great programme.DARROCH BALL: Is it? Oh why did you cut it then? Why did you cut the funding then?I would like to talk about the funding or the lack of it and actually the reduced funding for a couple of reasons. One is that youth is one of the most important age groups that we have in our country but it is also one of the most underfunded and actually neglected by this Government. A second reason is that I was actually a platoon commander in the Limited Service Volunteersprogramme. I know the actual benefits and that it is a great course the Limited Service Volunteers course.I would just like to start by quoting the previous Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett and her explanation before the Government actually bolstered up the numbers from around 800 to about 2000 positions for trainees there.Paula Bennett said: “It’s not always easy as a young person to know what direction you are taking. Self confidence is sometimes lacking and the courage to take risks and open yourself to new opportunities is sometimes missing. I have seen first hand the light that switches on for young people while on LSV. They gain confidence they learn about themselves and what they are capable of. They come out with a plan. Sometimes it’s not just an employment or study plan but a life altering direction that they will take.”Actually they have gotsome statistics and results here in this release and it says that they have shown that of all those who have completed the course since 1993 45 percent gained employment and a further 30 percent entered trade-related training within 3 months of the course finishing.But apparently if you fast-forward just a few years theNew Zealand Herald says that “The Government has quietly scaled back boot camps for young beneficiaries and Treasury has advised that they should be scrapped altogether because they are not effective.”But not effective about what? And how is the Government measuring the success of the Limited Service Volunteers courses and why should it be cutting the funding to the Limited Service Volunteers?In fact a spokeswoman for the Minister for Social Development Anne Tolley said that the previous rise in funding was because of high youth unemployment during the financial crisis which was around the 2010-11 year. Well that is a load of rubbish because if we actually look at the statistics in the third quarter of 2010 there were 33000 15 to 19-year-olds who were unemployed—around 23.8 percent. If you fast-forward to 2015 when the Government wants to cut it from 2000 to around about 800 trainees there is exactly the same number of youth who are unemployed—33000—and it is around just over 21 percent. So there has been no change whatsoever in unemployment but apparently in 2010 that was a cause to increase the numbers of Limited Service Volunteers and increase the funding and in 2015 that was a cause to cut it. In fact if you want to look at the age group from 20 to 24 which does include positions for Limited Service Volunteers in 2010 there were just 26000 and in 2015 there are 30000. It has remained at 11.9 percent.So where is this Government getting its statistics from? It is making them up. What it wants to do is cut costs and it wants to do it by any means necessary. It is an absolute cop-out. It is letting these kids from this successful programme—the Limited Service Volunteers which the New Zealand Defence Force is running—go towards yet another youth benefit scheme. We have got a bill going through the House at the moment about extending the Youth Service. The Youth Service is actually fully focused on just one thing and that is education and National Certificate of Educational Achievementlevel 2. So how can you compare that—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No no—not me.DARROCH BALL: Sorry Mr Chairman. How can members in this House and how can the Government compare that with the self-confidence the courage and the new opportunities that these trainees gain in the Limited Service Volunteers programme? They cannot.I would just like to finish with this. In the Treasury report it says that “The package does not include funding to continue the Limited Services Volunteer programme. There is limited evidence of its effectiveness in achieving [its] outcomes.” Well in 2010 the Government had the evidence to increase it and now it does not. What I would like to say is that I say and everybody else who has been involved with the Limited Service Volunteers says that you cannot measure the confidence the courage and the self-realisation that these individuals gain.MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): For a number of years the Māori Party has come into Government and decided to work with the National Government. It is something that we are willing to do because actually it is easy to sit and throw stones but we are actually more interested in providing an avenue for working collaboratively together. The increase this year of the benefit rates—for 43 years no matter who had been in Government nothing had been done about it. Nothing had been done about it. So there has been an increase but I agree that actually that increase is not going to eliminate poverty. That increase is relief for hardship. We must commit to having ongoing measures that will eliminate poverty eradicate poverty.This year in September the Prime Minister will be attending the UN General Assembly for a sustainable goal agenda where the No. 1 goal is eradicating poverty by our own country’s measurement. There is a whole lot of debate about how we do measure poverty. Well if we look at the one that the Government likes—the severe hardship index—by that measure 100000 children still live in poverty. That is 10 percent of our children. I want to say to the Committee tonight that it is within our grasp right now to do something about it so that we can eliminate and eradicate poverty in this country. If we stall any further measures to do something it will soon be outside our capability and our capacity as a country to do that and to realise the actual goal of eliminating poverty.The No. 6 goal on that agenda in September is to set a target to halve and eradicate poverty by our own measures. I want to call on our Prime Minister and our Government to sign up to that goal agenda to continue to work together. I am willing to work together with the Ministerial Committee on Poverty to do just that: to find ways where we can take a purposefully targeted approach to eliminating and eradicating poverty in this country before it is outside our ability to do so. We can do it through a number of simple measures that do not actually cost a lot of money—it is not about putting an extra $500 in everybody’s hand and therefore making it impossible for us to do.But we can do some things like indexing benefits to the median wage—why have we never done that before?Because in a few years the small gain that we have been able to make will again be widened we could index our benefit rates to the median wage so that they continue to keep pace and not widen the gap.Another thing that we can do is we can ensure that we extend the—what is it called; it has gone out of my blinking head—the paid parental leave. Extend that to the full 26 weeks; allow mothers to be with their babies in those formative first months so that they can give greater input into their lives and into growing and developing the brain which needs to happen. One of the factors for poverty and keeping ourselves in the poverty cycle is actually poverty of the mind.The other thing we can do is have security of tenancy. It does not cost much at all but it guarantees people that they can live in a home for at least the life of their children in school so that their children are not transient so that they can stay in one place and so that they can have a secure warm and safe home to come home to.We can do these things and I call on the Ministers on the Ministerial Committee on Poverty to work with us to work with me. I am willing to do that. That is why this party—the Māori Party—goes into a coalition agreement of confidence and supply with the National Government. It is so that we can make some changes and have some influence.The Prime Minister can commit to this in September. We can set targets for reducing poverty and eradicating it and we can continue to build on the good work—because it is good work because nobody had done anything for 43 years. The Hon Dame Tariana Turia will tell you that nobody talked about poverty in this country until the Māori Party came in here. Why? Because we know poverty.Iain Lees-Galloway: Oh come on.MARAMA FOX: That is what she says and I hold her to it because it was in our relationship agreement the very first one in 2008. It was in the next one in 2011 and it was in the next one in 2013. Because of the Ministerial Committee on Poverty we have seen benefits to our people.Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for Building and Housing): I firstly want to acknowledge Marama Fox and the work that the Māori Party has done with this Government that has enabled us to deliver things like a $25 increase in benefit payments—the first in more than 30 years. I want to acknowledge its work that has enabled us to provide for free doctors visits for those under the age of 13.An area I want to particularly acknowledge the Māori Party on in which we are also making progress is improving the quality of housing. Let me talk about this area because we have provided in this Government’s term for the insulation of 290000 homes through the Warm Up New Zealand: Healthy Homes initiative. We have also insulated 30000 State houses and we have also set down a programme just announced with tenancy changes for 180000 other homes to be insulated. That is 500000 homes—1.2 million people living in warmer drier homes. I challenge the Labour members who are interjecting: how many did Labour do in its 9 years?Hon David Cunliffe: Resign.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: We did 500000—Mr Cunliffe—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry. Order! The continual barraging across the Chamber is unacceptable. Tone it down. I actually want to hear what the Minister is saying and I am sitting right beside him.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am happy to compare the record: 500000 homes are warmer and drier under our Government. Under the 9 years of Labour it insulated not 500000 but 15000 and Labour members have the gall to stand up in the Chamber and to pretend that they are the only ones who care.I want to talk about HomeStart because this Government is providing the most generous support for first home owners in more than a generation. Some of the older grey hairs may remember the State Advances Corporation loans. They may remember the capitalising family benefit. What we are doing in this Budget is putting $430 million into helping young New Zealand families get over that hurdle and be able to buy their first home. There is only one problem that we have had in the last 3 months and that has been dealing with the tsunami of applications of new first home owners from Invercargill to Kaitāia who are picking up on that scheme and getting themselves into a home.I want to challenge Phil Twyford because never have I faced such a duplicitous Opposition spokesperson who is all over the paddock. He challenges us to put loan-to-value ratios in place and when they are put in place he opposes them. He is a spokesperson who when interest rates go up complains and says it is bad and when interest rates go down complains and says that it is bad. When I first became Minister for Housing he demanded that I not interfere in the Auckland Council. He organised for my hoarding to be put up all over Auckland and then he has got the gall to say: “Oh but the Minister’s not doing enough in Auckland.” Well let me give the numbers. Every year that I have been Minister since 2013 the number of new houses being built in Auckland has grown by 20 percent. There has never been a period in the last 3 years or in any time in Auckland’s history when there has been as fast a pick up in the rate of house building.But here is the really embarrassing bit: never have I seen a spokesperson tear up the heritage of a party that I thought stood for inclusion as he did with his cynical attack on those with Chinese-sounding names. You only need to see the reaction of spokespeople in the Labour Party who now cringe every time Phil Twyford gets to his feet because in one of the most clumsy manoeuvres we have seen in this Chamber this year Phil Twyford has burnt up 50 years of hard work where people thought the Labour Party stood for racial equality and stood for inclusion. Now we know that the Labour Party is out to cynically target one ethnic group with this housing challenge.POTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): That last speech was from a Minister Nick Smith the Minister for Building and Housing who has done such a poor job at housing that they had to put three people in his place. That is appalling.Let us start with the Housing New Zealand rebuild in Christchurch shall we? The new builds—700 new homes in Christchurch. When is the deadline? The deadline for that is December 2015. How many of the 700 houses have been built?Carmel Sepuloni: How many?Hon David Cunliffe: How many?POTO WILLIAMS: It certainly ain’t 700; I can tell you that. We are closer to 300. The last time I got the answers to our written questions we were at something like 296. Now how many does that mean need to be built by the end of the year?Hon David Cunliffe: 402.POTO WILLIAMS: That is right. How is that going to be done? I will tell you how it is going to be done Minister. How it is going to be done is that we will have a deadline that National puts in place which was going to be December 2015 and now it is going to be March 2016. So at the estimates discussion we hear: “No it’s not December 2015.” even though over the last 2 years the ministry has been saying that yes it will get these houses built because the people in Christchurch desperately need them. What did we hear at the estimates discussion? March 2016 at the earliest. Do you think that is good enough? I do not think it is good enough and I have been talking about this for a long time. I knew that that was ambitious at the beginning and I was right.Oh boy it makes me wild to know that this Government does not care about the people in Christchurch and their housing concerns. Let us talk about the housing accord in Christchurch shall we? Let us talk about the case of the disappearing $52 million. There has been $22 million spent on the housing accord for affordable housing in Christchurch and what has happened to the other $52 million? Well I will tell you what has happened to it. It has gone to Auckland. It has gone to Auckland to deal with the Auckland housing crisis. How do you think people in Christchurch feel about that Minister? They do not feel very good about that. On top of that let me quote from one of the city councillors Glenn Livingstone. What did Glenn Livingstone say? He is the chairman of the council’s housing task force and he said this was the first he had heard that the money was to go to Auckland. So this Government could not even front up to the council in Christchurch and tell the council that it was taking $52 million out of the housing accord to send to Auckland. It could not front up to it. The council got that information from this news report. How is that for relationship building with the Christchurch City Council—that the council had to find out from a news report that that $52 million was going to Auckland? I think that is pretty appalling. How did we find out about that money? Did the Government front up and say: “Hey we think Christchurch is actually doing OK. We’re going to send some money north.”? No it did not. This cynical Government left it to a backbencher to find the information in the Treasury dump of documents. That is what it did. Did you get up here in the Chamber Mr Smith and say to the people of Christchurch: “You are doing so well in your housing issues. We’re going to send this $52 million up north.”? No you did not.Let us see what reaction we had in Christchurch to that shall we from the Salvation Army? “From a Salvation Army Christchurch perspective it’s very alarming. There is still a major need and major issue [with affordable housing]. The impact that will have on all agencies is significant.” And let us see what the City Mission has said—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress.Progress to be reported presently.House resumed.The Chairperson reported the New Zealand Flag Referendums Bill without amendment and progress on the Appropriation (2015/16 Estimates) Bill.Report adopted.